by Tom Poland
Tyler held her hands under me. “Now take a nice deep breath and lie on your back.”
I breathed in and leaned back but all my body wanted to do was sink. Her hands brought me up. “Tilt your head all the way back so your ears are just beneath the surface. Breathe deep.”
I did as she said and seawater curled into my ears, muting sounds, making them seem far away. Tyler’s words came as if from another dimension ... “Now spread your arms out and relax.”
I spread my arms, relaxed, and felt her hands beneath me so lightly I wasn’t sure they were touching me. This time the sea pushed up against me and I was floating. I lay there flutter kicking for a long time, jubilant I could float. Than a churning sound began to grow within the sea and soon the water itself vibrated. I stood and looked out to sea. Jackson. One day ahead of schedule. A pang shot through my heart.
He needs a drink, I hoped. Tyler turned to the noise and stood in the surf.
“If he’s coming to get me, I don’t have my tent packed or anything ready.”
At the crest of a wave, Jackson, smoking, saw us, stood, crisscrossing his arms frantically. Then the boat nose-dived. The engine quit and the boat vanished behind a wave. The boat crested about twenty yards from where the waves toppled into foam. Now the Whaler was turning sideways toward us, and pitching with each wave. We could see the boat rise, then fall. Jackson stumbled back to the engine compartment just as the boat fell behind a breaker.
A concussion and deafening boom passed through me, and the bow rose into view on fire. Another explosion rocked the air. Orange flames and black smoke shot into the sky and the boat began to melt. Jackson stumbled around on fire like some showboating Hollywood stunt man as he and his Whaler sunk in a pool of flames, like some war scene, and just like that, we were marooned.
It happened so fast, there was little we could do but watch. A debris field of rotten life jackets, plastic jugs, and trash began to form up. The flotsam headed toward shore, bobbing and easing over the waves like corks. With remarkable coolness, Tyler turned to me. “How in Hell am I going to get Lorie off the island now?”
I looked at her. She seemed to have a cold side to her, this Tyler. Jackson’s death meant nothing to her but it meant more time with her and for that I was grateful.
We were trapped on an island where killers roamed and nights concealed unknown horrors. A new mindset sunk in as we headed back to camp. I stopped to survey the channel. We were truly helpless now, at the mercy of the island and its deadly nights, and now this day was dying. The sun’s rays struck the channel at a low angle, and the water shone against the horizon with luminous radiance. The sun was large, molten, and lustrous, throwing a quivering, burning sphere onto the water, the same water that had just claimed Jackson. We’d witnessed another death, but that was just another part of island life, which went on not missing a beat. The poignant song of that bird of the Southern dark—the whippoorwill—floated across the water and the changing of Nature’s guard began. Sun-struck animals gave way to creatures coming to claim the night, and a deer walked from the forest to drink at the channel’s edge.
“I find it hard to see how people can shoot them,” said Tyler. “They’re so beautiful, so graceful.”
“Some people—like Garrett—shoot people and animals.”
“Well, I have no way to leave the island now. That means nothing, and I mean nothing, will stop me from finding Lorie but death itself.”
I looked at her face in the dying light, which beautifully reflected pure resolve but it did nothing to stop the bad feeling festering within me. The mother-daughter bond is unbreakable except in the most severe of falling-outs. Between them, fourteen birthdays, seven Mother’s days, and seven Christmases had gone by, and all Tyler had to show for it was one letter.
“Maybe your daughter doesn’t want you to find her?”
“No. That is out of the question.”
“Then why hasn’t she tried to contact you?” I asked. The question hung in the air. Tyler appeared flustered, but only for a second, before snapping back.
“I told you she said she’d never come back until she knows Hines is dead.”
“Coming back is one thing but shutting you out is another. How would she know he’s dead. Believe me, your murdering Hines wasn’t on the national news. Why hasn’t she sent you another letter or even a post card? You know, ‘Hi mom, I’m still alive. Don’t worry’—that kind of thing.”
“If she’s on this island how do you propose she send me a letter? Put it in her pelican’s pouch and train him to fly to North Carolina?”
“Suppose she lived in Charleston or Savannah. She could have dropped you a post card. Admit it. There’s a chance she’s just written you off.”
“You need an excuse to give up looking for her? Is that it? I don’t need your help, you know. Just go do your voodoo article and leave me to my own problems. I told you from the beginning we could do our own thing.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m thinking of you, not your daughter. You may be in for a big disappointment.”
“If she’s not here, I’ll keep searching …”
“You’re so obsessed with finding her you may be overlooking something basic.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to see you.”
“What are you driving at?” she asked.
“ ‘Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.’ George Bernard Shaw wrote that.”
“Shaw, yes, a playwright, but we’re talking real life here not some drama played out on a stage. What’s your point?”
“Over the past seven years, a sixteen-year-old kid has grown into a woman. Maybe she doesn’t want anything to do with the past anymore. What if you find Lorie and she refuses to see you?”
Tyler turned and walked toward the sea that had claimed Jackson. I turned for camp.
The next morning an upbeat Tyler was up making coffee.
“Do you think Jackson just wanted money and liquor?”
“Maybe … maybe he just needed a drink.”
I expected Cameron in a few weeks and when he arrived, Tyler would have a way back to the mainland. Cameron would take photographs of Rikard conjuring and I wanted photographs of the poachers in action. We’d have to put our lives on the line, like war correspondents, and I hoped like hell Cameron would bring a camera for clandestine work. We needed a quiet camera with a silent lens slap that wouldn’t betray our presence. Human poaching was the story, not the piece on voodoo. If one story had to be sacrificed, it’d be Rikard’s voodoo. Human poachers: that was a blockbuster.
Now that we had the luxury of more time, I decided to postpone going to Rikard’s hideout and walk the beach north to the village. It was nine miles, and we stood little chance of running into poachers along the surf line … I hoped. If we ran into anyone, we’d pass ourselves off as shellers.
We set out for the beach with our walking sticks, Voodoo, and water. As we went, we gathered shells to make our story stick. Unlike tourist-trodden beaches, Sapelo’s shores teemed with shells. We gathered the most beautiful whelks, angel wings, pen shells, slipper shells, coquina, and olive shells. We found starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars and all went into Tyler’s precious basket. We found fossilized sharks teeth, which I knew were millions of years old. We were, in fact, shellers, and a balmy breeze and fragrant coconut sun lotion added reality to our ruse.
We had walked close to four miles when an apparition appeared on the horizon, a white shimmering vision. The phantom gained size, shape, and clarity as we walked, it drifting toward us. Slowly, the apparition revealed itself—a black man dressed in a flowing white tunic. He wore a turban of pure white cotton and matched the description Jackson had given us to a T.
Like old West gunfighters in a high-noon showdown, we walked toward each other, stopped ten paces away, then met face to face.
“My name is Slater Watts. This is my friend Tyler Hill.”
I offered my hand and he took it, then bowed to Tyler.
“My name is Oleander. That is one word, not two,” he said in an accent altogether different from the boys and murderers. “I lived over there once,” he said, pointing toward the mainland. “Some mainlanders think my name is ‘Olie Anders.’ It is “Oleander. I have no last name nor do I need one. I come to welcome you to Sapelo. The boys told me about your dog, the dog that has a fierce bark like a wolf. It frightened them.”
“When did the boys tell you this?” I asked.
“When? Days ago.”
“How did you know where to find us?” I asked.
“How? Where else would you be but by the channel near the sea?” said Oleander, holding his arm out such that the tunic fluttered in the sea breeze like a flag. He made a sweep along the coast that ended up pointing in the direction of camp. “The channel—the heart of the island—pumps life through here,” he said, swinging his arm inland across the channel. “From here, you can go anywhere.”
“You are named for the flower I presume,” said Tyler.
“Yes, I am named for the flower. I never knew my mother, but her last request before she died was to name me Oleander. It is a bittersweet story. She named me Oleander because I was pretty but fatal. My mother became ill giving birth to me … it took her three weeks to die. Aunt Shabba tells me my mother named me Oleander because I was a sweet, beautiful child but was, in fact, her death, as if she had eaten the Oleander’s poisonous leaves.”
“You have a beautiful name. I’m sure your mother loved you,” said Tyler.
“A beautiful name? Why thank you. You are kind. I love her, though I never knew her.”
“Tell me Oleander, have you seen a young white woman here followed by a pelican?” asked Tyler, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, her habit when questioning someone about her daughter.
“Have I seen a young white woman? I myself, no, but fellow islanders tell me of the lonely pelican. The lonely pelican, they say, has no need for food, just the love of the white woman. While the other pelicans fly in their Vs foraging for fish, the lonely pelican flies above the blonde woman, protecting her. They say he needs only her and that he has no need to eat … that she feeds him love. That’s what they say.”
“A young white woman lives here, but you haven’t seen her,” Tyler said.
“It would seem a young white woman lives here, that’s what I’m telling you, but I do not know where,” he replied, his hand coming up as if to point, then falling. “It is a big island, many islands within an island really.”
Oleander stood tall and erect and never broke eye contact with Tyler. He had the bearing of a Masai warrior, though he wore no red as Masai do. Tyler, as always, was working her newest contact, rocking from leg to leg, consumed. Though Oleander had nothing of substance for her he supported Jackson’s claim that a woman attended by a pelican might be on the island.
Tyler gave me her burning look of determination, her come Hell or high water, I’m getting what I want look. Her direct line of questioning was over, so mine could begin. She walked over and sat on a large driftwood log and Voodoo—fierce wolf dog—settled onto the sand to nap. I turned to Oleander. He was the break we had been seeking.
“Do you know Rikard, the voodoo priest?”
“Do I know the voodoo priest? I know the Mullet Man and have spoken to him. He is very much a mystery, but I like the man.”
“Where does he live? I need to talk to him. I hear he lives on the south side of the island, somewhere deep in the interior. Is this true?”
“Where? I do not know. You need to talk to him, about what?”
“I’m writing a story about voodoo. They say he has great powers.”
“A story about voodoo … He has great powers for certain. Do you believe in voodoo?” Oleander asked.
“I want to,” I said. “Do you?”
“Do I? No, I became a Christian during my years on the mainland. I live for the Cross … but what matters is the believing itself. That is enough.”
“So, can you tell me where he lives?”
“Tell you where he lives … I do not know. The Mullet Man always finds those who seek him. He knows this island like no one else. He will tell you Sapelo is his fortress.”
Oleander stood before me—an amalgam of African, American, mainlander, and islander oddly out of place on Sapelo. Some people permit you to form a true opinion at once. Oleander was one. I sized him up as a gentle-hearted man who survived on this harsh island in a self-effacing way, as if the will had been beaten from him but he had somehow regained it and, over time, a sense of dignity that life had also beat away.
We talked at great length. Oleander had the odd habit of echoing—repeating almost word-for-word what was said to him, then revealing his true thoughts. When I said, “This Rikard, this voodoo priest is, no black man I can assure you. He’s as white as I am,” Oleander replied, “This Rikard is no black man, but he knows the value of pretending to be black on Sapelo, something you can learn from.”
I found Oleander’s repetitious way of talking more truthful than the oblique talk of accomplished liars who look you straight in the eye and bend words to their purpose.
“So, finding the Mullet Man is not easy,” I said.
“Finding the Mullet man is not easy, but do not worry. He will find you.”
“Well, he found me once,” I said, knowing I owed my life to him.
“He found you already. See? He will find you again,” said Oleander, smiling, ivory teeth gleaming in the Southern sun.
“Then let’s not worry about Mullet Man,” I said. “Where is the hospital ship anchored?”
“Where is the hospital ship anchored? Slater, my newfound friend, how do you, a newcomer, come by this terrible truth so soon?”
“Bad luck. We were trying to find a back way into the village and ended up in a lagoon. Then we heard an airboat coming at us. We hid in rushes and saw a black surgeon cut out a man’s kidneys. Then they fed him to a gator.”
A dark look passed over Oleander.
“To a gator? That explains why Cade has not been seen in a week. He is the latest in a long line of citizens to vanish.”
“How long has it gone on?” I asked.
“How long? Fifteen years now.”
“Who are these people?”
“Who? Men from Sierra Leone. North of the island you will find their ship, gleaming white. Now and then a helicopter lands on it.”
“Tell me about the doctor.”
“The doctor? He gives the children candy.”
“He removes their kidneys too doesn’t he?” I could see the keloid glistening in the sun upon the boy crabbing.
“Remove their kidneys? Some children, bearing scars, live here. It saddens me to see the children grow up. Then the airboat gets them and they never return. The doctor says their body abandons its owner. He says no black magic, no white man’s medicine, can do anything once the body forsakes its owner. That is what the doctor says. The doctor sends a priestess into the village to tell their family they are dead.”
“What kind of priestess?”
“A mambo tells the family their loved one has gone to the next world. Then they dance around a bonfire and invoke the spirits by drumming, singing, and feasting. Spirits possess the dancers and the dancers, in a trance, console the bereaved ones.”
“Where are the children buried?”
“Buried? The doctors say the fallen ones possess a contagion that will consume the people. He says they bury the remains at sea in a ceremony as old as Africa itself.”
“Do you believe the doctors?”
“Do I believe? All my life I have thought of doctors as angels. When I was young, I fell into a fire. A white man pulled me from the coals, which stuck to my legs like molten burrs.”
Oleander raised his tunic to reveal mottled legs scarred with the pale melted flesh burns become with passing time.
“A doctor did his best to ease my suf
fering. I have loved doctors ever since. It is hard for me not to believe them.”
“I saw this doctor cut out Cade’s kidneys. They iced them down and fed him to a monstrous gator.”
“Then they are devils,” Oleander said, abandoning his customary way of talking. “They are devils for certain.”
“The worst kind,” I said as Tyler got up from her driftwood bench and walked toward us, Voodoo following.
“He’s telling the truth, Oleander. They butchered Cade. Devils they are.”
“Yes, Oleander,” I said, “Who’s getting the kidneys?”
“Who’s getting the kidneys? I cannot know.”
“Take us into the village.”
“Take you there? I cannot today. The day will wear away before we know it,” he said, a troubled look on his black, shining face.
“I’m looking for Rikard and a professor named Mallory and she’s looking for her daughter.”
“I see. You seek Rikard and the lonely pelican girl. And the professor.”
“Yes, the white man who studies black magic. Here’s his photograph.”
“This man I know. He hides somewhere deep in the island. They say he talks a peculiar talk of strange words. That’s what they say.”
“How do you know this?”
“How? It is known by all. Ask Rikard.”
Again, all answers lay in Rikard—the Mullet Man—the wind capable of blowing away the mists obscuring all things on Sapelo.
“Why don’t you join us tonight for dinner just before sunset?”
“Join you for dinner? I cannot. I come to welcome you. I must take care of some business. The villagers do not trust white people or mainlanders … I know. I spent many years on the mainland. I was born here and left, but returned many years later. Do not go to the village alone.”
“Come visit us again, as soon as you can. When you do, then can we go into the village?”
“Go into the village … we’ll see Slater Watts. Whether we do or not, I will visit you again. Soon, I hope. Now I must leave,” and then he bowed.
We turned back to camp and walked, discouraged yet oddly hopeful. Some minutes later, I looked back. Oleander had again become an apparition in the intensifying heat and it seemed he had been a figment of our imagination.