Martinez, not interested, replied, “Yeah, too bad about him,” then realized he might have slipped again. “Let’s face it, first Reggie, then Bigalow. You’ve got to assume the worst.”
“Two hours in a bar with Larry,” I replied. “He’s a talker. Did he say anything you might have missed?”
“About what? Oh . . . not about Bigalow, but, yeah, he couldn’t say enough about getting his hands on you. Seems his ego took a bruising; a love-hate thing.” Martinez’s eyes wandered; a smirk there, maybe, with a suggestive edge, as he painted me up and down. “I’ll spare you the graphics, but let’s just say he admires the cut of your jib.”
Jib?
I ignored that by settling into myself. Kermit’s dead, I thought, and this man might have killed him. Or helped.
There was something else, if I was right: once we had the boat loaded with oranges, and a tree or two, I would no longer be of use. Martinez—if that was his name—might kill me, too.
“Something bothering you, Captain?” The smirk had vanished and, with it, possibly, the identity of whoever lived inside the man’s head.
I started away. “Keep looking, if you want. I’ve got a bag full of oranges to take to the boat.”
“That’s the problem, obviously. I can’t tell the difference between oaks and citrus; you can. Give it another half hour and let’s do this right. Come on . . . don’t worry”—he gestured with the shotgun—“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I watched his reaction when I replied, “Sabin, I’m not the only one you need to worry about.”
That didn’t faze the man, either.
I was wondering: Who’s the fool? Him, for thinking I’m harmless? Or me, for pretending it’s true?
• • •
The most likely place to find seedlings, I reasoned, was to the northeast, or southwest of the mother tree, for they were opposites of the prevailing winds.
My theory produced results. I found a fruiting tree too big for a truck, let alone my boat. Possibly, the same one I’d picked oranges from as a girl. It provided more DNA samples, which I stored in separate Ziploc bags. Hopefully, it was a clone, a pure descendant of seeds planted many hundreds of years ago. By then, my shoulder bag was overloaded, including the whelk shell, which I didn’t need but kept anyway.
Martinez stuck close by and offered encouragement if he noticed me checking my watch or pausing to listen. I often did both, aware the island was beginning to stir. Occasionally, something big crushed a branch too far away to pinpoint. Maybe the wind or tide. If not, it was an animal that moved slowly, very slowly . . . or it was intelligent enough to be cautious.
We’d been ashore nearly an hour. Shadows retained an icy chill while the sun drifted higher and warmed the forest canopy.
I snapped off a leafy orange branch and handed it to him. “This is what you’re looking for. Let’s split up. I’m leaving at ten, no later, and I mean it. Do you have a watch?”
He tugged at the sleeve of his red sweater. “That’s less than fifteen minutes.”
For a moment, I thought he might offer a test of his own, ask if I’d pull anchor without him, but he was as uncertain about me as I was about him. Whether my suspicions were valid or not, it was better to maintain an illusion of trust. He was doing the same.
“Not that I’d go off and leave you,” I added, “but you have to understand something. You only saw a picture of that snake. It’s different seeing the real thing, being there in the water, and knowing how it feels. That’s why I’m anxious.”
“Leave a person here?” he chuckled. “It would take one coldhearted bastard. Gives me chills to even think about it.” He paused, then nodded as if he’d made up his mind about something. “Tell you what”—another glance at his watch—“let’s keep looking. And if you don’t find a tree by quarter after ten, I’ll race you to the boat.”
That wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t want him around when I got to the boat. There was something I’d left behind that might alleviate or confirm my concerns.
“Deal,” I said.
With Martinez walking several lengths behind, I angled away from the mother tree, hacking vines and briars. The gloves I wore were elastic mesh and leather, made for fishing, not a machete. My right hand was beginning to blister. I switched to the left and looped the lanyard over my wrist. Gradually, I worked my way toward the water until we intersected with the trail I’d marked. My boat was to the left, screened from view. I continued onward.
The mound sloped into a valley, created by a second, much higher mound, where the bark of gumbo-limbo trees filtered amber light. The air was musky with the odor of white stopper trees, too. Near some saplings about as high as my waist, I waited for Martinez to catch up.
“Will these do?”
Luckily, he had dropped the orange branch I’d given him. “Perfect size. Nice job. Aren’t you glad we stuck around? All I need now is a shovel and some kind of bucket. Yes . . . this looks like a good area. A perfect place to camp because”—an amused look brightened his dark eyes—“no one would ever find us. Say . . . what’s that smell? Smells like a skunk.”
No, it was the scent of white stopper saplings, so named because, in Old Florida, tea made from their leaves was used to stop diarrhea.
I opened my pack, intending to give him the trowel but pulled out a bottle of water instead. “You said you were thirsty, take this. I won’t be long. Do you know which way the boat is?”
“Over there.” He pointed in the wrong direction, which surprised me. Or did it? This was an articulate man with an orderly mind.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, and set off on the course he had indicated until I was out of sight. Soon I looped back toward the mother tree. The blaze marks I’d cut weren’t as obvious as I’d hoped. It took a while to get my bearings. My concerns faded when, atop a vacant tortoise mound, I stumbled past three little trees clumped together, all about a foot tall. Treelets, more accurately. The easiest way to identify young citrus is to tear a leaf and sniff. I did. Tangy; a hint of lime and orange.
After chopping some vines away—a nearby ficus was in the process of strangling the treelets—I joined them atop the mound. Viewed from above, their leaves formed another triad. They sprouted in groups of three, not unlike a certain crest worn by Conquistadors. Each tree was a mirror image of the other; delicate, on trunks no thicker than my thumb.
Three identical trees.
Kermit had applied that phrase, or something similar, to his theory about citrus trees in isolation. After an unknown period times—“hundreds of years,” he’d guessed—each seed might produce three, not two, clone sprouts.
The strangest feeling came over me. Kermit might be dead and here I was marveling at something he should have been a part of. I didn’t know the man, had no right to and probably never would beyond what I had imagined. With Sarah, however, I shared a bond. In myriad ways, all daughters are kindred, linked by a parent they worship—imaginary or not.
My sense of sadness faded with the reality of what the girl might have lost. I became furious on her behalf. If Larry had actually died in the explosion, his fate was out of my hands. That left Martinez, if he’d played a role. When I got to the boat, I might finally discover the truth about him. An apology is what I hoped he deserved. If not, I would turn him in to the police.
It was nearly ten a.m. My focus returned to securing the treelets. I dumped some oranges from my pack to make room, and, with great care, used the trowel. I trenched a circle, then lifted them out, their roots systems mingled in a clump of sandy loam about the size of my hands.
To keep the roots covered, I needed something more stable than Ziploc bags. The ancient whelk finally had a use. The roots slipped easily into its columned chamber as if by design. Then I filled the shell with loam; didn’t pack it but instead opened my last bottle of water and soaked it good so t
he roots would settle.
Strange how awareness blurs when focused on a task. Only when I was finishing up did I notice a pile of fist-sized rocks lying inside the tortoise hole. Using the machete like a hook, I fished one out. It was brownish white, as leathery as a turtle egg but much larger. I held the thing in my hand. It was dense with embryonic weight. I turned it . . . then yanked my hand away as if it were a hot coal.
I got to my feet, heart pounding while my senses returned to a normal state of high alert. I had been digging around a python den! Where there were eggs, there would be a mother—a big one, judging from the eggs’ size. Had I not been so spooked, I would have destroyed them all. Maybe. It was a decision I didn’t have the time, or the courage, to make.
I grabbed my pack and backed away. Nearby, three larger juvenile citrus trees were now visible in the foliage. Another detail I hadn’t noticed.
I wished them well, as I had enough to carry and needed to move fast.
Once I found the first blaze mark, getting back to the water didn’t take long. To see my skiff waiting, floating high and secure with its gleaming white deck, was a wonderful image. I climbed aboard. The first thing I did, even before stowing the treelets, was look under the steering wheel at the ignition switch.
The key was there.
I checked under the console. The .45 caliber Beretta was where I’d left it.
The relief I felt was considerable. Out here alone, just the two of us, a man with sinister intentions would have taken both, given the opportunity. That’s why I’d told Martinez to linger before coming ashore. True, I carried a spare key in my pack. It was also true I’d pocketed the Beretta’s magazine, but a Lysol man, a true pro, would have an extra mag somewhere.
Sabin Martinez, it appeared, was who he claimed to be.
I plopped down for a moment to rest. A breeze off the water was icy, but the deck, gleaming white, was already hot to the touch.
A flat rock in the sun.
The phrase came back to me, a comment Sabin had made to illustrate the improbability of reptiles stirring on an island cloaked in shade.
I stowed the oranges and my treasured treelets, then grabbed the shovel.
Sabin wouldn’t need it to dig white stopper trees, but it might provide a segue to an explanation.
What would I say?
I hiked back through the mangroves, up the mound, and was still mulling it over when the man I owed an “apology” to stepped out, shotgun raised, his eyes framing me over the barrel. “I might not know anything about orange trees,” he said, “but guess who does?”
Larry Luckheim, in tattered clothes, and his face charred, stood beside him.
TWENTY-SIX
I said to the man with the Hemingway beard, “You better think twice before using that gun. Larry has reason to bend it over your head once it’s empty. Don’t you, Larry?”
It was tough to speak pleasantly to the former bass pro or even look at his face, but I did. “Sorry about your skiff; I know you were fond of that cat hull. What happened is, he shorted your voltage regulator and poked a hole in the fuel line.”
Larry looked at his boss, Raymond Caldwell—for that’s who the man had to be. “She’d better be lying.”
“Have a look in her bag, then search her.”
“Say it—tell me she’s lying. Getting blowed out of my boat was enough without being hacked by a machete. How well you know this girl?”
“Use your head. How else would she know what caused the explosion? She’s still pissed about what we did to her boyfriend.”
I understood what that meant, but Larry wasn’t so sure. “What’s-his-name, the guy the bull tromped last night?” When it was confirmed, he turned to me. “You’re quite the sassy package, but, yeah, them cat hulls are a good ride. I’m gonna miss that boat more than I hate calling insurance agents. You ever”—he slapped a mosquito—“you ever have an engine blow when you were hard aground? When you land, there’s not as much water as you’d hoped. I’ll kill the joker who did it.”
The bass pro sounded crazed but was in much better shape than he looked. The left side of his face had been scorched black and half of his mustache with it . . . or was it mostly oil and soot? I didn’t want to get close enough to find out. Aside from a blistered left hand, he’d been strong enough to hike through a quarter mile of mangroves. That much was certain.
Larry whispered something to Caldwell, who nodded; said something else, then offered his boss a bawdy smile. “Seriously? Screwing that little dweeb? So that’s what this is about.” Again, he focused on me, having fun with the subject. “Kermit didn’t seem much of a man, staked-out, waiting for that bull to charge. Bet there was times you had him begging for mercy, too. But wasn’t he a married man? That’s what he claimed; he was married and had a kid who—”
“Shut up! Search her pack,” Caldwell told him.
“Not ’til she admits who she paid to futz with my engines.”
I couldn’t form words, my jaw was so tight, yet I heard myself say, “Wish I had done it, you bastard. You might not be so lucky if you keep talking like that.”
“A wildcat,” Larry said, and grinned. “I planned on the two of us taking a spin. You know . . . get us some naked time out there where”—he slapped another mosquito. “These goddamn bugs . . . shit. They’ll take some fun out of my dance card, but what the hell? I aim to get my money’s worth.”
He came toward me; Caldwell followed. I steadied my shoulder pack and moved to maintain distance, the machete in my left hand. The shovel was on the ground somewhere. No idea where. It seemed a long minute or two since I’d dropped it.
We’d been going back and forth for a while. This was after they’d surprised me, and after Caldwell, with sly insinuations, had also made his carnal intentions clear.
“If you don’t cooperate,” he’d said, “and try to relax a little, none of us will enjoy what happens next.”
Meaning he would shoot me.
Caldwell was determined to leave with a couple of citrus trees, too—another reason to tolerate my defiant attitude, which, under the circumstances, the ex–football star found puzzling. Instead of running, I’d stood my ground, backing a bit, or sliding away, when they tried to get too close or slip behind me.
Finally, the man with the Hemingway beard inquired, “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours? I bet I know . . . You took my Beretta off the boat, didn’t you? Now you’re hoping this shotgun misfires, or maybe that you’ll surprise me somehow, get the gun out of your backpack, before I shoot. My dear Captain, that’s not much to hang your star on. You don’t seem to understand who you’re dealing with.”
“Beretta?” Larry asked. His silly grin vanished, and he retreated as if to use Caldwell as a partial screen. “Dude, for what you’re paying me, all you had to do was ask. Or do some reading. If this woman’s got a gun, she’ll use it. She’s freakin’ nuts.”
“What is the final tally, Raymond?” I asked, and for the first time stepped toward him. “I bet you got a pretty good laugh by asking me how many women you’ve assaulted. Know what the answer is to that? None—starting today.”
“See!” Larry said. “Stop screwing around and shoot her in the foot, or something, to put her down.”
Caldwell’s attitude: calm; amused by my temper; this mouthy female hick too pissed off to be afraid. In a way, he was right. Since thinking about Sarah, I’d been getting madder and madder. Anger was elevated to fury when he said to Larry, “She’s a fool. The Beretta won’t fire. I took out the slide spring before I came ashore. Here, watch.”
He looked at me. “Go ahead, open your pack and get my gun out. See what happens. When you’re convinced, drop the machete and humor us by explaining why you’ve been kneeling in dirt.” His eyes moved to the knees of my pants. “A woman so damn anxious to get to her boat, that tells me you found an orange tree.
Where is it?”
I removed my right glove, stuffed it into my back pocket, then placed the shoulder pack at my feet. “The tree’s too big for one person to carry. That’s why I got the shovel and came to find you.”
Caldwell laughed at this obvious lie. “Came to find the idiot who doesn’t know what an orange tree looks like, huh? Okay, I’ll let that pass—as long as we leave here with at least two or three healthy ones. Afterward, when we’re in the boat, out in open water”—he glanced at Larry to communicate his true meaning—“we’ll stop and have a little something to munch on. I’m hungry. How about you?”
“Make her open that goddamn pack,” the bass pro said, “to be sure she’s not carrying. I’ve watched her grab treble hooks out of the air, and the bitch didn’t even flinch.”
Caldwell angled the shotgun toward my ankles and got ready. “Dump the bag on the ground, please—if nothing else just to shut him up. Move. I mean it, I’ll blow your foot off just like he suggested.”
I’d had enough. I kicked my pack toward them and followed it. “Is that how it’s playing out in your head, Raymond? Shoot me before you’ve had the fun of scaring me so bad, I’ll do any damn thing you tell me?” I reached back for the glove but changed my mind. “What about you, Buddy Luck? My guess is, you’ve been down this road yourself. Ever strip the pants off a girl whose foot has been shot off? She wouldn’t be much of a dancer.” I kicked my pack again. “Know what I’d like to see just once? Someone with the grit to make cowards like you strip their clothes off first.” We were separated by ficus streamers and ten yards of rot. I stepped over the bag and walked toward them, my hands at my sides.
The bass pro gulped. Caldwell stared. Neither knew what to make of this, but then Larry decided, “Maybe we should talk this over before she gets the wrong idea.”
Caldwell said, “Fuck that,” and told me to stop, not to take another step.
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