When I looked ahead, I realized I was going through a canal, but there were other openings along the way. Which one would take me back to Cypress Woods? Should I turn right or left, take the first or second? All of the canals looked the same right now; the vegetation, rocks, and fallen cypresses resembled the ones I had seen when Buster poled the pirogue to the shack. Panicking, I made a choice, only to discover it led to a shallow, brackish cove with no other outlet. I had to turn about and pole back.

My stomach ached with an emptiness that made me feel light-headed. Here I was, a girl who had grown up in the Garden District of New Orleans, living in the finest home, catered to, spoiled, dainty, now dressed in a potato sack, poling a half-rotted canoe through a swamp filled with insects, alligators, snakes, and snapping turtles. And I was lost!

I started to laugh. I knew it was a hysterical reaction, but I couldn't help it. My laughter echoed around me and soon turned to sobs. When I succeeded in getting the canoe into another, wider canal, I paused and sat down. My throat was so dry I couldn't swallow and my tongue felt like a lump of sand. I gazed about helplessly, looking for some sign, some indication of direction. How could the bayou people make their way through these swamps? I wondered.

Exhausted and defeated, I lay back. The pirogue rocked with the movement of the water. Two egrets flew over me and peered down curiously but cautiously before flying off. They were followed by a more courageous cardinal who landed on the bow of the pirogue and did a small tap dance with its eyes on me.

"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked.

The cardinal lifted his wings as if to shrug and then flew off after the egrets. I closed my eyes again and settled back, too tired to think. I must have fallen asleep for a few moments and drifted, for when I opened my eyes again, I was bouncing gently against a fallen cypress tree. A family of muskrats had trekked up to sniff and study me, but when I moved, they all scurried into the bush. I sat up, dipped my hand into the water, and scrubbed my face to wake myself up. Then I stood up and pushed the canoe away from the tree.

Just as I started to thrust the pole into the water, I heard the hum of a motorboat. It was hard to tell from which direction it was coming, but I waited. It grew louder, and I realized it was coming from my right. I poled the canoe in that direction. A moment later the boat appeared. It was just a small dinghy, but I saw Jack sitting in it. No sight ever looked better.

"Jack!" I shouted.

The sound of the motor kept him from hearing my shout as he went past. I screamed again, but he disappeared around a bend. Frustrated, I poled the canoe in his direction, but what chance did I have to catch up with a motorboat? I eventually stopped and sat down again, feeling an overwhelming sense of defeat. The water lapped against the canoe. I glanced upward at a sky turned stormy and forbidding, herald-ing rain and wind. What if there was another hurricane?

I put my stinging palms together under my chin, closed my eyes and prayed.

"Dear God," I said. "I know I haven't been as religious as I should be, and I know I have a scientist's skepticism about miracles, but I hope you will hear me and have mercy on me."

I rocked back and forth and started to sing a hymn. Then I closed my eyes and lay back again. Perhaps there was such a thing as destiny, I thought. Perhaps Mommy's faith in the inevitability of fate existed. Somehow, for reasons that would always remain mysterious, it was determined that I would be brought back to these swamps and they would claim me. Maybe all my efforts to become a doctor, to be someone else, were foolish vain efforts after all. Someone with stronger gris-gris had put a curse on our family, and we couldn't overcome it. I began to understand why Mommy felt she had to run away, to find some way to save her family from what she believed was inevitable disaster.

I was even too tired to cry. All I could do was lie there and wait for something terrible to happen. And then I heard the distant murmur of the dinghy motor again. It grew louder. I sat up and waited. Moments later the dinghy appeared. Jack saw me and steered in my direction. He cut his engine and brought the dinghy up beside my canoe. He was too shocked to speak; he just stared for a moment. I stared back, not sure if he was an illusion or real.

"Pearl, I've been frantic, searching for you. What are you doing in that canoe? And why are you dressed in a . . . a sack?"

Instead of answering, I started to cry. He moved quickly to get me safely into his dinghy.

"Look at you; look at your hands. What happened?"

"Oh, Jack," I said, "Buster Trahaw . . . tricked me into going with him. He took me to a shack, where he chained me up and said I was his wife. I escaped, but he came after me. Then he drowned or was eaten by alligators, and . . ." I was too exhausted to continue.

"Mon Dieu." He kissed my cheek and held me. "Don't worry. You're safe now. I won't let anything else happen to you. Let me get you back to Cypress Woods."

He started the motor, and we were off.

I looked back once at the pirogue bobbing in the swamp water. It had taken me to hell and back.


15

  Eye of the Storm

When we arrived at the dock, Jack helped me out of the dinghy. My legs wobbled, and I had to lean against him for a moment. The full impact of what had happened to me and what I had gone through hit me the moment I set foot on safe soil. The rain had started again, too, but the two of us barely noticed. Jack scooped me up into his strong arms, lifting me like a baby.

"Jack, you don't have to carry me," I protested.

"I got grease cans that weigh more than you," he said, smiling. It did seem effortless for him to march up the pathway with me in his arms. He carried me all the way to his trailer. I realized that both of us were soaked to the skin—me especially, in the poor excuse for a dress Buster had forced me to wear. Some of the other riggers came running over to see what had happened, but Jack didn't stop to explain. He didn't put me down until we were inside.

"At least you can take a hot shower here. Get that sack off your body. I'll find something for you to wear.

Then we'll call the police and tell them what happened."

"I'd better call home, too, and see how Daddy's doing," I said, wiping the matted hair from my forehead and eyes. A small puddle had formed at my feet. "I'm making a mess."

"Don't worry."

Jack saw the welts on my legs that had resulted from Buster's whipping me with his leather belt.

"Maybe I should get you to a doctor or a traiteur," he suggested. "That doesn't look so good."

"It's all right. The skin wasn't broken. I'll put some ice on the bumps afterward."

"I forgot," he said smiling. "You're on your way to becoming a doctor. Comes in handy having you around."

I felt so dirty after what I had been through that I stayed in the shower until Jack knocked on the door to see if I was all right.

"Pearl!"

"I'm okay," I cried. I just stood there enjoying the warm water in my hair. I heard him open the door.

"I'll leave the clothing here," he shouted. I turned off the water and pulled back the curtain to peer out. He had given me a pair of his dungarees, one of his plaid shirts, and a pair of his slippers and socks.

"You can keep the pants on with this piece of rope," he said when I laughed. "I'm sorry I don't have any skirts."

"It'll do for now. Thanks."

"You okay?"

"I am now," I said.

He beamed. "I made some hot tea, and I've got biscuits and jam waiting."

"Thanks, Jack."

After I dried myself and put on his clothes, I wrapped the towel around my hair. He looked up from the stove when I emerged.

"I feel like a new person, especially in these clothes," I said. I had rolled up the legs on the dungarees to make them shorter, but they were still much too large for me, as was Jack's shirt. "I guess I'm a pretty funny sight, huh?"

"You look great to me. Never knew my clothes would look that good on anyone." He smiled and then his smile turned quickly into a stern expression. "Now sit yourself down," he said, pointing to the chair.

His anger took me by surprise, and I sat down quickly. "What's wrong?"

He folded his arms across his chest and straightened his shoulders.

"How dare you go off with someone like that and just leave me a note? Do you know I came this close," he said, pinching his thumb and forefinger together, "to missing it? And when I read the name Trahaw, I almost had heart failure. I still can't believe you went into the swamp with that low-life scum."

"Jack, he said he knew where my mother was so . . ."

"For a woman who is supposedly so intelligent, you sure do dumb things."

I looked down, my chin quivering.

"I'm sorry I'm bawling you out, Pearl, but when I saw you were gone and I realized you had gone into the swamp with that guy, I felt about as low as I ever felt in my life. I thought for sure I was never going to see you again."

I lifted my tear-filled eyes to him and saw he was very sincere.

"I'm sorry, Jack. It was stupid of me. I should have talked with you first."

"Yeah, well, maybe. He probably would have tried to stop you, though, and that might have even been worse," he offered in a compromising tone.

"I can't imagine it being worse than it was, Jack," I said.

He nodded and then turned when the teakettle whistled. He prepared me a cup of tea and gave me the biscuits and jam.