He adjusted his ball cap and folded his arms over his chest. Henry’s apartment had long windows that faced the river and he hoped that if she got up in the night and for some reason decided to look outside, she wouldn’t recognize him from that far away.
A couple appeared near the corner and wandered toward him, arms around each other, deep in conversation. The man glanced in Gideon’s direction and he tried his best to look like he was simply enjoying the quiet. He hunched a little into his shirt.
He must have succeeded because they passed without comment. Gideon tried to get comfortable. It was going to be a long night. He’d had a few cups of coffee but didn’t think he’d need the stimulant. The idea of someone having Henry’s keys was enough to keep anxiety twisting in his gut.
He wondered how her date had gone and then shut down that line of thought. Whether she had a good time wasn’t important to him. It was the kind of curiosity that drove people to gossip. He had no desire to be privy to the minute details of how well, or how badly, Blue had presented himself.
After several hours, the muscles in his shoulders were tightening up. He rolled his head to the left and the right. The sun was still hours from rising and he would have given something precious for reading material. He hadn’t brought a book because he figured the only thing stranger than sitting on a bench in the Historic District all night would be to be enjoying a bestseller by flashlight.
A movement at the corner caught his eye and he squinted toward a dark figure walking his direction. There was something familiar about the gait and seconds later he recognized the shadowy outline of Tom.
As he came closer, Tom’s expression drifted from polite disinterest to surprise and then outright concern. He stopped in front of Gideon and looked left, then right. “I’m sure there’s a really good explanation for you to be out here at four in the morning.”
Gideon stood and stretched. “Ditto, my friend.”
“Mrs. Lefevre’s family called me to administer Last Rites,” Tom said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I thought she was recovering.”
“She was. But since this morning, she’s gone downhill. She was awake and aware, so that was good.” He frowned. “And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing parked on a bench outside…” He seemed to realize where they were standing and his head swiveled toward By the Book, realization dawning.
“She lost her keys,” Gideon said quietly.
“And you think someone could have picked them up? Or stolen them?”
“Alice is in New York with Paul. Henry said she’d call her in a few days if she hadn’t found them yet. I know this looks bad but honestly, I―”
Tom reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain.”
“You get it, right? You know just as well as I do what’s out there.” He didn’t like to talk about the darkness in the world. It was a reality he avoided confronting until he had to, but now that Tom was here, he found himself giving words to the fear that had stalked him since that afternoon. “I’ve seen evil, Tom. I’ve looked it in the eyes, shaken its hand. But she hasn’t. And I don’t want her to.”
Tom seemed to be having trouble finding words. “You’re a good man, Gideon. I’m proud to call you my friend,” he said finally.
“We wouldn’t even be friends if it weren’t for you and your stubborn self,” Gideon said. “I just hated losing my fishing buddy,” Tom said, nudging him with an elbow. “I could have brought you a photo of me when you finally let me visit, but I knew what would really bring you around.”
Gideon remembered the moment. He hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, finally getting up to pace his cell, reciting his memorized apology, trying to make the words big enough to hold everything he felt. It was the day before he turned twenty three but Tom didn’t bring him a birthday card. His gift was a picture of the spot where the Red River passed between Shreveport and Bossier City. Vince had taken them fishing there every weekend in the summer and it was one of the few places Gideon had ever felt at peace. Gideon had wanted to hand the picture back, saying he wasn’t that kid any more, but he didn’t. Just like the letters that arrived, it was one more way that Tom reminded Gideon who he was, not the person he was becoming in prison.
“As soon as she changes the locks, I’ll go right back to minding my own business,” Gideon said.
“If you say so.”
Deciding to ignore that last comment, he sat back down on the bench. “Better get on home and get some rest.”
To his surprise, Tom sat down next to him. “What kind of friend would I be to let you sit here without any company?”
“One who has a seven-day-a-week job?”
“I’ll survive.” Tom stretched out his legs. “It’s been a long time since we had all the time in the world to just sit and talk.”
“Or sit and not talk.” Gideon was too tired to try and hedge Tom’s questions.
“Fine. We can just be two guys on a bench, enjoying the stars. But you know what would make this perfect?”
“What?”
“A nice spot on the river and some cane poles,” Tom said.
“Yep.”
After a long while, Gideon could see the sky lightening up. There were worse ways to spend a sleepless night. “This time of year always reminds me of that Faulkner line from The Sound and The Fury.”
“Which one?”
“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar,” Gideon recited.
Tom nodded, head tilted back, eyes on the last fading stars above. “Have you been thinking a lot about the past?”
“A guy I started mentoring reminds me so much of myself. Angry, defensive, on the edge in a way I can’t really put my finger on. It’s like looking into the past, into those months before I ran away. I want to shake this kid and make him understand the risks he’s taking. You’d think a prison term would have done that already, but I don’t think he learned his lesson the first time. He’s got that same stubborn streak I had.”
“You have,” Tom corrected.
“Funny. But there’s something about him that’s so familiar. Listening to him just brings everything back.”
“You’ve already confessed everything. Don’t go back to it. You’d don’t carry the guilt for that crime anymore.”
“You’re right. But I’m not thinking about the murder.” He watched a car pass by and when the lights had faded, he said, “I’ve been thinking about when I planned everything, about how I lied so easily and laughed at the dinner table and pretended I was who they thought I was.”
“I was just as guilty. I knew what you were doing and I approved. I wished there was someone I could have taken revenge on. If I could have, I would have joined you.”
“We were a pair of con artists, lying through our teeth. We accepted their shelter and food and love, while plotting something that would break their hearts.”
Tom’s eyes reflected the street lamps. “We didn’t know how much it would hurt them, all of them, until you were gone.”
Gideon felt sick. Tom knew better than to mention Austin but he knew his foster brother must have been crushed. “I ruined that family.”
Tom turned to look at him. “Vince and Sally’s family? No, you didn’t,” he said. “I won’t lie and say it was good, but it made them stronger.” He turned back to watching the sky. “And it made me finally take a good look at myself. I went to church with them every Sunday, walked up the aisle for communion like getting on the school bus. I’d never thought any of it was real, that it mattered. Years of motions and words and agreeing to something I didn’t even believe in. But I didn’t know that. I’d never bothered to look that closely at any of it.”
“I did believe it. I always have. But I chose to walk away.”
“And come back,” Tom reminded him.
“And come back.” It had taken almost a decade, but he had, tr
usting there was still a place for someone like him.
They sat in silence for a while.
“This thing you’re doing now―” Tom started.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Gideon hated the abruptness in his tone.
“You mean you don’t want to talk about her. Which I won’t.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, sitting here makes me think of a poem called a Prayer for This House. Have you ever read it?” Tom asked.
Gideon shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Probably not, since it’s cheerful and doesn’t involve much moping. I know how you love your sad poets.” Tom said. “So, it starts out with ‘may nothing evil cross this door’ and mentions each part of the house and what the poet wanted for the people inside. I don’t remember it all except it mentions laughter and peace, but it ends ‘though the sheltering walls are thin, may they be strong to keep hate out and hold love in’. And you sitting here keeping watch on her house feels a little bit like that prayer.”
He wanted that, to be someone who kept hate out and held love in. Even if it meant that Henry’s love was for Blue Chalfant, or someone else, but he wanted Henry to be happy.
Tom went on, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that when you were fifteen you could have memorized that prayer and recited it to anyone, but you never would have thought to sit here in the dark so that a person you barely knew was safe.”
The early morning sun touching everything with a pinkish-peach hue and as Tom turned to look at Gideon, his face was half in shadow. “You’re not the man you were then. Don’t look back unless it’s to see how far you’ve come from that place. How far we’ve both come.”
Gideon nodded. A light breeze blew toward them off the river, smelling like late summer and early mornings. The river used to terrify him. Even the sound of the water or a glimpse of the brown eddies and currents would send him into a panic attack.
He folded his arms over his chest and watched the light touch the cast iron ornamentation on the upper floor of By the Book. When Gideon first met Vince, his foster father asked him if he’d like to go fishing and Gideon had turned so pale they made him rest in a darkened room. Sally had brought him a glass of cold lemonade and held his hand until he’d felt well enough to come out again. But Vince hadn’t given up. He’d known that unless Gideon avoided water the rest of his life, he had to face his fears and confront the nightmare he’d lived through when he was five.
He closed his eyes for a moment and the sound of the river magnified. He’d tried to save her that night, when the men had thrown them out into the blackness, the way you throw stones in the creek. He’d heard her crying and somehow found her again in the dark. He’d had only just learned to dog paddle and she was heavy, so heavy, even though she was just a baby. It had been dark and cold, and once he’d let her go, he didn’t see her until the sun rose. He huddled in the roots of an old cypress tree, shaking with fear and shock. The sky lightened a little at a time and he wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. The splash of color grew pinker as the sun rose until he knew it was Katie Rose there in the weeds, on the other side of the river. He watched her all morning but she never moved, and when the fisherman found him that afternoon, he asked if they had a blanket to wrap her in so she wouldn’t be cold.
He rubbed his face and was startled for a moment when he didn’t feel the beard under his fingertips. “Did you ever ask Bix if he wanted to go fishing?” Gideon asked.
“I did,” Tom said. He looked like he was either falling asleep or surfacing from his own long-ago memories. “He says Ruby doesn’t want to miss a single band at the festival this weekend, but any time after Sunday is fine.”
“Good.” Gideon stood up and stretched, feeling the muscles in his back protest from the long hours on the hard bench. “I need some time on the river, away from everything.”
Tom followed his cue and stood up, looking toward By the Book. “Well, this has been fun.”
Gideon snorted. “What does that say about our lives?”
He gave him a soft punch to the shoulder. “It says you’re good company. Now, go get a few hours of sleep.”
“You, too,” Gideon said.
They turned and walked away from each other, the sunlight growing stronger by the minute, the city waking from its sleep. As Gideon made his way back down the sidewalk, shopkeepers were setting out signs and he could smell fresh coffee and beignets from the bakery. A young woman talking on her cellphone came toward him pushing a stroller with one hand. He avoided kids, especially the little ones. It’s not that he didn’t like them. Not at all. Gideon focused on the place far ahead where the sidewalk curved. He could hear the baby’s high voice above the sound of the cars passing and the other pedestrians. As usual, his heart started to pound and he could feel a light sheen of sweat on his skin. It always happened that way. Babies, toddlers, kids. No matter what he told himself, his body interpreted it as a crisis.
He kept his eyes on the horizon, breathing deeply, working to stay calm. In the end, for a reason he didn’t understand, he looked down just as they came near.
The baby’s pigtails were tied with pink ribbons that matched her outfit and she pointed out toward the water. “River, river!” Her dark eyes were filled with excitement. Her mother, struggling to push the stroller with one hand and hold a coffee cup in the other, was deep in conversation and didn’t answer
“River,” he answered. She smiled wide, and the next moment she was gone.
The rest of the block, Gideon replayed the baby’s bright expression in his memory. Nothing could change what happened to Katie Rose. Nothing he could do would erase the past and bring her back. She would never get to grow up and have a family, never push a stroller while juggling her coffee. She was gone and he had to let her go.
Again.
Chapter Nine
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell
“Best breakfast in Natchitoches.” Denny leaned back and rubbed his stomach.
“I’m a little concerned about you,” Henry said. “I’ve never seen anybody put away two platters of biscuits and gravy with a whole side of hash browns and bacon.”
Patsy wiped Jack’s hands and shook her head. “Don’t worry about him. He eats like that all the time. It’s so annoying. I’m convinced he has a portrait in the attic that’s getting fat while he stays skinny.”
“I was blessed with good metabolism,” he said, grinning. “Just like my little guy, right?” He reached over and handed Jack a slice of bacon.
“Hey, he was happy with his hot grits and strawberries,” Patsy said, trying to intercept the bacon. “Let’s wait a little bit to stuff him full of nitrates.”
Nita appeared at the table and looked around. “Full of what? We only have real food here. Real bacon, real ham, real chitlins, real gizzards.”
“I know you do, Nita,” Henry said. “Best breakfast in town, Denny was just saying.”
“And dinner and supper,” Nita said. “Just ask your friend Blue.” She winked at Henry. “He sure is taken with you. I’ll be expectin’ a wedding invitation, ya here? I served y’all on your first date and I gotta take a little credit of for it all.”
Henry choked back a laugh. “For what all? Nita, you’ll be the first to know if there is any wedding planning but it was just a date. I don’t know where it will go from here. “
“Mmm-hmmm,” Nita said, one fist propped on her hip. “That’s what they all say and soon we’re countin’ grandbabies.”
“That’s definitely the way it happened with me,” Denny said. “We had a first date and before I knew it, we were here.” He waved a hand toward Patsy and Jack. He pretended to consider it a moment. “Maybe I should warn Blue to run while he has a chance.”
Patsy tossed her balled up napkin in his direction.
“Blue is perfectly capable of running if he feels like it. But I can promise you
that when he hears all the rumors he’ll sure think twice about a second date.”
“Oh, honey, I think it would take a lot more than that,” Nita said. She laid the ticket on the table and sashayed away, throwing a sly look over her shoulder.
Henry sighed. “Small towns.”
“The single life,” Denny said.
“Everybody’s up in your business,” Patsy agreed. “Plus, if you were going to be dating anybody, it would be that Gideon fellow.”
Henry stared at her, speechless. “And why would that be?” she finally managed.
“You’re not the only one with crazy good intuition,” Patsy said.
“Better leave it to the experts,” Henry said. “There’s nothing happening there.” She adjusted her ponytail, wincing a little as she pulled it tight. “And I hate to run, but I’ve got a tour coming through Oakland in an hour. Are y’all busy tonight? I can cook something. You haven’t seen my new place.”
“You act like I don’t know you at all,” Patsy said.
Henry started to laugh. “Okay, maybe I won’t be cooking. But we can get take out.”
“Remember your Aunt Millie asked us over for supper tonight,” Denny said, touching Patsy’s arm. “We could come over in the afternoon and then head over to Millie’s from there.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Patsy ran her fingers through her curly red hair, making it go every which way. “When we come visit we have to be fed in every home of every relative or I get to hear about it. But I really do want to see your place. Maybe around five?”
“Sounds great,” she said. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
A few minutes later she was striding back toward her car, the humidity thick as a blanket. She checked her shirt for breakfast stains. It would have been better to stop off at her apartment and freshen up but she’d spent too much time at breakfast. She didn’t mind. Having Patsy and Denny drop in to Natchitoches was like finding out Christmas was coming early.
Along the Cane River: Books 1-5 in the Inspirational Cane River Romance Series Page 40