After several more months of gradually longer exchanges, Goodwine offered to take the man deep into the swamp. He was unlike any white man Goodwine had ever met. The man had blue eyes that constantly moved yet always seemed to be focused on something. The thing that Goodwine told his wife as soon as he was back home was that the man had the patience of the ‘gator. This was indeed a high Gullah compliment as Goodwine had seen alligators submerged, eyes and nostrils only showing, in the same place for days on end. The ‘gator knew it needed just one good meal, a nice fat buck coming too close to the water’s edge, to last it for months, so it was willing to be still for days in exchange. It was the epitome of disciplined violence.
The man had spoken only in response to something Goodwine said. He’d helped with the hunting in silence. And when the tide went out, he’d assisted in pushing the boat across the mud barriers while mosquitoes feasted on his blood without a word or sign of protest or inconvenience. They’d efficiently butchered the deer Goodwine had shot and the man had accepted a portion of the meat with thanks.
The man raised his hand in greeting as the flat bow grated on the sound and Goodwine tilted the engine forward. The man put the hand down and held the boat still as Goodwine carefully stepped over the gunwale onto the sand. The man then pulled the boat above the tide line with ease.
The man let go of the boat, then turned to face Goodwine. He saw the envelope in the old man’s hands and was not anxious to know its contents. He pulled a cigar he’d bought on his last trip to Parris Island out of his shirt pocket and offered it to Goodwine who accepted it with a nod of thanks.
“Yuh.” Goodwine held out the envelope.
The man took it. He glanced at the return address. New York City. Addressed to Major Jack Gant. He found it interesting that his Uncle used his rank and that name. An appeal to loyalty and to forgive the past, he realized.
Goodwine had cut the end of the cigar and fired it up, inhaling deeply and letting out a puff of smoke that was borne away by the off-shore breeze. “Be good news?”
Goodwine spoke the white man’s English as well as any on the coast when he wanted to. Gant had listened to Goodwine enough to have a basic understanding of Gullah, but he felt it would be insulting to try to carry on a conversation in the old man’s native tongue.
Gant opened his Uncle’s letter and looked at the thin, spidery writing. He read the first line and then lifted his eyes and looked out to sea.
“Is ya all right?” Goodwine asked.
“My brother is dead.”
“I am sorry.” Goodwine hung his head, his lips moving as he said a prayer for the dead.
“I knew it,” Gant said, when the old man was done. He tapped his chest. “I felt something a few weeks ago. I felt something go. He was my twin.”
Goodwine tapped his own chest. “His spirit be taken.”
Gant shrugged, uncertain. “Something.”
“Were you close?”
“Once. Not for a long time.” Gant looked at the rest of the letter. “My Uncle would like me to come back to New York for a visit with my mother,” he finally said.
Goodwine nodded. “Will ya be going?”
“No.”
Gant heard a sound in the distance, one that brought mixed emotions on the top of the news of his brother. Today it brought a feeling of utter weariness. He wondered if it was connected to the letter, but doubted it. The man who had sent the helicopter didn’t deal in sentimentality, if Gant’s guess about the chopper’s mission was correct.
“You shoulda get home,” Goodwine said. His voice deepened as he shifted to Gullah. “Mus tek cyear a de root fa heal de tree.”
Gant mentally translated the words — must take care of the root to heal the tree. The helicopter was getting closer. He looked along the shoreline to the south. Goodwine also turned in that direction, the old man’s stomach fluttering a little also at the sound, decades old memories of a faraway land threatening to come back. A Coast Guard chopper appeared just above the surf line, coming in fast. Gant hoped it kept on going, but it was too early in the morning for the first shark patrol.
The helicopter slowed and came to a hover fifty feet away. It settled down onto the sand and a crew chief jumped out, sliding open the cargo bay door. A man dressed in a blazer and tie got out. There was a metal briefcase chained to the man’s wrist. He stood underneath the rotating blades and waited. The man was bland looking, portly, with thinning blond hair and a broad face. Someone people would pass on the street and never give a second glance to.
There was nothing in the old station Gant needed. He stuck out his hand to Goodwine. “Keep an eye on everything. I’ll be back.”
Goodwine simply shook his hand and nodded.
Gant walked to the waiting man. He did not shake his hand, but jumped into the cargo bay and took a seat. He picked up a helmet and put it on. The man got on and did the same so they could talk over the intercom. Gant nodded. “Mister Bailey.”
“Mister Gant. Mister Nero needs you.”
Gant leaned back against the red cargo webbing as the chopper lifted and turned back to the south. “When did you know about my brother?”
Bailey reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of gum, which he carefully unwrapped. He rolled the pink rectangle into a tight cylinder and then popped it in his mouth. “Three weeks.”
“How did he die?”
“A natural death.”
That earned Bailey a sharp look from Gant.
“I dug up his grave,” Bailey said. “He was buried outside his cabin in Vermont.”
“Who buried him?” Gant asked.
“Neeley.”
Gant nodded. One bright spot in a sea of black. Gant had never met Neeley but he knew his brother had excellent taste in women. “What did he die of?”
“Cancer,” Bailey continued. “I re-buried him.”
Gant didn’t ask why Bailey had dug his brother up and he recognized that Bailey wasn’t offering an explanation so he changed the subject to the future. “Is this a Sanction?”
“We don’t know yet.” Bailey pulled a picture out of his pocket. Gant took it. A girl smiled up at him.
“And?”
“Emily Cranston is the daughter of Colonel Samuel Cranston.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar. “And Cranston is?”
“The commander of the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg.”
Gant wondered why Bailey was dragging this out and didn’t hand over the file. Gant glanced down at the titanium case on the floor next to Bailey’s sand covered shoes.
“I only want to brief this once,” Bailey said, catching the glance.
Gant frowned. He worked alone. “Who else do you have to brief?”
“We’re picking someone up.”
“Who?”
“A shrink.”
“Why do we need a shrink?”
Bailey took the photo back. “Because we think the girl is still alive.”
Gant wasn’t sure what that had to do with a shrink but he was used to Bailey being evasive. “Why do you think that?”
Bailey reluctantly opened the briefcase and removed a piece of paper. “That’s a copy of what was left at the site she was taken from.”
Gant glanced at the paper. “It’s part of a cache report.” Gant had first learned to make such a report at Fort Bragg, as a student at the center the father of the girl now ran. He knew now why Bailey had come for him.
Bailey nodded. “We think Emily Cranston is the cache.”
The lifeguard was setting out the beach chairs as the woman came by, right on schedule. He saw her every morning he worked and he assumed she came by on the days he didn’t, not being so self-centered to imagine her walks revolved around him in some way. The tide was going out, water giving way to gently sloping beach. The woman appeared to be in her late thirties, in good shape, but the skin on her face was stretched tight, not from a lift as many of the rich women on the island did, but from some inner tension that the lifeguard instinctively sensed he didn’t want to know the reason for.