[Sean O'Brien 03.0] The Butterfly Forest

by Tom Lowe

  AFTER SEVENTEEN DAYS AT SEA, we finally delivered Sovereignty to her new owners at Ponce Marina. Elizabeth said goodbye to Dave and Nick, assuring them that she could reopen her restaurant and restart where she left off before Frank Soto had raised his ugly head.

  “We’re going to miss you,” Dave said.

  “That’s right,” Nick said, smiling and shaking his shaggy head. “You’re the best thing that Sean ever brought to this marina.”

  She smiled, kissed Dave and Nick on their cheeks and said, “Come to my little restaurant sometime. I now have a new Greek dish I want to offer my customers.”

  Nick beamed as Elizabeth, Max and I walked down L dock to the parking lot. She wore a white sundress, sandals and a smile. I helped her load things into her Ford Escape. She said, “We met in a parking lot, and we say goodbye in a parking lot.”

  “Not goodbye, but rather I’ll see you soon.”

  “Sean, we both need time to sort out the next chapters of our lives.” She touched my cheek. “You’re a good, kind and yet complicated man, someone whom I believe can love as deep as he can defend. You’ve defended me, taught me to sail, and taught me to laugh again…to live again. Maybe one day we’ll teach each other how to love again. Right now, I need time to learn who I am without Molly. I’m going to miss you and Max.” She leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips, and then bent down and petted Max. “Bye, Maxine,” she said, as a tear rolled down her tanned face. Then she turned around, got in her car and drove away.

  I spent the better part of two weeks replacing some of the floorboards in the old house on the banks of the St. Johns River. The work was dirty and hot, but I didn’t care. I wanted to bury myself in sweat and work, wanted to stop thinking about the aberrant behavior of people like Pablo Gonzales and Frank Soto. A few days earlier, I had awakened during the night and thought I felt Gonzales’ presence in my bedroom. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving behind a visual hangover on a stale dream. It was an image as deviant as that moment when Cal Thorpe and I drew our guns on the dead body of Izzy Gonzales, propped in an antique chair like some used marionette, as if carefully placed in a magic box with a one-dimensional view.

  I wanted to visit Elizabeth, but I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to, at least not yet. I stood on my screened-in porch with Max and waited for the rain shower to end. “I see the tip of a rainbow, Max. Let’s take a walk down to the river, maybe we can get a better look. We left the porch, the afternoon air washed clean after the rain. My cell rang. It was Dave Collins. I answered and he said, “I was just browsing online, you know, checking The Times, Post and glancing at some of the stories in USA Today.”

  “Uh huh, I thought you gave that up.”

  He chuckled. “Old war horses like me are comfortable in the same saddle. I saw an obscure story. It seems that a young woman in Houston, Texas, recently received a kidney transplant. All expenses paid for by an anonymous donor. The woman’s name caught my attention…a Caroline Palmer. I wonder if there’s any connection to the late Luke Palmer.”

  I said nothing.

  “It would be a remarkable coincidence if she was related, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” I said.

  “The story says the donor made a contribution of two-hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I hope she’s doing well.”

  “By all accounts, she’s on the road to a complete recovery.” Dave’s voice was light, dry humor mixed with an anecdotal delivery. “It seems like this is the week for generosity. The Gainesville Sun reports that another anonymous donor gave three hundred thousand to the University of Florida’s planned research wing for the department of entomology. The only stipulation was that the new wing had to be named for Molly Monroe.”

  “That’s good news.” I watched Max chase a squirrel around an oak tree.

  “Sean, do you happen to know anything about these gifts?”

  “You’re fading, Dave. Reception here on the river is a little spotted. You’re cutting out.” I disconnected, turned to Max and said, “Race you to the dock.” She took off running. I chased her down the long yard, her little dachshund rump bouncing, her short legs trying their best to imitate a greyhound.

  The colors of the rainbow over the river brought me to a halt. Even Max paused. The rainbow made a curve in the sky with the river seeming to flow through the center of the semi-circle. The colors off the water mirrored those in the sky. Stepping to the dock, something to the far left caught my eye. The purple trumpet flowers seemed to yawn and stretch after the rain. Beads of turquoise water hung from their petals, making them look like liquid jewels.

  A butterfly rose out from one of the trumpet flowers. Its black wings with the iridescent light blue trimming made a statement from the twenty feet that separated the butterfly from me. It was an adult atala, flying slowly from flower to flower, its body floating, suspended above the cascading green vines that popped with pinks and purples.

  I leaned against the dock railing and watched the butterfly. Then it lifted from a peach colored trumpet flower, flew above the trellis and circled around me. It alighted on the railing less than a foot from my hand. I didn’t move. After a few seconds I held out my hand. The butterfly crawled to my finger, its wings seeming to balance its dark red body while it rested.

  I could hear Molly’s voice, distant like the breeze at the oxbow in the river, but present as the invisible current under the dock. “Have you ever held a live butterfly in the palm of your hand, Sean? They like the human touch…the warmth that comes from our hands, and maybe our hearts.”

  I cupped the butterfly gently with my left hand and walked to the end of the dock where Max was standing there waiting for me. I lifted my hand, held the butterfly on my outstretched palm and said, “Go back and lay your eggs…now you have another chance.”

  The butterfly raised its wings and lifted from my palm. It flew high, catching an air current and soaring across the river, following the rainbow as it curved into the heart of the forest.

  We hope you enjoyed

  The following is a short excerpt from the fourth novel in Tom Lowe’s series featuring Sean O’Brien. Here’s a preview from

  MAY 19, 1945

  Billy Lawson smelled it before he saw it. Something was out there. Beyond the breakers and hidden in the veil of night. When the silhouette appeared, he wasn’t sure it was really there. Clouds smothered a three-quarter moon over the ocean, and the image, a hundred yards off shore, faded to black. The breeze let Billy know it was near. The odor of diesel fumes, salt and bait-fish blew across the surface of the ocean—a ghost wind delivering something felt but obscured in the dark.

  There was the drone of engines, throaty growls similar to a pride of lions after a fresh kill, mixing with the crash of the breakers. Could be a boat in distress struck on a sandbar, he thought. But there were no running lights. May be just hearing and seeing things again. Couldn’t tell sometimes, not since the injuries in the war. Smells and tastes all messed up—a ringing in the left ear that only stopped when sleep came.

  The wounds on his chest had beaded into scar tissue, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, the horror in his dreams was as deafening as the night a mortar exploded in the center of Company C. He’d left that world—that war—in Europe. Back in Florida, after a month of rehab, he could walk with only a slight limp, and he could throw a cast net with the best of them. He readied his net once more. Maybe get it a few feet beyond the breakers. Let it fall around the fat mullet and flounder. He had only three mullet in the bucket behind him wedged in the sand. He thought of his pregnant wife, Glenda, and he threw with all his strength. Casting to put food on their table.

  As the net hit the dark surface, a cloud parted in front of the moon. Before the net could sink to the bottom, Billy saw the thing.

  Something long and dark.

  No lights.

  His pulse pounded, hair rising on the back of his neck. It looked like s
ome sea serpent lying about a hundred yards off shore. “Jesus,” Billy muttered. He ignored the punching of fish in his net and stared at the ship. But it was no ship in the traditional sense. Billy Lawson knew it was a submarine. It wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Neither was a life raft.

  The raft was maybe eighty yards off shore and coming toward the beach.

  Who were they?

  Billy watched for a moment, the flashes of white in the water on either side of the raft, the paddles breaking the surface, creating a phosphorescent green glow in the ocean, the smolder of the moon leaving a trail of broken light.

  “Time to get,” he whispered.

  Billy felt his heart in his throat. He pulled in his cast net. It was heavy with fish, the night air thick and humid, mosquitoes orbiting his head. The salty sting of sweat rolled into his eyes while he tugged at the net. No time to sort the fish. “Ya’ll got lucky,” he mumbled, emptying his catch back into the sea.

  Something wasn’t right. The war had been over for two weeks. Was it a German U-boat? Japanese? American? Who was in the life raft?

  Seventy yards away and coming.

  He could feel it—a signal buried in his heart, almost like the night he could feel the impending destruction when Company C was caught off guard. But tonight Billy had seen the men in the life raft and hoped they hadn’t seen him. He slung the net over his shoulders, lifted his fish bucket and tried to run up the beach, ignoring the pain in his knee. Less than one hundred feet and he’d be where his old truck was parked under a canopy of palms, next to Highway A1A.

  Billy sat the fish bucket in the corner of the truck-bed, laid the net around it for support and searched for his keys.

  Gone.

  In his haste to leave, he’d left his keys and his Zippo lighter on the beach. He crept behind palms and sea oats. The men were now close to the breakers. Too near to get his keys. He thought of Glenda. Saw her growing stomach, a stomach he placed his hand against only a few hours ago. Feeling the kick of the child inside. He heard Glenda’s laugh when he’d asked if it hurt when ‘she’ kicked.

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Glenda had asked.

  “Just feel it inside. Gonna be a daughter.”

  The sound of German broke his thoughts. The men were rowing through the breakers, and one man was giving orders, trying to keep his voice down, but having to shout over the waves.

  German. Billy was damn glad he’d left quickly. He squatted down and watched the men get out of the raft. Six of them. Four looked to be dressed in German military uniforms. Two others, shorter, men were in civilian clothes and looked Asian. The men carried canisters, and each looked about two feet long. One German sailor carried a shovel.

  Had they come to bury something?

  Billy held his breath as the men walked right past his keys and lighter. They were in a hurry, the weight of the canisters slowing them in the sand. The two men in civilian clothes walked in front. One tall sailor, who Billy assumed was an officer, pointed towards Matanzas Inlet and said something in quick German.

  Although the war in Europe had ended, this was American soil, and Billy Lawson was no longer on active duty. He was serving his last six months of his enlistment on a disability deferment. Maybe he was out of uniform, but he felt something in his heart that was protective—a defiance. They were not supposed to be here. But they were. What the hell did they think they were doing here? He hadn’t lost half his Army buddies, part of his left knee, most of the flesh on his ass, to sit and watch a small squadron of German sailors come to hide something on American soil. Hell no.

  Billy Lawson reached under the seat of his truck and found the short-nosed .38 he’d carried for safety. He stayed in the shadows of the palms and followed the men.

  Just get the keys and go, Billy told himself. GO! RUN! The Germans would see him if he walked down near the water’s edge to search for his keys. Just wait them out. See what the bastards are doing and report everything as quickly as possible to the Navy base in Jacksonville. If he could reach them, they might capture or bomb the U-boat.

  Billy kept behind the trees and sea oats as he followed the men around a bend at the mouth of the inlet. In the distance, a wink of light popped over the horizon from the St. Augustine lighthouse. A green sea turtle crawled from the surf. She would dig a hole to lay her eggs. The men ignored the sea turtle. They were near the 250-year-old Fort Matanzas. The old Spanish fort, with its tower and coquina stone, was a dark, gothic sentry, and now a silent witness to another round of military history. The men sloshed through ankle-deep water in the inlet, stopped near a live oak gnarled from time and weather, and they started digging.

  Billy hid behind sea oats, watching the men finish the hole. Gotta phone Glenda.

  There was movement.

  Someone hiding behind dunes and palmettos approached the men. They stopped digging and spoke. Under the moonlight, he could tell that the man who walked up to the Germans was dressed like an American. It looked like they were exchanging something.

  As they began shoveling sand back into the pit, one of the men dressed in civilian clothes stopped and said something to the German officer. The officer shook his head and dismissed whatever it was the shorter man had said. Now Billy could hear the shorter man raise his voice. And the words were not German.

  He spoke heated Japanese.

  Billy mumbled to himself, “Japs and Germans here on American soil…why?”

  One of the other German soldiers stepped in and raised the shovel like he was going to hit the Japanese man standing next to him. The tall German officer pulled a pistol out of his holster and shot the German sailor in the head, his body crumpled next to the hole. The two Japanese men made a cursory bow to the officer and the man dressed in American clothes before walking quickly toward Highway AIA.

  Billy felt his heart hammer in his throat. He had to work to control his breathing. CALM. STAY CALM.

  He ran toward his truck. Could make it to get the keys, he thought. He turned and darted down the beach, dropping to his knees to search for his keys. The tide soaked his pants. WHERE ARE THE KEYS? His hands fanned sand and rushing water. The keys seemed to tumble into his hand. Headlights from an approaching car punched through the tree line, and Billy became a moving shadow in the sand. He heard the Germans yell as he tried to run up the beach to the truck.

  RUN! His rebuilt knee snapped causing Billy to fall face down. He spat sand out of his mouth, lifted himself up, ignored the pain and ran as fast as he could. He saw the remaining sailors moving back in the direction of the life raft. They’d spotted Billy, no doubt. A German was missing. Maybe he left with the Japs. Deserted.

  Billy jumped in his truck. The engine strained, sucking the life out of the old battery. “Start! Just fucking start!” The engine turned over and roared. Billy burned rubber going from sand to pavement.

  He drove a mile to the A1A Bait ‘n Tackle, which he knew was closed. He pulled up to a phone booth and searched his pockets. One dime! Who to call? Glenda or the Navy? Phone Glenda and tell her what’s happening and tell her to call the Navy and the sheriff. What was his damn phone number? His index finger shook so hard he could barely get it in the rotary dial.

  “Glenda!”

  “Billy, what’s wrong?”

  “Just listen. I just saw a murder!”

  “What?”

  “A German soldier shot another German soldier on the beach. There were six of them—four Germans and two Japanese. One guy I think is American. He walked outta the bushes after the Germans and Japs came ashore in a life raft from a German U-boat sitting off the beach.“

  “A what—”

  “Listen, baby! They buried something on Rattlesnake Island! South of the fort. It’s in line with light from the lighthouse passing through the tower window. Six o’clock position. Maybe two hundred feet from the old fort. Call the Navy! Tell them there’s a German submarine lying about a quarter mile off Matanzas Pass. Tell them there’s been a killing on
the beach. Tell them two Japs ran away! And tell them it looks like an American—maybe a spy—met them. The Japs headed north on A1A on foot. I don’t know what this is about. War in Europe is over, but the Japanese haven’t surrendered.”

  “Oh God, Billy. Sweetie, this isn’t one of those flashbacks from—”

  “Glenda! It’s real! Call them! I’m outta change. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

  Billy saw the reflection in the phone glass. A dark figure leaping from the truck-bed. Billy dug for his pistol as two bullets shattered the glass and slammed into his chest.

  “Billy!” The tiny voice came through the receiver. “Billy! Dear God, no!”

  The man stood next to the phone booth and fired a third shot into Billy’s stomach and then ran. He jumped in the truck and drove away while Billy slid down the back wall of the booth. He sat in the broken glass and blood, nausea and bile rising in his throat.

  Billy lifted a bloodied hand toward the phone hanging by the cord just out of reach. “Billy! Billy!” His wife’s cries sounded far away. He wanted to speak, to tell Glenda how much he loved her. To tell her goodbye…to have her put the phone on her stomach, right where he’d felt the little kick, to whisper his love to his unborn child. “Glenda…” He coughed the taste of blood like pennies in his mouth, his wife’s cries so distant now. Darkness covering him.

  Billy heard the explosion of a mortar above Company C. The blast was the whitest white he’d ever seen, and he saw his wife’s smile somewhere in the absence of color. Felt the gentle kick of his baby on the tips of his fingers. The ringing in his left ear was now silent, the sound of the pounding surf across AIA the only noise in the night.