The Bourbon Thief(61)

Bowen pointed at the woods surrounding the house with his cigarette clenched between his index finger and thumb.

“These trees make those barrels,” Bowen said. “You want apples and licorice in your bourbon, you want these trees. Everybody wants these trees.” Bowen sat back again, crossed one foot over the other and took a long deep drink before taking another drag of his cigarette. He opened his mouth and breathed out like a dragon breathing fire.

“What’s so special about them?” Levi asked.

“What’s so special about them?” Bowen repeated, aghast. “Girl, you didn’t tell this boy about these trees?”

“We haven’t really talked much about the trees,” Tamara said, a very diplomatic way of saying, I’ve been ignoring Levi for three weeks to punish him for being an ass.

“You know the story about the island?” Bowen asked Levi, and Levi knew that Bowen knew that he didn’t know. The Truth Serum had made them all loquacious. “You, girlie?”

Tamara shook her head. “Daddy never even told me the name of the island.”

“For your own sake,” Bowen said. If Nash had meant to kidnap Tamara from her mother and bring her down here to live, it was for the best Tamara not know about Bride Island, where it was, what it was, so Virginia Maddox wouldn’t know, either. “I suppose you two ought to know.”

“Know what?” Tamara asked, falling under Bowen’s spell and the spell of his Truth Serum.

“The true story of this island,” Bowen said. “If you want to know it. If you think you can handle it. It’s not pretty.”

“I want to know.” Tamara sat forward and it hurt to look at her. She was a child, Tamara was. No matter how she acted, how she played it, how she played him, at the end of the day she was still a child who sat on the edge of her seat to listen to ghost stories at night.

“I’ll tell, I’ll tell. Let me fortify my storytelling apparatus a moment here.” Bowen took another swig of his drink.

In the early-evening dark the whites of Bowen’s eyes glowed like twin fireflies. Levi put his arm on the back of the swing and Tamara leaned against his shoulder. This was much better than the silent treatment.

“It’s not a story for innocent ears.” Bowen set down his glass and took a long drag on his cigarette before blowing out a fine smoke ring.

“My ears aren’t innocent,” Tamara said.

“I was talking about him.” Bowen winked at Tamara.

“I think I can handle it,” Levi said. Bowen refilled his and Levi’s glasses from the plastic pitcher. Tamara sipped her plain sweet tea, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass.

“Long, long ago this wasn’t Bride Island,” Bowen began. “This was nothing but swamp island, nothing but ratty little stub trees, copperheads, rattlesnakes, marsh rats, alligators and enough damn pluff mud to drown a horse in. It wasn’t a pretty place, not like now.” Bowen pointed at Tamara. “Back...oh, a hundred and many years ago, a rich Frenchman—a comte, which is like a count, which is like an earl, I think, whatever da fuck that is—he bought this island. He had three sons, you see.”

Bowen lifted his hand holding up three fingers, which Levi could see by the light of Bowen’s cigarette.

“The first son, he knows he gets the money and the title when Daddy Count dies, so Son Number One sticks close to home. Son Number Two does what number two sons always did—he joins the army and becomes an officer and secretly hopes for Daddy Count and Son Number One to meet an untimely end. But Son Number Three? Nobody knows what to do with a third son. Join the church? Join the circus? No, Son Number Three does what third sons have been doing all their lives—he leaves home. Go west, young man. He went far west. All the way across the ocean west, all the way here. Daddy Count owned some land in the New World. He bought it from a crook who didn’t tell him this prize piece of land was a stinking dirty swamp. When Son Number Three arrives after two months on a boat, he’s not a happy boy. What’s a man to do in a swamp?”

“So what did he do?” Tamara asked.

“Son Number Three—Julien St. Croix. How’s that for a name? Croix means cross and maybe he was born to carry such a cross. Give the boy credit, he didn’t turn tail and run back home. Land is land, after all, and he knows there’s gotta be money here somewhere. He’s a smart boy. Went to school, knows the world. He thinks, swamp...water...crops...rice. They grow rice in swamps in China. Why not grow rice in swamps in America? So he does.”

“With slaves?” Levi asked.

“What do you think?” Bowen pointed the burning tip of his cigarette at Levi. “’Course he did. And St. Croix made himself barrels of money. But a man can’t live off money alone. A man needs a legacy. He needs a wife. So he writes home and tells Daddy Count how much money he’s made and how he needs a wife now so he can have sons of his own to inherit this golden swamp of his. He remembers a girl he loved as a boy and wonders if she’ll marry him. Daddy Count writes back and says her family needs money. St. Croix writes back and offers to pay off their debts. Daddy Count says that’s good, but his bride won’t come to America unless St. Croix builds her a house to live in. A fine house. No cabins in the swamp for her. So St. Croix builds a fine house for her right here on this island. Big house fit for a queen. St. Croix writes back and says he’s ready for his bride, and Daddy Count makes the deal and puts the girl on a ship and sends her this way. But the ship sinks and the bride dies. These things happened back then.”