by Shelley Katz
Lee nestled the frying pan on the teepee of logs. He could feel Sam's questioning eyes on him, and he tried to avoid them.
Sam knew Lee was avoiding him, but he stuck by nonetheless. It wasn't just idle curiosity that held Sam; he was worried. He sensed the tension between the men on the Saurian. He had seen the sharp looks and had heard the angry barbs. He knew too much about Lee's background to discount them.
Sam had a special feeling for Lee. Ever since the day Lee returned home from Viet Nam, wounded and angry, Sam had been able to see down through the arrogance and into the fear.
"Yes, sir," Sam said, drawing closer to Lee, "I can smell trouble coming off those men. Especially after this morning. Did you notice John's face when Rye got out of the water? He'd got the better of Rye, and they both knew it."
"What do you mean?" asked Lee, though he already knew the answer.
"Rye ran from the alligator. He knew it, and John knew it."
"You ask me, that was the smart thing to do."
"Sure it was. It wasn't just the smart thing to do—it was the only thing to do. But not to them. Haven't you asked yourself why the hell he went in there in the first place?"
"It ain't none of my business."
"Isn't it?" Sam touched Lee's arm, hoping to make contact with him. Lee looked up at Sam, met his inquiring eyes for a moment, then turned back to the fire. He threw another can of pork and beans into the hot frying pan. It hissed and popped violently in the sizzling lard. Sam shook his head and walked away; he knew he couldn't push Lee any further.
The rich, pungent cooking odors were so intense, John could smell them even out on the water, where he was fishing. He looked back at the long string of campfires on shore and wished Lee would hurry up. He was getting hungry.
John reeled in and cast toward a log. Flicking his wrists, he worked the popper back to him, rhythmically and skillfully, jerking it, then allowing it to ride the water again.
His rod was something of a wonder. It was a Hardy Brothers he had picked up in London, and was so light and responsive that he could feel everything through it. The slightest ripple in the water, the first tentative nibble of a fish, would run all the way along the shaft up to his fingers and into his arm.
He and Rye had avoided each other since the alligator den. He could see Rye on shore, talking to Maurice, probably cooking up a plot against him. It didn't even bother him. They could plot all they liked; it wouldn't change things. He had gotten Rye, and they both knew it. That was only the beginning of it, too. Once a man ran scared, he didn't stop.
There had been a time when he had loved Rye, but that time seemed very far away to John now.
When Rye had hired John away from one of his competitors, John knew he had made it. Rye's wasn't the largest development company at that time, but it was the fastest-growing one, and everyone in Miami knew that Rye was the foxiest ball-buster in the South.
The first five years there wasn't a day that went by when he didn't see Rye; he never even took a vacation. He'd loved it. He and Rye and sometimes Maurice would work twelve hours a day. Rye was a dynamo. He built more pyramids in just one year than there were in all of Egypt. He'd come out with a pile of money; then he'd roll it all on a piece of swamp, and he always won. During those years, John had worshipped Rye; he'd practically believed he was invincible. Then one day he saw Rye's weakness. He caught him like'a kid at the jam pot, his eyes all big and scared. It had rankled John ever since; in a way, he felt Rye had betrayed him.
John pulled in his line and cast farther out, thinking about that night over five years ago when he had first really seen through Rye Whitman.
Rye and John had worked hard all that day and long into the night, and hadn't even been able to think about eating until long past ten o'clock. Neither of them felt like going home; they were still all worked up, and tense as bow strings. Rye suggested going to his country club for dinner. It was fifteen miles out, but the ride would do them good.
Rye had opened a bottle on the way. He sucked at it in that way he had, driving with one eye on the road and one hand on the wheel. John had felt good and boozy and as if all the other people on the road knew that he and Rye Whitman were friends.
The country-club dining room was already closed when they got there, but Rye made them open it up and cook especially for them. They ate conch chowder with big pieces of saltback and potatoes floating in it, and T-bones the size of dinner plates. There were big platters of deviled crab and corn pudding, biscuits so hot they burned your fingers, topped off with huge spoonfuls of tart guava jelly. After that, there were wedges of shimmering Key lime pie, rich bitter coffee, Havanas that smelled yeasty, and snifters of Remy Martin.
John had noticed the girl when they first came in. She was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, watching as the help cleaned up for the night. She must have been waiting for someone. She wore cutoff bluejeans that made her incredibly long legs look even longer, and a white T-shirt that gathered ever so slightly around her tiny breasts. Her long sun-streaked hair hung below her waist and covered most of her face. That was why it was such a surprise when she threw back her head and laughed, and he saw her puffy red mouth and cheeks that looked as though they had been slapped. She couldn't have been more than twelve. As he felt himself grow hard, he laughed at himself. She wasn't much older than his daughter.
She was waiting for them in the parking lot, leaning against Rye's car, aimlessly kicking at one of the tires with the back of her foot.
"It's awfully late for you to be out, isn't it?" John realized how predictable a remark that was, and felt embarrassed.
"You're from Miami," she said. "I've been to Miami. Once. I liked it a lot. I stayed in one of those big hotels by the ocean." She had a chatty, grown-up way of speaking that was slightly ridiculous and very sexy. John found it unnerving.
"That was Miami Beach," John said, and gestured for her to move away from the car.
"Big deal." She kicked at the tire angrily.
"Hey, stop that!" Rye yelled.
The little girl looked up at John and Rye and smiled. The smile was pure whore.
Rye went first, and John walked off into the woods to give them some privacy. Every once in a while, he glanced back at the car. For a while, he saw the outline of their heads in the back seat; then they disappeared. It was turning out to be a hell of an evening, he thought as he finished up his cigar and sprinkled it over the eighteenth hole.
The scream was terrifying, almost like the shriek of an animal. John ran toward the car, more afraid of what he'd find there than of any danger he might be in. He was almost up to the car when he realized that what he had heard wasn't a scream at all. It was a laugh. He heard her say, "Send me a wire when you get it up."
John saw Rye through the steamed-up window. He would never forget the look on Rye's face, or the fact that he was crying. John ran back into the woods before Rye saw him and came out a few minutes later as if nothing had happened.
John went next, only because he couldn't think of a way to get out of it, but it had been mechanical. He couldn't get that picture of Rye out of his head; he still couldn't. Even today, the memory filled him with disgust.
Neither Rye nor John said much during lunch, and Lee never talked anyway, so Maurice filled the gap with nervous chatter. Maurice knew Rye was thinking about what had happened that morning; he was brooding on it. It would be a private pain; Rye would never speak of the incident to anybody.
It wasn't until John had finished his lunch and joined the men at the next campfire for a game of cards that Rye relaxed. He shoved a huge glob of pork and beans into his mouth and chewed it hungrily. Then he turned to Lee and asked, "When do you think the gator'll be back?"
"Never," Lee answered.
"What do you mean, never?"
Maurice could see that Rye was becoming upset, and he figured that Lee knew it too. Lee didn't answer. He put a forkful of food in his mouth and chewed slowly, obviously enjoying making Rye wait.
/> It was a full minute before Lee turned to Rye and said, "He knows we're waitin' for him. He ain't gonna come back here. Anyway, not for a long time."
"You're talking like that gator can think."
"He does," answered Lee.
"Horseshit!" Rye chewed for a moment, then swallowed his pride with the pork and beans. "You really figure he won't be back?"
"That's right." It was clear that Lee wasn't going to give Rye any information unless he begged for it. Rye could tell it, too. He winked at Maurice to make light of it.
"That certainly makes things more difficult," he said. Lee didn't even bother to hide his anger. He turned to Rye and snapped, "You should have thought of that before you went down there after him."
"What's done is done," said Maurice, anxious to make peace. "The problem is, what do we do now?"
"We follow his tracks, if we can," Lee answered. He shot another angry look over at Rye, but Rye pretended not to notice.
"What do we do if we can't follow him?" asked Maurice. He felt trapped in the middle.
Lee shrugged. "Let's just hope that we can. Otherwise, we'll have to give up."
Rye flared up. "We aren't gonna do that, though, are we, Boone? The gator has to be somewhere around."
"Sure he is," said Lee; he was playing Rye like a fish. "All we gotta do is search thirty-six million acres to find him."
"The gator ain't gonna go just any place," said Rye. "He'll go to a place he knows, maybe some secret spot from his childhood."
"Probably. But since he hasn't left us no diary, we won't know where that spot is. No, we better hope he leaves a trail—" Lee broke off. Something had been bothering him ever since the morning, something that didn't hold together, or at least the way it did was close to impossible. Lee didn't even want to mention it; he knew Rye and his lackey Maurice would only laugh. Yet if it was true, he didn't have the right not to tell them. Well, let them laugh, he decided. If he was right, they wouldn't be laughing for long.
"There's one other possibility I haven't mentioned," Lee said finally. "He may want us to find him."
Rye let out a huge horse laugh, and Maurice could see Rye expected him to join in. Maurice didn't feel like laughing, though. He was aware that he was a coward. Sometimes even simple things, like making a phone call, scared him. He had tried to fight it most of his life, but he knew he would always be like that. Lee wasn't a coward, though, and the fact that he looked concerned worried Maurice doubly.
Finally Maurice said softly, "I think we should hear what he has to say, Rye." He didn't look at Rye when he said it: What he'd said constituted a rebellion, and he knew Rye would take it as such.
Lee looked down the shoreline. The men were putting out campfires and washing lunch dishes, getting ready to go out for the afternoon. He had to have his say. Maybe he could stop them.
Lee turned back to Rye and Maurice. "Something struck me as peculiar this morning, but I didn't really put it together till now. A gator's hearing is good, better than most other animals."
"So?" said Rye impatiently.
"So, he must have been able to hear you splashin' around there. You made enough noise. Why didn't he just leave when he heard you comin'? He could have slipped away without any of us seeing him."
"Boone, you're amazing." Rye's voice was full of ridicule. "Are you tryin' to tell me that gator wanted us to see him?"
"I don't know," answered Lee.
It was the first time Maurice had ever heard Lee express any doubt about his own opinion. It made Maurice believe him even more. "Let's say you're right," he said to Lee. "What do you suggest we do?"
"I think we should turn back now, before we get into trouble. You saw what happened this morning. The gator is a wounded animal, and, like all wounded animals, he's dangerous. Add in his size and you've got real trouble. Except me and maybe Simon, no one knows anything about gettin' along in the swamps. It's close to suicide to go any deeper."
"I ain't worried. I got you to protect me." Rye got up and brushed off the seat of his pants. So far as he was concerned, the discussion was finished.
Lee didn't stand up. "And what about the others?"
"I ain't stoppin' them from goin' back."
"But they won't unless you do," said Lee.
"I can't do nothin' about that!" Rye turned to Maurice. "Come on, let's get going."
"Can't, or won't, Mr. Whitman?"
Lee's voice was molten. Maurice felt captured between the two men and their incredible wills.
"Listen here, boy," Rye said icily. "I hired you to go gator huntin', not give me advice. You hear me? So get the damn boat ready and let's get out of here."
"Not till I tell the others what I think." Lee stood up and began walking toward the men on the shoreline.
Rye let him get halfway there; then he yelled after him, "You can tell them what you want. They'll just think you're as big a fool as I do!"
Lee continued to walk toward Thompson and Marris, but he knew Rye was right. Warning the men was an obligation. He didn't expect anyone would listen.
Incandescent afternoon was spread out before the boats like the land itself. Around noon the cypress-shaded sloughs began to widen. Trees became smaller and more like scrub brush. The patches of shadow they cast across the water brought little comfort. Finally the scrub, too, disappeared, and all that was left was a vast expanse of grassy water, without contour, without relief, spreading relentlessly outward to the horizon.
The unshaded sun beat down white hot on the water, glazing it silver. Ben had said he was beginning to feel like a baked potato in Reynolds Wrap.
There had been no sign of the alligator since they had found his den. The men continued on in the direction they'd been going, more on blind faith than by any kind of plan.
The boats were no longer bunched together. Now that the men were using poles, differences in their strength were beginning to show, and several times the party had to stop to wait for stragglers to catch up.
At first many of the men had tried to find relief by stopping to take a swim, but the water, too, was hot. Ben, Marris and Thompson splashed around for a while until they realized they felt worse than before.
Albert Johnston hadn't even gone in. He didn't like to admit it, but he was scared that the alligator might be around. Everyone had laughed at Lee when he warned them to go back. Orville Levi said he sounded like crazy Luke when they left. Albert knew nothing about swamps and alligators; all he knew was his bar. If it had been up to him, he would have turned back. He wondered if anyone else felt the same as he did. If they did, they were doing a good job of hiding it.
Ace kept pretending to himself that he felt bad because of his sunburn, though it hardly accounted for the fact that he'd been thinking about his brother, Dinks, all day. Before he went out, he hadn't thought all that much about him. Dinks's death had seemed unreal. Even when he saw what was left of his body, Ace hadn't been able to associate that with his brother. But all day he had been thinking about him. Once he even thought he saw him floating in the water, among the weeds. Maybe it was because of what Lee said. D. W. figured Lee was just trying to scare the men so he could get the alligator for himself. Ace wasn't so sure of that, but he had agreed because he was ashamed not to.
At three thirty, the Saurian was a quarter of a mile ahead of the other boats. Lee dropped anchor, grateful for the chance to rest while John and Rye went in for a swim.
Maurice remained on deck. He tried to shield himself from the sun with an old newspaper, but the searing rays spilled over the sides. His shirt and pants were wet with sweat, and they stuck to him with a vengeance. Insects circled around his head in thick clouds, attracted by the damp man smell.
Even worse than the heat was the under-current of hatred on board the Saurian. The tension between the men was so great, Maurice felt as if they were balanced on the edge of a cliff and the slightest breeze would send them all over the edge.
Maurice squinted out at the mirror water, but the refl
ected light burned into his retinas and made his eyes tear. He squeezed them shut, trying to block the light, the heat, the dampness from his consciousness, but the air was so thick and heavy with moisture that every breath he took was like drinking hot water.
"From now on, it's all like this," said Lee.
When Maurice opened his eyes, he found Lee standing over him. He detected a superior, mocking smirk on Lee's face, and regretted that he had stood up for him against Rye. "I'll get used to it," he answered irritably.
"No one gets used to it," said Lee.
Maurice wasn't in the mood to hide his annoyance. "Not even you?"
"That's right," said Lee, ignoring Maurice's sarcasm, "not even me." He dipped his handkerchief into the water and wiped the sweat from his face. "Oh, you can get used to the heat. You can even get used to the insects, but out here there's something more. Maybe it's the flatness, or the fact that there's no trees, but there's something out here that drives a man crazy. Your boss, for example."
Maurice saw Lee's purpose clearly. He was trying to drive a wedge between him and Rye in hopes of splitting the party up so much that they had to return. Maurice wasn't sure he wasn't right about going back, but he wanted no part of it himself. He had already let Rye down once, and he wasn't going to do it again.
Maurice looked out at Rye floating in the water, smiling up at the sky, and laughed at the idea of Rye going crazy. "It'd take a lot more than swamp to beat Rye," he said. "Rye could come down here with his bulldozers and build a whole community complete with concert hall and Elks' Club in six months."
"Oh, no, not here," answered Lee. "Not this land." Lee gazed at the great sunbaked flats stretching out relentlessly to the horizon. He had heard about this part of the swamps since he was a boy, and he feared it. "Men have tried to settle this land for three hundred years," he continued, "but no one stays. They tried to farm it, but the weeds came up faster than they could pull them. So they brought in their cattle, figurin' they could feed off the weeds. The insects settled on them in dark, heavy clouds. The cattle tried to beat them away with their tails, till their bodies were covered with welts. The blood only attracted more insects. Finally it drove them crazy, and they jumped into the water and drowned. After that, most of the men went home, figurin' they got off cheap with their lives."