Nature Girl

by Carl Hiaasen

  “Always some excuse.”

  “Go away now. I’m tired.”

  “Fuck you, and good night,” said Wilson.

  The dream visitations always ended the same way—the expired white men clomping away with their anchors dragging, two sullen figures deliquescing in a funky blue vapor. Afterward Sammy Tigertail would awaken and lie still, studying the stars. His uncle said that whenever a Seminole soul passed on, the Milky Way brightened to illuminate the path to the spirit world. On some crystal nights Sammy Tigertail worried that when his time came, the Maker of Breath would look unfavorably upon his white childhood as Chad McQueen.

  He regarded the arrival of the hoary bald eagle as a powerful sign, and it remained near his camp as the days passed. Sometimes the old bird would drop a feather, which the Indian would retrieve and attach to a homemade turban of the style worn by his ancestors in the Wind Clan. Each morning he’d sneak from beneath the ragged palm canopy and scout the tree line to make sure that the great predator was still watching over him. During this period Sammy Tigertail’s sleep was undisturbed, for Wilson and Piejack did not show themselves.

  On the same day that Sammy Tigertail finished rebuilding the Gibson, he began composing a tune for his mother. Musically its roots were closer to Neil Young than to the traditional Green Corn chorus, but nonetheless he was pleased by his first effort. Later he took the johnboat on the river and started casting for snook. He hooked a good one that jumped several times, attracting a nine-foot alligator. The animal exhibited no fear of the Indian, who tried to spook it by shouting and smacking the water with a frog gig. Even after the fish was boated, the gator lingered, its black fluted profile suspended in the current behind the transom. The sight reminded Sammy Tigertail of his ignominious stint in the wrestling pit at the reservation; he vowed never to harm another of the great beasts unless it was for survival.

  Back at camp he cleaned and fried the snook. Then he doused the fire, stripped off his clothes and swam into the bight to watch a pod of dolphins herding mullet. He was a hundred yards from shore when the mystery helicopter returned, cruising low from the north. Exposed and unable to hide, Sammy Tigertail went vertical in the water, moving his legs only enough to keep his chin above the muddy chop. He hoped that from the air his dark head would look like a bobbing coconut.

  The chopper banked and then hovered near the dolphins, which began vaulting and turning flips, the mullet spraying like silver fireworks. The aircraft was near enough that Sammy Tigertail could make out the features of the pilot and, on the passenger side, a young woman watching the frenzy through binoculars. The Seminole blinked away the salt sting so that he could better focus on the woman, her hair showing chestnut in the afternoon sunlight. When she lowered the binoculars she looked very much like Gillian.

  Sammy Tigertail remained motionless, treading water and resisting an urge to wave. He was not dismayed by the idea that a rambunctious college girl in mesh panties might be searching for him, but at the same time he was grateful to the dolphins for distracting her. He could imagine Gillian’s half of the conversation on her cell phone, gloating to poor geeky Ethan about where she was and what she was seeing.

  When the wild dolphin show was over, the helicopter moved on. Sammy Tigertail swam back to the beach and walked the shoreline for nearly an hour. There was no sign of the eagle, and the Seminole returned sadly to his camp, thinking the bird had been driven away by the noisy chopper. He sat down with the guitar in his makeshift hideout and resumed work on his song, which he suspected would have benefited from Gillian’s frisky creative input.

  Shortly before dusk, something substantial struck the thatching above Sammy Tigertail’s sleeping bag. He grabbed Perry Skinner’s .45 and scooted from beneath the canopy, where he encountered the freshly stripped skeleton of a redfish. Slowly the Seminole raised his eyes.

  Overhead, on the tallest branch of a lightning-charred mangrove, the old eagle was chewing on a ropy pink noodle of entrails. The Seminole grinned and called out in fractured Muskogee to the bird, which pretended to ignore him.

  Later Sammy Tigertail moved his bedding under the stars. Although the temperature was dropping, he didn’t light a fire. The warrior spirit of his great-great-great-grandfather was traveling somewhere in the galaxy, and Sammy Tigertail wished him good night. Then the Indian closed his eyes and pondered what to do if Gillian came back tomorrow in the helicopter.

  Maybe he would hide. Maybe he wouldn’t.

  Honey Santana noticed the pearl stud pinned to a lamp shade next to her son’s computer.

  “Where’d you get that?” she asked.

  “From a woman,” Fry said.

  “Miss Fonda had one of those. The telemarketer’s girlfriend.”

  “You sure talk an awful lot,” he said, “for someone with their jaws wired shut.”

  “Dinner’s almost ready,” said his mother.

  “So I guess you’ll be skipping the corn on the cob.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Just a joke, Mom.” He gave her a hug.

  She said, “Go help your father up the steps.”

  Perry Skinner had moved into Honey’s painted trailer. They said it was no big deal because the arrangement was strictly temporary and didn’t mean a thing. Fry only heard that about ten times a day, which is why he was certain they were getting back together. While it was fun having both of them around at the same time, Fry was apprehensive. He remembered how they used to fight, and he worried that it would start up again once their respective injuries healed and they went back to being their old hardheaded selves.

  He went outside where his dad was trying to walk with a cane. Skinner had a new left hip joint; Louis Piejack had blown the old one to bits. At the hospital a sheriff’s detective had gotten the same story from the boy and his parents: They’d gone out to Dismal Key for a picnic, and Skinner had accidentally shot himself while plinking beer cans. Fry’s mother didn’t think the detective believed them, but Fry’s father said it didn’t really matter. As vice mayor he enjoyed a solid relationship with the sheriff, who had never—even in the heat of a high-stakes poker game—questioned his credibility.

  “When can I go skateboarding again?” Fry asked his dad.

  “When the doc says so.”

  “But my head feels fine.”

  “Oh yeah? We can fix that.” Skinner playfully raised the cane like he was going to bop him.

  “Glad somebody’s feelin’ better,” Fry said.

  “Cut your mom some slack, champ. You’d be in a shitty mood, too, if you had to suck all your meals through a straw.”

  “Know what she made herself for lunch? An oyster smoothie!”

  “Dear God,” said Skinner.

  For dinner Honey had broiled two fresh cobia fillets that she’d purchased at Louis Piejack’s market, which was prospering in his absence. Piejack’s long-suffering wife, Becky, had taken advantage of his unexplained sabbatical and fled to São Paulo with Armando, her orchid adviser, after cleaning out the joint money-market account. Nobody in town blamed her.

  Fry and his father devoured the cobia while his mother sipped crab bisque.

  “Skinner, did you happen to see your son’s stylish pearl stud?” she asked. “A lady friend gave it to him.”

  Fry’s father looked over at him and winked. “What else she give you?”

  “Nice,” Honey grumbled through surgically clamped teeth. “Setting a fine example as always.”

  “Aw, c’mon. He knows I’m kiddin’.”

  Fry watched his father reach over and touch his mother’s arm, and he saw her eyes soften. It was a good moment, but the boy had mixed emotions. He’d been trying very hard not to let his hopes rise. He was afraid of awaking one morning to the sound of an argument, and then the slamming of a door.

  He put down his fork. “Can I say somethin’? Even if it’s probably none of my business?”

  Skinner told him to go ahead.

  Fry said,
“Okay, I’m not sure this is a swift move—you two in the same house again.”

  Honey sat back, surprised at his bluntness. “Honestly, Fry,” she murmured.

  “I mean, everything’s cool now,” he went on, “but there was a reason you guys split up. What if…you know?”

  His father said, “We told you it’s just for a few weeks, until I get the hip rehabbed.”

  His mother added, “It was a practical decision, that’s all. Mutually convenient.”

  “Nice try.” Fry knew they were hooking up late at night, him with a gimp and she with a busted jaw. No self-control whatsoever.

  “Just what’re you getting at?” Honey asked.

  Fry said, “The walls are like cardboard, Mom. I’ve been crankin’ up my iPod full blast.”

  His mother reddened and his father’s eyebrows arched.

  “I can’t believe you’re talking to us this way,” Honey complained, “like we’re two kids who don’t know what we’re doing.”

  No comment, thought Fry.

  Skinner said, “You seriously want me to move back to my place?”

  “Dad, I just want you to slow down and remember what happened before.”

  Which was: Skinner had burned out trying to deal with Honey’s manic projects, and Honey had burned out trying to explain herself.

  “People change,” his mother asserted.

  His father said, “Not true. But they do learn new tricks.”

  Fry felt crummy about bringing up the past, but somebody had to break the ice. “Hey, I always knew you guys still had the hots for each other. That’s not the part I’m worried about.”

  “Oh, I know what you’re worried about,” said Honey.

  “Never mind, okay? It’s none of my business.”

  “It’s totally your business,” she said. “All right, let’s say your father and I got back together—”

  “What happened to ‘ex-father’?” Skinner chided.

  “You hush up and listen,” she told him, then turned back to Fry. “Say we get back together or whatever. It wouldn’t be the same as before—I’ve got a much better grip these days. Both hands firmly on the wheel.”

  “Oh, come on, Mom. The Texans?”

  “Nobody’s sayin’ she’s normal,” Skinner cut in, “not even her. But there’s too many so-called normal people with no soul and no balls.”

  “Thank you,” said Honey, “I think.”

  Fry smiled because he’d spent lots of time trying to figure out his mother, and that was one of his theories: Her affliction was one of the heart, not the brain. She felt things too deeply and acted on those feelings, and for that there was no known cure. It would explain why all those medicines never worked.

  “I believe I’ve heard you use the word crazy,” Honey reminded Skinner, “more than once.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s good crazy and bad crazy.”

  At Honey’s place the topic of Louis Piejack had arisen only once, when she’d asked Fry if he understood that by killing Piejack his father had almost surely saved Fry’s life. The boy had never doubted it, although he would have preferred to forget the desolate crunch of wood on bone. Later the Seminole had departed with Piejack’s body, the remnants of the shattered guitar and a bloodstained map provided by Perry Skinner.

  Fry did not need to be told that he hadn’t seen a thing. It was a secret they would keep as a family, and he wondered if it was enough to hold them together.

  His father said, “Everybody screws up, son. I made a big-time mistake that put me in prison, but your mom still stuck around. If she hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here right now, givin’ us grief.”

  His mother said, “Eat your sweet potatoes, kiddo.”

  Fry nodded. “Okay, fine. If the shit hits the fan, we’ll just call Dr. Phil.”

  Skinner laughed. “Smartass,” he said.

  Honey said they were both impossible, two peas in a pod. “And I don’t care what you say, people can change if they want to.”

  The phone started ringing.

  “Dammit,” Honey muttered. “Always in the middle of dinner. God knows what they’re selling tonight.”

  Irritably she pushed away from the table.

  Fry and his father looked at each other.

  “What?” Honey crossed her arms.

  “Nothing. Here’s your chance is all,” Fry said.

  His mother rose, glowering at the phone. “They’ve got absolutely zero manners. Zero respect.”

  “Just let it ring,” said Fry’s father.

  “But they’re so incredibly rude to call at this hour.”

  Fry said, “Sit down, Mom. You can do it.”

  Eight, nine, ten times the phone rang.

  “I forgot—the answer machine’s off,” she said.

  “Perfect.” Perry Skinner slugged down his beer. “Let it ring, babe.”

  “Sure. Nooooo problem,” Honey said, but she didn’t sit down.

  Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen rings.

  She looked achingly at Fry, as if to say, I’m trying.

  He gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Finish your soup, Mom. Before it gets cold.”

  The phone stopped ringing.

  Honey sat down with her boys.