“Giddup right now!” Piejack snapped.
The toe of a shoe poked Honey in the ribs, and a fog of fish stink confirmed that Piejack was looming over her. She hoped that her face was so pulped that he would lose interest in raping her.
“C’mon, goddammit, I didn’t hit you that hard,” he said.
She noticed a new sound-not a tune, but rather a single distant note, rising in volume. Soon it grew to a sustained chord, complete with percussion. Honey was relieved that Piejack could hear it, too.
“What the hell?” he cried with alarm.
Honey recognized the noise and smiled. She peeked up just in time to see an orange-and-white shape streak overhead. Impulsively she tried to shout, but only a bubble of blood came out; the left side of her face was numb, and her tongue felt like she’d been licking broken glass.
“You be still!” Louis Piejack was ducking and bobbing as he watched for the return of the Coast Guard helicopter. His level of alertness was impressive, considering the gorilla dosage of Vicodin that he’d consumed.
“Don’t get no ideas,” he warned her.
Honey was brimming with ideas. Unfortunately, she was also tied to a tree. It had happened while she was knocked out, when the dexterously challenged Piejack had had time to work.
“Long as we stay still, they won’t never see us,” he said confidently. He hunkered beside her and, with his misassembled hand, stroked her thigh. When he lasciviously wiggled a blackened pinkie, she swatted it away.
Piejack chuckled. “You’ll feel better soon, angel. When we’re snug at home.”
Honey knew that he was too weak to carry her; otherwise they’d already be on his boat, speeding back to the mainland. Slowly she sat up, testing the rope that he’d secured to her wrists and then looped around her neck. The fit was tight enough to limit her options-and to make her slightly sorry for having pretended to tie up Boyd Shreave.
“Damn, I’m thirsty,” Piejack said.
Honey was parched, too. Her throat felt like she’d been gargling sawdust.
She heard the chopper hovering nearby yet she couldn’t see it through the trees. Maybe it’s me they’re looking for, she thought, although she couldn’t imagine why. Fry wasn’t expecting her home until the following day, so he had no reason to call out the Coast Guard.
Unless…
Honey stiffened.
…unless it was her ex-husband who’d summoned a search helicopter, which he wouldn’t do unless there was an emergency back in town.
Like something awful had happened to Fry.
Honey Santana lunged to her feet, nearly garroting herself. Piejack brought her down with one sharp yank.
“What’s your problem, woman?” he said.
Frantically she scanned the sky. A vision became fixed in her mind of Fry motionless on a stretcher in a speeding ambulance. The boy’s head was bandaged and his father was sitting beside him, stroking his hair. The image was so vivid that Honey thought she could hear the ambulance siren above the high drone of the helicopter.
Then the chopper flew away and the vision faded. Honey was overtaken by a desire to murder Louis Piejack on the spot, and she would have tried had she not been bound by the neck.
He stood up shakily and said, “Let’s get a move on, ’fore that whirlybird comes back.”
Honey watched with a bent fascination as Piejack struggled to untie the rope from the tree, no easy task for a man with a set of jumbled fingers. After several frustrating attempts he decided to attack the knot with his teeth, freeing both hands to hoist the gumbo branch as a sobering reminder for Honey to behave.
Once the rope was loose, he managed to rehitch the free end around his chest. Wordlessly he headed into the woods, leading Honey like a pack mule. They walked for half an hour, following a dense and unfamiliar shoreline until they broke into a large clearing. At one end was an untidy campsite with a small fire pit that was piled with ashes. Piejack tethered Honey to another tree while he rifled the gear belonging to the campers, who were nowhere to be seen. He found an uncapped jug of water, which he guzzled without so much as a glance toward Honey, who was too proud to ask for a drink.
Louis Piejack tossed the empty water bottle and resumed foraging. He kicked something hard that was wrapped in a blanket, and it made a noise like a cat caught in bedsprings. Piejack kicked open the bundle and revealed a dazzling electric guitar, which he gathered into his foully stained lap.
Honey felt vindicated. Boyd Shreave had scoffed at her when she said she’d heard guitar music.
“Can you play one a these?” Piejack asked.
“Sure.” She was trying not to move her jaws.
“I’m a piano man myself.” Piejack began tweaking the strings with his infected nubs. “This baby’s worth some cash, ya think?”
“Go easy, Louis.” Honey was disgusted to see him smearing his rancid bandages across the beautiful finish on the Gibson.
“Will you do a song for me?”
“I guess so. If you untie this rope,” Honey said. She couldn’t play a lick, but it was worth a shot.
Piejack hunched over to work one-handedly on the loops of the knot. As the moist stubble of his whiskers rubbed against her skin, Honey suppressed the urge to chomp a gaping hole in his neck.
Once her wrists were freed, he gave her the guitar. It was a magnificent thing to hold. With a sleeve she cleaned Piejack’s grease marks off the polished wood.
He said, “Now do me a love song, angel.”
“All right, Louis.”
Strumming lightly, she began to sing:
Piejack wrested the instrument from Honey. “I don’t care for that fuckin’ number.”
“But there’s twelve more verses,” she said innocently. “It’s called ‘The Trapped on an Island with a Revolting Pervert Blues.’ You never heard it before? Fiona Apple does a killer cover.”
Piejack flung the Gibson into the fire pit and said, “You ain’t one bit funny.”
Honey touched the side of her face. She had a bruise the size of a pomegranate where he’d clobbered her with the branch.
“Louis, may I have a Vicodin?”
“I only got the one left-and it’s for me.”
“Always the gentleman,” she said.
“We get home, you can have all you want. So quit yer bitchin’.”
“Where’s this boat of yours, anyway?”
“Ain’t far now,” he said, although he didn’t sound certain. “Gimme your hands,” he rasped, and fumbled at her neck for the loose end of the rope.
Honey spotted a bluish glint on the other side of the campsite-a pipe-like object on the ground beneath a bay tree. Piejack caught her staring past him, and he wheeled to see what had grabbed her attention.
“Jackpot!” he chortled.
“What is it?”
“Jackpot! Jackpot!” Piejack wobbled excitedly across the clearing and scooped up his sawed-off shotgun. Waving it high for Honey to see, he cried, “I thought I’d lost ’er for good, but look here!”
“Wooooo-hooo,” said Honey. She felt like weeping.
Perry Skinner and Sammy Tigertail had split up to search for Fry. Given his limited wilderness instincts and chronic bad luck, the Indian didn’t expect to find the boy. Yet there he was, in a splash of sunshine, sitting on a Dolphins helmet near a stand of green buttonwoods.
Fry appeared startled by the arrival of the stranger, though he tried to look brave. Sammy Tigertail introduced himself and said, “Your father’s lookin’ all over creation for you.” He offered some water, but the kid declined.