Devil in the Grass

by Christopher Bowron

  ****

  Josh put his index finger to his mouth as the sound of a car’s engine roared to life. He pulled himself up on the dock and stealthily worked his way to one of the back windows and looked in. He motioned for Janie and Nate, and whispered: “The building appears to be empty—I want to see where that car was going.” They passed though the strange workshop filled with televisions, chairs, sofas, and stuffed animals. The mortician’s table made Janie shiver.

  Janie tugged on Josh’s shirt sleeve. “I think we’ve hit pay dirt.”

  The young Seminole nodded in agreement.

  Nate put his finger in the air and paused for a second. “I hear that fishin’ boat again.”

  Josh nodded. “Shit, you’re right. Get over to the window. Janie, you stay down.”

  The sound of a boat could be heard moving toward them from the south. Then the engine cut.

  “Holy shit, what now?”

  Janie’s cell phone vibrated and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked at the screen; it was Peter. She turned off the phone.

  ****

  The driveway through the McFadden property was a quarter of a mile long. Halfway to the exit, Henrietta’s cell rang. She pulled it out of her purse and placed it to her ear. “Henrietta LePley.” She cringed as she heard the French accent on the other end of the line.

  “Henrietta, ma chère. It’s Mason.”

  “What is it?” she said sharply.

  “I have bad news. I will keep it simple. Jackson Walker has escaped. He managed to pry open the trunk of the car and jumped out. I have not seen or heard from Buck. He took off to chase Walker.”

  “How could this happen?”

  “When we pulled over to stop Walker, another car . . . someone who was following us pulled behind us. If it were not for this person, Walker would not have escaped.”

  “The driver of the car would have seen all of this . . . ”

  “Oui, ma chère. He is dead. He is in the trunk of his car, which I am now driving. I have not been able to get Buck on his phone. Have you heard from him?”

  This can’t be, said the voice in her head. “Isaac, stop the car.”

  Isaac followed orders.

  “Mason, something must have happened to Buck.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way back to the McFadden estate. I will be there soon.”

  “Isaac, turn the car around.”

  Isaac hesitated for a moment. “What the heck?” He pointed at the two figures walking toward the car, the slight fog off the river creating a halo effect around their forms. Both appeared to be carrying weapons—one a sawed-off shot gun, the other, some kind of pistol. He stepped out of the car, much to Henrietta’s dismay.

  He stuck his head out the car window and yelled. “Whoever you are, back up and get the hell off my property.”

  The men advanced.

  Isaac reached into his pocket, pulled out Lani Green’s handgun, and fired at the person to the left. He was pretty sure he’d hit his target in the chest, as the man went down quickly in a heap. A second later he was greeted with a shotgun blast and was hit with several pellets, mostly his right arm. It felt as if his ear had been ripped off; touching his lobe, he found a bloody mess. He cursed, seeing the blood on his white jacket. Another blast from the shotgun took out the front window. Isaac knelt down behind the car door and eyed up his next shot. The shotgun wielder looked as if he was jammed. Isaac braced the gun with two hands on the edge of the open window and squeezed the trigger. He wasn’t sure where he’d hit the man, but his target left his feet on impact and then fell to the ground backwards. Isaac hung his arms down for a moment to catch his breath, then walked sternly towards his downed adversaries. He reached the man with the shotgun first; his throat and upper chest were blown apart and there appeared to be no movement in the body. The other man lay convulsing on his side. He’d been hit in the gut, and was trying to hold his innards to keep them from popping out of the wound. The man looked up in fear. Isaac placed the gun on his forehead and pulled the trigger.

  He slowly walked back towards the limousine after gathering up the firearms, hesitating before pulling open the door, worried at what he might find. The old matriarch glared at him as he looked down at her.

  “Is the situation resolved, Mr. McFadden?”

  Isaac took a deep breath. “The two men are dead. They looked to be native.”

  “Very well. Please take me back to the main house. The smell of the shed is noxious. Mason will be back soon and we will have to devise a suitable response to the mess we now find ourselves in. Walker has escaped, and haven’t heard from Buck.”

  Isaac dropped his head and returned to the driver’s seat. His hackles were up. The McFadden family had survived for generations by being wily, knowing their limits, and being in control—a bit psychotic, but always in control. Henrietta’s words tipped him over the edge. The control factor was now gone. Jimmy and he would have to look out for their best interests. Those might not include the old woman. If necessary, he would shoot her, too.

  ****

  As Janie slid the phone into her pocket, she heard gunshots from the direction the car had gone. Josh and Nate were watching the back of the building intently. She whispered, “We’re cornered. Where did the boat go?”

  “That’s what I want to know. This guy is a hunter, and I doubt he’s going to let his quarry know what direction he’s coming from. I don’t like it one bit. We can’t go out front, either. Time to call the cops.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Janie saw headlights coming up the driveway. “Josh, we’ve got more company. There’s a car coming our way.”

  Nate was the first to move. “Crap, we’re out of here. Come, follow me.” He went out the back door of the shed and ran along the dock, his heavy boots making loud thumps. “Back to the b—”

  There was a flash from the direction they were heading and the crack of a high-powered rifle. Nate’s head exploded with the force of the hollow-point bullet that entered through his forehead. Janie heard the sound of a gun reloading with a sharp snap, a cartridge hitting the ground.

  Josh stopped in his tracks, searching for their adversary. Both Janie and he saw the man standing on the ground with the gun propped against the edge of the deck, but too late to dodge the next shot. The bullet hit Josh in the thigh; he flew backwards five feet from the impact and landed in the water.

  Janie didn’t look to see what happened to Josh, but instead became transfixed by the puckered face of the man with the rifle. Cha-chink, another round was loaded. Events slowed for Janie, she saw the empty cartridge twirling in the air as it dropped past the edge of the deck. The man leveled the rifle, pointing it directly at her face. It was strange that she could tell where he was aiming. It wasn’t her chest, it was right at her goddamned face. Bastard, I’m not going to die like this. With all the strength left in her, she dove toward the water. The bullet zipped through the edge of her cheek, but she felt no pain. She saw the puff of smoke from the end of the rifle, and then she felt herself enter the lukewarm water. There was no sound from the splash.

  She swam under the dock just as another shot took out a chunk of wood from the piling next to her head. She put the dock between herself and the gunman, then kicked off her shoes. To the left, she could see Josh pulling himself into the reeds. As the man moved up onto the dock, Janie ducked under the water and pushed herself out into the river, using one of the barnacle-encrusted pilings for leverage. She was an excellent swimmer and could make it to the other side in one breath. The water was murky, and there was no way the man would be able to see her in the depths. The bottom of the watercourse was muddy and filled with debris and water plants which grew thick in the deepest section as she passed through. As she neared the far side, something bumped into the side of her leg. It wasn’t a bite, it was a heavy bump from something much larger than herself. She refused to panic; if she surfaced, she was sure the gunman would blow her head off. She strug
gled into the sawgrass embankment, trying not to exhale too loudly as she slowly broke the surface. She carefully pulled herself into the grass. There was a large swirl in front of where she entered. She expected to see a large reptilian tail, but instead swore it was a fin. She scampered back quickly. Another shot . . . a bullet whipped through the grass.

  ****

  “Jimmy, what the hell are you shootin’ . . . ” Isaac’s words died in his mouth as he saw the body lying on the deck.

  “Wu-wu-one of the fuckers got away clean. A woman. Jezebel will take care of her. Fresh meat. The other, I don’t know. I think he was hit in the leg. He’s out in the water somewhere. Won’t last long, gators are all over the blood I poured out earlier.”

  “The old woman is in the house and we’re expecting guests.” Isaac shook his head, looking at the gore spilled out on the dock. “Get this mess cleaned up.”

  Jimmy nodded.

  27

  Vengeance

  IT TOOK SOME TIME for Perry to get through to Peter after hanging up with Jack. He eventually found his way through an irritating telephone loop to Robertson’s answering service, who in turn called Peter directly.

  “We’re calling the police now!” Peter said in his deep baritone. “What the hell does Walker hope to achieve besides getting himself killed?”

  “My thoughts exactly sir, but he didn’t seem ‘right’ on the phone. I tried to talk him out of it. He’s hell-bent on vengeance. The tipping point was his cousin Josh possibly being there looking for him. I get the feeling that he really doesn’t care if he gets himself killed. He’s on a mission, like he used to be before a big game. The blinders are on, and that’s that.”

  “I’m with his aunt. She flew in this afternoon, and she’s terribly concerned. Give me the address and I’ll call the police. It might be better if I did it; I’ve been in contact with them throughout this fiasco.”

  ****

  Jack was pumped up during the drive, seething with anger. He couldn’t get to his destination fast enough. He left the Cadillac at the side of the road a few hundred yards from the McFadden driveway, and steeled himself to the trepidation creeping in. He hopped an old wire fence and nearly fell on his face as he became stuck halfway over. “So much for being sneaky,” he mumbled to himself. He brushed himself off and headed toward the McFadden residence. The brush was thick and full of brambles, making it a challenge to move quickly. He decided to stay to the right of the buildings, keeping to the cover of the dense brush.

  ****

  The massive fish swirled the surface of the water with its tail fin, circling in front of where Janie had crawled up the bank. After a time, it appeared to give up and moved away. Janie was relieved as it disappeared into the depths of the muddy river. The gunfire ceased. She could see more people on the deck of the boat house—three people, as best as she could tell in the darkness. She unzipped her jacket pocket; her handgun was still there. She wondered if it worked.

  She looked around. She was on a small muddy knoll that looked as if it had been used by gators. Large ones. Behind her was a never-ending sea of grass and reeds. How do I get out of this? She calculated that the river was only about fifty feet wide, and the water was moving slowly. She hadn’t believed Nate when he mentioned that there might be bull sharks in the river, but she was sure it had been a shark’s dorsal and tail fin that broke the water a few minutes back. She was no expert, but it must have been nine to ten feet long, judging from the distance between the two fins. It didn’t matter—she wasn’t going back in. She held her gun in one hand and a large stick in the other, just in case that big gator came back looking for its bed.

  ****

  Josh couldn’t feel his hands and feet, nor could he get the image of Nate’s head exploding out of his mind. His leg was starting to hurt. The bullet had hit him just above the knee and had bitten into bone, and below the knee the leg canted off at a funny angle. His attention was pulled toward movement off to his right, and the sound of swishing water. It took him only seconds to pick out the reflection of a large gator’s eyes as it moved towards him. His blood must have attracted the creature. He half-stumbled, half-hopped through the grass and thigh-deep water towards their airboat. The gator was getting closer. Josh handled alligators on a near-daily basis, but not in the dark, not in the wild like this, and not with his leg nearly blown off. The creature would stalk him for a time, trying to size up whether he posed a threat.

  The boat was another twenty feet away. He moved calmly, and the gator edged closer. He wasn’t going to make it to the boat before the huge reptile cut him off. He braced himself against an old stump and pulled out the long hunting knife hanging from his belt. He put one hand under the water, his other up above his head. With one massive flap of its tail, the beast made a powerful strike. Josh sank down low into the water and pushed underneath the gator’s jaw as it tried to clamp its toothy mouth down on him. Josh stabbed near its throat, and the beast retreated, making a large splash as it surfaced. Josh took advantage of the opening and hobbled towards the boat. The alligator followed him into the deeper water and looked like it was ready for round two as they converged upon the boat.

  Josh grabbed the edge of the craft and attempted to haul himself up. His first effort failed, as he couldn’t lift his bad leg over the gunnels. He moved around the craft, putting it between him and the beast, and edged his way around to the cage that protected the large prop at the back. He stuck the knife in his teeth and pulled himself up with brute force. The gator came at him again; he was a sitting duck, hanging off the back of the boat. This time he didn’t give the creature room to strike, driving the knife down between its eyes. The gator rolled, pulling Josh with it in its dance with death. Josh released his hand on the knife and hopped gingerly back to the boat. Pain was really starting to set in. He needed help quickly before he went into shock and passed out.

  It took him a couple of minutes to roll into the boat. He fumbled around the back seat looking for his cell phone. Thank God it was still there. He dialed Gramps’ number.

  The old man answered instantly. “Josh?”

  “Yep, it’s me, Gramps. I’ve been shot and my leg’s nearly busted in half. I’m losing too much blood. It’s the fucking McFaddens. They got Jack, I think . . . and Nate is dead.”

  “Are you in danger? You need to put pressure on the wound.”

  “I’m back at the boat. I’m gonna fire it up and get over to the state road.”

  “The woman?”

  “Don’t know, she dove into the water. Big gators here.”

  “Stick cloth in the wound and brace that leg if you can. Upper or lower?”

  “Upper, don’t look good.”

  “Damn. I’m calling the Reserve Police, hopefully Benny’s near, and I’m calling an ambulance, I’ll give them your number so they can find you. I think I know where you are, roughly. Keep calm and head north, you’ll run into David’s Road. Help is on the way. Jack has escaped, but he’s coming back to look for you.”

  “Christ, tell him not to!”

  “I wish I could. He’s not answering.”

  ****

  Jack moved through the brambles and tall weeds towards the shore of the river. The property was larger than he thought, and it took him several minutes to come within a few hundred yards of the large McFadden manor house. He ducked down as a car came up the driveway from the road, approaching the house. He moved as quickly as he could to the base of an old oak tree dripping with Spanish moss. He watched as a figure exited the vehicle. He instantly recognized the dark-skinned Mason; he whispered under his breath, “I’ve got a bullet for you as well.” The man walked toward the large, well-lit house. He quickly ascended the front steps to the wraparound veranda and entered the house without knocking.

  The senator would be in the storage room which had served as Jack’s cell for the past three days, if Isaac and Jimmy hadn’t already buried him behind the shed. He didn’t feel up to taking on Jimmy first; the thought of
the ugly man sent a shiver down his spine. Instead, he crept toward the large manor house. He moved between several cars and made his way to the back of the massive house. Inching his way forward, he stood on his toes to look into the window of the large kitchen. The lights were on, but there was no one in that room. He moved slowly to his left, careful not to step on any twigs. He passed a couple of dark rooms and then came to one that was lit. He could hear voices from within. He didn’t dare look in the window, but instead listened to the conversation that could be clearly heard through the screened window.

  Jack recognized Isaac McFadden’s voice. He would remember that polished drawl for the rest of his days. However, for the first time since his incarceration, he could hear tension in it.

  “I have followed along, Miss Henrietta, throughout this whole set of circumstances without saying much. If Eric were still alive, he would have none of this. It’s time to cut our losses. Jimmy’s got Hunter trussed up like a hog. He’s ready to bury him in a sinkhole. Now Walker is free. The only thing we have going for us is the fact that the evidence against him is damning. The police are going to be here sooner or later. Walker is either going to get caught or turn himself in. He knows who we are.”

  Mason spoke. “I think he might yet prove himself to be a thorn in our side. My prayer has told me so.”

  “As has mine, Mas—” The old woman’s words died in her throat.

  There was silence for several agonizing moments.

  Jack couldn’t help himself and poked his head up to have a peek in the window. He reeled—not ten inches from his face was Henrietta LePley, staring directly at him with her perfectly straight-toothed smile. “I was hoping you might come back to us, Jackson.”

  Through the screen he could smell her honey blossomed breath. He stood transfixed, drawn into the deep green splendor of the old woman’s eyes. He felt as if he might want to put his head on her shoulder and give in. He could almost feel her hand running through his hair, her long nails caressing the back of his scalp.