Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (17 page)

“Coltrane, we want you to go back to America,” said Babcock.

Travis looked up, but not at Babcock. He turned to the priest and asked quietly, ominously, “Do
you
believe that the curse on Harcourt will cause him to die?”

The priest fidgeted nervously, glancing around, lips working silently. Babcock’s fist suddenly slammed the desk. “Coltrane, I repeat, we want you to go back to America. Leave Haiti. Don’t concern yourself with Harcourt.”

“Don’t concern myself with Harcourt?” Travis echoed in disbelief. “Are you crazy? The man may have saved my life. He’s obviously been drugged—”

“Not drugged, Mr. Coltrane,” the priest corrected quickly. “Cursed. Eldon Harcourt is cursed. There is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.”

“We’ll see about that.” Travis stalked toward the door, whirled about to glare at both of them in turn, and say, “I have no intentions of letting them kill Harcourt.”

The men had risen. Babcock’s face reddened. “I cannot allow you to cause any more trouble in this country, Coltrane. If I have to have you placed under arrest and deported—”

Travis’ hand moved to his gun, not quite touching the weapon but making the implication. “Just try it, Babcock. Just you or anybody else try it.”

Travis walked out and slammed the door, standing outside for a few moments, breathing deeply to calm himself. This was going to call for rational thinking, and his temper must not be allowed to rule him. Not now.

Hurrying along, he passed the stable, head down, walking in a manner that made anyone in his way step aside.

He entered the little hotel and went straight to the desk. The clerk backed away, frightened.

“Go, please,” he said quickly. “You bring curse.”

Travis reached across the desk and grabbed the man by his collar and jerked him close. “You can tell your friends I don’t buy any goddamn curse unless it’s me laying one on them. Now I’m going upstairs to sit with Eldon Harcourt till he wakes up from whatever they’ve given him, and if anybody comes around, they’re going to wind up in the same place those bones came from. Understand?”

The clerk was having trouble breathing. It was only with great effort that he was able to nod, eyes bulging. Travis released him, and he stumbled backward, clutching his throat and coughing.

Travis took the steps three at a time. Reaching the second floor, he turned toward Harcourt’s room and saw Vinson Craley and Walton Turner standing outside the door talking to a black man. As Travis approached, they fell silent.

Travis growled, “Who’s he?”

“This is Dr. Lamedi,” Vinson spoke as Walton looked on uneasily. “He was called in to check on Harcourt.”

“And how is he?”

The doctor stared down at the worn floor and shook his head. “Nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do.”

“What are you talking about?” Travis’ fists clenched at his sides. “I didn’t hit him that hard, just hard enough to knock him out because he got hysterical when he saw those damn bones.”

“He hasn’t woke up yet, Coltrane,” Vinson spoke as though he wished he did not have to. “He’s still out cold. The doc here says it has nothing to do with your hitting him. He just won’t wake up.”

Travis pushed the three men aside, shoved the door open, and stepped inside the room. Eldon Harcourt lay on his bed, wearing only his trousers, his bare chest rising and falling slowly. His eyes were partially opened, but from where Travis stood, he knew there was no vision. Eldon was unconscious.

The three men followed Travis into the room.

“Voodoo curse,” Walton said matter-of-factly. “I’ve heard Eldon’s tales about his grandfather. He believes in all of it. If what we’ve heard about last night is true, some witch doctor has put a curse on him for helping you out.”

“It is true,” the doctor nodded nervously. “Curse of Baron Samedi. Nothing I can do.”

“Can’t
do or
won’t
do?” Travis snapped, clamping a powerful hand on the man’s shoulder and feeling the trembling of his body. “You know what went on? Tell me about it.”

“No, no, no,” he shook his head back and forth frantically. “I hear things, yes. I hear of curse, yes. But I do not know anything else. I do not know this man. I do not know you. I come because I was called, but there is nothing I can do for this man.”

“Who removed the bones from the room?”

Again, the doctor shook his head. “I know nothing. You must believe me. Let me go now, please.”

Travis pressed harder. “Tell me what is wrong with him.”

“I do not know. I swear to you. It is a curse. I do not know what kind of curse. There is nothing anyone can do but
houngan.
Maybe he can do nothing. Baron Samedi is all-powerful.”

Travis nodded as though he understood. He wanted to get as much as possible out of the doctor, but he realized he was not accomplishing anything by scaring him. “All right,” he made his voice gentle, “I understand that you do not have the power to remove the curse, but can you at least tell me what is wrong with him right now and why he won’t wake up? Is he drugged?”

The doctor glanced around nervously as though he might be overheard by the
loas
themselves, then whispered, “He will awaken, but then he will sleep again. Then he will awaken, then sleep. This will go on until the
gros bon ange
is completely taken by the Baron Samedi. Then he will be dead.”

Vinson and Walton looked at each other uncomfortably. The doctor continued in a great rush, “The soul is called
gros bon ange.
That is soul of shadow and breath.
’Ti bon ange
is spirit. Both in dead body. This man already dead.
Gros bon ange
and
’ti
bon ange
become no longer together because of curse. Now
corps cadavre
there. Man you knew no longer lives.”

“He’s still breathing.”

“I do not know how long he will breathe. As I say, he will awake, then sleep. Baron Samedi will take him when he chooses. No one can help.”

Travis did not remove his gaze from the doctor’s wide, bulging eyes. “Go downstairs and leave us alone, you two. I want to talk to the doctor alone.”

“We aren’t going to have any more trouble, Travis,” Vinson said.

“There won’t be any trouble,” Travis answered. “I have some more questions I want to ask the doctor, and I want to ask him alone. The only trouble there is going to be is if you don’t get the hell out of here now.”

“Please,” Dr. Lamedi spoke quickly when they were alone. “I can tell you nothing. You put my life in danger. Let me go.”

Travis guided him to a chair and pushed him into it. “You’re right. I do put your life in danger.” He reached for his pistol and pointed it straight at the man’s forehead, pulling the hammer back with an ominous click. “Because, if you don’t answer my questions, I’m going to kill you. I never point a gun unless I plan to use it, and I have every intention of blowing your brains out if you don’t start talking.”

The doctor licked his lips and panicked, squeezing his eyes shut as though anticipating the bullet. He felt himself urinating, and was humiliated as a puddle formed beneath him on the chair. “What…do you want to know?” He finally got the words past his throat.

“I want to know about this curse. I want to know what they did to him.”

The doctor kept his eyes closed. “Believe me, please, when I tell you I do not know. You do not understand voodoo. Strange things happen that no one can explain. I only know that this man has angered the
loas,
the Baron Samedi. He is cursed. He will die. I have seen it happen before. My own father died of a curse.”

Suddenly his voice broke, and he lowered his head, covering his face with his hands and sobbing uncontrollably. “They say my father serves the
loas
in the mountains. That he is zombie, the walking dead. I pray this is not so. I pray if it is so that I never see him. Never see his soul in torment as he walks in death.”

He lifted his tear-streaked face to stare up at Travis in torment. “Kill me if you must, but there is nothing else I can tell you. I do not practice voodoo. I am afraid of voodoo. I want nothing to do with voodoo. There is nothing else I can say to you except that your friend will die.”

He was telling the truth. A man, Travis had learned, will seldom lie with a gun pointed at his head.

“Is he drugged?” he asked quietly, replacing the gun.

The doctor sighed with relief, breathing deeply a few times. “I do not know. To be honest with you, I think he may be. I study medicine in Paris. Questions were asked about voodoo among my people, but the professors there laughed. They say a man can kill himself by being afraid. Your friend may be frightening himself to death. Or maybe he is drugged. I did not drug him,” he added nervously.

“Or,” he rushed on, “voodoo may be real, even though there are those who do not believe. As I say, my father died after he was cursed.”

“And you think he may be one of those things they call a zombie?”

Fresh tears filled his eyes. “I have been told this.”

“Have you ever thought about digging up his body to find out?” Travis was curious.

“No! I would never do that. Never! To do so would bring down the wrath of Baron Samedi. Then I, too, would be cursed.”

“If I were you, I would leave Haiti,” Travis said as he walked over to stand beside Eldon’s bed and stare down at him. “You’re an educated man. A doctor. Yet you talk like a fool. Now get out of here. You make me sick.”

He heard the man run from the room, making little choking sounds as though he were about to be sick.

Travis touched Eldon’s chest. He was breathing in a labored way but he was breathing. He pulled back Eldon’s left eyelid and looked at the glassy gaze. He was drugged. Curse indeed. The man was drugged.

He looked around the room. No bottles. No cups or glasses. Quickly he examined Eldon’s body. There were no marks of any kind. Frustrated, he slammed his fist into the wall, left a hole in it, brought his knuckles away bloody.

Eldon Harcourt did not stir.

Damn it, he couldn’t just let him die. He reasoned that if he had been drugged, then more drugs would have to be administered to finish killing him. Or he might already have been given enough to kill him, but the drug was going to take a while. For the moment, Travis was sure of only one thing. If more drugs were required to finish him off, they were not going to get to him.

There was a soft knock on the door. Travis’ hand went to his gun as he called out, “Come in.”

He was surprised to see the priest.

“We were never introduced. I am Father Debinem. The two men who brought you to Mr. Babcock’s office returned and told us of Mr. Harcourt’s condition. I came to ask if I might be of assistance.”

Travis looked him up and down and decided that he had put his superior airs aside. “That was kind of you,” he said. “But according to the doctor who just left, there’s nothing to be done.
I
think he’s drugged.”

Father Debinem walked over to the bed and stared down at Eldon, then reached out to wrap his fingers around his wrist. Releasing it, the wrist fell limply to the mattress. “Drugged or cursed?”

“If you believe in this voodoo nonsense, then he’s cursed. I don’t believe in it.”

“I understand Mr. Harcourt does. He could be willing himself to die, you know, because he
believes
he
is
cursed. I imagine seeing the bones of your grandfather scattered about on your bed would be enough to frighten you to death all by itself.”

The priest looked at Travis as he stepped away from the bed. “And what do you intend to do? Wait for him to die? If so, I shall wait with you.”

Outside, the rain had begun to fall in torrents once again. The wind howled and whipped against the windows. Even the inside seemed gray and grim. A fitting place to wait for death, Travis thought.

“He isn’t going to die,” he said with finality.

“I will wait with you, and I will pray for him. By the way,” the priest added, “Mr. Babcock inquired about having him admitted to a hospital, but there was not one who wished to accept him.”

Travis snorted. “That’s just as well. I’d do everything I could to keep him out of a hospital. I trust me and I trust you, but I damn well don’t want him in a place where I can’t trust anybody. They would probably finish him off there. We’ll just take turns sitting with him and be ready if they try to come back and drug him some more.”

Travis sat down on the floor, leaning back against the wall in a position from which he could keep an eye on both the door and the window.

“Then you do think he is drugged?” Father Debinem asked.

Travis nodded. “I sure as hell don’t believe he’s going to die from any curse. When whatever they’ve given him wears off enough that I can get through to him, I’m going to try to make him see that he’s scaring himself to death.”

“And what happens if they try to come back here?”

Travis grinned slowly. “Then I lay down some curses of my own.”

Chapter Nine

Travis staggered to his room and collapsed across his bed without even removing his boots. He was so tired that it was difficult to focus his eyes.

For three days and nights he and Father Debinem had taken turns sitting with Eldon Harcourt. Travis’ shifts were longer, for the priest, due to his age, could not endure easily.