Odd… I had noticed the same thing, but only as awareness that something-I wasn’t sure what-was wrong about this place. No birds. No raccoon scat, or even gopher tortoise holes, had I seen. Their presence would have been dismissed as commonplace. Their absence, however, had registered in my subconscious as shadow knowledge-a potential warning.
A tendril of breeze furrowed the water’s surface. The rented plane swung a few degrees in search of air.
“You’re okay standing on the pontoon,” Roberta said when I was holding on to a strut, then yelled, “Clear!” and she started the engine.
The next low rise was around a serpentine bend. Our prop kicked spray; pontoons flooded a wake ahead of us. Among the flotsam we pushed to the bank was proof that feral citrus grew here. I’m not sure who saw it first, but we both yelled, “There’s an orange!” at the exact same instant, so precisely in synch that we were laughing when Roberta killed the engine. All the while, we stared with affection at that solitary piece of fruit. It bobbed along beside us, just out of reach, then disappeared beneath a wall of leafy green.
“Now all we have to do is find the tree,” I said.
I set a small anchor while Roberta did another search through her bags, her movements quicker because she was excited. “Wish to heck I’d brought that machete. Oh well, doesn’t matter. I’m going in this time. I don’t care how thick it is-I can’t let you get all the credit when we win the Nobel Prize. What do you think it’ll feel like to be rich?”
Here, in this remote place, money didn’t matter. The missing machete did. I had no idea how much-or, perhaps, I sensed the importance, but, again, in the back of my mind. It was a niggling awareness of danger that was signaled not by the presence of wild creatures but by their absence, and by the encroaching gloom of shadows and black water.
I said, “Why don’t you stay with the plane-just until I’m sure it’s okay.”
Roberta’s head reappeared above the seat. “What do you mean, ‘okay’? Did you see something?”
Not one living thing had I seen. “Could be gators around,” I said. “That’s all I meant. We don’t want to both be halfway to shore if a gator surfaces.”
“In saltwater?”
“Sometimes. Or a croc. There’s probably nothing to worry about, but why not be extra-careful now that”-I stopped before mentioning her pregnancy-“now that we’ve found what we’re looking for?”
She didn’t notice my near slip. “Geez, talk about a nightmare scenario. A gun is what I should have brought. Hey”-the girl who had once led show cows into an arena grinned-“are you actually worried or just trying to scare me?”
The words of my friend Birdy, the deputy sheriff, were replaying in my head: Always carry. Always, always, always…
Yet, I said, “A gun’s the last thing we need, flying around in an airplane.”
I slipped off the pontoon and tested the bottom before risking my full weight. It felt as springy as clay. I’d cut a walking stick at the last stop. I speared it ahead of me and took a long, sliding stride, as if skiing. In my fanny pack was a trowel for digging seedlings and a large net bag for storing oranges. In my right hand was a machete I’d taken from my uncle’s toolshed. It was old, with a leather wrist thong, the blade as long as my arm and very, very sharp. After another sliding step, I became more confident. I’d feared the springy bottom was a false crust, but it seemed okay.
“I’ll bring water and the bug juice,” Roberta hollered. “I’ve got that little camp shovel, too, and some other stuff we might need.”
I glanced back and saw that she was already in the water, hip-deep, with the plane floating high on its pontoons behind her. The shoulder pack she was lugging looked heavy. When on foot, I prefer to travel light. Two trips can be faster than one if the terrain is rough, but, outdoors, companions must be allowed to make up their own minds.
I quickened my pace. What I’d said was true: it was unwise for us both to be in the water at the same time. A few steps later, the bottom softened and began to fall away. Rather than resume my sliding technique, I lunged toward shore, which was only a few body lengths ahead. It was a mistake. Beneath my feet, the rubbery crust broke. A step later, I sunk to my knees in a pudding of muck, the first low branches of the mangroves just out of reach.
I turned and called to Roberta, “Go back, there’s no bottom here.”
Too late. She was already bogged down because of the heavy pack on her shoulder. Nor did she have the advantage of a walking stick. I watched her struggle for balance, then she made a humorous whooping sound and fell forward with a great splash. My friend floundered for a moment-more wild splashing-and righted herself, her hair dripping and both arms black to the elbows with mud. “Next time, I’ll learn to listen to you,” she laughed.
I called, “Get rid of that pack-we’ll find it later. Are you stuck?” As I spoke, I yanked my right boot free. The effort suctioned my left leg deeper.
Roberta was having the same problem. “Geez… Dang it all! This is like trying to walk through glue. Do you think it would be better to crawl? You know, distribute the weight… Whoops!”
Again, she splashed forward, but was still in good spirits when she was upright again. She started to say, “I wish we had video of this because-” then stopped abruptly, her attention suddenly on something in the water to the right. I watched her expression go slack; her face drained ghostly pale. She attempted to speak through parted lips but couldn’t find words until instinct reverted to a child’s high-pitched wail. “Oh my god,” she screamed, “Hannah, what… what the hell is that?”
It was an alligator, I thought at first. No… the creature swimming toward her sailed too smoothly atop the water’s silver veneer. Gators ride low. This animal swam with its head up, as high and motionless as the prow of a Viking ship, while its body, fifteen feet long and as wide as my thigh, carved a curving, escalator wake.
It was a snake-a giant Burmese python. Ford, my biologist friend, had provided the name. Only twenty yards of water separated Roberta from the snake’s insect eyes and vectoring tongue.
“Dump that pack!” I hollered. “Get on your belly and crawl to the plane.”
She tried but only sank deeper. “Hannah, what should I…? Shit… I’m stuck. Goddamn it-do something. Throw me your machete! Oh Jesus Christ, it sees me-hurry…”
Panic helped me bust my left leg clear of the muck. I fell forward. I wrestled my right boot free. I fell forward again on my hands and knees. Survival instinct sent me crawling toward the trees. Then Roberta screamed another sickening plea for help-help from God, this time. Not me. I spun around. The python was there. It had stopped, its eyes at eye level with my friend’s face. A flicking tongue scanned her body for heat-two beating mammalian hearts thudded within. Roberta stared back at the snake’s massive head. She was panting, frozen, and still holding that damn pack instead of the machete she needed.
A microsecond later, the snake acted. The speed of its strike didn’t register. The thunk of fangs hitting bone did. Then the length of the reptile was on her; a writhing, coiled mass that boiled the water, and silenced a squealing plea that possessed no words.
THIRTEEN
When the python struck, I yelled something, no telling what, it all happened in such a blur. I belly flopped toward Roberta, then scrambled and crawled through mud, slowing only when I was close enough to know there was no turning back.
Rational thought played no role in what I did. My friend’s screams and wild thrashing were like an electric prod. The snake was too big to coil its entire length around Roberta yet tried to by swinging its tail section like a bullwhip in search of something more to grab onto. I lunged, got an arm around the animal’s girth-and was vaulted high out of the water, then slammed down into mud. I surfaced, fearing I’d lost the machete. But, no… the leather thong had kept it on my wrist.