The Teratologist

by Ward Parker

  “Oh no,” Jones said. “Please, no.”

  They curved around the bend and on the left bank was a scene of slaughter. All around the ground was completely covered with the bodies of dead white birds, their bodies bloody and mangled, all their large feathers plucked. White down floated in the air and was plastered to the trees with blood. And all around, stretching deep into the woods, were nests filled with baby birds crying out for their dead parents.

  Jones propelled the boat onto the bank and jumped out. Follett and Clemens followed, helping him pull the boat up the slope so the current wouldn’t take it. Jones took his rifle from the boat.

  “The no-account sons of whores who did this,” he said loudly above the din of the babies. “They killed all the adults—all of them! And the chicks are left to starve to death. It’s not even hunting, it’s pure slaughter and I’ve seen it too many times.”

  Jones removed his hat and wiped sweat from his deeply tanned skin. His balding head was pale in comparison. His jaw trembled with emotion.

  “When they passed the Lacey Act it didn’t slow down the poaching at all,” he said. “Greed is too strong. They’re not going to stop until there are no birds—”

  A shot rang out, not too far away, followed by another.

  “Bastards!” Jones said before slipping into the forest.

  Follett and Clemens looked at each other and then followed Jones. The trees soon thinned out and they had to make their way through a swampy area with tall grass. The experience was reminding Follett of his time in the Philippines and he tried to think of other things before horrible memories bubbled to the surface. The smell of mud and wet vegetation, the heat, the burning sun reflecting off grass, the gunfire…it was making his heart race and his head spin. He struggled to breathe.

  “Frank! Are you okay?” Clemens said, grabbing his arm.

  “Yes, of course. Reliving bad memories. I’ll explain later.”

  “You were truly in another world there for a while. You didn’t hear a word I said.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I said that I’m afraid I wore the wrong shoes for this,” Clemens said, bending down to retrieve a shoe that had been sucked from his feet by the muck.

  Follett looked at Clemens. His white hair was even more disheveled than usual, his face was covered with sweat and his trademark white suit was covered in mud and sweat stains.

  “I thought you wore those white suits only for photographs. Apparently your wardrobe consists of nothing but.”

  “I tell you what, Dr. Follett. Next time, give me advance notice before you drag me into a swamp hunting for poachers and I’ll be sure to pack more appropriately.”

  “It’s your theory we’re investigating, my friend.”

  Follett wore tall, boot-style shoes but they were not meant for this either, nor was his brown flannel suit. At the moment, however, he was more concerned with not getting lost.

  “Maybe we should return to the boat,” he said, “if we can even find it.”

  “I don’t think I can bear to be with all that death and the poor chicks,” Clemens said.

  Follett flinched as three quick gunshots broke the silence. To their left, where the trees met the grassland, several white birds took flight. Follett and Clemens pushed through the soggy grass in that direction. As they got closer, some movement in the forest to his left caught his eye, so they made their way between the trees on firmer ground, through tall ferns and pines. Soon they were back among palmettos, cypresses, and mangroves, reaching the bank of the river again, downstream from the slaughter at the rookery. Jones was crouching behind a tree, aiming his rifle. At the sound of their approach, he turned and motioned for them to stay low.

  “There’s just one of them. Looks like he’s got a temporary hunting camp right through here. The bastard got a couple of shots off at me. If you’re unarmed, you’d better stay back here.”

  “Of course I’m unarmed,” Clemens whispered. “And you, Doctor, do you have a Derringer hidden somewhere with your stethoscope?”

  Follett ignored him as Jones signaled for them to stay where they were, before crawling on knees and elbows through the ferns toward where the poacher’s camp was supposed to be. He reminded Follett of an infantry scout in the Philippines. They tried to get comfortable. Follett leaned against a tree trunk and Clemens sat on a moss-covered log. There was silence except for the buzzing of insects, distant bird calls and a deep, guttural croaking that Follett hoped was a bullfrog and not an alligator.

  Clemens removed a cigar from his inside breast pocket, cutting the tip off with a pen knife.

  “Do you really think this is a time for smoking?” Follett said.

  “I can’t think of a time that isn’t for smoking, except, perhaps, when I’m asleep. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying.”

  “The smoke will give away our position to the poacher.”

  “I was hoping it would keep away the mosquitoes.”

  Clemens sighed and slipped the unlit cigar back into his pocket. Just then, a rustling came from the underbrush.

  “Jones is coming back,” Follett whispered.

  Just ahead of where Follett sat, the leaves of a saw palmetto were pushed aside and a man holding a rifle emerged.

  It was not Jones. It was a tall, gaunt man with a bushy, brown beard streaked with white. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and suspenders made of alligator hide over green clothes. He crept silently, crouching among the underbrush, then stopped suddenly when he saw Follett.

  It’s him, Follett thought, the plume hunter driving the wagon that he and Darryl had seen on the night of their jaunt.

  The man feinted to his right and ran to his left toward Clemens whom he hadn’t seen yet. He leaped over the log where Clemens sat and just as the man cleared the obstacle, Clemens reached up and grabbed his trailing leg. The poacher crashed to the ground onto another saw palmetto.

  Follett raced over and jumped upon the man as he was about to get to his feet. He hit Follett in the hip with his rifle butt and Follett clamped his left forearm against the man’s neck, smashing his jaw with an uppercut by his right fist.

  “Grab his rifle!” Follett shouted to Clemens.

  As Clemens tried to wrest the weapon away, Follett punched the man twice more in the face. The rifle came free. Clemens stepped away and aimed it at the poacher.

  “You know how to use that?” Follett said.

  “I used to shoot squirrels and other varmints, some years back. About fifty or sixty years back, unfortunately.”

  Follett ran his hands around their captive’s waist and the tops of his boots and found a hunting knife strapped to his belt. He tossed it aside.

  “Where is the young child with no limbs?” Follett screamed in the man’s face. “Did you kill her?”

  “Okay, settle down everyone,” said Jones who came up behind them. “I’ll handle the questioning if you could be so kind as to roll the son of a whore over so I can put handcuffs on him.”

  After he handcuffed the poacher, Jones made him sit against a tree.

  “What is your name?”

  The man didn’t answer, just stared at the ground.

  “I’m a sworn officer of Dade County. I have full power to bring you before a court for prosecution. You might as well make this easier for all of us. Tell me your name.”

  The poacher said, “I’m just a man trying to make a living.”

  “And by what name does this enterprising man go by?”

  Silence.

  “I want to see him walk,” Follett said.

  Everyone, including the poacher, looked at Follett with puzzled expressions.

  “I’ll explain later. Make him walk around the clearing a few times.”

  Jones grabbed the man’s handcuffed arms above the elbows and yanked him to his feet remarkably easily, considering Jones was smaller.

  “You heard the doctor. Get walkin’!”

  The poacher looked at Follett uneasily and began to pace slowly in a
circle around his captors.

  Jones pointed his rifle at him. “Don’t even think about trying to run.”

  There was no mistaking it: the man was limping. Even as he loosened up and his gait became more natural, he had a distinct limp favoring his left leg.

  “Are you thinking of buying his trousers, Doctor?” Clemens said, puffing on the cigar he finally been allowed to light.

  “I wanted to see if he limped. Witnesses say they saw a suspicious white man around when the Bishop’s daughter was abducted. They say the man had a limp.”

  “I’m just limping because you hurt my leg when you attacked me.”

  “Good thing I’m a doctor. Let me have a look at that.”

  Follett stopped the man and pulled up his left trouser leg. There was a large, ugly scar running from the knee down the calf.

  “I don’t believe we did that to you,” Follett said.

  “You twisted my ankle is what you did.”

  “It’s not the least bit swollen,” Follett said. “But I recommend you give it some rest. I’d tell you to put some ice on it if there was any within twenty miles of here.”

  “I don’t know nothing about any abducted girl.”

  “Oh really?” Follett said. “What about murdered prostitutes? We know about them.”

  All the men looked at him with surprise, especially the poacher. But the poacher also looked frightened, which seemed to confirm that Darryl had been correct when he read the man’s thoughts.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “We know the type of man you are, so it’s a waste of time to pretend you’re an angel.”

  Jones produced some rope from his satchel and tied the man to a tree. Then he began searching the camp, a small clearing sheltered by a canvas tarp stretched tight and tied to trees. Beneath it was a small pup tent, a folding camp chair and several canvas sacks. A canoe paddle leaned against a tree; the canoe was likely hidden near the river.

  Jones methodically went through the canvas sacks which were stuffed with feathers.

  “Ibis, snowy egret, heron, roseate spoonbill,” Jones said. “The cocksucker must have killed over a thousand birds. It’s such a damned waste.”

  Clemens whispered to Follett with breath reeking of tobacco, “He’s looking for hunting violations. It’s up to us to look for clues to the kidnappings.”

  Follett knew nothing about crime investigation procedures, but as a physician he was a meticulous observer. So he began the task of examining everything in the campsite area that was man-made or obviously touched by a man. He began in the tent, where, crouching beneath the canvas in the stuffy space, he found a rucksack filled with clothing and personal items. He pulled out faded, slightly mildewed shirts and a pair of trousers before coming upon a wallet.

  “One hundred twenty-five dollars in cash,” Follett said to Clemens, who was standing outside. “And a check—a military pension payment. The check is made payable to a Horace Yardley.”

  Clemens poked his head into the tent. “Look at this,” he said.

  He moved the flap aside and showed Follett an ax.

  “Could simply be for firewood,” Follett said, taking the ax and examining the blade. “I don’t know if this here is dried blood or rust. Let’s bring it back with us, along with his hunting knife.”

  Follett finished searching the tent and then joined Clemens in looking around the campsite. There was nothing suspicious in the ashes of the fire, no articles of clothing or personal items lying around that might belong to a victim. All he saw was a minimal amount of hunting and camping gear. There were no signs that anyone had occupied the camp aside from the poacher. And no clues that Angelica had been there.

  “Hey fellas,” Jones called to them. “Come here.”

  Follett crawled from the tent and he and Clemens joined Jones who was digging with a camp shovel at the base of a small, tree-covered hillock about a dozen yards from the campsite.

  “This is called a shell mound or a midden. Basically an ancient heap of oyster shells and other trash made by the Indians who once lived here, the Jaegas. I noticed the ground was recently disturbed so I poked around, and look at what I found.”

  He pointed with his shovel. It was a bone, a human femur, protruding from dirt and white shells.

  “It’s common to find in these mounds the bones of animals the Indians fed on, but not human bones. They buried their people in proper burial mounds, not filled with shells and trash like this. And the Jaegas weren’t cannibals.”

  Jones scooped more dirt from the disturbed area, revealing additional bones. He removed vegetation from outside the disturbed area and a few shovelfuls later uncovered a pelvis.

  “My God,” Clemens said. “How many bodies are in here? There could be more victims than you imagined.”

  “From further back in time than we thought,” Follett said. He crouched beside the first bone and ran his finger along it.

  “Appears to be from a small adult or an adolescent,” he said. “To be certain, we should have an expert examine them.”

  “Best leave the remains where they are—you don’t want to be disturbing the evidence,” Jones said. “I’ll bring someone out here to look at the bones. There’s a professor of anthropology who has a winter cottage in Palm Beach. I’ll see if he can help us.”

  * * *

  When they returned to West Palm Beach, Follett and Clemens found a message waiting from DeBerry that a local farmer who hired migrant workers had finally replied to an inquiry and agreed to be interviewed. They found DeBerry at the calaboose, and he allowed them to accompany him in his wagon to Mangonia, a farming village just north of West Palm Beach.

  “We’ve lived here for nearly twenty years,” the lanky bespectacled man told them. “Bought the land in ‘eighty-three when there was hardly a soul around. I was a watch repairman in Michigan, didn’t know jack-diddley about farming.”

  Follett, Clemens, and DeBerry stood with the man, named Ben Reid, between rows of pineapple plants in a large field beside a lake. Each plant held a tiny, immature pineapple surrounded by long, firm, spear-like leaves with spiky edges. Follett imagined a person would get scraped up badly having to weed around those sharp leaves.

  “You hire seasonal workers?” DeBerry asked.

  “Yes. My boys and I work the place year-round, but come harvest time we need help or else the varmints will get to the fruit before it’s all picked. We just finished with the tomatoes and the workers left to go up to Georgia for the corn harvest. It seems like every year one of the families working the farms in this area loses someone, sometimes more than one family each season. I was in West Palm a couple of days ago and heard you were asking around. That’s why I sent for you.”

  “Did you have anyone abducted or killed on your property?”

  “Last year the grandmother of a migrant family disappeared. I reported it to the previous marshal—Graham was his name. Nothing ever came of it. This year, a family working the Dearing place lost an uncle with a lame back two weeks ago, but they had to follow the work or starve, so they eventually gave up looking and moved on. They were heartbroken.”

  “How many people have gone missing?”

  “Could be dozens, it’s hard to say. Law enforcement hasn’t taken it very seriously because a lot of these migrants come from the islands and aren’t citizens. Or because they’re Negroes and you know what it’s like for them down here in the south. Sometimes the foremen on the farms just ignore it and say it’s the families’ own fault. You see, it’s never able-bodied workers that disappear. It’s the folks who are too old or sick or injured to work. They’re burdens on their families who barely make enough money to feed themselves, let alone someone who’s not pulling in a wage. Everyone assumes they just wandered off and got lost or drowned or eaten by a gator. No one ever imagines it’s because someone is kidnapping them.”

  “And it’s a lot more profitable if you don’t consider your workers human beings,” C
lemens said.

  “And who did you say you were?”

  “Just an observer of the human condition.”

  “Well, if you’re so concerned about these folks, you can talk to the broker who delivers them to the different farms. He’s their boss.”

  “Okay, let’s all settle down,” DeBerry said. “No one’s accusing you of anything.”

  Follett pulled DeBerry aside. “So why is it that there could be dozens of victims but bodies are rarely found except the ones we found?”

  “Because he wanted us to find those two in order to incriminate someone else. He never imagined that we’d find the burial ground.”

  * * *

  After a short train ride to Jupiter, Follett, Clemens, DeBerry, Professor George Durham, and the recently arrived Dade County Sheriff John Frohock met County Fish and Wildlife Warden N.C. Jones. He escorted them by carriages to the Loxahatchee River where they retraced their earlier trip in three canoes to the poacher’s former campsite. Follett paddled his canoe from the stern while Clemens, dressed today in brown tweed with tall boots, listlessly assisted from the bow.

  “You gentlemen should be interested to know,” Clemens drawled to the group, “that Senator Platt, whom I had the honor of traveling with to Palm Beach, made some inquiries to the War Department at my request.”

  “And?” Follett said.

  “And the War Department confirmed that our Horace Yardley, before he took up his career as a poacher, served in the U.S. Army in the Indian Wars, was wounded in the leg by gunfire and treated by the military before ultimately being discharged. There is no record of which doctors cared for him.”

  “So he could fit our disgruntled-patient theory,” Follett said.

  “Absolutely.”

  DeBerry and Frohock pretended to ignore the amateurs’ theorizing. Jones, who had Professor Durham in his canoe, led the group along the river until they beached the boats at a low point in the bank and followed a trail through the cypress trees to the poacher’s abandoned camp. They carried shovels and tarps for recovering the remains. Jones guided the professor to the uncovered portion of the Indian mound. The lawmen followed.