The Stone Scry Page 11

  My departure will draw deep ire from the elder, and rightfully so losing a master hunter. If you find your situation worsening and decide to leave, come see me in Cary or seek out my parents at Fort Dix. Dad has a close friend, Lou Frasier, stationed there.

  With deep love and respect,

  Sam

  Chapter 8

  Reeds wrapped around Sam’s calves and unknown things bumped off his ankles as he plodded through the marsh. Whether fish, debris, or something else, he could not tell. Ignoring them, he focused on visible, familiar things. There were few. Dead elms sandblasted white looked as though shoved into the silty water by black gums. Sharp bladed sawgrass, capable of slashing skin, snapped by Sam’s face while he avoided alligator turtles waiting in burrows hungry for human toes.

  His patrol route ran the Green Swamp Preserve southern border and cut north to Lumberton, where a refugee camp coalesced in the city. Homes and small stores had returned to the earth in crumbled heaps. Its migrant, former urbanites erected houses and barns atop the salvageable foundations.

  Diver patrols ferried ambassadors to the bustling camp hoping Lumberton could become an alternate route for freshwater shipments. Lumberton’s migrants escaped persecution by gangs and survived being mortared by stormwater in their cul-de-sac pestles. They were reluctant to partake in activities promoted by the Divers. But as the old saying goes, familiarity breeds acceptance—a concept the Diver’s dealer, Merle Dower, capitalized on. With Lester O’Connell’s help, Merle turned around sentiments in Lumberton.

  Before former Master Hunter O’Connell’s demise, Sam traveled with him under security detail for the dealer, assisting in nurturing the Lumberton-Wilmington relationship. The elder wished for Sam to continue strengthening the bond, but the mere notion of following Elder Buttonwood’s orders left a hint of reflux in Sam’s mouth.

  Today, the new master hunter sought a different path. Sam’s pulse elevated at the sight of rusted signs bent down into the water; their faces once stamped I74. He reached these crossroads intent on veering off course, and the terrain would grant respite for his wilting feet.

  Like more significant highways, the median gutter of I74 housed a slow-moving creek, cresting into former passing lanes. Once home to carex and wildflowers, wild lotus and sphagnum moss had overcome its basin. The other highway lanes, entangled by grapevines and poison ivy, were shorelines to farmland and dales bucketing rainwater or rises holding relics of houses and alluvia-encased artifacts once cherished by humanity. Lake Waccamaw rested far away west ringed by cow lilies. Off to the east, leftovers of Riegelwood laid in shambles near the Cape Fear River. A towering industrial complex folding in on itself marked the spot.

  “Juan!” Sam called, “Almost at I74, how does the grade look?”

  Juan Delgado loved being the point man. In his formative years, he learned to hunt in parallel with the Wash. He tolerated diving, considering the activity a decent trade-off for a chance to lead hunting excursions. Shaquan White may have been the most exceptional spotter in the water, but no one matched Juan’s survival skills. “We’re getting there, master hunter. Should slope soon.”

  Sam laughed and added, “Good.” Before he carried the title, master hunter brought images of the proverbial military general. One expected medals, pressed slacks, and an aura of badass. His friends respected the image in Wilmington, but once outside, they slid back into more comfortable roles wrought by weather and war. They were the best of friends.

  Shaquan and Abu Zaid approached to meet Sam in a huddle.

  “What’s up, Sammy?” Shaquan asked.

  “Up ahead lies the highway. Am thinking we take it east, and then north up the other road, the eleven, to Cape Fear River.”

  “Why do you call I11 ‘the eleven’?”

  Sam aimed a finger at his heart. “Native Southern Californian.”

  “Uh-huh.” Shaquan folded his arms and formed a smirk under skeptical eyes. “You want to visit the Britt family, I’m guessing? What about Lumberton?”

  “We need intel,” Sam said. “The Britts are stingy traders, but also rabid gossipers.”

  Abu hocked a loogy stuck in his throat and said, “They’re religious freaks, Sam.”

  Shaquan slapped Abu’s rump. “At least they're tolerant of a black man!”

  “Yeah, not to Arabs.” Abu stepped out of reach and adjusted his shoulder-slung hunting rifle, an old Marlin .308 hand-me-down from the tribe. “O’Connell’s former patrol team invested a lot of gear and tech into the Lumberton refugee camp. We shouldn’t forget them, even though we’re—”

  “You remember what happened to his last patrol before we became spotters?” asked Sam raising his voice.

  “I understand you’re anxious, Sam. But the Divers will need the connection even more if we—”

  “They…were…eaten. Devoured. O’Connell never saw gators like them. Long necks and legs. They could trot, Abu. Like fangers.” Sam believed open ears were everywhere and exercised prudence in confidential discussions. Especially when scheming to desert the tribe.

  Abu, breathing shallow, shook his head and gestured he was done talking.

  “I will not let them insult you, my friend,” Sam said, reeling in emotion, “I need you with me, ok?”

  “Sure, sure.” Abu brushed away a clump of mosquitos. “I don’t care, the Divers will be fine. This neoprene is baking me alive.” He flopped on his rump and swapped mud-caked boots for thick dive shoes, then yanked his 1.5 mm suit down leaving a skin suit underneath.

  Spotters strapped on anything fitting a broad definition of body armor for patrol. Football gear, baseball helmets—sometimes facemasks. Even skillets and baking sheets. If it could stop gator teeth from penetrating the skin, it had value. The neoprene suit was mandatory. On a rare, sunny day, spotters running perimeter sweated pounds of water. More often, they marched in cold rain.

  Catching his breath, Abu asked, “Sammy, why did you leave O’Connell? The day the biggen got him, you went straight for Shaquan.”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Shaquan is our best friend, man.”

  “You tossed Juan to me and went down to the wreck’s bow, the same direction as the biggen.”

  “I knew it was going to circle.”

  “O’Connell positioned there, but you didn’t check on him. Why?”

  Shaquan raised his hands. “Hey guys, we don’t need to do this now, ok?”

  The four friends were methodic and analytical. They hated the variables. Abu pressed for an answer, “Why didn’t you at least hopscotch from the bottom? Would have taken but a few seconds.”

  “Because I wanted to save this guy,” Sam said, patting Shaquan’s shoulder.

  “I’m not saying you wouldn’t give your life for him. I think you didn’t look for O’Connell for the same reason you’re not going to Lumberton.”

  Sam stiffened and asked, “What the hell are you saying, man?” He knew this inquiry would come eventually, expecting it from Elder Buttonwood.

  When the elder gave nothing more than a verbal spanking for Sam risking his life by attacking the shark, the subject lingered in Sam’s mind.

  Abu drew a deep breath and asked, “Why didn’t you check?”

  Sam raised his shoulders and answered, “Because he was a racist piece of shit!”

  “Racist enough to deliver him a death sentence? O’Connell was prejudiced, but never sought to overtly harm those of different color.”

  Shaquan moved in closer to Sam, anticipating a physical escalation to match the verbal one. Sam’s cocky and competitive disposition was always submissive to his core belief: only attack a threat. As with any animal, leave him alone, and no one gets hurt. But if Abu’s logic corralled Sam, how would he perceive the threat? Characteristic of probability, one of Sam’s options could be eliminating Abu.

  Abu continued, “It wasn’t because he was prejudiced.”

  “Christ, Abu, fine. You want another excuse? He was a crap master hunter who didn’t know wha
t the fuck he was doing.”

  They all fell quiet. Buzzes from cicadas wafted in the air and water lapped Sam’s feet.

  Technologically gifted Abu repaired and enhanced gear. Talented at spotting ecosystem nuances, Shaquan plucked medicinal therapeutics from the densest thickets. Juan was a superb tracker and sharpshooter. They were incredibly intelligent, useful, and Sam’s friends. O’Connell was pablum.

  Shaquan broke the silence: “Sammy, I know you love us but face it. When you think someone is inferior, you cut them loose.”

  At least the elder knew Sam not below the skin, unlike his friends. They supported Sam in happier times, or during drunken rants about women and life. They shared his sadness: battles, starvation, and social strife.

  Sam trembled in emotion and raised clenched fists wanting to cut off the emotional onslaught. More than anyone, he was a brilliant tactician plotting out attacks like a chess game. The odds of him crushing Abu into the mud were high. Factoring in reflexes and talent for running game theory in real-time, he had Abu beat in three moves. Instead of gauging readiness, however, he studied the curves of Abu’s face. Each facial feature flashed a shared perilous adventure. There were many.

  Sam collapsed to his knees, defeated by compassion. “Shit.”

  Abu concluded, “That is why you didn’t save O’Connell, and that is why you’re skipping Lumberton.” He knew Sam all too well, and Sam accepted it with knees sinking into the rusty mud.

  “I get it,” Abu said. “The refugees will weaken the Divers when the tribe needs to be preparing for a jacker invasion. Tactically, the Britts are the better move but don’t forget, my friend, nature includes humanity. We are not above nature, and we are all creations of God.”

  “You made your point.” Sulking, Sam gestured: “We better keep moving. My decision stands. You said yourself, Elizabethtown is the tactically superior move. We need to speak with the Britts.”

  Abu offered his hand. “As long as you recognize your flaws, not just your strengths, I will follow you to Earth’s end, Sam.”

  They caught up to Juan standing before I74. A moat of lily pads and duckweed fifteen feet across lay walled in between poison ivy-matted pavement and cupscale grass. Along the other side, a creek drifted over the median.

  Juan drew a can from his pack. What the Divers called a spotter party favor. Still as an oak, he waited for movement amongst the lily pads. The other spotters positioned behind him shoulder to shoulder without breaking the water.

  “Anything?” whispered Shaquan.

  “No,” Juan replied, grabbing a line threaded out the can’s top.

  “Get ready,” Sam said, drawing a worn Colt SMG.

  Juan glanced at each of his friends and dipped the can in the water.

  Arguably, highways were the deadliest regions of the network. Not for starving snipers but because alligators used them to traverse swamplands. Highway gutters averaged eight feet deep; the current discouraged plants like button bush and cypress from settling in the gutter and torrential floods broke up cluttering rubble along the gutter floor. Alligator bulls cherished deeper ones, and shallow gutters were favorite fishing holes for snapping turtles. Should the weary traveler choose to avoid a highway, they tangled with copperheads dominating dead tree mounds or faced fangers and muckbears delving on land.

  The Divers invented the spotter party favor for safer highway crossing. The noise vibrated down human eustachian tubes, causing a sharp ringing sensation to linger for hours. For animals, worse.

  There was one catch. Someone had to dip their hands into the water to use it.

  Juan yanked the drawstring, whirling cogs inside and spinning razors against metal. A high-pitched sound like a party whistle twirled in the water.

  Fish jumped out in all directions trying to flee. Sliders clawed their way onto the asphalt using stubby little legs and hid traumatized in their shells. Frenzied grey frogs hopped abound, some clinging to Sam’s legs.

  Nothing larger. Not yet.

  Spanning the disturbed lily pads, Juan wound the string back into the can and pulled again.

  Rows of white teeth connected to a rounded snout, followed by a scaled muscular body the length of two men, erupted from the turbulent water. The bull charged straight for Juan’s head.

  His friends unleashed a wall of bullets between him and the car-sized reptile, decapitating it.

  Head shredded from the neck, the body fell across Juan and laid still. Dark red blood oozed out across his chest and drizzled onto his chin.

  Wiping chunks of reddish-white meat from his face and spitting out foreign fluids from his mouth, Juan lifted and shoved aside the male gator corpse. “Hijo de chingá. This had to happen on a sunny day.”

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Morning came to Armour, North Carolina. The previous evening, Abu and Sam traded supplies and shared fresh alligator meat with local homesteaders for safe passage. An amicable meeting, interrupted briefly by what appeared to be a massive bomb striking far off north. Transiently rattled nerves were helped by good, strong spirits shared between the team and their hosts. Comforted from feasting on spiced gator meat and sipping local spirits, the homesteaders allowed them to sleep in a kept barn.

  The locals had set up a thriving market expanding into East Arcadia. Armour’s quaint charm and spacious feeling ignored the violent world around it. Sam pitied the residents. He visualized their society rising to a peak, attracting local thugs like the Badger Gang, and their inevitable downfall. Food stores wiped out, and the residents subjugated into slavery.

  Sam promulgated a plan that night to bypass unwanted parties like the Badger Gang via the Cape Fear River. Unlike most of the Coastal Plains, a thick forest still rested on the river’s eastern shores providing good cover, though saltwater backwash had killed trees as far inland as Riegelwood.

  Midmorning, the spotters filled up on milled cattail bread and took in a dose of nicotine from their vaping pens. Minds alert and blood flowing, the men prepared to strike out through Sandyfield. Nestled between Armour and East Arcadia, the deserted town lay half-buried in slough; its swampland a haven for gators, and the transitional land a favorite hunting ground for fangers.

  The team checked gear: electronics sealed, gear strapped, loose clothing and solar travel charges packed. Weapons cleaned and sharpened, suits inspected for rips and fraying facets, and snorkel items secured tight.

  Soon, they reached the shore of Interstate eleven and sped north. Always systematic, they rotated duties without a word. Sam searched I11 gutters for gators. Then he shifted to scan the trail for snakes and asphalt corrosion. He surveyed patches of reeds and tupelo thatches for ambush sites, and then went back to gator skimming. Wash, rinse, repeat.

  Shaquan White lanced the occasional catfish wandering too close. Juan Delgado dove into brackish backwater searching the sunken asphalt for freshwater clams. Abu harvested cattail heads to make his special pull-apart bread.

  Sam remained patient. He reserved his energy for something more significant.

  Near the Cape Fear River, Juan pointed to a dam punched outward beyond boneyards of water oaks and transplant sycamores. Dead trees and loam piled two stories high shunted the river southward at King’s Bluff, widening it into former farmlands to create a burgeoning lake. “Oyé,” he called back, “U.S. Lock One is coming up. We may need to snorkel across.”

  “No problem,” Sam replied.

  Shaquan’s face contorted. “No problem for you, Sammy. Some of us prefer plants to animals.”

  Juan asked, “What, Sammy, you’re not petrified of gators?”

  Sam demurred, “I respect them. Since childhood, I remember sitting still for hours observing animals interact. How they greeted friends and rivals. Ways they expressed intimacy. Waiting for the gold nugget of behavior to sluice out.”

  “Me too,” Juan said, “we called them dinner.” His joke poked others to snicker.

  “This was back when the Wash started,” Sam said. “When a strange behavi
or happened, I would get this rush, you know? Man, it was intoxicating. A squirrel testing sites for secure storage, or a bird cleaning its beak over the cork of a plant, or a spider stamping its web to attract prey; those were the moments I lived for.”

  “I know what you mean,” Juan said. “The first time I watched bucks battle for girlfriends, that potent rush hit me. Their heads would smash together, and there would be this huge—clack! That was how I learned social skills. Not by mingling amongst peers, but absorbing how the wild survived.”

  Shaquan shook his head and scoffed, “Yeah, whatever. Grown-up Sammy applies the skill surgically. Any gator bold enough to approach him ends up a leather jacket or reinforced boots.”

  “All in the way they look at you.” Sam raised his hands parallel to his cheeks. “Face on, the gator looks for trouble. Head turned, it watches to make sure you keep your distance.”

  “There’s more to it,” Abu interjected. “Our friend here is afraid of prosing about animal behaviors.”

  “Oh?” Shaquan squinted at Sam. “Sammy, are you holding back on me?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “The river’s sounding noisy today.”

  Juan stopped in eyesight of the effusive river. Its tumultuous noise transitioned from a dull rumble to a thundering roar. He spat and slipped a thin reed between his molars, saying, “Damn, Shaquan. Sammy and I told you we hung out with animals more than people. Let me guess, you hung out with plants.”

  Sharing a good laugh, they switch-backed an old, stamped-down path to the river’s frenetic edge.

  Abu leaned forward and whistled. “Now that’s a current, guys.”

  “Yep,” Sam said, “it is. Earth’s end is looking sort of close, huh Abu?”

  Abu puffed out his chest. “I’ve seen worse.”

  Sam dropped his gear and untied a pair of black fins.

  Having replete spirits, the team donned snorkel gear and swam towards the eastern shore. They were strong swimmers, rivaling Olympic contenders for a 1500-meter freestyle event, but the center current’s undertow supped downward stronger than a gravity slingshot overcoming veteran divers of the rugged North Carolina coastal currents.