With Tyler’s time running out, I thought we should make one concerted effort to find Rikard for he was the key to salvaging her trip. She had two more nights and that was it. We would paddle into the island’s southern interior and pursue the one creek penetrating the island the deepest—a baffling tributary we had paddled up twice before only to encounter a dead end. On the map, it appeared to penetrate the heart of the island but we always dead-ended well short of the creek’s reach.
We tried again but this time went all the way in to its end where a wall of grass blocked our progress. The closer we got the more hopeless it looked.
“Let’s go into the grass.”
“You’re not getting out are you?” she asked. “You know better by now.”
“I know better than to slip into the muck,” I said. “The grass will hold me.”
I got into the grass and climbed a hummock that let me see the creek going deeper into the island.
“Come look at this.”
Tyler got out and tiptoeing past some scurrying fiddler crabs reached for my hand.
“The creek keeps flowing, right through the grass,” I said, pulling her up beside me.
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
We climbed into the canoe and paddled over to the wall of grass. I bent a stalk over and cut some dead, dry tips and dropped them into the water. They flowed seaward.
“The tide is flowing through here somehow.”
“So, there must be a break in the muck beneath the grass,” she said.
“Something like that.”
I pulled the canoe against the grass and probed it with my hands, feeling my way down around the roots until I felt something unnatural—nursery pots sitting in wire mesh in a steel frame. Behind the Spartina, camouflaged netting completed the deception. The ingenious contraption—a swinging gate of Spartina—looked like a dead end from afar but easily let the water ebb and flow. The frame connected to steel poles, painted like marsh grass. One pole allowed it to swing open by way of two ball joints. The other pole served as a latch, and a heavy-duty chromed brass padlock had it secured.
“I’d say we’ve found the secret passage to Rikard’s retreat. ”
“Let’s go inland,” Tyler said, her eyes afire.
“We’d have an hour at most before the outgoing tide strands us and we have no idea how deep inland we need to go. We’ll come back tomorrow,” I said and I meant it. Tomorrow night was Tyler’s last night, and it saddened me to see her return empty-handed to a town where some people viewed her as a murderess. I had known all along her time was limited. Once she left, the solitude I thought so important would become loneliness.
***
That night over boiling blue crabs and instant potatoes, we discussed what might be up the barricaded creek. Tyler speculated that drug runners had a stash there, but I knew it had to be the passageway to Rikard’s hideout. There was one way to find out: portage the canoe around the barricade and paddle inland the next afternoon, and if it led to something big, would Tyler stay?
“Do you have to go back to Apex?” I asked Tyler.
“I gave the lady at the florist my word I’d only be gone three weeks and I keep my promises.”
“I just didn’t know if you had some leeway,” I said.
“I could quit but that wouldn’t be fair to her. Mrs. Roberts is old and needs help. She has arthritis in her hands bad.”
“Well, it’s just a matter of getting your pickup out of the barn. I’ll go back to check on my Land Rover and make sure you get back okay.”
“Thanks. I sure don’t want to be alone with Jackson. He’s filthy.”
“It’s the least I can do. You’ve had no luck here.”
“I’ll be back. Count on it. You said you’d be here for the summer, maybe autumn too. I can come back in September. Maybe you’ll have that story written by then and maybe you’ll find my Lorie.”
“Now that would be something,” I said.
“If you tell me who to call, I’ll see how your daughter is doing. Wouldn’t it be something if I came back with good news and you really had found Lorie.”
“It could get no better,” I said.
“What about the poachers? Aren’t you afraid?”
“I am, but maybe Rikard will turn out to be a friend. A man who knows voodoo and commands porpoises would make a great ally.”
We finished dinner and headed to the beach, joking about the caveat not to swim after a meal. We’d been doing this for weeks now and the sea had been wonderful. For me the sea meant cleansing, a ritual taking the place of a solar shower, which Tyler loved because she reveled in the idea of shampooing with rainwater. She said it made her hair glisten. Something did for it shone beneath the Southern sun with brilliance.
I went out in the same old swimsuit and Tyler went out in cut-off jeans and an old khaki shirt. The water felt wonderful. It was green, refreshing, and chilling. We lost ourselves in the waves and for a long time nothing but the crash of surf sounded. Then it was time for Tyler’s nightly lesson of late: teaching me to float in shallow water, a lesson I always flunked. I was too muscular and my body always sank.
Tyler held her hands under me. “Now take a nice deep breath and lie on your back.”
I breathed in and leaned back but all my body wanted to do was sink. Her hands brought me up. “Tilt your head all the way back so your ears are just beneath the surface. Breathe deep.”
I did as she said and seawater curled into my ears, muting sounds, making them seem far away. Tyler’s words came as if from another dimension ... “Now spread your arms out and relax.”
I spread my arms, relaxed, and felt her hands beneath me so lightly I wasn’t sure they were touching me. This time the sea pushed up against me and I was floating. I lay there flutter kicking for a long time, jubilant I could float. Than a churning sound began to grow within the sea and soon the water itself vibrated. I stood and looked out to sea. Jackson. One day ahead of schedule. A pang shot through my heart.
He needs a drink, I hoped. Tyler turned to the noise and stood in the surf.
“If he’s coming to get me, I don’t have my tent packed or anything ready.”
At the crest of a wave, Jackson, smoking, saw us, stood, crisscrossing his arms frantically. Then the boat nose-dived. The engine quit and the boat vanished behind a wave. The boat crested about twenty yards from where the waves toppled into foam. Now the Whaler was turning sideways toward us, and pitching with each wave. We could see the boat rise, then fall. Jackson stumbled back to the engine compartment just as the boat fell behind a breaker.
A concussion and deafening boom passed through me, and the bow rose into view on fire. Another explosion rocked the air. Orange flames and black smoke shot into the sky and the boat began to melt. Jackson stumbled around on fire like some showboating Hollywood stunt man as he and his Whaler sunk in a pool of flames, like some war scene, and just like that, we were marooned.
It happened so fast, there was little we could do but watch. A debris field of rotten life jackets, plastic jugs, and trash began to form up. The flotsam headed toward shore, bobbing and easing over the waves like corks. With remarkable coolness, Tyler turned to me. “How in Hell am I going to get Lorie off the island now?”
I looked at her. She seemed to have a cold side to her, this Tyler. Jackson’s death meant nothing to her but it meant more time with her and for that I was grateful.
We were trapped on an island where killers roamed and nights concealed unknown horrors. A new mindset sunk in as we headed back to camp. I stopped to survey the channel. We were truly helpless now, at the mercy of the island and its deadly nights, and now this day was dying. The sun’s rays struck the channel at a low angle, and the water shone against the horizon with luminous radiance. The sun was large, molten, and lustrous, throwing a quivering, burning sphere onto the water, the same water that had just claimed Jackson. We’d witnessed another death, but that was just another part of island life, which went on not missing a beat. The poignant song of that bird of the Southern dark—the whippoorwill—floated across the water and the changing of Nature’s guard began. Sun-struck animals gave way to creatures coming to claim the night, and a deer walked from the forest to drink at the channel’s edge.
“I find it hard to see how people can shoot them,” said Tyler. “They’re so beautiful, so graceful.”
“Some people—like Garrett—shoot people and animals.”
“Well, I have no way to leave the island now. That means nothing, and I mean nothing, will stop me from finding Lorie but death itself.”
I looked at her face in the dying light, which beautifully reflected pure resolve but it did nothing to stop the bad feeling festering within me. The mother-daughter bond is unbreakable except in the most severe of falling-outs. Between them, fourteen birthdays, seven Mother’s days, and seven Christmases had gone by, and all Tyler had to show for it was one letter.
“Maybe your daughter doesn’t want you to find her?”
“No. That is out of the question.”
“Then why hasn’t she tried to contact you?” I asked. The question hung in the air. Tyler appeared flustered, but only for a second, before snapping back.
“I told you she said she’d never come back until she knows Hines is dead.”
“Coming back is one thing but shutting you out is another. How would she know he’s dead. Believe me, your murdering Hines wasn’t on the national news. Why hasn’t she sent you another letter or even a post card? You know, ‘Hi mom, I’m still alive. Don’t worry’—that kind of thing.”
“If she’s on this island how do you propose she send me a letter? Put it in her pelican’s pouch and train him to fly to North Carolina?”
“Suppose she lived in Charleston or Savannah. She could have dropped you a post card. Admit it. There’s a chance she’s just written you off.”
“You need an excuse to give up looking for her? Is that it? I don’t need your help, you know. Just go do your voodoo article and leave me to my own problems. I told you from the beginning we could do our own thing.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m thinking of you, not your daughter. You may be in for a big disappointment.”
“If she’s not here, I’ll keep searching …”
“You’re so obsessed with finding her you may be overlooking something basic.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to see you.”
“What are you driving at?” she asked.
“ ‘Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.’ George Bernard Shaw wrote that.”
“Shaw, yes, a playwright, but we’re talking real life here not some drama played out on a stage. What’s your point?”
“Over the past seven years, a sixteen-year-old kid has grown into a woman. Maybe she doesn’t want anything to do with the past anymore. What if you find Lorie and she refuses to see you?”
Tyler turned and walked toward the sea that had claimed Jackson. I turned for camp.
The next morning an upbeat Tyler was up making coffee.
“Do you think Jackson just wanted money and liquor?”
“Maybe … maybe he just needed a drink.”
I expected Cameron in a few weeks and when he arrived, Tyler would have a way back to the mainland. Cameron would take photographs of Rikard conjuring and I wanted photographs of the poachers in action. We’d have to put our lives on the line, like war correspondents, and I hoped like hell Cameron would bring a camera for clandestine work. We needed a quiet camera with a silent lens slap that wouldn’t betray our presence. Human poaching was the story, not the piece on voodoo. If one story had to be sacrificed, it’d be Rikard’s voodoo. Human poachers: that was a blockbuster.
Now that we had the luxury of more time, I decided to postpone going to Rikard’s hideout and walk the beach north to the village. It was nine miles, and we stood little chance of running into poachers along the surf line … I hoped. If we ran into anyone, we’d pass ourselves off as shellers.
We set out for the beach with our walking sticks, Voodoo, and water. As we went, we gathered shells to make our story stick. Unlike tourist-trodden beaches, Sapelo’s shores teemed with shells. We gathered the most beautiful whelks, angel wings, pen shells, slipper shells, coquina, and olive shells. We found starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars and all went into Tyler’s precious basket. We found fossilized sharks teeth, which I knew were millions of years old. We were, in fact, shellers, and a balmy breeze and fragrant coconut sun lotion added reality to our ruse.
We had walked close to four miles when an apparition appeared on the horizon, a white shimmering vision. The phantom gained size, shape, and clarity as we walked, it drifting toward us. Slowly, the apparition revealed itself—a black man dressed in a flowing white tunic. He wore a turban of pure white cotton and matched the description Jackson had given us to a T.
Like old West gunfighters in a high-noon showdown, we walked toward each other, stopped ten paces away, then met face to face.
“My name is Slater Watts. This is my friend Tyler Hill.” I offered my hand and he took it, then bowed to Tyler.
“My name is Oleander. That is one word, not two,” he said in an accent altogether different from the boys and murderers. “I lived over there once,” he said, pointing toward the mainland. “Some mainlanders think my name is ‘Olie Anders.’ It is “Oleander. I have no last name nor do I need one. I come to welcome you to Sapelo. The boys told me about your dog, the dog that has a fierce bark like a wolf. It frightened them.”
“When did the boys tell you this?” I asked.
“When? Days ago.”
“How did you know where to find us?” I asked.
“How? Where else would you be but by the channel near the sea?” said Oleander, holding his arm out such that the tunic fluttered in the sea breeze like a flag. He made a sweep along the coast that ended up pointing in the direction of camp. “The channel—the heart of the island—pumps life through here,” he said, swinging his arm inland across the channel. “From here, you can go anywhere.”
“You are named for the flower I presume,” said Tyler.
“Yes, I am named for the flower. I never knew my mother, but her last request before she died was to name me Oleander. It is a bittersweet story. She named me Oleander because I was pretty but fatal. My mother became ill giving birth to me … it took her three weeks to die. Aunt Shabba tells me my mother named me Oleander because I was a sweet, beautiful child but was, in fact, her death, as if she had eaten the Oleander’s poisonous leaves.”
“You have a beautiful name. I’m sure your mother loved you,” said Tyler.
“A beautiful name? Why thank you. You are kind. I love her, though I never knew her.”
“Tell me Oleander, have you seen a young white woman here followed by a pelican?” asked Tyler, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, her habit when questioning someone about her daughter.
“Have I seen a young white woman? I myself, no, but fellow islanders tell me of the lonely pelican. The lonely pelican, they say, has no need for food, just the love of the white woman. While the other pelicans fly in their Vs foraging for fish, the lonely pelican flies above the blonde woman, protecting her. They say he needs only her and that he has no need to eat … that she feeds him love. That’s what they say.”
“A young white woman lives here, but you haven’t seen her,” Tyler said.
“It would seem a young white woman lives here, that’s what I’m telling you, but I do not know where,” he replied, his hand coming up as if to point, then falling. “It is a big island, many islands within an island really.”
Oleander stood tall and erect and never broke eye contact with Tyler. He had the bearing of a Masai warrior, though he wore no red as Masai do. Tyler, as always, was working her newest contact, rocking from leg to leg, consumed. Though Oleander had nothing of substance for her he supported Jackson’s claim that a woman attended by a pelican might be on the island.
Tyler gave me her burning look of determination, her come Hell or high water, I’m getting what I want look. Her direct line of questioning was over, so mine could begin. She walked over and sat on a large driftwood log and Voodoo—fierce wolf dog—settled onto the sand to nap. I turned to Oleander. He was the break we had been seeking.
“Do you know Rikard, the voodoo priest?”
“Do I know the voodoo priest? I know the Mullet Man and have spoken to him. He is very much a mystery, but I like the man.”
“Where does he live? I need to talk to him. I hear he lives on the south side of the island, somewhere deep in the interior. Is this true?”
“Where? I do not know. You need to talk to him, about what?”
“I’m writing a story about voodoo. They say he has great powers.”
“A story about voodoo … He has great powers for certain. Do you believe in voodoo?” Oleander asked.
“I want to,” I said. “Do you?”
“Do I? No, I became a Christian during my years on the mainland. I live for the Cross … but what matters is the believing itself. That is enough.”
“So, can you tell me where he lives?”
“Tell you where he lives … I do not know. The Mullet Man always finds those who seek him. He knows this island like no one else. He will tell you Sapelo is his fortress.”
Oleander stood before me—an amalgam of African, American, mainlander, and islander oddly out of place on Sapelo. Some people permit you to form a true opinion at once. Oleander was one. I sized him up as a gentle-hearted man who survived on this harsh island in a self-effacing way, as if the will had been beaten from him but he had somehow regained it and, over time, a sense of dignity that life had also beat away.
We talked at great length. Oleander had the odd habit of echoing—repeating almost word-for-word what was said to him, then revealing his true thoughts. When I said, “This Rikard, this voodoo priest is, no black man I can assure you. He’s as white as I am,” Oleander replied, “This Rikard is no black man, but he knows the value of pretending to be black on Sapelo, something you can learn from.”
I found Oleander’s repetitious way of talking more truthful than the oblique talk of accomplished liars who look you straight in the eye and bend words to their purpose.
“So, finding the Mullet Man is not easy,” I said.
“Finding the Mullet man is not easy, but do not worry. He will find you.”
“Well, he found me once,” I said, knowing I owed my life to him.
“He found you already. See? He will find you again,” said Oleander, smiling, ivory teeth gleaming in the Southern sun.
“Then let’s not worry about Mullet Man,” I said. “Where is the hospital ship anchored?”
“Where is the hospital ship anchored? Slater, my newfound friend, how do you, a newcomer, come by this terrible truth so soon?”
“Bad luck. We were trying to find a back way into the village and ended up in a lagoon. Then we heard an airboat coming at us. We hid in rushes and saw a black surgeon cut out a man’s kidneys. Then they fed him to a gator.”
A dark look passed over Oleander.
“To a gator? That explains why Cade has not been seen in a week. He is the latest in a long line of citizens to vanish.”
“How long has it gone on?” I asked.
“How long? Fifteen years now.”
“Who are these people?”
“Who? Men from Sierra Leone. North of the island you will find their ship, gleaming white. Now and then a helicopter lands on it.”
“Tell me about the doctor.”
“The doctor? He gives the children candy.”
“He removes their kidneys too doesn’t he?” I could see the keloid glistening in the sun upon the boy crabbing.
“Remove their kidneys? Some children, bearing scars, live here. It saddens me to see the children grow up. Then the airboat gets them and they never return. The doctor says their body abandons its owner. He says no black magic, no white man’s medicine, can do anything once the body forsakes its owner. That is what the doctor says. The doctor sends a priestess into the village to tell their family they are dead.”
“What kind of priestess?”
“A mambo tells the family their loved one has gone to the next world. Then they dance around a bonfire and invoke the spirits by drumming, singing, and feasting. Spirits possess the dancers and the dancers, in a trance, console the bereaved ones.”
“Where are the children buried?”
“Buried? The doctors say the fallen ones possess a contagion that will consume the people. He says they bury the remains at sea in a ceremony as old as Africa itself.”
“Do you believe the doctors?”
“Do I believe? All my life I have thought of doctors as angels. When I was young, I fell into a fire. A white man pulled me from the coals, which stuck to my legs like molten burrs.”
Oleander raised his tunic to reveal mottled legs scarred with the pale melted flesh burns become with passing time.
“A doctor did his best to ease my suffering. I have loved doctors ever since. It is hard for me not to believe them.”
“I saw this doctor cut out Cade’s kidneys. They iced them down and fed him to a monstrous gator.”
“Then they are devils,” Oleander said, abandoning his customary way of talking. “They are devils for certain.”
“The worst kind,” I said as Tyler got up from her driftwood bench and walked toward us, Voodoo following.
“He’s telling the truth, Oleander. They butchered Cade. Devils they are.”
“Yes, Oleander,” I said, “Who’s getting the kidneys?”
“Who’s getting the kidneys? I cannot know.”
“Take us into the village.”
“Take you there? I cannot today. The day will wear away before we know it,” he said, a troubled look on his black, shining face.
“I’m looking for Rikard and a professor named Mallory and she’s looking for her daughter.”
“I see. You seek Rikard and the lonely pelican girl. And the professor.”
“Yes, the white man who studies black magic. Here’s his photograph.”
“This man I know. He hides somewhere deep in the island. They say he talks a peculiar talk of strange words. That’s what they say.”
“How do you know this?”
“How? It is known by all. Ask Rikard.”
Again, all answers lay in Rikard—the Mullet Man—the wind capable of blowing away the mists obscuring all things on Sapelo.
“Why don’t you join us tonight for dinner just before sunset?”
“Join you for dinner? I cannot. I come to welcome you. I must take care of some business. The villagers do not trust white people or mainlanders … I know. I spent many years on the mainland. I was born here and left, but returned many years later. Do not go to the village alone.”
“Come visit us again, as soon as you can. When you do, then can we go into the village?”
“Go into the village … we’ll see Slater Watts. Whether we do or not, I will visit you again. Soon, I hope. Now I must leave,” and then he bowed.
We turned back to camp and walked, discouraged yet oddly hopeful. Some minutes later, I looked back. Oleander had again become an apparition in the intensifying heat and it seemed he had been a figment of our imagination.
Back at camp, Tyler brought her floral skills to bear on our seashell collection, arranging them in ways that pleased the eyes. She seemed to have talent for sure, and I enjoyed watching her try combination after combination, until she had the composition she sought. Meanwhile I could not avoid dwelling on Rikard. I could literally see the fabled Mullet Man walk into camp. Without his help, I knew we were dead in the water. And then, one of those rare and eerie déjà vu type occurrences unfolded.
The mind truly works in strange ways. Thinking about what you want sometimes makes it happen. Late that afternoon, about the time traffic clogs up Atlanta’s arteries, Rikard did walk into camp as we were preparing the evening meal. He wanted to talk about the magazine article. After much discussion about the magazine’s readers, he agreed to teach the “sissies of the world” what black magic and survival are all about.
I was eager to check out this white man/black man who killed people with magic and commanded porpoises, this survivalist who wore a sand dollar necklace on a string of rawhide and seemed straight out of a screenplay.
He spotted a bottle of Southern Comfort and without asking, turned it up. He looked around camp and walked over to the rain collector and tapped it.
“Not much rain, huh?”
“Some, but not enough” I said. “She likes to shower a lot.”
Rikard came back to the bottle and poured the amber liquid into a cup, downing it.
“Of course, she does,” he said, wiping his mouth with his hand, “cleanliness and Godliness—that’s part of the city life. It’s okay to smell natural. You folks just done forgot how the body ought to smell. That’s all. You know, there ain’t nothing like the natural world,” he said. “I admire people who live naturally. Most people can’t. Especially white people like you.”
“White folks can live naturally,” I said. “We live in a tent.”
“Not natural like. You have a shower and all that crap. I lived in a tee pee for three years but living on the ground gives you worms and parasites. After that, I moved into a house.”
“That sounds conventional enough,” I said.
“Without electricity! No TV, no oven, no radio. Cooking in a fireplace over hot coals. No electric razors, no hot water. Just rough, cold shaving.”
That explains the beard, I thought. “What do you do to make a living?”
“I have two livings, one honest, one dishonest. I make my honest living doing a little fishing, a little crabbing, taking women on shelling expeditions, and weaving cast nets. Restaurants hang them on walls for a touch of Lowcountry atmosphere. I used to make ’em for fishermen but I can’t sell nets to fishermen any more. The Japs make ’em cheaper than I can.”
“How about your dishonest living?”
“That’s off limits. I won’t discuss that with white folks.”
I poured him another cup of Southern Comfort. He downed it right away. Cameron was right. Rikard claimed to be black all right. Maybe so. Mixed gene pools could produce unexpected results, but he looked white. Very white. I couldn’t let it go without some explanation.
“I’m curious about something but don’t get pissed. Tell me about your bloodline. You say you’re black but you look white. Explain that.”
Rikard leaned back against the driftwood tree we used as a bench. He let out a long sigh.
“Okay, I’ll tell you how that works. My heritage is part black, part Indian, part white. My great-great grandmother was black and my granddad was part white, part Cherokee. Then I lived seventeen years with a black man named Delano, an old fellow who taught me the black ways. He showed me the natural ways, root medicine, island crafts, and how to relate to animals.
“Delano taught me how to weave a cast net. Delano learned from his father, who learned from his father, who learned from his father, Delano’s great-granddaddy. And his great-granddaddy learned by watching spiders spin their orb shaped webs. So, I’m a mixture of this and that—as we all are—but I’m black by choice.”
“So Delano taught you voodoo.”
“That’s right. He was good too.”
“I heard you killed a developer with black magic. True?” I asked.
“Fuck. I knew that would come up. Now you listen good. First of all, there’s little difference between realtors and developers. Both are shitty parasites. There is no lower scum than an island developer but realtors come real close. Yes, I put a hex on one. He bought a small island near here and made it off limits to me.”
“Why you?”
“Because I made a little money taking women there shelling. It’s the best place around for shells, good currents.”
“What did you do?”
“I’m a rational man. I tried to reason with him. I told him we’d only take so much as shells go, you have to leave some for nature’s use, you know. The arrogant ass said the island was his and so were any shells that drifted up. You don’t need to know the particulars but when I was done he died. Cancer.”
“You gave him cancer.”
“That’s right. I told him he’d die from stomach cancer in six months.”
“How long did it take?”
“Five months. His wife cried and begged me to take off the hex. He opened the island up to me again but it was too late.”
“So he died of stomach cancer?”
“Stom-ach can-cer,” he said, accentuating the deadly words.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Fine. Like I said there is no lower riffraff than an island developer. They rape Mother Nature. They think they can plant palmettos wherever they feel. Shit, go to any resort island and look at the damn palmettos. They look like shit, as out of place as I’d be at a black tie dinner. Resort palmettos don’t grow naturally. Developers put them there. They’re trying to make everything look tropical and pretty so they can sell it.”
“They call it marketing.”
“I call it the white man’s greed,” he said. “The white man’s greed has screwed up the world. Fucking destruction is inevitable because the white man has forsaken the natural ways. White folks akilling themselves ’cause they’ve abandoned real life’s rhythms and that all important factor—timing.”
“Timing is everything all right,” I said. “Your timing saved me from drowning in the marsh.”
“There you go. Hell, I’m a super fisherman. No secret to it. It’s timing. Idiots from the mainland go out when they’re not supposed to. It’s t-i-m-i-n-g,” He said drawing out the word. “You got to blend with nature to be as one with it. It’s blending and it’s timing.”
“People say you blend into the island like a wild animal. They say you just disappear when you want to.”
“That’s a fact. No one can find me. Now someone might get lucky and stumble onto me,” he said locking eyes with me. “Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets by me. I know this island backwards and forwards. I can disappear at will and I get information from sources people never think about.”
Rikard drank straight from the bottle and continued. “Someone, and it’s me, has to protect sanctuaries like Sapelo. The developer’s lust for money has killed the charm, lifestyle, and traditions of all the old islands,” said Rikard, “but I’ll be damned if they’ll get this one.”
He paused and gazed off into the distance far beyond the sea.
“To hell with developers’ palmettos. There’s an old oak deep in this island that’s seen everything. Big swooping limbs covered in Spanish moss, a canopy that blocks out the sun. It’s the granddaddy of Lowcountry trees. It knows everything, like an old man.”
“Do you go into the city much?” I asked.
“Hell no. I go when I have to, take care of business, and leave. City people are crazy.”
“You’re right,” I said. “The city makes them crazy.”
“There’s no way in Hell city people can know what’s going on. Look at their faces when they’re stuck in traffic. They look like people from another planet. They have a damn phone stuck in their ear, talking about nothing, cigarettes smoking away. The women have so much make up on, it’s like they’re wearing a mask. The men have earrings and funny little beards, and tattoos too. They look like contestants in an ugly contest. Most are pussies and the Army would kill ’em in two days. As for women, Charleston has a few natural good-looking women, but not many.”
Rikard’s talk of Charleston brought Tyler over.
“You go to Charleston a lot?” she asked.
“Just when I need supplies,” he said.
“You ever meet a girl there named Lorie?”
“I meet lots of women there. Women like me ’cause I’m different. What’s your daughter look like?”
“I showed you a flyer, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“She’s blonde with blue eyes, a bit tall, five feet nine maybe, and I’m guessing she has a nice frame.”
“You’re guessing? Don’t you know?”
“I told you I haven’t seen her in seven years, so yes I’m guessing.”
“A nice frame. You make her sound like a door. Just say she’s built, cause if she is, maybe I know her real good,” he said, grinning.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you,” she said, brushing away his remark.
“Let’s see. You haven’t seen her in seven years. How old’s that make her?” Rikard asked.
“Twenty-three.”
“You got a girl who’s grown into a woman. Seven years is a lot of change,” said Rikard, “and if she likes to hang out in bars, smoke, and drink, she’ll break bad in a hurry.”
“Oh, she’s not that type.”
“You don’t know crap about who she is today. You wouldn’t even recognize her,” said Rikard who plainly was agitated.
“I don’t think she’d hang out in bars,” Tyler said, looking seaward then restoring her stare at Rikard. “And I know she’d never smoke.”
Rikard reached for the Southern Comfort, and took a deep swig.
“You don’t know that,” he said, wiping his mouth, “but I hope not, not cigarettes anyway. Just pray she ain’t in the city. The city life isn’t much of a life nor are people there worth a damn. Tell me, do you think your daughter likes to dance?”
“I suppose. Most girls do. What difference does that make?”
“Maybe none, maybe a lot. One night, for the Hell of it, I stepped into a bar off East Bay. A damn band was playing something they called music. These punks had tattoos, shaved heads, earrings, and goatees. Like they wanted to look as ugly as Hell and they sure as hell succeeded. Called themselves ‘The Trouser Moccasins.’ Now don’t you know their mamas would be proud to know they raised some trou-ser moc-ca-sins,” he said drawing out the syllables.
“Girls gyrated in front of the band and everyone of ’em puffed a damn cigarette. Now this one girl danced by herself on a speaker all night long holding an orange Smiley Face bowl with a blue straw. I’d seen her there once before on that speaker, dancin’ and drinkin’, drinkin’ and dancin,’ just stopping to refuel.”
“Did you talk to her?” asked Tyler moving into Rikard’s space. He not only stood his ground, he moved close up near her face.
“You could say I talked to her. I went over for a closer look and she tossed the shit in the Smiley Face bowl on me. I told her to go to Hell.”
“What’d she do?”
“What did she do?” Rikard turned the bottle up, then leaned hard against the kitchen tree, rattling the pans hanging from a bare limb. “You mean what did I do. Shit, I left. The noise and smoke was bad enough without some bitch throwing a drink on me. That’s why I don’t live on the mainland. The people there—especially in the cities—are just crazy and craziness is contagious. I don’t need no craziness and I don’t need no city life. Besides, people like me, we’re always running from something, and the city is a trap, set to spring on the poor soul who don’t belong there. I go in, take care of business, and I leave. One day I’m there; the next I’m gone. I stay a step or two ahead of trouble and when I get back here, I disappear.”
Tyler pursued Rikard over to the tree.
“The dancing girl, the blonde who threw …”
“What are you running from Rikard?” I asked, interrupting Tyler.
“People like you and pretty girl there,” he said, nodding at Tyler who stood poised with a mouthful of questions. “And now you’re chasing me down on my own island. What’s chasing you?” Rikard asked, drawing on the bottle.
“Me? Bad memories, and, like you, the city.”
“And you, pretty girl, what are you running from?” asked Rikard.
“You know my name. I’m running toward a new life. I’m looking for my daughter and I’ll find her—with or without your high-and-mighty help. If you know so damned much about this wild, voodoo island, you could help me if you wanted to. And as far as killing people with voodoo, I’ll believe it when I see it. I can tell you though, killing a man is nothing. I shot a man in the neck and I shot off his … Well, it doesn’t matter. I served my time. Just don’t talk to me about killing unless you can back it up.”
She walked away and began to break out food for the night. Rikard leaned back against the toppled tree and put his arms around two limbs, clearly stung. It was a good time, I thought, to walk the beach and talk mano a mano.
“Give me the bottle,” I said to Rikard. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Sure. Let’s drink,” Rikard said, handing me the bottle.
I walked over to Tyler and handed her the bottle.
“Here, take a sip and relax. We’ll be back in a bit,” I said. “Give me a chance to talk to him alone.”
“That arrogant ass won’t tell you a damn thing. He talks about himself only and then in riddles. Where are you going?”
“We’re going to take a walk and talk some. We won’t be long.”
“I’m going too,” she said. “I’m not done with him.”
“No, stay here. We need to talk alone. We’ll be back and then he can eat with us … if he wants. Just stay here and make dinner.”
“Make it yourself. I’m not your damn maid.”
“Back off, will you? I’ll help you when I get back. Just give me a chance to talk one-on-one with him and do me a favor. Don’t wander off. And don’t let the dog wander off either. He’s your pet. Remember?”
Tyler tipped the bottle up and a slug of liquor gushed into her. I went into my tent and got the article I’d written on Mitchell, folded it, and slipped it inside my shirt. I went over to Tyler and took back the bottle.
A sullen Tyler watched Rikard and me walk through the pass in the dunes. We turned south and headed to where Jackson’s boat had sunk.
“You have to overlook her a bit. She’s determined as hell to find her daughter. She hasn’t seen her in a long time, and she feels you’re holding out on her.”
“Seven years, right. Maybe if she was nicer, she’d get more out of me. And another thing … what’s all this talk of killing? Who’d she kill?”
“Her husband, a North Carolina game warden. She killed him seven years ago because he molested her daughter. She served time too. That’s no lie.”
“She killed her husband. You don’t say,” he said his eyes afire.
“She isn’t lying when she says she shot him in the dick. She did. Shot him in the throat too. She’s one determined woman on a mission. My take is she needs to see her daughter just as much or more than she wants to see her.”
“Well, all this talk of killing’s whetting my appetite. Maybe it’s time for a hex. I know a game warden, excuse me—a con-ser-va-tion officer—I wouldn’t mind killing … So, she thinks her daughter is here,” said Rikard, reaching for the bottle.
“That’s right and if she is, she knows you know where she is.”
The question went into the salt air and hung there but no answer came.
Rikard walked ahead to where the tide had washed up debris from Jackson’s sunken Whaler. A wreckage of bottles, beer cans, and burnt lifejackets littered the beach.
“That’s what’s left of Jackson’s Boston Whaler.”
“Jackson, well hell yes, I know that.”
“Jackson came to see us yesterday. He was supposed to come today to pick up Tyler and take her back to the mainland. Just before he crossed the surf line his engine quit. He went back to look at it with a cigarette in his mouth and the boat exploded. He’s out there on the bottom somewhere.”
“Jackson, that shit. Good riddance. The island is better off without Jackson. Let the crabs eat him; charred human flesh ought to suit ’em. Let ‘em eat that bastard’s face of a burnt-out alcoholic. He didn’t give a damn about natural ways. He was one destructive son-of-a bitch.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” I asked.
“He was a worthless drunk who showed island creatures no reverence. When he was bringing you and your lady friend here, he tried to hit my porpoises that intercepted you.”
“How did you know that?”
“They told me. I knew the second you stepped ashore you were here.”
“Did you leave the amulet on Tyler’s tent?”
“No. I didn’t leave it.”
“Did you send someone over with it?”
“No, I didn’t send no person.”
“Then who left it and how did they do it without leaving footprints?”
“That sounds a whole lot like black magic, don’t it,” he said. “Maybe you can conjure up an answer.”
“Look Rikard, Mullet Man, or whatever in the hell name you go by, I need your help in the worst way. I want you to do me a big favor. I’ll pay you if necessary—”
“—to do what?”
“Save my daughter’s life.”
“Save your daughter’s life?”
“That’s right. She’s been in a coma for five years and modern medicine can’t do anything to help her. Wires and tubes hooked to machines keep her alive. Her mom was killed in a wreck and she suffered a serious head injury.”
A far away look possessed Rikard’s eyes and he fell silent. Then with a heavy sigh he at last spoke. “So just what in hell do you want me to do?”
“Let’s say coma is another word for trance. I want you to break her trance. I spoke to an old black woman in Atlanta who runs a voodoo shop and she told me you could do it, though it wouldn’t it be easy. She gave me a book and told me you’d need certain ingredients for your recipe.”
“And that would be?”
“Her urine, her teddy bear, two locks of hair, and the bloody seat covers where she and her mom sat and the cell phone she was using at the time.”
“Yes, those’ll help but you’ve left out an important ingredient.”
“That’s all the woman told me I’d need.”
“No, there’s one more thing you need, the most important thing. You need to believe.” Rikard walked to the sea’s edge. He took off his sand dollar necklace, leaned over, cupped seawater, and splashed his face, then he submerged his head in the brine. He came back to me, shaking wet hair like a dog. “I’m thinking about it … just let me think about it.”
“That’s all I can ask. It means everything to me. I’ll pay you—”
“Don’t bring up money. That’s your white blood coming out.”
“Fine, do it for free. Do it for me.”
“Damn it, man, if I do it, it’ll be for your daughter.”
“I appreciate it more than you know. When do we do it?”
“I’ll need some time. These things don’t happen just like that. The timing’s got to be right. I’ll let you know.”
“Fine. Now there’s one other thing. I’m looking for a couple of people. I can’t discuss this in front of Tyler. She’d take over the conversation and piss you and me off in about five seconds. You see how she is.”
“Hell yeah. I can’t remember the last time a woman jumped down my throat like that. She gave me a reading, I’ll tell you.”
“She’s determined to find her missing daughter. Do you know if her daughter is on this island and do you know a professor named Mallory?”
“The professor? He’s one loco hombre. How the Hell do you know him?”
“Never met him. I work for his twin brother, an editor in Atlanta by the name of Murphy. I’m here to interview you, but another reason I’m here is to deliver a package to Mallory and bring him back to Atlanta.”
“What kind of package?” asked Rikard, eyes gleaming.
“I don’t know. It’s sealed up.”
“Well, hell, let’s tear into it. I guarantee you his brother’s got no use for it.”
“So I hear. I gave my word I’d hand it over, unopened, to his brother.”
“Well, you’re making a mistake. But hand it over to him. I’ll just take it from him later. He can’t use it no matter what it is. So … Mallory has a twin brother?” said Rikard, stroking his beard. “Well now that’s a surprise for sure. All right, you earned some information or maybe you just got lucky. Either way, pat yourself on the back. You’re the first person to spot my creek barricade.”
“How do you know that?”
“Hell, I know most everything that goes on here. This island is mine. Oh, I don’t have a deed to it. A deed is for developers, realtors, lawyers, and people who think they can own a piece of the world. What bullshit. The world owns them. It owns you and me. That’s why we all end up in the earth for eternity, swallowed by the dark. No, the island’s mine ’cause I’ve got something better than a deed. The island is in me and I am in the island. I’m at one with the collective consciousness of the universe. Nature’s at one with me and I’m at one with nature. The herds, the flocks, hives, and forests—I’m in harmony with it all.”
“That would include porpoises, right?”
“Other animals too. Trees. Ospreys, eagles, and seaturtles. And I know what you’re gonna say. How do I do it? How do I connect with all this naturalness? How do I converse with porpoises? Well, you’ve seen me do my thing. You didn’t thank me, by the way, for getting you the canoe.”
“Thanks. How in the Hell did you do that?”
“I won’t tell you just how I communicate with them but the fact is I do. You don’t need to be writing about that, so leave it alone.”
“Why not?”
“Because every photographer and writer in the world would descend on the island and they’d ruin the very things they came to see.”
“Well what about the girl and the professor?” I asked.
“What about ’em?”
“I need to find them if they’re on this island.”
“If they’re here and alive it’s only because they have survived somehow. First things first, survival is the key to everything. Let’s talk about the basics.”
***
I sensed that survival and natural living were all that mattered to Rikard and Forbidden Island represented the heart of all things natural. A cling-to-life-at-all-costs disciple, I knew he had read the work of Tom Mitchell Jr., the survivalist’s survivalist from the New Jersey Badlands. I was ready to talk survival and play my trump card: the fact that I had met Rikard’s idol, the infamous Tom Mitchell Jr. Mitchell’s knife would cinch everything.
“What do you think of Tom Mitchell Jr.?” I asked.
“He’s a god. His life and mine are a lot alike. He knows what’s going on. Don’t know him. Wish I did. Like me, Indian blood courses through his veins. The Apache raised him. Mitchell is a ‘pure T’ survivalist, but he’s also a spiritualist. If you want to learn just how little you know, check this guy out. He’ll show you for sure.”
“I met him.”
“Don’t shit me. A city man like you ain’t gonna meet a survivalist like Mitchell.”
“I met him a few years back in his home in New Jersey. I was writing a piece for Ultimate Outdoors.”
“Is that so … Well tell me what’s his nickname?
“Shadow.”
“How’d he get it?”
“On his first tracking case. He stuck with the trail so hard, an old family friend, a lieutenant in the Highway Patrol, named him ‘Shadow.’
“You got that right but anybody could come by that. Prove you know him.”
I slipped my article from my shirt. “Read this.” Mitchell walked into the Badlands and lived there for two years—naked.”
“That he did,” said Rikard. “There’s your name right above his photograph. Okay, I’m impressed. That guy is my hero, and I take everything he says to heart. I think as he says. I do as he says. I survive as he says. Mitchell advises every survivalist to live off the land for two weeks at least once a year. So each year, I take a gallon of fresh water and go into the island’s wilder areas. I hunt in the interior, the marshes, among the oyster banks and along the creeks with my bare hands for two weeks and cook on an open fire. No matches, just rubbing sticks together. I sleep beneath the stars. It’s as natural a vacation as you’ll get.”
We passed the bottle between us.
“So you think you could survive a hurricane, a war, most anything,” I said.
“Anything. I’ve learned from the master. He’ll teach you to live off nothing. He’s one white man who knows what the deal is. I’m not saying a white man can’t know it. He’s just got all the odds stacked against him. He’s done in from the beginning. He loses all his true natural instincts right off. Hell, a white baby comes into the world surrounded by machines and it just gets worse. Any baby I father will be born here on Sapelo. To be born anywhere else would be unnatural. I wouldn’t want my kid devoted to machines. Turn on the electricity; turn on the water; get in the car; go to work. Come home. Watch TV. Hell, that’s not living.”
“I agree. It’s just going through the motions.”
“It ain’t even that. Technology has bred the natural instincts right out of most folks,” said Rikard. “The people over there,” he nodded toward the mainland, “they’re trained monkeys. The only way to discover who you are is to get out where we all come from. The natural world. And the purest natural world of all is the marsh. Without marshes like Forbidden Island’s ain’t nothing gonna live. Period. The sea, brother. That’s your nursery and mine.”
***
We held similar views, though we had come by them by far different routes, and I sensed we had the potential to be friends, too.
“When we get back to camp, I have something for you.”
“What?”
“A flint knife Mitchell gave me. It’s yours.”
“To be white, you’re not so bad but if it’s fake, I’ll know it.”
“It’s real. Now let’s get one thing straight. I don’t need to give Tyler false hope. I’ll sit on anything you tell me.”
“That’d be smart,” said Rikard who handed me the bottle after a long draw that had to burn like fire. “Let’s talk about your campmate. You trust her?”
“I don’t have much to trust her with, a tent and some supplies.”
“You trust her with your life, don’t you?” asked Rikard.
“I suppose.”
“You suppose? Didn’t she kill her husband? What about till death do we part? Wouldn’t you say she moved that right along?”
“She had good reason to. She’s evens stevens, overall. She took a life and she saved one too. She saved my life right here on Sapelo. She shot a gator back in a lagoon that would have gotten us both for sure.”
“Shot a gator? With what?”
“A .38. Shot it three times in the mouth; broke a big tooth out.”
“So, she’s a life saver, man killer, and gator hunter too. The complete package. How’d you two end up here?”
“I stopped for lunch at an old café. She overheard me tell a lady I was coming to the island and followed me here. That’s the short of it.”
“So, you’ve known her what—not even three weeks?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, take it from Old Mullet Man. Women want what they want and you are a means to an end. You gotta be a step ahead of ’em always.”
“We’ll see. She’s not easy to deal with. She’s headstrong for sure. Tell me before she comes looking for us, does a young white woman live on this island?”
Rikard thrust his hands into his pockets and turned to face the breakers. The sea rolled up to his feet, then retreated, rolled in and fell away again. He turned back to me.
“You’re a persistent son-of-a-bitch. Yes, a white woman, Crystal, lives with me. She’s a natural blonde, know what I mean?”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-something.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“I already told you. She threw the drink on me. There she was the next day, hung over as hell, at the old slave market. She was selling crystal jewelry claiming it could heal anything. Said if you sleep with crystals under your pillow, you’d be smarter. I told her that crystal nonsense was horseshit. “Them damn crystals ain’t helped your hangover now have they?” That did it. Caught her at her own game. I had her all right. I told her not a damn thing would come of crystals, that if she wanted to make a difference in the world, come with me to Forbidden Island. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘I know what you want.’
“I told her she was right but in return, I’d teach her island ways, basket weaving, voodoo, and survival. Then I took some grass from an old black basket weaver and made her a hair band. Stuck it on her head, smoothed her pretty hair back, and walked away.”
“And?”
“She chased me down wanting to know my living situation. The best I said. No electricity, natural food, no white people, and plenty of wild animals.”
“So, she took up with you.”
“That would be right and she’s staying put too.”
“Crystal selling crystals … sounds odd,” I said.
“What’s in a damn name anyway?” Rikard said, agitated.
“The natives call you ‘Mullet Man.’ “You tell me. What’s up with that?”
“I catch mullet in my cast net and feed ’em to pelicans and porpoises. Helps me tame ’em. As for the girl, she’s good to me, she’s pretty and sexy, and I don’t ask her a lot of questions. Digging into the past. That’s not my style. She’s a nature type. I’ll tell you that.”
“How so?”
“Soon as she got to the island, she asked me to get her a baby pelican. Said she wanted to make it her pet. So, I rescued one from a Fish and Wildlife Service rookery. Now there’s a joke for you?”
“What, a pelican as a pet?”
“No, the fact that the US government thinks it can o-w-n an island where pelicans breed,” he said, drawing out his words for emphasis.
“Things are starting to add up.”
“How’s that?”
“Jackson and Oleander said people have seen a woman here followed by a pelican. Tyler’s daughter had a pet chicken her stepfather killed and forced her to eat. He was abusing her sexually.”
“A sick SOB.”
“A dead SOB. Tyler shot him. She spent four years in prison but her daughter has no idea that happened. Other than one letter years ago, they’ve had no contact.”
The barest bit of shock crossed his face. He turned and stared out to sea, which crashed all around us, only I couldn’t hear it. The blood pounded in my head, obliterating everything, and I sensed a breakthrough for Tyler or was I wrong?
“So, you met Oleander,” Rikard said, turning back from the sea.
“Yes. He speaks his mind when he’s done repeating whatever you say.”
“That’s just his way of showing whites deference. He was born here but grew up on the mainland. He educated himself and he’s no dummy, just an oddball. Came back here late in life. He repeats what white people say to take no chance of pissing them off. He wears that turban ’cause he thinks it buys him acceptance here. He’s an outcast. Can’t even go into the village. The kids on the island love him though. He’s good to ’em, teaches ’em things.”
“He can’t go into the village?” I asked.
“No. The villagers hate him. He sold out on ‘em. That’s what they think.”
So, we had no passage into the village after all. We were back to square one.
Rikard spat onto the sand, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Tell you what. Tomorrow night, I’ll take you and pretty lady out for a night of watching seaturtles lay eggs. Then we’ll go inland to look for baby alligators. I’ll take you to a lagoon where a mama gator gots some babies. We’ll see how your lady friend holds up when gators surround her, snapping their jaws and smashing their tails against the water.”
“She’ll hold up fine.”
“We’ll see. If she doesn’t freak out, I’ll consider taking y’all to my place. Now, if my girl turns out to be your lady friend’s daughter, let’s get one thing clear.”
“What’s that?’
“She stays right here on Forbidden Island. I guarantee you that. No woman is taking her from me, and no man’s taking her either. Whoever tries to take her will suffer bad shit—the wrath of voodoo’s high gods. Pure evil revenge. You have the Mullet Man’s word on that, and my word means a hex from Hell itself.”