Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl

The man then leered and displayed for the boy’s horrified parents the shiny black.45, which had been jarred from Skinner’s grasp when he fell. “Lookie who’s here!” Piejack cackled at Skinner. “This is perfect! Now I aim to pay you back for what your Latino gorillas did to my hand.”

As the fiend placed the weapon to Fry’s temple, Sammy Tigertail regretted losing his composure and busting his rifle into pieces, as now he had no means by which to end the mayhem. Without moving a step, he took inventory. Skinner was still down and in terrible pain. Honey Santana embraced him, whispering and sniffling softly. Her lower jaw was badly bruised and hanging slack. A few yards away, Piejack kept one arm hooked around their son’s neck, the kid looking sick and dizzy again. Balanced tenuously in Piejack’s bare and gangrenous left hand was Skinner’s semiautomatic, the trigger covered by a discolored kernel of a finger. The discarded sawed-off was on the ground.

“Get lost, asswipe.” It was Piejack, finally taking notice of the Seminole. “This ain’t yer bidness.”

The creep might be right, Sammy Tigertail thought, but here I am.

“Be on your way,” Piejack said, “’less you wanna hole in your belly.”

The Indian could almost hear his uncle saying: What’s happening there has nothing to do with you. It’s more crazy shit among white people, that’s all.

“Can I get my guitar?” Sammy Tigertail asked. He had spotted the Gibson, his fondest connection to the white world, in the cinders of the dead campfire.

Piejack said, “That thing’s yours? Ha!”

Sammy Tigertail recalled a quote he’d memorized as a teenager. It was from Gen. Thomas Jesup, appraising the long Indian war in Florida:

We have, at no former period of our history, had to contend with so formidable an enemy. No Seminole proves false to his country, nor has a single instance ever occurred of a first rate warrior having surrendered.

Sammy Tigertail’s uncle had said it was mostly true. He’d also said there were some in the tribe who’d dropped their weapons and run like jackrabbits; others who’d taken bribes from the U.S. generals in exchange for scratching their names on worthless treaties.

Many Seminoles were first-rate warriors, Sammy’s uncle had said, but a few were not.

“What’re you waitin’ on? Take the fuckin’ guitar and vamoose,” Piejack said, “’fore I shoot your red ass off.”

That’s ugly, Sammy Tigertail thought. Ugly and unnecessary.

Crossing the clearing, he could sense the boy watching him. Skinner’s ex-wife, too. The Seminole fixed his eyes on the blond Gibson, shining among the ashes.

“Mister, wait,” the kid said.

Sammy Tigertail didn’t look up. He lifted the guitar and wiped it with a bandanna. With chagrin he noted a nasty ding in the finish.

“Don’t you dare leave us here,” said the boy’s mother. “Please.”

The Indian offered no response. He’d made up his mind.

“For God’s sake, Sammy.” It was Mr. Skinner, rising.

The Seminole thought of his great-great-great-grandfather, Chief Thlocklo Tustenuggee, tricked with promises of peace and then imprisoned. Manifest destiny, otherwise known as screwing native peoples out of their homelands, had been a holy crusade among white men of that era. Immune to guilt or shame, they dealt suffering and death to mothers, infants, even the elders. One American president after another, breaking treaties and spitting lies-the boundlessness of their deceptions was altogether stunning.

Sammy Tigertail in his young life had never betrayed a soul. He owned a working conscience that could have sprung from either of his bloodlines. His mother was a moral, hardworking woman; his father had been a decent and truthful man.

“You some kinda retard, or what? I said to get the hell outta here,” Band-Aid Man barked.

“Just a minute.”

“I said now!”

The Indian looked up and saw Piejack waggling the.45.

“Bad idea,” Sammy Tigertail said, and began moving toward him.

The man told him to back off, or else. The Seminole continued to advance with long, even strides.

Wide-eyed, Piejack struggled to level the gun.

“Louis, don’t be an imbecile!” Honey pleaded.

When he got six feet away, Sammy Tigertail turned. He stepped up to Perry Skinner and held out the guitar. All he said was: “I believe Mr. Knopfler would understand.”

“Who?” Piejack croaked. “Unnerstand what?”

Skinner took the instrument by the neck and, limping forward, poised it like an ax.

“Duck,” the Indian advised the former Mrs. Skinner, and then he dived to cover her son.

The gun in Louis Piejack’s paw spit an ice-blue spark, but the blond Gibson came down hard, splintering his filthy skull.

Eugenie Fonda sat on the balcony of her sixth-floor room, fanning her freshly painted toes and watching the sun melt like sorbet into the Gulf of Mexico. Her third Bacardi was sweating cool droplets that snaked down her bare tummy.

The sliding door opened, and Gillian St. Croix stepped out wearing camo flip-flops and a baby-blue tank dress that Eugenie had bought for her at a shop in the lobby. She announced that her mosquito bites had practically vanished, thanks to a magical mint unguent recommended by a Moroccan lady at the spa.

“Check out the sunset,” Eugenie said.

“Yeah, it’s awesome.” Gillian arranged herself cross-legged on the other patio chair. “Wanna hear what he said? Ethan, when I called him?”

Eugenie sipped her drink. “I can guess what he said, sweetie. ‘All is forgiven. Come back home.’”

“Yeah, but you know what I said? ‘Find another girlfriend, loser.’ He’s such a loser, not tellin’ me about those dolphins. Makin’ me think they swam off like Free Willie when all they did was hang around and beg for treats like trained poodles.”

Eugenie had heard the story before but she listened politely. Looking south, she wondered if Boyd Shreave had gotten off the island yet. She hoped that he wouldn’t come searching for her, that he wasn’t dim enough to believe he was still in the mix.

Gillian went on, “Ethan doesn’t really care about me. It’s just the sex.”

“Well, he’s a boy.”

“Why are they all like that?”

“Oh, they’re not.” Eugenie was thinking in particular of Honey Santana’s ex, who’d obviously never stopped loving her. There was no such man in Eugenie’s past; even Van Bonneville had quit writing from prison.

“Rate the massage,” Eugenie said.

“Awesome. Eleven on a scale of ten.” Gillian paused and frowned. “Know what? I gotta find a new word. I’m so over awesome.”

“It’s been beaten to death,” Eugenie concurred.

“Hey, how about super? I had a super massage.”

Eugenie shook her head. “Super is over, too. Especially if you’re gonna be a big-time TV weather woman.”

“God, who knows what I’m gonna be.” Gillian laughed. “Did you have the Japanese guy or the deep-tissue redneck? I had the redneck.”

“Me too. Showed me pictures of his darling twin boys.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah,” Eugenie said, “then he took out a vibrator the size of a hoagie and asked me if I was into toys.”

Gillian hooted. “See! They’re all the same!”

Eugenie drained her glass. The sun was gone, the horizon aglow. There were scads of little kids running up from the beach, shouting and giggling and kicking up sand.

“Patience,” she said to Gillian. “That’s the secret. Once you start rushin’ into these things, making lousy choices, it’s awful hard to dig yourself out. By that I mean it’s hard to change.”

Gillian said, “You haven’t done so bad. Look where we are, Genie-the beach, the ocean, rum drinks! The rest of the country’s freezin’ their butts off.”