Marta grimaced and clutched the sides of her head. "Are you completely, totally, hopelessly nuts? I'd rather be confused than, like, dead. The dude had bullets in his belt, Nick. Real live bullets, which means he probably has a real live gun to put 'em in."
"I'm not moving," Nick said flatly. "Either go on home or get in the car with me. But you'd better make up your mind fast, because here he comes."
Marta got in the car.
EIGHTEEN
The man named Twilly showed no reaction when he saw Hick and Marta in the backseat of the Prius. He sat down behind the wheel, placed two pizza boxes on the seat beside him, and started the car.
"Can you take us to Mrs. Starch?" Nick said.
Twilly didn't respond. In the rearview mirror they could see that he was counting to himself.
"What are you doing?" Marta asked him.
"You've got until the count of twenty to clear out of this car."
Nick said, "We're not moving till we get some answers."
"And if you try to throw us out," Marta added, "I'll scream until somebody calls the cops."
Twilly sighed and said, "Such drama." He turned in his seat and started backing the Prius out of the parking space.
Marta pointed at him. "What is that?"
"Vulture beaks. A friend gave them to me," Twilly said, "for good luck."
Sun-bleached and crusty, the two beaks were tied to a frayed leather lanyard that dangled against his bare chest Marta made a face at Nick and mouthed the word "Yuk."
Twilly eased the car into traffic. Trying to mask his nervousness with conversation, Nick said, "I'm reading one of Edward Abbey's books. It's sick."
In the mirror Twilly eyed him. "I assume that means you like it."
"Yeah, he's funny. Was there a real Monkey Wrench Gang?"
"God, I wish." Twilly laughed to himself and pulled his ski cap down to his brow. "How about you?" he said to Marta. "What do you read?"
She said, "All the Harry Potters-three times. Seriously, did those gross things come from vultures?"
"Yep."
"So your friend-"
"No, he didn't shoot 'em," Twilly said. "They were roadkills."
Marta nodded, fascinated. "Aren't the beaks, like, magic or something?"
"That I wouldn't know."
As they passed the ramp to the interstate highway, heading farther and farther away from town, Nick wondered if he'd made a big mistake. They knew practically nothing about this man; he could be driving to Belle Glade to dump them in Lake Okeechobee.
Nick said, "Mrs. Starch isn't really your aunt, is she?"
"Of course not," Twilly replied.
"So is she, like, your prisoner?" Marta asked bluntly.
know you were out at the swamp during the school field trip because you're on a video that Nick took- wearing the same ammo belt that you've got on now. Are you the one who set the fire?"
Nick sunk down in his seat. Once Marta got comfortable, she was capable of saying anything. To Nick it seemed like a bad time to accuse Twilly of being a kidnapper and arsonist.
Yet he didn't get mad. "So many pesky little questions," he said with a note of amusement. "First of all, I'm not holding dear Aunt Bunny prisoner. Anybody who tried to do that would live to regret it, I'm sure. And you're right: I was in the Black Vine Swamp that day. But I didn't light that fire. Somebody else did."
"It wasn't Smoke, was it?" Nick heard himself say.
"Smoke?"
"His real name is Duane Scrod Jr.," Nick said. "Marta saw him riding in this car the other day-with you."
Twilly said, "I've been known to pick up hitchhikers."
Nick went on: "Duane's in Mrs. Starch's biology class with us. Yesterday a detective came to arrest him for the arson, but he got away."
Marta was impatient. "He told Nick he's innocent, but fire department found his book bag at the scene."
In the mirror Twilly's expression had grown serious. "The fire department didn't find it. A civilian found it and called the arson squad."
"What's the difference?" Marta said. "Huge difference, princess."
"How do you know all this?" Nick asked excitedly. "Have you seen Smoke?"
Twilly said, "That's enough chitchat." He handed one of the pizza boxes to Marta.
"One more question, please," Nick implored, "and then we'll shut up. Won't we, Marta?"
She gave Nick a sarcastically polite smile before attacking the pizza. Twilly drummed his hands on the steering wheel.
"Who really started that fire?" Nick asked. "If I knew that, I'd.. ."
"You'd what?"
"Nothing," Twilly said, and turned up the radio very loud.
By the time Jimmy Lee Bayliss arrived at the emergency room, Drake McBride was no longer bellowing at the nurses. This was because they'd given him an injection of special medicine to make him settle down and behave. They told Jimmy Lee Bayliss that Drake McBride probably had a concussion from landing on his head, and possibly some broken ribs.
"King Thunderbolt threw me off," Drake McBride complained woozily. "Then he did a danged tap dance on chest!"
Jimmy Lee Bayliss sat down and said, "You're gonna be fine
"They won't even let me see a doctor!"
"You've gotta wait, same as everyone else."
"But why? I'm not like everyone else," Drake McBride shined. "I tried to give 'em some cash to let me go first, but they got all snotty and mad...."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss was glad he'd missed that scene. "You can't bribe a nurse. Hospitals don't work that way."
"It wasn't a bribe. It was a tip." Drake McBride paused to vomit in a plastic bedpan. Looking up, he said, "Do me a favor, pardner. Go out to the barn and shoot that no-good nag for me, would you? Before he cripples somebody, namely yours truly."
"Yes, sir," said Jimmy Lee Bayliss, who had no intention of harming Drake McBride's horse.
As on most Saturdays, the hospital emergency room bustled. Among those in the waiting area with Drake McBride were a middle-aged woman who'd crashed her moped into a mailbox, an older gentleman who'd been beaned by his doubles partner during a tennis match, and a surly young burglar (handcuffed to his chair) who'd been bitten by a police dog in a very sensitive area of his body.
"That shot made me dizzy," said Drake McBride. "And my head's still killin' me."
Even though his boss was groggy and in pain, Jimmy Lee Bayliss decided to go ahead and tell him. "Sir, I've got good news and bad news," he said.
Drake McBride groaned. "Lemme explain somethin': If you've got bad news, then there ain't no possible good news The bad always cancels out the good."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss lowered his voice. "They're gonna charge that pyro kid with doing the fire in Section 22," he said to Drake McBride. "That means we're in the clear."
"Okay, what else? Don't hold back just 'cause I'm sittin' here with, like, nine fractured ribs and a major brain injury."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss told him first about Melton. "That bozo got ambushed again. This time they spray-painted him blaze orange from head to toe and tied him to the hood of his truck."
"Buck nekked, same as before?" Drake McBride asked weakly.
"Yes, sir."
"Was it a Red Diamond company truck?"
"Lucky it was me who found him and not some outsider," Jimmy Lee Bayliss said. "Otherwise it could've made the newspapers or even Fox TV-a naked orange guy in the middle of a swamp."
Drake McBride nodded somberly. "Yeah, that's a winner. Thanks for ruinin' my day, which was already ruined pretty bad by that stupid horse."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss wasn't finished. "Whoever did it, they took the front axle off the pickup."
"The company pickup."
"Yes, sir."
"I need to lie down." Drake McBride slid off the chair
and sprawled on the floor. The other patients, sitting with their relatives, ignored him.
"There's more," Jimmy Lee Bayliss said. "A game warden called me this morning at the car wash. Tha
t's where I took Melton to scrub off his paint job."
Drake McBride groaned. "State or federal game warden?"
"The feds. A wildlife agent, he called himself."
"Oh, don't tell me."
"Yeah, he got a report of a wild panther near our lease. He wants to come out and check around as soon as possible."
Drake McBride raised up. "So what's the problem? You told me the cat was gone. You said the gunshots did the trick."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss knew that his boss didn't have the quickest mind, but being dumped on his head had made Drake McBride unusually slow.
The wildlife officer wouldn't need to find a live panther on the property in order to cause major problems for Red Diamond Energy. If he saw even a partial paw print or the tiniest, moldiest lump of scat, the government might step in to supervise the oil-drilling operation, perhaps even halt it.
"The Endangered Species Act is a tough one," Jimmy Lee Bayliss reminded Drake McBride, who cursed under his breath and collapsed once more on the dingy floor.
"And what if Officer Game Warden goes wanderin' off into Section 22," said Drake McBride, "and discovers our little private project there? I imagine we'd have some explainin' to do, since that land belongs to the great state of Florida and not us."
"I'll think of something," Jimmy Lee Bayliss said. "It'll be at least ten days before we can sink the transfer pipe so we'll be okay as long as we keep the guy focused on Section 21."
"And in the meantime, tell me your secret plan for cleanin' up any old doo-doo that rotten cat left behind."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss had no strategy for locating and removing panther poop. He said, "There's six hundred and forty acres. About all we can do is pray for a good hard rain."
"During a drought? That's very funny." Drake McBride covered his face with his hands and rocked sideways on the floor. "I might just die here," he said miserably.
Jimmy Lee Bayliss wasn't feeling especially happy and carefree himself. Only two weeks earlier he'd been looking at real estate brochures from Costa Rica, daydreaming about how he'd spend the millions of dollars he was going to make from the Red Diamond oil scam. Now he was worrying about staying out of prison.
"We should give Melton a nice raise," he suggested. "He's really ticked off about what happened, and we sure don't want him blabbing all over town."
"The orange paint come off?" Drake McBride asked.
"Most of it. Certain places were hard to get to."
"You gotta find out who keeps doin' this stuff and put a stop to it. Whatever's necessary."
Jimmy Lee Bayliss said, "I aim to, don't worry."
A stern, broad-shouldered nurse walked up and told Jimmy Lee Bayliss to move his boss back onto the chair. "He's next up to see the doctor," she said, "after the lady with the wasp sting and the man with the barbecue burn."
"Glory be," murmured Drake McBride, and struggled to his knees.
Twilly Spree wasn't an outgoing person, and while he generally preferred the company of animals to that of human beings, he tried to be cautious in all relationships. Once he had become too fond of a dopey dog that he'd kidnapped from a knucklehead who had needed to be taught a hard lesson-several lessons, in fact. When the time came to say goodbye to the dog, Twilly had found himself so sad and empty that it was alarming. Such sentimental feelings, he believed, could only distract him from his missions.
The two kids in the backseat of the car weren't too obnoxious and probably meant well, yet Twilly remained guardedly quiet during the drive to the Black Vine Swamp. His thoughts were on the boy who called himself Smoke, now a fugitive and in need of help.
It was disturbing that Duane Scrod Jr. was being framed, and Twilly suspected that the Red Diamond Energy Corporation was behind the plot. Someone working at company's drilling site had summoned the arson investigator, a brief meeting that Twilly had observed the previous day from his distant roost in a cypress tree. At the time, he hadn't known about the stolen book bag, but he put the whole story together after speaking with young Duane on the run, and later with a talkative secretary at the sheriff's office.
Twilly reasoned that Red Diamond's only motive for pinning a bogus felony rap on an innocent kid was to hide its own involvement in the arson. Twilly didn't know why Red Diamond would ignite a brush fire to scare away school kids on a field trip, but he was working on theories.
Because it was a new company, little information about Red Diamond was available on the Internet. However, private investigators hired by Twilly had dug up the name of the president and chief operating officer-Drake W. McBride-which was a beginning.
Meanwhile, Twilly continued his sneak forays to the Section 21 lease, where the same poor dunce had twice confronted him, and both times had been dealt with somewhat firmly.
Twilly Spree felt a tap on his shoulder. From the backseat, the boy named Nick Waters asked, "Could you please turn down the radio?"
"Nope," said Twilly.
"Then at least change the station," said the girl named Marta.
"Negative." Twilly's driving music was classic rock, nothing else.
Nick, hovering at his shoulder, asked: "Do you work for Mrs. Starch?"
"I told you, no more questions. Eat some pizza." Marta said, "He doesn't like mushrooms or olives."
"Too bad." Twilly opened the windows to blow out the cheesy pizza smell. "For your information, I don't work for anybody," he said. "I'm what's known as 'unemployable.'"
"Are you, like, homeless?" asked Marta.
"Just the opposite. I can live anywhere." Twilly was half tempted to pull over on a remote stretch of road and abandon the two kids, but he thought they might be helpful later. At the very least, it would be good for Duane Jr. to know that somebody else cared about him.
Twilly turned off Route 29 onto a dusty farm road. A few minutes later, the Prius was inching down a bumpy, overgrown passage that had once been a railroad spur for a logging operation. The path ended at a broken gate that pore a rusty "No Trespassing" sign. Twilly parked beneath a giant strangler fig, shut off the radio, and instructed his passengers to be still. He listened for the high-pitched whine of the oil company's helicopter, but the sky was quiet.
Quickly he got out and began concealing the car with tree branches and palm fronds that he'd cut and stacked for that purpose. One-armed Nick Waters pitched in to help, but the girl named Marta apprehensively stood apart, brandishing her cell phone for Twilly to see.
"Libby Marshall is number two on my speed dial and her dad's a sheriff's detective, so don't get any crazy ideas," she warned.
Twilly smiled. "I'll try to control myself. You ready to hike?"
"Definitely," the boy said. "How far?" asked the girl.
Twenty minutes later, knee-deep in swamp water, she asked again in a much louder voice.
Twilly raised a finger to his lips and continued wading. He led them along a boggy trail through a treeless marsh until they entered dry pine flatlands. There he saw recent signs of white-tailed deer, bobcats, and raccoons, although he didn't stop to point out the various tracks and scat. Twilly had no time to play nature guide; he was in a hurry.
Balancing the pizza boxes on his free hand, the boy named Nick came up beside Twilly. In a hushed voice he said, "Are there panthers out here?"
"Didn't you hear one scream while you were on the field trip?"
"No, that was you," Nick said. "Wasn't it?"
Twilly winked and shook his head.
"No way!" The boy looked thrilled.
A few paces behind, the girl named Marta was griping-"Why can't we use the boardwalk like normal people? My brand-new Converses are totally trashed!"
A red-shouldered hawk clutching a mouse in its talons passed overhead. Once more Twilly paused to listen-the only sound from above was a woodpecker making holes in a bead tree.
When Marta caught up, she said, "This is ridiculous, where's Mrs. Starch?"
Twilly inserted two fingers in his mouth and whistled. There was no response, which
was the agreed-upon signal for him to proceed.
Suddenly Marta blurted, "Nick, what if he's not really taking us to Mrs. Starch? What if he's gonna chop us to pieces and feed us to the alligators?"
"Human flesh is tough. Gators prefer fish," Twilly noted, and resumed walking.
Nick remained at his side. "She's just scared is all," he whispered.
Twilly understood. He was the first to admit that he wasn't a reliable-looking person.
"Soon everything will become clear," he said. "More or less."
"I trust you."
"Well, Nick Waters, I wouldn't go that far."
"My father always says to stick with my gut instincts."
"He got hurt pretty bad in Iraq, right?"
Nick looked taken aback. "How'd you know that?"
"Duane mentioned it," Twilly said. "You didn't mess up Your arm playing lacrosse, like you told me, did you?"
"No, that was a lie."
"I figured. I never saw a back-assward sling like this before." Twilly flicked the odd hump in the boy's shirt behind his right shoulder.
He said, "There's nothing wrong with my arm. I'm teaching myself to be a lefty."
"Like your old man's gotta do."
Nick nodded and grew quiet.
"Good for you," Twilly said.
He tried to recall if he'd ever cared about his own father as deeply as Nick Waters cared about his. The emotions were complicated, as were his childhood memories.
From behind them, the girl called out, "I hope you're both happy. I got blisters on my blisters!"
They were now close enough that Twilly Spree could smell the woody haze from last night's campfire.
"When's the last time you saw a wild panther?" he asked Nick.
"Never."
"Then this is your lucky day."
NINETEEN
The secret camp was in shadows, beneath a tangled canopy of trees. There were two pup tents and a fire pit. Pegged to the ground was a faded green tarp, covering a chest-high stack of supplies.
A flap opened on one of the tents, and a gangly figure bawled out. It was Mrs. Starch. She rose slowly, brushing herself off, her eyes blazing at the sight of Nick and Marta.