by Carl Hiaasen
"Millie, she's not a parrot!"
Mrs. Winship said, "Just think about it, please."
* * *
In all the media accounts of the panther episode there was no mention of Twilly Spree, which is how he wanted it. Mrs. Starch and the kids had agreed to leave him out of the story, although his role was not small.
After driving Mrs. Starch to the hospital (and leaving Duane Scrod Jr. to stay with her), Twilly had rushed back to get the two other kids. Sprinting through the Black Vine Swamp, he'd encountered first Horace and then Drake McBride, only one of whom would fit in the helicopter along with Nick and Marta. The dog was the obvious choice.
By the time Twilly reached Nick and Marta, the fog had burned away and the woods were bathed in soft sunlight. The boy's right arm was badly broken and he'd passed out from the pain. The girl hovered beside him protectively, the rifle poised and ready. Twilly had no reason to tell her that he'd removed all the bullets before he left.
Using a crude splint made from a branch, he had stabilized Nick's injured arm. Then, with Marta's help, he'd hoisted the boy on his shoulders and carefully made his way toward the clearing where the chopper would land.
It was there Twilly had spotted the panther trotting a hundred yards ahead of them, carrying her cub toward a thicket of palmettos. Before vanishing, the cat had looked back just once. "Keep on moving, momma," Twilly had urged, under his breath.
After the helicopter had landed, Twilly had strapped Nick inside and told Marta to keep an eye on him. He had no intention of riding back to Naples with them-the authorities would have more questions than he cared to answer. His pilot had been briefed on what to say: that he'd been flying from Miami to Fort Myers when he'd spotted the two kids lost in the Glades.
As for Horace the bloodhound, Twilly had instructed Marta to give him to Duane Scrod Jr., who was already at the hospital with Bunny Starch. Since dogs weren't allowed in the emergency room, Twilly had told Marta to tie Horace to the nearest tree and give him some water.
After the chopper had buzzed away, Twilly had returned to camp and quickly packed his gear. He knew the swamp would be bustling in the coming days-news reporters, wildlife officers, and of course the work crews removing Red Diamond's outlaw drilling equipment.
So Twilly Spree had trekked south through the Big Cypress, crossing Alligator Alley in the black of night and, a few days later, the Tamiami Trail. Zigzagging to avoid several small wildfires, Twilly had plenty of time to think about Drake McBride, whose fate he'd left to chance.
There was a time when Twilly would have dealt more harshly with such a brainless greedhead, inflicting some sort of poetic public humiliation. Instead, he'd just walked away and left the man hollering in the wilderness, unharmed and unshamed. Twilly wondered whether he was going soft, or wising up.
He also found himself thinking fondly of Duane Jr.,
Marta, and Nick, who'd risked their necks for that little panther cub. The kids were tough and brave and determined to do the right thing, qualities that were often lacking among the grown-ups Twilly knew.
Aunt Bunny Starch was right, he'd mused. Hope springs eternal.
Eventually he hooked up with the Turner River and followed it all the way to the mouth of Chokoloskee Bay, where a small blue canoe had been stashed for him in the mangroves.
Twilly stocked up on food and water at Everglades City, and he also stopped at the post office to mail something to Nick. Then he loaded the canoe and began paddling through the Ten Thousand Islands with no particular destination. It was an easy place to get lost, which was precisely what he had in mind.
Three weeks after returning from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Nick's father announced they were going fishing.
They rode to Chokoloskee through heavy fog, which reminded Nick of the day he'd come face to face with the mother panther. The fog made him think about Twilly, too; the man had dropped completely out of sight. A few days earlier, a plain brown package addressed to Nick had arrived by mail. Inside the package was a book: Hayduke Lives!, by Edward Abbey. An unsigned note said, "From your favorite monkey wrencher. We'll meet again." Nick thought it was one of the coolest presents he'd ever received.
The fishing guide, tanned and bearded, was waiting for the Waters family at the marina. The fog was dissolving, and revealed a clear and cloudless morning. Nick and his parents got into the boat and smeared sunblock on their faces.
The guide headed straight for Chatham Bend, zipping across miles of glassy shallows strewn with tree snags and stumps. He said the tide was perfect for snook and redfish.
When they got there, Capt. Gregory Waters moved to the bow, uneasily contemplating his fly rod.
Nick said, "Go for it, Lefty."
Most fly rods are designed to be held and cast with one hand, while the other hand is used to strip in the line. That's what makes the fly scoot like a minnow through the water, and attracts big fish.
Surgeons at Walter Reed had fitted Nick's father with an artificial right arm equipped with an actual bionic hand. The hand, called an i-LIMB, contained a computer chip that transmitted impulses from the nerves in Greg Waters' damaged shoulder. Amazingly, all five fingers of the bionic hand were able to move, almost as nimbly as real ones.
Nick's father had been practicing left-handed casts every afternoon at a pond near the Truman soccer field. He could now shoot a fly seventy feet through the air, true as a bullet.
Stripping back the slick plastic line is what gave him fits. The artificial hand was protected by a special glove made of silicone, which got slippery. In addition, the mechanical fingers weren't quite coordinated enough to keep a firm grip.
"This could get ugly," Nick's father muttered after a few exasperating tries on the skiff.
"Oh, be quiet and catch us a fish," Nick's mother said.
Nick didn't care if they caught anything or not. He was perfectly happy watching his father sweep the slender rod back and forth, the line carving graceful loops in the pale sky. The snook fly, a white sparkled streamer, would settle so lightly in the water that it scarcely caused a ripple.
Nick's father had several hard strikes, but he couldn't set the hook in time; the reflexes of his artificial hand were too slow. Still, it was much better than having no hand at all.
There would be frustrating times, Nick knew, but in the end his dad was going to be fine. Only the day before, they'd staged a backyard pitching contest. Nick's mom, who'd borrowed a radar gun from a friend on the Naples police force, clocked one of Greg Waters' fastballs at eighty-one miles an hour-not too shabby for a rookie southpaw. Nick's fastest lefty pitch was only fifty-nine, and he'd almost beaned a neighbor's Siamese cat.
"Your turn, Nicky. I need a coffee break." His father stepped off the bow and passed him the fly rod.
Nick tried over and over to make a decent cast, but his timing was all messed up. The bulky plaster mold on his right arm didn't help; the clockwork motion of stripping the line was virtually impossible if you couldn't bend your elbow. More often than not, Nick wound up thrashing in a comic tangle of knots, and after twenty minutes he good-naturedly surrendered the fly rod. Throwing a baseball, he declared, was a thousand times easier.
Naturally, his mother caught the first and only fish of the morning. It was a husky ten-pound snook that jumped half a dozen times before the guide netted it.
Said Nick's dad: "We'll never hear the end of this."
By noon a westerly wind had kicked up, so the guide moved the boat to Pavilion Key, staking out on the leeward side. For lunch Nick's mom had fixed smoked turkey sandwiches and an avocado salad, which Capt. Gregory Waters pronounced the best meal he'd ever eaten. When Nick asked what sort of food he got on combat duty, he laughed and said, "It didn't matter. Everything tasted like sand."
The island was spangled with birds-herons, egrets, cormorants, terns, gulls, and even a cluster of white pelicans. The fishing guide said that only a week earlier, he'd seen a big bobcat swimming across the shallows.<
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Intently Nick scanned the shoreline. "Are there any panthers out here?"
The guide shook his head. "They mostly stay up in the Big Cypress and the Fakahatchee."
"You ever seen one?" Nick's father asked.
"No, sir, and I was born and raised here. Never laid eyes on one in fifty-four years."
"Nick has," said his mother. "A mother and her kitten."
The guide was impressed. "There ain't hardly any of 'em left to see," he said.
"It was on the news," Nick's mother said proudly. Once she'd learned what he'd done that day, high in the dead pine, she had immediately forgiven him for skipping school.
"I'm 'fraid I don't watch much TV," the guide remarked.
Nick's dad chuckled. "You're not missing a darn thing."
"Can I ask what happened to your arm?"
"I was in Iraq," Capt. Gregory Waters said simply.
"My oldest, he's over there now. I wish he wasn't." The guide took a bite of his sandwich and looked at Nick. "What about you?"
"I fell out of a tree. No big deal."
"I'll bet it was."
"You're right," said Nick's mother. "It was a very big deal."
Another skiff came speeding past, closer to the island. The seabirds exploded from the shore, filling the air like a starburst. Nick spotted something blue way up on the beach, and the guide said it appeared to be a small canoe.
Then he said lunch was over and it was time to go fishing again. He said the two lefties had better get with the program.
CARL HIAASEN has been writing about Florida since his father gave him a typewriter at age six. Then it was hunt-and-peck stories about neighborhood kickball and softball games, given away to his friends. Now Hiaasen writes a column for the Miami Herald and is the author of many bestselling novels for adults, including Sick Puppy and Nature Girl.
Hoot, Hiaasen's first novel for young readers, was the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Newbery Honor. And Flush, his second book for kids, spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list.
You can read more about Carl Hiaasen's work at www.carlhiaasen. com.