Lost in the River of Grass (17 page)

“Oh my God. Look.” Andy, who's about ten yards ahead of me, points at something to our south. I shade my eyes but don't see anything.

He starts to run as fast as the water level will let him, waving his arms over his head and shouting. Birds scream and rise into the air in front of him.

I try to follow, but my feet cripple me. Andy falls, gets up, runs a few more yards, trips and falls again. I still don't see what he's after. He's pretty far away when he stops. He looks around as if he's confused about the direction to take, then hangs his head for a few moments, turns, and starts back toward me.

“What did you see?” I ask when he's close enough to hear me.

“Nothing.” He looks as if he might cry.

I touch his arm. “What did you think you saw?”

He glances at where he'd stopped running. “I saw two men sitting on stools or something, and I saw smoke rising from their fire and I smelled fish frying.” He shakes his head. “When I got there, it was a shrub with one bare branch sticking up.”

“I'm sorry.” I hug him.

“I really could smell fish frying.”

“I know. I thought I smelled pumpkin bread yesterday.” I pat his back. “How 'bout another sliver of that nutritious, delicious belt of yours?”

By noon the sun is brutal. No clouds. No breeze. We come to another tree island and decide to take a break. I let Teapot out and watch as she swims in speedy, thrilled little loops through lily pads the size of hubcaps and the small reeds at one edge of a pond before starting to eat. I stay nearby with as much of myself underwater as I can get. I used the last of the bug spray last night, figuring that if I could keep the mosquitoes away long enough to fall asleep, I'd be too dead to the world to notice them when it wore off.

We sink into the shallow water at the edge of the island and sit back to back to support each other. Andy starts to snore right away. I'm afraid I'll fall asleep, too, so I call Teapot and get her settled in the backpack before I close my eyes.

I'm not sure what woke me, but I feel someone watching us. My eyes pop open. There's no one there, but the sun is lower and the usual rain clouds are building in the west. It's two o'clock, is my guess.

Teapot's scratching and peeping in the backpack, which I'd hung off the limb of a nearby tree. In the water just below the shaking, wiggling pack are the eyes I'd sensed watching us. Two eyes and nostrils just above the water line. “Dream on,” I say to the little four-foot-long gator.

“What?” Andy mutters and then goes back to snoring.

“There's a little gator here with us,” I whisper, trying not to frighten it. I wonder if they're deaf, too, like snakes, then decide that wouldn't make any sense. What use would all the racket males make be if the females couldn't hear them? “Are you awake?” I ask.

The gator turns a little, but Teapot's gyrations have its full attention.

I lean forward, throwing Andy off balance. He wakes with a start and splashes to regain his balance. The gator spins and swims into some reeds.

“You scared our company away.”

“What company?” He rubs his eyes.

“A little gator was eyeballing Teapot.”

He stood up. “How little?” “Why?”

“Because baby gators usually have a big mother guarding them. Was it black and yellow?”

“No. It was gray and three or four feet long.”

“Good.” He holds his hand out. “We've burned a lot of daylight, let's get moving.” He seems cranky and short-tempered. Hungry beyond words, no doubt. I certainly am.

I have always been a picky eater. Never again, I vow. “I need to let Teapot out to eat a little.” I wonder if I could eat algae and duckweed like Teapot and not get sick.

“It takes too long.”

“What's the matter with you? Why are you acting mad at me?”

“We're wasting time, that's all.”

“Go on ahead then. I'll let her eat and catch up.”

“Do you know how slow I'm walking already so you don't fall behind?”

“Well, please don't do me any favors.”

“I'm responsible for getting you out of here.”

“Well, you are sure as hell responsible for getting me in,” I snap.

“If you'd worn what I told you to wear, you'd be able to keep up.”

“If you'd told me I'd be boating in and walking out, I would have adhered to the dress code.”

Andy turns and heads out.

“Tell Daddy bye-bye,” I tell Teapot, waving at his back.

I let him get a few yards out in front, then I follow. When I'm far enough from the little gator, I let Teapot out of the pack.

She's famished and turns butt-up immediately in search of food. She seems to like mushy vegetation. I walk slowly, staying close to her and keeping a sharp eye out for snakes and alligators while watching how far ahead Andy's getting. I catch him glancing over his shoulder to check on me, too. When I wave, he turns away quickly.

Thunder rumbles nearer. This time, unless we make the levee, there will be no saw grass dense enough to climb into.

When I decide that Andy is too far ahead, I call Teapot and bed her down in the pack. When I look up again, Andy has stopped and is waiting for me. “Are you through acting like a snot,” I shout.

If he hears me, he doesn't answer, just turns and starts walking. A few minutes later, I hear a choked-off scream.

17

The levee. He's spotted the levee, but the hair on the nape of my neck reacts differently. It was not a cry of joy. He didn't shout; he screamed. And he's standing absolutely still, not waving for me to come on. Something's wrong. I try to run, but there's nothing left in my legs.

Andy's standing at the edge of a clump of cattails.

“Is it the levee?” I call, cupping a hand to my mouth.

He doesn't answer or even look around, as if he can't hear me.

“Thanks for waiting,” I say when I finally catch up. I'm hoping that's why he's standing there.

The cattails he's in are at the edge of a wide canal. The chalk-white levee rises steeply on the opposite side. Tears swim in my eyes. I look at Andy and grin. “We made it.”

Sweat beads on his forehead and runs in streaks down the side of his face. Only his hand, which he holds behind his back, moves as he motions for me to slow down. “Don't come any closer,” he whispers.

My body tenses, and even in this scorching heat, chill bumps spread down my arms and legs. Something
is
wrong. “Why are you standing there like that?” One foot is in the weeds, the other is a little forward and looks caught up in the dead cattails around his ankle.

The cattail moves. “Oh, my God.” It's a snake, and it's circling his right ankle. “Is that a water moccasin?” “Yes.” “It's not very big.” “The young ones are just as deadly,” he whispers. “You said snakes are deaf, right?” “Yeah. Why?” “You're whispering.” “I guess I am.” “How'd it get there?” “I was waiting for you to catch up, put my foot here to clean the cattails off—and there it was.” The moccasin, firmly coiled around Andy's ankle, stops moving. “What's it doing?” “Settling in for a nap, I think.” “Its eyes don't look closed.” I can't really tell from this distance. “They don't have eyelids.”

“How long do snakes sleep?”

“If it just ate it could be hours.”

“You're kidding.”

“No.”

Andy looks tippy. His right leg is directly in front of his left.

I move closer, watching carefully where I step in case there's a nest of them nearby. “How long can you stand off-balance like that?”

“I hope longer than he can nap.”

Here and there are chunks of limestone from the blasting out of the canal. I take off the backpack, climb up, and sit down on one of them. “How can you be so calm?”

“What choice do I have?”

“I don't know, but I don't think I could just stand there.”

“Then I guess it's a good thing he chose me instead of you.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No.”

“You sound mad.”

“I have a poisonous snake wrapped around my ankle, for Christ's sake. How would you sound?”

“Scared.”

“Okay, then.”

I remember when we saw the moccasin at Shark Valley, Mr. Vickers said how deadly the bite is depends on how much venom is injected and how far it is to the nearest hospital. I look off to the west where there are now three search planes and a helicopter—all still miles away.

“You'd think one of them would come over here. Why wouldn't they think the way you did and guess that we'd head for the levee?”

“I don't know. I'm sure they've got a plan and are sticking to it just like we did.”

“You want to talk or something? It might make the time go faster.”

“I guess. What do you want to talk about?”

“I don't know.” I unzip the pack, wide enough to stick my hand inside. I want to touch Teapot, to feel her soft, warm body against my hand. “So you said you don't have any brothers or sisters, right?”

“My parents couldn't have children.”

“You mean any more children?”

“No, any. I'm adopted. My mother is really my aunt. Her sister is my birth mother.”

“That's kind of weird,” I say before I can stop the words.

“Maybe people who live in Coconut Grove don't have illegitimate children? Or is it that they can afford to have abortions?”

“I didn't mean it that way, Andy. I meant that must be strange if you see your mother. Does she live nearby?”

“Nobody knows where she is. As soon as she was able to walk after giving birth to me, she did. No one ever heard from her again. She was a druggie, so maybe she's dead.”

“You sound like you don't care whether she is or she isn't.”

“Why would I care? She didn't do nothing for me. Like my mother says, she didn't even push. I was a preemie and delivered by C-section.”

“At least your aunt . . . your mother loves you.”

“My mother loves babies. She's always off helping some woman who needs another kid like she needs a hole in her head to have one more. But I don't think she likes kids past the age of three.” He rotates his head like his neck is stiff.

“What makes you say that?”

“I don't know exactly. It seems like once I knew the difference between a coral snake and king snake, I was on my own.”

“How do you tell the difference?”

“The coral snake has a black nose and the king snake has a red one, but there's a rhyme she taught me: Red next to black is a friend of Jack. Red next to yellow will kill a fellow.”

While we've been talking, the moccasin has shifted slightly, fitting itself more tightly between the top of Andy's sneaker and his anklebone.

“So what
does
your dad do?” I'm still curious about the man who has a Confederate flag hanging in his garage.

“Nothing now,” Andy says.

I look up from the snake to his face. “What does that mean? You said he was in Miami on business, right?”

“I said he was in Miami, you jumped to the conclusion it was for business. He's on his monthly trip to check with his P.O.”

“Don't you have mail delivery out here?”

Andy glances at me, snorts a laugh, then looks quickly at the snake. “Not since the pony express ran out of horses with webbed hooves. His P.O. is his parole officer. He's an ex-con.”

Even though my family lives at the edge of the high-crime section of Coconut Grove, I've never known anyone who's actually been to jail. “What did he do . . . if you don't mind me asking?”

“What else? Drugs.”

“Took them or ran them?”

“Ran 'em. He was a stone crab fisherman and knew the mangrove swamps like the back of his hand. He still laughs about how long it took the Feds to catch him. I was six when he got arrested. He's only been out for eight months.”

“Can't he go back to fishing?”

“The Feds took his boat. There's no money to buy another one. What does your old man do?”

“He's . . . in construction.”

“Rich, in other words?”

I said that wrong. That's how I answer kids at school whose parents are attorneys, professors, and doctors. “He's a roofer. And my mother works in the cafeteria at school.”

“Is your mother's job how you got into such a fancy school?”

“Ha. They're way too posh to take the kid of one of their mashed-potato-scoopers. I'm on a swimming scholarship.”

Andy's left leg muscle quivers from the strain of standing like a tightrope walker. “I'm going to have to move,” he says. “Hang on.” He slowly lifts his arms for balance, then leans forward, shifting his weight to his right leg. I watch the snake to see if it senses Andy's calf muscle flex. His thigh muscle trembles as he twists his left foot in jerky little moves out from directly behind his right.

The snake's head lifts and its tongue slides out.

“Don't move,” I whisper, and hold my breath.

Andy closes his eyes when the snake turns and flicks its tongue through the hole in his jeans to the raw, red skin beneath.

I squeeze my eyes shut, too.
Please, God
.

The only sound is the breeze moving the grass and thunder. I open my eyes. The snake's head is back on its top coil.

A great blue heron flies past and down the canal. A fish jumps ahead of its big shadow. My heart slows. “So. . .” I take a deep breath. “Where do you want to go to college?”

“I always thought I'd like to go to Florida State—as far from here as I can get, but I guess that's not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“If we don't have enough money for a boat, how do you think my parents can afford to send me to college?”

“I don't know. You're big and strong. Can't you get a football scholarship or something?”