Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

Rufus ignored her. “Mutt said you were bringing your boy. Just surprised to see how much he favors you. I fig-gered that you'd had some kid off n a nigger woman.”

“Rufus!” Gretchen gasped. “What a thing to say!” Bob Don blushed deeply. I was unsure if Gretchen was shocked by Rufus's racial slur or the suggestion that Bob Don would have had a black mistress.

“Well, I couldn't figger why else he ain't owned up to him sooner, Gretch.” I saw her cringe at the diminutive use of her name.

“I don't mean no disrespect to the young feller.” Rufus offered me a grimy hand, which I shook with disguised reluctance. If Rufus portended things to come, the weekend was shaping up to be even more of a trial than I anticipated. I surveyed his face carefully, wondering if he was the letter sender. He didn't seem the type for idle threat or subterfuge; raw physical action would be Rufus's forte.

“It's nice to meet you, Jordan. Look like your daddy when he was the young whip.” His eyes traveled back to Candace and his distorted lip rose in a smile. “And ain't you got a pretty petite here.” He bowed to her with mock solemnity. “Rufus Beaulac at your service, chere.”

“Delighted, Mr. Beaulac,” Candace said diplomatically. “If you don't mind, I think we'd like to get over to the island as soon as possible. I'm sure you can understand that Jordan's rather anxious to meet his new relatives.”

I didn't know she was such an accomplished fibber. She squeezed my hand, a silent message: We'll get through this.

Rufus laughed, showing tobacco-stained teeth and unhealthy gums. “I ain't so sure they're anxious to meet him, miss.” He favored me with another discolored grin and turned his attention back to the boat. We boarded, my own heart thudding in my chest.

We cruised away from Port O'Connor at the lip of land, and toward the middle of Matagorda Bay, racing away from the elongated barrier island of Matagorda, now a state park and wildlife refuge. I kept looking around for one of its famous whooping cranes, but I didn't see any diving through the summer sky. The islands that gird South Texas are thin, like emaciated fingers of land pressing against the coast. The water was a little rough and dark.

Racing toward Sangre Island felt like approaching an alien shore. I wasn't sure what my role was supposed to be here: tourist, invader, or immigrant. I didn't acknowledge the possibility of victim. I watched Bob Don laugh and cajole with Rufus as the boat shot across the choppy gray water. What did Bob Don want from me during this visit? Act as a devoted, dutiful son? It wasn't a role I was sure I was prepared for. I knew how to be Lloyd Poteet's son; being Bob Don's was playing a part that made me awkward and unsure. And Rufus's teasing suggestion about the questionable welcome awaiting me didn't imbue me with confidence. It didn't sound like the collective Goertz arms had opened to enfold the lamb that had wandered from the flock. Yet Bob Don seemed sure-at least when we were back in Mirabeau and he was talking me into this fool expedition- that his people would embrace me as he had.

I tried not to dwell on the hate mail. It couldn't-I hoped-speak for an entire family. I suspected there was one bitter apple in the barrel, riddled with worms. The others might be crisp and fresh and faultless. After all, Bob Don was a fine man and surely he was more representative of the Goertzes than my secret pen pal.

Gretchen sat, unusually silent, watching the unfolding white wake the boat made in the rocky bay. Candace held on to my arm and appeared a tad seasick. I asked if she was okay. She nodded. “Never liked boats much, and they don't like me.” I took her damp fingers and laced them through mine.

The trip was short; perhaps twenty minutes. I saw the island-barely a mile long, if that, and some indeterminate width that wasn't much greater. Most of the lip of the shore seemed to be grayish sand, and there was a scattering of oak and palmetto trees. I could see a swath of beach, crowned with modest dunes and tall saltgrass. Sangre looked like a midget barrier island that hadn't quite made it out to sea, unlike the mighty stretch of Matagorda Island. Toward one end of Sangre a large, rambling house stood, uncompromisingly Victorian. I marveled that a hurricane hadn't reduced the old house to memory-Matagorda Bay's residents lived on an edge, each and every summer. More than one killer storm had screamed ashore along this section of the coast.

Rufus veered the boat out a bit from the island and gestured toward the empty bay north of the island, opposite the mansion. “That's where they went down.”

“Who?” Candace asked, yelling above the roaring motor and the whistling wind.

“The Reliant. Went down fighting.”

“A Confederate ship?” I asked. “I thought most of the naval action along the coast during the war was up near Sabine Pass.”

Rufus shook his head. “Well, the Confederates built a fort on Matagorda Bay and made the timber look like big guns to bluff the Yankees, but that ain't here no more. Reliant wasn't a Confederate ship. Reliant was one of the five battleships in the original Texas Navy, back when Texas was fightin' for independence. Went down fightin' a Mexican ship. That's how the island got its name. Sangre means blood in Spanish.”

“Rufus, this is a distasteful story. Surely-” Gretchen attempted.

He paid her no heed. “Survivors from the Reliant got to the island. The Mexicans”-he pronounced it Messkins – “captured them and cut their throats, right there on the sand.” He gestured from where the sunken wreck lay to a sliver of beach on the north side of the island, with a dock protruding. He kept his hands so little on the wheel I wondered how he steered. “But Mutt tells the story lots better than I do. You should ask him.”

I stared out at the watery spot Rufus Beaulac had indicated. Somewhere beneath those whitecapped waves the shell of the Reliant rested, its broken hull serving as an empty coffin to God only knew how many boys and men that had dared to defy the Mexicans. Then I glanced again at the beach where Rufus indicated the massacre had taken place. Those poor sailors-they had never lived to see the Republic of Texas born, the admission to the Union, the bonds of brotherly ties shattered in the Civil War, then the pain of Reconstruction.

“Anyone ever dive down there?” T called to Rufus. He stared at me with frank horror.

“Hell, no! With all them dead boys? Who'd want to go down there?”

I started to mention that any human remains would be long gone. “It could be fascinating-” I started, but Rufus crossed himself with a practiced hand and looked at me with reproach.

“You a ghoul, boy,” he said. “You got more to worry about than those dead sailors.” He turned the boat away from the watery grave and aimed it toward the island. I felt a sick unease tug at my heart. You got more to worry about.

A tall, lanky man and an older woman in a flowing, robelike dress waited for us as we pulled the boat up to a dock. The man had a thick shock of blondish-gray hair, high cheekbones set in a broad, German face, and watery blue eyes. There was no mistaking the familial resemblance between him and Bob Don. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth and he had his narrow hands set on thin hips, watching us expectantly.

The woman was older, in her sixties at least, and she held a small Chihuahua up to her cheek as though it were a puppet. She, too, had the Teutonic countenance I had come to think of as particularly Goertzish, but a warm, gentle smile softened her face. As the boat grew closer she took one of the Chihuahua's tiny paws and waved it in greeting. The dog looked bored with this social nicety and squirmed uncomfortably against the lady's bosom.