by BJ Bourg
To my surprise, he didn’t argue. He allowed himself to be led by the shoulders to where the food tents were located. I spotted his wife standing behind one of them, and that’s where I headed. Odelia saw us coming before we reached her. Her hands were clasped in front of her body and there was an eager expression on her face. However, when she saw the dejected manner in which Roger carried himself, she wailed, “What’s the percentage?”
Roger only shook his head.
“Damn it, Roger, what’s the percentage?”
When he continued walking without offering a number, she screamed like she’d been electrocuted and then collapsed to the ground.
Roger, to his credit, snapped out of his grief-stricken trance and rushed to be at the side of his wife. Even as the tears fell down his own face, he spoke calmly to Odelia, trying desperately to calm her.
Susan left them alone and walked to where I had stopped. “What happened out there? Who’d you find?”
I told her everything, from us locating the kayak, to us locating Nelly, to the way Roger had acted.
“I think it’s starting to hit him now,” I said in a low voice. “He finally realizes this is a recovery mission.”
“This ain’t good, Clint Wolf,” Susan said, turning her back on the grieving couple so she and I could speak without being overheard. “I’m hearing whispers that there’s a monster out there killing people. Mayor Cain said parents from all over have been calling and demanding to know if their children are okay. More than one of them mentioned seeing something online about some kind of creature dragging teenagers to their death. Now that the media’s here, I’m sure the story will spread like a wildfire through a dry forest with a strong wind at its back.”
I only nodded. I was still watching the grieving couple on the ground a dozen feet away.
“Is there any connection to the group on Le Diable Lake and this couple on Lake Berg?” Susan asked.
“Not that I can tell so far. Nelly said she and her husband traveled here alone and rented a camp on their own. They were on their honeymoon.”
“And we’re sure it’s not an alligator?”
“Unless it’s an alligator with no teeth.”
“If not an alligator, then what?” Susan asked. “And why is it killing these kids?”
“If I had those answers, we’d be home with Gracie by now and the animal would be dead.” My stomach had been grumbling since I’d watched Nelly wolf down Amy’s food. “I need to eat before I head back out on the water. I’m starting to lose my energy.”
Susan walked with me, but we didn’t go far. We wanted to keep our eyes on Roger and Odelia. Roger had moved his wife to a chair and he was sitting beside her rubbing her back and trying to calm her down.
“I’ll take them to the shelter when they’re ready to move,” Susan said. “When I do that, I’ll stop in at the house and check on Gracie.” She pulled at the front of her uniform shirt. “I might also take a quick shower and change. We’ll be at it for a few days, I’m sure, and I’d rather not smell like I went twenty-four rounds in my work clothes.”
I was only half listening at this point, because I was stuffing my face with food. I had found a black kettle that was half filled with shrimp jambalaya, and that kettle had become my new best friend.
CHAPTER 15
It was noon the next day and I had just awakened from a power nap. Takecia was driving the Boston Whaler and we were working a grid on the northern end of Le Diable Lake. Takecia and I had been working together since seven this morning, and we had taken turns getting some shut-eye.
Although I’d only slept for twenty minutes, I felt like a new man. I was fully alert and, thanks to some heavy clouds that had rolled in behind gusts of wind, it was a little cooler.
“Thank God you’re awake now,” said Takecia in her thick Jamaican accent. “Your snoring was starting to become unbearable.”
“Hey! I don’t snore,” I protested weakly, knowing she was right. I feigned offense, but then grunted. “At least I don’t fart in my sleep.”
She gasped, instantly embarrassed. “I do not!”
I laughed, but didn’t expound on my statement. Leaving her to decide if I was joking or not, I walked to the bow and scanned the water. After having looked at the glaring water for a couple of days, I doubted I could spot an orange life vest even if it were floating ten feet away from me.
The bow dipped sharply and the boat slowed rapidly. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Takecia staring toward the clouds to her right. I looked in that direction. The clouds were growing angry.
“Is it a funnel cloud?”
She shook her head and pointed. “There is a circular motion, but the buzzards are making it. They’re circling the portion of land in that direction.”
I followed her pointing finger and saw a group of about eight buzzards circling the woodlands to the west.
“It could be anything,” I said. “A dead boar or deer or muskrat.”
“It could also be a dead human body,” she surmised. “There are many tributaries flowing to and from this lake. When the tide is high, the body could find its way into the timber and then get stranded there when the tide is low, no?”
“Do you see a channel through the swamps in that area?” I asked, shading my eyes and suddenly very interested in the buzzards. The water level in the lake fluctuated several times daily based upon the changing of the tide and the amount of rainfall we got. I called Melvin on the SAT phone.
“Where are you?” I asked when he answered.
“I’m following the bayou to Lake Berg, just in case she drifted out this way.” He sounded tired. “What’s up?”
“What time is high tide and low tide for today?”
“Let’s see…” He paused for a bit. “High tide was this morning, probably about seven-thirty. It’s a little past noon now, so the water level is still falling. I’d say we’ve got another thirty minutes until low tide. Why?”
“I’ll call you back.” I pointed toward the buzzards and said to Takecia, “Find a way into the swamps!”
As she got into the driver’s seat, I leaned against the gunwale and studied woodlands, wondering if our search was about to be over. By now, Camille’s body would certainly be floating high on the water. The chances were good that her body had drifted into one of the many tributaries that flowed into the lake this morning while the tide was high. When the tide started falling, her body could’ve easily become stranded in the shallower water. If this had happened, it might explain why we hadn’t found her body on the lake today.
Takecia worked her way from east to west along the jagged shoreline, attacking it at various angles and trying to find a way into the woodlands. Nothing looked promising. After about thirty minutes of trying, she backed us away from the trees so we could check the position of the buzzards. They were circling lower now and were definitely focused on the swamps directly to our north.
“We’ll have to walk,” I announced, grabbing my backpack. “There’s a channel to the east that snakes through the swamps in this direction. I saw it yesterday.”
“Well, let’s go to it.”
I shook my head. “It’ll be impassable by boat at low tide. If we go by foot and head directly north from here, we should run right into where the channel curves around.”
“If we go, we’ll need to pack a body bag.” She sighed. “We will be humping her body out of the swamps. I can just see it now.”
She was right. There was no way to get a boat into that narrow and shallow opening. We might be able to get a pirogue through the channel at high tide, but I wasn’t waiting until tomorrow morning to get Camille’s body out of the swamps. Her parents deserved closure—and they deserved it sooner, not later.
Takecia pulled the boat into a narrow cut along the bank and I jumped ashore. I tied the line to a stout tree. She shoved a body bag in my rucksack and tossed it to me. I caught it and shrugged into it. She tossed me her rucksack and I held it until she reached me.
She wore cargo shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Her dark, muscular arms glistened with sweat.
“If we find a dead swamp rat at the end of this voyage, I will not be a happy girl,” she said with a grin.
“And I will not be a happy boy,” I mumbled as I turned and trudged off into the thick foliage.
“You are no longer a boy.” I could hear the amusement in her voice. “Amy said you just turned sixty, so I would say you are a full grown man by now.”
I shook my head and laughed. Even when she wasn’t with me, Amy had found a way to hack on me about my age.
The mud underfoot was soft, but a thick blanket of leaves helped to keep our boots relatively clean—at least for the early going. Within fifty yards, we came upon a slough that was too wide to walk around. Shaking my head, I plunged ahead. My boots were water resistant, but not waterproof, and my socks were almost instantly saturated. I could hear Takecia splashing through the muddy slop behind me, and I thought I heard her cursing a little.
Once we’d cleared the slough, we hit a wall of trees that were draped in poison sumac.
“We can’t go through there,” Takecia said. “I am severely allergic to that shit.”
“I’m not.”
“The hell you say! It gets everyone.” She began scratching at her arms. “I can already feel it getting me.”
“What if I cleared a path through it that’s wide enough for you to pass without touching it?” I offered. “Will that help?”
“And what about you?”
“I’m immune.”
“If you say so, but don’t get next to me. If the oils get on your skin and then you touch me, it will spread everywhere. I can’t even look at it too long without getting the itch.”
I removed a machete from where it was attached to my rucksack and began blazing a trail through a thick patchwork of vines. I had been exposed to poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac as a kid, but I’d never had an allergic reaction to any of it. I was hoping I wouldn’t start now, because the vines and leaves were raining down heavily on me as I chopped.
Sweat gushed from my pores. Leaf shavings stuck to my wet arms, and sections of vines dangled from my shoulders and head. I had to constantly knock them away.
“You know,” Takecia called out from behind me, “your sweat is carrying the oils of that poison plant all through your body. If you’re not truly immune, you are in big trouble, my man.”
As the sweat dripped down my shirt, leaking into every crevice and crack, I said a silent prayer that I hadn’t developed an allergy to the plant later in my life. I’d heard of such things happening with food. I knew of people who had eaten shell fish their entire lives and then woke up one day suddenly allergic to the stuff. If it had happened to me, I was screwed. I’d seen what poison sumac could do to the arms and legs of its victims, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine the hell I would have to endure if my sweat was acting as a conduit and allowing the oils to travel throughout my entire body.
After working for about fifteen minutes, I had finally cleared a path wide enough for Takecia to slip through without touching the offensive plants.
“If you break out in hives,” she said, staying away from me as she slipped by, “I’ll say I told you so.”
I only nodded and followed her along what had become firmer ground. I looked up to see if I had a visual on the vultures, but the green canopy above us was too thick. I had lost track of how far we’d walked—thanks to the battle with the poison sumac—but I figured we couldn’t be far from where the tributary circled back in this direction.
“We should be getting close now,” I said to Takecia when we had walked another few hundred feet.
“I think you are right. The ground is growing softer.”
The trees and underbrush were also getting thinner, and our visibility soon improved from several feet to about ten yards.
“I see the water,” Takecia announced after another three or four minutes of trudging along.
I picked up the pace and began walking beside her. My socks were still sopping wet and I could hear them squishing inside my boots. I was about to comment that it would be nice to stop and wring them out when I noticed her quickly step to the right.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you afraid I might accidentally brush up against you and give you some sumac?”
“No, I think I see something.” She had bent over as she walked, trying to see through the trees. She picked up her pace. She was almost moving forward at a crouching run, and I could sense the urgency in her movements.
I squatted low and began running forward, too, and it was then that I caught sight of something bright through the tree trunks. I recognized almost immediately that it was the pale flesh of a naked human and it was positioned on its face at the edge of the water. As we rushed closer, I could see the side of a bare female breast protruding from under the body. This had to be her!
My shoulders drooped as I realized we had been right—Camille’s body had floated along the channel and come to rest in the shallower water. While this was a very secluded and beautiful spot in the swamps—a place I might choose to have a picnic with Susan and Grace—it was not a suitable resting place for someone as special as Camille.
Camille Rainey didn’t deserve this ending. She didn’t deserve to die all alone in a wilderness strange to her. She didn’t deserve to have her body lost and consumed by vultures and other creatures of the swamps.
If I was to take solace in anything, it was in knowing that we had at least found her before she had been defiled by the elements. At least her family could have a proper burial and send their special daughter off in the right way.
I had slowed my pace as I reached Camille and was about to remove my rucksack when Takecia cursed violently and threw herself backward, smacking me fully in the chest.
CHAPTER 16
Takecia was a solid woman. She was a tough mixed martial arts fighter and she had been Susan’s training partner for years. When her muscular back struck my chest, she sent me sprawling. She was usually very sure-footed, but whatever she saw had surprised her so much that she stumbled and fell right on top of me. I let out a grunt as the air left my lungs.
“What the hell happened, Takecia?” I asked as she scrambled violently on top of me, trying to get back to her feet. I didn’t know if I should draw my pistol or get ready to run.
She finally rolled over and inadvertently shoved her left palm right into my face as she pushed off of me and regained her feet. She mumbled an apology, but didn’t offer to help me up. Instead, she turned immediately toward Camille’s body and approached cautiously.
“What’s going on?” I asked, standing and brushing mud from the backs of my arms. “What in the hell spooked you like that? You know you probably have poison sumac now.”
Takecia dropped to her knees beside Camille’s body and reached for the girl’s neck. My heart suddenly cut a flip inside my chest. I took another look at Camille’s body and realized that something was drastically wrong—or right—and it was that her body was not swollen. In fact, it actually appeared overly thin. Her ribs were clearly defined on her back and I could trace her backbone from her neck to the top of her bikini bottoms.
“The girl’s alive,” Takecia announced excitedly. “She is in bad trouble, but she is alive!”
I could hardly contain the joy that surged through my body. I dropped to my knees and helped Takecia carefully turn Camille onto her back. Her eyes fluttered and she parted her parched lips, as though trying to talk.
“Don’t say anything,” I said softly, ripping my rucksack from my back. “You’re safe now.”
I quickly unzipped the main pocket and removed a tarp and a bottle of water from inside. I quickly spread the tarp over her torso to cover her breasts and then twisted the cap off the water bottle. I splashed a small amount of water onto her lips. This brought about an immediate reaction from her. She opened her mouth for more. I provided several drops at a time, holding
the back of her head upright as she gulped down the water.
While I tended to Camille, Takecia called Melvin on the SAT phone and asked if he could get the airboat to our location. She knew what I knew—that Camille’s life might be too fragile to survive the trip on foot to the Boston Whaler. It would be time consuming and too much jostling.
“He will be here in ten,” she said when she ended the call.
While waiting for Melvin to arrive, Takecia searched the area. She located a spot near the water where Camille had been vomiting. She pointed it out to me. “She’s sick.”
I touched Camille’s forehead with the back of my hand. It was hot. I gave her more water. Although she was weak, she sucked it down with zest. I didn’t want to say anything to alarm Camille, so I didn’t say anything to Takecia about her high fever. I shot an occasional glance in Takecia’s direction, but she never made eye contact with me so I couldn’t signal her.
Camille kept trying to speak, but her voice was hoarse and she was extremely weak. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “Help is on the way. We’ll take you to a hospital and you can tell me everything then. Okay?”
She closed her eyes and her lips tightened in frustration. I was about to offer more comforting words when I heard Takecia gasp from somewhere in the trees behind me. I turned my head and twisted my back to see her. She was standing near a tree, staring down at the base of the trunk.
“Bloody diarrhea.” Worry lines were etched into Takecia’s usually smooth face. Her eyes moved from the trunk of the tree to Camille, and then, finally, to the canal. “She drank the swamp water when she got thirsty. She has dysentery.”
I’d heard of dysentery, which was caused by the shigella bacteria, but I’d always thought it to be a mild sickness. I studied Camille’s face again. Her eyes were closed and her breathing appeared shallow.
