Fever Moon (25 page)

While the biscuits baked she went to her bedroom, dressed, and brushed out her hair. Raymond had hurt her, but life went on. She had to get a grip on herself. She’d known all along that Raymond was damaged goods. Before he’d gone to war he’d dated a beautiful young woman, a dark-eyed Cajun beauty from the next parish over. Florence had noticed them all over town—in the drugstore eating Coca-Cola floats, at the movies, walking along the Teche, riding in Justin Lanoux’s big Plymouth convertible while they laughed and drank frosted pastel liquor from paper cups.

Florence had watched them living a life forever outside her sphere. She’d fallen in love with Raymond because of his smile and the way his hand hovered so protectively over the young woman’s slender back. His gaze had been attentive, tender. She’d laughed up at him, her finger tracing his lips. Florence had watched them and gone back to her house to wait for the paying customers.

When Raymond had returned from the war only six months before, she’d seen him in town, walking with a cane. She’d thought it odd that he never went back to his mother’s house but instead bought his own place on the edge of town, a handsome old house left empty when the Gautreaux boys were killed. In a matter of weeks Raymond had gotten rid of the cane and pinned on the deputy sheriff star.

The war had stolen things from him. The first was his smile and the second was the young woman. Gossip around town was that she couldn’t take his darkness, his moods, and she’d moved to New Orleans to mend her broken heart once he told her he would never wed. Florence didn’t care when she’d gone; she was only glad she left.

Raymond had been home for a month when he first tapped on her door, asking if she was busy. She’d unlatched the screen and let him in, her heart hammering in a way that made her feel alive and angry. Angry because she knew this day would come when she’d pay the price for loving him.

She bent over the oven, pulling the pan of hot biscuits out. When the knock came at her door, her thoughts were so focused on Raymond that she expected to see him standing in the fog when she opened it. Instead, Pinkney Stole stood on her porch, hat in both hands and eyes unable to meet hers.

“There’s a phone call for you, Miss Florence, up to the sheriff’s office.”

“For me?” She was shocked. Her mother had passed away two years before. No one else had cared enough to keep in touch with her. “Who is it?”

“Girl won’t say. She axed for Mr. Raymond first, but when I tole her he was laid up and hurt bad, she—”

Florence grabbed the door frame for support. “Raymond is hurt?”

“Yas’m, he’s hurt bad. Might never walk again is what Sheriff Joe says. He—”

“Where is Raymond?”

“He’s up at Doc Fletcher’s house all hooked up to weights and things. They mean to stretch him out, try to ease that metal off his spine.”

Florence smelled the biscuits, a scent that had always meant morning and a new day. It clotted at the back of her throat like a gag, and only her grip on the door frame held her upright. “What happened to Raymond?”

A worried frown touched Pinkney’s face. “You’d best come on to the sheriff’s office with me, Miss Florence. That gal is gonna call back and it was long distance. She said it was urgent for Mr. Raymond.”

Florence had completely forgotten the phone call. She rushed to the kitchen and turned off the oven. On her way to the door she picked up her purse and keys. “Let’s go,” she said, taking Pinkney’s elbow to hurry him along.

“You gone leave them hot biscuits to ruin?”

She hurried back to the kitchen and pulled a paper sack from beneath the sink. She dumped the biscuits in the sack and grabbed a jar of scuppernong jelly. “I don’t have any butter,” she said as she slammed the door locked behind her.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and put the car in gear as Pinkney hustled into the front seat, the momentum of the car slamming his door. “Lord, Miss Florence, you likta took off my legs.”

“Tell me about Raymond!”

“He went out to the Bastion place yeste’day to stop that Veedal Lawrence from kühn’ a couple of prisoners. Raymond ran over Veedal. He dead now. Raymond’s at Doc’s house.”

Florence knew that whatever Raymond had been doing at the Bastion farm, it had involved Adele Hebert. She didn’t know—or care—what he was doing as long as he was okay. “Doc says Raymond won’t ever walk again?”

“Says most likely. Says that metal’s been in there shiftin’ and movin’ a little each day.”

As Florence reached the fog-blurred edge of town she saw nothing of the ghostly buildings. Instead, she remembered Raymond’s long, lean body in her bed, dark hair sprinkled over his legs. Her hand traced the scar that started at his lower back and ran down to the shallow indentation near his buttocks and grooved his flesh to his hip bone and then down his thigh. The wound, even after a year, had been red and puckered with dips in the firm muscle where flesh had been torn away.

“Pinkney, I’ll let you out at the office. I’m going to Doc Fletcher’s.” Be damned what people thought. Raymond was injured.

“No, ma’am. You need to talk to that gal. She sounded mighty upset, and she said she had to talk to Mr. Raymond or you. Sheriff tole me to bring you right back to the office. Said he’d skin me alive if I didn’t.”

“I don’t have time to talk—” but before she could finish her sentence, she realized who was calling. “Okay.” She pulled in at the curb in front of the sheriff’s department. There were cars parked all around, men talking in clusters, their faces tense with worry. “What’s going on?” she asked Pinkney.

“Posse or some such. Gone find that
loup-garou
. Good thing Mr. Raymond is tied down in bed or he’d kick some ass around this place.”

Florence passed Praytor Bless holding forth vehemently about something. His face was swollen, his lip puffed and crusted with blood and he walked with a limp. He stopped talking as she walked by, and she ignored him. When she walked into the sheriff’s office, the telephone was ringing.

“New Iberia Sheriff’s Department,” Joe said when he answered. He cleared his throat. “I’ll accept the charges.” There was a pause. “She’s right here.” He handed the receiver to Florence.

“Hello.” She held the receiver tight, as if pressure on the black handset could clear up the buzz on the line. She heard Callie’s voice.

“It’s me, Florence. I found the thing you and that lawman was lookin’ for. I gave him the message and he said he needed to talk with that deputy. He said tonight at ten at Mitch’s place up Bayou Teche.”

“That won’t work. Raymond’s hurt.”

“It has to work.”

The line went dead and Florence held the telephone to her ear, knowing that Joe and Pinkney and the two Bastion boys in their jail cell were listening to her. “Yes, I’ll give him the message,” she said into the empty telephone line and then hung up.

“What’s that all about, Miss Florence?” Joe stepped closer to her as he asked. “Something I need to know?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I’m sorry you were troubled by such a call. It won’t happen again.”

“I had to accept charges for that call.” Joe’s mouth was a line of annoyance. “Sheriff’s office ain’t no place for personal long-distance calls. That woman said it was police business.”

“She lied. When the bill comes due, you tell me and I’ll pay you back.” Florence nodded at him. “Now you have a good day, Sheriff. I’ve got to get back to my chores.”

She walked past them without ever looking. She got in her car and headed east, toward Bayou Teche and Raymond.

The afternoon sun slanted in through the plantation blinds, illuminating the room in a warm glow. Raymond woke from the grip of the dream like a man surfacing from deep water.

Everything in the dream had been bathed in tints of red violence. He’d felt as if he were drowning in carrion shadows. Surprised that it wasn’t night, he blinked against the golden glow of sunlight that was a blessing. When he tried to swallow, his throat was dry and sore, and he couldn’t shift his legs. He felt as if something heavy had been laid across the lower half of his body, restricting all movement. For a moment he was thrown back in time to the first moments of consciousness after he’d been injured in the war.

The blast of the grenade against his back had been percussive, a combination of sound and movement that had initially puzzled him. His body had been smacked hard and he’d fallen to the ground. He’d known something was very wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. His legs hadn’t responded to his commands. His thoughts had been addled. He’d opened his eyes and stared into the ground, remembering Antoine. His baby brother. The person he loved most in the world.

He felt moisture build beneath his eyelids and trace its way through the crow’s-feet and into his hair. He should have been the one to die. That was the truth he lived with, the reason he lived alone and isolated. Raymond had found that he was very good at war. The adrenaline, the danger, the rush—all for a cause he believed was right. He did his duty. After Antoine’s death, he became superb at his duty. The problems began when he tried to sleep at night. What he saw was Antoine, a wounded ghost stalking the night, his eyes filled with dread at what Raymond had become.

In the doctor’s bedroom, Raymond felt the sun on his face. He would keep his eyes closed and delay reality for just a bit longer.

“Raymond?”

The woman’s soft whisper was like a touch. He knew the voice, but it wasn’t possible. He’d lost her by his carelessness. Somehow he must have slipped back into a dream. “Florence?”

Her cool fingers wiped the tear from his temple. “I’m here.”

He forced his eyes open and looked at her, a woman of such beauty. She was bathed in sunlight, almost as if the glow were internal. “Am I dead?”

“I don’t think so.” She smiled. “You’re trussed up like a hog at butcher time, but the doctor says you aren’t close to dying.”

He tried to shift his body and felt the pull of the weights. Doc Fletcher was trying to stretch out his spine. He remembered the discussion before the pain shot. Raymond had consented to the treatment, but traction wouldn’t help. He knew that. The metal moved toward its own destiny. It was too close to the spine for removal, and though Doc was trying his best, Raymond accepted that no one could halt or delay destiny. If the metal moved in one direction, he would be paralyzed. If not, he would walk with a minor degree of pain. This was the card fate had dealt him.

“Untie me,” he said. “I have to get up.”

“You’re talking to the wrong woman.” She sat up straighter. “I won’t have a hand in watching you cripple yourself. Besides, I couldn’t undo those knots if my life depended on it.”

“Did they find Peat Moss?”

She sighed, and he knew she was debating all that she should or should not reveal. “No.”

“Daniel Blackfeather?”

Florence held his gaze. “The two prisoners are going to be fine. Veedal Lawrence is dead.”

Raymond tried to feel something, anything. Regret for what Blackfeather and Smith suffered was all that surfaced. “I killed a lot of men in the war. Men I didn’t know. I killed them because if I didn’t, they’d kill me. Because they were the enemy. I left one boy alive with the thought of getting a medic for him, and Antoine died because of it.”

He swallowed dryly and Florence gave him a sip of water.

“Veedal Lawrence is the first man I’ve taken any satisfaction in killing. I wish I’d done it last week, when I figured out what kind of man he was. That’s my curse, Florence. I’m intended to kill—I’m good at it—but too late. I get it done, but only after the innocent have suffered.”

Florence took a cool cloth and wiped his forehead. “You’d best put your thoughts and energy into healing instead of killing.”

“Have they caught Adele yet?”

“No. Praytor Bless is organizing a big hunt. Folks have seen Adele roaming around the town.” She took a deep breath. “If what they say is true, Raymond, Adele must be flying from place to place. She’s covering a lot of ground.”

“Hell, if she can change into a wolf, why not a bird? Or a damn bat? Maybe she’s flying all over the parish.” He tried to sit up but the weights tugged at his legs. “Goddamn it, cut me loose from this.”

Florence put a restraining hand on his chest. “Chula Baker stopped by. Madame Louiselle was with her and she sent a poultice for you. She told me how to apply it.”

“I don’t want a damn poultice; I want up!” The slightest pressure of her hand pinned him to the bed, and his weakness was infuriating. At least Chula had found Madame. She should have awakened him, though. “Can you find Madame? I’ve got to talk to her!”

“Why are you so willing to risk everything to save Adele?”

The question pushed him back into the pillows. He owed Florence this answer. “It isn’t what you think, Florence. It’s just …” He turned away from her gaze. “She’s lost everything she ever loved—she’s probably insane—but she didn’t kill anyone. If I can’t figure a way to stop this, she’s going to be executed for a crime she didn’t do. All because she can’t defend herself.”

“She’s helpless? Is that it?”

“Yes. That’s it.” He felt relief. Florence did understand.

She got up and walked to the window, adjusting the wooden slats so that he could see the first tinge of amber touching the cypress trees that grew along the Teche. When she turned back to him, he found he couldn’t fathom the expression on her face.

“Is it only the weak who’re worth protecting and saving, Raymond?” She waited half a moment for his answer and then walked to the door. “I’ll get us both some coffee. There’s someone waiting to talk to you.”

She was gone before he could frame a reply.

R
AYMOND drew on his tiny resource of strength to force his eyelids open. He found himself staring into the black gaze of Madame Louiselle. She looked at the potion lying on the table beside his bed and back at him. Though she didn’t speak a word, he heard her. “You’re a hardheaded fool, Raymond Thibodeaux. Suffering should never be voluntary.”

“Madame, what about the plants I brought you?” He hated that he was flat on his back.