I looked around, seeing Arlis Futch now limping toward us and Will Chaser, too. Staring at Will, I said to Tomlinson, “There’s no need for that. You’re right. Killing’s just wrong, man. Let’s get out of here.”
My eyes moved to Arlis, who was glaring at King. “Doc?” he said. “That’s the Yankee spawn who kicked me like a dog. Why don’t you boys walk on back to the truck and find your telephones? I’ll stand watch on this snake.” The old man’s eyes found mine as he added, “Any rounds left in that Winchester?”
From old habit, I had checked the breech immediately. “There’s one round left, Arlis,” I replied. “but you’re not going to use it. What happened to your leg?”
“That by God lizard bit me.”
“One of the small ones attacked you?”
“They tried, but it was that big bastard! It took a chunk out but not too bad. I’d be okay to stand watch over this scum. Seriously, Doc. Let me hold that rifle. He kicked me, Doc.”
It was sickening to hear that the monitor had bitten Arlis after we had dodged so many other near tragedies. I knew that we had to get the man to a hospital, fast.
I said, “I understand how you feel—the guy slapped me around, too. But we’re going to let the police deal with this”—I glanced at Will again—“because that’s the way things work.”
I was tempted to eject the last remaining cartridge onto the ground, but the Komodo monitor was still in the area, and so were its offspring, possibly watching us right now from the shadows. Night stalkers and meat eaters should never be underestimated. I learned that truth while hiding on the bottom of the lake . . . And I learned something else, too. I learned how monitors responded to infrared light.
It gave me an idea.
To Will I said, “Would you mind getting that for me?,” as I pointed to my dive mask, which lay on the far side of the fire.
Tomlinson was helping Arlis hobble toward the truck as Will handed me the heavy mask, with its pointed rail and monocular tube. I bounced the weight of the thing in my hand for a thoughtful moment before I handed Will the Winchester, telling him, “You go with Tomlinson and Arlis, okay? Find our cell phones. Captain Futch needs to be airlifted or he’s going to lose that leg. Maybe worse.”
I didn’t want the kid around to see what I was going to do next. He was smart enough to recognize false compassion for what it was—a lethal bait.
Will Chaser was staring at me, his expression suspicious. “And leave you alone with this asshole? Just the two of you, huh?” With his chin, he gestured toward King, who was sitting up now, trying to flex his wounded hand. The bleeding wasn’t too bad, I noted.
I told Will, “Oh, I get it—you want proof I’m not going to kill him.” The boy knew things intuitively, he had claimed, which implied that he knew about me.
“I didn’t say that,” Will replied.
“But that’s what you’re thinking—but why would I risk something so stupid?” I was inspecting the face mask, which appeared to be undamaged. I switched on the infrared light and confirmed that it still threw its invisible beam straight and true.
“Maybe Tomlinson was right,” I added. “Maybe we are a lot alike. How about this? Why don’t we both help Arlis back to the truck? If he loses that leg, we don’t want the rest of him to go with it.”
“And leave this guy all alone?” Will said, still unconvinced. With his expression asking Why are you going so easy on this jerk?
I replied, “He’s not going anywhere. He knows how dangerous it is out here in the sticks.” I turned. “Don’t you, King?”
The man was on one knee, trying to use his jacket as a bandage, but he stopped long enough to glare at me and say, “Go to hell.”
I was thinking, You’ll get there before me, as I double-checked to make sure the infrared light was on and then lobbed the mask close to King’s feet. His surprised expression caused me to smile, as I added, “No hard feelings, partner. When that fire burns down and you get scared? You can always use my night vision to see—Jock-o.”
And so would the monitors.
EPILOGUE
ON A BALMY, MOON-BRIGHT NIGHT IN FEBRUARY, ONE week after Arlis Futch was airlifted to the hospital and four days after police finally located King, I was on the deck outside my lab trying to bracket a camera to my new telescope when I heard the familiar two-stroke rattle of Tomlinson’s dinghy. I covered the Celestron with a towel, let the screen door slam behind me and went inside to fetch a fresh quart of beer.
Tomlinson prefers beer from the bottle. I like mine over ice—an old habit from years of traveling the tropics. We would compromise: most of the quart for him, a mug for me. It was Tuesday night, long after sunset, so there wasn’t much doubt he would be thirsty.
Tomlinson had been away. On Friday night—an hour after police confirmed that they had found King—he had left aboard No Más on the flood, motoring to the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay before setting his mainsail, which suggested to me that the man was upset and in a hurry. In a hurry to where, there was no telling.
Who knows where Tomlinson goes? Key West is a favorite, but a four-day trip wouldn’t have allowed him much time on Duval Street. And the same was true of Pensacola, another of his favorite haunts. So I had guessed Sarasota—he likes the public anchorage there, possibly because so many pretty girls jog in the park—and he likes Venice Beach, too, for the same reason, and also because there’s a nightly drum circle nearby.
It made for interesting speculation among the fishing guides and liveaboards, but no one truly knew. We hadn’t heard a word from the man since Friday night, which was not unusual. When Tomlinson leaves, he leaves. There are no phone calls, no postcards saying Wish you were here.
“You’re not really sailing unless you let go of all the lines,” the man is fond of saying.
For me, it had been a productive few days. I had done my version of a Tomlinson escape, which is to say I hadn’t left the island, and I had rarely left my lab. I read books I had been meaning to read, I worked out twice a day on my new VersaClimber, then swam to the NO WAKE buoy off West Wind Hotel. I listened to my shortwave radio at night, or I enjoyed the marvels of my new Celestron. And I awoke each morning alone.
Because the quarter moon was waxing, I was stuck with neap tides, which aren’t good for collecting by hand, so I had spent two evenings and part of a day dragging for specimens in my old twenty-four-foot flat-bottomed trawl boat.
Stenciled neatly on the stern of the craft is the name of my little company, SANIBEL BIOLOGICAL SUPPLY. It is built of cypress planking and duct tape. The trawler is equipped with nets and outriggers, which must be hand-cranked when lowered or raised, but it’s a ceremony of which I never tire. No matter how many times I drop the trawls, I still feel a pleasant treasure hunter’s anticipation when I pop the strings and dump the nets because a small, secret universe comes spilling out onto the deck. There, alive at my feet, are tunicates, sea horses, cowfish, catfish, pinfish, filefish, eels, shrimp, sea trout and stingrays—a flopping, throbbing mound of life among the sea grasses and hydroids. As I do the culling, rushing to preserve or release each creature, I am reminded that the universe beneath us is wild and alive—relentlessly alive—despite the outrages, the small kindnesses, the small wars and the brief, brief lives that stumble on blindly above.