Sanderson was the first on the scene and only an hour ahead of the rest of the Search and Rescue group who had taken his suggestions and dismissed them. A not uncommon occurrence when Federal agencies were involved. They had concentrated their search efforts in the opposite direction from the tracker’s advice, so he had shrugged, picked up his gear and called Eachann.
They met at the trail head, parked and walked into the thick forest where even Jacobs with his untrained eyes was able to pick out the tracks of two horses. In a small clearing they found the carcasses of two dead animals, but they heard the buzzing noise of millions of flies long before they approached the scene. From the blood swelling the ground, it was easy to see what had happened, but Sanderson explained as he examined the area.
“Both horses were shot. Large caliber rifle shells. The boy was charging toward the other horse, his hands and feet were tied on to the saddle horn and girth, there are cords still attached to the saddle.
“The other horse carried double and then bolted before it was shot.” He tugged at the saddle and cantle bags, pulled them off the big gelding and found nothing inside. The bags held no identification but there was still an open, empty bag of jerky and half full water bottles. No ID. No weapons. He did find a rifle scabbard beneath the dead gelding, but it was empty. The horse was branded on the near hindquarter and he read the brand with ease. Taking a photo with his cell phone, he sent the image to the Internet.
“Rocking MT,” he said. He called the office of Brands and Inspections. In ten minutes, he had the name of the ranch where the horse was bred, name of the horse and who had last purchased the animal.
“The father bought this gelding yesterday from the Lilly Farm,” he said. His eyes scanned the ground near the stud. Kneeling, he let his fingers touch the saddle coming up with a dark substance that glistened almost purple.
“Blood. Not the stud horse. And vomit. The kid is hurt. Sick.”
“How far ahead is he?” Eachann asked. The fear was evident on his face.
“Less than 12 hours, now,” the tracker replied.
“Then, where are they? Are they walking?”
Sanderson walked the meadow until he had read the tracks. He found the Deputy’s boot prints. From the depth of the track, he knew that the father must be carrying Cris and he tracked the prints down the trail for less than a mile. There, he found the exit point out of the woods onto a Jeep trail which ran into a paved secondary road. The others kept up with him, all the way to a cleared turnaround and there, they found evidence of a helicopter landing in the grass.
Scattered amid the leaves and dead grass were the remnants of medical debris – bloody gauze pads, jeans scissored up the legs to the waist, boy’s briefs cut off. Sticky pads used from a heart monitor along with white tape, sponges and syringe caps. A medical team had done serious Emergency medicine on someone. From the size of the IV and catheters, he guessed that it was a child.
“If it’s local, the hospital closest to our location is West Highland Trauma,” Sanderson said. He called it in to the SAR team and notified the Federal agents. It took them twenty minutes to reach the smaller group. Because of the power of the FBI, they were able to rule out the boy’s arrival at any of the local hospitals, Emergency clinics or doctors’ offices within minutes. It took longer to track down the origins of the helicopter.
Eachann, Sanderson and Jacobs took the FBI agents offer of a ride back to their vehicle in the Federal chopper. There, Jake picked up their rental, planning a return to the hotel in the small town.
“What now, Sarge?” Jake asked. “Are we going after Neige?”
“We have no idea where he’s gone or where he’s taken Cris.” Matt said slowly. “Probably back to Louisiana but where? He’s not stupid enough to use his home and I’d bet his cronies would stonewall any inquiries from us and the Fibbies.
“Damn, I wish I hadn’t lost my phone. I had all my contact numbers in there,” he moaned. “I don’t know how I misplaced it. I never lose track of it.”
Jake’s cell played INXS and he fumbled to retrieve the phone from his back pocket. His eyes widened as he answered and then handed it to Matt.
“Captain Jaeger?” Matt’s eyebrows raised in astonishment. “It did? You traced it to Metairie? My cell phone? How did it get there? Yes, sir. We’ll hitch a ride with the Feds.” He ended the call.
“Cris called the Captain on my phone and left it on so it could be traced. The call originated on the outskirts of a city called Metairie, LA. A home for mentally ill and delinquent youths run by an Elmira St. Croix Neige. Tempe’s great-aunt. It’s on the outskirts of the Atchafalaya Swamp. We can get there in two hours.”
They didn’t wait for the Feds. Instead, Matt called his brother-in-law, the lawyer who arranged for them to hitch a ride on the company Lear jet. They were in Louisiana before the Feds left North Carolina.
*****
Occasionally, Crispin’s hold on my awareness faltered and I could see through one eye. Not that there was much to see. Just trees and swamp. Ferns, cypress trees with their mangled web of roots. Huge old oaks with drooping Spanish moss. The sound of mosquitoes, bullfrogs and birds. My brain identified every noise, even the soft splash off to my right that was a gator sliding into the slow-moving water. I knew their grunts and coughs and to steer clear of their nests.
The smell was as familiar to me as mom’s perfume; I had grown-up around swamps, and they were my playground. So, I was not frightened as he took me deeper into the area. He barely made any noise as he walked softly, he left no trace of our passage, yet we followed a well-defined trail which meant that my father would find us, know where it exited. He could cut us off or be waiting at the end if we stayed on it.
I asked Crispin when we were going to leave the path and take to the brush toward his island. His answer didn’t fill me with hope, he said ‘when I find it’.
We walked for hours and the sun went down slowly. The shadows lengthened, and the woods grew darker and quieter. I could not see my hand in front of my face and Crispin fared no better until I told him about the flash app on Eachann’s cell phone. The swamp was no place for a kid to be during the night, too many dangers for even an adult who knew the area.
The brightness of the LED startled both of us, it lit up the dark almost like broad daylight. I wasn’t worried about the battery draining; if he could do that blue electricity thing with his hands, we were good. Ghost energy.
He told me stories of his life before he had been murdered and followed it with tales of after he had died. How his father’s friend, Mr. Fitzsimmons had buried Captain Lacey and Crispin together in a cemetery near St. Louis, Missouri. He went on to become a stockman, farmer, banker and real estate mogul. He bred race horses after finding Ballycor at the livestock exchange. One of his runners had won the Kentucky Derby.
He and his family did well through the centuries. Sheriff Harris wooed and won Caitlin. They named a kid after him. Their descendants still had a hand in Law Enforcement, the baking business and owned 5* dining establishments in Washington D.C. and St. Louis that rivaled 21. The St. Louis Club had been open for business since 1832.
There were descendants of Captain Lacey, too but they were from the Captain’s paternal side. His father’s brother. Direct issue died with Crispin and the Captain.
He showed me how the cycle repeated but curiously, not in the Lacey bloodlines. The re-enactment of the murder occurred with complete strangers who had no blood ties to the Laceys or the Johannsens. It was our souls that returned in the circle of murder, revenge and retribution. Not our bloodlines.
Finally, Crispin stopped with his hand on the bole of a giant tree, a huge Spanish oak that measured all of twenty feet around. The reason that it hadn’t been cut down was because its trunk wasn’t one massive girth but consisted of three tangled and bent forks that went up forty feet and spread out far enough to cover a school bus. It was enormous and had surely been around in his time. His words said so. He called it ‘The Ancestor Tree’.
“I remember this tree,” he spoke sadly. “I carved my name and Rain’s on it. Her people left messages here, it was a meeting place, a holy and sacred place in my time. Now, it is lost and forgotten.”
He circled the trunks and on the other side, our fingers traced the deeply ingrained letters. ‘Little Fox and Falling Rain’.
“The words…they’re in English,” I said. I did not see them, but his memories were mine to read.
“I didn’t know how to write in Abenaki.”
“Is that Rain’s language?” I asked. He nodded.
“We start here for the island.” He followed the trunks around until our backs were to the trail and worked our way through thickets of briers, ferns and black willow. He managed it without a scratch on us, slipping into the brush with uncanny stealth. I would have been bleeding and torn to shreds.
The ground was wetter and there were places where Crispin almost lost my sneakers. We were soaking wet from the knees down. I didn’t feel any discomfort and wondered if he did.
“Crispin, are you cold and wet? I can’t feel anything.”
He seemed surprised that I asked. “I am grateful to feel anything, Cris. For two-hundred years I have had no physical sensations at all. So, though I be cold and damp, I do not mind what I cannot change and must endure.”
“I don’t think I could handle living without running water, hot showers, electric lights and bathrooms. I mean, I like camping, but the best part is coming home to all those things,” I confessed.
Something bolted through the brush in front of us and I was startled but Crispin merely paused as a small deer splashed through the water, as unconcerned as he.
“Key deer,” he said. “They’re small but tasty. Run through the swamps and the Everglades. Pretty shy, too.” We watched as it flicked its tail madly at the deer and sand flies before hopping into the thick brush.
He laughed at my sudden fear. Sliding into the water up to his knees, we waded through a small stream that meandered in the swamp. He told me that it was a stream because its flow was clear with a definite current, not like the muddy waters of the swamp that lay as flat as a mirror.
We pushed past cattails taller than my father and lily pads that were big enough for a four-year-old to sit upon. He steered clear from those as snakes liked to hide underneath, to catch unwary frogs and birds who thought to use them for safe resting places. The snakes that frequented this environment were poisonous, water moccasins and rattlers.
We passed nesting cranes, heard the calls of loons, night hawks and owls. He pointed out two pairs of yellow eyes that watched us from the banks of saw grass. When I asked what kind of critter they were, he answered, ‘panthers. That made my skin crawl and the hairs on my neck lift in terror.
“No way. Ain’t been any panthers in this state since the 1930’s,” I protested.
He snickered. “Maybe they’re ghost cats.”
I was silent. Didn’t know if he was teasing or true. Didn’t say anything else for the next few hours as he unerringly worked our way into the heart of the Atchafalaya Swamp.
It was nearly dawn when our feet touched solid ground that didn’t suck at my shoes or tremble with our weight. The trees in that spot were old, enormous cedars, Spanish oaks and dogwood. The bright pinks and rose of crepe myrtles could just be seen in the soft early morning light. Black and yellow willows ringed the edges of the island hiding it from view. Unless you knew it was there, you would pass it by.
In size, it was no more than an acre or two. In its heart we found a mound of rocks and shells that had been piled for a foundation, but any lumber or building had long since rotted away.
Trees grew in and through the stones with several forming cave-like structures. The largest was an eight-foot square and that was where Crispin left me to take back control of my body.