This chapter is full of what looks like words. And this is here so that the stupid chapter thing doesn't push my chapter title out of alignment. I hate that.
Chapter Forty-Five: Bakulu
**Merle**
"Listen here you swayed-back son-of-a-bitch!"
"Merle!" Rick called out, heading over to where the older Dixon brother was about to bust a few teeth out of that Texan asshole's mouth. "What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing that a fist in the face of that dick couldn't solve," Merle growled as the cowboy tipped his hat and sauntered off.
"I don't know what's eating you, but we have to try to get along with this group, Merle," Rick said.
"No, shit," Merle stated, still glaring after the cowboy. "Asshole should go back to Corpus Christi if he doesn't like Georgia. Called us a bunch of bluegrass hillbilly's…"
"Well, Merle, in my experience most of us are," Rick said.
Turning his wrath on the ex-cop, Merle shifted on his feet. "What do you want, Officer Friendly?"
"Delgado's going to be in the trees with the Lieutenant, I'm going to the exchange point with Glenn, I was wondering if you'd head up the ground troops."
"Why me?" He demanded, suddenly suspicious. "Figuring us guns on the ground are prime targets or what?"
"Yeah, alright, Merle, you and I aren't on easy terms, but you have military experience and when you're not stoned you're fairly sharp on the take."
"I'd like to call you an asshole for that, but you have a hard point and you're driving it in," Merle said. "Fine, but I get to pick my own people. Not that I don't trust your choices, Smiley, but I wouldn't put it past your crazy ass to try and get me deep sixed."
"Merle," Rick said, "if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead by now."
Watching the man wander off, Merle pulled a face, before looking around to finish that scrap he was about to have with that cowboy. He'd do a little recruiting for the ground force after the pressed a few knuckles into that man's gums.
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..-~-..
"Sister Joan," he purred as he approached the blonde woman.
The nun looked over from where she was watching over St. James and adjusted her rifle.
"Bet you weren't expecting to be dragged halfway across Georgia for a good fight, hm?" Merle greeted.
"She's a nun?" St. James asked.
"Shut up, dickweed," Merle stated, not even looking at the man chained to the heavy assed table. "How'd you like to saddle up beside me when we take this camp?"
"Can't," she explained. "Religious reasons. I took a vow of peace."
"Break it, you're a good shot and all the other good shots are going to be climbing trees and keeping away from the action."
"Sorry, Merle," she said. "I won't kill anything but abominations."
"That's a goddamned waste."
"Hey," St. James broke in, "is it true that tall Marine is Martin's son?"
"I will punch you in the dick so hard your head will explode," Merle snapped turning his anger on the man.
He blinked back at Merle calmly. "Does he know Adele's with Martin?"
"Who the good hell is Adele?" Merle asked, drawn into the conversation with the man.
"Martin's daughter."
Merle shifted on his feet, drawing in closer to the man. "Are you bullshitting me?"
"Why would I?"
Exchanging a glance with Joan, Merle sighed heavily. "Whatever, dipshit, ain't my deal."
"What's going to happen to the women?" The man demanded suddenly, almost thoughtfully, like he had been mulling it over for a while now.
"We're going to bring them in here, line them up and have them all give you a kick in the balls, numbnuts," Merle snarled. "What we do is none of your business."
"The women are my business," St. James insisted firmly. "Do you know how many times I mended them? Nursed them back to health in my own tent? They're not there willingly and I won't have them slaughtered by you backwoods hicks."
Getting in the man's face, Merle stared him down.
"Saint James the Greater is the patron saint of labourers," Joan broke in calmly.
Both man angled their faces towards where she stood quietly off to the side.
"Saint Jude," she went on, "is the patron saint of lost causes. Seems fitting that you're named after both."
Merle gawped at her for the longest time, St. James merely quirked a brow.
Adjusting the rifle on her back, Joan smiled a little sadly. "Man will always seek to drive other men down. The wolves will always snap at the necks of lambs. And women will always be the unwilling vehicles for men's greed and lust."
"What are you driving at, Sister?" Merle inquired.
"Why do you take such good care of the women, St. James?" She asked the man. "Duty or compassion? Be mindful, that lying to a nun is a sin."
"You are a nun, then?" St. James inquired.
"Duty or compassion?" She repeated the question.
"If I say duty, then I'm a mindless drone doing what I think is right," he stated after a moment. "If I say compassion, then I'm lead by my feelings and compromised to the censure of men."
Stepping forward, Joan took his face in her hands. "I'm not a man, St. James."
Merle watched this with a mildly disgusted look on his face. He didn't know what the hell was going on, he just wanted to round up some people to do some killing.
"Whatever you have planned," St. James confessed, "won't work. Martin will be planning on you attacking the camp, he's hoping for it. It's happened before and…he takes a sick pleasure in hurting people. The Bastards made him president of their gang because Martin beat the hell out of their first president, knocked him down to the road, propped his own bike tire up over his face and gunned it, goes the story of camp. He's the Devil."
"Merle, Ephesians 6:11," the Lieutenant broke in, standing in the doorway with Daryl, Delgado and Rick.
"Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil," Merle recited almost mechanically.
"You tell Martin when you see him next," the Lieutenant said, "that wherever he goes, we will hunt him down. Merle, you got a moment?"
As the men piled out, Merle paused by St. James and looked him up and down before murmuring, "Proverbs 21:15, dumb ass."
..-~-..
..-~-..
Merle was standing about with Glenn and Rick, when Daryl wandered over and hopped up onto the hood of the truck they were talking near.
"Everything almost ready?" Rick asked him.
"Yep, the ladies are just finishing up with the jacket, drying it with a hairdryer hooked up the generator."
"You see them Marines over there?" Merle asked his baby brother, motioning to where Delgado, the Lieutenant and Kowalski all seemed to be doing one last ritual of checking their gear and rifles.
"Hey," Glenn said suddenly. "If Marines are amphibious soldiers, then does that mean the Lieutenant can swim, like, really well?"
"What the hell goes on in your head, man?" Daryl demanded after a long pause from all of them.
Rick and Merle laughed.
"What?" Glenn asked innocently.
"I'd like to see that man wet and in a speedo," Eve murmured to Vivian as the two women stepped in beside them.
As the men turned to look at her, she flushed.
"Oh, did that come out of my mouth?" She inquired sweetly.
"What's up, Eve?" Rick demanded.
"The jacket's done."
"Thank you."
"Um-hm," she returned, before calling out to the Marines across the yard. "Lieutenant, honey, have you ever been to the French Riviera?"
The man looked over and up from adjusting the powerful sight on his .308 with a small, confused frown. "What now?"
"Doesn't matter," Eve returned, chuckling to herself as she walked away with Vivian.
"Think Grace may need to watch that one," Rick remarked.
"The woman wants to see Fay in a speedo, I think Grace has nothing to worry about," Daryl stated.
"You know the speedo was invented in 1914?" Glenn supplied.
There was another long pause, before Daryl snarled. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Jeopardy," Glenn explained sheepishly.
..-~-..
..-~-..
Merle managed to find his baby brother alone a little while later, sitting in the open back of the SUV quietly adjusting the tension of his crossbow's strings.
Easing into the spot at Daryl's side, Merle squinted at the bright Georgian early summer day and sighed.
"What's eating you?" Daryl demanded.
"Look," Merle began cautiously. "I'm just going to throw this out and don't say a fucking word about it."
"So get it out."
Idly scratching at the area where his blade's brace rubbed against his skin uncomfortably, Merle fought for a place to start. Shit, it wasn't in his area of expertise.
"So," he began, itching himself harder, "you doing alright? With your woman gone and all?"
Daryl shrugged.
"I mean…shit, you gonna cry or some shit?"
"No. Carol's tough as nails, woman can handle herself."
"Yeah."
"Besides, we'll get her back."
Merle was quiet. He didn't know much about anything, wasn't book smart like Milton was book smart, didn't have tactical knowledge like the Lieutenant had tactical knowledge, couldn't hunt or track like Daryl could hunt and track, but he knew how things went. And how things went were the meek got shit on and the evil thrived.
Supposedly, the meek were supposed to inherit the earth.
Well, maybe now it was time.
Not that he was one of the meek. Daryl was. As hard as the boy tried to be, he wasn't. Merle knew this. Merle had always known this.
Fay was meek. Not that you'd know right away, six-some feet of Cajun powerhouse, with moose legs and military might, but he was.
Rick was meek too. He walked tall, he shot straight and he got things done, but he wasn't hard deep down where an evil man was hard.
Merle was evil. Had been? Still was?
He wasn't sure.
Whatever happened, he supposed, was out of their hands now.
Not that he thought God had control of the situation either.
But luck? Fate? Random chance?
Something was in charge and it wasn't mortal or corporeal.
"Hey, where's that coonass heading with that axe?" Merle asked suddenly, elbowing his brother to get his attention.
Both men watched as the Lieutenant calmly strode by with an axe slung over his shoulder, heading for the nearby woods.
"Don't have a clue," Daryl said, slipping down from the back of the SUV. "Come on."
Keeping their distance, the two Dixon's followed the Lieutenant as he made his way across the pasture. With their heads down, they slipped into the woods behind the Marine and kept on him as he moved towards a sickly looking wild pecan that was standing in a small clearing.
Moving into position in the underbrush in order to spy on him, they watched as he leaned the axe against a nearby fallen tree and pulled out his combat knife.
Merle held Daryl back as the Cajun rolled up the sleeve of his right arm and held the blade to his palm. Slicing his palm open, the Cajun studied the spilling blood quietly as it gushed up slowly, before he replaced his knife.
"Martin Deveau," the Lieutenant spoke reverently to the bloody palm. "Your blood runs in my veins."
Rubbing his hands together, the Cajun murmured Martin Deveau three times, before touching his bloody hand to the trunk of the tree.
"May you only live as long as this tree do," he said, stepping back from the pecan, leaving a bloody handprint on the bark.
Both Dixon's winced as Fay gripped the axe and began hacking carefully at the trunk of the tree, before giving it one last kick with his boot, sending it crashing down onto the forest floor.
Standing in the clearing breathing a little heavy and favouring his wounded ribs, the Cajun dropped the axe and calmly pulled a piece of linen from his pocket to wrap up his hand.
"Little bit of Voodoo for you Dixon's," he called over his shoulder, back still to them. Turning around with a twinkle in his eye, the Lieutenant smiled, tucking his newly wrapped hand up against his ribs. "What'd you think?"
Rising up out of their hiding place, both Dixon's narrowed their eyes at him.
"I think you're off your fucking rocker," Merle said. "You Godless prick."
"Couldn't hurt though, right?" Fay asked. "Hang a little bad gris-gris on him?"
"Come on you creepy bastard," Merle said, shocked that the man had actually performed a Voodoo ritual before their very eyes and unable to put this shock into words that weren't cusses. "Let's get back before the others come looking."
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** Carol**
She had sat up all night trying to think of a way to get to the knife in her bra without rousing suspicion.
Adele watched her calmly from the corner, though her chin touched her chest now and then in exhaustion, she didn't fall asleep long enough for Carol to even begin to attempt anything.
Martin hadn't come back at all that night and she was lead to believe he was sleeping somewhere else.
Finally, as Carol began to smell the scent of breakfast cooking over the campfire outside, another beat down looking woman poked her head nervously into the tent, before stepping in altogether.
Carol pushed to her feet quickly at the sight of a nasty gash that seeped blood sliced into the soft sun browned skin of her shoulder.
Adele stood up as well, giving Carol a sharp warning look, before attending to the woman wordlessly, pulling out a sewing needle and some fishing line from a medical kit that Martin had hid under his cot.
"We need St. James," the woman warbled through tears as Adele began to sew the raw flesh of her shoulder with a shaking, unpracticed hand.
"I'm the best you have for now," Adele stated coolly. "Hold still."
"Let me help," Carol whispered to Adele. "I've stitched up a few wounds before."
The woman turned her clear grey eyes on Carol, looking her up and down. "Just sit back down."
"I just want to help," Carol explained. "The way you're stitching her wound will make it easier for the stitching to tear. It's too close to the edges of the wound."
With her hands covered in blood, Adele dropped the needle to dangle from the line and stepped back, wiping her hands, she moved to swiftly untie Carol and stepping back reached for her pistol. "I'm watching you," she warned, motioning Carol towards the woman.
Moving in swiftly, now free of her bindings, Carol plucked the needle up and began stitching. "Do you have any alcohol we can pour on the wound to disinfect it?"
"It's all locked up," the woman said, before giving Adele a quick glance.
Adele turned her eyes from the woman to Carol with a speaking look, but she said nothing, just shifted on her feet and began a slow pace of the tent from one end to the other, eyes never leaving Carol or the work she did.
"Adele? Can you get me some kind of disinfectant for the wound?" Carol demanded sharply.
"No."
Feeling that Adele was lying about something or perhaps trying to avoid the topic of something, Carol sighed and went back to stitching the wound, deciding the woman would sooner or later get it cleaned properly. At least she hoped she would.
"My name's Carol," she said as she worked on the woman.
"Cheryl," the woman said after giving Adele a quick glance.
"You have family here, Cheryl?" She went on, hoping to distract the woman from the pain of what she was doing.
"That's enough talking now," Adele warned her, still pacing almost anxiously. "Just do what you're doing and keep quiet."
As Carol bowed her head to Cheryl's shoulder, she noticed a few nasty looking bite marks in the soft flesh where her neck joined her shoulder.
Dabbing at the blood that was still seeping from the wound with a piece of clean linen Adele had been using, Carol sighed, but remained quiet for a moment longer, performing her task quickly and neatly.
"Cheryl!" Someone shouted outside the tent. "You'd best hope you're still around here, bitch!"
The woman pulled away from Carol so fast, Carol didn't have time to release the needle and it pulled the stitches tight.
"Out the back," Adele ordered, hurrying to lift the wall of the army tent away from the ground, snatching a long sleeved button-up shirt off the back of a chair and handing it to the woman on her way out. "Go, go!"
Crossing the tent, Adele once more opened the flap to peer out.
Carol, knowing what was coming, remained where she was left standing behind that chair Cheryl had vacated.
"You care for these women," Carol said softly. "And you have the gun."
Adele was quiet.
Taking a step close, Carol wondered what kind of hell existed for someone who pulled a knife on a pregnant woman, but as Adele seemed distracted by the outside world, she slowly slipped her hand up her shirt and began to slide it under her underwire for the knife.
"Would your people kill St. James?" Adele asked.
Carol immediately dropped her hand just in time as Adele turned from the flap. "Not unless they have to. If he behaves himself, doesn't escape or hurt anyone, they won't." She found Adele nodding gently and went on. "He's more to you than just a medic, isn't he?"
"Not in the way you think," Adele admitted, before realizing who she was talking to. She fell silent again and moved back across the tent to watch over Carol like a guard.
Approaching her slowly, Carol offered Adele a gentle smile. "He's not the daddy?" She asked, motioning to Adele's great stomach.
Adele's delicate brow furrowed and she suddenly turned dark.
Sensing it was a sensitive topic, Carol changed it quickly. "He sweet on you?"
"No," Adele stated firmly, the darkness leaving her features.
Thinking of Daryl, she paused before Adele and said, "he understands you."
With a quick, nervous step back from Carol, Adele dropped her gaze after catching sight of something over Carol's shoulder.
"Why's she untied?" Martin growled from the flap.
Carol turned around and found him standing there.
"I'm sorry, daddy," Adele apologized quickly.
"Go make breakfast," Martin ordered, moving to stand at her side, peering down hard and unrelenting at her.
Quickly, the woman waddled off to do so, leaving Carol alone with Martin Deveau as he moved to his cot.
She tensed as he began to unbutton his shirt, warily moving back, hand fidgeting at the edge of her shirt. It wasn't that she didn't want to, she just knew she'd have to be sure she'd have time to make a difference if she did strike at him.
"So," Martin said as he pulled on a clean shirt, "Basile, huh? Why you asking about a place like that?"
"Because you remind me of someone," Carol replied.
"This someone have a name?" Martin asked as he continued to move about his daily activity, his back still to her.
"Vancoughnett," she said, glad she wasn't making a go for the knife as Martin wheeled around so fast, she was sure he would have caught her.
"Vancoughnett?" He asked, after attempting to look casual about his reaction. "How's she look?"
"She? The Lieutenant's a man," Carol stated.
"Man Vancoughnett? From Basile?"
"Yes."
Martin frowned. "That old ass can't be still alive."
"So you have been to Basile?" Carol demanded, wanting to distract him again, deciding she'd take the chance if she had it this time.
"Born and raised. How old is this Vancoughnett of yours?"
"He's in his early forties."
Martin frowned deeply then and approached her. "And you say I remind you of him?"
"Something about you does," she explained.
A funny sort of prideful look fluttered over Martin's lean face and he smirked. "A boy, huh? He in your group?"
"Why? Leave a son behind you want to reclaim?" She inquired.
Looking her up and down, Martin scowled suddenly. "We should probably get you tied back up, yeah?"
As he was securing her wrists again, one of the bikers entered the tent and approached.
"Boss, we're going to be ready to ride in an hour," he said. "Figured we can get to that exchange early, set up a few backups just in case."
Martin quirked a brow, still tying the strip of linen around Carol's wrists, finishing up quietly.
"Boss?"
"I want a jeep ready now," Martin said, standing up. "And find Adele, tell her to pull her head out of her ass and watch this one closer this time."
"You heading out now, boss?" The man asked. "The exchange is in four hours."
"Heading out alone," Martin declared. "Something I need to scope out first."
As the man left and Adele returned some time later, Carol noticed she seemed more anxious than she had been when she left.
"You wanted me, pa?" She asked.
"Watch her," Martin ordered. "And goddamn it, don't untie her this time. I don't care if some bitch needs mending, you keep her tied."
"Daddy, I wasn't—"
"Doesn't matter," Martin said. "I'll be back in a bit."
As Martin left the tent, Adele moved to the flap to watch for the longest time, before she turned back to Carol.
"What'd you tell him?" Adele asked.
"That's between me and your daddy," Carol said. She wanted the woman to open up, she hoped by toying with her and the information, she could get Adele to show some sign of something other than fear and distrust.
"Was it about that boy in Basile?" Adele demanded again. "The one…"
Carol frowned. "What do you know about that boy?"
Adele swallowed thickly, before easing onto the chair and playing with the hem of her blouse. "Three years ago I was helping a friend find a house, we were looking into the neighbourhoods, checking the sex offender's database," Adele stopped, hanging her head with shame. "Daddy always told us he was in prison for grand theft, but it was worse. I looked deeper into his case. I needed to know. I didn't know he had a child by it, until I went there myself one day and met the old woman. The woman had killed herself in an institution and the boy, she said, was in the Marine corps."
Feeling a cold chill invade her veins, Carol sat still for a moment processing what she thought she was hearing. She knew the Lieutenant didn't know his daddy, but she never thought it was because of choice and poor history.
"She was a nice old woman, but I think I made her uncomfortable bringing up the past." Adele went on softly. After a moment of utter silence, Adele inhaled deeply and her eyes lit up. "She showed me pictures of him, in uniform. I thought he looked very handsome. My brother, I guess he is. Half, I suppose, still a brother. Never had a brother."
Still unable to wrap her mind around the fact that the Lieutenant was the product of rape instead of just an abandoned son to some man, Carol couldn't find the words to say anything for a moment.
"So, you knew him too? Or know him? Is he in your group of people?" Adele inquired, the thirst for knowledge in her tone breaking Carol's heart a little more than it already was.
"The Lieutenant?" She asked after a moment of struggling to find her voice. "He's one of the nicest men I've ever met."
This seemed to please Adele and she slumped back in her chair.
"Adele," Carol began gently, hoping to just nudge the woman in the right direction, "you don't have to stay here and take his shit anymore, come with me? We'll get out of here right now, you'll be safe with us, treated better. The Lieutenant, he'd…he'd take such good care of you. I know it."
"He wouldn't want anything to do with me," Adele argued. "I wouldn't blame him."
"It's not your fault, Adele," Carol said. "What happened was no one's fault but your father's."
"What's he like? This man, this Lieutenant?" Adele demanded. "I mean, even if he didn't want anything to do with me, would I like him?"
"The Lieutenant is…well he…he's always telling stories and making us laugh and keeps us safe and, Adele, he has this little girl he takes care of. He's so good with her. You'd like him. Hell," Carol breathed, "you'd love him. We all do. My…Daryl the man I'm with, they're like brothers and whenever there's danger, Adele, the Lieutenant runs towards it without regard to anything but protecting people."
"He has a little girl?" Adele asked.
"She's not his, but he adopted her, takes real good care of her. Built a swing this spring for her to play on and Annie – the little girl – climbs all over him and he's never been cross with her for anything."
A sort of melancholy broke over Adele's features then and she dropped her face into her hands.
"You can't go on living like this," Carol said to her, getting up to kneel at Adele's feet. "Come with me and meet your brother, you'll find he'll be happy to meet you."
"You don't know that."
"No, but I've never known the Lieutenant to hate anyone unnecessarily and since I suspect you're not as cold as you try to be, I don't think he'll treat you with anything other than love and respect." Taking her hands with difficulty due to the straps around her wrists, Carol held them tight and warm. "What if your baby turns out to be a girl? Do you want her coming into a world with men like the ones outside this tent around?"
"St. James wasn't going to let that happen," Adele assured her. "We had…"
Carol realized that the woman's need for St. James wasn't out of love or affection, but necessity. "You had plans?"
"I told daddy we needed him back for the baby, for me and…St. James was going to kill him," she whispered so softly that Carol nearly missed it. "I couldn't," she went on, "but he could and…we were going to get them all out."
"Then let's get them all out," Carol whispered. "You and me."
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The Voodoo Dialect
Bakulu - He drags chains behind him and is such a terrible spirit that no one dares to invoke him. His habitat is in the woods where offerings are taken to him. He himself possesses no one. Since no one wants to call on him, people simply take any offerings that go to him and leave them in the woods.
Proverbs 21:15 - When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.
DarylDixon'sLover - She may...^_^
Merle's Right Hand - Kowalski will be alright, he's just going to take his revenge on Merle slowly...ehehe...
Brazen Hussy - What are you talking about? Merle's manly sperm is so powerful every baby born after the ZA is his.
Surplus Imagination - Well, nothing is ever as cut and dry as, let's just attack them guys, okay?
GG - I'm glad you're enjoying Delgado and his people.