John Hart - The Last Child

But Johnny didn’t answer. He stared down the road, then doubled back to a stretch of old, cracked pavement that grew increasingly narrow. He checked road signs twice, then made a left onto a single-lane stretch of black that descended for a few miles until it turned hard right and ended at a gravel road. Johnny stopped. Except for crows on a wire, nothing around them moved. “You smell that?” Johnny asked.

“No.”

“The river. It bends east just outside of town, then cuts back. I think we’re about twelve miles north of town. Maybe a little east.” He pointed down the gravel road. “I think this is it.”

Jack looked around at the trees, the fields, the windswept silence. “You think this is what?”

“Let’s see.” Johnny turned right and the tires spit gravel. A half mile farther, he passed a shot-up yellow sign that read: END OF STATE MAINTENANCE. Immediately, the forest pushed in. The river smell intensified. The road turned north again. Johnny pointed right. “The river’s that way. We’re going parallel.” He drove for another mile and passed the first gate. It stood open, but the sign was unmistakable. PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING .

Johnny ignored it.

The second gate was closed, but unlocked. It was age-stained aluminum, bowed in the middle as if backed into by a truck. It hung from a cedar post, and part of its lower edge pressed upon the road where it had buckled. “Get the gate.”

Jack got out of the truck and dragged it open. Grass bent beneath it at the road’s edge, and Johnny moved the truck through. Jack closed it after he’d passed.

They dropped into the flood plain, saw the river, black and oily slow, and Johnny pointed at a broad swath of flattened grass where the river had spilled over its banks in the last big storm. “It’s going to get swampy.”

The road bent away from the river, and swamp began to push in from both sides. The road rose a few feet, until it was a high strip above soft earth and dark water that flashed beyond gashes in the trees. Johnny rounded a bend and almost struck a snapping turtle that basked in the middle of the road. Its shell was two feet across, black with dried algae. He steered around it and it opened its hooked mouth as they passed.

The road dipped a final time, then rose onto a causeway that crossed a wide stretch of still water. They drove into the hollow place, then up onto the hump of earth. On either side, shallow water stretched away, its surface marred by fallen trees, half submerged, and tussocks of grass that broke the surface where the bottom rose. Across the causeway, dry land clawed from the swamp. It was an island of sorts, a mile of hardwoods and vine. Johnny stopped the truck. Ahead of them, gravel grew sparse, then nonexistent as the road turned into a tendon of rutted, black earth that crossed the bog and disappeared into forest. Giant limbs swept the ground and roots stretched the length of a man before plunging into the earth.

Johnny crossed the causeway, stopped in the last patch of sun and killed the engine. The air hung silent, then swamp sounds began to return. They started small and rose like notes from a flute. At the water’s edge, a heron stabbed its beak into the mud and came up empty. It stalked a few feet, then froze, one eye tilted at the water. The boys climbed out of the truck. Johnny saw the sign from ten feet out. Half-covered by honeysuckle and some other creeping vine, it seemed as old as everything else, weathered boards nailed to a tree. Johnny pulled off the vines. The words were carved into the wood beneath, deep cuts, black at the bottoms as if burned.

HUSH ARBOR, 1853.

“This is it.” Johnny stepped back.

“The place where they hanged those people.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“This is a death place, Johnny. We shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t let your imagination get away from you.”

“It’s up and gone.”

Johnny ignored the comment for a long moment. Honeysuckle put a sugar scent in the air, and he put two fingers on the rough-cut letters. “Just a place,” Johnny lied. The heron speared a frog, tore it from the mud. “Just a place.”

Jack skimmed a rock and spread ripples in the tar-colored water. The heron took wing, frog still twitching in his beak. “Do you really think somebody lives out here?”

Johnny looked up, twisted his head. “No power lines. No phone lines. Maybe not.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

Johnny peered under the trees. He moved under the branches and felt the temperature drop. The canopy rose into a cathedral quiet.

“What about the truck?”

Johnny looked back. His friend clung to the sunlight, one hand on hot metal. “Too loud. We leave it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Jack stepped into shadow. “Quiet, now,” Johnny said. And the forest swallowed them up.

Cops descended on the Jarvis scene: city cops, the sheriff’s office. Someone mentioned the state police, but Hunt shot that down. In seventeen years, he’d seen nothing but conflict and disruption when too many fingers found their way into the pie. Keep it local. Keep it tight. But they had seven flags, now, too many for the local medical examiner. Dr. Moore approached Hunt with mournful eyes, all of his normal exuberance crushed. He wore latex gloves stained with dark matter. For most of two hours he’d worked his way through layers of earth on a single, flagged site. He’d found bone and teeth, some small bits of rotted cloth. Hunt kept everyone but Yoakum at a distance. They milled about on the edge, speaking in hushed tones as the sun climbed.

“Doc.” Hunt looked the question.

Moore shook his head, then mopped his face with a mud-stained handkerchief. “It’s a child,” he said. “Female. Nine to twelve years of age, I’d estimate.”

Hunt caught Yoakum’s eye. “How long?”

“How long ago did she die? Years. I can’t say for certain. Not yet.”

“Cause of death?”

The man compressed as he stood. His shoulders fell. His lips turned down. “There’s a hole in the skull.” He gestured at the curve of bone behind his right ear. “Too early to say more than that.”

“Gunshot?” Yoakum asked. “Blunt trauma?”

“Both. Neither. It’s too early.”

“And the other sites?”

Moore cast sad eyes at the flags. “I’ll need help. I’ve already called the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill. He’s sending people.”

“What else can we do for you?” Hunt asked.

Moore tipped his head, indicating the police officers massed on the edge of the scene. “Get rid of them.”

“Are they in your way?”

“It’s not helpful.”

Hunt nodded. Moore was right. “I’ll make it happen.”

“Thanks.” Moore raised a hand, then trudged back to the shallow grave.

“Want me to do it?” Yoakum asked, staring at the Chief.

Hunt allowed a tight smile. “Don’t think I can handle him?”

“I think he’s looking for an excuse to fire you and bring in the state cops. That would keep it clean, take the pressure off him, the department.” Yoakum gestured at the field of flags. “No one could blame him. This is big, maybe too big to stay local. You’re his lead detective. Firing you could give him a legitimate excuse to wash his hands and bring in the SBI. Politics, Clyde. Ugly business. You should let me talk to him.”

“No,” Hunt pointed at the ME. “Stay here. Make sure he gets anything he needs.”

“Your funeral, brother.”

Hunt left Yoakum with the remains of their unknown victim and walked to the Chief. The man was rumpled and flushed. Here in the woods, on site and out of place, he looked even more like a politician than a cop. As Hunt approached, uniformed officers stepped aside so that an aisle opened. The Chief spoke before Hunt could.