Deep Shadow

I was willing. I needed fuel and I knew it.

When the two men left to work on the truck, I had inchwormed closer to the lake, trying to find a more comfortable spot, a place where limestone didn’t jab my bare legs and arms. Such a place didn’t exist, however, so I had willed myself to relax as best I could and then comforted myself by devising violent strategies.

Sooner or later, Perry and King would have to cut me loose. Sooner or later, I would look into King’s eyes. I would remind him of the games he’d played while my best friend and a teenage boy died. Ideally, it would happen after I had dealt with Perry. Perry was the killer. But it was King who controlled Perry’s trigger finger.

After a while, as I lay there, my mind shifted to my laboratory on Sanibel Island and to the little community of Dinkin’s Bay. If I survived, I would have to return and share the news that Tomlinson and Will weren’t coming home. It was among the most painful obligations I’d ever had to consider.

Death is difficult only for the living, and news about Tomlinson would shake the island. It would reverberate up and down the coastline, casting a wide gray wake. The news would, I believed, cause many of our friends to inspect their own frail realities. Even the strongest of them would question the inevitable losses, the pointless tragedies, that we all endure. The saddest of human refrains is also an imminently rational question: What is the point of it all?

Tomlinson was one of those rare people who, by virtue of his own contradictions, made peace with that question even though he was unable to provide a sensible answer. Tomlinson had bridged absurdity and reason. He was a neurotic oddball, brilliantly naive, a spiritual beacon and a respected teacher, even though he possessed the morals of a rabbit and the sensibilities of a blue-water bum. The man was blissfully independent yet a hopeless addict—addicted less to recreational chemicals than to a relentless hunger for life, and to friends, parties, women, salt water and all things that floated.

Our marina, like all families, has weathered its share of tough times. There had been murder and miscarriages. There had been loves won only to be lost, bullies endured, bullets dodged and too many near tragedies at sea. But life at Dinkin’s Bay without Tomlinson? It was only because of the man’s absurd existence that it made sense for the rest of us to live on an island at a marina in the mangroves.

And Will Chaser? He was sixteen years old—what else was there to say? Allowing Will to join us on this dive was among the most irresponsible things I had ever done. Some mistakes you never stop paying for, and this was one.

As I lay there, watching the sky orbit into darkness, the winter stars emphasized the finality of this day’s events. There is no peace in a night sky, only the indifferent physics of astronomy. Space and motion both refuse definition if there are no reference points, yet our planet does not wobble after the death of one man or after the deaths of ten million.

Inversely, nothing would change if I killed King and Perry. The balance of the universe had not been compromised, so there was nothing to set right. But I would do it. I would kill both men if I got the chance. In the astronomy of human consciousness, all points of reference are subjective. They are the inventions of our own brief orbit. Righteousness does not exist in an atmosphere of pure reason, so it was not a question of justice or morality or revenge. I wanted Perry and King gone from the space I inhabited. I wanted them dead.

It was that simple, and reason enough for me.

It was while sorting through these dark thoughts that I first heard the sound of the creature plodding through the swamp toward the lake. Instantly, my survival instincts took charge. Was it a predator? A meat eater? What I had told Will the night before about the number of escaped exotics in Florida was, in fact, an understatement. Out there in the darkness could be almost any variety of creature from anywhere in the world: reptile, feline, canine or primate.

It is a reality that Floridians don’t take seriously when we are safely behind closed doors in the comfort of our own homes. Even those of us who venture into the backcountry at night don’t give it much thought because we have been conditioned to believe that we sit rightfully atop the food chain.

It’s not true, as I understood better than most.

My legs and hands were tied. There was no escape. Even so, I wasn’t panicky. There were two men nearby whom I feared far more than any foraging animal.

Even so, I was interested.

What the hell was it?

Whatever was coming toward me, the animal had my full attention, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it.

I lay back and closed my eyes—an attempt to spare my night vision—when King switched on one of my good flashlights and called, “That better not be you trying to sneak off, Professor Jock-o!”

The man probed the edge of the lake with the light until he found me, then said, “Good! For a second, I thought you were trying to crawl out of here on your belly—like a snake.” He laughed.

A snake. King was joking, but he had made an atavistic association that I found interesting.

Because King and Perry were closer to the cypress grove than to the lake, I raised my voice to be heard. “You’re not making much progress with that truck. Why don’t you let me help?”

I was even more eager for them to untie me now. It was ridiculous, but at that moment I would have preferred their company to being staked out like a sacrificial lamb.

King switched off the light and said, “When I want something from you, Jock-o, I’ll rattle my zipper.” His phlegmy laughter was as repugnant as his sense of humor.

For the last hour, the two men had been hammering and bickering as they worked at bending out the fender before changing the tire. Because they didn’t want to risk damaging the rim, they hadn’t babied the truck far enough to find solid ground so the jack kept slipping.

Sloppy. It was typical of those two.

It had taken them twice the time it should have to get the tire on, but they obviously weren’t in any rush. Sunrise was their only deadline, so they had ten hours to waste. I was the only person in a hurry, which gave King all the more reason to delay.

Once, when the two men had stopped to share an MRE, their careful whispering told me they were discussing what to do with me after I had returned from my dive, with or without more gold coins.

There was no mystery about their decision. Arlis and I were liabilities. Even if I returned with what they wanted, they would kill us. They’d probably try to sink our bodies in the lake or drag us into the swamp.

No . . . they wouldn’t risk venturing into the swamp now. Not after what we were now hearing.

I knew it for certain when their bickering stopped long enough for Perry to say, “What the hell is that thing? It sounds like”—he had to think it through—“sounds like the sort of hissing a subway train makes when it stops. Like steam brakes—you know?” He paused for several seconds. “Hear it? Christ Aw-mighty!”

The creature was making yet another unfamiliar noise. It was a distant Hawwwing hiss that echoed through the trees. It reminded me of a kid with a microphone trying to imitate a crowd’s roar in a baseball stadium. The call was brief, and then the thing began to move again.

“Hey, you . . . Ford. What do you think that is?”

I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to give King yet another excuse not to swim out in the inner tube when I went back into the lake.

I said, “Wild hogs, probably. They’re harmless. They root and snort. They’re common around here.”

“Like wild boars, you mean?” Perry asked. He didn’t believe the “harmless” part.

“No,” I said. “I’m talking about farm pigs that escaped and turned wild. They’re not native. And they’re afraid of people. I’m surprised they’ve come this close.”

From the swamp came another rumbling exhalation, then the ratcheting of metallic claws on stone. The animal was getting closer.

Now King was getting spooked, too. The flashlight came on again. It blinded me for a moment, then King began to search the edge of the lake. Water vaporized in gray tendrils, and cattails stood as erect and orderly as scarecrows in a field. I had to roll onto my side to follow the light as he panned along the far shoreline.

“What’s that? See it? The bushes are moving! Right there.” It was Perry’s voice. Maybe he’d taken the light from King. The beam settled on a thicket of wax myrtles and cattails that were