Verses for the Dead

47

As Pendergast steeled himself for the final leap, he heard a noise, a chunk, come from the direction of the boat. Grove’s head snapped forward as if he’d been slapped from behind. His rifle jerked up and went off, the round going wild. Grove’s expression turned to one of pure astonishment. Then he did a pirouette that was almost graceful, his body turning to reveal the handle of a hatchet, blade buried in the back of his skull. He remained still for a moment, then toppled headfirst into the water.

The splash of Grove’s body, and the sudden introduction of fresh blood and brains, generated another frenzied boiling of water. A dozen alligators converged, jaws snapping, tails whipping, seizing the body on all sides and shaking it back and forth.

And now Pendergast saw a battered kayak glide up behind the airboat. A young man was paddling it, lean and muscled, with closely trimmed hair and a grin that seemed permanently stamped on his scarred, crooked face. He wore a T-shirt that said, BECAUSE IT IS BITTER. He raised an arm in a tentative greeting, a very red tongue exposed behind cemetery teeth. “Agent Pendergast? It’s me.”

“Mister Brokenhearts,” Pendergast said.

He watched as the young man, trembling slightly, boarded the idling airboat and brought it through the mass of alligators and over to the stump. Pendergast stepped aboard. The youth spat into the water at the pack of tearing, twisting, snapping alligators. A long filleting knife, its razor-sharp blade blackened, was now in one hand.

“So that’s the man who killed my mother. I should’ve known it was a cop. I’ve been following you, you know, since I saw you on TV—”

“I know,” Pendergast interrupted, taking the helm. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, we have to go.”

“No. No, I can’t leave Archy behind.”

“There’s no time.”

The grip on the knife grew tighter, the knuckles whitening. “But Archy... not with those gators... !”

Pendergast turned and fixed the youth with a look. “By stopping that man, you saved a life. My life. Now you have a chance to save a second. My partner’s on that island. He’s been shot. We need to get to him.”

The youth stared at him, red-rimmed eyes wide. “I don’t care. My mother’s dead. Nothing — none of them — brought her back. ‘Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways.’”

“Don’t take refuge in literature. That’s cowardly, and you’re not a coward. This is the real world — where real people live, hurt, and die.”

“Yes. And violence is the only answer.”

“Has violence worked for you? Have you atoned yet? Do you feel healed?” He lowered his voice. “Trust me, I know about violence.”

Brokenhearts stared, his misshapen face twisted with emotion.

“Did violence bring your mother back — no matter how many times your father tried? And what did violence do to you? Violence is an answer — but it’s the last answer.”

A keening sound of despair came from the man’s lips.

“Feel the pain in others you have caused, through violence. Feel the loss — the terror and sorrow. That’s the beginning of atonement.” He lowered his voice. “I sensed you were shadowing me. At least, I hoped you were. And now we’re face-to-face. The rest is up to you.” He held out his hand. “First, the knife.”

For a moment, the youth was motionless. Then he extended his hand and Pendergast gently took away the knife. Pocketing it, Pendergast turned immediately and pushed the throttle down, the airboat lurching forward with a roar, and he aimed it down the channel toward the landing, running it up onto the mud, then leaping out and crashing through the understory, heading for the sinkhole. Sixty more seconds and he arrived at the yawning pit — and there was Coldmoon at the bottom, weakly holding on to an exposed root, barely conscious and hardly able to keep his head above water. Several agitated water moccasins swam in the bloody, murky water around him.

“Hold on!” Pendergast seized a root and swung into the pit, scrambling down from handhold to handhold as fast as he could. When he reached the bottom he kicked off, ignoring the snakes, and in two strokes reached Coldmoon. Grasping him around the chest, keeping his head above water, he pushed his way back to the side of the sinkhole. When he looked up, he saw Mister Brokenhearts’s face at the edge of the pit, peering down, expressionless.

Grasping a root, Pendergast tightened his hold on Coldmoon and began hauling him up the slick, muddy slope, finding fresh hand- and footholds, every muscle straining. Another step, another haul, another clenched root. At the extreme end of exhaustion, he approached the top.

“Give me a hand,” he gasped.

Mister Brokenhearts stared down, his face distorted with indecision. He looked to one side, and then the other, as if he might run. The airboat was at the dock. It was a perfect opportunity to escape.

“You could run,” Pendergast said as he struggled. “But you won’t — at least, not if you truly do want to atone.”

Brokenhearts reached down and grabbed Coldmoon’s arm with one hand, Pendergast’s with the other, and hauled back, helping drag both up and over the edge. Coldmoon lay on his back among the crushed ferns, unconscious now. Pendergast took his pulse, checked his airway, and gave him a rapid examination. He was shot, possibly snakebitten, suffering respiratory impairment due to water in the lungs. Pendergast rolled him on his side and slapped his back, shaking him hard. Coldmoon coughed, water and blood running out of his mouth. He wheezed loudly; Pendergast guessed a collapsed lung — at the minimum.

“Help me get him to the boat.”

Brokenhearts assisted as Pendergast half dragged, half carried his partner to the airboat. Laying him on the rear seat, he used a life preserver as a pillow and covered him with a boat tarp. Then he grabbed the helm and revved up the engine. “Push us off.”

Brokenhearts pushed the boat away from the mud and hopped back in, finding a spot in the bow, while Pendergast swung the wheel around and headed back toward Paradise Landing at high speed, weaving frantically through the cypresses and saw grass, throwing up a massive wake and doing his best not to tear out the bottom of the craft on submerged mangrove roots.

Arriving at the dock, he leapt off and ran to the Mustang, pulled open the door, grabbed the radio mike, and called in an “agent down” message, giving coordinates. This accomplished, he went back to the boat and bent down over Coldmoon, giving him a more thorough examination. The man was barely alive, with a fast, thready heartbeat, but still breathing. His skin was cold and clammy. The bullet wound was bleeding, but not badly — most of the bleeding would be internal. Better not to disturb him further, but rather leave him in place until the paramedics arrived.

“Can... can I help more?” asked Brokenhearts.

“Yes.” Pendergast reached for Coldmoon’s belt, unclipped a pair of handcuffs, and tossed them over. “Put those on. You’re under arrest.”

The young man fumbled with the cuffs for a moment before figuring out how to lock them around his wrists. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words abruptly beginning to spill out. “I know you understand. You said so on that television show, when you told people I wasn’t a monster. But even you can’t fathom the depth of my sorrow. I mean, what you said back there — about violence, about atonement.” The sudden flow stopped for a moment. “I can’t put my grief into words. I’ve tried, but I can’t. Stephen Crane did, though. I could read you—”

“Later,” Pendergast said quietly. He tucked the tarp more tightly around Coldmoon as the faint sound of an approaching helicopter reached them from beyond the trees.