The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

  “No, I heard that. Did you whisper something?”

  “Whisper?”

  Ben shook his head. “Never mind.”

  He began checking boxes on the form about the patient’s, or in this case the prisoner’s, overall appearance and level of distress.

  Wait for a moment until he relaxes and strike before the others can stop you.

  Ben looked up again, this time slowly and directly into the prisoner’s eye which continued to burn back at him with unconcealed rage. He realized the weirdest thing was this didn’t feel the least bit weird. He thought a message back to the terrorist.

  Go ahead, asshole. Please go ahead. We’ll cut you down before you are out of your chair, and then I can go and call home. You wanna stab me in the throat? Come on and get some – right here it is. I’ll send you to hell where your friends I killed at your house are waiting for you.

  Ben moved the pencil towards the man just an inch or two and raised an eyebrow. The man’s rage dissipated, and his eyes filled instead with fear. He looked around frantically and, then, babbled again at the interpreter. The interpreter shrugged and looked at Ben.

  “He wanna know how you put deh whisper in he head. He say you Mawi Wata—deh serpent – have much bad Ashe – evil power he say.” Ben felt a chill at the words. They felt uncomfortably familiar for some reason, and his mind flashed for a split second to a clearing in the bayou where Gammy stood ankle deep in blood. Ben squeezed his eyes shut, and the image went away – another childhood nightmare that followed him even here. “Me tink, maybe he got deh – you know dat word? He got deh crazy head?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “He’s got the crazy head alright.”

  The man in the chair started babbling again, and this time his voice rose to a trembling shout. His balled fists beat the air in front of him. The two rangers on guard duty moved forward and held the man down in the chair by the shoulders as he squirmed and screamed. Ben realized he could hear the words in his head also, softly but still clear over the foreign tongue echoing in the room.

  You are the great Satan just as Mohammed wrote. You will be torn from the Earth. You may kill me, but we will find you. You cannot go home and be safe from our reach. We will come again to America, and there we will kill you and your women and your children. You will watch as we rape your woman in front of you and cut the heads from your children in front of you. You will suffer the death of the infidel. You will know…

  Ben felt the blue heat spread out from his chest and head and the room turned a purplish tinge as the voice in his head cut off simultaneously with the hollering gibberish in the room. The hatred inside him exploded out of his head and eyes and the room turned from violet to white.

  I will keep my people safe from you and all your kind motherfucker.

  The explosion hurt his head, the light seemed to burn his eyes, and he heard himself scream in horrible agony. It took a moment to realize the scream was not his.

  “What the fuck is going on? Holy shit he’s strong.”

  “He’s having a Goddamn seizure or something.”

  “Doc, Doc – Morvant, do something for Christ sake.”

  The white light disappeared like the snap of a switch, and the room came rapidly into focus. The terrorist had slid halfway to the floor, his slide stopped by the strong arms of the two Rangers who struggled to keep him in the chair. Blood poured out of his mouth, down over his chin and onto his pale grey shirt. The whole body pitched and shook violently, and there was a sudden and overpowering smell of shit in the room.

  The fist at his throat relaxed its grip, and he could speak.

  “Let him go,” he commanded. “Put him on the floor.”

  The thrashing body, somehow tossing in every direction at once in a way that looked more like a demonic possession than a seizure, stopped completely just as the soldiers let go of him. The now grey-faced body collapsed to the floor and pitched forward face first with a sickening thud.

  “Jesus friggin’ Christ,” one of the young soldiers hollered and stepped back in revulsion. “What the hell was that?”

  “Relax,” Ben said with a voice much more calm and control than he felt. He snapped on a pair of black latex gloves. “He had a seizure. Help me roll him over.”

  Ben knelt beside the body and man-handled it over onto its back. The head made another nauseating thud.

  “Oh, Sweet Jesus,” one of the Rangers whispered, and the interpreter babbled something that certainly expressed the same feeling in his native tongue. Ben swallowed down the bile that rose in the back of his throat.

  The face of the dead terrorist seemed contorted in great pain, the mouth open in a silent scream. Dark blood pooled quickly in the back of the throat and seemed to bubble – as if it boiled – though Ben felt sure it must be from the last little bit of air escaping from the dead man’s chest. Dark blood, almost black, trickled out of his ears and nose and steam seemed to hiss out of his nostrils. But it was the eyes Ben suspected would find a special place in the nightmares of all four living men in the room.

  The whites of the eyes had turned nearly black and behind the widely dilated pupils Ben could see blood which again seemed to bubble as if boiling. There was a soft pop, and the left eye split open and a small amount of bubbling blood spewed upward and then spattered back onto the grey face. A thin tendril of smoke escaped the ruptured globe with a hiss and then disappeared.

  “What– in– the– fuck?” a Ranger asked no one in particular. The interpreter babbled even more hysterically and dashed out of the room.

  “You ever see anything like that, doc?” the other Ranger asked in a quivering voice.

  Ben shook his head. “I’ve never even heard of anything like that,” he almost whispered.

  “Can a seizure do that?” The Ranger bent over towards the body – his shock gone and morbid curiosity seemed to take over. He looked like a little kid, bent over the squished turtle in the road all set to poke at it with a stick.

  “No,” Ben said simply.

  “Some kind of poison?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said.

  But he did know. He had killed the man with his rage somehow. The power the elder had talked about that day in the village, the one beyond the healing power of the Traiteur, had arrived. He felt his hands shake.

  “Go get the medical officer,” he ordered the young man closest to him. “Get the task force surgeon. Tell him we need him right away.”

  The Ranger dashed off.

  Ben raised his right, quivering hand up and looked at the ring, which pulsed with an eerie orange glow that seemed to beat cadence to the pounding pulse in his temple. Ben sucked a deep breath in to a four count, then exhaled slowly and felt his shoulders sag as the tactical breathing calmed him down. The pounding pulse disappeared, and he watched the ring fade to an innocuous flat, black surface. He dropped his hand to the floor and looked instead at the dead man beside him.

  Ben stared at the grey face with the one exploded eye and black blood leaking from every hole. He tried to pull his look away but couldn’t.

  Powerful Ashe.

  He stared at what he had done – at the terror he now seemed able to unleash – and worried mostly about what he would say to the doctor when he arrived. He felt nothing at the death of the evil man in front of him and some quiet part of his mind objected to his lack of regret, but there it was.

  It is what it is.

  Ben closed his eyes and tried to let his mind drift away – far away to home and Christy and a world without nightmares and dead terrorists and slaughtered villagers. He realized he needed desperately to get the hell out of this room. He heard the voices approaching as the Rangers returned with the doctor and practiced his confusion and surprise in his head.

  At home this will all disappear.

  He decided to just believe that instead of hoping it was true.

  Chapter 11

  Christy sat with her legs pulled up underneath her on the couch, a soft white blanket acr
oss her bare legs. She twisted her brown hair absently with one hand, held the phone to her ear with the other, and listened to the crystal-clear voice of the man she loved. She was used to the strange feeling when Ben talked to her from thousands of miles away despite the phone clarity that made it seem more like he was just a few miles down the road at the base. What felt strange tonight was how distant he felt inside her. She realized what felt so foreign to her was the worry. In all the deployments she had endured she had never really worried. Somehow she always knew Ben would come home to her. Tonight, though, something felt very wrong, and it scared her.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, baby?” she asked again and then wished she hadn’t. Why ask again? Either he didn’t know or couldn’t tell her (or just wouldn’t she supposed). Regardless, the question asked a fourth time couldn’t be sillier.

  “Promise,” said the voice that told her otherwise. “I guess, I’m just disappointed about Jewel. Disappointed and worried.”

  That could be it, of course, and could explain the weirdness. She had always known Ben would be the father of her children but she had never, ever, heard him talk about being a dad and always assumed he just would when he was ready. She didn’t expect he would suddenly be so completely ready and that it would hit him when he was thousands of miles away in Asia or Africa or wherever the hell they were this time.

  “Me, too, sweetie,” she said and realized she really was. “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” she said but realized she had absolutely nothing in the universe to base that empty reassurance on. “When you’re here in bed with me we can start fresh on our own if you like, okay?”

  She expected a chuckle at least and more likely a dirty innuendo.

  “Okay,” he said instead and the voice sounded so hollow.

  Christy forced herself to move the conversation to small talk, the way she had so many times in the past when she could tell he needed to move away from where they were. She talked about their neighbors in the town house beside them and their last drunken party and about her friend Amy and how they were running at least six miles a day now.

  “Maybe we can run the Rock and Roll half marathon together,” she said.

  “You and Amy?” he asked.

  “No, you and me, silly,” she said. They had talked about doing a road race together for three years, and it had never quite happened – some deployment or training exercise or whatever always foiled their plans.

  “I would like that,” he said, and his voice told her he really would, but, like her, doubted it would happen.

  “I can’t wait to see you and hold you and – you know,” she said.

  “The exercise wraps up in a couple of weeks,” he said in a tired voice. Christy heard the words and felt her heart beat in her chest with excitement.

  “Wraps up?” she asked. Wrapped up was their code for days, not weeks. “Really?”

  “Yep,” he said. His voice really did sound happier and full of relief.

  “Omigod, that’s so great,” she bubbled and felt tears on her cheeks. She had expected another month at least. A few days? Holy shit, she had a lot to do to get ready for his homecoming. She looked around their place and saw nothing but projects she wanted to complete while he was gone. “Oh, God, how I miss you, Ben.”

  “I know,” he said. “Me, too.”

  “I love you,” she said. She could tell when his voice sounded like he needed to be off the phone and knew he would never tell her that. “Will you call me when you get up?”

  “I don’t want to wake you,” he said, but he sounded excited at the thought of another call.

  “Please?” she asked.

  “Okay, I love you,” he told her again.

  Wow – two “I-love-yous” in less than a minute. Who was this guy, and where was Ben? She smiled warmly.

  “I love you, too.”

  The phone clicked off. For some reason he never, ever said goodbye. He just finished and hung up. She had asked him about it once, and he mumbled something mysterious about his grandmother and Indians and goodbye being bad luck or something. She hugged the phone to her chest and set it gently back in its cradle.

  Christy sat on the couch for a while, swimming in one of his many-sizes-too-big-for-her shirts and wept happy tears.

  Not like you girl. You don’t cry, so what’s up? You’re a tough SSO.

  SSOs or SEAL significant others as she and Amy called themselves – the hint of not being married very much intended for her friend – always knew how to keep an even strain. Maybe it was just the talk of marriage he had sprung on her or the roller coaster of emotions from the almost-maybe adoption of a little girl she had never even seen (hell, she didn’t even know what continent the kid was from). Whatever it was, she felt way more emotional than usual. She just wanted Ben home with her. She could feel he struggled with something over there and wanted him here where she could help him.

  Christy looked around the family room again and tried to re-prioritize the project list to things she could do in just a few days.

  Dreams are the reality that hides from us. You are a Seer, and you know how to find what is hidden.

  -The Elder

  Chapter 12

  Ben stretched out his legs on top of his sleeping bag and thought about taking an Ambien CR to get to sleep. He looked at his watch – about five hours to go. Not really enough time. He had too long to go not to sleep but not long enough to dump the drug out of his system before they touched down in Virginia Beach. He fluffed the folded-over sweatshirt he used as a pillow and tried to think again about home and shake away the haunting memories of his time away – memories filled mostly with the last two weeks. Memories of the village, Jewel, the old man, and his ring. Memories of voices in his head, boiling blood, and ruptured eyeballs.

  He sighed heavily.

  “How you doin’, bro?”

  Ben looked over and saw Reed had awakened beside him on the floor of the Air Force transport plane, his own head leaned back against a cargo pallet that towered above them in the warehouse-like fuselage of the C-17 Jet.

  “Great,” he said and thought he pretty much meant it. He felt sure the haunting would end within hours of crawling next to Christy in their bed at home. “Ready to be there, I guess.”

  “Trouble sleeping?”

  “Just excited,” he answered. “How’s your leg?”

  Reed reached absently for his right thigh which remained wrapped in a dressing from ankle to hip. “Feels a lot better,” he said, but Ben knew he lied.

  “Do you need more pain medicine?” he asked.

  “I said it feels better, mom” Reed snapped at him, but he sounded more caught than actually annoyed. “Anyway, that medicine makes me feel weird. You must have given me a ton at the target – it gave me some really fucked up dreams.”

  Ben let that go. What the hell could he say?

  No, I think my penetrating your dying body with powerful Ashe from the ring a dead witch doctor gave me after he healed Jewel’s head with magic blue fireflies is what gave you bad dreams, bro.

  Ben smiled.

  “Wanna watch a movie?” he asked instead.

  “Sure,” Reed said and grimaced as he tried to shuffle closer towards him. Ben put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Just stay still, dickhead. I don’t wanna watch you cry. Let me come to you.”

  He pulled his sleeping bag closer to Reed and pushed himself up into a sitting position against the cargo pallet. He cued up the movie list on his lap top and clicked on Anchorman with Will Ferrell without asking what Reed wanted. They had seen it a dozen times, but they had seen all of the movies a dozen times and the last thing he needed was for Reed to pick some action/war movie.

  Before the intro credits were over Reed snored beside him, and Ben’s mind drifted back to Africa and then way past it to the Louisiana bayou and shadows moving through the woods on a moonless night. He listened to Steve Carrel and Will Ferrell and watched his Gammy stand in a lake of blood, her arms stretc
hed upwards toward the stars and her voice trembling out words he knew but didn’t understand.

  A few more hours and I’ll be with Christy. Africa will fade away, and Gammy and nightmares of the bayou will be safely back in their box in the basement of my brain.

  For now, he let the old movie-like memories play in his mind until he finally started to drift off. The voices that called him were far away and easy to ignore, but their whispers followed him into his dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Ben thought he would absolutely explode if he had to wait much longer to see Christy as she waited with the other wives and “significant others” in the large conference room at the low brown building that housed their team. Nonetheless, tradition was tradition, and he understood the importance of this one to every one of them.

  The old, grey van bounced to a stop at the top of a sand dune at the back of the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, and he looked out at the Chesapeake Bay and the long bridge tunnel that stretched across it toward the Delmarva Peninsula. The air was crisp and clean, and after a few months in Africa he realized he really understood what clean air meant, now having something to compare it to. Just out of view to his left sat the town house on the beach where he would make love to Christy in just an hour or so (less if he had his way). The five of them piled out of the van and shuffled down the dune onto the beach.

  Ben took the cigar Lash handed him from the dark wood box with a Navy SEAL trident wood-burned on the lid and he drew it across his upper lip, inhaling the rich, powerful smell deeply. Truth be told, he didn’t really enjoy cigars that much, but the memory of emotion that now came with the smell of a cigar, the memories of both past celebrations and post-deployment wakes for lost friends, made the traditional post-deployment smoke a very enjoyable cigar, indeed. Ben accepted the cutter from Chris and snipped the end from his before passing it on to Reed.

  “Thanks, bro,” his best friend said, and he thought he could still hear a strain in the voice that meant pain.