“I hope not. I’ve known him since he was a kid. He knew my father, and he knows my sister, Nita. I’d hate to think that he would agree to do something so heinous. And to plan it when I was coming out there.”
“Did he or his father, Lloyd, know you were there?”
“It was a Wednesday. That’s the day of the week that I’m usually there. In this case, I’d stopped by Lloyd’s mailbox when I was coming on the property. Lloyd was reading his mail. We chatted, like we often do, and I drove on out into the ranch property. I went pretty far that day. I wanted to cut fronds from trees that Bobby wasn’t using to harvest palmetto berries. There are parts of the ranch that are just too primitive for most folks. Lots of wetlands and some enormous gators in swamp hammocks. I remembered that day because I was surprised to see signs of people I assumed were deer or bear poachers.”
“How do you know that?”
“Tracks. Spent shells. I even spotted one of those chameleon cameras they use to see if game comes though the areas they want to hunt.”
“Chameleon cameras? You mean a camouflaged trail camera some hunters use?”
“Yes.”
“Is this camera anywhere close to the mound, the place where the victim was found?”
“Not too far, but it wasn’t pointing toward the sacred mound. It was facing an animal path, a spot where you could see if game is crossing.”
“Maybe the camera caught more than game. Think you can find it again?”
“It’s in the forest. I can find it.”
O’Brien said nothing for a moment. Then he pulled the Jeep to the side of the road.
Billie turned to him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m pulling up a satellite image of the ranch on my phone.”
“Why?”
“In case I need it.”
Billie looked at the window, the land dotted with scrub oaks and hammocks of cabbage palms.
O’Brien downloaded satellite images of the ranch. “The mound is fairly easy to spot from above.” He zoomed into the picture. “Okay, take a look.” He held the phone at an angle for Billie to see. “Here’s the mound. Here’s a back road. Over here’s the Withlacoochee River. Where do you think the camera might be?”
Billie studied the image. “I’ll show you exactly where to find it.” He pointed to an area near a dirt road east of the mound. “Can you get a closer picture right there?”
O’Brien zoomed in tighter. Billie tapped the screen with his index finger. “There’s the place. Right off the road, there.” He eyed O’Brien. “I know why you’re doing this, Sean. If they arrest me, you’ll be able to find it. You think they’re coming for me don’t you?”
“Yeah … I do.”
“My heart tells me you are right. Before we leave the rez, I need to speak to the oldest of the elders. He’s a medicine man. I think I will need his help.”
THIRTY-ONE
O’Brien assumed the medicine man had very few neighbors. Billie didn’t say how long it would take to get to the elder man’s house. They’d left the neighborhoods of mostly ranch-style homes, driving to the far end of the reservation. They drove deep within the most rural sections, past grazing cattle, past vast lands of saw grass sprinkled with cabbage palm hammocks—islands of dry ground thick with palms.
Billie said, “Go left just beyond the creek.” O’Brien slowed the Jeep, following the directions. He continued, driving down a long and narrow dirt road. As if by a stealthy command, hundreds of snowy egrets wading in the shallow water sprang up, taking flight, soaring across the glades, the shadow of the flock falling over the saw grass.
Billie gestured. “That’s the house.” He pointed to a small wooden home at least fifty yards off the road.
“There’s no car. Maybe he’s not home.”
“He’s never driven a car. No reason to. He has all he needs here.”
O’Brien drove up the dirt driveway. Dozens of tall coconut palms scattered around the perimeter of the house. Bamboo and banana plants grew on both sides of the home. A mixed breed dog, its golden retriever genes more dominant, stood from a sleeping position on the small front porch. The dog stretched, wagging its tail. It stepped down from the porch, trotting into the sandy front yard.
O’Brien parked in the shade of sabal palms at the end of the driveway near the house. “Looks like the dog is our official greeter. What’s this medicine man’s name?”
“Sam Otter. No one knows his exact age. Some say he’s close to one hundred. His wife is believed to be younger by a few years. They were born here in Big Cypress. Sam learned Seminole medicine from men like Josie Billie and others. Sam, long ago, reached the status of someone referred to as Yukol. If he were Catholic, he would be called the Pope.” Billie smiled. “Members of the tribe, some as far away as Oklahoma, make pilgrimages here to seek the services of Sam.”
“What does he do for them?”
“He’s a healer. He mixes herbs, roots, tree bark, leaves, grasses, even mud to create powerful medicines. He’s also a deeply spiritual person. So is his wife, Elsie.”
O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds, the Jeep motor ticking in the shade. “Joe, if this is personal, I can sit here while you meet with Sam Otter.”
“I think it is good that you visit with him, too. When I was a boy, learning how to survive out here in the glades, Sam Otter would lead four or five boys and myself deep into the swamps. We were all about eleven or twelve years old. He would walk slowly, stopping to point out things, teaching us about plants, wildlife, the power of observation, silence, and perception.”
“Perception, how so?”
“As you know, many things, including people, are not always as they appear. I remember Sam standing up to his knees in water, saw grass and cypress all around us. He would tell us to turn away and count to ten before facing him. After we counted and turned back around, he had vanished. All would be quiet, and then we could hear him calling us from the top of a bald cypress tree. When we looked up, we’d see an eagle, sometimes a crow. The bird would fly over our heads. Then we’d hear his voice coming from behind a clump of trees. When we approached, a deer would snort and run. After a few minutes, he would tell us to turn around. When we did, he was standing directly behind us. He never made a sound sloshing though the water.”
“Did he say how he got behind you?”
“He said we walked right by him.”
“Why didn’t you and the other boys see him?”
“He said because we were looking in the wrong places and at the wrong things. There are those in the tribe who believe medicine men with the stature and experience of Sam Otter, can transfer their life force into something else. Taking on the appearance of an eagle, owl, wolf, deer and the most clever of all—the trickster, the crow.”
O’Brien smiled. “This should be interesting. Do we knock at the front door?”
“They know we’re here. Let’s go around back. That’s where you’ll find them most of the time.” They got out of the Jeep, the dog wagging its tail and approaching Billie. “Hey, Cracker. Where’s Sam?”
Cracker barked once and trotted over to greet O’Brien. He knelt down, petting the dog behind its ears. O’Brien smiled. “Too bad Max isn’t with us. You’d have your paws full with her.” He stood, following Billie around the side of the home, the smell of wood smoke in the air, the sky a bottomless blue. When they entered the backyard, O’Brien figured that at least two acres were cleared. There was a chicken coop to the far right. Four weighty hogs slept in the cool mud of a fenced pen, lying beneath the deep shade from a massive oak next to the enclosure. Purple martins orbited weathered gourds hanging from a tall pole in the shape of a T.
An old woman, her shoulders rounded, stooped in the middle of a small garden, picking tomatoes and placing them in a paper grocery bag. Cabbage, watermelons and sunflowers grew in the garden. A red-throated hummingbird darted in a blur of color and buzz.
The old woman turned slowly, watching Billie and O’
Brien approach. The only sound was the tat-tat-tat hammering of a woodpecker at the top of a pine tree. An open-air chickee was in the center of the property, a fire smoldering in a rock pit below the thatched roof, a vintage Singer sewing machine in one corner. A second chickee, one with faded timber sides like a worn barn with a thatched roof, stood closer to a group of cabbage palms, Spanish moss thick in the fronds.
There was the sound of a screen door snapping shut. An old man, gripping a wooden cane, walked from the rear of the home, moving slowly toward the open chickee. Billie stopped walking and waited for him.
O’Brien felt his phone vibrate. He lifted the phone from his pocket and read a text from Dave Collins. Got a hit on the car license plate. Not good. Watch your back. Call me ASAP.
THIRTY-TWO
Sam Otter’s deeply lined face was the shade of bourbon in a glass. He had a prominent nose, deep-set dark eyes. His bushy eyebrows looked as if they were covered in frost. He wore a multi-colored patchwork jacket, brown trousers and a black scarf around his neck, sagging skin tucked behind the scarf. He nodded at Billie, slowly turning his head to watch his dog sit next to O’Brien and lift one paw. O’Brien shook the paw. Sam Otter smiled and said something to Billie in the language of the Seminole. Billie chuckled and answered him.
Sam lifted his cane and pointed toward the chickee. He said words that O’Brien took as an invitation to enter the chickee. They followed Sam. He used his cane to stoke the fire and then sat in a wooden chair with a flattened pillow in the seat, white feathers sticking out of the casing.
Billie began speaking in Seminole, the old man listening closely, nodding and grunting in intervals. Then he spoke to Billie, glancing over at O’Brien and continuing. When he finished, Billie turned to O’Brien. “I told Sam why we are here. He remembered hearing about the incident in the burial ground. Sam says it was one of many through the years. He said the Seminole were hunted in life and death. He also told me he used a very powerful medicine, something he spread over the sacred ground to keep intruders away. It’s sort of like a spiritual blanket for the dead. If a person digs into the graves of those who’ve passed on, they do so at their own peril.”
O’Brien looked at the elder man who was now watching the ‘glades, the wind moving through the saw grass. “Maybe Lawrence Barton was the victim of his own poor decision. But the payback took five years.”
Billie folded his arms across his chest. “Perhaps a spiritual blanket comes with no expiration date. Things happen in time and place.”
Sam’s wife, Elsie approached. She stopped in the shade of the chickee. Her face, the dark tint of coffee beans, was more deeply rutted than her husband’s face. She wore a traditional full-length Seminole dress, patchwork colors of blues, reds, yellows and purples sewn in horizontal patterns. Dozens of glass bead necklaces hung from her neck. Her white hair was pinned up.
She looked at Billie and spoke. Then she reached into the paper sack, lifting out three blood-red tomatoes. She handed one to each man and said something to her husband. He nodded, pulled a knife from his pocket and quartered his tomato. He handed a thick slice to O’Brien and then one to Billie. Sam mumbled, grinned, and popped a large portion into his mouth, red juice and yellow seeds coming from the corner of his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smiling. O’Brien ate his slice of tomato. The juice flowed, sweet and sharp flavors oozing, just enough acidity to make the saliva glands stream.
“Excellent,” O’Brien said. He looked up at the old woman. “Thank you. It’s the best I’ve had in a long time.”
She smiled, nodded, turned and walked toward the house.
Billie said, “You can’t get tomatoes like that in a store. Elsie has a way with nurturing vegetables until they almost beg to be picked.”
Sam Otter stood. He inhaled deeply, a slight wheezing sound coming from his lungs. He watched an eagle soar over the glades, looked at Billie and said less than a half dozen words. Then he leaned on his cane, knuckles swollen from age and arthritis, and walked away.
O’Brien cut his eyes over to Billie. “What’d he say?”
“He said he feels there is an evil coming closer to us. He wants to share something that might help when it arrives.”
THIRTY-THREE
They followed Sam Otter to the second chickee. He opened an unlocked door and muttered something to Billie. He shuffled inside the dim room, reaching into an open Folgers coffee can. Sam lifted a kitchen match and struck it, the orange light reflecting from his black eyes, the glow filling the old man’s face. He used the match to ignite a Coleman lantern, the gas hissing, the light illuminating a room lined with wooden shelves against each wall. Hundreds of sealed glass canning jars sat on every shelf.
O’Brien watched, saying nothing, the room drenched with the earthy scents of the wild—feathers, dirt, damp moss, wet mud. He could see each jar was filled with something different; dried leaves, bark, grasses, twigs, a dark peat-like substance—hundreds of pieces of nature under glass. None were labeled. Sam hobbled around the room, humming an ancient song. He lifted a jar, removed the metal lid, holding the glass mouth to his nostrils. He sniffed and then resealed the jar. He did this three times. Then he lifted an empty jar and took bits and pieces of things from a half dozen jars, mixing the ingredients into one container.
He looked at Billie and spoke, his voice throaty. Billie turned to O’Brien. “He wants us to come no further.”
They watched as Sam moved slowly to the back of the small room, his humming increasing. He reached under a blanket and lifted a deerskin hide that was rolled up, the fur side out. He carefully unrolled the buckskin. Then he picked up a dull gray metal spoon from a shelf, using the spoon to ladle a pewter substance from a pocket inside the bundle. Sam poured the powder into the jar. He opened another jar, this one half-filled with a clear substance. O’Brien thought it was water.
Under the light from the hissing lantern, the old man poured the liquid into the jar, sealed it and shook the mixture. He turned and handed the jar to Billie, uttering instructions of some kind. He unscrewed the lid to a larger jar filled with a material resembling tobacco, slivers of snakeroot and black feathers in it.
Sam opened a drawer, retrieving a pipe made from a bamboo shoot. He packed the pipe with the mixture from the jar, mumbling something to Billie, walking back into the late afternoon sunlight.
Billie turned to O’Brien. “He wants us to follow him.”
O’Brien nodded, and they walked with Sam Otter, the old man silent, leaning on his cane as he hobbled across the property. He led them over a short trail in the direction of the largest cypress tree O’Brien had ever seen. Even from fifty yards away, the tree towered above the largest palms and oaks. They followed a winding footpath around cabbage palms before entering a clearing near the massive cypress tree, its trunk wider than a side view of a pickup truck.
Sam noticed O’Brien looking at the tree and smiled. He spoke to Billie, motioning toward the tree. When he finished, Billie said, “He told me that’s one of the oldest trees in America. It’s more than one-hundred-thirty feet high. At the base, the trunk is about sixteen feet in diameter. He said the Creator—God, planted it more than three thousand years ago. It’s a sacred tree, having seen many things … good and bad.”
“I’m glad it’s survived through the ages, the fires, the wars, and the logging.” O’Brien looked around the clearing. There was a fire pit with fragments of charred logs in the center. A wrought iron potholder, rusted in spots, curved over the dead fire. The spot peered over a vast expanse of Everglades, saw grass just moving in the breeze, dark indigo storm clouds building in the west. He saw a half dozen carrion birds circling above the glades less than a quarter mile away.
Sam Otter noticed O’Brien watching the birds and said something in the Seminole language. Joe nodded and said, “Those are young birds in the distance. He tells me the adults have come and gone.”
The old man lit the pipe, inhaling. He slowly released the s
moke through his nostrils. He spoke, gesturing to Billie. Sam inhaled from the pipe and blew smoke into his face. Billie breathed in the smoke, his eyes closing. Then he slowly exhaled. He looked at O’Brien and said, “He wants you to participate. As soon as he releases the smoke towards you, inhale through your nose and hold it for a moment.”
“What am I inhaling?”
“It’s some kind of internal shield. Consider it an honor for him to include you. He trusts you, Sean. That says a lot.”
O’Brien turned toward the elderly man. Sam blew thick smoke into his face, and O’Brien could smell the odors of bamboo, holly, burnt moss, tobacco, pinesap and pond muck. Sam stared at O’Brien, the splinter of white lightning in the distance trapped in his astute eyes. He nodded, uttered a few words and turned away. Turkey vultures circled in the gunmetal gray sky. Seconds later a bald eagle sailed over the saw grass, a fish in its talons.
O’Brien felt his phone vibrate. He lifted it from his pocket. Dave Collins sent a text message: Traced the car tag. Registered to Dean Scarpa. His associates, and the FBI, know him as Dino or Iceman. Long rap sheet. A lifetime with the mob. He’s an enforcer. Car is still on the reservation. Be very careful.
Billie signaled to follow the old man back to his house. O’Brien nodded and looked at the saw grass undulating, rolling in gentle waves pushed by a western wind across the Everglades.
O’Brien waited a few seconds as Sam Otter walked slowly, the old man stopping to move his cane from his right hand to his left. A movement near the top of the big cypress tree caught O’Brien’s eye. A large crow adjusted its stance on a scraggly limb, the bird angling its head, looking over the glades at the approaching storm. Then it turned toward O’Brien as he began to follow Joe Billie and Sam Otter down the path that was growing darker in the twilight.
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