He had looked at Bessie Levy, looked at her sitting there holding the tiller of her boat, face lifted to the sun and salt spray. He looked at her and saw an old woman unafraid of the seething, sodden mysteries of the natural world.
He knew he could never be like her. He could face a psychopath waving a knife. But he could live a hundred years and still would always jump when he heard an animal cry in the dark.
Louis paused at a fork in the trail. He could just make out the small sign that read CEMETERY TRAIL. It seemed to go back inland. He could see the sky reddening above the tops of the trees. He decided to take the other path.
He walked more slowly now since the path was just a streak in the quickening dusk. The path narrowed into heavy brush and he had to push his way through. He brushed against something and jerked back, feeling a sharp sting.
“Shit,” he muttered, grabbing his arm.
He had been pricked by something, and a small bubble of blood was already visible. He looked at the short palm he had brushed against. It had five-inch thorns on the fronds. He clamped a hand over his bleeding arm and moved on.
He stopped abruptly. Something white loomed before him.
Jesus...bones?
They looked like giant animal bones sticking up from the sand. He crept forward and let out a breath.
Trees ...just dead trees. They looked like the sea grape trees in front of his cottage, but these were dead and bleached pure white, twisted and bent low by the wind and salt tides.
He stopped. The huge silence rushed in, and he heard the soft hiss of the tide on the beach. He was near the gulf. Then he saw something about a hundred yards ahead, beyond the naked white trees —- a faint light, moving slightly.
A lantern. It had to be Frank.
Louis started across the grove of dead trees, picking his way carefully over the exposed roots, crouching to move beneath the giant rib cages the trees formed over him. Finally, he made it to the other side. He stood dripping with sweat, his heart hammering. The lantern light had disappeared.
He felt a jab in the back and froze.
“Don’t move,” a voice said. “Put up your hands.”
Louis drew in a breath. “Frank? Frank Woods?”
“What are you doing here?”
When Louis didn’t answer, Frank jabbed him harder in the small of the back.
“Easy, man, put the rifle down,” Louis said.
Frank was silent but he hadn’t moved the barrel.
“I just want to talk, Frank, that’s all.”
“You’re bleeding,” Frank said.
Louis felt the gun barrel leave his back.
“Turn around,” Frank said.
Louis turned slowly, lowering his hands. Frank was standing there in the deep shadows. In his hand was a stick. Louis let out a breath. He could feel his own gun on his waist and debated pulling it, but decided against it.
“How’d you know I was here?” Frank demanded. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. That’s not important. Why are you following me?”
“Look, Woods —- ”
“You’ve been following me for days now. I want to know why. Who sent you?”
Louis couldn’t make out Frank’s face but he could hear the tension in his voice. The man was afraid of something.
“You got a camp somewhere?” Louis asked.
“Yeah, over on the beach.”
“Let’s go and talk.”
Frank hesitated then started away. Louis let him lead the way. They emerged from the brush onto a wide beach and Louis saw the lantern again. And then a small tent sitting between two dead mangrove trees.
“Wait here,” Frank said. He dipped inside the tent and emerged with a first-aid kit.
“What happened to your arm?” Frank asked.
Louis had been holding his arm and when he let go, he was shocked to see a knot forming on his wrist. “Walked into a tree with thorns the size of stilettos,” he said.
Frank made a wry face. “Probably a date palm. If any of it’s still in your skin, it can get septic. It happened to me once. You’d better clean it up.”
He held out the kit. Louis took it and sat down on a piece of driftwood near the Coleman lantern. As Frank bent down to turn it up, Louis got his first good look at him. He was wearing old jeans and a worn denim shirt, an old fishing hat covering his hair. In the white glow of the Coleman lantern, Frank’s eyes were underscored with bruises of exhaustion. He looked nothing like the benign librarian of a few weeks ago. Now he looked like a haunted —- or hunted —- man.
Frank moved away and Louis concentrated on the puncture on his arm. It had swelled up to the size of an egg and he could feel his forearm stiffening. Probing at the wound, he couldn’t see any remnant of the thorn.
“Pour on some hydrogen peroxide,” Frank said.