Captiva

He was chuckling along with her, his hair showing a lot of sheen and bounce. 'Yeah . . . well ... I've done that for strangers many a time. But, with you, I couldn't even talk. I mean, wham. Like, there you were.'

'This doesn't sound weird to you?'

Tomlinson made a fluttering noise with his lips. 'Let me give you some words to live by: Weirdness only seems weird if you fight it. Believe me, I know about these things.'

I sat there listening, trying to make sense of it. . . then abandoned any hope of trying to reassemble their exchange into rational conversation. What puzzled me most of all, though, was this troubling reality: No matter what Hannah Smith said, no matter what ridiculous opinion she fronted, I still found myself inexorably attracted to her.

Tomlinson was saying, 'As a phenomenon, it's not that uncommon. Some person, dead or alive, serves as the medium for a larger voice. The power speaks through them. Some spirit who has left this world and gone to another. Or some sentient consciousness that has no other means to verbalize .. . Hey . . . wait. . . a . . . minute! I'm getting something here—'

Hannah said, 'A larger voice,' pondering it.

'This morning, when Doc and I were using his telescope, I was expecting a sign. This deep meditation I've been into, I've made daily contact with a very powerful consciousness—'

She interrupted him. 'That's just what I want to learn. Meditation. Can you teach me?'

'It would be an honor. But listen to what I'm saying. I've been locking onto these signals, these little islands of. . . divinity. I mean, I really knew I was going to receive some sign from them.' He looked at me. 'What did I tell you this morning, Doc? What did I say?'

It startled me for a moment, being included in the conversation. 'You said something about ocular confirmation,' I said. 'That's what you told me.'

'My very words. Ocular confirmation. You understand, Hannah? I was looking for a light, some kind of signal, way out in space. So what do they give me instead? A fucking explosion that knocks me right off my pins. I'm so damn dumb! Typical unenlightened earthling. I keep forgetting that time and distance mean absolutely nothing.'

'Then Jimmy spoke—'

Tomlinson's head was swinging up and down; already knew the direction she was headed. 'He spoke, but it could have been this power, this consciousness speaking through him. Jimmy was going to be at our marina anyway. He was going to be carrying the gas or bomb, whatever the hell it was. Free will—never underestimate it. He had his own plans. Blow up boats, burn the marina. Whatever. Destructive behavior, a very negative gig. Not that it mattered, because it was his time to pass on, so they just selected him.'

Hannah stood, touched her fingers to my shoulder—a brief conduit of heat—then placed her hand on Tomlinson's shoulder. 'Right or wrong, I feel like something brought you here. Things like this don't happen by accident.'

'Exactly.'

'Ford said you write books.'

'Several. I have a small but enlightened following. Some truly twisted souls, as well, but that goes with the territory. They send me letters . . . strange clippings . . . interesting herbs . . . once, a dried bat. They're devoted people, my readers.'

'I want to write a book. Maybe you could help me.'

Tomlinson smiled at her. Said, 'I'm here for a reason.'

It was more than an hour later. Hannah had walked us down and introduced us to Arlis Futch. When she told him I could dock my boat there 'any damn time he wants,' I was surprised that Futch simply smiled meekly, as if arguing was futile. 'Whatever you want, Hannah. If they're friends 'ayours.'

We had eaten, and now were sitting on the porch, in darkness, looking at the bay through a framework of palm fronds. The January sea breeze was chilly, blustery; blew the mosquitoes away. I was worried about my boat. The tide was still falling. If I wanted to run back to Dinkin's Bay across the flats, we'd have to leave soon.

Yet I didn't want to leave. Hannah sat between us, kicked back in her chair, bare feet on the railing. Every now and then she'd reach over and squeeze my wrist to amplify what she was saying, or give me a rough shove after the punch line of some joke. Most people are reluctant to violate the perimeter of space that defines the boundary of another person's body. But she was a toucher, a patter, a nudger. Her effective way of bonding, of breaching the chasm.

'I expect you wonder why I married him. A creep like Jimmy. If he was so bad.'

'It doesn't make a lot of sense, I have to admit.'

'Everybody makes mistakes, man. Kids are young, they think getting married's a way to change their lives.'

'Nope, Ford's right. It didn't make sense, doesn't make sense, never made sense.' She sat quietly, thinking it over, then began to tell us how it was. 'I first met Jimmy . . . yeah, just a little less then seven years ago. Some girlfriends and I loaded up a car, this big green Bonneville convertible had a dented-in front fender. So old we had to play eight-track tapes—The Doors, Steppenwolf, Cream, that stuff, and it sounded great. Just loaded it up and headed for New Orleans. Had the top down, wine coolers in an Igloo, smoking cigarettes, acting wild. I was. . . eighteen?' She touched a long finger to her lips, thoughtful. 'Yeah, eighteen. All of us. Lissa Kilmer and Mary Lou Weeks. We'd just graduated high school from Cedar Key, fishermen's daughters, and we thought, what the hell, let's get out and see the world. Lissa had a brother who crewed the shrimp boats outta Morgan City, right there near New Orleans, and that's how I met Jimmy. Jimmy was ... different. I told you I liked people who were different?'

'Know what? I could tell that about you. The moment I walked in here, the whole aura of this place.'

For just a moment, she rewarded Tomlinson with her full attention, a kindred acknowledgment—they were still on the same cerebral frequency.

Jimmy was twenty-some years older than me, more than forty. I liked that. Liked the way he looked, the way he smelled. Kind'a spicy with some sour mixed in. He was a Creole, what they call a mulatto. Not real black but butterscotch-colored. He had these long arms, real strong, and, truth is, he was 'bout the first man I ever met that wasn't scared of me. Jimmy didn't yap at my heels trying to please me, didn't slobber from the tongue because he wanted in my pants so bad. I'm not bragging—no reason to, it's such a pain in the butt—but nearly every man I've dated ends up hounding me till I can't stand it. It's like a sickness.'

I thought: Understandable.

'But Jimmy wasn't that way,' Hannah said. 'Nope, with him everything was smooth and easy. If I wanted it, fine; if I didn't there were plenty of other women. First time, we were on the bow of a shrimp boat, the Baffin Bay Bleu out of Corpus Christi—can you believe I remember the name of it? It was night, and he stripped my clothes off so quick we just did it right there on that wet deck. Bruised myself, I pounded those boards so hard, humping away like dogs in the diesel fumes. Spray coming over the bow, both of us bareass- naked, headed out Pontchartrain Cut, with the whole crew watching from the pilothouse for all I knew. I didn't care. Didn't care about anything but what we were doin' and what we kept doing. Every spare minute, grabbing each other anytime we wanted, squeezing into every little cubbyhole on the boat, for three days, Pontchartrain to Morgan City, out in the Gulf. It was like I was drunk and feverish both. That's the way it was with Jimmy at first.'

I thought: Why is she telling us this?

Hannah said, 'He told me later he'd put a spell on me. Like he was joking. When I got to know about him, I wasn't so sure.' She exchanged a glance with Tomlinson, confirming that he understood. Then looked at me to see how I was reacting to the story . . . before explaining patiently, 'I say things the way they are. The truth doesn't embarrass because I've told no lies to be ashamed of. You knew Jimmy, you wouldn't think the business about spells was so silly. I said he was a Creole? He spoke the language better than he spoke English. His people were all swamp people. Coon Asses, he called them, but that's because he liked to think he was better. He grew up in a place called Calcasieu Marsh, this village of shacks up on stilts. He took me there, showing me around, and these people had Catholic stuff on the walls—plaster crucifixes, Virgin Marys—but they had another religion, too. The families from way, way back did. And the Darrouxs had been there forever.'

'Obeah?' Tomlinson offered. 'The slaves, they integrated it into Christian ceremonies. Blood sacrifices, occult