by Ann Cook
Brandy backtracked past the Visitor’s Center to a fork in the path, looked over a fence at Chacala Pond posted “No Trespassing,” followed a barbed wire fence beside the quarter mile dirt trail of Jackson’s Gap, and crunched over leaves and pine needles until it connected with Cone’s Dike. A brown rabbit bounded up from the grasses and darted away. Only three other hikers passed, all walking toward the parking lot. She checked her watch: 3:15. Hustling now, she hurried along through woods with a pasture on the right and around a downward curve, almost tripping over gnarled roots that erupted underfoot all along the path. On her left stood more oaks, cabbage palms, and palmettos.
The note had referred to a heavy gate to keep cattle out. She found it now, marked by a magnolia tree and a towering live oak. Its limbs stretched across the trail, thick with hanging vines. Saplings thrust up beside the trunk. By winding through the cattle guard, she passed through the gate. Maple saplings, bright with red leaves, grew in the woods beside the trail. Crushed asphalt crackled underfoot, giving off a faint odor. A small deer flashed between the trees and was gone.
To build the dike, engineers had hollowed out narrow canals on either side of the path and recent rains had filled them. From the ditch to her left came the sharp scent of camphor shrubs and the slight aroma of dried fennel. As the path widened, prairie marsh spread beyond the bushes to the right. Several broad expanses of sand separated the asphalt trail from the watery ditch. When Brandy gazed at the sand closely, she could make out hoof prints. But Robert Steadly was watching for birds, not deer.
She began to look about for him in earnest. At last, she located a narrow place in the right hand ditch, managed to step across it, and peered beyond a cluster of high shrubbery. Ahead of her stood a tripod, the long cylinder of a spotting scope attached. She didn’t see its owner, but he must be nearby. A broad stretch of water lay about fifty yards before her, and she recognized the graceful trunk of a sweet gum tree leaning near it, the ground around it littered with rust-colored burrs.
Using the binoculars, she scanned the closest area of prairie beyond the lake. She spotted several gray-backed birds with yellow bibs and white streaks above their eyes and watched them light on the branches of a solitary pine. She checked her Peterson’s and identified the yellow-throated warbler, common on the Prairie in the fall.
Distracted, Brandy heard no suspicious sound, no sloshing in wet weeds, no sudden intake of another’s breath. She was standing next to a dense wax myrtle tree, head down, examining the page of warblers, when she felt the blow—a sudden, crushing pain on the back of her head. Her vision dimmed. Numb with the pain, she crumpled against the tree and slid downward.
A grip of steel halted her slide. Hot, labored breath gusted against her ear. She panicked, feebly lashed out. Could not. A suffocating band pulled against her neck, tightened. Her hands and arms failed her; her fingers wouldn’t clutch the strap around her throat. Forks of light streaked under her closed eyelids. She felt a bolt of pure terror.
She couldn’t breathe. She would die.
Shuffling sounds, gruntings. For an instant the neck pain lessened. A deep voice: “Son of a bitch! Get!” A loud thud, a roar. The choking ceased. Brandy went limp and felt herself tumble into wet stubble.
The strangling band dropped away. A stumble, then a squishing noise. Again steel fingers gripped her, dragged her, stiff grass stung her legs. She opened an eye a slit, tried to free herself, twisted, rolled, wrenched her aching arms. Suddenly an agonizing pain stabbed her left shoulder. She screamed, but the tugging went on. Her vision blurred, but seemed to undulate with bulky phantoms. The iron hands pushed against the back of her head, ground into the wound there, forced her face down. Gritty water washed up her nostrils, burned her eyes. She gulped for air—the side ditch! She panicked again, writhed in the fierce grasp, moaned, inhaled stale water—thought of Ada.
But cornered animals lay still. So did she. She let her body go limp, her head sink. She would surely die. Again she heard a loud grunting. Something heavy trampled the wet marsh grass. Abruptly, the pressure against her head lessened. The pain stopped. At last, footsteps, more rapid, sloshed away.
Brandy twisted her face barely above the surface and drew a shallow breath. A massive form loomed above her—a shaggy shape with huge head and dangling beard. Moist pressure prodded her chest. Fiery, foul-smelling breath scalded her cheek. She stared up at the glistening black eyes of her nightmare.
Brandy lost consciousness.
TWELVE
John stood on the porch, an unread newspaper dangling from his fingers. He hunched his shoulders and frowned down at Cholokka Boulevard. Twilight had crept over the boulevard and living room lights winked on all along the street. Long ago the stores went dark. Above the cedars and oaks, clouds shredded a quarter moon. The stars, usually bright over a town with few city lights, were hidden. He checked his watch again—8:15 P.M. If the park closed at 7:00, the drive home should take no more than thirty minutes. At 6 he had fed himself and Brad and put the toddler in bed at 7:00. He had waited ever since. Where was she? He dropped the forgotten paper. She had no judgment about these things, no sense of caution.
Back in the living room, he picked up the phone and dialed Hope. As soon as she answered, he asked, “Heard from Brandy?”
As he listened, the lines in his forehead deepened. “Sure, she might have followed a lead somewhere, but she’d call. She carries her cell. She always calls.”
Hope’s voice echoed his own anxiety. “Maybe she got into trouble because of me!”
John tried to control his anger. “Did either of you bother to check out this Robert Steadly?” He listened again, then added, “I know he doesn’t live in Micanopy, but other members of his family do. What’s the name of the Steadly woman Brandy interviewed? The one married into the Stark family?”
“I think she said ‘Cora Mae Stark.’ Want me to call her?”
Carrying the phone, John stepped out again onto the porch and looked down. The street was empty. “I’ll call her,” he said abruptly. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn if he wanted the note kept quiet. Brandy went to meet him, and now we don’t know where she is.”
He checked the phone book, dialed, and let the phone ring six times. At last Cora Mae’s thin voice murmured—probably not to him—“Blamed phone. Don’t know why I keep the fool thing.”
He began talking rapidly. “My wife is Brandy O’Bannon. She talked to you yesterday. Last night she had a note from a ‘Robert Steadly.’ He asked her to meet him. Said he had a connection with a family my wife is interested in. The Starks, I think. I need to know how to get in touch with Robert Steadly.”
Cora Mae snorted, “This some kinda crank call?”
John raised his voice an octave but kept it patient. “Late today Brandy went to meet this man at Paynes Prairie. He was supposed to be bird watching. She hasn’t come home. Is he a member of your family?”
“I reckon you better check that whopper with your wife, young man. There ain’t no Robert Steadly—not in Micanopy and no place else I ever heard of.”
John gripped the phone. “You’re sure?”
“I reckon I know my own family. Ain’t no one by that name. I’d see what your wife is up to, fella.”
John thanked her and banged down the receiver. “Damn!” He hated being right about this. He’d warned her. He glanced again at his watch—8:40. No one would still be in the Rangers’ Office. He was debating what to do next when the phone rang.
He snatched it up, ready to tear into Brandy for her thoughtlessness. A calm male voice stopped him. “Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. Mr. Able? You and your wife own a light blue Pius, Florida license number X21KHF?”
John’s hand shook. “Yes. Was there an accident?”
The soothing voice continued. “Fact is, we don’t know, sir. The car was found in the parking lot at Paynes Prairi
e after the park closed. Can you tell us about it?”
John felt weak—glad he wasn’t hearing about a fatal car crash—but faint with worry. He carried the phone to the couch and steadied himself with the other hand as he eased himself down. “My wife was to meet a man there about 4:00 this afternoon. I haven’t heard from her since. I just found out he gave her a phony name.”
The quiet voice at the other end of the line had authority. “We’ll notify the Park Manager right now. Don’t worry, sir. They’ll send rangers out to search. You got an idea where she was to meet this guy?”
Silently, John cursed. “He was to leave her a note at the entrance. It would tell her where. He was supposed to be a birder.”
“Better give me a description of your wife.”
“Medium height, reddish hair, thirty years old.” He swallowed. “Nice figure.” He pushed himself up again and stepped to the desk. “I’ll be at the park as soon as I can get someone to watch the baby.”
“Gotcha. I’ll call the Park Manager now, give him the description.”
When John reached Hope, her reaction was frantic. “Oh, God!” Tears trembled in her voice. “What have I got Brandy into?”
John answered simply, “You want to help, come sit with Brad. I’ve got to get out there.”
* * *
A white splinter of moonlight shone through the wax myrtle, and a chill breeze stirred the leaves. All else lay in blackness. Lines from MacBeth came to Brandy, as they often did: “Good things of day began to droop and drowse; whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse …” It was those black agents that worried her. Where were the black, shining eyes?
From the marsh beyond came the whirrings and chirpings of crickets and frogs. Brandy could squint with only one eye. Her head throbbed, her legs and feet felt numb, her skull ached, but her vision seemed clearer. A sharp pain shot through her shoulder when she moved. She managed to roll out of the ditch but could not pull herself up. She breathed weakly. A sticky fluid oozed down her neck from the back of her head. If she moved, she would injure herself more. Wait for rescue.
Her mind spun with disjointed memories—a sudden blow, limbs and twigs scratching by as she fell, a choking band around her neck, rough hands grasping her, torture in her upper arms and shoulder, bristling stubble and stones, coarse weeds prickling her skin, and at the last, the stifling rush of brown, musty water; when the heavy pressure against her head and back finally stopped, she’d opened her eyes and gasped for breath, pain racking her throat; she shuddered; her final memory—the huge, hairy head with eyes like glittering slits.
She heard no footsteps, no voices. The bulky shapes had disappeared. She was alone—unless … From the tower she’d spotted a long, scaly hump in the shallow prairie lake. An alligator, of course. They slept in the sun by day, hunted by night. How far was she from that lake? What else lived in fetid water and emerged to hunt?
She must act to save herself. Was she still in the same place where she was when attacked? She sniffed and smelled the faint odor of asphalt and perhaps dried fennel. She should be near the same trail. A few feeble attempts to push her body up failed. Her aching arms would not respond and her left shoulder burned. She knew she could never crawl away, and her eyes filled. Her head was injured and had bled. With sore fingers, she burrowed through the sticks and high grass on the slight rise beside her, searching for her canvas bag with her cell. It was gone.
Of course. Steadly would take the phone, the original letter, and the note he left with the ranger. Her fingers scrabbled over her jeans, dug into empty pockets, explored her torn shirt. Finally they touched her lightweight jacket, flung down beside her. She could drag it across her against the oncoming cold, but in her mind flickered a better idea. The jacket was cream-colored, almost white. She must lift her right arm and hold it. She managed to grasp the zipper edge—her arm felt like wet spaghetti—summoned all her waning strength and hurled it as high as she could at the wax myrtle. It thudded midway up the small tree, slid down the branches about a foot, snagged on a brittle twig, and hung there. The effort exhausted her.
She tried to calm herself by thinking of John and Brad. The thought made her more anxious. There had been the medium’s final warning: “Be very careful … you have put yourself in danger.” She hadn’t listened. Not really. A gray fog settled behind her eyes. She might still die. She closed the lids and began to lose all sense of time and place.
And then Brandy felt something slither across her shins. The final segment of a long, narrow weight pressed down while a sliver of moonlight fell on the marsh grass. A fat, brown-black snake was sliding slowly over the stubble. Its triangular head twisted left and right, hunting—a cottonmouth, so close Brandy could see the black stripe along its head. Its elliptical eyes gleamed like points of ebony. Brandy’s heartbeat seemed to stop. Paralyzed, she drew in her breath and held it. All pit vipers could detect the warm blood of a mammal. If she tried to squirm away, the snake would surely strike. If it did, how long before help found her? The last of the snake’s stubby tail glided over her lower legs, coiled its thick body, lifted and swiveled its flat head toward her. Its wide, cottony mouth gaped open.
Brandy prayed the posture was defensive. She was conscious of the chorus of crickets and frogs rising from the lake, but of no comforting voices or car engines. The black head swayed. In her terror she cut her glance toward the grass beside her. Among the roots of the wax myrtle, she glimpsed a slight movement.
* * *
By the time John drove into the park entrance, the night had grown even darker. He could scarcely make out the outlines of the tollbooth cottage, but a slim figure brandishing a beam of light stood beside a vehicle nearby. A wiry ranger of about fifty with a grayish beard and scant hair was waiting with a strong flashlight.
“I’m Tony,” he said after John cut off his engine and headlights and stepped out of his van. “You better ride with me, Mr. Able. It’s pretty damn dark out there. I’ve got a park vehicle, and I know the trails.” John locked his van and climbed into a pickup beside the ranger. “Sorry about your wife,” Tony added. “We already got three rangers out scouting the trails. It’s hard on a night this black.”
The ranger popped a stick of gum into his mouth before released the parking brake. “Gave up smoking two years ago. Still fighting the battle.” John noted a wad of gum wrappers in the ashtray. The ranger handed him two maps of the Preserve’s trails and shifted into drive. “We found your wife’s car in the visitor parking lot. We already called the volunteer working the Visitor’s Center this afternoon. She thinks she remembers seeing your wife look at the displays and climb up the tower to view the Prairie. She seemed fine then, but she was alone.”
John beat his hand on his knee. “I’ve got no idea where she was supposed to meet this guy. Have you talked to whoever took entrance fees this afternoon?”
“She wasn’t the regular volunteer, just a ranger covering for a few minutes. We’re trying to reach her now.”
John was surprised when Tony began wheeling the truck around to head back out the entrance. He flicked on the high beam and set off north on Route 441.
“We got 21,000 acres here,” he said, “and thousands of sinkholes. There are eight trails, some miles long and some short. I’ve marked the ones being searched now—Wahoota near the center and Lake Trail around Lake Wauberg.” He glanced over at John. “One of the rangers says he’s a friend of your wife’s, a guy named Grant Wilson. He says he’s helping her look into some family matter. She’s a newspaper woman?”
John nodded. “That’s right,” he said, but he had no intention of explaining Brandy’s record of dangerous investigations.
Years earlier when John first knew her, she had piloted his pontoon boat across a lake for help and was almost rammed—deliberately—by a powerboat. She could have drowned. Several days later she had been targeted and atta
cked with a tire iron.
Another year she took a small boat out onto the Suwannee River during a storm and found herself imprisoned on a houseboat. She escaped only to later suffer a deadly blow from a fire extinguisher.
In Homosassa she ventured alone—twice—into isolated woods. The first time she was almost shot, and the second time abandoned for dead in a forgotten cistern. John massaged his forehead, as if trying to erase those memories. Who knew what would happen in Micanopy? He didn’t choose to think about it.
Tony returned to business. “You and I will head for the north rim. We’ll search the Hawthorne Trail and the first part of the La Chua Trail. On foot she wouldn’t be able to get too far. We’ll access the Hawthorne Trail from 15th Street in Gainesville.” With one hand on the wheel, Tony pulled his cell phone from a clip and with the other punched a number, listened for a few seconds, then reported to John, “Nothing yet.”
At an interpretive building near 15th Street, now closed tight, the park manager had arranged for a switch to an all-terrain vehicle. John settled himself behind the ranger’s back on the seat pad, glad they were both lean men. They took off to intersect the Hawthorne Trail. The paved trail ran in a straight line through the darkness ahead, like a path vanishing into eternity. Both water oaks and turkey oaks rose up on either side. The ATV bounced along for almost a mile. John could see nothing beyond the line of trees. At a fork in the path, Tony curved right and roared up to a fenced overlook. A covered bench sat among low shrubs. The ranger ground to a halt beside it.
“People often stop here to rest,” he said. “On foot she couldn’t get much farther without a pause.” He hung binoculars around his neck, swung off the seat, and walked to an overlook, John beside him. The ranger shone his bright beam across the wooden fence and scanned the marsh beyond the dense shrubbery. A menacing black band of standing water stretched before them. As the light probed the grassy waste to the east, a deer bounded up and dashed out of sight. Something large splashed into the water—an alligator sliding into the sinkhole. John shuddered. Brandy was out there somewhere, helpless. All now lay still.