Copyright 10/14 by Kirby's Cowgirl
This is fan fic, and not for profit, no copyright infringement intended
Forbidden Swamp
He should never have brought his infant son to the bayou. And now, he had to break a promise made to his grandfather many years ago.
He hesitated only a second before he turned the boat into the canopy of overhanging trees. He should have come and gotten his grandparents and taken them to his parent's house in the city. His grandfather and his father did not like each other, but they were cooly, civilly polite when it was necessary for them to be together. His grandmother didn't like the city, but she would have come if he had asked her. He had wanted his child to know the swamp. But he should have waited.
What he should have done was convince Wren Boudreaux that she needed a vacation, and had her take a week off so he could drive her to the ranch to see Ruthie and the baby. His grandmother had never ridden in a car though, and it was highly improbable that she would have left her patients at all. She never took a day off. She and Mama, the ancient Indian Medicine Woman who lived on the ranch, would have taken to each other instantly, he thought. Maybe he could bring Mama here, sometime, and the two of them could talk herbal remedies and what worked, and what didn't, to their heart's content. If his son died - he swallowed hard. That was nonsense.
T'eo had been perfectly fine when they arrived at his grandfather's house. Ruthie, at first terrified that the two of them would fall out of the boat, had finally relaxed and enjoyed the ride. He hadn't known that she couldn't swim. That would be remedied when they got back to the ranch and he had the stock pond to teach her in. His cousin Freddie had teased her and talked nonstop the entire way. Caje hadn't realized that he had immediately slipped back into the Cajun dialect himself, until Ruthie had gently said, "I'm sorry, Paul, I don't know what you said."
When he and Freddie had apologized, she had laughed and told them that she enjoyed their melodic voices so much it didn't matter that she couldn't understand them. Freddie had shot Caje a look of approval, and Caje understood that his family had been afraid that his wife would be a stuck up city woman who frowned on the old ways.
His grandfather was delighted to see them, but his grandmother had gone off on a herb gathering trip with one of her friends and was not expected back until the next morning. Beauregard, her nine foot pet alligator, had nearly made Ruthie jump off the dock when he lumbered up on the bank.
"He went with Wren." His grandfather said. "I don't know why he came back."
Caje bent down and petted the huge beast on the snout, and explained to him that his wife and child were from the city and they would just have to get used to him, and Beauregard snorted and slid backwards in the water until only his eyes and a small portion of his snout were visible. Caje didn't know how much the beast actually understood, but his grandmother carried on conversations with the thing. He thought she talked to Beauregard more than she did his grandfather.
Wren had found the gator caught in a trap when he was less than half grown. He had lost two toes on his right front foot, but she had nursed him back to health. One of the neighbors had told his grandfather that there were already too many gators in the swamp, they didn't need another one. But he'd changed his tune later on. Beauregard had grown into a nine and a half footer. He claimed their section of the swamp as his own, and none of the other gators challenged him. He didn't eat dogs and cats, and he had never offered to hurt anyone.
Many of the swamp inhabitants thought his grandmother was a witch. It was not uncommon to see her with her black cat Charcoal, perched on her shoulder, and Beauregard lumbering behind her wherever she went.
Everything had been fine for an hour or so. T'eo had fallen asleep and Ruthie had put him down in Caje's old cradle that his grandmother always had ready for any visiting baby. The grownups had had coffee, and Caje could tell that Ruthie really liked his grandfather, John-Paul. The old rascal had always been a charmer with the ladies.
T'eo had started fussing and when Ruthie picked him up, he was burning with fever. His grandfather had gone to the neighbors to get Aimee, the young girl who studied under his grandmother. But all the women in Aimee's family had gone to town, and weren't expected back for several days. Caje told Ruthie that he'd just take his grandfather's boat and fetch Wren back. They could be home in several hours. She had started sponging T'eo with cool water, and he could see how frightened she was.
He and his cousin T'eo had gotten lost in Forbidden Swamp when they were about ten years old. They had spent a terrified night there in their boat, and almost gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes. They were lucky not to have been eaten by gators or moccasin bit.
His Grandfather and his Uncle Bernard, Freddie's father, had found them the next morning, and both of the men had been afraid of what they might find. T'eo's father had died in a boating accident when he was just a baby. As soon as they got to dry land, Caje's Grandfather had paddled his and T'eo's behinds. Uncle Bernard had given them a couple swats too. Then T'eo's Mother had gotten there, and she'd hugged both of them fiercely before giving them yet another spanking. Then she'd headed T'eo off for a salt water soak and a long lecture on what misbehaving might have cost their family.
When Caje and his grandfather had gotten home, his Mother was crying and Wren was mad. His mother had hugged him and told him how frightened she'd been, and that hurt more than any of the spankings had. Wren had told him how disappointed she was in him, and that had hurt too. Then they'd hustled him off for a salt water bath and some of Wren's special ointment to make the itching go away. Wren had brought him a sandwich in bed and talked to him for an hour. After that Caje never went anywhere in the swamp alone and he always told his grandfather where they were going. And he had promised never ever to enter Forbidden Swamp again.
Freddie fished there regularly, and he'd marked slashes on the trees to navigate by. Caje knew how to read them and where he was supposed to turn. He breathed a sigh of relief as he turned into another channel. He should only be about three miles from his grandmother now. He had to get T'eo some help. It was a little after two in the afternoon, and already starting to get dark.
The outboard sputtered once, then died. "NO! Dammit, NO!" Caje said, frantically tinkering with the engine. He had checked the fuel before he set out. He would never be able to do any repairs in the dim light. Well, he could pole the boat out of here.
He slammed the pole down in the water, heard a roar, then something struck the boat and he went flying into the water. He had broken one of the cardinal rules of the swamp, never pole violently. And he had somehow managed to hit a gator. He didn't know how he kept hold of the pole, but he hit the beast as hard as he could. The gator snapped the pole in half with his jaws. Sheer adrenaline fueled terror and the need to save his son drove Caje back to the boat. When the beast came at him again, he hit it as hard as he could, feeling the pain jar all the way to his teeth, and dragged himself in the boat seconds ahead of its snapping jaws.
The beast rammed the boat again, and Caje, laying in the floor, held on as hard as he could. Then he heard another roar, and the unmistakable sound of gators fighting. Beauregard! Beauregard had followed him.
A few minutes later, he saw Beauregard's snout raise up inches from the boat, and the gator whuffed at him.
"Thanks, boy." Caje said shakily. "Don't suppose you could give me a tow?" The small piece of pole he had left was worthless. He didn't know if the blood on it was the gator's or his own. He was going to spend the night in the swamp again. Beau would keep the gator's off of him and as long as a snake didn't fall in the boat and bite him, he would be fine. But T'eo - he groaned. He didn't think Ruthie would survive losing their son. He didn't think he could, himself.
Caje lay in the floor of the boat, and finally he thought he was asleep.
"Oh, Paulie." The voice said. "You have been a very bad boy again."
"T'eo?" he looked in disbelief at his cousin, as T'eo handed him a cigarette. When Ruthie had gotten pregnant, the smell had made her sick, so he'd quit smoking, and he hadn't started back.
T'eo lit his own cigarette and took a long drag. "Remember when we'd sneak out here to smoke and get sick as dogs? And your grandmother would make us drink that awful potion that made us puke some more?"
"Yeah." Caje said quietly. "I remember."
"You named your baby after me."
"I love you T'eo. I miss you so much. I love Freddie, but you and I -"
"We thought we were gonna go off and save the world." T'eo shook his head. "And Freddie, he was smarter then either of us."
"He didn't think he was so smart." Caje said, remembering that two days before the three of them had been due to ship out, they'd all gotten roaring drunk. Freddie had decided that he'd walk on the top of the old rotten split rail fence the way they had when they were kids. One of the rails had splintered and gone thru his leg, and he'd broken it in several places. He was lucky he hadn't broken his damn neck. It had taken all of Wren's skill to keep him from losing his leg, and he still walked with a limp.
"You've done well, Paulie, I'm proud of you." T'eo took a long drag off his smoke. "Your baby will be fine, you don't need to worry. You know what Wren says, "New parents always panic."
Wren did say that. Caje swallowed hard. He knew he was dreaming. "T'eo, I'm so sorry. I tried to get back to you, but they held me -"
"Paulie, there was no sense in you getting killed too. It wasn't your time, they were right."
"Too many men died in that damn War."
"Too many men die every day for stupid reasons." T'eo lit another cigarette, and grinned at Caje when he shook his head when he offered it to him. "She's a good woman. Marie is happy for you."
"I still miss her." Caje swiped at his eyes. "That was just - wrong."
"Your father would say you two sneaking off and getting married was wrong."
"The hell with my father." Caje said, and meant it. If his father hadn't been such a stiff necked old fool, he and Marie could have been married and happy. And she might not have drowned in the swamp. But if Marie had lived, he wouldn't have had Ruthie and his son. If Eddie had lived, he wouldn't have Ruthie either… It was all so complicated. He missed the days of his youth when life had been carefree.
Dim light was starting to filter thru the swamp when Caje heard Freddie shouting his name. "HERE!" he yelled, wondering about the dream he'd had.
Freddie stopped the boat beside him. "You get lost?"
"The boat quit." Caje shrugged. "T'eo? Is T'eo alright?"
"You hadn't been gone thirty minutes when Wren came home. She said Beauregard came and got her. T'eo just had a little colic. Your sweet little wife's about frantic over you, I don't think you're gonna get her back to the swamp again."
Freddie handed him a flashlight. "Let's see if we can get 'er started. If not, I'll give you a tow."
A gator's snout popped up out of the water. "Damn, Beau! I wish you wouldn't do that!" Freddie told the gator.
Caje shined the light into the outboard. He could see nothing visibly wrong and this was not the place to take the motor apart. He gave it an experimental pull, and it started immediately. He and his cousin both shook their heads. It certainly was not the first time something unexplainable had happened in Forbidden Swamp. He followed Freddie back to his grandmother's house.
His grandfather was waiting on the dock and he saw that Ruthie was asleep in a chair on the front porch with mosquito netting draped over her.
"The baby's fine." John Paul said. "Your grandmother said you needed to spend the night in the swamp."
Caje reached for the rope to tie the boat off, and then he saw the two cigarette butts in the floor. His grandfather smoked a pipe, and he was meticulous about his boat. He swallowed hard.
"You talked to T'eo, didn't you?" his grandfather asked, noting the cigarette butts as well. "He's been worried about you." He offered Caje a hand out of the boat. "Now I don't know if you need to tell your sweet little wife what happened, but you can talk to Freddie and me, or your grandmother. Don't need you thinkin' you're crazy."
"I know I'm not crazy." Caje said softly. He thought it had been a dream. Now he knew it wasn't. His cousin T'eo still made his home in the swamp and talked to his family when they needed him.