STORMY WEATHER By CARL HIAASEN

Only the bills on top were wet. Skink swept them aside with his hands. Bonnie and Augustine walked over to see.

The governor said, “You guys want any of this?” They shook their heads.

“Me, neither,” he muttered. “Just more shit to lug around.” He addressed Snapper: “Chief, I’m sure there was a time in your sorry-ass life when ninety-four grand would’ve come in handy. Believe me when I tell you those days are over.”

Skink took a matchbook from his pocket. He asked Bonnie and Augustine to do the honors. Snapper spewed dirt and thrashed inconsolably against the chains.

The money gave off a rich, sweet scent as it burned.

Later he unlocked the truck chain holding Snapper to the tree. Plaintively Snapper pointed at the red brace fastened in his mouth. Skink shook his head.

“Here’s the deal, Lester. Don’t be here when I get back. Do not fuck with my camp, do not fuck with my books. It’s about to rain like hell, so lie back and drink as much as you can. You’ll need it.”

Snapper didn’t respond. Augustine stepped up. He took out the .38 Special and said, “Try to follow us out, I’ll blow your head off.”

Bonnie shuddered. The governor removed a few items from beneath the tarpaulin and placed them in a backpack. Then he lighted the torch and led the others into the trees.

Snapper had no desire to follow; he was glad the crazy fuckers were gone. A gust churned the cinders at his feet, blew a flurry into his lap. He ran his fingers through the ashes, brought a handful to his nose. It didn’t even smell like money anymore.

Later he awoke to the hard rustle of leaves. The rain came driving down. Snapper took the man’s advice. He filled up on it.

At daybreak he would start his march.

They broke a fresh trail through the hardwoods. Bonnie was worried that Snapper would be able to use it to find his way out. “Not across a lake,” Skink said.

She hooked her fingers in Augustine’s belt as they swam. The governor hoisted the torch, his boots and the backpack over his head, to keep them dry. Augustine was astounded that the man could swim so well with a fractured collarbone. The crossing took less than fifteen

minutes, though it seemed an eternity to Bonnie. She was unable to convince herself that crocodiles shunned firelight.

Afterwards they rested on shore. Skink, struggling into his laceless boots: “If he gets out of here, he deserves to be free.”

Augustine said, “But he won’t.”

“No, he’ll go the wrong way. That’s his nature.”

Then Skink was moving again, an orange flame weaving through the trees ahead of them. Bonnie, hurrying to keep up: “So something’ll get him. Panthers or something.”

Augustine said, “Nothing so exotic, Mrs Lamb.”

“Then what?”

“Time. Time will get him.”

“Exactly!” the governor boomed. “It’s the arc of all life. For Lester we merely hasten the sad promenade. Tonight we are Darwin’s elves.”

Bonnie quickened her pace. She felt happy to be with them, out in the middle of nowhere. Ahead on the trail, Skink was singing to himself. Feeling the horns sprouting from his temples, she supposed.

Two hours later they emerged from the woods. A rip of wind braced them.

“Oh brother,” Augustine said, “any second now.”

With a grimace, Skink removed the backpack. “This is for your hike.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Take it, just in case.”

Bonnie said, “God, your eye.”

A stalk of holly berries garnished the empty withered

socket. The governor groped at himself. “Damn. I guess it fell out.”

Bonnie could hardly look at him.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I got a whole box of extras somewhere.”

She said, “Don’t be foolish. Go to the mainland with us.”

“No!”

A mud-gray wall of rain came hissing down the road. Bonnie shivered as it hit them. Skink leaned close to Augustine: “Give it a couple three months, at least.”

“You bet.”

“For what?” Bonnie asked.

“Before I try to find that place again,” Augustine said. •

“Why go back?”

“Science,” said Augustine.

“Nostalgia,” said the governor.

The squall doused the torch, which he lobbed into a stand of red mangroves. He tucked his hair under the plastic shower cap and said good-bye. Bonnie kissed him on the chin and told him to be careful. Augustine gave an affable salute.

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