That was when either fate or senility stepped in. For one split second I let my mind slide from what I was doing, and I switched the camera's flash to ON!
Click . . . the whole world lit up like high noon! The good Senator and Snydely looked stunned.
"Lets boogie," Willey yelled and took off toward the Wrangler, his left hand had a death grip on Oscar's hand. Oscar chirped, "Ee, ee, ee," in complaint. I was right behind them. As we jumped into the Wrangler, we could hear the Lincoln starting up. By the time we hit the street the Lincoln's lights were behind us. I could see Buckland in my rear view mirror--he looked like he was having a fit.
They rammed into the Wrangler's rear bumper and sent us into a skid, but I was able to recover, though the Wrangler rocked like a carnival ride. I cut through a corner gas station, but the Lincoln stayed right behind us. My Wrangler couldn't outrun them. I pulled the handle back and put the Wrangler into four wheel drive.
"This is our only chance," I yelled at Willey.
"Then do it,'' Willey yelled back. I swung the wheel hard to the right, just as a bullet ripped through the soft top. Oscar dived for the floor. We drove into the wild brush and ripped through shrubbery. The Wrangler bounced violently. We hadn't had time to fasten our seatbelts. I had the steering wheel to hold onto but Willey was bouncing like a jack-in-the-box. He bounced so high his head hit the metal crossbar, and he fell back into his seat, unconscious. The Lincoln was no longer behind us, so I stopped and turned the lights off. The darkness covered us.
"Willey, are you okay," no answer. "Willey!" I shook his shoulder--nothing. I took my gun out of my pocket and opened my door. I stepped out into the brush with my gun in hand. No sign of the Lincoln. It must have gotten hung up on the brush--too low to the ground. I went around to Willey's side and opened the door. Willey almost fell out. I pushed him back inside. He was still unconscious. "Willey, wake up!" I shook him again. He started to come around.
Finally, his eyes opened. "What happened?" he asked.
"You hit your head on the crossbar and got knocked out. For a while I thought you were dead."
He was still groggy. "My head hurts." He gently patted the top of his head.
"What happened to Snydely and Buckland," he asked.
"I think they're back there in the bushes." I fastened Willey's seatbelt and ran around and jumped in behind the wheel. "We have to get out of here," I said. "They might come after us on foot." I started the engine, fastened my own seatbelt, and we lurched off into the brush again. I looked in the rear view mirror. There were no headlights behind us.
We hadn't gone far when Willey yelled, "Look out!" Out of the darkness a
Palmetto tree loomed ahead of us. I swung the wheel just in time to miss it.
"Didn't you see that tree?" Willey asked.
"No," I said. "My eyesight must be getting worse."
"There's head lights moving over there," Willey pointed. "It must be a road." I turned in that direction, and got hung up on a stump. I turned the lights off again and turned off the engine. We listened to the silence. I was hoping to hear a siren. Don't people report gun shots anymore?
"Why in hell did you use the flash back at the restaurant?" Willey asked.
"It was just a slip," I said. "A knee jerk reaction."
"You got the jerk part right," he said, rubbing his head. "Where's Oscar? Oscar, where are you?" Willey yelled. Oscar popped his head up from the back seat and gave us a look that told us he wasn't happy with the way the night was progressing.
I handed my gun to Willey and started the engine. "Hold onto that," I said.
"Where'd you get this?"
"I bought it at Sammy's Rod and Gun. It's loaded so be careful with it, but use it if we need to." I rocked the Wrangler off the stump and we headed for the road. When we reached the road we held back in the bushes. I turned the lights off again and we crept towards the pavement. We sat there and looked around.
"What do you think, Barney? Are they out there waiting for us to show ourselves?"
"I guess we'll have to make a run for it," I Said. I took the Wrangler out of four wheel drive, turned the lights back on and we ran for the road. We raced up the road as fast as the little Wrangler would go.
As we approached an on ramp, Willey said, "Take that ramp, Barney, and get up on the highway." We raced up the ramp. There were no headlights behind us. We drove for a mile, and took the next exit. We turned into a Burger King Parking lot and went as far back in the lot as we could. I turned off the lights and the engine, and we breathed a sigh of relief.
We got out and looked at the bullet holes. The bullet had come through the canvas on the driver's side and exited on the passenger side.
"If we hadn't turned just when we did, that bullet would have come through the back window, and could have killed one of us," I said. "These guys are dangerous."
"What now?" Willey asked. "We can't go back to the park. They'll be waiting for us there. They know who we are and where we live."
I said, "Maybe we should call the police."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Barney. Then we'd have to tell them about the nursing home and Eduardo."
I thought about the old man in the trash compactor. "I guess you're right."
"Besides," Willey said, "I forgot to tell you, Eduardo said if we got caught he'd have to say he didn't know us."
"What! You forgot to tell me something as important as that?"
Willey said, "Well, I was afraid if you knew you'd chicken out."
"Damn right I would. That makes us common criminals." No wonder our checks from Eduardo were made out to "Bearer." I had counted on Eduardo to protect us. Now we were on our own. My head was spinning. Where could we go? We couldn't even move to an empty unit in the park. It would be too dangerous now. And now we didn't have Eduardo to back us up.
"Do you have any idea where we can live now?" I asked Willey.
Willey thought for a while. "How about the Green Swamp? Nobody would look for us there."
"How can we live in a swamp that's full of snakes and alligators and bugs?"
"I used to do it when I was a kid," Willey said. "There's a few screened in chickees they built for campers. They're up off the ground so you don't get snakes and gators and stuff coming in. And we'd just get a couple of cans of bug spray so the bugs won't bother us."
"Okay," I said, giving up. "let's go get what we need so we can get set up and get some sleep tonight." It was going to be a long night.
Thanks to Eduardo we had enough money to buy what we needed. We stopped at a mall to pick up what equipment we needed to camp out. Oscar was alone in the Wrangler, so we were rushing. Willey came down the aisle carrying a large box. On the front of the box was printed, "Inflatable Rubber Raft."
"Why do we need a raft?"I asked.
"Because the only way to get across the swamp is by water. Go get some bug spray and I'll get some sleeping bags."
We made another stop for food and water, then we headed for what Willey called, "The Jane Green swamp."
As we drove, Willey told me some of the swamp's history. "It was always called The Green Swamp, but in the early fifties a woman named Jane Richardson sort of became the swamp's conservator. Then it became the Jane Green swamp.
But then there's a juicier story about a group of folks who went into the swamp on a day's outing, probably nature lovers. The story goes that a young lady named, Jane wandered off by herself, must have gone off to pee. Anyway, after a while they heard her scream. They ran in the direction of the screams but before they could find her, the screaming stopped. They looked and looked, but they didn't find her. They thought she got grabbed by a gator."
The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, but Willey wasn't finished yet. "You know how gators kill their prey, don't you. They drag it into the water and start spinning around and around until it drowns . . . pull in there," Willey said, pointing to an opening in the brush on the side of the road. I missed the turn and nearly went o
ff the road. I turned around and drove through the opening toward the swamp on an overgrown path. I didn't want to go into that swamp, but I had no choice. If we stayed in a motel there was a chance Flaherty's hoods would find us.
We drove down a narrow trail that led deep into the bush. The trail ended at a clearing at the edge of the water. We got out and sprayed ourselves with bug spray. Oscar would have none of it. Then we started to unpack the Wrangler. Willey opened the box and pulled out the rolled up rubber raft. He unscrewed the tops of the containers for the compressed air cylinders, put a cylinder into each, and screwed the caps back on. "Here goes," he said and pulled the cords on the containers. The raft began to hiss like a hundred snakes.
It hissed and flopped around like a living thing. Oscar hid behind the Wrangler. When it finally stopped gyrating, there on the ground was an inflated, full sized rubber raft. I pulled the Wrangler into the brush in an attempt to hide it. Then we slid the raft into the water and started loading our supplies into it. We put Oscar up front and Willey and I climbed into the back. We picked up our paddles and shoved off into the darkness. I didn't like abandoning the Wrangler, but we had no choice.
"Are there still alligators in this swamp?" I asked.
"Of course there's still alligators," Willey said.
"Are there still snakes?" Of course there's still snakes. It's a swamp."
I held my hand out, "Give me my gun." Willey handed it over. I had the feeling he would rather have kept it. I, on the other hand, felt more secure about traveling through a life-- threatening swamp in the dark of night, now that I was armed and dangerous. We moved slowly over the black water. The air smelled of rotting vegetation. As we glided under the overhanging limbs of bushes, I kept expecting a snake to drop down my neck. I could barely see the tall grass and bushes that lined the edges of the waterway.
The deep silence was broken only by the swish of our paddles, the muffled sound of wildlife moving through the underbrush, and the croaking of frogs. Once in a while we heard something plop into the water. I didn't want to think about what caused that sound. Oscar was entranced with the sounds and the smell of the night swamp. The sounds were reaching into the ancient part of his tiny brain where his survival instincts were stored. I realized Oscar was in his natural element, and we were out of ours. There was a clear night sky overhead, and we traveled by faint moonlight. We followed the water trail that snaked through the swamp like a giant serpent.
The bug spray was doing its job. I could hear the mosquitoes buzzing around me, but they weren't biting. I couldn't help but wonder what the Indians and the early settlers would have given for a can of bug spray.
I noticed that the raft was turning to the left.
"Willey, are you still paddling?" Silence. "Willey what are you doing?" In the darkness I could see Willey slumped over, not moving. "Willey are you okay?"
Oscar seemed to know there was something wrong. He started chirping, "Ee, ee, ee." I put my paddle down and was leaning over to shake Willey, when he seemed to come to life again. "Willey, are you okay?"
"I think so," Willey said. "I must have passed out for a minute."
"Let's turn the raft around," I said. "You're going to a hospital to be checked out. You hit your head pretty hard. You might have a concussion."
"You think so?"
"We can't take any chances with you passing out like that." We turned the raft around and started paddling back.
"You know, Barney," Willey said. "It was the strangest thing. "I dreamed we were coming back through the swamp, like we're doing now, but we were in the Wrangler and we were going backwards as fast as we could. Because three large alligators were chasing us and biting at the wheels. But the worst part was, Snydely was sitting on the hood of the Wrangler with a gun. When he pointed the gun at you and pulled the trigger, I woke up."
"Are you sure he pointed the gun at me and not at you?" I asked.
"I'm positive. Because I wasn't really there. I wasn't myself in the dream. I was somebody else."
"Right, keep paddling." I had to get him to a hospital before he started thinking he was Eleanor Roosevelt. After a half-hour of paddling we came around a bend and Willey said, "There's the Wrangler." Just then the Wrangler appeared out of the darkness. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight. We turned into shore and pulled the raft out of the water.
"Just leave it there," I said. "We'll be back in a few hours." We all climbed into the Wrangler and Willey gave directions to the nearest hospital. Willey was unusually quiet. I hoped he wasn't going to pass out again.
Twenty minutes later we were walking into an emergency room. We had to leave Oscar in the Wrangler. The emergency room was crowded. It looked like the losers from every bar fight in Florida were there. Willey showed his Medicare card and filled out some forms.
A nurse came over to Willey and shined a flashlight into his eyes. "You don't seem to have a concussion, Mister Pulaski, but the doctor will see you as soon as he can. Please take a seat."
Three hours later I had checked on Oscar three times and had picked up a few words of Spanish, but we still hadn't seen the doctor. Willey was still being quiet. That worried me. Willey was never quiet for long.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"I'm okay. I just want to get out of here so I can get some sleep." An hour later Willey got to see the doctor. He checked Willey out and told him to take it easy for a couple of days and he'd be fine. We got back into the Wrangler and headed back to the swamp. Oscar was asleep in the back seat. It was the middle of the night when we returned to the swamp. We started paddling our way towards the chickee. I hoped the chickee was still there, it had been years Willey last saw it. I didn't want to sleep on the ground. We were bone tired. Oscar was sound asleep in the front of the raft.
It was a small chickee with a thatched roof, about ten feet by twelve feet. The Indians had lived in chickees similar to the one we were gliding towards. It was sitting on one of the few areas of ground that was a couple of feet above the surface of the water. It must have been what they call a hammock. There were a dozen or so trees on it. They would give us some protection from the sun come midday. The chickee floor was raised the traditional couple of feet above the ground, but that's where the similarities ended. It was built of wood and the walls were screened in from a few feet above the floor, with a screen door in the front.
The bug spray was still doing its job. The Seminoles didn't have any protection from the mosquitoes except the smudge fires they lit up-wind. They would throw green leaves onto the fire and the smoke would drift their way. I guess they hadn't been warned about the dangers of second hand smoke. We beached the raft and tied it off, then we went to look inside our new home. It was empty except for a few empty beer cans.
"It's just like I remembered it," Willey said. "Only smaller." Twenty minutes later we were all moved in. We had three sleeping bags on the floor, one for Oscar. We even had three collapsible lawn chairs and some plastic crates to use as tables. We couldn't use oil lamps for fear the light could be seen at a distance. Instead, we got around by using pen lights. We had canned and packaged food we could eat cold, and gallons of drinking water. Finally, we climbed into our sleeping bags.
I lay there listening to the swamp sounds. I couldn't sleep, adrenaline was keeping me wired. I wondered if saving my house was worth getting this involved with criminals, and putting myself into so much danger. The money was tempting of course, but was the money worth being on the run, being chased by murderers who wanted to kill us?
I said, "Hey, Willey, are you awake?"
Willey was half asleep, "I am now," he groused.
"I've been thinking."
"Did it hurt?"
"I'm thinking maybe we aren't cut out for this spy business. Everything we do turns out wrong."
"We did okay at the nursing home," he said.
"Well, ah, yeah, that was alright," I lied. "But tonight didn't work out at all. What do you think?"
"I thin
k if you'd shut your pie hole I could get some sleep." So much for Willey's opinion.
Around 5:am Willey woke me up. "Barney, somebody's outside. I can hear them moving around out there."
"Out where?'
"Out in back."
"Do you think it's Flaherty's people?"
"I don't know," Willey said. "But I'm not going to stay here and wait for them to come to get me." It was still dark. I grabbed my gun. Willey woke Oscar up and took his hand. We crawled on our hands and knees to the door and stuck our heads up to see if anybody was out there--no one in sight. I slowly open the screen door and we crawled out. Once we were down the stairs we trotted, crouched over, into the dense brush. It didn't take me long to realized we should have taken the bug spray. We squatted there in the bushes, looking around. Nothing was moving.
Maybe they were waiting until morning before they ambushed us. The sky was overcast now, and the swamp was steaming. Then it started to rain. I looked around for someplace to hide. There was a pine tree off to our left. I nudged Willey and pointed. We ran to the tree and crawled under. There was a dry blanket of pine needles on the ground and the mosquitoes weren't as bad there. Oscar laid down on the pine needles and went to sleep. Willey and I sat there and listened. Once in a while we could hear somebody moving around in the brush, and then, nothing. We heard the screen door on the chickee slam shut . . . then it slammed shut again. There were two of them and they weren't afraid to make noise.
Soon we could hear our things being moved around. They were looking for the film I took at Ransoms. For a half-hour hour they knocked around looking for that film. They could look all they wanted--the film was in my pocket. Finally, Willey laid down on the pine needles, I stretched out too. No need to sit up all night.
When I woke up the sun was shining. The rain had stopped and the swamp was hazy. I nudged Willey awake. We sat and listened. They were still at it. "These guys never give up," I said. I crawled out from under the tree and peered through the bushes at the chickee. I couldn't see anybody, but our things were still being moved around. Were they on their hands and knees?
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