Fat Tuesday(86)

"You'll marry that boy there."

Gregory stared at him with misapprehension."I beg your pardon?"

He pointed to the stocky youth who had assisted in the rescue."He wants to get married. You'll marry him, oui?"

The gumbo was bubbling again, this time in Gregory's stomach. He'd eaten too much after days of fasting. He was sweating as profusely as the lady of the house, who kept mopping her upper lip with the dish towel slung over her shoulder.

This situation was becoming trickier by the minute. To get out of it alive would require all his acting skills. The boy looked about eighteen and promised to be as hairy as his father in a few years.

Gregory smiled at him benevolently."You want to get married, my son?"

The boy glanced at his father to answer for him.

The bearded man startled Gregory by barking an order in Cajun French.

A door off the main room opened and an impossibly young girl emerged That is, impossibly young to have her belly swollen by an advanced pregnancy.

"Oh, Jesus," Gregory groaned, and not in prayer.

Burke towed the boat back to the pier, swimming about as agilely as a man with an anvil tied to his neck. His head felt like it had been pounded with a meat mallet. When he reached the pier, it cost him reserve amounts of energy to pull the boat from the water. He retrieved the pistol he'd emptied into the hull, but he didn't immediately assess the damage. Right now he was less concerned about Dredd's boat than Duvall's wife.

She was where he'd left her, but she had turned onto her side and drawn her knees up to her chest, probably for warmth. When he leaned over her, his clothes dripped water onto her face. She didn't move. He pushed his hand into her shirt and touched her throat to assure himself there was a pulse.

"Why didn't you make it easy on yourself and let me drown?" Only after she had spoken did she open her eyes.

"You're no good to me dead," he said in a husky voice. Now, having had time to think about how close she'd come to dying, he was weak with relief.

"Wouldn't my death have been your revenge?"

"I don't want Duvall to mourn you. I want him to come after you."

Then she did the last thing he expected she laughed.

Angrily, he withdrew his hand and left her to her joviality, figuring that if she felt well enough to laugh, her dunking in the bayou hadn't had any serious effects. He was a sap to get all emotional about it.

His shoes squished on the planks as he stepped over a crowbar no doubt her weapon and made his way to the far side of the shack, where he ignored the cold and stripped to the skin.

He washed himself vigorously with water from the rain barrel and a bar of no-nonsense soap. He scrubbed his hair with shampoo and rooted into his ear canal with a soapy cloth, hoping to discourage any microorganisms from moving in permanently. When he felt sufficiently clean, he went into the cabin to dry himself in front of the heater before dressing.

The shampooing had aggravated the goose egg on the back of his head.

It hurt like a son of a bitch, but neither his vision nor his memory was impaired, so he didn't think he'd suffered a concussion. He took a few aspirin to dull the pain, then went back outside.

Mrs. Duvall's case of the giggles had subsided. In fact, she appeared to have fallen asleep."Hey." He nudged her knee with his toe.

"You've got to get cleaned up."

Groaning, she drew her knees closer to her chest."That water's got all sorts of creepy-crawlers in it. I don't want you dying on me of some parasite."

He tried to take her hand and pull her up, but she didn't cooperate.

Swearing beneath his breath, he bent down and forced her to sit up.

"I'm tired, too, lady. You brought this on yourself. If you hadn't done such a damn stupid thing, you wouldn't be feeling so bad."

He made her stand, then half led, half carried her to the side of the shack and the cistern. He refilled the bucket with fresh water and slapped the bar of soap into her palm.

"Wash all over," he instructed."Ears, nose, everything. Scrub hard.

You should be as pink as a baby's butt when you're done. After you're finished, I'll tend to the wounds on your back." He was concerned about infection. Open wounds were extremely vulnerable to bacteria, and the swamp was a hatchery for unicellular killers.

He left her to wash and went back into the cabin, where their uneaten fish supper was beginning to stink. He gathered up both the cooked and uncooked portions and wrapped them tightly in a plastic bag. He placed the lid on the cooking pot, deciding that he would dispose of the grease later. He no longer had an appetite and doubted she did. But maybe he should ask her.

On his way out, he grabbed an extra couple of towels and pulled the quilt off the bed. Taking these with him, he moved to the corner of the shack."Mrs. Duvall?" he called. She didn't respond. He listened for the sound of splashing water, but heard nothing. He didn't detect any sound or movement at all."Mrs. Duvall?"

When she failed to answer a second time, he looked around the corner, but he needn't have worried about being a Peeping Tom. She was still dressed, sitting on a low stool against the wall, her head bowed, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. The bar of soap, Burke noticed, was still in her right hand.

"What's the matter?" He approached warily. Her seeming disassociation with her surroundings could be another trick. When he got closer, he saw that she was shivering."I know it's cold out here, but you really should be washing that stuff off you. The sooner the better."