Slow Heat in Heaven (49 page)

His harsh words galvanized them like a sprinkling of fairy dust. Their lassitude vanished and they sprang into action. Laughing and slapping each other on die back, they ran toward the cabs of their
rigs.

"Which one do you want me in?" Cash asked Schyler.

"The lead one." She fell into step beside him.

"Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?"

"Endicott's?"

"Yes, and I'm riding with you. Cotton recommended that I should."

He stopped. She did likewise. They turned to face each other and exchanged a puissant stare. Schyler didn't look away until the two sheriff's cars pulled to a stop on the far end of the bridge. "It's time to go." Without waiting for his assistance, she climbed up into the cab of the lead truck.

Cash went around and got behind the steering wheel. He started the motor. He checked the rearview mirrors on both sides, stepped on the clutch, and pushed it into first gear. They moved forward only a few feet.

"Wait!" Schyler cried. Cash braked. "That looks like Ken's car."

"What the hell is he doing?"

They watched through the wide windshield of the rig as Ken sped between the two sheriff's cars and braked in the center of the bridge. The rear end of his car swerved to one side before shuddering to a halt. Cash tooted the horn of the truck. Schyler leaned out the window and waved her arms.

"Ken, what are you doing? We're on our way out. Don't block the bridge."

Ken got out of his car. Schyler shaded her eyes against his headlights. She could barely make out his silhouette against the glare that filtered through the cloud of dust he'd raised.

"What on earth is he doing?" she asked rhetorically.

"Beats the hell outta— Oh,
shitl"

In the same instant, Schyler saw what Cash had. She gasped, "Oh, my God, no."

Ken had raised a revolver to his temple. He took a few steps forward. "You all thought I was stupid." His speech was slurred. He'd been drinking. But his gait was steady and so was the hand holding the pistol to his head. "You thought I didn't have any balls. No brains. I'll show you. I'll show you all. You'll know I've got brains when I splatter them all over this motherlovin' bridge."

"We've got to do something." Schyler opened her door.

Cash grabbed her arm and held her inside. "Not yet."

"But he could pull the trigger any second."

"He will if
you go
barging across the bridge
and
freak him out."

"Cash, please," she said, trying to wrest her arm free.

"Give me a sec," he said. "Let me think."

"Get off the bridge, you idiot!
"

They turned in the direction of the scream. Up until then, they had forgotten Tricia. They spotted her cowering against the exterior wall of the office building.

"What's the matter with her?" Schyler wondered out loud. "Why isn't she—"

"Get off the bridge!" Cupping her hands, her voice frantic, Tricia shouted to her suicidal husband. "Ken! Do you hear me? Get off
the
bridge."

Schyler whipped her head around to look at Ken again. "I don't understand her. What—"

"Jesus!" Cash shoved open his door. Dragging Schyler across the cab, he jumped to the ground. "Get out of the truck!" He pulled her to the ground with him. She hit it at a dead run.

A split second later the explosives Jigger had meticulously set blew the Laurent Bayou bridge to smithereens.

Gayla ran her hands over Jimmy Don's chest, his face, down his arms. "I can't believe you're here. That I'm actually touching you.
And . . .
and that you don't despise me." Tears filled her eyes. By now she should have cried herself dry. Since Jimmy Don had appeared out of nowhere, she'd been crying. First in fear, then in shame, now out of love.

"I don't despise you, Gayla. At first I did. All the time I was in prison I hated you. But I got a letter from Cash the very same day I got one from Schyler. He told me to come see him when I got paroled." His hand lovingly grazed her cheek. "He told me how it had been with you, why things had turned out the way they had."

"Then why have you been spying on me?"

He grinned in the darkness and gave the porch swing a push. "Cash hired me to."

"He hired you to spy on Belle Terre?"

"To
keep an eye on it. He was scared Jigger was gonna do something to get revenge."

She digested that. "Cash was worried about Schyler?"

"About everybody. Schyler, you, the old man."

"You made me afraid. I knew somebody was out there, watching, waiting till the time was right to do something terrible to us."

"There was." His nostrils flared. "It wasn't just me sneaking around. Jigger was, too. One night I saw him go inside."

"So he did leave the doll on my bed."

"A doll?"

"Voodoo."

"I didn't know what he was doing in there. There wasn't anything I could do to stop him without letting him know I was watching him. I just made sure he came out without hurting you and then I followed him home."

"A few nights ago someone was eavesdropping outside the parlor."

"That was Jigger, too. I saw you come out onto the veranda. I held my breath, wanting to warn you not to step around that corner, but Cash had told me to lay low until Jigger tipped his hand."

"But he hasn't."

Jimmy Don shrugged. "It's too late for him to. That timber goes out tonight. Cash has been as jumpy as a cat these last few days. I don't know how many times he's scouted the area around the landing."

"Looking for what?"

"That's just it. He didn't know. He was just convinced that somebody had it in for Schyler. Whoever blew up the railroad tracks wasn't going to stop there. Cash was sure they would do something to stop that convoy."

"They?"

"Cash didn't think Jigger was working alone."

Out of habit, Gayla shivered at the mention of his name. "You've got to stay away from Jigger, Jimmy Don. If you're seen with me, he'll want to kill you, too."

Her hand was protectively sandwiched between the ones that had carried a football across the goal line more times than anyone in Heaven High School history. "Jigger isn't gonna hurt you, or anybody else, ever again."

He spoke with such surety that Gayla's heart froze. She gazed up at him apprehensively. "Jimmy Don, you didn't
. . . ?"

He laid his finger vertically along her lips. "Don't ever ask me."

For a moment they stared at each other, then she made a small sound of gratitude and pressed her face into the hollow of his throat. He held her.

Eventually she eased herself out of his embrace. She went to stand against one of the columns. "I've been to bed with too many men to count, Jimmy Don."

He came to his feet and moved to stand beside her. "It doesn't matter."

"It does to me." She looked down at her hands through eyes blurred with tears. "Before I went to work in that beer- joint, I'd never had anybody else but you. Swear to God."

He laid his hands
or
her shoulders. "I know that. We both suffered 'cause of that evil man, Gayla." He turned her to face him. "Things were done to me in prison
that. . ."
His voice tapered off. The memories were too painful for him to vocalize.

Intuitively she knew that. "You don't have to tell me anything," she whispered.

"Yeah, I do. I love you, Gayla. And I want to be with you. I want to marry you like we always talked about. But I can't ask you to marry me." She tilted her head to one side, gazing up at him inquiringly. He cleared his throat, but he couldn't blink away the tears in his own eyes. "There were men in prison who forced themselves on me." He turned his head aside and squeezed his eyes shut. "That killed something inside me. I, uh, I don't know if I can
. . .
if I can be with a woman anymore. I think I might be, uh, impotent."

Gayla laid her hands on his cheeks and turned his face toward her again. He opened his tearful, troubled eyes. "I don't care about that, Jimmy Don," she said with soft earnesty. "Believe me, baby, I've been worked over so many times I don't even remember what it's like to want a man
in
that way. Just be gentle and tender and sweet with me. Love me. That's all I want from you."

Tears streamed down his smooth, dark cheeks. He clasped her to him and held her tightly. At that moment nothing could have parted them except the explosion that rattled the windows at Belle Terre and lit up the night sky like the Fourth of July.

"Good God!" Jimmy Don cried. "Looks like Cash was right."

"Schyler!"

"You stay here." Jimmy Don set her away from him.

She reached out. "I want to go with you."

"You've got to stay with the old man." He vaulted over the railing of the veranda.

"All the cars are gone."

"I'll run." His powerful, record-breaking legs started churning.

"Be careful, baby. Call when you know something." He waved to her to let her know he'd heard. She watched until he disappeared around the bend in the lane. At the squeaking sound of the screen door, she spun around. "Mr. Crandall, get back to bed!" She rushed forward and braced him up on one side. He seemed on the verge of collapse. The red glow of the fire was reflected in his eyes.

"That's the landing."

"I'm sure everything's all right. Jimmy Don's gone to check. He said he would call."

Cotton didn't ask about Jimmy Don. It didn't seem to register with him that an ex-convict had spent the last few hours in his house. Either that or he didn't care. He was staring at the hellish red light rising above the treetops.

"I've got to get to the landing," he wheezed.

"You'll do no such thing. You're going back to bed."

"I can't." He wrestled with her, though he was so weak it was no contest.

"Mr. Crandall, even if I'd let you go, we don't have a car. You've got no way of getting there."

"Goddammit!" He slumped against the dooijamb. His breathing was rough. His hand was making squeezing motions over his heart.

Gayla was frightened. "Come on back to bed now."

"Leave me alone," he rasped, shaking off her assisting hands. "I'm not a baby. Stop treating me like one."

Any further badgering would only cause him stress. Gayla relented. "Okay. We'll sit out here on the veranda. We can hear the phone ringing from here."

Cotton let himself be led to one of the wicker chairs. Once he was settled, Gayla sat down on the top step and wrapped her skirt around her shins. Together and in silence they watched the night sky turn the color of blood.

The pickup rumbled up to the front walk. Gayla was still sitting on the top step, leaning against the column, asleep. She didn't come awake until the door of the pickup was closed. She raised her head and shielded her gritty eyes against the morning sunlight.

Cash and Schyler were coming up the front walk. Both looked like they'd been in a combat zone. Jimmy Don climbed out of the bed of the pickup and jumped to the ground. She smiled at him shyly. He smiled back.

"Daddy!" Schyler exclaimed. She ran the rest of the way up the steps and onto the veranda. "What on earth are you doing out here? Why aren't you in bed?"

"He refused to go back inside, Schyler," Gayla told her. "Even after Jimmy Don called and told us that you were all right, he flat refused to go back to his room."

"You've been out here all night?" Gayla nodded in answer to Schyler's question. The women exchanged a worried glance. Cotton didn't look well. "Well, I won't hear of such shenanigans from you," Schyler said bossily. "You might have intimidated Gayla, but you don't intimidate me. You're going back to bed immediately."

Cotton pushed his daughter aside. "I want to know one thing." Though his voice was as fragile as tissue paper, it stunned them all with its impact. Using the arms of the chair for support, he struggled to stand at his full height. "Did you do this to me?"

He looked directly at Cash. His blue eyes were deeply hooded by scowling brows. Cash returned his stare. One was as steady and antagonistic as the other.

"No."

"It was Jigger Flynn, Daddy," Schyler said quickly.

She was trying to outrun a storm about to break. The air was sulfurous. The instant Cotton and Cash came face-to-face, the scene had become as still and electric as the atmosphere before a tornado. She had known there was antipathy between them, but she'd never expected it to be so palpable that it could be tasted.

In short, concise sentences, she related to Cotton what had happened during the night. She didn't go into details. They could be doled out to him like medication when he was well enough to hear them. She didn't tell him that Ken had been killed in the explosion seconds before he planned to take his own life. She didn't tell him that Tricia, months earlier, had formed an unholy alliance with Dale Gilbreath. At that very moment Tricia was giving her deposition to the sheriff in the presence of her attorney. He was already planning to plea bargain. Tricia hoped she would get a lesser sentence if she turned state's evidence. If not, she would stand trial with Gilbreath and Jigger Flynn for the murder of her husband among a variety of other charges.

No, all that could wait until later, when Cotton wasn't swaying on his feet.

"The fire looked much worse than it was, Daddy," Schyler concluded anxiously. "Most of the timber was saved. We'll deliver it to Endicott in good time, but we don't have to worry about the deadline at the bank."

Cotton seemed not to have heard a single word. He raised his hand and pointed a finger at Cash. "You're trespassing."

"Daddy, what's the matter with you? Cash has done the work of ten men for you tonight."

His pointing hand began to shake. "You. . . you . . . " Gasping, Cotton clutched his pajama jacket and fell back a step.

"Daddy!" Schyler screamed.

Cotton went down on one knee, then fell backward on
to the veranda. Schyler dropped to her knees beside him.

"I'll call the doctor," Gayla said and ran inside. Jimmy Don bolted after her.

"Daddy, Daddy." Schyler moved her hands over her father frantically. His pasty face was beaded with sweat. His lips and earlobes had an unhealthy bluish cast. His breath whistled through his waxy lips.

Schyler raised her head and looked up at Cash in desperate appeal. His taut expression startled her. His face was suffused with color, as though he had an overabundance of blood while Cotton didn't have enough.

Kneeling, he reached down and secured a handful of Cotton's pajama top in his fist and yanked him up. "Goddamn you to eternal hell if you die now. Don't you die, old man. Don't you die!"

"Cash, what are you doing?!"

Cash shook Cotton. His white head wobbled feebly. His eyes were fixed on Cash's tortured face. The younger man's sun-tipped hair had fallen over his brows. Tears were making his hazel eyes shimmer.

"Don't you die until you've said it. Look at me. Say it!" He clenched the pajama top tighter and pulled Cotton up closer to him. He lowered his head and ground his forehead against Cotton's. His voice cracked with yearning when he pleaded through clenched teeth. "Say it! Just once in my whole godforsaken life, say it.
Call me son."

With an effort, Cotton lifted his hand. He touched Cash's stubbled cheek. The bloodless fingertips caressed it, but the name he rasped wasn't his son's. Drawing a rattling breath, he sighed, "Monique."

And then he died.

His hand fell away from Cash's face and landed with a thud on the boards of the veranda. Gradually the muscles of Cash's arms relaxed and he lowered the sagging form. He kept his head bending over it for a long time, staring into the sightless blue eyes that had always refused to see him.

Then he pushed himself to his feet and staggered down the steps of the veranda. He drove away, but not before Schyler, speechlessly kneeling at Cotton's side, had had a glimpse of his shattered expression.