The Bone Tree (64 page)

I forgive you
. . . .

Sonny couldn’t forgive Snake Knox for stealing the last few years of his life—the only ones that might have really mattered. Sonny couldn’t even forgive himself. He’d bitten so hard on the deal Kaiser had offered him, the dream of a life unburdened by association with men who’d
goaded him to do things he would never have done on his own. How could he have been such a fool? When you’d gone as far down the road to damnation as he had, there was no getting back.

Snake’s face loomed before him, the familiar flattened smile of the hooded cobra swaying before its prey. “You know the rules, Sonny,” he hissed, his eyes filled with wounded pride. “Damn, but I never figured it’d be you who turned.”

Sonny’s eyelids began to close. He wanted to speak, to tell the rest of the boys to get away from Snake as fast and as far as they could, but whatever they’d wrapped around his neck had sealed his throat shut.

“Next stop, Hell, brother,” Snake whispered. “Say hello to Glenn for me.”

Sonny thought of his grandson, flying toward Louisiana at five hundred miles per hour, hoping to see his grandfather and to get a reprieve from war. He thought of his daughter, who would see his murder as a fitting end for a selfish old man. Then he thought of the eager-eyed FBI agent back in the interrogation room, who longed to tell the world who’d really killed President Kennedy. What could it matter after all this time? America had swerved so far off course since then that nothing would ever bring the country back to what it had been. As the last light winked out in Sonny’s mind, his final thought was a prayer that God had heard Jimmy Revels forgive him in the shadow of the Bone Tree.

CAITLIN HAD INTENDED
to approach one of the black patrons of the Crossroads Café without Terry, but in the end, her nerve had failed her. It was the audience of white men that had stopped her. Instead, she’d sat down in the booth farthest from the white men and taken Jordan’s map photo from her pocket. Toby Rambin’s hand-drawn graphic left a lot to be desired, but it was better than anything the FBI had. More even than the Lusahatcha County Sheriff’s Department had—unless they’d known where the Bone Tree was all along.

A waitress walked up to Caitlin’s booth and asked if she needed help. Caitlin explained that her friend was ordering from the counter, but she asked for a cup of coffee and borrowed a pen from the waitress—a clear hexagonal Bic like the ones she’d used in grade school. Just holding it gave her a surprisingly nostalgic feeling. She pulled a napkin from the dispenser on her table and began drawing a map of where they’d found Casey Whelan’s body.

While Terry waited for their order at the counter, Caitlin stole glances at the men who were doing the same to her. In between looks, she would go back to her napkin, her mind on whether or not she might be able to lure Carl Sims away from work to help her locate the X on Rambin’s map.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a boy of about nineteen walked up to her booth and stared down at her. At least six foot two, he wore the traditional uniform of the gangbanger, with a bright designer sweatshirt and oversized shorts that hung so low that his butt crack had to be on constant display.

“You pretty, baby,” the boy said, shifting his package with his hand. “You got a boyfriend?”

Caitlin glanced over at the men in the booths, but no one seemed inclined to come to her aid.

“I’m married, baby,” she said, holding up her engagement ring.

“ ’Course you is, hot as you are.”

A table of truckers were now watching the interchange, but no one interrupted.

“That’s a big rock,” the boy said. “Your husband rich?”

Caitlin looked up with all the hardness she could muster. “Listen,
baby
. I work for the DEA, and I’m in town to consult with Sheriff Ellis on the crack trade. Do you really want to sit down and get to know me better?”

The boy gaped at her for a few seconds, then shuffled back toward the glass-fronted beer cases, his ass crack in plain view. The men in the booths went back to their papers. A couple chuckled softly.

The waitress brought Caitlin her coffee. Someone left the café, and two more men walked in. Caitlin sipped the harsh mixture, then jotted some numbers on the napkin, trying to remember exactly how long she’d been off the Pill when she’d conceived. She didn’t care that people were going to realize she’d been pregnant before she was married. She just wanted to know that her body had cleared the artificial hormones before her egg was fertilized.

About the time she’d figured out the relevant math, another young black man decided to hit on her. This one didn’t merely approach the booth, but slid onto the bench seat opposite her as though he belonged there.

Caitlin was so shocked that she didn’t protest immediately. This boy was older than the first one, maybe twenty-five. Not a boy, really, but a young man. He was also dressed in work clothes—reasonably clean jeans and a flannel shirt worn over a red long-john top. His hair was cut close to his scalp, he was clean-shaven, and his eyes were large and bright. The only thing that tweaked her radar was the sharp tang of cigarette smoke that wafted off him when he leaned toward her and whispered so that the men in the booths could not hear him.

“You the lady lookin’ for the Chain Tree?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” she said, a wave of heat coloring her cheeks. “The what?”

The young man turned around far enough to check on the men in the booths. “The Chain Tree. Big cypress with old rusty chains on it, where the Klan killed all them boys back in the old days?”

A couple of the men were watching now, and Terry was staring
fearfully from the counter. Caitlin leaned forward and said, “How do you know that?”

The young man smiled faintly, and his eyes twinkled. “My daddy goes to Reverend Sims’s church. Beulah Baptist. He was asking about the Tree, whether anybody knew where it was. He talked about the Cat Lady a little, the one whose son got beat to death out there, and his wife got raped.”

The Cat Lady?
Caitlin thought, trying to work through the boy’s words. It struck her then that he was the one who had been watching from the gas pumps when she and Terry first arrived. “How did you recognize me?”

The boy laughed. “You don’t exactly look like you fit in around here, you know? But I’ve seen your picture in the Natchez paper before. I saw you a minute ago, when I was getting gas. I figured you had to be her. Carl Sims said you looked like a movie actress.”

“Do you know Carl?”

“I know his cousins, the Greens.”

Caitlin didn’t bother digging any deeper. “So why did you come over here? Just to chat me up?”

The boy’s smile broadened. “No, ma’am. I came to check if you still want to go see where that tree be at.”

A dozen different thoughts tumbled through Caitlin’s mind. At the counter, Terry looked like she was about to call 911. Caitlin gave her the okay sign, then slid the photo of the map across the table.

“Do you recognize that?”

“Who drew this?”

“A friend.”

The boy chuckled softly. “I know who drew this map. Ol’ Toby Rambin.”

The kid was sharper than he looked. “Do you see that X on it?”

The boy nodded.

“Is it in the right place?”

He pursed his dark lips, then laid his long fingers on the edges of the map and regarded it from different angles. After several seconds, he took Caitlin’s pen and drew an X about an inch from the one that Rambin had drawn.

“Right there looks better to me.”

“What’s there?”

The boy looked up at her, his eyes like dark pools. “A place no black man ever went by choice.”

“Is everything okay?” Terry was standing at Caitlin’s side with a tray in her hand. Her eyes were locked onto Caitlin’s as though she was afraid to make eye contact with the stranger in the booth.

“Everything’s fine,” Caitlin said. “Sit here by me.”

After some hesitation, Terry slid into the booth.

“Terry, this is . . . ?” Caitlin gave the boy an inquisitive look.

“Harold,” he said. “Harold Wallis.”

Caitlin looked steadily into his eyes. “Show me your driver’s license.”

After a couple of seconds, he took out his wallet and opened it for her. The name under his driver’s license photo read
Harold Wallis
.

“You don’t have a middle name?”

“Nope. Mama couldn’t think of one. I got eight brothers, and she said she ran out by the time she got to me.”

Caitlin pointed at the map and lowered her voice still further. “How do you know where that X goes, when nobody else seems to?”

“Easy. My granddaddy trapped and fished that swamp all his life, same as old Toby. He used to take me back there to help with the trotlines. I seen that tree a dozen times, even though Daddy cut a wide circle around it.”

“How long ago was this? You’re not that old.”

Harold shrugged. “Fifteen years, maybe.”

“Did you ever see it up close?”

“Yes, ma’am. One time. And that’s all I ever wanted to see it.”

“Is it hollow, like the legends say?”

Harold nodded. “I shined a light through the crack in that big trunk.”

Caitlin’s pulse quickened. “What did you see?”

“A pile of bones.”

She looked past Harold at the men in the booths. No one seemed to be eavesdropping. “Human?” she asked.

“Some was. I saw a skull. But I saw deer bones, too. Set of antlers. Looked like a mess up in there, and I didn’t look long. Granddaddy was about to skin me.”

“Where’s Toby Rambin now?”

“Gone. Took off somewhere, I heard. He long gone.”

“Why?”

“Chicken, maybe. Or smart. I don’t know.”

“What’s he scared of?”

Harold shook his head slightly. “Not in here.”

Caitlin leaned toward him. “Do you know why I want to find that tree?”

He nodded. “You lookin’ for them dead boys.”

“What boys?”

“Them musicians from Ferriday, went missing back in the sixties. Used to play the blues clubs round here.”

The men in the nearest booth got up and went to the cash register, keys jangling on their belts.

“What else do you know?” Caitlin asked.

Harold shrugged. “More boys than that got killed back in that swamp. Newspaper say you lookin’ for them, too. That’s what Stoney told me.”

“Stoney who?”

“Stoney Jackson. He go to Reverend Sims’s church.” Harold suddenly looked nervous, or maybe just impatient.

“Do you think those bones are still where you saw them?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t they be? ’Less somebody moved ’em. And why would they do that?”

“Because they know the FBI is looking for them,” Caitlin said.

Silent laughter animated Harold’s dark face. “The men who own that hunting camp down there ain’t scared of no FBI. They got senators and governors coming down here to hunt and get wit’ women. Besides, the FBI didn’t find nothin’ back in the day, so why should they find anything now? Sheriff Ellis ain’t gonna help ’em none. And without help, they couldn’t find their way out, if they ever did get in. That swamp ain’t hardly been
logged,
lady. You saw it. It’s like a dinosaur movie. You got to know exactly where you goin’ to get anywhere.”

“How do
you
get in and out?”

“Boat. That’s the only way.”

“Do you have a boat?”

“Got a pirogue. For settin’ out trotlines and such.”

Caitlin tried to imagine what a pirogue might look like.

“So . . . you wanna see them bones or not?”

“Why are you willing to take me to them?”

A cagey look came into Harold’s face. “I hear you gave Mose a grand to take you through the game fence on that map.”

“I see. You want money?”

“Who don’t?”

“What do you want it for? Drugs?”

“Hell, no. I want to get out of this town, just like everybody else. Everybody black, anyway.”

Caitlin spoke so softly she doubted the boy would be able to hear. “Mose told me the Bone Tree is behind that fence. He said there was no way through without cutting it.”

Harold smiled. “Mose don’t know half of what he think he does. I know where there’s a hole. Deer know it, too.”

“Are you a poacher, Harold?”

The smile disappeared. “I do what my granddaddy taught me. I live off the land. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. You want to see that tree or not?”

Caitlin didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“A grand ain’t gonna cover it. I need double that.”

“Two thousand dollars?”

“Hazard pay. Soon as I bring you back, I’m blowing town. Won’t be able to stay after that. Once you get the police in there, the men who use that tree gonna start looking for whoever showed it to you. I got to be long gone by then.”

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to screw me out of this money you think I have?”

The look of hurt pride on the boy’s face actually made her feel guilty. “If all I wanted was your money, I could just run you off the road and take it—which some brothers around here would be happy to do. Crackers, too. I’m only askin’ what’s fair. You’ll see what I mean when you see where we got to go.”

Caitlin nodded. “All right. Two thousand. But that’s it.”

Harold thought about it, hard. “Okay,” he said finally. “It’s a deal.”

Caitlin turned to Terry, whose eyes were as big as fried eggs. She laid her hand on Terry’s arm. “You told me once that you envied the reporters, who get to do important work. Well, this is it.”

Terry swallowed hard but said nothing.

“Can we go today?” Caitlin asked.

Harold looked at the big window to their left. An MP&L truck rumbled up to the nearest gas pump, water steaming off its hood.

“It’s rainin’ again. But that’s the best time for us. Won’t be nobody else back up in there.”

“The sheriff’s men are down there, working a crime scene.”

Harold smiled. “If they are, they won’t stay. Not in this rain. Even the men at the huntin’ camp will stay inside. But once this rain stops for good, you don’t want to be caught back there. We could all wind up like that boy you found.”

“Give us a minute to talk,” Caitlin said. “Go to the men’s room or something.”

Harold looked at Terry for a couple of seconds, then got up and went to the quick-serve food counter.

“Oh, my
God,
” Terry said. “I know you’re my boss, but are you
crazy
? That’s the guy who was staring at us before we came in here!”

“I know. I need you to calm down, Terry.”

“I’m not going down into that swamp with that guy.”

“That’s right, you’re not.”

Terry’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. “You’re not either!”

“Yes, I am. I need you to stay here and field my calls. There’s almost no reception down in that swamp, not unless you’re in a helicopter. I’m going to text Jamie to route all my calls to you. If Penn calls you while I’m gone, tell him I’m interviewing somebody and I can’t talk to him until I’m done.”

Terry grabbed her wrist. “Caitlin, you can’t do this. You don’t know this guy, and even if he’s okay, you know that swamp is full of crazy rednecks.”

“That swamp has about as many living people in it as the Natchez cemetery. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, this is
not
happening.”

“Terry, how do you think people like Jordan Glass got famous? You think she went back to her hotel whenever the bullets started flying?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to.”

“Well, I do. She got where she is by going farther into the shit than anybody else was willing to go. Compared to that, what am I doing? Taking a boat ride with a poacher. You’ve seen the guy’s face and read
his driver’s license.” Caitlin lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s
black,
for God’s sake. He’s not about to take his boat where the Knoxes can find us. Okay?”