Attempting to slow his heart and catch his breath, he listens for footsteps, blood bounding through his body so forcefully his eyes feel like they’ll bulge out of his skull.
Full moon.
Freezing. Fog.
Why didn’t you just go back? You had a choice. You knew what you should do and you didn’t do it. You’re gonna die out here and they’ll never find your body. Heather and Mom—Mom.
She’d be expecting him by now. Needing him.
Having waged a futile war against MS for decades, his mother is now in the final stages of peace talks with this foreign captor of her body. The only terms she can get are complete and unconditional surrender, which she’s nearly ready to give.
He had promised his dad he’d take care of her, move back to the Panhandle to be with her, and here he is lost in the middle of a cypress swamp on a freezing night, hunted like one of the endangered animals he’s been trying to help.
Sorry, Dad.
But it’s not just about letting his dad down again. His mom can’t take care of herself. It’s dangerous for her to be alone. Each evening, he feeds her, helps her with her medications, moves her from recliner to dining table, to bathroom, to bed.
Will she survive the night? Will I?
Caroline James had been a truly beautiful woman—the kind people stop to admire. Long before her diagnosis, she had a vulnerability that added to her attractiveness. As her disease progressed, vulnerable beauty became feeble beauty, but beauty nonetheless. It wasn’t until her husband and caretaker abandoned her that the last of her attractiveness wilted.
As if a physical manifestation of the spiritual withdrawals Cole’s absence produced, Caroline’s body began to wither—drawing in on itself. Curling. Constricting. Clinching.
Like the petals of a flower closing, the aperture of her allure shut down completely, never to reopen.
Sitting there in the cold dark, attempting to calm himself, Remington recalls one of their recent conversations.
—It won’t be long now, she says. Can’t be.
Shrunken, shriveled, coiled, her small, fetal-like form is lost in the bed that had been big enough for both of them, Cole’s unmade side empty and cold.
Remington sits next to it in a low, stiff, uncomfortable chair, pulled up from the corner of the room where its only job is to tie together the carpet, comforter, and window treatment.
—I’m glad your dad isn’t here to see me like this. Remington continues to rub her back.
—I’m sorry you have to, she says. Not just to see me like this, but to be here.
—I’m happy to be here.
—Don’t lie to your dying mother.
—I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
—Sorry we didn’t have you a brother or a sister to share this burden.
—Just means I won’t have to share the inheritance.
She lets out a rare laugh that makes him smile, and he wishes he could think of something else funny to say.
—I know what you’ve been doing, she says.
—Ma’am?
—I never said anything. Your dad was so proud and downright stubborn, but I’ve known all along.
—Known what, Mom?
—That you’ve been paying for my medicine.
A self-employed small-business owner, Cole James didn’t have health insurance, and Caroline’s medications were astronomical. Knowing his father would never allow him to pay, Remington convinced his mom’s doctor to tell his parents that Caroline was in a study being conducted by the drug company that manufactured her medicine, so it would be provided for free.
—I love you, he says. Wish I could do more.
They are quiet a moment.
—Think I’ll see your father again?
—Absolutely.
—Remington Joshua James. I could get anybody to come in here and lie to me. Hell, they have entire foundations set up just for the purpose of granting dying people their last wish. I’m looking for the truth from you.
He smiles at the faint glimpse of the feisty young female she had been.
—I certainly hope so—for you and Dad more than anyone else I know—but I have more doubt than belief most of the time.
—Me, too.
They are quiet again.
—Sometimes I believe, he says. I really do. I think there’s so much to life, to this world, that this can’t be it. There’s got to be something more. Something beyond our short little lives. If not, what was all the bother for?
—When?
—Ma’am?
—When do you believe? What times?
—Mostly when I’m alone in the woods looking at the world through a lens.
You’re alone in the woods, he thinks. You feel like something’s here watching over you now?
He thinks of the shot, burned, and buried girl somewhere back in the woods. No one was watching out for her, were they?
Still, just in case: Please be with my mom. Send somebody to check on her, to call or stop by. And if I don’t make it out of here, please let somebody take care of her.
I might not make it out of here.
It’s a very real possibility, yet difficult for him to process. Can this be his last night on the planet, his final moments? What can he do to make sure it’s not? Can he kill a man? Does he have that in him? He honestly doesn’t know. Not something ever put to the test. Not something he ever dreamed would be.
This can’t be it. I don’t know what to think, what to do. I can’t even call Heather to tell her—what? What would I tell her?
He pulls out his phone to check for signal.
At certain places along the river there’s just enough reception to make a crackling, static-filled call.
He has no idea where he is. He thought he had been running east toward the Chipola River, but if so, he should have reached it. He keeps moving. Maybe he’s closer than he thinks.
No signal.
Not the faintest trace. Where the hell am I? Lost.
Think.
How do I find my way to the river?
He thinks if he can just make it to the river, he can flag down a passing boat or manage to make a phone call.
All roads lead to the river.
Lyrics to songs about the river play in his head, and he recalls the year three of his favorite artists put out songs about the river—not any particular river, but the river.
The river of life. The river of dreams. The river of souls. The river of love. The river of God. The river of time. The river.
The river as a metaphor for . . . what? Life? Depth? Spirituality? Eternity? Music? Meaning?
And the river is wide. And the river is deep.
What year was that?
I sit on the shore where so many have sat before. A fire burns I didn’t start. Undressing I walk in . . . to the place where my life began. Submerged.
Baptized. In drowning I live.
Does salvation await him at the river? Can he make it there if it does?
His best chance for finding the river will come with daylight. It’s only a chance. Nothing more. Odds aren’t very good. And he’ll have to survive the night to even get those.
Fog-covered forest.
Cloud-shrouded orb. Diffused, intermittent light. Pale.
Ghostly.
Smattering of stars.
He sits shivering after taking the last sip of water from the bottle in his sling pack. The full moon is bright enough to cast shadows, but diluted, knocked down several stops like studio lights with scrims, by scattered clouds and a thick, smoke-like fog.
Snap.
Breaking twig. Leaves rustling. Stop.
Approaching footsteps. Ready to run.
Willing to fight. Relief.
He lets out a quiet but audible sigh as a small gray fox prances out of the fog. The dog-like creature—gray-brown on top, rust and white underneath—is barely three feet long. Out foraging for food, the animal doesn’t react to Remington’s presence.
&nb
sp; Instinctively, he reaches for his camera.
Stop. No. Too dangerous. Can’t risk the flash revealing his whereabouts to the murderer or his friends—if they’ve joined him. If they’re going to.
Fog thick as he’s ever seen anywhere, the entire forest seems on fire, jagged outlines of trees etched in the mist, their tops disappearing as if into mountaintop clouds.
More footfalls.
The small fox darts away as a man steps out of the mist.
Remington sits perfectly still. Breaths shallow. Eyes unblinking. The broad, alpine man has long, unkempt brown hair, a burly beard, and lumbers along in enormous work boots, radio in one massive mitt, a blued Smith and Wesson .357 magnum in the other.
I’m about to die.
Though heading straight toward the tree base, the man seems not to have seen Remington yet—perhaps because of the darkness or fog, or maybe because of the leaves he has gathered around himself for cover, but most likely because of the man’s height.
Pausing just before reaching what’s left of the cypress tree, the man turns and surveys the area, his mammoth boots sweeping the leaves aside and making large divots in the damp ground.
Before Remington had moved away from home, he seemed to know everybody in the area. Now, he’s continually amazed at how few people he recognizes, and though the giant standing in front of him resembles many of the corn-fed felons he grew up with—guys with names like Skinner, Squatch, Bear, and Big—he’s distinctive enough to identify if he knew him.
Remington jumps as the man’s radio beeps.
—Anything?
—Not a goddamn.
—Okay. Keep looking.
—That sounded like an order.
—Sorry big fellow. Please is always implied. I meant, Would you keep looking please?
—We could do this all night and never find him.
—Yeah?
—Or we could get the dogs out here and make short work of this shit.
—Dogs mean involving more people.
—We don’t catch him a whole lot more people will be involved.
—I hear you. Let’s give it a little while longer, then we’ll call Spider. Either way, camera boy won’t leave these woods alive.
—Make sure Arl and Donnie Paul split up. We need to cover as much ground as possible.
That’s four he knows of. The calm murderer, the big bastard in front of him, Arlington, and Donnie Paul. Are there others?
When the big man finishes his conversation, he pockets the radio, unzips his jeans, and begins to urinate on the ground, the acidic, acrid odor wafting over to find Remington’s nostrils. Finishing, he zips, clears his throat, spits, and begins to trudge away.
At least four men.
Out here to kill him.
Dogs.
If they use dogs on him, the river is his only hope. Got to find it.
Where the hell am I?
He quietly pulls the compass out of his pocket.
It’s smashed. Useless. Must have happened on one of his falls or when he crashed into the tree.
Know where you’re going. Use a map and a compass.
Always tell someone where you’re going. Never go alone.
Always carry the essentials. If you get lost, stay put.
Make yourself seen and heard.
He thinks of all the tactics he’s read about while studying to be a wildlife photographer. When traveling in the woods, always know where you’re going, never go alone, use a compass, and carry the essentials:
Water.
Matches.
Food.
Clothing.
Signal flag.
Whistle.
Compass.
Map.
Flashlight.
Batteries.
Knife.
Sunscreen.
First-aid kit.
He had broken the rules, and now he no longer had a single one of the essentials. Compass broken. Penlight dead. Water gone.
He had been merely going to take some pictures, check his traps, and be out by a little past dark.
Always, always, always carry the essentials. Always.
Rule number one.
Lost.
What do you do if you get lost? Stay put. Don’t move around. Then, make yourself seen and heard.
He had to move, to find the river, and the only people out here he could make himself seen and heard to wanted to kill him.
Maybe I should try to circle back to the four-wheeler. Maybe I could outrun them, make it back to my truck, then to town before they did.
If he knew where the other men were . . . but he doesn’t. He could walk right into them. And if they’ve seen his four-wheeler and truck, they’ve probably disabled them. Or might have a man watching them.
No, the river is his best hope. His only.
Waiting to make sure the big man is far enough away not to see or hear him when he moves again, he occupies his racing mind with thoughts of Heather.
For their last anniversary and as a last stand to save their marriage, she had dragged him on a Carribean cruise. Not wanting to go and not hiding the fact, he had tried to talk her out of it in the weeks leading up to it as well as on the short drive from Orlando over to Cape Canaveral, but she had remained steadfast in her conviction that it would be, if not exactly what they needed, at least a hell of a lot of fun, and therefore, good for them.
She had been right.
Not that it had ultimately saved their marriage, but it seemed to at the time—and who knew, maybe he would make it out of here, they’d get back together, and the cruise would be a contributing factor.
The short cruise took them to Freeport, then Nassau, before a full day at sea on their return home.
In Freeport, they had rented a Moped, and she had held onto him as he drove around the island. He had been lost then, too. First, driving on the wrong side of the street, then failing to find much of anything in the way of sights or shops, but it had been a lot of fun. Her arms around him, the sun on his face, the tropical environs—it all conspired, like the rest of the cruise itself, to make her as amorous as him. Pressing her body, particularly her breasts, against his back, her mouth at his ear, she made his body respond—especially the times she slipped her hand into his shorts and took him in it.
Food and sex. Sex and food.
Sunshine.
Reading.
Swimming.
Dancing.
Sex.
Food.
Up late.
Sleeping in.
Drinking A Kiss on the Lips on deck, the sweet frozen peach bursting in their mouths, the liquor flushing their faces.
Cuban cigars in a quiet corner bar before bed.
Bed.
They made love more in those five days than in the two weeks leading up to them.
His favorite times were when out at sea, they’d open the curtains to their cabin and stand at the window, him taking her from behind, pressing her against the glass, both of them taking in the vast, endless ocean.
It was the most transcendent sexual experience he’d ever had.
At night, their breaths showing on the glass, the moon cutting a shimmering path across the Atlantic for what looked like infinity, it was as if they were the only two people in the dark, wet world.
He’d give anything—anything in that world—to be inside her right now.
Would he ever be again? Would he even see her?
Moss on the north sides of trees, spiders’ webs on the south.
Vertical stick in the ground, movement of the shadows caused by the sun.
The sun. Tracking east to west.
Most of the things he’s read about finding north when lost in the woods worked more easily during the day. Supposed to stay put at night. But he can’t. He’s got to find north so he can find east so he can find the river.
Though Spanish moss is draped over virtually every hardwood limb in the area, for some reason it doesn’t grow this deep in the riv
er swamp.
No moss. No spiders’ webs around.
He continues going through the list in his mind.
Night.
Northern hemisphere.
North star.
Polaris.
Brightest in the handle of the Little Dipper. Clear night.
No good. Fog. Clouds.
Clouds move west to east, don’t they? Well, roughly. Not exact, but it’s something.
Impenetrable fog.
Blotted out sky.
He’ll have to wait until the fog lifts or find a break in it somewhere.
Time to move.
Carefully.
Quietly. Slowly.
Climbing out of the cypress stump, he avoids the damp ring of urine the big man left as he begins to make his way in what feels like the direction of the river.
Feeling his way through sharp, craggy branches and hard, twisting vines, his progress is plodding.
The dry, dead leaves crunch and crackle beneath his boots, undermining his attempts at silence. He tries shuffling his feet, then sliding, then lifting them high and placing them back down softly, but nothing he does makes any difference. Quiet advancement through the woods this time of year is impossible.
He has no idea exactly where he’s heading. Just moving. He could be walking away from the river, could be walking toward one of the men hunting him. He has no way of knowing.
His breaths, backlit by moonlight, come out in bursts like steam from a Manhattan manhole.
His movements are awkward, unsteady, every shivering step a struggle in the turbid terrain.
Halting occasionally, he listens for the other men.
Body tight with tension, he can’t help but believe a high velocity round will rip through him at any moment, the scorching projectile piercing vital organs and arteries. Bleeding out slowly, painfully like a gut-shot animal. Or his head exploding in Zapruder film-like fashion. Of course, he could be attacked from close range, brained with an oak branch or beaten to death by the big man.
Panic.
He wants to run, everything in him giving in to the flight side of his fight or flight response, but he realizes it would be suicide. Even if he could remain on his feet and not run into a tree or trip and bash his head on a cypress knee, and even if his frenzied, out of control run didn’t alert his predators to his presence, he would soon tire, becoming even more dehydrated and disoriented.
The Remington James Box Set Page 5