Skink--No Surrender (22 page)

Toward the end of
Silent Spring
is a chapter describing how mosquitoes and certain other insects can become totally resistant to toxic pesticides that had been successfully (and lethally) used against them for years. For example, a Danish scientist reported observing a species of fly frolicking in a bath of DDT, the horribly destructive poison that for a long time was the world’s favorite weapon against unwanted bugs. That fly in Denmark had adapted and evolved over rapid generations until DDT was no more harmful to it than a puddle of ginger ale.

How does that happen? The way Rachel Carson explained it, only the toughest and most resistant flies survived
all that DDT spraying, and they mated with other tough survivors to produce even tougher ones—superflies that thrived in the face of the same chemical assault that had killed their weaker ancestors.

Survival of the fittest, literally.

When I was done with the book I thought about Skink, who also refused to be exterminated. I wondered to what degree his mother and father and grandparents and great-grandparents were as hardy and resourceful, or if he was simply a supreme freak of nature—one of those rare, random individuals who is blessed with all the strongest traits of his gene pool, and no fatal weaknesses.

Of course he’d ridicule any such description of himself. Yet here is the vision that loomed out of the gray mist in a tailing eddy on the Choctawhatchee River one rainy summer afternoon:

A lone man standing motionless on the water, his ragged reflection encircled in the liquid halo of an eerie bluish-purple sheen.

Not
walking
on the water, Jesus-style, but just standing there, his bare feet (one of them mangled) clearly visible on the surface.

Still impressive, right?

Malley and I might have mistaken him for a holy apparition except for the camo pants and the golf club he wielded as a crutch—an antique nine-iron with a peeling leather grip.

I waved. He waved.

My cousin, who seldom admits to being mystified, said: “Okay,
that
is insane.”

“Why, it’s the youth of America!” Skink sang out. “Outstanding!”

As we drew closer I noticed a large, unnatural shadow in the depths beneath him, and the shape of it—a pale rectangular platform—became more distinct. The old man wasn’t standing on the water; he was standing on the roof of the sunken houseboat.

“Tried to cork that hole in the hull,” he muttered. “Too little, too late.”

I slipped the engine into Neutral. Deftly the governor hooked the toe of the nine-iron in our bow cleat to hold us in the current.

“You all right?” Malley asked.

“I’ve been better, butterfly.”

A review of his assorted injuries: the deep head gash resulting from his confrontation with Dodge Olney, the pulverized right foot resulting from an eighteen-wheeler running over it; a gory lacework of bruises, scrapes and scabbing punctures resulting from his wrestling match with a mammoth, highly pissed-off alligator.

Now add to this woeful list a through-and-through gunshot wound. The slug had entered beneath his collarbone and exited beneath his left shoulder blade, miraculously missing all vital organs and crucial arteries.

Survival of the fittest, but also the luckiest.

We helped him climb aboard.

“Where’s T.C.?” asked Malley.

“Where’s the canoe?” was my question.

“Son, I assume you’re carrying an anchor. Use it.”

With a grunt I heaved out Dime’s heavy anchor, which snagged fast on the bottom. The Pathfinder came to an abrupt stop, the bow pointing upstream like a compass needle. I recognized the bluish-purple slick on the surface as oil and gas, leaking up from the houseboat.

Malley’s eyes were riveted on the submerged wreck. “Is that where he is?”

“It would have been useful,” said Skink, “to know he had another gun.”

“Sorry. There was a lot going on.”

“You hungry?” I asked him.

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Malley flipped open the lid of the cooler. The governor grabbed the remaining icky sub, a Snickers bar and two bottles of water, which he chugged. We sat there watching him eat, waiting for him to tell us what had happened. He asked for his ridiculous shower cap, which I was happy to return. He was such a bloody mess that the snail shell covering his eye socket was probably the last detail a stranger would have noticed.

I kept glancing down at the hazy silhouette of the houseboat, half expecting to see the rising corpse of Tommy Chalmers.

“That heron? I asked him why he’d shot at it,” the
governor began, “because I believe everyone deserves an opportunity to explain themselves. His answer was unsatisfactory, as was his attitude.”

I’m thinking:
Again with the bird?

“Next we had a discussion about identity theft. To dishonor a fallen soldier like the late Corporal Chock by stealing his name is a loathsome act. Mr. Chalmers didn’t exhibit the proper remorse, and I became provoked. I’ll take another candy bar.”

This time he chose a Milky Way.

“So provoked,” he continued with bulging cheeks, “that I made a mistake. I uncuffed him from my wrist.”

“Why’d you do that?” my cousin cried.

“Because I intended to launch his sorry ass into orbit, though not before questioning him about the most important topic of all—his treatment of you, Miss Spence. That final conversation grew heated, and he ended it by kicking open an empty battery box and pulling out the aforementioned firearm.”

Skink acknowledged the dark O-shaped hole in his chest. It had been plugged with what appeared to be a wad of torn bedsheet. “The shooting was a lapse of vigilance on my part. I was distracted because the boat was sinking, but still, no excuses.” He shrugged. “Bottom line, the little maggot shot me.”

Malley wasn’t the most patient listener. “So, come on, did you kill him or what? Is he down 
… there
?”

The governor turned his rawhide face to the clouds. A bright green fly landed on his snail-shell eyepiece, and my cousin shooed it away.

He cocked his head. “Hear that?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“How about you?” he asked my cousin.

“I don’t hear a thing.”

“All right.” He didn’t seem disappointed. “But it’s peaceful out here, no?”

“Governor, what happened after Tommy shot you?”

“The bullet knocked me flat. I’m sure he thought I was dead. He jumped in the canoe and went up a creek, literally. The houseboat stayed afloat for another mile or so, then
glug, glug, glug
 … and here we are.”

“The cops’ll catch Tommy,” I said.

“Really? When?” Malley was upset that he’d slipped away.

“No police,” said Skink firmly. “I’m dead, remember? It’s a status I prefer to maintain. If I suddenly return from the grave, the authorities will hassle me about certain episodes from the past, some unsolved incidents. Malley, dear, I’m a dreary old fart. My memory’s shaky, my temper’s short. People say I did this, I did that. Dubious witnesses casting wild accusations, though in a few cases they happen to be true. I’ve got no appetite to see my name in the news again after all this time. Richard told you my improbable history, correct?”

“He did,” said my cousin.

“Then you grasp the dilemma. You’re a bright young woman.”

“So just disappear. Poof!” I snapped my fingers. “We’ll cover for you, make up a great story.”

Skink noticed Tommy’s suitcase propped upright against the transom. “Did you two peek inside? I’m guessing it wasn’t Bibles.”

Malley spoke up. “What if there’s a trial? Would it be, like, totally my word against his?” She strained to hide that she was dreading it.

“No jury will believe a word that jerk says,” I asserted. Then to the governor: “We’ll take you straight to the car, then you just drive off into the sunset, right? I brought the shoe box, so you’ll have plenty of money. Let the police go find Tommy.”

“Maybe they can, maybe they can’t,” he said. “But here’s a fact:
I
can find him. Right now, Richard, with this excellent vessel you’ve provided.”

“Listen, he’s sick as a dog. He won’t get far,” I argued. “The cops’ll catch him by this time tomorrow, and you’ll be long gone.”

“And if he gets away? Hitches a ride, hops a train, flees the state? Think of the harm he might cause to somebody else’s cousin.” Skink helped himself to a Coke.

Malley wore an expression that crushed my heart. Whatever Tommy Chalmers had done to her, the damage was written on her face. She’d made it through that ordeal
the same way Skink had always prevailed, through sheer unstoppable will.

“I do
not
want him to get away,” she said.

“He won’t.” The governor and I said it at the same time.

“Hey, it’s not like I’m scared to testify,” said Malley. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

But there were more tears than raindrops on her cheeks. The last time I’d seen her cry was at my father’s funeral.

Facing T.C. in a courtroom would be rough, him sitting there all clean-cut in a new coat and necktie, pretending to be some sort of model citizen. I understood that Malley needed to see him caught on the river, to be there in person, not just go home and trust the police to find him. She needed the final word, a final
something
.

I did, too. I admit it.

“You’re not going after Tommy alone, no way,” I told the governor. “We’re coming with you.”

“Definitely. Done deal.” Malley’s tone was sharp. “And don’t even think about throwing us overboard again, okay? That sucked.”

Skink was in full predator mode, too preoccupied to argue. He burped volcanically and jammed the empty Coke can in the cooler.

“YOLO,” he said.

Then he reached for the rope and hauled up the anchor as if it were weightless.

TWENTY-TWO

I let him take the wheel. Like I had a choice.

When he rammed the throttle down, the bow porpoised once and then we were skimming full-speed upriver, weaving around stumps and logs. Malley and I clung to the rail of the boat—a radical thrill ride with no seat belts.

We made it to the creek in five minutes. The governor cut the engine and signaled for us not to speak. Besides the thump of my own heart, the only sound I heard was the boat’s wake sloshing against the bank.

Quickly Malley got restless. She pointed to the narrow entrance of the creek and mouthed the words, “Let’s go!”

Skink ignored her and closed his good eye. He looked like a grizzled old iguana. The rain had quit, and amber stalks of sunlight punctured the clouds.

A gunshot went off, the echo pinging through the trees. Skink turned sharply toward the sound. From the same direction came a second shot. Moments later a gangly, wide-winged bird came veering from a gap in the creek, then rose and crossed the river, flapping furiously.

Another heron, only this one was as white as cotton.

The governor restarted the engine. “Here we go, boys and girls.”

Slowly he steered the boat up the creek, which was lined with palmettos and bright wild azaleas. My cousin sat beside me on a cushion in front of the console. She edged closer, whispering, “T.C.’s got three bullets left.”

I’d already done the grim math. Even though I’m not into guns, I know most revolvers are six-shooters. Tommy had used one round on Skink and two just now. That left a slug each for me, Malley and the old man.

The only advice that came to mind: “Be ready to duck.”

“Really, Richard?”

It’s impossible to explain why we weren’t completely paralyzed with terror as we closed in on this desperate, trigger-happy sicko. Having Skink there calmed us, though Malley and I were also aware that he was freakishly fearless, abnormally immune to the threat of a loaded weapon.

Soon we came upon the canoe, which had been dragged out of the water. On the bank lay Skink’s spinning rod, which Tommy probably had found too challenging to operate with only one good hand.

The governor slotted the Pathfinder through a patch of reeds, beached the bow and stork-stepped to the bank, steadying himself with the nine-iron. Sternly he told us to stay where we were.

“Get real,” said my cousin.

Skink looked to me for a vote of support, but I said, “We’ll be right behind you. Let’s go.”

The landing was mucky and roped with vines. Talk about pig paradise—everywhere you turned the dirt had been trenched, trampled or pawed. Palmettos and pine saplings lay in mauled clumps, their roots chewed to pulp.

Maybe that’s what Tommy was shooting at
, I thought.
Another wild boar
.

I was the only one in bare feet, the price being a gnarly green thorn in my right heel. Malley yanked it out with her fingers. Ahead, Skink stooped like an old-time gold prospector as he followed the kidnapper’s meandering tracks.

None of us spoke a word.

This is a part I didn’t learn about until later. Some of the details I’ve filled in on my own.

With four hours to kill and some real money in his pocket, Dime had decided to take the Malibu for a joyride, undoubtedly thinking: What could possibly go wrong?

He was dating a woman near Mossy Head but she wasn’t home, so he backtracked to DeFuniak Springs and wheeled into a roadside bar for a drink (possibly two). He was cruising back toward Choctawhatchee Bay when a plain dark sedan appeared in his rearview.

Dime thought nothing of it until he saw the flashing
blue light on the sedan’s dashboard. Nervously he steered the Chevy onto the shoulder, braked to a reasonably smooth stop and scrambled to invent a believable story. Nothing clever sprung into his head, not one decent idea. His palms were damp on the steering wheel.

The officer wore street clothes—a striped golf shirt, beige pants and brown loafers. He was a muscular African American man with close-cropped white hair, and he looked considerably older than most of the uniformed cops Dime had dealt with. Yet a cop he most certainly was, a semiautomatic on one hip and a badge from the Florida Highway Patrol on his belt.

Dime couldn’t see a name on the badge. He was trying not to get too close because he had liquor breath in the middle of the afternoon, a condition generally frowned upon by law enforcement. The trooper didn’t ask for his driver’s license or demand to see the registration and insurance papers for the Malibu. Instead the conversation went something like this: