The Devils Punchbowl

I was about to hang up when Lutjens asked about Annie. I answered briefly, and then we chatted for a while about his son, who was having trouble with a science project. Lutjens told a lengthy anecdote about a next-door neighbor who’d turned out to be a retired physicist, who’d helped the boy finish the project. “Sometimes,” Lutjens concluded, “help comes from the most unexpected places.” I thanked him for his time, wondering what he could mean by that. Whatever he meant, it’s unlikely to help us on the river tonight.

Our kayaks glide past the northern reaches of Vidalia and Natchez almost without sound, the lights of the houses on Clifton Avenue glittering above us. Three-quarters of a mile to our left, the casino boats line the foot of the bluff, spaced about evenly for almost a mile. First comes the

Magnolia Queen,

then the

Zephyr,

the

Evangeline,

and finally the

Lady Belle.

I think of Tim as I pass the

Queen

because the cemetery sits on the ground high above it, but guilt will not help me tonight. Kelly didn't even want me along, and I mean to prove that I won'’t slow him down.

Danny McDavitt and Carl Sims are somewhere in the sky to the south of us, shadowing the VIP boat. Danny must be flying very high or very low because I can’t hear his helicopter. Our journey has been a milk run so far, but that will soon change, and knowing that Carl is riding shotgun in the chopper with his sniper rifle gives me a sense of confidence I might otherwise lack.

“Looking good,” Kelly says, his voice coming clear over the water. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Trying to get used to working the rudder again.”

“The real work’s below the waist.”

“I feel it.”

As the twin bridges slide past high above our heads, Kelly stops paddling and adjusts the ear bud connected to the Star Trek in his pocket.

“Any word from Danny and Carl?” I ask.

“The VIP boat’s still cruising south, but not in any hurry.”

He pulls back a piece of canvas and checks the GPS unit Velcroed to the coaming of his boat. “We’'ve been doing six miles an hour. Not bad, but let’s see if we can find some faster water.”

His kayak shoots forward without apparent extra effort on his part, then turns toward the middle of the river. I grip my two-bladed paddle and pull as strongly as I can, trying to stay up with him. On a river as broad as the Mississippi, the surface moves at different speeds in different places. Soon we’re moving at a steady nine miles per hour, and the lights of the town fall quickly behind us.

The land beyond the levee to our right is all former plantation land, and most of it’s still farmed today. From faintly silhouetted landmarks such as grain silos, I can tell we’re passing the old Morville Plantation, the one my father mentioned as a den of white slavery and gambling in the 1960s. Remembering this gives me a feeling of futility, as though Tim’s effort to stop what he saw as the rape of his hometown was nothing more than a vain quest to fight vices that will always be with us. The ironies are almost unbearable, if I think about them. Kelly and I are paddling this river to photograph men committing illegal cruelty upon animals, in order to “save” a city built upon the incalculable cruelty of slavery. The land on both sides of this river was watered with the sweat and blood of slaves, and their descendants still struggle to find their place in the life of the community. I’'ve dealt with the consequences of that history every day of my term as mayor, and it lies at the root of the most intractable problem I’'ve ever faced.

“Something weird’s going on,” Kelly says. “The VIP boat’s barely moving, but they still haven'’t stopped anywhere.”

“What do you think?”

He looks across the space between us. “Could they be fighting dogs

on

the boat? Down below or something?”

“I guess. Caitlin told me urban dogfighters hold fights in basements and places like that. But that’s an expensive cabin cruiser. I can’t imagine them fighting dogs in there.”

Kelly stops paddling and lets his boat drift with the current. “In five minutes we’ll be at the place they docked last night. If they haven'’t stopped anywhere by then, I say we get out and wait. Scout the place out. They could actually be coming back to the same spot.”

“You think?”

Kelly chuckles softly. “They might just be cruising around drinking, getting hyped up for the fight. Maybe the handlers haven'’t got the dogs here yet. Yeah, this might be perfect. We can videotape everybody as they get off the cruiser.”

“What if somebody heard Danny’s chopper, and it spooked them?”

Kelly’s smile vanishes. “Don’t put the hex on us, man. Let’s go.”

He digs his paddle into the black water and heads for the Louisiana shore. Another mile of river slides beneath us, then Kelly holds up his hand. After I stop paddling, he checks his GPS, then says, “We’re there. Let’s take ’em in.”

“I see a sandbar. Do you want to land there?”

“Let’s go about forty yards farther down, where those weeds are.”

To my surprise, Kelly lets me lead. I pull up my rudder with the lanyard, then drive the bow of my boat onto the gently sloping river bottom. When my motion stops, I lay the shaft of my paddle behind me, just aft of the cockpit, and brace the flat of the blade on the sand. Using this to stabilize the boat, I extricate my legs from the cockpit and step out into the water. Kelly does the same as I drag my kayak into the weeds, and soon we’re standing under some small cottonwoods, surveying the land where Danny saw the VIP boat anchor last night.

Kelly takes a night scope from his pack and glasses the darkness in front of us. To me the landscape looks like a black-and-white photograph tinted slightly blue. The hum of insects is annoyingly loud, and the only light comes from the half-moon over our heads. Kelly’s

view is completely different, of course. To him this night is a montage of ghostly greens, one he can navigate with the sure-footedness of a deer feeding at dusk.

“What do you see?” I ask.

“Nothing much. Let’s move inland.”

All I can do is follow orders and walk in his tracks. The soil is sandy, the weeds and nettles thick. As we get farther from the river, the cottonwood trees tower above us.

“Any signs of people?”

“There’s a shed about forty meters to the north,” he says. “No lights. Looks like a swing set or something beside it.”

As we pick our way through the tree trunks, Kelly adds, “I see a few benches and chairs.”

Though the chill of fall was in the air on the river, here the night is thick with the smell of green foliage, and I’'ve begun to sweat. It’s as though we’ve stumbled into some low-lying region where summer never ends.

Kelly curses as I collide with his back. He stands immobile, head cocked as though he’s listening for something. When I start to speak, he flips up a hand and whispers, “Give it a second. You’ll understand.”

Then I do. The smell of death is in the air—thick and powerful enough to smother the green scent I savored only moments ago. The odor isn’t alien; it’s what you smell when you’re forced to drive slowly past an armadillo that’s been dead for two days.

“This place feels deserted,” I whisper.

Kelly lowers the scope, then raises his neck and turns his head like a meerkat moving in slow motion. “No, there’s something here. Something alive.”

“Deer?”

“Let’s find out.”

I have no desire to walk any closer to whatever is producing that reek. But when Kelly creeps forward, I realize I have even less desire to stand here by myself.