Shreave grunted an objection but said nothing. He feared that even the smallest muscle twitch required for speech might cause the rope to cinch down a crucial millimeter or two.

“Go ahead and talk. It’s really not that tight,” Honey said.

Kneeling ramrod-straight, he wheezed, “I didn’t ‘assault’ you, I just tackled you.”

“You’d be in jail if you tried that on Biscayne Boulevard.”

“And that business with the sleeping bag, I’m the one who got hurt!”

“The veins in your neck are bulging.”

“Whatever. Can we hurry up and get on with this?”

“Certainly, Boyd.”

“Well…? You gonna strip me or spank me, or what?”

Honey looked perplexed. “It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

“Oh, come on.”

She shrugged. Gloomily Shreave realized she was telling the truth.

“Goddammit,” he said. It was impossible to envision a brute like Van Bonneville being tricked and tied up by a deranged single mom.

Honey sat cross-legged by the fire and brushed her hair; short, emphatic strokes. “What’d you do before you became a telephone solicitor?” she asked.

“Sales.”

“What did you sell?”

“My knees hurt.”

For padding, Honey folded a woolen blanket and scrunched it beneath him.

“So, what did you sell?” she asked again.

“The usual shit,” he muttered.

“Tell me all about it.”

“Genie’s in on this, isn’t she? You and her cooked up this sick little scene just for giggles.”

Honey laughed. “You think very highly of yourself, Boyd. I’m sure Genie’s got bigger fish to fry.”

He felt his ears get hot.

“Ever sell cars?” she asked.

“Sure. Buicks and Saabs.”

“What else?”

“TV sets,” he said. “Pet supplies. Orthotics.”

“Oh my God, that’s a riot!”

She has a great smile, Shreave thought bitterly, for a psycho. “I’m glad one of us is having fun,” he said.

Honey scooted closer. She repositioned the rope above his Adam’s apple and smoothed the collar of his ripening Tommy Bahama shirt.

“Don’t worry, there’s a point to all this,” she told him.

“I can’t wait.”

What are the odds? he wondered. One sales call out of thousands-and some crazed bitch freaks out, tracks me down, lures me into a swamp and makes me her prisoner.

“You have kids?” Honey asked.

“Not me. Not for all the gold in Fort Knox.”

“Being a parent is no picnic, that’s for sure. Good luck trying to raise a kid with a positive outlook. Face it, we live in a stinking shit-wash of cruelty and greed and rotten manners. Look at you, Boyd. You’re a classic specimen.”

“Not this again,” he sighed.

“Yes, this again! My one and only son is growing up in a culture where the values are so warped that a creep like yourself can masquerade as a respectable citizen.”

Shreave bridled and said, “I never hurt anybody.”

“So, talk to me. Help me figure out what makes your engine run,” Honey said.

“First let’s go look for Genie. What if she’s in trouble?”

“We’re all in trouble, Boyd. For heaven’s sake, don’t you read the papers-”

They were interrupted by a single gunshot, the brittle echo soaring away on the wind. A scream followed.

Honey jumped up. “That’s not poachers. It’s the Indian, I bet.”

And away she ran, Shreave hollering after her: “Don’t leave me here! Don’t you fucking leave me all alone!”

In his agitation he toppled sideways, the rope rubbing into the loose folds of his neck. It hurt, yet he seemed able to breathe without difficulty.

Until a voice at the edge of the shadows hissed, “Don’t be scared, asswipe. You ain’t alone.”

Sammy Tigertail ordered his latest voluntary hostage to sit with Gillian and the white man who might or might not be a death spirit. The Indian kept for himself one jug of water and two power bars, and he strictly rationed to the others what remained in the stolen duffel bag. He hadn’t meant to take all the kayakers’ food, but there had been no time to sort the contents.

Alone he receded to the far end of the clearing and hunkered down with the Gibson. He was struggling to pick out the opening notes of “Tunnel of Love” when his spectral nemesis, Wilson, lurched out of the woods. It was the first time that the deceased tourist had appeared while Sammy Tigertail was wide awake, and it caught the young Seminole off guard. He’d been hoping that he had seen the last of the carping corpse.

Wilson looked worse than ever. His sodden clothing was rotting to rags, and the scavengers had made a grisly patchwork of his flesh.

“I asked you to move my body somewhere warm,” he said reproachfully.

“Beat it,” said the Indian.

“That goddamn river is colder than a witch’s titty. And look here what the crabs and snappers did-” Wilson displayed the most gruesome of his recent mutilations. “It’s lonely out there, man.”

“I can’t help you.” Sammy Tigertail had never felt so low. He was failing as a hermit, and failing as the great-great-great-grandson of a Seminole chief. His mission to isolate himself from the corrupt white world had backfired completely; he was now besieged by white people, dead and alive. He’d even kissed one.

“Nice ax.” Wilson nodded admiringly toward the guitar.

“Don’t touch.”

“Can you play ‘Folsom Prison Blues’?”

“Never heard of it.” Sammy Tigertail thought a jolt of pain might expunge the nagging apparition, so he scratched his own forehead with the broken oyster shell that he’d been using for a pick.

The dead tourist did not disappear. “That was really stupid. Now you’re bleeding,” he said. “Actually, I’m jealous.”

“Hey, don’t blame me ’cause your heart gave out. Maybe you should’ve laid off the booze and french fries.” Sammy Tigertail felt a tickle of warmth roll down his nose.

Wilson said, “What about Garth Brooks? You know his stuff, right? I’ll sing one, so you can figure out the chords.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” said the Indian.

Wilson waved him off and began crooning mercilessly about a girl in Louisiana. The lyrics made Sammy Tigertail remember the way he’d felt after his first night with Cindy, before learning of her problems with homemade methamphetamines, check kiting and serial infidelity. He expected he would be no less smitten by Gillian once he slept with her, and no less shattered when her true dysfunctional self emerged. Each new verse of the country song deepened the Indian’s melancholy.

When the white man finished, he said, “Well-can you play it?”

Sammy Tigertail noticed that blood from his self-inflicted laceration was dripping onto the neck of the Gibson. He hurriedly wiped off the frets and braced the instrument upright between his knees. Then he reached for his rifle.

Wilson chuckled. “Don’t waste your bullets, bro.”

With one arm the Seminole aimed the barrel at Wilson’s algae-bearded face. “Worth a try,” he grumbled, and squeezed the trigger.

Wilson didn’t flinch, but on the other side of the clearing one of the women hostages shrieked. Sammy Tigertail felt sick.

“Now you done it,” said the dead tourist, dissolving to fog.

For Dealey, dawn couldn’t come soon enough. After the Seminole had shown up with Boyd Shreave’s girlfriend, Gillian promptly had ratted out the private investigator.

Eugenie Fonda confronted him as if he were a common restroom peeper: “This is for real? Boyd’s wife is paying you to spy on me and him?”

“And take dirty movies,” Gillian interjected helpfully.

“Pitiful.”

Dealey said, “It’s my job. No lectures, please.”

They were sitting in a semicircle sharing dried pineapple chunks and passing a jug of water. Sammy Tigertail sat off by himself, morosely picking at his guitar. There was a consensus that he ought to be left unbothered.

“That’s some scummy job you’ve got,” Eugenie said to Dealey.