Mangrove Lightning

by Randy Wayne White

  The girl chuckled and sat straighter, feeling his eyes on her skin—a misjudgment that caused him to hand over her robe, which she pushed away. “Stop treating me like an adolescent, okay? The bamboo, yeah, she told me about it, as if I gave a damn. Is that why you really came in here?”

  “I’m interested, and I’m running out of ways to apologize.”

  “You’re funny, know that? I like you.”

  Tomlinson stopped the game playing. “You’re a valuable young woman, Gracie. Get your health back, and when your baby’s old enough to climb around on my boat, bring a hammer, because that’s what you’ll need to keep me away. Until then”—he gave her a wise, warning look—“let’s stick with the bamboo.”

  “Okay. Geeze. Those disgusting wind chimes in the house, she made them out of what she called lightning glass. She—I don’t know how it worked exactly—she’d run a wire from the top of a bamboo stalk to the bottom and bury the wire in sand. That’s what she told me. It had to be sand.”

  “I’ll be damned. Lightning rods.”

  “I guess. She’d do it afternoons before a storm and show me these wormy-looking glass tubes the next day. It has a name, the stuff, but I can’t remember it.”

  Fulgurite. He’d seen the jade-like shards on a long-ago beach in Tahiti. Tomlinson was charmed by the primitive elegance of the technique. “Take a stalk of bamboo, ground it with wire, and lightning melts the sand. It’s hard to believe someone like her would care enough to bother.”

  The girl pulled the blanket to her neck. “I don’t want to think about it, what she . . . I haven’t told anyone this, but, for the first few days, I was afraid she was really . . . you know. Him. Because of her size and all. I was wrong. I’m not going to tell you why I’m sure, but I am.” She shuddered, and settled back on the pillow.

  “Gracie, I’m sorry. I should’ve waited to—” He stopped midsentence, and said, “Oh damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Lightning rods. I just got a terrible vibe—your cousin was killed by lightning, right? And that RV fire . . . Geezus, the same thing could happen to your uncle. Hang on, I’ve got to make a couple of calls.”

  He hurried toward the front of the van, pausing to politely draw the curtain.

  —

  Tootsie, after grumbling about being called so late, said, “You damn near gave me a heart attack. Nothing good happens after midnight, and I figured it had to do with Gracie. As long as she’s okay, it don’t matter, I guess. What time is it?”

  Tomlinson said, “I want you to do something for me. It was storming there when I left and I’m worried that—”

  “It’s still pouring down, so what?”

  “Any lightning?”

  The old man had to clear his throat while rain hammered the roof of his double-wide. “What the hell you expect? Another squall blew in from the ocean side. If you’re not drunk, Reverend, open a fresh bottle ’cause this sorta business can wait ’til morning.”

  “Don’t hang up, man. Just hear me out.”

  Tootsie listened for a while, before saying, “That’s just flat-ass crazy. Of course I got a patch of bamboo. Name one place on the Keys that doesn’t.” A moment later, he said, “I’m standing here in my skivvies, half asleep, and you want me to do what?”

  “Just take a quick look outside. Doc said there was someone near your place this afternoon monitoring our phone calls.”

  “What’s that have to do with my bamboo? Hang on there . . . Monitoring. You mean like listening in? And him a fish scientist. How could a scientist know something like that?”

  Tomlinson said, “Trust me, he’s usually right about this sort of thing. I’ve got a bad feeling, Tootsie. Please? I’ll explain the rest when you’re sure I’m wrong.”

  “Wandering around in a storm is a hell of a way not to get struck by lightning, that’s all I have to say. You might as well hang up, ’cause I ain’t calling you back ’til morning.”

  He slammed the phone down before Tomlinson could respond.

  —

  At Tootsie Barlow’s door was a hat rack where there were white rubber boots and foul-weather gear. He put on a jacket so old, the plastic flaked, and carried a flashlight outside. After a few seconds, he was soaked anyway. Rain blew past in waves while the sky sizzled, a flashbulb effect that stunned the eyes with verdant foliage, yellow and green.

  A shaft of light flicked a nearby palm and stopped the old fishing guide in his tracks. A bullwhip snap of thunder was simultaneous. It took him a second to get moving again.

  Damn . . . That was a close one.

  Yeah, buddy, but not the closest. Many times in his career, he’d experienced the same breathless instant of uncertainty, not sure if he’d been struck dead or not. Of all the squalls over the decades, the worst to ride out—no, the stupidest—was the time a client had hooked a possible world record tarpon on 12-pound tippet and refused to relinquish the rod. More than an hour, they’d followed that fish, while rain and fire poured down from the sky, one bolt so near, they’d felt the shock of the strike through the hull yet heard no thunder.

  No one believed them, of course, when they made it back to the dock—same with their tale about electricity melting the leader.

  By god, it was true. There were many strange things he’d witnessed that were difficult to believe if a person hadn’t spent a lifetime on the water. The bay, the Gulf Stream, and open sea, were particular about who they shared their secrets with.

  Years later, however, a client who was also a scientist had confirmed the story was true, explaining, “When lightning strikes, the explosion is a shock wave for the first ten yards. It’s only after that that it becomes an ordinary sound wave.”

  In other words, you never hear the bolt that kills you.

  Tootsie slogged against the wind to the clump of bamboo, already convinced that Tomlinson’s story was baloney. The flashlight painted a frail beam among thrashing stalks of green. He looked them up and down . . . blinked a couple of times, then looked again. Had to crane his neck because in the middle of the stand was a stalk twice as tall as any bamboo he’d ever planted.

  What the hell . . . ?

  He wiggled his way into the clump for a closer look. The flashlight found the base of the stalk—damn thing was as thick as his ankle, and it stood free, not rooted to the ground.

  This was unusual.

  After wiping rain from his eyes, he confirmed something else he saw: a strand of heavy-gauge copper wire that ran toward his trailer. He had to back free of the foliage to follow the wire to its terminus, which was a copper pipe that fed propane to his stove—exactly as Tomlinson had predicted.

  Fear. It tickled the back of the old man’s neck like static electricity.

  Oh Lord. This caused him to remember an important detail. Something else his scientist client had said was “Seconds before a strike, people often report that their hair stands on end.”

  Tootsie was running toward the safety of open ground when his rainy, thunderous world exploded in a flash of silent light.

  —

  Tomlinson returned to the bed, and closed the courtesy curtain, as Gracie asked, “Is Tootsie okay?”

  “Stubborn as ever. I just hope I’m—” He stopped, reluctant to upset the girl. “I always get a little paranoid when I’m stoned. Not that I am, but your uncle probably thought I was.”

  “You’re worried,” she said, “I can tell. Why won’t you talk to me about it?”

  The man, with his boney bare chest, chewed at a strand of hair, then shrugged. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until morning. Get some sleep, okay? The driver seat reclines, so don’t worry about me.”

  “Tommy?” Gracie had been wanting to call him that for a while. “Would you . . . would you mind holding me for a bit? I’m not scared. I know the crazy woman’s dead, and that Slaten and .
. . him, the other one, they’re both in jail. In fact, I’ve never felt safer in my life. It’s just that I—”

  “You’re restless?”

  “More like a lonely feeling, I guess.”

  A bittersweet smile on his face, Tomlinson said, “Scoot over.”

  For half an hour he lay with his lips near her ear, whispering small blessings, his voice too soft to hear, until he thought the girl was asleep. She wasn’t.

  “Where are you going?”

  Done with lying, he responded, “To smoke a joint. Need anything?”

  “Yes, but apparently that’s not gonna happen tonight. Would you mind grabbing my purse? It’s in the cabin on the bed. No rush. It’s nice and cool in here with the AC.”

  Barefoot, he went out into a summer night, the shadows wild with throbbing fireflies while he used the lighter. Man, he needed those first two hits. Then a third, the smoke finally curling into his brain that was already eager for more.

  Inside the cabin, he paused and sniffed the air, alerted by some imagined oddity. Through a window was the VW van, its windows dim, the silken engine purring on idle. Nothing unusual about that.

  He returned to the task at hand: finding Gracie’s purse. This required a lamp to be lit—and another cookie, while he was at it. The weed had blurred the cerebral edges, putting him in munchies slo-mo. He searched the bedroom, and found Tootsie’s long-barreled revolver, nothing else, then looked under the bed. That’s where he was, on his knees, when the van’s headlights swept the window, the driver already shifting into second, then floored the accelerator.

  “Sonuvabitch.”

  Tomlinson said that many times while he ran in pointless pursuit, then hit a patch of sandspurs. The damn things pierced his feet like tacks. Limping and hopping, he turned back to find Gracie’s rental car locked, and two of the tires flat. Which was okay until he realized her purse, where she probably kept the keys and her phone, was gone. A frenzied search proved it had been stolen.

  The situation got worse. His cell phone, and everything else he’d brought, was in the van, including his shoes. The cabin’s wall phone hadn’t worked all day but had at least made static noises. Not now. It was dead. Someone had cut the line.

  No . . . not someone. Some thing.

  “You son of a bitch!” Tomlinson screamed the words from the porch, then challenged the stars with the forbidden name. “Demon Crow, Demon-fucking-Crow. If you’ve got the balls, here I am.” From the yard, added, “Do you hear me, Walter Lambeth? Come get me!”

  Carrying Tootsie’s long-barreled revolver in a bag, he set off, limping, toward the demon’s lair . . . or the main road.

  Whichever crossed him first.

  22

  Mr. Bird couldn’t abide jail or an insane asylum, so he took flight. He preferred big diesels to the tin can frailties of a Volkswagen van, although the camper had already provided options that were useful.

  A bed: Gracie Yum-Yum, with her ankles, wrists, and mouth taped, lay there making pathetic cat sounds.

  Later, on a mattress of foam, not a blanket on the ground, it would be feeding time.

  The hippie’s cell phone GPS was on the dash: they drove in darkness on a one-lane shell road, headed northwest out of Palmetto Station, taking the backcountry route into Collier County.

  Walter had hunted this road as a boy. Walter had fed scrap body parts to gators. Mr. Bird knew the rutted hazards well, but only the GPS could provide a record of the hippie bastard’s recent travels and his favorite destinations.

  He scrolled through the list.

  Hmm. Dinkin’s Bay, Sanibel. An icon indicated it was home. Excellent. No need to search for a “Dr. Ford,” which is how that dink detective had addressed the biologist.

  Ford and the hippie were neighbors. Vernon had harvested this detail from their phone calls.

  Mr. Bird yearned to bury his thumbs in the slicker’s eyes and pluck them out, saying, “You’ve never experienced thermal vision until now.”

  The branding iron would provide an education.

  Trouble was, the biologist wasn’t easy prey. Vernon had learned this the hard way. Maybe the slicker was home, maybe he wasn’t. Walter, who’d fed a family and his chink slaves via woodsman skills, had a philosophy about that:

  Use the right bait, dummy, then hide your ass in a tree stand. Hunting on foot is for fools.

  The phone had a touch screen. He scrolled until he found “Capt. Hannah.” A star icon provided her address, an island on Sanibel’s bay side connected to the mainland by Pine Island Road. She was probably asleep at this hour, so easily surprised.

  Walter knew those backcountry islands. He’d done business there in the ’20s after the railroad was built to bring rich tarpon sports down to catch tarpon, a fish that was no damn good for eating. On the trip back north, the same sports had turned a blind eye to boxcars loaded with whiskey. Why not? It was making many of them richer.

  Walter had salivated at the name Hannah Smith.

  Mr. Bird, at the wheel, remembered the woman as she was now through Vernon’s eyes: Black hair glossy as tallow. The buckskin smoothness of her skin, long legs in fishing shorts, the heavy lift and fall of her breasts beneath a blouse that flowed with her body.

  The biologist had the hots for Captain Hannah. Could be, he was the one who’d knocked her up.

  Bait. Two for the price of one. No . . . four, because both women were pregnant.

  He was thinking that, imagining the possibilities, when a sudden thunk in the back of the van caused him to look over his shoulder.

  Damn little redneck biddy. She had wrestled herself off the bed onto the floor. He checked the mirrors, even though he’d yet to see another car, then pulled over. Moths swirled in the high beams. The van creaked beneath his weight. He towered above the girl and watched her eyes widen, then glaze.

  “You got some tongue on you, I forgot,” he said, referring to the tape she’d managed to push from her mouth. “Anxious to use it, are you?”

  The girl made a wheezing sound in an attempt to speak but only managed a bawling noise that might have been “Ple-e-e-ease don’t.”

  God, he loved the way terror melted a human face into a waxen death mask. It was a moment to be savored. He did, took his time, before saying, “Make you a deal.”

  The girl nodded eagerly.

  “Tell me what you know about this woman fishing guide, Captain Hannah.”

  Gracie was so scared her memory froze. “Huh?”

  He repeated the name. “Think she might be up for a threesome? Better answer me. You know what happens when I get mad.”

  “Okay, okay . . . I’m trying to think.” She cringed as the man’s expression changed. “Wait . . . I remember now. The woman, the guide—my uncle told me about her. Yes, I think she would. Hannah, she’s . . . I find her very attractive.”

  “You do, huh? My, my, my, I just learned something new about my little Gracie Yum-Yum. You might be worth keeping around for a while. Does she live alone?”

  There was only one safe answer. “By herself, yes. I’d really like to see her again.”

  The man’s expression read Lying bitch, but he said, “Ain’t that sweet, you two so close and all. Probably ’cause you’re both in a family way, huh?” He watched the pain those words caused. “That’s excellent. That’s what I wanted to hear.” He dropped to his knees suddenly, his face poised above hers like a dog about to bite. “In that case, you won’t have no problem telling me where she lives.”

  The heat from his breath made it impossible to breathe. She felt herself teetering, unhinged, unable to voice a lie.

  The man she thought of as Mr. Bird straightened to his knees, amused. In his hand was a cell phone displaying a map. He touched a star on the map. While the phone calculated distance and directions, he said, “Don’t worry your pretty little head, I got her addre
ss.”

  That was it. He returned to the driver’s seat. Not another word for a mile or so, until the van swerved abruptly and stopped. “You see that? Goddamn swamp buggy pulled right out in front of me,” he said. Not mad but interested. “No lights, either. Are they broke down or”—the van moved a short distance and stopped again—“stupid bastards won’t let me pass. They ain’t cops, if that’s what you’re hoping. So let’s see what these here boys got worth sharing.”

  He got up and grinned at her. “Gracie Yum-Yum ain’t for sale, but maybe we can barter.”

  —

  Walter had dealt with hundreds of these piney woods hard cases, weasels with more bluster than brains. Vernon and Slaten, the same thing, although it was Vernon who’d carried the heavy load when roaming the Glades as boys.

  Him being so big and smart and all.

  Mr. Bird channeled that knowledge as Vernon sized up the pair of gizzard-thin rednecks who’d stopped him, seeing in the headlights they were ugly enough to be kin. One sat atop the buggy, with its giant knobbed tires, gun seats, and a gun rack. The man held a rifle. The other, a bandy-legged rooster type, carried an axe and wore a puckered smile as if about to crow.

  “How ya’ll doing tonight?” Vernon called, stepping out of the van so they could see who they were dealing with.

  Oh-h-h-h shit. That was their first reaction. Next came surprise—they’d been expecting someone else.

  Who? he had to wonder.

  “You boys have engine problems? Happy to help, if I can. Say . . . I get the impression we’ve met before.”

  “Well, sir, we was thinking the same thing. That van sure looks like one owned by a friend of ours. A sorta hippie-looking dude. A Yankee. Don’t reckon you know him?”

  Vernon thought, Witnesses, but said, “Hell yes, I know that weirdo freak. Don’t tell me he cheated you out of money, too? Why you think I’m driving this piece of junk?” He ambled toward them to show how at home he was out here in shit-kicker land.

  “Cheated you, huh? Ain’t that a coincidence. That tough guy friend of his, the one with the wire glasses—you know him, too?” Rooster, doing the talking, used the axe as a leaning post, while the other stood and shouldered the rifle.