Poisoned Soil: A Supernatural Thriller Page 24

  Angelica opened her Bible and thumbed through the pages, her fingers somehow knowing where to go. She flipped the pages furiously until she reached the book of Kings. She began perusing the text like a speed-reader, searching for two specific words. In chapter twenty, verse seven of Kings, she found the words. “Boil. Figs.” She read the entire passage with great care.

  “And Isaiah said, take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.” She recalled reading the passage when she had planted Nancy’s Tree, reading every mention in the Bible of figs. She found that figs were there from the beginning, in the book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And so she planted a fig tree for Nancy that had indeed flourished. Now she would call on those fruits that grew from the pain of losing Nancy to heal Blake’s pain.

  She laid the Bible on the nightstand, stood, and looked in the mirror, turning sideways to see the profile of her maternal form and the life that grew within. Always she had laughed in embarrassment when locals said she reminded them of Angelina Jolie. Blake had even insisted it was true when they were first married. As she stroked her belly and looked in the mirror, she smiled and admitted that she did resemble the actress she had seen pregnant on television.

  Angelica didn’t like this game, this puzzle that she was somehow a part of, but she believed it to be another of God’s tests for her. She went to the medicine cabinet in her bathroom and retrieved gauze and tape. Then, she walked to the kitchen, opened the freezer and took out a bag of figs that she had picked from Nancy’s Tree a few months earlier. She put three in the microwave to thaw. Blake sat at the sofa with a newly opened bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey already a quarter gone. When Angelica had left the room he was lost in the glass of the television. Now she returned to find him lost in the glass held between his two hands. He stared at it as if he were a lost soul. He lifted it to his lips, tilted the glass and slowly drained it, taking no pleasure in doing so. Without looking, his right arm reached for the bottle as he refilled the glass.

  Angelica opened the cupboard door over the sink where she kept many of the medicines and tinctures she made. She retrieved the jar labeled “Four Thieves Vinegar” and reached for a soft cloth. She had grown each of the ingredients herself for the vinegar. The lavender, rosemary, sage, rue, wormwood and peppermint all came from her secret garden, as did the garlic. She even made the cider vinegar herself from her own crabapples and let it all infuse for two weeks before straining into the jar. She removed the softened figs from the microwave. Making sure they were comfortably warm, she walked to Blake, dipped the cloth in the Four Thieves Vinegar and washed the boil on Blake’s neck. He became vaguely aware of what Angelica was doing, but couldn’t concentrate on its meaning, so overcome was he with fear that he felt cerebrally paralyzed. Angelica washed, hoping the antibiotic properties would work their magic. She placed the cloth down and reached for the figs, gently placing them on the blister.

  Blake felt their warmth, feeling for an instant that Angelica had found a warm blanket to cloak and protect him. He clung to that feeling of hope, the maternal reassurance that she infused him with as she secured the figs to his neck with gauze and tape. She took the cloth and patted Blake’s neck dry and returned everything to the kitchen, dutifully putting everything in its rightful place. Then, Angelica walked back into the living room and stood in front of Blake. She reached over the coffee table and placed her right hand under Blake’s chin, lifting it so that she could see the tears hidden behind his eyes. With her left hand on her belly she looked into his eyes as she said, “We love you.”

  And then, Angelica smiled and walked to bed.

  With the talking heads saying the same things over and over, Blake sat and drank. And drank. As the whiskey swirled inside him and the footage of the hurricane raged on the screen, Blake slumped on the sofa, lying down to feel his back adrift on a raft in a wild sea from which there was no hope of rescue. He raked his mind for ideas of salvation, brilliant ideas that appeared as momentary islands of refuge, only to see the islands turn sour and become swallowed by the storm as quickly as they appeared, leaving nothing in their wake other than Blake, utterly alone. His head crashed on the armrest with the glass still in his hand as it lay on the floor. The very real visions from the television became horrific nightmares in his sleep. He dreamed not of being in the sea. Rather, he dreamed of being on a mountain. Of being handed a shovel from a demon on the mountain and being commanded in a twisted tongue to dig deep into the soil, to bury all the wrongdoings that he had done and to return to the soil what rightfully belonged there. To return all the poison that he had unleashed from the soil.

  In the dream, Blake took the shovel and dug. He dug a hole deeper than himself, deep enough to bury the mountain of lies, greed and destruction that had poisoned his heart and his soul. The deeper he dug the freer he felt, the more joyous he felt. He dug to the haunting song of the mountain as a screeching raven perched high above. As he climbed from the hole he pushed everything into it that had caused him such suffering. The sheds, the fences, his truck, the lies, money, his football trophies—even Nick was shoved into the hole as Blake waved goodbye. He pushed and shoveled dirt back over the hole, filling it until he could stomp and dance on it.

  When the music stopped in the dream Blake stood and smiled, surrounded not by what didn’t matter, but only by what did. There was only himself, Angelica and his son.

  Chapter 27

  Lonnie arrived at his desk in the sheriff’s office at 9:30 a.m. As he got out of his car, the humidity in the warm October air reminded him of a mission to New Orleans he had taken with members of his church immediately after hurricane Katrina. The moist air was tropical and smothered the mountains like a giant, wet towel.

  “Mornin’, Lucy,” Lonnie said as he walked through the door.

  “Mornin’, Lonnie,” she said. “Feels like we’re on a tropical island don’t it?”

  “Yep. Don’t go breaking out your bathing suit though, we got work to do,” Lonnie said with a smile to his executive assistant. As he walked into his office and sat his Starbucks coffee cup on his desk, Lucy walked in to brief the sheriff on the day’s schedule.

  The D.A.R.E. poster hung prominently behind the sheriff’s desk, taking fully half of the available wall space. Behind the desk in one corner was the Georgia state flag. In the other was the American flag. The desk itself was tidy, as usual. Pens in their holder, an empty inbox, a full outbox that Lucy would now empty. Other than that, lots of empty space for Lonnie to spread out whatever project he might work on.

  “What do we got today, Lucy?”

  “Nuttin’ you can’t handle, Sheriff. This package came in via FedEx a few minutes ago from Facebook out in California. And you got that luncheon at noon with the senior class at Rabun County High. Gonna tell ’em not to drink and drive, Lonnie? Or are you just gonna tell ’em to mind what ma says?”

  Lonnie looked up to see Lucy’s sarcastic grin. She emptied the outbox, turned, and walked away without giving him a chance to respond, even if he wanted to. She knew he didn’t.

  With precision, Lonnie sliced through the end of the 9 x 12 envelope with his letter opener, being as mindful as he would in examining evidence at a crime scene. He pulled out a thick stack of white paper that was stapled in the upper left corner. He estimated that there were probably sixty to eighty pages in the stack as he stared at the cover page.

  CONFIDENTIAL

  The information in this file is confidential material provided by Facebook solely in response to an officially sanctioned subpoena, court order, search warrant or other legal information request. The intended recipient is requested to handle the provided material in accordance with their organization’s protocol for handling sensitive or confidential information.

  “Good grief,” Lonnie uttered to himself. “This’ll take all day.”

  He flipped the pages, thumbing through all eig
ht sheets of the subpoena itself before seeing the first page with any data worth looking at.

  Neoprint for profile 149230525 taken on 2012-10-09 for dates (2012-07-01 thru 2012-10-08)

  He read the details aloud as his eyes scrolled down the page. “Let’s see...Name, Jesse Simmons. Recent Login IP address, email addresses, member since January 2008, born November 11, 1989, screenname is mountainman, relationship status is...none.”

  As Lonnie flipped the page he saw deputy Freeman Bishop walk through his door.

  “Mornin’, Freeman,” Lonnie said, and returned to the document.

  “Mornin’, Sheriff. Just heard that the National Hurricane Center said the hurricane has strengthened and may actually make landfall near Savannah,” Freeman said.

  Lonnie dropped the picture of Jesse and looked up.

  “Savannah? They haven’t taken a major hurricane since --.”

  “1890s is what they said on the TV,” Freeman said. “At least not a major one.”

  “What are they saying about this one?” Lonnie asked.

  “Saying it’s looking like it’s gonna make landfall as at least a Category 4,” Freeman said.

  “At least?” Lonnie asked as he rose, thinking he must be missing something.

  “Yep, maybe even a five,” Freeman said. “They’re already asking folks to evacuate the islands down there. That’s a long way from here, Sheriff, but I figure a lot of folks will want to volunteer to help out if needed.”

  “Did you happen to see what path they’re projecting the storm to travel?” Lonnie asked.

  “Well, their map shows it hittin’ the Georgia coast tomorrow late afternoon or early evening, then heading up toward north Georgia or western North Carolina early Friday morning. Course they say there’s still a lot of leeway.”

  Lonnie stood stoically visualizing the storm’s impact, both on the coast and on the mountains if the storm was really as strong as Freeman was saying.

  “Them weather guys are always saying that, ain’t they?” Freeman asked.

  “Saying what?”

  “That there’s a lot of leeway. Lots of variables. That way they can be right no matter what way the wind blows.”

  “I reckon so,” Lonnie said.

  Freeman stood opposite Lonnie and looked down at his desk, seeing the picture of Jesse.

  “Holy sh—” Freeman started and stopped, remembering that Sheriff Lonnie was also Pastor Lonnie. “What is that?” Freeman pointed to the picture.

  “That, Mr. Bishop, is one of the missing boys we’re looking for, Jesse Simmons.”

  “Yeah, but where is that? I mean, look at the size of that boar!” Freeman said. He invited himself around the desk to get a better look.

  “Son of a–” Freeman began before biting down on his lip. “You don’t wanna go messin’ with them, Sheriff. I was huntin’ ’em one time, them wild boars, and if you get yourself cornered they’ll flat out kill ya.”

  Lonnie looked at Freeman’s face. He was lost in the photograph the way a World War II veteran relives the horrors of Normandy when presented with an old black and white photograph.

  “I been on some of them hunts,” Freeman said. “Was on one when one of the boars, just like that ’un, killed a fella.”

  “What? Where was that?” Lonnie asked. He waited for Freeman to answer, but he remained lost in the photo.

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” Lonnie said. Freeman looked up and and narrowed his eyes with an intensity Lonnie hadn’t seen from him before.

  “You better believe it!” Freeman said. “Arkansas. Five of us was on a huntin’ trip ’bout twenty years ago. 1993 I think. We’s all chasing after some pigs that had been ripping up cornfields. The fella that got killed was older...‘bout 65 I reckon, and he owned that cornfield we were huntin’. Don’t remember his first name but they called him Hopkins, which I sorta figure was his last name.”

  Freeman paused and reflected on the story. Lonnie stood and listened as he reached for his coffee. “We seen this big ’ol boar in his cornfield. I reckon he was 400 pounds if he was an ounce,” Freeman continued. “I shot him with my 30.06 from about a hundred yards, hit him in the shoulder. Knocked him about a foot to the right then he took off a runnin’.”

  Freeman grabbed the sheriff’s right arm and looked him in the eye. “I’m tellin’ ya that was a dag blam 150 grain bullet and it just flat out bounced off his shield!”

  “Shield?” Lonnie asked.

  Freeman loosened his grip and remembered where he was. “Them boars grow these thick shields, Sheriff, ’bout a two inch plate of cartilage over and around their shoulders. That way the tusks from the other boars don’t bother them none. Them shields can flat out stop an arrow, Sheriff, and if that boar’s big and mean enough, it can stop a 30.06!”

  Lonnie sat down and brought the coffee before his lips, but didn’t drink it. He looked at Freeman’s intensity and waited for him to finish his story.

  “Anyway, I hit this thing and it took off into the cornfield. We had a fella with a huntin’ dog and he sent it off after the boar. Then he and another fella chased after the dog while this fella Hopkins, me, and one other stayed back. After a couple of minutes we hear this scream from the cornfield and see that dog come running back. Then his owner’s coming behind with that other fella helping, limping and bleeding badly. That boar tore up that fella’s shin.”

  Lonnie didn’t feel he really had the time for the long, drawn-out story, but it was too good to miss. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at Freeman.

  “It was starting to get a little dark so we all tried to doctor up that fella’s leg. All of us, that is, ’cept Hopkins. That old coot took off in the cornfield after that boar, all by hisself. Heck, we didn’t even know he’s gone ’til we heard this god-awful scream for help. Me and one other fella ran out to find him and he’s just laying there, blood gushing out from just above his knee.”

  “We called the ambulance and it didn’t take ’em more than ten minutes to get there. But that boar had hit a major artery and that old fella bled to death right there in his own cornfield.”

  Lonnie’s mouth hung open as he heard the story. “Well I’ll be,” was all that Lonnie could muster.

  “It took us two more days but we found that boar,” Freeman said. “Killed him myself. And let me tell you, Sheriff, I stood twenty yards away and watched him die. He was good and dead for half an hour before I had the courage to walk over and check. This thing had two six-inch rippers...bottom tusks if you wanna call ’em that, coming out of his lower jaw plate, and two more six-inch tusks coming out the upper side of his mouth. They use them upper tusks to sharpen the lower ones and let me tell you, I ran my finger against it and them things is razor sharp! I felt that beast’s thick, bristly hair and looked in them swirling dark eyes.”

  Freeman stood, shaking his head. “That thing, dead or not, nearly scared the life out of me. And he looked a lot like that thing right there!” Freeman put his finger emphatically down on the Facebook picture of Jesse standing behind Eduardo just after he had killed him.

  “Where was that picture taken, Sheriff?”

  “Don’t know, Freeman. This here’s a picture from the missing boy’s Facebook account. They—you know what Facebook is?”

  Freeman looked at Lonnie and exhaled as if he had just been asked if he knew where the ground was. “I ain’t exactly no retard, Sheriff. I do got some kids, I’ll thank you to remember.”

  Lonnie chuckled to himself, but was guarded to not let Freeman see. “Right,” Lonnie continued. “Anyway, Facebook sent us this printout of his personal account and this picture here caught my attention. Where does it look like to you Freeman?”

  Freeman leaned over and examined the black and white photocopy closely. “Heck, Sheriff, that could be most anywhere. Some thick woods it looks like but that could be from Alabama to Maine.”

  “Yeah,” Lonnie admitted. “Not much in that picture to help us except the front end of th
at old pickup behind him. What’s that look like to you Freeman? An old Chevy? C10 maybe?

  Freeman looked again. “No, that ain’t no C10 sheriff. That’s an old F-100. Probably ’bout a 1965 model.” Freeman’s eyes fell to the text underneath the photo:

  Created Saturday, September 1, 2012 11:24:19 EST. Comment posted Tuesday September 4, 2012 16:24:43 EST by WildPanther: “Glad we killed that sucker. R U coming back to work?”

  “Who’s this other fella, Sheriff? This WildPanther?”

  “That, Freeman, is what we need to find out.”

  Lucy rushed through the door holding a piece of paper. “Sheriff, this just came in for you,” she said as Lonnie and Freeman kept looking at the picture. “From the U.S. Coast Guard.”

  Lonnie looked up and grabbed the note and began reading it as he thanked her.

  INTERNATIONAL

  U.S. Coast Guard Responds to Medical Emergency in Bahamas