Nature Girl

“Chad Tigertail,” the boy said proudly.

His mother winced and shook her head. The boy agreed: Chad was definitely too white for the reservation.

“What about Sammy?” he suggested.

“Perfect. That was your great-grandfather’s name.”

“Was he a fighter?”

“No, a trapper. But your great-great-great-grandfather was a chief.”

“Tiger Tail?” the boy cried excitedly. “The Tiger Tail?”

It was true. Sammy was descended from one of the last great Seminole warriors, Thlocklo Tustenuggee, a cu

Sammy felt honored to be half of a true Tigertail and, except for his Irish blue eyes, he looked full-blooded. To make up for the time lost during his white childhood, he spent hours listening to the stories of the elders. He envied them for having grown up in a time when the tribe lived in relative isolation, buffered by swamp from the other world.

Now things were different. Now there were casinos and hotels and truck stops, and the stampede of outsiders meant big money for the Seminole corporations. A few of the tribal bosses even flew around Florida in private jets and helicopters, which impressed some people but not Sammy Tigertail. He remained on the reservation and worked hard, although his frequent bad luck caused others to whisper that he was cursed by the paleness in his past. It was a thought that also had occurred to Sammy Tigertail, and shadowed him now like a buzzard as he paddled alone across Chokoloskee Bay.

He wondered about the man named Wilson, held fast with trap ropes and anchors on the bottom of Lostmans River. The sun was high and the water was warming, so it was possible that bull sharks would cruise in from the Gulf. Wilson wouldn’t feel a thing.

A half dozen fishing boats flew past the young Seminole as he made his way through Rabbit Key Pass. Some of the anglers waved but Sammy Tigertail looked away. It had been nearly two days since he’d slept, and his senses were dull. Shortly after noon he beached the canoe on a small boot-shaped island. He unloaded his gear, taking special care with the guitar and the rifle, which was wrapped in a towel. He found a crown of dry land and made camp. It occurred to him that he hadn’t brought much food, but he wasn’t worried-his brother had sent along two spi

With noisy seabirds wheeling overhead, he lay down beneath a tree and fell into a hard sleep. The spirit of Wilson arrived, strung with slimy ropes and dragging all four anchors. The sharks hadn’t yet found him, although the blue crabs and snappers had picked clean his eye sockets. He was still half-drunk.

“I was expecting you sooner,” said the Indian.

“How come you didn’t take my money before you dumped me in the river?”

“Because I am no thief.”

“Or at least the doobs. That was a waste, my friend,” Wilson said.

Sammy Tigertail allowed that he was sorry Wilson had died on the airboat excursion.

“It was that fuckin’ snake, wasn’t it?” Wilson asked.

“Naw, it was your heart.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What do you want from me?”

The dead tourist held up the disposable camera. The cardboard was sodden and peeling apart.

“How about another picture?” said Wilson. “For my guys back at the bar on Ki

Ki

“Aw, come on,” Wilson said. “They got an autographed photo of Vince Lombardi and a game jersey signed by Brett Favre. But a picture of me, dead and with my eyeballs chewed out-that’d be tits!”

Sammy Tigertail said, “Sorry. No more photos.” He was extremely tired, and he wanted the dream to be over. He hoped that a shark would devour the disposable camera while chewing on Wilson. Sammy Tigertail wanted no one to see the humiliating, though undeveloped, images of him posing with the obnoxious white tourist.

“It’s freezing in that damn river,” Wilson complained.

“I had to move your body off the reservation. There weren’t many options.”

“I didn’t know the water got so cold in Florida.”

“Just wait till summer. It’s like soup,” Sammy Tigertail said.

Wilson scowled and spit out a clot of brown muck. “You sayin’ this is it for me? I gotta spend the rest of eternity out in this goddamned swamp? Dripping wet and smellin’ like fish shit? Not to mention these fuckin’ anchors.”

Sammy Tigertail said, “I can’t blame you for being angry.”

“I shoulda croaked in the casino. I shoulda had my heart attack in the bar when that hooker was bouncin’ on my lap. That’s how I should be spendin’ the hereafter,” the spirit of Wilson fumed, “not out here all alone in the middle of nowheres.”

“Deal with it,” the Indian said.

“Fuck you. This was the worst vacation I ever had.”

The dead tourist stomped the camera to pieces and shambled away, the anchors screaking across the floor.

Sammy Tigertail awoke in a state of prickly agitation. It was dusk, with a chilly northwest wind blowing in off the Gulf. He put together one of the spi

But while the young Indian had been arguing with the white man’s spirit, a big tide had rolled in. It was not good for beach fishing, and even worse for an untethered canoe.

In the fading light, Sammy Tigertail paced the shore, sca

Again he felt cursed. He trudged back to camp and built a fire. Then he took out the Gibson guitar and placed it across his lap. Ru

Since he didn’t know any chords, Sammy Tigertail began strumming with a wild and random vigor. He had no amplifier, yet he imagined that he was filling the night universe with music. It was good therapy for a stranded man.

Four

The crab boat that Sammy Tigertail had borrowed to transport Wilson’s body belonged to a man named Perry Ski

“How’s school?” he asked Fry.

“Electrifying.”

“And your mom?”

“That’s sorta why I’m here.”

“I figured,” Perry Ski

They were the only ones eating burgers at the Rod and Gun Club.

“She still call me your ‘ex-father’?”

“Sometimes,” Fry said, “and sometimes it’s just ‘your worthless dope-smuggling old man.’”

“That’s cold.” Ski

“I don’t know that she means it.”

Like practically every red-blooded male of his generation in Everglades City, Ski