Black River

THIRTY-ONE

Silas Jackson opened the door to his weather-beaten trailer and stepped outside under a canopy of cypress trees deep in the Ocala National Forest. He carried a metal coffee pot, dented and stained from years of use. Three chickens pecked at the hard, barren ground, scattering as Jackson walked to a circle of rocks, the trace of smoke from last night’s fire a ghost in the morning air. Roosters and a dozen fighting cocks paced in A-frame coops built under a large live oak tree. A leaden dawn hung over the forest like a gray shawl, thick and humid as the dew-stained Spanish moss sagging from the trees in the still morning.

He wore his Confederate slouch hat pulled low, just above his thick, dark eyebrows, tufts of dark hair sprouting and curling up from under the hat. His sideburns were long and heavy. Black eyes hard as polished stones. His uniform unkempt, worn ragged from the elements and hundreds of Civil War reenactments.

Jackson threw kindling pieces and split wood into the pit, unscrewed the top from a mason jar, tossing gas on the timber. He lit a wooden match on the side of his boot and lobbed it into the pile. Orange flames erupted. He sat on his haunches in front of the crackling fire, white smoke swirling up through the cypress limbs. He set the coffee pot on top of the flames and waited for the water to boil.

Jackson watched the chickens, yellow flames reflecting off his eyes, the call of a mourning dove coming from somewhere deep in the Ocala National Forest. He poured coffee into a tin cup, steam rising off the black coffee. He pursed his lips and blew across the open cup. Jackson sipped and thought about the events of the last few days.

Beyond the perimeter thicket came the sounds of horses snorting, hooves in the mud, and a whinny from one horse. Jackson set his cup on a rock bordering the fire and stood. He reached in his pocket, removing a pouch of tobacco leaves, biting off a plug and chewing, his mouth small, lips tightened, hawk nose scarred from too many battles to count. As two men rode horses into camp, he spit tobacco juice in the center of the fire, a drop of dark saliva clinging to his lip.

“Mornin’ Captain,” said the tallest man. Both were dressed in Confederate uniforms. They dismounted and tied their horse’s reins to low hanging tree branches. They were in their early thirties, unshaven, lean, wearing scuffed boots. Jackson turned toward them as the men approached. He said, “Ya’ll boys keep on eating food on that movie set and you gonna be too big for your mounts.” He grinned, teeth brown from tobacco stains.

“Yes sir, Captain Jackson,” said the shorter man, smiling through a full ruddy beard. “It’s just that they got food from the crack of dawn to late in the evening. We wish you were still on the movie set. Nobody knows the Confederate cause like you, right Bobby?”

“That’s the damn truth,” said the man called Bobby, a toothpick in one corner of his mouth, his bloodhound eyes lethargic. “I hope they don’t cut out the scenes you were in, Captain?”

Jackson snorted. “Do you think I give a flyin’ shit about that? The only reason I agreed to be an extra in the movie in the first place is on account that I want Hollywood to get it right when it comes to tellin’ the story of the South and how things played out realistically in the war.”

Bobby nodded and said, “Well, Captain, things are playing out all over the Internet that seem to be giving an unrealistic image of the Civil War, at least as far as the South is concerned.”

Jackson’s chewed the tobacco and raised his head, morning sunlight falling on one side of his face under the hat. “Whadda you mean?”

“Jack Jordan, you knew him better than Doug and me, anyway it looks like a few weeks before he died on set from that stray Minié ball, he’d found something in the St. Johns River, and what he found has set the damn Internet on fire.”

Jackson spit out of one side of his mouth. “What’d he find?”

The short man called Doug said, “A diamond, Captain. Big as a goose egg.”

Bobby said, “Somebody uploaded a video to the Internet, and it shows Jack on video in a pontoon boat finding this huge friggin’ diamond in a strongbox that he brought up from the bottom of the river. In the video, you can hear Jack talkin’ about how the diamond belonged to England at the time of the war, how it was tied to a contract signed by Jefferson Davis that says England was backing the South in the war and the diamond was part of all that. Anyway, the video is exploding online. Getting millions of views all over the world, especially England and even India. On CNN last night, they were saying that if the diamond is the real deal, it’s got a long history that goes way back to some emperor in India and to the Queen of England.”

Jackson lifted his cup up from the campfire rock and tossed the remaining black coffee into the fire. He watched the steam rise into the morning air for a moment, and then his mouth turned down. He spit out the tobacco plug like it was a hairball, a bitter taste suddenly in his mouth, his face pinched. “Did the news indicate the whereabouts of the diamond or this supposed contract?”

Bobby shook his head. “The news is saying that Jack’s wife said the diamond was stolen from him, taken from the film set. She’s calling his death a murder. And she said she has the original copy of the contract between England and the South in a safe deposit box. Hell, I feel pretty good believing that England was backing what the South stood for during the war. I wonder why England didn’t bring over the big guns and help us beat back the yanks? What’d you think, Captain?”

Jackson stoked the fire with a branch he’d broken off a pine tree, the flames bristling, yellow pinpoints of light locked in his hard, black irises. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think everything the South fought for during the war is coming to realization right now. Country’s gone to hell. I can’t recognize it no more. Jack Jordan might have been good at re-enacting battles, but he talked too much. Boys, some folks call me a doomsday prepper — a feller who’s preparing for mayhem and civil bedlam. It’s gonna happen. That’s why I got thousands of rounds in my trailer, a fully stocked underground bunker. Plenty of canned food and water for a country boy like me to survive. We’ll take the nation back. That diamond is property of the Confederacy, part of the Confederate treasury during the war. And the contract Jack Jordan found was between England and CSA President Jefferson Davis — nobody else. A confidential document like that has no business winding up on the fuckin’ Internet.”

The men nodded as Jackson stood. He stepped closer to the moss-stained trailer, reaching in his pants pocket for birdseed. He tossed seed on the ground, the three chickens trotting to the food. Jackson squatted, “C’mere Gladys,” he said, easing closer to a ruddy colored hen. Jackson grabbed the chicken, holding it to the ground, squawking, feathers flying. He pulled a serrated knife from his belt and sliced off the bird’s head. He stood, the chicken ran twenty feet and collapsed.

Jackson turned to the men and said, “Most people in this country are just like that chicken. Running around with no head. No direction. Ya’ll boys want to stay for lunch? I make a damned good fried chicken.”

“I’m fine with coffee,” said Bobby.

Doug nodded. “Me, too.”

Jackson grinned and walked to the fire pit. He tossed the chicken head into the flames and watched it burn, the beak popping like tinder, the smell of feathers broiling. He squatted, pulled a thin cigar from his coat pocket, bit off one end, spit it out, and stuck a small branch into the fire. He waited for it to catch, and then used the flaming stick to light his cigar. Jackson blew smoke out the corner of his mouth, holding the burning limb between him and the men. He looked over the flames and said, “Somebody needs to put a match to that contract. Burn it. President Davis earned that much respect.”