Cemetery Road (Sean O'Brien Book 7) (44 page)

Lana snapped pictures with her camera. “I hope I’m getting this. It’s simply incredible.”

“This kind of lightshow doesn’t happen that often. The water temp has to be right. The season has to be right. The tiny microscopic life has to be in abundance. It all comes together to create a bioluminescence that glows unlike any manmade light source.”

Max stared at the light explosions in our wake. I looked up, a meteor shot through the heavens. In the water, a dolphin created a blue comet just under the surface. It was as if the heavens knew no boundaries between earth and sky. We’d sailed across a planetary threshold, the universe turning fish and marine creatures into meteor showers of aquatic life, moving like fireflies in orbs and orbits of undersea starlight.

I looked to the south and caught my breath. There it was. Just above the horizon. An ornament hanging from the sky due south, beyond the dark sea. The Southern Cross. “Lana…look at that.” I pointed in the direction.

“Sean, what is it? It’s beautiful. Like a cross.”

“It’s the Southern Cross.”

Lana stared at the twinkling constellation, its reflection over the sea. “Dear God…I’m getting a chill. There are goose bumps on my arms. We’re looking at a heavenly designed cross…and when I think about Hack Johnson, his old tattoo and what he told children about the ‘Southern Cross of Justice’…I have no words.”

“And now justice for Andy and the others is his cross to bear. Dante referred to the Southern Cross as the
Crux
. He’d ascribed four human virtues to each star you’re looking at;
justice, temperance, prudence
and
fortitude
. But just down in the lower right, you can barely see a darker star—a faint fifth star. Does it remind us of the omnipresence of darker forces?”

“Possibly. But right now, at this moment in time, Sean O’Brien, the brighter stars, fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice are what we see the clearest. Maybe there’s a celestial metaphor in the starlight. I’ve never seen the Southern Cross before tonight.”

I smiled and held Lana close to me. Her skin had a slight floral scent from the soap. “Before my wife Sherri’s death a few years ago, we were sailing the Caribbean. She used to love to sing an old Crosby, Stills and Nash song…
Southern Cross
. Tonight, sharing this with you—you seeing the constellation for the first time, has helped me appreciate the lyrics a little better.

“What are the lyrics?”

“
‘When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way. ‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small…but it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a new day.’”

She looked up at me, the starlight in her eyes. “Tonight Lana, you’re the promise of a new day.”

She smiled and we kissed, the Milky Way above and under us—the universe and sea dancing and seamless in the cosmos of light.

The End

Coming Summer 2016

The following is preview from the novel

A Murder of Crows

(Prologue - Florida wilderness – 1835)

O
nly a few people knew the name his mother had given him. Millions would know the name he took to his grave. He was born by a river, and throughout his short life rivers would speak to him. He stood on the banks of the Withlacoochee River deep in the heart of Central Florida. Watching. Listening. Looking for signs. The water was the shade of tea, moving slowly through the wilds, flowing at the base of giant cypress trees, limbs heavy with hanging moss. A brown limpkin screeched across the river. Cypress knees grew beneath the ancient trees, the knees protruding upright from the dark water, reaching for the hard blue sky. The current made slight eddies swirling between the cypress knees, the river whispering to him—warning him.
Something was coming
.

Osceola looked across the opposite shoreline, the sunset coming less than an hour. He would meet the elder tonight. There was no wind, the Spanish moss hanging straight down, the knotty eyes of a large alligator just above the surface. Osceola listened for the sounds of gunfire in the distance, on the edge of the Green Swamp. He watched the wildlife, eavesdropping on nature, heeding sounds that weren’t native to his environment. He observed a cardinal singing from an oak, the bright red bird watching him near the river.

Osceola stood at six feet, handsome, dark hair and eyes, his skin lighter than most Seminoles. He wore a cloth shirt, buckskin vest and pants—a chest plate made from shell, three eagle feathers protruding from a black turban on his head.

He turned from the river, looked at his camp a hundred yards away. Tribe members—men, women and children mingling in and out of the chickee homes—primitive structures with roofs made from dried palmetto fronds. There was excitement in the camp. Some of the men had killed a large manatee. Two of the men dressed the fresh meat, the women preparing the meal. The animal would feed the entire tribe for at least a week. All parts of the manatee, snout to the thick tail, cooked and devoured.

Osceola watched his people for a moment, the Panther, Bear and Otter clans descending from women in the tribe. In the previous months, some of his brothers and sisters had been captured and sent away to a faraway land west of the great river called the Mississippi. The Indians were housed like cattle in camps of no return, the destiny found at the end of the Trail of Tears. Osceola would not go. Not surrender. Not submit to the relocation demands of men dressed as Army soldiers.

He walked a half-mile through the woods, heading in the direction of the temple mound and cave. The old man would be there. He was the oldest of the elders. And his medicine bundle was so powerful that he kept it away from the camp. He told Osceola to come at sunset. To receive medicine needed to prepare his spirit for war.

The sun was on the edge of the world when Osceola entered the partial clearing, a sacred place. A primal temple mound stood in the center of the clearing. It was more than twenty-five feet high by two hundred feet in diameter, centuries old and built by the ancients. The ancients
had vanished due to war with the Spanish and disease exported from Europe. Osceola looked at the temple mound and felt a kinship, a powerful pull that often brought him here to be alone

On the perimeter of the clearing to the right of the mound was a slight knoll, a natural uplifting of earth by limestone formations, some of the old boulders protruding from the earth. It was the entrance to a system of caves. And it was in here where the medicine man kept the most powerful medicine, far away from others.

Osceola looked up to the peak of the mound, the old man a silhouette in the setting sun. He used one hand, motioning Osceola to climb. Within a minute, Osceola joined the elder at the summit. They could see across the flat forest and jungles of southwest Florida. Nothing but wilderness in any direction, the western sky was now a fiery red.

The old man’s face was carved by time. Skin dark, weather-beaten and creased from age and sun. He wore a vest with red, green and white beads sewn onto it. Buckskin pants. No shoes. A black scarf around his neck. His pewter gray hair hung from the sides of a dark green turban on his head, three flamingo feathers jutting from the turban.

He’d made a very small campfire in the center of the mound. He motioned for Osceola to sit. In the language of the Seminole he told Osceola to extend his arms, palms up. And then the old man used teeth from the jawbone of a garfish to cut into Osceola’s forearms, to scrape, the sharp bones leaving bloody trails. Osceola said nothing. He stared at the sunset, his jawline hard, the tinge of fire in his dark eyes.

The elder man chanted in song, dropping some dried leaves on the campfire and then blowing smoke into Osceola’s face. After a minute passed, the medicine man lifted a hollowed
gourd and instructed Osceola to drink the black liquid inside. He did so, holding the drink in his stomach for as long as he could before turning his head to vomit.

The medicine man chanted, his eyes unblinking, staring into the ember of the fading sun, white smoke swirling around his craggy face. He opened a buckskin sack. Osceola could see powder the color of silver inside the sack. The medicine man produced a long black crow feather. He dusted the feather in the silvery powder and lifted it from the sack, placing the tip into the fire. When the feather ignited, he held it in front of Osceola and blew smoke into his face. He told Osceola to inhale through his nostrils. To,
“Breathe in the spirit of the crow.”

Tomorrow at dawn the spirit of the crow would guide Osceola when two hundred men came to kill him.

ONE

(Florida Wilderness – Present Day)

Some old timers wouldn’t go there. They said there was something about the land—the place itself that was not welcoming, as if Mother Nature cast a spell on a few hundred acres tucked away in a primal spot that time overlooked and man left alone. The family, descendants of cattle ranchers, had tried for years to sell most of the land. And now, as urban sprawl crept like a disease over Florida, the environmentalist and nature conservation people were looking to buy and set aside tracts of pristine land, especially acreage that bordered rivers and lakes.

Today it was still private ranch land. Fenced along its massive perimeter. There were more than ten thousand acres, many bordering the Withlacoochee River. At one time, years ago, the ranch family ran herds of cattle over some of the property. Other sections, acreage encompassing part of the Green Swamp, were left to nature. Due to the remoteness, swampy terrain, poisonous snakes, ticks and leeches, folklore of hauntings—especially near the temple mound, there had been very little trespassing.

Today the remaining family members were anxious for an estate sale. Environmentalists had petitioned and encouraged the state of Florida to buy the most unspoiled areas and designate the property as a nature preserve or maybe even a state park. A large mound built centuries ago
on an isolated piece of the property would make a perfect study in native cultures, some dating back thirteen thousand years.

Dr. Beverly Sanchez, an anthropologist for the state’s Department of Cultural Affairs, and two of her colleagues, steered four-wheel ATVs, following the ranch owner through the scarcely marked trails of the primeval ground. They looped around wet cypress hammocks, tannin water more than two-feet deep.

They traversed under live oaks that had been here since the Civil War. The property was thick with bromeliads, cabbage palms and saw palmetto. The rancher stopped near an oak, shut off the ATV motor. He wore an old Stetson hat, the lower third long-since stained from sweat. He was in his mid-sixties, rangy face filled with gray whiskers. “We’re almost there. Anybody need some water? Got a half dozen bottle in my saddlebags.”

“I could use some hydration,” said Dr. Sanchez, early thirties, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Even with no make-up on her face, the rancher thought that she was a striking woman.

“Here you go.” He stepped from his ATV and handed her a bottle of water. “How ‘bout ya’ll?” he asked the two graduate students, both men.

“I’m okay,” said one.

The second man shook his head. “You have any bug spray in there? l was fine until we stopped and then the mosquitoes got into a frenzy.” He swatted a mosquito.

The rancher nodded. He reached in one of the compartments on his ATV and lifted out a can of insect repellent. He tossed it to the man. “Help yourself. Pass it around. Skeeters don’t see people too much out here.”

Dr. Sanchez nodded and smiled. “We really appreciate you taking the time to show us the property. It’s like Florida of days gone by. It’s so beautiful. I can see why your family originally bought the land. I think it’ll make an excellent acquisition for the state.”

He grinned, removed his hat, wiping his furrowed brow. “When my daddy bought it, they were almost giving land away. He needed enough to run herds of cattle. A thousand acres would have done it. But because a lot of it was underwater, the sellers were glad to get rid of it. The whole parcel is less than eleven thousand acres. And the stuff ya’ll are interested in is no doubt the closest to Eden you’ll find left on earth. Let’s saddle up. We’re almost there.”

He cranked his engine. The others did the same and followed the rancher toward the northeast, to a place in Florida that hadn’t changed much in thousands of years.

They rode through nearly impenetrable bush, the sable palms slapping faces and hands with fronds interlocked across the trail. The rancher used his left hand to wipe a massive spider’s web from his face, while continuing to steer is ATV. After another five minutes, the sables and palmettos weren’t as thick, they seceded to oaks and pines. A half a minute later they entered an open space in a forest that was unique—nature’s own garden, a clearing in the midst of jungle, swamps, springs, rivers and dry woodlands.

And there it was.

A temple mound. A mountain in place of no hills.

Dr. Sanchez stopped. She shut off the ATV and started photographing the ancient mound. The others on her party followed.