he managed to break free and climb up a short, steep slope. The next thing he knew he was standing on the plank road, and he could see troops gathering up about a hundred yards ahead of him, both cavalry and infantry, their bridles clinking, their swords and bayonets shining in the smoky gloom.
He slowed down now and walked more steadily, feeling the rough-sawed boards beneath his lacerated feet. Somebody was shouting, "Muster together, boys! We have them on the run now! Make for the railroad track, we can outflank them!"
He was only thirty yards away from the assembly of troops when he came across a blackened shape sitting on the edge of the plank road. At first he couldn't think what it was, but as he came closer he realized it was a man, almost completely charred, yet obviously still alive, because he was trembling and uttering grunts of pain. Smoke was still trailing from his hair, and his ears were burned to tiny cinders.
"What's your name, fellow?" Decker asked him.
The figure didn't answer.
"What division are you with? Anderson's? Wofford's?"
At last the figure turned its head and stared at him. "Han-cock's," he croaked. "We were all set afire."
Decker unscrewed his water bottle and poured some into the palm of his hand, touching it against the man's lips. They felt dry and crisp, like burned bacon rinds. The man managed to suck up a little before he started coughing, and when he coughed he sprayed shreds of bloodied lung into Decker's hand.
"Tell me your name," Decker repeated. "You may be a Yankee, but I'll get word to your family, if I can."
The man shook his head. He couldn't stop coughing and he couldn't find the breath to speak.
Decker was still kneeling next to him when he felt the
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plank road shaking, as if horses were approaching. He turned around and he could see the tall dark figure storming toward him, its coattails flapping like wings. It was less than fifty yards away, and it seemed to rumble as it approached, more like a thunderstorm than a man.
Decker stood up and tried to run—an exhausted, sore-footed canter. He knew that it was probably hopeless, trying to escape. If this creature had set fire to whole divisions, God knows what it was going to do to him. But he kept stumbling forward, gasping with effort, waving every now and again to see if he could attract the attention of the troops up ahead of him.
"Hi! Hi there! Help me!"
But then he turned to see how close the creature was, and it was right on top of him. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the curtains of its coat, and again he found himself trapped in a knobbly cage of bones, unable to twist himself free, unable to breathe.
He shouted out, and sat up, and switched on the bedside light.
And Cathy was there.
She was standing beside the bed, quite still. She was dressed in one of her plain white nightdresses, and there were green leaves and purple herbs entwined around her wrists, like bracelets. Her face was intensely white, almost fluorescent, and her eyes were blurry, as if they were filled with tears, or as if she were blinking as fast as a hummingbird's wing.
He started to say, "Cathy—" but then his throat choked up. He simply couldn't find the words. He had tried to talk to her so many times through mediums and clairvoyants. He had searched for any trace that she hadn't left him forever, that her spirit was still somewhere close by. He had heard
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nothing, felt nothing, found nothing. No perfumes, no whispers, no shadows. But now she was here, unbidden, looking as real as if she were still alive.
"This will be the last time," she said. Her voice sounded high and resonant, like a tuning fork. "If I try to come again, Saint Barbara will have me trapped by Oyá for all eternity in the split second between life and death—dying and dying and dying forever."
Decker smeared the tears from his eyes. "I, ah—I know that you have to go, sweetheart. But I know what you've done for me, too. How much you've been protecting me. I know who Saint Barbara really is, too."
"I can't keep her away from you any longer. She wants her revenge, and it has to be your time next."
"You don't know how much I miss you. If it's my time next, then maybe that's something I can look forward to. We can be together again."
Cathy gave him a wan smile. "The afterlife is not what you think it is, my darling. It's lonely and silent. The dead grieve for their loved ones as much as the living. They grieve for their lost lives, too."
"So this is it, then? The very last good-bye."
"I've come to tell you more than good-bye. You can still save yourself from Saint Barbara. But you will have to make an ally of the one person you hate more than any other."
"I don't understand you."
"I saw who killed me, Decker."
"What?"
"I saw who shot me. I was asleep and I felt somebody shake my shoulder. I opened my eyes and then she appeared, out of thin air. She was smiling. She had come to kill me, and she was smiling."
"A woman shot you?" Decker said, dumbfounded. "She was very tall and she had beads in her hair."
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"Jesus. I don't believe this. Queen Aché shot you herself?" "Nobody saw her but me. She said, `Irosun oche,' and then she fired."
"I'll kill her. I swear to God I'll tear her head off." "You need her help, my darling."
"Her help? All I want to do is blow her brains out, the same she did to you."
"Saint Barbara wants your blood, Decker, and it's your time next. Queen Ache is the only one who has the power to save you."
"Why should she? She hates me as much as I hate her. Why do you think she shot you? To warn me off. To keep me from breaking her drug racket. And she was clever, wasn't she? She killed a cop without actually killing a cop."
"She will help you if she has to."
"I don't get it."
"She came close up to me to shoot me, so close that she pressed the gun against my forehead. I seized her hair, and pulled it, and some of her hair and some of her beads came out in my hand. They're still there now, under the bed.
"I was the only witness to my own killing, but those beads will give you proof of who did it. Then there's Junior Abraham. When Queen Aché shot him, there were many witnesses. They don't think that they saw her. They think that they saw somebody else. But they did see her, and if you can find a way to open their eyes, you will have all the evidence you need."
"Cathy—"
"I have to go now, Decker. I can't do any more." "Can I touch you?"
"Of course."
He stood up and cautiously approached her. She looked up at him and he saw in her yellow eyes all of the years they
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could have had together, all of the summers and the winters and the walks along the waterfront, where the Confederate army lay dead, and where she lay dead, too.
He took her in his arms and closed his eyes and there was nothing there, no substance at all, only the briefest of chills.
"Good-bye," she whispered, inside his head. He opened his eyes and she was gone.
He knelt down and peered under the bed, but he couldn't see any beads. He knew that the forensic people had gone over the apartment after Cathy was shot, and if there had been any beads there, or pulled-out hair, surely they would have discovered them.
He took the flashlight out of the nightstand and flicked it around, but he still couldn't see anything. In the end, he heaved the bed to the other side of the room.
They really took some finding, but there they were. Three small ivory beads, almost the same color as the carpet, in the gap between the edge of the carpet and the skirting board. Decker went to the kitchen for a polythene food bag, carefully picking up each bead with tweezers and dropping it inside. When he inspected them closely, he saw that two of them had wisps of hair in them.