For the second (and, ultimately, final) show of Sammy Tigertail’s career, the redneck wrestlers thought it would be humorous to sneak a ringer into the gator pit. The chosen candidate was seven feet long and weighed roughly 110 pounds. More crucially, it had no show-business experience, having been snared from a golf-course lagoon the previous evening. Unaware, Sammy Tigertail let out an improvised war cry and leapt with gusto upon the beast, which erupted in writhing, hissing fury. The crowd thought it was fantastic.
Clawed, thrashed and tail-whipped, Sammy Tigertail somehow steered clear of the saurian’s teeth. As they flopped around in the dirt, the Indian managed to lock both arms around the flailing head of his foe, at which point they rolled together into the concrete pond. The depth was barely four feet, but Sammy Tigertail knew that alligators had drowned persons in shallower water. He was also aware that the primitive creature in his grip was capable of holding its breath for hours. That fact, plus the realization that the pond itself was probably septic with gator shit, impelled Sammy Tigertail to break his clinch and kick frantically for the surface.
As he sloshed alone out of the bile-colored water, the audience rose and applauded. The Seminole took a shy bow while the announcer explained over the PA system that the defeated leviathan would remain submerged until it stopped sulking. Forty-five minutes later the alligator indeed rose to the surface and floated belly-up, a pose that suggested a far more serious condition than wounded pride. The rattlesnake-milking demonstration was immediately halted and Sammy Tigertail was summoned back to the wrestling pit. There, to a withering chorus of boos and the tickety-tick of digital cameras, he glumly hauled the scaly corpse from the pond.
A necropsy revealed that Sammy Tigertail had accidentally snapped the alligator’s neck during their underwater tussle, a mishap that would cost the tribe hefty fines from state and federal authorities. Among the voluminous regulations governing the captivity and display of Alligator mississippiensis, none is viewed more seriously than the prohibition against harming the species. No wrestler in the history of the Seminole reservation had ever snuffed an alligator during a paid performance, and Sammy Tigertail’s plea for leniency fell on deaf ears. He was banished for life from the gator pit, the incident serving to reinforce the tribal view that he was cursed by his mixed blood.
Sammy Tigertail chose not to share the dead alligator story with Gillian when he declined her request for a wrestling lesson.
She said, “Aw, come on. I taught you how to play the guitar.”
In fact, she’d shown him the chords to one song, “Tequila Sunrise.” It had been a favorite of his late father.
Sammy Tigertail was grateful, up to a point. “You think all Seminoles wrestle gators? That’s insulting,” he said. “It’s like saying all black men can dunk a basketball.”
The topic had arisen because they’d spotted either an alligator or a crocodile swimming across the pass near the island.
“Don’t tell me you never tried,” Gillian said.
“There’s a trick to it,” Sammy Tigertail replied quietly.
“Show me.”
“I said no.”
“Pretend I’m the gator.” Gillian stretched flat on her belly, arms pressed against her sides, on the floor of the cistern. “Now, you sneak up and jump on me.”
“Some other time.”
“Don’t be such a pussy. Come on.”
She was wearing pastel flip-flops, mesh panties and a white bikini top, which had become her official island ensemble. Sammy Tigertail found it extremely distracting. He wasn’t sure whether Gillian was trying to torment him, or whether she was merely oblivious to his feelings.
“I’m really beat,” the Indian said. All morning he’d been chopping paths through the gnarled cactus plants, which at least had proven to be juicy and pleasantly edible.
“Please?” Gillian said. “Just pretend.”
The Seminole aligned himself on top of her, bracing his elbows to lever some of his weight off her backside. She was warmer than an alligator and, in the absence of a corrugated hide, much softer.
Gillian laughed under the strain and said, “Now what?”
He slipped one hand under her chin and firmly placed his other hand on the crown of her head, effectively clamping her mouth closed.
“The trick,” he explained, “is to pin ’em without pissing ’em off.”
Gillian grunted and began to wriggle. Sammy Tigertail abruptly rolled off. He hoped she wouldn’t comment about him getting hard, but of course she did.
“It’s about time. I was beginning to worry about you,” she remarked as she sat up.
“This isn’t a game. It’s a serious deal.” Sammy Tigertail thought: Uncle Tommy’s right. These girls are bad medicine.
“I totally can’t believe you haven’t tried to bone me yet,” Gillian said. “It took Ethan, like, three and a half minutes the first time we went out. Not to do it, but to try-that’s how long from when we got in the car ’til he jammed my hand down his jeans.”
Sammy Tigertail said, “I’m not as smooth as Ethan.”
“I wouldn’t even jerk him off, okay?”
“Listen.” He stood up and tugged Gillian off the floor. “Hear that?”
It was another low-flying plane.
“Go outside and start waving,” he told her.
“Kiss my butt,” she said.
“What’re you trying to prove?” The Indian seized her by the shoulders. “There’s not a drop of freshwater on this island-no soap, no ice, no electricity. You’re gonna be livin’ on bird eggs and fish, which you said makes you barf. So go on home, okay? Go back to Tallahassee and lose Ethan and start over.”
She pulled away and angrily blurted something that the Indian couldn’t hear because of the plane buzzing low. When it was gone, she said, “I thought this was a free country.”
“Why the hell are you here?” the Seminole asked.
“You go first.”
“A guy died on my airboat and I needed somewhere to go. Somewhere with no white people.”
“Is that how come you won’t screw me?” Gillian said. “That’s just as prejudiced as me asking you about alligator wrestlin’. Know what? It’s even worse.”
Sammy Tigertail heard himself say, “My girlfriend’s white.”
Gillian crossed her arms in mock surprise. “No way!”
“I mean my ex-girlfriend.”
“Name, please.”
“Cindy. She’s a crank freak.”
“Ha, you and I do have something in common. We both pick losers,” Gillian said. “Look here, chief. Someday when I’m a gray-haired old lady I can tell my grandkids that I was kidnapped by a real live Indian and held hostage on a mangrove island in the Everglades. And that I taught him how to play the guitar, and he taught me all about gators, and we ate funky cactus berries and counted butterflies and slept in a broken cistern. That’s a pretty great story.”
Sammy Tigertail could not disagree.
“And it’d be even better,” Gillian said, “if there was a steamy romance to tell ’em about. But I guess I could use my imagination-you wouldn’t mind, right? What they call ‘creative license’?”
“Go wild,” said Sammy Tigertail.
Lily Shreave was having a massage when the phone rang. The masseur’s name was Mikko and he claimed to have trained for eleven years in Bali. Lily had found the fanciful lie endearing, given his Sooners tattoos and Oklahoma accent. She pressed a fifty-dollar bill into one of his large oily palms, motioned him out of the room and reached for her cell.
“It’s not happening,” Dealey said on the other end.
“You’re giving up already? But you just got there.”
“They’re inside a damn trailer, Mrs. Shreave. I have no shot.”