The engineer was right. The good news was that the cant of the club car meant the distance from the exit door to the tracks was reduced. And the moon was bright enough for us to see, at least a ways. The bad news was that it allowed us to see that the tracks were nearly submerged.
‘Hope those are old shoes,’ Pavlik said, looking at my kitten-heel sandals.
‘They are now, or at least they have been since our last foray out here.’ I held up one foot. ‘I think the cork platforms are coming unglued.’
‘They’re not the only thing here coming unglued.’ The sheriff started to slosh east alongside the tracks. ‘Did you notice Zoe was acting oddly?’
‘Must be the stress,’ I said, following him. Or maybe I’d scared her half to death with my talk of murderers everywhere. But it was true. Someone had killed Potter and right now it could be almost anybody, including Zoe herself.
Maybe that was why she was coming unhinged.
Pavlik was squinting up the line. ‘Looks like the passenger and sleeping cars are still high and dry.’
‘Well, that’s good, at least.’ I rubbed the bump on my head. The pounding was starting to lessen as we reached the front locomotive, still in place, nose down facing the flooded tracks.
‘This seems pretty much the way it was earlier,’ Pavlik said.
Earlier, as in the fight to reclaim Potter’s body. Pavlik and I might have won the battle, but the python had certainly won the war. At least until the thing had explo— ‘It’s gone.’
‘What’s gone?’ The sheriff had stepped up into the locomotive to look around and now stuck his head out.
‘Our python.’ A chill ran up my back as I pointed across the gulley to where the remains of the pregnant python had been strewn on the railbed. ‘And its eggs.’
‘Maybe it’s the tide, if there is one. Or I suppose an alligator could have claimed it,’ Pavlik said, jumping down from the cab. ‘Poetic justice, given what we’ve heard about the balance of nature out here.’
‘Too bad there aren’t enough Bambis and Thumpers left in the Glades to rise up, unite, and exact revenge on the lot of them.’
‘By Bambis, I assume you mean deer, though I suppose it could just as easily be a hot woman from a personal ad. But what are Thumpers?’
Poor boy. Yet another classic I’d force him to watch with me.
‘Thumper is a bunny.’ Then, fearing he’d think I was referring to the Playboy kind, ‘You know, like Bugs?’
‘Bugs?’ Pavlik still seemed confused. ‘Even in the Everglades, I don’t think they have insects big enough to consume a snake’s body in just a few hours.’
‘No, no. Bugs! As in Bunny—’ I interrupted myself as the sheriff waded into the water at an angle away from the train bed. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m just trying to get a better view of the trailing locomotive.’
‘Oh.’ Now that the rain had stopped, the nocturnal creatures seemed to be out in force. And in good voice. On a Wisconsin night you’d hear crickets and toads, maybe the occasional owl.
But the sounds of the Everglades were far more exotic. Rising from everywhere and nowhere – at least nowhere I could pinpoint. They seemed to have a physical presence and, of course, they did. We just couldn’t see it.
‘Hey, Pavlik, what is that?’ I was looking at a mound rising from the water. Amazing I hadn’t noticed it earlier, since it had to be a city block in width, or so it seemed in the low light. Directly opposite the sleeping car, the berm had a tangle of trees on it. ‘Is it one of those mangrove islands you were talking about?’
‘Maybe.’ But he was gazing the other way.
I took a step closer to the water to get a better look. Away from civilization and its ambient light, the sky was hazy with stars. ‘I think I see fireflies. But they’re … I think they’re red.’
‘Fireflies aren’t red.’ Pavlik still wasn’t paying attention.
‘True. At least I’ve never seen any this color.’ I waded in a cautious foot or two and squinted. ‘I think there are two of them, but they’re not flitting around like you usually see. Maybe sitting on something.’
‘Two? How far apart?’
‘Six or seven inches?’ Another step. ‘It’s hard to judge from here.’
‘Probably an alligator.’
I turned, though, in retrospect, that might not have been the smartest move of my life. ‘Alligator?’
‘Its eyes, to be precise. According to the pilot of the airboat ride we took the last time I was down here, their retinas reflect red in the dark.’