Lost in the River of Grass Read online

  By moonlight, we work our way up the east side of the cypress head, looking for a tree with a sturdy trunk and low branches. We’ve almost reached the tip when Andy lets out a whoop.

  All I see is a dead tree with a few bare branches—a stick figure with bony arms held up in distress, as if someone has a gun stuck in its ribs. At the very top is a coffeepot like the ones in old westerns. The bottom’s rusted away, and someone has jammed it over the tip of the main trunk. The tree is tall. With the coffeepot on top, it looks like a long-faced cowboy: the spout is a small nose, and the lid up looks as if his hat is pushed back on his head. I think it’s creepy looking in the moonlight, but Andy’s excited to see it.

  “What’s with the pot?”

  He turns and grins. “That pot’s been there since before I was born. It marks where the main east-west, north-south airboat trails cross.”

  “Will airboats be by here in the morning?”

  “No. It only means I know where we are.”

  “Why won’t airboats come by?” “For one thing, tomorrow is Monday. All the weekenders have gone home. Hunting season don’t start for two weeks, we’re too far north for the tour operators, and in water too shallow for fishermen.”

  “All right. All right. You can’t blame me for asking.”

  “What it does mean is that we’re only about two or three miles from the levee.”

  “How far did we come today?”

  “Five. Six, maybe.”

  “Wow.” Even I have to smile. “We could be on the levee by noon tomorrow. Right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So why wouldn’t we be out tomorrow instead of Tuesday?”

  “We’ll get there tomorrow, but there’s no telling what time, or how far we have to walk once we are on it. If it gets dark before we reach the trail, we can’t sleep on the levee. Either way, if they don’t find us before dark, we’ll have to get back in the water.”

  “Why can’t we sleep on the levee?”

  “Pygmy rattlesnakes.”

  “Don’t tell me there are so many rattlesnakes that it’s not safe to sleep on the levee.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  He looks at me. “I won’t tell you.”

  “So there are?”

  “Like worms.”

  “God, Andy.”

  He turns and smiles at me. “Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”

  …

  About thirty minutes later, we come to a small hammock with a big, strong pond-apple tree growing at the edge. Andy uses the butcher knife like a machete to cut away the smaller branches along its multiple trunks, swinging the blade like a samurai warrior and grunting like de-twigging the tree is the heat of battle. There are palmettos growing nearby, and he cuts a bunch of the big, fan-shaped leaves, layering them into the crotch where three limbs split off and making what resembles a chair.

  “That’s nice. Where are you going to sleep?” I’m kind of kidding, but there really isn’t room in the tree for the two of us.

  “Lying down,” he says, making his hands into a stirrup.

  I put a dripping boot in his hands, grab a branch, and let him boost me into the palmetto nest.

  “How’s that?”

  “Like my dad’s old recliner.” It isn’t, of course. My butt’s pinched between two limbs, and the one behind my back will be like sleeping against a lamppost. “What do you mean lying down?”

  He hands me Teapot in the backpack. “There.” He points to the thick mud at the edge of the hammock.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I am not.” He wades across mud, which makes sucking sounds and smells rotten. Once he’s ashore, he starts whacking away at the palmetto again. When he has about a dozen more leaves, he spreads them out across the mud and lies down.

  “What if a python comes?”

  He holds the knife up and turns it so the moon reflects off the blade.

  I hang my boots on the tips of two branches, pull my socks off and drape them nearby. Both my feet show white in the moonlight, with fissures and cracks. They sting in the cool night air, and when I accidentally get bug spray in the broken blisters, my eyes tear with pain.

  16

  Teapot’s alarmed peeping wakes me just before dawn. I’m frozen in place and so confused it takes a second for me to realize a snake is moving up the branch the backpack hangs on.

  “Andy!” I scream; then at the snake, “Get away!” I flip my hand at it. The snake’s tongue tastes the air as it moves up through the straps and around the pack.

  “Andy.” I twist to look over my shoulder. He’s gone, but he must have slept there; mud has oozed through the seams of the palmetto leaves. I surprise myself by not assuming he’s been eaten. Of course, there are no signs of struggle.

  The snake is almost to the gap between the zippers when I hear Andy in the water. He’s yards away.

  “There’s a snake after Teapot.”

  “You have to grab it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  The snake’s tongue is flicking in and out of the gap.

  Andy tries to run, but I know he can’t get here in time. The snake’s head disappears into the pack. Teapot’s peeps reach a high pitch.

  “Catch it behind its head. When he feels you touch him, get ready, because he’ll yank his head out of the pack and wrap his body around your arm. Don’t freak. He won’t be able to bite you.”

  I gulp my fear and grab the snake. Its does exactly what Andy said it would. Its powerful muscles ripple and twitch as it tries to pull its head out of my fist. I’m aware of how dry and cool its skin feels, not at all slimy like I’d expected. “Now what?”

  Andy’s almost beside me. “Just hang on to it.”

  “Don’t worry.” I have no intention of letting go.

  I wonder if, when it was climbing the tree, it crossed me, tasting my skin as it worked its way up through the branches. What amazes me is that I don’t feel the same revulsion I felt two days before at the cabin. I knew it wasn’t a poisonous snake the minute I saw it. It’s almost identical to the one in the outhouse—a corn snake, I think Andy said. This one is reddish with black triangular markings. The one in the outhouse had been more orange.

  Andy reaches up and puts his hand over mine, catching the snake behind its head. When he unwraps it from my arm, its tail whips and hooks a branch. “Take the pack and get down. When you’re out of the way, I’ll let it go.”

  I study Andy’s grip on the snake. “Are you proud of me?”

  “Very.”

  “It felt cool to touch.” I reach and run a finger up its body.

  “Don’t go against the scales. Stroke with them. You can hurt him otherwise.” He holds it up so its silvery underside is facing me. “Feel his belly. It’s like silk.”

  The snake has relaxed. I hope it’s because it knows we aren’t going to hurt it. I run the tips of my fingers along its stomach and feel it quiver. “I’d like to hold it again, if you don’t think it will bite me.”

  “He’ll only bite if he feels threatened. They’re very gentle. But you have to support his body and his head, and promise you won’t freak and drop him.”

  “I promise.”

  “And he’s strong, so you have to hold him just tight enough but not too tight, okay? If you hold him too tight, it will frighten him and he’ll start thrashing around.”

  “Andy, I get it. Even if he whips around and bites me, I won’t drop him or squeeze too tightly. I want to do this. I’m sick of being afraid.” I reach and tease his tail loose from the branch with a finger, then put my hand and arm under it to support his five-foot-long body. When I nod, Andy lets go of his head. I’d made a noose with my thumb and forefinger, but it isn’t snug enough to hold his head. The back half of the snake is wrapped around my arm, but the front half pulls loose and whips back and forth like a dropped air hose.

  Andy steps up on a lower limb to try and catch his head, but I turn
so he misses.

  “It’s okay,” I say. I can feel the snake’s muscles tense and ease. His tongue flicks in and out, but when he turns to taste my face, my heart begins to rocket around in my chest, and when his tongue brushes my cheek, a chill runs through me. I turn my head to let his tongue tickle my nose. I have to cross my eyes to focus as the snake slides across my shoulder, passing under my hair and onto the branch behind my head. He keeps going until only the tip of his tail is crooked around my wrist. I hold still for a moment; then, with a final flick of his tail, he lets go of me. I look at Andy and grin. “That was awesome.”

  Andy smiles. “I told you.” He unzips the pack and lets Teapot out. “We’d better get going.”

  “Did you see him lick me? Was that to see if I was edible?”

  “He knew you weren’t edible.”

  I balance myself on a branch and try to pat the flaps of skin that are peeling off yesterday’s shiny new blisters back into place before putting the socks and boots on. When I’m ready, I put my hands on his shoulders and let him lift me out of the tree. As he lowers me into the water, I kiss his cheek.

  “What was that for?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Maybe just for putting up with me.”

  An odd, sad look crosses his face.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s nice of you to say, that’s all.” Andy squeezes my hand, then turns and begins to move toward shore.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I found some dry ground and was going to dig another scratch well when I heard you calling.”

  He’s not wearing his T-shirt. I wonder where it is, but am more curious about the snake. “So what was he doing when he licked me?” I follow him, and Teapot follows me.

  “He wasn’t licking you, he was tasting you. Snakes have a gland in the roof of their mouths. The tongue picks up molecules of scent that are carried back to that gland. Snakes are deaf, and they don’t see like we do either. They pick up on movement and on the heat birds and mammals give off. That’s how he knew there was a meal in the backpack.”

  That’s almost as many words as Andy has strung together since I met him. “How do you know all this?” I ask to keep him talking.

  “I had a pet corn snake once. I read all about them in a library book.”

  “What did you feed it?” “Baby ducks.”

  I hit him.

  “It lived in the airboat shed, and it ate whatever it wanted: mice, rats, who knows.”

  “How can you call it a pet if you didn’t keep it in anything?”

  “It would let me pick it up and stuff. I had a pet purple gallinule too, and they migrate. It would come back every year. If something trusts you enough, you don’t have to keep it in a cage.”

  I look at Teapot, crossing the mud in little starts and stops. I take a step and she runs to catch up, but we’re leaving deep footprints in the mud and she keeps falling into them, then has to right herself, climb out and run to catch us. I wait until she bumps against my ankle, pick her up, and cup her to my cheek. My heart aches.

  “I know most of the birds I’ve seen out here, but what’s a purple gallinule?”

  “They look a little like a coot, but they’re purplish-blue with yellow legs, long toes for walking on lily pads, and a beak that looks like candy corn.”

  The mention of candy makes my mind reel. A third day without food. I look down at my concave stomach and knobby hip bones showing through my wet, muddy shorts.

  Andy’s T-shirt is on the shore and looped over a branch like he’d hung it to dry. He sees me looking at it. “I was catching fish.”

  “With what?”

  “My shirt.”

  I must look baffled.

  “I bent a willow branch, put my T-shirt over it, and was using it like a net.”

  “Did you catch anything?” I’m imagining making fire like they do on Survivor and cooking his catch.

  “Just a few minnows . . .” He looks sheepish. “I ate them.”

  “Alive?”

  “And still wiggling.”

  I grimace.

  “It wasn’t much worse than swallowing a pill. Want me to catch you some?”

  “I don’t think I can eat a live fish.”

  There are reeds growing through clear water. I suppose I’ve been so focused on looking out for snakes and alligators that I haven’t noticed there are minnows everywhere. They are tiny, about the length of the tip of my pinky finger. “You ate some of those?” I point at the baby fish.

  “Not enough to make a difference.”

  He sinks the shirt-covered hoop in the water and holds it steady just beneath the surface. After a few minutes, a half dozen minnows swim back, curious, I guess, about whether it’s something to eat. They are joined by few little black tadpoles with long tails.

  Andy holds his net steady, puts his thumb in his mouth, bites off a piece of cuticle, then spits it into the water covering the net. The minnows and tadpoles attack the little piece of skin, and Andy lifts the hoop so slowly at first that the fish aren’t aware that they are caught until the water drains through the fabric, leaving them flipping and flopping in the air. He holds it out to me. “Help yourself.”

  “You first.”

  Andy pinches two tiny fish and a tadpole between his thumb and forefinger, tilts his head back, opens his mouth, and drops them in. He swallows quickly, gives his head a shake, then holds the rest out to me. I pick a fish up, bring it to my nose and smell it. I’ve always done that. Smelled new things before I taste them. It doesn’t smell fishy; it smells like the water. I think about what it will feel like to put it in my mouth, feel it wiggle. I also imagine it isn’t going to do a thing to make my stomach hurt less. It may even make it worse. I lower my hand until it is under water. The little minnow swims in the bowl of my cupped hand until it can get over the rim and swim into the reeds.

  “Chicken,” Andy says.

  “I let it go for my karma.”

  He’s eaten all the rest, a dozen or more. “Karma! What is that anyway?”

  I think he’s kidding, so I don’t answer. “Feel better?”

  “Worse. The more I eat the more I want.”

  On the inside, I smile. Karma.

  …

  Andy takes his shirt off the hoop, puts it on, wades ashore and cuts and trims another palmetto leaf to use as a shovel. We take turns digging the hole, then sit on the bank to take turns bailing muddy water out until it begins to run clear.

  “Is your dad on a business trip to Miami?” I ask to kill time and to take my mind off my empty stomach.

  A funny look crosses Andy’s face. “I guess you could call it that.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Let’s just say he’s between prospects.”

  He’s being cryptic. “Did he go there to look for a job?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Too bad. If he found something, maybe you’d move.”

  “Yeah. Like that’s ever going to happen. You couldn’t pry him out of the ’Glades with a crowbar.”

  We each drink as much as we can, then I wade in to collect Teapot while Andy fills the bottle for the rest of the day.

  We pass the pond apple again on our way out of the hammock. The snake is making its way down through the branches, gliding like a ribbon. When I turn to follow Andy, it occurs to me that I may never see anything like this again, and for some reason that makes me think of our kiss. A person only gets to have one first of anything.

  “Watch your head.” Andy ducks as he crosses under the biggest spider web I’ve ever seen. It’s stretched between two spindly cypress trees about nine feet apart. A black-and-yellow spider like the one in the outhouse is in the center. Andy plows on but I stop. A million dewdrops are caught on the strands of silk. Each one reflects the sun’s rays in blues, greens, and reds. I find it hard to breathe.

  The morning sun also colors the saw grass to a rich golden yellow, and ahead of us for as far as I can see,
small, square, dew-covered spider webs are draped like a thousand silver hammocks. It looks as if they drifted down during the night and came to rest on the tips of the short saw-grass clumps. Mist rises off the water. I think of my mom, whose most prized possession is a large book on the French Impressionists that she bought at a yard sale. “Mom would say this looks like a Monet morning.”

  “That’s nice,” Andy mutters. He is staring at the western horizon. “They got an early start.”

  “Who?” I ask before looking up. A small plane is making loops back and forth, closer than yesterday.

  “And look there.” Andy points.

  Farther west is a Coast Guard helicopter.

  “They haven’t found where we left from, have they?” “Not even close,” Andy says.

  “You were right, weren’t you?”

  “About what?”

  “How long it would have taken them to find us— me—if I’d stayed at the cabin.”

  “Yeah, but about now we could set it on fire, and they would figure it out.”

  “If we’d had matches.”

  We walk on for a while. “I know this isn’t right to say, but it’s kind of nice to have people looking for us, isn’t it?”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  I catch his arm. “What does that mean?”

  “They’re looking for you.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. They have to be looking for us, both of us. How would they know I was out here if they hadn’t figured out we’re together? In fact,” I say, “they may just be looking for you and looking for me someplace else.”

  He puts a finger to his lips. “Listen.”

  I hear an engine, but far away. “Is that the helicopter?”

  “No, damn it, that’s an airboat.”

  “Why damn it?”

  “I should have left something at the coffeepot to let them know we’d been there.”

  “What would we have left? All we have is the backpack and my bandana.”