Read More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) for Free Online Page B

take her in small doses.
    So, here I was, coming to empathic boot camp, where I would, hopefully, learn to block out the noises threatening my sanity. This was serious; not a frivolous moment to be squandered. Yes, New Orleans was a most incredible place, but it was so much more than that to me. It was the keeper of a mysterious woman I knew little about, but who offered to teach me how to live with what had driven any number of people like me mad. And as we left New Orleans proper and started to wind our way to the Bayou, I looked forward to meeting this woman who was going to save my life. But as we floated lazily down the river, further and farther from the city, I was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea.
    An hour later, we pulled up to a tiny cinderblock house precariously perched on a sliver of land overlooking the brackish water. It looked like a shed behind one of the more dilapidated houses in the ghetto.
    “She lives here ?”
    Jacob shook his head. “Nope. Bones lives here. He’s the boatman.”
    “Boatman? We need to take a boat?”
    This seemed to amuse Jacob. “You really don’t know much, do you? Where have you been? In a cave?”
    “Actually, I’ve been in a psych ward,” I replied, leveling my gaze at him. “Sorry I didn’t have time to bone up on my geography.”
    “Oh. Gee. I’m sorry.”
    “Ya gone stan’ der yakkin’ all day, boy?” a tall, bony man asked. He looked like a skeleton with a black plastic bag pulled over his bones. He spoke with an accent I hadn’t heard before.
    “Hold your horses, Bones. She’s one of Melika’s newbies. She’s new to the whole Bayou thing.”
    Bones hobbled over to me and bent down to look in my eyes. His were two pieces of coal. “Ain’t nuddin’ to fear out here less’n you goes inda water. Dun’t go inda water.”
    I swallowed loudly. “What’s in the water?”
    “Death,” Bones said, shaking his head and pulling up a pants leg. He wore a two-foot long scar from his inner knee to the top of his raggedy boot. “Dey kint have old Bones,” he said, grinning. He had maybe half his teeth. Maybe.
    “Stop scaring her, Bones, you old bag. You know Melika doesn’t like it when you scare them.”
    “Den don’t tell her, boy.” Bones raised up and sent a warning glare over to Jacob. “You too old to be a tattler, Jacob Marley.”
    Jacob Marley? Wasn’t he a character in the Dickens story?
    “I won’t tell her, but stop scaring the girl. It’s hard enough.”
    “Fine den. Come on, missy. Get inda boat.” He pronounced it boot.
    I looked over at “the boat.” It looked like a cartoon boat that had been shot at by Elmer Fudd. “You want me to get in that ?”
    “It’s the only way,” Jacob said, heading over to the piece of Swiss cheese Bones called a boat.
    “Get on in, missy,” Bones said, tossing two oars to Jacob before grabbing a really long pole. “’Gator getter,” he said.
    Tentatively, I stepped into the rickety raft, my eyes scanning the water for alligators.
    “Dey ain’t none near here,” Bones said, chuckling under his breath. “I sind dem away long time ago. Me and dem…unnerstand what’s what.”
    Glad he did because I sure as hell didn’t. “Then what’s the stick for?”
    “Um...just what he said. In case a ’gator gets curious, then he just pushes them away.”
    I scooted to the very center of the raft. They had no right calling this thing a boat. It was a raft with punctured sides that looked like a family of termites had it for dinner.  “With a goddamned stick? Don’t you have a machete or a shotgun or something?”
    Bones was chuckling as he pushed away from the shore. “We don’t kill sometin’ dat  lets us live on de land. We’re de trespassers here. We leave dem be. It all works out.” Bones pushed off from the dock with his big stick. It was then I noticed this crappy boat actually had a motor. I wondered if it even worked.
    “You gotta respect de Bayou,” Bones said