The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

  Then he patted him on the shoulder and weaved his way towards the bar and the two young girls he had toasted. Ben saw he still limped pretty noticeably and made a mental note to check his wounds at work on Monday.

  “Ladies!” Reed announced loudly as he sat uninvited at the bar.

  Ben smiled. He pulled his right hand from his pocket and looked at his normal, pink finger and the rough surface of the bone-colored ring.

  Maybe I’ll leave it on a little longer. No sense in rocking the boat.

  His gaze swept back to Christy who caught his eye and smiled. From across the room their eyes locked in silent conversation that warmed his heart.

  I love you, baby.

  I love you, too. I’m so happy.

  Me, too.

  He winked at her, and her smile widened. Then, he headed over and put his arm around his fiancée.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, yourself, you havin’ fun?”

  “Tons,” she said and sipped her wine. “I’m getting Navy wife training.” She looked over at Chris’s wife, and they giggled about some inside joke.

  “Well, great,” he muttered, not sure what else to say “Anything I should know about?” he asked Emily with a smile.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she chuckled. “With my help, she’ll have you trained up in no time.” Again the girls laughed, and Ben realized Christy might have more fun if he worked his way around the room a little.

  “Well,” he kissed her on the cheek, “I better let you get back to class.”

  “See you in a bit,” she shot him a coy wink that told him this was not her first glass of wine.

  Ben sauntered over to the bar and bellied up next to Auger who looked up at him and smiled.

  “Ah, the victim himself,” he said and then called out to the room in a louder voice. “Rally point, Viper team.”

  Lash, Chris, and finally red-eyed Reed all sauntered over and one-by-one Auger handed them each a shot glass of clear liquid.

  “You, too, ladies,” Auger called out to Christy and Emily. Lash’s wife Suzanne came over, as well, from a corner table. Auger handed them each a glass. “Present and accounted for, boss,” Auger said to Chris.

  Chris nodded and cleared his throat.

  “To the death of Ben, the demise of freedom, and the newest member of the team,” he said and raised his glass.

  “Christy,” the men all shouted in unison and everyone tipped back their shot glasses.

  “Oh, Jeez,” Christy coughed. “What the hell did I just drink?”

  “The first taste of the pain to come,” Reed said.

  “Welcome aboard,” Chris said and hugged her.

  Ben watched with a warm heart as each member of the Viper family hugged his soon-to-be bride. She smiled her beautiful warm smile, and her eyes, rimmed with tears and a little bit of panic, he realized his did, too.

  The voices that came to him were soft whispers – not at all like the harsh shouts from the target house, but they were just as jumbled – a collage of unrelated words.

  These were in the soft spoken syllables of the people he loved, and he found them easy to push to the background like a radio in another room.

  Chapter 16

  Reed ignored the burning in his thigh and pushed out two more bench presses while Ben steadied the bar above him. A Def Leppard tune blared from the stereo. The pain wasn’t all that bad – at least not with the two OxyContin Ben had given him to take. The surgeon over at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth told him not to work out for a while until the skin grafts on his thigh healed, but he couldn’t not work out at all, for Christ’s sake. Ben had agreed he could just do some upper body stuff. His head felt a little woozy from the narcs, but it still felt good to sweat a little.

  “That’s enough,” Ben said from above him. “You’re movin’ your leg around too much.”

  “It don’t hurt much,” he snapped. “You ain’t my mom, bro.”

  Ben stared down at him with a hard and serious look.

  “I am, actually,” he said with a stern face. “I’m one of the only guys here who can ground your ass from ops if I think it’s bad for your health, so I say that’s the last fuckin’ set.”

  Ben tossed a towel on his chest and stepped down off the short stool where he spotted him and grabbed his own towel. His friend ran and swam earlier, neither of which Reed was permitted to do, and didn’t lift today. Reed wiped the sweat from his face and felt bad for being a dick. It actually hurt a little more than he thought, so maybe Ben was right.

  “Sorry, dude,” he mumbled to his friend.

  “For what?” Ben said with a knowing smile and handed him a bottled water.

  Reed swung his leg painfully over the bench and struggled to his feet. It took some effort not to grimace and prove Ben even more right. He tipped back the bottled water and chugged it down. Ben sat down on the bench next to him.

  “How does it feel?” he asked. Ben stared at the bulky dressing on his leg like he had X-ray vision or some shit. Hell, it was Ben so maybe he did.

  “Great,” he lied, even though they both knew.

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Let’s cool off, and then we’ll go to the med shop. I’ll have a look at it.”

  Reed said nothing. He knew better than to argue at this point. He sipped his water and found his mind wandering again to the things Auger had told him about the “Magic-Voodoo-shit” Ben had put on his bullet wound and how it had healed him overnight. Ordinarily Reed wouldn’t put much stock in a story like that, but in this case he couldn’t help but wonder if there really was some magic. For one thing, Auger told the story, and no one in the teams was more of a skeptic than that guy. For another, it was about Ben. Anything weird about Ben seemed likely to be true. He thought for a moment about asking if he had any of the cream left, but wouldn’t Ben use it without his asking if it would help? They were best friends for Christ’s sake.

  Ben stood up next to him, and Reed watched his face and wondered if he should ask, but decided not to.

  “Can I go to the range after lunch or I am grounded from that too, mommy?” he asked. Always the ten year old, but he didn’t know how else to be.

  Ben laughed.

  “Yeah, you can shoot with the team later if you’re a good boy when I change your dressing.”

  They both laughed, and he followed his friend out of the gym and into the cool, crisp air. For a moment, they walked quietly towards the med shop. Reed glanced down at Ben’s right hand on a sudden impulse and sure enough his buddy still wore it. The ring he said that Christy had given him looked different now – a dull and almost metallic sheen and greenish-blue color. In his head, he flashed for a moment to the night in the target house and the weird dream about Ben and that Goddamn ring. He remembered it had glowed in the dream – a faint bluish glow – and that blue fire had shot out of Ben’s fingers. For some reason the memory made him shudder – or maybe he was just cold. He looked again at the ring. It sure didn’t glow now, but it didn’t look at all like it had at chow that night he had asked Ben about it. It gave him the creeps, that Goddamn ring. He wished Ben would take it off, now that they were home and all.

  “Still wearing your engagement ring, I see,” he said. He realized he really wanted Ben to better explain why he wore the ugly thing.

  “Huh?” Ben said. He seemed to emerge from somewhere else.

  “That ugly fuckin’ ring that Christy gave you,” he said and gestured to Ben’s right hand. “When you gonna stop wearin’ that?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say so he added “It makes you look gay.”

  Ben chuckled but didn’t look at him. He seemed guilty or something.

  “I’m kind of used to it now,” he said and twirled it a moment with his other hand.

  What the hell kind of answer is that?

  “Makes you look gay,” he mumbled again, still unable to come up with anything intelligent.

  Ben shrugged, and Reed laughed at himself inside.

  What
the hell do I care? Ain’t even the weirdest thing about him. Best friend I’ve ever had, though.

  Ben stopped suddenly and turned to him, his mouth open like he was going to say something, but instead he snapped his mouth and smiled, his eyes sparkling. He squeezed his shoulder affectionately.

  “You’re a great friend, Reed,” he said and then turned and opened the door to the med shop and headed in.

  “Thanks,” Reed said to his best friend’s back.

  What the hell was that?

  Ben led him into one of the two cramped exam rooms and gestured to the table as he washed his hands at the sink. Reed hopped up onto the table, put his hands behind his head and laced his fingers together, and then lay back with great effort to show no signs of how much burning he now had in his thigh.

  “Hey,” a voice called from the doorway. Reed looked up and saw the team’s Dive Medical Officer, Dr. Brandon West. “How’s he doin’?”

  “I’m great,” Reed answered for Ben. The last thing he needed was the Doc looking at his wound and maybe deciding he needed to stay off the range or, God forbid, go on con-leave.

  “He’s been doing okay,” Ben confirmed. “Just putting a new dressing on.” From his voice, Reed guessed Ben didn’t want the medical officer nosing around anymore than he did.

  The doctor pouted a bit and then nodded “Okay,” he said. “Let me know if you need some help.”

  “Will do,” Ben replied quickly.

  Reed guessed Dr. West was used to being snubbed a little. The team guys loved their doctors when they needed them, but mostly stayed away from them since they held the power to ground them.

  It didn’t hurt bad until Ben got to the part where the dressing touched his wounds, and then it stung like hell. The dressing stuck to the healing tissue, and even though Ben poured water on the gauze from a thick plastic bottle, it burned pretty bad when he peeled it off. He kept his hands laced behind his head and showed Ben nothing.

  “How’s it look?” he asked.

  “’kay,” Ben looked closely at the skin grafts that covered the huge hole. “Seems like the graft is taking well.” He poked at it gently with a gloved finger and with great effort Reed stayed still. He thought again about the Voodoo cream and wondered if he should ask. “Does it hurt?”

  “A little,” Reed admitted. Maybe if Ben thought he hurt he would offer the magic cream.

  Man I could use that cream if it works as well as Auger says.

  “I don’t have anymore,” Ben said.

  Reed looked at him a moment, puzzled.

  “Any more what?”

  “The cream,” Ben looked confused. “Didn’t you ask me for the cream I used on Auger?”

  Did I say that out loud? Man, he is creepin’ me out.

  Ben stood suddenly upright, and his eyes darted around the small room. For a moment, he looked like an animal trapped in a garage, searching for an exit.

  “Let me get some Silvadene on that graft and get you a new dressing.”

  Reed watched his friend fumble around the small exam room and wondered what the hell was going on with him. He was more than used to Ben’s weirdness – hell, they had lived together before Christy – but this seemed more than that. He tried to decide what to say and decided to say nothing. Ben sat beside him on a rolling stool, a big white tub of vanilla-icing-looking paste in one hand and a tongue depressor in the other.

  Reed watched him coat his graft with a thick glob of the icing, and then his eyes were pulled to the ring on the hand that gripped the tub. It had turned a deep and angry violet, the surface shiny and almost glowing. Reed felt nearly nauseated now at the sight of that damn thing. He resisted, with great effort, the urge to tear it from Ben’s finger. The storm cloud in Ben’s eyes didn’t help his nausea any.

  “Ouch,” he said as Ben slapped another thick spoonful of the white paste onto his thigh. His mind had clearly drifted elsewhere. “Easy, dude.”

  “Sorry,” Ben mumbled. Then, he rose and grabbed a roll of gauze and a thick dressing that reminded Reed of a Kotex Maxi-pad, only wider. He watched his friend’s face as he wrapped the gauze around his leg to hold the Kotex in place. Then, he taped the end and stepped back.

  “Need any more pain meds?” he asked.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Reed realized he wanted almost desperately to get out of the cramped exam room and, with some guilt, away from his friend.

  “Okay,” Ben said as if he knew exactly how Reed felt. He snapped off the icing covered gloves and tossed them into the trash. “See ya back at the shop,” and then darted out, leaving the door open behind him.

  Reed struggled off the table with some effort and then wiped some stray white paste from his black gym shorts.

  What the shit is wrong with Ben?

  For a moment, he thought about hurrying after him and asking him what the hell was up. But a picture popped into his mind of the ring and behind it a series of images from his nightmare. He again saw Ben, his eyes swirling white clouds and his fingertips glowing with blue light. The image made him shudder uncontrollably. Maybe he should talk to Chris. Maybe he should tell him how worried he still was about Ben. He thought for a moment how he would feel if Ben went to their officer about him without talking to him first and realized he would be pissed to beat the band.

  Probably just needs a few more days to get used to bein’ home. Hell, home is hard for me for a couple of days after an op, too. He’s got a lot going on with the wedding in less than two weeks. I should just do the best man thing and help him out. He’ll be Ol’ Ben in a couple of days.

  He wasn’t sure he believed that, but it worked for now.

  “How’s the leg?” Dr. West asked as he hobbled down the hall.

  “Great,” Reed answered. He forced the hobble away and walked tall. “Shit hot, in fact.”

  “Super,” the doctor mumbled after him in a voice that said “bullshit” and that he was getting a little tired of being the last to know.

  Reed pushed through the glass door and out into the cool sunlight. He saw Ben across the grassy field that separated them from their ops building and watched as he stopped, seemed to consider something, then shook his head violently and continued on, veering at the last minute away from the team building and towards the gym. Reed frowned.

  I’ll give him a few more days, and if he’s still all knotted up, I’ll ask him about it.

  He unconsciously grabbed the leg of his shorts over his wounded thigh and hobbled towards ops. He needed to get out on the range and shoot away some of his own lingering post-deployment bullshit.

  Chapter 17

  Ben woke from the dreams with a memory of only fragmented images – pictures of Jewel and the old man, of the village as it should be, and how it had been. Just jumbled pictures but no concrete memory, and to him that felt like progress. A picture flashed in his head of Gammy seated at their old table of thick wood. She ate from a bowl, the sides spattered with blood and her fingers pink with dirty nails. Then, the image disappeared with the rest.

  He reached for Christy and panicked a little when she wasn’t there. Then, he remembered she was with her mom at the Marriott down at the ocean front. She had wanted to spend the night with her mom before the wedding and that seemed fine – more so now, since his dreams tended to wake her up, as well. The twelve days had flown by. He had helped set up the wedding at the gazebo on base, had met with the preacher (a Navy Chaplain assigned to group two, the east coast admin command for the teams) together with Christy to outline the ceremony, had answered questions about food and music and even flowers, and still had time to fill some admin squares at work. In between, he worked out, shot hundreds of rounds at the range, and looked after Reed’s wounds which looked great. Reed had tap danced around asking him if everything was okay more than once, but had seemed satisfied with his “I’m getting married” dodge.

  Overall, he really felt great. The dreams, like tonight, had been fragmented and left only a slight after taste of fear. He had n
ever been more sure and excited about anything than his wedding (in ten hours he noted with a glance at the clock) – except maybe his decision to become a SEAL.

  He ignored his brains “hey, look at this” attempt to make him think about the dreams and instead hopped out of bed and padded barefoot to the bathroom to relieve himself. That mission completed, he checked (for the hundredth time) that his dress uniform looked squared away in its plastic cover and then slipped back under the cool sheets of their bed.

  He pretended not to feel the pulse-like sensation in his right middle finger and forced his mind over the big day ahead instead. For a moment, he considered a quick call to Christy, but decided that she needed her sleep and tossed his cell phone back onto the night stand unopened. His eyes felt heavy anyway, so he guessed he would get back to sleep easily, and the four and a half more hours until his alarm went off would help him a ton.

  Sleep wrapped around him and he floated down into it – a warm pool of comfortable darkness. He drifted, dreamless, away from home and his troubling thoughts.

  “Wakin’ up, now boy. We get only dis here minute be talkin’ ‘bout dat meetin’ we get to be havin’, know it.”

  Ben blinked his eyes open and stared up at the half moon, low and bright through the branches above him. It felt like he had fallen asleep only seconds ago, and he closed his eyes again for a moment, thinking he could drift away to a better dream maybe, but he felt a sharp, jarring pain in his side. He sat up and looked to his left.

  The man grinned a nearly toothless grin, and the eyes that looked him over seemed strangely young and bright set as they were in a face of a thousand wrinkles. The man was probably the age of the Village Elder, but looked a hundred years older. He set the cane, not much more than a thick, gnarled stick actually, into the ground in front of him and leaned forward on it to support his hunched and twisted frame as he spoke. The accent was thick with home, and Ben doubted anyone who had not spent at least a few years in the bayou would understand a word of it.