The New Iberia Blues
Page 44
Epilogue
NINE MONTHS LATER, the three of us rented a house on stilts just above Bodega Bay, where each evening the waves pounded against the cliffs and coral formations, and the sun left its light under the ocean long after it had disappeared from the sky. Alafair had sold her first film rights to a production company and had contracted to do the adaptation. While she worked at her computer and tried to let go of the deceit and violence and theft of trust that had been visited upon her, Clete and I tooled up and down Highway 1 in his Caddy, our saltwater rods and reels propped in the back seat, the wind cool and warm at the same time, while jeans-and-leather low-riders blasted past us and their badass girls smiled back at us, hair whipping in their faces.
Our wounds healed; our memories did not. Lou Wexler had hurt us in many ways. Oh, yes, the incubus had its origins in the abuse at the jail, but the real cluster of thorns was the suspicion and acrimony we had allowed Wexler to inculcate in us. We had come to distrust one another and lost faith in our institutions and ourselves. I had come to suspect Sean McClain and to quarrel with Helen Soileau and to doubt Bailey Ribbons, who had allowed me to go back in time and believe I could undo age and mortality and, in so doing, erase the mistakes I had made as a young man.
I would always love Bailey, but in a silent and protective way. When she invited Alafair and me to her and Desmond Cormier’s wedding out in Arizona, with the vastness of Monument Valley as the backdrop, I made an excuse and decided never to think again about the life I might have had. But the temptation to dream stays with me on a daily basis, not unlike the shimmer inside a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red or the glitter of gin cascading on the rocks.
As far as Desmond was concerned, I believe his dualistic obsession with light and darkness was about the struggle between good and evil. It is not coincidence that in My Darling Clementine, the light of oil lamps burns only in the brothels and saloons, while the rest of the desert is governed by darkness. I believe Desmond shut his eyes to Wexler’s crimes, including the murder of his half sister, and that his omission, like Butterworth’s, would one day lead him to a fatal discovery about himself and a garden he did not want to enter.
The greatest oddity in all of this is that I believe Desmond passed on to me his obsession with light and shadow. I cannot watch the sun course through the heavens and settle into a molten ball without feeling a weakness in my heart, as though God does slay Himself with every leaf that flies and that indeed there is no greater theft than that of time.
But like Wyatt Earp and Henry Fonda, I love the name Clementine. And I love the name Bailey Ribbons. And I love the names Alafair Robicheaux and Clete Purcel. And with those names in my heart, why should I ever fear what tomorrow might bring?
Just the other day, Clete and Alafair and I were at a street dance in Santa Rosa, and I thought about ending this tale with a line about going up the country with Canned Heat, with the martial connotations the allusion implies. Instead I decided it was time to heed other lyrics from other songs. The green republic is still out there, the wheat fields waving, the dust clouds blowing, our mountains and diamond deserts and Gulf Stream waters a votive gift that belongs to us all. And the men who break in and steal by night, who spread self-doubt and fear and acrimony, will eventually fall by the wayside and be unremembered ciphers that disappear like scraps of newspaper in our rearview mirror.
With this thought in mind, Clete and Alafair and I went to a wild celebration among thousands of revelers in downtown Santa Rosa, surrounded by hills that glowed in the sunset with a purple aura under a starry sky, Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” blaring from the loudspeakers.
And that’s the way our Manichean tale ends, on a summer night in the land of the free and the home of the brave, trapped between vineyards and the sea and the souls of migrants who come with dust and go with the wind, all of us twirling among young people who wore flowers in their hair, a church bell clanging without stop in a Spanish mission.
Roll on forever, Woody.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife, Pearl, and my daughter Pamala for their encouragement and support and their suggestions with the manuscript. I would also like to express my appreciation to my publisher Jonathan Karp, my editor Ben Loehnen, my production editor Katie Rizzo, and my copyeditor E. Beth Thomas, whose diligence and commitment have been unflagging.
Thanks also to Jackie Seow and Alison Forner for the lovely jacket, and to Amar Deol and the many other people at Simon & Schuster who believed in my books and stood behind them. Last, thanks to all the gang at the Spitzer Agency: Anne-Lise, Philip and Mary, Lukas Ortiz, and Kim Lombardini. We’ve made quite a team, and a writer could not ask for more.
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About the Author
James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He has authored thirty-seven novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
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ALSO BY JAMES LEE BURKE
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DAVE ROBICHEAUX NOVELS
Robicheaux
Light of the World
Creole Belle
The Glass Rainbow
Swan Peak
The Tin Roof Blowdown
Pegasus Descending
Crusader’s Cross
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Jolie Blon’s Bounce
Purple Cane Road
Sunset Limited
Cadillac Jukebox
Burning Angel
Dixie City Jam
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
A Stained White Radiance
A Morning for Flamingos
Black Cherry Blues
Heaven’s Prisoners
The Neon Rain
HACKBERRY HOLLAND NOVELS
House of the Rising Sun
Wayfaring Stranger
Feast Day of Fools
Rain Gods
Lay Down My Sword and Shield
BILLY BOB HOLLAND NOVELS
In the Moon of Red Ponies
Bitterroot
Heartwood
Cimarron Rose
OTHER FICTION
The Jealous Kind
Jesus Out to Sea
White Doves at Morning
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
The Convict and Other Stories
Two for Texas
To the Bright and Shining Sun
Half of Paradise
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-5011-7687-6
ISBN 978-1-5011-7688-3 (ebook)