"Oh, not even you, eh? Mr. tough-guy Gladesman." She was smiling when she said it, but I had been right about the challenge. Sherry did not thrive long without a challenge.

"And the stars are amazing," I added, just for incentive. "Horizon to horizon without any of the city lights to muck it up."

She took another sip of late morning coffee and acted like she was pondering the possibilities.

"Sold," she finally said, stretching out her long legs, flexing and showing the hard cut in the muscles of her thighs. "Let's go."

We packed up a cooler of food and plenty of water. The plan was to stay a couple of nights, maybe three, at the Snows' fishing camp and then make it back for a final day at the shack before returning to civilization. I was digging around in my duffle bag for the small GPS unit on which I had recorded the coordinates of the Snows' place. I wasn't that good of a Gladesman to be wandering around in that open acreage without some help. While I sorted through some old rain gear and special books that I kept in the duffle, I pulled out the leather bag that held my oilcloth-wrapped Glock 9mm service weapon from my days on the Philadelphia Police Department. I hefted it in one hand, feeling the weight of it, but as soon as the memories of its use started leaking into my conscience, I pushed it back into the duffle, deep to the bottom. Don't go there, Max, I said to myself. I finally found the GPS, left the gun inside the duffle and shoved it back under the bed. New time. New memories.

In a waterproof backpack I stored the GPS and extra batteries along with some camping tools including a razor-sharp fillet knife I kept in a leather sheath for the fish I hoped we'd catch and the small steel first aid kit I always took with me on trips. I thought of myself as a careful man. I knew enough about alligators and water snakes and poison vegetation, and after four years out here, how one never underestimates that shit can happen, even without the source of its usual progenitor: people.