The Bourbon Thief(62)
Bowen shook his head and played like he was wiping a tear off his face. Had he entertained Nash at night with dramatic retellings of stories, too?
“But the deal’s done,” Bowen said. “Daddy Count paid for a bride, paid off those debts. They send their other daughter instead. The little girl in the family. The only daughter they had left.”
“How little?” Tamara asked. Levi looked at her and saw her eyes wide and listening, eager as a child for her bedtime story.
“Fourteen,” Bowen said. “Though they told her to tell people she was sixteen. Like anybody care about propriety down here in the swamp. She wasn’t much more than a child, but she was the only girl they had left to trade. And they were happy to be rid of her. What else is your little girl good for if not getting you out of debt?”
“And they sent her across the ocean to marry a man she’d never met?” Levi asked, aghast.
“They sold her,” Tamara said, and her voice was hollow as a dry barrel.
“I can’t say they sold her,” Bowen said. “But I can say St. Croix bought her.”
“What happened?” Levi asked. “Did the girl make it?”
“Her name was Louisa, named for a king, I think, though Louisa is a damn funny name for a king, ain’t it? Anyway, the ship comes in and they put out a little rowboat to bring Louisa to St. Croix. They say she stood up in the boat when she saw the man on the beach waiting for her. They say it was love at first sight. They say the boat was still fifty feet from shore when she stepped out of it. And they say it wasn’t love at first sight for St. Croix, but it must have been something because he ran into the water to meet her and carried her all the way out of the water in his arms. Ain’t that a pretty picture?”
“Stupid girl,” Tamara said, shaking her head.
“Stupid in love. Or maybe she was too damn sick of boats she’d rather drown than stay another second on one. But the first idea is more romantic. I’m a romantic.”
“Are you?” Levi asked.
“Can’t you tell?” Bowen said, grinning, but it looked like a grimace to Levi. “Now, back to thirty-four-year-old—he might have been thirty-five, come to think of it—Julien and his little Louisa. They were married in St. Croix’s house the night she arrived, nobody but slaves and her old lady chaperone to witness. Now, Louisa was a sweet girl, innocent, with a good heart, and St. Croix called her Loulou, and don’t you think that made her melt like butter when he did? Little Loulou liked it here, liked the sunlight and the ocean. They say when she smiled the sun came out and when she laughed the birds flew down to hear it and when she sang the angels put down their harps to listen. And when she cried, St. Croix took her upstairs and an hour later both of them would be smiling again. She was so young, you see, no one had gotten around to telling her ladies weren’t supposed to enjoy that sort of recreational activity. St. Croix doted on her, spoiled her. When Loulou asked for the foreman to stop whipping the slaves, St. Croix put a stop to it. When she asked for a girl her age to keep her company, St. Croix brought two ladies, a momma and her daughter, over from France to do her hair and dress her and powder her nose, all to please her husband. And when he asked her one day why she was sad and sighing, she said it was because she missed the oak trees at her home in France. She loved the ocean. She loved the sky. She even loved the swamp. But why is it there were no real trees on this island?”
All was quiet on the porch. Levi heard nothing but the breeze, the wind chimes and the ocean roar in the distance. A fly buzzed past his ear and Levi ignored it. Tiny fires glowed in tin cans—homemade citronella and rosemary candles to keep the mosquitoes away. Starlight, moonlight, firelight and one tiny red light from the tip of Bowen’s cigarette—the perfect light for telling ghost stories. And Bowen sure told his tale with relish, like a boy trying to scare the shit out of his little brothers. And Levi was scared, but he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the sounds of the owls calling back and forth or the branches moving to and fro as unseen animals settled in to sleep. Or maybe it was the look on Tamara’s face, like she wasn’t hearing someone else’s story, but her own.
“St. Croix wasn’t about to let his sweet bride sigh another sigh, not when he could do something about it. He wrote his man and asked for oak tree saplings, the best there was, spare no expense. Three months later here they come on a ship, two dozen of them. These were the finest trees money could buy, sturdy and strong and from the deepest, greenest forests in France. A rare sort of French oak. St. Croix planted his oak trees and they took. They were ten feet tall by the time his bride was showing with her first child. By the time their son was five years old, the trees were big enough for a boy to find worth his time. And they were happy, St. Croix, his bride and his boy. Happy and rich, which is a rarer combination than we’d like to think. Of course, it couldn’t last. The ocean lasts. Trees last. The sky lasts. A third son and his child bride happy and in love? That won’t last. How could it? God is a patient judge, but when He issues His verdict, justice is swift.”
Levi had been getting pleasantly drunk, but at those words he sobered up. He pulled Tamara closer to him. Her body was stiff at first like she didn’t know him. But then she softened and let him hold her tight.
“One fine spring day St. Croix’s son—Philip was his name—climbed the tallest of the oak trees and a branch broke under his foot and down down came the little boy. The sand is soft, but not when you fall thirty feet on it. He was dead before his momma could get the scream out of her mouth. St. Croix came home from the rice paddy to find his bride cradling their son’s body in her arms. She wouldn’t let him go. And the next day she carried him into the ocean and let the water take them both away. When her body washed up two days later, the doctor said she was carrying her second child. His son’s body never came back. St. Croix went mad as rich men with broken souls will do when God dares to contradict them. He took his slaves off rice duty and made them drain the swamp. After that they had to plant trees. Oak trees, seeds and saplings from the tree that killed his boy. Every day for years they planted those trees, tended them, cultivated them. Then there were trees as far as the eye could see... Why did he plant those trees? Who knows? Maybe he did it because he loved his wife and she loved the trees. Maybe he thought he could bring his boy back if there were enough climbing trees to tempt his soul. Oh, but he was a sad sight, St. Croix was, wandering this island in his dirty clothes, unwashed hair, unshaven face, arms black from the soil up to his elbows. He planted, too. Planted half the trees on this island himself. And when there was no inch of this island that didn’t have a tree on it, he walked into the house he had built for his bride, poured out every bottle of scotch he could find, every bottle of brandy, every bottle of fine Irish whiskey, poured it on the carpets imported from Persia and the drapes that came from the finest houses in Paris. Then he lit the drapes afire, and he and the house burned to the ground. Goodbye, third son. Goodbye, bride. Goodbye, little boy who loved to climb trees. St. Croix’s body was nothing but ash and the boy’s body never turned up. Only Louisa’s body is buried here. Married and buried, all on this island. It’s a damn shame if you ask me, but that’s what happens when you build your castle on the backs of other men. St. Croix wanted paradise and this island became his hell. Your great-great-grandfather, Miss Tamara—Jacob Maddox—is the man who bought the island from Daddy Count’s second son, who wanted nothing to do with the place that broke his brother. And I can’t blame him. And this island has been Bride Island ever since because of that St. Croix’s pretty little bride, and Louisa Island would sound kind of funny, don’t you think? And, of course, St. Croix was already taken.”