Changing Tides

by Veronica Mixon

  Two Months Later

  An airboat wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever seen on this barrier island on the Georgia coast. At ten years old, my cousin and I were building a treehouse and spotted a three-hundred-pound black bear heading for the marsh.

  Owen covered his ears. “Mom, whyʼs that boat so loud?”

  I pried his fingers loose. “It has an airplane engine.” I recovered his ears with my hands and tried buffering the screeching whine of the boat’s motor.

  “Can it fly?” he yelled.

  The driver came ashore, shot past a burial mound, and swung back into the sound. The engine powered down, the silence so sudden muted sound waves hung in the air.

  I dropped my hands to my side. “No. An airboat doesn’t fly. It’s designed to skim over water, or marsh grass like in the Florida Everglades.” I couldn’t remember ever seeing one on the Georgia coast. I considered the raised mounds to my left. “And I guess it can ride over land, too.

  This swath of ground on the east end of the island was protected land. Land my ancestors had meticulously maintained for the past seventy years. It wasn’t a playground for some idiot with an amphibious floating toy.

  I’d first noticed the boat when we set our anchor at the mouth of the creek. The driver kept his craft within eyesight while we climbed dunes and skirted marsh grass lining the river. He’d been nothing more than an ill-mannered nuisance until we neared the eastern tip of the island. Then he moved in, raced up and down the bank, becoming impossible to ignore. I refused to let him ruin our day.

  Kneeling beside Owen, I pointed to the shell mounds. “See those raised hills? That’s where the Indians buried their braves.”

  Owen shifted his weight to his toes.

  I grabbed his shoulder. “We can’t move any closer than this sign.”

  He resettled on his heels and considered the four mounds. “Is this like the place where Daddy lives?”

  “Kind of like that.” I weighed my words carefully. I’d navigated weeks of therapy to get Owen to this point, agreeing to an afternoon away from the video games used like a drug to numb his emotional pain. “It looks different here because the Indians buried their braves standing up. That’s why the hills are so high.”

  Owen hadn’t mentioned Adam since we’d moved into Spartina, except for the nightmares. But screaming for his dad when he was half-asleep wasn’t the same as casually bringing up his name in conversation. Was this progress? It seemed like progress.

  He plopped on the sand and scooped a fiddler crab into his hand. “They look like white mountains.”

  “It’s the sand and oyster shells.” I snatched up a large white fiddler scuttling across the sand and encouraged the crab to crawl into Owen’s hand.

  “We own this whole island?” he asked for the third time in five minutes. “Even the mountains?” He glanced up, and his hat slid over his forehead.

  I lifted the brim, swept curls out of his sapphire blue eyes. The hat was too big and completely covered his ears. It had been Adam’s favorite. Owen never took it off. Even when he slept, he kept it on his nightstand. When he woke in the mornings, the hat went back on his head.

  I glanced at the airboat, made sure it was still floating in the sound. “The island belongs to us. No one owns burial grounds, but we have the responsibility of protecting them.”

  I motioned for him to stand. “It’s getting late, and we need to head back to the boat.”

  “Did the Indians fight?”

  “No. The braves were hunters. A peaceful tribe.” The airboat motor screeched, and I glanced over my shoulder.

  Like a teen boasting a new hotrod, the driver accelerated, turned a donut, and flew across the marsh. Two donuts later he spun back into the creek. Just a kid showing off.

  “Do crabs bite?” Owen asked.

  “They pinch.” I dragged my gaze from the boat. The fiddler crawled up his arm. “It’s okay.”

  Most of the barrier islands were state-owned. The airboat driver might not realize this land was private. I kneeled beside Owen. “Hey, I’m going to try and flag down the guy in the boat, ask him not to drive near the Indian mounds. You wait here.” I walked toward the water and waved my hands over my head.

  The boat pulled to a stop and idled ten yards off shore. I motioned for him to wait and sprinted forward. The driver gunned his motor, mowed over a patch of marsh grass, crossed the tip of the furthest burial mound, and circled back to the middle of the sound.

  Irritation swelled like a prickly ball in my chest. Even if the driver thought this island belonged to the state, he didn’t have the right to destroy the land. I walked backward and kept my eye on the boat. Owen met me halfway with an index finger stuck in each ear.

  I fished my cell from my jean pocket. Maybe a patrol boat was in the area. I held my phone high, spun a slow circle. No bars. My mother-son fantasy imploded into pragmatism. It was time to go home.

  The airboat’s engine kicked up a notch, and the boat glided into the mouth of the nearest inlet. An inlet leading straight to us.

  I hugged Owen to my side. The guy’s taunting no longer seemed childish, and I considered my options. If we walked the riverbank, our skiff was ten minutes away. Taking the cow trails through the brush meant walking for twenty. Twenty minutes of Owen complaining about being hot and thirsty. Twenty minutes of slogging through hundred-year-old vegetation.

  The driver raced his engine.

  Owen tugged my arm. “That boat hurts my ears.”

  Twenty minutes of my child not being subjected to a jerk.

  I pointed west. “Itʼll be cooler walking under the trees than the river bank.”

  “Is that boat going to follow us?”

  Minimize his anxieties, and the nightmares will recede. Therapist theories always sounded so simple until one had to put them to practical use. “Nah, he’s just goofing around. His boat’s probably new, and he wants to see how fast it turns.”

  We started up the path, and I used both hands to rip a hole in the wall of moss and vines.

  Owen pulled his cap low and walked through my opening.

  I stepped in and let the vegetation fall back in place. Moss-draped limbs and vines the size of my thigh hung from trees bowed and bent from years of coastal winds. The tangy ocean breeze mixed with the heavier earthy scent of the river and enveloped us in a cloud of mist. It was like stepping into a flora sauna fully clothed.

  The airboat’s rumbling engine grew louder. But we were hidden behind a curtain of green, and I took a moment to get my bearings. We were at least a quarter-mile from our boat. I added ten minutes to my estimate and slung my arm over Owen’s shoulders. “Tide’s going to turn soon. We need to hustle.”

  We slogged up an old trail that wound through high ground still used by deer and wild hogs, ending up in an oak hummock.

  Owen scampered around me, his arms swinging wide. “Can we camp here? Have a bonfire and put up our tent under this tree?”

  The distant whine of the engine filtered through the trees. “We could.” The boat wouldn’t follow us. Why would he? “But camping on the beach would be better because we’d have a breeze to keep away the sand gnats.” The whine of the motor grew faint, and my shoulders relaxed. Get a grip, Kate. This isn’t an island survival show. I searched for another trail heading south.

  “I want McKenzie to come to our campout.” Owen picked up a stick and used it as a slashing sword for vines, twigs, moss, anything within his reach.

  “McKenzie lives in Florida.”

  “Aunt Vivienne would bring her if I asked.” He lifted a palm frond off the ground and stopped to watch a frog hop into a pile of leaves.

  “We’ll see.” I urged him forward. “You’ll meet new friends at school.”

  He turned away, swiped his stick at a vine. “I don’t want new friends. I want McKenzie.”

  Squirrels chattered. Birds chirped. No engine rumbled. Whatever the airboat driver’s issue had been, he was gone. “Hey, you want to check out m
y old treehouse?”

  “We have a treehouse?” Owen pumped a fist in the air. “Suh-weet!”

  “Itʼs on the way. Follow close. We might see snakes—maybe even an alligator.”

  His eyes grew wide with excitement and I hoped enough fear to keep him from dawdling. We reached the end of our trail and looked out over thirty yards of open pasture bordering the river.

  “Whereʼs the treehouse?” Owen jumped flat-footed over a limb. I shuddered, thinking about snakes lying in wait. “It’s a little farther up, closer to where we anchored our boat.”

  “I can have a fort with a treehouse lookout.” Owen was like the kid whoʼd discovered a pile of Christmas presents a week early and dreamed of the possibilities. “And youʼd have to say the password to get in.” He danced in front of me, his face animated, his cheeks splotchy.

  “Secret password, huh?” From this vantage point, I could see the river. The tide had already turned, and I estimated fifteen minutes before the water in the creek vanished, leaving behind mud and oyster beds. Our skiff couldn’t be more than five minutes south. No problem.

  “Passwords are cool,” I said. “My cousin and I used to have a special code word to get into our treehouse.” I reached for Owen’s hand.

  “What was the code?” His fingers slid away, and he darted forward. The boy had one speed—mach. I followed at a jog. Ten steps in, the crank of the motor stopped me mid-stride.

  “Owen, come back.” It was if we were wearing trackers.

  Owen slid to a stop and glared at the driver. “Why’s he following us?”

  I ran full-throttle. “I have no idea.” I pushed Owen behind me. What did this guy want?

  The shrill of the engine grew closer.

  Owen peeked around my waist. “I hate that boat,” he yelled over the whine of the motor.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sick of him too.”

  I squinted against the sun, made out the registration numbers on the side of the boat, and committed them to memory.

  The driver turned a one-eighty and zig-zagged back the way he’d come. He’d traveled twenty yards before I remembered the camera on my phone.

  Owen’s hand crept up my forearm. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

  “Me too.” I wanted to find our skiff and get off the island. “The treehouse isnʼt far. You want to race?”

  “Sure.”

  “See that tallest pine tree?”

  Owen crouched into a running stance. “Yeah.”

  “Whoever gets to the tree first wins all the ice cream.”

  “The whole carton?”

  “The entire gallon.”

  We crossed the open field in less than twenty seconds.

  “I get all the ice cream. I get all the ice cream.” Owen did one of his fist pump jigs.

  “I think it was a tie.”

  He stared me down. “You didn’t tag the tree.” His expression as serious as a banker turning down a loan. “You gotta touch the tree, Mom.”

  God, he was cute. “Yeah, yeah. Nana probably bought plain vanilla anyway.” I searched the area for a trail leading in the direction of our skiff and picked my way around a decaying oak stump, then turned back, and lifted Owen over. “Come on, let’s get a move on. Our boatʼs up ahead.”

  “What about the treehouse?”

  “It’s in an old oak near the edge of the river, but we won’t have time to check it out today.”

  Our trail ended at the bank of the river, in an area I knew well. But nothing about the open space looked familiar. A new wooden platform floated on the river’s edge, and a path leading west had been cleared of every vine, and all the brush and fallen limbs.

  Owen started up the new trail.

  “That isn’t the way to our boat.” I turned a three-sixty, compared the native land with the cleared. This much work had taken considerable time. Time nobody would spend without reason. Poachers wouldn’t build a dock and clear-cut this much land for a few deer.

  “Whatʼs down that way?” Owen pointed to the open path.

  “An old sugar mill.” A group of five buildings—all of them fallen into disarray. I couldn’t fathom a reason someone would clean land they didn’t own.

  I grabbed Owen’s hand. “Letʼs go.”

  He lifted the tail of his t-shirt and wiped sweat from his face. “How much farther to the treehouse?”

  “Keep your eye on the monster oak up ahead.” Branches of the stately tree swept the ground. “The floor is wedged into the middle.”

  Owen took off in a fast sprint and hooped a yell. “It’s humongous.” He scurried three steps up the ladder.

  “We’ve no time, sweetie. Tide’s heading out, you can climb the tree next time. “

  “I just want to look.”

  He shot up two more steps, and the crack of splitting wood drained the last of my patience.

  “Get down.” I pointed to the ground. “Now.”

  As if weighing the consequences, he dangled his foot in space and descended at a speed thatʼd give a racing inchworm more than a fighting chance. He ignored the last two supports, jumped, slipped on a pile of leaves and popped up.

  I turned his shoulders toward our skiff.

  He stomped down the path, boarded the boat, and adopted the familiar I-wish-we’d-never-moved-here pout he’d practiced to perfection over the past two weeks.

  Water rushed out of the creek at an alarming rate, but somehow I dodged the sandbars, and we cruised into Three Cees Sound.

  We passed the entrance to Canton and headed for Coulson River and home. Five hundred yards down, sitting smack in the mouth of the Canary River, sat the idling airboat.

  Chapter Three

  The guy I now thought of as the stalker slid his boat from the mouth of Canary River and into the sound. I checked my phone for service. No bars.

  Owen sat with his feet propped on the cooler, slouched into a contortionist twist that only kids seemed to manage without a muscle-pulling injury.

  Confident my boat couldn’t outrun an airplane engine, I locked my speed in at twenty-five knots and cruised. The stalker kept a constant three-hundred-yard distance. I spotted Spartina straight ahead and breathed a sigh of relief.

  The airboat peeled left and headed back in the direction of the island.

  I eased off the throttle and considered a fishing boat cross-tied to our dock’s piling. Not that uncommon in our laid-back community for locals to fish around a friendʼs jetty. I cruised alongside and didn’t recognize the man driving the boat, but plastered on a neighborly smile. “How’s it going?”

  The boat, a thirty-two-foot Grady White was loaded with sonar equipment but no fishing poles. A short, stocky man wearing a black wetsuit climbed the stern’s ladder, pulled off headgear resembling a miner’s hat, and finger-combed his hair over a receding hairline. He stuffed a black diver’s bag into the bottom storage compartment.

  The other man slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses. He reminded me of a rangy bad guy in a Saturday Western, all arms and legs, and a scruffy beard. He positioned himself between his partner and me and flashed a lopsided grin that came across more anxious than friendly. This guy was creepy. Not his clothes or his snake-tattooed forearm or his movie villain smile, but something I couldn’t put my finger on. I motioned Owen closer.

  He ignored me.

  I stepped sideways and put myself between Owen and the creepy guy. “You guys are blocking my lift.”

  The scary guy turned his head and looked at my dock as if he’d just noticed the empty rails. “I guess we are.” He laughed, but the sound merged with his two-pack-a-day gravel and resulted in sinister.

  Owen scuttled around me and leaned over the side of our boat. “Why do you have a light on your head?”

  The man wearing the wetsuit kept his back to us.

  “What’s the light for?” Owen upped his volume.

  Still nothing.

  The scary guy walked to the captain’s chair, took his time lighting a cigarette, then popped the cover
to what looked like a GPS screen.

  My spidey sense tingled—these guys were trouble. “I’d appreciate you moving on.” I pointed to a group of dark clouds to the west. “I don’t want to get caught in that storm.”

  His partner slammed a cargo door and began unwinding their ropes from my dock.

  I kept my voice in semi-friendly range. “Why were you guys diving under my dock?”

  The driver glanced at his tight-lipped partner. “Just hunting for shark’s teeth.”

  “Cool.” Owen perked up. “Can I see one?”

  He started his engine. “Sorry, kid. We zeroed out today.”

  Adam and I had shopped for boats one summer, and this rig, decked out with GPS, radar, and twin Yamaha motors, would retail at close to a hundred grand. Their diving equipment was first class and looked new. Maybe I was edgy after the stranger in the airboat, and my trespassing tolerance exhausted for the day, but unless these two were mining for gold sharks’ teeth something didn’t add up.

  The driver shifted into gear, and I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture of the boat’s registration number.

  “Why’d you take that guy’s picture?” Owen asked.

  “Because I didn’t believe him. I don’t think they were searching for shark teeth, and I’m going to report them to the authorities.”

  “You mean the police?”

  The hitch in his voice tugged my heart. I ran a calming hand over his back. Police never led to anything good in Owen’s world. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  The Georgia Department of Natural Resources website listed all boats registered in the state. Finding this guy’s name and the identity of the airboat stalker would be as simple as a couple of clicks on my laptop.

  We set the boat on the lift and grabbed our gear just as the first thunder rattled. We made a run for the house, but I’m not sure why we bothered. We were dirty and sweaty, and after slogging through the brush, our clothes smelled like they’d been used to bury a dead animal.

  We made it to the deck and took off everything but our bathing suits. I turned Owen toward the back stairway. “We’ll have ice cream after dinner.”

  “Yes.” He pumped his fist in the air and darted up the stairs.