Deep Shadow

SIXTEEN

IN FEBRUARY, IN FLORIDA, BECAUSE OF DAYLIGHT savings time, it’s already dark by the time most people get home from work. It was dark now as I listened to something large in the distance, crushing its way through bushes, moving toward the lake. It was an animal of some type, I guessed—maybe the gator Arlis had been hunting. The sound came from the cypress swamp, beyond the cattails at the water’s edge, several hundred yards away.

It had to be big for the sound to carry that far.

I had plenty of other things to worry about, but I was tied, lying immobile on the ground. There was no way to run if I needed to run, so maybe that’s why the noise captured my attention.

Initially, the first thing that flashed into my mind was an image of Tomlinson and Will slogging their way back through the swamp from . . . somewhere. But the rhythms didn’t mesh. Plus, it was an absurd hope. I couldn’t see my watch, but the sun had set, it was now full dark, so I knew that at least two hours had passed since Tomlinson, Will and I had gone into the water. It would have required a miracle for them still to be alive, and I don’t believe in miracles.

A gator? I strained to listen. Maybe . . . but maybe not. I couldn’t be sure of what I was hearing. I’ve spent more time than most people in Florida’s wetlands at night, but the methodical crackle of breaking tree limbs and the strange plodding continuity of movement were unfamiliar.

Arlis would have known. The man was a master bushwhacker, a pro when it came to tracking and hunting, but Arlis was thirty yards away, lying in silence. I had seen him stir only three times—twice to gulp down water, and once to give me a brief, private thumbs-up.

I managed to roll onto my stomach and lift my head off the ground. My hands and feet were numb because I was tied so tight. The strictures caused my pulse to thud in my ears. The auditory senses are easily confused when there is interference from within, so I gave the animal my full attention.

Whatever the thing was, it moved slowly, which implied bulk, and with a grinding familiarity with the area. Then abruptly the thing stopped and produced a new sound—a rhythmic, ratcheting noise, like metal claws scraping on rock.

Strange. What I was hearing wasn’t human, that was for sure. Sane people don’t hike around Florida’s swamps at night. It had to be an animal. The list of possibilities was long, though, so I finally decided yes, it was probably an alligator—and a very, very large one.

In a way, having something new to think about was a relief.

Prior to focusing on the strange noise, I had spent thirty miserable minutes unable to move my arms or legs because King, with Perry’s help, had strapped my hands to the band around my ankles. They’d pulled the wraps so taut that my back was bowed, as I rolled from one shoulder to the other in an attempt to keep blood circulating.

“Hog-tied,” King had termed it, taking obvious pleasure in my pain. He’d also given me a private elbow to the kidneys or my ear whenever I winced or grunted in protest. As a final gesture of contempt, he had tossed a couple of packs of MRE crackers close enough for me to get to—if I was willing to chew open the wrappers with my teeth and eat off the ground.

I was willing. I needed fuel and I knew it.

When the two men left to work on the truck, I had inchwormed closer to the lake, trying to find a more comfortable spot, a place where limestone didn’t jab my bare legs and arms. Such a place didn’t exist, however, so I had willed myself to relax as best I could and then comforted myself by devising violent strategies.

Sooner or later, Perry and King would have to cut me loose. Sooner or later, I would look into King’s eyes. I would remind him of the games he’d played while my best friend and a teenage boy died. Ideally, it would happen after I had dealt with Perry. Perry was the killer. But it was King who controlled Perry’s trigger finger.

After a while, as I lay there, my mind shifted to my laboratory on Sanibel Island and to the little community of Dinkin’s Bay. If I survived, I would have to return and share the news that Tomlinson and Will weren’t coming home. It was among the most painful obligations I’d ever had to consider.

Death is difficult only for the living, and news about Tomlinson would shake the island. It would reverberate up and down the coastline, casting a wide gray wake. The news would, I believed, cause many of our friends to inspect their own frail realities. Even the strongest of them would question the inevitable losses, the pointless tragedies, that we all endure. The saddest of human refrains is also an imminently rational question: What is the point of it all?

Tomlinson was one of those rare people who, by virtue of his own contradictions, made peace with that question even though he was unable to provide a sensible answer. Tomlinson had bridged absurdity and reason. He was a neurotic oddball, brilliantly naïve, a spiritual beacon and a respected teacher, even though he possessed the morals of a rabbit and the sensibilities of a blue-water bum. The man was blissfully independent yet a hopeless addict—addicted less to recreational chemicals than to a relentless hunger for life, and to friends, parties, women, salt water and all things that floated.

Our marina, like all families, has weathered its share of tough times. There had been murder and miscarriages. There had been loves won only to be lost, bullies endured, bullets dodged and too many near tragedies at sea. But life at Dinkin’s Bay without Tomlinson? It was only because of the man’s absurd existence that it made sense for the rest of us to live on an island at a marina in the mangroves.

And Will Chaser? He was sixteen years old—what else was there to say? Allowing Will to join us on this dive was among the most irresponsible things I had ever done. Some mistakes you never stop paying for, and this was one.

As I lay there, watching the sky orbit into darkness, the winter stars emphasized the finality of this day’s events. There is no peace in a night sky, only the indifferent physics of astronomy. Space and motion both refuse definition if there are no reference points, yet our planet does not wobble after the death of one man or after the deaths of ten million.

Inversely, nothing would change if I killed King and Perry. The balance of the universe had not been compromised, so there was nothing to set right. But I would do it. I would kill both men if I got the chance. In the astronomy of human consciousness, all points of reference are subjective. They are the inventions of our own brief orbit. Righteousness does not exist in an atmosphere of pure reason, so it was not a question of justice or morality or revenge. I wanted Perry and King gone from the space I inhabited. I wanted them dead.

It was that simple, and reason enough for me.

It was while sorting through these dark thoughts that I first heard the sound of the creature plodding through the swamp toward the lake. Instantly, my survival instincts took charge. Was it a predator? A meat eater? What I had told Will the night before about the number of escaped exotics in Florida was, in fact, an understatement. Out there in the darkness could be almost any variety of creature from anywhere in the world: reptile, feline, canine or primate.

It is a reality that Floridians don’t take seriously when we are safely behind closed doors in the comfort of our own homes. Even those of us who venture into the backcountry at night don’t give it much thought because we have been conditioned to believe that we sit rightfully atop the food chain.

It’s not true, as I understood better than most.

My legs and hands were tied. There was no escape. Even so, I wasn’t panicky. There were two men nearby whom I feared far more than any foraging animal.

Even so, I was interested.

What the hell was it?

Whatever was coming toward me, the animal had my full attention, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it.

I lay back and closed my eyes—an attempt to spare my night vision—when King switched on one of my good flashlights and called, “That better not be you trying to sneak off, Professor Jock-o!”

The man probed the edge of the lake with the light until he found me, then said, “Good! For a second, I thought you were trying to crawl out of here on your belly—like a snake.” He laughed.

A snake. King was joking, but he had made an atavistic association that I found interesting.

Because King and Perry were closer to the cypress grove than to the lake, I raised my voice to be heard. “You’re not making much progress with that truck. Why don’t you let me help?”

I was even more eager for them to untie me now. It was ridiculous, but at that moment I would have preferred their company to being staked out like a sacrificial lamb.

King switched off the light and said, “When I want something from you, Jock-o, I’ll rattle my zipper.” His phlegmy laughter was as repugnant as his sense of humor.

For the last hour, the two men had been hammering and bickering as they worked at bending out the fender before changing the tire. Because they didn’t want to risk damaging the rim, they hadn’t babied the truck far enough to find solid ground so the jack kept slipping.

Sloppy. It was typical of those two.

It had taken them twice the time it should have to get the tire on, but they obviously weren’t in any rush. Sunrise was their only deadline, so they had ten hours to waste. I was the only person in a hurry, which gave King all the more reason to delay.

Once, when the two men had stopped to share an MRE, their careful whispering told me they were discussing what to do with me after I had returned from my dive, with or without more gold coins.

There was no mystery about their decision. Arlis and I were liabilities. Even if I returned with what they wanted, they would kill us. They’d probably try to sink our bodies in the lake or drag us into the swamp.

No . . . they wouldn’t risk venturing into the swamp now. Not after what we were now hearing.

I knew it for certain when their bickering stopped long enough for Perry to say, “What the hell is that thing? It sounds like”—he had to think it through—“sounds like the sort of hissing a subway train makes when it stops. Like steam brakes—you know?” He paused for several seconds. “Hear it? Christ Aw-mighty!”

The creature was making yet another unfamiliar noise. It was a distant Hawwwing hiss that echoed through the trees. It reminded me of a kid with a microphone trying to imitate a crowd’s roar in a baseball stadium. The call was brief, and then the thing began to move again.

“Hey, you . . . Ford. What do you think that is?”

I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to give King yet another excuse not to swim out in the inner tube when I went back into the lake.

I said, “Wild hogs, probably. They’re harmless. They root and snort. They’re common around here.”

“Like wild boars, you mean?” Perry asked. He didn’t believe the “harmless” part.

“No,” I said. “I’m talking about farm pigs that escaped and turned wild. They’re not native. And they’re afraid of people. I’m surprised they’ve come this close.”

From the swamp came another rumbling exhalation, then the ratcheting of metallic claws on stone. The animal was getting closer.

Now King was getting spooked, too. The flashlight came on again. It blinded me for a moment, then King began to search the edge of the lake. Water vaporized in gray tendrils, and cattails stood as erect and orderly as scarecrows in a field. I had to roll onto my side to follow the light as he panned along the far shoreline.

“What’s that? See it? The bushes are moving! Right there.” It was Perry’s voice. Maybe he’d taken the light from King. The beam settled on a thicket of wax myrtles and cattails that were backdropped by a lone cypress tree.

Movement in the bushes, along with the noise, stopped instantly as if stilled by the unexpected light. A moment later, I watched an owl the size of a pelican drop from the cypress canopy, its eyes luminous and huge. It made a screeching hiss as it swooped low across the water, then ascended into darkness. The bird was silhouetted briefly by stars, then was gone.

In the fresh silence, I heard King laugh. “You dumb-ass,” he said. “It wasn’t nothing but a big bird. Jesus Christ, Perry, you’d be scared of your own shadow.” He was still laughing, but it was the laughter of nervous relief.

Perry said, “Shut up and tighten them nuts. Let’s see if this old wreck will move.”

I was still looking at the sky, my brain working. An owl wasn’t the source of the distant crashing we’d heard in the swamp. If the two cons believed it, good. But I knew better.

A few minutes later, I listened to a door slam. The truck’s engine started. Lights came on, and the vehicle began to move. Once again, though, King or Perry had made a sloppy decision. I heard the tires hit a marshy area and then I heard them begin to spin. Whoever was driving shifted into reverse, spun the tires faster, then shifted into first gear and accelerated, as if attempting to escape a snowdrift. Back and forth the truck rocked as the tires dug themselves in deeper.

“Stop, you idiot! Stop or you’ll bury her up to the rims!” It was King’s voice, so I knew that Perry was at the wheel.

I heard the door open. There was a long pause of inspection before Perry’s voice whined, “Son of a bitch, why does shit like this always have to happen to me? How bad is it?”

King snapped, “Worse than it would’ve been if you’d taken your damn foot off the gas when I told you. You’re an idiot, you know that?”

As the men argued, my thoughts turned to Arlis. He wasn’t unconscious and he certainly wasn’t asleep. I knew that they had bound his hands and legs again, but they had tied his hands in front of him this time so he could drink when he needed water.

I had hidden the wire cutters and a flashlight under the blanket. If King and Perry left him alone long enough, he could clip the tie wraps and run for it. Or he could even take the truck if Perry was dumb enough to leave the keys in the ignition. It didn’t matter if the truck was stuck. Not with Arlis at the wheel. King and Perry didn’t realize the vehicle had four-wheel drive or the tires wouldn’t be spinning now.

I thought about that for a moment. I wanted Arlis out of harm’s way, but I couldn’t risk him taking the truck. Not now. Without the truck, King and Perry’s plan to drive to freedom with a load of gold would collapse. They would kill me where I lay, then leave on foot.

I raised my voice and said, “Cut me loose and I’ll show you what the problem is.”

“The problem with what, Jock-o? You keep your mouth buttoned until I tell you to speak.”

I said, “The truck has four-wheel drive. You’ve got to shift into low and lock the hubs. It’s not that hard, but you’ve got to know how to do it.”

Perry said, “Shit, that’s right. It’s got four-wheel drive, it says it right on the side.”

King didn’t sound convincing when he told Perry, “I knew that! That’s what I was trying to tell you, numbnuts. If you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the first place. Use the four-wheel drive, she’ll climb right out of there.”

I started to tell Perry that King was lying as usual but stopped in midsentence because I heard yet another unexpected sound.

This time, though, it wasn’t an animal.

The sound came from the far, far distance, in the direction of the swamp, but it was more muffled, barely audible. It was a shrill, two-fingered whistle, a series of piercing notes that were absorbed by the dense tree canopy.

The notes had a familiar rhythm. Or was I imagining it?

I had been facing the truck and so I rolled onto my other side. I moved my head, ears searching, hoping to hear the whistle once again. As I lay there, I sorted through alternative explanations. Screech owls are common in Florida swamps, but what I’d heard was not the mellow trill of the eastern screech owl. No, someone was out there—a person, definitely a person this time. I’d never learned to whistle through my fingers, but I knew a lot of people who could—Tomlinson among them.

Was it possible that Tomlinson was signaling me from the swamp? It made no sense. If he and Will had somehow escaped from the lake, they would have hiked back to the truck. Unless . . . unless . . .

I came up with only two explanations: If it was Tomlinson, he was either injured and unable to move or he was trapped somewhere beneath the ground.

It was a startling possibility. If he and boy were somewhere beneath the surface, even a shrill whistle would be almost inaudible. Water conducts sound more efficiently than air, but that didn’t apply if Will and Tomlinson were beneath ten or fifteen feet of sand and limestone.

Suddenly, the impossible seemed plausible . . . even reasonable. I had read of at least one account of a similar incident. A female cave diver had survived underwater for several hours, only occasionally screaming for help, because she didn’t want to deplete the few inches of air she’d found at the top of the cave where she was trapped.

I continued to listen, hoping for confirmation. The wind had shifted. It was freshening now, a chill breeze from the northeast. The wind seemed to brighten the stars as it moved across the lake and through the cypress canopy. After several minutes of silence, the wind carried once again a distinctive staccato series of notes.

Shave-and-a-haircut . . . two bits.

I didn’t imagine it. As faint as the call was—and it was very faint—I was now sure. It was Tomlinson calling for help.

Struck numb, I listened to Perry say something to King and then I heard the truck start. There was a brief grinding of gears. Lights came on, illuminating the lake.

As the truck began to creep toward me, carrying the extra scuba gear I would need, I rolled onto my back.

I was thinking, My God, they’re still alive.