Randy White - Seduced

South of Tripod Key, an unmarked channel appeared as a swath of green. It traversed a sandy shoal. Never had I seen the water in this area so clear. The cold snap had killed all murky microscopic plants and sent them to the bottom. A few fish lay stunned there, too: ingots of silver that might revive as the day warmed.

The air was warming now. The numbness of my nose and cheeks suggested otherwise, but the change was palpable. The channel narrowed. Islands crowded in; long bars of mangroves, trimmed like Japanese hedges. The insulation they provided seemed to generate heat.

Far to my right was Faka Union Bay, where we’d stopped to visit the Daniels cemetery. Ahead was an opening that might have been a gate. I used the trim tabs, tilted the engine, and threaded my skiff through. Air temperature climbed. It was if we had breached the mouth of an animal and were being shunted toward its radiant heart.

“Shouldn’t we turn southeast fairly soon?” The pencil in Martinez’s hand tapped the chart, our exact location.

“We could,” I said, “it’s doable, but we’d have to climb through a quarter mile of mangroves to reach the mound. There used to be a shorter route.”

He consulted the chart, then considered the wall of islands that blocked our way. “There’s no opening… none that I see here… and this chart’s up to date. God knows how long that river’s been landlocked. That’s what I think it is, an archaic river. If there are Indian mounds, it would make sense. They had to have access.”

“More sense than hiking through mangroves,” I agreed.

The man squinted at the chart. “Wouldn’t this be simpler?” He pointed to a river half a mile east that ran parallel to Choking Creek. “The entrance is tricky, but it deepens once you’re in. We tie the boat and blaze a trail, so getting back will be easy. Give it some thought. By this afternoon, it’ll be in the mid-sixties. You know what that means.”

There was no need to confirm I did.

“Are you sure you’re willing to waste time just on the chance of saving time? Personally, I don’t mind a tough hike.”

I motioned to the front storage hatch. “There’s a saw and hedge clippers, a machete, and some other stuff in a bag. If you don’t mind, go ahead and get ready.”

The man’s bushy beard parted to show a friendly, bearish smile. “You plan to cut our way in?”

I replied, “It’s been done before.”

The confidence I wanted to communicate did not reflect my doubts as we drew closer to that wall of green. I dropped off plane and idled along a shoreline where there was no shore, only the tangled claws of prop roots beneath a curtain of waxen leaves.

“Impossible,” Martinez said.

A few minutes later, I lifted an awning of branches, switched off the engine, and nudged my skiff ahead. There it was: an opening, where blunt stubs of tree limbs walled a channel. Over the years, new mangroves had bridged the space, but it hadn’t changed much. Watery daylight was visible on the other side.

“I’ll be darned,” the man said. There was admiration in his tone.

I found that reassuring. I’d begun to fear there was a reason Martinez favored hiking in from the next river.

“We’ll have to do some cutting,” I said. “Keep low; watch your eyes.”

I pulled the skiff into the cut. Tree limbs sprung back into position and hid our presence. Overhead, waxen leaves interlaced to form a shaded cavern. Spiderwebs glistened like ice crystals in the fresh sunlight.

“Listen.” Martinez held up a hand, his head cocked. “A boat. Hear it?”

From somewhere in the distance, miles away, the whine of an outboard motor vacillated like gusting wind. A bumblebee sound that came and went… then grew steadily louder.

“You’re the expert. Think it could be him?”

“Shush,” I said.

A minute or more passed. In my mind, a black catamaran hull was attempting to cross a flat too shallow for twin, oversized engines. Then, as if influenced by my anxiety, what I hoped would happen happened .

The sound of a fast boat plowing itself high onto a sandbar is distinctive. Familiar braying notes reached my ears, a series of staccato thuds that ascended into the howl of engines starved for water. The driver refused to concede. After several pointless attempts, the howling became a sustained scream that, abruptly, went silent.

Wrong. The engines were silenced by what we heard next: a gasoline whoosh, then the faraway thump of an explosion. The soundless void that followed suggested images of smoke and flames.

Martinez was forward, hedge clippers in hand. I was on the stern casting deck, holding the skiff steady. We looked at each other. I felt dazed. Not him. “That stupid damn hick,” he said, pleased with himself. “I told you there was no need to worry. Well… at least he’s not freezing his ass off anymore.”

Hick? Luckheim had only posed as a redneck, if what Martinez had told me was true.

Humor, in this remote place, and under the circumstances, strained my patience. The laughter that came next struck me as bizarre. It was a while before I could speak. When I did, what the man heard me say was, “ Raymond…? Hand me those clippers.”

“Of course it was his boat,” was the response to a question I had not asked.

What I’d said was, “Raymond… hand me those clippers.”

Although still uncertain, I felt a chill when the big man did.

Martinez-if that was his name-didn’t say much until we exited the tunnel into the bay where Birdy had nearly died.

“Beautiful,” he said. “What’d it take, about forty minutes? Worth it, to see something like this. That Harney, he was right about you knowing your way around a boat.” His eyes settled on me. “About some other things, too. Don’t get mad. That’s a compliment.”

He had read my reaction accurately.

I said, “Closer to an hour… but it is pretty, I suppose-if you’ve never been here before.”

The Garden of Eden might have been as deceptively idyllic: a crystal basin rimmed by palms that shaded clear water, and rivulets that dropped off, black and deep, near the bank. Gumbo-limbo trees sparkled with amber sunlight. They were elevated by mounds creating a sawtooth ridge.

“How’d you ever find this? Even with GPS numbers, it would be darn near impossible.”

I lowered the engine, saying, “It’s already almost nine. The tide’s falling and I don’t want to get trapped in here. Take a seat.”

My terseness was intentional. If the man wasn’t who he claimed to be-Caldwell, perhaps, a rapist and killer-now was the time to find out. There are many ways a good boat handler can rid themselves of a passenger. I started the engine and throttled toward the first bend.

Martinez, with his beard and gray ponytail, remained standing. When he turned to face me, his weight caused the skiff to list. “Was it something I said?”

I feigned ignorance. “If we hit a snag, you could fall overboard. That’s all I meant.”

“Come on, now. Suddenly, you don’t trust me. Which test did I fail? There’ve been so many.” Amused, he took off his parka, a red turtleneck sweater beneath. I got a glimpse of a holster when he knelt to stuff the parka under the seat. When he straightened, the pistol was in his hand; not pointed at me, but there. Like a magic trick, that’s how fast it happened. He continued talking, unaware that, reflexively, I reached for a holster not easily accessed.

“Maybe this will convince you.” He released the magazine and locked the slide back. A chambered round was ejected, which he caught before it hit the deck. It was something I’d seen experts do. With the same professional ease (after I’d confirmed the chamber was empty), he presented the weapon to me. A heavy-caliber Beretta; a.45, possibly, that was not smooth to the touch, unlike my Devel Smith & Wesson, but held far more cartridges.