“Old Remingtons,” he said after prying them out. “Paper casings. They must have gotten damp over the years.”
He handed the gun to me. “Carry extra shells so you can get to them quick. A breast pocket or your right pocket. If it misfires, you need to be ready.”
I said, “Why don’t you take it? I’ll go first with a machete. You don’t know what it’s like, how thick the brush is.”
“Because you’re younger, I suppose, in better shape.” He smiled, viewing the scenery. “That’s true of some old guys, but this one might surprise you. Or are you trying to prove a point?”
“I have no doubt you’ve yet to reach your peak,” I replied, “but someone needs to clear a path. That way, you’ll keep both hands free if we—wait . . . You didn’t see this.” I reached for my phone and opened a gallery of photos.
Martinez, shaking his head, said, “If you were my client, my advice would be the same. Never give the only weapon to a stranger—especially if he’s walking behind you.”
“You are carrying the shotgun,” I said, then showed him the photo of the python.
That settled the matter.
TWENTY-FOUR
There is no solid ground in a mangrove swamp, only a gauntlet of rubbery roots and muck. “Give me a minute before you start,” I said, and headed into trees with a shoulder pack and the same machete I’d used before.
Martinez understood. Even with the leather thong, the machete might slip out of my hand. Low branches were also a problem in dense cover. Follow too closely, they could slingshot back and put an eye out. A shotgun, fired accidentally, could do worse.
No one walks through mangroves. You climb, and straddle, and monkey-bar your way through. Twenty yards in was an elevated area comprised of big whelk shells and horse conchs, all bone-white with age. A thousand years ago or more, Florida’s first people had lived here. They’d feasted on the meat and shaped the shells into tools.
At my feet lay a whelk the size of a gourd. Four symmetrical holes had been drilled through the spire. Nearby were whelks with similar patterns. I’d seen many shell tools, but none like this. I knew it was wrong to disturb such an artifact, but I picked it up anyway. The holes didn’t serve any obvious practical purpose. Perhaps it had been used in religious ceremonies; a vessel to sprinkle incense, like a censer used by priests. If so, it might bring me luck.
Absurd, the hopes we cling to when afraid.
I made a place for the shell in my pack, and continued on.
“See any oranges?” Martinez called to me. While securing the boat, he had reasoned the tree must be near the water if we’d found a floating orange.
“It might take a while,” I hollered back. “You’ll understand when you clear the mangroves. There’s a shell mound here . . . really steep, from what I can see. You can come on now.”
Behind me, I heard the splash of a big man kicking water. Ahead, the pile of shells angled upward into a curtain of vines. I cut my way through. Every few steps, I slashed a trail marker on the landward side of a tree so I could find my way out.
“Mosquitoes,” Martinez grumbled. I couldn’t see him but guessed he wasn’t far behind. “Cold as it is, you’d think these bastards would give us a break.”
Without my bug jacket, insects were tormenting me, too. They hovered in a frenzy as if mammalian blood was a rarity here.
No doubt, it was.
Up a steep embankment, through a coil of catbriers, I saw the remnants of a game trail: an earthen indentation that tunneled through the brush. No tracks, no animal scat, no signs of recent use. The report I’d read about the Everglades came to mind. Pythons had killed ninety-nine percent of wildlife, from raccoons to white-tailed deer, in areas where they were “well-established.” This evoked more details. The snakes were ambush hunters that chose hiding places based on the habits of their favorite prey. On land, in water, or in the tree canopy.
I looked up (not for the first time) and saw a rare patch of winter sky. That’s how dense the trees were. No nesting birds, just a lazy pinwheel of vultures circling high above. I patted my bag to communicate with the ornate whelk. Hopefully, the birds had scented a monster python that lay dead on a distant part of the island.
This is insane, I thought. At the first sign of trouble, I’m out of here.
For a moment, I hoped an excuse was provided, when, somewhere downhill, I heard branches crack, then the stumbling crash of Martinez falling. “Hell’s blazes . . . Shit . . .”
“Are you hurt?”
“Damn mosquitoes; I’m sweating like a pig. Does it thin out up there?”
“Sabin, answer me. What happened?” It felt okay using the man’s first name. “I heard you fall.”
“Just tripped a little . . . Don’t worry . . .”
“If you’re hurt, just say so. It’s not going to spoil my day, if that’s what you’re thinking. Did you sprain something?”
“My ego . . . Is it as thick up there as it is here?” Before I could respond, his voice dropped in pitch. “Hey . . . you hear that?”
“What?”
“Probably nothing. Yeah . . . there it is again.”
Backcountry silence is a shrill subtext of cicadas and frogs and wind. Not here. Aside from hearing mosquitoes, my ears strained in a vacant abyss. I held my breath for as long as I could, but no results.
Martinez said, “My imagination, I guess. Thought I heard limbs breaking; something coming through the woods, but a long way off. Guess it could have been a boat . . . maybe a plane. You know how sound plays tricks.”
“From which direction?”
“Hang on, let me catch up. Wish to hell I’d’ve brought some water. You were right about these—ouch—these damn mangroves.”
I cut a walking stick and waited. When I got a glimpse of his red sweater, I continued up the mound, trying to avoid the game trail. On both sides, though, briars were so dense, I was forced to follow its course. Every few steps required effort. Ficus trees grow by dropping vertical limbs to expand their radiuses. The limbs were spaced like latticework and dominated the lower regions where gumbo-limbos towered. Again and again, I swung the machete, advanced a few yards, then swung again. The air was crisp but warming. I, too, began to sweat.
The mound leveled off. Ancient shells breached a carpet of loam so thick, it was spongy. Over every square foot of earth, plants or moss or saplings competed for sunlight. None flourished, but all reproduced in a relentless effort to prolong the struggle.
The game trail curved inland. Movement in the low branches caught my eye. I stopped. A patchwork of colors created a slow, gelatin spiral that rustled among the leaves. I approached cautiously. It was a snake, no longer than my arm. A checkerboard of buckskin yellow and brown told me it was a young python. I did a full turn, concerned something bigger was watching, then moved close enough that I could have prodded the snake with my walking stick but didn’t. Better to wait and confirm the creature had been affected by the cold snap.
It had. The python moved as if anesthetized onto a branch. The branch gave way and the snake thudded to the ground. I feared the impact would awaken the thing. Instead, it lay motionless for several seconds, then muscle contractions began to spiral its body into a slow coil.
I used the walking stick to poke it a few times. The python did not respond. It might have been dead.
After one swing of the machete, it was . . . or soon would be.
Whether fish, fowl, or reptile, I am reluctant to take a life. This was different. The animal I’d just killed was killing the Florida I love, choking the life out of her, one native species after another.
If not for my doubts about Martinez, I might have called him over, let him see that my confidence had ballooned after the encounter, which was true. If a small python was comatose because of the weather, a snake with a much larger body mass would be the same, or more so.
The game trail became a more comfortable path but no easier. It curved inland, where I stopped again. In the distance, a dusty column of yellow light suggested there was an opening to the sky. Suddenly, I craved air. Using the machete, I hacked my way toward it, so fixated I almost failed to notice what lay on the ground nearby.
An orange.
I made certain of what it was before hollering, “Found one!”
“You found the tree? That’s . . . Shit, I can’t keep up with you. Give me a minute. Geezus . . . these bugs.”
Downhill, to the right, the muted crackle of branches told me he had lost my trail. I yelled, “Follow my voice,” and said it again as I knelt to pick up the orange. Its skin was knobby, which was typical, and the fruit was firm. Juicy, too; deliciously sour when I split it open.
I looked up, scanned the canopy but saw only a cavern of leaves. My eyes moved toward the column of dusty light. It drew me like a magnet. The machete provided the means. When I was closer, I stopped and marveled: there, suspended in a high haze of green, clusters of oranges asserted their right to sunlight. They glowed above a darkened stage. More lay on the ground near the trunk of a massive fallen tree.
I laid the walking stick aside and began to gather the windfall while Martinez homed in on my voice. The area was so thick with ficus roots, logs, and walls of saplings, I dealt with the absurd problem of singling out the actual citrus tree.
Bizarre. Overhead, just out of reach, dozens of oranges, some ripe, some green, proved the tree existed. But which tree? Of the many dozens, bound root to root, none appeared sufficiently mature to bear fruit. Most of them, their trunks were no thicker than my wrist.
When Martinez appeared, I was standing on the giant log, moving from one sapling to another, giving each a shake. Sometimes fruit fell to the ground. Often, it did not. Because of my vantage point, peering up at the oranges, it was impossible to tell which branch was connected to what.
“I’ll be damned . . . you’re right again. Found the mother lode, by god.” His excitement was unexpected. He shifted the shotgun to his other arm while staring up. “I figured you imagined the whole thing as a girl, but, by god, here we are. Is that the tree you were looking for?”
“There must be more than one,” I said. “The tree I remember was full-grown. It was in a little clearing, and closer to the water. Lord knows, there’s not enough space here to turn around. Step back a little and see if you can tell which limbs move.” When he was ready, I chose a sapling and used my weight to rock the thing back and forth. No oranges broke free. The timber on which I stood was so wide, I used it as a walkway, and tried another young tree.
Three oranges fell . . . then a fourth.
“I think this might be it.”
Martinez murmured something I didn’t hear and backed away to get a broader view. “Try again, a different branch. I want to be sure before I say something stupid.”
It was an odd remark. I moved a few yards along the log and selected a thick one. A lone orange plopped on the ground. “It must be the other tree,” I said.
“Nope. You found it.”
“This one?”
“All of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“The orange tree. You’re standing on it,” he said, which was even odder given his tone of disbelief. “Those are branches you’ve been shaking. Some anyway. The others, I don’t know what kind of trees they are. Come over here and see for yourself.”
I jumped down and did. It took a while to reassemble an overview of what I’d mistaken as a fallen tree amid a forest of saplings. The trunk, massive and gray-splotched, was a living giant. It had won the battle for sunlight by growing parallel to the ground and shooting branches skyward. Each branch bore leaves healthy in appearance—although some were freckled with psyllids—and most were bowed by weight and the endless production of fruit.
“Amazing,” I said, “how nature finds ways to survive.”
“Nature, yeah,” Martinez replied, his energy suddenly improved. “What I see is my retirement. This could be worth a fortune. How many people know about what you’re doing?”
I stared too long. He sensed he’d slipped up. “Now what? Oh . . . you’re wondering how I know about the biotech patent. Larry told me. I admire your vigilance, but, come on, enough tests for one day. I would’ve said yes to this trip anyway. I proved that back there. But now that it actually seems to be panning out—”
“I have three partners,” I said agreeably. “It’s only fair you’re the fourth. You took the risk, invested the time. They’ll sign on, I’m sure. Oh, and a friend, a marine biologist, he came up with the idea. That makes six.”
The man appeared unfazed. “Who owns this property, or whatever it is—an island? The feds or the state, I suppose.”
“Mostly. A few are privately owned.”
“We need to check that out. All righty, then. For now, we’ve got the place all to ourselves. I bet there are smaller trees around somewhere, small enough to carry home, wrapped in towels or something. They might be worth a ton, if things work out.”
“There’s a procedure, when it comes to collecting samples and DNA,” I said. “It has to be followed.”
“The correct protocols, of course, I’ll leave that to you. Did you bring a shovel? We need to take what we can before word gets out.”
There was a trowel in my bag, and a folding shovel on the boat, which I told him about.
“We should’ve brought it. One of us will have to go back,” he said. “Hang on to this for a sec, would you?”
He handed the gun to me. I levered the breech open and confirmed both barrels were loaded, while he took off his gloves. When he stooped to retie his boots, his back was to me. By the time he was standing, I had snapped the barrels closed.
“Why don’t you carry the shotgun for a while?” he said. “That sun’s warming up fast.”
I said, “You take it. Don’t stray too far. I want to get pictures and video first.”
The man was limping a little when he walked off, the shotgun under his arm.
I snapped photos with my phone, and took more as I cut my way to a ridge where the tree had first taken root. Long ago, a storm had knocked it down, but the roots had survived by re-anchoring themselves in higher ground. They looped away in various directions, as clever as the tentacles of a octopus.
I paced the tree’s length—almost fifty feet tall, if stood upright. The trunk was so thick, I couldn’t get my arms around it. A dinosaur’s neck, I imagined. I also gathered samples of leaves and bark, as instructed by Roberta. If I’d had satellite reception, I would’ve called to share the good news.
Never had I seen a citrus tree so large, and gnarled and lichen-splotched with age. How long had it survived here on the island? A tree in Tasmania, planted in 1835, was still bearing oranges—or so I’d read. A hundred years? Two hundred? Possibly, older . . . much older. North of Orlando was a famous bald cypress tree that had sprouted before Christ was born, and lived until 2012, when a woman crack addict set it on fire. More than three thousand years the cypress tree had survived, only to die at the hands of someone like that.
I backed up as far as I could and shot video; a slow pan along the mossy trunk, then panning the high canopy, bushels and bushels of oranges, bright as Christmas lights up there in dusty sunlight.
The mother tree.
I was thinking that when I heard the distant, rhythmic crunch of something moving, then heard Martinez, from the opposite direction, calling, “We’ve got company. Come look.”
I drew the pistol, chambered a round, and adjusted the holster for easier access.
TWENTY-FIVE
Martinez, studying the game trail, said, “An animal of some type. Anywhere else, I would assume it was a bunch of pigs—a horse, maybe—if I even bothered to notice. What do you think?”
I had approached with caution until then. “Something’s coming our way. I heard it, too. From the south, I think, but it’s hard to be sure.”
He turned. “I didn’t hear anything. Not since that plane, or whatever it was. I found two little trees; maybe orange trees. You’re the expert.” With the shotgun, he pointed at the ground. “And this.”
It was animal scat, shaped like a football, but pillow-sized. I poked at it with my walking stick. Chunks of bone, hide, and scales were revealed; the skull of a very large snake . . . then the jaw and eye sockets of an alligator, medium-sized, but big enough for me to say, “It’s time to finish up and go. They’ve run out of food here. They’re eating themselves until something warm-blooded comes along.”
“Pythons,” he said, “I didn’t even know they pooped. You think it’s fresh?”
“There’re no flies on it. Maybe it was too cold for flies earlier.”
“Clever girl. Yes, get moving, but first I want to dig up a couple of trees. It won’t take long. Besides, I doubt if what you heard was—” He stopped when I held up a warning hand.
In the distance, muted by foliage, branches snapped, then snapped again after a long period of silence.
“Could be the wind,” he said. “It’s still chilly enough, reptiles wouldn’t be moving. Know what I hoped for? A big, flat rock, somewhere, and a bunch of snakes sunning themselves. That would make it easier, but there’s not a damn rock around for—”
Again, I motioned for quiet.
He listened a bit, then lowered his voice. “Yeah, just the wind. I don’t see your hurry. I mean, think about it. In a week, it’ll be like summer. Do you really want to come back another day and risk winding up like that?”
In a pile of animal scat, he meant.
It was true the wind was freshening; occasional balmy puffs from the southwest. I listened for noises a while before following him to a pair of saplings he’d found. They were scrub or water oaks, not citrus.
I thought for a moment, then said, “You know who would’ve been useful to bring along? Kermit. He knows as much as anybody about citrus.”
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