The Butterfly Forest

THIRTY-NINE

The atala flew to a second passionflower. As it fed, I used my cell phone to take the butterfly’s picture. I called Swanson and told him my location and that I was trying to follow the atala. “If you can walk over here, two sets of eyes will be better than one.”

The butterfly fed for another half minute before taking flight. I emailed the picture to Dave Collins and punched in: PLEASE ID. Swanson caught up with me following the butterfly. It seemed to float with little effort over the ground, never but a few feet above the floor of the forest. I said, “If we can keep an eye on it, maybe we’ll find the coontie plants.”

“We’re tracking a damn butterfly? This is gonna be one for the books. Did you pick up some kind of insect guerilla training somewhere along the line?”

I heard him chuckle, but I wouldn’t take my eyes off the atala while it appeared to hang in the air drifting around trees, passing other flowers and continuing deeper. I hoped a bird wouldn’t dive from the branches and take it out.

We followed the butterfly another fifty or so yards. It appeared to fly in a circle and then settle down on something. As we got closer, I saw it had perched on a coontie plant. There were at least a dozen growing wild in the area. Sunlight came through the canopy in shafts of stippled light. The butterfly crawled on the leaves. “So that’s a coontie, huh?” Swanson raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, that’s a coontie. And it was probably here where Molly and Mark released the box of atala butterflies.”

“What’s the butterfly doing?”

“It’s not feeding on the coontie, only its caterpillars do that. Looks like it's laying eggs. You’re witnessing one of the rarest butterflies in America reproducing in the wild.”

“That’s what the college kids helped bring about, huh?”

“Yes, and it might have led to their deaths. Let’s leave the butterfly alone and have a closer look around here.”

Swanson nodded and started searching through the undergrowth. I began looking for any broken limbs, material and impressions not found in nature or made by it. I kept in mind the fact this spot may have been hit with the rain that swept through much of the area. Or maybe the tree canopies acted as a shield, deflecting some of the rain. I believed that was why the deer blood was visible. Within a few seconds, I saw blood and could tell it wasn’t from a deer. There were spots that had soaked through grass and into the ground. I picked up single blade of grass and rubbed the blood between by thumb and finger. The coppery smell changes in decay, becomes less metallic, more dirt-like pungency.

“Did you find something?” Swanson asked.

“Yeah.” I slowly stood and looked at the foliage, searching for dried blood spray. The person shot most likely fell right where the blood had pooled. Maybe the bullet had not gone through the body.

The atala rose from the coontie and flew between Swanson and me. It passed a large pine tree before vanishing into the forest. Something on the tree, a mark, a flicker in the shadows and speckled light, caught my eye. There was a thin line reflecting from the bark. It looked like a dry slime trail left by a tree snail. And right in the center of the long path was a hole. I stepped closer. The hole was about five feet from the ground on the side of the tree directly facing the pooled blood. Swanson joined me. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“It’s a bullet hole. This dried slime came from a snail. It probably would have crawled around the hole. So I’d guess the bullet was fired after the snail had come through this spot on the bark. See that resin oozing out of the hole?”

“Yes.”

“That means it’s very fresh, like the tree has a new wound.” I scanned the bark, following the snail’s track farther up the tree. About twenty feet above the hole was the snail on the opposite side of the tree. Its shell was a little larger that a walnut, tinted in white, brown and red stripes. “And there’s the little guy who left his mark. If he’s doing a foot an hour, for example, the bullet may have been fired fifteen hours ago. The bullet could have passed through Molly or her boyfriend, Mark, and lodged in the heart of the pine. Your team might have to use a chainsaw to get it.”

Swanson shook his head. “First we track a butterfly, now a snail. What’s next?”

“A deer. I found a blood trail heading south, but I lost the trail.” I looked at the GPS map on my phone. “Could be a stream in that area. I found a water bottle about one hundred yards to the east. It needs to be examined for prints and DNA.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Mark this as a crime scene and call in the dogs.”