Nouveaux Voodoo.
Nouveaux Voodoo.
In the wilds of New Orleans, everything is true.
Swamp rats are nutria. The state pays a bounty of $6.00 per tail to nutria hunters. Nouveaux Voodoo priestesses will pay triple. Nutria charms are not part of traditional New Orleans voodoo. Nutria were only introduced to Louisiana in the 1930s. It was the McIlhenny brothers that did it, the family behind Tabasco sauce.
This is where things get complicated.
You and I are sitting in the front of a narrow, shallow boat being paddled by Dante Apollinaire, a professional nutria hunter. The boat is called a pirogue. We are between the two golf courses in City Park, one professional and one gone to seed. Spanish moss hangs from cypress branches overhead. Ibises wade along the shore, poking their pink beaks into the muck. The water is brown as tea and smells like saltpeter.
Nobody knows we’re here.
“Shhhh,” Apollinaire says, “Swamp rats have excellent hearing. Their ears are high on their skulls.”
There is a splash to the left. The water is rippling in the wake of a furry head with bright orange teeth. “There’s one now,” Apollinaire points, as we bank the pirogue for lunch. We have been out here all morning. The fog disappeared hours ago, now the sunlight is yellow between the leaves.
Apollinaire unpacks a few roast quail he brought from home. There is enough for the three of us. He also has three bottles of Big Shot soda, New Orleans’ original, and a bag of Chee-Wees. Everything we’re doing is illegal.
We’re in deep.
Ed. Note: I have been revising this story, but I do everything in real time, and I don’t keep drafts. I’ve been giving paid subscribers dribs and drabs behind the paywall, but today, I am putting up the full version, complete with an obvious break where I am working on it right now.
The complete current version is behind the paywall, with all it’s twists and turns.
