I mentioned the Wright brothers analogy to Kelly, and she slapped her forehead and dug around in her purse. In a moment she found a pink throwaway PrettyPixel camera and started snapping pictures as [175] fast as she could click the shutter. Travis frowned, and told her those pics would have to be considered classified information for the time being.
“Yes, sir, Colonel Broussard,” she said, and kept snapping away. “And stupid me, I left my vidcam home sitting on my desk.”
Which is why there is no video of the maiden-and final-flight of the good ship Everglades Express, and why Kelly appears in only one picture taken that day, when Caleb insisted the six of us pose in front of the completed rocket setup, a bug-bitten family looking like they’d rather be anywhere else but this hellhole.
They had it all ready in no more than half an hour. Jubal stood looking at it, his fists on his hips, nodding in satisfaction. He put his hand on the conical nose cone. There was a round piece of glass set into it.
“Dis eye,” Jubal said, “dis eye find de sun, yes she does. Lock on to de sun, den keep herself in dat attitude fo’ all de flight. Dat way she go straight up.”
We all piled back in the boat and Caleb eased us off the mud flat and back through the shallow water as Travis paid out a cable from a Radio Shack reel.
At two hundred feet Travis looked at Jubal.
“Far enough, Jube?”
I didn’t like the frown I saw on Jubal’s brow. He muttered, then looked around, and smiled when he found what he was looking for.
“Ovah dere,” he said. He was pointing at another hammock, this one a bit bigger than Rocket Hammock. Caleb moved the boat over there, and we could see on the other side there was a small eroded bank, maybe three feet high, with a fallen tree trunk lying on top of it. Now we could crouch down behind the bank and the tree and be protected if the rocket should blow up.
Travis and Jubal took another five minutes plugging the ends of the wires into an old laptop computer and then they were ready. Travis handed out safety glasses and hard hats from the boat, and we all put them on.
“I think we should all get down behind the bank,” Dak said.
[176] “Can’t we peek over the top?” Kelly asked. “I want to get pictures.”
We all looked at Jubal, who was again looking nervous.
“Go ahead on,” he said. “Peek. But be careful, cher.”
Travis had the remote control in his hands. I put my arm around Kelly. Then I looked at Jubal. He grinned, and shrugged.
“T’ree, two, one, an-”
He flicked the launch switch as he said “zero,” and the world exploded.
There was a shock wave that blew my helmet off, an explosion that sounded like a bomb going off. And directly ahead I saw a wall of mud rushing toward me.
“Oh, me oh my,” Jubal said, and the wall hit us.
It was actually a wall of water, a big wave maybe four feet high, but it was thicker than water had any right to be. It was full of mud, decaying leaves, twigs. We all tried to fall back in front of it, but there was nothing but more water behind us. I staggered a few steps before sitting down in the glop, and the wave crested over the bank we’d been sheltering behind, then over us.
For a few seconds everything was dark, then my head broke through and I was gasping… and that’s when the water and mud that had been blown into the air started to rain down on us. I don’t think the planet has often seen a filthier rain. A bullfrog landed on me and sat in my lap for a moment, stunned.
Travis was shouting something I couldn’t hear clearly, something about covering our heads. My hardhat had been swept away. I found Kelly and we huddled together, hunched over, hoping the explosion hadn’t been powerful enough to throw any sizable rocks or tree trunks into the air.
It was over in a few seconds, though it seemed a lot longer. The water settled down, the mud stopped falling from the sky.
“Did it blow up, Jubal?” Alicia shouted.
“No ’splosion, cher,” he said, then pointed into the air. “Look!”
We did, and saw a straight white line rising from the launch site, already twisted a little as the air currents caught it. Far, far away the line was still growing as the tiny rocket reached the upper levels of the [177] atmosphere. Kelly and I stood up unsteadily and watched the line dwindle and lengthen… and suddenly it stopped.
“What happened?” I asked Jubal. “Run out of fuel?”
“No, Manny.” Jubal entered some numbers on the mud-covered computer. “Outta de atmosphere. She up ’bout eight mile now.”
Caleb was standing in the boat, bailing with a galvanized metal bucket. He looked up and tossed me a plastic bait bucket.
“Bail, son,” he said. “We gotta get outta here. This tub don’t fly too good with two ton of mud in her, and she got no scuppers.”
I didn’t know a scupper from a yardarm, but I could see what he meant. I got to work, and was soon joined by all the others using their hard hats, except Travis, who was reeling in cable as fast as he could wind it. We worked like a road gang in hell.
One good thing about the mud. The mosquitoes couldn’t bite through it.
We had the boat about as dry as it was going to get when Travis pointed into the sky and shouted. Squinting into the glare, I saw four contrails way, way up there. They were flying close, then they moved apart and circled around the remains of the rocket’s vapor trail like bloodhounds casting for a scent.
“Fighter group,” Travis said. “Probably from the base at Boca Chica Key.”
“Navy jets,” Dak said.
“You think they’re looking for us?” Alicia asked.
“They ain’t counting alligators, hon. What else is there out here they might want to see? I never thought the sucker would go up so fast!”
“I t’ink I mighta dropped a-”
“Later, Jube. We got to get outta here. Try to look like tourists!”
We scrambled in and Caleb got us moving. Look like tourists? How were we going to do that, covered in mud?
Kelly started scooping handfuls of water and splashing it over her hair and her face. The rest of us did, too. I dipped a plastic bucket into the water… and promptly lost it, snatched right out of my hand when I let it go too deep. I held on to the next one better, and dumped it over Dak’s head. He sputtered and grabbed the bucket from me.
[178] “I don’t need cleaning up!” he shouted. “I don’t show the dirt like you whiteys do!” And he dumped a bucketful on me. Pretty soon we were mostly free of mud, though we were ankle deep in chocolate-colored water. Even though the air was humid, I figured the rushing wind would dry us pretty soon.
“Over there!” Travis yelled in my ear, and I looked where he was pointing. Far away three elongated specks were moving through the air at treetop level. Travis reached up and tapped Caleb’s leg. Caleb nodded. Travis pointed to a thicket of mangroves, and Caleb arrowed straight for it. He turned off the engine and the silence surrounded us. After a moment we could hear the sound of the distant helicopters.
“Hueys,” Travis said, quietly.
“Did we do something wrong?” Kelly whispered.
“Why are we all whispering?” Alicia whispered. Dak laughed.
“We probably broke some federal laws about fireworks in a nature preserve, something like that,” Travis said. We knew he wouldn’t be behaving like this if that was all that was the matter. “I don’t want to get noticed by the military. Or even the Everglades rangers, for that matter. This has all got to stay secret.”
Before long the Hueys were too far away to see or hear. Caleb backed us out of the briar patch and headed us back home. But soon he was slowing again. He waved, and I stood up and could see another airboat piloted by a grizzled old conch who must have been seventy. There was a tangle of weeds and vines between us, keeping us about twenty yards apart. A tourist couple was sweltering in pants and long-sleeved shirts, wearing safari hats with netting veils. They waved happily to us and we waved back, smiling. Kelly snapped their picture, and the woman snapped right back at her.