Augustine took Bonnie to the creek. He cleared a dry patch of bank and they sat down. She saw that he’d brought a paperback book from the ambulance.
“Oh, you’re going to read me sonnets!” She clasped both hands to her breasts, pretending to swoon.
“Don’t be a smartass,” Augustine said, mussing her hair. “Remember the first time your husband called after the kidnapping-the message he left on the answering machine?”
Bonnie no longer regarded it as that-a kidnapping- but she supposed it was. Technically.
Augustine said, “The governor had him read something over the phone. Well, I found it.” He pointed to the title on the spine of the book. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller.
“Listen,” said Augustine:
“‘Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity-I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples.'”
He handed the novel to Bonnie. She saw that Skink had underlined the passage in red ink.
“It’s him, all right.”
“Or me,” said Augustine. “On a given day.”
The sky was turning purple and contused. Overhead a string of turkey buzzards coasted on the freshening breeze. In the distance there was a broken tumble of thunder. Augustine asked Bonnie what happened with Max.
“He’s going back alone,” she said. “You know, it’s crossed my mind that I’m cracking up.” She took out her wedding ring. Augustine figured she was going to either slip it on her finger or toss it in the creek.
“Don’t,” he said, covering both possibilities.
“I’ll send it back to him. I don’t know how else to handle it.” Her voice was thin and sad. Hurriedly she put the ring away.
Augustine asked, “Whatdo,you want to do?”
“Be with you for a while. Is that OK?”
“Perfect.”
Brightening, Bonnie said, “What about you, Mister Live-for-Today ?”
“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve got a plan.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Really,” he said. “I’m going to sell Uncle Felix’s farm, or what’s left of it. And my house, too. Then I intend to find someplace just like this and start again. Someplace on the far edge of things. Still interested?”
“I don’t know. Will there be cable?”
“No way.”
“Rattlesnakes?”
“Possibly.”
“Boy. The edge of the edge.” Bonnie pretended to be mulling.
He said, “Ever heard of the Ten Thousand Islands?”
“Somebody counted them all?”
“No, dear. That would take a lifetime.”
“Is that your plan?” she asked.
Augustine was familiar with the partner-choosing dilemma. She was deciding whether she wanted an anchor or a sail. He said, “There’s a town called Chokoloskee. You might hate it.”
“Baloney. Stay right here.” Bonnie hopped to her feet.
“Now where are you going?”
“Back to camp for some poetry.”
“Sit down. I’m not finished.”
She spanked his arm away. “You read to me. Now I-m going to read to you.”
What Bonnie had in mind, dashing up the trail, was Whitman. Somewhere in the rusted ambulance was a hardbound volume of “Song of Myself,” a poem she’d loved since high school. One line in particular-“In vain the mastodon retreats from its own powder’d bones”- reminded her of Skink.
As she entered the campsite, she spotted him motionless on the ground. Snapper craned over him, making throaty snarls. He was coming down from a sulfurous rage. In one hand was a piece of burnt wood that Bonnie recognized as the governor’s hiking torch.
She stood rigid, her fists balled at her sides. Snapper wore a contorted expression made no less malignant by the red-and-chrome bar clamped to his face. He was unaware of Bonnie watching from the tree line. He dropped the torch, snatched up the suitcase and began to run.
Insanely she went after him.
THIRTY-ONE
Snapper had been awakened by a cool drizzle. The campsite was still. The one-eyed lunatic was asleep, stretched out in his grubby army duds beneath a tree. There was no sign of Edie Marsh, or the sharpshooter, or the weird broad who’d doused herself with soda pop in the Jeep.