Nature Girl

Fifteen

She thought she’d heard voices, but what else was new? Rarely was there a silence in her world; no peace, no quiet. Nat King Cole crooned a duet with Marilyn Manson, a sniper tripped a fire alarm at the nursing home, a parakeet landed in a margarita blender…

Just another day inside the head of Honey Santana.

“Some vacation,” said Boyd Shreave, the man who’d phoned during dinner and given his name as Eisenhower and tried to sucker her into buying a tract of overpriced real estate.

The man who’d called her a skank.

“Not what we had in mind,” he added. “Right, Genie?”

“It isn’t much like the Bahamas,” his mistress allowed.

Honey said, “What were you two hoping for? Besides a beach and a tiki bar, I mean. This is raw, untouched wilderness, the very last of it. That’s what people come to see on an ecotour.”

Boyd Shreave chuckled coldly. “Just give us the damn sales pitch and take us back to town.”

“There is no sales pitch,” Honey said.

“Yeah, right.”

Eugenie Fonda stretched her arms. “What’s the name of this island, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” Honey said, “but it’ll do.”

Shreave frowned. “For what?” He stalked up to her and flicked the half-eaten granola bar out of her hand. “Do for what?”

“That was rude,” Honey said. She collected the pieces off the ground and placed them in a garbage tote. “Beyond rude, as a matter of fact.”

Eugenie Fonda told Shreave to quit acting like a jerk.

“No sales pitch, she says?” He kicked at the ashes of the previous campers’ fire. “What the hell’s going on?”

Honey Santana decided it was pointless to wait any longer. She was ready; he was more than ready.

She stood up and said, “There’s no pitch because there’s no such development as Royal Gulf Hammocks, Mr. Eisenhower.”

Shreave’s brow inverted in a simian portrait of vexation. He swayed slightly, working his lower jaw.

Having connected the dots, Eugenie Fonda said, “Shit, Boyd. Shit, shit, shit.”

“Do I know you?” he asked Honey. The words came out as a rattle. “Don’t tell me you’re the same one who called my house.”

“You called me first, Boyd. Peddling some worthless scrub in Gilchrist County, remember? I gave you a short history lesson on Stephen Foster, how he never laid eyes on the Suwannee River. Why don’t you have a seat?”

Shreave spun around. Stammered. Shook his arms. Finally, Eugenie snagged him by the belt and pulled him down beside her.

“Do the voice,” he said to Honey. “If you’re really her, do the phone voice.”

She was well prepared. “Good evening, Mr. Shreave. My name is Pia Frampton and I’m calling with a very special offer-”

Shreave’s chin dropped. “Aw, Jesus.”

“You said it was too ‘creamy-sounding,’ remember? You gave me lots of helpful pointers.”

Eugenie Fonda said, “Incredible.”

Honey recognized the inflection of fatigue; of low expectations, unmet. What am I doing with this loser? Honey had more than once asked herself the same question, before she swore off dating.

“Boy, she got you good,” Eugenie said to Shreave.

“Bullshit. It was a free trip to Florida!”

“Nothing’s free, Boyd. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Yeah, but she sent plane tickets!”

“You got suckered. Get over it.” Eugenie looked over at Honey and said, “Wild guess. There’s a couple of redneck goons waiting to jump out of the bushes and rob us.”

Honey Santana had to laugh.

“Then what’s this all about? Wait, I know-a ransom deal!” Eugenie guessed. “Maybe you found out Boyd’s wife has some bucks.”

Shreave said, “Genie, shut your piehole.”

Honey popped a Tic Tac. Her attention was drawn to the debris of a cottage-peeling lumber, charred beams, broken window frames-that somebody had once called home. A squat bunker-like structure of bare cinder blocks had been erected on one slope of the shell mound, perhaps as a cistern.

Honey noticed a flurry of gulls and pelicans overhead, and she wondered what had flushed them out. They’re probably just going fishing, she thought. It was a fine day.

“Why’d you do this?” Shreave asked in a scraping voice. “The airline tickets and all, Christ, you must be nuts.”

Eugenie Fonda said, “She’s not nuts. Are you, Honey?”

Honey was opening a packet of dried figs. The campsite was dominated by an ancient royal poinciana, and she considered climbing it to get a better fix on their whereabouts. She felt like she was a long way from her son.

A shot rang out, followed by another.

Eugenie jumped. Shreave went wide-eyed and exclaimed, “It is a trap!”

“Sshhh. It’s just poachers,” Honey said, thinking: They must be the ones who built the fire.

Shreave became antic, the gunfire having unstapled his nerves. He launched himself at Honey’s knees and tackled her, pinning a clammy forearm to her throat.

“Get us out of here!” he rasped.

With some difficulty, Eugenie Fonda dragged him off. As Honey picked chipped oyster shells out of her hair, she recalled the time that Perry Skinner had made love to her on the beach at Cape Sable, both of them caked with sand and wet grit. It was in the middle of a wild spring rainstorm, and they were alone except for a bobcat watching from a stand of palmettos. Honey wanted to believe that she’d become pregnant with Fry that afternoon.

“Who shot off that gun?” Shreave demanded.

“I’ve got no idea. That’s the truth,” Honey said.

For several minutes they stayed quiet and listened. There was no more gunfire, and Shreave calmed down.

When Honey began to unpack the pup tents, Eugenie said, “Uh-oh.”

Shreave snickered. “No way we are spending the night out here. I’ll call for help.”

“How?” Eugenie asked. They’d left their cell phones in the rented Explorer because they were afraid of losing them overboard on the kayaks. She said, “We’re campers, Boyd.”

“Like hell we are.”

It took half an hour to set up the tents. After Honey finished, she turned to the Texans and said, “I have one son, the boy you saw in the pictures back at the lodge. I’ve tried to teach him to be a decent, positive person-these days they get so cynical, you know, it breaks your heart. We watch the news together every night because it’s important for young people to be aware of what’s happening, but sometimes, I swear, I want to heave a brick through the television. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

Eugenie said, “Not Boyd. He loves his TV.”

“Except the news,” he cut in. “I don’t ever watch the damn news, not even Fox. By the way, we’re leaving now.”

Eugenie said, “Let her finish, Boyd. Obviously she’s gone to a lot of trouble.”

Honey thanked her, and continued: “I always tell my son, ‘The world is crawling with creeps and greedheads. Don’t you dare grow up to be one of them.’ And what I mean is: Be a responsible and caring person. Is that so hard? To be generous, not greedy. Compassionate, not indifferent. My God, is there a worse sin than indifference?”

Shreave hoisted a water jug and glugged noisily. He wiped his lips on his sleeve and grumbled, “Would you get to the point, if you’ve got one.”

“I do. I do have a point.” Honey paused to sort out the tunes in her head. One was “Yellow Submarine,” which she’d often sung to Fry when he was a baby. Even Perry Skinner, who preferred Merle or Waylon, knew all the words.

She said, “I tend to get overexcited, I admit. Obsessed about certain things, though in a non-clinical way. ‘Hyperfocused,’ my son calls it. The dinner hour is important to me. It’s the only time we really get to talk anymore.”

“You and your boy?” Eugenie said.

“Right. That part of the day is ours, you understand? Fry’s growing up so fast-he’s got track practice and homework and his skateboarding. Plus he sees his ex-father a couple of times a week, which is strictly his choice. Anyhow…where was I?”

“Dinner,” Eugenie prompted gently.

“Yes. Practically every night the phone rings in the middle of dinner and it’s some stranger, hundreds of miles away, trying to sell me something I don’t need, don’t want and can’t afford. The name of your company is Relentless, right? Like they’re proud of how they never let up from pestering people.” Honey felt her arms flapping. She heard her voice rise. “You call up my house, Mr. Boyd Shreave, and do not even have the honor, or spine, to give your true name!”

Shreave snorted. “Strictly SOP.”

“Standard operating procedure,” Eugenie explained. “We don’t ever use our real last names. None of us do.”

Honey Santana was crestfallen. “You work there, too?”

“Next time just hang up the phone. End of story,” Eugenie said. “They won’t call back. The list of numbers we got, it’s a mile long.”

“This is awful.” Honey pressed her knuckles to her temples. “I’m talking about basic old-fashioned civility and respect. The man told me to go screw myself. He called me a dried-up skank.”

Shreave stiffened. “After you insulted my mother.”

“I did no such thing!” Honey discarded the apology she’d rehearsed. Shreave didn’t deserve it. “All I did was ask a simple, very reasonable question: Did your mom raise you to be a professional pest? Did she bleed and suffer through your birth, Boyd, so that you could grow up to be a nag and a sneak? My guess would be no. My guess is that your folks had higher hopes for you. And what about Lily?”

Shreave wobbled, exposed once more.

“The real Mrs. Shreave,” Honey went on. “Tell me she’s happy that this is how your career has peaked. Tell me she’s proud and content to be married to a telephone solicitor.”

Eugenie Fonda broke in. “Okay, sweetie, we’re all on board. Boyd’s real sorry he called and bothered you. He’ll never do it again. Now can you please get us outta here?”

“No, I don’t believe he cares one bit.” Honey scrutinized Shreave for a shadow of remorse. “He definitely does not get the point.”

Shreave confirmed this by saying, “I get it, all right: You’re as crazy as a shithouse rat.”

Eugenie glowered at him. “Very smooth.”

“She fucking kidnapped us!”

Honey said, “I thought you’d enjoy it out here. Be honest-did you ever see any place so amazing?”

Shreave hooted. “Only every week on Survivor.”

“His favorite show,” Eugenie said, whacking a spider on her ankle. “That and Maury Povich.”

Honey was lost. She felt like a sap.

“You can go now,” she said, digging into the stash of Cheerios.

Boyd hopped up and plumped his Indiana Jones hat. Eugenie Fonda said, “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll get lost in five minutes without her.” She turned to Honey. “Come on. You’ve had your fun.”

“Keep heading east and you’ll be fine.”

“We won’t be fine. We definitely will not be fine.”

“Then stay with me.”

Shreave growled, “Fuck that. Let’s go.”

Honey watched them hustle down the path toward the creek. She rested her head on one of the duffels and hoped, against all odds, that they’d find their own way back to Everglades City. She truly didn’t wish to see them again. Her speech had bombed, and now the whole plan seemed depressingly misguided. She hated to give up, but it appeared that Boyd Shreave was a hopeless cause.

The sky had changed color, and Honey felt a cooling shift in the wind. She didn’t mind spending the night alone; poachers typically operated in secret, and the ones with the gun were probably long gone. She’d make a fire and, before sunset, go for a skinny-dip in the creek. In the morning she would return to the mainland and then wait for Fry after school. She planned on finding her way back using Perry Skinner’s GPS, into which she had programmed several waypoints while leading the Texans through the islands.

Far away she heard an airplane, and soon the drone of its engine turned into a light chorus of humming. The tune, though pleasant, was unfamiliar. She tried to hum along but couldn’t nail the key. There was a rustle nearby and Boyd Shreave reappeared, silky strands of spiderwebs trailing from both earlobes. He stomped into the clearing and said, “Okay. Get your ass in gear.”

Honey sat up. Genie emerged from the trees and said, “You win. The joke’s on us.”

“What joke? You said you were going back.”

Shreave said, “Oh, and I guess we’re supposed to swim.”

Honey got a knot in her gut. “The kayaks are gone?”

“Surprise, surprise,” Eugenie said thinly.

Boyd Shreave whipped out a stubby pistol and leveled it at Honey’s heart. “Don’t just sit there all innocent. Tell your pals to bring back our goddamn boats.”

Honey said she didn’t have any pals on the island. “I don’t know who stole the kayaks. Honest to God.”

Eugenie Fonda skeptically eyed the gun in Shreave’s hand. “I don’t know, Boyd. In the daylight it sure looks like a toy.”

He laid it flat in his palm for examination. “It’s not a toy,” he said, with no abundance of confidence.

“Whatever. Put the damn thing away,” Eugenie told him. “She’s tellin’ the truth.”

“Great. Now you’re takin’ sides against me.”

“I know where he got it-from under my bed,” Honey Santana said. “And he’s right, it’s not a toy.”

Shreave smirked at Eugenie. “Told you. Ha!”

Defiantly he shoved the weapon back into his pants, which lit up with a dull crackle. Shreave yowled and pitched backward as if he’d been clipped by a freight train. For what seemed like half a minute he flopped and shuddered on the ground, clutching his groin with curled, bone-white fingers.

Eugenie Fonda watched the spectacle without comment. Honey explained, “Actually it’s not a gun, either. It’s an electric Taser.”

With a sigh Eugenie said, “What a fucking pinhead.”

“I wouldn’t touch him just yet.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”

With the stolen kayaks in tow, Sammy Tigertail relocated to the southeastern leg of the island. He built a new campfire while Gillian amused herself with Dealey.

When she pulled the crumpled socks from his mouth, he asked, “Who are you?”

“Thlocko’s hostage.”

“I guess that makes two of us.”

“No, you’re just temporary. Like a POW,” she said. “He also goes by ‘Tiger Tail.’ That’s a Seminole chief.”

“Don’t I get a chance to explain?”

“Doubtful. He’s hard-core.” Gillian opened one of the Halliburtons and began tinkering with the Nikon.

Dealey said, “Don’t do that.” When he reached for the camera, she swatted his hand.

Sammy Tigertail looked up from the fire and threatened to throw both of them in Pumpkin Bay, which he had misidentified as the nearest open body of water. It was, in fact, Santina Bay, an error of no immediate consequence.

“Ten thousand islands and these assholes had to pick this one,” the Seminole said.

Retreat had fouled his mood. The place was being infested by white people and white spirits. Two rifle shots had failed to scare off the kayakers, forcing Sammy Tigertail to abandon the shell-mound campsite upon which he had hoped to commune with the ancient Calusas. Now the three tourists were settling in, and Sammy Tigertail was stuck with both the college girl and the spirit of the dead white businessman.

“I’m not a goddamn ghost!” Dealey protested, displaying his bloody feet as evidence of mortality.

Gillian snapped a few close-ups and set the Nikon down. The Indian handed his guitar to her and told her to play something soft. She slowly worked into “Mexico,” by James Taylor, which Sammy Tigertail recognized and approved. It would have sounded better on an acoustic but he couldn’t complain. For the first time he noticed that Gillian had a lovely voice, and he feared it would add to her powers over him. Still, he didn’t tell her to stop singing.

When the number was over, Dealey stated that he was thirsty. Gillian told him to join the club. “We’ve been living for days on cactus berries and fried fish. I’d blow Dick Cheney for a Corona,” she said.

“What do you want with me?” Dealey asked the Seminole, who took the Gibson from Gillian and began twanging the B string over and over.

Gillian leaned close to Dealey and whispered, “Thlocko won’t talk to you because he thinks you’re a spirit. He says he’s done hassling with dead white guys.”

“Then tell him to let me go.”

“Go where?” Gillian smiled. “Please. You are so not getting out of here. Hey, who was that jerkoff with the Band-Aids on his hand?”

Dealey said he didn’t know the man. “Some freak named Louis who’s stalking a woman from the trailer park. He clubbed me with that shotgun and made me go with him.”

“That’s rich,” said Gillian, “getting kidnapped twice in the same day. It might be a world record.”

“I’m not makin’ this up. That’s the guy who gave me the black eye!”

Gillian told Dealey that she believed him. Sammy Tigertail instructed her to stop speaking to the death spirit.

“But I think he might be real,” Gillian said, giving Dealey a secret wink.

“That could be bad for him,” said the Seminole, who’d already considered the possibility. Unlike the spirit of Wilson, Dealey hadn’t faded away when Sammy Tigertail opened his eyes. More suspiciously, he’d made himself visible and audible to Gillian, who was plainly not an Indian.

Sammy Tigertail fingered a D chord and began to strum feverishly. He wished he had an amplifier. Gillian pulled out Dealey’s digital Nikon and took some shots of the Seminole playing, which she showed to him in the viewfinder. She said, “Damn, boy, you could be quite the rock star.”

The Seminole liked the way he looked holding the Gibson, though he tried not to appear too pleased. “I don’t want to be a rock star,” he said.

“Sure you don’t,” said Gillian. “All the free poon and dope you can stand, who’d want to live like that?”

“I need quiet. I can’t think.” Sammy Tigertail carefully wiped down the guitar and put it away. Then he unrolled his sleeping bag and ordered Dealey to crawl inside.

“Zip him up. I mean all the way,” Sammy Tigertail told Gillian.

“Even his head?”

“Especially his head.”

Dealey turned pink. “Don’t! I’m claustrophobic!”

“Where are those damn socks?” Sammy Tigertail asked.

“No-not that! I’ll keep quiet, I swear.”

Gillian said, “Come on, Thlocko, can’t you see he’s scared shitless?”

“Then you squeeze in there with him. For company,” Sammy Tigertail said. “There’s room for two.”

“Gross.”

“He can’t try anything. He’s dead.”

“Nuh-uh,” she said.

Dealey turned on one side to make space. Gillian slid into the sleeping bag behind him, positioning her elbows for distance enforcement. The Seminole zippered the top, sealing them in warm musty darkness. He said, “I told you, I need to think.”

After a few moments he heard their breathing level off. He sat down not far from the lumpy bulk. It was a mean thing to do, putting Gillian together with a possible death spirit, but maybe she’d finally come to her senses and abandon the notion of staying on the island. No normal young woman would tolerate the sack treatment, but then Gillian was miles from normal.

A part of Sammy Tigertail didn’t want to drive her away; the weak and lonely part. But what did he need her for? Surely not to teach him the Gibson. He could learn on his own, like so many of the great ones. His father had told him that Jimi Hendrix had taken one guitar lesson in his whole life, and that the Beatles couldn’t even read music.

“Hey.” Dealey’s hushed voice, inside the bundle.

“Hey what?” said Gillian.

Sammy Tigertail edged closer to listen.

“There’s a motorboat,” Dealey was saying.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“No, there’s a boat on the island. That’s how we got here.”

“You and Band-Aid Man?” Gillian said.

“Yeah, his boat,” Dealey whispered. “I think I could find it.”

“And your point is?”

A short silence followed. The larger of the two lumps shifted in the sleeping bag. Sammy Tigertail massaged the muscles of his neck, waiting.

“The point is,” Dealey said impatiently, “with the boat we can get away from him!”

“And why in the world would I want to do that?” Gillian whispered back, with an earnestness that made the eavesdropping Seminole smile in spite of himself.