by George Wier
Willett fished a key out of his pocket and inserted it into the ignition switch, then depressed a small black bulb beside the steering wheel. I’d seen the kind before. It used pressure to dump enough fuel into the carburetor to fire when the key was turned to the next notch down. It took two tries before the motor started. Jessica leaned back against the small railing, her eyes moving over the lake and among the trees. She was entranced.
The silly kid. This whole thing was a vacation for her.
*****
Caddo Lake is another world.
The eye is drawn by a thousand unmoving things: a bit of kelly-green lichen on a dead log poking out of the water, silvery-gray Spanish moss suspended in the air like living stalactites, each bit of growth uniquely its own; tiny, bright pieces of sunlight penetrating through distant, high branch-work; the cypress themselves sitting upon the dark water like finely sculpted statuary―gray, lonely and asleep.
It is a quiet place, but for the muted hum of the motor drawing the water past.
Clumps of duckweed floated along on the surface, and here and there where the trees stood thickest in the water could be seen whole swards of the stuff, like perfectly smooth putting greens. To the newcomer duckweed plays a trick on the eyes and the mind. For a moment there is the sense that it is land―ground for walking on. But then the smooth flatness of those green places hint of water. And that is all it is, really: cool and completely still water blanketed with green life. As our boat passed, the green surface rippled in our wake.
“Say,” Willett said. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got some chips.”
He tossed Jessica and me each a bag of Fritos.
“Awesome!” Jessica said.
“When you’re done, hand the bag back to me. We have to keep the lake clean, you know.”
“We’re not litterers,” Jessica said, and then, as if it explained everything: “We’re from Austin.”
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was nearly 2:00 p.m.
A picture came into my mind. It was a scene straight from my imagination, but I felt a sense of rightness about it. It was from what Holt had told me about the night that he and Molly Sue were on the water in his father’s boat. The sun was just going down and the long shadows were melding together to become twilight. Then death flew over them, invading the quiet. Then plane screaming downward to crash in the bayou not far away. I could almost see it.
Something had happened then. Whatever it had been it had forever destroyed the stillness of their lives.
At that moment, I understood. I understood Holt and Willett and the quiet and peaceful people who lived on the lake. I understood their silence. Their introspectiveness. Their long patience. And I knew it, then and there, that whatever I was to find, it would somehow change me as well.
“Chess,” I said, under my breath. Willett didn’t hear me over the thrum of the motor, but Jessica turned to look me a question. I shook my head.
Chess and Caddo Lake.
*****
Willett took us along what he called ‘Government Ditch’, a fifteen yard-wide channel that for a set of markers on each side and phalanxes of trees beyond would have been invisible from the surface of the lake. Through twists and winds and slow turns it became apparent that we were leaving the bulk of the lake behind us.
“Are we still on the lake?” Jessica asked.
“Bayou,” Willett stated.
Ten minutes later Willett cut the motor.
We turned to look at Willett. His arms were crossed on his chest and he stood up from his pilot’s chair.
There was a long silence as we glided slowly to a stop. Enough silence to fill vast places underground.
“I have to tell you something, Bill, Jessica,” Willett said.
“We’re listening,” I said.
“The island is around that stand of cypress over there, not two hundred yards away. But before we go there, I have to tell you that I’m not setting foot there, and you shouldn’t either. You’ll be close enough to see it, but that’s going to have to be good enough.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because of Caddo Cold.”
“Caddo Cold?” Jessica asked.
“Yep. I have a long memory. I can remember all the way to back when I was two. Some people can do it, most can’t. But I remember Caddo Cold.”
We waited for the history lesson we both knew was coming. Jessica leaned into me. She was shivery. The temperature had dropped by five degrees since we had gotten on the boat.
“The outbreak was in 1960. I was two. My pa and my ma came down with it. Hell, half the people along the south side of the lake came down with it, except it never made it in town, or not enough people there passed it on. There were ten deaths.”
“Go on,” Jessica said. I put my arm around her and hugged her to me for warmth.
“I don’t know why I lived and momma and daddy died. Maybe it never ‘took’ with me. But I think I understand why that girl of Holt’s went nuts. The day my momma died she was trying to scratch holes in the wall with her fingernails. She said she was trying to kill the bugs. She was talking out of her head, you know. All delirious. I didn’t know what was going on. By the time that momma had lapsed into a coma―I didn’t know that word, then, but I know it now, and I know that’s what it was―by the time the coma came over her, daddy was already starting to go out of his head. I was scared out my wits. You see, it all started with a cold. Runny nose, sneezes. Then it was itchy arms and then itchy body, maybe the same way poison ivy or poison oak gets started and spreads. But this stuff spreads inside, and when it gets in the brain, it cooks it up real good. My momma’s fever topped out at 108. She died at seven minutes till midnight. When I knew my dad was going to die, I ran. I ran to the neighbor’s house half a mile down the road. When I got there they were dead too. I reckon I thought that everybody in the world was dying.
“What happened after that ain’t important right now. What’s important is that you know about Caddo Cold. It’s a killer. It’s pneumonia with turbo-jets. It burns up a body quick-like.
“Molly Sue,” I said. “She survived. And Holt.”
“I thought about that after you told me. It was the missing piece. I have an idea about that. It’s as good as any, I guess. My idea is that Molly Sue and Holt got the pure stuff. Maybe before it mutated or something. They got the pure Caddo Cold directly from the source. It didn’t take with Holt, just like it didn’t take with me. But maybe it made her crazy. Or maybe it didn’t and what she saw over there on that island was what did it. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. You’re your own person, Bill. But if you or your daughter go on that island, I think you’ll both be swimming back. I don’t think I’ll let you back in this boat.”
I took my arm from around Jessica and stood up.
“First,” I said, “you’re scaring the hell out of my kid, Willett. And I don’t like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but a little scare is better than―”
“I’m sure it is,” I cut him off, “but let’s leave it at that. The second thing is, since you’ve told us what it does, this Caddo Cold, as you call it, I don’t think you could get either of us to go on that island if you tried.
“Good,” he said.
“Jessica,” I said, “do you want to tell him number three?”
“Yeah,” she said, and stood up. “Mr. Mahoney, I understand about your people dying a long time ago, but for right now, could you please chill the fuck out.”
CHAPTER TEN
Willett drove us onward to the island, but nice and slow. He had an ingrained fear of the place, that much was apparent.
I wondered how much of what he told us was true, and how much was imagined. There was no way to tell from one simple conversation whether it was believable or not.
I had my arm around Jessica again and she huddled close to me.
“I think I’m ready to go back, dad,” she said.
“It won’t be much longer. Then
we’ll head back. Also, can you do me a favor?”
She looked up at me.
“Watch your language, okay?”
“Oh. That. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve said worse myself before. I try to temper what I say around other people, though.”
“Yeah. I know. You’re like one of those saints, dad,” she said.
“Hey. Never call me that. A saint I ain’t.”
That got a laugh out of her. But soon, I knew, her teeth would begin chattering from the chill.
A log came floating past on the opposite side of the boat, or at least I thought it was a log until it blinked at me and then disappeared in a whirl of water.
“‘Gator,” Willett said. “Don’t worry. He’s torpid. The water’s too cold for him to be aggressive. We’re almost into winter, and they hibernate. I’m surprised he was out and about to begin with.”
We went through a broad patch of sunlight and it warmed us for a moment before we plunged back into the shade.
The island, if one could call it such, lay ahead. At its highest point it was no more than a foot above the water line.
Willett cut the motor and we drifted slowly by.
There was wreckage, but not much of it.
“There,” Willett said, and pointed. “That has to be a piece of the rudder.”
Jessica and I peered at it. There was something there, but I couldn’t make out what it was. It was smooth and fairly large, but it was covered in lichen and woven between several bare creeping vines.
“You can see more of it during the winter months, like now. We’ll go around the other side. You’ll be able to make out a section of fuselage.”
“Intact?” I asked.
“I’d say so,” Willett said. “But it’s buried back in there between the trees.
“Where are the wings?” Jessica asked.
“Hold on a minute,” Willett said. He turned the wheel and cut the engines and let us drift almost to a complete stop. Meanwhile he fished an oar out from beneath his chair, stepped over to the side opposite us and waited. After a moment he dipped the wooden paddle into the water and it made a solid ‘thunk’ sound―wood on metal beneath the water.
“That’s one of the wings right there,” Willett said.
“You must have done that a lot to find it,” Jessica said.
“That I have,” he replied. “There’s another off over that way,” he pointed.
“We’ll take your word for it,” I said.
“Alright. Let’s go on around this island. I want to show you the fuselage, and... something else.”
We were ten feet from the shore-line when I noticed the alligators. They lay dormant in the tall grass. I counted first two, then two more. As we rounded the island there lay a whole pile of them.
“They’re sunning,” Willett said. “They’ll disappear completely soon into their holes. We won’t see them until early spring.”
“That’s good,” Jessica said.
I wouldn’t have gotten out of the boat even if I’d never heard of Caddo Cold. Despite Willett’s assurances the reptiles were torpid, for my part there were far too many of them for any measure of safety. One alligator, sleeping or not, is one too many.
We came around the tip of the island and up a narrower course where the foliage was more thick.
“There,” Willett pointed.
I could see what he meant. A portion of the fuselage rested behind a line of large cypress boles. Anyone looking for it wouldn’t have been able to see it unless someone was there pointing it out to them. There was no wonder that it had remained hidden for so long. Between the lake, the cypress boles, the lichen and the creeping vines, all evidence that a military plane had once crashed in this spot had very nearly vanished.
“Dad?” Jessica said. “What’s that?”
It was almost hidden by both the tree and its branch work, but I saw it.
“One of Holt’s people,” I said.
It was the upper half of a human skeleton, its ribs and cranium now encrusted with natural growth.
“Sorry, Little Miss,” Willett said. “I should have told you to look the other way, but I didn’t think you’d be able to see it.”
“I saw,” Jessica said. “Dad, let’s go back.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Let’s.”
*****
At one time the plane had been huge. Say, a C-47. Some kind of cargo plane. Its cargo had been death.
“You no longer doubt it’s real, do you?” Willett asked me.
We passed the wide end of the island heading back and toward the main course of the bayou.
“I never doubted Holt,” I said.
“Someone must have been looking for it,” Jessica said. “For a long, long time.”
“I expect you’re right,” Willett said.
“Since about 1960,” I said.
And then all three of us heard it at the same time. A rhythmic thrumming sound, first in the distance, then growing closer.
“Goddammit!” Willett yelled. “A chopper!”
*****
Willett opened up the throttle and our boat lurched forward and Jessica and I grabbed the railing behind us.
We dodged around little dots of island, cypress knees sticking up out of the water near where the trees were their thickest, and had to duck beneath branches. All the while the thrum of helicopter blades grew more distinct. We’d be seeing it soon.
My mind started working, fast. What was the danger in a helicopter flying over us on a lake? Then I remembered Willett’s reference to the army and the fellow with the sunglasses and felt suddenly colder inside than I did out.
The helicopter could be no more than a few hundred yards away, its props and the whine of the turbine now much more close.
“I see them!” Jessica shouted. We looked where she pointed, behind us and angling towards us. They also appeared to be dropping in altitude.
“They want us for some reason!” I yelled to Willett.
“I don’t know!” he shouted back. “Maybe they’re looking for the crash site!”
I looked around the interior of the boat, my eyes darted here and there. Nothing. I turned around and leaned out over the edge of the boat and inspected the pontoon of our side. Nothing.
“Dad, what are you doing?” Jessica shouted.
“Sit tight and don’t try to do anything,” I cautioned. I stood up and dove across the boat to the opposite seats, nearly hurting myself in the process. I inspected the other side, what would be starboard, and found something. A small circular disc that looked totally out of place. I had to shove my arm between the narrow space between the railing and the gunwale, but I managed to feel the pontoon, even if I couldn’t see it. I found the disc, felt around it and found a spot where I could dig my fingernails into it. It peeled back slowly.
“What’d you find?” Willett called out. I pulled my arm back in, just in time to avoid getting it taken off by a tree branch, and held it up my find.
“Global positioning device!” I called out. “You were being tracked all along!”
“Get rid of it!” Jessica shouted.
I lobbed it as far away from me as I could, but the helicopter was too close now. If we could see them, then very likely if they couldn’t see us well through the trees, they could see our wake across the water.
“I think it’s too late!” I shouted back.
Willett didn’t respond. He headed toward the thickest stand of cypress standing in the water he could find. The shadows grew thicker even as the sound of the chopper blades grew in intensity. I could hear the whistle of the rotors.
Willett cut the engine, but we had a great deal of momentum going. I scooted back towards Jessica, who held her arms out for me, helped me to sit down.
We practically flew between the dark boles of large trees, missing some by mere inches and scraping past others. Willett was guiding us by reflex alone. The trees grew thicker and larger.
Our for
ward progress began to slow, but the chopper was very nearly overhead, if off by a few dozen yards.
“They may have seen our wake,” Willett said, “but we’re not making much of one now. We can paddle through here, if we have to, hopefully until we’re far enough away.”
There was the sound of a distant splash beneath the roar of the helicopter rotor, a sound that was not very promising. I turned to look the direction of the sound and could make out something bright orange about fifty yards away between the cypress. It was probably the exact spot I had thrown the GPS device.
“I think they’re dropping people in the lake,” Willett said. “Maybe divers.”
“Why?” Jessica asked.
“For some reason they’re looking for Mr. Mahoney,” I told her. I turned to Willett. “And you haven’t told us everything yet.”
“Like I said before, not by half,” he replied. He handed me an oar and our eyes locked for a moment. I took the paddle.
“You said not to trust anyone,” I said. “I hope you realize that includes you.”
“Yep, I did say that and I do realize it includes me.” he said. “Right now I want to get us out of here without starting the motor again and drawing the wrong kind of attention. After that, I’ll tell you everything. And by that, I do mean everything.”
“Dad,” Jessica said. “What’s that?”
I looked where she was pointing, the same spot the diver or divers had entered the water. There was a pale pink mist through the trees near the crash site, and it was spreading.
“They’re marking the place with a smoke bomb or something,” I said. Willett and I took a side each and began rowing.
“And there,” Jessica said. We paused and looked back behind us. There was a large pink mist growing from the direction of the 1960 crash site.
“Now they’ve marked the site,” Willett said. “It’ll be Caddo Cold all over again if anybody goes in there. Dig in with that paddle, Bill.”
