“We must be right on top of her!”
“No boat wake,” I say, desperately scanning the black water as Danny shifts the bird thirty yards to starboard. The surface of the swamp is empty of human signs for as far as I can see.
“Ten o’clock!” cries Carl. “What do you see, Penn?”
“Holy shit,” I breathe, catching sight of the crown of a massive cypress tree in the distance. “Look at that, Carl.”
“Son of a bitch,” he says. “That’s gotta be it. Danny?”
The chopper is already rolling right, picking up speed as we bore in toward the ancient giant.
“Got it again!” Carl says. “This is it.”
As Danny slows to a hover fifty yards from the tree, I catch sight of something too white and clean to be part of the natural environment.
“Under the tree!” I shout. “Something white.”
“I see it,” says Danny.
The JetRanger dips forward, then descends toward what now looks almost like a white flag of surrender. As we draw closer, I recognize the red stripe across the back of Caitlin’s jacket.
“It’s her!” I scream, straining against the four-point harness that holds me in my seat. “That’s her jacket.”
I’m suddenly terrified that Caitlin’s been dumped in the swamp like Casey Whelan. “Back off a little bit. Get down close to the surface, so we can see under the branches.”
“It’s gonna be close,” Danny says in a taut voice. “Those branches are a problem.”
“Screw the branches,” Carl growls. “Take this bitch in, Danny.”
The JetRanger edges up to the colossal tree, chopping branches into kindling like the world’s biggest Weedwacker. A choking lump rises in my throat. Caitlin is sitting with her back against the cypress. She’s still too far away for me to see if her eyes are open or closed, but if she were all right, she would be jumping and waving at the helicopter.
“Get us down, Danny! Hurry!”
With an expert hand, Danny noses the chopper still closer to the enormous cypress, descending all the while. Suddenly Carl is at my shoulder, staring through the side window with me.
“I’ll go down first,” he says. “With the hoist.”
“Bullshit you will.” I grab the handle on my chest and pop the harness free.
Carl opens the side door, then begins prepping the rescue basket. When I look forward, Danny is holding a pair of field glasses to his eyes.
“What do you see?” I ask, dread filling my chest.
“She’s got blood on her chest. A good bit. Her eyes are closed. We’ve got to get her out of there ASAP. Let Carl go down first.”
“I’m going down.”
“Penn, wait.” Danny looks back, his eyes searching mine from beneath his helmet. “Your father’s down there, too. He’s lying face-up, his eyes are closed, and he’s not moving.”
I scramble back to where Carl is prepping the aluminum mesh basket for descent and drop to the floor. From here, I can see the pilot was right. Dad is lying on his back about ten feet from Caitlin, near the water’s edge.
How the hell did this happen? How did he get here? In less than a second I know the answer: Snake Knox brought him here.
Carl checks the hoist’s cables, then gives Danny a thumbs-up. We’re only six feet above the water now. I’m going to jump. As though reading my mind, Carl grabs for my arm, but I twist away and leap through the door before he can stop me.
My feet dig into soft mud as icy water closes around my chest. The chopper’s rotors fling a stinging storm of spray and debris into the air, nearly forcing my eyes shut. Just above me, Carl slides the rescue basket through the open door.
At six foot one, I can bull my way over to the cypress without swimming. Pushing through the sulfurous water, I see a dark vertical slash in its trunk, like a great scar left by the sword of a giant. She really found it, I think. That’s the fucking Bone Tree. This realization transforms the cold iron of dread into molten terror—not of the tree and its legends, but of the men who use it as their killing ground.
Clawing my way out of the water, I scrabble up onto the tussock beside my father. “Dad!” I shout, shaking him. “Wake up!”
He doesn’t move. Checking the pulse at his throat, I feel nothing, but my fingers are already stiff from the cold water. Leaving him for the moment, I crawl to Caitlin, whose stomach and lap are red with sticky blood. My right hand goes straight for the artery beneath her jaw. Her lips are blue and her neck strangely swollen, but she’s faintly warm, as though life still thrums somewhere beneath her skin.
There’s no pulse in her throat.
“Caitlin!” I shout, taking her cheeks in my hands and squeezing tight. “Caitlin, can you hear me?”
She doesn’t move. With rising panic I turn and wave to Carl for help. He’s fighting through the water now, nose and eyes just above the surface, dragging the rescue basket behind him. Turning back to Caitlin, I slide my hand over her belly, searching for her wound. My palm hits something hard: a Bic pen, stuck to the blood on her stomach. Six inches above it is a small hole beneath her left breast. A bullet made that. . . .
A loud splashing sounds behind me, and the ground thumps as Carl drops to his knees at my side. “Any pulse?”
“Nothing. She’s bled out, Carl. She’s dead!”
His dark fingers go to her throat, where mine were moments ago. “My ass,” he says. “I feel something!” He presses his ear to her chest. “This girl ain’t dead till a doctor tells me she is. Let’s get her in the chopper. We can make Baton Rouge General in fifteen minutes!”
“The basket?” I ask numbly.