"How's it feel in there from the fish's side of things, Freeman? You know, the tourists want to think it's sport. But there ain't much sport to it, is there?"
It was impossible from under the shell of the boat to tell the direction of his voice. But I could feel the current swirling around my legs. He would logically be upriver of the dam. I hung onto the edges of the boat and let it slowly drift.
"All them folks out for the wilderness experience. Hell, they don't know wild until it comes up and really bites them. Right, Free-man? How's wild feel under there, Free-man?"
His voice sounded different now. Louder. But closer? I was on my knees now. My foot caught on a root as I moved back with the current. The bullet wound was singing with pain. My right knee ground into a rock.
"Oh, they all want to feel the wild. 'Take us out in the Glades so we can feel what it's like.' Shit. They don't belong out here any more than you do, Free-man. All they do is steal it. Piss in it and spoil it. You're no different, Free-man. Coming out here trying to live in my country."
I could hear the water spill at the falls behind me. I couldn't tell how close I was. I dug my feet into a wedge of rock. Shit. Why didn't he just shoot?
"How about it, Free-man? You pissin' in there?"
Thump!
Something hard and heavy hit the canoe hull and the trapped noise cracked inside and snapped in my ears.
"Huh? How about it, tourist?"
The force of wood on the hull rang again. This time dead center on a middle rib. It had to be the paddle, I thought. He had to be knee-deep in the water in front of me. He had to be close. I could hear him sloshing in the water, setting his feet. I cocked my knees and gripped the sides and imagined him on the backswing, wielding the paddle like an axe.
"HOW ABOUT IT, FREE-MAN!" he screamed again and I waited for that hard fraction of a second, the draw of breath that always betrays the amateur fighters before they swing.
"YOU THINK…"
I powered the boat up, driving its weight up with my legs and back and launching it forward with a spray of water. When I felt it hit something solid, another gunshot rang up into the cypress canopy and I turned and dove away.
My arm hit the top edge of the dam with a sickening thud. Momentum and current took me over the side and I fell the four feet, landing hard on a concrete edge below.
My feet seemed to scramble on their own and I pushed myself back inside the curtain of falling water and onto the shelf of concrete. I froze for several seconds, maybe in fear, maybe in pain. I was lying on one hip but when I tried to use my arms to prop myself up against the inside wall the left one buckled and I heard an ugly wail escape from my own throat. I reached for the arm and felt the bone sticking up under my shirt like a broken broomstick handle in a sack. I leaned back against the wall of the dam and held the arm in my lap. The hiss of falling water was all around me. I could see nothing beyond the moving film of the falls.
"Hell of a fall there, Free-man."
Blackman's voice was almost calm. A steady, clear inflection as if he were giving a nature-trail talk.
"And by the sound of that yelp, you might be in a bit of pain too. Oh, I've heard enough wounded animals in my time, Free-man.
"But you're a tough one. That little plane crash proved that. And the way you pulled that fat ass Gunther out of there. Now that impressed even me, Free-man."
The rush of the water made it impossible to pinpoint him. First the voice seemed to come from the left. Then the right. Even through the occasional gaps in the water curtain, I could see nothing.
"Course, a smart animal doesn't mess with the weak and wounded at his own expense. Especially a pussy like Gunther who didn't have the balls to do what needed to be done."
Now the voice seemed to be coming from above.
"Oh, Gunther was a talker all right. Just like the rest. But when it came down to the doin'? There's always got to be a strong one."
"You mean he wouldn't kill innocent children," I finally answered him, hoping he'd talk enough for me to figure his position.
"Territory and survival, Free-man," he said, more agitated now. "Even a wild animal wouldn't take its young into territory where they couldn't survive. They all knew that. They all knew what the answer was. But hell, even old Nate was too damn old to do what needed to be done."
I saw the rip in the water curtain just before the edge of the paddle came through but I still couldn't raise my arm fast enough. The lacquered pine caught me across the temple and a flash of white seared through my head. Suddenly I was yanked out of the falls and thrown facedown in the river. I tried to get up but a hard boot kicked me a few feet forward. Then I felt a knee drive hard into my back and water already seeping up my nose and into the back of my throat.
I coughed but it only let more water into my mouth. Then I felt my head being yanked up out of the river. Blackman had a fist full of my hair.
"Shit. I knew you wouldn't be as hard to kill as Ashley. But this is too easy, Free-man," Blackman growled.
I tried to push off the bottom but the broken arm folded like a weak straw.
"I figured a tough cop who didn't mind shooting down some black kid on the street might put up a blood fight."
He grabbed the shoulder of my broken arm and spun me. We were in knee-deep water now. My heels were scraping the bottom, but he had me by the shirt front again and I wasn't moving. I shook the water from my eyes. The moonlight was splashed behind his head. I could see he'd lost the paddle but still had my 9mm in his hand, the dark eye of the barrel was pointed directly into my face.
"You got my knife, Free-man. I've got your gun," he snarled. "I like the blade a lot more. But this has already been good twice tonight."
I knew then that he'd seen the knife on the news, just like I'd hoped. But it had flushed him out the wrong way. I'd taken him for a coward, a psychotic who would always work the shadows. It wasn't meant to go like this. But one thing that had brought him here, that had run him into Cleve and young Stanton, was still in my possession.
He had me straddled now and jammed his knotted fist up into my throat. The fanny pack was still strapped to my waist, twisted behind me, and I used my good hand to rip at the zipper. Inside, my fingertips found the smooth wooden handle.
Blackman pulled me closer.
"Even if I don't get the knife back, it won't be much good without you alive to say where you got it."
Then he leaned into me, forcing me under. I hung there. From inches below the surface of the water I could see a blue, backlit outline of his shoulders and head, but I couldn't see his eyes. Bubbles from my own lips began to rise. I was at an edge too close to give up.
I planted my knees in the mud, tried to concentrate on the knife in my hand and the feeling I still had in my shoulder and then drove the blade up with as much force as I could.
Through the shimmer of current I saw my fist lumped hard against his neck. It held there, trembling, and I felt his grip loosen. Then dark drops of what looked like oil fell onto the surface in front of my face and lost their shape in the swirl of water, and the night went black.
CHAPTER 25
I heard the hiss of falling water and then felt the odd, involuntary rise of my own chest. Another mouth was on my own and when the seal of lips broke, I felt a small rush of warm air leave my lungs.
My throat gagged with the vacuum left behind and then caught and sputtered and a wash of water boiled out. I rolled my knees up and coughed out water for a full minute before I could open my eyes.
I was out of the water, up on the concrete dam abutment and Nate Brown was on his knees beside me. The moonlight was against his face and he wiped his whiskers with the back of his hand and said, "Been a long time since I breathed life into a man."