Darkness upon the Land

Alexia noticed that when Reuben began whistling Gather Us In as they neared the house, it was at a tempo that might require a congregation downing a bushel of jalapeno peppers if they wanted to keep up. He and her mother had agreed this tune would be their signal upon arriving, and it seemed to her his brisk rendition confirmed both of them were returning alive and well.

Mѐre looked haggard but smiled wryly as she stepped out on the galerie and waved to them as they crossed the overgrown yard. Once they joined her, she reached out to Alexia with one arm and patted Reuben on the shoulder with the other hand. The hug she received was long and warm.

“I’m so glad to see the both of you back safe and sound,” her mom murmured. “Last night I heard a distant rumble and looked out toward town. Whatever that explosion was, I prayed the two of you were far from it.”

“Um, I was several blocks away, but … Rube caused it.”

She released Alexia and regarded him almost sternly.

“Well, Esperanza is free of their oppressors,” he replied. “But there is a cloud behind every silver lining.”

Mѐre then regarded him with a fatalistic expression that overshadowed her earlier smile. She seemed so … resigned.

“There always is,” she responded bluntly.

Alexia nodded toward the door. “Why don’t we go inside and sit down, and we can tell you all about it.”

When they entered the living room, she sat with her mother on the couch while Reuben settled into a nearby chair. After describing the events of the battle, he informed her about the attack on the infirmary last night, skillfully leaving out the detail of Alexia’s outburst. When he described the man whose body he viewed, Mѐre shook her head.

“He definitely didn’t have a tattoo on his arm. No, I’m afraid we’re not out of the woods yet.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to head back into town today.” He nodded toward the back of the house. “The sooner I get our prisoner out of here, the better I’ll feel. They have better facilities than a barn to detain him.”

Mѐre’s expression hardened slightly. “Doesn’t make any difference now. He’s dead.”

She gaped at her mother in shocked silence and then glanced at Reuben. An eerie chill trembled through her as a baffled frown crossed his face.

“What happened?” he asked.

There was something flat in her tone. “I couldn’t keep him alive.”

“How? I mean … I didn’t think I messed him up that badly.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault.” Mѐre’s demeanor instantly became consoling. “Really, you have nothing to blame yourself about. I’m just sorry you’re going to have to haul another body, although I don’t know if it would be easier to take him into town or the swamp. I’m truly sorry.”

“But what happened?” Alexia stared at her. A notion tickled in the back of her mind that she didn’t want to consider. No, her mother wouldn’t do that.

“I’m not a coroner.” She seemed to become slightly cross.

Silence fell for a few seconds until Reuben finally broke it. “Is he still in the barn?”

“Yes, although I did untie him.”

“Then I’ll get it over with. The swamp is closer.” As he got to his feet, he glanced at Alexia and slightly shook his head. He left the house through the back door.

She knew what that meant, and it only reinforced the unsettling sensation that hounded her. No, her mother wouldn’t murder somebody in cold blood. There had to be another explanation for Mѐre’s spastic mood swings and the reason why a man lay dead in their barn. But right now she had to respect that the woman didn’t want to talk about it.

It wasn’t difficult to come up with a new topic to discuss. “Now that the marauders have been driven out, the town has a lot of rebuilding and healing to do. Besides those who got wounded during the battle, quite a few people have been getting sick. Looks like a lot of it is salmonella and dysentery from bad water. And now they’re even lower on food supplies.”

Her mother nodded. “Yes, yes, that’s all to be expected. Since those bandits never got farther south than town, I may have you check up on some of the neighbors. I know the Stewarts and Broussards both put out big gardens this year, so if enough of us band together we might be able to decrease some of the suffering.”

Yeah, she would much rather talk about this than contemplate if her own mother had killed a man.

Convinced that by now he had the alligators conditioned to stand up and salute every time he entered the swamp in the pirogue, Reuben hoped and prayed this was his last disposal trip. He did make note there were no additional wounds or marks on the body. As he paddled back to the homestead, he actually looked toward the patch of hemlock he knew grew on a smaller hummock a couple of hundred yards behind the barn.

By the time he returned to the house, Liana and Alexia were both busy preparing supplies for him to take into town on Friday. The matron was on the porch and stripping plantain leaves, which could be used to dress wounds, that her daughter must have gathered. He knew Alexia was in the kitchen chopping forage for the livestock.

“Let me give you a hand.” Reuben volunteered as he pulled up a chair.

She looked startled for a split second, and then seemed to compose her expression to a more cheerful countenance. “It’s still a free country for the time being.”

“Well, Esperanza is free. I don’t know much about the rest of the country right now.”

“The human condition is so irrational.” She glanced sidelong at him. “Think of how much suffering could have been avoided if people just didn’t get greedy. Covetous. The problem is we became so modern we forgot what keeps society rooted.”

“Oh, there’s always been jerks.” He picked up a leaf and ripped it in half. “There’s just more of them now.”

“Except around here we’ve been thinning their numbers.”

He studied Liana’s face. She seemed to be on the verge of wanting to discuss something, and he could well imagine what it must be. He could also understand her reluctance. Only four weeks ago he had no expertise on this topic, but now he was more familiar with it than he ever wanted to be.

Might as well be the one to bring it out into the open. “It was poison, wasn’t it?”

She stopped folding the leaf she grasped for a few seconds, but then resumed her work. “Such a typically female solution. I was angry enough to slit his throat, but had to concede I didn’t have the strength. So easy to add to his food, which he took with more of those remarks that earned him the extra ingredient to begin with.”

If remarks had made her angry enough to kill someone, he knew what line the perp had foolishly crossed. “How did he threaten Alex?”

“I will not speak it.” Liana gazed into the distance as she shredded the leaves with automatic motion. “I will not allow the venom that spewed from his lips come anywhere near to mine. At first it was satisfying when he started to scream curses, to know he realized that losing sensation in his extremities meant his organs would also shut down. But then ….” Her hands quieted. “I will never escape the darkness that has always enveloped me, will I? My failures will always outnumber my successes.”

He also ceased stripping the leaves, and calmly responded. “But then what?”

She glanced at Reuben with a hint of bafflement. “What do you mean?”

“You said but then. And then you changed what you were about to say.”

She stared at him for a few seconds before her gaze drifted back to the swamp. “I had no desire to hear his last gasp. I had to … turn away from what I’d done. But by then there was no turning back, no chance of saving him.” She frowned. “I shouldn’t want to save him.”

“You wanted to save him because you want to escape the darkness. But you punish yourself by staying there.” It crossed his mind how much he had been in contact with his dark side lately. During the battle at Esperanza he was pretty sure a couple of the hoods he’d gunned down had been female, and despite the culture’s insistence that men and women were the same, he felt like he’d crossed yet another line.

When her gaze rolled back to him, there was a spark in her eyes. “Odds were he was going to die. I know full well he might have been executed if you took him back into town. He just happened to be the last one to survive when they attacked us. Why should it matter if I was the one to end his wretched life?”

“You know why that responsibility wasn’t yours. And that proves how much decency is truly in you. The fact you regret your action shows you really do want to escape the darkness. And you’ll do it the way you did before.”

A few seconds passed before a slight smile touched her lips. “Alexia.”

“You’re the one who kept her alive when everybody else, even those with good intentions, would have killed her. You may refuse to give yourself that much credit, you may believe all that you suffer will never match your guilt over your sister’s death, but don’t try to convince yourself that you’re unworthy of forgiveness by pretending to justify the prisoner’s death. You’ve proven you’re not the villain you believe yourself to be.”

Her frown returned. “You’re far too generous. I may have saved Alexia, but I can’t take any pride in all the means I used to do so.”

“There’s that decency showing itself in your regret again. Liana, you’ve acknowledged what you’ve done and you’ve resolved not to do it again. Yet you refuse to ask for forgiveness.”

“It won’t do any good. I can’t make reparation for what I’ve done. For her sake, I can’t.”

“You threw yourself into her life. You made the sacrifices any parent would make, and then some. Yes, you did wrong, but it wasn’t for selfish reasons. A month ago you would have never done this. But now the law of entropy seems to have accelerated, you’ve been threatened, shot, bedridden, put upon, and then attacked again. You feel very vulnerable at a time you want to be your strongest in order to protect her. Is it any wonder your judgment would be impaired, that you would do something you regret?” He held up the leaves he still grasped. “Now you’re trying to save others’ lives. This is your reparation.”

She smiled ruefully as her gaze met his. “You’re also far too wise for someone your age.”

“You’ve no idea how much I agree with you.”