"Mr. X had a terrible run of luck the last few days," Carrie was saying, "thanks to Joe."
Skink got up to check the campfire. He said, "It's time for a full-court press."
"Each day is precious," agreed Molly McNamara. She dabbed her forehead with a linen handkerchief. "I think we should move against Mr. Kingsbury as soon as possible."
Bud Schwartz crumpled a soda can. "Why don't we hold off a week or so?"
"No." Skink offered him a shank of opossum on a long-handled fork. He said, "Every hour that passes, we lose more of the island."
"Kingsbury's got worse problems than all of us put together," said Bud Schwartz. "If we can just lay back a few days."
Joe Winder urged him to elaborate.
"Tell him, Bud, go on!" Danny Pogue was nearly bursting.
"I wish I could."
Skink fingered the silvery tendrils of his beard. Towering over the burglar, he said, "Son, I'm not fond of surprises."
"This is serious shit." Bud Schwartz was pleading. "You gotta understand – heavy people from up North."
Wiping the condensation from her eyeglasses, Molly said, "Bud, what on earth are you talking about?"
Winder leaned toward Carrie and whispered: "This is getting interesting."
"No damn surprises," Skink repeated balefully. "We act in confluence, you understand?"
Reluctantly Bud Schwartz took a bite of fried opossum. He scowled as the warm juices dripped down his chin.
"Is that blood?" asked Danny Pogue.
Skink nodded and said, "Nature's gravy."
Suddenly he turned his face to the sky, peered toward the lemon sun and cursed vehemently. Then he was gone, running barefoot into the bright tangles of the hammock.
The others looked at one another in utter puzzlement.
Joe Winder was the first to stand. "When in Rome," he said, reaching for Carrie's hand.
Humanity's encroachment had obliterated the Florida panther so thoroughly that numerals were assigned to each of the few surviving specimens. In a desperate attempt to save the species, the Game and Fresh Water Commission had embarked on a program of monitoring the far-roaming panthers and tracking their movements by radio telemetry. Over a period of years most of the cats were treed, tranquilized and fitted with durable plastic collars that emitted a regular electronic signal on a frequency of 150 megahertz. The signals could be followed by rangers on the ground or, when the animal was deep in the swamp, by air. Using this system, biologists were able to map the territories traveled by individual cats, chart their mating habits and even locate new litters of kittens. Because the battery-operated collars were activated by motion, it was also possible for rangers to know when a numbered panther was sick or even dead; if a radio collar was inert for more than a few hours, it automatically began sending a distress signal.
No such alarm was transmitted if an animal became abnormally active, but the rangers were expected to notice any strange behavior and react accordingly. For instance, a panther that was spending too much time near populated areas was usually captured and relocated for its own safety; the cats had a long and dismal record of careless prowling along busy highways.
Sergeant Mark Dyerson had retrieved too many dead panthers that had been struck by trucks and automobiles. Recently the ranger had become certain that if something wasn't done soon, Panther 17 would end up the same way. The Game and Fish files indicated that the animal was a seven-year-old male whose original range stretched from Homestead south to Everglades National Park, and west all the way to Card Sound. Because this area was crisscrossed by high-speed roads, the rangers paid special attention to the travels of Number 17.
For months the cat had seemed content to hunker in the deep upland hammocks of North Key Largo, which made sense, considering the dicey crossing to the mainland. But Sergeant Dyerson had grown concerned when, two weeks earlier, radio readings on Number 17 began to show extraordinary, almost unbelievable movement. Intermittent flyovers had pinpointed the cat variously at Florida City, North Key Largo, Homestead, Naranja and South Miami – although Sergeant Dyerson believed the latter coordinates were a mistake, probably a malfunction of the radio tracking unit. South Miami was simply an impossible destination; not only was it well out of the panther's range, but the animal would have had to travel at a speed of sixty-five miles an hour to be there when the telemetry said it was. Unlike the cheetah, panthers prefer loping to racing. The only way Number 17 could go that far, Sergeant Dyerson joked to his pilot, is if it took a bus.
Even omitting South Miami from the readings, the cat's travels were inexplicably erratic. The rangers were concerned at the frequency with which Number 17 crossed Card Sound between Key Largo and the mainland. The only two possible routes – by water or the long bridge – were each fraught with hazards. It was Sergeant Dyerson's hope that Number 17 chose to swim the bay rather than risk the run over the steep concrete span, where the animal stood an excellent chance of getting creamed by a speeding car.
On July 29, the ranger took up the twin Piper to search for the wandering panther. The homing signal didn't come to life until the plane passed low over a trailer park on the outskirts of Homestead. It was not a safe place for humans, much less wild animals, and the panther's presence worried Sergeant Dyerson. Though the tawny cats were seldom visible from the Piper, the ranger half-expected to see Number 17 limping down the center lane of U.S. Highway 1.
Later that afternoon, Sergeant Dyerson went up again; this time he marked the strongest signal in thick cover near Steamboat Creek, on North Key Largo. The ranger couldn't believe it – twenty-nine miles in one day! This cat was either manic, or chained to the bumper of a Greyhound.
When Sergeant Dyerson landed in Naples, he asked an electrician to double-check the antenna and receiver of the telemetry unit. Every component tested perfectly.
That night, the ranger phoned his supervisor in Tallahassee and reviewed the recent radio data on Number 17. The supervisor agreed that he'd never heard of a panther moving such a great distance, so fast.
"Send me a capture team as soon as possible," Sergeant Dyerson said. "I'm gonna dart this sonofabitch and find out what's what."
The twin Piper made three dives over the campsite. Joe Winder and Carrie Lanier watched from the bank of Steamboat Creek.
"Game and Fish," Winder said, "just what we need."
"What do we do?" Carrie asked.
"Follow the water."
They didn't get far. A tall uniformed man materialized at the edge of the tree line. He carried an odd small-bore rifle that looked like a toy. When he motioned to Joe and Carrie, they obediently followed him through the hammock out to the road. Molly McNamara and the two burglars already had been rounded up; another ranger, with a clipboard, was questioning them. There was no sign of Skink.
Sergeant Mark Dyerson introduced himself and asked to see some identification. Joe Winder and Carrie Lanier showed him their driver's licenses. The ranger was copying down their names when a gaunt old cracker, pulled by three lean hounds, came out of the woods.
"Any luck?" Sergeant Dyerson asked.
"Nope," said the tracker. "And I lost me a dog."
"Maybe the panther got him."
"They ain't no panther out there."
"Hell, Jackson, the radio don't lie." The ranger turned back to Joe Winder and Carrie Lanier. "And I suppose you're bird-watchers, too. Just like Mrs. McNamara and her friends."
Beautiful, thought Winder. We're bird-watchers now. Playing along, Carrie informed the ranger they were following a pair of nesting kestrels.