Dead Man's Bluff

by Debbie Burke

  Even in the remotest Montana wilderness at night, stars and moonlight tempered the darkness. Here, inside the windowless cinderblock prison, there was no such relief.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to click the switch off, gripping the flashlight in her hand like a lifeline.

  ***

  “Tawny! Are you all right?” Although far off, Tillman’s deep baritone was unmistakable.

  She sat up, struggling out of sleep, trying to remember where she was. Darkness and humidity smothered her. She patted the bed, trying to orient herself, and touched a plastic tube. The flashlight.

  She clicked it on. The beam illuminated an unfamiliar bedroom. Then she remembered.

  At Smoky’s house. In Florida. During a hurricane.

  Rain still rattled on the roof but the wailing wind had died down.

  “Tawny! Where are you?”

  She clambered off the bed and hurried toward his voice, coming from the kitchen. The back door was pushed slightly ajar but prevented from opening by the makeshift rope lock she’d rigged. “It’s OK, I’m here,” she called. “Give me a minute.” She switched on the lantern Smoky had left on the kitchen counter.

  Through the crack in the door, Tillman snarled, “What the hell is going on? I’ve been yelling for five minutes.”

  She fumbled with the knots, knowing his angry tone masked his fear for her safety.

  “I drove in and saw that tree down,” he said. “Then you didn’t answer. I was about to tear off the plywood with my bare hands and bust a window.”

  She finished unwinding the loops around the knob. At last, she flung the door open.

  A tangle of branches, twigs, and oak leaves from the fallen tree surrounded Tillman. He stepped over the sandbag wall and slammed the door behind him. Tawny threw her arms around his neck, relief coursing through her.

  His clothes were sodden and chilly against her, his hair dripping in her face. He lifted her off her feet. “You OK?”

  “I am now.”

  His mouth found hers for a hot, deep kiss that signaled he was all right, not hurt.

  When he let her go, all her pent-up worry tumbled out. “Oh, Tillman, I was afraid you were dead. The phone didn’t work. The power went off.”

  “Helluva welcome, locking me out.”

  Her fingertips traced the grin she couldn’t see in the dark. She pulled him to the kitchen table and turned on another lantern.

  In the light, he looked weary, black curls plastered to his skull. She unbuttoned his shirt and peeled the soaked fabric away from his skin then ran to the bathroom for towels. He dried his arms and back, unzipped his shorts, and kicked them aside then toed off his deck shoes. She gazed at him, standing in his briefs, toweling his hair, as relief washed over her again. God, he looked wonderful. “I was so scared.”

  He looped the towel around her and pulled her close. “Hate to disappoint you but I didn’t get the generator.”

  “Like that’s all I was worried about.”

  “Where’s Smoky?”

  She leaned away and looked up into his dark eyes. “Some thugs beat him up because of his gambling debts. I chased them off with his shotgun but he might have broken ribs. He’s asleep.” She gestured toward the closed door of his bedroom.

  “Surprised my bellowing didn’t wake him up.” Tillman moved to the door and rapped with his knuckles. “Hey, Smoky, what the hell mess did Tawny have to rescue you from?”

  No answer.

  He thumped harder. “Smoke?” He frowned then turned the knob. Tawny handed him the flashlight. He pointed the beam at the bed.

  Empty.

  Swept it around the room.

  Not there.

  In less than three minutes, they’d searched the entire bungalow but Smoky had vanished.

  “How far could he get,” Tillman asked, “with one leg and no car?”

  Tawny tried the front door. “He must have gone out this way and locked the deadbolt from the outside.”

  They each grabbed lanterns and put on already-wet shoes. Tillman pulled two rain ponchos from the coat rack, handing one to Tawny, and threw the other on over his briefs. Outside, they paused on the porch. He said, “I’ll check around back. You look on the street.” He disappeared into sheets of rain, calling Smoky’s name.

  Tawny swept her light along the sidewalk, darkness as far as she could see. The beam only shone a few yards in the downpour, making raindrops sparkle and reflect back at her. She sloshed through water, moving toward dark lumps in the shadows, worried they might be Smoky, lying on the ground. As she closed in, she recognized a child’s big wheel tricycle on its side and a crumpled wad of heavy roofing paper.

  Flotsam rushed down the street that had now become a river. Several thin, ghost-like arms waved from the swirling water—the broken ribs of a patio umbrella.

  She yelled his name but her voice didn’t project like Tillman’s.

  Smoky was nowhere to be seen. She waded back to the front steps and stood on top of the sandbag wall, sweeping the light back and forth, calling out. Not a soul, human or animal, moved in the desolation. The porch overhang offered no protection from the wind-driven rain.

  After ten minutes of fruitless searching, Tillman slogged from behind the house and shook his head. “Nobody around here for miles.”

  They went inside and took off their ponchos, leaving puddles on the tile floor. Tawny felt sweaty yet chilled at the same time. Despite the rain, the temperature remained uncomfortably warm.

  “Where the hell could he be?” Tillman hung his poncho on the coat rack.

  She followed with her own. “He knocked down a fair amount of rum and coke but he didn’t seem drunk when we went to bed around midnight.” She sucked in a breath. “Do you think those thugs could have come back for him?”

  “How did they get in? After they kicked the crap out of him, I can’t see him welcoming them in for a drink.”

  “Tillman, it doesn’t make any sense.”

  His arm circled her shoulders. “I know. But nothing to do until it gets light. Maybe the rain will let up by morning. We’ll search then.”

  They moved into the bedroom and undressed. Together, they slipped under the sheet, lying on their sides, facing each other.

  “He sounded kind of melancholy tonight,” Tawny murmured as Tillman’s hand slowly slid along her back, over her hip, coming to rest on her bottom in a sensual massage.

  “Melancholy?”

  She wrapped her leg around his. “Full of regrets for screwing up his life. Then he said how much he loved you and he was almost crying.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the Smoky I know.” His lips explored her neck, warm breath tickling her skin.

  “I only just met him but it didn’t sound right to me either. Almost like the reason he wanted you to come to Florida was so he could tell you goodbye.”

  When his tongue flicked her hardening nipple, her concern slipped into the background. She pulled him closer, full of gratitude that he was safe. Together in the dark, they shared the unspoken realization they could have lost each other in the hurricane.

  Chapter 4 – Safe and Well

  The morning dawned sticky and sultry. Occasional tailing bands blew through that dropped drenching rain for several moments, followed by blazing sun that made steam rise from puddles. As Smoky had predicted, Irma lost her punch over land.

  But she had also blown down electricity and cell service. Neither Tawny’s nor Tillman’s phones could capture a signal. His laptop had a full battery but couldn’t connect to the internet for news.

  Outside the bungalow, Tillman used a claw hammer to wrench nails out of the plywood covering the windows. He propped up the damaged carport with a long plank. Removing the broken oak tree would require a chainsaw.

  Tawny cooked breakfast outside on the propane barbecue grill—Tillman’s leftover steak, scrambled eggs, and cowboy coffee, grounds boiled in a saucepan. They sat at the kitchen table, sunlight streaming through open windows. H
e dug into the food with enthusiasm. “Best breakfast ever.”

  Tawny smiled. “That’s because you didn’t get any dinner last night. What was the road trip like?”

  He shoveled in more eggs. “Everything closed, boarded up tight. Cops were funneling traffic to evacuation routes only, not allowing anyone into neighborhoods. I told them I needed to get to this address to rescue my wheelchair-bound, ninety-eight-year-old granny.”

  Tawny shook her head. “Tillman, you’re bad. Leaving poor old granny to fend for herself.”

  He shot her a sardonic smile then sawed into his steak. “State troopers weren’t impressed with my story, wouldn’t let me past. On top of that, it’s raining like hell and the damn car has no roof. Interior’s soaked. Smoky’s going to have a major mold problem with it.” He paused to chew the meat then continued: “I finally sneaked past the cops, turned around, and headed back here. That’s why we don’t have a generator.”

  Tawny ran her hand along his muscular thigh. “Doesn’t matter. I’d rather have you back safe.” Despite sweltering heat, she had clung to him all night, afraid to let him go.

  Heavy silence invaded the kitchen and settled over them.

  She finally asked, “Where could Smoky have gone?” She knew Tillman was already pondering the same question.

  “Nearest shelter is about five miles from here. He couldn’t make it that far on foot. He might have boosted a car but I doubt it. Any rig left behind probably doesn’t run.”

  “Maybe he went to a neighbor’s house.”

  “Most everyone around here evacuated.” He reached for her hand. “Let’s check the shelters in the area if you don’t mind riding in a soggy car.”

  “OK.”

  Tillman pinned her with his intense stare. “I’m not giving up on Smoky.”

  “I know you aren’t.”

  “I’ll find him, dead or alive.”

  Tillman always anticipated the worst but Tawny realized the fatal possibility was all too real in the catastrophe of the hurricane.

  After breakfast, they decided to first search the surrounding neighborhood on foot, moving in opposite directions from Smoky’s house. Tawny wore an oversized pair of Smoky’s heavy rain boots that flopped against her calves and clumped with each awkward step. But they offered better protection than her sneakers from hazards lurking the dirty river that flowed down the street.

  She picked past uprooted vegetation, scattered furniture, shingles, broken glass, and garbage. A twenty-foot-long sailboat lay on its side, the mast dug into the mud, apparently blown in from the beach two miles away. A raggedy couch had run aground, caught by a clump of palm trees.

  Floodwaters lapped the sides of low-lying homes. In the next block, another big oak tree had toppled onto a travel trailer, caving in the roof and tearing the walls into jagged aluminum tongues.

  Humidity made each breath feel like drowning. Tawny slogged through stinking, brackish water and mud to knock at the doors of cinderblock boxes that looked just like Smoky’s. No one responded. Residents had not yet ventured back after evacuation. In the distance, she heard Tillman’s deep, resonant shouts for Smoky. Otherwise, the area was eerily quiet. No bird sounds, no traffic, no human noise.

  She’d checked a three-block radius before she finally found one person at home. A toothless, unshaven man in a wife-beater undershirt cracked open his door, swore at her, and slammed the door.

  Tawny gave up then and headed back.

  A flock of seagulls arrived from the Gulf and wheeled overhead. Their raucous screeches were a welcome distraction from the heavy, dead silence.

  A basketball floated by in a drainage ditch. As she climbed over a submerged tree branch, a red, yellow, and black snake slithered in front of her. She jumped sideways, nearly losing her balance.

  Smoky’s rhyme echoed in her memory: Red touch black, you’re all right, Jack. Red touch yellow, you’re a dead fellow.

  Red touched yellow on this snake.

  She backed away as quickly as she could, struggling not to stumble in the sucking mud that pulled at her boots. The snake disappeared under a tangle of twigs. She hurried toward home.

  More gulls gathered and circled, their cries insistent. They seemed focused on an area in the nature preserve behind Smoky’s house.

  Had the gulls found a dead creature to feed on?

  Tawny picked up her pace, slipping on muddy sidewalks in her urgency.

  Please, not Smoky.

  She met Tillman at the driveway, her steps crunching on leaves from the fallen oak. He also watched the gulls and silently shared her worry. Together, they slopped through Smoky’s back yard to the lake. A soggy trail led into the swamp. They tripped over cypress knees hidden in puddles and swatted vines out of their faces as they drew closer to the racket made by the gulls.

  Perhaps a hundred yards into the jungle, the trail opened into a clearing. On the shoreline of the murky lake, gulls hopped around a swollen form, half-sunken and covered in mud.

  Tawny and Tillman moved toward it. She held her breath, partly because of the smell but mostly from fear of what they’d find.

  Tillman stomped ahead, shouting and waving his arms to chase the scavengers away.

  It was a bloated deer, belly torn open, entrails pulled out. Files buzzed thick around its open eyes and crawled over the exposed intestines.

  “Thank God,” she breathed, leaning into Tillman. “I was afraid it was Smoky.”

  His arm came around her for a quick hug. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They retraced their path to Smoky’s yard, not talking, relieved, yet knowing the carcass could just as easily have been Tillman’s old coach. At the front door, they paused to pull off boots. Rainwater filled a bucket and they washed their muddy arms and legs before going inside.

  In the kitchen, Tawny opened the refrigerator, grabbed a gallon jar of sun tea, and quickly closed the door to retain the dwindling cold. “Want iced tea?”

  “Sure.” Tillman checked his phone. “Damn, still no signal.”

  She went to the chest freezer, opened it, and scooped two glasses full of ice, then realized it was no longer locked. She poked inside, wondering if Smoky had taken a hidden treasure when he disappeared. There was an empty space among packages of frozen food where something might have been removed. She closed the lid and checked the tile floor for telltale signs of anything he had dropped. Except for her own grubby bare footprints, she saw nothing.

  Back in the kitchen, she poured tea and handed Tillman his glass. “Did you notice Smoky acted kind of weird about his freezer?”

  His brow furrowed. “Weird?”

  “He kept it locked. Didn’t want me getting ice last night. Make kind of big deal out of it. But now it’s unlocked.”

  “You’re thinking…?”

  “He stashed something in there for safekeeping. When he left, he took it with him.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. What do you lock up? Drugs, money, weapons. There’s an open space about this big.” She held her hands eighteen inches apart.

  He raised an eyebrow. “The size of a Mach Ten or an Uzi. He’s already violating parole with that Beretta. Might as well go whole hog.”

  She thought back to the previous night. “Those guys who beat him. Do you suppose he had something that belonged to them? Maybe it wasn’t a gambling debt they were after.”

  Tillman pulled on his chin. “That could induce him to get the hell out of Dodge, even in the middle of a hurricane.”

  She gulped tea, grateful for the coolness in her overheated body. “What has your old buddy gotten himself into?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  ***

  After a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sliced oranges, Tawny and Tillman sopped up the worst of the water in the T-bird, parked in the driveway. The leather seats dried off easily but the carpets were soaked. As she wiped puddles from the dashboard, she said, “I’m surprised the electrical panel didn’t
short out.”

  “Still might,” Tillman answered. “Things rust fast in this humidity.” He folded into the driver’s seat. “See if it starts.” The engine coughed and sputtered. After a moment, it smoothed out. “Let’s go check out the shelters. Bring the shotgun.” He jerked his head at the road. “Out there, we might run into people who’d like to take this car off our hands.”

  Tawny retrieved the weapon from their bedroom, wrapping it in a black plastic garbage bag. She locked the house and climbed into the passenger side. The cushion squelched under her weight. She hid the shotgun behind the seat but still handy.

  They backed into the street, tires flinging mud. Tawny turned on the radio and scanned channels until she found an operational news station. Millions of people were without electricity. Shelters were overcrowded. The Anclote River was rising and expected to flood soon.

  Sun beat down on them as they moved through deserted streets. Tillman drove slowly, watching for submerged debris. Tawny turned on the air conditioner to blow across their faces even though, without a top, it couldn’t cool the car.

  She tried to latch onto wi-fi connections with Tillman’s tablet. At last, she found one. He pulled over and parked under a shade tree, giving welcome relief from the searing sun. She handed him the tablet.

  For several minutes, his long fingers flicked over the screen. A half-dozen red arrows dotted the map he’d pulled up. “In Pasco County,” he said, “shelters are in elementary schools.” He gave the tablet back to her. “That one’s the closest. We head there first.”

  She directed him where to turn until they found the school. Parked cars jammed surrounding streets and packed the playground, except for a few open areas where children chased each other, laughing and tossing balls, resilient in the face of disaster. Tawny imagined their parents were inside the building, worrying if they had homes to go back to.