Malcolm awkwardly reached into his right pocket with his left hand. He pulled out a tube of antibiotic ointment and applied it to his wound. The ointment wouldn't help much in this case. But the tetanus shot Malcolm had received at the crash site, would help tremendously. He would not find himself in any grave danger. At least not from fish bones.
Malcolm dug into the mucky bottom beneath the sawgrass and replenished the life-saving mud that had fallen off his body. It didn't matter that this icing of muck was laden with tiny pink mud worms. He even tried to cover the ointment on his hand.
Then Malcolm saw something astonishing. He saw a frog jump from one sawgrass stalk to another. Far away.
Then another jump, farther away yet. Then another, farther still.
What was astonishing wasn't the frog jumping, it was that Malcolm could see the frog in great detail, no matter how far away it jumped.
Malcolm held up his hand. He focused on his muddy fingers. Then he focused past his fingers to the little frog about fifteen-feet away. Then to a single blade of sawgrass about one hundred feet away. He could see it clearly, as if magnified. He blinked his eyes. Then he looked up and focused on a hawk flying high above him. The hawk came into sharp focus. In incredible detail. Malcolm squinted slightly. He could actually see feathers! Malcolm's eyes looked almost normal now, just a pale pink color persisted. And they were open wide toward the sky. His terra cotta face was in awe. His mouth open, slack in disbelief. "My God! My God, it's a miracle!" Malcolm's eyes moistened with emotion. He looked back at his hand still outstretched before him. He looked back at the hawk, as if to test his telescopic vision once again. Perhaps it was a freak event. A mirage. His imagination. He squinted his eyes at the bird soaring high in the clear blue sky on heat thermals.
He saw an orange eye with a round black pupil looking back at him.
Thirteen
Craig Mulholland's pink hibiscus print shirt was flapping in the wind as he sat in the co-pilot seat of the two-man police helicopter. The chopper was loud, and it flew fast, like an enormous dragonfly, over great stretches of mangroves.
Mulholland and the pilot wore headphones so they could hear each other. Although they were sitting side-by-side, their voices sounded like a long-distance phone call.
"You forced to ride in this thing every day, Whipple?" Mulholland asked, holding onto the vibrating chopper.
"Not every day. I get a day off once in a while."
"How much longer?"
"We're just about there."
Whipple backed off on the speed as the chopper descended to just above the treetops.
"There it is." Whipple announced.
"Jesus. You mean somebody survived that crash?" The plane looked as it did the day it went down. Except for the birds and animals that now treated it just like an empty log. The chopper hung in the air, as if on a string.
"You wanna put down in here, Mulholland?"
"Not right now. I'd rather try to figure out which way somebody, anybody, would get out of here. What do you think?"
"Well, it depends on what time of day it was when he ran. If it was dark there would be no way he could tell which way was north or south from east or west, unless he could tell by the stars."
"It was late afternoon."
"OK, so let's assume he could tell which way north is and he went north."
"Why?"
"Cause if he went south or west he'd hit the ocean."
"So what?"
"No fresh water. Nothing to drink."
"Can he drink the water if he goes north or east?"
"As he gets further inland, he could. It would probably give him a terrible case of diarrhea, but he could at least survive. Besides, there's a lot more he could eat besides coconuts."
"So you think he might have gone north or east?"
"I haven't got the slightest idea. But that's what I would do."
"OK, let's go northeast."
"You want to go fast and take 'em by surprise, or go slow and look for some signs?"
"We took the last two hours fast, let's take the next two hours slow."
The RPM of the engine increased slightly and the chopper rotated just above the tree tops. They traveled in a lazy zig-zag pattern, to and fro, over the Glades. Mulholland zealously searched the mangroves with binoculars but paused every few minutes to give his arms and eye sockets some relief. Every once-in-a-while he'd say, "This is impossible." Whipple also thought he heard him say, "No freakin' way!"
For a long time, the chopper passed over uncountable numbers of mangrove trees. Not one of them which could be visually separated or differentiated from the others. But now, here and there, there was a slim seam in the canopy, where the reflection of water could be seen. Mulholland scoured the seams with intense interest.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," Mulholland said, disappointed.
"Wanna go back to home base?"
"Are you kidding? I’ve got this chopper for today and tomorrow only. I'm not giving up yet." They flew to the next crevice in the canopy.
"There's no way a rat could even get through this stuff, let alone the kind of moose those two bozos from Naples described," Mulholland groaned.
"They said he was seven feet tall, didn't they?"
"Yeah, something like that. I know their eyes are bigger than their brains, but there may be some truth to the fact that he's a big guy. Maybe we'll be lucky enough to find out."
Whipple manipulated the controls to move the chopper on.
"Whoa! Wait a second! Go back!" Mulholland surged with enthusiasm and hope. The binoculars were jammed into his eyes.
"Over to the right a little. A little more."
"What do you see?"
"Do jet airliners drop garbage out their windows over this place?"
"I doubt it. What do you see?"
"Drop down a little."
"All I can give you is five feet."
"Just make believe you're a flamingo coming in to roost."
"Come on, what do you see down there?"
"I see what the Naples bozos reported missing. I see a can of bug spray. He was here, Whipple! He was here!"
Fourteen
Malcolm could barely hear the distant chirps as the red-winged blackbird came into focus. He heard a far-away splash and he saw the bullfrog in detail. He looked into the grass and his vision made a tiny bumblebee look as big as a robin. Malcolm tested his supernatural vision over and over as he mashed his way through the river of grass.
The heat of the sun had baked the mud on his face and on the top of his head. It was hard and crusty, but it protected him against the strong rays. He looked as though a sculptor had started a clay bust of a man but never finished it. He was a rotund gargoyle moving through the rushes.
He held his protective wooden prow before him, but the whipping saw-like blades of the grass continued to flog him. The height of the grass had diminished now, but it was still over seven feet.
High above the sawgrass he noticed something that made him stop in the calf-high water. Black smoke, lots of it, was billowing up into the sky. It was hard to tell just how far away it was, but it appeared to be at some distance. His incredible vision was of no use to him now, since he couldn't see where it was coming from.
As he stood watching, the ever-widening black curtain veiled half the sky. Malcolm sniffed the air. Then he decided to be unconcerned and continued his march.
As Malcolm lifted each foot and plunged it back in about two feet ahead, he could see that the stitching had finally broken around the leather soles of both his shoes. The soles just hung down like the limp tongues of dogs on a hot day. And Malcolm was muttering to himself.
"A shoemaker. A shoemaker is all you need boys. The soles of my shoes are dying. Drowning. No one will ever know what you did for me boys. We'll die here together. I'll die with my shoes on, don't worry..."
Malcolm paid no attention to the occasional snake that was too lethargic to slither away from his sloshing and thra
shing and the continual mumbling and grumbling. He just stepped over lazy turtles that ignored his plethora of eloquent non sequiturs. He ate scores of small snails. He drank the water at his feet. It mattered little if some of the bottom had been stirred up. "A little mud never hurt anybody, said somebody." He was delirious. "Mud outside. Mud inside. Mud blood. Mud pie. Mud in the eye. Mud..."
Malcolm stopped in mid-sentence. He found himself in the middle of what looked like a path. A three-foot wide swath of flattened sawgrass that meandered off to his left. Could someone else be here? He leaned forward trying to peer around the curve. He couldn't. He looked intently but he was unable to see around the walls of the high brown grass. He began walking timidly down the path, very slowly at first, then with curious fervor. He followed the shape of the path, this way and that, not knowing what he would find around the next curve. If there were another human there, the person would have died of fright upon seeing the colossal mud-man-of-the-bog splashing stiffly toward him.
There was no other human to be found. But suddenly, around the last curve, Malcolm came upon a tranquil black lagoon. The glassy pool was fed by a creek on either side. Probably the same meandering creek he had crossed a number of times already. Along the edges of the lagoon were familiar mangrove trees. And where the muck rose above the water level, there was a hodge-podge of buttonwood, cabbage palm, cattail, arrowhead, cocoplum and numerous weeds of every name and description. There was even a bouquet of pretty spider lilies, gleaming white in the sun, as if to welcome him to the aqueous Eden. Half of the surface of the lagoon was covered with floating plants. White water lilies and lavish lavender flowers were set on the tops of the green water hyacinth pads which were as big as dinner plates. The other half of the lagoon was a black mirror. Cacophonous sounds came from the trees, as dozens of birds ruffled in the branches. Long-legged herons waded at the water's edge. A half dozen pintail ducks and blue winged teals slid on the surface.
The sun shone bright and hot on this watery place, but the scene looked inviting. And it held the promise of survival.
In the water, millions of microscopic plants and animals in every cubic yard were suspended in a drifting cloudy haze. Turtles skittled across the bottom, leaving ‘dust’ trails behind them. Crabs rattled their claws at inquisitive bass, minnows, bream and gar. A swamp snake undulated through the brackish water toward a plump pig frog.
A pair of zebra butterflies fluttered in tremulous excitement past Malcolm as he grabbed the dead limbs of a fallen tree and lowered himself into the water. The tree, possibly blown over by a hurricane, was the skeletal remains of a dead Goliath. Its huge bony arms stretched above the water toward the sun.
In the chest-deep water Malcolm dipped himself under and the mud washed off like chocolate ice cream. He wiped the dissolving mud away from his hair and face. He pushed it off his shoulders and chest. He reached around to his back as best he could and washed the almost completely healed wound on his spine. He was left with a seven-inch wide strip of very thin skin that would have a reddish color for the rest of his life. With his forearm flat against the water, he pushed away the glop from the surface and drank copiously. He saw a small fish in the water. And then another. And, turning, he saw many more. The pond was teeming with them. Then he looked at his right hand. He could still see the puncture marks, but the swelling had mostly subsided. He looked into the cattails standing near him in the water. And on the stalks were two apple snails. Each was about the size of a golf ball. They immediately became gastronomic treats for Malcolm. And his face showed his pleasure. Juice ran down the sides of his mouth as he chomped with enthusiasm. If Malcolm knew that the Everglades kite eats nothing but apple snails, he would have applauded the bird for its discriminating culinary taste. Malcolm looked for more apple snails but failed to find any. Good thing. Malcolm didn’t know that eating raw snails could kill him. He was lucky so far. He hadn’t died yet. But his luck could run out with the very next snail. He turned, searching the weeds and rushes for other food.
With his excellent vision, he spotted a pickerel frog on a lily pad. Its white throat pulsed quickly. As Malcolm lunged clumsily toward the slimy creature, it leaped and was gone. Malcolm's movements were heavy and slow. His energy was at a low ebb. His weight was dropping precipitously.
From the spot where the frog disappeared, Malcolm's eyes looked up. As if jolted, he took a half step back. To the side of the lagoon there was a mound made of broken bits and pieces of sawgrass. The mound was about two to three feet high and about eight feet across. On top of the mound were two large raccoons. They surprised Malcolm, but the raccoons had already spotted him. And they seemed unconcerned. They looked right at him, but they just kept digging into the mound with their small human-like hands. They dug urgently.
Malcolm squinted his eyes and what the coons were digging for came into focus. One of the coons lifted an egg from the nest and bit into it. It slurped up the contents. The other one did the same thing. They loved it. They looked healthy. But they looked nervous. Their eyes were bright, but they darted continuously.
To the left of the mound he saw a pair of wood storks. They were flapping their large black and white wings, apparently annoyed at the raccoons. It looked as though Mr. & Mrs. Coon had ruined Mr. & Mrs. Stork's day. And Malcolm was about to ruin the coons’ day. Putting his weight against it, he broke off a heavy, dead limb from the fallen tree. The club had sharp points at its globular end. "Perfect!" Malcolm said examining the walloping end and feeling the heft of the stick in his hands. He waded toward them. The bottom dropped away from his feet and he vanished below the surface for a moment. When he popped back up, he dog paddled across until he found footing close to the mound. When Malcolm got within twenty feet of the nest, the raccoons became extremely nervous. They sat up and stood on their hind legs. Then they sniffed the air and showed their teeth, chattering wildly. At ten feet away, the coons rushed forward a foot or two, then retreated a few feet behind the nest. Both raccoons repeated this running forward, running away ritual over and over. Each time, they gnashed their sizable sharp teeth, hunched their backs and swatted with their claws.
Malcolm stood waist high next to the nest. He raised the club and batted at one of the coons. It jumped out of the way and ran to the back of the nest. The other coon rushed Malcolm. Malcolm hit it squarely over the head.
The two coons snarled and feigned an attack beyond the reach of Malcolm's stick. Malcolm clubbed the nest. The coons retreated a few more feet. Malcolm rose up on the nest and swung at them again. One slipped away in the bushes. The other followed. The storks had gone. And Malcolm dropped to his knees and looked down at the eggs. He reached into the depression and pulled out one white egg. The egg was a little more elongated than a chicken egg. He noticed it was cracked. He tapped it with his finger, then hesitatingly, bit into it slightly. He managed to remove one end of the egg and he peeked inside. He was almost afraid to look, fearing he'd see the same revolting thing he saw the last time he raided a nest. He raised the egg above his mouth and dumped the contents into it. After gulping the slime down, Malcolm smacked his lips and reached for another egg. He repeated the process again, but with greater dispatch, sometimes squishing egg yolk all over his hands. There were six more instant replays. Some of the clear part of the egg ran from the corner of his mouth. Malcolm was amazed that there were so many eggs in the nest. He dug deeper. And he started pulling them out, collecting them on the mound. Ten...twenty...thirty. This was like finding a gold mine.
On the opposite side of the lagoon, in the sawgrass path where Malcolm had come upon this place, the expectant mother stood.
Sixteen feet long. More than five hundred pounds. Sinister black from head-to-tail. Penetrating eyes that burned with an ice-cold fire that could not be extinguished even with the passage of ages. The alligator was awesome.
It stood perfectly still, looking at Malcolm destroying what millions of years of primitive instinct was now inexorably commanding it to protect.
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br /> It raised itself up on its four powerful legs in the ankle-deep water of the path. It opened its mouth slightly, as if in angry surprise. It drew in a breath. This was one of the biggest and most powerful gators in all the Everglades. And at this moment, one of the most aggressive. Nothing would stop this animal from its destiny. To destroy the destroyer.
Its heavy head and neck were as thick as its body. And its body was thicker than Malcolm’s. Its dozens of teeth were as big as carrots. Each one as sharp as an ice pick.
One bite from its enormously strong jaws could sever a man's legs through the bone. One swipe of its huge powerful tail could kill a horse.
It slid silently into the water.
Malcolm was still looking down counting the eggs.
"...Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine..."
Since the Triassic Period, two hundred and thirty million years ago, alligators have hardly changed at all. They basked on the edges of steaming lagoons one hundred and five million years before the Rocky Mountains began to rise. They were among the earliest dinosaurs. Yet more than one hundred million years after the last large dinosaur breathed its last breath, the alligator lives on, like the legendary vampire, sentenced to demonic immortality. They've had lots of time to perfect their cold-blooded methods of survival.
The alligator's eyes were hardly noticeable above the surface of the water as it moved, without a ripple, toward its warm-blooded prey.
"...forty-four, forty-five, forty-six..."
The alligator slid past the front of the mound, toward the back where the mound was closest to the land area. Even though the zoological order to which it belongs is not far above cockroaches on the evolutionary scale, with a very small single-lobe brain, it knew that if it flushed its quarry into the water, death would come quickly to the intruder. And the spoils would be a welcome meal to the victor.
Saving an Innocent Man Page 9