My eyes began to sting and water, and I blinked and looked down, trying to keep from crying.
A copy of the Panama City paper on the floor caught my eye and I reached down and picked it up. The Local and State section was on top. A story above the fold showed a picture of a plane like the one I thought I saw when Michael Jensen had escaped.
The story told of a banner plane from the beach that had to make an emergency landing in a nearby state park. The Cessna 175, the one that looked nearly identical to the one I saw, lost power and drifted down into an open area, to the surprise of those picnicking in the park. According to a spokesperson for Air Ads Inc., the pilot did exactly what he was supposed to when he lost power—dropped his banner and looked for a safe place to land. No one was injured in the event and after a spare part was located and placed on the plane, it took off from the park and flew back to the private Air Ads Inc. runway.
In the past six years Air Ads Inc. had had a number of close calls, but only two crashes and one fatality. There was nothing mentioned about the plane I had seen, but I decided to take the paper with me and look into it more closely later.
As I placed the folded paper inside my book, Mom opened her eyes and looked up at me. I moved over and stood by her bed, taking her hand in mine and smiling at her.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
She turned her head and looked over at the tray beside her bed, then nodded to the pad of paper and pen she had been using to communicate.
I grabbed them and handed them to her.
She wrote: Where is Jake?
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Why?”
She scribbled out very quickly: I’m worried about him. He told me they had an organ for me. The next time I woke up he was gone. He hasn’t been back since. That’s been a few days ago I think. Hard to tell.
“I’ll check on him,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine.”
We were silent for a long moment, tears filling her eyes.
They don’t have a transplant for me do they?
“Not that I’ve heard,” I said, “but I’ll ask again.”
Tears began to stream out of the corners of her eyes and pool in her ears.
I took her hand again. “I love you.”
She released my hand, and took up her pen again.
She wrote: I don’t want to die.
I nodded, squeezed her hand, and said, “I know.”
We were quiet again, and in a few moments the phone rang. The loud noise in the quiet room was startling and Mom jumped.
I snatched it up and said, “Hello.”
“JJ,” a heavily accented Southern voice I only vaguely recognized said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Haywood.”
Haywood Smiley owned and operated a bar and drive-thru package store on the edge of Pottersville.
“Son, I’m sorry as hell to have to call you at the hospital but I don’t know what else to do.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s Jake,” he said. “He’s drunk as fuck and bustin’ up the place.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
By the time I reached Smiley’s Lounge and Package, Jake was outside in the parking lot. He was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, the tips of his pointed-toe cowboy boots just barely scraping the asphalt beneath them.
His face was red and puffy from drink, beginning to bruise from fighting. A smear of blood lay just beneath his nose and his upper lip was swollen. His eyes were bloodshot and looked like he’d been crying.
I pulled up in my pimped-out ride and rolled down the window.
He looked at the car and shook his head. “Hell, I thought it was a drive-by.”
He may have slurred his words just a little or I may have imagined it. I wasn’t sure.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Not until I get my goddamn keys,” he said. “And I ain’t riding in that.”
I knew better than to argue with a drunk so I parked, went in and got his keys, and drove him home in his truck.
We were quiet for a long while, the empty highway stretching out before us, the darkness gathered at the edge of the headlights threatening to overtake them at any moment.
“This is a switch,” he said.
Even at my drunken worst he had never been my designated driver, never had to pick me up from any bar anywhere, but I knew what he meant. I was the alcoholic, the weak one who couldn’t handle my drink.
“I ain’t as drunk as they think,” he said. “I can drive.”
I still didn’t say anything.
“Drunk as I am, could still kick your ass,” he said.
Jake’s swagger was worse than his swing. He couldn’t take me stone cold sober, but I wasn’t about to argue with him––or stop the truck and prove the point.
We rode in silence again for a while. Eventually I became aware of him crying.
“How’s Mama?” he asked. “You better not tell her I was drinkin’ and fightin’.”
“She says you told her they found her a transplant,” I said.
“I’m gonna get her a new liver,” he said.
“Why would you tell her that?” I asked.
“I’m tellin’ you,” he said. “I’m gonna fuckin’ find her one.”
He started crying harder, turning his head as if looking out at something in the darkness, sniffling often, and rubbing his short hair down with the palm of his hand.
“God, this is so fucked up,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes it is.”
“Ain’t talkin’ to you,” he said.
“I never knew you were such a mean drunk,” I said.
“There’s a lot you don’t know. Hell of a lot. You think you know so much. But you don’t. I know so much you don’t know.”
I nodded.
“Mama’s gonna be okay you son of a bitch,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. Just drove.
By the time I reached his place, he was asleep and Merrill, who had come to give me a ride back to my car, and I had to carry him in and put him to bed.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“So why we here?” Merrill asked.
It was later in the week and we were at the landing, launching his Uncle Tyrone’s boat into the river.
A gentle breeze blowing off the rippled water made the late afternoon bearable, but the humidity was high, the mosquitos swarming, the atmosphere heavy.
You could smell the impending rain in the river air.
“Because of what’s happened,” I said.
“Escaped convict, the lynching, and Turtle?” he asked. “Or somethin’ else happen I don’t know about?”
“Nothin’ happens ’round here without you knowing about it,” I said.
I pushed the boat back and jumped in. We drifted backward a few feet and he pulled the crank cord and started the motor.
“So what we gonna do?” he said. “And don’t say ride around and await developments.”
I laughed.
“Your ass was, wasn’t it? You forget what a big ass river this is?”
With the motor only idling we slowly made our way out of the launch area and into the main channel of the wide river.
“Everything’s happened within a few miles,” I said.
“So we just gonna ride around?”
“And await developments,” I said.
He shook his head slowly and smiled appreciatively.
“And if nothin’ develops?”
“We keep coming back until it does,” I said.
“We gotta get you a girlfriend.”
He revved the motor and the boat lifted and shot upriver.
We rode past the tall sand hill the Corps of Engineers’ dredging had created and around the smaller sandbars formed as the hill was slowly washed back into the water.
Because it was a weekday and bad weather was approaching, we only saw a few other people—a man and his teenage son on Wave Runners, a coup
le of fishermen calling it a day, and a few people waving to us from the back porches of camps and the front decks of houseboats.
The spot where the river’s most recent victim vanished was marked by a white wooden cross on a cypress tree near the water’s edge. The boy, Taylor Smith, drinking and swimming with his friends near one of the sandbars, went under and never came back up. Some people say a gator got him, others that all the dredging had formed air pockets beneath the quicksand-like bottom of the river and he got sucked into one. His name had been painted on the cross and fresh flowers placed on the ground around it.
As we neared the spot, we saw the search and rescue boat coming around the bend. Both boats slowed and came up beside each other. Missing a few of their members, today the team consisted of Todd, Shane, and Kenny. Jake and Fred weren’t with them. Sandy was still quit.
“Where’s that sorry ass brother of yours?” Kenny asked.
As usual he wore no shirt or shoes, his enormous belly hanging down over his faded blue jeans cutoffs.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” I asked.
“He’s been acting strange lately,” Shane said. “Is it your mom or something else?”
I shrugged.
“He normally doesn’t miss this shit for anything,” Todd said.
“Training exercises?” I asked.
“Were,” Todd said, “but we just got a call that a guy from Dothan with a camp down here is missing. He spends most summers down here alone, so nobody knew he was gone for a while.”
“Where’s his place?”
“Just around the next bend,” Shane said. “We just searched it. The guy’s truck is there, but his boat isn’t. No sign of foul play.”
“And no sign of Jensen either,” Todd added. “He’s probably long gone on the dude’s boat by now.”
None of them had yet to acknowledge Merrill, or even look at him, and so far he hadn’t said anything.
“Let us know if you see anything,” Shane said.
He cranked the motor and they raced away. For a moment we just sat there rocking in their wake, and as we did, I saw somebody in the woods just behind the cross.
I didn’t say anything as Merrill cranked the motor and we pulled away from the spot. When we had rounded the sandbar I told him what I had seen and we quickly devised a plan.
Pulling up to the bank without killing the motor, Merrill dropped me off and continued up the river. Hopefully, whoever I had seen, Michael Jensen in all probability, would think we were still heading away from him.
Eventually Merrill was going to circle back and approach him from the front while I came up behind him.
The river swamp was thick and damp and oppressively hot and humid. No wind could penetrate the dense woods, and it trapped the heat in a wet, sauna-like system that was more tropical than anything else in our region. Within a few moments, I was covered in sweat, my clothes soaked through and clinging to me.
Low-growing ferns covered the ground, and I couldn’t see where I stepped.
Everything––the trees, the ferns, the leaves on the ground, the ground itself––was damp as if after a heavy rain, and my shoes were soon soaked and mud covered.
I walked about twenty feet inland, then turned in the direction of the cross and the man behind it. I had no idea how long it would take, and since everything in the woods looked the same, I had no way to judge my progress.
Trying to walk quickly but also be alert and not rush up on him before I realized what I was doing, I was constantly scanning the area, carefully looking through the thick foliage.
It was while doing this that I failed to notice the small fallen pine tree in front of me and tripped over it, hitting the ground hard.
I was able to get my hands down in time, preventing my head from taking the brunt of the blow, but my wrists and body paid the price––and I had the breath knocked out of me.
I waited for a moment, trying to get my breath back, then pushed myself up, pain shooting through my wrists and arms.
Then he was on me, pressing me down to the damp ground, large hunting knife at my throat.
Chapter Forty
“Pull down your pants,” he said.
“What?” I asked, stalling.
“Pull down your goddamn pants or I’ll slit your fuckin’ throat,” he said.
His voice was gravelly, as if he had been gargling with glass, and his breath smelled almost as bad as his body. He was heavy and strong, his weight and strength pinning me to the damp ground, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get free.
Was Jensen the rapist?
I tried to recall if any rapes had occurred since he escaped. I couldn’t be certain, but I didn’t think any had.
“You wanna die?”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Do what I tell you or I’ll kill you,” he said.
The knife was large and sharp, and I wondered where he got it. Had he taken it from an empty camp or houseboat, or had he killed for it? Did it belong to Turtle or the man who was lynched? Or had he used it to get them to do what he wanted?
“I talked to your mom,” I said. “I told her I’d help you come in without getting hurt.”
I could feel his body react to what I was saying. He relaxed slightly and paused a moment.
“She’s worried about you,” I said. “Your sister too, but she’s got a funny way of showing it.”
“Tracy’s a stuck up bitch,” he said.
I nodded my agreement.
“Let me help you. You were so close to getting out. Why’d you run?”
“You don’t seem to understand your situation,” he said. “I’m gonna—”
“I’m trying to understand,” I said. “I want to help.”
I listened for the approaching motor that signaled Merrill’s return but didn’t hear it. The only sounds besides our breathing were the unseen animals and insects all around us.
“It’s a little late for that now,” he said. “You should’ve helped me when you had the chance.”
“When was that?”
“You know goddamn well when. You couldn’t even be bothered to see me. Now I’m gonna show you how it felt.”
“I would’ve seen you any time you asked. Why didn’t you send me a request?”
“I did,” he said.
“I never got it,” I said.
“Bullshit,” he yelled.
“You think I got it and just ignored it?” I asked.
“I think you’re just trying to stay alive,” he said. “You’d say anything.”
“Have I ever ignored your requests before?”
Though housed at the work camp, his inmate requests regarding religion were sent to me.
He didn’t say anything.
“You know me,” I said. “You think I would—”
He wrapped his grimy hand around my mouth as he heard Merrill heading back toward us.
“Tell Mama I’m sorry,” he said, “and don’t come back out here again. Next time I’ll kill you.”
He then grabbed a handful of my hair, slammed my face into the ground, jumped off me, and ran away.
I rolled over, wiping the dirt from my eyes, and tried to see which way he’d gone, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
I jumped to my feet and continued to look for him but got the same result.
When Merrill ran up I told him what had happened and we began making our way deeper into the swamp, looking for any indication of the direction he had gone.
We walked for well over a mile before we found anything, the swamp growing more dense, seemingly more impenetrable with every step.
Inside a channel that would have been filled with water if the river had been higher, we found a boot print. We couldn’t be sure if he had just made it, but with all the rain lately, it couldn’t have been there long.
Ten-foot-high mounds of dirt and clay formed the banks of the channel, and its soggy bottom had the texture of a recently dried-up riverbed.
Deciding to return to the boat, we climbed out of the channel and headed back in what we thought was the direction of the river, though we couldn’t be certain.
We had taken less than twenty steps on the other side of the channel wall when about a dozen men in camouflage fatigues jumped up from beneath ferns on the ground and out from behind trees, yelling and pointing M-16s at us.
Chapter Forty-one
Merrill and I both did what we were told, slowly raising our hands and standing still.
It was as if we had suddenly and surreally stepped into a war zone.
The soldiers, Navy SEALs from the look of them, were all dressed in full military field uniforms. In addition to camouflage fatigues, many of them wore camouflage headbands or floppy hats, but a few had helmets with shredded green and camouflage cloth meant to resemble grass and weeds. Ammunition belts crisscrossed their chests and their faces were painted black and green.
Of the twelve men, all were in their early to mid-twenties except for one. I assumed he was the commander. They looked weary and ragged but wild and wide-eyed, as if jolted back to full consciousness by a sudden adrenaline rush.
A few of the really young guys seemed jittery, their faces and hands twitching, and I realized how easily Merrill and I could be shot by accident.
“Steady men,” the elder soldier said.
He wasn’t much older, maybe late-twenties or early thirties, but he seemed far more mature.
“And if you’re feeling tired and twitchy, why don’t you take your fingers off the triggers,” I suggested.
No one responded. Nor moved a finger.
“State your name and purpose for being out here,” the elder one said.
We told him who we were, being sure to slip in the fact that my dad was the sheriff.
“You got ID?” he asked.
We nodded.
“Let’s see it,” he said. “Very slowly.”
We handed our wallets to the guy standing closest to us and he passed them along to the guy standing next to the commander. He looked through our wallets and read the information on our driver’s licenses out loud.
Rivers to Blood Page 13
