Verses for the Dead

42

Up close, the airboat was even smaller than it had looked from a distance. The bow swept upward, like a World War II landing craft. There were two seats, one behind the other, both on stilts. The big prop at the rear was attached to a ninety-horsepower Lycoming engine and enclosed in a wire cage. Coldmoon rapped on the gas tank: full.

Pendergast turned to him. “Have you ever driven one of these?”

“No,” said Coldmoon.

“In that case, no time like the present. Care to take the helm?”

“I’d rather not. I, um, don’t like water.”

He felt Pendergast’s amused gaze on him. “I’m not overfond of the substance myself, at least in large, stagnant, miasmic bodies. But if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to function as guide and lookout.”

“Let me guess. If I object again, you’ll remind me whose idea it was to interview John B. Vance.” Coldmoon got into the boat and, muttering to himself in Lakota, stepped up to the wheel, then cast an eye over the helm. Everything looked pretty simple: a key, a choke, and a combined throttle and gearshift with neutral, forward, and reverse. And there was a little stopcock on what was obviously the fuel line. He sat down in the front seat, opened the stopcock, set the throttle to neutral, pulled out the choke, and turned the key. The engine fired up almost immediately.

“Ready to cast off?” asked Pendergast.

“Do I have a choice?”

Pendergast untied the boat, climbed aboard, and gave them a push away from the dock with a wing-tip shoe.

When Coldmoon eased the throttle forward, the propeller engaged with a whir of wind, and the flat-bottomed boat surged forward. Coldmoon cautiously steered it into the main channel. Pendergast, meanwhile, had reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a map, folded into a remarkably small size. No wonder he wanted to be guide, Coldmoon thought, wondering whether Pendergast had purchased his seemingly bottomless suit jacket from a magician’s supply store.

“Canepatch is almost exactly three miles to the southwest of us,” he said.

Coldmoon pulled out his phone to check the GPS. “Zero bars. Figures.”

“That is why we have this.” Pendergast opened the map with a whip-like motion, and it extended to an alarming size. “Set a course for two hundred ten degrees.”

“How the hell do I do that? I’ve never driven a boat before. My preferred mode of travel is a horse, and they aren’t usually equipped with GPS.”

Pendergast pointed at a small compass, set into a bulb on the helm. “Turn the boat until it is pointing toward two ten. Then go straight.”

“I knew that.” He steered the boat around until it was pointing in the right direction. There were many channels among the cypresses, and the direction they headed was fairly open.

“What is our speed?” Pendergast asked.

“Um, eight miles per hour.”

“Barring any obstructions or delays, we should reach Canepatch in twenty minutes.”

The water was smooth, and the movement of the boat produced a refreshing breeze. It was loud as hell, though — even louder than the Shelby. Weaving among the big trees, Coldmoon tried to keep the boat headed in the direction indicated by the compass. Once in a while they passed a hummock of mud, where there was invariably an alligator or two. Another time, he was sure he saw a snake winding through the water.

They continued on through the mangroves, the noise of the engine making conversation all but impossible. Strange trees came together overhead in an exotic canopy that threw the bayou into semi-darkness. Coldmoon found it impossible to imagine anyone would live out here. In fact, the farther they went, the more certain he felt that nobody did. The rented airboat must be for fishermen or the like. The old guy had either died or returned to civilization — who could live out here for a decade without going crazy?

“And here we are,” said Pendergast. Ahead, in the gloomy shade, Coldmoon could see a dock sticking into the water. Beyond, solid land rose up, and the cypress trees gave way to a forest of oaks above a thick carpet of ferns.

As Coldmoon slowed alongside the dock, he could see, looming through the trees, a large old wooden house on a rise, with a wraparound veranda. It was remarkably shabby, and yet hinted at current habitation. Coldmoon wasn’t sure why he believed this: there was no hum of a generator, no curl of smoke from a chimney, no satellite mini-dish on the roof of the structure. From the look of things, it might be squatters.

He clumsily brought the boat in, bumping hard against the dock. Pendergast jumped out and tied it to a post as Coldmoon killed the engine.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Coldmoon said, jerking a thumb toward the huge propellers slowing in the cage behind them.

Pendergast glanced at Coldmoon. “I would not care to surprise the kind of person who chose to live out here.”

Coldmoon patted his jacket where his sidearm was. “As in, some crazy old geezer who’d shoot first and ask questions afterward?”

“Precisely.”

“I suppose that’s why you’ll ask me to go first.”

They stood on the dock, peering at the house. A narrow, sandy trail led from the small clearing, through ferns, across a wooden bridge, and up the hill. There was a makeshift sign on the bridge he couldn’t read.

Pendergast cupped his hands. “Halloo!”

Silence.

“There’s no boat at the dock,” said Coldmoon. “Maybe no one’s home.”

“Halloo!” Pendergast called again. “John Vance?”

A faint, unintelligible voice filtered back down. Coldmoon squinted up at the house again, but nobody was visible.

“Let’s go.” They advanced along the trail and approached the bridge, where the crudely lettered sign read:

Pendergast paused to call out again. “FBI!” he said. “We’d like to come up and ask a few questions!”

The voice responded: high-pitched and urgent, still unintelligible.

Coldmoon took another look at the sign. The trail forked here, one path leading over the bridge — which indeed looked rotting and dangerous — and the other winding its way around through the ferns.

Another call from above.

“Was that a cry for help?” Coldmoon asked.

“It sounded like it.”

“Mr. Vance?” Coldmoon shouted. “Do you need help?” He turned away from the bridge and walked down the sandy path.

“Thank God,” came a weak voice. “Help me — cut myself with a chain saw!”

The voice seemed to be coming from the house, but it was hard to pinpoint with all the trees. Coldmoon squinted into the dim tangle of vegetation. “Shit, I see him! A white-haired guy, lying on the veranda!”

“Please help!” came the voice, already growing weaker. “Help!”

“Jesus.” Coldmoon began walking faster down the path.

“Hold on,” said Pendergast, reaching for him.

“Hurry, I’m bleeding to death!”

Coldmoon shrugged off Pendergast’s hand and broke into a jog.

“Wait!” Pendergast cried. “We don’t know—”

But he never finished his sentence, and for Coldmoon it was almost surreal: the way the ferns underfoot simply opened up, the ground fell away, and then they both dropped with surprising speed into a dark chasm.