“My dad’s gonna be so pissed,” he said dejectedly.

“Tell him it was my fault you ran off. You were rushing to the aid of a damsel in distress-what’s wrong, sweetie?”

“I dunno, all of a sudden it’s like I’m in a cave.” Fry blinked and started to weave. “I’m getting really cold again,” he said.

Genie dropped the metal case and grabbed for him, but he was already falling. His head struck first, the helmet making a hollow tonk as it bounced off the trunk of a strangler fig.

“Oh God, no,” Eugenie murmured.

Kneeling at his side, she lifted his head onto her lap. His eyes had rolled back, and his skin was damp and ashen. The pulse at his neck felt fluttery, and a burgundy trickle ran from his bitten lower lip to his chin. Genie rocked the boy, softly pleading with him to wake up and cursing the day she’d met Boyd Shreave.

Gillian said, “Let’s talk about what happened. The sex, I mean.”

“We already talked,” said Sammy Tigertail, “the whole time it was happening.”

“But you never told me what you thought. Am I worth all the hassle or not?” She stepped into her flip-flops. “My sister goes through, like, twenty boyfriends a year. I don’t say a word.”

The Indian felt another impulse to kiss her, which was unnerving. He was supposed to be done with it; that was the plan. He picked a red bay twig out of her hair and said, “It was real nice.”

Gillian slugged him in the arm. “Nice?”

“Wonderful,” he said. “I meant wonderful.”

“Right. Vundebar, as Ethan used to say.” She was steamed. “You’re quite the fucking poet, Thlocko.”

Sammy Tigertail tried to put his arms around her but she spun away. He opened his carry bag to look for some warm clothes. Nearby, the white man with the gunshot wound was making an odd flutish sound through his nose.

Gillian fumbled with the strings of her bikini top. “Know what my problem is? I want everything perfect, see, like at the end of a movie. I always want the damn dolphins to swim free. I always want to sing like Jewel when I’m playin’ the six-string. And I always want guys to fall totally in love with me after one night.”

The Indian handed her a sweatshirt and fleece pants. “It’s getting colder,” he said.

“No staring at the ta-ta’s allowed.”

“You’d be bored to death out here with me. Plus, you’re allergic to mosquitoes-that’s what you told me.”

Gillian said, “I’m not high-maintenance, okay? My sister, she’s high-maintenance. My mom, big-time. Compared to those two, I’m easy.” She plopped down beside him and rolled up the cuffs of the pants. “Hey, I know I talk when I shouldn’t. I’m workin’ on it.”

Sammy Tigertail wasn’t sure what steps to take if she refused to leave the island the next day. He wasn’t even sure he still wanted her to go.

He kissed her lightly and said, “Truth is, it was better than wonderful.”

“I thought so, too. Wanna do it again?”

“Mr. Skinner and his boy will be here soon.”

Gillian faked a pout. “Mean old man,” she said.

“Anyway, your buddy Lester’s gonna wake up any minute.”

She clucked and affected the proper accent of a British headmistress. “Well, goodness, we most definitely don’t wish to offend Lord Lester.”

As if on cue, the sleeping man snuffled and quaked.

Sammy Tigertail said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you. I’m only half Seminole.”

Gillian smiled devilishly. “Bet I know which half.”

“Seriously. My father was white.”

She pretended to look him over. “Wild guess-did he have fantastic blue eyes?”

Sammy Tigertail found himself talking about his childhood in the suburbs of Broward County; about how he’d moved to the Big Cypress and started his life over.

“That,” Gillian said, “is insanely cool.”

“Some days it was a bitch.”

“But you hung in!”

“So far,” he said.

She reached for his hand. “Thlocko, I’ve got a little confession, too. I lied about not being high-maintenance.”

The Indian broke into laughter. He couldn’t stop.

Then all of a sudden he was kissing her again.

Until she took a deep breath and said, “You’re probably right. I wouldn’t last very long out here in the boonies.”

“Do you want to try?” He was stupefied to hear himself ask the question.

She said, “God, I’m already jonesing for a Starbucks. Is that pathetic or what? And Krispy Kremes.”

“My dad’s favorite,” said Sammy Tigertail. “Every Sunday morning we’d eat a dozen, just the two of us.”

“Stop, you! I could inhale a whole box of those bad boys.”

He said, “Look, Gillian-you want to stay and give it a shot, I don’t mind.”

She lifted his hand to her lips. “That’s, like, the most romantic thing anybody’s ever said to me-least in English. But I gotta think about it, ’kay?”

“Take your time.”

“Meanwhile, Big Chief Thlocko, let me show you what my people call a ‘quickie.’”

Sammy Tigertail rose to a crouch. “Ssshhh. Somebody’s comin’.”

Perry Skinner wasn’t inclined to panic-not after the many close calls he’d survived in his dope-running days. He had trained himself to keep calm because those who got rattled usually made poor and life-altering decisions.

Fry was gone but there was no reason to think something terrible had occurred, which would have been his mother’s automatic assumption. The kid had his shit together; he wouldn’t do anything stupid. He’d probably started feeling better and decided he could catch up to Skinner on his own.

After searching the woods around the clearing, Skinner jogged to Sammy Tigertail’s camp, hoping to find Fry waiting for him. The Seminole and his girlfriend had heard Skinner’s footsteps and hidden behind some bay trees.

When they saw who it was, they came out waving. Fry wasn’t with them.

Sammy Tigertail said, “I’ll help you look, Mr. Skinner. The island’s not that big.”

“Maybe he went and found his mom,” said Gillian.

The thought had occurred to Perry Skinner, too. It was something to hope for.

“I’ll stay here with Lester, in case they show up. You guys go,” Gillian urged. “And take some food-if you find ’em, they’ll be hungry.”

Skinner and the Indian didn’t get far before they heard the helicopter. It was working a search grid, back and forth. Sammy Tigertail said it must be the Everglades park rangers.

“We’re not in the park,” Skinner said. “We’re on Dismal Key.” From the pitch of the turbines he could tell it was the Coast Guard.

The Seminole looked distraught as he ducked into the bushes. “It’s me they’re after, Mr. Skinner.”

“Why? What’d you do?”

“A white man died on my airboat and I sunk the body.”

“Did you kill him, Sammy?”

“No, but they’ll never believe me,” he said, shaking his head. “Just like they won’t believe I didn’t mean to shoot Lester.”

Skinner had a feeling that the Indian might be right about the cops arresting him.

“I can’t go to prison, Mr. Skinner. That’s what they did to Tiger Tail and the other chiefs.”

“All right, Sammy.”

They hurried back to the campsite and found Gillian preparing to flag the chopper with an Allman Brothers Eat a Peach T-shirt that had once belonged to Sammy Tigertail’s father. The Seminole snatched the cherished relic from the girl’s hands and ordered her to stay low. Although they couldn’t yet see the helicopter, it sounded close.

“But that’s Lester’s ride!” Gillian exclaimed. “Remember? He phoned somebody to come get him.”

The engine noise roused Dealey, and he struggled to sit. “Finally,” he said thickly. “Somebody help me up.”

Sammy Tigertail told him to forget it. “There’s nowhere to land that thing on this island.”

Perry Skinner was impatient to search for Fry and Honey, but he knew what had to be done first: The man with the bullet wound needed a doctor. It would be bad for everybody if Lester got worse and died on Dismal Key.