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My head jerked erect on the pillow. The room was hot and close and motes of dust spun in the columns of weak light that shone through the curtains. My breath rasped in my throat, and my chest and stomach were slick with perspiration.
The general sat in a straight-backed chair by the foot of my bed, with his campaign hat resting on one knee. His beard was trimmed and he wore a brushed gray coat with a high gold collar. He was gazing out the window at the shifting patterns of light made by the pecan and oak trees.
"You!" I said.
"I hope you don't mind my being here."
"No, I—you simply surprised me."
"You shouldn't have remorse about the kinds of feelings you just experienced, Mr. Robicheaux. A desire to live doesn't mean you lack humanity."
"I opened up on the Buick too soon. I let off the whole magazine without seeing what I was shooting at."
"You thought your life was at risk, suh. What were you supposed to do?"
"They say I killed an unarmed woman, general."
"Yes, I think that would probably trouble me, too." He turned his hat in a circle on his knee. "I have the impression that you were very fond of your father, the trapper."
"Excuse me?"
"Didn't he once tell you that if everyone agrees on something, it's probably wrong?"
"Those were his words."
"Then why not give them some thought?"
"General, somebody has done a serious mind fuck on me. I can't trust what I see or hear anymore."
"I'm sorry. Someone has done what?"
"It's the same kind of feeling I had once in Golden Gloves. A guy hooked me after the bell, hard, right behind the ear. For two or three days I felt like something was torn loose from the bone, like my brain was floating in ajar."
"Be brave."
"I see that woman, the back of her head . . . Her hair was glued to the carpet with her own blood."
"Think about what you just said."
"What?"
"You're a good police officer, an intelligent man. What does your eye tell you?"
"I need some help, general."
"You belong to the quick, you wake in the morning to the smell of flowers, a woman responds to the touch of your fingers, and you ask help of the dead, suh?"
He lifted himself to his feet with his crutch.
"I didn't mean to offend you," I said.
"In your dream you saw us retreating into a woods and you saw the long blue line advancing out of the smoke in the field, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Were you afraid?"
"Yes."
