The Butterfly Forest

THIRTY-SEVEN

After an hour of searching, Luke Palmer finally found the old oak tree. He stood there, a drop of sweat clinging from his nose, swatted a deerfly and stared at the two hearts carved in the bark. He tried to place himself in the shoes of the man who carved them back in 1935. Maybe Fred Barker buried the treasure on the side of the tree facing the hearts. That way when Barker returned, if he returned, he’d know where to dig.

Palmer dropped his backpack and used the steel rod to probe the ground a few feet in front of the tree, still within an easy sight of the hearts. Roots. Roots thick as a big man’s arm. Everywhere. He pushed the prod into the earth, using his weight to leverage it farther in the soil. Nothing. He stepped to a spot directly in front of the hearts and worked the steel into the earth.

There was a distinct tap. Metal on metal. YES!

He dropped to his knees to use the shovel to dig. Two feet down. There it was. Trapped. Held in a grip, as if a giant seized the cache. Gnarled tree roots wrapped around the treasure. An old steel trunk. Time and the elements had turned the outside into dark pewter, the shade of sunlight through soot. He pulled a hunting knife from his belt and hacked at the roots, pieces of wood and bark flying in his face. “C’mon, damn you roots!”

After several minutes of hard cutting, he had the metal box out of the hole. He used his knife to pry off the lock. Slowly, hands shaking, Palmer opened the lid. Old newspaper, the tint of brown mustard, was the first thing he saw. Palmer pulled back newspapers and looked at stacks of money. A little aged, but still green and good as gold. Stacks of one hundred dollar bills. He lifted a roll of money and held the bills to his nose. Palmer closed his eyes, the smell of the forest smothered with the scent of money.

He sat under the ancient oak, sat under the carved hearts, and counted the money. He pictured his niece, Caroline, in her bed, propped up on pillows, looking out her bedroom window with those eyes like melted caramel, her body growing weaker, her face remote as the West Texas landscape.

I’d left Elizabeth at the sheriff’s makeshift command center, a large and opened tent, near all of the cars. There was food, water and supporters — everyone comforting but anxious. More than fifty people, many volunteers, walked through the dense woods looking for evidence — looking for bodies. As I was leaving, Sheriff Clayton, mid-forties with a linebacker’s girth and a mail-slot mouth, stood in front of cameras, microphones and satellite news trucks anchored where he and Detective Sandberg took questions from the media.

I heard a chopper overhead a quarter mile to my west as I searched through the brush with a younger deputy sheriff, Don Swanson. By midday, he had already lifted three ticks from his arms and scalp. His olive green Marion County Sheriff’s tee shirt was black from sweat, the fabric tight against his muscular chest and arms. He wore a close-cropped flattop haircut, and I saw his scalp turning red under the fierce sun as we walked through one of the few open fields heading toward another pocket of dense woods.

Swanson had been one of the first deputies on the scene after the hikers located the butterfly box. He agreed to lead me to where it was found. He said, “Bloodhounds won’t bark. We won’t know if they run up on something. It’s all in their nose.”

“Maybe we’ll cross paths with that search team,” I said.

Swanson pointed out the scrub where the bloodied box had been discovered.

“Was the box open or closed when you found it?” I asked.

“Open.”

“Were all the butterflies gone?”

“I didn’t see anything in the box, just a bloody handprint on the side of it.”

“Do you know what a coontie plant looks like?”

“A coon what?” He waved gnats from his eyes.

“Coontie. It’s the only plant in the world where the atala butterfly will lay its eggs. The eggs hatch and the caterpillars feed off this plant; it’s the only one they’ll eat.”

“Sounds like a pretty bland diet even for caterpillars.”

“If we can find the coontie not too far from here, we might find the place where this box was opened. And we might find where someone first approached Molly and Mark.”

“So we’re going to track a freakin’ butterfly?”

“They don’t leave tracks. They do leave eggs.” I saw Swanson look toward the tree line as I stepped away, hoping the coontie plants were close.