An exhilarating shudder of recognition went through her. “We’re close to that game fence, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Harold said. “You don’t see any deputies, do you?”

“No.”

“Hear anything?”

She listened for a moment. “No. Nothing.”

“Like I said . . . Sheriff Ellis don’t want anybody to find that tree.”

“Are you saying he already knows where it is?”

Harold shrugged. “I know he hunts over on Valhalla every fall.”

“How do you know that?”

“I done worked over there as a guide. I seen the sheriff cozying up to country singers and football players.”

“How far away is the hole in the game fence?”

“A little farther on. This rain will make it easier to get to by boat. When the water’s low, you got to walk the last fifty yards.”

Harold eased back on the throttle, then cut the motor altogether as they drifted into a narrow channel between two grassy tussocks.

“Look,” he whispered, and something in his voice made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Where?”

“You can’t see that hog?”

Caitlin froze as her eyes locked with the eyes of a wild hog even larger than the ones she and Jordan had seen by the road earlier.

“Is it dangerous?” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t get out of the boat if I was you. She might have babies close by.”

As Caitlin stared at the massive animal in the eerie silence, she heard a low whine from somewhere to her left. It sounded like a truck passing on a distant road. “What’s that?”

“Boat,” Harold whispered. “Somebody’s still down here.”

“What do we do?”

“Keep going.”

He restarted the trolling motor and left the two tussocks behind. As they hummed through the trees, she realized that the trunks of the cypresses were getting closer together.

A cracking boom like thunder echoed through the trees from somewhere to their right. Whirling, she saw Harold cock his head as though gauging distance and direction.

“Was that a rifle?” she asked.

“Yeah. Somebody’s shooting over at Valhalla. Probably took a deer.”

“How far away?”

He rubbed his chin with an audible scratching sound. “A mile. Maybe two.”

“Is it hunting season now?”

“Ute season.”

“Ute? What’s that?”

“That’s when little boys can hunt, but their daddies can’t.”

“Ah . . .” She felt embarrassed for misunderstanding him the first time.

Harold increased speed through the narrow channel. The tall wire fence appeared to the right of the boat. Caitlin experienced the disturbing feeling Jordan had spoken of, that they were at the edge of a prison camp. This afternoon Caitlin wasn’t sure whether she was on the inside of the fence or the outside. Suddenly Harold cut the motor, and the pirogue drifted to a stop.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Listen. Outboard again. That other boat’s closer now.”

“I don’t hear it. Where?”

He pointed at the fence. “It’s on that side.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you didn’t pay me enough for this gig.”

A tingle of fear and frustration went through her. “I’ll add five hundred to the pot. Let’s just get to that damned tree.”

Harold stared through the fence, seemingly weighing odds.

“Get your pistol out,” he said. “Keep it in your hand.”

Caitlin’s fear kicked up several notches. She let go of her phone and took the 9 mm from her pocket. As she did, she saw her Coach purse lying in two inches of water at the bottom of the pirogue.

“Cock it,” Harold said. “But be careful you don’t shoot me by mistake.”

Caitlin cycled the slide with a violent motion. The metallic snick of machined parts echoed off the trees and back over the water. Then she tensed both forearms, holding the gun the way Tom had taught her.

“What am I watching for?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“White men,” Harold said. “Maybe in a boat, maybe on foot. Maybe even on horseback. You never know what them crackers get up to.”

Caitlin shivered at this prospect. “What do I do if I see somebody?”

“Keep your gun lower. Yeah, like that. Out of sight. Let me do the talking. You a smart lady. You see it goin’ bad, you start pulling that trigger and don’t stop.”

“Okay.”

“Can you hit what you aim at?”

Caitlin remembered Tom teaching her how to shoot. “I can hit bottles on a fencepost.”

“Then you can hit a man. Just be on the lookout.”

Harold started the motor and continued up the channel. They followed the game fence for a couple of minutes, then Harold guided the bow onto a shallow slope of mud until they scraped to a stop.

Caitlin’s heart thumped in anticipation.

With the cold gun butt clenched in her hand, she scanned the surrounding trees while Harold tugged on a pair of knee-high rubber boots and climbed out. Wading into the dark water, he went to the game fence, took a pair of pliers from his jacket, and pulled open a four-foot-by-four-foot gap.

“What about the other hole?” she asked.

“Somebody might be watching that. Could be a game camera there, no telling. We gonna go through here to be safe. The Chain Tree ain’t far.”

He tugged the pirogue back into deeper water, then climbed in, started the motor, and steered them through the opening as sweet as you please.

“What would the white men do if they knew you put a hole in their fence?”

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?