Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  I spotted a dozen photo albums lined up on one of the shelves, and stepped inside. It smelled of sawdust and cigar smoke, two of George’s favorite things. I grabbed a couple of the photo albums without checking the dates on the spines and strode back across the shed toward freedom. Since the caves and tunnels of the previous summer, enclosed spaces weren’t a favorite of mine. Something clattered against the outside wall. I whirled toward the sound, heart racing.

  “Solomon? Is that you?”

  I turned back around just in time to watch the door swing shut.

  “Buddy? All right… Good one, guys. You’re friggin’ hilarious.” I reached for the door and tried to push it open. It didn’t budge.

  Something scratched against the outside of the shed, just below the window—like someone was scaling the wall. The clattering could have been a ladder, I realized. And this was George’s idea of a practical joke: his way of welcoming me back to the fold. I wet my lips and reminded myself that panicking at this point was exactly the kind of story that would follow me to my grave, once the lights came on and the idiots pulling the prank were revealed.

  Better to play it cool. Ride it out.

  “All right, you got me,” I said. “I’m trapped in the shed. In the dark. You guys are comic geniuses.”

  Something scratched against the windowpane. I trained my flashlight beam in that direction, but all that did was reflect the light back at me.

  I realized then that there was no way Solomon was behind this—she knew too well what we’d gone through six months ago. And she wouldn’t let the others do anything like it, either. Sweat beaded on my forehead and the back of my neck. Just outside the window, I heard a faint rattling sound.

  “Harvey?” I said quietly. If Sheriff Jennings had found out I was back in town, this might be the kind of thing he’d pull to welcome me back. “Is that you?”

  The rattling got louder.

  I pulled my cell phone from my jacket pocket and hit number one on speed dial. It went straight to Solomon’s voicemail. Perfect.

  My pulse was racing.

  The window opened, the sound of metal against wood like a scream in the stillness. I grabbed the closest thing I could find—a hammer hanging on the pegboard—and held it aloft, my back pressed to the far wall, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Whoever was out there dropped something through the window, followed in quick succession by two more somethings. They fell too quickly for me to see what they were, but it was painfully obvious when I heard the wet thud and ensuing hiss as they hit the floor.

  The rattling was deafening now.

  The window slammed shut.

  I stood very, very still.

  <><><>

  There are non-poisonous gopher snakes that mimic the movement and sound of the common rattler. A once-over with the flashlight was all it took to tell me these were not gopher snakes. These were rattlers—three large ones, maybe six feet long, and they were pissed. The best move when encountering a pissed-off snake is a backward one: stay calm, back the hell up, and keep walking the other way.

  Trapped in a locked shed, however, that wasn’t an option. I dialed 911. The dispatcher picked up after three rings and asked me my emergency. I told her I was trapped in a shed with three rattlesnakes.

  There was a very long pause.

  “Three live rattlesnakes, sir?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Pretty live.”

  “Maybe you should get on outta there,” she said. “Have you been bit?”

  “Not yet, but I’m not loving my chances here. Listen, all I need you to do is call Buddy Holloway—he’s a deputy at the Justice Police Department. Tell him Diggs called.”

  From the shed.

  Because rattlesnakes were after him.

  Yeah, this was gonna go well.

  There was another long pause. The snakes slithered closer, the rattling like the sound of fat frying in a pan. The largest of the three hissed, head up. Preparing to strike.

  “Sir, it’s a crime to prank an emergency line.”

  “Please… I’m telling you, this isn’t a prank. Just call the deputy, all right?”

  She assured me that she would, and I hung up. The rattlers weren’t looking any happier about our situation.

  “Easy, guys,” I said quietly. “We can talk this over, right? You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

  The other two advanced, all three hissing now. Shit.

  I stepped backward and tried the door again: still jammed. I still held George’s hammer in one hand, but going on the defensive was out of the question unless I was feeling especially suicidal.

  I wasn’t.

  Tired of waiting me out, the largest rattler advanced again, focused on my pant leg. I had jeans and thin hiking boots on—not enough to keep me protected should he strike. The same noise I’d heard before clattered against the side of the shed again, making me jump. Unfortunately, it had the same effect on the snakes; already on edge, the sudden noise was all it took to push them over. A breadth of a second later, the first rattler struck.

  He caught me in the calf and dug in deep. If I shouted, thrashed, or tried to fight the bastard, the others would come at me and I’d be done. All the same, the time to wait passively for someone to come to my rescue was clearly behind me. The snake snapped back after striking, still watching me anxiously. I started to creep along the wall toward the window. My leg was on fire, the pain searing. I fought to stay calm while the snakes slithered back and forth across the floor in a rhythmic dance.

  I reached the window. There were shelves beneath it—I had no idea if they were sturdy enough to hold my weight, but I didn’t have a lot of choices: I could already feel my leg swelling, pain radiating down my foot and up past my knee. Sweat ran down my back, the air stifling as I managed to find a foothold and pull myself up. I used my hammer to knock the glass from the window, dimly aware that the rattling was getting louder below me once again.

  The second strike only caught the heel of my boot, but I was moving too fast for the fangs to penetrate. I pushed myself through the narrow window and somehow managed to avoid breaking my neck when I fell headfirst to the ground below.

  Apparently the dispatcher had followed through and called Buddy, because the others were on their way to my rescue before I hit the ground. I opened my eyes to find Solomon looking down at me, the damn dog licking my face.

  “What the hell are you doing down there?” she asked.

  George was already headed around to the front of the shed to open the door. I shouted after him. “Keep it shut—snakes!”

  A little melodramatic, maybe, but effective. Solomon’s eyes widened. She’d sobered up in record time. “So the call Buddy just got was real?”

  “Someone locked me in. There are rattlers in there—three of them. I got tagged in the leg.”

  She went pale. George returned to my side as soon as the words were out.

  “All right son—let’s have a look, and Buddy here,” he nodded calmly to the deputy standing on the sidelines. “He’s gonna run and get the car. I got a first aid kit in the kitchen,” he said to Solomon. “Go on and get that, and we’re gonna keep him nice and still.”

  Solomon and Buddy took off at a run. George rolled my pant leg up and carefully removed my boot and sock. Solomon returned a minute later with the first aid kit. She followed George’s gaze to my calf, but there was no revulsion or panic when she saw the bite. So, that was a good sign. Of course, Solomon spent her formative years helping her mother stitch up fishermen all along the Maine coast. Medically speaking, there wasn’t a lot that made her panic.

  She laid her hand on my head, brushing the hair back from my forehead. “Just relax,” she said easily. “And count your blessings the medical community decided sucker-fishing the poison out of people is a bad idea.”

  “I think you should count your blessings on that one, actually,” I said weakly.

  Buddy came tearing into the yard shortly thereafter, and he and
George helped me to the car. I sat in the back with Solomon, leaning back against her with my leg stretched out on the seat.

  “Shouldn’t someone who’s not drunk be driving?” I asked.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Buddy said, calling back over his shoulder. “I switched out to water ‘bout two hours ago, just didn’t tell y’all. I was too ashamed being outdrunk by your girlfriend there.”

  Solomon checked the swelling on my leg for the twelfth time, then lay her hand against my forehead. “Still no nausea? Dizziness? Chills? Inexplicable craving for live rodents?”

  I closed my eyes. “No… on all of the above. I just want to know who did this.”

  “And you’re sure it was a rattlesnake?” Solomon pressed. “Because gopher snakes—”

  “It wasn’t a gopher snake,” I bit out. “I may not have the symptoms you listed, but it feels like my goddamn leg’s being eaten by fire ants. Gopher snakes don’t do that.”

  “It was rattlers all right,” Buddy confirmed. “I got a look at ‘em before we left, just to make sure. What in hell are they doin’ out this time of year, anyway? They’re not common in these parts anytime, but this early I don’t know why they’d be hangin’ around at all.”

  “They weren’t hanging around, Buddy,” I said. “Someone dropped them through the damn window and locked me in. Why they’re out this time of year really isn’t the thing to be obsessing over.”

  “No, I s’pose not,” he agreed grudgingly.

  “You guys didn’t hear anyone?” I asked. George had gone uncharacteristically silent. I shivered, a wave of nausea running through me. Solomon wrapped a blanket around both of us, her body cradling mine.

  “No more questions,” she said, loudly enough to include the others up front. “No more talking. Just be still,” she whispered to me. I could feel her heart, beating too hard; maybe Solomon wasn’t so calm after all. The thought was oddly comforting. She continued stroking the hair back from my forehead.

  “You would’ve been a good doctor,” I mumbled.

  “Well… you would’ve been a terrible patient,” she returned. Her lips brushed against my temple—or I may have imagined it. I closed my eyes, Solomon’s arms around me, her body cushioning mine, and focused on being still.

  <><><>

  I was in the hospital overnight, waiting for symptoms beyond excruciating pain to develop.

  None did.

  No swelling, no fever, no vomiting, no chills.

  It wasn’t until Buddy came in at nine the next morning that I found out why.

  “What do you mean, the snakes belong to Jesup Barnel?” I demanded. It had been a long night of needle jabs and strange nurses and—since I refused the morphine drip they recommended—pain.

  Buddy shifted uncomfortably. “I guess the sheriff got a call from Reverend Barnel last night,” he said. “Sayin’ somebody got into his snakes. He’s got a license to milk ‘em—for the anti-venom, you know? But he told the sheriff somebody stole a few just after they’d been milked last night. That’s probably why you didn’t show no symptoms: you got a dry bite.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “He’s behind this—you know him. It would be just like him to take three of his neutered rattlers and lock me in with them to teach me a lesson. Test my faith.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Buddy said. “I’m just sayin’… he’s got a story, too. An alibi. His butt is covered.”

  “His butt’s always covered,” I muttered.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Solomon demanded. George had gotten a ride back to Justice with Buddy, but Sol had been camped out by my bedside for the better part of the night. Her good humor wasn’t faring well as a result. “I know you and Wyatt met at his extreme church camp or whatever—but clearly there’s more to the story than that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said shortly. “It wasn’t the most sane week of my life. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  She narrowed her eyes at my tone, her lips pressed into a tight, pissy little line. “Don’t bite my head off. It’s a valid question.”

  “And it brings up something I wanted to talk to you about last night,” Buddy interrupted. “But I didn’t want to talk about it with George there. I thought we’d do it down to the station today, but maybe this is better. Less chance of the sheriff walking in on us.”

  “Wyatt’s case?” I asked.

  He handed me a short stack of manila folders. “That’s the files,” he said. Solomon came over and sat on the edge of my hospital bed. I opened the top file and tried to remain impassive. Half a dozen 8x10 crime scene photos of Wyatt’s dead body didn’t make that easy.

  “Mae called in about two a.m. Saturday night, weekend before last,” Buddy began. “She said Wyatt wasn’t home yet, and he wasn’t answering his cell phone. I got a bad feeling right then—I’ve seen newborns can stay away from their mama longer than that boy could stand bein’ away from Mae.”

  “And after that?” I asked. “What happened after you got the call from Mae?”

  “I took Floyd—our other deputy—and we headed out to the Burkett farm straightaway. That was Wyatt’s last call; he was out tending a goat he had to put down. When we got there, Wyatt’s truck was still there. Jenny Burkett told me he’d been around long enough to take care of the goat… and then he just up and disappeared.”

  “And they didn’t see a sign of anyone?” I asked. “The Burketts?”

  “Their place is set up so you gotta travel about an acre and a half between the barn and the main drive. Jenny was back in the barn with the kids. From what I can tell, Roger was sleeping one off just then.”

  Solomon furrowed her brow, but she didn’t say anything. I knew what she was thinking: an emergency trip from the vet seemed like a prime opportunity for some spousal support. Or at least a brief cameo from the husband. Chances were good there was a story as to why Roger Burkett hadn’t shown his face.

  “Okay,” I said. “What happened then?”

  “Well, we scoured the countryside for a few days, with no sightings and no sign of Wyatt. Then along about eleven Wednesday night, we got a call.”

  “They found him,” Solomon said quietly.

  “Laid out at the junction of I-69 and Route 45 in a new suit a size too small, hands on his chest like he was just taking a Sunday nap.”

  “The junction of 69 and 45,” Diggs repeated. “That’s, what, an hour from here? How is this even your case?”

  “It’s not,” Buddy said. “Not technically, anyhow. We got the KSP on it. Since Wyatt’s from here in Justice and he went missin’ from here, they promised to keep us in the loop.”

  “And what’s the official cause of death?”

  “Overdose of ketamine,” Buddy said. “It’s that club drug, you know the one.”

  “Special K,” I said. “Not exactly a drug running rampant on the streets of Justice.”

  “Never had one case of it that I know of ‘round here,” Buddy agreed. “But it’s also used as a sedative by vets.” He looked uncomfortable. “Looks like they might’ve stolen it from Wyatt’s practice: some went missin’ about a month ago. Anyway, the coroner says Wyatt’d been gone maybe twenty-four hours by the time we got to him.”

  Which meant for seventy-two hours while Wyatt had been missing, he’d been alive. I scratched my chin. Buddy eyed the photos nervously, as twitchy as a virgin bride. Solomon caught my eye. She’d noticed it, too.

  “So, what aren’t you telling us, exactly?” she asked.

  Buddy shifted uneasily and looked from Solomon to me. “She’s got the eye, huh?”

  “Nobody better,” I said. “Short of me, of course. She’s right. There’s something you’re not telling us.”

  Buddy nodded toward the photos. “Wyatt wasn’t in bad shape when we found him—I mean, so far as the body goes. Neat and clean… peaceful-like, strange as that sounds.”

  “Except…” I prompted.

  He frowned. “He had a mark on his chest—a
cross that’d been there since he was a boy.”

  “Like a tattoo?” Solomon asked. I didn’t have to probe any further, though. I knew just what he was talking about.

  “Not exactly,” Buddy said uncomfortably. “More of a… brand, I guess you’d call it. You seen it before?” he asked me.

  I nodded silently.

  “Well,” Buddy said. “Somebody cut all the way around that cross. Then they took off the skin on his chest like it was just some patch, turned it one hundred and eighty degrees, and sewed it back on like that.”

  My stomach rolled. Buddy looked at me.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. Solomon was watching me like she knew better. I took a breath and kept going. “So, they turned the thing into an inverted cross?”

  Buddy nodded. “Coroner says it was done post mortem, thank the good Lord.”

  I went through the photos with Solomon. Pale flesh; rough, uneven stitches; a raised cross turned upside down, branded into the skin just below Wyatt’s collarbone. I looked at Solomon, trying to determine whether she’d made the connection. My cross wasn’t really recognizable as a cross anymore, but the scar was in the same place as Wyatt’s. The same size. Solomon kept her gaze fixed on the photos, giving me no clue whether she’d figured it out or not.

  “This whole thing’s got me worried,” Buddy said. He scratched his head. “Fact is, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this done.”

  “You mean the cross excised and turned upside down?” I asked. “Where else have you seen it?”

  “Years ago now,” Buddy said. “I pulled the file after I saw it on Wyatt. It was back in ’02: Marty Reynolds. He was forty-two at the time. Two kids, and a run-down farm out toward the outskirts of town. There was a rumor he killed his first wife—he said she walked out on the family, though, and there was never an official investigation. Rumor was he done it, though. There weren’t too many people cryin’ at his funeral, if you know what I mean.”

  “Cause of death was the same?” I asked.

  “No, sir,” Buddy said with a shake of his head. “They found him with his throat cut. But he was dressed in some nice clothes his kids never saw before. Left on the side of the road just outside Paducah.”