Dead in the Water

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “So if they aren’t hunting alligators, what are they hunting?”

  “People.”

  “What?”

  “They’re in the transportation business.”

  Sammy knew more than he was telling me, but I couldn’t get it out of him. He’d said all he wanted to. His suspicions about the Hardys, as unclear as they might be to me, fit with my assumption that the brothers were doing something illegal—and that included knowing about Winston’s work as a bag man.

  We tied up Sammy’s airboat and began our search. Nothing turned up in the Hardy’s boat. I didn’t expect it to, but I thought perhaps we might uncover at least a clue to where Winston’s other satchel went. We carefully scoured the area around the dock and up into the field we’d walked through that day, but turned up only a few lizards and one black snake. I was beginning to feel foolish. Frida and her team had to have covered the area days ago.

  The wind whipped around us and gained in intensity as we searched the grassy area. The gusts were so strong they took my breath away.

  “How do you feel about breaking and entering?” I asked.

  Sammy shrugged and walked toward the produce stand. He leaned hard against the back door, then shoved his entire body against it. The door banged inward.

  “Door’s open. How about that,” he said.

  It was clear the Hardy brothers hadn’t been here in several days. The smell of overripe strawberries, rotting peaches and onions past their prime was all-pervasive. In their glass cages, the baby alligators looked at us expectantly, as if hoping to be fed. I opened the top of the aquarium and looked around for their food.

  “What do alligators eat?”

  “Other alligators.” Sammy grinned at the look of shock on my face. “Fish, turtles, birds, sometimes people.”

  I snatched my hand back from the cage.

  A shadow fell over the tank.

  “These guys aren’t ready for a diet of sassy Yankee gal and Indian yet. But there are plenty of hungry big ones in the swamp.” Captain Hardy stood in the doorway with that revolver in his hand.

  Beside him stood Digby, sneering but unarmed. Despite his angry squirrel demeanor and short stature, I wasn’t going to underestimate him. He had stringy muscles, and being the smaller of the brothers might make him meaner.

  Revolver Hardy approached Sammy, who stood his ground. I expected Sammy to reach out to try and grab the gun, and I guess Hardy thought the same thing. He swung the weapon at Sammy’s head. Sammy groaned and fell to the floor, limp.

  “Tie her up and search both of them,” the bigger Hardy brother said.

  Digby grabbed a rope out of a storage closet and tied my hands behind my back; then he did the same to Sammy. He poked through our pockets and shook his head when he found nothing.

  “Now how we gonna get him to the boat? He’s dead weight,” Digby said.

  “You’re going to drag him.”

  “Me? Why not you? He’s a big one. I’ll handle the gal.”

  Hardy gave his smaller brother a look of contempt. “Do it.”

  Digby grabbed Sammy’s tied hands and began to pull.

  “Not that way, you stupid weasel. Pull him by his legs.”

  Big Hardy and I walked out of the building and headed down the path toward the water. Behind us the wind banged the door against the siding.

  “Damn Indian broke my door.” Hardy shooed me ahead of him. I considered running off the path and into the grass, but that would give me no cover, and I was certain he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me. And then do the same to Sammy. Or worse.

  He pushed me into the boat and onto the seat, then took his dirty handkerchief out of his back pocket and tied it over my eyes. The odor of Hardy coming from it made me want to retch. Imagining how he had used that handkerchief only made the nausea worse. A few minutes later I felt the boat sink with the weight of Digby and Sammy.

  “You sure took long enough. If this plan is going to work, we need to get out of here. Now. Storm’s coming on us. Fast.” Hardy started the engine, and we took off.

  The motion of the boat through the water, its slipping from side to side made my stomach churn even more. I was sure I’d throw up all over everything. For a moment that sounded like a good idea, and I wanted to laugh. Ha. He’d have to clean it up. Then I wondered if he’d do that before or after he killed us.

  I began counting off seconds by using the one-one hundredths, two-one hundredths approach. It took my mind off my queasiness and our fate.

  I lost count after ten minutes, aware that we had turned off the Rim Canal into smaller channels more protected from the wind. Good, I thought, then realized we’d never find our way out of this maze of smaller canals.

  The boat slowed, and I felt it touch land. A big hand pulled me out of my seat and tossed me onto the shore. I heard both men grunt and then felt something warm next to me. Sammy. The boat engine started up and soon its sound dissipated into silence as it left us. A bull alligator roared somewhere nearby, and the wind gathered in intensity.

  “Sammy? Are you conscious?” I rolled over toward him and placed my face on his shoulder. “Sammy. Wake up.”

  I had to get this blindfold off my eyes, but I couldn’t do that without help. A guy could die from getting slammed across the side of the head by a pistol, couldn’t he? I shoved my face nearer his, hoping to get close enough to feel him breathing. I turned a bit so my mouth was almost on his nose. Did I feel anything like warm breath?

  “If you’re trying to kiss me, we Indians like to do it mouth to mouth, not mouth to nose.”

  “You’re alive. Thank God.”

  “Takes more than a pistol whipping to do in this hard skull. Not that I don’t like this closeness, but I want you to roll onto your side and I’ll do the same.”

  “Spooning? Now?”

  “No. Our backs toward each other. I can untie you and then you can get me free. The spooning comes later.”

  After several minutes of struggling with the knots, Sammy freed my hands. I pulled off my blindfold and worked on his ropes. It took me more time to free him, but soon we were sitting side by side on the edge of a small canal. Overhead the wind whipped the trees around, toppling dead branches and palm fronds onto the ground. The water at our feet began to rise.

  “We need to move back before we get soaked. Watch the branches.” Sammy took my hand, and we started into the jungle-like growth behind us. I mentally kicked myself for leaving my purse in Sammy’s airboat. My cellphone was in it.

  I was lost. Only the sun told me what direction was west. Still, I was unafraid because Sammy knew these swamps. He was Miccosukee, after all.

  “Where are we, Sammy?”

  “I have no idea.”

  We were lost, hopelessly lost in the swamps.

  Chapter 9

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  He shook his head, then looked upward at the sky. “We need shelter before this storm comes in. I’m worried about hypothermia. I can always build us something to keep most of the rain off us, but not here. There’s an animal trail leading off there.” He pointed to a small break in the undergrowth. “We’ll follow that. It’ll lead us to higher ground.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “This is where they come to the water to drink, then go back up the path to higher ground into that hammock to bed down for the night.”

  “They who?” I thought of a herd of alligators trudging along the trail marked, “Water this way and also food.”

  “Deer. Let’s go.”

  “What are we looking for?” I was out of breath from keeping pace with Sammy. For once I’d worn fashionable footwear with lower heels, but his stride was much longer than mine on this rutty trail.

  “My people used to live in these swamps, you know.”

  “So what? You said yourself you’re lost.”

  “I said I didn’t know where we were. That’s different from being lost. You think being lost is hopeless. It’s not. This was o
nce our home.”

  “Your home, not mine. So now you’re going to call upon your ancestors to rescue us?” I almost believed he could do that.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “You said you could make a shelter for us. Out of what?”

  “Vines, palm fronds, small saplings.”

  “With your bare hands?”

  “No. I’d use this.” Sammy stopped for a moment, bent over and extracted the biggest, meanest looking knife out of his boot. Déjà vu Crocodile Dundee. He chuckled as he held it up for me to see. “They searched me, but not very well.”

  The blade of the knife glittered in the waning sunlight.

  “You sure you don’t have some matches, kindling, wood and a side of beef hidden on you?”

  “Nope. But look.” Sammy pointed ahead of us. The trail opened up into a clearing. A shack stood there. To me it looked like the Taj Mahal.

  “You think the people who live there will mind our dropping in?”

  “The place is deserted, Eve. Nobody’s been there for years. It’s all ours.”

  That sounded quite homey, especially as the first raindrops began to hit. He grabbed my hand, and we ran for the building.

  Only part of the roof was intact, and that’s where we sought shelter. Sammy searched the inside of the shack, found several pots and stuck them outside the sheltered area so that they would catch the falling rain.

  “We’ve got water now. In the morning, I’ll look for food.” Sammy sounded positively cheerful as I examined my ruined boots in the dim light.

  “I bought these at a consignment shop in Boca. Only twenty-nine ninety-five. I’ll never be able to replace them.” I stuck my finger through the split in the leather near my big toe.

  Sammy gave me a bemused look as if he couldn’t decide whether he found me irritating or simply too nutty to be taken seriously.

  For the rest of the afternoon, the rain drummed on the roof with a deafening roar, while the wind blew as if enraged. The wooden beams and supports shook with each blast. If the roof came down, we were sunk. I remembered what Sammy had said about hypothermia. He said spending the night wet even if it wasn’t that cold could bring it on. This wasn’t the way I’d imagined leaving this earth, shivering to death. I wasn’t ready for that. I had too many things yet to do: dispose of Winston’s money, save his stepdaughter from the Russians, buy Grandy a new rain slicker, find Madeleine a boyfriend who wasn’t afraid of a gal with coordination issues. If God was in a bargaining mood, I could argue my way out of this one by pointing out the many good deeds I had planned but not yet executed.

  Another powerful wind blast shook the rafters, loosening dirt and debris. It fell on our heads, followed by something heavier and … alive. A small mouse dropped onto my shoulder, jumped to the table next to me, then plunged to the floor and scooted away into the shadows. I managed to contain a shriek of panic.

  When I got my voice under control and spoke, I sounded calm and sane. “Will this shelter hold?”

  “It’s been through more storms than you can imagine.” Sammy reached over and gave my shoulder a reassuring pat.

  “How do you know that?”

  He opened his mouth as if to answer, then clamped his lips shut.

  “Sammy, you’re not being honest with me. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

  He hesitated a moment, then leaned towards me. “I don’t know for certain. There are a lot of shacks like this in the swamp. This one looks familiar. I think Grandfather might have brought me here when I was a kid. I can’t be sure, but even if I’ve been here before, it doesn’t mean I know the way out. Not after all these years.”

  “I was kind of hoping a map of the swamp was in your DNA.”

  “Don’t worry, Eve. I’ll take care of you.”

  But I was worried. Taking care of me might mean we’d set up housekeeping here and live off the land until someone chanced upon us. Some day. That possibility sounded no better than death. I didn’t know if I could survive a life where I’d never see a pair of Ferragamos again.

  I wiggled my toes in my ruined boots and sighed. “So what do we do then? Wait here until we die?”

  “We won’t die.”

  Maybe not, but as the sun began to go down and the wind seemed to shake the small shack until I was certain the rafters would collapse around our heads, my thoughts took a darker turn. I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

  “I never cry.” I gave that announcement some consideration. It was true I wasn’t a crier, but then I’d never been lost in a swamp while hurricane force winds threw walls of rain at me. To keep myself from becoming a blubbering idiot and succumbing to hysteria, I looked around the shack and thought about Sammy coming here with his grandfather when he was little. There it was, I thought. A way out.

  “Your grandfather brought you here? Then he knows how to get back. Does he come often? Would he look for you here? Would he? Would he?” I had grabbed Sammy shirt and was tugging at it like a toddler throwing a tantrum over ice cream. Okay, so I wasn’t in control.

  “For God’s sake, Eve. Let go. You’ll strip me naked.”

  Our eyes met at the same moment. Naked? In the middle of a storm? I had stepped off the edge of rational thought to be considering a tryst under these circumstances. The expression in his eyes told me the same thought had crossed his mind. He took my closed fist in his hand and held it with gentle pressure.

  We both spoke at the same moment. “Sorry.”

  After a few minutes, Sammy moved a small distance away from me and looked into my eyes. “Grandfather almost never goes into the swamp anymore. He won’t be coming here to find us. I’m sorry, Eve, but we’ll make the best of this. I think the wind is dying down now, and soon it will blow itself out. When it does, we’ll get some sleep.”

  Sleep? Here? In a swamp? “Don’t you think we should take turns staying awake? Someone needs to guard the place.”

  I couldn’t see Sammy’s face, but his voice with its attendant snicker of laughter said he thought my idea absurd. “Guard it from what exactly?”

  “Uh, bugs and stuff. Alligators, maybe?”

  He sighed, and I felt him move closer to me. “You can go first then. Keep the gators out of here while I get some shut eye.”

  “Now you’re just playing with me.”

  “Go to sleep, Eve. You’re going to need rest to get through tomorrow.”

  “What are we going to do in the morning?”

  “Find something to eat.”

  “Like what?”

  “A Big Mac.”

  He was playing with me. Soon I heard his breathing slow and soft snores erupt from his mouth. The wind continued to moan overhead, punctuated by other sounds—a screeching of some swamp bird, followed by croaks, roars, then a crack, as if some large beast had slapped its tail on the water. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep.

  “Wake up. I thought you were supposed to be on watch.” A hand shook me into a state of consciousness.

  The sun hit me in the face and a bug landed on my forehead. I swatted it away.

  “It was too dark last night for there to be anything to watch.” I tried to move into a sitting position, but my limbs felt weighted down and achy.

  I watched Sammy step outside our ramshackle refuge. He stretched his long body and groaned, then bent over and picked up the pot he had wedged between the porch boards. I managed to get up and join him.

  “Have a drink. It’s not morning coffee, but it’s clean and fresh.” He handed me the pot and I took a sip. It was the sweetest water I’d ever drunk. I wondered why they didn’t sell it in the stores. Someone could make a fortune off this.

  The world outside the deserted cabin sparkled in the morning light, raindrops on the leaves catching the sun and reflecting a rainbow of colors.

  “It’s beautiful.” I handed the water back to him.

  “Few people see the swamps like this. It is beauti
ful. I’m glad you think so too.”

  Sammy took a long drink and placed the container back in the cabin.

  “Now what?”

  “I’m going to climb that tree.” Sammy pointed to a palm that rose above the other scrubbier trees around the cabin.

  “Right. You did promise me food last night. Coconuts?”

  “This is not a coconut palm.” He began to inch up the trunk.

  “So get down from there. This is no time to be showing off.”

  He continued up and once at the top, he moved the fronds to one side with his body and leaned there.

  “What the hell are you doing?” My stomach grumbled. Maybe he was getting us some palm fronds to eat. I’d never heard of that but who knew what one ate in the swamps. Folks around here talked about swamp cabbage, something I wasn’t familiar with. Maybe that was it. My stomach rumbled again.

  Sammy dropped to the ground beside me. “Let’s go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  Without another word, he grabbed my hand, and we set off for the unknown, heading away from the waterway the Hardys had used to bring us here.

  “You’re going the wrong way.” I tugged on his shirt sleeve to slow him down.

  He turned to me with laughter on his face. “Oh, so now you’re the swamp explorer? Which direction did you want to go? We can separate and see who gets home first. How about that?”

  “But we came in here there.” I pointed back toward the cabin and beyond.

  “And this is the way the black smoke is coming from.”

  “What smoke?”

  “Don’t you smell it?”

  I stopped and sniffed. I did smell it. Something was burning. “You saw that when you were up the tree.”

  “Yep. Let’s go.” We set off again, following our noses and the clouds of smoke now billowing in the sky ahead of us.

  Several hours passed. Keeping the burn ahead of us made charting our path through the swamp slow going. We trudged through small ponds and channels of water, but skirted others that were deeper, the ones Sammy said were likely gator holes. I shuddered at the thought of encountering a hungry or angry reptile. We crawled over downed logs green with moss. Sometimes we got lucky and found a game trail to use, but then it would meander in the wrong direction, and we were back to bushwhacking through the undergrowth. The day grew hotter. For water, we licked the droplets of rain off broad-leaved plants.