He closed his eyes and pictured the two men who’d fled the murder scene. Both white, both around the same age, somewhere between thirty and forty, both with reddish hair. The one at the wheel of the Mustang wore his long and tied back. His passenger, the one who’d done the killing, was more nondescript-looking in a dark jacket and white T.
Even though he’d caught barely a glimpse of their faces Ben was certain he’d never seen either man before. Was it possible that this was connected to the altercation at Dumpy’s Rods? The pair hadn’t been among the gang, but perhaps they were friends of Dwayne Skinner, and this was their vicious reprisal. It was a small community. Everybody knew everyone else. If Dwayne remembered Lottie from schooldays, he might know about her guesthouse in Chitimacha.
But a reprisal for what? Nothing had happened. Ben had walked away without a fight. In their eyes, the gang were the victors. Besides which, a redneck nobody like Dwayne wouldn’t have had the brains to come up with a plan to frame Ben for Lottie’s killing, let alone the weight of influence to make an obedient henchman of a deputy sheriff. Forget Dwayne. He was no more a part of this than old Elmo Gillis.
Then Ben remembered Lottie’s cryptic last words. As he replayed them in his mind he felt an icy prickle down his back.
I knowed it was comin’, Ben. They was bound to get me in the end.
She’d been carrying a secret for most of her life. A secret dating back to some point in history, according to her mother. One that involved the death of an unknown woman called Peggy Iron Bar, at the hands of unknown killers, a long time ago. Somehow, Lottie was tied up with it.
And somehow now Ben was tied up with it too.
He lay there for a long time, watching the red dawn light slowly creep across the floor of his little tree root cavern. And thinking. And when he’d thought about it long enough, he knew that the only way he was going to clear his name and get out of this mess was to find out the truth about her secret.
The truth would lead him to the men who had murdered her. Justice would be done. One way or another.
The law’s way, or Ben’s way.
Chapter 18
It was another couple of hours before Ben finally emerged from his hiding place. The forest was thick and wild and seemed to go on for ever. To most ordinary folks it would have seemed like the most hostile territory imaginable, filled with countless dangers real and imagined, a trap from which few might emerge alive. To a man like Ben Hope, trained to go to ground like an animal, to eat raw things that he’d hunted and fished with his bare hands, to slip through the harshest wilderness without leaving a trace of his passing, it was as familiar and homely an element as his own back yard.
But that was under normal circumstances, when he was healthy and alert and equipped to deal with the conditions. Alone, unarmed and hurt, with the whole of the Louisiana police probably after him by now, he was in a poor state to survive long on the run and he knew it.
Just survive, he kept telling himself. He picked his way through the forest a hundred yards at a time, fixing his eyes on a tree or a clump of ferns and not letting himself pause for breath until he’d reached it. Then a hundred dwindled down to fifty, and fifty shrank to twenty, and he was becoming so weak he could barely walk any more. He needed water and food and would soon collapse if he didn’t find them.
Gradually, the terrain began to slope downwards making his progress a little easier. As he paused to rest against a mossy fallen trunk, he could hear the trickle of running water from further down the hillside, a wonderfully welcome sound that fired up his spirits and spurred him on. Getting closer, he caught sight of the sparkling water through the trees. Not some stagnant pond of a bayou but an actual flowing river, wide and clear and clean and beautiful.
The vegetation was thick almost all the way to the bank. Ben was heading for the water when he suddenly stopped and froze.
The boy was perhaps thirteen or fourteen. He was fishing twenty yards upriver, positioned among the rushes by the water’s edge against a verdant backdrop from overarching cypress trees. Most people wouldn’t have noticed him at all until they were right on top of him, because his outline was broken up by the military camouflage jacket and trousers he was wearing. Ben recognised them as an old pattern of US Army woodland battledress uniform, a couple of sizes too big and rumpled and baggy on his skinny frame but still effective at disguising him against the foliage. He was facing the water with his back to Ben, gazing into the fast-moving current and oblivious of the fact that he was being watched. He’d rolled up the bottoms of his trouser legs so he could wade out into the water without getting them wet. The line of the fishing rod that he clenched tightly in both hands was taut as he struggled to land whatever it was that he’d snagged. Obviously something large and determined, judging by the fight it was putting up.
Dressed like a young soldier he might have been, but he was a lot easier to sneak up on, even by an injured man close to collapse. Ben slipped through the bushes parallel to the bank, then stepped out into the open and approached silently from the rear. His head was spinning as though he had dengue fever, and he had to keep blinking to fight back the faintness. The boy’s backpack lay on the ground a few yards from the water’s edge. It was unzipped, and Ben could see a two-litre Pepsi bottle and a big bar of chocolate nestling inside with its silver wrapper already torn open and a few squares missing.
The other equipment the boy had brought with him, other than rod and line, was a hunting bow. It was a modern compound weapon, all aluminium and cables and eccentric pulleys, mounted with a quiver full of razor-tipped arrows. Maybe the boy was thinking of bringing home a wild turkey or a jackrabbit for the dinner table if the fishing didn’t go so well. Or perhaps the bow was intended for self-defence against roving black bears. Either way it was a fine weapon for a youthful apprentice hunter, who should have known better than to leave it lying unguarded in the dirt. You never knew what kind of unwholesome characters might be lurking in the woods with malicious intent.
The boy had no idea that he had company, and was too preoccupied with his catch to turn around. Without a sound Ben set down his own bag and then slipped the Pepsi bottle from the boy’s pack. He gulped some down, then broke a row of squares off the end of the chocolate bar and ate them. The sugar rush was instant.
The boy still had his back to him. It looked as though he was going to lose his fish, making him lose his temper and yell, ‘Come on, you bitch! Come on!’
He was a good-looking kid, with strong features and an unruly mop of blond hair that he had to keep flicking out of his eyes. He reminded Ben of photos of Jude when he’d been younger. That brought a pang of regret, thinking of all the years they’d missed.
It was then that Ben spotted the second boy. This one was no more than a child, perhaps five or six. Ben was no judge of children’s ages. While the older boy was fair-haired and white, this one was clearly of mixed race, with afro hair and skin the colour of dark caramel. He had been playing on his own among some rocks by the water’s edge and now came over to join in the fun and yell encouragement as his companion struggled to land his fish. The age difference between the pair made them seem unlikely friends. Ben wondered why they weren’t in school.
As he munched another chunk of chocolate he felt bad about stealing their supplies. Hurt or not, it was wrong to rob kids. He ought to trade them something in return, the obvious being money. His wallet was still full of all the US currency he’d got at the airport. He pulled out twenty bucks and slipped the cash into the backpack.
The two kids might spot him at any moment and he was afraid that they might freak out at his appearance and run off to report him. He decided to slip away unnoticed and return to the river once they were gone, so he could drink his fill and clean himself up better.
He was reaching for his bag and getting ready to make his silent retreat into the bushes when the movement among the riverbank rushes caught his eye. Something greyish brown and black, long and sinuous and as thick as
a child’s arm was winding its way through the grass towards the older boy’s left leg. It had a triangular head and faint striations across its back. Some kind of pit viper.
Ben instantly knew the kid was in trouble. He was hopping about so much in his battle to land his catch that he must have disturbed the snake and now was too distracted to notice it slithering purposefully towards him.
Without thinking twice, Ben snatched up the bow. Like lightning he plucked one of the carbon fibre hunting shafts from the on-board quiver and fitted it on the arrow rest and nocked its end onto the bowstring and raised it to fire. The weapon felt as heavy as a tree in his weakened state, and it took all his strength to draw. His aim was wavering badly. The tip of the arrow was tracing a circle in the air the size of a doughnut. He blinked and clenched his teeth and willed himself to hold it steady.
The snake was curling closer to the boy’s leg. As it came within striking distance it suddenly whipped itself into a coil and reared its head off the ground, a forked black tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.
At that moment, the younger child turned and spotted Ben and let out a shrill cry of alarm. The older boy whirled round. He dropped his fishing rod with a splash into the water and stared boggle-eyed at the strange man who’d seemed to appear out of nowhere and was standing there swaying on his feet with filthy jeans and no shirt and a leather jacket over his bare shoulders and a taped field dressing covering half his torso. And the loaded, drawn compound bow in his hands.
And then the snake gathered its momentum and lashed out with jaws distended, so fast it moved in a blur.
Chapter 19
But Ben’s arrow moved even faster. As he released the shot it hissed through the air towards its mark. The younger boy screamed like a piglet. Thinking he was about to get skewered by his own arrow the older boy stumbled backwards in a panic, tripped in the long grass and fell.
The arrow pierced the snake just behind its head and dashed it violently to the ground where it thrashed and convulsed for a moment and then lay as limp as a rope. The younger boy was still yowling in a total panic as Ben lowered the bow and hurried towards his fallen companion.
The teenager was lying motionless in the long grass. Ben dropped the bow and crouched beside him. Where the hem of his left trouser leg was rolled up to expose a couple of inches of pale flesh, Ben saw the two little puncture marks from the snake’s fangs and his heart fell. He’d fired just a fraction too late. If his aim hadn’t been so damn wobbly and his arms so pathetically feeble he couldn’t even hold a bow straight, he might have saved the kid from being bitten.
The boy wasn’t moving. For a couple of moments, Ben thought he was dead. But nobody died instantly from a snakebite. Ben realised he’d knocked himself out when he fell. There was blood on his temple where his head had hit a rock in the grass.
The little boy was bawling. He shied away in fear as Ben reached for his arm. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Ben said. ‘What’s your name?’
The little boy blinked through his tears and managed to control his voice enough to reply, ‘Noah Hebert.’
‘Noah, your friend here is in a bad way. He needs to get to a hospital.’
The little boy blinked again. His panic was settling down to raw terror, still ready to bolt but too brave to abandon his companion. ‘Caleb ain’t my friend, he’s my brother.’ He wiped his eyes and swivelled towards the rise of the forest, pointing. ‘We live right up there. Momma, she knows what to do. She can fix anythin’.’ He looked quizzically at Ben, eyes round and full of anxiety. ‘Who are you, mister?’
‘Never mind who I am,’ Ben said. ‘Is your momma home right now?’ The kid nodded gravely and replied ‘Yes, sir.’ Ben said, ‘Okay, Noah, then you run on and show me the way. Let’s get Caleb home as fast as we can.’
Little Noah hesitated, then took off and went bounding through the long grass like a gazelle. Ben felt so faint he thought he was going to collapse. He scooped up Caleb’s limp body, struggled to his feet and followed.
A dirt path half-hidden among the tangled grasses and bushes led a twisting route up the slope and through the trees. Caleb couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds but Ben’s legs were buckling under him. The pain in his belly was excruciating. He was certain he must have ripped open his wound and got it bleeding again. He had to keep calling to Noah to slow down, scared that he’d lose sight of the little shape darting through the forest ahead. More than anything, he was afraid that the rising blackness that kept threatening to cloud his vision would make him pass out and he’d fall and hurt the kid, or that they’d go tumbling back down the slope to where more snakes might be crawling near the river’s edge, or that the kid would die because he hadn’t got him home to his mother fast enough.
Momma knows what to do. Ben could only pray that was the case. She must have an antivenom kit, which made sense living out here in the back of beyond where doctors could be hours away and many roads were probably impassable by ambulance.
The dirt track wound up and up through the woods for at least half a mile. By the time the little homestead came into sight, Ben was beginning to doubt he’d get there. The Hebert family home occupied a natural clearing almost completely encircled by trees. There was a tiny wooden house with a wraparound porch under a rusty tin roof, and a dilapidated barn, and various coops and sheds and lean-tos, all clustered around a beaten earth yard into which little Noah, sprinting for all he was worth, ran screaming at the top of his voice, ‘Momma! Momma! Poppa! Caleb’s bit! Caleb’s bit!’
As Ben stumbled closer to the house with the weight of the boy sagging in his weary arms, a petite African-American woman in a bright yellow dress burst out of the screen door and onto the porch. It was unlikely that she was Caleb’s mother, but she was certainly Noah’s.
‘Momma! Caleb’s real bad!’
The woman stared at Ben, but all she could see was the limp form of her stepson. She let out a shriek and came bounding down the porch steps and across the yard to meet them. At the same time, hearing the commotion, a big white man with a grizzled beard appeared from the barn. He was wearing a greasy overall and still grasping the wrench that he must have been using to fix something when he’d heard all the yelling. ‘What’s happenin’? What’s happenin’?’
The woman reached Ben first. She burst into tears and gripped the boy’s hand in both of hers so tightly that the tendons stood out on her delicate wrists. ‘Oh, my Lord!’ Then, seeing Ben apparently for the first time, she recoiled from him, still clutching her son’s hand. ‘Who in the hell are you?’
‘Matt Cole,’ Ben managed to gasp. Fighting for breath wasn’t a normal thing for a man who habitually ran ten miles and ticked off a thousand press-ups most days, but the trek from the river had almost killed him. ‘They were fishing. Your boy disturbed a snake.’
‘The creek’s crawlin’ with cottonmouths,’ said the big white guy with the grizzled beard, whom Ben took to be the boys’ father. ‘I’m always tellin’ them to be careful down there.’
‘He kilt the snake, Momma,’ little Noah said, tugging at her sleeve and pointing at Ben. ‘Kilt it with Caleb’s bow.’
‘That right, mister?’ the boys’ father asked.
‘Too late. He’s bitten on the left calf.’
Ben laid the boy down on the porch as they all gathered anxiously around. Caleb was regaining consciousness after his knock to the head, and kept woozily muttering that he was okay. ‘You hold still, baby,’ the woman told him. Her tears were gone and she exuded an air of calm and control that made Ben think she must do this kind of thing for a living.
Her husband said, ‘I’ll get the medicine, Keisha.’ He disappeared into the house. While he was gone, his wife closely examined Caleb’s leg. She asked Ben, ‘How long ago was he bitten?’
‘Fifteen, twenty minutes,’ Ben said.
She felt the boy’s pulse and asked him a lot of questions about how he was feeling, to which he kept repeating, ‘I’m okay. I’m really ok
ay.’ His father returned then, clutching a vial and a syringe.
‘I don’t wanna give the antivenom unless he needs it,’ she said. ‘There’s a risk of anaphylaxis.’
‘You sayin’ he doesn’t need it?’ her husband asked anxiously.
‘Shoulda been all swelled up by now. Look at these marks. Hardly broke the skin. His pulse is fine. Looks to me like a dry bite.’
Ben had done all his snakebite training with the SAS in jungles on the far side of the world when Keisha Hebert probably hadn’t been much older than her stepson, but he still remembered. A dry bite was when the reptile had failed to inject its venom load into its would-be victim. Which was the luckiest day of that would-be victim’s life, whether human or animal. In Caleb’s case, the snake’s fangs had only just grazed the surface before Ben’s arrow had done its work.
‘Thank God,’ Keisha said, clutching her boy and kissing him. ‘And thanks to you, Mister … Cole, was it? You hadn’t done what you done, he’d have got poisoned for sure.’ Her eyes narrowed and she peered more closely at Ben. ‘Do I know you? Sure I seen you before someplace.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ben said. Maybe time to get out of here, he thought.
Her narrowed eyes lingered a moment longer on his face, then she lowered her gaze and frowned as she saw the improvised dressing through the open front of his jacket. ‘Looks like you’re hurt pretty bad yourself there.’
‘I was in a car accident, back down the road,’ he said, trying to sound all casual about it. ‘It’s nothing too serious.’
She shook her head. ‘Did you patch yourself up? You ought to see a doctor.’
Now her husband was eyeing Ben too. He came a step closer. ‘Where you from, Mister, ah—?’
‘Cole,’ Ben repeated.
‘You sure do talk funny.’
‘I get that a lot.’ Ben didn’t much like the way the guy was staring at him. Definitely time to get out of here.
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