Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,20

or a python, maybe a small anaconda. I won’t know until he lets me take a closer look.”

Tomlinson grimaced like he’d just eaten something foul. “A serpent is never a good omen, man. It’s the worst sort of juju—Christ, a boa constrictor, you mean?”

I shrugged and said, “Dan might have mentioned seeing a few in the area.”

“A snake cancels out the good dog mojo. Which makes sense after what just happened. The guy in that plane, he shot at me, man! You didn’t hear me yelling?”

I looked up. “Baloney.”

“No, he had a what’s-you-call-it on a small gun. A scope. You know . . . like with crosshairs? Fired once on his first pass, then he shot maybe twice on the second. I remained motionless, that’s the only reason he missed. You know, like a chameleon blending into the grass.”

“Your powers of psychic cloaking saved you,” I suggested.

“Sarcasm—the shield of the unenlightened,” Tomlinson replied and tugged at his safari shirt. “It’s because of my desert khaki. Same color as the sawgrass.”

Even sober, my friend had a vivid imagination. “If someone had been shooting at you,” I said, “I would’ve heard the shots. A gunshot is a hell of a lot louder than a Cessna passing at two hundred feet. It was someone taking pictures. Now, toss me that first-aid kit. But keep the stuff you need for your feet.”

He was still tracking the plane, which was no bigger than a vulture against the Gulf blue sky. Finally, though, he lobbed the kit to me, saying, “I’m surprised they gave up so easy. Someone’s out to get me, man. I told you.” He nodded at the retriever, which had yet to leave my side. “Like I said, snake’s bad juju.”

My pal was making no sense whatsoever, so I knelt and inspected the dog’s ears and neck, ignoring the carrion stench of the snake in his mouth. He was a fully grown retriever, medium height, a hedge of curly charcoal hair along his back, still a young dog, from his looks, but now oddly stoic after the excitement of being found. I removed several ticks, probed an infected wound above the left leg . . . then discovered why the dog refused to release the snake.

“You’re not going to believe this,” I told Tomlinson.

The man was concentrating on his shoelaces. “Hah! I’m the fool who believes everything, remember?”

Constrictors aren’t poisonous, but their jaws are lined with recurved teeth that angle inward toward the throat. The teeth provide a secure loading system for muscles that convey food to the stomach. Once a boa, python, or an anaconda latches onto its prey, the only escape is to forfeit a chunk of flesh or to kill the snake. The retriever had killed this snake, but the head and fangs were still anchored deep in the baggy fur around his neck, the snake’s upper and lower jaws spread wide. Dragging six feet of boa would have been painful, so the dog was carrying the thing in its mouth. Smart.

“Get over here. You need to keep him calm while I do this. Once you see, you’ll understand.” I had the first-aid bag open, laying out gauze, disinfectant, tweezers, and salve.

“One more shoe. If the bastards come back, I want to be ready.”

I stood to grab a bite of clean air. “You sold drugs too many years, that’s your problem. Guilt isn’t as easy to quit, is it?” Several seconds went by. I looked at him and said, “You did stop selling marijuana . . . right? That’s what you told me six months ago.”

“And it was true—six months ago,” Tomlinson said, getting to his feet, then he looked toward the horizon. “Life is a fluid, not a solid. I probably should have told you and Danny, but it’s something I can’t admit to the cops. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“Admit what?”

Tomlinson cleared his throat. “Well . . . two weeks ago, I found out I’ve seriously pissed off a Caribbean importer.”

“I knew it, here we go,” I muttered.

“I wasn’t looking for trouble! How was I to know I was undercutting his prices? We’re only talking a dozen veinte baggies to a few trusted clients. But this particular dealer is very territorial. Turns out we have a customer or two in common.”

“A Colombian,” I said.

“Haitian,” he replied. “A voodoo sacerdotal with zero tolerance when it comes to competitors. Even boutique operators like me, connoisseurs with big hearts and low prices. When a Haitian turns capitalist, trust me, the