on the water this late.
My truck was parked over in the visitor’s lot. I had to smile when I saw that the scratches from my Loop Road encounter had been buffed out and the chrome was shiny and even the wheel hubs had been cleaned. I’d have to give the kid an extra fifty bucks when I saw him.
Billy helped me take the new canoe down and we set it at the water’s edge. He’d tried to convince me to stay at his place, but it hadn’t worked. A good hunter, even an urban one, doesn’t bait too close to the things he cares about.
Billy said he’d turn the information about Blackman and the encounter with the tourist over to Diaz.
“M-Maybe they will w-work it.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I loaded my bags, strapped the fanny pack with Billy’s cell phone inside and stood taking the measure of the new polished pinewood paddle I’d bought.
“You’re s-supposed to christen a new boat on it’s m-m-maiden voyage,” Billy said.
“Yeah?” I shrugged, looking at the boat as if I was actually considering it.
Then Billy stepped up, spit in the palm of his right hand and slapped the triangular bow plate with a wet smack.
It was the most uncharacteristic thing I’d ever seen him do. My mouth was probably still agape like a beached wahoo when he grasped my hand with the same damp palm and said, “Luck,” and then turned and walked away.
“Christ,” I muttered to myself. “What the outdoors does to people.”
I pushed off onto the river and right away the water felt wrong.
The new canoe seemed oddly different as I sat in the rear seat and shifted my weight, feeling the bottom roll from side to side. The new paddle felt awkward in my fist as I took the first few strokes. I’d lost my familiarity, I thought. It was that new car syndrome. Same model, but still a different feel. I shook away the uneasiness and tried to put some muscle to the paddling and worked my way out toward the middle channel. The western rain wall was moving to the coast and the light was already going gray with the cover. I concentrated on the sliding current and setting up a rhythm: Reach, pull, follow through. Reach, pull, follow through.
I could still feel the ache in my ribs and the knots in one forearm, but I fell into a pace and the sweat and flow of oxygen and blood through my veins loosened my joints and I started to get a sense of the new boat’s tendencies.
But there was still something wrong. The water didn’t seem to swirl in the right direction off the shallows of the mangrove banks. The eddies didn’t pull right. The air from deep in the river didn’t smell right.
I was tired when I got to the canopy entrance to the upper river. It had started to rain lightly and I let the boat drift in. The water was running at me harder than before. The rain, I figured. It was filling the canal and the slough at the other end, the excess water flowing heavy, looking for the easiest path to the sea. The water was a reddish color, thickened by the sediment it pulled along with it. There were no osprey overhead. No wood warblers chirping from the low limbs. No turtles standing guard on the logs.
I was thirty yards into the canopy when I saw Cleve’s Boston Whaler up around a sweeping corner in the distance. Even in the low light its white hull glowed like exposed bone.
It was settled, nose first, into the crook of a downed cypress log and the current lightly rocked its stern in an unrhythmic way. I watched it roll as I approached and scanned both shorelines for movement or noise. When I got close I realized I was holding my breath. I had to back paddle some to get up beside her and when I reached up to grab the gunwale and started to stand, I could see streaks of smeared blood on the middle of the center console. My legs began to tremble and I had to sit to keep myself from falling back into the water.
I tried to breathe. I tried to blink sight back into my eyes. I tried not to push off the side of the Whaler and paddle back down the river and disappear into the night.
I don’t know how long it took me to gather myself, but I finally stood again and pulled