Randy White - Black Widow

I was leaning against a tree, pissing, as he added, “I wasn’t joking about nearly being eaten, by the way.”

I said, “You mentioned the dogs.”

“Hounds, I’d call them. Real monsters. They were nipping at my bloody heels as I vaulted the fence-a damned narrow squeak. I ripped a good pair of trousers. Found out later the woman’s staff keeps Brazilian mastiffs. Do you know the breed?”

I said, “No, but if they’re anything like the dog that chased me last night, I think we can deal with it.”

“I wish I could pretend they’re the same, but these are very different animals, indeed.”

Brazilian mastiffs, he said, were a mix of bull mastiffs, bloodhounds, and South American jaguar hounds. They had the size and strength to lock on to a steer’s nose and drag it to the ground.

“I did a bit of research afterward, and was almost sorry I did. Adult males stand seven feet tall on their hind legs-only weigh eight stone, but pure muscle, with the temperament of snakes. At pedigree shows, the beasts are disqualified if they don’t try to attack the blasted judge.”

I was calculating in my head. “A little over a hundred pounds?”

“That’s right. There aren’t many of them in the world-good thing, too.”

I zipped and turned. “Then why are we doing this? I don’t want to have to kill a dog for doing its job. I also don’t want to be mauled.”

Sir James said, “We should be all right. Last time I tried this, it was three in the morning. Since then, I’ve pieced together the retreat’s schedule. It’s strictly forbidden for guests to exit the monastery walls after eleven. And someone who should know told me the forest is dangerous only after midnight. In other words-” He held his Rolex to his eye. “-we have a window of three to four hours before they lock the doors and loose the dogs.”

The man was facing the fence, standing on tiptoes and using the walking stick to lower his backpack as I asked, “The person you spoke with- I assume he works at the retreat.”

“No. Too risky, don’t you think, tipping your hand by chatting up the hired help?”

“Was it Lucien?” Montbard had introduced me to the old man that afternoon. We’d listened to him talk about obeah.

“No. Lucien hasn’t been to the monastery in years. You heard himhe’s terrified of the place. The man who gave me the information-” Montbard paused, hands on the top of the fence. “-is a beggar. Talked to him last week. One of those poor chaps I see too often on Saint Arc. No legs, missing an eye, so he scoots around on a mechanic’s dolly. From the looks of him, he doesn’t have many days left. Too bad. Very nice chap, but broken, of course.”

Montbard climbed the fence, dropped to the other side, then continued, whispering.

“The fellow made extra money poaching orchids near the monastery, but stayed too late one night. Dogs caught him. Of course, he claimed that obeah devils attacked him-there’s cachet in that. But we’re having none of that nonsense. It’s all about timing, you see?”

I asked, “Did the man hunt orchids on weekends?” Today was Monday, four days until Shay’s deadline.

“What in blazes does it matter?”

“Weekend schedules and weekday schedules vary. Maybe they let the dogs out earlier on weekdays.”

“Didn’t think to ask-and it’s too late now. I heard the poor sot was taken off to the hospital. But we can’t expect to have every t crossed and every i dotted in our trade, now can we?” Montbard shouldered his backpack, then retrieved his walking stick. “Right. Over you go, Ford. You’re the new La’Ja’bless, according to Lucien. The hounds won’t bother a fellow demon.”

Lah-zjay-blass, the old man had pronounced it. He’d said the word with a reverence that was becoming familiar, and softly as if he were afraid the trees would overhear.

"The creature, he attack three mens jes last night over to Saint Arc,” Lucien had told us, delighted to have news to share with visitors. “The creature, he hurt one fella purty bad. It because that fella were disrespectful, and speak a profanity regarding the spirits. But all them men’s lucky, in my opinion, ’cause the La’Ja’bless got the power to do much worse than break a fella’s ribs.”

I didn’t make the connection until I noticed Sir James looking at me, waiting to confirm the significance with a slight smile.

“Three local men, Lucien?”

“That right. Boy who bring me my coffee, he tol’ me this mornin’. He down to the wharf and hear the fishermens talkin’. The La’Ja’bless, he quick to punish. But that fella very fortunate he only in hospital, not the grave.”

The La’Ja’bless was a night creature that could assume different forms. Sometimes he was a wolf or a cat-“If those things cross the road in front of you at night, it the creature, an’ you smart to run, man!”

More often, though, the La’Ja’bless was half man, half horse… or a faceless man dressed in black.

“Las’ night, the creature be a man-all black but for the eye in the center part his head. It a green eye that burn like fire, the fishermens sayin’. That fella in hospital? He never be disrespectful again, that much I know!”

We had stood in the shade of a tamarind tree, listening to Lucien tell his stories while chickens scratched in a neighbor’s garden. There was a scarecrow made of sticks and a calabash gourd, a faded red scarf over its face, like a bandit.

Lucien, I discovered, was father of the subdued man who’d served our breakfast, Rafick. It was Rafick who drove us to the old man’s cottage on the outskirts of Soufrier and encouraged him to talk freely in front of Senegal, a woman, and me, a stranger.

Before Sir James asked the first question, though, Rafick was gone- a true believer who’d done his duty, but who wanted no part in discussing obeah.

Senegal appeared surprised that I jotted key words in my notebook as the old man talked.

Gaje: Practitioner of witchcraft

Zanbi (Zombie?): Creature who rises from grave to do evil

Dragon Tooth: Volcano

Anansi Noir: Black spider whose supernatural power is equal to a snake’s

Bolonm: Tiny person, born from a chicken’s egg, who eats flesh

Maji Noir: Male spirit who roams the night, preying on women walking alone

Maji Blanc: Female spirit who appears as a beautiful woman dressed in white and has sex with men who are asleep or drunk. Uses her fingernails on their backs and genitals as her calling card

Flirting, Lucien had said to Senegal, “You would make a mos’ lovely Maji Blanc. Not a evil spirit, a’course, but the pleasuring type. Why you not allow this gen’lman buy you a pretty white dress, ’stead of wearin’ them pants?”

Senegal let him see she was flattered, even though the subject made her uncomfortable. “I’d rather have a white dress from you, Lucien. I’ll come back and model it.”

“Oh my, I like that! The Maji Blanc visit me several times when I were a young man. What you think my wife do when she see them scratches? She take garlic and rub it. Garlic burn when you been scratched by the Maji Blanc, tha’s how you know it was a spirit woman.”

The old man tilted his head skyward and laughed, showing freckles on his cinnamon skin, and eyes that were milky blue. “I tell you true now-sometimes the garlic don’t burn so bad, but I yell like fire, anyway!”

He stopped laughing when Montbard asked about the monastery on Piton Lolo.

“That a dragon tooth long ’go. It stick out the ocean so high it snag clouds. That why it a dark place where the wind got a chill, and it have washerwoman rain all the time. It a fine spot for orchids, but it bad for peoples.

“In back times, it were a godly place for monks. But them monks all die sudden of fever. By the time they found, the birds been feedin’ and carried they spirits away. Left nothing but they robes.