Black River

EIGHTY-FOUR

O’Brien awoke in a cold sweat. His shirt soaked. A chemical odor clinging to his damp skin. All he could see was a small fire. Red rocks glowing in a pile five feet from where he was lying, the stench of burning weeds and cedar. There was something all around him. He reached out and touched a canvas fabric. A tent. He looked up. Between the trails of smoke from the hot rocks, he could see starlight coming through a hole in the top of the tent. O’Brien tried to sit.

“You might want to take it easy.” Joe Billie’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Joe,” O’Brien squinted, barely making out Billie’s features on the other side of the fire pit. “You pulled me out of the river.”

“Somebody had to do it.” Billie grinned and leaned forward. “I don’t know for sure what was in your system. But I did my best to remove the demons. You had visitors.”

“Where are we?”

“On the bluff overlooking the river. It’s where you and I came a few weeks ago. I had this tent in my canoe. When I saw what shape you were in, I quickly built a sweat lodge. The heat and herbs you inhaled through the steam from the rocks helped. You were having some vivid hallucinations.”

“They seemed beyond hallucinations. I followed a light to come to shore. It’s all I could see through the mist. The woman, Angelina, she was holding the lamp, signaling me to safety out of the river. I met a Confederate officer on horseback. He’s the same guy I saw at the cemetery near the old planation where the movie was shooting.”

“So the spirits chose to reveal themselves. You’re lucky, Sean. There’s a reason beyond you. That doesn’t happen to everybody. I never saw the light on the riverbank. I just heard you swimming, heard you breathing hard. You were struggling to get to shore.”

“It was as if I’d gone back in time — the time of the Civil War. I can’t explain it. Joe, that story you told me about the soldiers hanging the guy from the mast of the ship…I was there. Saw him swinging, his legs kicking. The gators…there is nothing I could do. The hallucinations…the strange dreams…what does it mean?”

Billie nodded. “We don’t always know immediately. Sometimes you don’t have to do something. You observe. You learn.”

“Is that what you do?”

”What do you mean?”

“Joe, I don’t pry…you know that. But I don’t know a lot about you. I appreciate your friendship. I value your insight into the natural world. But what’s in your world, what’s in your head? You sort of show up out of the blue and then disappear. Where the hell do you go? What do you do? I don’t even know if you’re married, or anything about your family.”

Billie smiled. “Like you, I was married once. And like you, my wife died. But she wasn’t taken by disease, she was taken by man.”

“Murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Did they find her killer?”

“No, at least not yet.”

“Maybe there’s something I can do.”

“Maybe. How are you feeling now?”

“Better. What’d you do?”

“I did what I could for the cut above your eye. And you were bleeding from your shoulder. I pulled a broken needle out. Figured whoever you fought…he or she fought with compounds…lethal drugs.”

“He.”

“Where is he?”

O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds. “I think I killed him.”

“You think?”

“I dove from the schooner into the river. He was getting away in an inflatable. The guy was a British agent. He’s left a string of bodies. He tried to break my neck underwater. I managed to get the upper hand and strangled him in the river. He just floated away with the current. What time is it?”

“About two hours before dawn.”

“I have to go.”

“Sean, you need some rest.”

“I need to find Kim. She was taken by a psychopath. Guy’s name is Silas Jackson. He’s been stalking her, and he’s severely delusional. Thinks he’s living in the Old South of the Civil War era, believes he’s a Confederate field officer. He’s s survivalist. A doomsday prepper with some severe antisocial behavior.”

“Where do you think he took her?”

“Maybe to his hideout in the Ocala National Forest.”

“Do you know what he drives?”

“A black pickup. Lots of dents in the body.”

“Is there a Confederate flag license plate on the front of the truck?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because I’ve seen that truck parked way back in the forest. It’s not far from an area where I cut palm fronds. He lives in a tarpaper shack and trailer. Raises fighting roosters and hunting dogs. I’ve seen a few armed men at his camp from time to time.”

“Take me there, Joe. Now. Let’s cross the river in your canoe. My Jeep’s back at the landing with my Glock and plenty of rounds.”

“Maybe you’ll only need one.”