Everglades Assault Read online

  I decided that I liked her.

  She said, “Hervey, you haven’t seen Papa in a while—that’s why I wanted to talk with you first.”

  Hervey looked concerned. “Is he sick?”

  “Oh no,” she said quickly. “For his age, he’s as healthy as they come. He was eighty-seven last June, you know.” She paused for a moment, trying to speak carefully. “It’s just that since we’ve had all these problems around here, he’s gone a little different in the head. Not crazy—just different. He’s got strange ideas and he’s been saying some pretty strange things. He won’t even go back to the burial mound anymore. For some reason, he’s got it fixed in his mind that it’s his fault someone has been digging there. And when Eisa turned up missing, he just knew that she was dead and that it was his fault. It all has something to do with this swamp-monster business. He’s convinced the ancestors have sent the swamp monster to punish us—the monster and the fires and everything else.”

  “Hummm,” said Hervey. “It’s not like him to be scared. Or maybe it’s just the way I remember him. I used to think he wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  “Oh, he’s not frightened. It’s . . . more like he’s just resigned to it. It’s like he wants to give himself up to die before we are forced to leave. He doesn’t want to eat, and the only person he wants to see is Eisa. He’s crazy about Eisa.”

  The little girl had changed her hiding place. Now she peered around the corner at us from the back of the chickee. I gave her a big wink and heard her giggle as she ducked back into hiding.

  “I can see why,” I said.

  Hervey put down his empty stew bowl. “Have you had any more trouble since you talked to me last?”

  She nodded. “The day before yesterday. Eisa and I were off at school. I don’t know where my husband was. I got home and Papa was standing outside staring up at the sun.” Her voice trembled slightly, as if about to cry. “It was awful, the look on his face. He said he had seen the creature again. He said that it was hunting Eisa. He said he wanted the sun to burn his eyes because that was the only way to make the creature leave us alone.”

  Hervey had that strange deadly look on his face again. “You know there’s no swamp monster, Myrtle. You know it’s just someone trying to scare you out of here.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Hervey! It’s easy for you to laugh at it and not believe, because you’ve never been here alone at night and heard your daughter wake up screaming, dreaming about that thing. And you’ve never seen the tracks it makes!”

  “Any chance of us seeing them now?” I asked.

  She inhaled, gathering herself. “Day before yesterday, it must have gone into our house. It left more handprints. I didn’t wash them off because I knew you were coming.”

  We followed her across the clearing to the plank shack. The screen door slammed behind us. Inside it was dark and cool. There was a bare wooden table, a shelf full of books, and oil lamps on the wall. The place smelled of damp earth and dish soap.

  The house had two simple bedrooms. Above the double bed was a picture of Jesus in a cheap gold frame. There was an ashtray on one nightstand and an open book on the other. In Eisa’s room was a narrow single bed beneath a red spread. There were crayon pictures drawn by a child tacked to the wall.

  “There are the handprints,” Myrtle said simply. “The creature left those again.”

  The ceiling was about ten feet high. Just below the joining of roof and wall was the massive outline of a human hand. It was printed in a gray marl.

  There was a wooden chair beside the bed. I studied the surface of the chair before climbing up to get a better look at the handprint.

  It was three times the size of my hand—and I have big hands.

  “Now are you convinced?” Myrtle said.

  “I’m convinced someone is going to a lot of trouble to scare you,” I said.

  I pointed to the handprint. “Was the print made with the same kind of mud last time?”

  She thought for a moment. “Yes. I think so. Why?”

  “That kind of mud—the gray marl kind. Is it common around here?”

  “Well, now that I think about it, no. I don’t think so. The creek bottom is all sand.”

  “And wet sand doesn’t make much of a print when it dries.”

  Hervey said, “Could you tell if someone used that chair to put the print that high?”

  “No. Not for sure. There was no mud on it. But they could have wiped it off when they were done. To get their hands in that kind of mud, they had to get their feet in it too.”

  “Unless whatever made it really is eight feet tall,” Myrtle said.

  “You’ve never seen it, right?”

  She shook her head. “Just Papa. And Eisa, of course.”

  “How did Eisa describe it?”

  Myrtle searched around the room for a moment. Finally, she pointed to one of the crayon drawings on the wall. “I had her make a picture of it. She draws real good for her age. People at the school say I should encourage her. They say there are too few Indian artists.”

  All the other drawings on the wall were multicolored; bright and springlike, filled with a child’s imagination. In contrast, she had drawn the swamp monster in stark blacks and browns.

  I studied it closely.

  She had given the creature a pointed black head. Brown scribbles suggested hair. It walked erect, upright. It had short arms, but huge hands. There was a half-moon frown on a face loaded with fangs.

  “Has she said much about it—being carried away by that thing?”

  Myrtle’s eyes moistened. “No . . . hardly at all. She just said it didn’t hurt her. She doesn’t like to talk about it. But she still has those dreams. Those nightmares. . . .”

  Hervey put his arm around his mother’s youngest sister. He had that look on his face again. “Myrtle, I promise you—we’re going to find the character that’s doing this. And when we do, he’s gonna wish he was never born.”

  “Oh, I hope so, Hervey. I can’t stand much more. I really can’t. . . .”

  11

  The old Indian, Panther James, was in his chickee, sitting on the dirt floor in the darkness.

  There was a blanket over the doorway, and when Hervey pulled it open the setting sun filtered in like a dim spotlight. It turned the leather face and hawk nose to gold.

  Panther James had the eyes of an old and weary hound. But also in the eyes was the glimmer of shrewdness, or humor, or maybe some great knowledge. He wore a long-sleeved blouse sewn of blue and red and yellow rag cloth, patterned into horizontal bands. His big bare feet protruded from his baggy jeans, and on his head, tilted jauntily, was a brim hat molded by rain and sweat and the years.

  When we ducked into the chickee, he looked up blinking like a turtle. Then his face broke into a big toothless smile.

  “Is that my grandson?”

  “It’s good to see you again, Granddad.”

  They embraced, smacking each other on the back.

  “You’ve gotten fatter. That daughter of mine must be treating you good, huh?”

  “And you’ve lost more teeth.”

  The old man laughed. Suddenly he glanced down at the cheap wristwatch he was wearing. I noticed that the sweep hand wasn’t moving, and the hour hand had been broken off.

  “What took you so long?” he said.

  “We came by boat. And since when do you wear a watch?”

  “I stole it.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s true. I gave a man in Ochopee some dollar bills and he gave me this fine thing. He seemed not to mind being cheated.”

  “I bet.”

  “It made an awful ticking noise at first, but I have since fixed it. The ticking would wake me up at night and the face of it would glow like a green eye. Now it just glows.” The old man studied me for a moment. “Who’s this blond man?”

  “A friend, Granddad. He came with me to help.”

  Panther James said something in a gu
ttural singsong language I did not understand. Hervey shook his head. “You have to speak English, Granddad. I don’t understand.”

  “When you were a boy you understood. In the summer months when you came to stay. I taught you, remember?”

  Hervey smiled. “I was smarter when I was younger.”

  “We all are. Only this watch has gotten smarter as it aged.” He looked at me again. “I told my stupid grandson that I had seen you in a dream.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I saw you in this dream”—he looked at the watch again—“maybe a week ago. Yes, a week ago. You were in the water fighting a creature with many teeth. You thought that it was a shark. But it wasn’t a shark. It left you with a very handsome scar. You killed it. I was very impressed.”

  I thought about the big dusky shark which had attacked me many years ago while in SEAL training.

  “Something like that happened.”

  “The scar is on your side?”

  I nodded.

  “It wasn’t a shark?”

  “No—it was a shark, all right.”

  The old man looked confused. And then he just shrugged. “Oh well. My dreams aren’t what they used to be.” He looked at Hervey. “I’m glad to see you, grandson, but this thing you have come to help us fight—it is useless.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Dusky and I think your swamp monster is just a man dressed up trying to scare you off your land.”

  He shrugged, resigned. “Think what you will. But I am telling you the truth. It is a punishment, don’t you see? We have been entrusted with the care of our land. But we have failed that trust. The consequences are inevitable. We must lose the land.”

  “Just because some artifact hunters dug into your burial mound? Granddad—don’t give up so easily.”

  Panther James gave a wry smile. “My daughter Myrtle told you that. Am I right? Her brain has become very simple since she began going to the government schools.” He shook his head. “My great sadness is that Eisa must become so simple. They require that things fit the words in their books. They must see a rock as a rock and a tree as a tree, and food as food. They refuse to see any farther because then it will not fit their words.” He paused. “These men destroying our burial grounds—they are only messengers. They are just the symbol of our final failure. Just as the swamp creature is a messenger.”

  The old man wiped his face, looking concerned for the first time. “That bothers me more than anything else,” he said. “The swamp creature hunts our little Eisa. I find myself wanting to fight it, but I know I cannot.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Granddad. We’ll make sure it doesn’t bother Eisa.”

  He made an empty motion with his hands. “Try if you like—but it is useless. Can’t you see? Eisa is the last of us—the very last of the pure Tequesta. Myrtle can have no more children. Her husband has been ruined by whiskey. And that leaves only Eisa. That’s why he hunts only her. For the generations before the whites came, our people built the mounds here and cared for the land. Now their blood runs only in little Eisa. And when he takes her, we will all be dead. The ancestors, me, the land—everything.”

  “But Granddad, if the creature wanted to kill Eisa, why didn’t he do it when he took her the first time?”

  Panther James thought for a moment. “Damned if I know,” he said.

  “Then at least let us try. We’ll watch the burial mound tonight. Have they been digging lately?”

  “Oh, yes. They dig every night. I feel their shovels in my stomach.” He snorted. “Myrtle says it is just indigestion, but I know better.” He looked at me again. “Is old Grafton McKinney a friend of yours?”

  “How did you know that?”

  Panther James hooted softly, smiling. He looked at Hervey. “See there—I can still see some things.” And to me he added, “He’s the man who shits and runs from snakes. And he thought I was stupid! I have seen him in my dreams many times. I am sorry that he will die soon. I liked him very much.” And then Panther James turned his old dark eyes on me. “And you too, blond man. I am sorry that you too will die in not so many years. I admired the way you fought the creature that scarred your side. . . .”

  Myrtle told us to store our gear in Eisa’s room. She followed us around the yard like a kitten, playing her shy-eyed game. She would hide, and when I caught her watching us I would wink and she would giggle.

  “She’s a little beauty,” I told Hervey.

  “Reminds me of April when she was little.”

  “I’m trying to picture what kind of lowlife bastard it would take to scare a harmless little girl like her.”

  “When we find him we’ll ask him. If I don’t wring his head off first.”

  “You may have to wait in line.”

  It was a warm September twilight. White ibis flew in rough arrow formation toward the setting sun, and bullfrogs croaked from the swamp in a rumbling chorus.

  There was a freshness to the air there in the Everglades. There was the odor of springwater and the clean sage smell of cypress. Every breeze that came through the cypress beyond the oak hammock leached a certain cool musk from the land.

  While Hervey talked about family and things with Myrtle, I changed in Eisa’s room. The handprint had been scrubbed away. I pulled on the soft Limey commando pants and my Special Forces boots, oiled glove-soft, then decided on a plain black knit T-shirt in favor of the warmer Navy watch sweater.

  While I dressed, I thought about the old man. He had impressed me. While his mind seemed to have gone a bit awry—as Myrtle had said—he was still right on the mark with some of the things he had said. Like most people, I’d like to believe that there are people who have a sixth sense about the past. And the future. Maybe because it implies some order in the scheme of things. But there’s a pragmatic side to me that scoffs at the few bits of proof I’ve acquired over the years. He had mentioned the shark attack. How had he known that? Or that Graff McKinney was a friend. My pragmatic side insisted that Hervey had probably mentioned it to Myrtle at some time over the years. And she had told the old man.

  But what about his last prediction?

  Only my own death would prove him right on that.

  When I was ready, I met Hervey outside on the porch.

  “You bring a weapon with you?” he asked.

  I touched the Randall attack/survival knife strapped to my side. “Just this. I thought you had the shotgun.”

  “I do. But I’m leaving it with Myrtle. She doesn’t know when her husband’s going to be back. And the thoughtless bastard carries their rifle with him.” Hervey gave a long shrill whistle, and in a few moments the huge Chesapeake came crashing through the brush into the clearing. “If we get into any rough stuff, Gator will be some help.”

  “After seeing him in action last night, I’d say he’ll be all the help we could possibly need. Unless the artifact hunters have automatic weapons.”

  “And a lot of them at that.”

  I followed Hervey through the oak hammock along the darkwater stream. We carried flashlights and mosquito netting. While we moved along the edge of the creek I watched closely for tracks.

  To make mud, the guy in the swamp-monster costume had to get his hands wet.

  And to get his hands wet he had to get his feet wet.

  Still, I found no tracks.

  No human tracks, anyway. But the creek bed was alive with every other kind of print: deer, coon, wading birds, feral hog—and even the massive paw print of a Florida bear.

  It was a silvery twilight in the Everglades. The cypress head in the distance looked cooler and darker. In the weakening light, sawgrass on the far horizon looked like pastureland.

  The burial mound was about three miles from the main camp. We had to cross the stream to get to it. There was another oak hammock—this one older, and with much bigger trees. In the middle of the hammock was a striking line of elevation. It looked as if someone had dumped several thousand tons of pure sand there, then planted the top and walls
with small shrubs, palmetto, and oaks.

  The oaks beside the mound were massive, with limbs like beams, and the silver tinge of dusk painted the mound in a celestial light. At both ends of the hammock were royal poinciana trees, like giant umbrellas, shading the burial center with a mass of late lavender blooms.

  I am not the religious type, but there was a venerable air about the burial mound.

  “Sure is pretty back in here,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Hervey, swatting at some mosquitoes. He pointed to the largest oak tree at the base of the mound. “Back when I was a kid, I built a pole house in the tree. Stayed out here a couple of days by myself.”

  “Your granddad didn’t mind?”

  “Mind? Hell, he helped me. Fell out of the tree house once and liked to broke his ass. He’s always been a wild old character—once you get to know him. Folks who don’t know him usually think he’s deaf and dumb—like Graff McKinney.” Hervey kicked at something in the sand, bent down, and lifted a chunk of pottery shard. “See this here? Might be a thousand years old. When I was a kid, I used to try and imagine all the ceremonies that went on here. And after a real hard rain, you could find bits of bone. Once part of a human skull rolled right down the mound at my feet. I’d always bury them back. Didn’t want to piss off any of the ancestors, you know.”

  “I don’t see any signs of digging,” I said.

  “Me neither. Let’s walk around to the other side. Maybe they’ve been doing their graverobbing over there. There’s an old swamp buggy path that curves in only about a half mile away on that side. It’s the most likely spot.”

  It was indeed the most likely spot.

  In contrast to the other side of the massive burial mound, the west bank was a mass of recently dug trenches.

  Not small tidy trenches, either.

  It looked as if they had brought a backhoe in to expedite their desecration.

  The trenches burrowed fifteen or twenty feet toward the heart of the mound. The offal had been thrown haphazardly at the base. A recent rain had filled the shallowest trenches with water. The robbers had thrown their beer cans and cigarette wrappers on the ground.