Tourist Season

"Wait here," Keyes said. Quickly he went into the woods.

"Did you know about this?" Wiley asked Kara Ly

"What're you so upset about?" she said. "It'll make a better story, right?"

Mulling options, Wiley nibbled his lower lip.

Keyes returned, leading Je

"Oh boy," he said in a shrunken voice.

"I'm sorry, Skip," Je

"She's a little shy," Keyes explained. "She didn't want you to know she was here."

"I ruined everything," Je

Wiley looked at his watch. It said 6:07. Dawn came at 6:27 sharp.

"Skip's through talking," Keyes said to Je

Wiley kneaded the calf of his right leg. "I can't believe you actually shot me," he said.

"I thought it might shut you up."

"Just what the hell were you aiming for?"

"What's the difference?" Keyes said.

Kara Ly

"I think I see the barge," she said.

Keyes said, "What's it going to be, Skip?"

Wiley gazed at Je

"There's a mooring at the north end, on the lee side, opposite the way you came," Wiley said tiredly. "That's where the Mako's anchored up. You'd best get going."

"We're allgoing," Keyes said.

"Not me," Wiley said. "You can't make me, podner." He was right. The gun didn't count for anything now.

"Hey, there's an eagle," Je

The bird was airborne, elegantly soaring toward the pines. It carried a silvery fish in its talons.

"Just look at that," Wiley marveled, his eyes brightening beneath the Seminole banda

"It's a gorgeous bird," Kara Ly

"Skip, come with us," Keyes urged.

"Or what? You go

"Of course not."

Wiley said, "Forget about me, pal. I'm begi

Je

"Aw, I don't blame you," Wiley said to her, "the bugs out here are just awful." He patted her on the butt and let go.

To Keyes he whispered, "Help her pick out a new coffee table, okay?"

"Skip, please—"

"No! Go now, and hurry. These radio-controlled devices are extremely precise."

Keyes led the two women across the clearing. Je

"Hey, Brian," he shouted, "I didn't finish my story."

Keyes almost laughed. "Not now, you asshole!" The guy was unbelievable.

"But I never told you—they called."

"Who?"

"The Davenports. They phoned the day your piece ran, but you were already gone."

Keyes groaned—the bastard always wanted the last word.

Anxiously he shouted back, "What did they want?"

"They wanted to say thanks," Wiley hollered.

"I couldn't believe it! They actually wanted to say thanks for butting out."

Keyes waved one last time at his old friend.

Lost forever, his odyssey now measured in minutes, Skip Wiley swung a ropy brown arm in reply. He was still waving his cap when Brian Keyes, Je

They found the trail and, ten minutes later, the mooring where the outboard was anchored. The tide was up so they had to wade, skating their feet across the mud and turtle grass. Je

The engine was stone cold.

With trembling fingers Keyes turned the key again and again. The motor whined and coughed but wouldn't start.

"You flooded it," Kara Ly

Keyes looked at her curiously but did what he was told. The next time he turned the key, the Evinrude roared to life.

"Dad's got a ski boat," Kara Ly

Keyes jammed down the throttle and the Mako chewed its way off the flat, churning marl and grass, planing slowly. Finally it found deeper water, flattened out and gained speed. Already the rim of purple winter sky was turning yellow gold.

"How much time?" Je

"Three, four minutes," Keyes guessed.

They had to circle Osprey Island to reach the marked cha

''Brian!" Je

Keyes jerked back on the stick until the engine quit. The boat coasted in glassy silence, a quarter-mile off the islet. They all stared toward the stand of high pines.

"Oh no," Kara Ly

Keyes was incredulous.

Je

Skip Wiley was in the trees.

He was dragging himself up the tallest pine, branch by branch, the painstaking, web-crawling gait of a spider. How with a smashed leg Wiley had climbed so high was astonishing. It was not a feat of gymnastics so much as a show of reckless nerve. He hung in the tree like a broken scarecrow; ragged, elongated, his limbs bent at odd angles. From a distance his skull shone three-toned—the russet beard; the jutting ta

"Brian, he wants us to come get him!"

"No," Keyes said, "that's not it."

It was sadder than that.

The object of Wiley's expedition was perched at the top of the forty-foot pine. With its keen and faultless eyes it peered down at this demented, blood-crusted creature and wondered what in the world to do. As Skip Wiley advanced, he brayed, flailed his bright kerchief, shattered branches—but the great predator merely blinked and clung to its precious fish.

"He's trying to save the eagle," Brian Keyes said. "He's trying to make the eagle fly."

"God, he is," said Kara Ly

"Fly," Je

"Oh please," Kara Ly

That is how they left him—Skip Wiley ascending, insectine, possessed of an unknowable will and strength; the eagle studying him warily, shuddering its brown-gold wings, weighing a decision.

Brian Keyes turned the ignition and the boat shot forward in a widening arc. The Mako was very fast, and Osprey Island receded quickly in the slick curling seam of the speedboat's wake. Within minutes they were far away, safe, but none of them dared to look back.

Off the bow, at the horizon, the sun seeped into a violet sky.

Somewhere out on Biscayne Bay, a flat red barge emitted three long whoops of warning, the most dolorous sound that Brian Keyes had ever heard. He clung to the wheel and waited. "Fly!" he whispered. "Please fly away."