by Tom Poland
“Go get him, boys,” said Garrett, and the poachers swarmed over the boy, pinning him down. The doctor pulled a sparkling scalpel from his bag and cut slits into the boy’s back. Just as he’d done with Cade, the doctor extracted two ruby-red kidneys. Murphy, drooling spittle, rolled over to the boy as the evil doctor placed fresh kidneys into the cooler. Garrett kicked in the boy’s face, then shot him in the head. “That’ll teach you.”
“When we cut Mal open, I’m going to smear his blood over my face, like a boy who’s killed his first deer,” said Murphy, drooling heavily.
Garrett waved his gun at me, leaned against a palmetto, and heaved onto the sand.
“You have to forgive Cousin Garrett,” said Murphy, wiping his chin. “He doesn’t have a weak stomach. Just sick. He and his buddies had an oyster roast last night. They’re all sick. Ate some bad oysters. As for your meddling friend in the flowing robe, he won’t be a problem much longer.”
“Where is Oleander?” I asked.
“We’ll let you see him, won’t we fellows? And we sure don’t mind having a pretty woman come along for the ride. Take them back into the dunes.”
Garrett came over and shoved his revolver against me, pushing me duneward. Tyler and I followed Murphy into some dunes where the poachers circled us like vultures. A large, sandy basin filled with toppled trees spread before us dominated by a large gnarled tree with two stout limbs that branched out across from each other, a cross.
Thin copper wire held Oleander by his wrists, ankles, and neck. A swath of cloth covered his hips. Bronzed and tortuous, he looked like some Frederic Remington sculpture mounted on burled wood. With difficulty, he turned his head toward us.
“Slater, my friend, I am sorry to have brought you and the sweet lady into harms way.” The wire cut into his neck, and he had trouble breathing. “Please do not let them kill me.”
I started toward Oleander but Garrett stopped me, aiming his service revolver at me.
“Hold it right there.”
“Cut him down,” I said.
Murphy turned to me.
Where’s my $50,000? That’s my payment for one of Mal’s kidneys. He’s here somewhere on the island. As soon as we find him, Mal and I will go to the hospital ship so I can rid myself of this cursed illness, but first the good doctor here wants to practice on Mr. Oleander.”
The evil doctor walked toward Oleander, brandishing his scalpel.
We had grown careless and now we were paying the price. Life, which had looked so promising, now seemed over. I had to do something, but what? The only thing to do was to stall. Surely Rikard, if he were as all-knowing as he said—if this island were truly his—would come, though he and Cameron were at the Bone Yard taking photographs.
“I told you I gave the money to your brother.”
Murphy motioned Garrett over to Tyler. With some difficulty, Garrett moved to Tyler and ripped her shirt off.
“Slater, my good friend, you’re a liar and a bad one at that. Your wife’s in her grave thanks to you. Never forget that. You want this pretty lady to join your wife?”
A moan escaped from Oleander. I looked out to sea where a thundercloud was blowing in, and jagged forks of lightning blazed across the horizon. Then, just beyond the Whaler, a pair of porpoises surfaced.
Rikard? Had he and Cameron left the Bone Yard? With great effort I brought my face back to the dunes.
“I could tell you I gave the money to your brother, Mal,” I said. “I could tell you he took it and slipped out of camp while we slept. And I could tell you we haven’t seen him since, or I could tell you he burned the money right before our eyes. So you tell me what he did with it.”
“A starving writer would never let a crazy man burn fifty grand. You’ve got it somewhere. We checked your camp, couldn’t find it. Tell you what, if you don’t give me my money, your pretty lady friend here can entertain Garrett and his friends before we kill her. It’ll be fun to see the rest of her clothes come off. We’ll have a little party right here on Forbidden Island.”
Garrett walked over and shoved his hand into her bra, and Tyler slapped him so hard he nearly fell. Garrett slapped her back and the poachers all took a step toward her.
Rikard was right. Timing was everything and ours had been the worst possible. A storm raged out at sea, but here the merciless sun beat down and the heat was unforgiving. The seaoats waved in the wind, and the island’s beauty remained but the island itself had become the death trap everyone predicted. I thought hard for some way to escape. Just then, a solitary pelican soared across a ridge of seaoats and flew right over us.
“If I give you the money, will you let the three of us go?”
“Where’s the money?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Where?”
“Close by,” I said.
“Where?”
“Like I said, close by. I’ll tell you but you’ve got to leave her alone.”
“Where the hell is it, Slater? You’re pushing your luck.”
“In the boat.”
Garrett threw Tyler to the ground and came to me, shoving me hard toward the Whaler.
“Let’s me and you go get it.”
“Watch him,” said Murphy. “Get the money and bring it to me.”
Garrett shoved me again as I stopped at the dead boy.
“One of Oleander’s boys. He was pretty good bait.”
Garrett for sure was a damn hick. I had spent my entire life avoiding his kind and here he was holding our lives in his hands. Rikard’s maleficia could not cut him down soon enough.
Just beyond the Whaler, the dorsal fins of two porpoises again sliced the surf, and this time they stood and backpedaled just like the porpoises that had brought me the canoe. I looked up beach. Nothing. Low over the dunes adjacent to the ones where Oleander hung from the crucifix, a solitary pelican circled back toward us.
Garrett snatched me by the shirt and held his gun against my breastbone.
“What you looking at? Damn porpoises do that a lot. Keep moving. Git in there and git the money. Try something and you’ll never git out of that boat alive.”
I climbed into the Whaler and reached into the console where the pouch lay in darkness. I offered the pouch to Garrett, but he waved me off. He bent over the wavering surf and unleashed a torrent of vomit. He was sick, very. Wiping his mouth, he cursed.
“Damn a damn oyster. I ain’t never eating ’em again. Now let’s just walk back to the dunes.”
We walked past the dead boy back into the dunes. As we did, the wind surged. The storm was rolling in, and maybe just maybe, it’d give us a chance to so something.
Murphy rolled over.
“Give me that.”
Rikard’s words floated into my consciousness. “Don’t even think about opening it. If someone asks for it, give it to ’em. That’s all you need to do.”
Murphy motioned Garrett over.
“Do me the honor of opening this, please. My hand’s a bit weak.”
Garrett ripped the zipper open, and the next second unleashed Hell. A rattlesnake sprung from the pouch and struck Garrett’s throat. Stumbling back against a dune, he flung the snake away, which hit the sand and coiled by Murphy’s chair. The poachers froze for an instant and an instant was all that mattered.
For the rest of my life, I’d remember the next moment as being “in the zone,” a time when everything appeared in absolute clarity as if it were in slow motion. Garrett swung his revolver heavily toward me, and just as he had the barrel on me, a streak of brown and white feathers plummeted from the heavens, knocking the gun from his hands. I pounced on it and had it clean around its checkered grip.
I fanned Garrett’s gun across Murphy, across the dunes, across the world, and a vision appeared over the barrel. Oleander strode into the dunes in his white flowing tunic and turban. The storm blew in from the sea ruffling his tunic, billowing it against a backdrop of dark purple sky that made it all the more radiant. Lightning flashed and
arced over his regal head, and then a sharp rattling split the air from within his gown, which jerked as if the wind plucked at it. A volley cut down the poachers to a man.
Murphy attempted to roll his chair but could go nowhere in the soft sand. The rattler slithered into the seaoats as Oleander strode toward us, the AK-47 visible now. Yet, in the dunes, Oleander hung upon his cross.
The robe dropped and the turban came off to reveal the fabled voodoo priest of Sapelo. Rikard, shaven, with a thin layer of muck darkening his face walked over to Garrett and kicked him in the stomach.
“How about it, officer? You don’t look too good.”
Rikard kicked him again. Tyler walked over and spat onto Garrett.
Rikard went into the dunes and cut Oleander free. “You going to finish Garrett?” I asked.
“Nah, he’s done.”
Murphy’s arms worked the wheels and the electric motor whined but there was no escape. He was right. He might as well try swimming through a pool of peanut butter.
“Let me help you Murphy,” I said. I pushed the wheelchair up to Rikard and stopped.
“Let me introduce you to Murphy, the professor’s brother.”
Rikard shoved the AK-47 barrel beneath Murphy’s chin.
“Are you full of shit too?” Rikard asked with cold contempt.
“Please, just take me down to the hard sand where I can make it back to the ship,” Murphy said, with begging eyes. He was genuinely afraid, truly on his own now.
“Tilt his head up,” I said.
Rikard shoved Murphy’s heavy head up. A large drop of rain spattered against his brow.
“Look up there into the storm clouds, Murphy,” I said pointing skyward. Rikard’s osprey circled, his call falling down faint but clear. “Don’t you think that osprey is about fifteen stories high, about as high as our office off Peachtree?”
“Yes. Just let me go. Please.”
“If a man was up there looking down on you and me and I rolled you into the sea, he wouldn’t be able to see anything but the tops of our heads. If I drowned you, he wouldn’t be much of a witness would he? I’d be, in your words, a ‘piss-poor’ witness.”
“Please don’t drown me.”
“I can’t swim Murphy, so I’m just not sure if I can take you out far enough. Or could I? You’re a lot shorter than me in that chair. Well, let’s just see. The writer gets to take his boss for a swim. Isn’t that something? Here we are all the way from fifteen stories above Atlanta to sea level, and I’m your boss now. That’s quite a comedown.”
Murphy fumbled with a pouch tied to his chair and came out with another stack of C notes.
“Take these. They’re yours. Just let me go.”
“Where you gonna go chief? The French Ri-vi-e-ra?” Rikard asked, taking the money from Murphy. “That’s twenty grand apiece now,” he said.
“You heard his smartass remark earlier?” I asked.
“Sure did. Been here a while hiding in the dunes. I was gonna slip over behind the dunes where Oleander is and cross ’em, up but my snake got things off to a good start. Hell, that ol’ rattler made it easy. Say, look over there to that tall dune thick with seaoats.”
Cameron stood, camouflaged in seaoats, camera, tripod, and all. He was a golden version of a Viet Cong soldier who stalked the jungle wearing the jungle, a killer, only Cameron’s killing weapon was a camera.
“Long ’fore we got to the Bone Yard, old Camera Man didn’t like the light—said it wudn’t pretty. So we turned around right quick like. Decided to come help you break down camp. Like I say timing is everything … ev-e-ry-thing. He’s photographed ev-e-ry-thing. Got the poachers slicing open that boy, Garrett throwing up, Oleander on the tree, the rattler popping Garrett, even got my osprey doing his thing and me shaving clean. Now that’s a first.”
Thunder boomed, shaking the island, and Murphy began to cry.
“All I wanted was to be reunited with my brother. That’s the God’s truth. Garrett’s the one who urged me to take Mal’s kidneys. I just needed one. He was in it for the money. He double-crossed me. He swore you had made off with the money… He told me to bring another fifty grand with me. I was going to talk some sense into him.”
“Murphy you’re a rotten liar,” I said, “and what’s worse you’re a rotten human being, rotten to the core. Just minutes ago, you were making fun of my wife and daughter, remember?”
“It was all an act for Garrett.”
“Let’s go down to the sea, Murphy. I’m going to wash all your sins away.”
I tilted Murphy’s chair back and pushed him through the dunes until we made it onto the hardpan sand where the going was easy.
“The hospital ship’s what, maybe nine miles that way,” I said.
“Yes, oh thank you, thank you Slater. When we get back to Atlanta, not one word of this leaves my lips. We’ll get the magazine back to what it was.”
“Shut the hell up, Murphy.”
I pushed Murphy past Rikard toward the surf line, which was far out and would soon be coming in with high tide. Rain pelted us, and lightning dropped in jagged forks. I pushed on toward the surf.
Murphy turned his yellow-gray, rainstruck face to me.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you absolution.”
The surf ran in over Murphy’s dangling feet, and I pushed onward though the going was difficult. We entered the sea and the water came over the hubs, swirling around my shinbones. Now the surf rose even more, shifting the wheelchair and Murphy’s ride became amphibious. Waves pushed against us and I pushed back against the waves.
Suddenly, the battery, inundated by saltwater, arced, shooting sparks that mimicked the great arcs splitting the sky above us. The motor snatched and revved and a surge of electricity prickled my legs. I let go of the chair, and Murphy’s ride spun, paddle-wheeling backwards into the sea. The waves coursed over his head, giving him the appearance of a sweeper desperately trying to hide a bald spot from younger women. The chair lurched, and the wheels backpedaled further into the sea, each wave covering more and more of Southern Escape’s executive editor until a final wave swamped him as the storm flew over and past us.
I watched bubbles from his final breaths surface amid a few rain craters dotting the sea. I had only meant to scare him. If the sea wanted him, good. It had him. It could keep him and in time nothing but a corroded chair would remain, encrusted with minute sea creatures, and some day not even that would remain.
I walked back to the dunes where Cameron was fast working his camera on a tripod behind a solitary palmetto. Cameron pointed to the sky far out over the sea. And gave me the thumbs up. His face told me all I needed to know. I stepped out of his way and turned. A rainbow stretched from one horizon to the other, a deep, saturated primary rainbow like no other I had ever seen, red on the outside, colors of the prism within. A freshening wind picked up, shredding the clouds. The sky was a beautiful fresh blue, and where clouds had been, a crescent moon floated in the sky.
Cameron’s camera worked away. He was bracketing his exposures and working the lens for various combinations.
The rainbow bridged the sea and centered itself over the palmetto where a silver slice of moon hung softly in the sky. Dead center the composition, the most beautiful rainbow I’d ever seen arched over the body of Murphy J. Quarrels, editor, Southern Escape.
FAREWELL TO SAPELO
And so it ended. Rikard was right. Cameron did photograph everything … Oleander upon his driftwood crucifix, the rattler, the boy, everything. Later he photographed the Bone Yard in late afternoon light, which suited him far more than morning light. He said it gave the skulls and bones texture. And Rikard helped him photograph the hospital ship, which soon weighed anchor and left. It was said the doctor and some of his henchmen died of a hex. The frightened crew returned to Sierra Leone.
Mallory was never heard from again and the small college where he taught named a chair in his honor. Murphy was presumed missing in Europ
e, though the officials had a hard time tracking him. A lot of time and effort was wasted on him, sure enough. Mallory and Murphy, the missing twins, ascended into legend. Their fate remains a mystery.
Some villagers found Garrett dead in the dunes where we had left him. It was said his body was stripped of valuables and left right there though Oleander said some villagers deposited the body in the Bone Yard … no one really knew the truth.
Oleander became a hero to the people of Sapelo. He moved into the village where he had a hut and where his people at long last accepted him. He remained a Christian to the end though he lived in the midst of voodoo. For many years, he could be seen canoeing across Sapelo’s creeks, sparing his scarred legs, an apparition of white floating over the greenery and blueness.
And then there were the women.
Lorie had a son, Connor Benjamin. CB, as he was known, would grow up to be a voodoo prince, master survivalist, and a reclusive painter renowned for his landscapes of the marsh. It was said a pelican followed him whenever he ventured forth, and some said he could communicate with porpoises.
Tyler and I maintained an intense but long-distance relationship. She came to Atlanta and I went to Apex as often as practical. A lot of her time was spent on Sapelo and now and then Rikard, Lorie, and CB would go to Apex.
Mary continued to work at Guardian Angel and we spent time together as well. Mary and Tyler each knew about the other and were okay with it. Friends of mine disapproved but I had learned that you can love and be in love with two women at the same time. The possibility exists. After all, we love our parents and children equally. Still, for me, it was a constant struggle, and I thought hard about Mary and Tyler, weighing one woman against the other. Which one did I fit best with? Which one might last?
Tyler had come into my life like a summer storm and I could make the case that I was in love with her but Mary had a piece of my heart and always would. She had been a mother to Brit, and had it nor been for her, Brit might have died. I owed her much.