“Yes sir, Captain Jackson,” said the shorter man, smiling through a full ruddy beard. “It’s just that they got food from the crack of dawn to late in the evening. We wish you were still on the movie set. Nobody knows the Confederate cause like you, right Bobby?”

“That’s the damn truth,” said the man called Bobby, a toothpick in one corner of his mouth, his bloodhound eyes lethargic. “I hope they don’t cut out the scenes you were in, Captain?”

Jackson snorted. “Do you think I give a flyin’ shit about that? The only reason I agreed to be an extra in the movie in the first place is on account that I want Hollywood to get it right when it comes to tellin’ the story of the South and how things played out realistically in the war.”

Bobby nodded and said, “Well, Captain, things are playing out all over the Internet that seem to be giving an unrealistic image of the Civil War, at least as far as the South is concerned.”

Jackson’s chewed the tobacco and raised his head, morning sunlight falling on one side of his face under the hat. “Whadda you mean?”

“Jack Jordan, you knew him better than Doug and me, anyway it looks like a few weeks before he died on set from that stray Minié ball, he’d found something in the St. Johns River, and what he found has set the damn Internet on fire.”

Jackson spit out of one side of his mouth. “What’d he find?”

The short man called Doug said, “A diamond, Captain. Big as a goose egg.”

Bobby said, “Somebody uploaded a video to the Internet, and it shows Jack on video in a pontoon boat finding this huge friggin’ diamond in a strongbox that he brought up from the bottom of the river. In the video, you can hear Jack talkin’ about how the diamond belonged to England at the time of the war, how it was tied to a contract signed by Jefferson Davis that says England was backing the South in the war and the diamond was part of all that. Anyway, the video is exploding online. Getting millions of views all over the world, especially England and even India. On CNN last night, they were saying that if the diamond is the real deal, it’s got a long history that goes way back to some emperor in India and to the Queen of England.”

Jackson lifted his cup up from the campfire rock and tossed the remaining black coffee into the fire. He watched the steam rise into the morning air for a moment, and then his mouth turned down. He spit out the tobacco plug like it was a hairball, a bitter taste suddenly in his mouth, his face pinched. “Did the news indicate the whereabouts of the diamond or this supposed contract?”

Bobby shook his head. “The news is saying that Jack’s wife said the diamond was stolen from him, taken from the film set. She’s calling his death a murder. And she said she has the original copy of the contract between England and the South in a safe deposit box. Hell, I feel pretty good believing that England was backing what the South stood for during the war. I wonder why England didn’t bring over the big guns and help us beat back the yanks? What’d you think, Captain?”

Jackson stoked the fire with a branch he’d broken off a pine tree, the flames bristling, yellow pinpoints of light locked in his hard, black irises. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think everything the South fought for during the war is coming to realization right now. Country’s gone to hell. I can’t recognize it no more. Jack Jordan might have been good at re-enacting battles, but he talked too much. Boys, some folks call me a doomsday prepper — a feller who’s preparing for mayhem and civil bedlam. It’s gonna happen. That’s why I got thousands of rounds in my trailer, a fully stocked underground bunker. Plenty of canned food and water for a country boy like me to survive. We’ll take the nation back. That diamond is property of the Confederacy, part of the Confederate treasury during the war. And the contract Jack Jordan found was between England and CSA President Jefferson Davis — nobody else. A confidential document like that has no business winding up on the fuckin’ Internet.”

The men nodded as Jackson stood. He stepped closer to the moss-stained trailer, reaching in his pants pocket for birdseed. He tossed seed on the ground, the three chickens trotting to the food. Jackson squatted, “C’mere Gladys,” he said, easing closer to a ruddy colored hen. Jackson grabbed the chicken, holding it to the ground, squawking, feathers flying. He pulled a serrated knife from his belt and sliced off the bird’s head. He stood, the chicken ran twenty feet and collapsed.

Jackson turned to the men and said, “Most people in this country are just like that chicken. Running around with no head. No direction. Ya’ll boys want to stay for lunch? I make a damned good fried chicken.”

“I’m fine with coffee,” said Bobby.

Doug nodded. “Me, too.”

Jackson grinned and walked to the fire pit. He tossed the chicken head into the flames and watched it burn, the beak popping like tinder, the smell of feathers broiling. He squatted, pulled a thin cigar from his coat pocket, bit off one end, spit it out, and stuck a small branch into the fire. He waited for it to catch, and then used the flaming stick to light his cigar. Jackson blew smoke out the corner of his mouth, holding the burning limb between him and the men. He looked over the flames and said, “Somebody needs to put a match to that contract. Burn it. President Davis earned that much respect.”

O’Brien could tell Detective Dan Grant would rather have been somewhere else than entering the Boston Coffee Shop in downtown DeLand. O’Brien sat at a table in the back of the shop, ordered a mug of coffee, waiting with his laptop open and ready. The shop smelled of fresh-ground coffees and croissants just from the oven. Two college students sat near the front, one girl studying from a textbook, the other online with her tablet.

Detective Grant, early forties, skin the color of light tea, square shoulders, wide chest, walked through the restaurant, making eye contact with no one — his eyes locked on O’Brien. The detective’s large wingtip shoes hammered across the hardwood floor. Grant pulled out a chair, exhaled like he’d just walked up a long flight of steps. He sat, and O’Brien said, “Thanks for coming, Dan.”

“Sean, I don’t have a lot of time. I have to be in court in a half hour.”

“This won’t take a lot of time, two minutes.” O’Brien adjusted his computer so Grant could easily see the screen. “The video I’m going to show you is the full length.”

“And it’s two minutes?”

“Yes. The version on YouTube has been edited, but only slightly.”

“How?”

“Let me show you.” O’Brien hit the play button, stopping ten seconds into the opening. “The guy in the pontoon boat, look over the guy’s shoulder…right here.” O’Brien used the tip of a coffee stirrer to point to the screen. “See the man standing on the riverbank, next to the tree?”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s sighting down on the man in the boat. The reflection is off a rifle scope.”

“Who’s the man in the boat?”

“Jack Jordan.”

“The guy killed on the movie set?”

“The same.”

“Where’d you get the video?”

“From his widow. I wanted to give you this version. The rest of it, all one-minute-and forty-nine seconds is climbing the YouTube charts. Probably viral by now.”

“I heard something about that. What the hell’s going on, Sean.”

“Who’s investigating the death on the movie set?”

“I believe Larry Rollins was on that one. He’s a good detective, aggressive, been with the department almost twenty years. His daughter actually got a small part in that movie.”

“Then maybe Rollins should write himself out of the investigation script.”

“Why?”

“Because his daughter’s on the movie company’s payroll for one. Most importantly, with someone sighting down on Jack Jordan here on the river’s edge, a few weeks before his death on the film set, it shows he was in somebody’s crosshairs. His wife believes he was murdered. I’ll show you the video and you’ll see why.” O’Brien hit the play button.