CHAPTER FOUR

       IN HAWKSHAW’S BOYHOOD, Cobia Key had been wild and solitary, and it had suited him; he had been wild and solitary himself.

      Now he felt the slight weight of the boy on his shoulders and remembered being carried by his own father the same way in this same place. He remembered how his father had introduced him to this mysterious land that could be at once both beautiful and fearful.

      The famous Keys highway had run through Cobia to end in Key West, its tipsy and not quite respectable final destination. But in those days hardly anyone stopped in Cobia, for it seemed there was nothing to stop for.

      But the island had its inhabitants. They were few but hardy, independent souls who relished Cobia’s privacy and its isolation for their own reasons, sometimes legal, sometimes not.

      Over the years, while Hawkshaw had been gone, the edges of Cobia’s splendid loneliness had been eaten away. The highway through it now sported an ugly restaurant, an uglier motel, and a small but hideous strip mall.

      A new housing subdivision had grown up along the open water, concrete dwellings colored in pastels like different flavors of ice cream. They looked as if they were made for mannequins, not people, and Hawkshaw didn’t like them.

      He was glad that here, in the backcountry, the wilderness remained, and so did the loneliness.

      He walked across the weedy yard, conscious that the loneliness was violated now by the boy and his mother. He was an unwilling host, and they were his unwilling guests.

      He might begrudge their presence, but he would have to make the best of it. He would begin by pointing out the boundaries and setting the rules. The woman beside him walked gingerly and so did the basset hound, like the city creatures they were.

      “There,” Hawkshaw said to Charlie. He pointed at a tall, spindly tree on the opposite side of the tidal stream. “That’s a poisonwood tree. You don’t want to touch any part of it or put it in your mouth. You have to memorize how it looks, the big shiny leaves, the black splotches on the bark.”

      “Wow,” Charlie breathed, clearly awed. “Will it kill you?”

      “No, it’s more like poison ivy. But it makes some people pretty sick,” said Hawkshaw. “So steer clear of anything that looks like it. That’s an order.”

      Kate Kanaday shifted uneasily and gripped the dog’s leash more tightly. “Snakes,” she said. “There are snakes here, aren’t there?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” Hawkshaw said. “Coral snakes. And cottonmouths. And rattlesnakes.”

      “Rattlesnakes—that’s awesome,” Charlie said. “Can we catch one?”

      “No, you certainly can’t,” Kate said. “If you see a snake, don’t even think of touching it—run.”

      Hawkshaw glanced down at her. Her pallor clearly marked her as an outsider to this world of perpetual summer. But the sunshine did dazzling things to her hair, making it glint with live sparks of red and gold.

      “There are plenty of harmless snakes,” Hawkshaw said, looking away. “You just have to learn to tell which is which.”

      “Yeah, Mama,” Charlie said enthusiastically. “You just have to learn to tell which is which.”

      “I don’t care what it is,” she said, putting her fist on her hip. “If you see one, run.”

      Charlie bent down to Hawkshaw’s ear and said in a conspiratorial voice, “Girls are sissies.”

      Kate looked both crestfallen and insulted. “Charlie!” she said, “That’s not true.”

      “Your mother’s not a sissy,” Hawkshaw said. “But she’s right. Don’t mess with a snake if you don’t know what it is.”

      “Can you tell a poison one from a good one?” Charlie asked.

      “Yes,” said Hawkshaw.

      “Who taught you?” Charlie demanded.

      “My—” Hawkshaw hesitated. He’d almost slipped into his old Southern speech habits and said, My daddy. He corrected himself and said, “My father. I grew up here. This was his house.”

      “And your mother’s?” Charlie said brightly.

      “No. She never lived here.”

      “Where is she, then?” Charlie asked with a child’s bluntness. “Did she die?”

      “No,” said Hawkshaw. “She lives someplace else, that’s all.”

      “Well, where?” Charlie insisted.

      “Montreal.” A cold place for a cold woman, his father had always said. Hawkshaw’s father hadn’t been able to hang on to the woman he’d loved, and Hawkshaw had rather despised him for it. Now history had repeated itself, like a bad joke. Like father, like son.

      “Montreal,” Charlie mused. “Did your father go there, too?”

      “Charlie—” Kate began, her tone warning.

      “No. My father’s dead,” Hawkshaw said. He had no taste for sugarcoating the expression nor did the kid seem to want it.

      “Did he die of a brain attack?” Charlie asked. “Mine did.”

      “Charlie—” Kate warned again.

      “No,” Hawkshaw said. “Not that.”

      “Then what?” Charlie asked, all amiable curiosity.

      “Something else,” Hawkshaw said vaguely. Drinking, he thought. He died from the drinking.

      Hawkshaw had never been sure if his mother had left because his father drank, or if his father drank because his mother had left. It was odd. After all these years, he still didn’t know.

      “Well, what?” Charlie persisted. “Did a snake bite him? Did a shark eat him?”

      “No,” said Hawkshaw. “He just died, that’s all.”

      Kate looked humiliated by this exchange. “That’s enough, Charlie.” To Hawkshaw she said, “I’m sorry. He doesn’t mean to pry.”

      Hawkshaw changed the subject. He turned so that he and the boy could see where the tidal stream ended and the ocean began. “That’s the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, pointing out toward the open water. “Can you swim, kid?”

      “No, he can hardly swim at—” Kate began.

      “Some,” Charlie contradicted. “I can swim a little.”

      “Well, don’t go near the water without a life jacket until you can swim a lot,” said Hawkshaw.

      “Can you swim