Harness (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands, 5/?
Yazoo City sprawls between the hills and delta of the Mississippi river, gray-brown against deep green. It’s hot: not sunshine hot but heavy, breathless humidity, the windscreen of the Landau Coupe fogging faster than the wipers can erase it. Bobby’s vague with tiredness: he set out as soon as he hung up on the endless ringing he got from the motel, driving like a man on a mission he doesn’t understand, and made the 15hr journey in less than 12. He never used to drive like that before Karen. He’s also sweltering: he can’t decide whether opening the windows makes it better or worse. He’s never been so far South before. People live in this.
Downtown, the first thing he notices is that all the buildings look the same: turn of the century, solid and imposing, a touch of neo-Roman stopping short of pretentious. It’s a good look. The second thing he notices is the people. Rufus had commented that South Dakota was a ‘White’ town, something Bobby never thought twice about or particularly noticed. Yazoo City is not a White town. There are White people - he spots them, mingling and perfectly at home among the majority of Black residents, and for the first time in his life, Bobby’s skin color distinguishes him.
Huh.
He finds the motel without too much trouble, half charmed and half discomfited by the thick drawl of the clerk and the maid.
“Bobby!” Rufus is in a great mood, particularly considering Bobby’s turning up unannounced. He even slaps him on the cheek a couple of times before standing back to let him enter.
“Got that info you wanted,” Bobby says tonelessly.
“Good, good.” Rufus rubs his hands. The walls of his motel room are covered in notes and clippings. Several are sketches: something resembling a cross between a bat and a dinosaur, which Bobby recognizes from the descriptions. “Olitiau,” Rufus confirms. “Every few years, someone disappears into the swamp. Not enough for the fuzz to notice a pattern. But there are stories: bones, sightings, and an old guy on a fishing trip swears blind he found a bare pile of human bones. Course no-one believes him. Figures he got spooked by a deer carcass. But I talked to the guy, and he doesn’t strike me as the spook-easy type.”
He goes to the mini-fridge and hands Bobby a beer.
“Couldn’t that have been an alligator?” Bobby asks.
“Too far from the water.”
Bobby nods. Then: “We need a hoodoo priest.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
Bobby sits down and shows him the book. “That’s wrong,” says Rufus shortly. “They mean voodoo. No hoodoo in
Africa in those days. It originated here in the States.”
“There’s a difference?”
Rufus raises an eyebrow. “You might say that.” He flips the old book carelessly to the title page: “1817. Some White dude probably heard this new word hoodoo being thrown about and thought it sounded better.” He shakes his head. “Get people killed that way. What we need is a voodoo practitioner in contact with the loas. You just remember that, Singer. You write any of this stuff down, you get it right.”
Bobby nods. “So….where do we find a voodoo practitioner?”
“This is Mississippi,” Rufus says dryly. “We could start with the phone book. The problem is finding the genuine article. I got a few names in mind, though,” he muses. “Look, you just drove down from damn South Dakota right? Why don’t you chill for a while? Take a nap.”
“I - think I will,” Bobby says. He’s oddly touched.
“Don’t touch anything,” Rufus nods sharply to the disturbing wall display. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
*
He dreams about Karen - you broke my heart, Bobby Singer, blood bubbling over her lips as he twists the knife and the Thing smokes in her eyes.
“Rise and shine!” She demands in a bizarrely deep voice, then he’s awake, and Rufus is tossing a paper-wrapped package in his direction. /bobby catches it reflexively. It’s hot, soft and smells amazing, and even though he’s still sick from the dream he hasn’t eaten in 24 hours and he’s opening it automatically. It’s fish, which he wouldn’t ordinarily be blown away by, but it’s breadcrumbed and spicy and apparently cooked by God himself in the holy fires of the celestial barbeque, and some kind of fried corn things.
“Catfish and hushpuppies,” Turner pats his flat belly. “They know how to cook in the South. Man, I probably gain ten pounds every time I come down here. Anyway -…” he tosses a notepad on the table. “I followed up a few leads on the voodoo priest issue. Pretty sure I got us an appointment with the genuine article.”
“When?”
“7pm.”
“Not midnight?”
Rufus gives him a flat look, and Bobby knows it was a stupid thing to say.
The priest’s name is Paul De Sauveterre. He lives and works in an ordinary house in a street full of modest duplexes. Admittedly everything Bobby knows about voodoo comes from Hollywood, and maybe the visions of dark rooms, charms and dolls are kind of stereotypical, but he at least expected the priest to be wearing robes or something. De Sauveterre is middle-aged, wears a shirt and slacks, and keeps photographs of his wife and grown-up kids on a mantelpiece. A small, terrier-type dog sleeps in a basket behind the couch. the only hint of his - profession? - status? - occupation? - is a kind of amulet, what appears to be a tiny leather bag around his neck and tucked discreetly into his shirt collar.
“Rufus Turner,” he says evenly. “Heard mixed reports of you sir.”
“Could say the same of you,” says Rufus, and they eye each other. “But,” admits Rufus. “Seems you’re the best bet for a real practitioner around here.”
“Seems like,” De Sauveterre grins, sudden starling white teeth, and his quick eyes flash to Bobby. “Thought you were the work alone type.”
“Not so much these days. This is my partner, Bobby Singer.” (And damn if that don’t make him stand a little straighter).
“Well, well,” says De Sauveterre.
“So,” Rufus shifts. He’s as intimidated as he ever gets. There is something about the priest, subtle and hard to define, just a kind of contained stillness, powerful and abstract. “There’s an Olitiau in Panther Swamp.”
De Sauveterre frowns. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Deaths match the pattern.”
“Damn, that’s some nerve. The swamp is holy ground. Though the way times are changing…” he shakes his head.
“Well, uh, we’re goin after it….want to bless a few projectiles for us, give us half a chance of coming out alive?”
“I can’t,” says the priest. Maman Brigitte might, after a little white rum.”
“I thought you were the real deal,” Bobby can’t help objecting. Rufus elbows him:
“Maman Brigitte’s a Loa. An Invisible. He’s gonna talk to her and ask her to help us out.”
“Give me the weapon,” says De Sauveterre. Rufus opens his backpack and hands over a set of three broadpoint tips for a crossbow. The priest inspects them, nods, then gets up abruptly - and disappears into a backroom.
Bobby starts to get up. He wants to see this. Rufus looks at him sharply and shakes his head. Bobby sits back down.
De Sauveterre returns almost immediately:
“Call back tomorrow,” he says.
“Well - but - can’t you summon her now?” asks Bobby.
De Sauveterre smirks. “I don’t summon the loas. I serve them. Call back tomorrow.”
Bobby looks at Rufus, who shrugs and claps him on the shoulder. “Can’t rush the loas, Bobby. What do you say we go sample some more of that fine Mississippi cuisine?”
*
In the end it takes three days before a loa deigns to help them. The last time they call on De Sauveterre, he’s smiling, and hands over the blessed bolts with good wishes. He also gives them a sketch map of part of the swamp, south of the north-west bayou, with a red area circled.
“It’s somewhere around there,” he tells them.
They head out to the bayou, Rufus with the crossbow and Bobby with a long hunting rifle. His bullets won’t kill the Olitiau, but they’ll slow it down, and Rufus tells him frankly that he isn’t wasting a blessed bolt on a beginner’s shot. Bobby sees the logic, and adds ‘crossbow training’ to his mental to-do list.
Setting foot in the swamp is like setting foot in a hot, wet, oven. It’s gorgeous, Bobby can admit that, tall slender trees and shafts of luminous sunlight, steam rising from the boggy ground. Bobby spies an alligator, posed statue-like in the shade of a tree, flickering of one beady eye the only sign of life. Paths are well-kept with food bridges across the wettest parts, but Rufus soon leads them off the beaten track. The ground dries out as they leave the bayou behind them and the trees close in. The heat is stifling.
“Check it out,” Rufus nods sharply, and Bobby’s eyes follow his to a flash of white in the undergrowth. He turns it over with the butt of his rifle. It’s a shard of ankle bone. The ankle bone is, presumably, connected to the foot bones, which are still encased in a bloodstained hiking boot.
Bobby gags a little.
“Hm,” says Rufus.
Later on, they find a clump of hair, which could be dismissed as having come from an animal, were it not for the purple elastic band still attached to the lock. They locate the area De Sauveterre marked out, and search in widening circles. Bobby’s sweating, eaten alive by bugs. He wonders if they got malaria down here. Wouldn’t that be an irony, hunting an Olitiau and taken out by a bug.
Dusk falls.
“What was that?”
A flicker of black in the corner of Bobby’s eye. he whirls, gun aimed. Could be a bird. A large bat.
Flicker again between the trees.
“Helloooo, beastie,” murmurs Rufus, lifting the crossbow. They stand back to back, tense.
Silence.
“Come out come out…..”
Another flicker. It’s closer. Then further away.
“Alright,” Rufus lowers his weapon. “You up for bait duty?”
“Me? Why not you?!”
“I gotta aim the crossbow.”
Bobby pauses.
“I won’t let it get you,” Rufus rolls his eyes. “Think of it like hunting a really smart deer. A really smart….rabid
deer. With wings.”
“That’s comforting.”
They find a suitable clearing and Bobby lowers his backpack. “What do you want me to do?”
“Make some noise. Start a fire. Act like a dumb camper. You got any food on you? Something with a scent?”
“Beef jerky?” Bobby offers.
“Eh, better than nothing. I’m gonna head off a little way but I won’t let you out of my sight. Then-“
It’s upon them before Rufus finishes speaking.
Part Six
TBC