Rising Spirit

by Wayne Stinnett

  On the beach, he could clearly see his tracks. They were the only ones there, and again, he was puzzled by the lack of anything man-made. He hadn’t bothered to hide his tracks because he hadn’t thought anyone would be looking for him so soon.

  Because those tracks were so visible to him, he was sure the people out there could see them, too. His footprints in the sand led off to the east along the shoreline, until the point where he’d quickly come up the dune after hearing the plane. If he stayed where he was, these people were sure to find him.

  Stuart had been hunting white-tail deer, turkey, pheasant, and occasionally even bear, since he was as tall as his first rifle. Two centuries earlier, hunting was how his ancestors had put food on the table. He knew his skills were as sharp as any man’s in the Valley.

  Stuart looked around again. This ain’t the Valley, he reminded himself. Friggin’ water’s everywhere.

  He figured he should continue east and leave no tracks. The people looked like they were preparing to come ashore. When they found his tracks over the dune, they’d assume he would have doubled back. That’s what most people on the run would do, but Stuart wasn’t on the run; he had a destination.

  Stuart looked behind him at the calm lake. If he moved in the water, they wouldn’t see his tracks, so they’d go west. He should do the opposite and continue east.

  The big man was on the boat that had just anchored and was wading toward the boat Stuart had stolen. He could make out three people on the plane. One of them was obviously a woman.

  Stuart felt a stirring at the sight of the blonde’s tight-fitting red tank top and long, tan legs. She looked a little like the woman in Miami he was going to kill. But this one was taller.

  Stuart looked left and right. The dune was unbroken and the water along the edge of the lagoon—or lake, or whatever it was—had a sandy bottom and little vegetation. It wouldn’t take him long to circle around it and lose these people in the woods. He was a master in the woods.

  The guy standing on the plane’s float with the woman looked tall and rangy, with sandy brown hair over his ears. There was another man inside the plane doing something. He was darker and had long black hair, tied back at the base of his neck, and hanging down his back. Both men wore jeans, plaid shirts, and boots. The black-haired man handed something out and the tall man took it, slinging it over his shoulder with practiced ease. It was an assault rifle.

  Stuart backed away from the dune, moving toward the lake, crouching low. When he reached the water, he moved along the shoreline to the east—toward Miami and his quarry. Looking back, he was satisfied that nobody would be able to follow him in the water.

  In minutes, after wading through an exceptionally deep part, he reached the trees. They weren’t on land, though. They had hundreds of small roots that went below the surface of the lake. Farther to the east, Stuart could see a group of tall, stately-looking pine trees of some kind. They were in a large cluster in the middle of the grassy field. He knew pines only grew on high ground and he wanted to get out of the water.

  The water trees, or whatever they were, provided some cover, but he couldn’t move through them—an impenetrable tangle of roots blocked his way.

  So, Stuart followed the tree line, wading in waist-deep water again. The stand of pines was beyond the water trees and across the grass field, about a quarter mile away. If he could reach the safety of the pines, he could find cover and easily pick off all four as they got close.

  Well, maybe not the woman.

  Finally, he found a gap in the trees and pulled himself through the roots toward the grassy bank. Except it wasn’t grass at all. At least not any grass he’d ever seen. It was growing in waist-deep water, too. Just like the trees. And there wasn’t any bank.

  The pines were closer; only a couple hundred yards away. The people following him would have to wade ashore and walk at least that far down the beach. The water trees would block their being able to see him. He could easily make the pines before they found the way through the water trees to this side.

  The water was clear as he brushed the grass aside and waded into it. The bottom was very soft and spongy, unlike anything he’d ever felt. Stuart pushed further into the tall grass.

  “Dammit!” he hissed, pulling his hand back.

  The edges of the grass were like razor blades. Stuart looked at the trickle of blood coming from a thin, almost surgical slice in the meaty part of his palm.

  He moved forward more cautiously, trying not to touch the edges of the grass by pushing it aside from the backside of the blades. This proved fruitless, as other tufts of the sharp-edged grass were pointed in different directions and he received more cuts to his hand, wincing with each one.

  The water was cooler than the ocean he’d waded out of and it wasn’t seawater—he could tell because it didn’t sting the cuts on his hand. Stuart stopped and smelled it. It was crystal clear and had a bit of an earthy smell, like filtered water from a deep well or a high mountain stream. He cautiously put a tongue to it for a taste—no salt.

  Stuart had neglected to take any of the water from the cooler with him, so he drank deeply of the cool, fresh water. Then he moved on.

  The grass was above his head, so he felt he was pretty invisible except from directly above. He’d be able to hear the plane if one of them took off to search for him from the air.

  Pushing deeper and deeper into the tall grass, he received more cuts on his hands and arms, even across his belly and exposed ankles. No matter how careful he was, he was being sliced to ribbons.

  “Oh, that bitch is gonna pay,” he mumbled, thinking of all he was going to do to the meddling tree-hugger when he got to Miami.

  Stuart could see the tops of the pine trees ahead and kept moving toward them. He used his hands and knees to gently push the grass apart, then used his sandaled foot to mash the grass out of his way. He figured he was halfway there.

  He made it another ten or fifteen yards when he realized the bottom was starting to rise up, and he could see over the grass. Looking back the way he came, he could make out the water trees about a hundred yards away. There wasn’t anyone there.

  Moving forward, Stuart kept his head down, just in case they did find the way through the water trees. The grass was a pain and the cuts hurt like all hell, but it also provided great cover. When the water only reached his knees, he paused and looked back again, slowly lifting his head above the surrounding grass.

  There still wasn’t anyone in sight. As he started to turn back toward the pines, however, a movement caught his eye. It wasn’t back at the water trees, but about halfway there, the grass was moving. It wasn’t the wind, which moved the grass like undulating waves. No, this was unnatural movement and it was headed toward him.

  Who are they? he wondered again. Had they found the place he’d crossed through the water trees while he wasn’t looking, and were now hidden in the grass and about to catch him? He studied it another moment. There was definitely someone coming. And they were moving the same way he’d pushed through the grass.

  Turning, Stuart moved faster toward the safety of the pines and dry ground while whoever was following him was still in the tallest part of the grass and couldn’t see him. The grass was less than chest-high where he was. He sloshed forward, using his knees to push through the dense grass.

  Suddenly, Stuart’s right knee struck something solid. He winced in pain and felt around cautiously, keeping his weight on his left leg. There was a log sticking up from the bottom. It felt kind of smooth and rounded at the top, and very solid.

  Glancing back, Stuart could see that whoever was following him was getting closer. Ahead, he spotted the stand of pines, only ten or fifteen yards away. In front of the pines, where the grass ended, were dozens of stumps, some short, and some a foot taller than the grass. They had smooth, reddish-brown bark and were rounded at the top, like the one he’d kicked.
Above, he noticed a bunch of white birds in the branches. They had long necks and legs.

  All this was foreign to Stuart. The mountains, he knew well, but all this water was beginning to grind on his nerves. The strange trees and birds were unlike anything he’d ever seen.

  The water was still knee-deep as Stuart neared the stumps. The pines weren’t the same as those back home either; they didn’t have needles but looked almost like bright green ferns. The base of each tree was massive compared to its trunk. And to his dismay, they were also standing in water. He couldn’t see far into the stand of pines, but what he could see was water. Everywhere he looked; water, dark and black.

  Pine trees and grass growing in water?

  He looked back again. There was unmistakable movement in the grass now, just fifty yards behind him. And more grass moving off to the north, indicating another pursuer on an intercept course with whoever was behind him.

  “Where’d you come from?” he wondered under his breath, as he watched the newcomer.

  The second pursuer was moving faster and didn’t seem to disturb the grass as much, which struck him as weird. Even if he’d been wearing leather gloves up to his armpits, Stuart didn’t think he could move that fast.

  Pulling the Beretta from his pocket, he pointed it toward the person who was closing in from behind as he moved cautiously backward toward the pines. He tripped over another stump and nearly fell, sloshing sideways to regain his balance.

  As he did so, there was a loud splash and just ten yards away, the grass parted quickly as his pursuer came at him with unexpected speed. Stuart suddenly realized that at that distance, the grass was only about waist high—not high enough to hide in.

  The grass suddenly parted just a few feet in front of Stuart, and a massive alligator lunged toward him, its long, narrow jawline bristling with enormous sharp teeth. He stifled a primal urge to scream and fired five rounds at the huge reptile, the gun making a light, cracking sound as it bucked in his hand.

  The alligator stopped and stared at him. Stuart didn’t know how many of his shots had found their mark but felt certain he’d hit the animal. It was only ten feet away. The eyes looked lifeless, but he just couldn’t be sure.

  Stuart started to move backward and the thing raised its head, opening its mouth wide to display a white throat. Stuart fired three more rounds into the gaping maw.

  The alligator thrashed wildly, when suddenly something huge caught one of its legs and rolled the beast. It was a giant snake. Stuart had never seen a snake so large. It was easily as big around the middle as he was.

  Thrashing violently, the alligator was rolled again, as the snake coiled more and more of its body around the massive reptile.

  Transfixed by the horror right in front of him, Stuart nearly missed a flash of red against the dark background of the water trees. He looked up from the grisly scene playing out ten feet away and saw the tall man and the woman standing in the gap between the water trees. The man raised his rifle to shoot, but the woman put a hand on it, pushing it down.

  Suddenly the thrashing and roiling intensified, moving closer. The snake- wrapped alligator lunged toward Stuart, intent on making a meal out of him even if the snake killed him afterwards.

  Stuart heard snapping and popping sounds coming from the mortal combat between the two giant reptiles as the snake pulled the alligator under. He staggered blindly and tripped over another stump. As he struggled to get back up, he saw the snake’s head rise to the surface as its body uncoiled from the dead alligator.

  Just as Stuart turned and started a headlong dash through the last of the grass, he felt something clamp down hard on the back of his good left knee.

  We’d found Lane’s tracks where he’d disappeared over the dune into Lake Ingraham. Of all the places for a person from Virginia to try to escape to, Cape Sable and the Everglades was way at the bottom of the list. The area was primordial and for the most part, wild and untouched by humans. It was a dangerous place for even the most skilled guides.

  Billy studied the water at the shore of the lake closely. “This way,” he said, and started moving along the bank to the east.

  “Are you sure he didn’t double back, hiding his tracks in the water?” Sheena asked.

  “He’s sure,” I replied, following behind my old friend, who was one of the best trackers in the state.

  We stayed on the sandy bank as Billy followed whatever he was seeing in the water. We had to wade across the man-made canal that connected the lake to the Gulf.

  “There.” Billy pointed toward a gap in the mangroves.

  Beyond the opening, even I could see the disturbed sawgrass where someone had pushed through. I winced a little, just at the thought of trying to slog through it; it was called sawgrass for a reason.

  When we reached the opening, I went through first. The gap was tight, and the mangrove roots were a tangled trip hazard, but I managed to get through.

  “Keep one hand on the branches,” I told Sheena, helping her squeeze past.

  We emerged together just as I heard five popping sounds. I ducked instinctively and looked out over the sawgrass.

  What I saw was like something out of a horror movie. Lane was standing among a bunch of cypress knees, pointing Andrew’s suppressed Beretta at the water. The wide back of a large saltwater croc was visible just a few feet from him. He fired three more times, and the thing began to thrash around.

  “Big bull croc,” Billy said from behind us. “Saw his sign back on the beach.”

  Suddenly, something else was there, too. I couldn’t believe the macabre scene we were witnessing; a giant anaconda wrestling with an equally large crocodile.

  I raised my rifle, just as Lane looked toward us.

  “Don’t kill him,” Sheena said, pushing the barrel down.

  Lane and the embroiled reptiles were only a couple hundred yards away. The battle was a complete puzzle to my way of thinking. I knew that the snake could easily kill the croc, but why? The croc was way too big for the biggest snake to swallow. The croc could eat the snake in chunks—if he could kill it, that is. Wrapped in the snake’s powerful coils, it was obvious to me which animal was going to die. It was just a matter of time.

  “I wasn’t going to shoot Lane,” I said, raising my rifle once more. “Only the croc has a right to be here. I’m going to shoot the snake.”

  I looked through the scope. Where was the head?

  The coils were massive—as big as a man’s waist, but the croc was even bigger around, probably thirteen or fourteen feet in length. Why would the snake attack something it couldn’t eat? Suddenly, I realized what the term invasive species meant.

  The snake would kill the crocodile because it was a competitor for the snake’s food supply—in this case, Stuart Lane.

  “Where’s the damned head?” I muttered, as Billy and Andrew joined us.

  “It will drag the croc under and crush the wind out of him,” Billy replied.

  He was right. The snake and croc were writhing deeper. Stuart looked up and saw us, then started running toward the relative safety of the cypress stand.

  The thrashing ceased and finally the head of the snake appeared. It was already halfway to Lane, uncoiling quickly from the dead crocodile.

  Stuart stumbled and went down before I could bring my sights to bear. In an instant the anaconda was on top of him, grabbing the back of his leg in its powerful jaws and rolling its body up and around the man’s torso, crushing his left leg across his chest and left shoulder at an unnatural angle.

  Stuart screamed in pain and went under as more of the giant snake coiled in on top of him, dragging him to the shallow bottom. It was over in an instant.

  “Oh my God,” Sheena said, huddled close to me. “We have to help him.”

  “There’s no helping that man,” Billy said. “If he’s not dead, most of his bones are broken
and he’s dying of suffocation. We’d never get there in time.”

  As we continued to watch the gruesome scene unfold, the snake uncoiled its body from its victim. Through the magnified scope, I saw Stuart Lane’s lifeless face look up at the sky. The snake’s head appeared, moving toward Stuart’s. I’d never seen a snake that big but knew they grew up to forty feet in length in the Amazon and were more than able to swallow a person whole. This one made a python look like a garter snake.

  I breathed in and exhaled slowly, relaxing my body as I took the slack out of the trigger. The crosshairs were on the snake’s head, moving only a fraction of an inch with each beat of my heart. Instinctively, I felt the wind on the side of my face and made a Kentucky windage adjustment, moving the reticle just a little to the side of the snake’s head.

  The recoil of the heavy .308 rifle wasn’t quite as powerful as my own M40A3, though it was the same caliber. The Sig AR was a semi-auto and much of the shock was taken up by the recoil spring as the bolt slid backward, extracting the empty cartridge and chambering another round.

  The scope barely moved when the round left the barrel. The giant snake’s head exploded in a mist of pink spray, just inches from Lane’s own lifeless head.

  Sheena started to move in Lane’s direction, but I put a hand on her arm, stopping her. “Too dangerous.”

  “We can’t just leave his body,” she said.

  “Jesse’s right,” Billy said. “Let the dead bury the dead.”

  Sheena turned toward him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That croc wasn’t the only one around,” Billy replied. “It’s suicide to walk out there.”

  “Not all that safe here, either,” Andrew added.

  “He’s right,” Billy said, pointing. “Look.”

  I followed his finger and saw several places where something, probably more crocodiles, were moving through the sawgrass toward the scene.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” I said, turning back toward the lake. “Let’s get out of here.”