Read Light of the World Online
Authors: James Lee Burke
Light of the World (76 page)
“Felicity is in South America, huh?” I said.
“Yep, that’s what she said,” he replied. “Working with the Indians like her old man did.”
“She’ll be back one day.”
“No, she won’t. When her kind go away, they go away.”
“Did you know I got a card from Wyatt Dixon? He didn’t sign it, but I know it was from him.”
“Don’t mention that guy to me, Dave.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
He unwrapped a piece of peppermint candy and put it in his mouth and sucked on it. “So what’d he say?”
“ ‘Tell Miss Gretchen good luck with her moviemaking.’ ”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I said. “Ready?”
“I’d like to just sit here awhile. The lake looks like a giant green teardrop at the foot of that snowfield. I’ve never seen flowers that gold,” he said.
“I think you’re right.”
“Dave?” he said.
“What’s up?”
“You think we’ve done okay with our lives? You think the good outweighs the bad?”
“That’s the way I’d read it.” I cupped my hand on his shoulder. “Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll finish our stroll and take everyone to lunch. It’s a grand day for it.”
“Roger that, big mon,” he replied.
We got up and hiked the rest of the way to the log teahouse on top of the mountain, the trees so thick and tall on either side of us that they seemed to touch the clouds, more like the pillars of heaven than earthly trees.
© FRANK VERONSKY
JAMES LEE BURKE
is the author of thirty-two novels and two short story collections, including such
New York Times
bestsellers as
Creole Belle, The Glass Rainbow, Swan Peak, The
Tin Roof Blowdown,
and
Feast Day of Fools
. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
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B
Y THE SAME AUTHOR
D
AVE
R
OBICHEAUX
N
OVELS
Creole Belle
The Glass Rainbow
Swan Peak
The Tin Roof Blowdown
Pegasus Descending
Crusader’s Cross
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Jolie Blon’s Bounce
Purple Cane Road
Sunset Limited
Cadillac Jukebox
Burning Angel
Dixie City Jam
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
A Stained White Radiance
A Morning for Flamingos
Black Cherry Blues
Heaven’s Prisoners
The Neon Rain
H
ACKBERRY
H
OLLAND
N
OVELS
Feast Day of Fools
Rain Gods
Lay Down My Sword and Shield
B
ILLY
B
OB
H
OLLAND
N
OVELS
In the Moon of Red Ponies
Bitterroot
Heartwood
Cimarron Rose
O
THER
F
ICTION
Jesus Out to Sea
White Doves at Morning
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
The Convict and Other Stories
Two for Texas
To the Bright and Shining Sun
Half of Paradise
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by James Lee Burke
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2013
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Jacket design by Jackie Seow
Jacket painting by Heather Buchanan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burke, James Lee.
Light of the world : a Dave Robicheaux novel / James Lee Burke.
pages cm.
1. Robicheaux, Dave (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Good and evil—Fiction.
3. Kansas—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.U723L54 2013
813'.54—dc23 2013008797
ISBN 978-1-4767-1076-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-1078-5 (ebook)
Contents