Dead in the Water (13 page)

The blade of the knife glittered in the waning sunlight.

“
You sure you don't have some matches, kindling, wood and a side of beef hidden on you?”

“
Nope. But look.” Sammy pointed ahead of us. The trail opened up into a clearing. A shack stood there. To me it looked like the Taj Mahal.

“
You think the people who live there will mind our dropping in?”

“
The place is deserted, Eve. Nobody's been there for years. It's all ours.”

That sounded quite homey, especially as the first raindrops began to hit. He grabbed my hand, and we ran for the building.

Only part of the roof was intact, and that's where we sought shelter. Sammy searched the inside of the shack, found several pots and stuck them outside the sheltered area so that they would catch the falling rain.

“
We've got water now. In the morning, I'll look for food.” Sammy sounded positively cheerful as I examined my ruined boots in the dim light.

“
I bought these at a consignment shop in Boca. Only twenty-nine ninety-five. I'll never be able to replace them.” I stuck my finger through the split in the leather near my big toe.

Sammy gave me a bemused look as if he couldn't decide whether he found me irritating or simply too nutty to be taken seriously.

For the rest of the afternoon, the rain drummed on the roof with a deafening roar, while the wind blew as if enraged. The wooden beams and supports shook with each blast. If the roof came down, we were sunk. I remembered what Sammy had said about hypothermia. He said spending the night wet even if it wasn't that cold could bring it on. This wasn't the way I'd imagined leaving this earth, shivering to death. I wasn't ready for that. I had too many things yet to do: dispose of Winston's money, save his stepdaughter from the Russians, buy Grandy a new rain slicker, find Madeleine a boyfriend who wasn't afraid of a gal with coordination issues. If God was in a bargaining mood, I could argue my way out of this one by pointing out the many good deeds I had planned but not yet executed.

Another powerful wind blast shook the rafters, loosening dirt and debris. It fell on our heads, followed by something heavier and … alive. A small mouse dropped onto my shoulder, jumped to the table next to me, then plunged to the floor and scooted away into the shadows. I managed to contain a shriek of panic.

When I got my voice under control and spoke, I sounded calm and sane. “Will this shelter hold?”

“
It's been through more storms than you can imagine.” Sammy reached over and gave my shoulder a reassuring pat.

“
How do you know that?”

He opened his mouth as if to answer, then clamped his lips shut.

“
Sammy, you're not being honest with me. You've been here before, haven't you?”

He hesitated a moment, then leaned towards me. “I don't know for certain. There are a lot of shacks like this in the swamp. This one looks familiar. I think Grandfather might have brought me here when I was a kid. I can't be sure, but even if I've been here before, it doesn't mean I know the way out. Not after all these years.”

“
I was kind of hoping a map of the swamp was in your DNA.”

“
Don't worry, Eve. I'll take care of you.”

But I was worried. Taking care of me might mean we'd set up housekeeping here and live off the land until someone chanced upon us. Some day. That possibility sounded no better than death. I didn't know if I could survive a life where I'd never see a pair of Ferragamos again.

I wiggled my toes in my ruined boots and sighed. “So what do we do then? Wait here until we die?”

“
We won't die.”

Maybe not, but as the sun began to go down and the wind seemed to shake the small shack until I was certain the rafters would collapse around our heads, my thoughts took a darker turn. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“
You're not going to cry, are you?”

“
I never cry.” I gave that announcement some consideration. It was true I wasn't a crier, but then I'd never been lost in a swamp while hurricane force winds threw walls of rain at me. To keep myself from becoming a blubbering idiot and succumbing to hysteria, I looked around the shack and thought about Sammy coming here with his grandfather when he was little. There it was, I thought. A way out.

“
Your grandfather brought you here? Then he knows how to get back. Does he come often? Would he look for you here? Would he? Would he?” I had grabbed Sammy shirt and was tugging at it like a toddler throwing a tantrum over ice cream. Okay, so I wasn't in control.

“
For God's sake, Eve. Let go. You'll strip me naked.”

Our eyes met at the same moment. Naked? In the middle of a storm? I had stepped off the edge of rational thought to be considering a tryst under these circumstances. The expression in his eyes told me the same thought had crossed his mind. He took my closed fist in his hand and held it with gentle pressure.

We both spoke at the same moment. “Sorry.”

After a few minutes, Sammy moved a small distance away from me and looked into my eyes. “Grandfather almost never goes into the swamp anymore. He won't be coming here to find us. I'm sorry, Eve, but we'll make the best of this. I think the wind is dying down now, and soon it will blow itself out. When it does, we'll get some sleep.”

Sleep? Here? In a swamp? “Don't you think we should take turns staying awake? Someone needs to guard the place.”

I couldn't see Sammy's face, but his voice with its attendant snicker of laughter said he thought my idea absurd. “Guard it from what exactly?”

“
Uh, bugs and stuff. Alligators, maybe?”

He sighed, and I felt him move closer to me. “You can go first then. Keep the gators out of here while I get some shut eye.”

“
Now you're just playing with me.”

“
Go to sleep, Eve. You're going to need rest to get through tomorrow.”

“
What are we going to do in the morning?”

“
Find something to eat.”

“
Like what?”

“
A Big Mac.”

He was playing with me. Soon I heard his breathing slow and soft snores erupt from his mouth. The wind continued to moan overhead, punctuated by other sounds—a screeching of some swamp bird, followed by croaks, roars, then a crack, as if some large beast had slapped its tail on the water. I knew I wasn't going to sleep.

“
Wake up. I thought you were supposed to be on watch.” A hand shook me into a state of consciousness.

The sun hit me in the face and a bug landed on my forehead. I swatted it away.

“
It was too dark last night for there to be anything to watch.” I tried to move into a sitting position, but my limbs felt weighted down and achy.

I watched Sammy step outside our ramshackle refuge. He stretched his long body and groaned, then bent over and picked up the pot he had wedged between the porch boards. I managed to get up and join him.

“
Have a drink. It's not morning coffee, but it's clean and fresh.” He handed me the pot and I took a sip. It was the sweetest water I'd ever drunk. I wondered why they didn't sell it in the stores. Someone could make a fortune off this.

The world outside the deserted cabin sparkled in the morning light, raindrops on the leaves catching the sun and reflecting a rainbow of colors.

“
It's beautiful.” I handed the water back to him.

“
Few people see the swamps like this. It is beautiful. I'm glad you think so too.”

Sammy took a long drink and placed the container back in the cabin.

“
Now what?”

“
I'm going to climb that tree.” Sammy pointed to a palm that rose above the other scrubbier trees around the cabin.

“
Right. You did promise me food last night. Coconuts?”

“
This is not a coconut palm.” He began to inch up the trunk.

“
So get down from there. This is no time to be showing off.”

He continued up and once at the top, he moved the fronds to one side with his body and leaned there.

“
What the hell are you doing?” My stomach grumbled. Maybe he was getting us some palm fronds to eat. I'd never heard of that but who knew what one ate in the swamps. Folks around here talked about swamp cabbage, something I wasn't familiar with. Maybe that was it. My stomach rumbled again.

Sammy dropped to the ground beside me. “Let's go.”

“
Go? Where?”

Without another word, he grabbed my hand, and we set off for the unknown, heading away from the waterway the Hardys had used to bring us here.

“
You're going the wrong way.” I tugged on his shirt sleeve to slow him down.

He turned to me with laughter on his face. “Oh, so now you're the swamp explorer? Which direction did you want to go? We can separate and see who gets home first. How about that?”

“
But we came in here there.” I pointed back toward the cabin and beyond.

“
And this is the way the black smoke is coming from.”

“
What smoke?”

“
Don't you smell it?”

I stopped and sniffed. I did smell it. Something was burning. “You saw that when you were up the tree.”

“
Yep. Let's go.” We set off again, following our noses and the clouds of smoke now billowing in the sky ahead of us.

Several hours passed. Keeping the burn ahead of us made charting our path through the swamp slow going. We trudged through small ponds and channels of water, but skirted others that were deeper, the ones Sammy said were likely gator holes. I shuddered at the thought of encountering a hungry or angry reptile. We crawled over downed logs green with moss. Sometimes we got lucky and found a game trail to use, but then it would meander in the wrong direction, and we were back to bushwhacking through the undergrowth. The day grew hotter. For water, we licked the droplets of rain off broad-leaved plants.

“
What do you think is on fire? A cane field?” I was sitting on a downed limb taking a breather. Sammy stood leaning against a nearby sabal palm.

“
Too much smoke and too black. Cane burns smell sweet. This one doesn't. It's a structure fire.”

“
As in a building of some kind. Maybe a building with people nearby?”

“
Exactly. Let's hurry before it goes out and leaves us with nothing to follow.”

The acrid smell of the burn got stronger.

“
Listen.” Sammy put up his hand and stopped me. “An airboat.”

“
Signal it.” I rushed in front of him, running toward the sound of the whirring engine.

Sammy grabbed me, pushed me to the ground, and fell on top of me. “It could be the Hardy brothers.”

“
I don't care. We gotta get out of this swamp.”

“
We already are.” Sammy pushed aside the grasses. In front of us we could see the broad rim canal. “Look there.” Sammy pointed toward the east, down the canal. Smoke continued to pour from a building as fire fighters doused the flames with water.

“
It's the Hardys' produce stand and their airboat operation that's burning.”

“
I wonder if they were inside,” I said.

“
They tried to kill us and you're concerned about them?”

“
I'm not worried about those boys. I was talking about the baby gators they kept in the building.”

Out on the canal, the airboat we'd heard sped by, but I couldn't tell who was in it because Sammy and I ducked our heads down.

“
This way.” Sammy signaled me to follow him in the opposite direction from the airboat landing.

“
I want to see what's going on.”

“
Not now. We need food and water first. Then we can find out what happened to our boys and their business. If they're not dead, I don't want them to know we aren't.”

“
We're going to your place?”

He nodded and headed back into the swamp.

“
We could just hit the road and follow it home.”

“
Like I said, let's keep our heads down for now. I don't want anyone to see us. Yet.”

The steel in Sammy's voice told me he had something special planned for the Hardy brothers if they were still alive. I thought it might be better for them if they were dead.

Another several hours of tramping around in the swamps until we arrived at Sammy's house left me thirsty enough to drink swamp water and hungry enough to consider eating a salad of water lettuce dressed with pond scum. Instead we had tea and biscuits with homemade jam served by Sammy's grandfather.

I was too exhausted to talk much, so Sammy explained what had happened. Grandfather Egret didn't seem too upset by what Sammy had to say. He puffed on his pipe and sipped his tea, finally pausing long enough to say, “I thought maybe I'd have to come looking for you.”