Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,9

okay?”

Tomlinson nodded while I waited.

“Near the mounds there’s a marl flat there I call the Bone Field. Human bones. They’re scattered all over the place, stuck in the roots of trees, sticking right out of the mud. My daddy and I found it too many years ago to remember. We always figured it was an Indian burial ground, so we didn’t report it. Now I’m not so sure.”

I’ve known Tomlinson a long, long time, but I’d never seen his eyes glow a brighter shade of turquoise than when he heard the words Bone Field.

Futch added, “Tell you what. We’ll keep a close watch on weather around Lauderdale. Next time it’s similar to the night those Avengers went missing, we’ll hop in my plane and fly the area. I’ve got a theory about what happened to those pilots. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flown a thirty-knot tailwind east to Lauderdale. Then, on the return trip, I climbed a couple thousand feet to catch a northeast tailwind home. Best way to convince you is show you.”

“You did this on the same day?” I’d asked.

“Same afternoon. Couple years ago, in the worst kind of weather, I gained sixty knots of airspeed riding one of those northeast storms home. Wind on the ground was southwest, but, man, I was like a rocket ship going the opposite direction. If it wasn’t for my GPS, I’d have been fifty miles out in the Gulf when I dropped down through the clouds instead of over Boca Grande.” The pilot’s smile asked See how easily it could happen?

Which is why the night before something went BANG! in the tail section of his plane Dan Futch had bunked on the porch outside my lab. The skies over Sanibel Island were flawless, but NOAA Weather Service was predicting a near repeat of December 5, 1945: next-day squalls along the Atlantic Coast; southwest winds expected to turn by afternoon and blow heavy from the northeast.

“I didn’t expect this kind of luck until hurricane season. Maybe even as late as November,” Futch remarked that morning as we buckled ourselves into his little Maule floatplane.

The man was right, in a way. Dying in an Everglades plane crash was unexpected luck, indeed.

3

THE PLANE WAS DOING A HUNDRED-PLUS WHEN I FELT the first jolt of our pontoons snagging sawgrass, yet Futch didn’t reduce speed. It caused me to wonder if he had frozen at the throttle—damn disappointing to lose my life at the same instant I lost confidence in a legendary pilot. Then a second jolt, much harder, caused a frictional roar and slammed me forward, my belt harness the only thing that saved me from the windshield and the blur of propeller.

Finally, finally, Dan levered the throttle back, concentration fixed on controlling the plane, his feet very busy at the steering pedals. Our pontoons skipped like flat rocks on water, causing us to fishtail wildly between the pond and a wall of cypress trees. Then we began a slow-motion skid that lasted an improbable span of seconds and threatened to dip the portside wing, which would have flipped us upside down.

It didn’t happen. Instead, the plane stabilized and began to slow, which stilled the world around us and allowed my hearing to return. By the time sawgrass had clawed us to a halt, I had the door open and was ready to bail. But Futch stopped me, yelling, “We’re okay, stay put!” meaning there was no fire, no threat of an explosion, so I pulled my legs in while he killed the engine. Then the pilot leaned back in his seat and took a huge breath, releasing it as a whistle. In the abrupt silence, the plane made creaking, cooling noises. Frogs resumed their steel drum thrumming. Birds chirped. Sun was shining, life was being lived, and the Earth still turned on a solid axis, indifferent to what had just happened.

Through headphones came Tomlinson’s voice: “I just made a promise so damn ridiculous, God must have plans for me in Hell. Hey . . . my left shoe is soaked! Please tell me we’re sinking . . .” Then he began to laugh, a sound that teetered between hysteria and relief.

I looked at my feet, then my hands—they were shaking—and snapped my safety harness free. “Everyone okay?” I said and looked around. “You okay, Tomlinson? Dan—you hurt?” It seemed important to show concern for others if they were to believe I had remained cool throughout it all. But I had an