Squirm

  You’re probably thinking: What kind of father would take two kids into a wilderness to chase down a heavily armed poacher?

  Don’t forget—this wasn’t Dad’s idea. Summer and I each asked to go with him, and we made it difficult for him to say no. We’ve both got a secret he wants us to keep.

  The drone is circling high above the Range Rover. We see what the aircraft’s camera sees. The live image is displayed on Dad’s smart phone, clipped to the remote-control box.

  When the poacher eventually comes into view, he’s a speck in the swamp. Dad lowers the quadcopter for a closer view.

  Lincoln Chumley Baxter IV is garbed all in camo, no surprise. He moves through the glades like someone who’s not supposed to be there, carrying a long black object that can only be a rifle. A large, limp animal is slung around his neck. The animal’s fur is tan.

  My stomach twists into a hot knot as I think about the gunshot we heard.

  “He did it!” I blurt angrily. “We’re too late, Dad.”

  “No, son, we’re not.”

  “What are you talking about? Just look!”

  “That’s not a panther he killed,” says Summer. “It’s a deer.”

  Suddenly the poacher crouches and looks upward, as if he hears something. Dad toggles the quadcopter’s controls, sending it higher and eastward, where it can’t be seen by a person squinting into the glare of a rising sun.

  Once again Baxter appears bug-sized on the video. However, he has resumed moving, apparently satisfied that he’s alone on the hunt.

  “So he shot the deer for bait,” I say to Dad.

  “Without Burnside’s dogs, that’s all he can do.”

  “How do we stop him?” Summer asks. “It’s time to make, like, a real plan.”

  “If the panther shows up, we buzz him with the drone and spook him off before Baxter can take a shot,” Dad says, “just like I did with the grizzly at Tom Miner.”

  Summer is skeptical. “But we could be waiting on that cat for hours. What happens when the drone’s batteries run out?”

  I thought of the same thing, but my father reacts like it’s a silly question. “Ever heard of a power pack? I brought four of ’em. No, five.”

  “Hey, Dad,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Where’s the bad guy?”

  “Uh-oh.”

  The three of us are hunched shoulder to shoulder over the remote-control unit. Lincoln Baxter is no longer visible on the quadcopter’s camera feed.

  “Where’d he go? What happened?” Summer says with a groan.

  Dad looks slightly sick to his stomach. “He didn’t go anywhere. It’s the drone that’s moving away.”

  “All by itself?”

  “They do this sometimes,” he mumbles, frantically working the joysticks.

  “Do what sometimes?” I ask.

  “It’s called a ‘flyaway.’ They just, you know…fly away.”

  Summer and I glance at each other wondering the same thing: How far away is “away”?

  The remote begins beeping rapidly, probably not a good sign. Summer asks Dad if the drone will return on its own.

  “It’s not a dog,” he says.

  “So, how are we going to find it?”

  “Don’t worry, there’s a built-in GPS tracker.”

  “I hope it works underwater,” I say.

  The quadcopter is plummeting toward what is obviously a pond. The brown and black objects we see dotting the shoreline are thirsty cows.

  Desperately my father claws at the control levers, which has no effect. Summer and I watch helplessly as the aircraft’s video shows the shimmering body of water looming larger by the second. The queasy descent ends with a splash—then Dad’s phone beeps faintly and goes black.

  He sets down the remote. The flight is over.

  “If a drone hits the water,” he explains gloomily, “it’s dead as a doornail. The electronics drown instantly.”

  Summer lowers her head. “So we’re done? Just like that?”

  Having lost our eye in the sky, it will be almost impossible to spy on the poacher without drawing his attention—and possibly a warning shot.

  “We should probably get out of here,” I tell Dad.

  “Hold on, Billy, I’ve got a Plan B.”

  “It can’t be great,” Summer grumbles.

  And it’s not great. In fact, it’s more like a Plan B-minus.

  But we take a vote. None of us is ready to give up the mission.

  FIFTEEN

  I don’t know who called the sheriff.

  Maybe nobody did. Maybe the deputy was being truthful when he told us he was on routine patrol and heard all the racket.

  Like I said, it wasn’t a great plan to begin with. Make lots of noise, basically—enough to scare the panther. The cats are frightened of people, and they’ll bolt from any sign of human activity. And we all wanted that one to run away.

  It was a big tawny male. Summer was the first to notice the tracks, but I was the one who spotted the animal moving in the direction of the poacher.

  Who, Dad whispered, was likely perched in a tree overlooking the carcass of the deer he’d shot earlier.

  Laying eyes on the panther was lucky, unexpected—and unreal. At first I thought that it must be a mirage, that subconsciously I’d made myself imagine it. It was the same feeling I got after seeing the grizzly in Montana.

  But, just like the bear, the panther was no illusion. Dad and Summer caught a glimpse, too. With swift taut strides it crossed a clearing, its ropey black-tipped tail seeming longer than the cat itself.

  That would have been an ideal time to launch the drone, except the drone was at the bottom of a cattle pond. That’s why we needed another way to scare the panther, meaning Plan B-minus.

  Dad was firing his gun into the air, Summer was beating a heavy stick on the trunk of a dead pine, and I was honking the horn of the Range Rover that Lincoln Chumley Baxter IV had neglected to lock. The keys were in the ignition and a smelly half-smoked cigar sat in the cup holder. On the passenger seat was a yellow scrap of paper. A name and phone number had been written on it.

  The instant Dad started shooting, I mashed both hands on the horn and held it down. It was loud. So was the gun. So was Summer’s tree-whacking.

  The woods got very noisy, very fast. Every living creature within a mile probably heard the ruckus. The panther, which was much closer than a mile, undoubtedly ran away. Fear will cause even the hungriest wild animal to lose its appetite.

  My father had brought a dozen shotgun shells. They didn’t last long. As soon as he finished firing, we sprinted to his truck and made a teeth-rattling race for the ranch gate.

  Which was blocked by a police car.

  The sheriff’s deputy stood there twirling the broken padlock on his finger.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said, “with a firearm.”

  My father told him about the poacher who was stalking a panther.

  “He killed a deer, too, and they’re out of season. The man’s name is Lincoln Baxter and he drives a black Range Rover. I can show you where he is!”

  The deputy said, “Deer hunters use rifles. What I heard was a shotgun.”

  My father pointed to his, in the bed of the truck. “It’s right there, Officer.”

  “Sir, what were you shooting at?”

  “Nothing,” I interrupted. “He was firing in the air.”

  “To spook the cat,” Summer added.

  The deputy checked Dad’s gun to make sure it was empty. After writing down our names and dates of birth, he told us to get back in the pickup.

  An hour later, we’re still here. The deputy took my father’s keys to prevent him from driving off, which I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have done. But with no car keys, we c
an’t turn on the engine, which means no air-conditioning. It’s too hot outside to roll up the windows, so the mosquitoes are enjoying a hearty breakfast of human blood. Ours.

  “Sorry, guys,” Dad says.

  Summer asks if we’re going to jail.

  “Not you two,” he replies. “Me? Possibly.”

  The deputy is on his phone. Soon a jacked-up swamp truck with humongous mud tires appears. The driver is a chunky young man with red hair and a red mustache. He wears a trucker cap, worn jeans, and dirty boots. The deputy brings him over to have a look at us.

  “This fella works on the ranch,” the deputy says to Dad. “Tell him what you told me.”

  My father repeats the account of the poacher and the panther.

  The ranch hand responds with a blank expression. “I just come from down that way and didn’t see nobody. No non-authorized vehicles, neither.”

  “I know exactly where the hunter is. I can take you,” Dad insists.

  “Ain’t nobody else out there,” the ranch hand says flatly. He turns to the deputy. “The boss man wants these jokers off the property.”

  “Does he intend to press charges?”

  “Not unless they went and kilt somethin’.”

  “Well, they killed his padlock.” The deputy shows the battered remains to the ranch hand.

  My father flips open his wallet. “Will fifty bucks take care of that?”

  “Make it a hunnert,” says the ranch hand, “to cover my time and unconvenience.”

  Not actually a real word. I keep my mouth shut as Dad gives the man two fifty-dollar bills.

  Summer is boiling. “Rip-off,” she fake-coughs under her breath.

  I lean out the truck window and say, “Hey, are you Rusty?”

  The ranch hand whirls in surprise. “Who tole you that, kid?”

  “I got your name from the same man you say isn’t out here hunting panthers.”

  Rusty’s cheeks turn almost as red as his hair. He stomps back to his four-wheeler and roars away.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on,” the deputy says to us, “but the smartest thing you folks can do is follow me out of here.”

  Dad says, “Ready when you are, Officer.”

  * * *

  —

  The cinnamon buns were stale and gummy. We were too hungry to care.

  “How’d you know that man’s name?” my father asks.

  “It was on a piece of paper in Baxter’s SUV. Soon as the guy rolled up, I figured it had to be him. With that hair, right?”

  Summer says, “So, rude Mr. Ranch Hand was in on the whole thing.”

  My father is sure that was Baxter’s inside connection. “The ranch owner probably doesn’t know anything about this. That’s why Rusty didn’t want the deputy to press charges. He couldn’t risk us telling a judge what we saw. If it got out that he was in business with a poacher, he’d get fired in two seconds.”

  Dad says there’s a web network of outlaw hunters who travel the world stalking rare and endangered species. They put out the word that they’re willing to pay big bucks to shoot certain animals—a grizzly in Montana, for example, or a black rhinoceros in South Africa—and usually somebody’s greedy enough to make the arrangements.

  Rusty probably heard through the grapevine that some rich dude was looking to bag a Florida panther. The ranch hand figured it would be an easy side hustle, a quick way to pocket some cash.

  “He was seriously freaked that Billy knew his name,” says Summer.

  “Another glorious moment,” Dad chuckles, flicking a cinnamon crumb from his chin. “I bet poor Rusty had to go change his underwear.”

  All that really matters is that Lincoln Chumley Baxter IV never got a chance to kill that cat. By now the panther is probably all the way to Glades County, and still running hard. Baxter must be spooked, too, knowing he was followed to the ranch.

  Even though our mission went the opposite of smooth, it turned out okay. The only casualty was the drowned drone.

  “And blisters,” says Summer, holding up her palms. She’d whaled on that dead pine tree with all her might.

  Too bad we couldn’t see Lincoln Baxter’s reaction when all the banging, honking, and gunfire started. No doubt he phoned Rusty in a panic. It turned into a real bad day for both of them.

  As instructed, we follow the deputy’s car back to Immokalee, where he leaves us at a service station. Dad walks away from the gas pumps to make a phone call—probably to Baxter’s wife.

  Summer and I use the break to be responsible kids and check in with our moms. Mine is busy on an Uber pickup, and she can’t talk long. I tell her we saw a wild panther, which she agrees is amazing luck.

  Lil is guiding two anglers down the Madison River, so she also only has time for a quick hello. Summer tells her the Everglades is crazy beautiful but the bugs are beastly. When she hears about the panther, Lil wants to know if it was bigger or smaller than a Montana mountain lion.

  “Big enough,” Summer laughs.

  When she gets off the phone, I decide to ask about her dad. She hasn’t mentioned him once.

  “Because he doesn’t exist,” she says.

  “Everybody’s got a father.”

  “Biologically, that’s true. But as for participating—you know, being a functioning member of the family unit—my dad has less than zero presence. He’s a Lakota, not that it makes a difference. He lives far away from here.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Stares at the walls, I guess. He’s in prison, Billy.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  “God, don’t be!” Summer manages a smile. “He’s right where he belongs.”

  I’ve said too much already. But you know how some people have a talent for changing the subject? Not me.

  “Why’d he get locked up?” I ask.

  “He beat up my mom.”

  “In front of you?”

  “Same as always,” she says. “Only this time, they had to carry him off on a stretcher. I honestly don’t remember hittin’ him, but he definitely ended up bloody on the ground. The cops showed me what was left of the snow shovel. I went a little bonkers, they said.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight. The shovel was practically bigger than me. Mom and I, we never talk about the drunken ass. We don’t even speak his name. The man does not exist for us anymore.”

  “What man?” I say.

  “Thank you.”

  I look out the window at Dennis Dickens, pacing around the parking lot, still talking on his cell. He’s far from a perfect father, but I don’t believe he’d harm a soul. It’s hard to think of what Summer and Lil experienced, trapped under the same roof with someone who just explodes like a land mine.

  “Your dad’s in his own flaky world,” Summer is saying, “but it’s not a scary world, okay? Mom and I would vote for flaky over scary any day.”

  “Still, all those years and not a phone call—I mean, come on. Belinda might never forgive him.”

  “I’d be pissed, too, Billy. In some ways, Dennis is a kick-ass dude, chasin’ these hard-core poachers all by himself. For that he should get mad respect, right? But in other ways, he’s a big dopey chicken, too scared to call you and your sister. But, hey, at least he’s here now. My old man? I hope I never lay eyes on him again. That’s a cold true fact.”

  Summer’s view throws a different light on my situation, I admit. It’s a reminder there are fathers way worse than mine.

  After he gets off the phone, Dad confirms he was speaking to Daisy Baxter. She said her husband seemed extremely agitated when he called her earlier. He wouldn’t tell her what he’d been doing or what happened, but she correctly concluded that the poaching expedition had fallen apart. According to my father, Mrs. Baxter was elated to learn the panther
got away.

  Her husband’s rotten luck apparently didn’t end in the woods this morning. On the road, heading south from Immokalee, we noticed a black Range Rover flying by in the opposite direction—tailgated by a jacked-up mud truck driven by a scowling red-haired man. My guess is that Rusty the ranch hand wants Lincoln Chumley Baxter IV to explain how Rusty’s name fell into enemy hands.

  If I were Baxter, I wouldn’t take my foot off the accelerator.

  Dad was heading toward the cross-state highway they call Alligator Alley, the quickest route back to the east coast, but Summer and I talked him into staying one more night. There’s a campground on Chokoloskee Island, across the causeway from Everglades City, the fishing village where Mom had settled for a while with me and Belinda.

  Last summer, this part of south Florida got smashed by a monster hurricane named Irma. Everything was underwater for days. I’m wondering what happened to our old neighborhood, so I give Dad driving directions.

  Somehow, the houses on our block are still standing. The one we lived in is a small yellow wood-frame with a screen porch. You can see a brown water line running five feet high along the outside walls, but otherwise the place looks pretty good. Amazingly, the hurricane didn’t knock down the giant royal poinciana tree in the yard.

  Dad is smiling as he looks over the place. “I totally see why your mother picked this house,” he says.

  The new owners have a bay boat on a trailer in the driveway and two candy-striped paddleboards propped against a side wall. The mailbox is painted to look like a strawberry grouper with its jaws open. I text a picture to Mom.

  At the campground we’re eagerly greeted by clouds of saltwater mosquitoes, so we set up our tent at world-record speed. While waiting for a bag of ice at the marina, I notice two bald eagles flying in a clockwise circle over the bay. From a distance most adult eagles look alike, but I’m wondering if these are the same birds Mom took us to watch when we lived here, the same pair whose nest got trashed by the funnel cloud. I kept telling her they’d come back, but she wouldn’t believe me.