Author James Lee Burke, who pens the Detective Dave Robicheaux series and the Holland Family Saga books, often addresses good vs. evil in his novels. In 'Flags on the Bayou', a standalone novel about the Civil War, Burke once again focuses on the malevolence in humanity, exacerbated by the institute of slavery.
*****
The story opens in the middle of the Civil War, when things are going badly for the South. The Union Army controls the Mississippi River and occupies much of Louisiana, the Confederate Army is reeling from its losses, and maundering irregular troops are killing, burning, and destroying. Slaves dream of freedom, slave owners fear losing their 'property', and death and destruction are rampant.
The story revolves around six main characters:
⦿ Wade Lufkin: a former Confederate soldier who marched with the Eighth Louisiana Infantry, having been promised he would serve as a surgeon's assistant and never shed the blood of his fellow man. Lufkin recalls, "I sawed limbs and stacked them in piles at First and Second Manassas and especially at Sharpsburg, where the Eighth Louisiana was mowed down in a cornfield near Dunker Church."
One day Lufkin took a stroll in a snow-covered forest in Virginia and came upon a Union soldier reading a book. Lufkin tried to start a friendly conversation, but the frightened soldier fired a revolver. Lufkin became enraged and savaged the man with a bayonet. Lufkin now has a Minie ball in his left leg and is recuperating on his Uncle Charles's Lady of the Lake Plantation in New Iberia, plagued with guilt about the Union fighter he killed.
⦿ Pierre Cauchon: the oversight constable for Negro legal problems in New Iberia. Cauchon rides up to Lady of the Lake Plantation on his beloved horse Varina, to question a slave called Hannah Laveau. Laveau is suspected of being an insurrectionist and voodoo practitioner who's stirring up her fellow slaves.
Plantation owner Charles Lufkin insults Cauchon by telling him to go to the back door, brushing off his inquiries about Hannah, and calling him white trash.
As the humiliated Cauchon leaves, he notes, "I feel small and my head is dizzy....I would prefer to be disemboweled and have my entrails set afire, as was done to felons in ancient times, rather than re-live the last ten minutes of life."
Cauchon is haunted by another incident as well. When Cauchon's battalion fought at the Battle of Shiloh Church, Major Ira Jamison - who was supposed to be on their flank - just didn't show up. Thus Cauchon's battalion was mercilessly mowed down, and Cauchon's fury has not abated.
Rising tensions result in a gun duel between army veterans Wade Lufkin and Pierre Cauchon, an incident that has long-term consequences for both men.
⦿ Hannah Laveau: Alleged voodoo priestess Hannah is an attractive slave owned by Charles Lufkin.
Owing a debt, Lufkin loaned Hannah to a fellow plantation owner named Minos Suarez. Suarez tried to convince Hannah to 'lie with him', and when Hannah refused, Suarez brutally assaulted her.
Hannah dreams of getting revenge against Suarez, and recalls, "As he got off me, his naked body silhouetted against the moon, his chest heaving, I could feel my hand curling around an imaginary knife that one day would be real."
Hannah also dreams of being reunited with her young son. Hannah was a cook for Confederate troops at Shiloh Church, and was separated from her little boy during the horrific battle there.
When rapist Minos Suarez is murdered with "his reproductive equipment lopped off with a butcher knife", Constable Cauchon comes back to arrest Hannah for the crime.
⦿ Florence Milton: a Northerner from Massachusetts who runs a private school in New Iberia.
Florence is an abolitionist who has little use for the authorities in New Iberia, especially Sheriff Jimmy Lee Romain. Florence observes that Romain "is not a bad man but, unfortunately, a nincompoop." She goes on, "Maybe Mr. Darwin is right about the fish crawling onto the land and becoming simians and eventually the human species. If so, I suspect that someone stepped on the head of Sheriff Romain's ichthyological ancestor."
Florence manipulates Romain, "who probably cannot count his toes without an abacus", to allow her to visit alleged murderer Hannah Laveau in the Negro jail. Florence helps the slave escape.....
.....and when the two women are hunted by Constable Cauchon and slave catchers, the ladies show their mettle.
⦿ Colonel Carleton Hayes: leader of a renegade troop of filthy raggedy Confederate men. Hayes has burned colored settlements, robbed the bank in Opelousas, lynched people he believed to be abolitionists, killed and wounded Union soldiers and civilians, and fired a cannon at Union General Nathaniel Banks in New Iberia. Hayes is cross-eyed with a syphilitic face, and he bemoans his appearance.
When Hayes is confronted about human heads hanging from the saddles of his men, he alleges, "Those are redbones who raped a white woman. Their heads will be on pikes outside St. Martinville before the sun is set, a reminder to the Negro population as well as redbones."
Colonel Hayes and his marauders camp at the Lufkins' Lady of the Lake Plantation.....
.....and when Charles Lufkin is chastised about allowing this, he responds, "Our boys gave their best, but they're outnumbered and without food and ammunition. In a short time we will be at the mercy of the Unionists, many of whom are depraved. Colonel Hayes will not let us down."
⦿ Darla Babineaux: a freed slave woman who lives on the Minos Suarez plantation. Darla likes to wear purple and takes a shine to Constable Pierre Cauchon.
Darla offers herself to the lawman, who refuses because it "would be an abuse of power." Darla replies, "No, it ain't. Men did that to me many years ago. I killed one man and almost killed another. They were both white. Ain't nobody bothered me since. You're a different kind of white man, Mr. Pierre."
Darla tells Pierre about treasure (gold plates, silverware, jewelry, etc.) buried by Minos Suarez, to hide it from the Union army, and reveals that she knows the location of the cache.
Cauchon tries to protect Darla from a predatory Union officer named Captain John Endicott, who wants both Darla and the Suarez treasure. All this results in Cauchon and Darla fleeing, followed by Endicott and his men.
*****
All the action comes full circle by the end of the story, after much death, devastation and havoc, and an epilog describes the fate of the main protagonists.
The story emphasizes that humanity's worst instincts come out in war, and points out that the North means to conquer the South by burning it to a cinder and starving the population. Meanwhile, individual evil people, such as slave catchers, depraved soldiers, and entitled officers, think nothing of raping, robbing, murdering, and so on.
As always, Burke's prose is very evocative, and the reader can picture the bayous and swamps of Louisiana; imagine the tents of the prostitutes, and the dirty smelly pimps that monitor them; taste the blood and poison sucked from a snake bite, and so on. For example, when a coffin containing a dead soldier is pried open, a nauseated observer reports, "From my horse I can smell it....I saw a lot of woe at Shiloh and Corinth, but this is the worst. The body was probably submerged in sawdust and chopped-up ice weeks ago, but some other kind of preservative was probably poured into the soup as well, chemicals that had the opposite consequence. The skin has shrunken and looks webbed on the bones and painted with yellowish-tan shellac, the bones sticking through, like a pterodactyl that has fallen from the sky. I put my handkerchief to my mouth because I'm fixing to throw up."
Burke believes that Flags on the Bayou is his best work, but its hard for me to judge, as I'm a big fan of all his novels.
Thanks to Netgalley, James Lee Burke, and Grove Atlantic for a copy of the manuscript.
Rating: 4 stars
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