Carved in Bone

small town shimmered into view, as if it were being conjured out of the waves of heat; as if the buildings and cars and even people took a few minutes to coalesce. McNary, Florida–population “nary too many,” according to Vickery–solidified into a sleepy, pretty little town, its central square occupied by a century-old, cupola-capped courthouse that was surrounded by live oaks and azalea bushes. The streets bordering the courthouse square were fronted by an array of small local businesses: a three-chair barber shop, still sporting a spinning pole of spiraling red and blue stripes; the Stitch ’N’ Sew, whose display window proclaimed “Church Hats Sold Here” and offered beribboned, bespangled evidence to back up the claim; Miss Lillian’s Diner, where a sandwich-board sign on the sidewalk listed the day’s specials as meatloaf, mac and cheese, green beans, and four varieties of pie; the Casa de Adoracion, a storefront Hispanic church whose members Vickery described as “a cross between Catholics and snake handlers”; two bail-bonding companies, AAA Bail and Free as a Bird Bonds; a pawn shop offering “Diamonds, Guns, and Pawn”; and a hardware store whose sidewalk frontage bristled with lawn mowers, wheelbarrows, racks of gardening tools, and a handful of olive-drab hunting blinds perched on fifteen-foot stilts. As we passed the hunting blinds, I looked up, half expecting to see rifle barrels aimed at our passing vehicle.
    A few blocks west of the courthouse, we passed a huge column of gray nylon fabric, a cylinder a hundred feet tall and thirty feet in diameter, glowing in the sun and rippling in the breeze. I pointed it out to Vickery. “What on earth?”
    “Dunno. Looks like one of those weird artworks by that foreign guy–what’s his name? Crystal? Cristoff? The dude that wraps buildings and islands and small countries in fabric?”
    “Christo,” said Angie. “But I don’t think this is art.”
    “Looks like art to me,” said Vickers. “Prettier than a lot of paintings I’ve seen.”
    “Didn’t say it wasn’t pretty,” she said crossly. “But I think if we peeked behind that curtain, we’d find a water tower and a crew of guys with sandblasters or paint sprayers.”
    On the outskirts of McNary–which were no more than a quarter-mile from the inskirts of McNary–Angie pulled into a McDonald’s. An Apalachee County sheriff’s cruiser idled in the grass beneath the shade of a maple tree at the back corner of the parking lot. As she eased the Suburban to a stop at the edge of the pavement, a lanky deputy emerged from the cruiser, wiping his fingers with the tatters of a napkin. The three of us climbed out–it felt like stepping into a blast furnace–and swapped greasy, salty handshakes with the deputy, Will Sutton.
    “Sorry,” he said, “I should’ve gotten more napkins. Y’all want something to eat? Last chance for a while.” We declined, and in another minute we were headed westward again into the liquid shimmer of highway 90.
    Turning left off 90, we took a state highway south for a few miles, then turned west onto a county road for a few more. Then, at a sagging wooden gate that looked permanently open, we eased onto a small dirt road. The road, barely more than a pair of sandy tracks, wound through stands of pines and moss-draped live oaks; every now and then, small branches and beards of Spanish moss slapped and slid across the windshield. Where the ground was dry and the sand was loose, the Suburban spun and slewed in the slight curves; occasionally, we dropped into water-filled depressions that were axle-deep, flinging great sheets of sandy water high and wide, cascading over the already-spattered vegetation encroaching on the road. The Suburban seemed to need its four-wheel-drive and high-ground clearance, yet fifty yards ahead of us, Deputy Sutton’s Ford sedan managed just fine, aside from a thick layer of mud and sand accumulating as it rooted through the wallows.
    A mile back in the woods, the deputy’s cruiser turned out of the tracks and parked in a small clearing beneath towering pines. We pulled in beside him, and I noticed a tiny, tin-roofed cottage tucked at one edge of the clearing. The clapboard siding was painted forest green, and the structure looked like it had escaped from a gang of state park cabins fifty years before and had holed up in this remote hideout ever since. A battered Ford Escort station wagon sat rusting in the yard, its wheels