Silver Springs State Park

Take Out Point Landing

9:02 PM

Having taken the canoes back to my truck, the FWC officer and I race the three miles down County Road 234 to Take Out Point, where the children had been reported missing. When I put the truck in park, Arnold immediately leaps from the passenger side window, and bounds toward the water’s edge to lap at the crystal blue spring water. A group of children, seeing the little bandit, squeal in delight before racing over to him. Arnold, of course, soaks up the attention and soon they are all off running around the heavily wooded area for a few minutes of play.

I can’t help envying the raccoon’s carefree antics the moment I catch sight of the young couple, looking very distraught, stepping out of their luxury RV, and heading in our direction. The couple’s sunscreen-stained noses and cheeks show streaks of long dried tears. Their nervous, watery eyes flit all around as they walk toward us, as if anticipating a nuclear blast of despair any minute.

“Officer, please help us,” the man nearly shouts as they step into earshot of the uniformed Rausch. Spittle flies from his lips as he speaks. “It’s our kids.”

“And their school friend. We can’t find them,” the woman continues between sobs. I assume she’s the man’s wife, but her high cheek bones, thin lips, and long sandy-blonde hair makes her look more like his sister. “We got separated. They’ve got a cell phone with them, but it’s going straight to voice mail. I don’t know if it’s off or if they’re just not getting a signal.”

“We’ve been looking for them for hours,” the man explains. It is apparent he is doing everything possible not to cry but is losing the battle quickly. “We can’t find them! If anything happens to them, I don’t know what we’ll do!”

“You’ve got to find them,” the mother begs. “Please.”

I glance over at the thick canopy of foliage surrounding the winding river. It is now pitch dark. The woods along the river are treacherous enough in broad daylight. At night, even the most experienced of woodsmen without provisions or a source of light, would be in real trouble. A trio of kids? They’ll be hard pressed to survive the night. The eviscerated entrails we’ve just investigated notwithstanding, I know there are a vast number of other dangers and predators out in the Florida wild for the parents to be concerned about.

“Okay, okay.” Rausch’s voice is calm. Confident. Soothing. A far cry different from the panicked law enforcement officer I met earlier today. Pulling out a notepad from his breast pocket, Rausch readies a pen over the first clean page he flips to. “We’ve already got marine units and a chopper on their way to begin a search. While we wait, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

The couple—Charles and Darla Givens—explains how their kids, Jake and Ellie, nine and seven years old respectively, along with their school friend, Cody Caldwell, had been allowed their own canoe for their excursion. The family has been coming to Silver Springs every summer since the siblings were born and the kids had been so excited to be allowed their own canoe for the very first time.

“We left out of here around 10:00 AM,” Charles says. “They were ahead of us. We were keeping a close eye on them. Everything was going great until around noon.”

“That’s when it started raining,” Darla continued. “At first, it was just drizzling. Not that big a deal.”

Then, of course, as most Florida storms do, the wind picked up. Clouds darkened. Thunder and lightning creased the sky and the family soon found themselves in a deluge that blinded them to just a few feet in front of them. By the time the weather eased up enough to allow for better visibility, the kids and their canoe were nowhere in sight.

“The last we saw of them was around a large fork in the river,” Charles says. “The wider route was pretty much a straight away. The narrower branch made a sharp curve. We searched both branches for hours but found nothing.”

“A few kayakers even helped,” the mother adds. “By the time we called you, we might have had around six or seven groups out searching for them.” She gasps, stifling a sob. “But none of them saw any sign of them.”

During the years I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve spent quite a few days out here, paddling Silver River in the middle of the Silver Springs State Park. The area had been used back in the 1930s and 40s for the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies. Throughout the years, several rhesus monkeys used for filming had escaped and eventually established colonies within the Springs’ jungle-like environments. My first time here had been to oversee the healthcare of these monkeys after an unusually cold Florida winter had nearly wiped them out. While traveling the expansive water system, I quickly learned how easy it is to get turned around within the interior of the forest—especially if one ventured too far away from the shore.

If the kids, for whatever reason, happened to land their canoe and try to make it back on foot, there are literally hundreds of acres of land that could conceal them from searchers’ eyes. And every moment they are missing only draws them closer and closer to any number of dangers this land is likely to throw at them.

After the parents finish telling their story, Mr. Givens looks at the wife, his lips tightening. “God, Darla. I just realized. We need to call Cody’s mom and let her know what’s going on.”

The thirty-something year old woman brings a trembling hand to her lips. “She’s going to go out of her mind.”

As Rausch continues sorting the Givens family out, I slip away to prepare for our search of the three missing children.

#

By the time Rausch finishes interviewing the missing boys’ parents, and the Good Samaritans that helped with the search earlier in the day, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office already has their chopper in the air, its spotlight zooming left and right through the dense jungle canopy. Twenty-six officers between the sheriff’s office and FWC, as well as several civilian volunteers, are finalizing their strategies, packing their gear, and preparing to embark on foot to search the perimeter of the springs.

While Officer Rausch discusses the team’s next course of action with his lieutenant, I busy myself with loading our supplies into the two kayaks reserved for them. Arnold has already made himself at home at the bow of my vessel, curled up and staring delighted back at me with his one good eye.

“I haven’t decided whether I’m going to let you come with us or not, ya little fleabag,” I say to him while securing my pack to the stern with bungee cords. I then check the 30/30 lever-action Winchester I’ve brought to ensure the weapon is loaded and a round chambered. Although a veterinarian and an animal activist of sorts, I’ve been raised in the foothills of Appalachia first and foremost—which means a healthy respect for the dangers of wildlife. If I put my own life in jeopardy by trying to help an injured animal, that’s one thing. But I have no plans to take a chance with the lives of those kids if they are in danger.

“You about ready to go?”

I jump at question before turning to see Rausch walking up to me. I’m typically not so jumpy, but the entrails I examined earlier have me spooked. The tall tales my grandmother told me as a boy keep replaying over and over in my noggin. They won’t let go and the more I think about them, the more unsettled I become.

My heart thumping against my chest, I glower at Rausch, but nod. “Almost.” I pull out my Glock 17 from a backpack, check to ensure the Stinger flashlight mounted under the barrel works properly, then pull back on the slide to inject a round of .40 caliber hollow point into the chamber. When I’m satisfied, I holster it, and slide the shoulder rig over my brightly colored Hawaiian shirt.

“After you,” I finally say, gesturing to Rausch’s boat.

The FWC man lumbers over to his assigned kayak and is just about to pull it into the water when he stops and glances back at me. “You’re taking the raccoon?”

I stare back at him, then at Arnold. Not quite clear on the question.

“It’s just that…” The big wildlife officer looks down at the adolescent raccoon and shrugs. “…wouldn’t you feel more comfortable with him staying here? It might be dangerous.”

“More dangerous than for any other raccoon that lives around here?”

Rausch purses his lips in thought. “Well…um…”

“Besides, for a raccoon, Arnold makes one dandy of a bloodhound.” I hold up a child’s size tee shirt. “One of Jakes. If it comes to that, Arnie will come in handy. I guarantee it.”

Rausch shrugs again before continuing to push his kayak from the shoreline. “Suit yourself.” Once the boat is afloat, he leaps into it with more grace than someone of his size should be capable of and begins rowing away. A moment later, I’ve already caught up with him and we make our way northeast along the river’s seven-mile stretch.

As we paddle, a cloud of mosquitoes encircle our heads, prompting me to light up another cigar in silence. The creek itself soon narrows as we approach thick swaths of vegetation comprised of palmetto bushes and hardwood trees. My eyes, with the assistance of a battery-operated spotlight, scan the banks slowly for any signs of the kids.

“So, um, getting back to those entrails?” Rausch finally broke the silence as he paddled against the current.

I shake my head, knowing full well his companion couldn’t see it in the dim light. “I don’t think now’s really the time to discuss it. Besides, shouldn’t the detectives and crime scene techs be there by now? Why not just wait to see what they have to say?” I pause, shining my spotlight along the trees to my left and fighting off a nervous shiver as I do. “However, I will say the cops might really want to talk to the people in that commune you were talking about. Something about what you told me about them gives me the heebie jeebies.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything. Can’t explain it, but whenever I hear a group of people living off the grid and practicing what they call ‘the old ways’, I get a little nervous.”

With the river growing even narrower, the tree canopy above us now blankets the entire sky, blotting out all starlight and sliver of a crescent moon from view. Although the water is shallow, the going is tough. Numerous trees have overturned over the past year—byproducts of previous hurricanes and natural tree rot—blocking our way here and there and forcing us to get out of the kayaks to go around, under, or over the debris. In some cases, we manage to simply lay flat on our backs, and pass under low-hanging branches that barely scrape past us as we coast along.

“I don’t know,” the FWC officer says. “I just can’t see those old folks doin’ anything like this. I mean, they’re mostly grandmotherly types. A few old toothless men amongst them, but they all seem pretty harmless to me.”

Obviously, Rausch hadn’t grown up in the Appalachian backwoods where hags were a common staple of folkloric horror stories designed to scare children straight. A group of old women is just another name for a coven in the eyes of my kinfolk. I’ve moved past those stories, of course, but they’re still engrained in me, and his defense of the commune only bolsters my suspicion of them.

“Be that as it may, I think after all this is over and we’ve found the kids, I’m going to pay this little community a visit,” I say, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke that sends a new swarm of mosquitoes packing. “Out of curiosity if nothing else.”

I’m pondering that particular visit when Rausch’s radio squawks to life, followed by a series of indecipherable police code from the other search and rescue teams scouring the area. When their transmission ends, I’ve lost my train of thought and we’re once again doused in a state of near silence. Only the sound of our paddles lapping at the water and the leaves rustling from the weblike branch of an ancient oak are all that can be heard besides the occasional screech of an owl nearby.

I shudder at the sound of the owl as a bevy of old stories Granny has told me flits through my mind’s eye like the torrential wind of a cyclone. Despite that, however, I push through the psychological chill and paddle on without voicing my concerns to Rausch.

Next Chapter: Chapter 5