Chomp

NINETEEN

Wahoo awoke before sunrise and chased off a family of raccoons that was snooping around the tents, scrounging for food. The low sky promised more rain, so he zipped on the fancy weather jacket given to him by Raven Stark.

Mickey Cray came out of the tent. He looked bleary and haggard.

“How many fingers, Pop?” Wahoo held up two.

“Aw, I’m just fine.”

“No headache?”

“I slept poorly, that’s all.”

Wahoo knew why. His father was worried.

“How long do you think Derek can last out there?”

“Depends,” Mickey said. “If he flipped that airboat, he’s dead already. The prop would chop him into slaw.”

“Say he didn’t crash the boat. Say he just ran the gas tank dry.”

Wahoo’s father thought about it. “Well, the guy’s got plenty of body fat. It’ll take him a while to starve.”

“A week?” Wahoo asked.

“At least. Unless he does somethin’ stupid.”

That’s what everybody on the crew was afraid of, too. Wahoo asked his father if he thought Derek had gone crazy.

“Who could tell the difference?” Mickey said.

Tracking down a spacey TV star was not what he’d been hired to do. In fact, it was his first manhunt. That’s why he’d tossed and turned all night. Although he had no respect for Derek Badger, Mickey was distressed by the thought of the man turning up dead-or not turning up at all.

Tuna emerged from her tent and declared she was ready for coffee and a microwaved burrito. On the walk to Sickler’s shop they stopped at the dock, where the TV crew and the airboat drivers were getting a pre-search pep talk from Raven. Link was there, too, looking glum. Clearly the fate of his airboat was more important to him than the fate of Derek Badger. To Wahoo’s surprise, Mickey was sympathetic.

“That boat’s his whole life,” he said in a low voice. “He probably built the darn thing himself.”

“He tried to run you over, Pop.”

Mickey smiled. “If that’s what he meant to do, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be standin’ here right now.”

Raven was perched on an equipment box, talking at the top of her voice. “Today’s the day, okay? We’re going to find Mr. Badger and bring him back safe and sound! Are we clear?”

There was a polite murmur of agreement, but Wahoo got the sense that nobody in the search party was bubbling with optimism. The weather looked ugly, and a distant quake of thunder caused one of the Miccosukee drivers to whistle unhappily. Anybody who knew the Everglades understood it was a bad place to be in an electrical storm. Tree islands were magnets for lightning bolts, and a metal airboat wasn’t much safer.

“Everybody’s got fresh batteries in their walkie-talkies?” Raven went on. “First-aid kits? Come on, people, look at your checklist.”

Wahoo’s father nudged him and said, “Let’s go grab a snack. Where’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Course she isn’t.”

Wahoo hadn’t noticed Tuna slip away from the group. He peered around until he spotted her about fifty yards away, standing by a chain-link security fence that separated the parking lot from the rest of Sickler’s property. Wahoo called out, but she acted as if she didn’t hear him. Once more he called her name, louder, yet she still didn’t turn around.

His father said, “Meet me at the shop. You want orange juice?”

“Sure.”

“Pulp or no pulp?”

“Doesn’t matter, Pop.”

Wahoo was halfway to Tuna when she wheeled from the fence and started running toward him, running so hard that he knew it wasn’t for fun. As she tore past, clutching her tote bag to her chest, her face was a gray mask of fear.

The souvenir shack was so busy selling junk food and stale protein bars to the search teams that at first Sickler didn’t notice him standing in line.

“It’s me again,” the stranger said.

Sickler leveled a granite stare. “What’s up?”

“Well, my daughter Tuna is what’s up.”

“I spoke to the help. Showed ’em her picture.”

“Yeah?”

“They don’t remember any kid like her askin’ to use the phone.”

Sickler hadn’t run across the girl this morning, but he knew she was on the property somewhere. The last thing he needed was for her old man to see her and then the two of them get into it, scrapping like cats and dogs. Somebody might call the cops.

The man asked, “Can we talk private?”

“Now’s not a good time, sport.”

“Just take a minute. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Sorry.”

The stranger didn’t move from his position in front of the cash register. “I believe you’re lyin’ to me, Slim. I believe my little girl’s round here somewhere.”

Sickler took out the claw hammer. “And I believe you’ve been drinkin’.”

“What makes you say that?”

“ ’Cause you stink of beer. Now git.”

The drunk-smelling man shook his head. “Not till you show me where she’s hidin’.”

“I’ll show you where,” said a voice from behind.

Annoyed, Sickler looked past the drunk and saw the animal wrangler from Derek Badger’s television show.

“In fact, I’ll take you there right now,” the wrangler said to the girl’s father. “We’ll go in my truck.”

“Where’s she at?” the stranger demanded, squinting bloodshot eyes. “Who’re you?”

The wrangler held out his right hand. “Name’s Mickey Cray. What’s yours?”

“Gordon. Jared Gordon,” the man said. His handshake was limp and insincere.

Sickler piped up. “Don’t listen to him, Gordon. He don’t know where your daughter’s at, neither.”

Mickey Cray tilted an eyebrow, hoping Sickler would get the message: Butt out.

“It’s all right,” Mickey assured Tuna’s father. “She’s expecting you.”

Jared Gordon grinned. “How ’bout that?”

Sickler was glad the shop had cleared out. Now it was just the three of them. He was no saint himself, but he didn’t like jerks who beat on their children.

“How’d she get that shiner?” he asked Jared Gordon.

“So you did see her after all!”

“What happened to her eye?”

“I tole you, she’s got the Floyd’s disease. That’s one of the signs-black-and-blue marks on your face.”

“You’re so full of it,” Sickler said.

Mickey cut in: “Come on, Jared. Let’s you and me get in the truck. We got a long drive.”

“Nooooooo thanks.”

“You want to see your daughter, don’t you?”

“I most surely do,” said Tuna’s father, “but I believe you’re lyin’ to me, mister, same as Slim. I believe she’s still here, and I believe the both of you know ’zackly where she’s at.”

That’s when Jared Gordon reached under his grungy Buffalo Bills jersey and whipped out the revolver. “And I do believe you’re gonna lead me to her right this second,” he said, “else somebody’s gonna have a big-time hole in their head.”

It was true that Link’s homemade airboat was the center of his life. It was also true that his life wasn’t very complicated. He lived by himself in a trailer near the tiny town of Copeland on Route 29. His interests were limited to fishing, hunting and tuning his boat’s engine, an old 454 with compression issues.

Link’s mind operated in a simple way, uncluttered by curiosity and ambition. He was mostly comfortable in the Everglades and enjoyed being alone, especially after experiencing such a rough childhood. He wasn’t scared of bears, panthers or alligators, although snakes of all sizes made him skittish. Despite his thuggish appearance he was not a vicious person, but he wasn’t afraid to use his fists. When he did, he usually won.

Few books or magazines could be found in Link’s trailer, for he’d always struggled with reading. He watched plenty of television, although not the nature channels, so he had no appreciation for Derek Badger’s fame. Link had accepted the Expedition Survival! job only because it paid two hundred bucks a day and he got to drive his airboat. So far he hadn’t been impressed by what he’d seen, and he had no plans to start watching the program on Thursday nights. He would stick to cage fights on pay-per-view.

The manhunt for Badger wasn’t Link’s first. Usually the lost parties were amateur airboaters or backpacking tourists who were located within a day or two-sunburned, hungry and freckled with crimson bug bites. Link expected the searchers to find Badger in the same condition, miserable but unharmed. He couldn’t recall the last time anybody had got eaten by a gator or died from a cottonmouth bite.

Of more concern was the fate of his precious airboat, which he’d put together by hand from a kit. He was the only one who’d ever driven the craft, until now. With a guy like Derek at the helm, anything could happen. Fearing that his creation might end up as a crumpled heap of aluminum, Link was a highly motivated searcher.

As the teams gathered at Sickler’s dock to receive their final instructions from Raven Stark, Link fidgeted and paced. He couldn’t wait to get out on the water. Raven had assigned him to ride with a young Miccosukee driver named Bradley Jumper, who was sitting beneath a nearby banyan tree and feasting on a glazed donut.

“Time to go,” Link said.

“Dude, lemme finish my breakfast.”

It seemed to Link that Bradley Jumper didn’t appreciate what was at stake.

“Now!” Link said.

“Chill.”

This wasn’t the response Link had hoped for. Just as he was about to grab Bradley’s long black ponytail and assist him to the dock, the girl named Tuna ran up.

“Help me,” she gasped.

“Okay,” said Link.

She hopped onto Bradley Jumper’s airboat-a twenty-foot swamp-tour special with an eight-bladed turboprop. Link followed her aboard and quickly started the engine.

“Hey!” Bradley protested, spitting donut crumbs.

But Link was already untying the ropes from the pilings. Tuna was joined in the bow by the wrangler’s son, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Link didn’t ask any questions because he could see that the girl was frightened to the bone. He remembered the feeling.

“Hurry!” she shouted over the rising whine of the engine.

On the edge of the dock stood Raven Stark, hands on her hips. “Where do you three think you’re going?” she said. “The other teams aren’t ready yet! Where’s your radio?”

None of her yapping could be heard by Link, who’d pushed the boat clear and taken his seat in front of the big aviation propeller. As he revved the engine, something stung him sharply below his right shoulder blade. He grunted and turned to glimpse a stranger in a football jersey standing on the bank of the canal. With one arm the man was aiming a stubby black pistol. His other arm was locked around the neck of Cray, the animal wrangler.

Link was both puzzled and alarmed. He hit the gas and the airboat took off. Ten minutes and seven miles later, his brain finally made the unhappy connection between the worsening pain in his back and the stranger with the gun.

Maybe I been shot, he thought.

Everything in his vision-the clouds, the water, the tan waves of saw grass-began to turn fuzzy. The back of his T-shirt felt warm and sticky.

For sure I been shot, he thought.

Before collapsing, he managed to stop the boat. The kids apparently found the first-aid kit and started treating his bullet wound. Floating in and out of consciousness, Link picked up part of their conversation.

“Can’t you stop the bleeding?” the girl was pleading.

“I’m trying,” said the boy. “Did you see the gun? What was it?”

“A. 38 revolver.”

How’d she know that? Link wondered in a fog.

He lifted his head and cracked one eyelid. “You got a fix on who shot me?”

“Yeah,” the girl replied. “My whacked-out dad.”

“Ugh.”

“A new low,” she added, “even for him.”

“Am I gone die?” Link asked.

“No way,” the boy said.

“Good.” Link closed his eye and took a nap.

Wahoo was experienced at first aid. Keeping a backyard full of animals, he and his father frequently got scratched, scraped or chomped. Pain-wise, monkey bites were the worst, with raccoon nips a close second. Such injuries weren’t life-threatening, but they required speedy attention in order to prevent infections, which could be dangerous. From practice Wahoo had learned how to quickly stanch bleeding, clean a wound and apply antibiotics.

Tuna knelt beside him while he worked on Link. He began by using a screwdriver from the boat’s toolbox to cut away Link’s bloody shirt. Then he applied some hydrogen peroxide, followed by a dab of alcohol, which caused Link to groan from the sting.

After tweezing a crumb of broken lead from the pea-sized hole, Wahoo said, “The slug broke into pieces. It might’ve hit a bone.”

Tuna took the jagged fragment and placed it in the palm of her hand. “Unbelievable,” she said. “My father’s officially out of his mind.”

“How the heck did he find you?” Wahoo asked.

“I’m a total idiot, that’s how. The battery in my cell was dead, so I borrowed the phone at the tourist shop. Sickler’s name must have come up on Daddy’s caller ID. Totally my fault-and now look what happened!”

She stared forlornly at Link unconscious on the deck of the airboat, where she and Wahoo had rolled him facedown after he’d tumbled from the driver’s platform.

“This is horrible,” she said.

Wahoo couldn’t disagree. Despite what he’d told Link, he couldn’t be certain that the injury wasn’t fatal. Without X-rays and other hospital tests, there was no way to know how much internal damage the bullet had caused. It was overwhelming to think that Link might die, so Wahoo pushed the thought out of his mind. In that way he was able to remain steady-handed as he painted the gunshot wound with an antibiotic that looked like A1 steak sauce.

Tuna was explaining the frantic scene at Sickler’s place: “When I spotted our dumpy old Winnebago in the parking lot, I almost had a stroke… I couldn’t believe he tracked me down… The only thing to do was run.”

“Why’d you call him in the first place?” Wahoo asked.

“I’ve got this pet hamster.”

“So?”

“He needs to eat, Lance, just like your animals. I phoned Daddy to ask if he would please feed him,” she said, “because he forgets when I’m not around. It’s been four days.”

Wahoo thought: This whole mess broke loose because of a hungry hamster?

“Don’t be mad,” Tuna said.

“I’m not mad. Slightly stressed is all.”

The rain began to fall. Link stirred. His breathing sounded heavy, but at least he was breathing. Wahoo cross-taped a square of medical gauze over the bullet hole, which was no longer bleeding.

“What are we going to do? I can’t go back while Daddy’s there,” Tuna said.

Wahoo didn’t know where they were or how to find help. Most importantly, he didn’t know how to run an airboat-and Link seemed in no shape to give lessons. The boats were fast and tricky to steer. Even experienced drivers flipped over on occasion.

He wondered what was happening back at Sickler’s dock. Wahoo couldn’t picture his father standing around doing nothing while some drunk with a pistol went nuts. It wasn’t Mickey Cray’s style to lay back. When trouble sprang up, he usually got involved in a major way. Wahoo thought of himself as more calm and cautious-but then again, he hadn’t really been tested.

“Was your dad trying to shoot you?” he asked Tuna. The question came out halting and raspy. It didn’t sound like his own voice.

Tuna blinked the raindrops from her eyelashes and thought about the answer. Finally she said, “I think he was aiming for the motor. That’s what I choose to believe.”

Wahoo nodded and took a deep breath. Then the wind shifted and they heard another airboat, coming full speed.