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Gerard stood up and threw the rest of his coffee into the fire. “We better get moving,” he said. LeBlanc continued to stare ahead with the pistol in his hand. Gerard nudged him with his foot. “Come on, we better move. We still got to load the boat.”
LeBlanc rubbed the oil off the pistol barrel on his trouser leg. He put the gun on half cock and slid it back in his belt. He still had that same hard, distant look in his eyes. He finished his coffee in one swallow and got up and went over to the wagon to count the kegs of whiskey with Tereau.
“Don’t get him talking about the army no more,” Gerard said to Avery. “He ain’t been right since he come back from the war.”
“Did he ever use that gun on anybody?”
“I don’t ask him no questions. He knows his job, and what else he does ain’t my business. The only time I got to watch him is when we have a scrape with the law. Soon as he thinks they’re around he takes out his pistol and puts it on full cock. His eyes get like two pieces of fire when he sees a uniform.”
Avery looked over to the wagon. Tereau was fastening the tailgate after LeBlanc had climbed down from the bed. The mules shuffled in their harness.
“What happened to him in the army?” Avery said.
“He was in the South Pacific about a year. He even got decorated once. Then one day he tried to shoot his commanding officer and deserted. They found him about a month later and put him in the stockade. He went kind of crazy in there. They sent him to a hospital for a while, but it didn’t do no good. They finally give him a medical discharge because there wasn’t nothing else they could do with him.”
Gerard took the coffeepot off the iron stake and poured the coffee over the fire. The coals hissed and spit as the fire died and the clearing darkened except for the light of the moon. He pulled the iron stake out of the ground and kicked dirt over the faintly glowing embers.
“Don’t let LeBlanc worry you,” he said, and went over to the wagon in his slow, crablike walk, his shoulders slightly rounded, with the iron stake and coffeepot in each hand. Avery followed.
“Twenty-five kegs,” LeBlanc said.
“I reckon you want some money,” Gerard said to Tereau.
“I reckon you’re correct, Mister whiskey runner,” Tereau said.
Gerard loosened his shirt and unstrapped a money belt from his waist. He propped one foot on the hub of the wagon wheel and counted out the money on his thigh. He put the bills in a stack and handed them to Tereau and strapped the belt around his waist again.
“When you going to start putting my name on the labels?” Tereau said.
“Soon as you start paying federal taxes and we both go out of business,” Gerard said.
“I hear something out there,” LeBlanc said.
They listened for a moment.
“I don’t hear nothing,” Gerard said.
“It’s out on the river somewheres,” LeBlanc said.
“There ain’t nothing out there. We got rid of the police three miles back.”
LeBlanc moved his hand to the pistol and looked off into the darkness. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “Everything is going wrong tonight. I can feel it. There’s too much moonlight, and there’s somebody out on the river.”
“There ain’t nobody out there.”
“I heard it I tell you.”
Gerard looked at Tereau.
“Maybe he did hear something. Let’s go to the boat and don’t take no chances,” Tereau said.
Gerard threw the coffeepot and iron stake into the back of the wagon. Tereau got up on the seat and wrapped the reins around his fist. He drove the wagon around the edge of the clearing through a narrow break in the trees that opened onto a wheel-rutted road leading between the levee and a deep gully. They could hear the nutrias calling to each other in the swamp, a high-pitched cry like the scream of a hysterical woman. The oak trees stood at uneven intervals along the rim of the gully, and the moonlight fell through the branches, spotting the ground with pale areas of light against the dark green of the jungle. Tereau sat forward with the reins through his fingers. He looked back at Avery and Gerard, who were following, as the wagon banged over the ruts. LeBlanc walked ahead of the mules, straining his eyes against the darkness. He stopped and without turning put one hand in the air.
“What’s the matter?” Gerard said.
“There it is again. It’s a boat laying out on the river. I can hear the water breaking against its sides,” LeBlanc said.
