“Seth,” I tell him. “His name is Seth.”

“Whatever you say, missy.”

“What happened? Where are they?”

Shane wants to know as badly as I do. We’re both waiting on Leo Fish, hoping he has the answers.

“Can’t know for sure,” he concedes. “Signs and trace give me clues, but it ain’t certain. Two people hiding in the mangroves, two shots to scare ‘em out. Minute or so later, comes another shot from a different gun. A twelve gauge, probably an AA-12. Very distinctive sound.”

“An AA-12, are you sure?” Shane wants to know, his voice laden with concern.

“Ain’t dead sure of nothin’ in this life, son. But it had the sound of an auto assault shotgun, firing a single. The Cuban paramilitary units used to train with the AA-12, pretending to invade Cuba. Very scary noise, when firing on full auto. Those boys would spook the wildlife for miles around, playing with their full-auto shotguns.”

“Two shooters,” Shane says.

“Yup, they was two. One killed by the other.”

Shane and I both have the same reaction. We look at the bare ground, as if expecting a body to materialize. Fish shakes his head and goes, “Sorry, missy. I ain’t used to explaining. That dark stuff spattered on the mangrove?” he says, pointing. “That’s blood, and if you’ll pardon me for saying so, it includes specks of brain matter. So we know it was a head shot.”

If there’s blood and brains on the mangrove leaves I’ll take Fish’s word for it. I have no desire for a closer look. I’m still trying to puzzle out why, if someone was killed, there’s no body. And how does he know that one shooter killed the other?

How—and this is killing me slowly—how does he know the spatter doesn’t come from Kelly or Seth?

“Because I seen him, missy. The dead man. He was shot from behind and fell back in the water. Made sure of who it was afore I come back for you.”

Fish hefts his push-pole, studies the oily black water, then plunges the pole into the surface not a yard from my feet. He levers the pole down, grimacing with the effort.

Something rises. A wet thing with not much of a face.

“Sorry, missy,” says Fish. “Seems like you need to see this, to prove it ain’t your daughter. This a local boy name of Dug Whittle and you’ll notice he dint let go of his shotgun. A ten gauge. So he was the one shootin’ at the mangroves.”

“Ricky did this?” Shane asks.

“That’d be my guess.”

“Oh my God,” I say, seeing what happened, finally picturing what Fish had seen at a glance. “She escaped! Kelly escaped! She was running away. She and Seth.”

“Looks like,” Fish says, lowering the pole. “But it didn’t hold. Ricky Lang has got ‘em now.”

16. Later Alligator

She floats in a jungle canopy, under a blanket of lush green fronds that cover her, good as any camouflage. All she can see is the green, up close and blurry, and it takes tremendous effort to keep her eyes open, so mostly she concentrates on floating. Also on breathing. She reminds herself that it is important to keep breathing even though the air doesn’t taste good. Breathing isn’t about taste, silly, it’s something you have to do whether you want to or not.

Remember to breathe. In, out, keep it going.

On some level Kelly knows that she has been drugged. Partly the recent memory of what the animal tranquilizer did to her the first time, there on the airstrip where all this began, when the dart was fired into her abdomen. This time the needle came from behind, wielded by the wild man with the crazy-looking shotgun. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a gun like that in some old movie. Terminator? Predator? One of those. So maybe this is dream about a movie and she’s really home in her bed experiencing that heavy, paralyzed sensation that sometimes happens in a dream. Where you want to move or scream but you can’t and it isn’t until you wake up that you fully comprehend what happened.

A voice comes through the palm fronds. A mad voice that insinuates itself into her waking nightmare.

“See you later, alligator,” says the voice, inches from her ear. “No, no, that’s not right. What I mean to say, see the alligator later. Which you will, I promise.”

The mad voice laughs and drifts away.

Kelly wills herself to wake up. If only she could scream she could wake herself up.

17. And Then The Boss Is Gone

“Good morning, Daddy, how you doing?”

Ricky, looking down at his father’s withered body, savors the irony. One of his first acts as tribal president was to designate a percentage of gaming revenue to the construction of a new Elder Care & Hospice Facility, located right here on the rez. He made it happen, made sure it was done right, sparing no expense in either the construction phase or the staffing. The individual suites are large, airy and comfortable, bearing little or no resemblance to a hospital room. There are no locks on the doors and each unit has a screened porch with a spectacular view of the Everglades. All in all it’s about as nice as such a place can ever be, considering that many of the residents are either dying or demented, or both.

Tito Lang scores on both counts, his liver slowly failing, his brain irreversibly damaged by a thirty-year immersion in alcohol.

“Look who’s here, Daddy. Your grandchildren! Did you ever meet them? I been trying to recall, but it seems like maybe you were already too far gone. Doesn’t matter, today we make up for lost times. Say hello to your grandfather, children. Daddy, this is Alicia, Reya and Tyler. See how they’re all dressed up? They’re going to a costume party. Little Tyler, he really wanted to be a pirate but I said, no no, children, no more pirates or princesses, no more dressing up as white people. Today you dress up as Nakosha people.”

Ricky smiles down at his children, who flit around in such a way that it’s difficult to see all three at once.

“Kids, do me a favor, go play on the porch. Your grampa Tito and I need to have a grown-up conversation. Alicia, honey? Don’t let Tyler go outside, I want you all together, okay? For the party later, that’s why. Good girl. Go on, shoo.”

Ricky shaking his head and smiling, pleased that his father has finally had a chance to see his beautiful grandchildren. From the scent of shampoo and soap, he knows his father has already had his morning bath, and that the hospice aids will not be back to check on him for at least twenty minutes.

Plenty of time for a conversation.

“I been thinking, Daddy. That’s what’s wrong with me, too much thinking. All the time, day and night, awake, asleep, always thinking. Is that why you drank so much, to keep from thinking?”

His father’s eyes skid away, unable to hold focus for long. The diagnosis, rendered months ago, was unequivocal. Neuronal damage to the cerebral cortex with serious cognitive impairment, resulting in a borderline vegetative state. Nominally conscious or wakeful, but no longer able to form or hold thoughts, and verbally unresponsive on all levels.

Tito Lang, once a big talker, speaks no more. His awareness comes and goes. He likes it when the nurses sponge him, and will swallow soft food spooned into his mouth. When spoken to, his eyes at first respond, then quickly drift away. The lights are on, dimly, but he’s rarely at home in any meaningful way. Perversely his heart remains strong. No one has been able to say how long he will linger in his present condition. Could be weeks, months, maybe longer.

“What have I been thinking about?” says Ricky, sitting on the edge of his father’s bed. “I’m glad you asked. I’ve been thinking about the old times. Before I was born, before you were born. The long-ago times, and how our people lived back then. You ever think about that? Yeah?

“You’re right, Daddy. In those days when people got old, too old to contribute to the community, they went away. They got left behind. The people would give them a weapon and maybe a little water and a blanket, and the people would move on, leaving the elder behind. Sounds cruel but it ain’t, not really. It’s natural. My guess, it didn’t take long. And next year when the people came back they’d gather the bones and bury them in a big jar. They call it an ossuary. That’s the white word. We’ve forgotten the Nakosha word, isn’t that sad?”