Secrets in the Lowcountry--The River (7 page)

Taylor turned
sharply
starboard
and entered the much smaller
Brays
C
reek.

Jeff s
w
ayed briefly before regaining his balance.
“Is there enough
w
ater for us?” he asked
incredulously, dropping his glasses so they hung only by the strap and shifting his gaze from one marsh flat to the mirror image on the opposite side
.

“The skiff only dra
w
s t
w
elve inches and if
w
e st
ay in the channel,
w
e’ll
be all right
,”
she responded
casually, but kept her eyes
rooted
on the depth finder
.

“I hope you remember this channel,” he said, quietly
,
looking over his shoulder and
shifting his
attention to
t
he depth meter
.
“
W
e
w
on’t need our binoculars here.
I could almost touch each side
of the creek
at the same time.”

She nodded, but didn’t speak.

“This stream
isn’t very long, is it?
” he asked, concern sho
w
ing in his voice.
“
If I remember right,
doesn’t it end in marsh grass?”

“That’s right.
”
The
w
ater
w
idened slightly to
t
w
enty
feet.
T
he depth remained shallo
w
, but passable.
Taylor allo
w
ed her shoulders to relax.
“
W
e shrimped close to the end, but
w
e sa
w
the redfish along the
left
bank.
”

“Rod
w
ouldn’t
have needed his fly
rod;
he could have caught one
w
ith
his hand.
” Jeff
appeared uncomfortable
w
ith the creek.

“Almost there
,” she replied
. A
fe
w
minutes later
, she called out,
“
W
e’ve reached
the spot
w
here
w
e
found the red fish.
”
She squinted beneath her sunglasses.
“Don’t see any today.”

“
No boat either, but l
ook at all the ‘gators
!
” Jeff
point
ed
straight ahead
w
here the creek
w
idened once again
.

“They
w
ere bad last
w
eek too.
” Taylor
idled the boat
.
“I told Rod even if he caught a red, the gators
w
ould eat the fish before he
succeeded
in
land
ing
it.”

“The only time I’ve even seen so many
w
as in an old James Bond movie.
I hate ‘gators,” Jeff said,
w
ith feeling.

“You’ve nev
er forgiven them for eating Sam.
” Taylor
ke
pt
her eyes on the alligators that
remained
floating on
the surface
.
“‘Gators normally si
nk to the bottom
or else submerge
enough that
on
ly their eyes sho
w
ed
w
hen people or boats
approached.
” She peeked at him.

“
That’s true.”

Although he agreed
w
ith her, there
w
as
wistfulness
in his voice and an other
w
orld expression on his face.

“
Sam
w
as th
e best retriever a guy ever had.
”
He
defend
ed
his long gone bird dog.

“He
w
as a s
w
eetie. B
ut you never used him for hunting birds.”
She gave the engine a little gas to keep if off the banks before idling the skiff once more.

“No, but he
w
as great at
return
ing
a stick or catch
ing
a
Frisbee
.
Damn
‘
gators
.
Sam had another five or six years
of life left
.”
A
small
, sad
smile touched his lips
as he remembered
.

Taylor stared
at him
in disbelief
.
“Jeff, Sam could hardly
w
alk.
He
w
as at least 11 and since you and your dad found him
w
andering in the
w
oods, he might have been older.”

“Don’t argue
w
ith me,
w
oman.
My memory tells me that Sam could still
jump and get any ball I’d thro
w
.”

She shook
her head
.
“Memories are strange things.
”

His deep blu
e eyes t
w
inkled
w
ith teasing
. She
realized he
w
as trying to relieve the tension and possibly her fear.
Before she could
tease him back, she
hear
d
him yell.

“Isn’t that a cooler stuck in t
he mud, under that small overhang
?” Jeff
indicated
a spot about five feet a
w
ay and separated from the skiff by at least three feet of
pluff
mud.

Taylor gasped. “
Rod and I used
one just like that
for shrimping.”
She focused on
the blue and
w
hite cooler,
almost certain the chest
w
as Rod’s.

Jeff looked around the sk
iff. “Do you have a long pole?
W
e might be able to knock the box off the shelf and guide the cooler over to the boat.”
His eyes chanced to glance at
her
w
hile he surveyed the area
.
“Taylor.” H
e touched her
arm.
“Are you okay?”

She nodded feeling
cold and s
w
eaty at the same time.
“No,
w
e lost
it
last time
w
e
w
ere out.
The p
ole stuck in the mud and sank before
w
e could retrieve it.”
Her
w
ords sounded foreign to h
er.
She could only see the box,
out of reach
w
ith no
w
ay of
being
retriev
ed
.

Moving closer to her, Jeff said, “
I’ll call your Dad and let him kno
w
w
e’ve found something.
He can pass on the information.”

“Oh, Lord.
” Taylor sank onto the captain’s chair located directly behind the
w
heel.
Jeff
shifted
to place himself squarely
behind her in the event, she thought, she faint
ed
.
She couldn’t keep her attention a
w
ay from the cooler.
It couldn’t be Rod
’s
, yet she recognized
the gouges in the blue bottom. Although visible
, they hadn’t broken through to the inside.

Even
w
ith only a portion of her
attention focused on the phone, she heard Jeff say, “
W
e believe
w
e found Rod’s cooler stuck in the
pluff
mud. T
he tide’s too lo
w
to get closer even if
w
e
w
ere
n’t almost surrounded
by
a s
w
arm of ‘
gators
.
”

Her father must
be talking for
she no longer heard Jeff’s
voice
.

“No, sir,
w
e
w
on’t
try
to retrieve it.”
She heard him give the G.P.S. coordinates, then once again he handed her the phone.

“Oh, Daddy, I’m really scared.” She began to shak
e.
Jeff lifted her from the seat and took her in his arms
, holding her loosely, almost a
w
k
w
ardly
.

“Time to come
home, honey,” her dad said, gently. “
You can’t do anything else there. The DNR or the
W
ater Rescue pe
ople
will
take over,” her father
told her.

“I
w
ant to stay here.” Her
tone of voice
choked
w
ith emotion. “
I
w
ant to
w
ait for them to c
ome. I have to kno
w
,
”
she pleaded.

“Taylor, let me speak to
Jeff,
”
he said in his calm, patient
w
ay.
Reluctantly she handed over
the cell, turned,
looked over the gun
w
ale,
and
star
ed
at the cooler.

“
Yes, sir, I’ll bring her home,” Jeff said, in an almost military response.

* ~ *

By the time they’d motored back, the
fading
sunlight
had been replaced with
t
w
ilight. “Go ahead, Taylor. I’ll tie off the skiff.”

She jumped off and dashed to her home. Trailing behind, but not by much, he heard her yell, “Dad.
”
A
s she opened the double-s
creen doors and dashed inside
.

“Honey.” H
er father hurried out of the living room and into the hall
w
ay
.

Jeff
stared
as she collapsed
into
her dad’s
arms
and
hugged him
. Th
e scene increased his anger at
Rod
’s
inconsiderate behavior.

Finally
,
she
let
the tears flo
w
freely
.
“Daddy, have you heard a
nything?
I have such a terrible feeling.”

“N
o, I have
n’t heard from the authorities
or from any of our friends.
It’s still early, darling.
”
He
r father held her slightly a
w
ay, as if
surveying her.
“Taylor
?
”
he spoke calmly and quietly.