That would be the half-submerged pirogue, Jena saw with a sinking stomach.
And—wait—why was visibility so good all of a sudden?
At first, she thought maybe sunrise had arrived, except the light was coming from the west. From her hiding spot in the grass, Jena looked left and saw flames licking into the sky not only from Cole’s house but the house the Benoits had occupied. Maybe the other house on the lane too. They were burning every option they thought their prey had to hide in. Even the cane fields looked to be on fire. Everything would burn slowly because it was wet, but eventually, it would all burn.
Moving with exaggerated slowness, Jena made a one eighty, felt for the rope, and pulled herself back toward the oak tree, still on all fours. If she could see better, Ray and Marty had improved visibility as well, so quiet and slow had to be their marching orders. Or slogging orders, assuming there was anywhere else to slog.
If she had to find a positive in the situation, it was that Ray and Marty seemed sure they’d show up either on Sugarcane Lane or at the pirogue. They were sitting back and waiting to pick them off, not actively pursuing them.
As the water deepened enough to hit Jena’s chin, she pulled herself to her feet with difficulty and tried to wring out as much water from the sweater as she could. It probably weighed as much as Mac now.
The grass was taller here, more than head high, so she felt safer walking. She tugged on the rope to help propel her back toward the tree. No way would her tugs move that tree, which she could see outlined well before she reached it, as the night sky was lit with the flames from Cole’s burning world.
Cole turned and watched her approach, Mac still slung across his shoulders and unconscious.
Her blank, professional-law-enforcement face had apparently been left back on the sinking pirogue because he could tell by looking at her. “Boat’s gone?”
She nodded. “About half submerged.” She looked at the flames licking into the sky, glad the height of the grass at least kept them from seeing his house burning in detail. “It’s not just your house, Cole. It’s the one the Benoits lived in too, and the cane fields. I’m not sure about the other house at the far end of the lane. Ray and Marty are sitting on his boat, watching both places, rifles ready.”
“They’re probably burning everything.” His voice was steady and matter-of-fact. “They want to drive us out like rats, or run us from place to place until they can catch us or we simply don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Do we have anywhere else to go?” Jena looked around at an endless, shadowy vista of flat marshland broken up by an occasional tree. And it was not solid ground but spots of land interspersed with floating islands too unstable to hold an adult’s weight.
“Our best bet, given Mac’s condition and ours, is an old fishing camp hidden back in the marshes so deep, I’m not sure anybody’s been there in years other than me. It might give us a safe place to stay until daylight.” He studied her face. “Question is: Do we have it in us? It’s an hour due south of here, and no easier than the marsh we just crossed. At least, thanks to Ray’s bonfire, we can see.”
He turned to watch the fire. “Our second option is to try circling behind the burning houses and slip through the cane fields to reach the highway. It’s shorter, but there isn’t much cover, even less if the fire speeds up. We’d be exposed for at least an hour—dangerous, considering Ray’s bonfires would backlight us and make us easy targets.”
“Is there a third option?” She’d been right about him meticulously creating Plans A, B, and C.
“Our third option is to stay where we are, hunker down under the blanket that’s in the pack, and wait for daylight. That’s dangerous for Mac, though. I want that wound out of this water as soon as possible, and he has to be bleeding again from being hauled around like this. I’m worried about infection setting in.”
He was still watching the flames. Jena wanted to cry on his behalf since he’d gone stoic and practical on her. “Cole, I’m sorry. I know that bonfire, as you call it, is your whole life.”
The look he gave her brought to mind some ancient Viking prince, with his long braids and lowered brows. She’d been wrong about the lack of emotion. He had plenty; it just wasn’t what she’d expected. Not anger or anguish, but steel.
“That’s not my life, Jena. It’s just a house. Our lives aren’t where we live; it’s who is in them with us.” His gaze returned to the flames, but not before she caught the small quirk of a smile. “I had a lot of time to get all philosophical while you were crawling through the mud like a jungle warrior.”
Jena looked down at the front of her sweater. Yeah, that’s exactly what she had done. She found the rations pack, shoved her arms through the straps, and fastened it in place. “We better get going before Ray and Marty decide to get off their asses and look for us. I vote for the cabin.”
He nodded and shifted Mac on his shoulders, earning a groan from Jena’s partner.
She was glad Mac was out, but it worried her. Now that they had some light, she could see the blood soaking his bandaged side. It had spread into the shoulder and back of Cole’s sweater as well. Mac had lost way too much blood.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Cole turned and began the slog again, moving at a steady pace but slower than before. He had to be exhausted, shoulder muscles screaming, from carrying Mac so long. Jena caught up with him and they walked side by side now that they could see. The light wouldn’t last long, though. Either the flames would die down or they’d get too far away to see them.
“Cole, why don’t you let me carry Mac for a while and give your shoulders a rest? I promise you, I can manage it.”
“It’s not a matter of whether or not you could do it—I know you could.” He grimaced. “But I think my arms are frozen in this position. Better for me to just keep him in place as long as I can go, and easier on him not to change position too much.”
“Okay then.” Jena checked her wristwatch. “It’s almost two a.m. and at least three hours until sunrise, or at least enough daylight to see. At that point, they’ll start looking for us again. I can’t imagine either of them slogging through this marsh, but is there a way for them to get to that cabin by water?”
“I’m not sure.” Cole stopped for a moment and shifted Mac slightly. “Can you pull a bottle of water from your backpack? I need to rehydrate.”
She dug for a bottle among medicines, protein bars, and small assorted tools. “Here you go.” She unscrewed the top and held it up for him to drink without having to put Mac down. He guzzled about half the bottle before he stepped back and jerked his head toward Mac. “You should finish it, unless you can get some down his throat.”
She couldn’t, though, and ended up putting the almost-empty plastic bottle back into the pack.
They’d been on the move no more than five minutes when a gunshot sounded behind them, followed by the sound of Ray’s voice.
“Hey out there! I know you’re there. Thought I spotted you earlier. How ’bout we meet you at the old Conner house about sunrise? I’d like my favorite redhead to spend her last sunrise giving me a good blow job before I blow her head off.”
“Whatever I’m biting on will die with me,” Jena muttered, then to Cole: “I assume that’s where we’re going? The old Conner house?”
Cole sighed with the exhausted expression of a man who’d been wandering through a boggy marsh for hours carrying another full-grown man on his shoulders. “I’ve never heard it called that, but it’s the only place around here so it must be. I should’ve known he’d be aware of it. A nuisance-gator hunter has to know his territory pretty well.”
“The light’s almost gone, and we’re going to be in pitch black again soon.” Jena reasoned it out as she talked. “If we continue to the cabin, we can get Mac in a dry spot and be waiting for them at sunrise.”
She waited for Cole to argue, or at least make a countersuggestion, but he just nodded. “I’m spent. Our only other option is to wait it out her
e and hope they pass by us, but we’d have to put Mac in the water. I don’t have the legs to circle all the way back to the house now, and I don’t think you do either.”
Jena closed her eyes. “We’ll take a stand, then. Let’s keep going.”
She could tell when they approached the old cabin because the land beneath them rose gradually and became more solid. What also was solid: the blackness of the air around them. Clouds obscured any moonlight or stars, and they’d lost all view of the fire.
“I’m gonna do this from memory, so hold on to me,” said Cole, whose belt loops she’d grasped again. From his movements, Jena could tell he was kicking ahead with each foot before taking a step. Finally, his foot kicked something solid.
“I think there are three steps that lead onto a porch,” he said. “Let’s get out of this muck.”
Jena followed him, grateful for that first step that still squished liquid between the toes of the overtopped waterproof boots, but at least the step took place on a solid surface.
“Okay, I’m setting Mac down and then you can pull off your pack. Feel around in there and see if you can find a small-wicked candle about the size of a votive. We’ll just burn the candle long enough to get our bearings.”
Mac groaned again when Cole lowered him to the porch and covered him with the poncho. By the time Jena found the small candle, Cole had come up with a dry match from a plastic bag in his shirt pocket.
Jena lit it quickly, spotted the front door, and walked into the cabin. They needed to limit the exposure of even that tiny spark from eyes that could already be approaching. Cole grunted as he lifted Mac again and brought him inside.
“Can you clean off that table a little? I want to put him up there.”
Jena used a cloth from the pack to wipe off as much dust and grime as she could from a rickety wooden table in the center of the otherwise-empty cabin. “I’m surprised there isn’t more dirt in here, or trash, or dead animals.”
The cabin wasn’t exactly clean, but it wasn’t unoccupied-for-twenty-years dirty either.
“I stay here every once in a while when I’m trekking around the parish.” Cole set Mac gently on the table, took one look at the agent’s side, and pulled out a knife from its sheath.
“How’s it look?” Jena knew how it looked—it looked like a bloody mess. “He’s lost an awful lot of blood.”
Cole used the knife to cut off Mac’s shirt around the wound—or his shirt he’d given to the agent—peeled the fabric away, and then cut through the blood-soaked bandages he’d wrapped around it at the house.
Riffling through a small first aid kit from the pack, he used sterile wipes to clean the wound again. “I don’t like how much swelling he’s got around the entry point.” Cole gently probed around the circular hole of blood on Mac’s right side above his rib cage. It was a swollen mass of angry red skin stretched so tightly it looked like an overstuffed sausage about to split its casing.
He cleaned and rebandaged it loosely, then went to set up a makeshift resting spot in the corner with a couple of blankets, water, food, and guns.
The perfect ingredients for a family picnic. Not that Jena had ever been on a family picnic. Why would one ever wish to dine outdoors? she could hear her mother ask. There might be insects.
Or murderous drug traffickers.
They settled Mac on the blanket next to the wall so they could shield him if Ray and Marty arrived early, maybe even with backup. “Ray must know a shortcut, a way to get here by boat.” Jena stretched out on the blanket between Cole and Mac, and helped spread the second blanket over them to help warm them. They both munched on protein bars. “He’s not going to slog through the marsh the way we did.”
“Won’t take him that long,” Cole said. “He knows where he’s going and he’ll be able to see.”
“We need to get busy, then.” Jena craned her neck and surveyed the room not as a shelter but a potential fort. “There’s no reason Ray won’t set the damned thing on fire and try to force us out again, so we have to put ourselves in a position to make the first strike. You got a hammer in that pack—do you have nails?”
Cole sat up and dragged the pack over. “Enough to brace the table in front of the door, but probably not enough to nail stuff over all the windows.”
He paced around the room while Jena tried to think of a way to get the jump on Ray. “We could board it up as if we’re in here . . . but not be in here,” Jena said.
Cole looked back at her from the front window. He’d ripped a rickety kitchen cabinet door off its hinges and was seeing how much of the door it would cover.
“So, what, we settle in the marsh somewhere in sight of the front of the house and wait for them?”
“Only problem is, we’d have to put Mac in the water,” Jena said. “And I already don’t like the look of that wound.”
“Leave me.”
She spun around at the hoarse whisper behind her. Babyface had cracked open those pretty brown eyes, thank God. Jena had been swallowing down her fear that she’d never see them again. They looked too bright, though, and she reached out and felt his forehead. “‘Leave me,’ says the man who is feverish. You think Cole hauled your butt all over this corner of the parish just to leave you?”
“I got a bad feeling about this, Jena.” Mac struggled up on one elbow, pulled back the blanket, and took a look at his side. “Holy shit, that’s probably the end of my dance career.” He flopped onto his back. “I’m serious. I’ll just pretend I’m dead. It won’t be too big a stretch.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here, Griffin. You’re my partner. I even take back what I said about you not being my friend. Forget it.” Maybe he was being noble. Maybe he was feeling sorry for himself. Or maybe he truly thought he was going to die.
But if he thought Jena was leaving him here as potential roadkill—or marsh kill—for Ray Naquin, her partner might as well think again.
Cole came to stand beside them, looking down and frowning. “I think Mac’s right.”
CHAPTER 31
Damn, but that woman was stubborn. It had taken Cole and Mac both to bring her around, but she had finally agreed to the plan.
Cole had helped a shaky Mac to a standing position where he could lean against one of the old kitchen counters, then Cole and Jena had moved the blankets to create a makeshift cocoon for Mac against the kitchen cabinet baseboards. He was out of sight of all the windows and the front door.
While Jena stayed busy moving water and ibuprofen within Mac’s reach in case he was alone for very long, Cole turned the kitchen table on its side and nailed it across the front door, along with the cabinet door. Then he was out of nails.
The back door, they planned to leave unlocked. Marty Patout apparently had a skill with Molotov cocktails, so if the little SOB tried that again, whoever was closest would enter through the back and get Mac out as quickly as possible.
If one of them had a rifle trained on the back door? Cole didn’t have an answer for that one, so as he nailed, he tried praying, finding that maybe his faith wasn’t as dead as he’d thought. Jena had given him hope, and its friend faith had come along. Everything had seemed to be rolling toward this morning at ever-increasing speed, from finding Big Bull to meeting Jena to telling her the truth about himself to realizing that he wanted to live around people again, wanted them in his life.
Wanted Jena in his life.
He had to have faith that all this snowballing of events meant something bigger, that they couldn’t be random.
So he prayed they weren’t random.
Now the hardest part. “Jena, c’mon, we need to talk, over here where Mac can hear.”
They sat cross-legged on the floor, and Cole had to figure out how to use words that would help Jena override the instincts of her training, if that was even possible. “Here’s how it needs to go down.”
“We agreed that—” Jena halted abruptly at Cole’s upraised brows. “Okay, what, but make it snappy because we
need to get in position.”
“I agree,” Cole said. “As we decided before, I’m going to take cover on the west side of the cabin, you on the east. We have about an hour before sunrise. If Ray or Marty shows up before then, I’m not going to ask you to take Ray out in an ambush. I know that goes against everything you’ve pledged to do.”
Cole leaned forward. “But I’ve pledged nothing. These men have burned my home and everything I’ve spent the past five years building. Worse, they’ve tried to kill two people I care about, and that is not something I take lightly. If I get a chance, I will kill Ray Naquin; I won’t wait until he takes the first shot so I can claim self-defense. I’ll take him out. I’ll only shoot Marty in self-defense, but Ray doesn’t get that luxury.
“If you have to arrest me afterwards, well, that’s your job and I understand. Are we clear?”
Jena nodded. “It would be within your rights anyway because they’re coming here to kill us. No charges would stick. And if you think I won’t shoot the son of a bitch, you’ve forgotten who and what I am.”
Cole smiled. “There’s one other slight change of plans.”
“Then what was the point of us making the damned plans in the first place?” she snapped. Cole suppressed the urge to smile, not only because he didn’t think she’d be pleased to know he was baiting her, wanting her angry instead of sad, but because he thought she might clock him.
“Here’s the deal.” This was the part he had to make her buy into. “As soon as there’s enough daylight to see, whether Ray’s anywhere around or not, you need to go due east, as fast as you can, straight to Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes and the main highway. Flag down a car or a boat. If there’s nobody to flag, stay along the road and move south until you find someone. Then call in the troops.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, prompting a cough or a chuckle or a groan from Mac—maybe all three. Cole couldn’t look away from her fierce glare. “And what will you be doing while I’m busy running away like a girl?”
Black Diamond (Wilds of the Bayou Book 2) Page 21
