Nature Girl

  “Well, I ain’t exactly from the south of France.”

  Fry didn’t crack a smile. “You could be a Miccosukee is what I meant.”

  “I could be, but I’m not.”

  “How come you’re wearin’ blue contacts?”

  “This the real color of my eyes.” It was a sensitive subject for Sammy Tigertail; conspicuous evidence of his mixed ancestry. He wasn’t ashamed so much as uncomfortable. Skinner’s kid was quick, and fearless with the questions.

  He said, “That fleece you’ve got on is a Patagonia.”

  “My deerskin loincloth is at the dry cleaner,” the Seminole cracked. “Don’t you read the papers, boy? We’re like the new Arabs. We got casinos and nightclubs and hotels. Our chief is now called the chairman, and he just sold his Gulfstream to Vince Vaughn. That’s how far we’ve come.”

  The boy looked stung. “I didn’t mean anything bad.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “My mom had me write a paper about Osceola, what they did to him,” Fry said. “What we did to him.”

  The Indian felt sort of lousy about jerking the kid’s chain. “Come on. It wasn’t you that killed him.”

  “On the Internet I read how your tribe never surrendered, not ever. That’s cool,” said Fry.

  “Depends what you mean by ‘surrendered.’ They booked Justin Timberlake at the Seminole Hard Rock for New Year’s.” Sammy Tigertail was ready to change the subject. “I heard about your skateboard crash. How’s the headache?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “Mr. Skinner said for me to make sure you keep that football helmet on ’til we find your mother. That way, he won’t get yelled at.”

  “But it’s too heavy.”

  “Do what your dad says. We should go now.”

  Fry put on the Dolphins helmet and followed Sammy Tigertail, who again asked if he needed water.

  “Nope. I’m good,” Fry said.

  The Indian had to laugh. “You remind me of me,” he said, “back when I was a white boy.”

  “Was your dad like mine?”

  “He cared just as much. He would’ve made me wear that damn thing, too.”

  Sammy Tigertail wondered what his life would be like if his father were still alive. I’d probably be off at college now, he thought, studying business or accounting, and dating a trippy coed like Gillian.

  Fry said, “Hey, can you slow down a little?”

  The Indian turned in time to see the boy teeter. He caught him under the armpits and slung him over a shoulder.

  “Actually I feel like shit,” the kid murmured.

  “Deep breaths,” Sammy Tigertail advised, traipsing onward through the scrub and hammock.

  Perry Skinner had been waiting for the Seminole in the mangroves near the skiff. He took Fry and hugged him.

  “Not too tight,” the boy squeaked, “or I’ll start hurlin’.”

  Skinner lay him on the casting deck of his boat and looked him over. “It’s my fault,” he said, “draggin’ you out here with a goddamn concussion.”

  “I’ll be okay. Where’s Mom?”

  “Sammy and I are fixin’ to go get her right now. Stay here in the shade.”

  “But I wanna come, too—”

  “No!”

  The kid sighed unhappily. Skinner slipped a seat cushion under his head and told him not to worry. “We won’t be long. Sammy knows right where she’s at.”

  The Seminole nodded. He figured it would be easy to find the place again in the daylight.

  “And it’s just her and the guy,” Skinner said. “Sammy said the girlfriend ran off.”

  “I know, Dad.” Fry described his encounter with Eugenie Fonda. “She was nice. She stayed with me last night after I got sick. The Coast Guard chopper picked her up this morning.”

  Skinner turned to Sammy Tigertail. “Well, that simplifies things. You ready?”

  The Indian set off in the lead. He improvised a path through the cactus plants to the ravine that Gillian had named Beer Can Gulch, because of the hundreds of empty tall boys. Perry Skinner called it a “recycler’s wet dream.”

  Sammy Tigertail pointed to the Calusa shell mound. “She’s camped on the other side.”

  Skinner ran up the slope, the Seminole two steps behind. At the top, Sammy Tigertail pointed out a clearing, fifty yards away. They saw a couple of pup tents, but no sign of Honey Santana or the remaining Texan.

  Skinner was halfway down the hill before realizing he was alone; the Seminole hadn’t moved.

  “What’s wrong?” Skinner called out.

  Sammy Tigertail motioned for him to return, and Skinner jogged back. There was no easy way to tell him, so the Indian said it directly: “He’s not dead, Mr. Skinner.”

  “Who’s not dead?”

  “That guy I hit with the rifle butt. The one with the tape on his hand that you said was after your wife. I told you I killed him but I guess I didn’t.”

  Skinner grabbed Sammy Tigertail’s arm. “How do you know?”

  “Because this is the spot where I hammered him. He fell into that cactus patch and now he’s gone.”

  “Show me.”

  The Indian walked him to the place, careful to avoid the spiny plants. Skinner noted numerous crushed leaves and several loose threads of cloth.

  “Maybe somebody moved the body,” he said quietly.

  “No, sir, I don’t believe so.” Sammy Tigertail pointed to a furrow where something large had slid down the shell mound into the pile of Busch cans.

  “Like a gator drag,” the Indian said. Nesting alligators grooved similar trails while hauling themselves back and forth to the water. This one had been made by a human.

  Skinner quickly scouted Beer Can Gulch. He discovered a line of unmistakable tracks leading up another slope; recurring impressions of kneecaps and elbows.

  “The bastard’s crawling,” he said.

  Sammy Tigertail had mixed feelings. He was relieved that he hadn’t killed the white man and set loose another bothersome death spirit. At the same time, he was sorry that the guy was still around to cause trouble.

  “What’s his name again, Mr. Skinner?”

  “Piejack.”

  “As bad hurt as he is, he won’t get far.”

  “He doesn’t need to. It’s a small island, like you said.” Perry Skinner pulled the .45 from his waist and clicked off the safety. He said, “Sammy, I forgot to thank you for finding my son.”

  “He’s a good kid,” the Seminole said.

  “It would destroy him if something happened to his mom.”

  “Or to you, Mr. Skinner.”

  Gun in hand, Fry’s father disappeared over the crest of the Calusa mound. Sammy Tigertail sprinted after him, kicking up a dust of ancient shells and warrior bones.

  Twenty-three

  As the helicopter sped north along the coast, Eugenie Fonda frowned out the window. One minute she’d been watching snowy egrets scatter like confetti across a carpet of mangroves; then abruptly the view had changed to a dreary checkerboard of parking lots, condo towers and suburbs. Eugenie had anticipated a rush of relief at the first sight of civilization, but instead she felt depressed.

  Gillian was chatting up one of the Coast Guard spotters, while another crewman tended to the private investigator. Eugenie couldn’t hear a thing over the turbines, which was fine. Her thoughts turned to the boy in the football helmet, Honey’s son. Eugenie tried to imagine what it was like living in the backwater of Everglades City, where there were no Jamba Juices or Olive Gardens or Blockbusters; where the only entertainment was a swamp bigger than Dallas.

  Fry seems like a fairly normal kid, she thought. A happy kid, too. She was sure that his old man would find him soon, and run him to a doctor.

  Eugenie also wondered about the tall blue-eyed Seminole. She was glad that she hadn’t tried seducing him to get a lift off the island, because that would have hurt Gillian, of whom she’d grown fond. It also averted the humiliating possibility that
the Indian might have refused to have sex with her. Eugenie was unaccustomed to such rejection because she was unaccustomed to dealing with men of character.

  Exhibit A being Boyd Shreave.

  On the regret meter, Eugenie Fonda had passed the “What was I thinking?” stage and was cruising toward “Boyd who?” Their fling had been an idle blunder of her own devising, and she bore him no malice. In fact, she would’ve been bummed if he were mauled by a panther, poisoned by a coral snake or otherwise savaged in the boondocks.

  But Eugenie doubted that a fate so colorful would befall her dull Boyd. She saw him begging a ride back to the mainland with Honey and her ex, then hastening to Fort Worth on a doomed mission to head off a divorce. It was easy to envision his thunderstruck reaction as Lily Shreave presented the graphic pictorial and video evidence of his infidelity. A more endearing schmuck might win a reprieve, but Boyd didn’t stand a chance. Eugenie had no reason to hope that being single and destitute would improve his personality, or his prospects. Boyd was what he was, and she’d already moved on.

  Minutes after the helicopter landed in Fort Myers, an ambulance whisked Lester off to a hospital. A female paramedic examined Eugenie and Gillian while a Coast Guard petty officer took their statements. Gillian told him that she was a weather personality for WSUK, a non-existent television station in Tallahassee. Eugenie, using her real name of Jean Leigh Hill, was inspired to identify herself as Gillian’s videographer. The two of them had gotten lost, she explained, on a kayak expedition in the Ten Thousand Islands. Juicing up the yarn, Gillian said they’d befriended Lester, who while skinny-dipping was shot by a poacher who’d mistaken him for a manatee. The ski-masked assailant, she added, escaped in a silver-blue speedboat called Wet Dream.

  The young Coast Guard officer showed no sign of doubting the yarn. He mentioned that Wet Dream was the most common boat name in Florida, followed by Reel Love and Vitamin Sea. He also reported that Lester was actually Theodore Dealey, and that he was suffering from a rare and unpronounceable medical disorder. The petty officer commended Gillian for diving into Dismal Key Pass to assist Mr. Dealey, who would have otherwise drowned. The petty officer then asked the women if they’d seen anyone besides the trigger-happy poacher on the island, and both of them—wishing to protect the fugitive Seminole—answered no.

  The petty officer said they were free to leave, and offered to call a cab. Eugenie picked up the Halliburton that held Dealey’s video gear; Gillian grabbed the one with the Nikon.

  Outside it was getting warm, so they waited in the parking lot and soaked up the sun. Gillian yawned and said, “So, whatcha gonna do now—go home to Texas?”

  “I haven’t decided. You?”

  “Back to FSU, I guess. Try not to flunk out this term.”

  “Bet you’re gonna miss Taco,” Eugenie said.

  Gillian laughed. “It’s Thlocko. And yeah, I miss him already,” she said. “But, hey, at least we got to do it. Only once—but he was amazingly awesome.”

  “Well, good for you.” It was the natural order of things, and Eugenie didn’t feel the least bit jealous.

  “I could totally eat a horse,” Gillian said, stretching.

  “Me, too.”

  “Can I borrow a few bucks?”

  “All I’ve got is a credit card,” said Eugenie, “but you’re welcome to join me. There’s some stuff I need to tell you, anyway.”

  “Cool. Where do you wanna go?”

  “Looks like a good day for the beach.”

  “I’m there,” Gillian said.

  “And maybe a spa treatment?”

  “Oh, momma.”

  “And for lunch,” Eugenie said, “a bowl of French onion soup.”

  “You’re my hero,” said Gillian.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  Tree-bound, Boyd Shreave was revisiting the high points of his telemarketing career:

  Troy Marchtower, age seventy-three, who had dumped the last of his 401(k) into sixteen acres of abandoned soybean fields near Gulfport, Mississippi, with the expectation (based on Shreave’s spiel) that the tract would be developed into upscale waterfront town houses. Hurricane Katrina obliterated Gulfport soon afterward, and Marchtower’s property lay beneath seven feet of toxic mud, a bleak turn of events that Shreave couldn’t have foreseen (and in any case fell under the contractually absolving “act of God” clause).

  Mr. and Mrs. Clement Derr, whom Shreave had signed up for supplementary health insurance that cost a whopping $137.20 per week. Unfortunately for the Derrs, the policy reimbursed only for treatment of cholera, Ebola virus, chikungunya fever, trypanosomiasis, and six other tropical diseases not likely to afflict a couple in their mid-eighties living in Skowhegan, Maine.

  Mrs. Rosa Antoinette Shannon, who was so upset to hear that Hillary Clinton was secretly plotting to confiscate all privately owned firearms that she’d patriotically recited for Boyd Shreave her husband’s Platinum American Express number, pledging $25,000 to a Republican PAC called Americans for Unlimited Self-Defense, which had hired Relentless to do its fund-raising. Rosa’s donation was hastily returned after it was learned that her spouse was none other than Marco “Twinkie” Shannon, the most prolific supplier of Mexican heroin on the eastern seaboard. His unappetizing past came to light in personal correspondence from the East Jersey State Prison, where he was serving twenty to life for kneecapping two associates on the driving range at Pine Valley. In a handwritten letter leaked to the Washington Post, Mr. Shannon—citing a previous commitment—regretfully declined an invitation to visit the White House with other GOP donors for a photograph with the First Lady and her Scottish terrier.

  All three deals had been buttoned up by Boyd Shreave’s supervisor but, being the one who’d chummed up the suckers, Shreave awarded himself full credit and glory. If Relentless wouldn’t take him back, surely a competitor phone bank would.

  His immediate challenge, however, was to escape the island. As the morning ticked away, Shreave felt less like a “Survivor” and more like Gilligan. He was reluctant to attempt descending from the royal poinciana, partly because he didn’t trust his balance and partly because he felt safer in the branches than he did on the ground. In addition to a nerve-racking assortment of wildlife, at least two dangerous outlaws were running loose—the vile-smelling derelict who’d kidnapped Honey Santana, and the elusive Indian with whom Eugenie Fonda supposedly had skipped off. Boyd Shreave had no desire to interact with either of them.

  Nearly as daunting was the cactus dilemma: Directly below Shreave’s roost was a thriving spray of prickly pear. An ill-chosen step, a gust of wind—and he’d be impaled like a cricket on barbed wire. He blanched at the sight of the long, pale needles on the beckoning green pads, and thought: Not again. Shreave flashed back to that doomed orthotics sales call in Arlington, the old crow practically tripping him with her oxygen tank and then cackling when he fell crotch-first into her potted dwarf saguaro. The pincushion tracks on his pubic triangle might have paled, but the excruciating memory had not.

  Shreave hugged the poinciana and resolved not to look down until he was better prepared. Fastening his eyes on the sun-kissed treetops proved calming, and gradually he began inching his butt backward along the bough. Eventually he’d have to stand and traverse branch to branch, but why hurry? The slower he moved, the less noise he made—and until the next helicopter appeared, his plan was to remain silent and unseen.

  It hadn’t occurred to Boyd Shreave that absolutely nobody would be searching for him; that his absence would leave no void in the lives of those who knew him. He would have been stupefied to learn that the Coast Guard crew that he’d fruitlessly signaled had been sent by his own wife to rescue the private investigator who was gathering ammunition for their divorce.

  After barely fifteen minutes of worm-like exertions, Shreave needed a rest. Clinging with one hand to a sturdy sprig, he fished a granola bar out of his shorts and tore off the wrapper with his teeth. Cramming the dry sh
ingle into his mouth, he began to crunch so loudly that he failed to hear the two men enter the campsite below.

  “Yo!” one of them yelled.

  Shreave jerked and let out a terrified gasp, spraying crumbs. Anxiously he lowered his eyes and appraised the strangers, one of whom was carrying a weapon flatter and sleeker than Honey’s Taser. Shreave assumed that it was a real handgun and felt compelled to make a case for his own harmlessness, yet he was unable to speak. With his gullet spackled by damp oats and mushed peanuts, he was left to pant like a pleuritic mandrill.

  “Get your ass down here,” said the man with the gun. He was middle-aged, with broad shoulders and a real outdoor tan.

  His companion was taller and much younger, with brown skin, high cheekbones and light eyes. Shreave suspected that he might be Eugenie’s Indian. The man held up the foil wrapping from the snack bar and said, “You drop this?”

  Shreave was so dry that he couldn’t make himself swallow. Theatrically he pointed at his bulged cheeks and began huffing, to demonstrate that his speech was temporarily impeded.

  The man with the handgun asked, “Are you one of the kayakers? Did you take the tour with Honey Santana?”

  Shreave saw nothing but risk in admitting the connection, so he shook his head and shrugged in fake puzzlement. He was confident that he could mime a lie as convincingly as he could vocalize one, and as usual he was mistaken.

  The Indian said, “The guy’s bullshitting, Mr. Skinner.”

  The other man nodded impatiently. “I don’t have time for this bumblefuck.” He trained the handgun on the imaginary center point of Shreave’s shiny forehead. “Last chance, junior. The truth shall set your sorry ass free.”

  Shreave’s response was a rude quiniela of fear-based reflexes. First he soiled himself and then he volcanically expelled the remains of the honey-nut granola bar. The intruders alertly stepped back from the poinciana, avoiding the volley.

  “Nasty,” the Indian said.

  The gunman re-aimed. “Get outta that tree,” he commanded again.

  Shreave wiped his face with the back of his hand. It was time for a desperate change of strategy: the truth.