Harold laughed softly. “Hang me on one of them hooks they got in their skinning shack. They’d skin me like a buck, then mount my head on the wall.”
Caitlin shuddered at the dark undertone in his laughter. Numbing fear competed with the electric anticipation she felt as they neared the object of her quest.
“How far are we from the tree now?”
“Couple minutes, no more.”
Sweat had broken out beneath her jacket. Every cypress tree they passed seemed larger than the one before, and the air grew dark and close beneath the overhanging limbs.
“You want to hear a scary story?” Harold asked.
“Hell, no.”
Harold chuckled softly. “You know what a mandrake is?”
Caitlin thought she remembered some John Donne from college that referred to a mandrake. Go and catch a falling star. Get with child a mandrake root, tell me where all past years are, or who cleft the devil’s foot.
“It’s some kind of plant, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. My granny used to fool with some witchin’—charms and stuff like that. Voodoo from New Orleans. She said a mandrake will scream when you pull it out of the ground, and the scream will kill anybody who hears it.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes at this quaint superstition, and a little wave of relief rolled through her.
“Granny said you have to harvest the mandrake a special way.” Harold peered into the dimness ahead. “You tie a dog’s tail to it, then run away. When the dog runs after you, he pulls up the plant. Then you can go back safe and get it.”
“What made you think of that story?”
“Granny made Granddaddy bring her out here one time. She said the real mandrake only grew where the seed of a hanged man spilled on the ground.” He paused a beat. “You know what I’m talking about?”
Caitlin thought about it for a few seconds, then grunted in the affirmative.
“Granny knew some boys had been hung out here, see? More than one with his clothes off. And some people say they cut them boys’ manhood off. The ones hung from the Chain Tree anyway. So Granny figured there would be mandrakes growin’ under it.”
Caitlin gripped the pistol tighter. “That’s enough. You’re creeping me out.”
“Hey, I’m scared, too. I wouldn’t even be here without you payin’ me that money.”
Instinctively, she pulled open her jacket and checked her phone. Still no reception.
“There it is,” Harold said, a note of awe in his voice. “Just like I told you. Man alive, look at that.”
Caitlin jerked up her head. Before her stood the near-mythical object of so many fruitless searches. Just as the legend said, the Bone Tree towered more than a hundred feet over the water, its lower branches joining the crowns of other trees to form a tangled canopy. The fibrous bark of the massive cypress looked like the leathery skin of some great creature, not dead but only sleeping. At its bottom, the trunk divided into leglike partitions that plunged into the muddy tussock that supported the tree. What lay inside that vast trunk? she wondered. Were Elam Knox’s bones really wired to the inside wall of its organic cave?
As the pirogue glided toward the tussock, Harold was forced to slow the motor and thread his way between giant knees that protruded from the water like the backs of prehistoric animals basking in the water.
“Where’s the opening?” she whispered.
“Other side,” Harold answered softly. “There’s the chains.”
Caitlin followed his pointing finger. From a twisted limb fifteen feet above the ground hung two thick, rusting chains of iron. Wild euphoria surged through her at this confirmation of her hopes. At last she was close to the consummation of her dream—and Henry Sexton’s, too.
As she said a silent prayer for Henry, the chain-saw whine of an outboard motor smothered her joy and made her duck down in the boat. The motor was much closer than before, maybe fifty yards away. She could see nothing through the ranks of cypress trunks, but when she turned and looked to the stern of the pirogue, she saw pure terror in Harold’s eyes.
“What should we do?” she hissed.
“We need to get out of here.” He reached for the trolling motor.
“No!” she whispered. “Not before I see what’s inside that tree. We’ve come too far.”
“Then get out and do it! Quick! ’Cause two minutes from now, I’ll be gone from this motherfucker.”
JOHN KAISER SAT ALONE on a bunk in the cellblock of the Concordia Parish jail, staring down at the corpse of Sonny Thornfield. He felt like a fool. He’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book—a diversionary attack. Both the shotgunning of the FBI satellite truck and the firebombing of Penn’s family’s safe house had been timed to draw him and his men away from the courthouse, making the murder of Sonny Thornfield possible. This meant that someone with connections in both the criminal and law enforcement spheres was pulling the strings.
Forrest Knox.
He should have known that a former Lurp like Forrest would employ military tactics. Kaiser’s second mistake had been placing confidence in Sheriff Dennis’s men and the facilities under their command. Dennis himself had been absent during the attack—and he still hadn’t shown up—but of course Kaiser had effectively banned him from the premises after the torture fiasco in the utility closet.