Which was good, Fry thought. She’d gotten all that venom out of her system without harming a soul, including herself.

On the other hand, she continued to skate around all questions pertaining to the two airline tickets. Fry was exasperated, and more than a little suspicious.

“So, who are these friends that you’re flying in?” he asked when they were stopped at a traffic light.

“I told you about seventeen times-it’s been like forever since I’ve seen ’em.”

“You guys go to high school together or something?”

“Junior high.” Honey kept her eyes fixed on the highway. “But we’ve stayed in touch. They send a fruitcake every Christmas.”

Fry pointed out that he’d never seen a fruitcake in their home.

“That’s because I throw the damn things out immediately. Stuff’ll rot your teeth like battery acid,” his mother said.

She was obviously winging it, so Fry dropped the subject. He also decided not to inquire why she’d stopped shaving her right leg-he couldn’t imagine any response that would put his mind at ease.

They stopped at an upscale outfitter’s shop, where some over-tanned Yuppie wearing razor-pressed khakis informed them that a thousand dollars wasn’t nearly enough for two new tandem ocean kayaks. Prowling in the rear of the shop, Honey Santana discovered a pair of used fifteen-footers, one red and one yellow. In no time she talked Khaki Jack into selling her both, plus paddles and travel racks, for nine hundred even.

“That guy couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, twenty-six years old,” Honey remarked on the trip home. “I can’t believe he asked for my phone number.”

“I can’t believe you gave it to him,” Fry grumbled.

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Then whose number was that?”

“Oh, I just made one up.”

Again Honey wasn’t being truthful. It was Perry Skinner’s number she handed out to men who wanted to call her but whom she had no intention of dating. One conversation with her ex-husband usually cooled their interest, Honey had found, while simultaneously serving to remind Perry that not all guys thought she was a basket case.

“Hey, I need a favor,” she said to her son. “Would you mind crashing at your ex-father’s place for a few days?”

“Can you please stop calling him that?”

“Thing is, I invited my friends to stay at the trailer, which means I’ll have to sleep in your room,” Honey said.

Fry hitched his eyebrows.

“Honest to God, I won’t peek in the closet.”

“Damn straight.”

“Or under your mattress.”

“How do you know what’s under the mattress?” Fry demanded.

“Because that’s where all teenage boys hide their porn, isn’t it?” Honey said. “It’s only for three or four days, I promise. And I won’t touch the computer, either.”

“Why can’t they get a motel?”

“Because they’re on a budget, young man. Not everybody’s rolling in dough like the president’s millionaire pals in the oil racket. Or Mr. Perry Skinner, the dope smuggler.”

“Knock it off, Mom. And watch where you’re going, ’kay?”

“I’m doing fine!” she snapped.

“In England you’d be doing fine. In this country we use the other side of the road.”

His mother’s driving skills eroded dramatically whenever she got frazzled.

“I don’t mind going to Dad’s,” Fry told her in a calming tone. “I’ll ask him as soon as he gets back from Miami.”

“Thank you.” Honey exhaled with relief. “I owe you a big one.”

She seemed to relax, and almost immediately the car found its way back to the proper lane. Later she began humming a tune that resembled in no way the song on the radio.

Another ominous sign, her son knew.

He said, “So when will they be here? Your friends.”

“Day after tomorrow,” his mother replied.

“You never even told me their names.”

Honey Santana drummed her fingernails on the steering wheel. “Oh, we’ll all get together for dinner one night. I promise.”

He counted three young men and three young women. Their beer cans glinted in the firelight. Thanks to a thundering boom box (with which one of them was now doing a tango), they hadn’t heard Sammy Tigertail’s somewhat unstealthy approach. He crouched in a line of palmettos and watched the kids frisking around a wind-whipped fire that they’d built on a dry spit of beach. Nearby were three gum ball-colored canoes that had been dragged ashore and emptied. Numerous articles of clothing, including bras and bathing suits, had been laid out to dry on the upturned hulls.

Sammy Tigertail guessed that the intruders were about his age, probably college students on holiday break. Most likely they were harmless, yet he wanted them to go away. He wished not to be seen by any other humans. The battery in his cell phone had died, so for all he knew, a police manhunt was under way for the missing Wilson and the Indian airboat driver with whom he’d last been seen.

It was Sonny Tigertail’s third night of spying on the strangers, and finally he’d settled on a plan. Frightening them off would be easy; a couple of rifle shots over their pale heads would do the job. But first he needed to steal a canoe, a small crime requiring grit and patience.

He stretched out behind a dune to nap, waiting for the campers to pass out. He envisioned himself as his great-great-great-grandfather, stalking General Jesup or that swine Zachary Taylor. The grandiose fantasy was jarringly interrupted by Wilson, the dead tourist. An underwater scavenger had nibbled off one of his earlobes, and a colony of purple barnacles had taken up residence on a bare patch of his scalp.

“Man, I need a favor,” Wilson’s spirit said.

“Like what?”

“I want you to move me.”

“That’s not funny,” said Sammy Tigertail.

“Get my body out of that river, please? Come on, bro, it’s so goddamn cold at night. Move me someplace dry.”

“No, sir. I can’t.”

“Someplace where there’s no sharks.” Dripping algae, Wilson turned to reveal a jagged excavation in one of his thighs; a pallid wound the size of a salad bowl. He said, “Jesus, I hate those sharks.”

Sammy Tigertail assured him that he wouldn’t like the turkey buzzards any better. “And that’s what’ll get you on dry land. Buzzards and fire ants.”

“But at least I won’t be freezing. At least I can rot to dust in the warm sunshine.” The spirit of Wilson playfully clanked his anchors. “Come on, whatta ya say?”

The Indian felt a sting of remorse, which was ludicrous. The white man was deceased and experiencing no discomfort; his spirit just happened to be a royal pain in the ass.

Sammy Tigertail said, “I don’t have time for you. I’ve gotta deal with these kids.”

“Move me out of the damn river. It’s the least you can do,” the dream spirit implored. “Aren’t doomed men s’posed to get one last wish?”

“Only in the movies,” said the Seminole.

Wilson snorted. “We’ll talk later, you and me.”

The dead tourist disappeared. Sammy Tigertail opened his eyes and got up. He peeked over the crest of the dune, toward the raucous campsite of the college kids.

One chamber-of-commerce myth about the Everglades is that the insects disappear all winter. Mild nights can be hellish, and Sammy Tigertail found himself enshrouded by famished mosquitoes and sand flies. Having foolishly forgotten to baste himself with repellent, all he could do was remain at his post and accept the punishing stings.

To maintain a clear view of the beach, he slashed one arm back and forth, like a windshield wiper, through the buzzing horde. With grim envy he observed that the radiating heat from the campfire seemed to shield the college students from the marauding swarms; either that, or they were too bombed to notice the bites. Sammy Tigertail wondered how long until his eyelids and nostrils swelled shut. He also wondered what Micanopy or Jumper or Sam Jones would have done in the same wretched predicament. One time he’d asked his uncle if there was a secret Seminole potion to ward off bugs, and his uncle had advised him to drive to the CVS in Naples and buy the biggest can of Cutter spray he could find.