Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  The gate was closed, but the chain hung loose. I bumped it with Vicky's nose, and it swung open. I parked in front of the office door and knocked, but no one answered. I walked around to the one open bay door of the warehouse and whistled. Still no one showed. Finally I honked twice and stood next to Vicky.

  Mandy looked at me and said, "Maybe nobody's here."

  I looked around and shook my head. "I doubt it."

  About two minutes later a shaggy, white-haired guy who was probably fifty but looked seventy walked out of the bay and into the sunlight. He was wiping his greasy hands on an orange rag and squinting in the sunlight. He wore blue pants and a lighter blue shirt with his name ironed on the front. He looked a lot like the man in Sketch's picture, but then any mechanic in a rented uniform would.

  I read his nametag and waved. "Hi ... Mr. Ruskin."

  He kept wiping his hands. "Ruskin's my first name. Skinner's my last. Momma called me Rusky. And my kids don't call me at all anymore."

  I stuck out my hand. "I don't have kids, never knew my mom, and my friends call me Chase."

  He took my hand and shook it. At one time he'd had strong hands, but now the skin was loose, and softness had taken the place of calluses. "What can I do for you?"

  I thought about lying but decided to try the honest approach. "Mr. Skinner, I'm looking for a fellow I think once worked here. All I know is that his name was ... is ... Bo, and that he might have lived in a trailer."

  He squinted an eye. "You with the police?"

  "No sir."

  "The government?"

  "No sir."

  "Well, it's a dang shame. Wish you were. That boy owes me money. If'n we're talking 'bout the same person." He held up his hand to about my ear level. "'Bout this tall?"

  I shrugged. "Don't know. All I've ever seen is a picture of him."

  "Had a bunch of tattoos on his back."

  "Don't know-I never saw it."

  "You don't know much, do you, boy?"

  I shook my head and smiled. "Guess not. I'm trying to do somebody a favor, and that's all I've got to go on."

  He pointed at me. "What you do, boy?"

  "I'm a journalist. I work with the Brunswick Daily."

  "You writing a story on Bo?"

  I shook my head. "No sir. But I think he might have known a little kid I've gotten to know."

  Ruskin nodded. "I never saw the kid, but he used to talk about him. It 'n it's the same kid." He flipped over a five-gallon bucket, dusted off the top, and sat down, leaning against the warehouse in the shade. He flipped the rag over his shoulder and looked through the gate. "He had this woman living with him. They were both drinkers. Bad for each other. He only worked here a short time. Maybe a year. Not too dependable, rarely showed up on time, but"-he held out both hands-"he could fix anything. That Bo did know diddly when it came to engines and anything mechanical."

  "You know where he is now?"

  "Sure." He nodded and took his time. "Prison."

  That didn't surprise me, and to be honest, I was glad. "You know where?"

  "Florida, I think. Somewhere in the panhandle. But it's been awhile."

  I turned, took a few steps toward Vicky, and then turned again. "You don't happen to know where he lived, do you?"

  He nodded. "Sure." He pointed down the dirt road that ran behind the warehouse. "'Bout a mile that way. Can't miss it. Only thing back there."

  "Did he own it?"

  Ruskin shook his head. "No." He pointed toward the office door. "Owner let him live there for"-he held up his hands and made quotation marks with his fingers-"security."

  "You mind if I take a look?"

  "Suit yourself."

  Mandy and I idled down the dirt road until a white single-wide trailer came into view. Poison ivy had grown up over the porch railing, and kudzu was making its way along the pitch of the roof. A charcoal grill was overturned in the yard, along with three pink flamingos, a kid's bike with no rear tire, and the tireless rear end to some car. The grass was a foot tall, and Coors Light cans dotted the yard like seashells. Three cars stood on blocks beneath the shade of a scrub oak. Each was missing at least one tire, most of its windows, and even a door or two. All of the trailer's front windows had either been shot out or broken, and the front door was hanging from one hinge.

  Mandy saw me shaking my head and said, "Pretty bad."

  "Can you imagine being a kid and living here?"

  She spoke softly, as if saying it any louder would make it hurt that much more. "Not really."

  I pushed the front door aside and walked in. The squeaking noise of the door scared a herd of cats. They ran in eight different directions, and then the smell hit me. Evidently, they didn't leave the house much. The trailer had one bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen-all of which needed to be torched. Other than the bike out front, there was no sign inside the trailer that any kid had ever been there, much less lived there.

  Mandy followed me, holding her nose and looking disgusted.

  I stood in the living room, where one of the kittens eyed me with that take-me-home look. "You ready?"

  She nodded.

  Standing at the front door, I turned and eyeballed the place one last time. I spoke to both Mandy and myself. "If you were a kid living here, and you were told not to touch anything-ever, except you had this insatiable need to draw stuff all the time, where would you draw so that it'd never be noticed?"

  She looked around the room. "Good question."

  We spread out and began thinking like a kid who didn't want to get beat. It didn't take me long. Wedged into the corner of the den sat a five-legged table. A lamp sat on the floor next to it. Why the floor?

  I grabbed my flashlight out of the console between Vicky's seats, returned to the table, knelt, and shined upward. One thing immediately came to mind-the Sistine Chapel. The underside of the table was a collage of thoughts or things seen by the kid. From a man throwing a beer can to a woman crying to a cat chasing a mouse ... it was all there.

  Back on Highway 341, the fresh air felt good and smelled even better. Neither of us said much for a while. We passed through Mt. Pleasant, through the light at Everett, over the railroad tracks, and to the northwest corner of the Zuta. Two more miles and we passed the northern gate on the main road. It was open, which was unusual, but given the number of logging trucks going in and out every day, not surprising.

  "You in a hurry to get back?" I asked.

  "I don't have to be in court. What've you got in mind?"

  I U-turned and cut across the highway and through the main gate, which was marked by an enormous sign that read No TRESPASSING. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT.

  Mandy pointed. "You saw that sign, right?"

  I nodded. "My uncle's father bought this property some seventy years ago." I waved my hand across the dashboard. "Unc and his brother Jack used to own everything from those tracks back there, south to Thalmann, east to Sterling, and west again to Everett."

  Mandy calculated. "That's a lot of land."

  "Twenty-six thousand acres."

  "Who owns it now?"

  `Jack."

  She thought for a minute. "There's probably a story there."

  I nodded. The thought of losing the Zuta and, more importantly, the Sanctuary, to Uncle Jack dug at me. I hated the idea. He didn't appreciate it, never had, and didn't deserve it. He was going to strip it of any value, drain it of its beauty, and leave it naked as he had every other property he'd ever owned. Then he'd sell it off to developers, who'd come in and build condos or golf courses or retirement villas.

  When I get to this place in my thinking, where the anger burns and messes with my head and heart, I remember that life is not fair and was never promised to be so. But that does little good, and I still hate Uncle Jack. My hatred for him is simple: I hate him because he wants to take from Unc the one thing that means the most to him. The one thing he held onto. The only thing he's got left.

  And some things are sacred.
No matter how much money you have.

  We passed beneath the major power lines that ran from the coast to central Georgia, cutting through the northern corridor of the property in its path. The main road snakes through the middle of the property, more or less cutting it down the middle, minus a big westerly turn to cut around the Buffalo. Vicky rumbled along, at home on the dusty roads.

  With every corner, I filled Mandy in on more of the history. I told her about how Ellsworth had gambled with the money in his mattress, pulled the bathtub drain, made a fortune, and begun cutting the timber, which was then used from America to the Orient.

  Her face told me she liked hearing the story. The all-business attorney even leaned back and propped her right foot up on the side of the door. In the middle of the property the road turned right, or west, and began following the outline of the Buffalo. On our left we could see the towering treetops rising up out of the pines. A mile or so later the road turned left again, crossing the Buffalo and putting DuBignon Hammock on our right.

  When Ellsworth drained the property, he had to build a road across the Buffalo without hindering the water flow. A bridge was too expensive, and a dam defeated the purpose. So he sat up on his horse, scratched his chin, and asked himself, What is strong enough to drive across but will let water flow through?

  It took him a few days, but somewhere in the Zuta the idea hit him. One of the railroad lines had abandoned three rail cars on an unused section of track on the western boundary. The two-mile-long track had been laid so that trains could pass each other if they planned it right. Sometime back, they quit using it as a passing lane and began using it to dump old cars. Three freight cars had been sitting there long enough to get rusty, so Ellsworth "borrowed" them. He dredged a section of swamp, slid the train car doors off the cars, dropped the three cars end-to-end in the water and-using a welding rod and cutting torch-snugged them together using the doors to close the gaps between each. He then covered the top with fill-dirt and sand so when you drove across you couldn't see the train cars. Actually, it was pretty ingenious. And for seventy years, water has flowed through, and horses, carts, and vehicles have driven on top.

  We stopped on top of the train cars and watched the Buffalo silently slip beneath us. Tall cypress trees sprouted up out of the water on either side, along with purple irises that were just starting to bloom. Because of the rain, the water level was high, as was the fish activity around the bridge.

  We eased off the bridge, through Arnette Field, around the Turpentine Shack-an old shack where they used to sleep while working the turpentine trees, down past the picnic grounds, and finally through Gibson Island, across the canal, and around the back pasture of the house and barn. Unc's Brahman cows were milling around our end of the pasture, and in the distance I heard Aunt Lorna's peacocks raising a ruckus.

  Mandy, who'd been silent a long time, said, "Is that a peacock?"

  "Yeah, my Aunt Lorna thinks they're pretty."

  "I thought those things only lived in zoos."

  I drove into the clearing, the house in view, and smiled. "Welcome to McFarland's Zoo."

  "Please tell me it's okay for us to be here. I don't feel like getting shot today."

  I laughed. "Unc and Aunt Lorna live there." I pointed at the barn where the light was on and the window unit was running, dripping water on the roofline below. "And that's my second home. I stay here when I'm too tired to drive out to my boat or just feel like hanging out."

  Two hundred yards down the road, Bob the Turkey strutted into the middle of the road, fanned his tail feathers, walked a big, bragging circle around a peacock, and then hopped up on the fence rail and clucked.

  Mandy watched in amusement, then waved her hand across the landscape. "You all got any elephants or giraffes?"

  "Not yet, but I wouldn't put it past Uncle Willee."

  The sun was going down, my nose told me that Aunt Lorna was cooking pot roast, and lunch had been a long time ago. "You hungry?" I asked.

  "I can eat."

  "You eat meat?"

  She smiled. "Yeah, when it's dead."

  We walked into the kitchen where Aunt Lorna, wearing an apron, was standing over the stove stirring mashed potatoes. She came around the counter, wiping her hands on a towel, and I introduced them.

  "Aunt Lorna, this is Mandy Parker. She's with the district attorney."

  Aunt Lorna nodded. "Liam was telling me about you."

  Mandy looked confused. "Liam?"

  "Sorry." She pointed out the door at Unc, who was just then walking up the back porch. "Willee."

  Unc walked in, hung his hat on a hook next to the back door, kissed Aunt Lorna, and shook Mandy's hand. "Ms. Parker. Good to see you. You hungry?"

  Mandy nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

  I set the table while Unc washed up and combed his hair. About the time we sat down at the table, Tommye walked in the back door. She had showered, dressed in jeans and running shoes, and looked like she was going somewhere. She waved her hand across the room. "Hi, everybody."

  Unc stood up and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey, sweetheart." He placed his palm to her cheek and then sat back down.

  "Tommye," I said, "this is Mandy Parker."

  Tommye extended her hand. "Tommye McFarland."

  Aunt Lorna stood up and began fixing another plate, but Tommye stopped her. "No, thanks, I'm not all that hungry. I'm just stopping in to ask-" She noticed the lemon pie on the cake stand on the counter. "But I'd love a bite of that." She lifted the glass top and cut a thin slice of pie. "Ouch."

  Tommye had nicked her finger, and blood dripped off onto the counter. I grabbed a paper towel and was reaching out to mop it up when Tommye's other hand grabbed mine with conviction.

  "I got it." She wrapped her finger in the paper towel and stopped the bleeding.

  I reached in Lorna's junk drawer and pulled out a box of BandAids. I peeled the sticky end off one, and again Tommye's hand took it from me.

  She smiled and tried to speak beneath the dinner table conversation. "Really, I got it."

  I brushed her off. "Get lost. I can put a Band-Aid on a finger."

  She smiled and held the bleeding finger behind her back. "Eat your dinner."

  Mandy spoke from across the table. "Tommye, did you grow up knowing Chase?"

  Busy with her finger, Tommye nodded. "Yeah, he was my date to the senior prom." She laughed. "He was pitiful. I felt sorry for him 'cause the guy couldn't get a date no matter how much he begged."

  Mandy laughed, and I threw my napkin across the kitchen. "You can fix your own finger."

  "You live around here?" Mandy continued.

  Tommye finished cleaning the countertop and sat down at the table with her pie. "Sort of. At the moment, I live above the barn. I'm just home for a little while."

  Mandy was just looking for conversation, but I could feel it coming.

  "Do you work around here?"

  Tommye opened her mouth, but I interrupted. "She's an actress."

  Mandy's eyes grew wide. "No kidding?"

  Tommye nodded. "Yes, but-"

  I broke in again. "She's been in L.A. about ten years and came home for a much-needed vacation."

  "You been in anything I've seen?"

  Tommye shook her head. "I doubt it. Early in my career, I made a few commercials, shot some underwear ads, but for the last eight years, I've been working in the adult film business."

  Mandy's head tilted sideways while the words adult film business looked for a landing inside her brain. "Oh."

  Tommye smiled. "When I was a kid, Uncle Willee and Aunt Lorna took me in and gave me my own room." She looked around the house. "So when I decided to come home, this is where my heart led me."

  Unc smiled and nodded.

  Mandy looked at Unc. "You've done that for a lot of kids."

  Unc stirred his mashed potatoes around his plate and then looked up. "Years ago, I lost a son. He was kidnapped and ... killed. Prison gave me a lot of time to think about that bo
y, being scared and wishing his father would show up and rescue him." Unc's eyes glassed over. "So when I got out, I decided-we decided-that we'd just open our house to kids, no matter their background or condition. We read an article about him"-he pointed at me-"about him getting older, passed over. And try as we may, we just can't get rid of him."

  "Thanks. You can do the dishes by yourself."

  Tommye tapped me on the knee and whispered, "Hey, can I borrow Vicky for about an hour?"

  "Sure."

  She said good night to the others, and we walked out onto the drive where night had fallen and the moon had replaced the sun. I grabbed Mandy's leather briefcase and my notepad from the backseat.

  Tommye hooked her arm inside mine and whispered in my ear, "She's pretty."

  I turned. "She's with the D.A. She's been assigned to this kid I'm writing about. And she probably carries a gun in this bag."

  "And she's pretty."

  I shook my head and pointed at the clutch. "She's gotten a little sloppy, so be easy."

  She nodded, did that ponytail-rubber-band-flip-thing with her hand and hair, and then eased off down the driveway and out onto the hard road. I watched the taillights disappear and walked slowly back into the kitchen.

  Mandy was standing over the sink, an apron tied around her waist and her arms covered in soapsuds. Unc was sitting at the table sipping his coffee. He looked at me and nodded at Mandy. "Hey, Chase, you can have her back anytime."

  Mandy rinsed a plate and slid it into the dish drainer. "Well ... if Judge Thaxton gives us a favorable decision, that could be tomorrow afternoon."

  Unc let me borrow Sally, and I drove Mandy home. She sat in the front seat, looked around, and said, "I thought my first ride in one of these would be my last."

  "Well-" I aimed toward a tree, swerved into the grass, then corrected back onto the drive. "You haven't seen me drive yet."

  "Does he really drive this thing?"

  "Yeah ... this is Uncle Willee's way of laughing."

  "At what?"

  "His past, mostly. He quit caring what the world thought about him a long time ago."