Tuck grinned. Yep, that's just what he'd do. Make Joseph pull the story out of him; let the man see for himself just what a smart partner he'd had for all these years.
But then Tuck heard a woman yell, "Somebody stop that man!" and he stopped thinking about Joseph.
It was Miz Walker's voice, Tuck realized, and he whirled around to see that pretty woman sprinting away from the beach, pushing people aside as she ran toward the road.
A couple hundred yards ahead of her, someone else was running, too. A man, short little guy with muscles, that Tuck remembered from the marina, the day he'd used the chart to convince him that, by boat, the best way to Everglades National Park was through a narrow little cut. The Auger Hole, which was only about three or four miles from old Henry's island.
Herbott, that was the guy's name. Tuck had gotten another quick look at him, hog-tied in the bottom of Henry's boat.
Some cop. I deliver her four men and she's already lost two of 'em.
"I am ordering you to stop!"
Gad, now she had a gun out. Little black pistol-that made people scatter!
Tuck watched the man hesitate at the road, as if unsure which way to go. Walker was closing on him. That woman could run, even in a skirt! Then Herbott seemed to notice the white van-the engine was still running, keeping it cool inside. That quick, the man had the door open, jumped inside, and spun the tires, peeling out fast.
Tuck shook his head, chuckling to himself… but then he abruptly sobered, feeling a chill as if from a sharp wind. His eyes found Joseph, who was riding out on the road now, just east of where the blind curve swooped south. Then his eyes found the van again, accelerating fast from the south, with Herbott hunched over the wheel, no intention of slowing for the curve or anything else.
Then Tuck was running, too. Running hard toward Joseph, waving his arms at him, calling, "Get over, get over. Move that horse over, you gawldang fool!"
He was still yelling and waving when the van skidded around the curve, and then everything seemed to happen at once, but in terrible slow motion. Tuck could see surprise widen Joseph's eyes… the shock of being confronted by an out-of-control truck coming too fast to avoid hitting him… then a different kind of surprise-a kind of joyous bewilderment as his horse, Buster, exploded into one quick galloping stride and then jumped higher than any horse Tuck had ever seen jump before…
As Joseph Egret approached the last sharp curve into Mango, he saw the expression on Tuck's face, and he thought, I'll be damned, the old pirate won.
He could tell by Tuck's smirk, the way he had his hat tilted at a jaunty angle, thumbs in his belt loops, bowed legs and boots set firmly on the ground, like it was his forever, the land, the bay, the livestock, and everything else either one of them had ever cared much about.
It was Tuck's "you don't have to thank me now" pose.
Sure enough, he won, but he won't tell me about it. Not right off. He'll make me spend the whole night pullin' it out of him. Then I won't be able to get him to shut up about it for the next ten years.
That made Joseph smile, and he let Tuck see the smile as he waved back, talking to Buster as he did. "Know what this means, Buster? Means Tuck'll let me wash these spots off your butt. No more crazy business. For a while, anyway. Tuck always likes to take a little vacation after something big like this. 'Bout six months, maybe."
Joseph had been talking along to Buster all day. Talked to him as they crossed the Tamiami Trail and followed Fakahatchee Trace back to his old palmetto shack. Talked to him as he dug up the bones of his grandfather and set them in the shade in a neat pile, all the earth brushed away, before placing them in the white pillowcase Sally Carmel had given him.
"He never amounted to much, but he wasn't a bad granddaddy, Buster. Took me all over the islands, campin' and fishin', and told me all them stories." Joseph had looked up at the horse briefly. "He did a lot of fightin', too, but it was all inside. That's what took his energy. But a man don't have to make something of his life to be worth somethin', huh?"
Later, Joseph told Buster what he was gonna do was rebury his grandfather down in the islands, maybe Henry Short's place. "Tuck says it's got a couple of nice mounds there, and flowin' water. And the mosquitoes is so bad, the treasure hunters won't come look n'."
Before h i left his old shack, Joseph took the Playboy calendar off the wall, then tied the door back on its hinges. It made the place look more respectable, Joseph felt.
Two hours later, he stopped at Jimmy Tiger's Famous Reptile Show, where he tapped shyly at the door and gave the calendar to Jimmy Tiger as a present.
"Joseph, you sure you don't need it?" Jimmy Tiger had shuffled him inside, brushing aside crawling great-grandchildren, then found a place by an oil lamp where, by holding the calendar right to his nose, Joseph knew the old man could see the calendar, because he described the photographs in detail.
"Look at that one! Ooh, and looka this one!"
While Jimmy's pretty granddaughter, Maria, fried fish for lunch, Jimmy asked him, "Joseph, you had any white women?"
Taken by surprise, Joseph had answered, "Today, you mean? It's still pretty early."
The last thing Joseph did before he left Jimmy Tiger's was give his black roper's hat to Maria. He could tell by the way she asked about where he'd bought it that she liked it. "Havana," he told her. "Nineteen fifty-eight."
"The price?" she had asked.
"Uh… no, the year. But me, I'm feelin' younger every day."
In return, she had tied a red scarf around his head. "A wind ribbon," she had told him. Then, standing back to look at him, said, "Oh-aren't you handsome!"
The whole way back to Mango, Joseph had wondered about the way she'd said that. Maria was a big, healthy girl-and such nice skin.
Before he rode off, Jimmy Tiger had told him, "When the signs is right to bury your grandfather, Joe, let me know. We'll do it in the old way. Get the drums out and maybe have some whiskey. Chekika's Son would like that."
Joseph had thought about that, too. He had felt good, sitting in Jimmy Tiger's chikee, with kids running around and the smell of food cooking over a wood fire. It would be nice to spend more time there. But Joseph wondered what kind of signs the old man meant. The sky still had its fiery look at night, only not so bright-but maybe that was because the moon was now full. There was still a strange red haze at sunrise and sunset, but now the haze touched the earth, drifting down in the form of fine brown sand.
Well, maybe that was a sign in itself.
Frustrated with himself, Joseph had told Buster, "Damn it, you'd think that was somethin' I'd be naturally good at. Knowin' what a sign is and what it ain't."
He had been puzzling over that-and thinking about Maria, too-as he approached the curve. But when he saw Tuck, he reigned the horse out into the road so he could cross at the curve… but then Tuck started making an odd swinging motion with his arms; had a strange pinched expression on his face, too.
"What the hell's Tuck runnin' toward us for, Buster-"
Joseph didn't finish the sentence… or it was drowned out by the squeal of tires as the white van careened around the curve, still accelerating.
Joseph sat numbly in the saddle-not frightened, just numb, seeing nothing but the glare of the vehicle's windshield and grill, it was on them so fast, and he felt his body relax, his mind calming because the collision was inevitable and there was no escape.
Beneath him, though, the horse was not calm. Buster seemed to buck once, lunged right at the van, and then, Joseph realized, they were both airborne, flying. Looking down, Joseph watched the horse's hooves clear the vehicle's hood by a good six inches as they sailed across the road, and then he had time to catch Tuck's eye among the blur of faces, feeling very high and proud… until Buster jolted, untouched, back to earth and Joseph lost a stirrup.