Night Moves (7 page)

“In an Internet world, fame is power,” Tomlinson cut in. “Power can be converted into wealth.”

“Nahhh,” Dan said again, his tone more final. “If we were close to finding them, maybe. But we’re not.”

“Could be we’re closer than we think but don’t realize it,” Tomlinson countered. “Either way, whoever did this has a snake loose in his noggin.”

I checked my watch—almost noon—then looked to the east where a horizon of gray hung motionless in the jet stream. “That weather’s coming,” I said, which caused Tomlinson to give me a look, aware I wanted to switch the subject. I didn’t want to lie to Dan Futch, but I also didn’t want to discuss any killers who might be willing to murder two innocent men just to get at me. As I knew for certain, there were several out there who wanted me dead. A couple of foreign agencies, too. Tomlinson had to at least suspect that.

Ours has been an unusual friendship—one linked by polar differences and secrets. Once upon a time, my peace-loving New Age pal had been the underground revolutionary type. We had both lived covert lives, but at opposite ends of the spectrum, so, unknowingly, we’d been overt, unswerving enemies. I don’t perceive any glimmer of good in improvised explosive devices or similar backdoor terrorist carnage—never have, never will. The fact that Tomlinson and I are now friends is irony at its symmetrical best and gives me hope for the other warring coverts in this world.

My boat bum neighbor has gone “straight” by his own twisted definition—although he has still his share of closeted skeletons . . . and possibly secret enemies. I, however, continue to bounce between my public life as a marine biologist and a shadow life that can, with a phone call, send me and my passport packing. It doesn’t happen more than a few times a year, but the calls still come, so I continue to create and keep secrets, old and new. The newest was a trip I’d returned from less than a week ago, another name added to my own list of enemies. Yet another reason to dodge the pilot’s question.

When I mentioned the storm clouds, Futch stepped away from the plane, wiped his hands on a towel, and looked for himself. “How about you two go back to marking snags while I finish here? Once I know what I have to work with, we can decide what to do.”

“I don’t mind walking,” Tomlinson said. “Doc mentioned the weight problem.”

Thinking I must also have mentioned the boa constrictors, Dan showed surprise. “Well, Quirko, you’ve got a bigger set of balls than me,” he said and went back to work.

—

W
ELL,
I
COULDN’T
LET
him hike out alone, could I?

An hour later, two miles from where we’d watched the seaplane lift off, carrying only our pilot, Tomlinson stopped to rest, saying, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. How much farther, you think?”

I replied, “You can’t be tired already.”

“I keep stepping in holes. Can’t see a goddamn thing, the water’s so black. How about a drink?”

I was carrying a canvas knapsack over my shoulder. Long ago I learned to never set foot on a boat or a small plane without packing the essentials: flashlight, gloves, knife, first-aid basics, mosquito spray, a clip-on strobe, and a handheld VHF radio. From the seaplane, I had added two bottles of water, a liter each, which wasn’t enough for a long hike in the Glades, but it was all we had.

I tossed a bottle to Tomlinson, said, “Hang on to it,” then stepped up onto a slab of limestone. The sudden elevation was like surfacing through a flaxen sea. Horizon to horizon, sawgrass reflected sunlight and heat, flagging wind currents that furrowed the surface like tumbleweed, then springing back in flashes of copper and wheat. To the north was an island of cypress trees . . . an orb of shadows, mossy blue, that felt cool to the eye. Behind us was more sawgrass, our trail a temporary scar that was being reclaimed faster, it seemed, than we could walk. To the west, I noticed, a small plane was coming our way. No pontoons, so it wasn’t Dan.

“Beautiful out here,” I said. “Smells good, too.”

Tomlinson took another gulp of water as he untied his basketball shoes, something wrong with his feet. “You’re awful damn cheery. I thought you were pissed at me for refusing to fly.”

“That’s not the reason,” I said. “But I am.”

“Then let’s talk about it. . . Awww, shit. Look at
this
.”

“I’ve seen your feet. No thanks.”

“I think I broke my toe, man. Wish we had some ice . . . Crap, I think I’m gonna lose this nail for sure.”

“Great!” I said. I took the second bottle of water, found a dry spot for the knapsack, then stood and rolled my shoulders. “Five-minute break. Then we go.”

For an hour we’d been plowing north toward a two-lane road that crosses the Everglades—the Tamiami Trail—and this was the first we had spoken other than to kibitz about directions or to call a warning about the terrain. I’d done most of the warning because it was easier for me, wearing leather gloves, to bull a path through the sedge. Water depth varied abruptly, and so did the bottom. After long bouts of muck, we would exit onto a ridge that was a honeycomb of limestone, its unseen holes masked by sedge and water. The limestone was sharp, honed by a current centuries old, and spiked the crevices that consumed our legs to the thigh.

We were on one of those ridges now.

The little plane was still angling toward us, but the landscape was far more compelling. My eyes allowed it to flood in. “It would be nice to spend a few nights out here,” I said. “All you’d need is a tarp and one of those handheld filtration pumps for water. I’ll bet there’re guava trees at the rim of that cypress head. Seminoles did agriculture sometimes, when they camped. And plenty of fish, if it came to that. Deer, feral hogs. I’ve read there are varietals of orchids and apple snails out here that still haven’t been described. Scientifically, of course.”

“Fascinating,” Tomlinson replied, inspecting his other foot. “You’ve been crabby as hell lately, know that? But one plane crash later, you’re all sunshine and lollipops. I’ll never understand the rational mind.”

I didn’t reply, although there was some truth to what he’d said. We’d left behind the twenty-first-century world, with its cobweb of electronic ties, and it felt good to be dropped into the middle of nowhere. The Everglades was a separate reality from the comfortable existence on Sanibel Island. The region was a self-sustaining biota, an indifferent force. Life was more precariously balanced here. The landscape had an
edge
. I had yet to see a boa, large or small, nor had I mentioned the possibility, but that was part of the edge. So was our near-miss plane crash. And, as I had to admit to myself, so was the possibility that someone was trying to kill me, Tomlinson, Dan, or all three of us.

Churchill said it:
There is nothing so invigorating as being shot at without result.

We all dodge a few bullets in our lifetimes, and I’ve ducked my share. After each narrow escape, I’d felt energized, never more lucid and alert. Now, standing on the low ridge surveying wild country, I was enjoying that cleaved sense of awareness when Tomlinson broke into my thoughts, saying, “The hunter is being hunted. That’s why you’re in such a jolly mood. Your drug of choice, man. Yet they demonize my gentle friend marijuana.” He shook his head. “And if losing my toenail puts a smile on your face, this should make you positively goddamn giddy. See here? A chunk of my ankle bone’s missing, too. I stepped in one of those holes back there. Your little fish buddies are probably feasting, having a grand time. Filet of primate. Yum-yum.”

I hadn’t been smiling, but I did now. “The Zen guru wanted oneness with nature?” I said. “Keep feeding the locals, it’ll happen.” Then I bent to open my backpack.

In a ziplock bag, I’d packed antibacterial cream, Band-Aids, gauze, surgical tape, two military QuikClot compresses for serious trauma, plus a few other basics. I lobbed him the bag, then returned my attention to the airplane, which had banked a few degrees northeast and would soon make a low-level pass overhead. Either the pilot had spotted us or his sudden course change was coincidental. Or . . . something else nearby had caught the pilot’s attention.

Into my head came Dan Futch’s voice.
I spotted two snakes so big, I could see them from the air.

5

I LIFTED MY HEAD, SNIFFED THE AIR, THEN STOOD ON
the balls of my feet and did a slow three-sixty. Yes . . . Tomlinson and I were not alone. To leeward, fifty yards away, a slow sawgrass trail was being tunneled, blades collapsing under the weight of something sizeable. A southwesterly breeze blew noise and odors away from me, but, even in a gale, I would have heard telltale sounds if it had been hikers or an ATV.

No . . . the thing approaching us was alive . . . and big enough, possibly, to be spotted from low altitude.

“Get your shoes on,” I told Tomlinson.

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

My tone trumped the man’s injuries and his natural aversion to authority. Immediately, he pulled on one red Converse, saying, “Geezus, what’s wrong? Are those cops?”

He meant the plane, which was now descending. A Cessna 182, it looked like, a model I’d flown while logging most of my air hours. The propeller whine was closing the distance, and I could see two people in the cockpit, details shielded by the silver sheen of Plexiglas.

“Maybe Danny radioed someone to keep an eye on us,” Tomlinson suggested.

“Hurry up,” I told him and turned to concentrate on the approaching animal. Sawgrass was still funneling toward us in a slow riverine swath that created switchbacks. The zigzag path was suggestive. Meat eaters follow their noses, casting back and forth as they close in on their quarry. So do big snakes. I picked up a limb I’d been using as a walking stick, stepped off the ledge into the water, and began to circle away, hoping to intercept the animal.

Behind me, over the whine of the approaching Cessna, Tomlinson raised his voice to say, “Hey . . . where you going? Why you think there’s no door on that plane?”

I didn’t reply. I was choosing my footing, trying to move fast while the plane masked my noise. I wasn’t worried about what I would find, despite Dan’s warning—I was intrigued. The list of potential attackers was not particularly long nor formidable: a Florida panther, a gator, a black bear, coyotes, feral hogs, or a hellishly big snake. Those were the most likely candidates, and I wanted to get a look at the thing before it got a look at us.

Tomlinson called, “What’s that guy doing? Is that a camera? Jesus Christ, Doc . . . I think he’s trying to . . .” My friend’s words were lost in the roar of the plane passing overhead. I looked up just long enough to note that he was correct about the missing door. Inside, a male passenger was turning away from us, something in his hands. Yes . . . some kind of optical gizmo, a telephoto lens possibly. A pro photographer or videographer at work, maybe. Why else remove a perfectly good door from a perfectly good airplane?

My eyes didn’t linger. I was angling to the left, using my gloves to part sawgrass as if it were a wall of beaded curtains. If I gauged the distance correctly, maybe I could slip in behind the animal before it spooked. That didn’t strike me as risky. Black bears and coyotes have yet to place man in the food chain, and I could outdistance an alligator, or even a twenty-foot boa constrictor, if I surprised the thing from behind.

A Florida panther, though, was a different story, as I was aware. Surprising a big cat in the wild was risky. Probably riskier now than ever before. After being hunted to near extinction, they had learned to avoid contact with man. But, for reasons unknown, that is changing in the western varietal. Panthers—mountain lions, they are called—have attacked lone runners, hikers, and bikers. And I knew firsthand of an attempted attack on a pair of Florida hunters.

Even so, I wasn’t worried. I’m a biologist and I wanted a closer look. It was a sunny, windy day, so the odds of me surprising a panther were minuscule, and the odds of it attacking me even less.

“Doc! Where the hell are you? That damn plane’s circling back!”

No telling why Tomlinson was so concerned. Through a veil of sawgrass, I saw the plane bank to turn.

I kept moving as the plane pivoted toward us, but I was having no luck. Where the hell was the animal’s trail? I couldn’t find it. Sawgrass, I realized, was as indifferent as seawater when it came to preserving the tracks of an interloper. There was no trail to find. Ahead, a big snake could be lying in ambush. Or a big gator. Not good.

I stopped, did another slow three-sixty, holding my walking stick in both hands. The smart thing to do, I decided, was follow what little remained of my own trail back to the ridge. So I retreated, moving slowly at first, then faster. When the plane roared overhead a second time, I was slogging at top speed so took only a quick look. From my angle, I couldn’t see if the photographer was snapping pictures or not. Was it two crazy hikers that had interested them? Or the animal I had failed to find?

When I stepped into a clearing, only yards from the ridge, one of my questions was answered. The creature I had been tracking was there awaiting my exit. I had been outsmarted, which isn’t unusual, so I don’t know why I was surprised. But I was.

The animal stood on four sturdy legs studying me, yellow-eyed, ears alert, something recently captured in its mouth. I felt a microsecond of concern, then gradual relief. I moved several steps closer . . . stopped . . . then took a few more steps. Then I held out my hand.

—

“T
ELL
ME
I’m not hallucinating!” Tomlinson hollered as I sloshed up the ridge, the animal trotting at heel beside me. “You found a . . .
dog
?”

Yes, I had. “I think he’s a Lab. Or maybe a mixed breed—see the curly hair? He’s been out here lost for a while. Feel him, he’s all ribs and muscle. See all the crud in his coat? No collar, no tags. And something skinned a piece of fur off his tail, plus there’s a chunk missing from his leg. This guy’s had a tough time.”