In the pup tent that he and Eugenie Fonda once shared, Shreave found an open bottle of water, which he chugged. From Honey Santana’s tent he appropriated bug spray and a small halogen headlamp; from his own gear he took his NASCAR toothbrush and the paperback of Storm Ghoul, for toilet paper.
Choosing an escape route was easy-Shreave aimed himself in the opposite direction of that taken by the men searching for Honey. While cowering in the tree he’d heard two small concussions that might have been gunshots, several minutes apart, indicating that something dangerous was happening on the other side of the island. Shreave headed briskly the other way, flaying a rough path through the vines and bushes and spiderwebs.
There was still a rim of amber along the skyline when he lurched through a slender opening in the mangroves. Heedlessly he waded into the water, the soles of his expensive deck shoes grating across a jagged shoal. He hoped to position himself to signal the first passing vessel, but of course no boats would be coming; mainly dope smugglers and poachers traveled at night through the Ten Thousand Islands, and they were not renowned for their Samaritanism.
The flats were turbid and cold, and Shreave in his glorified jockstrap began to shiver. As darkness closed in, he employed Honey’s headlamp to scan the intricate tree line for the menacing reflection of panther eyes. Instead what he spotted was a shiny tangerine-colored canoe, canted among the spidery roots.
Excitedly Shreave dragged the craft to open water and, on his fourth attempt, bellied himself over the side. With his lacerated hands he snatched up the paddle and felt an exultant rush-at last he would be free of the place!
He navigated Dismal Key Pass with equal measures of zeal and ineptitude. Despite the slack tide he expended more energy correcting his frequent course oscillations than he did advancing the canoe. The exercise served to warm him, however, and present the illusion of pace. Never had Shreave attempted anything so daring as a getaway, and he regretted that neither Genie nor Lily was there to witness it. He chose to believe that they would have been dazzled.
After an hour he paused to rest, the canoe drifting noiselessly. With a stirring anxiety he contemplated the depth of the night; nothing but shadows and starlight and a pale sickle of moon. Far from being soothed by the silence, Shreave was fretful. It was as if he’d been sucked through a time tunnel into a bleak primeval emptiness with no horizons. He couldn’t remember feeling so alone or out of place, and he yearned for evidence of human intrusion-a car’s horn, a boom box, the high rumble of a jetliner.
Not being the spiritual sort, Boyd Shreave saw no divine hand in the unbroken wilderness that lay before him; no grand design in the jungled labyrinth of creeks and islets. Such unspoiled vistas inspired in Shreave not a nanosecond of introspection; when it came to raw nature, he remained staunchly incurious and devoid of awe. He would much rather have been back in Fort Worth, watching American Idol, swilling beer and gorging himself on microwave burritos.
Grimly he picked up the paddle and went back to work. He hadn’t a clue where he was or what direction he was heading, although he suspected that the vast gray body of water to his right was the Gulf of Mexico-no place for a puny canoe. After an hour of ponderous stroking he was in profound discomfort. Unfamiliar with toil, his arms burned, his lower back ached and his abs were cramping. He’d already decided to quit for the night when he heard what sounded like an engine, and the soft slapping of waves against a hull.
Shreave shoved the paddle between his knees and fumbled to activate the small lamp strapped to his forehead. He swiveled his neck owlishly, playing the narrow white beam back and forth across the water until he located the source of the noise: a small flat-bottomed craft motoring parallel to the canoe, about seventy-five yards away. A tall man stood in the stern of the boat, facing away, one hand on the tiller of the engine.
“Hey!” Shreave called out. “Over here!”
The man appeared not to have heard him.
“Help!” Shreave steadied the headlamp, trying to center the light on the passing boat. “Hey, you! Come get me!” he yelled.
The man continued to look the other way. Shreave was nettled; even if the guy was unable to hear him over the motor, he surely saw the flickering from the headlamp.
“What the hell’s the matter with you!” Shreave hollered angrily. “I’m lost out here! I need help!”
The flat-bottomed craft was moving so sluggishly that Shreave wondered if it had mechanical problems. He saw no smoke when he shined the light at the engine, although he noticed two ropes leading tautly from the transom to a lumpish object dragging in the backwash. Shreave couldn’t see what the stranger was towing, and he didn’t care. The guy obviously knew his way around the islands, and Shreave desperately needed a ride out.
“Hey! Over here!” Shreave shouted again. “Are you fucking blind?”
The stranger stiffened, turned and scowled into the light. Shreave sucked in his breath.
It was Genie’s Indian. The one who’d called him a “damn litterbug” and left him to rot in the poinciana tree.
The man’s response was firm and unambiguous. He took his hand off the tiller and held it up, flush in the headlamp’s beam, extending the middle digit for Shreave’s mournful contemplation.
Shreave dimmed the light, slumped low in the canoe and waited for the sound of the motorboat to fade away. Then he picked up the paddle, cursed under his breath and went back to work.
Sister Shirelle was bent over at the waist, bracing her arms against a storm-toppled pine, when she saw the light.
“Look there!”
Brother Manuel was deeply absorbed-gripping her by the hips, thrusting from behind while breathlessly invoking a deity. His robe was undone and his chest beaded with perspiration. The other moaners were well out of earshot, dancing and spinning around the fire pit on the beach.
“Brother Manuel, there’s a man on the water!”
And indeed there was a man, pale and spectral, wading across the shallows and pulling a fruity-colored canoe. A harsh pinhead of light shone from the stranger’s brow.
“Help me!” he called out.
Brother Manuel withdrew from Sister Shirelle and hastily tucked his unholy wand.
“Is it Him?” Sister Shirelle rose upright, tugging at her undergarments. “Is it our Savior, home at last from His divine voyage?”
“Hush, child,” whispered Brother Manuel. “Compose thyself.”
The man sloshed ashore and, after removing a canvas satchel, flipped the canoe to drain the water. He was garbed in a flower-print shirt and an alarming green pouch of a swimsuit, to which Sister Shirelle’s gaze was wantonly drawn.
“Are you ailing?” Brother Manuel inquired.
“Freezin’ my cojones off,” the man said. “I’d kill for one of those bathrobes.”
“What’s your name, brother?”
“Boyd.”
“And how long have you been at sea, Brother Boyd?”
“Too damn long,” the man replied through chattering teeth.
“We’ve been waiting for you!” Sister Shirelle exclaimed.
“You have?”
“Tell him, Brother Manuel!”
The self-anointed pastor of the First Resurrectionist Maritime Assembly for God was skeptical. His sermonizing to the contrary, he’d never seriously expected to run across Christ the Almighty during a camping trip in the Everglades. However, not wishing to dampen Sister Shirelle’s spiritual fervor-which often overflowed rather lustily-Brother Manuel kept his doubts to himself.
“We’ve been faithfully awaiting a visitation,” he acknowledged to the stranger, “or any holy sign from the Father.”
“Know what? I just wanna go home. You folks got a boat?”
“The hands! Behold the man’s hands!” Sister Shirelle began to hop, her formidable and unbound breasts jouncing in tandem.