The Butterfly Forest

EIGHTY

We saw no one. The only movement came from the wind stirring the marijuana leaves. There was no sign of human activity. But there were signs they’d been here. Open bags of fertilizer. Empty and broken bottles of pesticides and fungicides. Shovels, axes and discarded cans of refried beans littered the ground.

The growers had done a good job tucking the marijuana plants between the native vegetation. Spacing just right. Sporadic enough to keep from forming any kind of discernible pattern. Some of the crop was cut and hanging upside down on a long wooden rack, like tobacco leaves drying under the hot Florida sun.

The water hose was connected to a pump that was coupled to a large diesel generator. The hose was fitted with three splitters from the pump, feeding the base of each marijuana plant in a drip irrigation method. The generator and pump were turned off. I looked just above the generator and saw the shimmer of heat rising from the steel casing. If they were gone, I knew they hadn’t been gone very long. “Let’s have a closer look,” I whispered, reaching for my shotgun. “You want my pistol?”

Billie shook his head, his eyes seeming to scan the very air in front of us. We walked quietly with the only sounds around us coming from the humming of bees, the scamper of field mice, and the flutter of hidden birds in the trees. Billie knelt down beside shoeprints in the damp earth. He examined them. “They were just here. They left quickly. One man running, but they’re not gone.” Billie touched one of his fingers to the moist soil at the toe of a print. He looked up at me. “Odd shoe patterns. Almost like moccasins. Same prints we found leading to the body. No tread.”

I thought of Ranger Ed Crews, thought of his lopsided grin, his dyed hair, his left boot with a tiny piece of duct tape on the right heel. “They may know we’re here. They’re probably watching us.” I considered Dave’s satellite phone in my backpack, its low battery. Maybe I could charge it back at the Jeep. I crouched down beside Billie, the smell of earthworms, pesticide and refried beans welling from the ground. “We have to get better cover. Let’s stay down, hang on the fringe and do a zigzag run to the generator. It’ll be more difficult for them to aim, less chance for bullets to hit us. On three, let’s go. Got it?”

Billie nodded.

I said, “One… two… three.” We ran about fifty feet. Billie to my right. He stopped in a dead run, quickly grabbed my arm, and pointed directly in front of us. “That’s not the way a vine grows.”

I saw a long, thin vine stretched about two inches above and completely across the path. It was almost camouflaged with the natural undergrowth below it. The only reveal was that the vine grew in a straight line. We dropped down to inspect it. One end of the vine, which was actually twine painted in shades of green and brown, was tied to a small sapling. The twine stretched across the path to another sampling where it made a simple half loop and was lost in the brush.

I knew what it was attached to.

“Don’t move,” I said, looking up to see if there was a gun locked and pointed in our direction.

There was. A shotgun, almost hidden. The opening of the barrel, resembling a large black hole in the universe, and its vortex of spinning buckshot, heat and velocity, was in a position to remove our heads. The gun was concealed beneath honeysuckles, the stock not visible. “Move to your far right, Joe. The spread pattern of double-aught buckshot from the tip of the barrel to where we’re standing is about twelve inches. But let’s take no chances. Move at least ten feet to your right.”

Then we heard the terrifying and unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun as a shell is fed into the chamber. “Drop your gun motherfucker! Raise your hands and slowly face me. When I kill a man, I like to look him in the face.”

I dropped the .12 gauge and Billie and I turned around at the same time to look into the feral eyes of Frank Soto.