Swamp Kings 2 (Bayou Bishops #20)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Voss hurried ahead to prepare a tent for the petrified woman. Mary. Pretty sure she’d lied about her name. But why would she? Maybe the answer was tied to her reason for leaving. Her surprise appearance saved him from having to push his way into the community just to learn what he needed. A lot of new blood had arrived recently, and he intended to officially make himself known to all of them. If they wanted him for an ally in this strange set of events ripping through the country, they’d have to meet his requirements, abide by his laws. They also needed to know he was only a guardian to their innocent. Not even a burning world would ever change that .

He removed a tent from the shelf and set it up closest to the community fire, mentally making a list of questions to ask her. How many were there, what were their particular beliefs. Since every Amish community had a set they lived by, he’d highly expected fights to break out, but not this soon. Passive fucks preferred to let problems fester before uttering a word about it.

Voss looked up when Kaine arrived with her, out of breath from keeping up. “Warm yourself,” Voss said, pointing to the log near the fire. He watched as she quickly did, reaching to the flames with her hands when she sat.

He pulled a fur pelt from her tent and draped it around her shoulders, getting her surprised eyes on him.

“Thank you. Brother.”

He sat on the log next to her, ready for answers. “Why did you lie about your name?” he asked, deciding to get that out of the way first.

She stared at him with her stunned jaw dropped then snapped her eyes to the fire. Green eyes, he confirmed.

“Well, I was…”

It suddenly hit him. Her accent. “Where are you from?” Was she possibly a stray?

“Well, now see, about that,” she said, carefully, regarding him with furrowed brows. “I-I’m very sorry to have lied to you Mr. Voss, but I’m just trying to survive here.” She shot her gaze around, as if to count her threat before pleading her case. “When I first came to be with the… lovely Amish folks here, it was a very strange set of events.” She tugged the fur pelt closed as she faced him more. “I’m from England, you see. I’m a nurse. I came to America to work, and no sooner had I stepped foot off my plane, the country decides to collapse right under my bloody feet. A flurry of catastrophes found me and many a soul roaming back roads, lost and scared and hungry with no place to go. One day, a wagon of Amish passed and kindly offered me a ride.”

“Did they,” he muttered, having a hard time believing that one.

“I think… maybe I was possibly dressed like an Amish, I don’t really know, an d let me remind you that I was terrified, I had no idea who was foe or friend so upon asking my name, I couldn’t find the courage to give it or any word of any kind, and they took pity on me, assuming I was mute from the trauma of the events that rolled out like a red carpet straight from the bowels of…” She stopped short, catching herself and redirected her eyes to the fire. “I lived with them for weeks without uttering a word because I feared if they knew I was a foreigner they’d put me out, or find me fit enough to leave if I was capable of speaking, but…”

Voss studied all the delicate angles of her troubled face, waiting for the rest of this interesting story.

“The Amish life does not appeal to me, Mr. Voss,” she confessed upon facing him before rushing out a, “No offense, I think it’s a beautiful uh… way of life. For some. For those who…” She faced the fire again as if all her lies were getting too burdensome to continue.

“I made friends, you see, with some of the girls. Malinda, Rosalynn and Naomi.”

This news twisted his guts with anger but also curiosity. He waited very patiently for the rest of the words and when he got a chance to read her eyes, his spine straightened at what he saw. “And?” he ordered, feeling the eyes of every brother in earshot now.

She seemed to sense it too and glanced around. She looked back at him, a woman on a cliff with the option to jump off or fight a legion of demons.

She suddenly shot to her feet before the fire, letting the fur fall as she chose fight the demons . “And listen here,” she ordered, turning to fully face him, her small hands in fists at her sides, the surprising stance intriguing him. She aimed a finger at him now. “I took a vow to protect and heal, even at the risk of myself. And what those girls are being put through is wrong, I don’t care what your religion is, forcing anybody to remove all their perfectly healthy teeth is cruel and it’s disgusting and the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard of. To save money,” she cried, horrified. “Because they may have dental issues later!” she added in utter disbelief .

The hunger to punish any one of those Amish Elder bastards cooled in his blood. Voss didn't like the custom either, but those stupid things as she called them were choices, not rules.

“And I will say to you what I said to those mindless mouth breathers,” she continued on, bringing his humored intrigue with her comical theatrics regarding those mouth breathers.

“What sort of bloody faith is that?” she demanded right at him. “You can believe God to make a whole human, but you can’t believe Him to take care of your teeth? Bloody hell,” she cried, marching along a path of fury next to the flames while his brothers also remained tuned in to the entertainment.

“How can you be a people of the land and not bloody know that it’s the food you eat that rots your teeth?” Her green eyes were huge on him now. “They’ve got bloody diets as strict as the Queen’s protocol and twice as joyless, which makes me wonder just what the hell is really going on! And now they’ve forced those… precious girls,” she ga sped, her chin quivering as she slapped the tears from her cheeks with shaking hands, bringing Voss’s blood to an instant boil.

“Forced them to what?” he carefully asked.

“To wear ridiculous placards in front of everybody,” she strained, wiping more tears. “Because they shaved their legs!” She suddenly sat heavily on her log, teary eyes aimed at the fire, no longer bothering to control her emotions. “And you never met more sweet girls, just being girls.”

He eyed Mary in a new light, now. Again, he agreed one million percent that they were all nuts, but placards of humiliation didn’t warrant his intercession. But it seemed she had tried to. “Is this why they put you out?” he asked.

She wiped her face and nodded. “Can you believe it?” she said, her brave voice tiny now. “With nothing, no clothes, no food, in the dead of winter. I may have died,” she told him, as if he didn’t already know that. “But I wasn’t leaving,” she assured, back to a fighter, finger aimed at him. “I was going to find shelter and in the morning, find a way to help those angels. ”

A new look took hold of her face as he realized there was no expression so far that wasn’t a facet of beautiful. Whatever was suddenly on her mind, had him watching and waiting for the entertainment.

“So...” she gasped, grabbing her knees in both hands. “I have a proposition to make.”

Voss couldn’t keep his grin back, or keep from liking her spirit. “I’m all ears. Mary. ”

He watched her face fall in shame, before casting her hesitant gaze at him. “Mabel,” she confessed. “That’s my real name. At least… it starts with an M.”

A few chuckles echoed behind them, indicating he wasn’t the only one entertained with her. Mabel. “Tell me your proposition. Mabel.”

Her excitement immediately returned and swept the little lie under the rug. She got back in her announcement position, facing him. “So… I don’t know what you…dedicated young men have done to become one of their shunned, but, I’m thinking… that m aybe we are perhaps… at least on the same side of their moral rubbish bin and....”

Voss felt the eye of every brother on her as he didn’t bother resisting his grin. “Go on.”

She looked around at the men then back at him. “Well, I came here to help people. I’m a nurse,” she reminded. “It’s my passion,” she reiterated. “And I know that everything comes with a price, and…” She wiped her face as if in an audition for the punchline to a joke.

“I will give everything that I have, everything that I own, if you were to help me... help those girls.”

She glanced around at the murmur of chuckles and Voss held up his hand, silencing them. He wanted to play along. “How long do we get this service?”

She suddenly appeared stumped. “Well, I… I don’t suppose I have any other plans pressing in my life so… however long I’m needed.”

Voss stood, kicking a log closer to the fire, finding himself not only liking that proposition but wanting it. “You’re hired. ”

He glanced at her confused face. “H-hired?”

“Everything comes with a price, yes. Our sisters are not a bargaining commodity. Their well-being is the only payment I require, it is the reason I breathe. But your services are still needed and if you want it, the nursing position is yours.”

She stared him down for many seconds then looked all around before getting back to digging into him again. “Who… am I nursing? Exactly?”

Voss shrugged. “Whoever comes along that should need it, I imagine.”

“And… you’re paying me? For this?”

He sat back down, staring at the fire while keeping her astonished face in his sight. “With food, lodging, and protection.”

He finally looked to see just how shocked she was. “What did you expect, Miss Mabel? Flesh payments?”

The men broke out in chuckles, getting back to what they were doing as she finally figured it out.

“But you’re… I thought…”

Voss reached his hand out to her, and she regarded it for a long bit before slowly putting hers in his, sputtering shock.

“Welcome to The Damned and The Shunned. You’re part of our family now.” She regarded their hands, her wide eyes moving back to his grinning face as his mind recorded a dozen notes about the tiny hand in his. “Mindless mouth breathers,” he muttered, her frozen fingers crying out for warmth. He released her when his mind went in the direction he’d just told her they didn’t traffic in.

“So you’re… you protect the girls from…”

“Every threat,” he helped. “But especially those from our own blood,” he finished in disgust before turning to her. “You’ve already seen their inconsistencies, my new sister. The holy passivists are very big on forgiving and turning the other cheek. All the while committing the vilest forms of violence against those they are ordained to protect. Their own young girls and boys.” He stood, kicking a log into the fire as a dark rage heated him down to his bones .

“You left,” she realized. “For the same reasons I did.”

He shook his head for many, numb seconds. “I left for reasons far worse than teeth pulling and shameful placards, Sister Mabel.” Flints supper filled the air, wiping the furrow from her brow and sending her gaze in hurried search.

“You hungry?”

She aimed her green eyes up at him, clear and free of those kinds of crimes he lived to punish. She suddenly laughed and the transformation was like winter and summer. “I’m sorry, I’m just realizing I may be starving. And I’m going to be a nurse,” she said, finally allowing the idea to be real.

“And assistant cook, should you wish,” he added, ready for a woman’s touch in the wilderness kitchen.

She filled the night with a single sharp laugh. “If you like cutting your meat with a hatchet and prying your bread apart with a crowbar, then I’m your girl.”

All in earshot filled the brutally cold night with gut-splitting laughter that lasted for a good five minutes.

“A comedian,” she mumbled after a bit, maybe offended to be found that funny. “Laughter is good medicine,” she reminded herself, pulling her fur pelt back around her and sitting back at the fire.

Voss forced himself to sit again, needing to know things that often kept him awake at night. “Can you tell me how they’re doing?”

He met her curious gaze, the sharpness softening after a few seconds. “The innocent,” she said, her voice tender as she turned a matching smile at the fire. She listed off names he didn’t know but that was okay. They were all his to protect and some nights his whole being ached to see them living and happy without fear of any kind. As Voss listened to her recount things only a person with great passion would recall, he found himself enraptured. The way she spoke about them, the light on her face, as if she shared the same bond with him. Soon he was focused on the way her mouth formed words and the various smiles dancing across the stage of tiny features. And those slender brows... her entire face was a marvel he wanted to sit and study, along with everything beneath. What caused her to be this person? What other treasures were under the transparency she so effortlessly expressed. But she hadn’t always been able to show that, he remembered. She knew she was safe with him. And seeing it with his own eyes felt some kind of fulfilling and amazing.

“What?” she suddenly demanded, drawing his gaze from her smiling mouth to her eyes.

He turned to the fire, shaking his head. “I may have…dazed off.”

“Dazed off,” she balked, her offense comical. “Is this like dozing off in a bloody daze while I waste my breath talking to myself?” she marveled in quiet amazement.

“It wasn’t a waste,” he said, meeting her perturbed stare. “I was listening. Just not to the words.”

She performed more facial tricks, and he couldn’t keep from chuckling at them. “What the bloody hell are you listening to if not words?”

It was a fair question. “A lot of things,” he said, in mild awe with how easy it was to talk to her. Like a real sister. Only not.

“Like what,” she pushed bossily, not about to let it go.

He picked up a stick and poked the fire, contemplating a route out of the corner he found himself in without incurring fines. “Like… the sound wrapping them.”

She filled the awkward moment with odd noises, making him realize she had an uncanny gift to match sound to mood. Even a blind person could read her. “Like my voice?” her tone doubted quietly while her brows angled with possible hope.

Voss felt the stares burning the back of his head now, wondering what his brothers had been observing while he sat there, caught up in her word spell. The last woman they had in their camp was an actual sister and he was sure in that very second, every man there was hyper aware she was not an actual sister.

The sudden problem had caution crawling slowly through his blood.

The men were allowed to live by their own moral codes. It didn’t mean they were free to openly sin against obvious commandments, but when it came to women, they were allowed to pursue however they liked, so long as they honored the marriage bed once they entered it.

“Now I’ve gone and offended you, I see.”

“Nah,” he muttered, rethinking where to put her fucking tent now. His memory offered up a dozen brothers she wouldn’t want to be near and then twice as many he wouldn't want her near.

The idea of one of them fucking with her in any way sent him marching across the settlement and dragging her tent right next to his, practically connecting her door to his. He met every brother’s look head on, waiting for a single word. They could think what they wanted. This was the only quick solution. If they didn’t know why he did it, then they didn’t know him. If they had the balls to ask, he might tell them. Or just eyeball them till they knew it was none of their fucking business. That was their law in personal affairs. Unless they saw blatant sin, they had the right to fuck off. If they felt the need to ask, then ask. Didn’t mean you got an answer. Didn’t like it? Fight me. Don’t want to? Leave. Their laws were simple.

He made his way to where Flint cooked. “You got anything she can eat while that finishes up?”

“Veggies are done,” he said, lifting the lid on the giant black pot.

Voss filled a bowl with the hot steaming food and took the spoon Flint handed him. Back at the fire, he handed her the food.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered, taking it with both hands, smiling at him. “Thank you… uh. Do I call you Voss or Brother? Brother Voss? Mr. Voss?”

He sat again, letting her presence calm him. “You can call me Gideon.”

“Oh,” she said, happiness in her tone as she stirred in her bowl, blowing the steaming veggies. He peeked at her as she took her first bite, curious to see what food faces she’d make. She didn’t disappoint. Eye rolling heaven, slow, reverent chewing. Then came the sounds he wanted to stop her from making, sure every male there was hearing them how he was .

“You’ll need to eat in private if you’re gonna make that kind of noise,” he muttered for her ears only.

He pulled out his knife and picked up a stick, feeling her gaze on him as she muttered a shocked “Oh,” thankfully understanding him. He slid the blade over the tip of the wood, sneaking another look at her while those sounds he’d stopped continued playing in his head. She continued eating with that slow reverence, minus the pleasure sounds. Her tongue swept out and over her lip, thoroughly cleaning up remnants. The pink on her cheeks said she was warming up. Good.

“You’re staring,” she barely whispered, sounding like it pained her.

He continued to watch her while knowing he was out of line. “I am.” But it seemed she was an exception to every rule. This fair-skinned beautiful woman from another land. Defending those he vowed to protect, offering herself as a sacrifice if it meant protecting them. She was more than rare. She was a precious soul. She was the very heart of what he lived to protect.

Her brows rose at her bowl then she widened her eyes, taking another big bite, again getting lost in the food as if each bite was its own salvation. Had they not fed her?

She raised her hand next to her face, blocking his view. “Sorry Gideon,” she mumbled. “I thought I could handle it, but you have quite the staring power.”

“I don’t usually stare.”

“Ah,” she said, filling her mouth again. “Weird out of town pond girl. I get it.”

Pond girl. “Why are you a pond girl?”

“Because I live across the big pond. From America?”

He blew on the tip of his stick, smiling at the expression. “Got it.”

“Did you think I was from the pond?” she asked, her voice teasing.

“Or that you liked them.”

“I do like ponds. And do tell the cook that his talents have warmed my belly and then some.”

Voss closed his knife, wondering what that meant. “And then some. ”

She set the empty bowl on the log as she nodded with a contented moan.

“When you’re ready to sleep, I’ll take you to your tent.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can find it,” she said, eager to be helpful.

“I’ll show you,” he insisted. “When you’re ready.”

She glanced around then took a deep breath. “Yeah, I think I am ready,” she decided.

Good. The sooner she was in her tent the better he’d feel.