Caitlin nodded, her pulse picking up. “Last night I read everything I could find about the assassination, and Russia can only come into it two ways. First, if Russia or the KGB played some part in the killing. But I totally discount that as fantasy. The second way is through Oswald.”
Jordan simply waited for her to continue.
“Lee Harvey Oswald lived in Russia for two and a half years after he defected. He’d taught himself the language, and at least some letters that he wrote—like those to his Russian wife—he wrote in Russian. You can see them on the Internet.”
Jordan remained silent, processing what she’d heard. “But how could a letter or document stay hidden in a tree for forty years?”
Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. The best I can come up with is something like a mason jar.”
“No. Water always finds a way in. I once hid some pot in a mason jar and buried it. One month later, the jar was half full of water.”
“Well . . . within a few hours, we may know the answer. I wanted you to know that we’re not just out here looking for Jimmy Revels’s bones, as awesome as it would be to find them. We may actually find the key that Dwight spent half his life searching for. We might even find proof that Frank Knox killed John Kennedy.”
Jordan drove in silence for several seconds. Then she said, “I know that cost you. You don’t really know me well.” Glass looked to her right. “I won’t tell John about it. I promise you that.”
Caitlin felt a rush of gratitude and relief. “Thank you.”
Soon after this, they left Highway 61. Following a map Caitlin had printed from Google Earth, they turned west toward the Mississippi River on MS 24, a narrow asphalt lane barely wide enough for two cars. Then they turned south on something called Lusawatta Road, which turned out to be a neglected gravel lane worn down to red clay. After leaving that, they found themselves on a dirt track hemmed in by trees and undergrowth. They still had not seen water, but Caitlin sensed the swamp was near. Ever since leaving Highway 61, they’d been going downhill, and the oak, elm, and pecan trees had gradually given way to cottonwood and cypress. Caitlin had rarely experienced a more startling transformation of landscape than she had during the last few miles.
Despite the winter month, many of the trees in this area were still choked with kudzu and other undergrowth, and now and then a rusted truck or tractor would peek out of the foliage like some sentient observer. The most surreal moment of their journey had come when ten-or eleven-foot wire fences had risen out of the grass on both sides of the road, giving them the feeling they were traveling through a prison compound. Soon after, they’d begun to spy strange animals through the wire. Caitlin had seen moose, antelope, buffalo, and other creatures that looked only vaguely familiar. With her African work experience, Jordan had recognized several as oryx, springbok, gemsbok, and impala, but other species left even her stumped. Caitlin was reminded of a story she’d read as a child—Jules Verne, perhaps—in which the farther the heroes traveled upstream on a certain river, the deeper back in time they progressed. This trip felt exactly like that.
At least it had until Walt called her. When Caitlin heard that Tom had probably been kidnapped, a black dread had begun to ooze from someplace within her. What she felt was guilt—guilt that she’d known where Tom was but had kept it to herself, and away from Penn. Last night, after they’d made love at Edelweiss, Penn had sensed that she was holding something back, and she’d denied it. If Tom died now, and Penn discovered that she might have prevented it . . . he would never forgive her.
She might never forgive herself.
“Look!” Jordan cried, pointing out the windshield. She hit the brakes and moved slowly into a dirt turnaround. Forty feet from the car, greenish-black water lay across the ground, and farther on, it led back into a forest of cypress knees and overhanging branches.
They had found the swamp.
Caitlin had Jordan drive almost to the water’s edge and park. This was the place Toby Rambin had described to her. A rusted old school bus that had once been yellow protruded from the trees to her right. Dying kudzu vines lay across the bus like strangling ropes. Caitlin reached into her bag and pulled out the red bandanna that Rambin had requested she wear.
“Where’s our poacher?” Jordan asked, climbing out of the car.
Caitlin shrugged and tied the bandanna around her neck. Then she got out, her mind still on Walt’s terrible revelation. The sulfurous stink of the swamp struck her with surprising force, filling her nose and lungs. She hadn’t expected that noxious fume in the chilly weather, but then, she had no experience of swamps. Jordan, on the other hand, was scanning the clearing like a professional surveyor.
“He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago,” Caitlin said.
“I’ve been in this situation a hundred times,” Jordan said. “I set up a guide to take me into a war zone, and he shows up four hours late, if at all.”
“Let’s hope this isn’t a war zone,” Caitlin said, half under her breath.
Jordan peered into the shadows under the distant trees. “After all you told me about the Bone Tree, this feels like some kind of elephant graveyard thing.”
“After what we saw on the way in, an elephant wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Wait.” Jordan cocked her head and held up her hand. “Do you hear that?”
Caitlin listened hard, but she heard only birds and frogs. “What is it?”
“Motorcycle. Was Rambin coming on a motorcycle?”
“I don’t see how. He’s supposed to bring a boat.”
Jordan reached into the car and brought out a 9 mm pistol.