PART III - Chapter 43: THE WOMAN IN THE FLAMES

 

 

Chapter 43

The Woman in the Flames
(Ó 2010)

Later That Same Afternoon

The three good friends now relaxed in the gazebo in the backyard of Chalet de Lily, enjoying the tradition that Logan continued on with well passed the death of his beloved Lily; that of her afternoon tea which she always had since her days as a little girl in England. The day became somewhat warmer and the breeze blew gently. The sound it made as it passed through the trees made everyone feel tranquil.

 

Logan let out a small laugh; he looked to both Cosette and Miriam and said, “I remember the day when Lily told you all about me. That day in the salon. How Bricey kept looking at my chest because she had told you all about my scars.”

 

“Oh I remember,” Miriam smiled, “poor Bricey was so startled when you caught him staring.”

 

Logan smiled back, “I sure miss that little guy, Clive too. Damn! I miss all of … you know … us.”

 

“Too bad Giselle could not join us,” Cosette said. “She’ll be back from San Francisco in about another week.”

 

“She always loved that city,” Logan said, “it’s still a place where a girl like her just fits in.” The three of them laughed together with that remark. Logan then looked at the spot where Lily would always sit. He then remembered the night three years ago when he fell asleep there and had his vision. He decided that now was a good time to begin to tell them the confession that he had wanted to give ever since that night, so he looked at his two friends and said, “They all have a story behind them you know.”

 

“What is that?” Miriam asked.

 

“My scars. They all have a story behind them. Only Lily knew the details of each one, and the stories are really to horrid to tell you, except for one.”

 

“Which one is that Logan?”

 

He drew in a deep breath through his nose and released it, “The one on my shoulder,” he placed his right hand onto his left shoulder blade, “right here, on the back. I have a third degree burn scar there. I got it in Chad. The story is only partly horrid because I got it in a firefight. But, something happened during the whole time the fight was going on. Something to the both of you that may seem strange, something that you may refer to as ‘supernatural’. But you have to understand something about my people, the Lakota, the supernatural to us is accepted as a part of life, it’s something considered very common to us.” The expression on both Miriam and Cossete’s faces told Logan that they were ready to listen to anything that he was about to say. “It was in 1983. Again it was in Africa, where civil war, political upheaval, and the distrust among all the tribes and religions there, well I guess you could say that all the violence that comes with all of that just makes that a common thing in life for all the poor people of that continent. This time it was that little really unknown country called Chad, it was their turn. Typical way the shit there gets started, one guy decides that the other guy, who is president, really is not the president, so takes it upon himself for him to be president.

 

“And what happens in Africa when one country decides to have a war that divides it? Well another country decides that there is an opportunity for them. In this case it was Gaddafi, the so called president of Libya. He took up sides with who he thought should be president of Chad and got his military involved by invading the northern part of Chad. The Libyan back forces drove in as far as the Biltine province, cutting off the supply lines from Sudan.

 

“Now I’m not going to go into the details of the politics or who was right and wrong here because really it was very complicated and the names of not only the people involved, but those of the cities and places in Chad are so hard to pronounce. Besides, after all these years I’m still trying to figure the whole thing out. But, if it is in Africa, and if it is complicated, then you know that Madame Republic, France is going to somehow get involved, which means the Legion will also.

 

“So, with that said, the government of France then put into action a little thing that we called - - -

 

“- - - Operation Manta. I was in the Central African Republic at the time and we were called up to intervene against Gaddafi, his forces, and the rebel group that he was backing in Chad. As I said the whole thing was confusing and complicated. So, what made it less confusing and complicated for me and the rest of the Legionnaires was to just follow the orders and do as we were told. Somehow, I and my men ended up in this little place on the western side of Chad called Ziguey. We were there to back up the Chadian National Armed Forces who were under the command of the duly elected president of Chad. I was at the time driving a Chadian officer to Ziguey in a jeep. I don’t even remember his name; all I know is that he was the typical officer in any African military unit. Arrogant, self-centered, and the only reason he was there was that the uniform made him look and feel superior to all around him. I mean he had more medals on his chest than Audie Murphy. I‘m not kidding, the man was also wearing an orange silk ascot and reflective sunglasses for Christ’s sake.

 

“We both arrived to the outpost there. I stopped the jeep near where my men and the Chadian forces were. I turned to the officer, I think he was a Major or something and told him that I was going to get him a status report. He just turned his head to me with his chin held high and nodded once, then returned his eyes looking forward. I got out of the jeep and I began making my way to where my men were standing. I saw the expression on their faces as I came closer to them. They had this ‘Who’s the peacock?’ look on their face. I was about twenty yards away when the officer called out to me, he said, ‘I expect for us to return to my headquarters soon Sergeant-Chef’, I turned to him and replied, ‘Yes Sir, very quickly sir!’ Seems the Major was a bit nervous when he was doing what a soldier is really supposed to do. I turned back to my men, they saw as I was pressing my lips together tightly to keep from laughing. I rolled my eyes at them.

 

“The last thing that I can consciously remember was the hissing sound made by the rocket propelled grenade.

 

“You see the Major had made the mistake of letting the enemies know who the officer was. The grenade hit the jeep right on the petrol tank and caused a huge explosion. It lifted me into the air and I landed on both my feet but very awkwardly, I pulled the tendons in both my knees, and I hit the ground hard, face down. I hit my head pretty hard, the combination of that plus the concussion caused by the explosion, well, I felt like I was in a dreamlike state.

 

“My eyes were open but all the sound was extremely muffled and everything was swirling. I heard the muffled pops of gunfire and the voices of all the men shouting, I tried to push myself up. I somehow managed to get on my hands and knees, even the pain I was in felt muffled. I smelled something awful, and then I felt myself being pushed back down to the ground and someone beating me on my back. It was two of my men, they were screaming at me to stay down, and that smell turned out to be me. I was on fire, and my men were beating out the flames. They dragged me away from the jeep and placed me in a safe spot. I then managed to sit up on my elbows and I looked towards the jeep. The Chadian officer was engulfed in flames, he kept his seatbelt on and it kept him in place. I saw as his body made its final motions on earth.

 

“I closed my eyes because everything was still swirling around, and then when I opened them and I then saw something strange, something in the flames, something in heat waves coming from the jeep. Something out in the distance, something in white. I closed my eyes to try and clear them somehow and then I opened them again and looked back. The image in white was closer, and it looked, well, familiar. I fell back down onto the ground and I was lying prone with the side of my face resting in the sand. I opened my eyes one more time to where the white image was. The image was now standing it seemed right where the heat waves were coming right from the flames. I looked, and, it was a woman … a woman in the flames. She was wearing a white buckskin dress and a white headband. Her skin was dark, and her hair was long and black. I looked right up at her, right into her face, and that’s when she held her arms out to me.

 

“I then passed out.

 

“It was the beginning of one of my visions that I have been blessed with throughout my life. The only way that I can describe it was that it was like turning on and off a television set and the picture came on instantly. I passed out at the firefight, and then I woke up in the back of a transport vehicle. I was lying flat on my stomach and when I woke up I felt the shaking of the vehicle as it was speeding down a dirt road. The truck was canvas covered and I was facing the back. I was looking at the floorboards and I slowly started to look to the back of the truck. There, right before the opening I saw the feet of the woman, she wearing white moccasins. I slowly looked up and there she was, the woman in the flames, she was sitting there in her white buckskin dress and headband. I looked at her face … and she had tears in her eyes as she was looking at me … I saw her face … and my heart began to pound.

 

“It was my mother.

 

“I passed out again

 

“I then suddenly woke up again, this time I was on a military transport plane. I could hear the roar of the propellers and I now could feel the pain I was in. I let out a groan and I heard someone telling me to relax. It was a medic and he told me that I had been out for a few hours and that we were on our way back to Corsica. He said we were somewhere over the Mediterranean. I was still quite dizzy and the pain was making my head spin. The medic then told me that he was going to give me some more morphine, which should last me until I get back to Corsica. He left me for a second to go get the morphine and I began to look around; and there she was again … my mother. She was standing in the back of the plane looking at me with tears in her eyes and again she reached out to me. The plane was shaking yet she was standing as if she were on solid ground. I was just about to call to her when I felt something cold on my back side then a sting. The medic had shot me up full of morphine, and then I passed out again.

 

“Then everything went totally quiet and the blackness began to fade out slowly … just like in a movie. Then my vision had become more vivid, I was standing on the plains by a river. It all looked so familiar to me, the trees, the water and the mountains around me. I asked myself where I was and I knew that I had been there before. Then I realized that I was back on the Lakota Sioux reservation, I haven’t been back there since I was a kid … at that time anyway. I was looking around and I felt so happy to be home. I could feel the heat from the sun and the warm breeze on my face. I heard a screech come from above me and I watched as an eagle soared in the blue sky with bright white clouds. Then I heard a voice behind me, it called to me and said, ‘My son.’

 

“I turned around and there stood my mother reaching out to me and I said with astonishment, ‘Mama?’

 

“She smiled and held her arms out to me, and I ran to her and she embraced me. She stroked the back of my head and said to me, ‘My son … my Scowls Like the Wolf … my son.’

 

“I could really feel her as I held on to her, I said ‘Mama is it you? Is it really you?’ She said nothing; she continued to stroke my hair as she held my head to her shoulder. I then felt her hand as it slid down from my head, then down the back of my neck, and then stop on the spot where I was burned. I felt myself begin to cry and I said to her, ‘Mama … it hurts’.

 

“She then released me and stood in front of me while holding both of my hands. She stared right into my eyes for a few seconds and smiled at me. She released my hands and then cupped my face in them; it was so real that I could smell her. She looked into my eyes and said, “My son … my Scowls Like the Wolf … I am so proud of you. But you have done all you can here … you have done your share … you have done your part. It is time for you now to leave this and move on with your life. You have done all you can here. Your destiny lies elsewhere now.’

 

“I asked her, ‘Where is that Mama?’

 

“She then placed her hands on my shoulders and said, ‘It shall come to you when you leave all this behind. But promise me one thing my son.’

 

“I asked, ‘What is that Mama?’

 

“That where ever you shall go from here, that what you shall do … promise me … no matter what the circumstance … promise me that you will never again take another life.’

 

“I was confused, ‘I don’t understand Mama.’

 

“She smiled at me and said, ‘Promise me Scowls Like the Wolf … just promise me that where you go from all of this that you shall never again take another life. Give me your promise my son.’

 

“I looked into her eyes and said, ‘I promise, I promise you Mama that I shall never again, no matter what, take another life.’ She smiled at me so, she looked so happy when I said that , she then pulled me down by my shoulders and kissed me on both my cheeks and right on my forehead just like she did when I was a little boy. She then released me and began to walk away from me and towards the river. I cried out to her, ‘Mama! Mama please don’t go! Mama! Please!’ I tried to walk to follow her but I could not move. I looked down at my feet; they felt glued to the ground. When I looked up, and when I did I saw that she was on the other side of the river waving to me. I waved back frantically and I shouted ‘Mama please … Mama … I … I miss you so much! Mama … Mama … Mama.’ - - -”

 

- - - “Everything then faded back to black, and then I slowly began to wake up. I could hear myself saying ‘Mama?… Mama?’, but it was like a whisper because my throat was so dry. I was in a room and all the lights were off. I was lying down on my side and in a, what was to me anyway, a comfortable bed with clean sheets. I tried to get up but then I felt someone’s hand gently keep me from moving. The person who held me down stepped in front of me. It was a nun; she was wearing a white habit. She was of African decent and she was middle aged and very pretty. I looked up at her and asked, ’Am I in Heaven?’

 

“The nun laughed a little and answered me in English, with an American accent, ‘No my boy you are not in Heaven. Why would you think that?’

 

“I answered that because she looked like an angel. She told me that that was one of the nicest things that anyone has said to her in a long time. I realized then that we were speaking in English to one another. She asked me if I were from America. Still being careful with that I told her that I was from the North American continent. She told me that I had been talking a lot in my sleep ever since I was brought there. ‘There’ happened to be a Catholic hospital in Paris, and her name was Sister Angela. She told me that it felt good to be able to speak with someone else that had an American accent. Sister Angela it turned out was from Mississippi.

 

“She then told me that I was going to have to sit up because it was time to change the bandage on my back. It was then I could feel the pain I was in with my burn and in my knees. She told me that they flew me in right from Corsica because I was developing an infection in the burn. It caused me to have a bad fever and I had been asleep for days. My knees were badly twisted, but nothing was torn or broken, plus I had a slight concussion and other various bumps and bruises, however I was going to be alright. When I sat up I was wearing some shorts from the hospital along with one of those hospital gowns. I had to remove the hospital gown and she changed the bandage as gently as she could but it still hurt like hell. However I could feel her staring at the other scar on my back, the ‘S’ scar. She then came around and stood in front of me with a fresh hospital gown. She looked at the scars on my chest and the ones on my leg. She looked at me and she had some tears in her eyes and said, ‘In the name of the Blessed Mother Mary son, what has the world done to you?”

 

Logan then looked at his two friends, the both sat so stoically as they listened, he then said. “Sister Angela stayed with me the whole time that it took for me to recover. It was about six weeks. She arranged to have some of my clothes sent to me at the hospital. When I was strong enough she would go outside with me and take walks. She helped me spiritually because I told her that I was raised as a Catholic. As I grew stronger I was allowed to go out into the city. I went to the Eiffel Tower and up to the spot where I was once supposed to meet somebody for cheese, strawberries, and champagne. Someone from back in America, whom I shall tell you about. While I was up there I could feel that she was there at one time, I could feel that her presence had once been there.

 

“Then one Saturday I decided that I wanted to go to the Louvre. I wanted to spend the entire day there, so I put on my Legionnaires uniform and arrived just as it opened. I tried to take on everything slowly. That afternoon I was standing looking at this painting by Rubens, The Village Fete, when I met this man who struck up a conversation with me. It was Captain Thiebulet, and that where my career with the French National Police began. We met a few more times while I was recovering and he told me that he would like to recruit me for a new task force he was going to put together. I told him that I would stay in touch. When I returned to Corsica I signed up for the Legion for one more year, I thought I owed them some ‘stoppage time’ you might say. I wrote the Captain often and I took him up on his offer. I left the Legion and came to Paris,”

 

“And then you met Lily.” Miriam said.

 

“Yes, and then I met Lily.” Logan sighed. “I told you this my friends because this was not the only vision that I have had in my life, I have had many. In fact I had one right here, in this gazebo, some three years ago. Something was revealed to me, and it came from Lily, and my mother. There are things I need to tell you of my good friends. Please, let’s go into the house, I have so much I need to say.”