‘Be right back,’ the guy said, and stepped into the house.
‘I should be on my way,’ Ben told Keisha. ‘I’m glad the boy’s all right.’
‘I could check out that injury for you, if you want. You don’t look well.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Except that he wouldn’t be fine. Not by a long shot. The wooziness was worsening. A curtain of darkness seemed to be rising up from the bottom of his vision. His legs no longer felt as if they belonged to him. He reached out to steady himself against the porch railing.
The boys’ father re-emerged from the house. This time, what he’d fetched from inside wasn’t medicine. It was a pump-action shotgun and he was pointing it at Ben. He racked the pump. Crunch-crunch. The most intimidating mechanical sound known to man. Especially when looking down the wrong end of the barrel.
The man said, ‘One more chance, podnuh. And no more bullshit. Your name ain’t Cole and I want to hear it from your own lips.’
Ben said nothing.
‘Reckon that’s all the answer I need,’ the man said.
Alarmed by the sight of the gun, Keisha asked, ‘What is it, Ty?’
Her husband said, ‘This here fella’s got every cop in the state lookin’ for him. They say he murdered a woman.’
Keisha covered her mouth with her hand and stared at Ben in sudden recognition. ‘That’s where I know you from. You’re him. Your face is all over the TV.’
Little Noah pressed himself to his mother’s side. Caleb was looking at Ben open-mouthed. Keisha backed away a step.
But Ty stayed right where he was.
The muzzle of the shotgun was just a couple of feet away from Ben’s face. Under normal circumstances he could have snatched it out of the guy’s hands and turned his own weapon on him before he even knew it was happening. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Their voices sounded echoey and faraway in his ears. His vision was darkening. He was battling hard to remain conscious and on his feet. But losing. Losing badly.
He stumbled back a step and raised his arms to show he was no threat. Which he truly wasn’t, and couldn’t have been to anyone at that moment. He mumbled, ‘I didn’t do it.’
That was when the nausea finally overwhelmed him and the inky veil closed over him. He felt himself sinking to his knees.
Then the wood slats of the porch came up to meet him and—
THWACK
Chapter 20
Ben woke up with a start. He was confused and disorientated for a moment as he became aware of his surroundings.
He was lying on his back in a warm, comfortable bed. Diffused sunlight was shining in through the net curtain draped across the window of the tiny bedroom. The walls were wood panelling painted a cheery yellow. The sheets on the bed smelled pleasantly of lavender and the pillow was soft and plumped up beneath his head.
The nausea and dizziness had left him. The pain below his ribs was just a dull ache, which became acutely sharper as he tried to sit up in bed. The covers fell away from his chest and he saw he’d been stripped down to his boxer shorts and all bandaged up with clean white dressings neatly wrapped around his middle. On a wooden chair nearby lay a small pile of freshly-laundered clothing, folded and stacked. There was a bowl of fruit and a glass of water on the bedside cabinet.
All of which seemed to him very strange, because the last thing he could remember before he’d blacked out was a gun pointing in his face and two very scared and hostile people staring at him. Something was definitely different.
As Ben was contemplating the mysterious change in his circumstances, the bedroom door opened and the father of Caleb and Noah Hebert walked in. He’d changed out of his greasy work overalls and was no longer clutching a shotgun, which Ben took as a further sign of progress although he was baffled as to why.
‘Welcome back to the land of the livin’, friend,’ Ty said with a smile as he perched himself on the edge of the bed. The springs creaked and groaned under his weight.
‘How long have I been lying here?’ Ben asked him.
‘Just over twenty-two hours.’
Ben realised that meant he’d missed the Woody McCoy gig. Not that he could easily have attended, under the circumstances. But it was a dark thought nonetheless. He sighed.
‘How you feelin’?’ the kids’ father asked him.
‘Better, apparently thanks to you. These bandages look pretty professional.’
‘That’d be my wife’s work, not mine. I couldn’t put a Band-Aid on a cut finger. She cleaned and stitched you up, pumped you full of antibiotics and painkillers, vitamins and a bunch of other stuff. You’ll live, I reckon.’
‘Keisha, your wife – is she a doctor?’
‘A nurse. Of the veterinary variety, but I guess there ain’t much difference between stitchin’ up a mutt or stitchin’ up a man.’
‘I’d like to thank her.’
‘You’ll get your chance. She drove into town this mornin’ to buy shoes for Noah. Be home in a little while.’ He stuck out a thick, coarse hand. ‘In the meantime, how ’bout you and I start over and introduce ourselves? I’m Tyler Hebert. And you’re that Ben Hope fella everyone’s talkin’ about. Right?’
Ben reached out, a little stiffly, and shook hands. ‘Seems little point in denying it any more, doesn’t there?’
‘Damn right. And ain’t you lucky it was us that found you. Lotta folks around here would just blow your damn head off and call the cops, in that order. Clovis Parish is kinda jumpy right now, after what happened to that poor woman. I mean, murder’s nothin’ new in these parts. This state’s got the highest rate of it in America. But holy shit, a sabre? That’s screwed up, even by our lousy standards. Right now you got every lawman in Louisiana huntin’ your ass, headed up by our very own beloved Sheriff Roque. I’ll bet there’s even a nice reward on offer for anyone turns you in, too. Lot of folks round here sure could use the money. Me included.’
‘I told you,’ Ben said, ‘I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.’
Tyler pursed his lips. ‘And believe me, neither Keisha nor I would never knowingly take a killer into our home, still less offer him comfort. We had ourselves a long talk while you were sleepin’. The two of us came to the same conclusion, for three reasons. So if you’re here it’s because we trust you. If it turns out we’re wrong about that, then God help us, and God help you too. ’Cause whoever murdered that poor woman is goin’ straight to hell, law or no law.’
‘I appreciate the trust,’ Ben said. ‘And I’m grateful for your hospitality. I wouldn’t mind knowing the three reasons, as well.’
‘I don’t mind tellin’ you. Firstly, it seems to both of us a mite strange how a man plain wicked enough to do what the TV says you done to that poor soul would go out of his way to help a fellow human in danger, the way you saved my boy from that ol’ cottonmouth and damn near killed yourself bringin’ him home to us.’
‘I did what anyone would have done,’ Ben said.
‘Not just anyone,’ Tyler said. ‘That was truly a Christian act, for which I gotta thank you from the bottom of my heart. By the way, where in hell did y’all learn to shoot like that? Those critters move like a scalded haint when they strike. I never knew no one could hit one with an arrow. And I’m bettin’ they don’t teach bowhuntin’ in the British Army.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been following the local media, all right.’
‘Me, plus every other trigger-happy hound dog who’d be fixin’ to blow your Limey brains out soon as look at you. Gettin’ yourself plastered all over the news is the kind of attention that’s gonna get you killed.’
‘How reassuring. What’s the second reason?’
‘Keisha. She has the gift.’
‘The gift?’
‘Meanin’, she knows things about people. Second sight, extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance, call it what you like. She can see through folks like they were made of glass. I can’t explain it, and neither can sh
e. She’s had that ability since she was a child. If she says there’s no evil in you, then I have to believe her. It’s that simple.’
Ben had to smile. ‘What’s the third reason?’
‘That one’s personal to me,’ Tyler said. ‘You might’ve noticed that Caleb ain’t Keisha’s natural born son, even though she loves him like her own.’
‘As it happens, I did notice.’
‘I’m real proud of my elder boy,’ Tyler said. ‘Lord knows, he didn’t get his finer qualities from me. He takes after his mother, Grace. My first wife.’ He heaved a sigh and clasped his hands in front of him. ‘May God rest her in peace.’
‘I’m sorry to hear she passed away.’
‘Passed away one way of puttin’ it,’ Tyler said, a glint of anger coming into his eye. ‘Another way of puttin’ it might be that she got shot to death by Sheriff Roque and two of his punk deputies. Happened seven years ago, on Caleb’s seventh birthday. I will never forgive that man for takin’ my dear wife away from me. Which is my third reason for not turnin’ you in to that sumbitch. If you was guilty, I’d sooner shoot you myself than let him take the credit.’
Ben stared at him. ‘They shot your wife?’
Tyler gave another sorrowful sigh, and told the story.
‘She wasn’t the first or the only innocent soul to die that day. Roque’s goons started the show by blowin’ away an unarmed man on the streets of Villeneuve. That’s where we lived back then. This fella named Gage McGary, worked at the sawmill over in Clermont, happened to bear a passin’ resemblance to this other fella named Ethan Brister who was wanted for armed robbery. So on this particular day, eighth of August 2011, McGary’s comin’ out of the grocery store where’s he been spendin’ his hard-earned pay on food for his family, when up come Roque and his deputies and start a’yellin’ and a’hollerin’ at him, “Ethan Brister, put your damn hands in the air and get down on your knees or we’re gonna shoot.” Naturally the poor guy has no idea what’s happenin’. Goes to take out his ID to show them he’s Gage McGary instead of this Brister character they think he is. All three of ’em opened fire and gunned him down like a rabid dog right there on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store. Which would’ve been one thing, but that mother Roque was in such a rush to draw out that forty-five of his that his first shot went wide of McGary by about a country mile and straight through the store window. My darlin’ Gracie was inside gettin’ ingredients for a cake she was fixin’ to bake for Caleb’s birthday. Slug got her right here in the neck.’
Tyler poked a gnarled finger into the bush of his beard, below the jaw line.
‘I was a lawyer back in them days. Bet that surprises you, huh? Anyhow, I was workin’ in my office right up the street at the time and heard the shots. Someone comes runnin’ to say Grace’s hurt. I got there before the ambulance did. She died in my arms.’
Ben could think of nothing to say, except to repeat, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yup, me too. But that’s more than I ever got from that piece of trash Roque. Weren’t nobody’s fault, is all the Sheriff’s Office ever offered me in return for what happened. Collateral damage. Wrong place, wrong time. Just one of them things. Shit happens.’
Tyler paused and lowered his head, eyes closed, and Ben could see moisture on his lashes. After a moment Tyler collected himself and went on, ‘Then it was just me and Caleb. You ever had to explain to a seven-year-old kid how his momma ain’t comin’ home, ever again?’
‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I can’t even imagine what I’d have said to him.’
‘So, long story short, I got better reason than most folks not to trust Waylon Roque, and to know that what passes for justice in these parts don’t amount to a hill of beans.’
‘I get the message,’ Ben said.
‘So tell me somethin’, podnuh. If you didn’t do this terrible, heinous thing, then who the hell did?’
‘That’s what I’d very much like to find out,’ Ben said.
Tyler had told his story; now it was Ben’s turn to tell his. He laid the whole thing out: the reason he was in Louisiana in the first place, the liquor store episode and how he’d come to stay at Lottie’s guesthouse; the drive out to Pointe Blanche, the dinner, the attack, the two men who’d escaped in the black Mustang, and what had happened afterwards.
By the time he’d finished his account Tyler’s mouth was hanging open and a deep frown was contorting his bushy eyebrows.
‘That beats it all. Mason Redbone is one of the sorriest sons of bitches who ever disgraced a lawman’s uniform in the state of Louisiana. That’s a given. But to try to rub out an innocent witness, in cold blood? Why the hell would he do such a thing?’
‘Another good question,’ Ben said. ‘For now, I have no idea what this is about. Except that I’m caught up in the middle of it, and my only way out of this situation is to discover the answers for myself.’
Tyler reflected for a moment. ‘I’m thinkin’ about the fellas in the Mustang. Like I said, I was a lawyer, once upon a time. Criminal defence attorney, in point of fact. Not a bad one, either, until my life got turned upside down and I finally learned some sense. For my sins, I must’ve represented every worthless sack of shit redneck delinquent for five hundred miles. I know ’em all. You mentioned Billy Bob Lafleur? What a beauty, that one. Anyhow, if you could describe these two assholes, maybe we could put names to the faces.’
‘I didn’t get a good enough look to offer much of a description, beyond the basics,’ Ben said. ‘Clothing, haircuts, nothing definitive. But I’d know them if I saw them again. Which I will, soon enough. And they’ll know me.’
Tyler looked at him. ‘Hold on a minute. It’s one thing to try and figure out who done this and clear your name. It’s a whole other thing to actually go huntin’ for these dangerous sumbitches, if that’s what you’re sayin’ you plan on.’
‘I was in Special Forces for a long time,’ Ben said. ‘Hunting dangerous sons of bitches was what we did. They soon learned.’
‘Learned what?’
‘That there’s always someone out there who’s more dangerous, more skilled and more determined than you. Someone else is about to find out the same lesson. The hard way.’
Chapter 21
A short while later Ben smelled food and decided that twenty-two hours in bed was long enough, stab wound or no stab wound. He was still a little stiff as he got up, but thanks to whatever variety of canine or equine painkillers Keisha had been dosing him with he could move around and dress himself without too much difficulty. Sifting through the neat pile of clothing on the chair next to his bed he found that the spare jeans and socks he’d been carrying in his bag had been freshly laundered for him, in addition to which he’d been left a lightweight check shirt that must once have belonged to a much thinner and younger Tyler. It fitted almost perfectly.
Ben made his way from the little bedroom to an even tinier kitchen down the hall, where Tyler was banging pots and pans about and warming something delicious-smelling for lunch on a battered old stove. He turned as Ben walked inside the kitchen. ‘Hungry? I’ll bet you are. Come and sit yourself down, get some of this stew down your gizzard.’
Keisha and Noah hadn’t yet returned from their morning shoe-buying expedition. Caleb was sitting at the kitchen table, buried in books and jotters, scribbling busily. He had a big wadded dressing on the side of his head where he’d hit himself, but seemed otherwise healthy enough. He paused to look up at Ben with a smile. ‘I never thanked you, mister, for what you did.’
‘Call me Ben. And I’m the one who should be thanking this family for taking me in.’ He peered at the jotter Caleb was writing in. ‘Yuk. Algebra?’
‘Caleb’s homeschooled,’ Tyler explained from the stove as he ladled some stew into a bowl. ‘That’s kind of my job, apart from tendin’ to this place, while Keisha’s out earnin’ the money. He’s way ahead of his age for maths and English. Gonna be a scientist when he grows up. Ain’t you, son?’
Caleb shr
ugged. ‘Sure, maybe.’
Ben said, ‘Good for you.’ He sat beside Caleb at the table and gazed out of the window. The sun was bright outside. An array of solar panels attached to the barn roof glittered under its rays. Beyond the barn, he could see pigs milling about a fenced paddock. The kitchen walls, floor and ceiling were bare plywood.
He asked Tyler, ‘Did you build this house yourself?’
‘Hell, I built the whole place myself,’ Tyler said proudly. ‘Off grid, off the beaten track, deep in country where folks leave us alone and we leave them alone. That’s the way we like to live, though it ain’t for everyone. It’s the best place to prepare for what’s comin’.’
‘What is coming?’ Ben asked.
Tyler stuck a fork and spoon into the bowl of steaming hot stew and carried it to the table. ‘Oh, you know, the second US civil war,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Been brewin’ for a long while and ready to kick off pretty soon, I reckon. Not to mention a thousand other ways the shit could hit the fan at any time. You gotta be ready for all eventualities.’
He set the bowl down in front of Ben. ‘There you go, English. Our own chicken, with our own peppers, celery and chillies. Seein’ as I do most of the cookin’ around here, I call it “Gumbo à la Hebert”. Bon appétit.’
Tyler’s stew wasn’t quite on a par with Lottie Landreneau’s fare, but Ben could have eaten a hog with the hooves and tusks still attached.
‘Well now, that’s better, ain’t it?’ Tyler said as he watched his guest dig in.
As Ben was finishing up, there was the sound of a car outside. ‘That’ll be Keisha back from town,’ Tyler said. ‘Want to say hello?’
‘More than hello,’ Ben said.
He got up from the table and followed Tyler out of the kitchen and down a plywood passage to the main living area, where the front entrance was. He’d been unconscious last time he’d been through here. Seeing it for the first time, he was struck by the sight of the large Confederate battle flag on the wall. Two diagonally-crossed blue stripes over a red background, with an arrangement of thirteen white stars forming an X in the middle. The symbol of Dixieland. The classic emblem of Southern rebellion, whose significance in modern times went beyond its historical importance.
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