“Why’d you let him go?” Luke said.
Semelee stood on the bank and watched Jack’s retreating form as he turned the canoe left and disappeared around the bend.
“Told you why.”
“You believe him?”
She could hear lots of anger in his voice. She knew he was jealous, but she figgered his pride had got hurt bein on the wrong end of Jack’s gun.
“Yeah, I do.”
She wasn’t sure why, but she had the feeling that he’d thought there was only one shell until she told him otherwise.
“You’re actin like a fool, Semelee. We coulda gone lookin for that eye-shell ourselfs.”
“Yeah? Like where? Like how? We can’t go to the hospital and ask about it when I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. We can’t search his daddy’s place like he can.”
“We coulda tried. Way it stands now we ain’t never gonna see him or your other eye-shell again.”
“Oh, we’ll see him again…one way or the other.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Didn’t you hear him? He said he promised Carl he’d get him back home. If he finds the shell he’ll be back to make the trade. But even if he don’t find it he’ll be comin for Carl. He’ll take him home again or spread a whole lotta hurt tryin.”
Luke snorted. “What makes you think you know so much about him? You ain’t spoke to him but twice.”
She turned to him. “Let me tell you somethin, Luke. That’s a man who keeps his promises.”
She’d seen that in his eyes. Not a lick of fear, just stubborn as all get out. And that made him all the more special. Brave and loyal, two traits any woman wanted in a man. But Jack wasn’t just any woman’s man. He was destined to be hers.
The way things was fallin into place…it was like it was all part of a plan. His daddy gets chosen to die, but he don’t. He lives and that brings Jack down here where he and Semelee can meet and be together. She lost an eye-shell, but now Jack was gonna find it, and that was gonna bring them even closer together.
“What do you need that other eye-shell so bad for anyway?” Luke said. “You been doin all right with just the one.”
“No, I ain’t. Ain’t the same. Much harder to keep control and see where I’m goin. I need the two of them.”
“Awright awright. But you was kiddin bout layin off his daddy, right?”
“Wrong. We ain’t interested in his daddy no more.”
“But Seme—”
“We got us a new target.”
She didn’t know how, but Jack had somehow connected her and the clan to what had happened to his daddy. If his daddy got killed, he’d blame her, and that might keep them apart and wreck their destiny. No, she had a better victim, someone who needed killin.
Luke was starin at her. “Who?”
“The old lady. She’ll be takin daddy’s place.”