Extinct (20 page)

Alan stroked toward the nearest water grass. He dug his toes into the silt sloping upward, sank to his ankle with one step and to his knee with his next, struggled to pull loose from the suction, and came up into the thick growth. His next steps went to his knees in mud again. Pulling one leg loose and twisting the other around, he squared with the top of the bridge, thirty to thirty-five feet above. He leaned backward, holding his preserver, heavy with water, almost down to the liquefied mud, then whipped it up into the air as hard as he could. It climbed to within a few feet of the bridge railing and then came back down to splash in the water under the wide structure. San-hi swam toward it.

Coming toward its other side in the dim moonlight was a nine-to ten-foot water snake ringed with brightly colored bands, slithering in a jagged line through the brown water.

San-hi saw the snake and broke off his stroke toward the preserver, abruptly swimming out to the side.

The snake made an equally abrupt turn toward the opposite side of the preserver, and submerged. San-hi waited a full minute before again beginning to stroke slowly toward the preserver.

Moments later, he kneed his way into the grass, pitching both the preserver he had retrieved and his to Alan.

Leaving one laying at his feet, Alan leaned back again and threw the other preserver as hard as he could. It climbed to where the last one had, seemed to hang momentarily in the soft, hot breeze blowing under the bridge, and spun backward to land in the grass a few feet behind him.

He threw the second preserver, and it reached the height of the first two. It took him nearly five minutes to travel the few feet to where they lay. San-hi came up into the grass. Fred stood on one foot sunk in the mud and his knee at the edge of the grass and pitched his preserver to the boy. San-hi caught it by its edge and started spinning it above his head like a lariat. The spins became wider and wider and faster and faster, San-hi’s body leaning from side to side with each revolution, and he took one last great swing with his arm and sent the preserver sailing sideways up into the air. It climbed almost to the top of the bridge rail, hung there for a moment, then spun back down toward the channel.

San-hi lifted a stick from the grass. It was water-logged and heavy, about two inches in diameter and two and a half to three feet long. He stared toward the top of the bridge for a moment, then drew his long arm back, hesitated a second until he saw a vehicle’s lights nearing them, and whipped the stick upward as hard as he could. It went straight into the air like a rocket, arched, seemed to hang a moment, and disappeared over the rail.

Fred and Alan cheered.

*   *   *

The pickup truck coming along the bridge caught the thick stick in its headlights as it flew over the rail and bounced across the pavement. The old black man driving the truck stared at the rail as he passed the place where the projectile had come from the darkness, but kept driving, staying ahead of the eighteen-wheeler roaring at his rear bumper.

*   *   *

San-hi looked for another stick. He saw one and stepped to it, but as he lifted it from the mud and water it crumbled in his hands.

“Alan.” Fred’s voice was almost a whisper.

The shape came around a bend past the far side of the bridge. Dark, low in the water, it came silently toward them. Fred scrambled out of the channel. San-hi stepped rapidly to the rear. The mud sucked at his heels and he splashed backward onto his hips. He turned while still on the ground and scurried deeper into the grass on his hands and knees. Fred passed Alan.

Silently, into the dark shadows under the bridge, it came.

“It’s a boat,”
Fred cried out.

The scream came toward them, short and abrupt.

Alan heard Fred fall backward into the water behind him.

A light flashed on, blinding them.

“It’s friggin’ people,” an amazed voice said. “What’n hell?” The light cut off. “You damn near scared me to death,” the voice added. The boat glided out of the shadows beneath the bridge. “What’n hell are you all doing, anyway?”

As Alan’s eyes adjusted rapidly back to the dark he saw that the man speaking was short and stocky and stood at the bow of the boat. In the stern, a thinner man lowered the shotgun he had pointed toward the grass.

San-hi splashed into the water and thrashed toward the boat. In a moment he was lunging up over its side. “Easy, boy,” the stocky man said as the boat rocked violently, “you’ll turn us over. What’n hell happened to your all’s boat?”

“My daughter’s back behind us,” Fred said as he sloshed toward the boat.

The man flashed his light up the channel. “Near the river,” Fred said. “We have to get back to her.”

Alan reached the bow. “Where’s the landing where you came in?” he asked.

“A mile back.”

“We have to get to a telephone.”

*   *   *

Sheriff Stark’s graying brown hair whipped in the wind. Mosquitoes, gnats, and a constantly varying variety of water bugs burst against the boat’s windshield.

Deputy Fairley suddenly pulled the throttle back and turned the bow of the boat toward the aluminum craft floating upside down at the side of the river.

As they drew alongside it, Stark saw the other small boat, floating a few feet behind the first one. They both had circular lines of indentations dug into their metal.

Stark shook his head. “How many kids did you say Mr. Herald had with him?”

“Do you mind if we go back in now, Sheriff?” Fairley asked. “I … uh, my wife didn’t like me coming out here. With, uh … you know, with this thing.…” He smiled feebly. “You know how scared women get.”

*   *   *

The younger blond slapped at a mosquito. A large flying insect, humming as loud as a horsefly, kept flitting around Edward’s head, causing him to duck back and forth as if he were slipping punches. Out of the tall grass a hundred feet to the boat’s side, a shrill shriek, turned ragged and dying at its end, caused Carolyn’s blood to rush cold. She took a deep breath. It was silly, she knew, but what had scared her most since Alan and her father had pushed the boat into the grass was the short, thick water moccasin that had swum past in the channel behind the craft. One thing she liked about being a charter-boat captain was that you could be any place on saltwater and know it was unlikely you would ever see snakes. That was the one thing that had scared her ever since she was a little child and been lying back in the bathtub at her grandmother’s house in Laurel and had looked up to see a snake draped across the top of the curtain rod. She shivered at remembering the incident.

A splash sounded behind the rear of the boat.

“Mrs. Haines,” the older blond said, looking across his shoulder. “You hear that?”

She tried to force a comforting smile, and nodded.

Then she
did
hear it, a faint sound coming from the direction of the river. The blond stood and looked out over the side of the boat. The other boys were coming to their feet.

A motor.

The sound steadily grew louder, an outboard motor revved to full power.

Down the channel they saw the light sweeping past on the river.

“Hey!”
Carolyn shouted as loud as she could.
“Here!”

The boys started yelling at the top of their lungs. They were jumping up and down and waving their arms.

“Look this way, damn it,” she said under her breath.

But what good would it do if they did? With her boat a hundred yards from the river, if it could be seen at all in the dark it would only look like a clump of grass sticking out in the narrow channel, or a drift hung on the bank. She was angry for a moment, feeling intentionally hurt by those speeding past and not coming her way. Then she thought about the shark in the river with the boat, its occupants completely unaware. And she was suddenly angry with them no more.

*   *   *

Douglas directed the watertight flood lamp’s broad beam on the upturned hull of the doctors’ boat as Broderick floated prone above it. They both wore helmetlike facemasks now, complete with microphones and earphones. Broderick lowered his head for a closer look, and ran his hand down through one of the long slashes.

A small brightly colored fish swam by Broderick’s faceplate as he raised his head to look at an even bigger slash a couple of feet from his hand.

“Er,”
was all he said. It came out metallic sounding through his mouthpiece.

“Errr,”
again.

Then he began talking to himself:
“An incomplete semicircular pattern of linear slashes with irregularities measuring up to zero point eight.… And I mean zero point eight feet, not centimeters.… Feet, that’s right.”
And he nodded his head knowingly to himself. It had to be to himself because he wasn’t looking at Douglas.

“Suggestive of angled tooth imprints from maxillary ridge…,”
he started again, and nodded knowingly once more.

“Suggestive, hell,”
he suddenly said.

And without ever looking at Douglas, Broderick turned and swam up out of the light, kicking his flippers rapidly.

*   *   *

Sheriff Stark stared at the small dock behind Carolyn’s house. A black Labrador stood in the yard a few feet short of the water.

“They haven’t come back, either,” he said.

Deputy Fairley swallowed to clear his dry throat. “Sheriff, my wife is really going to be worried.”

He smiled feebly as Stark looked at him. “Okay,” Stark said, “go ahead, get out.” He jabbed his index finger toward the dock. “Go on,” he said.

“No, that’s okay, Sheriff, we’ll be going in now and—”

“Go on,” Stark repeated. “I have enough on my mind without worrying about you.”

Fairley appeared reluctant from the look on his face, but he nevertheless hopped over the side of the boat onto the rough cypress boards of the dock. He smiled feebly again at Stark. “I’m, uh … going to get her straightened out,” he said. “This won’t happen again.”

The Labrador barked.

Fairley looked over his shoulder at the dog, but the animal wasn’t looking at him. Instead she was staring out at the water past Stark and the boat.

Stark turned the wheel away from the dock and pushed the throttle forward.

The Labrador’s now frenetic barking was lost in the sound of the boat speeding upriver in the direction of the beaver dam.

*   *   *

The two men hopped out of their boat onto the bank and ran after Alan, sprinting barefooted toward their pickup. He swung into the passenger seat as the stocky man slid behind the steering wheel. San-hi, Fred, and the other man jumped into the truck bed. Its wheels throwing mud out behind it, the truck spun away from the water and up a narrow gravel road.

*   *   *

Nearly thirty minutes had passed since they had last heard the sound of the motorboat, but now it was coming back down the river. “Mrs. Haines,” the older blond said in a low voice.

Moments later the craft’s light came into view.

“Mrs. Haines,”
the older blond said again.

The light was turning in their direction.

The boys started jumping up and down and cheering.

The boat came rapidly toward them, then Sheriff Stark cut the throttle back and the boat coasted slowly in their direction.

“I’m there,” he said over his radio. Now he counted the children standing looking back at him. “Tell Alan and Mr. Herald they’re all okay. I’m…”

Then he had to stop speaking to keep from crying.

CHAPTER 24

Carolyn felt a chill sweep across her back as Sheriff Stark’s boat sped out of the narrow channel running through the marsh grass and turned up the river. Paul pushed closer to her side. She tightened her arm around his shoulder and felt herself subconsciously leaning away from the side of the craft.

Its big motor revved to full speed, they raced up the channel toward her house.

*   *   *

The deputy’s cruiser, its blue lights flashing, braked to a stop in Carolyn’s drive. Alan sprang out of the car and hurried ahead of Fred and San-hi toward the side of the house.

*   *   *

Deputy Fairley had come out of the wicker chair on the patio at the sound of the Sheriff’s boat roaring up the river. A cruiser had braked to a stop in front of the house. Now an ambulance, the glow from its flashing red lights reflecting through the trees along the river, sped up the street, and Alan and the others hurried into the backyard.

*   *   *

Stark didn’t pull back on the speedboat’s throttle until he was within thirty feet of the dock. The craft settled into the water at the last moment and, its bow pushing a rolling wave of water out in front of it, scraped hard against the side of the dock.

Fairley saw the children and smiled in relief. And then the boys were scrambling over the boat’s side onto the bobbing cypress.

Alan and San-hi reached for Armon at the same time, but the stocky boy hopped from the boat and, holding his burned arm against his chest, hurried past them onto the grass. Fred took Paul from Carolyn’s arms and she came out of the boat behind them. Stark turned toward Alan.

“I said only bull sharks come up into freshwater, Alan, and you agreed with me. White sharks don’t.”

“That’s right,” Alan said. “They don’t.” He walked to Armon and San-hi, looked at the fluid-soaked T-shirt wrapped around Armon’s burned hand and forearm, and slipped his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Come on,” he said, nodding toward the two ambulance attendants coming down across the yard toward the water.

Two more deputy’s cruisers were stopping in front of the house now. Fairley looked at Stark, and the Sheriff frowned, and Fairley dropped his gaze to the ground.

Stark hurried past Fairley to catch up to Alan and walked by his side. “Alan, what do you mean, ‘That’s right?’ Carolyn said it was a white. What else could it be but a white and be twenty-five feet long?”

“There might be a precedent.”

“Precedent, hell, what do you mean?”

The attendants took charge of Armon, leading him toward the corner of the house. Alan looked at the deputies and Fred walking with the other boys in that direction. The younger blond suddenly started crying. Paul, walking across the patio toward the kitchen door, looked at the boy and back at Alan, then stepped inside the house ahead of Carolyn.