Lost in the River of Grass

  “Let’s go.” He starts off again.

  The duckling’s feeding on some pond scum. When I start to move, it skids toward me and nibbles at the tips of my hair, which is long enough to trail behind me in the water.

  I want to think the pity I feel is for the duckling who’s orphaned because of me, but it’s myself I’m feeling sorry for. I’m glad it’s with us. I’ll have something to take care of, and I hope that will make me feel braver than I am. I reach to pet it, but it dodges my hand.

  “You should leave that thing,” Andy says. He’s a few yards ahead of me. “It’s slowing you down.”

  “It is not.” I maneuver around the tire. “If you weren’t racing ahead . . .”

  “Racing? Get real. We have about six hours of daylight left. We need to get out of here and make some headway.”

  “I’ll show you headway,” I snap.

  With the duckling following right behind my head, I swim past Andy and into the narrow, tree-guarded channel. I kick and splash, all the time imagining that fourteen-foot gator has sunk beneath the surface and is moving through the ebony water, gaining on me. My breathing is quick and panicky. I kick harder and don’t stop until the tree canopy dissolves into blue sky.

  Two hours ago, Andy had followed the thin, black remnant of a trail as it snaked through the cattails toward the cabin. Now, thank heavens, it feels wider because the airboat flattened the margins. I don’t know what it is, but cattails, especially towering over me like they are, make me claustrophobic. I’ve never thought of myself as an easily frightened kind of person, but by the time I reach water shallow enough to feel the tops of plants brushing against my stomach, I’m gasping for air. I roll over on my back, looking for Andy.

  He’s where the trees give way to the cattails, in water to his thighs. “Try standing up,” he says.

  “Not without my boots.” I float on my back, fanning my arms, and occasionally kicking to keep my feet from sinking to the bottom. Plants—at least I need to think they’re plants and not water bugs or leeches or whatever’s looking up at my back—tickle my arms and legs.

  Andy catches up and sets my boots beside me.

  I have to sit up to put them on. I let my butt settle to the bottom and find the surface is rocky and hard. I pull my boots on, then take Andy’s hand and let him haul me to my feet. The tops of the boots end about six inches below my knees. The water level is two inches beneath the tops of my boots, but it doesn’t matter since water seeps in through the holes he made and soon fills them to the same depth as the water I’m standing in. Instead of dry feet, they will be wet for however many miles this trek turns out to be. I force myself to smile. “Is it like this the rest of the way?”

  “No,” he says sharply, then adds in a softer tone, “but it won’t be as bad as back there. They dynamited that pond out of the oolite.”

  “Oolite?”

  “Limestone. It’s what we’re standing on.”

  I part the slimy brown algae to see the lumpy, sharp bottom. “It looks like coral.”

  “Yeah. It’s old coral, I think—from another age. Just be careful walking. It’s uneven and it’s got holes in it.”

  “How come?”

  “Don’t know. Just does.”

  “But no more mud—like back there?”

  “Only in gator holes, if we have to cross any.”

  This is the second time Andy’s mentioned gator holes, and I remember Mr. Vickers talking about them on the bus, but I was too far back to hear what he said. “What is a gator hole?”

  “A hole in the mud dug by a gator.”

  Andy seems to be lining himself up with something. He holds one arm up and looks at where its shadow falls, then turns a little to his left and glances at the sun.

  “Why do they dig a hole?”

  “So they have someplace to stay wet during winter dry-downs and warm during cold snaps.”

  Every time I ask Andy a question, the answer seems to make this place scarier—deep mud with a gator at the bottom. “Promise me we’ll go around any gator holes, okay?” I twist my hair to wring out the water. I’d worn my hair down on purpose; now I wish I’d brought a scrunchie. It will dry frizzy, and I’ll look like I’m wearing a rat’s nest.

  He doesn’t answer. He’s doing the arm thing again.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  I guess he’s getting tired of my questions, and I’m so happy to have made it this far and have my feet on something solid that I don’t press him. There’s a nice long stick floating nearby, and it occurs to me that it might come in handy, like a blind person’s cane. I reach to pick it up. “Andy!” I fall backwards and scramble away, kicking water at it. The stick makes a quick turn and zigzags off through the saw grass. “That was a snake,” I gasp.

  “It was just a water snake. Probably after that damn duck.” He puts his hand out to help me up.

  My heart is still cart wheeling in my chest. “Stop, all right? I’m not leaving it.”

  “Sarah, you need to get a clue about what we’re up against here,” he shouts at me, gets control, and lowers his voice. “Worrying with that duckling is going to slow us down.”

  “Andy, I can’t leave it behind.”

  “It’s a mallard, for Christ’s sake; they’re as common as pigeons.”

  “It has nothing to do with how few or how many there are. Try to understand.”

  He throws his arms up in defeat, turns, and begins to walk.

  He goes slowly, feeling ahead with his foot before taking a step. I do the same, which reminds me of the pink-footed wood stork we saw at Shark Valley. It, too, waded along shaking its feet, but to stir up food. Food! I wish I hadn’t thought of that. We ate everything we had— except the Spam—and I’m starting to feel hungry again.

  “There’s a tree limb here,” Andy says, stepping over it.

  “Thanks.” My calves already ache from lifting my heavy feet. I step over it and continue to shadow him silently, glancing back twice to see if the snake followed us. The duckling is paddling along beside my right knee.

  “Andy. . .”

  He stops and looks back.

  “What kind of person would I be if I don’t at least try and keep the duckling safe?”

  “A sensible one.” He squints thoughtfully. “I think you should let me snap its neck.”

  I stop. “You’d kill it? On purpose?”

  “I kill our chickens all the time. It won’t feel a thing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What, that it won’t feel a thing, or that I do it all the time?” He starts off again, leaving me to stare at his back. He turns again. “You know what’s wrong with bleeding hearts like you?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “I live at the edge of a swamp. It’s an hour’s drive to the nearest grocery store. We raise chickens for food and for their eggs. They aren’t pets. What you don’t get is that people like me and my family care about what we can afford to care about.”

  “Did you think that up all by yourself?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You go to hell,” I shout. “You’re not touching her. I’ll take care of her, and I’ll take care of myself.” I slosh past him, and the duckling peeps and swims after me. I’ve gone a couple of yards when I realize I don’t hear him following me. I look back.

  “It’s this way,” he says, pointing the opposite direction.

  I turn around and the duckling follows.

  8

  This isn’t so terrible.

  We’re out of the shadow of the tree-island and in the sun where the mosquitoes aren’t bad, though it’s broiling hot. My legs really ache because my boots have water in them to my ankles, which they wouldn’t—I’m tempted to remind him—if Andy hadn’t cut holes in them, and the tops are rubbing against the skin of my calves. That’s beginning to hurt a little, too.

  “Wait there,” Andy says. He’s been walking towa
rd the skeletal remains of a tall tree, bleached to a pale gray. It has a number of branches left, pointing off in different directions. He glances at the sun and the cast of the tree’s shadow. “That’s east,” he says—more to himself than to me.

  “How do you know?”

  He looks at me sharply as if he can’t believe I’m that stupid. “Well, let’s see.” He scratches his head with his index finger. “Hum. It’s probably about one, and the sun’s headed that way, and since it usually sets in the west, that must be east.” He points again. “But if you want we can stand here ’til it comes up tomorrow, just to make sure.”

  “Where do you get off acting as if I’m the idiot here?” I snap. “I don’t see anything stupid about that question. And if you are so smart, what if it was noon? How could you tell which direction then?”

  Andy deflates a bit but doesn’t apologize; only his tone changes. “The days are getting shorter, so the sun is farther south. If we keep it off our right shoulders, we’ll be walking east.”

  I’m actually impressed, but I’m not going to tell him. I watch him hang the Pan Am bag off an eastern-pointing branch and start back toward me. He’s only gone a few steps when his left leg disappears and he falls over.

  “Oh my God.” I shuffle toward him.

  He moans, closes his eyes, and doubles over.

  My first thought is a gator has bitten his leg off, but I don’t see any blood. He’s definitely hurt badly enough that he can’t answer.

  “My leg,” he finally groans. “Take the pack, please.” He shrugs it off his shoulders and holds it out to me.

  I reach, snatch it, and back away.

  The duckling swims toward him.

  “Come here.” I pat my thigh.

  The duckling does a U-turn.

  Andy lies sideways in the shallow water for a full minute before he straightens, puts both hands against the bottom, and lifts himself up until he looks as if he’s sitting on a bench just beneath the surface. I can see both knees.

  “What happened?”

  “I told you there were holes in the oolite. I fell through one. It was an uncomfortable landing.”

  It takes me a second to understand what he means. “Oh.”

  “Whoa,” Andy yelps, and lurches backward. “Something just swam past my leg.” He looks a little embarrassed by his reaction, grins, and holds his hand out to me. “Help me up, will ya?”

  I put the backpack on, then slip my hands into his armpits and try to lift him. Once he’s able to draw a leg out of the hole and get it on the hard surface, he lifts straight up.

  “Did a gator make that hole?”

  “No. Gator holes are big—some nearly the size of the pond at the cabin.”

  “You’re bleeding.” There was a tear in his jeans and a scraped, bloody piece of his leg showed.

  “Not much I can do about it.” He takes the backpack which, with the Gatorade, Spam, and Dad’s camera, is pretty heavy. He shrugs it on.

  “Does blood in the water draw gators like it does sharks?”

  “No.”

  So he says, but I’m not sure he’s sure.

  …

  We walk east for about thirty minutes in silence. I carry the duckling on my shoulder, cuddled against my neck with one hand over its back to keep it balanced until my arm starts to ache and tremble.

  I watch every step I take, trying to see where to safely put each foot. Andy’s just marching, getting farther and farther ahead. Every fifteen minutes or so he stops so I can catch up. We rest in open areas where the saw grass is short and sparse and lie back with our faces exposed to the afternoon sun. My arms and the backs of my bare legs feel sunburned and are raw where the boots rub against my skin.

  It’s such a relief to stop moving that the thought of having to get up and start again is almost more than I can stand. I try to guess the time and imagine, by now, Mr. Vickers has called my parents. My dad is usually a calm man who rarely raises his voice. He will try to think this through, list the possibilities and their options. My mother will be quietly frantic. My brother may be thinking about knocking out the wall between our rooms to create a suite for himself.

  “What time do you think it is?” I ask. We’re floating on our backs in the shallow water. The duckling is feeding on stuff near my right hip.

  “Four-ish.”

  “I suppose my parents know by now.”

  “Probably.”

  “I feel awful.”

  Andy gets to his feet and holds his hand out to help me up. “I do, too, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  I’ve started calling the duckling Teapot, because it reminds me of one—squat and pudgy, with a skinny little neck. Once I thought of it, the tune—I’m a little teapot, short and stout—plays in my head until I want to scream. I’m losing it already.

  During one of our rest stops, Teapot swims over and waddles up on Andy’s chest as he floats with his eyes closed. “Get your duck off me.”

  “She’s not hurting you.”

  “I’m going to snap her neck,” he says, but when I raise my head to look at him, he’s stroking Teapot’s back. “What makes you think it’s a she anyway?” he asks.

  I think about it for a minute, but can’t think of a reason so I don’t answer.

  Andy lifts his dripping head and looks at me. “If one of them had to die, let it be a boy?”

  “No.” I sit up.

  “What if they were both boys?”

  “What difference does it make? Maybe I just want her to be a girl so we’re two against one.”

  “I’m not sure getting out of here is a contest,” he says, pushes Teapot off his stomach, and stands up. “Let’s get moving.” He holds his hand out to me.

  I’m an athlete, but this is harder than any race. “Aren’t you tired?” I say.

  He shrugs.

  “Walking in these boots is like having cement in my shoes.”

  “Are you planning to sleep here?”

  I look around. “Where are we going to sleep?”

  Andy points to a small stand of cypress, maybe a mile away.

  “What’s there? Another cabin?” I ask hopefully.

  “No.” He pulls me to my feet. “Just those trees.”

  “Then where are we sleeping?”

  “In those trees—I hope.”

  “They don’t look very big.”

  “Let’s hope they’re big enough.”

  “I’m hungry.” My stomach is killing me.

  “No food until we get there.”

  “Who died and left you in charge?”

  He smiles for the first time since this morning. “If you were in charge, we’d be headed for Lake Okeechobee.”

  We slog on without talking. The sound of our splashing is comforting in a way.

  He’s waiting for me again. “Can’t you go a little faster?” he says when I catch up.

  Bite me, my mind snaps, but I just glare at him.

  Straight ahead is a wall of cattails that stretches as far as I can see in either direction. The same irrational fear of them rises in me again, only worse this time. In the airboat we were able to see over them—see the other side and the way out. Once we’re inside, it will be as if we’ve been swallowed by green stalks. Still, when Andy starts through I follow, but the minute I feel surrounded, I stop. “Can’t we go around instead? I don’t like these things.”

  “What’s not to like? They’re plants.”

  “I don’t know. They freak me out, that’s all.”

  Andy shakes his head and comes back to where I’m waiting, hoping he’ll say okay, we’ll go around. “We have to keep going straight no matter what. If we start zigzagging around the hard parts, it will take us a week to get out.”

  “I’m so thirsty.”

  He turns to look at me. “How much water do you need?” He draws an arc with his hand.

  “I can’t drink swamp water. Animals poop in it, and there’s all that slimy stuff floating around.”
br />   “Maybe we’ll find a water fountain.”

  I stick my tongue out at him and immediately feel childish.

  I’ve been shifting Teapot from shoulder to shoulder until both my arms ache from holding her in place. I lift the duckling off and put her in the water. All day I’d kept my bandana wet and draped around my neck. It’s helped me stay cool, but the sun is getting low now and there is enough of a breeze that I feel a little chill. I knot the bandana around my neck, scoop Teapot up, and put her in the sling I’ve formed, then start forward again, trying to stay in the trail that Andy is opening through the cattails.

  Two birds scream and lift off to my left. They startle me, but I swallow my cry. Small green frogs leap from the stalks into the water. The deeper into the cattails we move, the more impassably dense they become, and the bottom gets mushier. Mud has seeped into the holes in my boots, but I don’t realize the water is getting deeper until it pours over the tops. I put all my effort into taking another step, but only the top half of my body moves. I fall over, twisting as I pitch forward so as not to crush Teapot.

  Andy turns when I land with a grunt. “What happened?” He sighs heavily before coming back to help me up.

  “These holes aren’t working. My boots are full of water.”

  “That’s ’cause more water pours in than can pour out two little holes. Take ’em off.”

  I don’t want to stand barefoot in the mud, but I don’t want to say so and have Andy roll his eyes, so I just lie there.

  He figures it out, rolls his eyes, then bundles a dozen or more cattails together, twists them like fat, green strands of yarn, and folds them over. “Stand on these. That’s the best I can do to keep your precious little feet from touching bottom.”

  “You think I’m a wuss don’t you? Well, I’m not. I’m afraid of stepping on a snake.”

  “You are acting like a sissy. We’re making enough noise to scare the piss out of everything in our path.”

  “I’m not acting like anything. I’m afraid of snakes and alligators. Anyone with half a brain would feel the same way. I’m not a backwoods redneck like you are.”

  Andy bites his bottom lip.

  “I’m sorry.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I didn’t mean that.”