him in a hornet’s nest of strangers, and he hoped to hell he was joining up on the right side of this war. He was pretty sure he was, but he’d feel better when he knew more about those guys around that fire. He had never heard of Eldon Osceola, never met him, and wouldn’t know if he could trust him or not. It didn’t sound to him like Alcina really knew him, either.
So he lay down outside the tent with the blanket over his head and chest to ward off the swarm of mosquitoes that were feasting on him. Maybe the tent wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. When he finally did get to sleep, he woke next to find a weird cloud of gray mist drifting around him like ghosts in the breeze. He lay there for a few minutes and stared at the palmetto fronds forming the roof above him. Birds were waking up: cheerful and chirping and irritating. It had been a while since he had spent the night in an unfamiliar swamp. His house had the luxury of modern electricity and plumbing, but nothing like that out here, not that he’d seen. These people knew how to rough it.
The surrounding fields were covered with that same damp ground-hugging fog, so he couldn’t see much that didn’t look like he was wading through a cloudbank. The night before, Alcina had disappeared without a word, presumably heading back to her own tent. Everybody else was either gone or asleep or dead. He hoped it wasn’t that last, but he wouldn’t be surprised. He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his eyes.
Novak was uneasy but tried to shake it off. He had no real reason to doubt these people or to fear them. Still, if they had all gone off during the night and left him out in the middle of nowhere, he was not going to enjoy a good day. Stepping down into swirls of gray, he headed off in the direction he thought he’d come from the night before. The sun was trying to come up. The fog started to lift as if on cue. Within minutes, Novak made out a large building on the far side of a grassy field. It was built with dark wood and a galvanized red metal roof. It was several feet off the ground like the chickees. He started walking toward it.
The farther he got, the more he could see. It was a little settlement. What did Alcina call it? Pa-hay-Okee Safari. That’s what it looked like: the jungle area at Disney World, maybe. It looked clean, interesting, unthreatening. There were a dozen more chickees built along a central road. Most of them had tents pitched on top. There was a body of water down close to the major building. There was a good-sized covered dock down there, too, and he could see four large airboats and about ten aluminum canoes and kayaks where they were neatly stacked on boat racks along the bank. This was a place of business catering to tourists, all right.
Novak felt better because the girl’s story panned out. Roads covered in small white shells led up to smaller buildings. None of them looked like private residences. He had a feeling this might be a replica of a historic Seminole village that also offered boat rentals and guided tours. If he had to guess, the water would eventually wind around and empty into the Everglades’ immense grasslands. There were similar offshoots in the bayous with businesses that catered to tourists. He could see now that there were booths, still shuttered, but where they likely sold handmade arts and crafts. That meant they weren’t out in the middle of nowhere, but fairly close to a highway. Breathing easier, he turned and headed for the big building, hoping to find Alcina and Pedro.
Then he saw the guy. He was squatting down beside a cook fire not too far away, and the come-hither aroma of frying bacon wafted enticingly to Novak. His stomach reacted, got hysterical, in fact, so he hastily changed course. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He wanted some of that bacon.
About thirty feet from the fire, the man glanced up and saw Novak. He was a Seminole, Novak knew that at once. He was tall and slender, with black eyes and even blacker hair. Even from a distance, he had a presence about him that made Novak feel he would be someone important. In the 1800s, he might have been a chief. Maybe he was now, too. He looked mid-forties, maybe in his fifties, but it was hard to tell. He was muscular but in a hard, lean way. He had on faded denim jeans and a beige canvas shirt and New Balance black tennis shoes. He said nothing to Novak but kept an eye on him as he approached. Novak broke the ice. “Good morning.”
“You think so?” the man said, looking up at him.
“So far. Maybe not for long, all things considered. You tell me. I’m new around here.” Novak shifted his gaze to the meat sizzling in the skillet, and his stomach made embarrassing sounds. “Can I buy some breakfast off you?”
That brought a smile. “Considering you’re wearing no shirt and have mosquito bites all over you, I suspect you don’t have any money with you. But go ahead, sit yourself down. Everybody around here is just damn lazy.” He flipped a piece of bacon. “Kids today only think about their cellphones and stupid stuff like Twitter. All that social media crap won’t do them a lick of good in the long run. Waste of good time where they could be learnin’ something. Go ahead, help yourself to the coffee, if you have a liking for it. You look like you might need all you can get. Got you in the head last night, did they?”
“I met up with a baseball bat, but the kid says he’s really sorry he hit me so hard and both times, too. I’ll take as much coffee as you can spare.”
“Good, that means he shows some manners.”
Novak found some metal mugs sitting on a camp table alongside paper plates and plastic forks and a roll of paper towels. He took a cup, squatted down, and lifted the percolator. Now the guy was ignoring him, so Novak took the hint. This guy wasn’t chatty; neither was Novak. He sat down in a camp chair and watched the cook prepare breakfast. It was just past dawn. Ten thousand birds seemed ecstatic to see the sunrise.
Up close, Novak realized the man might be older than he’d first thought. Now he looked to be in his sixties, maybe. Pure white streaked his black hair just above his temples, but his hair was trimmed short, almost to the scalp, so it wasn’t noticeable at first. His face was the color of aged bronze and looked newly sunburned. The corners of his eyes were creased with deep lines, but his cheeks were smooth with a few creases but no wrinkles. His eyes were keen as shards from a black window. Novak had never seen him before. He knew that because this was the kind of man Novak wouldn’t forget. He wanted to talk to him because he was certain he could fill in the cracks in Alcina’s story.
“My name is Will Novak. Your young friends and the Guatemalan woman brought me out here last night, right after they clubbed those big knots on my head.”
The man grinned. “Yeah, I taught ’em how to do that. Saves a lot of bloody knuckles and broken fingers. Just take the big ones out first and quick before they lay hands on you.” Then his amusement faded, and he sat back and considered Novak. “I reckon one of us is gonna pay the price for what happened on that beach last night. Probably you, if I had to hazard a guess. Afraid you won’t get off so easy with those guys. Just don’t know who or how many of ’em are going to come at you or when it’s gonna go down.”
“You’re Eldon Osceola, I presume.”
“That’s right. My kids and I run this place. You’re safe here at the moment, but I reckon both of us will be knee deep in shit before this week is done.”
Another flash of levity lit up those intense black eyes, but it was fleeting. Osceola turned over another strip of bacon. “I heard tell you can hold your own in a fight. Put down three or four of those stupid boys all by yourself.”
“Can’t take much credit. Those guys last night were young and stupid, but they were armed and they like to hurt people. I’ve faced worse.”
“You were in the military.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement. “Yeah, out now, though. Army first, then later I joined up with a SEAL team. You were a soldier, too.” Novak knew it as sure as the man had known it about him.
“Marines.
