The Missing Manatee (12 page)

I was washing the frying pan and the dishes, too, without even being asked, and Memaw shot me a probing look. “I don't need to call Lenny's mama, do I?”

“No, ma'am,” I said, as innocently as I could. Inside I was thinking,
Please, no!

“You wouldn't be thinking of doing anything foolish, would you?”

“Absolutely not,” I assured her. I felt like a first-class creep, but I told myself it
wasn't
foolish to check on the manatee; it was plain common sense. To change the subject, I said, “I'll be home by five. That's when Mom said she'd get out of work.”

“All right,” Memaw said. “Then we'll get to the bottom of this mess.”

I sure hoped so. Meanwhile, I'd make certain that nothing happened to the evidence, in case we needed it. I told myself again that there was no need for Memaw to know. It would only give her something to worry about.

When I got to the marina, I looked first to see if Dirty Dan's boat was in its slip. It was. Either he'd already gone out, dumped the manatee, and returned, or the evidence was safe.

Blink and Blinky came running over as I headed down the dock to my skiff. Blink's hand reached for the quarter, and we played our game.

“So, what's Dirty Dan up to today?” I asked casually.

A shadow passed across Blink's normally sunny face. His forehead wrinkled with worry, and his eyes started blinking like mad. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the little camper. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Uh-oh. Dirty Dan said watch out for Skeet. Be careful if Skeet asks questions. That's what Dirty Dan said. Be careful. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Was I careful, Skeet?”

“You were real careful, Blink,” I said quickly.

“I told Dirty Dan I could keep quiet,” Blink said anxiously. “I told him I was quiet in the boat. I was quiet in the boat, wasn't I, Skeet?”

“Sure, Blink,” I said, having no idea what he was talking about, but wanting to reassure him. “Don't worry. Look, Blinky wants to play. You'd better go throw the ball for Blinky now, okay?”

“I'll go throw the ball for Blinky now, okay, Skeet?”

“Good,” I said, edging away, not wanting Dirty Dan to look out and see Blink talking to me. “You were real careful, Blink,” I called back. “Real quiet. Don't worry.”

I got into my skiff and yanked angrily on the cord to start the motor. Nothing happened. I yanked four or five more times before I realized the choke was out. The motor flooded and stalled. I took a deep breath and tried to settle down. Poor Blink. Dan was trying to keep him from talking to me, and had gotten him all frightened and confused. Blink would be better off in some sort of facility, I thought furiously, where he'd be safe from Dirty Dan.

The engine finally started, and I headed down the river, forcing myself to control my speed through the refuge area, wishing I were old enough or brave enough to go rescue Blink right then and there. As it was, I had to content myself with hoping that something would be done soon. At least I could make sure we still had the evidence we'd need to finish this once and for all.

When I got to the backcountry channels, I was glad to see the tide was still high enough for my boat to maneuver. I found the first blue rope marker and followed it to the next marker, and the next, and the next. Soon I saw a lone vulture circling in the sky overhead, and came to the open stretch of water where the other vultures were gathered to feed. I approached slowly, and they seemed more reluctant than before to leave their feast. I drew quite close before they rose to make an awkward escape.

Little was left of the carcass—that was the word that came to my mind when I saw it this time, not
manatee,
or even
body,
but
carcass.
There was enough to tell that it had once been a manatee. Enough, no doubt, for an expert to identify the hole in its skull as a bullet wound. Enough to nail Dirty Dan.

I was thinking all this when suddenly a noise made its way into my consciousness, causing my heart to lurch. I sat up straight, my full attention focused on the sound. Different from the buzzing of the flies, it was a low, steady humming. A boat engine. Maybe a quarter mile away, but coming closer. I strained to listen and, yes, it was definitely coming closer. Which meant it had left the main river and was coming into the backcountry. Coming steadily closer, not hesitating, not changing direction, not stopping to fish. Coming steadily through the maze of channels directly toward where I sat. It had to be a small skiff like mine, or a flats boat—something that didn't draw a lot of water.

It was someone who knew exactly where he was going. I sat there, paralyzed, hypnotized by the steady humming sound and the glare of the sun on the water and the moist heat that threatened to suffocate me. It didn't matter. There was nowhere to go. I was trapped at the far end of that little back-country channel like a crab in a bait tank.

I forced myself out of my panicked stupor and tried to think, and the first thought I had was a bad one. I had no radio. The second thought was worse. Memaw thought I was at Lenny's. She didn't expect me home until five o'clock. No one knew where I was.

No one, I realized as the boat appeared around the bend, except Dirty Dan.

Seventeen

Dirty Dan motored slowly
across the open stretch of water toward where I sat in my skiff, frozen with panic and a weird sense that this couldn't really be happening. It seemed to take hours for him to reach me, hours during which my mind scrambled frantically for a way out and came up with nothing.

Dan cut the engine at the right moment to allow his boat to glide alongside mine. The silence was complete. There wasn't the squawk of a bird, the buzz of an insect, or the splash of a fish in the shallow water. It was as if Dan and I were alone at the end of the world.

Finally he spoke. “Hello, Skeet.”

I didn't answer. My throat felt so dry I wasn't sure I could.

“We need to have a talk.”

I still didn't—couldn't—answer.

After a moment, he gestured toward the manatee. “You couldn't let it go, could you? Had to keep after it.” Then he nodded, saying, “I understand that. You're stubborn. It's the same stubbornness that made you keep trying until you caught that tarpon. I got it, too.”

He smiled at me, his scar stretching in his brown, leathery face, and he seemed so much like the old Dan I almost smiled back. I caught myself and looked away.

“But now we got ourselves a situation, Skeet, and one of us is going to have to give in. I came out here to see who it was going to be, you or me.”

At last I found my voice, though it came out kind of small and croaky. “What if I won't give in? Are you going to kill me, too?”

Dan shook his head, and even though I knew better, I thought he looked genuinely sad. “I guess I can't blame you for thinking like that, Skeet, but it pains me all the same.” He sighed. “I saw you talking to Blink this morning. He came home all nervous and upset again, and I knew I had to do something to stop—all this. I didn't come to hurt you. I came so nobody and nothing else gets hurt.” He pointed to the manatee and made a wry face. “It's too late for him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks to you. Now you want me to keep quiet about it, just so you don't have to answer for what you did?”

“In a way, yes.”

I couldn't believe it. He sure had nerve, I had to give him credit for that.

Dan went on, “Because, in a way, it really
was
my fault.”

Oh, really?
I thought, almost letting loose a wild laugh.
Next you're going to tell me that, in another way, it was the manatee's fault for getting in the path of the bullet you shot at him!

“I never should have let Blink shoot the gun,” Dan said.

What? Blink and a gun?

“But we were pretty far out in the boonies that morning, and there was nobody else around, and I thought, what harm could it do? He'd been after me for a long time to shoot the gun, saying he just wanted to try it. Probably because of things he sees on TV.” Dan's voice trailed off for a second.

“Anyway, there were a few of Blinky's old tennis balls rolling around the bottom of the boat, so I told Blink I'd throw them out and he could shoot at them. I showed him the right way to hold the gun and how to work the safety, and told him never to point it at anyone. Told him he could shoot at three balls in the water. Just that one time, I said.”

Dan looked away, then back at me, and said, “There are so many things he can't do, you know? I thought I could let him do this, let him feel like a regular kid for once … It seemed harmless enough at the time.”

Dan was quiet for a minute, and I thought I could see how letting Blink shoot at some tennis balls might have sounded like an okay idea.

Then Dan said, “So he was real careful and he shot at one, then another … missing, you know, but laughing and getting a big kick out of the noise and the splash and all. And then, just as I threw the third ball, this manatee's head popped up out of the water, and before I knew it, he'd shot it.” Dan paused, and shrugged.

I didn't say a word, I was so caught up in the story, picturing it in my mind: the dopey manatee's head coming up and Blink, taken by surprise, pulling the trigger before he even knew what he was doing, hitting the manatee in the head.

Echoing my thoughts, Dan said, “I'm sure he didn't know what he was doing. At first he was excited because the manatee drifted over near the boat and he could touch it. He didn't understand why it wasn't moving. When I told him it was dead, he got all worked up, you know how he does, crying and all. I still don't know if he understands that he shot it.”

No,
I thought,
you can't ever be sure, not with Blink.

“And I didn't try to make him understand. It would only make him feel worse.” Dan smiled weakly and said, “I guess there is one good thing that came out of all this. He doesn't want to play with the gun anymore.”

I think I might have smiled back.

“Anyway, I was telling myself that it was an unfortunate accident, but it was an
accident,
and I couldn't see any good coming from Blink being hauled in and questioned or whatever might happen to him. I knew Earl would be good to him, but what if it wasn't Earl I was dealing with? Then I thought about saying I shot it, but if
I
was hauled in, then where would Blink be? I'm all he's got.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“Well, there's something you probably don't know, Skeet, and it made a difference in all this.” He took off his hat, brushed his hand through his sweaty hair, and put the cap back on. “I've got a little problem with Mr. Jack Daniel's.”

At first, I didn't know who he was talking about. Then I remembered: Jack Daniel's whiskey was his butterfly milk.

“Oh,” I said.

“There was a time when I used to get blind, crazy drunk, get in fights, cause all kinds of trouble. I drove my wives away and got myself a record with the police. Then one night I got in a car accident when I was drunk as a skunk. Blink was in the car with me and he got banged up pretty good.” Dan paused and looked down at his hands. “They almost took him away from me after that. Ever since then, I try to drink just enough to keep it together, keep my hands from shaking, you know?”

I didn't know, and I swallowed, not sure what to say. I thought about Dan sipping on the bottle all day in the boat, but not seeming drunk. I guessed that was what he meant, but I'd have to ask Mac or Memaw about it.

“So anyway, when I heard a boat coming that morning, all that stuff ran through my head. I guess I panicked, thinking Blink would get in trouble for shooting the manatee, or else I'd be in trouble for letting him. Maybe they'd take him away from me for real this time. Maybe there'd be a hefty fine, and I don't have the money for that. If I couldn't pay, maybe I'd go to jail. My past record wouldn't help. Maybe—well, like I said, I panicked. When I heard a boat coming, I poled my boat up a side channel and hid real quick.

“I never imagined it would be you, or that you'd find the body. But you did and— Well, here we are.”

I thought of Blink talking about how quiet he'd been in the boat. Now I knew he was talking about staying quiet while he and Dan hid from me. Piecing the rest together, I said, “And then you went back and moved the body after I left to get Earl.”

Dan nodded. “I didn't know for sure where you were going or if you'd be coming back, but the way you were examining the head, I knew you'd figured out it was shot.”

“But Earl and I never saw you,” I said. Then I realized, “Oh! You must have taken one of the smaller channels on the way back to the marina. That's why we didn't run into you on the river.”

He nodded again.

And then neither of us said anything for a pretty long time. I was thinking about what Memaw had said that morning about life getting complicated, and it seemed, as usual, that she was right.

I was thinking about life giving you the down and dirty, and never letting you go backwards, and how that didn't just mean me and Mac and Mom, but Dirty Dan and Blink, too.

I was thinking, too, about parents loving their kids more than anything, and how that might make them do all sorts of things. Like Dan hiding the manatee to protect Blink. Or like Mom wanting real bad for me to have a life she thought would be better than hers. Or like Mac moving to a trailer down the street so I didn't have to hear any more fighting.

I was thinking that even though some people might say what Dirty Dan did was wrong, maybe there was another way to look at it. I figured he was simply being the best father to Blink he knew how to be. He wasn't perfect, but so what? I was beginning to realize that nobody was.