It had an outboard motor, but the going was still slow. Even if it were light out it would have probably been slow because of the endless twisting passages. The motor hummed beneath her, vibrating her bones, making her body numb. Her mind felt numb, too. She faced away from Ferrar’s beam of light and looked out over blackness. The Bible sat on her knees. They’d left Francois behind in the floating village at Bayou Bouillon. He was badly hurt, having been attacked probably just prior to when Trigger was killed. Patrice and Ferrar found Francois lying on his side with a wound to his right lung where he’d been stabbed in the back. “Leave me to the ghost. Take the Bible. Leave me to the ghosts.” It’s all he got out. And they did. Patrice and Ferrar obeyed and left him bleeding there in the boardwalk while village dwellers hovered around him. Patrice wondered about him now. He could be cold and dead, like the seven she’d drowned. Like her brother. She ought to grieve at the thought of Francois lying there that way, but Trigger had consumed all her anguish and left nothing but a cauterized numbness in her soul.
