Tears of Abraham

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Gators and Sharks

Suzanne woke with the early morning sun warming her face. The sky was clear, a deep electric blue, and the air was crisp. She ignored the insect bites on her face and arms, and slipped over the stern to pee.

The water was warmer than the air, and goose bumps popped out on her skin when she got back into the boat. The others woke up when she pushed herself onto the boat. They were a sorry bunch.

Bobby’s wispy hair stuck up at odd angles, crusty and stiff with the salt water. Ginnie’s face was swollen and lopsided. Apparently, she was a bit allergic to something that fed on her during the night.

Welts covered Taylor’s arms, and she seemed subdued. They ate some cold canned food, and Beowulf licked the cans, looking put-off and disappointed.

“How much further?” Suzanne asked Bobby.

“Depends. A few hours, if we don’t get turned around and the tides cooperate.” He sniffed the air and looked out at the water. “Low tide now. That’s good. We’ll run the channel quick. Get past the marina in case there are some undesirables around, if you know what I’m saying. From there, we cross Whitewater Bay, and then we scoot into Hells Bay and we’re almost there.”

He walked to the stern and checked the tanks. “We might even have enough gas.” He cackled and coughed at the same time.

Bobby took the helm and the bow lifted. They wound through more channels, and then the Flamingo marina came into view.

Another boater passed them going the other way, and people waved.

They swept past the docks and boats in slips and canoes on the shore. Families sat around small fires in front of tents and recreational vehicles. Flamingo had fared well, it seemed, during the conflict.

“Maybe we should get some gas?” Suzanne shouted over the engine.

“Naw. We’ll make it. The less people see us the better, right?”

He had a point.

Suzanne went forward to the bow and sprawled out, letting the sun warm her chilled bones, while Taylor curled up next to her. The dog moved enough to let them in, and Suzanne scratched him behind the ears.

Taylor clapped her hands with delight when she saw the first of many gators in the water. There were some big ones, nine and ten footers. Suzanne was as fascinated by the creatures as Taylor was. They were dinosaurs, scaled and toothy and explosive when they needed to be. They seemed slow and languid, but she knew that an alligator could outrun a horse over a short distance. She’d never seen one move like that on land.

A few years ago, she and Henry joined Bart and Mary on a houseboat adventure into this backcountry. They rented a boat at Flamingo, got hopelessly lost, and had a fantastic time.

That excursion had been in September, and the mosquitoes were thick. They ran into trouble when the battery connected to the operating systems died. The boat was dead in the water, and nothing worked. The toilets wouldn’t flush, and the air conditioner wouldn’t run. They had no radio, no phone service, and their water supplies were dwindling. For Suzanne, it was just enough danger to make the trip epic.

The first night, they’d sat out on the roof of the boat drinking sangria, gazing at the stars, and telling stories. Henry and Bart had rigged some heavy fishing rods using big catfish for live bait. They used empty five-gallon water containers as floats to keep the cats close to the surface.

One of the rods started screaming a few hours after the sun went down. Something big devoured the bait and was running.

Henry and Bart jumped down the ladder to the stern, howling and laughing. Henry fought the shark for an hour, and it put up a good fight.

When Henry pulled the fish close to the stern, Bart leaned over to cut the line. The shark was a juvenile bull, maybe four feet long, thick and thrashing in the water under the light of kerosene lamps.

Bart strained to pull the fish close so he could cut the line above the metal leader and get a better look at the shark, leaning down over the stern. “Right out of the Darwin Awards,” Henry said later that night.

An alligator chomped down on the exhausted shark, skewering it between massive jaws. The gator thrashed its head furiously, shaking the fish like a rag doll.

“Shit!” Bart screamed, cutting the line.

“That was a big-ass alligator,” Henry said.

Suzanne thought it was one of the coolest things she’d ever seen. An apex predator devoured by another predator. She had the feeling that night of moving down several notches in the food chain.

The boat bounced over the light chop of Whitewater Bay. They passed countless mangrove stands that all looked the same, squat trees with roots gnarled and curving into the water.

“Here, take the wheel,” Bobby said. “You see that marker? Head for that. My hands are cramping up.”

Suzanne obliged and Bobby stood next to her, opening and closing his arthritic hands. They flew past the marker, down more narrow corridors of water and leaves, and then crossed the muddy expanse of Hells Bay.

They’d only seen a few moving boats since leaving Flamingo, all of them far away.

For more than an hour, they cruised the northern side of the bay while Bobby tried to remember. They tried more than one channel, only to come upon a dead end and turn back the way they had come.

“It’s a lot easier with a GPS,” Bobby said. Suzanne dumped it over the side before they pulled out of the canal back in Key West.

Suzanne groaned. Everything looked the same.

It was late in the afternoon when Bobby started to get excited. “This is it for sure,” he said. “I remember that stand right there. The branches are extra white, see? The sharp V shape in between.”

She didn’t see.

“This is goanna get tight, and then open up again. We’re close.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said.

“See. Like I said. Getting narrow. Looks like there’s nothing ahead.

Keep going. We’re lucky, it’s high tide. I swear I can smell it.”

Suzanne had the engine barely above an idle. The branches reached down and pushed at her face and the boat, but there was enough clearance to get through. Minutes later, she saw an open area, like a pond surrounded by more mangroves.

“This is it,” Bobby said. “I’m sure of it. You put on your best smiling face, ’cause Coyote don’t care much for strangers. He’s twitchy. He tolerates me, but he doesn’t know you.”