And finally Clare makes another appearance...
It was well past dark when they stumbled out of Calhoun's Bar and Tim saw the little boy in the orange shorts again.
The boy wasn't alone; he was with a couple of other 9 or 10 year olds in front of the CircleK. And it would have been fairly innocent except that the boy waved to them and then ran like hell.
Tim tossed Raylan the card key and took off...into the Louisiana equivalent of brush, which was a series of profoundly dense and soggy vegetation. Tim kept up until he saw the stilt house and a dock with a gazebo that he was being led to, and the kid stopped running as soon as he reached the gazebo. The gazebo with a fire pit and people and a big-ass dog in it.
"Ah, Damn it."
Tim turned and looked at his partner, sitting on the soggy ground, holding his hat with one hand and his head in the other, "Raylan, I handed you the key so you could go back and I could chase the kid."
"You could chase the kid from the Waffle house to the girl that got away from you once before," Raylan verified, "without homeswamp advantage? Can she fix my head?"
"No, Raylan, she can't legally prescribe psychiatric medication. Nor is she a shrink," Tim offered him a hand up. "But she could patch that."
"Tell me your girl's not far," Raylan kept looking at his bloody hand.
"Less far if that is the last time you refer to her as my girl."
Raylan looked at his hand. Touched his head and looked back at the blood.
"Thanks, Raylan. I'll remember that. Thanks."
Big-ass dog was a shepherd mix that got up and barked as they approached. The boy looked up and ran into the stilt house with a wave prompting the very old man sitting in the gazebo to start cackling and Clare Lidet, in cutoffs and a tank over a bikini that didn't hide a scar from her collarbone to her cleavage, bandaging his foot, to stare at the sky in exasperation.
"Y'know I appreciate not bein' a fugitive anymore an' all, but ya'll really didn't have to come tell me yourselves," she finished wrapping the man's foot.
"Lil Clare, were you a fugitive?" the old man kept chuckling, "Why, officers, I had no idea. That's awful."
"They're Marshals, cher. Not cops. And you need to remember that twice a day means every 12 hours," Clare said, rising, "C'mere, Boo."
The shepherd mix moved and leaned against Clare's bare leg, glaring at them.
"I change the bandage when I 'member. C'mon, Clare, I'm blind. A little slack, sil vous plait," the old man whined.
"You're blind 'cuz you won't pay attention to your damn blood sugar. You keep it up, you're losin' the leg next, jackass." She gathered all the dirty gauze and tossed it in the fire pit, squirting the flaming gauze with rubbing alcohol with a recklessness born of practice.
"You boys hear this abuse? Sure there's nothin' arrest-able?" he felt around for his cane and rose, "Suppose if ya'll ain't gonna handcuff anybody there's no point in me stayin' to watch," he chuckled, "Gentlemen, lady." He tapped his way past the stilt house, shouting, "Way to go, Swampwitch."
Clare winced, "She hates it when he calls her that." She helped Raylan into the gazebo then kept her hand on Tim's forearm as the dog watched, teeth bared. "Boo, behave." To them, "He doesn't like strangers. Why're ya'll here?" She moved to examine Raylan's eyes for concussion and the back of his head with a penlight.
"Little boy waved and ran. We followed. That was the point, wasn't it?" Tim said, watching her bare feet to Raylan's wincing amusement. "This your new waiting room, doc?"
"Looks that way, don't it?" she said, flushing the head wound with water. "Do I have repeat myself?"
"We followed the kid. Kid led to you. So, we're here. You didn't send him?"
"Remy's not my messenger. He's hers," she gestured to the grayed old lady walking over from the stilt house. "It's nice I'm not a fugitive, really, but doesn't explain why ya'll're here. In Louisiana, we have our own marshals; Cafferty could've put the word out. I'd've gotten it eventually. Why're ya'll here?"
"Price on your head is up to half a mill," Raylan cut in, as she dabbed ointment on his head. "We'd like to put you in protective custody."
"That's curious. It's like the whole thing was bullshit."
"Going back to the whole protective custody thing," Tim said.
"Yeah. Okay, that. No." She put a piece of gauze over Raylan's cut and tied a bandanna on his head to hold it.
"Seriously? This is your medical attention," Raylan asked.
"Well, I could get a stitch in if I shaved around the cut, but it'd take a while for the hair to grow back," Clare started cleaning up, tossing bits in the fire pit.
"Right," Raylan's eyes widened to Tim's amusement, "Uh. My head'll be fine. Thanks. Why won't you go into protective custody?"
"Is protective custody where I'm surrounded by marshals and somebody's tryin' to kill me? Because that sounds a lot like when I was in that transport after my arraignment, the one for the crimes I didn't do, and there was that crash and that chick tryin' to kill me and marshals all over the place and, I think we all know how well that turned out," Clare crossed her arms over chest, and the scar she got that day.
The old lady stood at the doorway with Tim, the dog moved over to her, "You're going to Lexington anyway, cher. May as well let 'em cover it."
"Thank you, Amy. I'll be sure to consider that idea," she said dryly. "Deputies, Madame Amelie Robichaud. Tante Amy, these are Deputies-"
"Givens and Gutterson from Lexington. Remy is quite thorough, Clare." The old lady cocked her head, as if listening for something, "You must. You're already packed and leaving anyway. Safer to go with them, too," she nodded resolutely.
Clare leaned against a support, crossing her arms, "Am I gonna die if I go back to Lexington without them?"
Amy's head stayed tilted, she nodded once, then twice. "Spirits are vague, child. Death fleeting. But luck is not meant to be pushed."
"Um," Raylan opened his mouth, "Not to shoot ourselves in the foot. But bein' framed and havin' a price on her head. I don't think Dr. Lidet's been pushin' any luck."
Amy looked at him like an indulgent parent, "Events unfold as they must. You and the poor soldier she left in those woods will bring her back. Full circle," she turned to Tim, "Have you ever not done your job?"
"No, ma'am," he narrowed his eyes at her, glancing back at the unamused Clare briefly.
"Then you will catch Clare and bring her in, as you were told," Amy beamed, "Full circle."
"How'd you know it was me in the woods three years ago?"
Amy's smile got wider, "I know what I know. These things are downright predictable when you get to my age."
Clare rolled her eyes, "This, right here, is why he calls you Swampwitch."
"What things are predictable?" Tim asked a little hesitantly.
Amy then turned and started in on Clare in what Tim and Raylan figured was Cajun French. And Clare responded in Cajun French. It went on until Amy, the Swampwitch said something that made the so-far impassive Clare's mouth drop open and say in English, "That is sooo uncalled for. Really. Just, no."
Amy then smirked like she'd won and gestured for Raylan to come with her.
Tim moved to follow as well but the old woman put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head, dark eyes twinkling. She said something in Cajun that he couldn't make out but Clare's back stiffened, so he figured it was probably best he didn't know. The dog followed, glancing back at Clare until he was sure Tim wasn't a threat. Raylan gave him a look reminding him he wasn't to be trusted alone with her. Tim ignored him and waited until Amy was out of earshot before asking again, "What's predictable?"
Clare's face was in her medical bag, packing everything up, so he couldn't see her say, "Amy thinks... Y'see, out here, with the Spanish moss filtering the moonlight, you can believe in things like 'meant to be' and 'supposed to' and-well, Amy thinks-"
"That we slept together too?" he winced.
"No," she stood with her bag and slipped on a scuffed pair of Topsiders as she poured a bag of sand into the fire pit, quenching the flames, "she knows we didn't. She just has a different explanation of why."
"Which is?"
"Amy works off a different; I dunno, system than most of the rest of us-"
"Clare. You're stalling."
She scowled at him, "If I were stalling, I'd ask why you felt the need for backup."
"Raylan's not backup," he smirked, "He's a chaperone."
She snickered, "That's really sort of sad, Gutterson."
"Come back and tell my boss then. Now, what was Amy saying?"
Clare looked out into the swamp, saying quietly, "She thinks I was framed and had to escape because you and I were 'supposed to' meet. That you're here now, not another Marshal, not a local. Well, it really just reinforces that for her."
"She thinks-oh."
Clare's eyes met him for a brief second before flickering back to the swamp, "Exactly."
"I thought it was annoying that everybody in the office thought we had sex and I let you go," he said.
She snorted, and looked at him, "Have they met you? You'd have handcuffed me to tree during the afterglow, provided you didn't as foreplay."
He smiled, "I don't know about that. You'd have expected it anyhow."
"Fair point," she nodded, still on the opposite side of the place, "we should get up to the house 'fore they think I've run again."
He nodded, and made to follow her.
On the dark path she was keeping her distance from him, respecting his space, but she stopped him in the shadows to say, "Look, whatever you put in your report-"
"That I went in late that Thursday night and woke up Friday morning with the note. And we never 'met.' I didn't change the timeline to help you getaway, I just-"
"Tried not to get nailed for fraternizing with the enemy," she smiled in the dark. "Thanks."
"I just said I didn't help you."
"I didn't think you would, not after you tried to arrest me after I finished stitching you up. I'm just grateful you didn't go all sentimental in the morning and make me wrong about you."
He felt her moving again and moved to catch her. He wrapped his hand around her forearm, keeping her from the light of the house, "About that night?"
"Are we gonna talk about it? Because I don't think this is the place."
"You talked about it with her?" he nodded to the house.
"I did. I've only know her my entire life. She and my mom were friends. I told her everything. Why?"
"Is that why she thinks-what she thinks?" he whispered, scared of the answer.
"She thinks I didn't sleep with you and fuck up the manhunt because I fell in love with you and didn't want to mess up your career. But as to her 'destiny' thing? Has more to do with you bein' here yourself," Clare replied softly. "She thinks you came here because somehow you knew I wouldn't be anywhere else. Even though I have been," she shook her head, "The logic of coming here because its familiar terrain to me isn't completely relevant to her theories."
Tim thought back to his snap judgment in Art's office, it'd been his gut. Logic dictated Belize with her cabana boy, not even his snap judgment of six months previous could be explained logically. Best to keep to himself. "We do need to talk about that night though."
She nodded, "Anything else, or can I have my arm back?"
He didn't let go but slid his hand down to catch her fingers, not being able to help himself, "Where were you six months ago?"
She huffed, "Little place called San Miguel, few hundred miles down the coast from Tijuana."
"Down the Pacific coast?"
"That's where Tijuana is. Anything else?" she was looking at his fingers holding hers.
So was he. "Nope."
"Ok. Anyone say what happened to my bike?"
"Brian said it's in working order in your grandparents' garage."
"Really?" she gave a little squeal and threw her arms around his neck, as lighthearted as he'd seen her. He could smell her sweat and shampoo as his arms went reflexively around her waist, holding her off the ground. Until she breathed his name.
Hehehe. Review ;)