Moonlight Lady

by Barbara Faith

  The man peered around Sam’s shoulder and looked at Lisa. “Lord, sir, she need some tending.”

  “Is there a doctor in the village?”

  “No, sir. There be no doctor here in Trinity.”

  “A clinic? A nurse?”

  The man shook his head. “Hereabouts when folks be hurt they mostly tend to themselves. Where were you headed?”

  “Maroon Town. Took a wrong turn, I guess.” He stopped and swung off the bike. “Is there a guest house in town? A room I can rent?”

  The man shook his head. “No guest house,” he said, and offering a hand added, “I be Horatio Appletree.”

  “Sam O’Shaughnessy.”

  The man looked at Lisa. “Best you come up on the porch outta the sun and sit a spell, missus.”

  Exhausted, hurting as she was, it was all Lisa could do to murmur, “Thank you.”

  Sam helped her off the bike. Appletree offered a hand to help. “We got a bedroom,” he said. “I guess you could rent that. Me and my missus could make us a pallet in the other room.”

  The house looked ready to cave in. The front-porch steps were broken and pieces of tin were missing from the roof. But if there was a bed and running water, it would be better than camping out in the forest the way they had last night.

  “That’s mighty nice of you,” Sam said to Appletree. “We’d like to stay if you’re sure it’s all right.”

  “I be pretty sure.” He turned and called out, “Delight?”

  A woman almost as tall and skinny as Horatio appeared in the doorway. She had on a blue cotton dress and her hair was tied up in a red bandana. She came out on the porch, letting the screen door bang behind her.

  “These people need a place to stay the night. I told them they could rent our bedroom.”

  Hands on her hips, she frowned, first at Horatio, then at Sam. But when she saw Lisa, she said, “Oh, my Lord, what happened?”

  “We had an accident with the motorcycle,” Sam explained. “My wife had a bad fall.”

  The woman came down the steps and put an arm around her. “Come in,” she said. “You gotta lay down ‘fore you fall down, girl. I be Delight. You come along with me.”

  Lisa felt weak in the knees. If she didn’t lie down she was going to collapse.

  By this time curious neighbors had gathered near the house. They stared at Lisa and murmured among themselves. Two boys of nine or ten looked at the motorcycle with big, inquisitive eyes.

  “Be damn big machine,” one of them said.

  “Go like hell.” The other one touched the handlebars.

  Horatio slapped his hand away. “Don’t you be touching that.”

  Lisa started to smile, but her face hurt and she gasped in pain. Delight said, “Your wife look in bad shape, sir. I’m goin’ to take her inside.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.” Sam rested a hand on Lisa’s head. “I’ll be along in a minute,” he said.

  She nodded, wanting to tell him she was okay, that he didn’t have to look so worried. But she couldn’t summon the words. She leaned against Delight. Funny name. Pretty name.

  The woman led her into the house. Lisa saw a sagging sofa, two straight-backed chairs, a rocker. They went into a bedroom. Here there was a bed, a couple of shelves that served as a dresser. Clothes hanging from nails on the walls.

  “Best you get outta them clothes,” Delight said. “I bring you something to sleep in and some water so’s you can rinse off.”

  Lisa slumped down on the bed. She hurt all over, hurt too much to move.

  Delight closed the door behind her. Sam came in with the first-aid kit. He looked around and shook his head. “Sorry, Lisa. I’m afraid this was the best we could do.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She bent down to take her sandals off, but he said, “No, I’ll do it.”

  He took them off, then the torn cutoffs. One hip was scraped.

  Delight knocked and came in carrying a pan of water, a washcloth, a towel and a bar of yellow soap. She had a long cotton gown over her arm. “My, oh, my,” she exclaimed, giving Lisa the once-over. “Look like you been chewed up and spit out.”

  That brought a smile. “That’s the way I feel,” Lisa said.

  “Horatio be bringing the motorcycle up on the porch,” Delight told Sam. “Won’t nobody steal it, but those rascally boys be curious. ‘Fore you know it they break something.”

  “Good idea.” He hurried out of the room. He and Horatio carried the Harley up, then he went back to Lisa. She was pale and her hands were starting to shake.

  Delight said, “You want me to help you?”

  “I can manage,” Sam said. “But thanks.”

  When Delight left, he took Lisa’s torn T-shirt off and checked her out, running his hands over her shoulders, down her back, her chest. He tilted her face up to the light. The scrape on her face wasn’t as serious as he’d first thought, but now he saw the bruise on the other side of her cheekbone. He touched it and she flinched.

  “Benjamin hit me,” she said.

  Sam swore. That was another score he had to settle. He wet the washcloth and bathed her face as gently as he could, then both her arms.

  “I must look awful,” she said.

  “Like you’ve been run over by a truck.” He took the bandage off her hand, wiped the blood away, put more antiseptic on and a clean bandage. He had her lie down while he tended to the scrape on her hip. She was already starting to bruise. By tomorrow she’d be hurting really badly.

  He helped her into the flour-sack nightgown. “I’m sorry as hell I got you into this,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it is.” He kissed the bruise on the side of her face. “You shouldn’t have become involved in this, Lisa. It’s my fault you did. If I hadn’t suspected you, if I’d trusted you in the beginning and admitted to myself how I was beginning to feel about you, you wouldn’t have gone with Reitman and none of this would have happened. You’d be safely back on the beach at the Poinciana drinking a planter’s punch.”

  Lisa pulled back so that she could look at him. “But I want to be with you, Sam, not on the beach at the Poinciana.”

  Something clutched at his insides. He looked at her, then away because he knew she was getting to him, stealing into his heart, making him go all weak inside when she looked at him like this. He wasn’t ready for this kind of feeling. He might never be.

  He eased her down onto the bed and pulled the sheet up over her. “Get some rest,” he said.

  She closed her eyes. “Think I’ll sleep for a little while.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

  She smiled. “I know,” she said.

  * * *

  A little before nightfall Sam wakened her long enough to eat some chicken soup. He propped her up in bed, said, “Open your mouth,” and spooned the soup in.

  When she said, “Enough,” he wiped her chin, gave her two aspirins, eased her back down onto the bed and tucked the sheet around her as if she were a child. She was asleep before he left the room.

  He’d asked Horatio about a phone. No, the other man told him, there wasn’t one in the village. The nearest one was in Maroon Town.

  He couldn’t go there. He had a feeling the waiter in the dining room had been in cahoots with Benjamin. Probably the guy at the registration desk was, too. If he was, he’d listened in on the call to Kingston.

  When Horatio said, “Gotta go fetch my cows,” Sam sat out on the front porch and thought about what to do next. He was pretty sure that for now he and Lisa were safe. This was a small settlement; these were nice people. But he’d stick to the story that he and Lisa were in Jamaica vacationing.

  He didn’t want them to know he was a cop because very likely some of these people grew ganja. Probably most of them grew just enough for themselves, but there were others who grew it for big distributors. He didn’t blame them. They were poor people tryin
g to put food in their children’s mouths any way they could. He wasn’t after them, but after the big boys, the men at the top who bought and sold the stronger stuff, the ones who made their fortunes out of getting kids hooked.

  He knew very little about this Cockpit Country, but he had a feeling it was here that most of the grass was grown. He had to be careful because very likely, as in Colombia and Bolivia, there was a head man in the village who reported to one of the big honchos, who in turn reported to the head drug guy in the district. All of them could be working with Juan Montoya.

  He thought about asking somebody here in the village to carry a message to Hargreaves at the hotel, but he couldn’t take the chance. If he picked the wrong man, a man whose living depended on working with the drug people, the guy might lead Montoya’s men back here. He had to depend on his own instincts now. When he could contact Hargreaves himself, he would; until then he was on his own.

  When Horatio came back with his two cows, Sam went with him to the small corral in back of the house. Then he and Horatio each ate a bowl of soup. The old man asked him why he’d come to Jamaica and Sam said he and Lisa were here on vacation. He and his wife were from Wisconsin, he said. They’d come to swim and sun and drink some good Jamaica rum.

  Horatio laughed, said “‘Scuse me,” and returned with a bottle of Appleton’s. They each took a couple of swigs right out of the bottle. After the third swig Sam felt some of the day’s tension easing out of his body. He thanked Horatio for the drinks, said “Good night,” and went in to Lisa.

  She didn’t fully waken when he lay down beside her, but she moved closer. He put his arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. “Go back to sleep, baby,” he said.

  For a long time he lay like that, just listening to her breathing, watching her face by the light of the moon shining in through the open window. His moonlight lady, so small and defenseless in his arms. Her body jerked as though in fear and he whispered, “It’s all right, Lisa. I’m here, sweetheart. Nothing’s going to hurt you now.”

  He knew now how much he cared about her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. They were different. He was a cop who’d been around the track a couple of thousand times. He’d done things and seen things he didn’t even want to think about. She was as innocent as a babe, as delicate as a rose. What in the hell could she see in a big galoot like him?

  Margaret hadn’t been delicate as a rose. She was the tall-brunette kind of woman he’d always gone for. She did aerobics, lifted weights and knew karate. He had a feeling she could hold her own with a man, anytime, anywhere.

  She’d hated his being a cop, especially after Danny was born. She didn’t like him being away from home three or four days at a time and she’d accused him of sleeping with other women. He never had, not in the six years they were married. Which was pretty damn ridiculous considering that she had slept with other men.

  The first time he discovered she’d been unfaithful, he’d left her. Then Danny got sick and she’d begged him to come back. So he had, not because of her but because of Danny. But it wasn’t any good. He could forgive her, but he couldn’t forget. He didn’t want to touch her, and after a while she found somebody else—quite a few somebody elses.

  Because of Danny, he let her file for the divorce. Only when she demanded full custody did he threaten to charge her with adultery. She gave in and he got Danny on holidays.

  But it hadn’t been enough; he hadn’t been there for his son the way he should have been. He hadn’t known until it was too late that Danny was on drugs. He’d never forgive himself for that.

  He’d vowed after his failed marriage that he’d never marry again. And he sure to God didn’t want another kid.

  It worried him that he and Lisa had made love without using any protection. He didn’t know whether or not she was on the Pill, but he had a hunch she wasn’t. He broke out into a sweat. What if she got pregnant? What in the hell would he do? He didn’t want to start another family. He’d been down that road and would never travel it again.

  Sam laid a hand over her stomach. What if the seed had already been planted? What if even now his baby was growing there? He snatched his hand away as though he’d been burned and said a fervent prayer that it hadn’t happened.

  * * *

  When Lisa awoke the next morning she could barely move. Every muscle in her body ached. She pulled herself up out of bed, hobbled over to the chair where her purse was and reached for her compact mirror.

  She groaned. The place on her face where she’d been scraped looked awful. The skin beneath one eye had turned an interesting shade of purple and so had the bruise on her cheek where Benjamin had hit her. Her arm hurt, her hip hurt, her hand hurt. She was a wreck.

  She looked around for her clothes. They weren’t on the shelf, nor were they hanging on a nail. The nightgown of flour-sack material covered her so that she was decent enough. She opened the door and peered out, heard Sam on the porch talking to Horatio and called, “Sam?”

  He came in. “Didn’t know you were up,” he said. “How do you feel?”

  “Don’t ask. I can’t find my clothes.”

  “Delight washed and mended them. They’re hanging on bushes in the backyard to dry.” He turned her toward the light. “God,” he said. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “How about a shower and something to eat?”

  “There’s a shower?”

  “Like the one we had the night we almost hit the cow.”

  The cow with the rolling, fireball eyes. Lisa shivered. “A shower might help,” she said.

  “I’ll show you where it is.” He saw she was moving like a ninety-year-old granny and took her arm to help her. They went into the kitchen. Delight was standing in front of the sink.

  “You’re up,” she said, smiling at Lisa. “How you be feeling?”

  “Just about as bad as I look.” Lisa smiled back. “Is it all right if I take a shower”

  “You go right ahead, but your mister better be helping you.”

  “No, I can—”

  “Yes, I’ll help her,” Sam interrupted.

  “When you finish, breakfast be ready. Got mango and papaya and I be frying some plantains.” Delight motioned toward the door. “You go ahead. It all be ready by the time you through.”

  “Listen,” Lisa whispered to Sam when they stepped out into the backyard, “I can shower by myself.”

  “Maybe, but it’d be a lot more fun with me.” Without giving her a chance to refuse, he pushed back the cloth curtain that served as a shower door.

  He went into the shower stall with her, stripped out of his jeans, helped her take off the flour-sack gown and put everything on a bench outside before he turned the water on.

  Her body was covered with bruises that were purple and green against the paleness of her skin. He bathed her as carefully as he would a child, barely touching the scrapes and scratches. He washed her hair, rinsed out the gravel embedded there and examined her scalp for cuts.

  When he’d checked her out and bathed her, he put his arms around her and held her there under the water. For a little while he forgot that he didn’t want to make a commitment, forgot that she might already be pregnant. He didn’t want to think about that. He backed away because he kind of wanted her. Well hell, a lot more than kind of. The urge was strong, powerful, but even more powerful was the need to protect and care for her.

  He turned the shower off and gently patted her dry. “Easy, love,” he said when she winced.

  When he’d finished, she put her arms around his neck and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m crazy about you,” she whispered.

  “Yeah?” he said, trying to sound tough. Trying to act as though the words didn’t make his knees turn to Jell-O.

  “Yeah.” She smiled. Then, because she knew how she was affecting him, she touched him, lightly, quickly. And before he could react, she stepped out of the shower, pulled the flour-sack gown back over her head and heade
d for the kitchen.

  He stood there, hard as a rock, swearing under his breath. And knew there’d never been another woman who affected him the way this one did.

  They were on the front porch shelling peas when Delight said, “You know ‘bout voodoo?”

  Lisa looked up, startled. “Uh, yes. I mean I’ve heard about it.”

  She knew it was practiced in some of the Caribbean islands, especially in Haiti, and that it was some kind of religious cult that believed in sorcery and fetishes.

  “Voodoo be powerful stuff.” Delight leaned closer. “Tomorrow night we goin’ to have a voodoo night,” she confided. “You and mister come and see. Yes?”

  A little afraid, but excited, too, Lisa nodded. “If we’re still here,” she said. “If it’s all right with Sam.”

  Voodoo. The word send a chill down her spine. A friend who’d been to Haiti had seen a voodoo ceremony, at least the kind of voodoo that tourists were allowed to see. “It frightened the life out of me,” Patti had told her. “The participants in the ceremony went into a trance that I guess was supposed to help them communicate with the spirit of their long-dead ancestors. They went kind of crazy, writhing around on the ground, doing all sorts of weird things. It scared the living daylights out of me.”

  Nevertheless, Lisa wanted to see it. “I’ll go,” she told Delight. “If we’re still here tomorrow, I’ll go.”

  “Good!” Delight patted Lisa’s knee. “I’m goin’ to make up some poultices to put on your hurts so tomorrow you feel better.”

  Lisa certainly hoped so. Today she was one huge ache. Every muscle hurt and her face felt as though it had been steamrollered. And she was worried about Sam.

  He’d told her he was supposed to meet Hargreaves at the hotel. Was Hargreaves still there waiting for them?

  She knew Sam had to get to the police captain. She didn’t want to hold him back, neither did she want him to leave without her.

  In a little while she went into the bedroom to rest. Delight brought in evil-smelling poultices and put them on her face and her hip.

  “You sleep now,” she said. “When you wake up you goin’ to feel better.”