by Tom Poland
The killer took charge of his nocturnal expedition into birth and death.
“Now, finding a nesting turtle ain’t hard. The later it gets, the better our chances. We just walk the beach until we see a scrape running up to the dune line. A turtle always comes back to lay eggs where she hatched. Don’t need no electronics, no satellites, no compasses, no maps. She just knows. Ain’t no man can return to where he was born less someone tells him. Right?”
“Right,” said Tyler, “and no male turtle’s going to lay eggs. That’s the female’s job. As usual the male is off somewhere gallivanting.”
“That’s right, pretty lady. You know that’s right.”
We walked the beach for two hours before we spotted a wide scrape as if someone had hauled a desk up to the dune line. Rikard began to whisper.
“Stay here and let me take a look. I’ll see what’s happening. Once she starts laying eggs, we can go right up to her. You can pet her if you like pretty lady.”
“I’ll pass,” said Tyler. “Why don’t you?”
“Nah, I just want to take a few eggs, just a few.”
“Why turtle eggs?” I asked.
“They make the best cake you ever tasted,” said Rikard. “Talk about a rich batter—turtle eggs. Crystal likes turtle eggs better than chicken eggs.”
“What’s she got against chicken eggs?” asked Tyler, bending the conversation to her purpose. In the moonlight, her eyes sparkled, wide open to the power of possibility.
“We just don’t have ’em here. That seems to suit her fine.”
“How do you collect turtle eggs?” I asked, deflecting Tyler from Crystal talk.
“She’ll squirt out about 120 eggs like ping-pong balls covered in slime. Hard as hell to pick up. I let ’em drop into a bag. Just need a baker’s dozen.”
“They sound delicious,” Tyler deadpanned. “She’s helpless. How does stealing eggs agree with your leave-nature-alone philosophy?”
“Well, she lays maybe 120. I get thirteen. That’s 107 left to carry on. At least I ain’t killing her. Stay here long enough and you’ll find turtles washed ashore with no flippers, no head. Shrimpers cut ’em off.”
“Why?” asked Tyler.
“They kill ’em to keep ’em from tearing up their nets. Shhhhh,” he said, holding a finger to his lips. “It’s turtle time.”
Rikard eased down the beach, crossed the dunes catlike, and disappeared into the night. A few minutes later, he stood atop a distant dune ridge.
“C’mon up,” he shouted.
We walked up to a massive dune where a turtle was dropping eggs into a hole. Covered with barnacles and shells, she must have weighed 300 pounds. Other sea creatures had hitched a ride on her carapace, and she smelled earthy, organic, of salt and sulfur.
Rikard placed a sack beneath her, catching eggs, a string of slime escorting their fall. Tears oozed from the seaturtle’s eyes.
“Once these old girls start laying you can do what you want to ’em. I’ve heard ’bout people killing ’em with an ax. Me, I just want a few eggs.”
“What keeps her from leaving?” asked Tyler.
“Instinct. Once she starts laying, nothing stops her ’cept of course a bullet or an ax against the head. The urge to nest is so strong, she won’t budge ’till she’s done. Wants her babies to incubate in sunlit sand, nature’s hatchery.”
We watched her finish, cover the eggs with her flippers, dig another hole and cover it to confuse the masked bandits of the night—raccoons. Then she lumbered into the surf and disappeared beneath the dark, cresting Atlantic.
Part one of Rikard’s expedition into nature’s cycle of life and death was over. We struck out for Rikard’s camouflaged bateau and arrived at a small creek after a moonlit walk through silvery panic grass, seaoats, skittering ghost crabs, and golden asters.
Rikard began poling us to a lagoon to spotlight baby gators, from which we’d make our way into a larger sequestered lagoon he christened the Bone Yard, a watery graveyard filled with sunlight-blanched human bones.
Rikard lectured as he poled.
“Now ’gators love to hang out in this lagoon, including one gollywhopper over sixteen feet long. Now night’s best time to find ’gators. You just shine your flashlight across the water. The light reflects off their eyes, and bam, you’ve found a gator.”
Rikard stood, poling the bateau along a silvery expanse of water. “Sometimes their eyes shine red, sometimes yellow. By day, you can spot where they’ve been. They flatten the marsh grass and the tail cuts a groove in the sand. They’re drawing a line and daring you to cross it.”
It was a gorgeous night for crossing gator lines, a grand night to accept dares, and, yes, a splendid night to tempt death in a land silver-plated by the moon. Pine and palmettos splintered the moonshadowed ground into slivers of white, black, and silver. The marsh grasses and water shone silvery white and pockets of fog gave the night a ghostly countenance as if phantoms were floating out to greet us. Swamp music resonated … a chorus of green tree frogs, the hooting of a barred owl, the boat slurping through brine, and Rikard’s pole thudding against the hull.
When we got to the lagoon, Rikard handed us flashlights.
“Shine your lights over to the grass.”
In no time, the beams caught a swarm of yellow fireflies—little eyes, baby gators rollicking in the water. The dazzling swirl of light-eyes mesmerized us.
Rikard continued to pole the boat toward the baby gators and Garrett’s warning took on haunting reality. We were amidst some mom’s baby gators.
Rikard grabbed an aluminum scoop net and leaned over the gunwale.
“I’m gonna catch two of these little fellows, make pets out of ’em.”
Rikard made a stab into the water and came up with two wriggling baby gators. A mantra of croaks erupted from them and some nearby reeds stirred as the mother gator lunged from her hidden berth. Rikard stuffed the gators into a box, turned the bateau, and poled us forward with surprising speed. The gator—intent on destroying us—came at us fast in the moonlight, sloshing silver bursts of water into the air. Rikard snatched the motor to life and we ran aground, the gator in pursuit.
The three of us leaped ashore. “Head for that tree,” Rikard yelled. We clambered up a windblown oak, a ready-made escape ramp.
The gator vaulted onto the bateau’s stern, paused where her babies were, then came at us with shocking speed, covering ground fast as a horse.
Tyler and I climbed into the tree and clung to its limbs. We’d been damn lucky the wind had blown the tree over. Rikard stood his ground, facing the charging gator.
As Rikard defied the gator, Tyler whipped out her .38, ready to fire. He stuck two fingers into his mouth and trilled a shrill, ear-piercing whistle that made the hair on my neck stand. The gator halted two feet from Rikard who stood, not giving an inch.
Moonlight showered the two as they faced each other in a midnight standoff.
The gator tossed her head from side to side and snapped her jaws. An awful bellow came from her. She seemed caught in the most fateful decision her reptilian brain had ever made. Rikard meanwhile stood resolute. She opened her jaws and hissed and tossed her head violently. Rikard whistled again and kneeled over her. She stood there, snapping, hissing, and shaking her massive head. Rikard slowly extended his hand, reaching down, and gradually placed his hand on her head. The mama gator lowered her body to the ground. Rikard said something to her. She rose, then turned and retreated, slipping beneath the slime as shimmering points of light betrayed her fading wake.
“Now that’s a damn fussy gator,” said Rikard, pulling on his waders.
“I was going to shoot her,” Tyler said, pushing her gun back into her waistband. “How’d you do that?”
“Sometimes you just gotta stand in there. Show no fear. I was lucky.”
“I was going to let her have a few bullets,” said Tyler.
“Unless you hit the right spot, a bullet ain’t no more than a spitball t
o them hardheaded bastards. She was out for blood. Worried about her young’uns.”
“I know the feeling,” said Tyler.
Rikard seemed unfazed by the gator. Twice now, wild animals had submitted to him. He strolled the moon-silver shore, looked at the heavens, then checked on his baby gators. The water, smooth and silvery again, meant the gator was back in her berth, having struck some deal with the voodoo priest. Tyler held her pistol, ready as Rikard walked over.
“The Bone Yard’s waiting and we ain’t getting any younger. Let’s go.”
Rikard assumed his role as expedition leader.
“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Next, I’m gonna take you to the Bone Yard where skeletons have stacked up there like fiddle sticks.”
Tyler and I instinctively held hands as Rikard poled us onward into a labyrinth of creeks braiding through a cypress swamp. It would have been impossible to find our way out the watery maze for every tree seemed the same. The maze dead-ended in an immense cathedral where cypress knees glistened in the moonlight. Tyler kept her other hand upon her waistband.
We drifted into the vast openness and as we entered the frogs quieted. The shoreline was black with vegetation and stands of cypress and an occasional Ogeechee tupelo whose leaves shone silver. In the distance, the shoreline brightened into a phosphorescent glow. Cameron was right. “Death can be beautiful.” A ghoulish vision commanded the eye and no one said a word. Moonlit bones gleamed and remnants of skeletons lay askew like fiddlesticks.
There was no mistaking what we were looking at and I was glad we had the light of the moon and not the unforgiving light of day. The scene was far more beautiful than I would have thought, like some surreal painting in a celebrated museum. Chalky skulls pocked by angular shadows left no doubt as to what we were seeing—The Bone Yard.
“What do you think?” asked Rikard, his arms flung over the pole across his shoulder as he rose Christ-like from the stern to survey the carnage.
“How many people have died here?” I asked, trying to gauge some emotion—any emotion—on his face.
“None. They kill ’em elsewhere and dump their bodies here. They tell the villagers they bury ’em at sea. Oh they may bury some there, but ain’t no sports fisherman gonna see ’em throw a body here. This lagoon here is hard to find, not for me, of course. It’s shallow though and the gators, once they’ve swallowed all they can handle, leave the remains right where they are. Maybe a hundred skulls rest here. Can’t be sure. The gators swallow the heads sometimes and animals chew the bones, gives ’em calcium. What’s left, the sun bleaches and currents wash the bones ashore over yonder.”
I looked over yonder. Even in the moonlight you could make out the bones of children from the bones of adults. They were strewn in a haphazard manner, just like pick-up sticks, and very reminiscent of the old photos of Nazi burial pits.
“Can’t anyone do something about this?” asked Tyler. “Isn’t this genocide? I thought a UN convention made mass murder an international crime.”
“Mass murder’s a bit strong … they kill a few at a time and the bones they justa keep piling up,” said Rikard. “But it ain’t no real crime. This island has no laws. I can cast spells and not be arrested for practicing medicine without a license. I can go to the mainland and sell contraband and scurry back here where it’s safe. Poachers can grab kidneys, and the survivors keep on living like their ancestors did, which, in fact, is what they want. But some folks gotta die. That’s just the way it is. I know one thing. Mess with the balance here and you’ll ruin everything.”
“What if I publish a story about the murder we saw and the Bone Yard complete with photographs? Don’t you think that will get action?”
“That would be the beginning of the end of Sapelo,” said Rikard. The moonlight lit up his beard like fire. “The do-gooders will flock to the island and they won’t be content to just come here and help the poor blacks. Do you think they can live here without creature comforts?”
“Probably not.”
“Hell no. The thing is they can’t. The next thing you know they’ll want a dock and an airstrip to bring in the things that make them so civilized. Then when they get tired of depending on someone to take ’em over and back, they’ll lobby for a bridge from the mainland. And that will be the end of Sapelo. Once you give the white man a way to bring his trucks over here, he’ll set about cutting trees and building things. Electric lines will go up and sewer lines will be dug, and the damn realtors will flock here like gulls. The dunes will be leveled for beach homes and the marsh will be covered with marinas. The voodoo will disappear and modern medicine will take its place. And instead of the blacks making baskets and living a simple life, they’ll use plastic bags, watch TV, and eat processed food. Then the next thing you know, the oyster beds and the shrimp will get sick from all the damn chemicals running off the island. The savannas will be converted to golf greens and pot-bellied men in carts will be drinking where pitcher plants and ferns once grew. So, you tell me? Is it a fair tradeoff for a good number of people to die every year so the others can hang onto Paradise or do you want to see Forbidden Island become the next Hilton Head?”
He had a point. Someday, Georgia and South Carolina might drop their differences and annex the island. Too much money was to be had. It very well could become the ultimate island resort, complete with casinos. I thought hard about what he said and I couldn’t help but think of Atlanta and all the farms and woodlands the city had eaten. Where stands of hickory trees once stood, bums loitered in alleys and cars and trucks spewed fumes into the air where meadows and springs once flourished. Where brooks once ran, water treatment plants sprayed sewage into the air. Stately oaks and old family orchards had been replaced by strip malls, strip clubs, dance halls, and bars. Did I want to see that happen to Sapelo?
“No,” I said. “I’ve seen what the city does to the real world. Still, if I wrote about what’s happening here, I’d do so in the least harmful way … if I do … and I probably will.”
Rikard slung the pole from his shoulders and thrust the boat ahead so hard we nearly fell off the seat where we huddled.
“Well, you just do that,” he said. “Just do it.”
“These people need someone to speak up for them,” said Tyler. “If Slater tells their story, they could get help and live like they want.”
“Look, you are dead wrong. I mean you are one naive white woman. You give the world a reason to come here and do what it thinks is good and everything will change. Everything.”
“I can’t predict what people will do,” said Tyler, “and neither can you so let’s talk about what we can do—what we’re here for. Fuck the islanders. Help me find my daughter.”
My head snapped toward Tyler, who was losing her cool.
“So far, two men have told me a young white woman with a pet pelican is here … or may be here. If she’s my daughter, she’s in danger. You’re my only hope for finding her.”
Rikard sat down and looked up to the moon, which was lustrous and beaming down on his face. The bioluminescence was losing its strength and his face no longer looked like a killer’s.
“And those two men would be?”
“Jackson and Oleander.”
“Jackson,” Rikard spat, as if getting a bad taste out of his mouth. “Well, he’s dead and Oleander’s a misfit. Okay, okay. You’ve proved gators don’t freak you out. In fact, you’re pretty cute with that popgun of yours. So, let’s get you two back to camp. When the timing is right, I’ll take you to my fortress. You can meet Crystal.
“And as for your daughter,” he said, turning to me, “I ain’t making no promises but I’ll try a spell that might wake her. Just leave Crystal alone. You can meet her and you can talk to her, but you won’t take her from me. She’s all I’ve got. I got no family, no neighbors, just her.”
“No one will try to take her away from here,” I said, “but if it is her daughter, why don’t you let the girl decide what to do? They don’t have any
family either, just each other.”
Rikard turned the bateau from the Bone Yard back into the maze of tidal creeks. “Crystal doesn’t want to go back to civilization. She’ll tell you. She’s got a damn good reason to stay—the best.”
Rikard poled the boat with resolve and never said another word to us. When the creek deepened and widened, he started the motor and soon we were back at camp. Rikard let us out at the channel, checked on his baby gators yet again, and left.
The expedition was over.
Tyler and I retired to my tent, as we had every night since that fabled day in the old garden. The horror of the Bone Yard drove home a point: life was for the living. We drifted off, legs tangled, heads together, our own gleaming white bones hidden within the eternal darkness of living flesh.
***
Two days passed but Rikard didn’t show, and we wasted a lot of time just waiting. Then on the third morning, Tyler went down to the beach to rinse out some clothes when she saw a cloud of laughing gulls mobbing at the surf’s edge. She went closer and the gulls flew off to reveal Jackson’s body covered with crabs and bloated beyond recognition.
She came to me running and distressed in a way I’d never seen. We went back with a small camp shovel. Hunks of flesh were missing, and his fingers were fused, like a web. His head had swollen and his nose was more like a pig snout. His eyes were eaten away. His clothing, burnt away in many places, clung to charred flesh.
We used two limbs of driftwood to drag him behind some high dunes. While I dug a grave, Tyler returned to camp and came back with a wreath fashioned from sea oats, golden asters, and palmetto fronds.
We buried Jackson downwind beneath a glittering blanket of sand, and Tyler sang an old hymn, “Shall We Gather At The River,” as I placed a makeshift cross of driftwood at his head.
Where bright angel feet have trod, with its crystal tide forever. Flowing by the throne of God? Yes, we'll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river; gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God.