Endangered Species (3 page)

leaves of the live oaks, producing a delicate clatter, a sweet

counterpoint to the throbbing shush of waves against the shore.

The open space between the tree line and the sea suited Anna .

As in the wide country of the Southwest, the eye could roll out to the

distance, the soul expand into the great spaces.  Back in the densc

woods she didn't breathe as easily.  There the air scarcely moved and

the clatter was like as not ticks dropping from the vegetation in search

of new homes with better-stocked larders.

Like the hero in a drawing room comedy, Dijon Smith entered laughing ."

oooeee, I wish I had balls the size of a ghost crab's," he said ." Those

little suckers aren't afraid of anything." Anna knew what he meant.  The

little crustaceans, the biggest not more than ten inches from claw to

claw, would stand on their back legs and challenge the ton-and-a-half

pumper trucks as they drove down the beach.

Dijon's dark skin soaked up the moonlight till he looked a shadow of

himself.  In a clichd Anna would never give voice to, all she could see

were the whites of his eyes and his flashing teeth.

At twenty-two, Dijon was the baby of the bunch by nearly ten years and

complained good-naturedly about being stuck in the retirement home for

aging firefighters.  Under the spreading branches of a live oak, Smith

jumped up, caught hold of a limb, and began chinning himself with an

irritating effortlessness.

" That's knocking ticks down on you," Guy warned.

"Shit!  No lie?" Dijon dropped and began brushing off his shoulders and

arms ." Don't tell me that, man.  I hate those little mother-" A glance

at Anna ." Buggers.

"They can sense your body heat like heat-seeking missiles," the crew

boss said ." You shake their tree and they drop on you."

"Ticks." Dijon shuddered and did a little dance designed either to

dislodge insects or get a laugh.  With Dijon Smith it was hard to tell.

Bending over at the waist, he fluttered his fingers through his

close-cropped hair.

"Don't flick them on me," Anna griped, and jumped back.  So convincing

was the performance, she half believed he was acrawl with bloodsucking

monsters.

Marshall slumped back on the ATV, feet over the handlebars, back against

his day pack.  Guy could get comfortable anywhere; a highly desirable

attribute in a wildland firefighter ." Get your eggs all laid?" he

asked.

" haven't gotten anything laid since we came to Cumbersome isle," Dijon

returned ." Even those turtles are starting to look good .

I've got to get out of here.  I need sex and pizza.  This sand and surf

and tick shit is driving me out of my"-again the look at Anna-"frigging

mind."

Anna smiled in the dark.  Misplaced as it was, she appreciated the

sentiment and cleaned up her language around Smith to keep her credit

good.

AI Magnus, Rick Spencer, Mitch Hanson, and Lynette Wagner washed up from

the beach on a gust of chatter.  Headlights and engine noise sliced the

night as Anna buckled herself onto the bench seat of the pumper truck.

Hanson had driven his government vehicle; Lynette rode with Dijon and

Rick in a second truck as decrepit as the one Anna shared with AI.

Magnus was a short stocky man somewhere in his thirties but exuding the

ageless maturity of the devoted family man.  While the A'fV and the

truck growled into the night, AI scraped out the bowl of his pipe, then

banged it against the side of the truck.  The smell of sea air and stale

tobacco radiated from his clothing and the cab began to feel as homey as

a country living room.

"No sense eating dust," he explained.  He tamped fresh tobacco in the

bowl.

"Who's that Mitch Hanson guy?" Anna asked in idle curiosity .

"Marty seemed deeply aggrieved that he not only had the temerity to

exist but the unmitigated gall to do it in her vicinity."

AI finished the tamping and went through the lengthy ritual of lighting

his pipe before he answered.  An addiction to pipe tobacco gave the user

an unearned air of deep and considered wisdom .

When the pipe was drawing properly, he said: "Mitch isn't a bad sort.

He's a dozer operator with maintenance.  Keeps the roads passable.  An

over-the-hill party boy.  Double dipper.  He's pretty much retired twice

but's still on the payroll.  Maybe that's what's getting to Marty."

Anna nodded in the dark.  Scattered throughout government services were

retired military men pulling a full pension and a salary .

Those who worked inspired jealousy.  Those who coasted, hatred and

contempt.

Evidently Hanson was in the latter category.  Anna had seen him grading

the inland lanes.  Or, now that she thought about it, she'd seen his

bulldozer.  Either he was nowhere around or he was lounging in the shade

gossiping with the locals.  He looked to be fifty or thereabout.  His

belly confirmed the aging-party-animal motif; thirty extra pounds

rounded out his face and middle.

The sight and sounds of the other vehicles faded.  AI turned the key and

fired up the engine.  Inland the lanes were narrow, the palmetto close

and thick.  Stiff fingers of vegetation skritched along the sides of the

truck.  Despite the muggy heat, Anna rolled her window up.  Without

light she couldn't defend herself against the whip of the fronds.

The road was washboarded and hosted deep ruts where streams carried

rainfall from the interior.  These seeming obstacles had no effect on

Magnus and he roared along at a bone-rattling thirty miles per hour.  In

the beams of the headlights the lane unfurled, a twisting white ribbon

through a tunnel of green.  It put Anna in mind of Mr.  Toad's Wild Ride

in Disneyland.  She cinched her seat belt as tight as it would go and

braced both feet against the dashboard.

"How'd you make out with Marty Schlessinger?" AI bawled over the racket

of the truck ." Did she ask you to dinner?"

"Nope.  I asked her over but she wasn't in the mood to go slumming."

"Too bad.  jimmy gave me a list of questions I'm supposed to ask her."

jimmy was Ai's eight-year-old son.  They talked almost every night.  In

a small office building about a mile from the dorm was a telephone fire

crew had access to.  Anna and AI were the only members who seemed to

have anyone to call.  Most evenings they flipped a coin to see who went

first.

Among Park Service nomads there were two mind-sets: those who threw

themselves wholeheartedly into each new adventure, sleeping with whoever

presented, eating what was set before them, and drinking deep from each

intoxicating cup they came across; and those with a strong tether to

home-a cord more often than not made of telephone wire.  Age was a

dividing factor-the young were liberal, having as yet acquired nothing

worth conserving-but the newly single and dedicated bachelors swelled

those ranks.

The clatter of rusting metal drowned out even Al's basso profundo and

Anna settled into a favorite pastime: watching the world go by.  Spotlit

into unnaturally bright colors, the jungle flickered past in patterns of

green and black.  This was a dry jungle with fragile grip on land.  Soil

was thin and sandy, the island prey to hurricanes that could flatten it

or divide it in two with a sudden waterway.  Plants grew with the

voracious disregard of the condemned, springing from the rough ground in

impenetrable thickets to fight for light and air beneath oaks

broad-shouldered enough to have weathered a century of storms.

Occasionally the glancing blow of the high beams would stun a night

creature.  Two baby raccoons, postcard-perfect, hung halfway up a palm

tree.  AI passed in a thunderous cloud of dust without ever seeing them.

Anna hoped the quake of their passage wouldn't dislodge the kits.  A sow

and three piglets dashed for cover beneath the palmetto fronds.  Three

deer grazed in a meadow in the center of the island where a Beechcraft

on loan for drug interdiction was tied down at the end of a dirt strip.

'There wei-e few meadows maintained on the island.  This was one of the

largest.  Even more than in daylight, Anna felt the relief of coming out

into the open after so long a time closed beneath the dusty canopy of

vegetation.

Moonlight turned the deer to shadows, the dry grass to textured marble.

Unlike the feral pigs, deer on Cumberland were not hunted .

These looked up as the truck ground past but didn't leave off chewing.

Beside the meadow, tucked behind a cottage that could have lured Hansel

and Gretel to their deaths, was Stafford, one of the derelict mansions.

Built by Andrew Carnegie for his daughter, it had been a place of

carriages and candlelight and southern hospitality .

This fine old house, like a dowager duchess fallen on evil times, now

fought just to keep body and soul together.

Within were wooden staircases, sconces, parquet floors, coffered

ceilings-crafunen's work that, if artisans could still be found, would

cost a fortune to replicate.  All was threatened by time and mildew. The

Park Service scrambled for funds to battle the decay and drafted plans

to bring back the grandeur, but for now it sat empty and vulnerable,

roofline sagging, foundation crumbling.

Several of these magnificent hulks dotted the island.  Anna had wandered

through most of them, a pleasant break in the monotony .

Nostalgia, memories of lives never lived but only imagined, dwelt in the

silent dust-filled halls, the moldering books left on the shelves, the

broken furniture stashed in enormous cellars; in a moth-eaten fur

abandoned in an upstairs nursery.  There was something fascinating in

the flotsam of the past, once valued things discarded when their owners

moved on.

When they reached the south end of the island, the road unraveled into

poorly marked byways leading to various NPS facilities.  AI timegotiated

unerringly through the knot and turned at last onto the street where

they stayed.  Several houses and two barracks were scattered beneath oak

trees on the east side of the road.  A garage and storage barn were on

the right.  Further down this minuscule Main Street the maintenance

buildings clustered.  The structures were all of wood, scoured to

vintage softness by the ocean winds .

Wherever metal touched-door hinges, nailheads, window locksstreaks of

burnt orange attested to the constant rust.

At eleven at night all was dark and deserted but for the house that

quartered fire crew.  The screened-in porch was aglow from lights

spilling out the open door.  Behind the wiquitous row of boots, banned

from the interior by Guy in an attempt to slow the migration of the

dunes from outside to in, Anna could see people lounging in metal

folding chairs.  The spark of a cigarette butt traced a slow are to

someone's mouth.

Lynette Wagner, Cumberland's GS-4 interpretive ranger, stood in the

doorway, yellow light turning the brown frizz of a shoulderlength perm

to red.  Her laughter bobbed on top of the hum of conversation.  Iwo

shadows hovered near her, Dijon and Rick ilo doubt.  Lynette always had