— As long as I see lights I can live.
— Good, then. Watch the lights.
— There are sharks in the harbor and sometimes crocodiles but I can live.
— Done deal. I’m Charlie.
— I’m Juan.
21
The rain slowed and the wind slackened and the evening light turned to pewter. Hood felt suddenly cold and very sleepy. He laid his head over on one shoulder and looked out at the Navy ships and the lights of the oil platforms just beyond the harbor. He could still feel the speed of his makeshift barge but it seemed less now and its rotation was slower too as the Tuxpan River widened into harbor. Hood roused himself and tried to kick them to the port shore, where he could see the smattering of lights and the Navy ships and oil rigs grown taller, looming in the gray sky. The boy was quick to join him, holding the suitcase handle with just one hand and trailing his legs out and kicking steadily.
After tiring minutes of this Hood looked ahead again to judge their progress and saw that they were farther from the port shore than ever and drifting to starboard.
— We can’t fight the current.
— Are we going to die?
— Let’s go with the river. Let it save us.
— That is the wild side not the safe side. There is only the lighthouse and swamps and that is all.
— It’s where the river wants to take us.
— I’m going to pray again.
They surrendered to the river and it took them toward the starboard shore. Hood floated and watched. Ivana had saturated the world and now the evening cool condensed the moisture into fog. Through this quiet silver blanket drifted the river and its random cargo-not far from him, Hood could see a Ford coupe, a lifeless horse, a tangle of resin chairs apparently lashed together so they couldn’t blow away, a wooden picnic table, a freezer with a big Fanta advertisement on it, a cable spool, the roof of a palapa, a gate made of palm fronds, hundreds of plastic bottles.
Hood heard Juan’s teeth chattering, but the boy said nothing. Hood kicked easily with the current and soon he could see the low round tree line of the jungle. He pointed the orange tree toward the shore. Voices carried across the river from the port side, a woman crying and men shouting, but here on the wild shore was only silence. He could still see the frigates and the tankers and the barges and Hood thought he saw people gathered on them but wasn’t sure. A flare wobbled into the sky and opened into a dome of bright white light.
— Are they looking for us?
— They are signaling us.
— It’s not dark yet. They should save the flares. Where are my mother and father?
— I don’t know.
— Why are we alone? There were many people in your hotel room.
It dawned on Hood that Ivana might have drowned every last one of them.
— We’re safe now. The shore is close. We can walk back to town if there’s a trail.
The current eased them nearly to shore and Hood kicked to make landfall. His teeth were chattering too and he felt exhaustion coming over him. The wind kicked up in a furious gust and suddenly the rain was blasting down again. Juan looked at Hood with a woebegone expression, but he said nothing. They drifted for what seemed like hours though Hood’s wristwatch proved him wrong. The hurricane weakened and raged, then weakened.
At evening’s end and without warning, a branch of the river not visible until now drew them into the jungle. They drifted down the middle of the channel with the mangrove banks on either side. The roots had collected hundreds of plastic bottles that undulated and gleamed dully in the failing light. There were watermelons and pineapples and mangos bobbing. A fat snake pushed along the edge of the mangroves, head high, then joined the roots and vanished.
They floated into a small sheltered bay. Hood felt the eddy slowly spin them toward a sandy beach. The bay and beach were littered with flotsam and jetsam of every kind, from driftwood to furniture to a Volkswagen van that had floated up against the mangroves. Hood saw that dozens of the battered roses were bobbing just offshore or had washed up on the beach. The beach was strewn with logs apparently loosed from an upstream lumber mill. The black dog they had seen was watching them from atop a big shit-stained rock that rose abruptly from the sand.
Then Hood felt the river bottom and he pushed the barge onto the shore. He climbed onto dry land without letting go of the suitcase, then he and the boy dragged the bag onto the sand.
— Do you have your clothes in this?
— Clothes and other things.
— Things that float.
— Thank you for saving my life.
— Thank you for saving mine.
Hood and Juan pulled the suitcase a few yards farther up the beach and lay back on either side of it. For a long while they were silent. Another flare lit the darkening sky to the north. Hood sat up and looked around for a road or trail leading back to Tuxpan, but saw neither. He guessed they were three miles away, maybe four. The dog barked at them once and Hood wondered why it didn’t just climb down from the rock and come over. He whistled and the dog stood and wagged its tail and barked again but didn’t come down.
Darkness closed and Hood looked at the logs scattered on the beach. They were long, straight and thick, stripped of branches, ready to be milled. Thirty of them, maybe forty. Valuable, thought Hood.
Then one of them opened its very long mouth and Hood saw the pale inside of it and the long teeth, and he heard the wheeze of a yawn and the hollow knock of the jaws closing.
Juan wheeled at the sound and the dog barked.
— Crocodile, he whispered.
— More than one, Hood whispered back.
— They are everywhere.
— The reserve experts told me they don’t eat people regularly.
— I heard of a boy who was eaten. I saw one eat a pig. They shake the animal to pieces and then they eat the pieces. These are the very big ones from the reserve. What do we do?
— Let’s sit still and think.
Hood watched another of the crocs lurch forward, then stop and apparently fall back asleep. He heard a rippling in the water and when he turned he saw the black shape of the crocodile just now climbing onto the beach. It rose, dripping onto all fours and lumbered curvingly to an unoccupied part of the sand and plopped down. The dog barked until the croc stopped moving.
Hood looked in the direction of Tuxpan. In a straight line between them and the town were a hundred feet of sand beach, eight crocodiles, then miles of jungle.
— Is there a road from here to Tuxpan?
— Yes. It is narrow and dirt but good.
— Do you know where it is?
Juan pointed toward the jungle.
— There.
— Can you find it?
— It is a good road.
— I asked if you could find it.
— I don’t want to die.
— I think we can get past the crocodiles and into the jungle. I don’t think they will bother us.
— Why wouldn’t they eat us?
— Because they are tired like we are and not ready to eat.
— They can tear off your foot and eat it with the shoe still on.
— But after we get into the jungle we can’t go to Tuxpan without the road.
Hood watched as another croc stirred, opened its gaping jaws, then slowly closed them. Another jerked forward as if dreaming of a kill. The dog barked and the newly arrived croc snapped at something so fast that Hood never saw the movement, just the afterimage of it. But he clearly heard the meaty whack of the mouth closing.
— They smell us, Charlie.
Another crocodile rose and swung its tail in a big arc that threw sand into the river. It seemed to be looking at them and it took two steps in their direction, then settled back down with a heavy exhale, a log ready for the mill.
— I’ll carry the bag. You can go first because you’ll be faster.