The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

  But he’s alive. Thanks to the powerful Ashe and the ring.

  Ben looked down at the ring which for days now had looked the same – a dull black. He had come to believe the colors and lights he had seen from the ring had been nothing more than his Cajun imagination. Still he had been unable to pull the ring off and leave it in Africa where a part of him thought it belonged.

  “Here ya’ are, Ben,” Auger said and handed him a tin camp cup full of sweet port wine.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Lash leaned in with a lighter turned way up high, and Ben puffed deeply on his cigar as he passed it through what seemed to him a ceremonial flame. The harsh smoke felt familiar and good in his throat.

  Port and a good cigar – no way to get more Navy than that.

  “To Reed’s leg,” Chris said.

  “Hooyah,” they all answered and drank from their port-filled tin cups. Like the cigar, the sweet and harsh wine would normally be unpleasant, but here and with the family these men had become, it was more than enjoyable.

  “Auger’s ass,” Lash said.

  “That was last deployment,” Auger protested with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, but you bitched about it on this one, and doc finally fixed it.”

  “Works,” Chris ruled. “To Auger’s ass and to Ben’s witch-doctery.”

  “Hooyah,” the team answered and drank. They puffed their cigars again and together they sat on top of the dune, leaned back on their elbows, and stretched out their legs. As always they began the ritual of ribbing each other and started the telling of tall tales that would become a part of who they were as a team.

  They laughed and smoked and drank their port, now and again tossing out a toast to particularly deserving memories. Ben felt himself both immersed in the memories and somehow cleansed of them. He had a toast he knew needed to be made and decided it should fall on him.

  “The village,” he said and raised his cup.

  The five of them got quiet for a moment, each taken back to the horror of that day in his own way, a silent tribute to their loss and their failure. Ben watched the slide show in his mind. It began with the old man the first day he met him and ended with his handing Jewel to the woman from her village in the doctor’s hutch at their base camp. The show took only seconds, he knew, but felt like a full-length feature film. He felt a warm pulsation in the middle finger of his right hand, but refused to look at the ring. He knew it would glow with some color but had also decided without seeing it that it was his imagination.

  The cord between us travels both ways, Ben, and is stronger than the distance you have found. It is powerful and inevitable. It is also eternal.

  Ben decided not to argue with the dead man’s voice in his head. What would be the point?

  “The village,” Chris said, and they all quietly raised their port to their lips and drank. Ben then took a long, harsh drag on his cigar and blew out the smoke slowly, trying to exhale the ghosts from the village with it. It felt right, and he dared believe their ritual might actually put the whole confusing and emotional experience behind him for good. He felt lighter somehow.

  And, now I want to hold Christy tight and move forward with the rest of my life.

  He didn’t have to wait long. The five SEALs chatted a little more, the mood more somber than past times on the dunes. Ben sensed he wasn’t the only member of the team ready to move away from their failure in Africa, which seemed to overshadow all of their successes.

  “To the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Teams,” Chris announced with a raised cup to end their ceremony.

  “The Teams,” the five said in unison, and then Ben swallowed down the last of the sweet but burning wine and stubbed his cigar out in the sand.

  “Hooyah,” Chris said.

  “Hooyah,” they answered back, and then the team headed back to the van.

  Auger put his arm around Ben’s shoulder as they crested the dune.

  “Thanks, bro,” he said.

  “For what?” Ben asked.

  “Makin’ me better with your Voodoo magic,” Auger said and then his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “I was really struggling, Ben,” he admitted. “I was thinking about a medical board the pain had got so bad. I don’t know what kind of witch doctor magic you got, man, but you saved my career.”

  He slapped Ben on the back and moved ahead of him toward the van, apparently having shown all the emotion he could handle at once. Ben watched him go, no hint of a limp or any other pain, and smiled. He caught Chris’s eye and his officer nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Ben smiled back but felt more embarrassed than proud. Then another arm wrapped around his neck.

  “What’re ya gonna do to that pretty lady of yours, huh? Come on, come on – details for a lonely guy.”

  Ben laughed and pushed Reed away.

  “You’re a sick puppy, bro.”

  “You have no idea, man.”

  They piled into the van and headed down the dirt road, and Ben’s heart quickened at the sight of the low brown building where he knew Christy waited for him.

  * * *

  Christy chatted aimlessly beside the man she loved from the passenger seat of the black Ford F-250 pick-up truck. She had driven Ben’s truck, knowing he would want (need?) to drive home the short distance from the base to their town house and that he would much prefer to drive the truck he loved instead of her little silver Audi. Her patter was aimless but not really nervous. She had this quiet introspection every time Ben came home. She wondered why she felt a little detached and anxious for the first few hours. Earlier in their relationship the feeling had lasted a few days – the feeling that she didn’t really know the man she held, made love to, and ate dinner with. Over the years the time had shortened to just a few hours. She had never talked to Ben about the feeling (he wasn’t exactly competent at talking about feelings) and over time had come to accept it as normal, at least for them. She thought maybe it was just a reaction to not actually knowing anything much about Ben’s life during the months that led up to their reunions. There was not much he could talk about, and he talked about even less than that.

  The quiet warrior, I guess.

  She was unable to stop her litany of stories about which she knew Ben could not possibly care less. She continued her rant about everyday things from home, work, and friends. She figured these were all little things they would chat about daily in their normal life, and somehow catching him up seemed to bring him the rest of the way home for her. She doubted it did much for him, but he seemed to accept she needed it and, God bless him, always feigned interest. So, she finished her story about the rude lady at the cell phone center and the billing error as they turned left towards the beach and their row of town houses came into view.

  “Well, I’m sure she was sorry she had been rude once she saw you were much tougher than you look, little girl,” Ben said with a patient and convincingly interested chuckle. It took Christy a minute to realize what the hell he was talking about.

  Oh yeah, my cell phone story.

  “Well, she got an earful of salty sailor talk I learned from my boyfriend, I can tell you,” she said with a smile.

  “Fiancé,” Ben said and squeezed her hand as the truck rocked to a stop in the sand covered driveway.

  “What?” she said, thinking she had missed a part of the conversation during her ritual musing.

  Ben shifted in the seat and faced her.

  “I know this is not the romantic way you deserve,” he said taking both of her hands in his, “but, I meant everything I said on the phone to you.”

  Christy looked into the bluish-grey eyes that always took her breath away.

  “I love you, baby,” Ben continued and seemed a little nervous – a rare emotion that when she saw it in him made him even more attractive to her, “and I want to marry you. I want to start a family with you and have a white picket fence and grow old together and sit together on a porch fifty years from n
ow and still think of how to get my old bones out of my rocker and on top of you.” He stopped and looked down for a moment and then back up at her, his eyes now rimmed with tears for some reason. “Can we get married, Christy?”

  She felt tears in her own eyes and threw her arms around Ben’s neck. “Of course, Ben,” She said. “I love you, too – so very much. Of course, I’ll marry you.” She kissed him deeply on the mouth and felt a familiar tingle. She realized some of her anxiety was probably just an aching need to be naked and writhing under Ben’s touches. She did her best to put that need aside for just a moment more. She looked deeply into those cloudy eyes, the storm that always seemed to brew there a little darker than usual. “What about our rule about not making big decisions when you’re deployed or right when you get back?”

  He touched her face softly, and she felt a little shudder inside.

  “Screw that,” he said with a soft smile. “I love you, and if I was smarter I would have married you years ago.” Ben took her hands in his again, and she thought she felt a little tremble, though it could have been her imagination. “If you need time to think about it, I understand,” he said, “but I want to marry you. In fact, I want to marry you as soon as possible.”

  She squeezed him tightly.

  “I decided a long time ago I would be with you forever, Ben,” she said. “If you feel ready to get married, then let’s do it. I’ve always been ready to be with you for a lifetime.”

  Ben smiled broadly, and the storm in his eyes softened.

  “I love you so much,” he said.

  They kissed deeply. Christy inhaled the smell of him, felt his hands on her neck and face, and realized she had to have him immediately. She pulled away from him before they wound up giving the neighbors a show that would likely prompt a call to the police.

  “Take me inside,” she said with a quivering voice.

  Ben was out of the driver’s seat and beside her door before she could hardly blink, and she laughed as he pulled her out and into his arms, carrying her to the door to their home. She hugged her head to his neck as he practically kicked the door open. She wondered if he could feel how wet she was through her jeans.

  Ben dropped the keys onto the hard wood floor of the foyer and kicked the door closed behind them. She swung her legs to the floor and kept her arms around his neck, her open mouth finding his, and their tongues exploring each other. Ben grabbed her arm and headed for the stairs.

  “Come on,” he breathed in a throaty whisper.

  Christy was a full foot shorter than her boyfriend (fiancé!), but she pulled back on his arm and when he turned to face her she pushed him backwards against the front door with both hands. Then, her mouth was back on his, her hands fumbling between them at his pants.

  Stupid friggin’ buttons. Who designed these damn uniforms?

  His tongue was in her mouth, and his hands already had her jeans open. She wiggled her hips to help him slide them down and then kicked with her feet until she stood against him, naked from the waist down. His strong hand tickled between her wet thighs, and for a moment she thought she might come right then and cried out. She had his belt open but still couldn’t quite manage the buttons that kept his cammie pants on over the hardness she felt underneath from her touch. She grabbed his pants with both hands and pulled with all her might. If she didn’t have him in her right now she was pretty sure she would die.

  She listened to the click-click-click of the popped buttons as they bounced on the hard wood floor as his pants slid down to his knees. She started to drop down to her own knees in front of him, but his strong arms stopped her descent. She looked up at him, and he lifted her into the air and turned them around so that she was against the door. His mouth back on hers, he held her there by her waist, and she screamed loudly as she felt his hardness slide into her wet body. She could feel every nerve light up with electric pleasure as he thrust in and out of her, his own moans mixing with her cries of pleasure. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and did her best to grind against him, but mostly she just lost herself in the animal-like thrusting of his body against hers. Then her eyes exploded with white light, and her body spasmed in a crashing orgasm.

  “Oh, God, Ben” she hollered and felt his muscles tighten as he pressed her more tightly against the door.

  “I love you, Christy,” he moaned, as she felt him fill her with his own orgasm. Christy laid her head on his shoulder and lost herself in the feel of his final desperate thrusts as her own electrical storm subsided. He leaned into her as he relaxed and held her that way for what seemed like an eternity, his arms under her knees, holding her against the door as their breathing and heartbeats slowed. Then she unwrapped her legs from his waist and slid her feet to the floor. He held her tight and she heard the un-romantic plop of the product of their uncontrolled lust spattering the foyer floor. She giggled.

  “Oops,” she said, and Ben laughed.

  “Well,” Ben leaned back to look in her eyes. “Didn’t set any kind of endurance record, did I?” He looked a little sheepish. She kissed him deeply again.

  “It was perfect,” she said and meant it.

  A few minutes later they lay together in sweat pants and T-shirts, arms and legs wrapped around each other in the hammock they kept on the wood deck that stuck out from the back of their town home. They had cleaned up their mess (she wasn’t sure what it would do to the wood finish – a very practical, but not very romantic, thought) but still had not brought Ben’s sea bag in from the truck. They rocked gently back and forth, held each other, and looked out at the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean not far beyond. Ben turned her face up towards his.

  “Can we go get it later today?”

  “What?” she asked, totally confused.

  “Your ring,” he said, “I want you to pick out a ring today.”

  Christy smiled and hugged him tightly, her head on his chest. “I don’t care about a ring, Ben. I don’t even need a ring. I’m just excited to marry you.”

  “I need the ring,” he said and kissed her cheek. “Can we go this afternoon?” His voice had a kid-like quality that struck Christy as unbelievably cute. Please, can I have it, Please?

  She kept her head on his chest and smiled. “Sure, baby. But not a lot of money, okay? We have lots of better things to spend our money on.”

  Ben kissed the top of her head and said nothing but she could feel how happy he seemed and realized she felt nearly delirious with happiness herself. Her eyes fell on his right hand which rested on her hip. She had not noticed the ring until now and knew she had never seen it before. In fact, she couldn’t remember Ben ever wearing any jewelry before. He took his watch off every opportunity he got.

  The ring looked to be made of carved and polished bone-white stone. It shined with a sheen that seemed almost to hold hints of rainbow like color. Christy reached out her own hand to touch it, but her fingers stopped short. She felt suddenly apprehensive about touching the ring that, as she watched, seemed to change color slightly, taking on an almost orange hue – reflection from the sun on the shiny surface as she turned her head she decided. She put her hand down without touching it.

  “Ben,” she said intending to ask about the strange ring that looked out of place on his hand.

  “Yes?” a heavy and sleepy voice said. She knew that voice and pictured his closed eyes above her.

  “I love you.” She would ask about the ring later.

  “I love you, too,” his sleep-filled voice said, and his breathing got deeper and more rhythmic.

  Christy lay on his chest, watched the dark grey, late winter ocean, and wondered if she had ever been this happy in her life.

  Chapter 13

  Ben walked along the narrow path in his sweat pants and “Duck-Inn Summer Beach Party” T-shirt. He had no delusion this time that this was anything but a dream, but still felt glad he had pulled on a pair of running shoes as he left their wood deck and stepped off into the purple light of the jungle. The sun ha
d set, or nearly so, and the soft remnant of the day did little to illuminate the path, but his eyes acclimated quickly, and anyway he knew the way. What had drawn him out of Christy’s arms and back to the jungle he tried so hard to forget? He knew the answer but still couldn’t come up with it. Hadn’t it been the voice – the child’s voice? The words had sounded strange and foreign, but he knew it called to him – an invitation more than a pleading.

  So he followed the path he knew would lead to the voice.

  To Jewel?

  Come see me, Father. We need to tell you something.

  Knowing he dreamed did little to curb his anxiety as the smell of cook fires reached him and the brush beside the path thinned. He approached the clearing and the village slowly and prayed it was the village as it should be, not as it had been the last time he had seen it.

  Ben pushed through the last few leafy branches and broke into the clearing, the smell of the cooking pots and fire now strong and pleasant. Only a few villagers milled about the clearing, and he could see much better now, the village lit as it was by the glow of several fires. A blur of motion caught his eye.

  Father!

  Jewel ran to him on wobbly toddler feet, arms stretched up towards him. The voice in his head sounded so much older than the baby girl who weaved towards him. That was just the way with dreams, he supposed. Ben took two long, grown-up steps towards the girl and then scooped her up into his arms. Jewel burrowed into his neck, and the soft, sweet smell of her seemed too wonderful to be a dream.

  “Da be doo,” she chattered and laughed the music that comes from children in every country.

  I missed you, Father. There is so much still to do.

  The older voice in his head sounded no less real, which a curious part of his mind wondered about, but mostly he felt happy to hold her. He pulled her face up by the chin so he could see her. She grinned and patted his cheek.

  “I missed you, too, Jewel. Are you okay? Are you safe?”

  I am safe in our home. We need you.