The Butterfly Forest

EIGHTY-THREE

Someone, maybe Ed Crews, had come across my Jeep before we did. The front tires were cut and flattened. I found my cell phone, pushed the on button: roaming — no signal. “Get in, Joe. Even with two flat tires, we might put some distance behind us and them.” I started the Jeep, put it in gear and pulled out of the sand, the flat tires sounding like flags ripping in a hurricane.

Within a few minutes, we found a spur road. A golden moon rose through the pines, reminiscent of a medieval platter. I figured the rough, unmarked road was used by the Gonzales gang to move in and out of the forest, courtesy of a senior ranger who looked the other way, or diverted attention the other way for another, more lucrative cash flow. Bastard!

The road was pocketed with large holes, ruts and an occasional fallen log. The Jeep felt more like a sled. Each gopher tortoise hole sent a booming shock through the frame and into our bones. “You want me to drive?” Billie asked.

“I’ve never seen you in a car.”

“Now’s a good time to learn.”

I wanted to smile, but I felt like it would require more energy than I could spare. I tried to focus on my hand-held GPS. The road we were on wasn’t found on the satellite. “Where the hell are we?”

“About three miles northeast of the river,” Billie said.

“It feels like we’re driving on the moon, craters and all.’’ The pain was so severe over my left eye I had to close it to see where I was driving. My mouth tasted like metal, and I could smell my blood and sweat coalescing across my chest and down my back.

Lights in the rearview mirror caught my attention. “They’re coming! We can’t outrun them with two flat tires.” I gunned the Jeep, swerved around a hole that looked more like the opening to a cave, and pushed the speed to thirty-five miles an hour. We bounced so hard the moon shot over a tall pine, and our heads hit the roll bar.

I touched the .12 gauge between the seats. “As good as you are at throwing a knife, it won’t mean shit now. They have machine guns. They can take us out before we can return fire with a shotgun. My Glock won’t match their firepower. We need to get off this cattle trail, maybe lose them in the woods.”

Billie looked in his side mirror and said nothing.

I rounded a curve, almost sliding into a pine tree and floored the gas pedal. The noise was similar to a mule-drawn plow breaking hardpan soil. We drove on for another mile, the lights gaining on us around each turn in the primitive road.

I caught the muzzle flash on the side of the car about one hundred feet behind us. A bullet came through the seats between us and shattered the front windshield. “Next curve I’m pulling off in the woods! I gotta kill the lights!” The instant I came around another turn, I turned between two large pine trees, killed the headlights and drove under the light from the moon. We moved wildly through the forest, dodging trees, plowing over fallen logs and crossing shallow creeks, the engine finally stopping in water almost up to the floorboard.

We sat there for a moment looking to see if lights were following us. All we could hear were sounds from the motor ticking and water sluicing against the tailpipe, hissing. The smell of decayed leaves and sulfur mixed in the steam coming up under us made me nauseous. “C’mon, Joe. Looks like this is where we walk.” I grabbed the shotgun and my Glock as Billie picked up his backpack, and we both stepped out into water that came above our knees.

We sloshed to dry land on the other side of the swamp, wet leaves and vines clinging to our legs and arms. We saw something moving at a blistering speed before we heard it. A fighter jet flew over us, two hundred yards above our heads. The roar of its engines followed three seconds behind it. “Hope that’s part of the search party.”

Billie said, “A nice, fast helicopter would do better.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that jet has anything to do with us escaping from a band of drug runners who would laugh and take turns slitting our throats.”

I saw flashlights moving in the direction of the road. “They found where we left the road. They’re following us on foot.”