“This thing hasn’t been opened in nearly two hundred years?” Piper could barely believe their good luck.
The kids looked up at each other and then back down at the vasculum.
“Wow…” said Creeper. “Buried treasure. We found buried treasure.”
Perch gave the vasculum a little shake. Something fluttered inside. Dr. Cole had buried it for safekeeping. Only important things get buried for safekeeping.
“Gad night a living!” said Macey, arriving behind them. “Don’t just squat there like dogs in high cotton. Open the dang thing up and let’s take a gander.”
Perch passed the vasculum to Piper. “Go ahead, Princess. This is your quest. You should open it.”
Piper stared at the gold cylinder resting on her fingertips. It felt like the last unscratched box on a lottery ticket. She needed a sign to point them in the right direction. Without a new clue, the search would end there. The swamp was simply too vast to find the silver flower without the help of Dr. Cole. She breathed a quick prayer, then unlatched the little metal door on the vasculum’s side. She opened it. There appeared to be a scrap of cloth inside. Piper pinched a corner, pulled it out gently, and handed it to Tad. He uncrumpled the cloth, then laid it out flat on the ground. It was dirty and blank.
Macey recognized the material. “That’s vellum. Animal skin. You can tell by the little pits covering the surface. That’s where the hair follicles used to be. Cotton or paper wouldn’t have survived this long, not even inside a gold container. Vellum lasts for centuries.”
Piper was devastated. “It’s nothing, then? Just old animal skin?”
“The follicle pits are always on the back side,” Macey said. “Flip it.”
Tad turned it over.
“Well, how about that?” said Macey.
On the front side of the vellum, Dr. Cole had drawn a map of the swamp. They compared it to the more precise map provided by the welcome center. Perch was impressed by how accurately Tad’s ancestor had visualized the Oke’s layout. A few smaller islands were missing on the hand-drawn map, and the shapes and distances weren’t perfect, but all of the swamp’s major landmarks were there.
“Dr. Cole just earned my respect, big-time,” Perch said. “Even today, with a GPS and other high-tech equipment, it’d take a surveyor half a year to come up with a map this spot-on. Cole did it in weeks, and with no real technology. He sure had a fantastic eye for detail. Color me impressed.”
“And look!” said Tad. He pointed out several little Xs on the map. “They match up to the markers in his journal. There’s the one we’d hoped to find on Minnie’s Island. And these right here—”
“They’re new ones!” Piper practically shouted. Her fingertip skated across the map. “Here, here…and here! Those aren’t in the journal!”
She was right. Cole had gone to several locations after his stop on Minnie’s Island, and he’d recorded them all on the map. More important, he’d drawn little arrows to show the progression of his journey.
“The last arrow leads to this spot right here.” She tap-tapped inside a circle Cole had drawn then lapped over several times with his ink.
Piper’s heart nearly stopped. “I don’t believe it.…”
At the center of the circle was a faded, barely perceptible symbol that looked remarkably like a flower.
“He found it!” Piper jumped up and down excitedly. “Dr. Cole found the flower! It’s there, inside that circle!”
“We can’t know for sure,” said Tad. “The facts suggest he was killed and never completed his quest, otherwise he would have put the flower in the vasculum, right? That’s the whole purpose of the thing, keeping botanical samples fresh.”
“He makes a good point,” said Perch.
Piper shut the door on doubt. “Who cares? All I know is that this circle is where we’ll find the flower. We have to go there!”
“Well, even if your silver flower is there, we may not be able to reach it,” Perch told them. “First, the circle is west of the refuge’s boundaries. There are insurance issues for my company.”
Piper opened her mouth to argue, but Perch lifted his hand up and out like a crossing guard to cut her off.
“Relax, Princess, that won’t stop me from taking y’all. My real concern is the swampscape. There was a huge fire in the western part of the Oke a few years back. We had a dry spell, and then a lightning storm set the trees ablaze. It torched a couple hundred thousand acres. The state paid to clean up the park, but dead trees outside the park’s border were left to rot and fall. Could be treacherous to navigate through. In all honesty, I’ve never been that far west in my life. It’s uncharted territory.”
“Isn’t that the best reason to assume the flower is there?” Piper reasoned.
“Piper’s right,” said Tad. “It’s the most logical place to look.”
“Fine. But there’s another problem,” Perch told them. “And this one there’s no getting around.”
“What is it?” Piper asked, positive she would.
Perch nodded up at the sun. It was on its descent, tilting to the west. “It’s early evening. We still have to trek back to the boat. It’ll take us a couple hours to get to the part of the swamp Cole circled on the map. Possibly more if trees felled by the fire are blocking the narrows. We’ll only have a few hours of daylight left before dark.”
“The western swamp won’t be like Disney World, kids,” Macey said. “No privies, no picnic areas, no docks. There’ll be no creature comforts, just creatures. We’d be loons to head out now.”
“But we’re so close,” Piper moaned.
Perch took a good hard look at the map and then a good hard look at his passengers. “I’m double-minded on the problem. I told you I’d give you the day. But if I keep my word, that day would end with us motoring inside that red circle, and that’d be a mistake we’d all regret. So here’s what I’m proposing: I’d be willing to give you an extra day, for no charge, provided you folks are willing to spend the night here on Billy’s Island.”
“You want us to sleep in the swamp?” Piper couldn’t imagine a more repugnant scenario.
“It’s perfectly safe as long as you don’t wander off,” Perch assured her. “No sleepwalkers in the group, right? We could start fresh in the morning.”
“I can’t,” Tad objected. “My mom would kill me. She’d pound me, then ground me. And worse, she’d never trust me again. Piper, you can’t be serious about this? You really want to sleep in a swamp?”
She didn’t. Just the thought of it made her hands sweaty, but what she wanted was irrelevant. Piper was there for Grace, and fully committed to the search. However, there was her other sibling to think about. “Yes, I want to stay. But Creeper—”
“I’m staying!” Creeper avowed. “You guys can go home if you want, but me and Perch are gonna keep looking.”
“It’s gotta be all or none, buddy,” Perch said. “We can’t make the others swim home, right?”
“Piper, please…” Creeper begged. “We have to stay. For Grace.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “We’ll stay.”
“Not that anybody asked me”—Macey tamped her smoldering cigarette butt beneath her boot—“but I’m in. It won’t be the first time I’ve slept in the Oke. Don’t ask.”
They all looked to Tad.
“Ugh!” he cried. “Piper, I promised you one day, and that’s all.”
“So did I,” Perch reminded him. He was grinning at Tad like the Cheshire Cat, his naked torso rippling with muscles.
A camping trip with Piper wasn’t the worst thing Tad could think to endure, but with shirtless Perch around, it felt like a train of regret he could see barreling down the track. He wanted to go home. Still, the way Piper was looking at him, imploring with those big, golden eyes…
“Fine,” said Tad. “Let’s stay.”
Piper threw her arms around him. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Oh…okay.” Tad blushed darkly. Inside, his heart e
xploded into confetti.
Just as he lifted his arms to hug her back, she broke away and pulled Perch into an embrace. “And thank you too!” she said, pressing her cheek against his bare chest.
Perch chuckled “Well, ain’t this a treat.”
Tad didn’t like “this.” Not one bit.
“I have a question,” said Creeper. “What does this word mean?” He pointed to the map. There was a word scrawled—or possibly smeared—in five large red letters, the largest on the map. Every letter was capitalized, as if to emphasize the word’s importance. A line had been drawn from the word to the center of the circle, connecting it to the flower’s location. The word was this:
Tad scratched the letter G with his fingernail, and red powder flaked off under his nail. “Guys…” He grimaced. “I don’t think this is ink.” He licked his fingertip.
“Well? What is it then? Spit it out,” Perch said.
Tad did just that. He spit on the ground and wiped his mouth. “Guys, I think the word Mergo was written in blood.”
The Field Notes of Botanist Dr. Brisbane Cole
August 9, 1823
We have reached the end of the first day. My assistants and I set up camp sixteen to twenty miles deep into the swamp, on the south end of a large island. After covering our canoes with palmetto fronds and reeds (there are other Creek tribes hunting in the swamp, and it is best not to alert them to our presence), we trekked inland through the forest until we came upon a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a great, unnatural mound. Nokosi instructed Bolek to help me pitch my tent while he gathered rocks for a fire pit. Despite the language barrier, the elder Indian takes direction well and absorbs language like a sponge. We have developed a working system of communicating through a smattering of English and Seminole words combined with a dozen hand gestures. Nokosi seems to anticipate my needs and is quick to fulfill them. Perhaps most useful of all is his comprehensive knowledge of the swamp and his innate sense of direction within it. He may yet prove to be an adequate assistant. Time will tell.
Nokosi chose this spot for a reason, and although I’m sure I missed the finer points due to our language barrier, I gather that the clearing is a burial site, and the mound is filled with the bodily remains of a tribe feared by all others. Nokosi assured me this fear will keep us safe from attacks in the night and from theft by day.
The youngest of our party has claimed ownership of this place, thumping his chest, stomping the ground, and declaring the land to be “Bolek’s Island,” although it sounded very much like “Bowleg’s Island,” and I couldn’t rein in a chuckle, earning the lad’s deeper contempt. Bolek is not bowlegged, of course, being neither a horseman nor a sufferer of rickets, nor does it matter to me if he plays at being boy-king, baron, or god of the island, as long as he grants me refuge upon it and asks nothing in remuneration. From the way he has fixated on my vasculum, I will be wise to use it as my pillow. Otherwise, this clearing seems as comfortable and safe as any place I’ve camped, and for that I am grateful. Safety is a luxury explorers such as myself must often forgo in pursuit of specimens, and many have died an untimely death: Forsskål from malaria, König from dysentery, Brunete from a fall from his burro, Dalton from freezing, Seetzen by poisoning. Of course the one that currently stands out in mind is John Lawson, a poor soul who was tortured and burned at the stake by hostile Indians. Why, then, do we choose a path so pockmarked with grisly fates? My friend William Bartram said it best when he wrote: “I might be instrumental in discovering, and introducing into my native country, some original productions of nature, which might become useful to society.” It’s true there are some vainglorious men who care for naught but fame and riches. But many of us hope to find some new specimen that can be used to enrich the lives of our fellow man. That alone is the reward of the risk. Let us see what tomorrow brings.
Perch was hunched over the fire pit like a caveman. A caveman with a butane barbecue lighter. He’d put on a fresh Oke Dokey Boat Tours T-shirt. “I keep a dozen extra stored on the Mud Cat to sell to tourists at the end of their visit,” he explained. Perch used his dirty old one as char cloth to start the fire. Tad was glad the show was over. He was sick of watching Perch parade around half-naked in front of Piper.
Creeper was busy unrolling one of the three sleeping bags Perch kept stored inside the Mud Cat’s benches. Say what you want about their flamboyant guide, but the kid was well prepared. They’d set up camp by the trail just a few hundred feet from the dock so they could keep an eye on the boat and stay within a short distance of any supplies they might need. The last bit of sunlight stained the water’s ultrareflective surface ginger, and the stars began to poke through the darkening sky above.
“So what do you suppose Mergo means?” Creeper asked. “And why was it written in blood?”
“No clue, little buddy,” Perch said. “Never heard the word before. Maybe it’s from one of the Creek languages. Seminole, if I had to guess. Mergo probably just means, ‘Ouch! I pricked my finger.’”
Creeper giggled.
“It’s not Creek,” Tad disagreed. “I think it’s Latin. Definitely sounds Latin to me.” He was sitting on a log, handing Perch sticks one at a time for kindling. He’d removed his sneakers and socks and placed them by the fire pit to dry. They were still wet from his dip in the prairie.
“You read Latin?” Piper asked from her seat on the log next to Tad. The vellum map was draped across her knees. She was straining her eyes in the fading light, studying it for clues. “I didn’t know that.”
“Not really,” Tad admitted. “But botanists use Latin in taxonomy, the process of identifying and naming plants. I’ve seen enough Latin words in my science books to know the language when I come across it. I just can’t tell you what it means.”
Perch noticed Piper squinting. “It’s getting dark out,” he said. “There’s a flashlight in my boat. Don’t go ruining your eyes trying to read that map.”
“I’ll get it,” Creeper said, and he ran off down the trail toward the water. Out here in the Oke, Creeper was a different kid. Eager to help. Piper could get used to this alternate-universe version of her brother.
Macey flicked a cigarette butt into the smoking weave of kindling. “Dang it, that was mah last smoke,” she grumbled. “It’s gonna be a long night.”
Perch chuckled. “It ain’t gonna kill ya to go without for a day. Probably the opposite.” He looked to his elder. “Mace, you’ve been around the swamp longer than most; what do you reckon Mergo means?”
She sat down on a log across the fire pit from Tad and Piper and stretched her legs. “Who knows? Maybe Mergo is the name yer plant fellah came up with for the flower.” In her thick Southern drawl, she pronounced the word as Mergah.
“I don’t think that’s right either,” Tad said. “It’s an ugly name for a flower Cole believed would save his wife’s life.”
“Tad, you said Cole’s Seminole guide blamed his death on an evil spirit,” said Piper. “What if Mergo is an evil spirit? A Tasketcha ghost?”
“Cole was a man of science,” Tad reminded her. “He wouldn’t buy into anything so hokey. The more likely theory is that he was killed by his guides, and his bones and buttons are rolling across the bottom of the swamp. He came to the swamp right between the two Seminole wars. There was a lot of bad blood.”
“There’s no point in busting our brains on speculation.” Perch had coaxed up a flicker of fire. He fanned the flicker into a flame. Then he fed the flame a few sticks, waited for those to catch, and fed it a few more. “None of us here believe in evil spirits, right? The story of the Tasketcha is just that, a story. A folktale. Why should we care about some superstitious mumbo jumbo?”
“So you don’t believe in the supernatural?” Tad asked. “Not that I do, of course. I’m a man of science, like my ancestor. I just figured…you know.”
Perch bristled. “What? I’m just a swamp rat, so I’m sure to believe every tall tale I hear? Maybe I should change my compan
y’s name to Gullible’s Travels—is that what you think?” Perch seemed genuinely hurt.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry.” Tad didn’t have a cruel bone in his body. He felt bad instantly. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m just messing with ya!” Perch guffawed, then slapped Tad on the back. “My feelings wear armor. But trust me, if I believed every legend I hear in the Oke, I’d be moving to the city tomorrow. Just last week a fisherman told me a story about a monster-size fish that got away. He claimed it was fourteen feet long. Of course, nothing makes a fish bigger than almost gettin’ caught.”
“Please don’t talk about fish,” Creeper groaned. He’d returned with the flashlight and handed it to his sister. “I’m so hungry. Is anybody else starving?”
“We’re out of sandwiches,” Piper reminded him. “You ate them all on the boat.”
Perch stood and brushed off his knees. “Tell you what. Tad, you keep feeding the fire, and I’ll go catch us some dinner.”
“Forget it,” said Piper. “I don’t eat oak toad.”
Macey smacked her lips. “You don’t know what yer missing, girl.” Piper couldn’t tell if she was joking.
“I’ve got fishing tackle in the Mud Cat,” Perch said. “The jackfish and warmouth get hungry at dusk. I’ll be back in a jiff with dinner. Whaddaya say, Creeper ol’ buddy? You want to help me catch some fish?”
“Sure!”
“Great. C’mon then. I’ll get the fly rod while you scrounge around for some bait. Worms are good. Crickets’ll do.”
Creeper didn’t wait for Perch. He bolted down the trail toward the water.
“This should be interesting,” Macey said, pushing herself up from her log. She sauntered after the boys.
Piper realized she hadn’t seen Creeper truly excited about much since they’d learned of Grace’s illness. She was happy to see a spring in his step again. Even if they didn’t find the flower, this trip had been good for him. And despite her hatred for the swamp, it had been good for her too. It had given her purpose, something she’d lacked for quite a while.
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