The Bone Tree (66 page)

Yet again, the Knox family is two steps ahead of us. “Was it obviously murder?”

“No. It looks like a heart attack, but I know better. At least one of Dennis’s deputies had to be involved, but that’s no surprise. We’ve got real trouble in this parish.”

That’s probably how Snake or Forrest learned of our special interrogation
.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Kaiser. “I still need your help, though.”

“Tell me.”

“I need the Lusahatcha County helicopter in the air and searching for the truck Caitlin left that gas station in. Carl says the sheriff down there hasn’t okayed it, and he may have ties to the Knox family. I’m not saying he’s dirty, but he’s definitely hunted out at Valhalla. He might be as obstructive as he can about us searching that land.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“The sheriff’s name is Billy Ray Ellis. He’s eating lunch with some hunting buddies now.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m about to ruin his day. Good ol’ Billy Ray is about to feel the full weight and power of the federal government.”

I thank Kaiser and click off, then push the accelerator to the floor. The S4 eats up the miles like a starving beast, its Quattro drive holding me in the curves when most other cars would spin off the steep shoulders and into the trees below.

I reluctantly brake as I reach the outskirts of Woodville, Mississippi. The turn for Highway 24 East isn’t far ahead, but my cell phone rings yet again before I reach it.

It’s Carl again.

“Talk to me, buddy,” I tell him.

“Danny and I got the chopper! Agent Kaiser lit a serious fire under the sheriff’s ass. Billy Ray’s spittin’ mad, but we’re cleared to go into Valhalla if we need to. A judge is signing the warrant now. Right now we have to decide where to search. Do we run the roads and turnarounds? Or do we start searching the swamp first? We’d rather you make that call.”

“The swamp, no question. She’s got a map to follow, and she wouldn’t hesitate.”

“I thought she lost her map when she dove on Whelan’s corpse.”

“She did, but Jordan Glass shot a picture of it before it was lost. But if this Harold Wallis is a poacher, he may know where the Bone Tree is anyway. That’s what she’s after. How much do you remember of Rambin’s map?”

“Enough to get us in the general area of where that X was.” There’s a static-filled pause. “But there’s a million or so cypress trees down there, Penn. The only way to find that tree without the map is to grid-search the whole area, tree by tree.”

“Screw the tree. We can search for Caitlin’s cell phone, if you have the equipment.”

“We’re already up and trying, but we haven’t found a trace of it.”

I look at the Audi’s nav screen and make a quick calculation.

“Carl, in two minutes, I’ll be on Highway 24 and moving toward you guys at close to a hundred miles an hour. Can you set down on the road in front of me? Will Danny do that?”

“He’ll do it. You still driving that black convertible?”

“Yep. I’ll have my headlights on.”

“We’ll see you in a minute.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

Dropping my cell on the passenger seat, I slam the accelerator to the floor. The Audi’s rear end nearly slings out from under me as I start around a sweeping curve, but at the last instant the tires catch the wet pavement and the increasing G-force presses me back in the seat.

“Come on, Caitlin,” I whisper. “Call me. . . .”

CAITLIN SAT IN
the bow of Harold Wallis’s narrow pirogue, the rain shell of her jacket pulled tight around her as they trolled slowly under overhanging cypress branches. The steady hiss of rain on the black water was as familiar now as the stink of decaying vegetation. Beneath the hiss ran the hum of the trolling motor Harold had bolted to the side of the pirogue’s stern. Pirogues were usually powered by a human with a pole, but the boy had cleverly worked out a way to save himself a lot of labor.

Harold navigated the swamp much more deftly than Mose Tyler had earlier in the day. Perhaps it was his youth—and the better vision that came with it—but he threaded his slender boat through the tangled jungle almost noiselessly, leaving no trace of their passing. Only the hum of the trolling motor marked their passage.

Caitlin had brought along the little point-and-shoot camera she carried in her glove box in case of traffic accidents, and she’d already shot a mother alligator lying on a half-sunken log, four babies clinging to her back. The pirogue passing ten feet away hadn’t fazed the gator at all. This was her territory, not theirs. If Harold actually led Caitlin to the Bone Tree, she was going to wish she’d borrowed Jordan’s Nikon, but in that event, a hundred professional photographers would descend on this swamp. Today her tiny Casio would have to do.

In the pocket of her fleece jacket, Caitlin clutched her cell phone. She’d checked it every two or three minutes since they put in to the water, but the LCD had yet to register a single bar. This worried her a little, she wouldn’t deny that. Because Harold Wallis, while a companionable guide, had begun acting like a nervous point man on combat patrol five minutes after they put into the water. She’d considered calling Penn before they left Athens Point behind, but he would have forbidden her to go into the swamp without Carl Sims as an escort. Nor
could she call upon Carl or Danny. They were already in serious trouble for helping her, and she didn’t want to jeopardize their jobs any further. Besides, she was armed, and Harold had his .22. She hoped that would be enough to drive off anyone who might have come out to the Bone Tree to remove whatever incriminating evidence lay inside it.

But the deeper they penetrated into the ghostly stands of cypress trees, the clearer her memory of Henry Sexton’s Bone Tree journal became. Not the legends of ghosts and demons riding through the fog-shrouded swamp, but the real men on horseback who’d surely prompted those legends, men who had killed for a dozen different causes, but always with ruthlessness, rage, or hatred. Today she was more likely to encounter angry rednecks riding souped-up ATVs rather than horses. The thought made her clench the pistol in her jacket pocket.

She was glad that most of the Double Eagles were in jail today. Of course, Forrest Knox remained free, as did his cousin Billy—not to mention the intimidating Redbone who served as Forrest’s right-hand man. Caitlin shivered at the memory of his flat, cruel stare the night she’d encountered him outside the Concordia hospital.

“You know where you are?” Harold asked softly.

Caitlin took the map out of her left pocket and studied it, then peered through the rain, trying to orient herself.

“No. Where are we?”

“Close to where you found that boy’s body earlier. We just comin’ at it from a different way, in case there’s still cops out here.”

Are we?
she wondered. The pirogue soon glided out into a circular pool like the one in which she’d wrestled Casey Whelan’s torso into a helicopter’s rescue basket. But was it the same?
Yes. . . .

An exhilarating shudder of recognition went through her. “We’re close to that game fence, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Harold said. “You don’t see any deputies, do you?”

“No.”

“Hear anything?”

She listened for a moment. “No. Nothing.”

“Like I said . . . Sheriff Ellis don’t want anybody to find that tree.”

“Are you saying he already knows where it is?”

Harold shrugged. “I know he hunts over on Valhalla every fall.”

“How do you know that?”

“I done worked over there as a guide. I seen the sheriff cozying up to country singers and football players.”

“How far away is the hole in the game fence?”

“A little farther on. This rain will make it easier to get to by boat. When the water’s low, you got to walk the last fifty yards.”

Harold eased back on the throttle, then cut the motor altogether as they drifted into a narrow channel between two grassy tussocks.

“Look,” he whispered, and something in his voice made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Where?”

“You can’t see that hog?”

Caitlin froze as her eyes locked with the eyes of a wild hog even larger than the ones she and Jordan had seen by the road earlier.

“Is it dangerous?” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t get out of the boat if I was you. She might have babies close by.”

As Caitlin stared at the massive animal in the eerie silence, she heard a low whine from somewhere to her left. It sounded like a truck passing on a distant road. “What’s that?”

“Boat,” Harold whispered. “Somebody’s still down here.”

“What do we do?”

“Keep going.”

He restarted the trolling motor and left the two tussocks behind. As they hummed through the trees, she realized that the trunks of the cypresses were getting closer together.

A cracking boom like thunder echoed through the trees from somewhere to their right. Whirling, she saw Harold cock his head as though gauging distance and direction.

“Was that a rifle?” she asked.

“Yeah. Somebody’s shooting over at Valhalla. Probably took a deer.”

“How far away?”

He rubbed his chin with an audible scratching sound. “A mile. Maybe two.”

“Is it hunting season now?”

“Ute season.”

“Ute? What’s that?”

“That’s when little boys can hunt, but their daddies can’t.”

“Ah . . .” She felt embarrassed for misunderstanding him the first time.

Harold increased speed through the narrow channel. The tall wire fence appeared to the right of the boat. Caitlin experienced the disturbing feeling Jordan had spoken of, that they were at the edge of a prison camp. This afternoon Caitlin wasn’t sure whether she was on the inside of the fence or the outside. Suddenly Harold cut the motor, and the pirogue drifted to a stop.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Listen. Outboard again. That other boat’s closer now.”

“I don’t hear it. Where?”

He pointed at the fence. “It’s on that side.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you didn’t pay me enough for this gig.”

A tingle of fear and frustration went through her. “I’ll add five hundred to the pot. Let’s just get to that damned tree.”

Harold stared through the fence, seemingly weighing odds.

“Get your pistol out,” he said. “Keep it in your hand.”

Caitlin’s fear kicked up several notches. She let go of her phone and took the 9 mm from her pocket. As she did, she saw her Coach purse lying in two inches of water at the bottom of the pirogue.

“Cock it,” Harold said. “But be careful you don’t shoot me by mistake.”

Caitlin cycled the slide with a violent motion. The metallic snick of machined parts echoed off the trees and back over the water. Then she tensed both forearms, holding the gun the way Tom had taught her.

“What am I watching for?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“White men,” Harold said. “Maybe in a boat, maybe on foot. Maybe even on horseback. You never know what them crackers get up to.”

Caitlin shivered at this prospect. “What do I do if I see somebody?”

“Keep your gun lower. Yeah, like that. Out of sight. Let me do the talking. You a smart lady. You see it goin’ bad, you start pulling that trigger and don’t stop.”

“Okay.”

“Can you hit what you aim at?”

Caitlin remembered Tom teaching her how to shoot. “I can hit bottles on a fencepost.”

“Then you can hit a man. Just be on the lookout.”

Harold started the motor and continued up the channel. They followed the game fence for a couple of minutes, then Harold guided the bow onto a shallow slope of mud until they scraped to a stop.

Caitlin’s heart thumped in anticipation.

With the cold gun butt clenched in her hand, she scanned the surrounding trees while Harold tugged on a pair of knee-high rubber boots and climbed out. Wading into the dark water, he went to the game fence, took a pair of pliers from his jacket, and pulled open a four-foot-by-four-foot gap.

“What about the other hole?” she asked.

“Somebody might be watching that. Could be a game camera there, no telling. We gonna go through here to be safe. The Chain Tree ain’t far.”

He tugged the pirogue back into deeper water, then climbed in, started the motor, and steered them through the opening as sweet as you please.

“What would the white men do if they knew you put a hole in their fence?”

Harold laughed softly. “Hang me on one of them hooks they got in their skinning shack. They’d skin me like a buck, then mount my head on the wall.”

Caitlin shuddered at the dark undertone in his laughter. Numbing fear competed with the electric anticipation she felt as they neared the object of her quest.

“How far are we from the tree now?”

“Couple minutes, no more.”

Sweat had broken out beneath her jacket. Every cypress tree they passed seemed larger than the one before, and the air grew dark and close beneath the overhanging limbs.

“You want to hear a scary story?” Harold asked.

“Hell, no.”

Harold chuckled softly. “You know what a mandrake is?”

Caitlin thought she remembered some John Donne from college that referred to a mandrake.
Go and catch a falling star. Get with child a mandrake root, tell me where all past years are, or who cleft the devil’s foot.

“It’s some kind of plant, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. My granny used to fool with some witchin’—charms and stuff like that. Voodoo from New Orleans. She said a mandrake will scream when you pull it out of the ground, and the scream will kill anybody who hears it.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes at this quaint superstition, and a little wave of relief rolled through her.

“Granny said you have to harvest the mandrake a special way.” Harold peered into the dimness ahead. “You tie a dog’s tail to it, then run away. When the dog runs after you, he pulls up the plant. Then you can go back safe and get it.”

“What made you think of that story?”

“Granny made Granddaddy bring her out here one time. She said the real mandrake only grew where the seed of a hanged man spilled on the ground.” He paused a beat. “You know what I’m talking about?”

Caitlin thought about it for a few seconds, then grunted in the affirmative.

“Granny knew some boys had been hung out here, see? More than one with his clothes off. And some people say they cut them boys’ manhood off. The ones hung from the Chain Tree anyway. So Granny figured there would be mandrakes growin’ under it.”

Caitlin gripped the pistol tighter. “That’s enough. You’re creeping me out.”

“Hey, I’m scared, too. I wouldn’t even be here without you payin’ me that money.”

Instinctively, she pulled open her jacket and checked her phone. Still no reception.

“There it is,” Harold said, a note of awe in his voice. “Just like I told you. Man alive, look at that.”

Caitlin jerked up her head. Before her stood the near-mythical object of so many fruitless searches. Just as the legend said, the Bone Tree towered more than a hundred feet over the water, its lower branches joining the crowns of other trees to form a tangled canopy. The fibrous bark of the massive cypress looked like the leathery skin of some great creature, not dead but only sleeping. At its bottom, the trunk divided into leglike partitions that plunged into the muddy tussock that supported the tree. What lay inside that vast trunk? she wondered. Were
Elam Knox’s bones really wired to the inside wall of its organic cave?

As the pirogue glided toward the tussock, Harold was forced to slow the motor and thread his way between giant knees that protruded from the water like the backs of prehistoric animals basking in the water.

“Where’s the opening?” she whispered.

“Other side,” Harold answered softly. “There’s the chains.”

Caitlin followed his pointing finger. From a twisted limb fifteen feet above the ground hung two thick, rusting chains of iron. Wild euphoria surged through her at this confirmation of her hopes. At last she was close to the consummation of her dream—and Henry Sexton’s, too.

As she said a silent prayer for Henry, the chain-saw whine of an outboard motor smothered her joy and made her duck down in the boat. The motor was much closer than before, maybe fifty yards away. She could see nothing through the ranks of cypress trunks, but when she turned and looked to the stern of the pirogue, she saw pure terror in Harold’s eyes.

“
What should we do?
” she hissed.

“We need to get out of here.” He reached for the trolling motor.

“No!” she whispered. “Not before I see what’s inside that tree. We’ve come too far.”

“Then get out and do it! Quick! ’Cause two minutes from now, I’ll be gone from this motherfucker.”

JOHN KAISER SAT ALONE
on a bunk in the cellblock of the Concordia Parish jail, staring down at the corpse of Sonny Thornfield. He felt like a fool. He’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book—a diversionary attack. Both the shotgunning of the FBI satellite truck and the firebombing of Penn’s family’s safe house had been timed to draw him and his men away from the courthouse, making the murder of Sonny Thornfield possible. This meant that someone with connections in both the criminal and law enforcement spheres was pulling the strings.

Forrest Knox.

He should have known that a former Lurp like Forrest would employ military tactics. Kaiser’s second mistake had been placing confidence in Sheriff Dennis’s men and the facilities under their command. Dennis himself had been absent during the attack—and he still hadn’t
shown up—but of course Kaiser had effectively banned him from the premises after the torture fiasco in the utility closet.