Skink--No Surrender

  Malley and I sat wordlessly watching the governor’s bizarre fit, which we hoped would freak Tommy into a petrified state of surrender.

  Finally Skink switched back to English. “I got blisters on my fingers!” he brayed before keeling facedown.

  We figured he was just taking a rest; acting wacko had to be exhausting.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t acting. The fit he’d pitched came from the same dark place as his nightmares, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. But maybe a self-induced collapse was his subconscious way of stopping himself from killing Tommy Chalmers with his bare hands.

  As we struggled to flip Skink over, we noticed he didn’t seem to be breathing. He felt like deadweight, and dead is how he appeared, his chin whiskers frothed with white spittle.

  The next thing I remember is Malley cradling his head while I pounded on his bruised chest trying to remember CPR from the class that Mom made me take after Dad died. My cousin and I both noticed Tommy struggle to his knees and start crawling off, but the lifeless governor held our undivided and frantic attention.

  I pushed down so hard on his rib cage that the wadding blew out of the bullet wound beneath his collarbone, followed by a spurt of dark blood.

  I pushed down so hard that the snail shell got ejected from his eye socket.

  I pushed down so hard that his hips bucked in a violent spasm that flung me like a cowboy from a rodeo bull.

  The crusty old lunatic sat up coughing. “You ruined,” he said between hacks, “a perfectly good trance.”

  Malley retrieved his snail shell. Tartly she sniped, “Gee, sorry for trying to save your life. I don’t know what Richard and I were thinking.”

  My hair was full of wet dirt and leaves. “Dude, we thought you were dying,” I said to Skink. “You looked really, really bad. Much worse than …”

  “Usual?” He gave a razor-edged chuckle. “I’m just curious. Did either of you happen to notice where Mr. Chalmers went?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  During the commotion Tommy had crabbed back to the canoe and shouldered it down the bank. Now he was paddling along the creek, an awkward and noisy effort with one arm swollen to the size of a Yule log.

  “I hate you! I HATE YOU!” Malley shrieked from the shore.

  For a moment I thought she might dive in to give chase. As sick and woozy as he was, Tommy still knew which way to go: Toward the river.

  With a lopsided leer he called back to my cousin: “You’ll see me again one day, honey, don’t you worry! I know where you live. I know which school you go to. I know everything I need to know about you!”

  Malley whirled toward Skink. “Why’d you break the gun? That was so … so … STUPID!”

  She grabbed the golf club from his hand and flung it at the canoe. The nine-iron pinwheeled harmlessly over Tommy’s head and splashed into the creek.

  The governor got into the Pathfinder and turned the key. The engine shuddered but didn’t start. Again and again he tried, until only a dull clicking noise came from the ignition switch—another sign of Dime’s loose approach to boat maintenance.

  “Hell,” said Skink, and a whole lot more.

  From the canoe Tommy continued taunting my cousin. “We’ll get married just like I said, don’t you worry! On a beach somewheres far away, just me and my dream bride.…”

  He was paddling faster than I thought possible for a man in his wrecked condition, faster than any of us could swim.

  Skink clambered from the boat and snatched his fishing rod off the ground. The same bass lure was still tied on the line—a skirted spinner with two sets of treble hooks, meaning six total barbs. The hooks weren’t large, but they were plenty sharp enough to pierce human flesh.

  He began casting at Tommy while he gimped along the bank, crashing through bushes and skidding across tree roots, trying to keep pace with the moving canoe. Although the creek wasn’t wide, you couldn’t safely wade in it because the bottom was basically quicksand.

  The governor’s aim was off the mark again and again. The lure sailed left of Tommy, then right. Short, long, longer, then short again. Tommy wasn’t ducking out of the way—in fact, he was completely clueless, huddled in the bow carving feverishly toward freedom. His good arm did the stroking while he used the bloated one to steady the paddle, those gross sausage fingertips hooked over the handle.

  “Here, let me give it a shot,” I said to Skink.

  He handed me the rod—no argument, no lectures. I couldn’t believe it.

  On my very first cast I snagged the back of Tommy’s shirt and jerked firmly to set the hooks. He yelped, dropped the paddle and started swatting at himself. I’m sure he thought he’d been stung by a big-ass bumblebee.

  I tried to keep the pressure tight but the drag mechanism buzzed, line peeling off the spool as the current carried the canoe away. Skink’s light spinning tackle wasn’t designed to crank in a hundred and seventy pounds of anything—fish, man, or beast—though I knew some extraordinary catches had been made by skilled anglers on flimsy tackle. I pictured myself heroically yanking Tommy into the river and hauling him kicking and hollering to the shore, where we’d tie him up with vines and hold him for the police.

  But of course that isn’t what happened.

  Tommy did end up in the water, though not because I had a burst of superhuman strength. He flipped the canoe all by himself while flailing around, trying to dislodge the unseen killer bee.

  This occurred outside the mouth of the creek, a full one hundred yards from where I stood holding the bent fishing rod, Skink on one side of me and Malley on the other. We could see the glinting hull of the capsized canoe clocking down the rain-swollen Choctawhatchee.

  T.C. wasn’t moving quite as swiftly, because he was still attached to me. The spinner’s treble hooks held fast.

  “Don’t let him get away!” Malley shouted. “Reel him in, Richard! Reel fast!”

  But he was too heavy, and now the muscle of the river began carrying him along. He didn’t panic. We could see him lifting his head taking deep breaths. There was no frantic spluttering, no desperate howls for help. Tommy was just riding the current, paddling with his good arm.

  “Stop him!”

  “I can’t, Mal!”

  Helplessly I watched the spool empty as Tommy was drawn farther and farther away. If I tightened the drag knob, the line would snap for sure. There was nothing to do except hang on and hope he swung into the calmness of an eddy.

  The governor said, “It’s over, son. Break him off.” His lone eye was fixed intently downstream.

  “Over? Seriously?” My cousin stomped up and down. “Are you like totally lame? That monster’s getting away! He is getting away!”

  “Not likely,” said Skink.

  An instant later, Tommy Chalmers went under in a fierce boiling swirl, and my line went slack.

  I reeled in. The lure was gone, still hooked to Tommy. I put down the fishing rod and sat on a stump.

  Skink said, “ ‘Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.’ That’s a quote from Billy Bob Shakespeare himself, though he was not personally familiar with crocodilians. Now, I’m gonna take a stroll and clear my brain.”

  He grabbed my shoulder and said, “You keep close to her.”

  “I will, don’t worry.”

  “Remember our rule, son. There was only one, for God’s sake.”

  “I remember.”

  “Do whatever I say, whenever I say it. And now I’m telling you to stay right here, both of you, no matter what. I won’t be far.”

  “Okay.”

  At the boat he stooped to retrieve his shoe box, which he tucked under one arm. Before clomping away he said, “You’re one of the good ones, Richard.”

  Whatever that meant.

  Malley didn’t see him go because she couldn’t look away from the rolling river. Her gaze was locked on the spot where Tommy had disappeared.

  “What just happened?” she said.

  “Gator.”

&
nbsp; “Did you see it?”

  “Skink saw it.”

  “But did you?” she demanded. “ ’Cause I didn’t see anything, Richard.”

  Gently I turned her by the shoulders and showed it to her—the dull black brute pushing a wake, its ridged back as wide as train track, its long tail slicing a leisurely S in the water. The alligator was already halfway across the Choctawhatchee, but there was no mistaking what was jackknifed in its open jaws.

  The green of the T-shirt, the dark blue of the jeans.

  “Really” was all my cousin said. Then she sat down, shaking.

  We stayed quiet at first, each of us trying to deal with what we’d just seen. Malley finally asked where Skink went, and I repeated what he’d told me—to stay where we were, he wasn’t far away. She thought we should go find him, but I said no, not this time.

  The rims of the clouds were pink and rose, sunset colors. A good breeze brought a faint smell of salt from the Gulf. There was a soft shuffling in the woods behind us, and Malley and I turned expectantly. Nobody was there, although later she insisted she’d heard a hushed voice telling us to look up.

  I’m not sure what I heard, but for whatever reason we both raised our eyes.

  Poised high in a moss-draped cypress was the Lord God Bird, one bright eye slanted down toward us. The woodpecker was a full-grown male, regally tall and more vividly colored than the drawing we’d used for my science project. Its blue-black breast feathers gleamed like coal, and a snowy stripe sloped down its neck and fanned at the tail. His long, flat-tipped bill truly looked like raw ivory.

  And the crest on the crown of his head was a shade of crimson brighter than blood.

  “I told you so,” she whispered. “Told you I saw one.”

  “Amazing.” It was the only word that sprung into my mind, and it seemed too small for the occasion.

  The great woodpecker made a squeak like a dog’s chew toy when you step on it, or maybe the rusty hinge of a screen door. Three times the bird repeated the call, but no other ivorybill replied.

  Everyone’s memory works differently, so I can’t honestly say how we long we sat watching that supposedly extinct creature—or more accurately, how long it sat watching us. The whole time we remained motionless, as still as moths on a leaf. Maybe it was five minutes, maybe it was thirty seconds. My cousin isn’t certain, either.

  “Surreal” was her description of the encounter, a better word than mine.

  After the woodpecker flew away, our eyes remained fixed for a while on the top of that tree. We knew the bird probably wasn’t coming back, just as we knew the governor probably wasn’t coming back, but that didn’t stop us from hoping.

  Malley and I weren’t the ones who spooked the ivorybill. It took off because a boat came around the bend of the river.

  The gar man’s barge, grinding and chugging. We smelled it almost as soon we saw it.

  At the helm was Nickel wearing his goofy NASCAR shades. Beside him stood Dime, a frowning, slightly shorter, less scruffy version of his brother.

  A third figure sat sideways on the gunwale. He wore a casual short-sleeve shirt, his thick arms folded across his chest. I could see the white cap of hair, and the gun in the holster on his belt.

  I waved my arms and shouted, “Mr. Tile! Over here!”

  The trooper nudged Nickel, who adjusted their course until the reeking vessel was headed straight for us.

  “Well,” said my cousin, “I guess we’re officially rescued.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I didn’t want Nickel and Dime to hear me, so I whispered to Mr. Tile that Skink was in the woods.

  “Who?” he said.

  I guess that was their arrangement. Whenever the governor decided to disappear, Mr. Tile would let him go, no questions. He understood that the old man needed more personal space than the average human. About a thousand times more, I’d say.

  Skink left because he’d heard Nickel’s boat coming long before we did. He seemed to hear and see everything before we did.

  As the gar barge motored away from the creek, Malley and I scanned the shoreline hoping for one more glimpse—a wave, a wink, anything. I don’t know if the governor was watching us, but we wanted to believe he was.

  “Skink got shot,” I told Mr. Tile.

  “Who?” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulled me closer and said, under his breath, “That friend of ours is a hard man to kill. If he’s on the move, he’s gonna be all right.”

  I used Mr. Tile’s phone to call Mom, who was super-relieved to hear my voice. I mumbled something about the taxi breaking down again and Mr. Tile driving by just in time, a totally lame story that I’m sure didn’t fool her for a moment. She spared me the lawyer treatment, though—no cross-examination. She was too happy that I was coming home. Afterwards Malley spoke with Aunt Sandy and Uncle Dan, whom she described as “insanely overjoyed.”

  Mr. Tile got rooms for all of us at a motel in Panama City, and the next morning we left for Loggerhead Beach. It turns out he and my mother had been talking, like, three times a day. The only reason she hadn’t freaked out and called for an Amber Alert was that he kept telling her I was all right, even when he wasn’t so sure.

  Mom didn’t know about the intense situation on the river, and neither did Mr. Tile. When he found the gray Malibu by the Road 20 bridge, he figured the governor and I had gone into the woods tracking the fake Talbo Chock and my cousin. Mr. Tile went to hire a helicopter, but then the weather turned lousy. When he returned alone to the bridge, the Malibu was gone.

  He caught up with it later that afternoon, Dime squirming in the driver’s seat. Afterwards they went straight to Nickel’s place and launched the gar boat. It had taken them less than half an hour to find us on the Choctawhatchee.

  The car ride back to Loggerhead Beach took all day. When I jokingly offered to split the driving time, Mr. Tile laughed and made me give back the counterfeit license. The Malibu was already on a flatbed heading for an auto auction in Atlanta. Mr. Tile explained that Skink never used the same vehicle twice, and he preferred projects that required no driving on his part.

  “Was all that cash in the shoe box his?” I asked.

  “Years ago he came into some money, which he told me to give to charity. Without telling him, I set aside a few bucks for his future well-being, just in case.” Mr. Tile winked. “Good thing I did.”

  I rode in the backseat because Malley wanted to sit up front so she could dominate the musical selections. The sedan didn’t have satellite radio but she found a tolerable FM station that was Bieber-free. Mr. Tile even let her turn on the dashboard blue light once, when no other cars were around.

  He asked us lots of questions about Tommy Chalmers, but he didn’t press Malley for every ugly detail of the kidnapping. He was a total gentleman about it.

  On the subject of Skink, he had little more to say except that they were old friends who understood each other very well. We told the trooper (who was retired, as I thought) how the governor had collapsed unconscious after pitching a whacked-out fit; how we thought he was actually dying but then he popped up like nothing was wrong and told us it was just a trance.

  “Who knows,” said Mr. Tile.

  “Aren’t you worried about him?” Malley asked.

  “Every minute of every day.”

  “You told that reporter he was dead,” I said. “I saw it on the Internet.”

  “That was his idea. What do you two plan to tell the police about your colorful travel companion?”

  I looked sideways at Malley. She shook her head.

  The trooper said, “Do whatever you think is right. He’ll understand.”

  “He who? I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said. “Some stranger gave me a ride up to the Panhandle. Dude wouldn’t even give his name!”

  Mr. Tile chuckled. “That works.”

  “The problem is my mom. She knows who ‘he’ really is.”

  “Your mother’s extremely grateful that you
and your cousin are safe and sound. I’m guessing she’s not interested in causing any grief for the governor.”

  Mr. Tile’s cell went off, a plain default ringtone. The conversation lasted several minutes. He did more listening than talking. After he hung up, I asked if it was Skink on the other end. He said no, it was the sheriff of Walton County, another old buddy.

  The body of Malley’s kidnapper had been discovered by a fisherman. It was wedged under a floating tangle of branches where the gator had hidden it for leftovers.

  However, the dead man was not Thomas Chalmers. That name had been stolen from a shrimper in Dulac, Lousiana, who’d been killed by a lightning strike two summers earlier.

  The fingerprints of the corpse in the Choctawhatchee River belonged to a person named Terwin Crossley, age twenty-six. Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Crossley was last known to reside in Valparaiso, Florida, where he’d stated his occupation as roofer. His rap sheet listed convictions for armed burglary, forgery and aggravated stalking.

  The initials T.C. were the only true information about himself that he’d given to my cousin.

  “I am such a stupid idiot,” she said, her voice raw with despair.

  “No, you’re just young,” Mr. Tile told her, “and he was a bad, bad guy.”

  There was more news from the sheriff, he said. “At 3:37 a.m., a UPS truck driver called 911 about a suspicious person in the road—”

  “Wait,” I cut in. “You’re talking about today?”

  “Yes, early this morning,” the trooper said. “The truck driver reported a person kneeling by a roadkill in Ebro, a couple miles west of the Choctawhatchee bridge. The driver said the dead animal was either a coyote or a stray dog that had gotten hit by a car. The man in question had a pocketknife in one hand and the driver thought he looked mentally unbalanced.”

  “Shocker,” said Malley.

  “He was wearing camo trousers and a woman’s shower cap. The UPS guy honked so he’d get out of the way.”