I looked over at him, watching the pilot's hard profile against the light of his side window. Billy had obviously explained more than Gunther had let on.
"So who would know how to get to those spots?" I said, dipping into an area he had opened up.
"Look. You have to understand there's a lot of characters out here. Folks whose fathers and grandfathers lived a rough existence since the 1920s. They stayed away from the coast and traded progress for what they considered freedom, and it wasn't always legal," he said. "Hell, I'm considered an outsider, but I've sat around with these guys and heard them talk about sniping off the wardens and the tax men and land speculators if they threatened what they consider to be their Glades."
"So it could be a native, somebody who knows the land out here and maybe went off the deep end?" I said.
"Maybe. But even the guides like me, and the hunters and fishermen who live on the coast and come out here all the time, could get out to those spots. Hell, even the environmentalists get out here. And they're not always wrapped too tight when it comes to fighting development."
Both of us fell silent. Gunther seemed to be the one focused on a distant point to keep from getting queasy.
"It's a long way from drinking and talking about it and actually going out and killing kids to scare people away," he finally said.
By now the sun was going orange and beginning to spin streaks of purple and red through the low clouds. We passed over a fish camp that sat isolated in the grass with a dock that stuck out into a clear-water channel. I could see the beaten- down paths in the sawgrass from airboats spoking out from the weathered building.
Gunther was banking toward the east when the first cough sounded. When the second one changed the thrumming sound of the engine I looked over at the pilot whose fingers were now moving to try and catch up to the beat.
"What the hell?" was all he said.
The third cough came with a lurch and the nose of the Cessna dipped. Gunther never said another word but I could tell from the tight web creasing at the corner of his eyes that we were going down. The horizon suddenly tilted as Gunther tried to horse the plane back toward the fishing camp. Blue sky turned to sun-tinged grass. I had time to grab a handful of the console in front of me. I never even heard the thump of impact.
CHAPTER 9
I might have been out ten seconds or ten minutes. Or maybe my brain just shut down with shock and I hadn't been unconscious at all. But Gunther was.
When my sight kicked back on I could see the big man wrapped hard around the steering yoke, his head up against the windshield and leaking a string of blood that ran down through his eyebrow and onto a cheek.
I tried to reach out to him, but I was half hanging in the seat harness, all my weight pushed forward with the angle of the cockpit. We had pitched into the Glades and speared into the water and black muck. The propeller and most of the engine had disappeared, buried in front of us. The wings at either side looked like they'd simply dropped flat out of the sky and lay floating on the bent stalks of sawgrass, resting on the pile. But in the cockpit, water was settling knee high around both of our legs and when I looked down at Gunther's leg, I could see the glisten of white bone that had ripped through his trousers at the middle of his thigh. Compound fracture, I thought. And God knows what else.
I tried to do a quick assessment of myself. I could move my feet, but when I tried to twist my shoulders a pain screeched through my lower chest. I had been punched at Frankie O'Hara's gym with enough wicked hooks to the body to know that I'd at least bruised a few ribs but hoped I hadn't cracked any. I took shallow breaths and after several seconds I reached out and got a good brace with the left arm on the console and pushed my weight off the harness. I fumbled with the buckle but got it loose and then got solid footing on the angled cockpit floor. I leaned back on the edge of my seat and then reached over to get my fingertips on Gunther's neck artery. A pulse. Thready, but a pulse. The pilot had not even reached for the radio when we'd felt the first jolts from the engine. I looked at it now, folded into the crushed console and partly submerged in rising water. Useless.
I had to get myself out. I had to get him out. And we were already losing daylight. Who was ever going to find us out here? Who even knew we were out here?
One step at a time, I told myself. "Ya can't book 'em till ya catch 'em," Sergeant McGinnis had said in the police academy. "And can't catch 'em till ya find 'em."
"And can't find 'em if they're dead," one of the smartass rookies would always whisper.
I used my right hand to twist down my handle and pushed loose the passenger door. Each movement sent a spike of pain up my side, but I was able to crawl up on the seat cushion and pull myself out onto the wing. I stood. My left knee was creaky. An ankle throbbed. Over the wall of sawgrass I could see the roofline of the fish camp in silhouette against the pink glow of sunset that still lightened the horizon. Gunther had brought us to within 150 yards or so. I didn't know how I'd get him the rest of the way.
I crab walked across the fuselage to the other wing and wrenched open the pilot's door. Gunther's seat belt was either unhooked or had snapped. If he had a neck injury, I couldn't help it now. We were both soaking wet. It was getting dark and even a seventy-five-degree South Florida night was going to play hell with our body temperatures. Gunther had an open fracture and was probably bleeding internally. I'd taken enough emergency medical courses as a cop to know we were in deep shit. I looked again at Gunther. He was 230 pounds and unconscious. Even if I could get him out, I'd never be able to carry him 150 yards. I got that old cop feeling of hearing shots and wanting to go the other way. Fight or flee. Self-preservation. The sky still glowed in the west. I bent over, got a grip under the pilot's arms and started pulling.
It took another twenty minutes to get him out. My rib cage screamed. Part of me was glad the big man was out cold. At least he couldn't consciously feel the pain of his broken femur as I jerked him out onto the wing. He groaned only once and I saw his eyes roll up. I bent my face to his mouth and felt the whisper of breath on my cheek. Still breathing. I sat, resting and trying to figure out my next move.
"OK, Fred. What's next?" I said out loud. If I was taking him, it had to be a joint effort. If I wanted him to live, I had to convince myself he could. I knew that if I didn't believe it, I'd give up.
I stood and took another bearing on the fading roofline of the fish camp and tried to imagine the route in my head. Once we were down in the sawgrass there'd be no sight line. The straight edge of the wing pointed just to the right of the building, about fifteen degrees off. I could use that at first.
I eased myself down at the crook of the wing and the fuselage and onto the matted sawgrass. The footing was shaky, but I sank only knee deep into water. But when I stepped away from the flattened grass I was suddenly up to my waist. The bottom felt slick and doughy and sucked at my Reeboks when I took a step. I'd never be able to drag Gunther through this. I stood there, warm water filling my jeans, staring down at the water and grinding. The grass was my enemy. Could I avoid it? No. The muck was my enemy. Could I avoid it? No. The water and Gunther's weight were my enemy.
Float him, I thought. It was the only way.
Would a plane this size have a raft? Doubtful. And I hadn't seen anything that resembled a life vest in the cockpit. I worked my way back to the fuselage and found the handle to the side compartment where I'd seen Gunther rummaging when I first pulled up at his hangar. The recessed handle twisted out and I popped the door and wrenched it open. Inside the space was dark and I had to reach in and start pulling out whatever I could reach: a rolled-up length of canvas tarpaulin, some fishing gear, a sleeping bag jammed deep in one corner, and a large zippered black bag with a U.S. Diver's logo on the side.