Double Exposure

by Michael Lister

  Blood.

  The beam of light spills over black blood, splattered on leaves, soaked into the soil, matting the fur on the back of the bear’s head.

  Gunshot.

  Poaching.

  The wound on the back of the bear’s head was made by a gunshot. This amazing and endangered animal has been murdered.

  Remington’s mind races back to the shotgun-carrying, gray-grizzled man again. Maybe he is being followed. Maybe since the moment he first encountered the man in the pinewood prairie. No wonder the man asked the questions he did. No wonder he encouraged Remington to leave.

  Son of a bitch.

  Had he been heading in to get tools to skin the bear? Would he return soon?

  Removing his camera and turning on the flash, Remington begins to document the crime scene. He then takes pictures of the area, hoping he can find it again when he returns with wildlife officers tomorrow morning.

  The death of the bear affects him more than he would have imagined, the heaviness of genuine grief weighing down on him.

  He hates poachers, loathes their arrogance and greed and waste, but he realizes the animals he so loves, the ones that populate the river swamps and hardwood hammocks and pine flats, are being driven to extinction not by poachers, but by greedy developers, corrupt politicians, and the rich pricks who demand that their second and third homes be built not near but on top of paradise.

  Though not nearly as artistic or dynamic, perhaps these pictures, too, will help protect the endangered Florida black bear. These are just snapshots, but as Eudora Welty used to say, A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

  Decision.

  Should he turn back now, begin making his way to the hidden ATV, to a cell phone signal, report the crime and call Heather, or continue onward, deeper into the swamp to check his camera trap? No question. He knows what he should do.

  He also knows what his father would do. In fact, the should voice inside his head belongs to his dad.

  What Cole James would do.

  He’s thinking a lot more about that these days. More than at any other time in his life.

  Why the gods make fathers and sons so different is an eternal mystery.

  Cole James had been a simple, hardworking, blue-collar, small-town man with only a high school diploma and a good name. Full of the kind of folksy wisdom associated with farmers, country folk, and old-timers, Cole was everybody’s buddy, beloved, respected, a good ol’ boy in the very best sense.

  Not quite sure what to do with his impractical, artistic son, Cole never missed an occasion to encourage Remington in the ways of conventional wisdom.

  —Take your pictures, son. I’m not sayin’ not to, but get an education. Have a career.

  —I want photography to be my career.

  —Sure. Give it a try, but have something to fall back on. Get a degree in something you can make a living at. You’d make a great lawyer, but, hell, you can get your teaching certificate. I don’t care. I just want you to be okay.

  —I will be. Photojournalists make a good living.

  —Not many, I bet.

  —Enough. One more when I start.

  —I ain’t sayin’ don’t follow your dream. Ain’t sayin’ it’s silly. Just have a plan in case things don’t work out the way you think they will—’cause they nearly never do. I hate to see you put all your dogs trackin’ one deer.

  A commencement speech of sorts, the conversation had taken place during the week leading up to Remington’s high school graduation.

  Without realizing it until this moment, he had unwittingly followed his dad’s advice—God, the influence he exerted without my even knowing it—and that’s what the ad agency job had been about. Safety. Security. Practicality.

  His dad was happy for his success, impressed with his salary.

  I fell into what he wanted for me without ever knowing what I was doing or why.

  Remington smiles.

  But he’s also the reason I stopped doing what he wanted me to. Coming back here to pick up his life where he left it is the only thing that could have nudged me out of the nest of my comfortable, safe, existence of quiet desperation and into these woods armed with only a camera.

  Wonder what he thinks about me cashing in my 401k to buy all this new photography equipment. Wonder if he knows. Are you out there? Are you here, closer than I think? Will I see you on the other side? Is there an other side?

  —Anything ever happens to me I need to know you’ll take care of your mother.

  —Of course.

  —You won’t try to move her, you’ll come back here, you’ll let her stay home.

  —I will.

  As if having a premonition, this call from Cole—a rarity in itself—took place the week of his death.

  —It’s a lot to ask, he adds.

  —You didn’t even have to, Remington says.

  —You comin’ for a visit anytime soon?

  —Gonna try.

  —How’re things at work?

  —Good.

  —You sockin’ some of that money away?

  —Costs a lot to live down here, but I manage to put a little away.

  —Good.

  —You and Heather worked things out yet?

  —I’m not sure we will.

  —You will.

  —I don’t know.

  —You will.

  —Too early to tell.

  —I’m proud of you, son.

  Surprised by the unexpected words, he stammers in search of a reply.

  —Ah … well … thanks.

  The shocking admission was the first of its kind since childhood and the last words he’d ever hear his dad speak.

  Yeah, he knows what he should do, what Cole would do, but it’s time to start being true to himself. Cole’s gone. Life’s short. He’s continuing on. If he doesn’t start living differently, more deliberately, he’s going to regret it.

  Did Cole die with regrets? Unlike Remington, he seemed so settled, so content with his simple life. Had he been? Really? Or did he hide regret and disappointment from his son the way men do skin magazines in a bottom dresser drawer and a bottle of vodka in the work shed?

  Didn’t know you very well. Not well enough to say whether your short, unfinished life was as fulfilling to you as it seemed, or if you repressed an enmity at the hand you were dealt: the full house of three low cards—claustrophobic, small-town life, sick wife, alien only child—and a pair of bad body parts.

  Nocturnal noises.

  Crickets.

  Frogs.

  Chirps. Hums. Buzzes.

  Loud.

  Forging on, he ventures deeper and deeper into darkness and density. Black leaves crunching beneath boots as he follows a ridge line into a stand of hardwoods over five hundred years old.

  Chill.

  Stalking.

  Frightened.

  The feeling that he is being followed persists. Stopping, he listens carefully and shines his small penlight in all directions, but hears and sees only nature.

  This deep, this dark, the woods seem haunted, as if alive with an ancient menacing force predating humanity.

  Nearing it now.

  Almost there.

  As he closes in on the spot of his deepest camera trap, the cold and fear and weariness begin to fade, floating up like smoke from a night fire, breaking apart as if bits of ash and rising into invisibility.

  Walking faster now. Excited. Energized. Renewed.

  Dry.

  Following a spring and summer of record low rainfall, autumn had continued the arid trend, the rivers’ flood plains receding, the swamps shrinking.

  Of course, it’s not just lack of rain that causes the forest to crackle and evaporate, but overdevelopment in Atlanta and the overuse of water in Georgia and Alabama—people downstream are always at the mercy of the people upstream, and the dredging of the river by the Corps of Engineers and the way the sand they dredge up blocks tributaries and keeps water from reaching t
he flood plain.

  This makes him think of the lady known as Mother Earth again, her love of the river and her tireless fight against the Corps.

  The only water in the area is a small spring-fed slough, which is normally just part of a tributary system that flows inland from offshoots of the river to small lakes and streams, but is now cut off, forming a single standing body.

  The sole source of hydration for miles, this small, black, leaf-covered pool is the perfect place for a camera trap. Every animal in the area must come here eventually.

  Remington had set up his inmost camera trap in the hollowed-out base of a cypress tree across from the mouth of the slough. Equipped with an ultra wide-angle lens, the camera frames nearly the entire width of the water, but on the opposite side so it captures the faces of the creatures as they dip in for a drink.

  The camera traps he traded his 401k for were developed to photograph animals that he couldn’t get within picture-taking proximity of.

  The idea was nothing new. Wildlife photographers had been using them all around the world for years. The first ones, designed to photograph tigers, used wires to trigger flash powder on trails, and were intended merely to make a record, just an attempt to get the animals on film.

  Remington wasn’t in pursuit of a record, but art. His traps were configured to take the pictures the way he would if he were there snapping them himself.

  When he first got interested in trying camera traps, he researched what other photographers had done, read about all their problems with batteries blowing up, flashes melting, animals eating cords, and all the wasted film. Those early devices were too sensitive, capturing thousands of empty frames.

  For the early adopters, the pioneers of this process, the project was so labor intensive and inadequate that many of them gave it up—but fortunately for Remington, a few persevered and finally figured out what worked.

  Using cameras and strobes that hibernate when not in use to conserve batteries, programmed to wake once an hour to recharge so they’re ready if an animal trips the infrared beam of the trap, the earliest practitioners began to capture spectacular images impossible to get any other way.

  Like the mavericks before him, Remington finds places animals frequent and sets up a camera trap on the trail with an infrared beam. Checking the traps less than once a week, he reduces the likelihood his scent will scare the animals away.

  It’s taken some experimentation, because full auto is not an option, but knowing roughly where the animals will cross the beam, he’s been able to set up the strobes, focus, and exposure for that distance, skewing his exposure for dusk and dawn—the times of greatest activity.

  By the time he reaches the trap, the last feathers of the flamingo sky have floated away. Now, only the tops of trees are illuminated, their empty, craggy branches black, backlit by a faint smoke-gray sky.

  Removing the memory card from the camera trap, he places it in his new camera and drops to the thick leaf-covered ground to view the shots. Pressing the display button, the first image appears. Spinning the selection wheel, he scrolls through the eerie images.

  Even on the small screen, the burst of light against the dark night gives some of the frames an otherworldly quality.

  Moonlight.

  Overexposure fading to faint pale pallet.

  Ghostly.

  Glowing red eyes.

  Odd angles.

  Necks craned.

  Sand-colored streaks, leather-colored flashes.

  Night. Beyond the slough and its track-laden muddy rim, deer passing by trigger the trap, their eyes glowing demonically in the flash.

  Day. Leaping, turning, darting deer break the infrared beam, leaving blurs of buckskin behind. Too fast. Ill-framed. Unusable.

  The distant deer the camera captures are too far from the slough to do anything but trigger the trap.

  Black spots.

  Red-gray coat.

  Triangular ears.

  Short, stubby tail.

  Dusk, and the small cat prowls about, slinking, skulking, stalking. Head down, facing the frame, green slitted eyes staring into the camera.

  Unlike the rare, endangered Florida panther, the Florida bobcat is much more common. Just three times the size of a large house cat, the sleek feline is stealthy and secretive, difficult to photograph, the kind of animal the traps were made for.

  The bobcat shots are stunning. Simple. Subtle. Natural.

  Circle of light, dropping off to dark woods.

  Empty frames.

  Flutter of wings.

  Dash. Slash. Smear.

  Of the eighteen species of bats in Florida, only one isn’t found in the panhandle and four are found only here. Swarming like nocturnal butterflies, the blur of bats in the pictures troll the night skies for food, cupping their wings and scooping insects into their mouths at a rate of up to three thousand a night. No more than a few of the images are more than black blots against a bolt of bright light, but those few show the night-feeding creatures in astonishing action. Darting. Dramatic. Dazzling.

  Beyond his expectations, the digitally-captured animals are rare, wild, wondrous to behold. If the next spin of the dial doesn’t bring with it his fabled Florida panther, his disappointment will be tempered by the euphoria over the photographs he did get.

  Soft, diffused light. Liquor-like glow. Late afternoon.

  Humans.

  Shock.

  Murder.

  Handgun. Close range. Blood spray. Collapse.

  Shovel. Dig. Dirt. Bury. Cover.

  Remington is rocked back, reeling at the random horror his camera has captured.

  In flip-book fashion, the staccato images show two people appearing in the far right corner of the frame. The distance and angle lead to soft focus, the small screen adding to the difficulty of deciphering details. Based on size, carriage, movement, and mannerism, Remington believes he’s looking at a man and a woman, but their camouflage jumpsuits and caps make it impossible to tell for sure.

  Jittery, random pictures record the larger of the two figures raising a handgun, though a rifle is slung over his shoulder, and shooting the slightly smaller one in the back of the head. A spray of blood, and the now dead person falls to the ground like the leaves she lands on. The murderer then removes a small, folded camping shovel, kneels down and begins to dig. Hundreds of shots later, the larger person is rolling the smaller into a shallow grave. Removing his jumpsuit, he drops it into the hole with his victim, then douses both with liquid from a plastic bottle, drops a match, and steps back as the flames leap up out of the opening in the earth to dance in the dusk sky.

  Nausea.

  Clammy skin. Cold sweat.

  Unaware his distress could deepen any further, Remington’s panic intensifies when, thumbing through the images, he sees the murderer remove his jumpsuit to reveal a dark green uniform. Although unable to tell exactly what agency the man is with, he thinks sheriff’s deputy or wildlife officer most likely.

  Flickering flames.

  For a long time—over thirty images—the man stands adding accelerant to the holocaust hole at his feet, eventually dropping the bottle itself in and refilling the grave with dirt, covering the mound with dead leaves.

  All the photographs had been taken in the afternoon light, preventing the strobe from flashing and alerting the murderer to the presence of the camera trap and the frame-by-frame chronicling of his crime.

  Incapable of moving, Remington continues to press so hard against the backside of the hollow cypress base that it hurts his back.

  Denial.

  Disbelief.

  I didn’t really just see what I thought I did … did I?

  Turning slightly—his head more than anything else—he shines the penlight over across the slough to the back right corner. Even from this distance and with such a small beam, he can see the mound rising beneath the leaves.

  Glancing down at his camera, he pulls up the information for the last image he looked at. According to t
he time and date stamp encoded in the picture, it was taken less than two hours ago.

  The murderer had been finishing up about the time Remington was unloading the ATV and talking to Heather. And hearing what he thought were screams. He wonders if, like lost light, the horrific screams had been trapped in the swamp until someone had arrived to hear them.

  It wasn’t that long ago.

  The killer could still be out here.

  I’ve got to—

  Movement from the other side of the watering hole triggers the strobe of the camera trap, illuminating the area like heat lightning flickering in a dark night sky.

  Seized with fear, Remington freezes. Full stop. Even his heart and lungs seem to quit functioning for the moment. Facing away from the flash, he makes no move to turn and see what sort of creature triggered the strobe.

  —Did you just take a picture of me?

  The calm, whimsical, slightly amused voice is unrecognizable, sounding like a hundred others he hears every week, indistinguishable in its southern uniformity.

  Remington doesn’t respond, just remains hunched down, his back against the cypress stump. What’s left of the hollowed-out base of the tree doesn’t offer much in the way of protection, but the man is across the watering hole, which provides a barrier and puts some distance between them.

  —I bring her way the fuck out here to avoid all the cameras in the tree stands and you take a picture of me?

  With the camera trap’s memory card in Remington’s new Cannon for viewing, the man’s picture had not been recorded when he set off the strobe.

  But it’s not a bad idea.

  Adjusting his camera, Remington holds it up, and snaps a picture of the area across the water that the voice is coming from, then quickly pulls the camera back down.

  —You keep taking my picture, you’re gonna make me feel like some sort of celebrity or something.

  Remington’s quickly coming to hate the sound of the cold, laconic voice.

  Switching the camera to view mode, Remington glances at the picture he took. The top edge of the frame cuts off just below the man’s chest, revealing only that he is indeed a wildlife officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.