Shadow Watch

FIFTEEN

“Comment ça va, rollie?”

“Beautiful woman walks through the door speakin’ French, come all’a way from the States to see me, I gotta be doin’ awright.”

Megan smiled at Thibodeau and entered the room. He was in a semi-sitting position, the backrest of his hospital bed elevated to help support his weight. She could see a fluid drain in his abdomen, and an IV drip running to his arm from a stand beside the bed’s steel frame.

He nodded his chin at her brown paper shopping bag as she sat in the chair to his right.

“Tell me you got some Mardi Gras King Cake in there, or maybe some ’gator sauce piquant, I swear I’m gonna ask you to marry me.”

“There honestly such a thing as ’gator sauce?”

“I could eat it every day a’ the week.”

“Ugh.” She set the bag on the floor next to her chair. “You Cajuns must have iron stomachs.”

“Darlin’, I’d probably be dead wasn’t for that,” Thibodeau said. “Accordin’ to the docs, slug that hit me would’ve gone straight through my stomach an’ into my aorta if it hadn’t got detoured by my abs. Instead it only cost me part a’ my large intestine an’ my spleen.”

“Only, huh?” she said.

He gave her a weak shrug. “You gonna get gut-shot, you catch your breaks where you can.”

“There much pain?”

“Could be worse,” he said. “White coats say the biggest problem for me could be infection. Say the spleen helps fight off bacteria in the blood. Say the liver an’ my other organs gonna take over for it, but not for a while.”

Rollie paused, shifted on his pillow. Megan could see that he was trying not to wince.

“C‘mon, now, enough a’ the gory details,” he said, settling back. “How ’bout we get to what’s in the bag an’ my offer of marriage? Contingent, as I mentioned, on that sauce.”

Megan smiled again.

“Both of them in a minute, I promise.” She leaned closer, extending her hand over the rail to touch his arm. “Doctors treating you okay?”

“I guess,” he said. “Except for their pokin’ and prod-din’.”

“Which is what they get paid to do,” she said. “You’ve had one hell of a week, Rol.”

“Least I’m still alive.” His face became serious. “Not everybody here been that lucky.”

“No, not everyone,” she said. “I’m very sorry for the men you lost.”

Thibodeau was silent a moment. Then he nodded slowly.

“Like you said, helluva week, an’ not just for us on this base.” He moistened his lips with his tongue. “You hear ’bout that train wreck near the coast?”

“It’s been on the news, yes,” she said. “A horrible accident.”

“Blood’s been spillin’ everywhere round these parts lately,” he said. “All I’m waitin’ for now’s the frogs, gnats, boils, an’ whatever else gonna come down.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not religious,” she said. “But the things we’re talking about, I can’t believe they’re caused by the finger of God.”

Rollie gave her a neutral sort of shrug.

“‘Less maybe it’s His way a’ givin’ us the finger,” he said. “Them reports you heard mention how that li’l girl’s doin’? You know the kid I mean….”

“Daniella Costas,” Megan said. “Latest is that she’s fine. With one of her parents, I think.”

“Bon,” he said. “I was her father, I’d wait till the engineer’s all recuperated, then kill him with my bare hands.”

“He claims it wasn’t his fault.”

“Who’s he blamin’?”

“Not who, what,” she said. “Mechanical failure.”

Rollie looked thoughtful a moment, then shrugged again.

“Anyways,” he said. “Ain’t that I could ever mind a visit from you, but I been wonderin’ what this one’s about since they told me you were on your way.”

“Roger thought I could help out until you’re back on your feet,” Megan said. “But I had my own reasons for wanting to come see you in person, Rollie. And one of them was to give you what’s in this bag.”

“You sayin’ I really do rate a get-well present?”

She nodded. “A very special one. Something I know you’d really appreciate.”

He looked at her in silence. A nurse in a white uniform dress and crepe-soled shoes swished up to the door, poked her head briefly into the room, then continued on down the hall.

Megan waited until she was gone, then reached into the shopping bag.

“Pete Nimec told me you’ve been wanting your Stetson,” she said. “And that the doctors won’t let you wear it yet.”

His shoulders became slightly more erect.

“You bring it here to me from my quarters?” he said.

She shook her head.

“I’d never go against hospital rules.” She pulled an object in loose wrapping tissue out of the bag and gently placed it on his lap.

“Whatever it is, it sure’s shaped like a hat,” he said, glancing down at it.

“Well, they didn’t mention any brand of headware besides a Stetson per se,” she said, and smiled. “Why don’t you go ahead and see if this makes a decent substitute.”

His brows furrowing, he removed the tissue paper.

And audibly gasped.

The acorn-ended campaign hat was old and battered almost to shapelessness, its gray felt balding in spots, its black leather chin strap scuffed and gnarled. But its gold-and-black intertwined-braid hat cord and the silk ribbon around its crown were almost perfectly intact — as were the crossed gold cavalry sabers pinned to the side of its upturned brim.

He looked up at her. “Don’ let me make a fool a’ myself by sayin’ what I think it is an’ bein’ wrong.”

“You wouldn’t be,” she said. “It belonged to my great-grandfather. He was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s First Volunteer Cavalry.”

“Mon Dieu.” He ran his fingers over the outside of the hat with open awe. “The Rough Riders.”

She nodded. “ ‘Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither suffer much nor enjoy much—”

“—‘cause they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat,’ ” Thibodeau finished. “I don’ know what to say about this, Megan. I truly don’t.”

She smiled.

“Taylor Breen went from holding a racket on the tennis court to a rifle on Kettle Hill in the space of six months. Joined the unit at TD’s personal request, took a leave of absence of his professorship at Yale to go to war against Spain.” She paused a moment, quietly watching him. “Rollie… I’ve got my own request goes along with the hat. I won’t pressure you to agree to it. But I’d like your decision now.”

He met her eyes with his own.

“This have to do with me fillin’ Max Blackburn’s old job?”

She gave him another nod.

“When we discussed the issue a few weeks back, you told me that you needed to think about it, that you weren’t sure you wanted to tackle the responsibility—”

“Or that Pete Nimec wanted me to,” he said. “My dope was that he had someone else in mind, an’ the two of you were buttin’ heads about it.”

“He did, and we were, but things have changed. Part of it’s what happened here the other night. How well you handled it.”

“Nimec feel the same way?”

“He and I had a talk before I left for Brazil,” she said. “And have reached a tentative agreement.”

“Sounds to me like there’s a catch hid somewhere in this proposition.”

Megan laughed a little.

“I am a woman.”

“As I did say, I’d noticed.” He looked at her. “The catch… you gonna mention what it is?”

“Yes,” she said. “After you tell me whether you’ll accept the promotion.”

Thibodeau looked at her a moment, looked down at the campaign hat. Then he lifted it off his lap and placed it carefully on his head.

“Fit okay?” he asked.

“Perfect.”

“Will you marry me?”

“No.”

He shrugged.

“Might as well accept your offer just the same, if only ‘cause it’ll get me off the night shift.”

Megan put her hand over the back of his and gave it a fond squeeze.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“And?”

She smiled at him.

“And,” she said, “here’s the catch….”