Tula comforted the man as we moved him. She stroked his head, told him he would recover quickly, and also chanted what I guessed to be a prayer in her native language. I can speak only enough Quiche Maya to thank the person who brings me a beer, so I had no idea what the girl was saying.
When we had Carlson safely away from the water, I checked his injuries. His forearm showed puncture marks, as did his waist and buttocks, but the bleeding wasn’t bad.
His legs, though, had a pasty, dead look that suggested I’d been right about the broken spine. As I took note of the wounds, Tula tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I’ll hold his head while you use this.” She was holding a bottle of cheap tequila, waiting for me to take it.
Tomlinson had found his sandals and seemed to be looking for something else but stopped long enough to grab the bottle and take a long swig.
“It’s not for drinking,” the girl told him, her tone communicating disapproval. “It’s to clean your wounds.”
“That’s exactly how I’m using it,” Tomlinson replied, then took another long belt, before he said to her, “Tula, while we work on your friend, would you do me a favor? Ask around and find out who has our billfolds. I found the phones, but our billfolds are gone.”
But then he told her, “Never mind,” as a man approached, billfolds in hand.
Tomlinson thanked the man, saying, “Muchas gracias, compadre,” but I could tell that something was wrong as he opened his billfold, then mine.
Tula stared at him for a moment before saying, “Your money is gone. I can see it in your face.”
The girl turned toward the water, where Squires was struggling to reach a rope some men were trying to throw him. “He has your money. The propietario. No one but him would have robbed you.”
In the peripheral glow of the Golight, I looked at the girl closely for the first time. She had a cereal-bowl haircut, and a lean angularity that didn’t mesh with the compact body type I associate with Mayan women. Yet there was nothing masculine about her. She was boyish enough to pass for a boy, but her demeanor, while commanding, was asexual. In the truck, Tomlinson had said something that sounded strange at the time but now made sense. He had said, “She’s an adolescent girl, not a female,” which described her perfectly.
Thirteen-year-old Tula Choimha, I decided, was a child who handled herself like an adult. It was unusual, but probably less uncommon in girls than boys. Besides, the girl had spent the last few years living on her own, without family, which had no doubt contributed to her maturity.
“They’re coming to help you,” Tula whispered into Carlson’s ear as she gauged the direction of distant sirens. She took the bottle of tequila from Tomlinson, soaked the towel with liquor, then dropped to her knees and began to wash the puncture wounds on Carlson’s arm and then his buttocks, unconcerned that I had pulled the man’s pants down to access his injuries.
“I can’t feel my legs,” the man told her again. He had said it several times in the last minutes, his reaction ping-ponging between horror and shock.
“Your legs are healing,” I heard the girl tell him, her right hand gripping a necklace she wore. “Your wounds are healing now. You must have faith.”
I watched her pause, head tilted, and the rhythm of her voice changed. She told him, “Our strength comes from faith. But our faith is sometimes eaten away by little things that God hates. If we lack faith, though there be a million of us, we will be beaten back and die.”
I exchanged looks with Tomlinson, wondering if he, too, suspected her singsong syntax suggested that the girl was reciting something she had memorized.
My friend was nodding his approval. Personally, I felt a chill. To me, the robotic passion of the devoutly religious is disturbing. Too often it is a flag of surrender to fear and the exigencies of life. Maybe my assessment is unfair, but I associate religious fervor with pathology. Tomlinson, of course, does not.
“Squeeze my hand and put your faith in God,” Tula whispered to the man, as she scrubbed at the puncture wounds on his buttocks. “Remember the godliness that you possessed as a child? It will return to you. God will make your body whole again.”
Someone had brought a Coleman lantern, so I switched off the Golight and placed it on the ground. I was looking through my billfold, seeing that someone had rearranged my IDs and credit cards, seeing that all my cash had been taken, as I also watched the girl pour more tequila on Carlson’s wounds, then scrub harder with the bloody towel.
“Do you feel this, patron?” she asked him. “Can your legs feel the heat of God, trying to enter?”
Once again, Tomlinson and I exchanged looks, as Carlson’s eyes widened, and he said, “Maybe… maybe I can… I’m not sure.. . but something’s happening. Wait… yes! I do feel it. Yes, my skin is burning! I can feel your hands, Tula!”
“They are not my hands, patron,” Tula told him, not surprised. “It’s the warmth of God’s love you feel. He is in your body now. He has traveled from my body into your legs.”
The man’s face contorted into tears, and I watched him move one pale foot, then the other.
Carlson was crying, “Tula, you’re right! I can feel my legs!”
I was pleased to know that I had been wrong about the man’s broken spine. Shock, or a damaged nerve, might explain the temporary loss of feeling in Carlson’s legs. But my interest in an explanation was short-lived because nearby I heard a man yell in Spanish, “It is back. The alligator is back. Someone shine the light!”
I swung the Golight toward the lake, where I saw a reptilian wake, and two bright red eyes riding low in the water.
The huge gator, still alive, still determined to feed, was gliding toward the bodybuilder, who was already screaming for help.
SIX
Sirens descending on Red Citrus RV Park was bad enough, but when Harris Squires saw red eyes breach the water’s surface, glowing twenty yards behind him, he felt a charge of panic beyond anything he had ever experienced, aware that he was about to lose one of his legs, maybe worse.
Squires understood what those eyes meant because of all the nights he’d spent hunting in the Everglades or getting stoned and plinking away at gators in ponds that dotted his four hundred acres.
Fifi was back. The biggest damn gator Squires had ever seen in his life was still alive, watching him, her eyes glowing in the light of a lantern that someone had brought so the two white guys could give first aid to that nosy old drunk, Carlson.
Squires tried to scream, but his voice managed only a high-pitched yelp, as his legs and arms went into hyperflight, trying to free himself from the muck. It was like one of those sweaty damn nightmares he sometimes had when he stacked testosterone and Tren. Nightmares in which he’d try to run, or call for help, but his body was dead, unable to respond.
Mired up to his thighs in mud produced the same sickening terror. He was desperate to run and he was trying… he even managed to get his right leg free. But then Squires felt a tearing pain in the back of his leg and realized he’d pulled a hamstring muscle.
The pain brought his voice back, and he yelled to the cluster of men, only a few yards away on the bank, “The gator! The gator’s after me! Throw me that goddamn rope again!”
Suddenly, someone on shore turned on the Golight. The dazzling beam confirmed that the gator was swimming toward him, and Squires felt like vomiting, he was so scared.
Four times, the Mexicans had lobbed coils of clothesline to him. But each time the rope wasn’t strong enough, or the men weren’t strong enough, and the rope had broken or pulled free.
This time, though, a Mexican with some brains had produced commercial-grade nylon with a weight taped to the end. When he lobbed it, the coil went sailing over Squires’s head but landed close enough for him to grab the rope before it sank.
As Squires looped the rope around his chest, he risked another glance over his shoulder, and there was Fifi, gliding closer. Her eyes were a ruby pendulum, swinging with every stroke of her tail.
At first, there must have been a dozen Mexicans on the bank willing to help him after the Bible-freak girl had ordered them to do it. When the sirens became audible, however, half of the little cowards had gone scrambling. Now there were only four little men onshore, in jeans and ball caps, all hitched to the rope, and they leaned against Squires’s weight.
“Pull! Get your asses moving!” Squires screamed. “Jesus Christ, she’s coming faster!”
The first heave of the rope yanked Squires forward. Another heave flipped him onto his back so that his eyes were fixated on the alligator when his left shoe finally popped free of the mud and he began to float toward the bank.
Now Squires’s mind returned to nightmare mode, and everything happened in terrible slow motion. He was flailing with his arms, screaming for the men to move faster, while sirens and lights converged overhead, filling his head with a chaos so overwhelming he could barely hear his own voice. The night sky echoed with throbbing lights that were the exact same piercing red as the alligator’s eyes.
Fifi was so close now that Squires could see the black width of her head. The animal pushed a wall of water ahead of her that lifted his body as she closed on him, which caused Squires to roll his body into a fetal ball, preparing himself for what was going to happen next.
“Get me out of here, goddamn you!” Squires voice broke as he pleaded, and he rolled to his stomach, unable to watch as the gator’s mouth opened to take him, the animal a massive darkness only a few yards away.
As he turned, he realized he was close enough to touch the bank, where weeds were knee-deep. He lunged, got a fistful of grass in both hands and tried to pull himself out. He was too heavy, though, and roots ripped away from the earth, causing him to fall back into the water butt first.
As Squires hit the water, everything was still happening in slow motion. He got a snapshot look at three figures running toward him. It was the Bible-freak Mexican girl and the two white guys, the hippie two steps ahead of the guy named Ford. Ford appeared to have stopped for some reason, maybe to fish something from his pocket, but the girl and the hippie were coming fast. But then Squires didn’t see anything else because he closed his eyes as he fell backward and landed on Fifi, who felt wide and buoyant in the water.
An instant later, Squires endured a watery explosion beneath him. He floundered for a few seconds, then he felt bony hands on his shoulder and realized someone was trying to drag his weight up the bank but wasn’t having much success.
Squires used his fingers to claw at the sand as he crawled out of the water, picturing the gator opening its jaws again to snap off one of his legs, but it didn’t happen because then he heard: WHAP-WHAP!
Two more gunshots.
Several long minutes later, Squires was on his knees, breathing heavily, aware that headlights of an ambulance and two emergency vehicles now illuminated the area like a stage.
He heard men’s voices calling sharp orders, one of them yelling, “Put the weapon on the ground. Step away and show me your hands. Do it now!” Then he heard the same voice, louder, say, “Show me your goddamn hands and walk toward me!”
An asshole cop. It had to be-no one but a cop could mix contempt and authority in quite the same way. But Squires realized they were yelling at the big guy, Ford, not him, which was a relief. It gave him some hope.
The hippie was trying to help Squires to his feet, but Squires yanked his elbow away, saying, “Get your goddamn hands off me!” but then winced when he tried to take a step. He hissed, “Shit,” because the back of his right leg was knotted and hurt like hell because of the pulled hamstring.
The hippie said to him, “Are you okay? Did it bite you? That was damn close, man!”
Squires put some weight on his leg and took a few experimental steps, watching the big guy walk toward a semicircle of cops and EMTs, holding his hands high. Then he listened to Ford say in the distance, “The injured man’s over there, he needs attention right away. An alligator grabbed him, I don’t know how bad. Then it came back after the big guy. That’s why I had to use a weapon.”
It had been a bad night so far, but Squires decided this might be a chance to turn things around. He pushed the hippie away and started toward the cops, limping barefooted, straightening himself, trying to look respectable despite his slimy knee-length shorts and muscle T-shirt.
He waited until he was sure the cops were looking in his direction before saying, “I’m the manager, I own this place. I was hoping you boys would show up. That asshole right there”-he pointed at Ford-“almost got me killed, the way he was banging off rounds from that little pistol of his. Hell, maybe he did kill someone. We should have a look around. Check on the units and make sure one of my tenants isn’t hurt.”
Squires made a point of ignoring Ford, who was staring at him now. For some reason, the scientist had a quizzical expression on his face, not amused, not pissed off, but interested, like Squires was some kind of bug.
It was weird the way the man appeared so relaxed, not the least bit worried, despite the guns the cops had now lowered, which caused Squires to remember that maybe Ford and the hippie were part of some DEA sting. Maybe they were even friends with these cops, who might be playing some kind of game.
Cops did shit like that all the time when they had their sights set on busting an underground steroids lab. Or so Squires had read on the Internet bodybuilder forums. It was law enforcement’s way of sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
When one of the cops said to Squires, “Stop right there, no closer,” Squires did, then listened to the man ask, “What’s your name?”
Squires told him, deciding suddenly it was better to be friendly if Ford was DEA, which is why he added, “But I got no hard feelings against the dude. Maybe he was just trying to help me save that poor drunk over there-”
Squires looked toward the bank, where EMTs were already working on Carlson. There wasn’t a chilie or a chula around now, he noticed. They’d all disappeared except for the weird little Jesus freak, who was pestering the EMTs about the old drunk, probably getting in their way.
Behind him, Squires heard the hippie call to the cops, “Why the hell do you have your guns out? Big tough guys-you’re afraid of a couple of unarmed men and a little kid?”
The hippie said it in an irritated, cop-hater tone, which, to Squires, was more proof that these guys were working undercover for the feds.
Squires used the opening as an excuse to snap at the hippie, saying, “Shut your mouth, these guys know what they’re doing. Let them do their damn jobs!” which might earn him some brownie points with the cops.
Squires hoped so. He felt a welling chemical anxiety inside his head, probably caused by steroids mixing with adrenaline, no doubt the result of that goddamn gator coming so close to biting his ass off. Plus, there was the not-so-small matter of the dead Mexican girl’s body somewhere on the bottom of the lake.
Christ, when he remembered the dead body, Squires felt like he might vomit again, he was so nervous.
The bodybuilder stood there, shifting from his bad leg to his good leg, trying to appear as calm as the nerdy scientist. He watched carefully as the cops talked to Ford in a low voice, and then he felt another jolt when Ford not only lowered his hands but then shook hands with someone who stepped out of the shadows. Another cop, maybe, although the man wasn’t wearing a uniform.
As the two uniforms holstered their weapons, Squires thought, Oh shit, and took a look around. The hippie was walking toward the cops, a pissed-off expression on his face until he saw that the cops had put their guns away, which caused the hippie to relax a little. It gave the skinny dude time to reassess, which is probably why he turned his attention toward Squires.
“What kind of lost soul are you?” the h
ippie asked, walking toward him. “What do you mean, we helped you save that man? You didn’t do a damn thing but interfere! We just saved your life, and this is how you act?”
The hippie was talking loud enough for the cops to hear if they wanted, but they appeared to be busy with Ford.
Squires decided it was better to deal with the hippie privately before someone started paying attention. So he limped toward the dude, who looked ridiculous, in Squires’s opinion, with his droopy surfer shorts, his skinny little muscles and his ribs showing.
When he was close enough, Squires said to him, “Look, I don’t want any more trouble here. You play nice, I’ll play nice. How’s that sound to you?”
A confused expression appeared on the hippie’s face as he replied, “If that’s supposed to mean something, man, I don’t follow. What the hell you talking about?”
Squires told him, “I’m willing to cooperate,” his voice low now. “I know who you are. I think I know why you’re here. I’ll help set the bust up, if that’s the way you want to play it. You think those cops wouldn’t like to take down a major supplier? Hell yes, they would. One word from me, it could happen.”
Squires was thinking of giving the feds Laziro Victorino, the gangbanger who sold dope on the side, which seemed like a smart way to kill two birds with one stone. Plus, the V-man had shot those snuff films, too, which was a hell of a lot bigger deal than busting a small steroids operation like his.
Maybe the hippie would admit he was DEA, maybe he wouldn’t. Squires was watching the man’s reaction to see.
The expression on the hippie’s face changed from confusion to mild concern. “Who’ve you been talking to? Did you bully your tenants into giving information about me? Turned them into narcs?”
When Squires didn’t answer immediately, the hippie almost lost it. “That sucks, man! It really sucks. There’s nothing lower than a damn narc, in my opinion. These people come here with zero money, they need to make a buck, so what’s it matter to you? That’s really small-time bullshit-and I just helped save your ass. You could be dying right now! Getting your bad-karma ticket punched for hell. Instead, you’re threatening me!”
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