Trapped (44 page)

complex, vastly enriching the tribe.

“Man was always smart, had big ideas to help his people,

but he had to be the top dog, no matter what. Got away with it,

too, until his crazy temper ended up killing his own children,”

Fish tells us. “Tribal council finally decided they didn’t have

enough to prosecute—or more likely didn’t have the stomach

for it—so they deprived him of his office, took back his land,

and banished him. Which, the way they think of it, is worse than

the death penalty. From what I heard, Ricky thinks so, too.”

The news that my daughter’s kidnapper was responsible

for the deaths of his own small children hits me like a body

blow. It explains his delusional beliefs—communing with

dead children—and his spiral into ever-increasing violence,

but it surely does not bode well for Kelly’s survival. The man

gets away with arson and manslaughter at the very least, and

is then haunted into a killing madness. A psychiatrist might

theorize that Ricky Lang wanted to punish Edwin Manning

for the way he doted upon his own son. Or maybe he really

did believe that Manning could force the tribe to take him

back. Whatever his motives, however twisted by grief and

guilt, it’s obvious that in Ricky Lang’s world a stranger’s

child doesn’t count for much.

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Never give up, Shane says. I’m trying to hold on to that

as we rocket through the swampy wilderness, bumping and

banging as Leo Fish punches the airboat over slick shallows,

mere puddles, gunning the five-hundred-horsepower engine

until it screams. The engine and the raging propellers are con-

tained in a wire cage directly behind the raised seat where

Fish sits like a mad king clinging to a throne, both hands on

the rudder stick.

Shane in the seat beside him, grinning into the wind, no

doubt with bugs in his teeth. Bringing up the rear, the small

square boat Fish is towing. It flails around in the black wake,

twitching and jumping like a thing alive.

The wild run seems like it lasts forever—fear slows the

clock—but when Fish finally kills the engine and glides up

on a piece of dry grassland, forty minutes have passed.

“Not bad,” he announces, hopping down from his throne.

“Covered near twenty hard miles in less than an hour.”

“We’re here?” I ask, stomach in knots and ears ringing.

No idea where “here” might be, barely able to distinguish

land from sky.

Fish looks at me, shakes his head. “We’re still a ways

from where we’re headed, missy. This as far as the airboat

can take us.”

Missy? I’m not sure if that’s a term of endearment or one

of contempt. Not that it matters. Teaching Leo Fish how to

act civilized is not my problem. He could drag me along by

my hair, caveman style, if it leads us to Kelly.

What he’s dragging, however, is not me but the little

square-sided boat.

“What we call a pan,” he informs us, loading rifles, ammo,

a push-pole, and fresh-water jugs into the little boat. “Every

waterman got to have his pan.”

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Fish puts a rope over his shoulder and marches forward,

pulling the boat over the damp grass.

“I could help,” Shane offers.

“Not much, you couldn’t,” Fish says. “You follow along

as best you can.”

Take that, Mr. Big FBI Man. Shane rolls his eyes but does

as instructed, shortening his stride so that he’s pacing me

rather than the reverse. The ground beneath us is damp under

the grass and my running shoes are instantly soaked. Mos-

quitoes seem not the least repelled by the bug spray Fish

provided, although in truth the dive-bomber buzzing in my

ears is even more maddening than the actual bite. The only

thing that keeps me from slapping at them compulsively is a

notion that I’d have to slap myself unconscious to escape.

“You always lived out here?” Shane wants to know as we

trudge along.

“Happened sort of gradual,” Fish says over his shoulder.

“Always hunted and fished, everybody did. For some years

I did some guiding, living off the tin canners.”

“Tin canners?”

“What we call the tourists. All that guidin’ finally decided

me away from town, you might say. Now I’m so used to bein’

outside that I’d rather not be inside.”

He stops, eases his small boat or “pan” into a little creek.

The water so black I’d have easily mistaken it for solid ground.

“Best you come aboard first, missy,” he says, offering a

gnarled hand.

“We can’t all fit in that little thing,” I point out.

Fish laughs, which startles me. Hadn’t thought of him as

the laughing type, but it’s actually quite a good laugh, makes

him sound human. “Missy, I’ve had as many as a dozen

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337

sizeable gators on board. Most every one of them outweighed

you.”

“What about Shane?”

“Him? Oh he’s a bigg’un, but he ain’t no more than three

gators’ worth.”

There are no seats, so I have to sit on the floor or the deck

or whatever they call it, instantly dampening my butt.

Thinking if Kelly and I manage to survive this, I’ll celebrate

by taking a long hot shower. Hours long. We’ll wrap our-

selves in soft robes and lounge about in air-conditioned, bug-

free rooms, eating fancy hors d’oeuvres and watching TV

until our brains dissolve into mush.

Pure fantasy, but it helps me keep going. Helps keep me

from screaming.

Shane clambers aboard, all arms and legs, and is instructed

to crouch in the middle, to keep the boat balanced. My knees

end up against his back. Once Three Gator Shane is in

position, Fish jumps sprightly on board and shoves us away

from hard ground, using his pole.

He remains standing, relaxed and perfectly balanced as he

deftly works the pole, pushing us through the water. Looking

up, a few dim stars illuminate his gaunt face. He’s smiling to

himself, really smiling, and it finally dawns on me that despite

his gruff way of talking, Leo Fish is actually having a good

time. He gets a kick out of leading ignorant strangers through

the world he knows so well. He’s not so much a people hater

as a solitary man, and not without his own brand of dry humor.

“You mentioned alligators,” I say, trying to sound casual

as I cling to the sides of the little boat. “Any around here, by

any chance?”

Fish looks down at me and grins. “There might be one or

two,” he says. “Best keep your hands inside the pan.”

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* * *

isn’t one of them. His job often takes him to one E.R. or

another, and he always has pretty much the same reaction:

amazement that there are so many good people dedicated to

helping those in trouble. Granted they’re getting paid, and

sometimes they’re grumpy or incompetent, but the overall

thrust of the deal is about helping.

Plus he likes nurses. Okay, Roof likes anything in skirts,

but in his opinion, nurses are top of the heap. For instance

there’s a leggy E.R. nurse here in Naples who sets his old

heart to beating double time. Come to raising his blood

pressure, she’s better than push-ups. He’s looking around—

gal by the name of Suzy Queenan—but Suzie Q. isn’t around.

Probably not on duty at this godforsaken hour of the night.

Oh well, maybe next time. Roof gets right down to it, ap-

proaches the desk and asks for the duty police officer by

name. That same duty officer, as he well knows, already

having gone off shift.

“Got a call from Officer Morris Kendall, alerting me to

the presence of a certain person. By that I mean patient.

Young fella from my home town, his ailing momma wants

me to check to see that he’s okay.”

A few moments later he’s ambling along, directed to a cur-

tained area in the far corner of the E.R.

“I’ll be damned if it ain’t Roy Whittle himself,” Roof says,

grinning around the curtain. “What you doin’ in here, Roy?

Gettin’ some shut-eye? Sucking’ up on the free morphine?”

Roy, heavily bandaged about the throat, stares at him with

dull eyes. The detective is joking about morphine, but evi-

dently the young man has been dosed with some sort of pain-

killer, seems to have numbed him out considerable.

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“Can I help you, Officer?” a pretty little Latino LPN

wants to know.

Roof introduces himself, tips his uniform hat. “This young

scamp is my cousin Roy. Second cousin is more like it, but

you know how it is in Glade City. Heck, a man’s lucky if he

ain’t his own grandpa, ain’t that right, Roy?”

The nurse smiles nervously—rural inhabitants having a

certain reputation in the big city of Naples—says to call if

he needs anything, and then hurries away, as if afraid of what

his next friendly joke might be.

Roof approaches the hospital bed, lowering his voice a few

decibels, and generally cutting the crap. “Here’s the thing, Roy.

You show up with a piece of steel wire in your throat, dropped

off by your dopey brother, that attracts my interest. Officer on

duty tells me the wire they pulled outta your throat looks like

it mighta sorta maybe come off a five-gallon bucket. That make

sense to you, getting accidently stabbed by a bucket?”

Roy closes his eyes, doesn’t even bother shaking his head.

Looks to Roof like he’s got way more problems weighing on

him than a throat wound, however painful that might be.

“Thing of it is, folks have been inquiring about you, son.

Official kind of folks. Could you be involved in some way

with Ricky Lang? Was you at that old airstrip when a body

got burned, and an airplane, too? Questions like that. I been

telling ’em you’re a good man, Roy, because I believe that

to be true, more or less. Tonight it’s considerable less. Person

driven to protect himself with a bucket handle, that might be

because alls he’s got is a bucket. That make sense to you? A

bucket like you might provide a person was he to be kept

prisoner, and not have access to a proper toilet. That what

happened, Roy? You went to fetch the man, or maybe it was

the girl, whoever it was managed to stick you with a piece

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of wire? Huh? Because they tell me you’re lucky to be alive.

Missed your carotid artery by a whisker.”

Roof pauses, looks around, carefully places his hand over

Roy Whittle’s right wrist. The boy feels about as weak as a

fresh-drowned kitten.

Roof gives him a little squeeze.

“Figure with your esophagus all swole up you’d have a hard

time screaming,” says Roof, keeping his voice friendly in tone

and barely above a murmur. “Nothing wrong with your hearing

though, is there? My concern ain’t you, because you I can have

arrested anytime. My concern is that brother of yurn who likes

to torture creatures. He run away practically soon’s he dropped

you off. So my question is, where’d he go? Is he off huntin’

the one did this to you? Huh? And where’d that be, exactly?

Best tell me, son. Best tell old Roof everything you know.”

Poor boy wants to scream but he can’t.

13. Say Your Prayers

Never before has Kelly Garner dreaded the sunrise. Not

that she’s usually up that early but still, when it does happen

her heart always stirs with warmth, even if her eyes are bleary

from an all-nighter. Probably because it triggers memories

of childhood confinements at various treatment centers.

There were a few bad nights, nurses and doctors hovering,

when the prospect of witnessing another dawn seemed

unlikely. So she’s keenly aware, despite what her mom may

think, that each new day is a precious gift.

Kelly knows the monster man is close. Hasn’t dared rise up

for a look lately, but her sixteen-year-old ears register every-

thing. The squish of a heavy foot coming up from the damp

grass. The faintest clink of something metallic—a knife or gun?

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341

He’s out there, waiting patiently. Waiting for her to make

a mistake, give herself away. Waiting for the sun to rise,

when it will be easier to find them.

Seth remains feverish, quaking uncontrollably, but he’s not

yet delirious. He understands the consequences of making a

sound, and has kept silent, communicating, as best he can,

by touch. They cling together, not daring to so much as slap

away a mosquito. Kelly wondering if it’s possible to be bitten

to death, to actually be bled dry by mosquitoes. They’re both

so swollen with bite marks that the bugs are having trouble

finding fresh spots.

Kelly takes great care not to put any pressure on Seth’s

swollen arm. There’s a limit to how much pain he can stand

without crying out.

Best thing, she decides, go somewhere far away in her head.

Somewhere that gives her hope, makes her feel strong. For

Kelly that somewhere is in the left-hand seat of Seth’s brand-