Sanibel Flats

about that.'

'Oh yeah.'

'We've got to get the hell out of here tonight, Tomlinson. We've got to grab the boy and go. If you get in that truck to go to Costa Rica tomorrow, I'm never going to see you again, and you'll never see me, because they'll kill us both.'

'Right. Shit.' Then Tomlinson said, 'Hey, is that one?' A small red frog jumped out from beneath a log ... sat blinking in a ray of sunlight . . . then jumped again.

'Grab it.'

Tomlinson hunched over the frog, then hesitated. 'These things don't bite, do they?'

Ford lunged and caught the frog, then quickly gloved it with the tail of his shirt to protect his hands. He held it up so Tomlinson could see. The frog was only about three inches long, iridescent scarlet with black flecks at the dorsum. 'This is one of the Dendrobates,' Ford said. 'In South America, they call it the poison dart frog because it secretes a poison through its skin that the natives use on their arrows. It's an alkaloid poison, potent as hell.'

'You're going to shoot Zacul with an arrow?'

Ford was transferring the frog to his pocket. 'I'm not sure what I'm going to do. We have to create some kind of diversion to get Jake out, so I thought if we could catch enough frogs to get a couple of tablespoons of the poison, we could sharpen some sticks and somehow surprise the guards—='

'That sounds pretty chancey.'

'I know, I know. They'd shoot us before the poison had time to take effect. Hell, I don't know . . . I'm desperate, and that's the first thing I came up with. But the officers are the key. The soldiers around here aren't loyal to Zacul. They obey him out of fear. Take a look at the camp. Discipline's sloppy, beer bottles everywhere. With the officers out of the way for a while, maybe we could get the boy and make a break for it. Maybe if we could get the poison into their food—'

'I'm not too crazy about that, either.'

'I'm open to suggestions.' Getting a little tired of Tomlinson's second-guessing.

'You're talking mass murder, man. I'm no fan of Zacul's, and if he really butchered those villagers like that doctor said, then the bastard should be committed. But I'm not going to have a hand in killing. Couldn't we just trick Zacul into coming into Tambor with us and hope we can find someone to help us?'

'Like who?'

'You said you knew people there.'

'Yeah, I do—peasant people who are terrified of anyone in uniform. We're not going to find any help there.'

'Maybe Rivera heard about us being kidnapped. He has people in Utatlan; informers, you said.'

'We can't count on Rivera. Face it, Tomlinson, we're going to have to find our own way out. For now, you can help by looking for more frogs.'

'I don't know, man.'

'The poison won't kill them. It'll just make them sick for a while. Maybe paralyze them for an hour or two. And that's only if I can find a lighter so we can roast the poison out of the frogs, and only if the poison doesn't taste so bitter Zacul and the others won't eat the food.' Sighing because now the plan sounded even weaker.

Tomlinson stood looking at him calmly. 'You're telling the truth?'

'I wouldn't ask you to help if I wasn't.'

'Okay, okay—let's flush out some more of those little bastards.'

But by the time they came to the lagoon on the jungle side of the long rind of white beach and sea, they had found only one more poison dart frog. They would need at least a dozen, maybe more.

Discouraged, Ford began to wade the shallows of the lagoon. It was a clear-water bay with plenty of tidal transfer so the place was alive with tunicates, purple and gold cushion stars, club-spined sea urchins, bright sea fans, and all the scurrying, feeding, fecund life of a Pacific tidal pool. The bottom, he noted, was white sand and eel grass, and resting in or moving slowly over the bottom was a large population of gray and black fish with large flat heads and big incisor teeth—a genus known as botete. They were slow moving; so docile that they could be caught by hand. When they did decide to move, they propelled themselves with their tail and lateral fins like wind-up fish in a bathtub. Around more northern shores, fish related to the botete were called box fish or puffers or porcupine fish. It was one of the most prevalent fish in Pacific backwaters, and Ford wasn't as surprised to see so many as he was surprised that he hadn't thought of them before.

Now that he had noticed them, he wondered if he should continue looking for poison dart frogs.

'What's going on up there?' Tomlinson was standing in the shade of a mangrove, hands on hips, his back to Ford.

Ford followed Tomlinson's gaze to the bluff above the lake a half mile away. From where they stood, with volcanoes seeping pale smoke in the background and the lake pouring a silver waterfall into the jungle below, the bluff was a spectacular sight. But Tomlinson wasn't enjoying the view. There were men on the bluff. Soldiers, but other men, too. Several of the men were naked. One wore baggy white shorts. All of them walked oddly, and Ford realized it was because their hands were tied behind their backs.

'Hey, what are those guys going to do?'

Ford said nothing, just watched as the soldiers lined the men on the high ledge above the lake. He knew what they were going to do.

Tomlinson said, 'That one soldier's Zacul, isn't it? Yeah, that's Zacul. See how he moves—like he's got batteries in him. He's a cocaine freak, man. I could smell their kitchens up there by the digs. Gas and ether. You can always spot a coke freak.' Then Tomlinson said, 'Oh, my God.'

Zacul was standing in front of one of the naked men, his right arm held straight out. The naked maTi was small with long black hair, and Ford guessed it was Creno, the Miskito Indian. Zacul's arm bounced and Creno tumbled backward off the bluff, hitting the rocks like a rag doll before disappearing behind the trees, into the lake.

A couple of seconds later, the echo of a gunshot reached them.

Ford began to walk slowly toward the bluff, as if ready to charge Zacul—as if that would help. 'You don't see the boy up there, do you? Anyone Jake's size? That guy in the white underwear is the doctor, but I don't see any kids—'

Tomlinson said in a whisper, 'My God, he shot another one. He's going to shoot them all.'

Ford stopped walking. 'Yeah, I think he is.'

The prisoners were on their knees now. Or on their bellies, trying to squirm away. Zacul shot them in the head one after another, and soldiers came behind him to kick eight more bodies off the bluff. Amazingly, some of the victims kicked wildly as they fell, still conscious despite the head wounds. Then the only one left was the young doctor, but Zacul kept the gun at his side. The doctor was on his knees, rocking back and forth, and Zacul seemed to be talking to him. Ford was about to say 'He'll sign that paper now,' but didn't have the words out when the doctor got slowly to his feet, hesitated, then took a long step and threw himself off the ledge. He fell freely for a microsecond then hit buttocks-first on a jagged rock outcrop before tumbling down the wall and out of sight.

Tomlinson released a long breath, like a groan of pain.

Ford said, 'We can't let Zacul or anyone else know that we've seen this.'

Tomlinson dropped to his knees in the sand, head down, and made a deep primal grunting noise: a sob.

Ford twisted a branch off a mangrove tree and began to strip off leaves. From his pocket, he took the two small red frogs, released them, then waded into the lagoon. With the branch, he penned a botete then flung it up onto the beach with his hands. He caught six more before he realized Tomlinson was standing in the water watching him, his face still pale. 'You want me to help, man?'

'No.'

'I don't know what you're doing, but—'

'Just walk down the beach and pick up some shells. Some nice pretty shells so we can show them to that maniac if he wants to know what we were doing down here. But stay away from this lagoon unless you want me to lie to you again. ...'