by Tom Poland
Mary gave me a long comforting hug. She was pretty and, in truth, had become Brit’s mother.
“It’s good to see you too. How’s my girl?”
“The same, always the same,” she said, unhappiness in her voice.
“I need to ask you a favor. Let’s go to the cafeteria, so we can talk.”
The cafeteria, with red and yellow wallpaper and white tables—intended to be cheery—felt more like a fast food restaurant off a lonely stretch of interstate. Sadness lived here, and no interior designer in the world could bring one second of happiness to any parents with a child here.
“Mary,” I said, my throat thickening, a sensation that always afflicted me here, “I have tried every specialist, every doctor, and every method known to awaken Brit.”
Mary slid her hand across the table, taking mine. Her face, a saccharine face, sweetened even more.
“You try harder than anyone to do something for your little girl. Most family members give up, but you keep coming and hoping and trying,” she said, stroking my hand.
“I’ll do what I can to the end. That’s why I’m going to try something different, really different this time, but you’ll think I’m crazy.
“I’d never think that.”
“I need you to cut two locks of Brit’s hair and to collect a … a vial of her urine.”
“You are crazy. Just what on Earth are you up to Slater?”
“I’ve accepted an assignment to go to a wild island, track down a medicine man, and write a story about him and his island medicine. I’m hoping he can break Brit’s trance.”
“She’s in a coma, Slater.”
“Let’s think of it as a trance from now on. I stopped by a black magic shop where an old woman told me a medicine man could break trances. She told me to get two locks of Brit’s hair, Ann’s cell phone, some of Brit’s urine, and something she loved. I have her Teddy bear. That’s the easy part. The hard part is getting two bloodstained squares from the seats where Ann and Brit were sitting.”
“You can’t go back to that car.”
“I have to.”
“I’ll go with you. Okay?”
“Yes, please.”
Mary stood and took me by the arm.
“The medical profession doesn’t look kindly on practicing medicine without a license, but what have we got to lose?”
We went to Brit’s room. Seeing the pale sleeping princess always ripped me open. She lay there thin, ashen, breathing shallow, covered by sheets that never moved except when nurses turned her to lessen her bedsores. A pump slowly clicked, sending nutrients into her stomach through a tube. She seemed at peace. I kissed her cool forehead, leaned over, and let my body gently touch hers. She felt famished, like a pet sinking towards death, a diseased puppy that’s given up, ready to die.
Mary softly closed the door, went over to a cabinet, and came back with scissors. She lifted Brit and snipped two blonde locks from the back of her head, placed them into a plastic bag, then gently lowered her head onto the pillow.
She went to another cabinet and took out a vial. She pulled a tube loose from a bag hanging beneath the bed and let the tube drip into the vial until full with golden bubbles that slowly rose to the top. She reconnected the tube to the bag, corked the vial, and handed it to me. It felt milk-warm.
“Just how will your medicine man use this?”
“I don’t have a clue. All I need now is the blood-stained fabric.”
“Let me do it for you.”
“No. I have to do it. If someone else does it, the medicine won’t take. I’m leaving town tomorrow. Can you go in the morning?”
“Of course. I’ll take tomorrow off. Pick me up at my place.”
Mary drew a neat map on an envelope and wrote her phone number on it, and then she hugged me for a long time.
***
I picked Mary up at 10 AM sharp at a modest home on a neat court. We made our way past shopping centers, churches, a Wal-Mart, and liquor stores into some rough neighborhoods through some weedy countryside until we came to a large, fenced-in area spilling over with vanquished cars and trucks—Jake’s Junk Yard.
An eerie calm took hold of me as we entered the junkyard’s graveled driveway. Mary and I went into a concrete block building where a large, balding man sat reading the paper. He wore a blue National Linen shirt with “Jake” stenciled in red onto a white oval.
“Yes sir, what can I do for you? Is it a part you’re looking for?”
“I need to locate a wreck.”
“Lay flowers on it?”
“No.”
“Oh, still having problems with the insurance company?”
Mary stepped between Jake and me. “Don’t be so nosy.”
Taken aback, Jake retreated.
“What kind of car is it?” he asked, running his hand beneath his nose.
“It’s a 1999 Honda Accord, burgundy. Tag number ZEP 189,” I said, my calmness beginning to seep away.
“I know the car,” Jake said, stepping behind a counter to a file where he leafed through a sheath of yellow papers.
“That was five years ago wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. Five years ago this month.”
He pulled out a tattered map as yellow as corn.
“Drive past here through the yard until you come to a fork. Take the left fork. The car will be over here—he circled a square—in some pine saplings close by a large oak tree.” Jake stepped out from behind the counter and looked with suspicion towards Mary.
“Do you mind if I ask why you want to see it? Most people never come back. It’s too hard on ’em.”
“I need two pieces of seat fabric.”
“That’s a first,” said Jake, “but if that’s all you need help yourself. Watch out for wasp nests. They love these old cars. You can keep the map.”
We walked out beneath a blazing sun, got into the Land Rover, and drove past old trucks and cars with shattered windshields with rent margins glittering like diamonds. One windshield had a neat hole where a head had gone through and mangled cars had doors and hoods missing. Two pickup trucks locked grills in a perpetual head-on collision. Bereft of vital parts, the skeletons of many cars lay rusting beneath an unkind sun.
Just past an overturned truck, a large oak shaded a few cars. I spotted Ann’s car wedged against an old van and got out with the greatest of effort. The driver-side door was missing. Mary took my hand.
The wreck and all its horror came back to me. I remembered the day I had bought the car for Ann. Cars define us. Cars destroy us. They live on, long after their owners are gone. Some, I knew, were sold as scrap, smelted, and recast, like born-again Christians. This car that had held two people whom I loved, this car held my own mortality. Seeing Ann’s broken car made me want to die. I saw how simply this steel machine, rolling on rubber, could destroy love and hope.
I pulled out a box cutter and steeled myself. Windshield shards shone like sequins on the front seat. A wasp soared from a small nest clinging to the dome light, and a bloodstain ran down the front seat like a streamer of rust off a sunken ship. Leaning in, I sliced a square of fabric from Ann’s seat, folded it, and placed it into a zip lock bag. Brit’s seat was more difficult. I had to pull hard on the back door, which creaked and groaned and resisted opening. I stretched across the seat and sliced a strip of bloodstained fabric, crumpled Jake’s map and tossed it away, took Mary by the hand, and never looked back.
I had the ingredients Rikard would need to break Brit’s trance, but would it work and what price would Rikard demand?
We lunched at Holland’s Deli where Mary’s foot brushed against my leg beneath a faux green marble table and lingered. “How long will you be gone?”
“All summer on into autumn probably.”
“All summer? I don’t feel good about this.” Her leg pressed harder.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I wish you had some way to call me. How will I know if you’re all right?”
“Just believe
I’ll be okay because I will.”
Mary came over to my side of the booth, sat next to me, kissed me, and told me she’d be there for Brit, and I knew she would, but would Brit be there when I returned?
***
By Thursday morning, I had arranged for my house’s care into early fall. I loaded up the Land Rover and left Atlanta around 1 P.M. I caught a final glance of Atlanta in my rearview mirror and when the city vanished around a curve, I felt I had left it forever.
The Land Rover was now my sole companion. Built for military use, abuse meant nothing. It was old, dented, and in need of some work but it was dependable and able to ford streams, climb hillsides, and rumble through rock-strewn gullies. It had never stranded nor disappointed me, but once I reached the continent’s edge, we’d part for summer’s remainder.
As the wheels hummed along I-85, Murphy’s words came back to me. “No power, no phones. You’re on your own. A man whom pelicans follow, a man who kills people with his thoughts.”
It sounded like a Hollywood film and I would play my part. Civilization would cease to exist. I wouldn’t take a calendar. I’d let the days blur into nothing but sunrises and sunsets. No Mondays, no Saturdays, just a succession of days and nights and weeks, then months. Deciduous leaves and the dropped antlers of deer would tell me when summer began to fade and the green Spartina marshes turning golden would echo autumn’s refrain.
This savage emerald isle set against the trade winds promised much. Brit’s salvation. Escape. Self-realization and a chance to write something real. I’d have the pleasure of a deep sense of isolation for it was solitude I needed, a respite, a chance to recover from civilization’s wounds. Now I simply had to drive down to the “salt” to discover what my fate would be and who or what might deliver that fate.
My first stop would be in Columbia to see Cameron, a man who approached photography with a purity born of art. I wanted photographs of everything—Rikard’s rituals and the island. Cameron knew the Lowcountry and its swamps, rivers, and people, and he was honest. He would prepare me for whatever awaited.
Like all true artists, he had his own mission—the once-in-a-lifetime rainbow. If he ever shot the perfect rainbow in the perfect setting, he’d told me he’d make a fortune selling image rights to ad agencies, publishers, and magazines around the world. The rainbow seeker would be an invaluable source of advice and ally and the article I had in mind needed photographs of Rikard in his island hideaway conjuring magic.
***
I pulled into Columbia about three-and-a-half hours after leaving Atlanta. In the distance, a modest skyline arose, and the state Capitol’s copper dome zigzagged across my windshield then fell behind trees, but not before it resurrected Murphy’s words … “a savage, murderous island.” I crossed a bridge where mild rapids foamed and ran over jutting rocks and staircases and made my way into the Vista, a trendy riverfront district where Cameron’s studio stood near the crumbling Confederate Mint.
The copper dome of the Capitol focused me. Drive to the coast, find passage to the island, and establish camp. Then it would just be a matter of searching the island for Mallory and Rikard. The real problem would be the unknown … the complications fate might throw my way.
Entering Cameron’s studio, I spotted my friend bent over a light table where brilliant transparencies radiated a luster like jewels.
“Is that the perfect rainbow?”
Cameron looked up, surprised.
“I wasn’t expecting you for three hours.”
“I left early. I keep my camping gear ready. All I had to do was load up and hit the road. Rush hour here is a drop in the bucket compared to Atlanta.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Say, it’s been a while since I saw you.”
“Two years at least. Did Murphy square things with you?”
“Sure did. We worked out a deal, although he’s a tight son-of-a-bitch. He tells me you’re doing a story on voodoo.”
“Yes, I’m looking for a white hoodoo priest, Rikard Blackshear. Know him?”
“I met him once. Some people call him the Mullet Man. He claims to be black, but he’s as white as you and me.”
“So I hear. What does he look like?”
“He changes his appearance when he goes to the mainland to keep the law off track. He runs drugs now and then, so folks say. One day, he’ll be a shrimper, the next a retiree. The one time I met him, he was himself: blue eyes and straight hair gathered into a ponytail, sharp features, and a shock of graying, almost white beard. He’s tall, lean, and likes to wear baseball caps and can cuss the horns off a billy goat.”
“Likes profanity does he. Well, if I spot a white guy with a cap cursing up a blue streak, I’ll have my man. Listen, this assignment could be big. I negotiated with the magazine for the rights to the story so you and I can publish this article anywhere we want.”
“It’s hard to believe Murphy is doing an article on island medicine. I’ll be surprised if it ever sees print,” said Cameron, shaking his head in disbelief.
“It does seem out of character for Murphy,” I said, “but he has ulterior reasons for sending me to the island. For one thing, he’s ill with some strange affliction and he’s looking for a cure. Plus, there’s a story behind the story. Murphy’s twin brother, Mallory, has been missing on Forbidden Island a long time. I’m to find him and bring him back to Atlanta.”
“What’s that about?”
“Some kind of feud over inheritance. Murphy wants to bury the hatchet.”
“Well, just surviving on the island will be hard enough, much less tracking down a missing man. On top of that, you’ve got a tough story to write. You must be sick of the city, sure enough.”
“Sick of death. Last Friday I witnessed a murder but had no way to stop it. I need the escape, plus I have a chance to write something real, which is rare. Would you rather photograph kayakers on the Chattooga or a stuffed-shirt attorney posing by his cherry desk?”
“You know the answer.”
“Well, there you go. Rikard sounds like some movie character. Murphy says animals follow him and do his bidding as if he’s a messiah. Throw in his island medicine and survival skills and you have a real subject.”
Cameron got a strange look in his eyes and walked over to a map pinned to a wall. “People down here,” he said pointing to the Carolina Lowcountry, “say he can summon the island’s animals, … that pelicans crowd around him like hummingbirds at a feeder.”
“That’s pretty damn amazing … if it’s true,” I said.
“Oh, it’s true. Rikard’s of us but not with us,” Cameron said, pausing. “Here’s what I know about him. He lived seven years with a black man named Delano who taught him the natural ways and island medicine. He’s a survivalist too, a disciple of Tom Mitchell. Old Rikard loves to talk survival.”
“I met Mitchell once freelancing a survivalist story for Ultimate Outdoors” I said. “So, just how do I find the mysterious Rikard?”
“Don’t know that you should. People down in the Lowcountry say a big change has come over him. He’s taken his protection of the island to a new level, and violence is second nature to him, but to answer your question, a friend in Savannah claims Rikard lives somewhere in the south interior. Nobody knows where for sure.”
“Violent?”
“Very.”
“Well who lives on the northern side?”
“Natives, but don’t go there alone. Find a black man who can escort you to the village.”
“What’s that about?”
“The color of your skin. Don’t enter the village without a black escort.”
“What happens if I go in on my own?”
“They’ll kill you and the seagulls will pick your bones clean.”
“Kill me? Well, we’ll see what waits on Forbidden Island, the island of death. It sure sounds strange. Murphy says Rikard kills people with black magic.”
“That he does,” said Cameron. “Last summer, I got an assignment to shoot hand-
made cast nets for an article on island crafts. I followed some leads on net makers that eventually led to Rikard. He makes cast nets the old way, and that’s how we met. He met me on the south end of the island. I’ll tell you one thing. He isn’t shy about his powers. Here’s a story that’ll make you think. For years, Rikard took women from Charleston and Savannah on shelling expeditions to a beach that always produced great shells. Of course, it was for money, but I’m sure he seduced some too. He’s one of those rugged survivor types women fall for. Anyway, a big-time developer bought the beach and made it off limits. The two got into a big tiff. Rikard told the man he’d die of stomach cancer in six months. Damned if he didn’t … in six months he was dead. The man’s wife begged Rikard to take the hex off. She even told him she’d sleep with him and she did, but Rikard double-crossed her and refused to take away his hex. The developer re-opened the beach, but it was too late.”
“Old Mullet Man sounds ruthless. Merciless or not, I’m going to ask him to bring Brit out of her coma. That’s the best reason of all to go to the island.”
“Brit’s the same I see.”
“No, she’s starting to slip. The doctors give her six more months maybe.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Very sorry. Well, if you need to escape the city, Sapelo is the place to go. Hell, you’re escaping the continent even. But remember Sapelo is a wild place where survival of the fittest rules supreme. Nothing is safe there, not even the trees. The ocean comes right up into the trees and washes away their roots. In time, they topple into the sea. Then the sun and salt spray sculpt them into weathered works of art. Death can be beautiful.”
Cameron went to a black file cabinet and pulled out a large manila envelope.
“I flew over the island last summer in an Air National Guard chopper to photograph the sinking of a W.W.II battleship. They do that to make artificial reefs, you know. On the way back I asked the pilot if he’d set down on the beach at Sapelo’s south end. I almost couldn’t talk him into it. Had to promise him one of my coffeetable books. I stayed in the chopper and braced a 135 millimeter zoom lens against the door frame and shot a quick series of trees toppled into the sea.”