Free Skink--No Surrender by Carl Hiaasen Page B

you—like, mister secret agent bounty hunter?”
    The difference was that bounty hunters chase down people to get the reward money; I was tracking my cousin because I was worried about her.
    “Trent, can I please talk to Mom again?”
    There was a muffled exchange of the phone, then my mother’s tense voice: “Richard, if you do find Malley, I want your word that you and Mr. Tyree won’t do anything reckless. Just hang back and call the police, all right? Don’t try to be heroes.”
    “Of course,” I said, knowing the governor was out of my control. He couldn’t wait to have a “chat” with the fake Talbo.
    “Also,” Mom added, “you’ve got exactly seventy-two hours.”
    “Why? Then what?”
    “Then I’ll be notifying the authorities.”
    “But what about Mr. Tile—”
    “I’ll be telling him the same thing,” she said. “Three days from now I expect to see your smiling, unharmed face in this house. If you’re not back by then, I’m basically calling out the cavalry.”
    “Mom, come on!”
    “That’s the deal, Richard. Now, may I speak to Governor Tyree, or Skink, or whatever he’s calling himself?”
    “Uh, he stepped away.”
    “Stepped away? To where? Don’t tell me he left you alone out there—”
    “Later, Mom.”
    The reason I clicked off in such a hurry was that I heard a truck honking and a high-pitched scrape of brakes out on the road, not far from our campfire. Using the flashlight app, I picked my way through the woods, not even trying to be quiet.
    By the time I reached the road, the truck was out of sight. Shards of oyster shells littered the pavement. I called out for the governor, sweeping my little flashlight back and forth. The glow fell upon a boot, an exceptionally large boot, standing empty on the gravel shoulder. I saw that the toe of the boot had been crushed, practically flattened. A grimy, torn sock lay crumpled nearby.
    When I yelled again, my voice cracked.
    A froggy reply came out of the darkness:
    “Over here, son.” Followed by a gusher of swear words.
    I aimed the light toward a ditch, and that’s wherehe was sprawled. His bare right foot looked crooked and pulpy.
    “What happened?” I cried.
    “I’m not as quick as I used to be, that’s what happened. Here, hold this.”
    “No way!” It was a baby skunk, and I didn’t have to look twice to be sure. A skunk the size of a guinea pig but still a skunk, stripes and all.
    “Do what I say,” Skink growled. “Stay calm and she won’t spray. And kill that freaking light.”
    So I cradled the little stinker in the crook of my arm while the governor gimped out of the ditch and retrieved his boot, which no longer fit over his mangled toes. The skunk didn’t make a sound, but I could feel it tremble.
    “We are not eating her,” I said.
    “Don’t be a nitwit, Richard. If I’d wanted to eat her, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
    Turned out that the baby skunk had been crossing the road behind its mother when an eighteen-wheeler came speeding down the hill. Skunks have poor eyesight, so they never saw what was coming. The momma made it safely to the other side but the small one was too slow. The governor had dropped the oyster shells, dashed into the road, snatched up the youngster and then tried to leap out of the way. The truck missed everything but his right foot.
    Now he was limping ahead of me through the trees. I didn’t need the flashlight app to see which way he wasgoing—I just followed the ripe smell of oysters. He was looking for the mother skunk, and somehow he tracked her down. It was impressive. He said she wouldn’t spray us with musk if we talked softly, and she didn’t. He took the little skunk from me and set her on the ground. The critter was so blind that he had to spin her around until she was pointed toward the mother. Off they went, two black bushy tails trundling single-file through the scrub.
    The governor was in a world of pain, grunting and cussing as he hopped