Long Time Gone (Hell or High Water )

by SE Jakes

  Had a million questions that he expected Tommy wanted to give him answers to today. Bringing him here was the breaking of the dam. The flood of information would follow shortly.

  And reciprocation would be a complete and total bitch—and Tom would definitely demand it once he got his head back on straight. But Prophet had already let him in more than he should’ve.

  And you know that’s not even enough to scratch the surface.

  Finally, Tom broke away from the grave and started walking toward Prophet.

  Then he stopped cold and turned to stare. The hairs on the back of Prophet’s neck rose as he recognized Tom’s call to voodoo. Didn’t like drawing in a cemetery, but he had his weapon out, ready to cover Tom.

  Tom stared north, then walked backwards to Prophet. When he got to Prophet’s side, Prophet noted he’d also drawn his weapon.

  “Someone’s watching,” Tom said. “By the shack at two o’clock.”

  “The law?”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  Prophet knew when Tom’s voodoo was talking. And then Tom said, “Gonna storm it.”

  Prophet caught himself before he groaned out loud, because what the fuck. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. You in?” Tom asked, but Prophet noted there wasn’t any anger in his voice—just determination and focus.

  So Prophet relented. Slightly. “Why don’t you let me break in around the back?”

  Before Tom could say yes or no, Prophet had disappeared. Guy was like a fucking ghost. Tom waited a few minutes then took off toward the shack at a run. Could hear Prophet’s voice in his head even now.

  You really have a death wish, Cajun.

  But Tom barreled in the front of the shack anyway, and Prophet just shook his head. “Really?” the bastard asked. “You waited like a second?”

  “You would’ve warned me if I shouldn’t come.”

  “Yeah, true.” Prophet pointed to the prone man on the floor in front of him. “You know him?”

  Tom nodded. “How hard did you hit him?”

  “Not hard enough,” Prophet said as the guy started moving.

  “Good.” Tom bent down and searched Charlie, making sure he didn’t have any hidden weapons. He pulled out a bag of what he assumed was Charlie’s special homegrown weed. Prophet examined the baggie, and Tom told him, “It’s good shit. Grows it himself.”

  Prophet raised a brow.

  “It’s good shit for headaches.”

  “Did you smoke when you were in the sheriff’s office?”

  “It was the only way Charlie’d give me intel.”

  “He’s an informant?”

  “Yeah. The stoner persona helps. No one suspects he remembers anything, but the guy’s got a mind like a steel trap.”

  Prophet glanced around. “He doesn’t live here, does he?”

  “No. ’S’where I’d meet him, back in the day.”

  “He gonna talk if I’m here?”

  “Yes.” He spoke to Charlie in rapid Cajun French until the man’s eyes focused. Well, as much as they ever did. Said he’d turn him over the FBI if Charlie breathed a word of this conversation they were about to have.

  That got Charlie’s attention for sure. He nodded briskly, because he always wanted to please. “I get it, Tom, but what the hell? You could just come to me. Instead, you send this asshole to—”

  “What asshole’d that be?” Prophet demanded, and Charlie held up both hands.

  “I’m a pacifist.”

  “You’re stoned,” Prophet said.

  “He says that like it’s a bad thing,” Charlie told Tom. “Maybe if he smoked a little . . .”

  Tom dragged Charlie to his feet. “I’d quit while I was ahead.”

  “Fine. Look man, there are drugs runnin’ through here. Comin’ down the bayou.”

  “Always are. Cutting into your territory?” Tom asked.

  “No way, man. I’m not talking about Mary Jane. I’m talking big shit. Special K and shit like that.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “Miles. Says he’s clean, but that’s bullshit.”

  “Figures,” Tom said. He didn’t offer up the fact that Miles was dead. “When’s the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Not since he went into that bullshit AA. I know he’s still using, but he’s not buying from me. So I followed him a couple of times last month. And I think the sheriff’s involved.”

  “I’d bet on it.” Tom looked out the window. “You can head out, Charlie.”

  Charlie nodded, tipped an imaginary hat in Prophet’s direction, and disappeared out the door and into the tall grasses.

  “Gotta find a better class of informants,” Prophet told him.

  “I think he’s lying.”

  “No shit.”

  “He never lied to me before.”

  “And you think Charlie’s not going to mention this discussion with you to the police?”

  “I told him I’d turn him over to the FBI if he talked. He’ll keep his mouth shut.” They left the shack and walked the narrow path to the truck. He stayed in front so he could scan the area for snakes and the like. Because for a guy who’d lived in Texas . . .

  “Dude, it’s not the snakes that are the problem,” Prophet protested. “Any alligators around?”

  “There are always gators around.”

  “Feel free to lie to me about that shit.”

  He turned around suddenly and faced Prophet. “Cope’s a good guy, but he’s not you.”

  “No one’s like me.”

  Goddamn, but he’d really missed this man. “You might be the only one in the world who can say shit like that and not sound like an asshole. Most of the time.” Prophet smiled, rested a heavy hand on Tom’s shoulder, which somehow managed to take the weight of the world off him. “I can’t believe you came here after I left you behind. Fuck, Prophet, I’m sorry.”

  Prophet kept his voice quiet when he said, “Don’t apologize, T. Just do me a favor—from now on, don’t let your superstitions win.”

  “My superstitions tend to come true,” Tom said quietly, but that wasn’t an outright no.

  Tom met his eyes quickly, then glanced down at Prophet’s bare forearms. He traced his hands over them, asking, “How long did you leave the casts on?”

  “Two months. Month off and then three more weeks.”

  Tom stared at the muscled forearms. “Good spot for tattoos.”

  “I guess you’d know.” He thought about how he’d traced the falcon on Tom’s back with his tongue last night, the wings spanning between his shoulder blades. Fierce and beautiful, and completely original, just like the man who wore it. It looked like it was rising from Tom, was strong enough to carry him with it.

  Falcon.

  Skull.

  Evil Eye.

  Nautical Star.

  Dreamcatcher.

  Symbols of protection, permanently etched into Tom’s skin. Prophet guessed that this way Tom could always carry his mojo with him.

  Even the falcon that spread its wings between Tommy’s shoulder blades was significant, symbolizing freedom, something Prophet figured Tom had found once he left the bayou. But something kept pulling him back.

  Maybe you never really buried your ghosts.

  Maybe the only time they were truly dead and buried was when you were. And even then, Prophet wouldn’t be so sure.

  Prophet drove them back to Etienne’s studio. Tom sacked out the second he hit the car and didn’t wake for the half and a hour drive, even after Prophet parked.

  Prophet checked the area out—it was dusk and the lights were on. Everything seemed to be in order. He opened Tom’s door, shook him a little. Tom barely woke, and Prophet ended up half walking, half carrying him onto the porch. He turned the doorknob, because they’d left the place unlocked, as Etienne always did, kicked it open the rest of the way, then stilled.

  “I’ve got to be hallucinating,” he muttered. At his words, Tom roused more fully and glanced at him, then fo
llowed his gaze to the middle of the floor. “This isn’t good.”

  “Ya think?”

  “This has to be your fault,” he told Tommy.

  “You think I invited the alligator in here?”

  “Isn’t this your people?”

  “My people? Are you calling my people alligators?” And then Tommy continued talking to him. In Cajun French.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying—you know that, right?” The alligator looked at him mutinously, and he waved in Tom’s direction. “What? He’s your friend—go talk to him.”

  “Let me go, Proph.”

  “No way. I’m going to . . .” He started to walk backward, dragging Tom with him, but the thing advanced.

  “Prophet, let me go and don’t move. We’ve got to shut the door behind us.”

  “And lock us in here with that?” Prophet asked as he took his hand off Tom gingerly, prepared to grab him again at any moment if he did something stupid.

  “Yes. Because there’ll be more behind it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You’re going to argue with me now?”

  Prophet leaned back without moving his feet and shut the door quietly. The alligator, which was at least five feet in length, still advanced a little, and Prophet waved his gun at it.

  Tom grabbed his arm and pushed it down. “This is a message.”

  “And my message back’s going to be damned effective,” Prophet said, raising his gun again.

  In turn, Tom was doing something to a length of rope he’d grabbed from a pile of crap on a table near the door. He handed Prophet his gun and his phone, then pushed his arm holding the gun down again. “Don’t shoot, okay? I’ve got to answer it. I’ve got this.”

  “What’re you . . .?”

  The words were still floating in the air when Tom moved past him to circle the gator.

  Prophet stopped breathing, completely stopped breathing, and watched as Tom’s body language eased. His shoulders rolled. He looked completely confident, even as the gator moved closer. Tom jumped over it. The gator bit for him, and Prophet cursed but couldn’t shoot, because Tommy was in the goddamned shot.

  But before the gator could turn completely to Tommy, it closed its mouth and went to roll. At that moment, Tommy got the rope around the jaws and tugged hard. Then he slammed onto the thing’s back, holding the rope fast and also using his hands to hold the strong jaws closed. The gator went into a death roll, but the place wasn’t big. It only took a few rolls for Tommy and the gator to hit the wall hard, the gator on top of Tom, its belly in the air.

  “Duct tape,” Tom gasped.

  Prophet yanked it from his pocket, held it up. “You made fun of me for carrying this—”

  “Could you save the lecture for later?”

  “—when it’s obviously coming in handy,” Prophet said triumphantly.

  “Wrap it around the jaws.”

  “Me?”

  “I’m busy keeping it from killing us. You have the easy job. It’s disoriented for now.”

  Prophet wound the tape around the animal’s mouth, muttering the whole time.

  “Now tie the front arms together, then the back,” Tom instructed.

  Finally, once Prophet was done, Tom rolled the gator onto the floor, and stayed on its back while he pulled off his T-shirt and put it over the gator’s eyes. “Watch the tail—this guy could still kill you when I roll him back to his belly.”

  “What? You’re gonna do a catch and release?”

  “No. Too big. He’s considered a nuisance gator and he’s gotta be put down. I wouldn’t’ve rolled him like that if I was going to do a catch and release. Damages the nervous system to keep them on their backs.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, alligator man.”

  Tom rolled his eyes, grabbed the gator’s tail, and began to pull it out of the room. “This is what my daddy does.”

  “Like, for sport?”

  “For a living. I grew up doing alligator nuisance calls.”

  Prophet opened the door for him. “I thought you said there’d be more behind it.”

  “And you fell for it. You’re easy, Proph.”

  Prophet followed him outside at a good enough distance, prepared to continue the conversation, at the very least, when he noticed the tall older guy waiting at the bottom of the stairs. This must be the messenger, especially when Tom tossed the gator, sent it flying. Directly at the messenger. The man seemed unconcerned, simply stepping casually to the side so it missed him.

  “This place is not fucking normal,” Prophet muttered.

  Tom held his hand out. “Weapon.”

  Prophet handed it to him and Tom shot the gator cleanly, right between the eyes.

  And that’s exactly what he’d wanted to do, before Tommy’d decided to become the alligator whisperer.

  Pretty fucking hot, though.

  “Dad, this is Prophet. He’s my partner. Proph, this is Gil Boudreaux.”

  Tom’s dad stared at him. “You queer too?”

  “Yes, sir,” Prophet said.

  “He’s also a vet,” Tom said, and Prophet was pretty sure he’d only done so to piss his father off more, because the man muttered something about, “Letting queers into the military was criminal.”

  It was a move Prophet respected, even though Tom had used him to do it. Prophet knew Gil Boudreaux’s issues with his son went well beyond Tom’s sexual orientation.

  “He’s also my partner at my new job,” Tom continued, and really? Because last time Prophet’d looked . . .

  Tom glanced at him, his look implying, Not now, Proph . . . we’ll discuss it later.

  The fact that Tom had called him partner, in both senses of the word, well, that was something he’d definitely need to unpack after Tom’s father was gone. Didn’t know if it was simply post-alligator bravado, or if Tom was trying to claim him.

  The man was just a bit taller than Tom, broader too, with a paunch from drinking, plus the telltale broken capillaries around the nose. His skin looked like dried alligator hide, and his hands were giant. Prophet almost winced outwardly when he thought about the damage those hands could do to a small boy, but caught himself.

  This wasn’t a man you showed weaknesses to. Gil Boudreaux was definitely looking for them.

  “You finally came back. Hid like a pussy for too damned long.”

  “I was working out of the country.”

  “You been by the sheriff’s yet?”

  “No.”

  “Still hidin’?”

  “Jesus, do they make bigger assholes than you?” Prophet asked. When Gil advanced on him, Prophet advanced right back. “Try it, old man. Go ahead. I’m not your family, so I don’t have to take things easy on you.”

  “I’ve got this, Proph,” Tom said with an easy grace under pressure that Prophet wasn’t sure he could ever have. He held his hands up, a silent surrender for Tom only, and he backed off.

  “Heard you got arrested,” Gil said to his son.

  “Guess I’m finally living up to your expectations,” Tom said.

  Jesus, T.

  Tom’s father seriously growled and took a step in Tom’s direction, and Tom did the same to his father.

  “You shouldn’t come back here. Always bring nothin’ but trouble.”

  “You’re right. And this time, trouble’s not leaving until he gets to the bottom of things.”

  “You’d better watch yourself and that other queer with the tattoos.”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “Amazing you can tell us apart. And I always watch myself, but why is Etienne in trouble?”

  “All I know’s that his momma and daddy shoulda did the right thing and disowned him.”

  “Guess you should’ve done it too,” Tom said. “Although maybe it was more fun to have a punching bag. And then an excuse to drink.”

  “Pushin’ your luck, boy.”

  Tom laughed. “Luck? What luck? Bad loque’s all I ever had.”

  “Come on, T,�
�� Prophet urged, tugged his arm, pulling him up the porch stairs and into the studio, although Tom kept eye contact with his father the entire time. “Not going to get anywhere. Blood from a stone.”

  This was the cause of Tom’s temper. The man in front of him had a bad temper too, and sure, some of that shit was inherited. But a lot of it was nurtured.

  Prophet shut the door on Gil Boudreaux.

  Tom had fought for his life here, just like Della had said . . . and he still was. Prophet would make sure that, this time, Tom wasn’t doing it alone.

  Tom went to wash up, and Prophet hung around the main room of the studio, trying to figure out how big of a liability Gil was to Tommy.

  Tom was pissed, but he wasn’t upset, not the way Prophet was for him. In fact, the whole thing, from wrestling the goddamned alligator to going purposely out of his way to goad his old man into anger, had somehow centered Tom.

  And there was also no denying that there’d been a spark in Tom’s eyes that he liked to see.

  He glanced back toward the bathroom, where the shower was still running, then turned away to lean against the wall next to the window, where he could get a clear view of the makeshift path leading to this place. His frustration built as the wash of adrenaline and the subsequent drop-off affected his body. He was hard as hell too, because he couldn’t stop picturing Tommy calmly rolling that gator, like it was nothing. His shirtless chest as he dragged the thing outside and shot it wasn’t a bad image either.

  It took will and force and a hell of a lot of courage to go up against a wild thing and wrestle it into submission.

  Or maybe you just have some kind of alligator kink.

  The water shut off, and Prophet turned his head to see Tom exiting the bathroom naked. Tom stopped short when he noticed Prophet’s stare. He smirked a little and shook his head when Prophet shoved his hands into his pockets in a futile attempt to hide how turned on he was.

  Looking squarely into Tom’s eyes, Prophet knew what—who—he had a kink for. And the voodoo bastard knew it too.

  Knew it. Liked it. Used it to his advantage whenever he could. Like now.

  Because he knows you like it.

  And here he’d been worried that he’d been getting too hardened the past months in the field, because he’d had to shut everything down. Now, he fought the urge to look down to check and see if he still had a dick. Except he didn’t need to, mainly because he could feel it throb. “What?”