Wolfsbane Read online

  And he wondered, as he had often done so the past several weeks, what the Lord was saving him for.

  He tossed the empty bean can into a paper sack and then removed the coffee pot from the stove, pouring a mug of the dark brew. He sat back down, big hands on the table, waiting for the coffee to cool.

  The man’s torso was dimpled with scars, front and back, from bullets, mortar fragments, and a knife scar picked up in a barroom brawl in Mexico, down on the Baja. His legs carried the scars of battle: a long scar on his upper thigh, right leg, where a piece of hot metal had sliced him in Vietnam. He had almost lost his leg from infection, for he had been in North Vietnam at the time, on a search-and-destroy mission, and it had been days before he received proper medical attention. His left knee had been torn apart by a grenade sometime later, and after the doctors put a pin in his knee, the army decided they no longer required his services.

  He drew 365 tax-free dollars a month from the government, in disability and for being awarded a Medal of Honor. He lived—existed—mostly on the fish he caught and the game he hunted and trapped.

  And booze.

  And bitter memories.

  His coffee cool enough to drink, Pat Strange walked out onto his front porch and sat down in a battered chair. His thoughts this morning were, oddly enough, reflective, and sober.

  If a man doesn’t have a reason to live, Pat thought, gazing over the timber and swamp around his house. . . why continue breathing? Going on? Existing?

  But Pat knew he could never take his own life . . . not the quick way. He would have to continue breathing until life left him by some other means than by his own hand. He could not kill himself. He had tried, several times, but he just could not pull the trigger.

  He leaned back in the chair and listened to the ever-changing but always familiar sounds of raw nature: the birds that wheeled and soared and sang above and around him; the wild animals that prowled the swamp; the flop and smash of a fish in the river.

  The house and 175 acres around it were his; had been in the family for generations, so his daddy had told him. Big deal, he thought. The land was sorry . . . worthless. Pat had once opined to his father—as a boy—that a man would have to sit on a sack of fertilizer to raise an umbrella on this land.

  That had gotten him a smack on the ass with a leather belt.

  “Maybe it is worthless,” his father had said. “But God only made so much land—and no more. And it’s paid for. I’d remember that were I you, smart-mouth.” Then his father had softened his words and the stinging belt with a smile and a pat on the head.

  Pat’s parents were long gone, dead almost ten years now. His father of a heart attack, his mother a year later, from grief and years of hard, backbreaking work.

  Pat’s only sister was married to a CPA and lived in Miami; she had not been back to South Carolina in more than twenty years. Did not even return for the funerals. Pat’s brother was up North. Chicago. A good, steady, stable family man. Executive with some advertising firm. Pat had seen him at the funerals: big pus-gutted, red-faced man who would probably drop dead from a heart attack long before his time. They had exchanged a few words, a greeting of sorts, talked about their boyhood in South Carolina, then run out of things to say. They had nothing in common. Indeed, Pat had felt, with a touch of amusement, that his brother was uncomfortable around him. His brother showed all the signs of soft living, while Pat was dark from years in the sun and hard, both mentally and physically.

  Unlike my present condition, he thought sourly.

  Pat had asked about the land, the house, and after a call to their sister, was told he could have it. Papers had been signed, the goodbyes between the brothers cursory. That had been ten years back, and Pat had not seen his brother or spoken to his sister in those years.

  There is, Pat thought, nothing more worthless than an aging, worn-out warrior, with no more youth in him to carry him through the battles he still longed to fight.

  “No,” he muttered. “Forty-two is not old. I just gave up, that’s all. I just let the mileage get next to me.”

  After ten years’ service to his country, and five years as a mercenary, working over much of central and south Africa (part of the time still in the service of his country, clandestinely, through the Agency), Pat hung up his combat boots and returned stateside to try to settle down . . . make a new life. He found a job, worked hard at it, and married. Married well, but not wisely. The marriage lasted through three stormy years and half a dozen jobs. Then he began getting into trouble: barroom brawls. The fights he entered were not the good-ole-American-way cum redneck type of fights, for Pat was not trained to fight fairly; indeed, knew there was no such thing as a “fair fight.” He went in for the kill or cripple, and more than a few good ole boys found themselves quickly outclassed when going up against this quiet, scarred ex-warrior.

  Pat landed in jail several times, came very close to pulling some hard time after whipping the crap out of a local football “hero” type, and then, finally, listened to the words of a judge who felt a great deal of empathy for the ex-soldier standing in front of his bench. The judge had been a Marine Raider during the Second World War, and knew exactly the contempt Pat Strange felt for men who wore the label “hero” but who had never served their country; never heard a shot fired in anger; never known the horror of combat; and never experienced the gut-wrenching emotion of watching men he called friends carried away in rubber bags.

  “If you appear before this bench again, Mr. Strange,” the judge had spoken, the words bitter on his tongue, “I will order you committed to a state hospital for psychiatric observation. The choice is yours entirely.”

  Pat bowed his neck to no man. He met the judge’s gaze straight on. “I never started a one of those fights, judge. Not one. They all came to me. All I did was defend myself.”

  “Mr. Strange,” the judge said, peering down at him from the bench. “This is not Vietnam, nor is it Africa. This is not a combat situation.” Liar! he railed at himself. Our streets after dark are becoming cesspools of crime. I’d like to take that old .45 of mine and shove it up the ass of some of these punks that appear before me; watch their expression when I pull the trigger. He sighed, hauling his emotions back under control. You’re a judge, he reminded himself. Just follow the letter of the law. “As long as there are men, sir, I realize there will be fist fights, but you do not fight fairly, sir.” What a laugh, your honor! Remember that time in New York, right after the war, when you gouged one man’s eyes out and kicked the balls of another up into his belly? Sure you remember, your honor. His stomach rumbled and he wished he could think of a dignified manner in which to chew some Maalox. “The manner in which you defend yourself, Mr. Strange, is unacceptable in this society.”

  “I fight to survive, judge. I fight the only way I know how to fight. What am I supposed to do—let the men who assault me beat hell out of me? All for the sake of a quote/unquote ‘fair fight’?”

  The judge’s stomach continued to rumble. He wished to God he had stayed in the Marine Corps, where he would not have to associate with half-ass, prissy little pussies who called themselves men and hollered “Sue!” everytime they felt physically threatened—which was most of the time, the judge felt.

  A man runs off at the mouth, insults someone, and gets popped in the mouth and knocked on his butt and then wants to sue the man who was, in all probability, in the right to begin with.

  The senator was right: we are becoming a nation of sheep.

  The judge looked at Pat for a long time, so long the court stenographer stirred restlessly. The judge felt—knew—that the man standing proudly in front of him was the kind of man who helped settle this nation: proud, tough, unyielding, and bowing to no man. But, he once more sighed, time and the preponderantly complex maze of laws—and lawyers—had caused this man to become an anachronism.

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Mr. Strange. Don’t appear in my court again.” And the next time you want to whip somebod
y, take him out in the swamps, kick the shit out of him, and stuff what’s left up under a cypress tree.

  Pat returnd to the place of his boyhood and bunkered himself in, with his memories, his medals, his bitterness, and his booze.

  Pat Strange became a shadow figure, seen only occasionally, lurching drunkenly through the swamp.

  But on this day, as he sat on the porch, a strong, solid resolution filled him. He rose, and for the first time in years, walked a few hundred yards from the house and stood before the graves of his parents. As he stood there, he remembered the preacher’s words—at least part of them—from that dark afternoon his mother had been buried.

  “A time to be born, a time to die. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

  Odd emotions filled Pat as he struggled to remember what else had been said that afternoon.

  He could not recall another word of the service. But that verse had stayed with him all these years. And he recalled that when the preacher said it, he was looking straight at Pat.

  Pat turned away from the graves and walked back to the house, thinking: crazy Baptist preachers.

  Chapter Four

  The Claude Bauterre home was one of the most beautiful homes in the state. The most beautiful home in Ducros Parish. A Greek Revival home, built between 1832 and 1834. It has eight great Doric columns on each of its four facades, with two additional for the portico. Each window opens on a gallery and has a divided split paneling below which swings open, so each window thus becomes a door.

  There are two widely separated lanes in three rows of trees: live oaks, magnolias, and cedars. A formal garden of shrubs and perennials, laid among walkways lead to the house.

  Behind the acres containing the mansion, the gardens, and carriage houses and outbuildings, lie three thousand acres of farmland. It has been in the Bauterre family for one hundred and seventy-five years.

  The main house is called Amour.

  Love.

  For a full one hundred and fifty of those years, the Bauterre family has been hated in Ducros Parish and especially in the small town of Joyeux, the parish seat.

  The reason behind that hatred has rarely been spoken of since 1934, and those born in Joyeux since then would be hard to convince of its authenticity. For the old ways have all but died out, and the occasional sightings of “monsters” in the swamps and bayous were not given much credence.

  Indeed, the children of Claire and Claude Bauterre, and their children’s children, had no knowledge of the events of years past.

  Awfully difficult to tell one’s offspring that their grandfather had been a suspected loup-garou, and his father, and his father’s father, and so on down the genealogical ladder, all the way back to France, when the Bauterre family had been driven out of the country by enraged and frightened villagers, driven all the way to Nova Scotia. Driven out of Canada a few years later, they changed their name to Bauterre and found their way to Louisiana. There, they lived in a secret peace for almost twenty-five years, during that time amassing a fortune by slave trading, farming, and piracy.

  They were driven out of France and Nova Scotia because the male members of the family had been cursed by the disease called lycantropia, or wolf madness, and on occasion, the very rare porphyria. It is a real and tragic illness, although, fortunately, extremely rare.

  And still exists.

  The person actually believes he is a wolf. Although the medical profession scoffs at the change of human into beast, not only is the true lycanthrope physically altered so that he resembles the wolf of his maddened, heightened schizophrenic mind, but his mind is altered so he actually behaves like a wolf. He will attack and kill with his teeth, in many cases devouring his victims, eating the raw, bloody flesh.

  Like a wolf.

  But it has been written that some go a few steps further in the altering, physically and mentally. It has been written that a few, a very few, with the help of the Dark One, actually change into a beast, and cannot really be killed, except with the help of God. And like their mythical (?) cousin, the vampire, can return again and again. In search of food. Or perhaps to seek revenge. Or to once again taste the warm, salty flavor of blood.

  “I love you as if you were born out of my own body,” Victoria Bauterre said, when Janette appeared on the steps of Amour House. “I have raised you since infancy. But you were a fool to come here. I wish you would turn around and leave.”

  “I am a Bauterre, grand’mère. A member of this family. I have a right to know everything about this family. By law I own one-half of everything. It is my right.”

  The old woman smiled, then stepped aside, motioning Janette into the coolness of the great house.

  Janette’s eyes took in the surroundings, lush and expensive, some of the antiques many hundreds of years old. “So this is where I was born?”

  “Upstairs, first bedroom to the right.”

  “And my mother?”

  “Same room.”

  “I’d like to talk about my parents someday soon, grand’mère. Especially my father. Perhaps now we may have the time to do that?”

  “I have no wish to discuss that man, Janette. I have told you that. He was weak . . . spineless.”

  “But perhaps I do wish to speak of him; learn of him.” It was not a question. “That is also my right, oui?”

  Victoria smiled. “A true Bauterre, that’s what you are, ma petite-fille. Perhaps we shall discuss your . . . father, after all.” She rang a small silver bell and a servant appeared. “See to my granddaughter’s luggage and make her room presentable.” She looked out at the new car parked in the drive. “Rented?” she asked, a hopeful tone in her voice.

  “No,” Janette replied. “I arranged to have it ready for me in New Orleans. It’s mine.”

  “You’ve come to stay, then?”

  “Yes, grand’mère. I have returned home.”

  “So be it,” the old woman said, her smile fading. “But just remember: you were warned to stay away.”

  “I won’t forget. Grand’mère? There was some trouble at the villa. I . . .”

  “I know all about it, child.”

  “I should have known Louviere would call.”

  “Louviere did not call me. No one called.”

  “Then, how . . . ?”

  “The man that was killed was a distant cousin of your grandpère. He was mentally ill to the extent he could not tolerate people. The illness is called an-thropophobia: fear of people. He was deemed incurable and I thought it best he be allowed to live out his years in the villa.”

  Janette looked at her, thinking: you are telling me a bald-faced lie, grand’mère! Why? “He attacked me, grand’mère—physically attacked me.” She touched the bruise on her face and opened her blouse to expose the yellowing bruise on her shoulder and arm.

  “He did that to you?”

  “Yes, grand’mère.”

  The old woman sighed, her eyes furious. But the fury was not a sympathetic anger. Janette could read that much in the woman’s eyes. “Then perhaps what happened was for the best. It was a tragedy, but we will speak no more of it. You are here, against my wishes, but I cannot order you out of a home that is rightfully yours. So stay.” She slowly turned and walked away, leaving her granddaughter standing alone in the foyer, wondering how her grand’mère had found out about the incident at the villa.

  I have much to learn about my family, she thought.

  “Much more than you will perhaps care to learn,” Victoria spoke from the hall. “So much more.”

  A sudden chill tingled Janette’s flesh as she realized the old woman had read her thoughts.

  “She wishes to learn about her father,” Victoria spoke to a cross hanging upside down in her room.

  Then, tell her, a voice she alone could hear rang in her ears.

  “No. She carries the Bauterre blood in her. The pure blood. She is not like us.”

  Your sentimentality cou
ld well prove fatal, Victoria. She is a strong woman. You know I was opposed to granting you this time. Revenge is one thing, stupidity is quite another matter. You know . . . He will not tolerate much of this. Too much, and it ceases to be a game; then it becomes a head to head confrontation between the powers. And somehow, I always lose. Which is why I try to avoid them whenever possible.

  “I have served you well.”

  Granted.

  “I want my revenge on this village.”

  Impossible!

  “On a few, then.”

  All right, the voice agreed reluctantly. But be forewarned: He knows of this.

  “Impossible! How could He?”

  Oh, don’t act the fool, Victoria! You know He knows everything, just as I know everything . . . well, almost everything. Damn Him! He could have at least given me equal powers. Ah, well, I suppose eighty percent of something is better than a hundred percent of nothing. But, I digress, forgive me. He is preparing a warrior.

  “A warrior! To send here? I never heard of such a thing!”

  Don’t interrupt. Yes. But I cannot understand His thinking on the matter. It’s not like Him. You know . . . you remember that time in . . . where was it? That dismal South American country . . . He sent that Bible-waving nut in and our man barely got out with his pants intact.

  But the man He has chosen . . . why, this fellow is scarcely more than a heathen himself! For Hell’s sake, the man was once a—

  A violent ringing of bells almost brought a scream from Victoria. She clasped both hands over her ears and waited out the tempest.

  The bells ceased and Victoria said, “You broke the rules again.”

  Yes. I came close to blowing this one. You’re on your own for a time, Victoria. I can tell you this: look to the east. Goodbye. Good luck.

  Victoria turned and stood for a moment, gazing through cold eyes to the east. But she could see very little. A barrier had been placed she could not penetrate.