Deadly Welcome

Chapter Ten

The birds woke Doyle in the first gray of dawn. He made a cautious inspection of the cottage and the surrounding area before going in with the blankets. By the time he had washed and shaved, the sun was beginning to cut the morning mist and promise a perfect day. The Gulf had quieted down.

Just as he was pouring a cup of coffee, he heard a racing engine approaching at high speed. He went to the back door. Buddy Larkin skidded to a stop in the pickup and scrambled out and ran heavily toward him, his strong face stamped with panic.

“Come on!” he said. “I’ll tell you on the way. I think he’s got Lucas and Betty too.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

“Mom woke me up about an hour ago,” Buddy said, backing the truck around recklessly. “She was worried because Betty hadn’t come in.”

“I thought you were going...”

“Hell, I did what you said. We all went to bed, about eleven I guess it was. He wouldn’t come right into the house. Mom said when she woke me up that she heard voices down in the kitchen about two o’clock so she put on a robe and went down. Betty was down there, talking to Lucas Pennyweather. Mom said Lucas looked completely pooped. He said he’d done an awful lot of walking. Seems that Lucas was out in the side yard hollering to me. I sleep like I’m dead. Betty is a light sleeper. She heard him and got up.”

They bounced almost clear of the road when they hit the crown of the wooden bridge.

“Lucas said he had come back and gone right to the Mack and run into Arnie Blassit, and Arnie said he was to get hold of me right away. So Lucas walked back to the house and he was calling me. Betty let him into the kitchen. Mom came down in time to hear Lucas telling her he was supposed to see me, but he didn’t know what about. Betty told him it must be some kind of a mistake, that Arnie was probably drunk and got confused. By then it was a little after two. Lucas looked so tired Mom asked him to stay in the spare room. But he said no, he thought he’d be getting back to the Mack and get a ride on down with Arnie to the shack and get settled. He’d left his stuff on our back porch. Betty said he might miss Arnie.

“So nothing to do, but Betty decided she’d best drive the old man back to the Mack, and if Arnie had left, she’d drive him on down to Chaney’s Bayou to the shack. Mom said Lucas looked pretty grateful. So Betty left in the jeep and I didn’t hear a thing, damn it. Mom stayed awake. When Betty wasn’t back quick, she figured she’d had to take the old man down to the shack. Finally she dozed off, and when she woke up again, about an hour ago, she looked out the window and the jeep wasn’t there, and Betty wasn’t in her bed, so she got nervous and woke me up.”

They got out of the truck and hurried to the boat yard office. John Geer was sitting in the office looking unkempt and upset.

“Any luck?”

“He’s flying a party over to Clewiston. They got word there for him to call here soon as he gets in. I couldn’t get Daniels.”

Buddy explained to Alex. “First thing I did was check and found his boat gone. His car is at Garner’s. Got the glasses and got up onto the work-shed roof. Couldn’t see a thing. Phoned the Coast Guard. But they’re running a big air search for an outboard cruiser lost in the Gulf somewhere off Sarasota. I figure a plane search is the answer. Take a look at the chart.”

A big chart was open on Betty’s desk. Just south of the key bridge, the mainland cut sharply back, so that the bay became very wide. The marked channel hugged the bay shore of Ramona Key and Kelly Key. There was a bay area of ten miles long by an average of four miles wide to search, including the shore line of both keys and the mainland shore line. Forty square miles, so densely pocked with islands that a lot of it was like a great saltwater marsh, with winding tidal streams. He saw the oddly shaped indentation of Bucket Bay on the mainland side, eight miles down, opposite Kelly Key.

“Skippy Illman flies charter out of Fort Myers. He’s got a good little twin-engine amphib. He’s a friend, and once he phones in and gets the pitch, it won’t take him long to get on down here. When will he phone in, John?”

“Fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“I got hold of Lawlor and I told him just enough so he ought to come roaring over here with some of his people.”

“Maybe he didn’t take Betty with him.”

“Then where the hell is she if he didn’t? I found the jeep. In the lot behind the Mack. And then I came over to get you.”

“Did you look around that area? Look thoroughly?”

Buddy swallowed with an obvious effort. “See what you mean. Let’s go back. Stick by that phone, John.”

They turned into the alley and parked beside the empty blue jeep. They looked into it. Buddy pointed at an old canvas duffle bag on the floor. “Didn’t see that before. Belongs to Lucas, I guess.”

Doyle heard a screen door bang and he turned and saw Janie, pasty and squinting in the morning sun, wearing a shiny green-satin housecoat with a ripped hem, come out with a bulging brown bag and stare at them curiously as she went over to a row of four lidless garbage cans buzzing with flies and dropped the bag in.

“What’s going on?”

“Did you tend bar last night, Janie?” Buddy asked.

“Just till it got too rough and Harry made me quit. That was maybe nine.”

“Is Harry around? I’d like to see him.”

“I’ll get him.”

They quickly searched the brush around the perimeter of the parking lot. Harry came out in his underwear top, baggy cotton slacks, his belly hanging over his belt, the sun shining on the dark spots on his bald head, picking his teeth with a certain amount of daintiness.

“I looked out and seen your jeep earlier and wondered what the hell,” Harry said.

“Did you see Lucas last night?”

Harry strolled over and stood by the jeep with them. “Hell, yes. The old basser made it all the way back. He talked to Arnie and then he took off after only one drink, and everybody in the place trying to buy him one.”

“I suppose Donnie was in.”

“Sure. He’s always in and out a half dozen times on a Saturday night. Wisht he’d stay to hell away. He puts a gloom on the place. But he’s sure handy when folks get troublesome.”

“Harry, see if you can remember. I know how busy you are. How many times did Donnie come in after Lucas was here?”

“That ain’t hard, because Lucas was here late. Half an hour before closing. Donnie come in one more time about quarter of, and everybody was still talking about old Lucas. I see him come in but I didn’t see him go. He couldn’t have stayed more than a minute. One of the times Donnie was in earlier, Gil Kemmer was in jawing at him and I was sure Donnie would take him out back and work him over but he didn’t pay any attention to Gil. Seemed funny. Gil was sore on account of Donnie clubbing Lee Kemmer up so bad he had to be took off the road gang and put in the hospital over in Davis. The way I figure...”

“Thanks, Harry.”

“Anything I can do, you just let me know.” He walked back toward the screen door. He turned and said, “Say. Janie and me are going to get married, Buddy.” Doyle saw the girl standing behind the screen and heard her giggle. It was a singularly empty sound.

And then, as he turned, something caught his eye. It was a brown smear on the sharp corner of the windshield frame. Adhering to it, and moving slightly in the east wind, was a small swath of hair, perhaps a dozen long glossy strands, ginger and cream, unmistakably hers.

Buddy examined it and then the men exchanged quick glances, as though involved in some kind of special shame, a climate of inner revulsion.

“Let’s get back to the office,” Buddy murmured.

John Geer shook his head dolefully as they walked in. Buddy said, “I’ll take it. You go get that Prowler ready to roll. Take the aluminum dink off the Huckins next to it and just dump it in the cockpit. Put that little three-horse of mine on the dink and make sure it’s gassed up.”

John Geer loped off.

As soon as he was gone Buddy said, “This is just as rough on old John as it is on me. He’d follow her around like a dog if she’d let him.”

The phone rang and he snatched it up. “Yeah? That’s right. Hello! Skippy? We got trouble. I don’t want to take time to explain. Need you for a search. All those bay islands to the south of us here. It’s life and death, boy. Can you get over here fast? Good. I’ll be out in the bay on a Prowler. White with blue trim. It’s got a ship-to-who, and when you get close enough, you call me on the Coast Guard emergency channel and I’ll tell you what to look for. You run that bird flat out, hear?”

He hung up. “It won’t take him long.”

John Geer had followed orders, and he had the twin engines of the fast little cabin cruiser turning over. They went aboard and Buddy took the controls while John Geer cast off the remaining lines. Doyle noticed that Geer had a pistol shoved into the waistband of his jeans. It looked like a twenty-two, possibly a Woodsman. Once they were clear of the docks, Buddy shoved the throttles forward. The boat came to life, the engines roaring in synchronization, the white bow cutting the blue morning water. They headed down the bay about four miles before Buddy throttled down. He sent John to the bow to throw over the small anchor. When it bit firm and the boat swung to rest in the tidal current at the edge of the channel, Buddy cut the motors, leaned below and turned on the ship-to-shore. From time to time, very faintly, they could pick up the routine reports of the search planes off Sarasota.

Doyle looked at the islands. They were unchanged from the days when the Caloosas had built their mounds there. Jungles of mangrove to the water’s edge and, where they were high enough, clumps of cabbage palm, some live oaks on the bigger ones.

Sunday fishing traffic passed them, and people waved casually.

“If you fixed the motor,” Doyle asked, “could he get to where he was going?”

“Running at night it would be cooler. It wouldn’t heat up so fast. He might make four miles. He might make ten. Depends on how fast. And at night he’d run slower. He could get where he’s going, maybe. He might have gone into the islands and then waited for daylight so old Lucas could guide him the rest of the way. It would have time maybe to cool down so it would start again. But even if it didn’t, he had a paddle in there. If he took Betty along, I guess he figured on running. But he won’t get out of there fast with that motor. I wish to God I hadn’t buggered up the motor now. Maybe he would have just left them there. But if he’s stuck...”

“Shut up, please, Buddy,” John Geer said and turned away.

“Slow Goose calling Larkin on the Prowler,” a drawling voice came in, startlingly loud and clear. Buddy jumped for the hand mike.

“Larkin on the Aces Up, come in, Skippy.”

“Slow Goose to the Aces Up, I’m halfway from Davis, boy, and you should spot me soon. Where are you? Over.”

“Aces Up to the Slow Goose, I’m about a mile northeast of Windy Pass anchored beside the channel. Look for a twelve-foot aluminum boat with a bright red motor on it. Check the islands and the shore lines. If it’s pulled up under the trees we may be out of luck, but you might still be able to spot that motor. There can be one person in it or two or three. One is a woman. Betty, if you want to know. And in one hell of a jam, boy. Over.”

“Coast Guard to the Aces Up and the Slow Goose. This is an emergency channel reserved for Coast Guard use. Vacate the emergency channel.”

“Aces Up to the Coast Guard operator. This is an emergency. Repeat. This is an emergency. We’re using a private search plane because you people are busy on something else. This is the only channel we have in common with the search plane. Will continue to use emergency channel, but we’ll keep it as short as we can. Over.”

“Coast Guard operator to the Aces Up. No authority here to grant permission. But no way to stop you. Good luck. Over.”

“There he is!” John Geer called. Doyle saw the small amphib coming at them at low altitude, coming from a point just south of Ramona.

The small aircraft gleamed in the morning sun. He buzzed the boat and climbed high.

“Slow Goose to the Aces Up. I’ll take it high first and if no dice, I’ll make a low square search. I’ll give you the word. Over.”

They stood at the rail and watched the high slow pattern, squinting up against the brightness of the sky. Time passed with a sickening slowness.

“What the hell is he doing?” Buddy snarled. No one answered.

Suddenly the plane tilted and dropped, leaf-lazy in the sun. It swung up again and began a wide slow circle.

“Slow Goose to Aces Up,” the voice drawled. “Got your customer, Buddy boy. He’s in the middle of a little round bay right under me. Trying to start the motor apparently. He’s stopped now. Paddling toward shore. Fella in khaki with a kind of a cowboy hat on him. What now? Over.”

“We’ve got to get to him, Skippy. Fast as we can. Can you tell us how to get in there? Over.”

“Slow Goose to Aces Up. Damn if I can tell you how, boy. I noticed you got a dinghy. If you run south to the channel marker south of the pass and leave the big boat there, you’ll be close as you can get with it. Then you head in between those two bigger islands and turn right and... Damn, boy, it’s a mess down there. Tell you what. Once you get going in the dinghy, I’ll be Lura, the girl guide. When you got a turn to make, I’ll tilt a wing at it, flying right at you or away from you as the case may be. Only way I can see to get you through that mess. And some places you may have to wade. I see deeper water here and there, but I don’t know how the cowboy got in there. Over.”

“Just get us in there, Skippy. Over and out.”

They ran up to the marker. John waited for Buddy to edge the boat into the shallows beyond the channel and then dropped anchor. They dropped the dinghy over the transom and climbed down into it. Three big men badly overcrowded the eight-foot dinghy. John Geer ran the small motor. It started on the first pull, and, at its meager top speed, it made a sound like a small and diligent hornet. Buddy knelt forward. Doyle had the middle seat.

As soon as they went between the two islands Skippy had indicated, they were in flats so shallow that Geer had to tilt the motor until the blade was thrashing half out of water for a few moments until it deepened again. The plane shadow swept over them and they followed the tilt of the wing. The guiding system worked. Doyle quickly lost track of the turns. They were in the narrow tidal channels that cut the low land into islands. Needle fish darted away in alarm. Blue herons stared with a fierce amber eye, then flapped slowly away. Doyle saw a water snake swimming near shore. Several times they had to step out and pull the dinghy across shallows and then start it again. As they walked in the shallows they shuffled their feet to minimize the chance of getting hit by a sting ray.

At last they came into an irregular open bay. Skippy flew directly over a dense shore line of mangrove and dipped the port wing. They couldn’t believe there was an opening there. They were almost on it before they saw it. The water was deep and sleek and green. The channel was narrow. At places the leaves touched overhead and they were in mottled shadow, ducking under limbs.

Doyle thought of the child who had been brought here long ago, sitting in her pink dress in the bow of the skiff, full of a child’s love for secrets and sense of adventure. If this was the right place.

The channel writhed and abruptly opened onto an almost circular bay a hundred yards across. Geer throttled down abruptly. The aircraft had climbed high again.

“There’s the boat,” Buddy said softly, an unnecessary comment. They had all seen it, the gleam of aluminum and the red motor in the shade where it had been drawn up, empty, directly across the bay from the single entrance. With the small motor barely turning over, the dinghy moved very slowly.

“Old shack over there,” John Geer murmured. “See it under the trees. Little to the right of the boat.”

“I see it,” Buddy said. “Cleared off a long time ago but it’s grown up. Good high ground. Cabbage palm.”

Doyle felt dangerously exposed. Above the muted burbling of the small outboard he heard the sliding click as Geer worked a shell into the chamber of the target pistol.

“Where the hell is he?” Geer whispered. “I don’t like this.”

“Move it up a little closer,” Buddy ordered.

They could see the small shack more distinctly. The warped door had fallen out of the frame and there was a sagging shutter on the single window.

“She used to tell how he’d take her to a stone castle full of jewels and she was a princess,” Buddy said.

“Look to the left of the boat,” Doyle said. “About fifteen feet from it.” The figure was in shadows. It was face down over the mangrove roots, and utterly still. There were sun dollars on the faded back of the blue work shirt. The back of the white head was out of water.

Geer whispered, “If he killed old Lucas like that, we better figure on coming in here with more than just one little...”

The three shots were authoritative, heavy-throated, evenly spaced. They had a flat sound in the stillness, and were harsh in that special way that can happen only when you are in line with the muzzle. Merged with the middle shot, Doyle heard the once-heard-never-forgotten sound of a slug smashing into flesh and bone. He plunged over the side of the dinghy into two feet of shallow water, turned and grasped the dinghy as the slow-turning motor threatened to move it away. Buddy had plunged out of the dinghy too, but stayed on his feet. And, with ponderous strength, ran diagonally toward the shore, angling away from the cabin, head down and knees high. There was a shiny red-black stain on the back of Buddy’s right shoulder, spreading as he ran. There was another shot but Buddy kept running. He dived headlong into the mangroves about sixty feet from the shack, and about a hundred feet from the dinghy.

Doyle had turned the dinghy so that it was between him and the shack. He pushed it until he was near the stern, and then pulled down on the near gunwale so as to tip the far side up to give him cover as he reached and turned the motor off. With the dinghy tilted he could see John Geer crumpled in the bottom of it. He could see his face. The slug had entered just above the left eyebrow, hammering a black, round, lethal hole delicately rimmed with a froth of blood.

The aircraft sound grew loud, and the amphib came down so low that Doyle thought for a moment the man was going to attempt a landing in the tiny bay. But it lifted and cleared the trees at the end, and droned away until the sound of it was lost. The bay was still. He heard a sleepy sound of birds, a heat-whine of insects, a crashing in the thick brush where Buddy had disappeared.

“John?” Buddy’s call was loud in the stillness.

“He’s dead,” Doyle called back.

After a long silence Buddy called, with pain and hoarse anger in his voice, “What are you trying to do, Donnie? You crazy bastard! You can’t kill everybody in the world! Where’s Betty?”

There was no answer. “Are you hurt, Alex?”

“No.”

“I think I got it bad. I think he smashed hell out of my right shoulder. I’m beginning to feel kind of funny. There’s a lot of blood. Where do you think he is?”

“Near the shack. But I’m not sure.”

“Maybe he’s working his way toward me. I’ve hunted with him. He can move without a sound. Where’s John?”

“In the dinghy.”

“Where’s his gun?”

“Maybe it’s under him. I’ll see if I can find it.”

“Don’t get careless. Don’t give him a chance at you.”

It was difficult to shift the body. He saw the muzzle under Geer’s left thigh. He tilted the dinghy further and worked the gun out. He opened his mouth to call to Buddy that he had it, and then changed his mind. He waited a few minutes longer. Then he called, “Buddy.”

“Yes?” The reply was alarmingly weak.

“I can’t find it. I guess he dropped it over the side when he was hit.”

“Then you... better... try to get out of here. I... can’t... Things are fading.”

He checked the gun. The safety was off.

“Doyle!” It was Capp’s voice, coming from the vicinity of the shack.

“What do you want, Mister Deputy, sir?”

“I want that little boat, Doyle. You shove it into shore nice, and I’ll leave you healthy. I have to come get it and you’ll be dead as the rest of ’em.”

The final phrase made Doyle’s heart sink. Up until that moment there had been frail hope. Now there was no room within him for anything but an anger so great that for a moment it blurred his vision.

“You haven’t got a damn thing to lose by letting me have it too, Donnie. What guarantee have I got?”

“You took too much time, Doyle. You lost a chance. I’m coming after it.”

He knew what the dinghy meant to Capp. With it he could get to the mainland. With his knowledge of the sloughs and swamps, he had a chance to get away. He heard a slow sloshing sound and knew that Donnie was wading out toward him. He could visualize him, the pale watchful eyes, the revolver ready. And he wouldn’t want to take a chance on holing the dinghy.

Doyle weighed his chances. They were not good. He knew that he could put at least one hole in Capp, but one little twenty-two slug was not going to prevent Capp firing at least once, and from a range that would make a miss unlikely. And the impact of that slug would make the chance of a second hole in Donnie Capp very unlikely.

His only possible chance, he knew, would be to make Capp lose some of his animal caution. And so, as rapidly as he could without exposing himself in any way, Doyle began to scuttle backward in the deepening water, pulling the dinghy with one hand, holding the target pistol in his right.

Capp gave a grunt of surprise and anger, and, as Doyle continued to pull, he heard the thrashing, splashing sound of Capp running through the shallow water to overtake the boat before Doyle could reach the entrance to the bay.

It was difficult to guess by the sounds when Capp would be at the optimum distance. There would be no time to aim. And if he made his move at a moment when Capp’s gun hand was swung forward in the effort of running through the water, one snap shot could end it.

When it seemed that Capp was almost near enough to touch the boat, Doyle got his feet under him, thrust the dinghy violently to one side and came to his feet in water almost to his waist, and saw Capp fifteen feet away plunging toward him. He had no conscious awareness of aiming. He did not hear the snapping of the shots. He merely kept the muzzle centered on Capp’s chest and kept pulling the trigger. Donnie Capp blundered to a stop with a look of wild and vacant surprise on his seamed and sallow face. It was that inimitable look, the look a man uses but once in a lifetime. The look of the ultimate surprise.

Still off balance Capp thrust the heavy revolver forward and fired once. He got his balance and lowered the revolver slowly and fired again, down into the water beside his leg. As Doyle fired, he saw the small black spots appearing by magic in the faded khaki shirt. The gaudy deputy shield clinked and whined away.

Capp sat down in the water slowly, as though with deliberate caution. He stared at Doyle and then, suddenly, the look of surprise faded. And he was staring beyond the unknown stars. He toppled over onto his side, straightened out, made a slow half roll onto his face and sank, very slowly, to the bottom. The pale hat floated, right side up.

Doyle looked down at the gun in his hand. He lowered it. He trudged woodenly to the dinghy, dropped the gun in beside John Geer’s body, and towed the dinghy ashore and beached it beside Capp’s boat. And then he walked along the shore line in the water to the place where Buddy had dived into cover.

Buddy lay on his back, his face wet and gray, his lips blue. Doyle ripped the bloody shirt from the wound. It was blood from shoulder to waist. He took off his own shirt and, ripping long strips and fashioning two pads, he tightly bound the small entrance wound and the great torn hole in the rear. He made the binding tighter by using John Geer’s belt. He felt the huge man’s pulse. It felt frail and uncertain. There was nothing more he could do for him. He did not dare move him.

He went back to where the boats were. He took Lucas’s ankles and dragged him back out of the water. He had seen the crabs hurry away when he pulled the old man out, so he left him face down in the heavy grass.

He turned then, slowly, and took a deep breath and let it out and walked up toward the shack, looking to left and right for the body of the girl.

She lay face down in heavy undergrowth to the left of the shack. He saw the white of her skirt and went over to her. The skirt was rumpled and dirty, and hiked above the brown knees. One foot was bare, a sandal on the other one. She lay, toeing in, one arm under her body. There was a large area behind and above her right ear where the heavy-textured hair was matted with dark dried blood. A red ant crawled across the small of her brown back, where the yellow blouse had hiked up out of the waist of the skirt.

He looked bitterly down at her and knew it was only the greatness of his need that made him think he saw a faint movement, as though she breathed. Suddenly and breathlessly, he dropped to his knees and laid his ear against the back of the yellow blouse. And heard then the slow and vital cadence of her heart, the deep and healthy thudding of the life in her. When he straightened up he was smiling like a fool, and the tears were running down his face.

He rolled her tenderly and carefully onto her back, and smoothed out her skirt and brushed her hair back from her forehead. He tore the pocket out of his trousers and rinsed it in salt water and used that to gently cleanse the grime and bits of twigs from her face. He kissed her unconscious lips.

After what seemed a very long time he heard the aircraft again, moving back and forth, pointing out the channels to someone else. Finally it was close. He could look up and catch glimpses of it through the leaves. It went away then and he heard the sound of motors and the voices of many men. He walked down and watched them come across the bay toward him.