by Wile E Young
“State pays a higher bounty than old Miss Meyers, enough to buy Vicky a pretty little ring even if we split it.”
Gideon didn’t laugh. “I’m not planning on asking her right away, Mr. Pope.”
“But you are planning on asking her.”
I glanced at the dead man; the thing that had done it wasn’t far.
“What about him?”
I bit my tongue. Guilt over leaving him gnawed at me, but I wasn’t about to make myself a target or the kid with me.
“Leave him for now. We’ll get set up, kill it, and bring him back with us.” Gideon looked uncomfortable, and I didn’t blame him. But dead was dead. He wasn’t going to go through any more pain than he had already gone through.
There was a cypress tree not far away that would suit my purposes. The branches were strong and thick. They’d have to be for the thing I was intending on catching.
Gideon handed me the rope, thick half-inch yellow strands that I tied overhand and anchored to the boat. Then it was time for the bloody business. The icebox popped open, a trapped blast of cold air hitting my face, and I dug around a bit before I retrieved the Ziploc bag of chicken meat. When I had bought these cuts from Gabriel Nichols down the road, he had done his part to make sure that the blood and juices were still saturating the dead birds. Alligators love raw chicken, can’t get enough of it, and Gabriel’s chicken had always scored a high success rate with my hunts.
The hook pierced the meat easily enough. A little spurt of blood hit the water and floating like a smear on a canvas. I spun and tossed the hook up and over a strong branch, letting it slide down until it hovered right over the edge of the water.
“You be ready with that rifle Gideon. When it comes it’s going to be quick.”
Gideon nodded. He wasn’t an amateur; he knew that it wasn’t a game. I could count on him not to hesitate.
I washed my hands in the river. Nasty stuff to do in muddy water, but even if it was dirtier than a pig’s ass, it was still a sight better than the feeling of blood running down my hands.
“If you’re hungry, I packed some sandwiches, but watch yourself.” Gideon nodded and immediately began digging through the ice chest, pulling out the sandwich and a bottle of water. I asked Gideon if he could toss me the same and he complied. Southern men can eat; never let anyone tell you different. The mist was still hanging over the water, but my watch said it was getting closer to lunchtime than breakfast.
A distant crow cawed while we chewed, but my ears never left that tell-tale dripping behind me. The blood seemed to be louder when it hit the water than any mundane morning dew.
The turkey was delicious and if Renee were alive would have skinned my hide for eating after washing my hands of raw chicken blood in a dirty river. I smiled as I took a drink of water; if salmonella killed me at this point then I could live with it. Lincoln would be better off in a home that actually had money.
The dripping stopped, and I heard a light splash. I looked over… and stared into the eye of the biggest gator I had ever seen.
Massive, ancient, awe inspiring… terrifying.
Its jaws clamped around the chicken like it was nothing. No more than few milliseconds must have passed, then it was falling back to the water, monstrous grin frozen in place.
I heard Gideon shout as the boat was rocked to the side, the gator trying to make a break underwater for the deeper estuaries. We were pulled like a toy. The boat anchor I had tossed out into the water keeping us in place, I braced myself in my seat as the alligator came to a jerking stop. Gideon gripped the sides of his chair, making sure the .22 he held was secure. I stood up and reached for my own rifle. The water churned in front of us as the alligator discovered that its prize wasn’t going to be as easy to eat as he thought.
There was a gunshot. Gideon was jumpy and already chambering another round.
“Wait until we haul him up! Might as well be shooting plate armor!” I shouted as I struggled to get my work gloves over my calloused hands.
The alligator’s head appeared above the water as he struggled, massive teeth half the size of my fingers chewing through the rope.
Had to make this quick.
I gripped the rope and heaved with all of my might; it was like trying to haul blocks of cement. Except blocks of cement didn’t have enough teeth to tear me limb from limb without hesitation.
The gator moved towards me, then it pulled away just as quick. This was going to be a fight to wear down the reptile’s endurance, something I doubted that I had the strength to accomplish.
The rope frayed even more.
“Gideon, shoot it!”
The young man looked at me. “Thought you said to wait!”
I shook my head and hauled as hard as I could on the rope. “Forget what I said. Just kill it!”
He didn’t hesitate and fired off a round. There was a small spurt of blood. Another round, more blood, and another… The alligator never stopped thrashing, hissing and roaring in anger as the stinging bullets punctured its hide.
I hauled as hard as I could and the gator’s head stretched high. Gideon fired and its jaw spewed blood.
The rope snapped, the gator fell, and the water calmed.
I fell back panting, my heart pounding hard in my chest. Gideon was pale, his rifle scanning the water back and forth, on guard for any further attack from the massive reptile.
“That thing was a twenty-footer.” Gideon panted.
I shook my head. “Don’t let your imagination get the best of you, son. It was fifteen feet at most.”
Gideon looked at me like I had lost my mind. “That’s still bigger than any gator I’ve ever seen on this lake!”
I nodded my head, sighing as the last bubble disappeared from the top of the water. “Yeah me too.”
Chapter Seven
We took the dead man with us. I tried to bundle him up in a tarp that I used to cover up the boat when I went hunting on the lake islands. Gideon had been a bit squeamish, and I wasn’t at all comfortable. I had closed his eyes, but I could still feel that accusing stare beneath the lids.
Gideon and I didn’t talk on the way home. I think he was still a little in shock about his first dead body. After the Robichaudes, my stomach didn’t exactly turn at the sight of the dead, through a meat grinder of teeth and scale or otherwise.
We pulled into the bayou leading back to Carter’s Lake without incident, rounding the turns and channels through the cypress trees until my home was in sight.
Vicky must have heard the boat motor because she was opening the backdoor and walking out with Lincoln grasped tight. Beau emerged from the side of the house. The grim looks on our faces and the fact that I didn’t head for the boathouse but instead for the shore darkened the young woman’s features. As soon as I cut the motor she immediately asked. “What happened?”
Gideon hopped out of the boat and embraced Vicky, uncaring of how he smelled or what had happened. He was quiet, but I could see the barest speck of tears spiraling down his cheek.
Nothing wrong with that. Cry away, Gideon… I had the first time too.
Beau stepped up next to me and I shrugged my shoulders at the tarp in the bed of the boat. “Help me with this, Deputy?”
He silently stepped up next to me and cast a curious eye at the tarp and then back to me. Yeah, he wasn’t going to open it here, not with Miss Vicky Barnes standing in full view and unprepared to see a mangled corpse.
The Deputy picked up one end and I picked up the other, carrying it back to Beau’s truck. Beau lowered the tailgate and I gently slid the tarp in.
“What’s this all about Mr. Pope?”
I grasped the corner of the tarp and pulled up, exposing the victim for him to see. I watched Beau stumble back in revulsion, his hands immediately finding his knees as he dry heaved and waved his hat trying to cool down.
“Gator attack. Found his boat too… tiny thing, barely half the size of the monster that killed him.”
Beau panted a
nd nodded his head and I let him catch his breath. Poor boy lived in a town where nothing ever happened like this… at least it hadn’t for a long time.
“You realize that Otis is going to put the word out on this… every gator hunter in the state is going to be on this lake inside a week.”
Oh I knew, but that just meant that I was going to have to find the fucking thing and kill it first.
****
Scott Carter came back out to retrieve the body; Otis came with him after he heard just what it was that I had fished up.
Neither of them said anything when they got out of Scott’s truck or when we shook hands. I could tell that Otis wasn’t thrilled to be picking up another body on my property.
One is misfortune, two is suspicious.
Otis went to talk to Beau while Scott joined me at the back of the Deputy’s truck. The wounds would bear out that an alligator had killed him. I didn’t know the man, which meant he was either a tourist or lived in one of the other small townships bordering the lake, and I had Gideon to back me up. Either way I would be in the clear.
Scott had come prepared with a body bag, and when he saw the extent of the injuries his eyes darkened. “Damn…”
I nodded somberly as he zipped up the bag.
“How big did you say the gator that did this was?”
I told him of my estimate and Scott shook his head in amazement. “Hard to believe that dinosaurs are still roaming the Earth. Am I right?”
I nodded in agreement, my mind immediately trying to formulate a plan to kill the beast before the yokels descended to steal my payday.
“I’ll take him in to Marshall, see if we can get an I.D. He didn’t have anything on him like a wallet, did he?”
To my knowledge he didn’t, but I hadn’t gone checking the man’s pockets either.
Otis sauntered up and unzipped the body bag just enough to get a look at the unfortunate man’s face. “Poor bastard.” A sentiment I agreed with.
Otis asked me where I had picked the man up, and I regaled him of the day’s adventure.
“Well Grady, I’m going to have to—”
“Post a bounty and get the game wardens on it, yeah I know… just gives me impetus to work harder.”
The Sheriff grinned broadly. “Hell Grady, you’ve got about a day’s head start. You know Larry and Desmond ain’t going to do shit about it for at least another day.”
Larry Knowles and Desmond Miles, our local game wardens, were usually more concerned with busting folks for having too many people on their boats versus hunting down man-eaters. Good guys and sharp too, especially when we gathered for Saturday poker night before church in the morning. But it was the assholes who’d speed up and down the channels eager to kill for a little extra cash lining their pockets that worried me.
“Beau is going to stay out here for the rest of the day, make sure that no one comes traipsing around your place.”
I thanked Otis for the consideration, unsure that anyone was going to try anything while the deputy bumbled around my property, easily spotted.
“While I’m out here, might as well tell you that we need to start thinking about funeral arrangements for…” Scott paused and licked his lips, clearly uncomfortable.
My grief had turned to stone in my belly. She had come back and left just as quick, leaving me with the consequences of her choices. A parent’s role I guess, cleaning up the mistakes of our spawn.
“I’ll stop in next time I come to town, probably tomorrow if that’ll work for you,” I said.
Scott agreed that it would, getting into his van to take the dead man into Marshall. Otis didn’t move, and I could see that he still had things to talk about.
“What is it?”
The sounds of Scott’s truck engine was beginning to fade, and Otis took off his hat to wipe the sweat on his forehead. “Listen Grady, this isn’t going to be easy to hear but I got the test results back for your paternity test… inconclusive on the father’s part. Whoever he is, he’s not a felon.”
It wasn’t as soul crushing as I thought it would be. Maybe it was because I had a giant reptile to focus my rage on, a true blue-collar Moby Dick story… one of the few movies I actually enjoyed. Gregory Peck’s performance was flawless.
Or maybe it was because I had a grandson to take care of and God had saw fit to keep me in the dark about his father lest I become a murderer.
“Grady, you okay? Anyone home?” I came back to myself and realized that Otis had put a hand on my shoulder, probably his idea of sympathy.
“Yeah I’m fine. Just thinking.”
Otis cracked a smile. “Well don’t strain too hard. Fella like you might hurt yourself!”
When I didn’t smile in return Otis nearly deflated. “Listen Grady, I’m not too good with grief and all that, makes me feel uncomfortable, but I’m your friend. You know that, right?”
I did know. I just wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
“You call me if you find anything else or you get in trouble out there.”
A few more pleasantries, some goodbyes, and Otis left.
****
I wanted to sink down into my chair, but Gideon and Vicky were still inside. Gideon looked shell, shocked his eyes wide and staring at nothing.
Vicky walked around the room toting Lincoln and when she heard the door closed and saw me walk in, she nuzzled my grandson affectionately. “There’s Grandpa. Look, there he is!”
Had Renee cooed this much over Sammie Jo when she was born? I couldn’t recall, but then again there were a lot of things that I couldn’t recall… side effects of the passing years.
“Thanks for watching him today, Vicky.”
“No problem Grady. The little guy and I have bonded!” She nuzzled my grandson affectionately again, eliciting a happy gurgle from the little tyke and a weary smile from me.
“Were you like this the first time?” His voice was harsh; hollow… like words were foreign things that he had just learned how to use. Gideon looked up at me. “Was it this bad for you the first time?”
The image of the Robichaudes swinging from the rafters, faces distorted and bloated came to me, and I nodded my head. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.”
“Does it get better?”
Wasn’t so good at sympathy, never had much of it myself, but I patted the younger man on the shoulder and tried my softest voice. “Yeah it does.”
Vicky laid Lincoln back down in his crib and went over everything she had done to take care of him that day. “A few home ed classes really helped in preparation for this.”
I didn’t want to hug her, didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. After all, she brought me my usual breakfast and I might have needed her to babysit again.
Vicky accepted my thanks and hoisted Gideon up off the couch. He was still lost in his own head, but his color had returned along with a small measure of strength.
“Vicky, when you get home you take care of him good. Haven’t seen a man with his courage in a long time.”
It was one of the highest compliments I could give, and I meant it. Gideon had been cool under pressure, and I wished I could take him back out for a second crack at the monster gator. I knew better than to push him. I had seen men and women break from things less than what he had seen today, and I had seen just as many find their bravery and come back ready to wrestle the fear back into that deep corner where it had come from.
Gideon was one of those men who would come back.
Once again, I thanked Vicky and they left. I saw them to the door and shut it behind them, not bothering to see if they made it to Gideon’s truck or not.
I washed my hands in the kitchen. If I needed to pick up Lincoln I didn’t want to infect him with anything. The restless bug was in me and even though my chair and a round of FOX News sounded good, I couldn’t relax.
The nagging thoughts on how to catch the gator ate away at my mind.
Good time for a walk then.
When Renee and I had stress or probl
ems in our marriage, I had gone for a walk. Major decisions featured a walk. Financial struggles: walk. It cleared the head, lessened the stress that came with the tides of life, probably because I had other things to focus on while I took in the great outdoors.
And this time my newborn grandson was coming with me.
I changed into clothes that weren’t stained with chicken blood: jeans and an old work shirt that I didn’t mind getting dirty. An old hat to cover my eyes from the sun and a car seat that I could carry Lincoln around in and I was ready to go.
My grandson was passive in his crib, snatching at the blankets and moving his small feet around as he explored the world around him. His eyes were open and his cheeks pudgier. I don’t know what they were putting in the formula these days, but I could swear that he had lost that wrinkled newborn look despite being days old. I picked him up gently and placed him in the car seat, strapping him in so that he didn’t roll around and harm himself.
I opened the back door and walked out onto the hillside. The boy wasn’t heavy. I had carried far heavier through thicker terrain once upon a time… Now it was time to decide on which direction to go.
Walking around to the front of the house I noticed loyal Deputy Beau Caldwell leaning back in the cab of his pickup, eyes closed and blissfully snoring. My tax dollars at work, and my already low respect from the man continued to head south.
Cy’s cabin caught my eye, the brown wood and dirty windows poking through the trees, beckoning for me to come and take a look. I hadn’t been up that way in a long time. Painful memories of my dead friend and the long humid nights we had spent drinking on his porch shooting the shit usually made me avoid the place like a plague. Pretty sure that it had fallen into disrepair, which kept anyone from buying it. Young folks were looking for homes that didn’t require any work, a situation that suited me just fine since I preferred my privacy.
The pine trees that mixed with the Spanish moss had left a fine coating of dead needles across the forest floor. Bright green poison ivy brushed against my pant legs as I made my way through the underbrush, the unused path that I had once kept neat and tidy overgrown through the years of disuse.