“Don’t be so sure,” the governor said.
“Now you sound like my stepfather. He totally believes in Sasquatches.”
“I saw one of those woodpeckers with my own eye.”
“Right,” I said.
“April 17, 2009. Tomorrow I’ll show you where.”
Choctawhatchee Bay, where the river empties, is only a short drive from Panama City, but Skink decided to wait until morning to begin our search for Malley. He said snooping around after dark was too risky. In the daylight hours we could pose as grandfather and grandson on a lazy summer road trip.
“Don’t you have, like, a regular hat?” I asked.
He smoothed the wrinkles from his shower cap and sourly jabbed a stick into the embers of the fire. We were camping in piney scrub near a place called Ebro. The governor was frying two dozen oysters he’d bought at a fish house and shucked with a combat knife. I’d never been brave enough to eat an oyster, but I agreed to try one because my other option was boiled roadkill. Skink had scavenged a dead raccoon on Highway 98. It had been struck by a vehicle with extremely large tires, and the furry ringed tail was the only way you could tell what kind of mammal it was.
The oysters actually were tasty, and I ended up eating more than the governor did. After we finished, he gathered up the empty shells and went off to bury them. That’s when my mother called.
“Where are you?” she asked. “I’ve got a road map of Florida in front of me.”
“I can’t tell you, but we’re definitely getting close to Malley.”
“Hold on. Did you really just say you can’t tell me?”
“I promised him I wouldn’t give out too much information.”
“By ‘him,’ you mean Mr. Tyree. Has he legally adopted you now? Because, if not, I’m still the one responsible for your health and well-being!”
“Okay, Mom. Okay.” I told her we were camping in the Panhandle. She asked for the name of the nearest city, and I said we were somewhere west of Tallahassee.
“Oh, that’s a tremendous help, Richard. You might as well have said east of Mobile.”
“Mom, everything’s fine. We had fresh oysters for dinner, okay? It’s not like I’m suffering. He’s got bug spray, blankets, soap, even a snakebite kit.”
Dumb mistake on my part, mentioning the snakebite kit.
“Oh, great. So you’re in a wild swamp,” my mother sighed, “with moccasins and rattlers.”
“We are not in a swamp. You gotta chill, please?”
“Has he done anything crazy yet? Tell the truth.”
“He cussed at some litterbug on the highway,” I said. “That’s not crazy—you do the same thing.” Except my mother has never poured beer into another driver’s gas tank, no matter what stupid thing he’s done.
Trent got on the line to say how disappointed he was in me for lying about going camping with Blake. I apologized for getting him into trouble with Mom.
He said, “Best thing you could do, bro, is beam yourself home ASAP.”
“Not just yet.”
“Let the cops find Malley. What are you—like, mister secret agent bounty hunter?”
The difference was that bounty hunters chase down people to get the reward money; I was tracking my cousin because I was worried about her.
“Trent, can I please talk to Mom again?”
There was a muffled exchange of the phone, then my mother’s tense voice: “Richard, if you do find Malley, I want your word that you and Mr. Tyree won’t do anything reckless. Just hang back and call the police, all right? Don’t try to be heroes.”
“Of course,” I said, knowing the governor was out of my control. He couldn’t wait to have a “chat” with the fake Talbo.
“Also,” Mom added, “you’ve got exactly seventy-two hours.”
“Why? Then what?”
“Then I’ll be notifying the authorities.”
“But what about Mr. Tile—”
“I’ll be telling him the same thing,” she said. “Three days from now I expect to see your smiling, unharmed face in this house. If you’re not back by then, I’m basically calling out the cavalry.”
“Mom, come on!”
“That’s the deal, Richard. Now, may I speak to Governor Tyree, or Skink, or whatever he’s calling himself?”
“Uh, he stepped away.”
“Stepped away? To where? Don’t tell me he left you alone out there—”
“Later, Mom.”
The reason I clicked off in such a hurry was that I heard a truck honking and a high-pitched scrape of brakes out on the road, not far from our campfire. Using the flashlight app, I picked my way through the woods, not even trying to be quiet.
By the time I reached the road, the truck was out of sight. Shards of oyster shells littered the pavement. I called out for the governor, sweeping my little flashlight back and forth. The glow fell upon a boot, an exceptionally large boot, standing empty on the gravel shoulder. I saw that the toe of the boot had been crushed, practically flattened. A grimy, torn sock lay crumpled nearby.
When I yelled again, my voice cracked.
A froggy reply came out of the darkness:
“Over here, son.” Followed by a gusher of swear words.
I aimed the light toward a ditch, and that’s where he was sprawled. His bare right foot looked crooked and pulpy.
“What happened?” I cried.
“I’m not as quick as I used to be, that’s what happened. Here, hold this.”
“No way!” It was a baby skunk, and I didn’t have to look twice to be sure. A skunk the size of a guinea pig but still a skunk, stripes and all.
“Do what I say,” Skink growled. “Stay calm and she won’t spray. And kill that freaking light.”
So I cradled the little stinker in the crook of my arm while the governor gimped out of the ditch and retrieved his boot, which no longer fit over his mangled toes. The skunk didn’t make a sound, but I could feel it tremble.
“We are not eating her,” I said.
“Don’t be a nitwit, Richard. If I’d wanted to eat her, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
Turned out that the baby skunk had been crossing the road behind its mother when an eighteen-wheeler came speeding down the hill. Skunks have poor eyesight, so they never saw what was coming. The momma made it safely to the other side but the small one was too slow. The governor had dropped the oyster shells, dashed into the road, snatched up the youngster and then tried to leap out of the way. The truck missed everything but his right foot.
Now he was limping ahead of me through the trees. I didn’t need the flashlight app to see which way he was going—I just followed the ripe smell of oysters. He was looking for the mother skunk, and somehow he tracked her down. It was impressive. He said she wouldn’t spray us with musk if we talked softly, and she didn’t. He took the little skunk from me and set her on the ground. The critter was so blind that he had to spin her around until she was pointed toward the mother. Off they went, two black bushy tails trundling single-file through the scrub.
The governor was in a world of pain, grunting and cussing as he hopped along. I found a sturdy stick for him to use as a walking cane, but he was still breathing hard and shiny with sweat by the time we reached the road.
“Damn polecats,” he grumbled. “Richard, there’s a well-known saying: ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ ”
“Don’t you believe in karma? I do.”
“You’re not the one walkin’ on broken bones.”
A pair of low-set headlights appeared at the top of the hill. It was definitely a car, not a truck, and it was approaching at high speed. Skink told me to get in the ditch and stay down. I asked why.
“In case it’s the sheriff or a game warden,” he said impatiently. “I don’t feel like tryin’ to explain what we’re doing out here in the boonies in the dead of night. Once they see my run-over foot, they’ll call an ambulance and send me straight to Emergency.”
“Well, that??
?s where you need to be.”
He gave me a push toward the ditch. “No detours, son. We’ve got work to do.” He slid down beside me, removing his shower cap so that the oncoming lights wouldn’t catch the shine of the plastic.
The car was easily doing sixty as it sped past, but we peeked up just in time for a glimpse. It wasn’t a police cruiser. It was a light-colored Toyota.
“That a Camry?” Skink asked. “Or a Corolla?”
“I couldn’t tell. It was going way too fast.”
“I didn’t get a look at the rear windshield. You see a pellet hole?”
“No, it was going too fast,” I said again. The only thing I saw clearly was the chrome logo on the trunk—a circle with two small ovals linked crossways inside. I recognized it because my father once had a Toyota minivan.
Skink said this model was definitely a two-door. “That’s what we’re lookin’ for, right?”
“Yep.” I was ready to jump out of my skin, I was so excited.
The governor struggled upright and got himself back out on the road. “Northbound,” he muttered, peering at the vanishing taillights. “Maybe you’re right about that baby skunk. Maybe she brought us some luck.”
I stood beside him on the center line wondering if I was watching my cousin fade out of sight, and out of reach. “Then hurry, let’s go!” I practically shouted. “Come on! You make a splint while I douse the fire and pack our stuff.”
He laughed ruefully. “Sounds like a fine plan, Richard, except for one small problem.”
“What now?”
“You know how to drive?”
“Of course I don’t. I’m not old enough.”
“Lesson number one.” Skink waggled his smashed boot in the air. “It’s the right foot that goes back and forth between the gas pedal and the brake.”
“Oh God.” I felt like throwing up. “Can’t you do it lefty?”
“Too tricky,” he explained. “Plus I’m in a severe amount of discomfort. Mr. Tile always keeps proper medicine in the first-aid kit, but it’ll leave me unfit to operate heavy machinery.”
“Like a Chevy Malibu.”
“Correct.” The governor hobbled back through the woods toward our campfire. I stepped ahead of him, lighting the way with my LED.
“What if Malley was in that car?” I asked miserably. “We can’t just sit around here roasting s’mores until your stupid foot gets better.”
“No, son. We continue the pursuit.” Every step caused him to wince.
“But we can’t go anywhere if you’re too crippled to drive.”
“From now on you’ll be our driver, Richard. I’ll teach you how.”
“Tonight? No way. In the dark? I don’t think I can deal with that.”
“Relax,” he said. “The highways of this state are teeming with mental defectives.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“All I’m saying is anyone can do it.”
“I could get arrested—underage, with no license! Mom would go totally ballistic if I had to call her from jail.”
“Nobody in this vehicle will be getting arrested.” Skink stated this as a concrete fact.
I wasn’t scared of trying to drive a car, but I was nervous. Supernervous, to be honest. The circumstances weren’t exactly ideal.
Broad daylight in the empty parking lot of a football stadium? No problem. Pitch-black night on a winding country road? Different story.
From behind I felt a friendly poke from the governor’s walking stick.
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “I’ll even let you put on your own music.”
NINE
My height is an issue.
Dad was five foot eleven. Kyle’s five ten and Robbie is six feet even. Uncle Dan is six one even, and Mom’s five nine.
I stand only five feet one and a half inches tall—still waiting on my growth spurt, hormones, whatever. My legs are fairly long, but the rest of me is waiting to catch up.
Bottom line: From the bucket seat it was a stretch to see over the steering wheel. For my first driving lesson I wanted perfect 360-degree vision. What I needed was something to sit on.
Skink told me to check the trunk. It was packed with books, which is not what I’d expected. There was other stuff, too—pots, pans, clothes, batteries, sleeping bags, a fishing rod, a gun case—but his books took up most of the space. I picked out two of the fattest hardbacks. The first was East of Eden, a novel by John Steinbeck. The second was The Oxford English Dictionary, volume one.
I stacked them on the driver’s seat and got myself centered on top. It was like sitting on a throne with sharp edges.
“Don’t fart on my Steinbeck,” the governor warned, “or you’re toast.”
“Now I’m too tall to reach the brake.”
“Then lose the dictionary.” He jerked it out from under me. “You ready, King Richard?”
“Not really.”
“Buckle up.”
The only motorized vehicle I’d ever driven was a golf cart, courtesy of my stepfather. He lets me take the wheel whenever we go to the course because he likes to ride shotgun. That way his hands are free to text and guzzle his Mountain Dew. The carts at Trent’s club are set up like cars—the steering wheel is on the left side, and the brake pedal is in the same place in relation to the accelerator. The big difference between a golf cart and an automobile is that a golf cart won’t go ninety miles an hour unless you drive it off a cliff.
Skink was sitting beside me, wrapping his pulverized foot with an Ace bandage. He reached over and twisted the key in the ignition. The dashboard panel lit up like a jet cockpit. I could feel the soft vibration of the Malibu’s engine through the soles of my sneakers.
“Turn on the headlights,” he said.
“Which way should I go?”
“Let’s start with straight ahead.”
I was so stressed that I was basically strangling the steering wheel.
“Put her in Drive,” the governor advised.
When my foot met the accelerator, the car lurched forward and I yelled a word that my mother wouldn’t have appreciated.
Skink just laughed. “Easy there, boy. Pretend there’s an egg under the pedal.”
We stayed on the dirt logging road near our camp. It was a jolting, dusty ride, but at least there were no sharp curves to deal with. Back and forth I went—my top speed was twenty-five, maybe thirty. Every so often the governor would tell me to hit the brakes, hard. Pretty soon I had a good feel for how the Chevy responded.
Backing up for the turnarounds was challenging—the first few times, we ended up with the taillights in the bushes. “Try again,” Skink would say.
He never once yelled at me, which I appreciated. The whole time behind the wheel I kept thinking about what Mom would say if she could see me. My father, too. He was what you might call a casual driver. Totally laid-back, which was okay on beach streets but not so much on Interstate 95. One time he nearly killed the whole family because he was gazing at a dragon-shaped cloud instead of at the semi that was broken down in the lane dead ahead of us. After that bit of excitement, my mother became the designated driver on all our vacations.
It was past midnight when I parked the Chevy and we returned to the campsite. Skink tossed me a sleeping bag but stretched out on the open ground near the fire. Within minutes he was snoring. I checked my phone for new emails, but there was nothing from Malley. She was still communicating strictly by phone, and not very often.
I lay down and replayed in my head the fleeting sight of that white Toyota. Sometimes your mind absorbs more details than you realize. Yet as hard as I tried—and as much as I wanted it to be the right car—I just couldn’t re-create the visual of a small gunshot hole in the rear windshield. Maybe the pellet damage was there, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the car was a Camry, maybe a Corolla.
And maybe the driver was returning to a secret hiding place in woodpecker country, or maybe he was just heading to a business meeting in Alabama.
Trying to sleep was hopeless. Somewhere deep in the trees a pair of screech owls called back and forth, like two lovesick horses whinnying. A jumbo-sized moth flitted in and out of the firelight. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a bat and covered my head.
After a while the embers turned to ash and stopped crackling. The only sound was Skink’s snoring, which gradually morphed into whimpers and then snarls. I wondered if the pain from his broken foot was giving him a nightmare, or if it was something left over from Vietnam. In school we’d read about what terrible combat experiences can do to a soldier—post-traumatic stress disorder, they call it.
Part of me wanted to wake him and tell him everything was all right, and part of me was afraid to touch him in case he went berserk. Gently I nudged him with his walking stick, and sure enough, he began thrashing wildly like he was suffering some kind of seizure. I grabbed the phone from my backpack to dial 911 when he just as suddenly fell still.
Panting, he blinked open his good eye.
“You okay?” I asked.
He coughed hard and nodded.
“What were you dreaming about?”
“Lollipops,” he grunted. “Lollipops and butterflies.”
“Was it the war?” I handed him a bottle of water.
“ ‘A dream has power to poison sleep.’ That’s from a poet named Shelley. He’s worth a read.” Skink rose slowly and dusted himself off. “What time is it, Richard?”
“Late.”
We sat up talking. He told me about two friends who’d died fighting with him in Vietnam, and I told him about my father. We agreed that it sucked to lose somebody you love at a young age.
“How’d you get nicknamed after a lizard?” I asked.
He laughed. “Pure Jim Tile. One time he got mad at me and said I was slippery as a skink. Apparently it stuck.”
I told him I’d once caught a five-lined skink in a log pile, though it hadn’t been easy. They do have shiny slick skin, and sneaky moves. “Plus they bite,” I added.
“Like all survivors.” He unwound the bandage from his foot and scowled at the sight. “There goes my soccer career.”