"Nobody"
"Did you sleep with him?"
"Who?"
"Either of them."
"No!" To cover the lie, Bonnie aimed for a tone of indignation.
"But you wanted to."
Max Lamb rose, raindrops beading on the plastic poncho. "You're telling me that this"-with a mordant sweep of an arm"you prefer this to the city!"
She sighed. "I wouldn't mind seeing a baby crocodile. That's all I said." She was aware of how outrageous it must have sounded to someone like Max.
"He's got you smoking that shit, doesn't he?"
"Oh please."
Back and forth he paced. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Me, neither," she said. "I'm sorry, Max."
He squared his shoulders and spun away, toward the lakes. He was too mad to weep, too insulted to beg. Also, it had dawned on him that Bonnie might be right, that perhaps he didn't know her very well. Even if she changed her mind and returned with him to New York, he constantly would be worrying that she might flip out again. What happened out here had sprained their relationship, probably permanently.
Turning to face her, his voice leaden with disappointment, Max said, "I thought you were more ... centered."
"Me, too." To argue would only drag things out. Bonnie was determined to be agreeable and apologetic, no matter what he said. She had to leave him with something-if not his pride, then his swollen sense of male superiority. She figured it was a small price, to help get him through the hurt.
"Last chance," Max Lamb said. He groped under the bright poncho and pulled out a pair of airline tickets.
"I'm sorry," said Bonnie, shaking her head.
"Do you love me or not?"
"Max, I don't know."
He tucked the tickets away. "This is unbelievable."
She got up and kissed him good-bye. Her eyes were rimmed with tears, though Max probably didn't notice, with all the raindrops on her face.
"Call me," he said bitterly, "when you figure yourself out."
Alone, he walked back to the patrol car. The kidnapper held the door for him.
Max was quiet on the drive back to the mainland; an accusatory silence. The state trooper was friends with the maniac who'd kidnapped Max and brainwashed his wife. The trooper had a moral and legal duty to stop the seduction, or at least try. That was Max's personal opinion.
When they got to the boarded-up McDonald's, Max told him: "You make sure that nutty one-eyed bastard takes care of her."
It was meant to carry the weight of a warning, and ordinarily Jim Tile would have been amused at Max's hubris. But he pitied him for the bad news he was about to deliver.
"She'll never see the governor again," the trooper said, "after today."
"Then"
"I think you're confused," said the trooper. "The young fella with the skulls, that's who she fell for."
"Jesus." Max Lamb looked disgusted.
As Jim Tile drove away, he could see him in the rearview-stomping around the parking lot in the rain, kicking at puddles, flapping like a giant Day-Glo bat.
They were a mile from the road when Augustine appeared on the trail. Bonnie ran to him. They were still holding each other when Skink announced he was heading back to camp.
Augustine took Bonnie to the creek. He cleared a dry patch of bank and they sat down. She saw that he'd brought a paperback book from the ambulance.
"Oh, you're going to read me sonnets!" She clasped both hands to her breasts, pretending to swoon.
"Don't be a smartass," Augustine said, mussing her hair. "Remember the first time your husband called after the kidnapping-the message he left on the answering machine?"
Bonnie no longer regarded it as that-a kidnapping but she supposed it was. Technically.
Augustine said, "The governor had him read something over the phone. Well, I found it." He pointed to the title on the spine of the book. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller.
"Listen," said Augustine: " 'Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity-I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples.' "
He handed the novel to Bonnie. She saw that Skink had underlined the passage in red ink.
"It's him, all right."
"Or me," said Augustine. "On a given day."
The sky was turning purple and contused. Overhead a string of turkey buzzards coasted on the freshening breeze. In the distance there was a broken tumble of thunder. Augustine asked Bonnie what happened with Max.
"He's going back alone," she said. "You know, it's crossed my mind that I'm cracking up." She took out her wedding ring. Augustine figured she was going to either slip it on her finger or toss it in the creek.
"Don't," he said, covering both possibilities.
"I'll send it back to him. I don't know how else to handle it." Her voice was thin and sad. Hurriedly she put the ring away.
Augustine asked, "Whatdo,you want to do?"
"Be with you for a while. Is that OK?"
"Perfect."
Brightening, Bonnie said, "What about you, Mister Live-for-Today ?"
"You'll be pleased to know I've got a plan."
"That's hard to believe."
"Really," he said. "I'm going to sell Uncle Felix's farm, or what's left of it. And my house, too. Then I intend to find someplace just like this and start again. Someplace on the far edge of things. Still interested?"
"I don't know. Will there be cable?"
"No way."
"Rattlesnakes?"
"Possibly."
"Boy. The edge of the edge." Bonnie pretended to be mulling.
He said, "Ever heard of the Ten Thousand Islands?"
"Somebody counted them all?"
"No, dear. That would take a lifetime."
"Is that your plan?" she asked.
Augustine was familiar with the partner-choosing dilemma. She was deciding whether she wanted an anchor or a sail. He said, "There's a town called Chokoloskee. You might hate it."
"Baloney. Stay right here." Bonnie hopped to her feet.
"Now where are you going?"
"Back to camp for some poetry."
"Sit down. I'm not finished."
She spanked his arm away. "You read to me. Now I-m going to read to you."
What Bonnie had in mind, dashing up the trail, was Whitman. Somewhere in the rusted ambulance was a hardbound volume of "Song of Myself," a poem she'd loved since high school. One line in particular "In vain the mastodon retreats from its own powder'd bones" -reminded her of Skink.
As she entered the campsite, she spotted him motionless on the ground. Snapper craned over him, making throaty snarls. He was coming down from a sulfurous rage. In one hand was a piece of burnt wood that Bonnie recognized as the governor's hiking torch.
She stood rigid, her fists balled at her sides. Snapper wore a contorted expression made no less malignant by the red-and-chrome bar clamped to his face. He was unaware of Bonnie watching from the tree line. He dropped the torch, snatched up the suitcase and began to run.
Insanely she went after him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE