He joined them at the long table out by the pool. Heron’s Glen was perched at the base of the mainland surrounded by mangroves on three sides and looking out over Otter Bay toward the back. White sand, shells, and sea oats comprised a beach with a dock tucked in on the right. The opaque green water stretched out a half-mile before mangrove islands closed it in.
“Good morning to you, too,” Shar’s acid voice proclaimed from behind him.
He wasn’t going to admit how the view always took him in to the exclusion of everybody else. “Morning,” he said instead, adding a sheepish smile for good measure.
“Morning, Uncle Zell,” Tullie called from her place at the table.
Winn nodded at him as he tore into one of the tamarind muffins. Giselle had a tree in her backyard and used the soft, peanut-shaped fruit for all kinds of things. Shar’s husband Owen lifted his coffee cup in greeting.
“Going spotting today?” Shar asked, getting right to business.
He dropped into the seat next to Tullie and remembered he had some hell to pay on his sister for her big mouth. “Scheduled the helicopter for one. I’m going to cover our land and the Marsh Point Company’s land.” He could hear the excitement in his voice. His Uncle Calvin was taking him out over the plains so Zell could map out alligator nests.
Years ago, spotting was primitive; throw out a marker from the plane, note a few landmarks, and hope you could find your way back later. Nowadays spotters downloaded digital quad sheet maps and Global Positioning Systems and used sophisticated tracking systems. It had taken a lot of the fun out of it but made it much more efficient. The next part of the job made up for it. Over the next few nights, he’d go out in his airboat and steal eggs from alligator nests.
“I want to come with you when you take those eggs,” Owen said. “I think I’d like that part of the job.”
Zell piled food onto his plate. “One of these days.” Other than the pilot or the airboat driver, he liked working alone. His cousin Dougal was the best driver he’d ever had. The guy had a knack for finding his way around the prairies at night. Owen just had a knack for getting in the way.
Owen’s mouth curved into a sneer. “Not right you having all the fun.”
Wasn’t right Owen marrying into money and opportunity either, but Zell decided not to mention that. Especially with Owen still sulking. Zell wasn’t sure what Shar saw in him. He guessed it was more his acquiescence than his good looks and charm.
“Gonna be a full moon,” Shar said. She knew Zell loved going out on the airboat during a full moon.
He grinned and said, “Yep.”
Ever since he was knee-high to a mudbug, he’d been fascinated by alligators. When his granddad Zelwig started the farm in 1985, Zell had been thrilled—until the reality of it set in: two buildings housing hundreds, and then later, thousands of alligators at varying ages. The air inside so hot and rancid he could hardly breathe. He wanted to be outside in the prairies and marshes. He wanted the adventure of collecting eggs and harvesting alligators.
When the American Alligator was removed from the endangered species list, its numbers continued to flourish until there were too many of the animals. The government was spending money removing nuisance gators from populated areas. So, it undertook studies to research how farming could help both the economy and conservation efforts.
It was ironic then that Zelwig, a man who had made a living hunting alligators before and even after the park made it illegal, had found a way to legally make a living from alligators once again. He hadn’t liked being government regulated, but it was a small price to pay.
Shar had managed the farm since their father’s stroke, though Winn kept his hand in the financial end of the operation. Nothing bothered his sister, not the heat and smell inside the buildings, not even the harvesting. She supervised it all and did a damn good job.
As Zell continued to eat, he picked up on an air of expectation similar to what he’d felt at the bar the night before. Ah, that’s why Winn was watching him with blue-green eyes icier than a glacier.
“Heard you were down at Southern Comfort last night.”
He shrugged. “Go there all the time.”
“Not when Kim’s in town. Not when she’s there.”
Shar said, “Sam said she threatened to stay in town.”
Winn threw his napkin on his plate. “Heard you took up for her. Those fellas hadn’t even done anything,” he ground out in his low, ominous voice.
Zell pushed away his plate, knowing he wasn’t going to get in an enjoyable breakfast after all. He did finish his glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, though. “I’d take up for any woman who was being threatened. That’s what my granddad taught me. It’s what he taught you, too.”
Winn’s face reddened. “It ain’t right to talk to your father that way. You better show me some respect and deference.”
“Show you respect and deference. Why? Because you’re my father?”
“Yes,” Winn said with a hiss.
“You spent most of my life being the biggest child in this family. Shar and I became your parents, cleaning up after you and wiping your ass. Now that you’ve started to look back over all your bad choices, responsibility is tugging at you. You’re trying to be the patriarch now. Is that it, Dad? Well, I’ll tell you what: you’ve got a long damned way to go before I feel obliged to listen to your directives.” Or to respect you, he didn’t say.
Shar’s mouth dropped open. Owen busied himself with cutting another piece of frittata. Tullie looked down at her lap. Winn glared, but he knew the truth in Zell’s statement. He jammed a piece of muffin in his mouth and fumed.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Shar said, “What about letting Smitty work there? I heard it was up to you, and you said he could help that woman out.”
“Wasn’t right punishing Smitty for what she did. ’Sides, I don’t want the bar to go under. That’s been the only real local hangout for years now. Kim’ll be on her way soon enough, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Shar said, “Oh, you make yourself sound so damned honorable.”
He gave her his most charming smile. “That’s because I am.” Owen snorted, but backed down from Zell’s challenging look.
Shar laughed. “Then she thanked you by kicking you out.”
“She didn’t know what was going on. She thought we were causing trouble.” He pushed up from the table. “Well, if you’re through thrashing me, I’ll head on out now.”
Winn wasn’t through. He wheeled right into Zell’s path as agile as though he were riding a go-cart. “Don’t go causing me trouble by panting after that girl.”
That took him back. “Panting? Kim’s the last woman I’d be panting after.” He leaned around and rubbed Tullie’s head. “See you, angel.”
Up until then, Tullie had been listening to the adults converse with her dark expression. She was no doubt thinking of her feeling. Zell was glad when she whined like any kid. “I wanna go with you! I like going up in the ’copter.”
“Not today. I’ll take you out on the airboat later, okay?”
That brightened her pretty face. “Okay.”
This was why he liked doing the fieldwork. He loved his family, but he didn’t want to work with them day and night. That was way too much togetherness for him.
Kim knew it wasn’t going to be a good morning when she stepped outside. The chorus of birds was an eerie backdrop to the dead rat lying on the broken steps. A wild animal or maybe even some stray cat could have left the mangled carcass. Footprints marred the dirt, but she couldn’t tell if any of them weren’t hers.
She didn’t want to think further than that. She grabbed a handful of paper towels and picked up the rat. As she headed toward the hothouse to find a shovel, she saw the alligator tracks across the damp ground. The distinctive trail of the tail with footprints on either side gave her a shiver. She’d gutted fish and cleaned frogs that she had gigged out in the swamp with her dad, but alliga
tors terrified her. She buried the rat in the swamp, stomped on the alligator tracks, and tried to push both far from her mind. There were bigger things to think about.
Like nearly getting run off the road last night. It was her bad luck that Kinsey had been on duty. He had chalked her experience up as an impatient redneck with no manners or even a drunk driver. Nothing more sinister than that. Still, she’d insisted that he follow her home in case the boys had ideas about waiting at her house for her.
Oh, yeah, she was pretty sure it was the two boneheads she’d kicked out of the bar. Unfortunately, the truck was nowhere in sight. They’d probably figured she’d gone to the substation and hightailed it to the rock they lived under.
The short dock caught her eye, and she walked to the end of it. Her hands traced the edges of the skiff, smooth from wear and time. The skiff was the last place her grandma had been alive. It resembled a flat canoe, shallow and narrow. Elva often sojourned into the wetlands during the wet season. She used a pole to maneuver the skiff through the shallow waters, sometimes having to drag it across drier sections.
She climbed into the skiff and inhaled deeply in an effort to ease the turmoil inside her. She’d forgotten how clean the air was down here; only the faint scent of earth, leaves, and a rotting log before the water and ground absorbed it. That’s what she loved about the swamp, how the smells gave her the sense of natural history. She could experience thousands of years of life and death, of symbiotic relationships that hopefully would forever continue the cycle. Everything was beautiful here, from the green moss on the trees to the pattern of the oil on the water left by mangrove pods.
This was Elva’s world. She was strong, capable, full of sass and independence. She’d been paddling in these waters for decades. If she’d had a choice of where to die, she’d have chosen in the swamps.
That she had died still didn’t feel right.
Kim untied the skiff and shoved away from the dock. She hadn’t intended to take it out, but there she was, following the winding route through the hammock. As she pushed her pole into the tea-brown water, she took in the beauty that Elva had taught her to appreciate. How many times had the two of them come out here? Elva would merely point out something: the pattern of orange lichen on a cypress trunk; a strangler fig wrapped around an old palm tree; air plants and orchids perched safely out of a poacher’s reach. Every plant and creature took advantage of the limited space in the hammock, living on top of one another to grab a perch and a tiny bit of sunlight.
They hadn’t said much during those forays, and when they did speak, it was in church-quiet whispers. Elva said this was God’s sanctuary. Birds were the choir, stacks of bromeliads were the altars, and the skiff was her pew. This was where Kim would spread Elva’s ashes, she decided. Only after she had come to peace with her death.
Smitty said he’d tied a white ribbon to a branch where he had found Elva’s body. After a half-hour, Kim found it dangling from a branch. The sight of it brought tears to her eyes and an ache to her chest. The old-timers seem to take death in stride. It was a way of life in the swamps.
But something about Elva’s death wasn’t right. It kept nagging at her.
She shivered, even in the heavy air filled with buzzing insects trying to find a breach in her bug spray zone. She backed up and poled toward the sunshine.
Beyond the edge of the dense hammock lay a vast wet prairie streaked with thick patches of marsh and mangroves. Birds chattered from the stand of cypress trees in the far distance. She brushed away a web, sending the large golden spider with furry black tufts on its legs scurrying away. She paddled through a tight opening and went from dim and damp to bright and hot.
She followed a swath of water to the opening of a maze of mangroves she remembered exploring in years past. Maybe she’d go a little way into them for old time’s sake. She pushed the pole into the mud and was instantly surrounded by mangroves and isolated from the prairie. An egret prowled among the leggy roots of the mangroves, and dragonflies buzzed over the water looking for mosquito larvae.
The sun glared down as she continued to pole farther into the mangroves. She felt completely at peace until she heard the thud of a pole hitting the side of a boat. Three egrets abruptly took flight, and Kim realized that the chattering birds in the distance had grown quiet. She looked forward and then behind her, but saw no sign of anyone. Suddenly being alone wasn’t so peaceful. She’d come out on a whim, without her tear gas.
Her body stiffened as she strained to hear anything else. There. What was that? The sound of water stirring, the sound she’d been making as the pole slipped into the water and pushed the skiff forward. Ripples of water moved toward her through the mangroves to her right. She strained to see through the branches and leaves but could see nothing of what lay beyond. The sound told her that someone was definitely on the other side.
Since she was in the Everglades National Park, it could be anyone, though few people traveled this far from the park’s paths and roads. Buck Waddell’s land was a couple of miles to the south. What she was hearing, though, wasn’t a hunting party. Hunting wasn’t allowed in the park, and besides, it sounded like one person or maybe two.
Did he—or they—know she was there? They could have spotted her from across the distance as she’d poled out of the hammock, she supposed. They could be hunting illegally, and she could be mistaken for a target. Or it might be someone out enjoying the peace and quiet like she was—or had been. She decided to play it safe.
“Hey,” she called out in a strong, confident voice. “How’re you doing over there?”
She heard another thunk of wood against wood, then nothing else.
A chill slowly spread through her despite the heat. She slipped her pole into the water and pushed forward, going deeper into the mangroves. Somewhere up ahead, she remembered a break that would allow her exit. She would listen to whoever was on the other side and see where they were going.
A knot formed at her diaphragm. Through a thinning part of the trees she could see the vague shape of a boat roughly even with her. She knelt down but couldn’t see who was in it. The movement sent out ripples that would radiate to her follower. What did he want? A flash glinted through the leaves. Binoculars?
Her fingers tightened on the pole. She could use it as a weapon if necessary. Wasn’t that opening around the next bend? If he were following her, though, he would cut her off. Maybe that was his intent. When she came around the bend, she spotted the opening that was much smaller than she remembered. Her follower wasn’t masking his sounds as he headed toward that same opening.
She decided to go back toward the opening she’d come in through. Then it was only a short distance to the hammock. Very quietly, she turned and headed back. Twigs littered the bottom of the skiff. She threw one behind her, hoping to make the follower think she was continuing forward. A few seconds later, she threw another twig into the water.
Her heartbeat jumped when she heard branches scraping against the side of a boat. He was pushing his way through the opening. She shoved the pole into the mud and lost her grip. The pole fell into the tannin-colored water. She lunged for it before it sank. When she tried for another shove downward, her fingers slid against the wet wood. She gripped harder and pushed forward. Behind her, she could hear a boat sliding through the water.
At each bend, she hoped to find the entrance; instead she found more mangroves. Had she taken a wrong turn? Was the passage this narrow before? For all she knew, she could be heading to a dead end. She glanced behind her. No sign of him yet, but he was there, maybe gaining on her… maybe right around the last bend.
Fear propelled her on. Her fingers were cramping from her tight grip on the pole, but she pushed onward. When she turned the next bend, she gasped in relief: the opening to the marsh was fifty yards ahead. The boat sounded just as close behind her. She only dared a glance as she glided toward the opening. No sign of him.
She pushed out into the prairie and kept going through th
e wet grasses until she reached the edge of the hammock. When she turned back, she could see the front edge of a boat tucked inside the entrance. A reflection flashed through the leaves again. He was watching her. Enjoying her panic and fear. Bastard. Anger flared through her, making her want to pole right back and see who the hell was trying to scare her.
Instead, she glared defiantly in his direction for a moment before heading deeper into the hammock. “I’m never leaving the house without my tear gas,” she chanted over and over until she reached the dock. She jumped out, tied up the skiff, and headed inside.
A half-hour later, Kim had washed off the sweat and washed away the fear. Whoever had terrorized her in the mangroves hadn’t come into the hammock. She kept checking, even during her shower. Damn, if she could have only seen who it was. Could it be Billy Bob and Clem again? Something told her that today’s creep was subtler than those clods could be. Either way, it was darn disconcerting. Now she was angry at the jerk and at herself for giving him the satisfaction of scaring her.
“Forget about it,” she told herself as she stripped the sheets off Elva’s bed and ran a load of clothes. The washer and dryer were in the bedroom, which made it easy. She’d also discovered that Oscar liked his blanket fresh from the dryer. He’d stood in front of the dryer with the blanket in his mouth, probably annoyed that it took her so long to get the hint.
“You’ve got bigger fish to fry. Like apologizing to Zell.” Who knew when he’d deign to go back into the bar while she was still in town? Since she had no idea what he did for a living, she was going to have to go to Heron’s Glen. The prospect churned her stomach.
Oscar followed her out the door and to the car. She turned to him. “You know, if you’re going to insist on riding everywhere with me, you’re going to have to learn to get in the car yourself. I’m tired of shoving pig butt.”
His only response was to twitch his erect ears at her. Today the ads for the orchids and Oscar would run in both the local and Naples papers. And the bar?
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