Saving an Innocent Man

by Robert E B Wright

  "Turtles," Diaz said.

  "Right, turtles. They can take oxygen from the water through blood vessels that are very close to the surface of the skin. They can stay down at least twenty minutes. Some turtles are better at this than others. You see that one there? The one that looks like a khaki-colored pancake? That's a softshell turtle. The soft shell is probably the best of the turtles at staying under water for long periods of time. Its carapace and plastron, that's the top shell and the lower shell, as well as its legs and neck, are especially well adapted for osmotic respiration."

  As zoo Director Bill Zebhardt spoke about one of the earliest and simplest of biological principles, and as Detective Armando Diaz listened for the first time to something even Boy Scouts knew from studying nature, air bubbles were forming on the raw strip of thin flesh that ran all the way up Malcolm's spine. The seven-inch wide blood-red streak appeared to be effervescing over its entire surface.

  "Osmotic respiration," Diaz repeated.

  "Oxygen is a gas that's found not just in the air we breathe, but also in all water capable of sustaining life. The oxygen passes through a semi-permeable membrane, in this case thin skin, and enters into solution, in this case the blood. The blood, of course, brings oxygen to the brain, lungs, the whole body."

  "That's incredible."

  "Frogs are even more incredible." Zebhardt lectured, pointing to a frog on a floating log in the turtle pen. "They can stay down almost indefinitely.

  The frog’s white throat throbbed and its eyes moved, attracted to some nearby bug.

  At that moment, the great alligator's eye rolled slightly, assessing the lifelessness of the sizeable prey clenched in its mouth. Malcolm was absolutely motionless. His head, not twelve inches away from the gator’s endless rows of exposed teeth, was cheek-down in the soft bottom. Not a hair moved in the still water. His eyes stared wide open. He had been pinned to the bottom for a very long time.

  In less than a heartbeat, the brutal creature could jolt forward and bite off Malcolm's head as if it were a grape. For some reason, it waited, still, looming in front of Malcolm's face like a towering chiseled monument.

  Its eyes were those of the devil. Its elliptical pupils were demonic. Its stare would make anyone's blood ice cold. Raise the hair on your neck. Make your skin crawl.

  Then!

  It was sudden!

  It all happened in an instant!

  In one fluid motion, the gator loosened its vise-grip on Malcolm's right arm and let if fall lifelessly to the muck. Without stopping, it moved forward. It opened its gigantic mouth over Malcolm's head. It was a hair’s-breadth away from a vicious, severing bite.

  In one swift movement, Malcolm's left arm thrust forward. With every ounce of strength in his body, Malcolm jammed the large stick into the reptile’s open mouth, preventing it from biting down. Malcolm snapped his arms back away from the shuddering jaws. The sixteen-foot long animal wiggled and thrashed in choking spasms. Clouds of mud stormed upward from the bottom. Malcolm shot for the surface. He popped up like a buoy released by a submarine. Before he ever reached the surface he was stroking wildly. He gasped deeply. The water churned around him. The side of the lagoon was drawing nearer.

  Somewhere toward the middle of the lagoon, the lifesaving stick floated to the surface.

  The eyes of the gator periscoped out of the black pool. Malcolm looked over his shoulder for an instant.

  The gator began sweeping its muscular tail with immense power, thrusting forward toward Malcolm.

  Malcolm clawed at the water, almost lifting himself out of it.

  The gator streaked forward.

  Malcolm stroked and kicked furiously.

  The gator was drawing deathly close. Malcolm was almost to the edge of the embankment.

  The gator opened its cavernous jaws. It was almost a blur.

  Malcolm’s hands, as well as his feet, hit the rising bottom close to the edge. The gator was almost on him.

  Malcolm scrambled, arms and legs working to the maximum, scratching, crawling, digging wet earth, clambering up the bank.

  The immense black creature stabbed its head forward. Its tail thrashed the water wildly, driving it up the bank toward Malcolm's flailing limbs. Its teeth caught the dangling, flopping sole of Malcolm's right shoe. The shoe came off and the monster gulped it down. Malcolm was sliding on the muddy bank. The huge jaws-of-death snapped forward again. Malcolm was frantic. The big conical white teeth caught the shredded fabric of Malcolm's left pant leg. Malcolm pulled and kicked frantically. The fabric, tenderized by the trek through the sawgrass, gave way and the animal’s teeth sliced through it toward the hem. Malcolm yanked his leg away from the snapping jaws. His toes added traction in the mud. His fingers dug deeper. He pulled away from death.

  At the top of the bank, Malcolm was breathing in huge gulps of air, bent over in lung-bursting pain and horror.

  The gator inched forward and raised its body on its two front legs at the bottom of the slope. It opened its mouth and bellowed at Malcolm, warning him to never come back again. Malcolm could actually feel the steamy hiss of foul breath.

  Malcolm glared back. He had won this bout with Satan.

  He hesitated, then turned and disappeared.

  Fifteen

  "You must be out of your mind!" Tony DiSantis was packing a small suitcase. His wife, Camille, was yelling at him as she fussed with the knick-knacks in the bedroom. "You've never gone this far before, Tony. Let somebody else worry about it. You've got your family to think about. And you're so close to retirement, why do this to yourself now?"

  "I'm not retired yet, Camille. Besides, it's my job. Jesus Christ, I'm only going for the weekend. You talk like I'm not coming back!"

  "Four days is not a weekend! I heard you talking to Kevin about the two sick days. I'm no fool. And neither is the Department. They're not gonna give you time and money to go off on some wild goose chase." Tony DiSantis tried to ignore her. She continued, "You know, I almost believe that maybe there's somebody else in your life that you want to spend some time with."

  Tony stopped packing and looked at her.

  Camille looked at him. Then she said, "Nah, you don't have the body for it anymore."

  "A fa Napoli!" Tony responded with an appropriate Italian hand gesture. Camille turned away.

  "Hey, Camille," Tony said in a tender voice, "you know that's not it. It never was and never will be. You know you can count on me. Especially now, after all these years."

  She turned to face him. "So why take the money your daughter wanted for that radial...whatever, eye surgery."

  "I got a ninety-nine-dollar ticket!"

  "Yeah. One way. I read the newspaper."

  "So, I'll fly standby! And Gina will get whatever she wants. You know that. We never denied that kid, or Anthony, anything they ever wanted. And if I find the guy I'm looking for, the Department will credit my time and pay for the trip."

  "Tony, you really gotta do this thing?"

  "Yeah, Camille, I really gotta do this thing." She sat down on the edge of the bed. He snapped the latches on the suitcase.

  "Be careful, Tony. Please, be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you now. You don't have far to go 'til you've put your time in."

  "Don't worry, mi amore," he said with sincerity, "I probably won't even find the guy I'm looking for. And as far as there being anybody else but you, you're right. I don't have the body for it." He slapped his gut and kissed Camille on the cheek.

  Sixteen

  The sun was a huge red neon ball resting on the far-away horizon of pines. The sky was filled with an unbelievably intense and warm rosy hue. To the north, straight ahead of Malcolm, the black veil of smoke had now dissipated into streaks of acid haze. The airbrushed dusky sky above the Serengeti-like plain was an artist’s and photographer’s dream.

  The sawgrass was much shorter now, a mere four to five feet high. And it grew in a sparser pattern than before, making it easier to get through. Malcolm no l
onger needed the wooden mangrove prow he had used to push his way through the tall, thick sawgrass he had first encountered. He found he didn't need to cover himself with mud, either. Because the smell of the fire, while only mildly discomforting to him, kept the mosquitoes away. It was as bad as putting up with a room full of smokers, but here he could see a benefit for lungs full of poisonous smoke.

  The water here was only ankle deep. And Malcolm kept a regular rhythm as he plip-plopped through it with one dilapidated shoe and one bone-tired bare foot.

  After the horrific brush with brutal death in the alligator hole, Malcolm had not stopped moving. He had doubled back on the alligator path in the tall sawgrass and found a safe place to cross the small creek, far from where he was attacked. He forded the small creek quickly, in near panic. On the other side, it was simply one hour of sloshing after another. Briskly at first, then slowing to a monotonous pace.

  It was a pleasure not to be covered with mud. But in the shorter, sparser sawgrass the sun had beat down on him and burned his pudgy face, fat shoulders and flabby chest. Every once in a while, Malcolm would pour handfuls of water over his head. The effect of the swill, combined with the build-up of sweat and grease on his body, was that of basting a turkey. But Malcolm's skin wasn't the only thing that had been burned. The ghastly memory of the primitive demon in the lagoon was seared into his brain as if with a branding iron or a hot poker. He would never forget it. And he would never be the same.

  Oddly, he hadn't yet realized he had been held under water by the huge reptile for more than thirty minutes. There in the water, face-to-face with the heinous animal that was about to eat him alive, he had far more fearful thoughts than dying due to drowning. He had lost all perspective of time. He blocked it out. He knew he had been down for a long time but lying on the bottom every cell in his body had concentrated on one thing and one thing only - jabbing the stick down the alligator's throat at precisely the right moment. And Malcolm's mathematical mind, though dulled, had measured it as carefully as Houston Control.

  After the unbelievably close escape, Malcolm went into a kind of shock. His brain chemistry, and the millions of tiny electrical pulses within it that make our bodies function, went out of sync. He plodded along in a spasmodic stupor.

  A degree of neurolysis, the destruction of nerve tissue due to excessive stimulation, had surely taken place. The loss of electrolytes, potassium and other body fluids was crippling his mind and body. He had replenished some electrolytes and forestalled certain death by drinking copious amounts of brackish water, but the organisms in the water had caused a continually running diarrhea. His heart, strained by years of obesity, had not yet cramped or suddenly stopped after all this excruciating effort. How long could it go on?

  Malcolm was now in the most dangerous stage of his escape from the Everglades. Dangerous not only due to deadly animals or environmental conditions, but from the forces at work inside him. It seemed ironic that he could narrowly escape the clutches of a behemoth reptile yet succumb to unseen bacteria and micro-organisms. It was remarkable that he hadn't died already. He didn't have very far to go now until he could find his final rest.

  Malcolm was in a torpid state. Apathetic. Numb. Desensitized. His head was down. His eyes hardly moved in their sockets. His arms hung at his sides. Dried blood was glued to his savagely bitten right arm. His round, fat-laden belly hung over his torn and tattered pants. His weight was dropping every hour.

  Malcolm could have been walking, stumbling, for days or minutes, he didn't know. He didn't care. Nothing was computing. Parts of his brain seemed to be non-functioning. He no longer had command of his body. Spit dribbled from the corner of his mouth through the thick stubble of beard. Large purple pouches hung under his eyes. His fingers trembled.

  The smoke in the air seemed thicker now and something made him look down. Things were bumping into his feet and ankles. He felt small things pelting his legs. Half a dozen turtles, the size of salad plates, stroked by in the shallows. A few small snakes slithered past between his legs. More than a dozen frogs leaped into him as he stood there. A couple of them, tree frogs with funny-looking toes, landed on his shoulder and abdomen and suctioned themselves in place like rubber darts.

  Malcolm swayed dizzily. When he looked up in front of him he saw why the animals were fleeing in one direction. Not fifty feet from where he stood, the dry sawgrass had burned down to the water line. Hundreds of acres had burned, possibly thousands, in all directions. The charred wisps of sawgrass blades smoldered, collapsed like zillions of cigarette ashes. In a few isolated spots, some of the grass was still on fire. Streaks of smoke wafted by.

  In an exhibition of primitive behavior, Malcolm grabbed the frog stuck to his belly, ripped off its legs and pulled the bones through his teeth. He did so without hesitation. Without flinching. Without grimacing. His expression was blank.

  __________________________________

  Don’t eat raw frogs – you could get very ill or even die.

  __________________________________

  He did the same with the frog that was still suctioned to his shoulder. Malcolm put his left hand in the water. In a moment, a frog leaped close to it and Malcolm grabbed it easily. It was a large bullfrog, with fat green legs. Malcolm performed the same dissection and consumed the frog's legs. Reactive nerve cells made the strips of white and green meat wiggle as they hung from Malcolm's mouth as he ate. He reached down into the sheet of water once again. In a moment, he pulled up a turtle, grasping it around its dark shell. Malcolm grabbed for its head. The turtle pulled it in. Malcolm grabbed for its leg. The turtle pulled it in. Malcolm grabbed for another leg. The turtle pulled it in. Malcolm grabbed for a leg again. And again. He missed every time. He scratched at the turtle's withdrawn legs. It did no good. Malcolm looked closely at the turtle, trying to figure out just what to do next. He looked up, away from the turtle with a puzzled expression. What he saw made him toss the turtle aside.

  About a quarter mile away, directly to the west, was a tree island, untouched by the sawgrass fire. The huge sun was dropping directly behind it. Pink rays streamed from the ball behind the dark green silhouette.

  A charge of adrenaline flowed through Malcolm. His body lifted slightly and he breathed deeply. He squinted at the tree island and the telescopic picture he saw was a cool, shady hideaway. This tree island, like the hundreds of others in the river of grass, was like a grove of hardwood trees on a thick mat of peat just fifteen inches above the sawgrass water level. It would be a safe haven.

  He closed his eyes and appeared to give silent thanks to God.

  Malcolm staggered forward, his body bent with exhaustion, toward the green clump before him. It seemed so close yet so far. How many steps could it be? he thought. How many steps before he collapsed in a heap? How many steps 'til it was one step too many?

  About ten miles away, a helicopter flew out of the red setting sun, toward the east, toward the tree island and toward Malcolm who was trudging west. They were headed toward each other. Craig Mulholland sat in the right seat of the police chopper. He had binoculars stuck in his eyes, searching the smoldering grass below.

  "How much more time do we have?" Mulholland asked Whipple.

  "We're on our way back to the air field now. If we don't see him between here and there, you're tapped out. At least as far as a chopper is concerned."

  As the two men spoke in the chopper, Malcolm's ravaged body plodded toward the tree island. The island was a black silhouette against the red ball still descending behind it.

  "Hey, how far would you say it was from the crash site to where we saw the can of bug spray?" Mulholland asked.

  "Oh, I'd say maybe three miles. But that's in a straight line. There's no telling how long it took him to get there. He might have gone around and around. He might still be goin' around and around. Or dead. Real good chance of his bein' dead."

  Mulholland removed the binoculars from his eyes for just a moment, then put them back in place.
>
  "Well, I don't know. I just have a feeling that if he made it that far, even if he did go around in circles, he could possibly make it out of those mangroves."

  "Hey, look, anything's possible. But not probable."

  Malcolm was putting a hundred and ten percent effort into every agonizing step. He was halfway to the island. He stopped. He heard something in the air. It was the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. Malcolm, in pain and near panic, hurried toward the island. If the chopper flew anywhere near, he would be seen for sure in the short burned grass.

  "How far from where we saw the bug spray to here?"

  "I'd guess, oh, another five miles, maybe six. We can go back and fly it if you want to know exactly." Whipple appeared ready to change course.

  "No, no, that's alright. It's not that important. As you say, he could have walked many more miles than that anyway."

  "I'd bet money on it."

  "And how many miles do you think it is from here to civilization?"

  "About twenty-five from here to the Tamiami Ranger Station. It's just a tower, but it's right on the Tamiami Trail. Lots of cars, campers, hunters, air boats, you name it."

  The chopper headed east directly toward the teardrop shaped tree island. Malcolm was struggling, splashing, convulsing in spasms toward the island from the opposite direction. The path of each was unchanging. One swift, one slow. In a very few moments, the chopper would fly directly over Malcolm's head.

  Malcolm pleaded with his body, with God, to get him to cover.

  Malcolm was three hundred feet from the island.

  Mulholland searched through the binoculars.

  "I've just got a hunch, instinct, whatever you want to call it, that this guy, whatever kind of killer, hit man, drug runner or maniac he is, is out here somewhere. And he probably knows we're on his ass. He knows we're out here with him."

  Malcolm thrashed into the long shadow of the island cast by the setting sun. The chopper was low and loud.