Read an Excerpt
Family Inheritance
By Deborah LeBlanc
Dorchester Publishing
Copyright © 2004
Deborah LeBlancAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8439-5347-0
Chapter One
Eli swung his feet over the edge of the swaybacked porch and
dangled them over the murky water. He gazed down the length of
a westbound slough to the horizon. He loved the swirling hues
of sunset over the Atchafalaya. Violet and tangerine, milky
pink and rust, the colors brought him peace, something he
desperately needed.
All around him swamp creatures gave voice to the dying day.
The resonating, high-pitched uhmmmp, uhmmmp of baby
alligators, the deep, hollow grunts of bullfrogs, the chitter
of insects too numerous to count, and the splash, gurgle of
croakers and mullets slapping against the surface of the
water. A family of nutria scurried across a nearby grassy
island while a loggerhead turtle, as big around as a dinner
plate, settled lazily over a floating log. Overhead a barred
owl screeched noisily from a tupelo, and herons and egrets
swooped and glided around Eli's small shack toward their
nests.
He watched and listened with a heavy heart. All of his life
Eli had felt as much a part of the bayou as any one of these
creatures. Now all that was changing. Lately he didn t feel
part of anything. Not the swamp, not even the human race. He
felt used up, spent. He barely slept anymore. His dreams,
which seemed to be growing more horrid over the last three
months, barely allowed him two hours of rest a night.
Eli drew in a deep breath and dipped a toe into the water.
While he watched the ripples slowly widen and spread toward a
cypress tree, he heard the faint whine of an outboard motor.
He cocked his head and strained an ear to gauge its distance.
Two miles, maybe two and a half, which meant the boat was just
outside Fosey Point, a finger inlet normally clogged with
floating mats of water hyacinth. Hundreds of jagged cypress
stumps jutted up through the hyacinth like old rotted fingers.
It was a boater's nightmare, and few attempted to cross it for
fear of propeller damage or never finding their way back. This
one, however, sounded determined, drawing ever closer, which
could only mean Johanson was headed his way.
Eli dropped his head wearily.
Thin and seemingly older than moss, Johanson had been a part
of Eli's existence for as long as he could remember. Although
the man lived inland, he showed up at the shack every so often
in his beat-up skiff and had been doing that since Eli was
five years old. Back then, Johanson would bring supplies in
from town, then take time to teach Eli about the swamp. They
would hunt and fish and most importantly talk, something Eli's
mother rarely did with him. Johanson wasn't his father, that
much Eli knew because the old man had told him so when he'd
asked. The two weren't even related. Eli had always been too
afraid to question Johanson further about why he came around
if they weren't blood kin. Maybe the man felt sorry for the
young woman and boy who fended for themselves in the swamp
without help from anyone. Eli didn't know and really didn t
care. So what if Johanson's reason for coming was pity? He
just never wanted the old man to stop visiting.
Although their relationship continued to grow and strengthen
over time, it had taken on an abrupt change after Eli's
twelfth birthday. Eli woke up that particular morning
expecting to find an apple propped on the foot of his cot, the
usual birthday gift from his mother. Instead, he discovered
his mother sprawled across the floor, ten feet away, dead.
When Eli had gotten up enough nerve to get out of bed and
investigate, he found bluish-green foam pooling onto the floor
from her lips and a half-empty can of drain cleaner near her
body. Saddened, but not surprised that she d taken her life,
Eli had waited a few hours before dragging the petite woman's
body out of the house and onto the porch. He rolled her body
into the water and allowed it to float away. It didn't go very
far because of the tangle of water lilies and tree stumps, so
he'd just watched her caramel-colored face bob up and down
until the cloudy waters swallowed her.
Soon after Eli left the watery grave, he went to a nearby
island to check on nutria traps. Normally his mother ran
ground traps, and he ran the water traps and catfish lines.
Now, with only himself to depend on, he'd have to learn how to
do both.
Eli's first ground trap lesson nearly cost him a foot. Still
thinking about his mother, he'd walked across the line run
without paying proper attention and wound up stepping into a
trap that had been hidden under a blanket of moss. Fortunately
the contraption had been old and rusted, and when the metal
teeth snapped around his foot just above the ankle, it
punctured skin and muscle but didn't crush bone.
After an hour of struggling with the trap, Eli finally freed
his foot. The moment it was released, an overpowering urge to
spit on the wounds came over him. So he spat ... and the
puncture wounds closed instantly. For some reason Eli was
never able to explain, he had been no more surprised by the
healing than he had been about his mother's death. What did
surprise him, however, was what followed.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Family Inheritance
by Deborah LeBlanc
Copyright © 2004 by Deborah LeBlanc.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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