The World as We Know It (10 page)

I followed the crowd helping the strangers from their boats. The last to disembark were the sailors.

“Is there a place to sleep around here?” one of them asked me. Before I could answer, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard Laz’s voice exclaiming, “Of course! Stay with us. You guys are always welcome.”

“How much room have you got?”

“As much as you need.”

Laz and Beth welcomed four of the sailors of the Good Samaritan Fleet into their home that night. They, as I, would depart again the next day, and though their vessels housed more than adequate sleeping quarters, a person can spend only so much time at sea. Over dinner, they invited me to travel with them to the places that had been
Tampa or Fort Meyers, where I could cross over to Miami, my next defined destination.

“It would be faster,” one said. “Or, if you’re willing to trade the time, you could stay with us all the way. We’ll be stopping in the Keys on our way around the Florida Peninsula. It’s a bit out of your way, but it would be much easier on you and your horse.”

“You have space for him?”

“We unloaded just about everyone, and we shouldn’t gain many more until we reach Miami. Space shouldn’t be a problem, as long as your friend isn’t afraid of the water.”

“That’s very generous,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

It might have been faster and certainly easier, I knew, but I had to pass on the offer. I could not in good conscience make a decision to neglect the millions of people living along the Florida Panhandle and my route south, particularly in the presence of the selfless mariners whose sacrifices reunited so many families.

“People are amazing creatures,” Lazarus said. “Look at what we’ve accomplished. Months ago, we were all homeless. Now we have roofs over our heads. A week ago, thousands drank from a river. Now they drink from wells built with their bare hands. And you’re here, Joe, reconnecting the disconnected world, like these fine sailors with whom we’re sharing this meal. Just think, if we can do all this, what else are we capable of? What will we have tomorrow?”

Early the next morning, Nomad and I were on the road again, headed east along the Gulf shore.

6

SHE’LL HAVE A HOME

M
obile.
Pensacola.
Tallahassee.

The billboard advertisements lining both sides of the road were fading. Some were torn, some covered in graffiti. Those old icons of Western culture reminded me of just how alone I was. Businesses that no longer existed were still marketing to the one person left wandering the road. The highways we traveled were already showing signs of deterioration, and the tropical foliage on the sides of the road was converging upon it like a slow and steady adversary.

Some days, Nomad seemed restless, as if he was anxious to reach our next destination. When the weather was on our side and we were both up to it, we could cover sixty miles in a day. That, I thought, was an accomplishment. I
had decided to challenge myself to a race against the sailors to the place that had been Miami. I would be following a similar route to theirs along the Gulf Coast, and it gave me something to strive for. I needed all of the motivation I could get.

The morning aroma of the fresh gulf air was the same as it had always been, sometimes sweetened by the perfume of peaches and citrus. The flavor of freedom.

Tampa.

Fort Meyers.

Naples.

I found that it was sometimes easier to find settlements at night. The nights were so black that I could see the glow of a fire miles away. Once we reached the Everglades, however, there were no lights at night save for the stars and the moon. There were no sounds but those of nature. It took two long days to cross from the Gulf side to the Atlantic side of the peninsula, and sleeping in the wetlands between rattled my nerves.

I had heard about the influx of Burmese and African rock pythons there for years, showing up in suburban swimming pools and destroying native wildlife populations. Having never lived nearby, however, I had thought little of it until I was there. Then it was all I could think about. These creatures could reach over twenty feet in length and three feet around, which was plenty big enough to crush my bones and swallow me whole. They truly were monsters in the way we only imagined them in Africa or South America or Southeast Asia. The government of the state of
Florida had labeled them invasive species and had offered rewards for a capture or kill. Fortunately, I was armed. If the moment did arise, speed and accuracy would be absolutely vital.

I didn’t sleep well that night in the Everglades. Between the pain from the splinter in my arm, which I suspected had become infected, and my fear of what lurked in the wilderness around me, there was no rest to be had. Every time my horse shuffled his hooves, I stirred. Every time the wind blew through the mangroves and cypress trees, I held my breath, my sweaty fingers tightly clasping my loaded shotgun. Masses of mosquitos buzzed constantly just outside the walls of my tent. The few times that I was able to doze off, it was only moments before I was awakened again by the sounds of some creature in the night.

The morning finally came with no sign of any reptilian foe, and as I emerged into the daylight, I had to laugh at my own paranoia. This expedition and the humid tropical heat were getting to me. My clothes were drenched in sweat and smelled awful, and I thought it an opportune time to cleanse them and myself, not just of filth, but also of my fear. Contrary to the night’s cape of darkness, in the daylight, the Everglades were peaceful with an intriguing aura of mystery about them. I grabbed my bar of soap and headed toward the murky swamp unarmed, leaving Nomad by the road.

To reach the water, I had to peel away a section of the chain-link fence that bordered both sides of the long, straight highway through the nature preserve. After a brief
walk, I stripped off my clothes and stepped in, feeling the mud squish between my toes. The road was barely visible through the trees behind me, and I glanced back occasionally to ensure that my horse had not left. I cleaned my clothes with the bar of soap and hung them, piece by piece, from a nearby branch to dry. The tropical birds chirped and chattered in the trees around me.

My mind wandered back to our old home in the suburbs, cleaning laundry in a machine, drying it in another, and folding it neatly to be put away in a drawer. Maria had never liked the way I folded laundry.

“Why do you fold yours first?” she had asked me.

“Because if I get the big stuff out of the way, it’s easier to get to the smaller stuff, which happens to be yours.” There was method to my madness. The conversation paused as I placed my folded clothes in my dresser and went into the bathroom for a shower. After a few minutes, she called to me over the sound of the running water.

“How come you didn’t put the towels away?”

“Because they made a nice foundation for your stack of clothes. Actually, I need one of those. Will you bring one in here for me?”

I turned off the shower and slid the glass door open, and I was hit in the face with the towel she had thrown. Fresh out of the wash, it still smelled like a wet dog. There must have been something wrong with the machine, but I’d never had the motivation to hunt for the source.

In the swamp, I bathed among the mangroves with no clothes to fold, because the only ones I owned were
the ones I wore every day. I was scrubbing the wound in my forearm that was beginning to swell when the soap slipped from my hand and splashed into the water. I felt it bounce off my foot, and I leaned down to search for it, my fingers combing the mud and mangrove roots. Something brushed against my arm beneath the water. Figuring it was only a fish, I paid it little mind. I found my bar of soap and submerged myself to wash my hair, scrubbing the dirt and salt from my scalp. I could feel the grains under my fingertips. Haircuts had not been a priority, particularly through the winters. My hair had been long before and had only grown longer since I had left home, tangling from humidity and sweat. In the constant heat, I considered shaving it all off with my knife, but it was necessary to protect my scalp from the sun. The clothes I had been wearing were lightweight but long sleeved to serve the same purpose. Sunburn could turn an already trying journey to misery.

With my head under the water, I felt an ever so subtle wave pass over, and though it might have been caused by a breeze, I suddenly felt I was not alone. I emerged again to find myself staring back into a pair of green eyes just at the surface of the water ahead of me. For a moment I was frozen. It was no snake. It was another reptile, perhaps more fearsome, that had somehow managed to slip my mind as I carelessly cleansed myself in its indigenous habitat. I suddenly remembered a passing warning from Lazarus of the formidable prehistoric beast that resides in the swamp: the alligator.

He glared at me as if debating the attack. Whether he was hungry or territorial or both, I was not sure, but he could see my vulnerability, and I could see the intent in his eyes. Even for an animal with the stigma of a ruthless predator, the ’gator would normally have been less interested in a challenge than I, but those eyes were unmistakable. I knew he was not backing down.

The mud oozed around my toes and heels, my feet stuck with suction. I was slow in the water and certainly no match for him, but the ground was just behind me and I was surrounded by trees. A decision had to be made before he made his. Hesitation could be fatal.

I threw my bar of soap, hitting him between the eyes. That distracted him just long enough for me to scramble out of the water and into the tangled trunk of the nearest mangrove tree as his jaws emerged and took a snap, missing my foot by mere inches. I climbed up the branches just out of his reach. He sat below, watching me, pacing, waiting as I moved higher. He groaned with disappointment at the initial strike, but he knew he had me. It was only a matter of time before I had to come down. Then I was doomed.

Naked and treed like a hunted raccoon with the dogs barking below, I searched around for a way out. Tree trunks wound together, and I began to climb between them, my grip slipping in the mud that coated my hands and feet. The ’gator followed, still looking up at me. I must have wandered too near his nest to be pardoned for my trespass. I watched him through the leaves. He was at least
ten feet long and black with a tan belly and stripes on his tail that blended with the swamp. One blunder and he’d have his meal. If only I had been blessed with the long arms of a primate, I thought, I could simply swing from my vulnerable position between the mazes of branches above. Humans are not built for trees.

“Nomad!” I called in desperation. He could be of no help as anything other than a distraction, but I saw no other options. Perhaps the sound of another creature might lure the beast far enough for me to make my escape. I could faintly see his figure stirring through the trees, searching for me by the sound of my voice. He could never fit through the hole I had cut in the fence. The gator looked in his direction momentarily and then back up at me as if to boast that my attempted baiting had failed to entice him.

Looking up to the clouds, I pleaded in desperation, “Send me a way.”

Suddenly, the branch on which I crouched began to creak, and before I had a chance to react, it snapped under my weight. The green world turned to blue as I plummeted toward my inevitable demise. A moment later, the same green scene returned upside down as I found myself dangling by my legs, wrapped around what remained of the broken branch. My body had answered quicker than my mind, and in that same moment, the trees and the sky had vanished, replaced by a mouth full of teeth and the pink geography down the inside of nature’s throat lunging at mine. I swung up just before the bite took me, reaching
my hands to my feet and hanging by all fours with my back to the grounded ’gator.

Then I found my opportunity. Through the matrix of trunks and leaves, I saw a clearing that I had not seen from above. Nearby there was a patch of ground blocked entirely by roots that he would have to climb through to reach. They would slow him down, but they would not stop him. He was too determined, pacing back and forth just below me. From the spot where I intended to land was a clear path back to the hole I had cut in the fence. The only problem was the horizontal distance I would have to span to reach it. It would have been a good jump for an athlete, which I was not.

This was it. I shimmied back to the trunk and climbed through the tree toward the nearest point to the clearing, my heart racing and my skin dripping. I gripped the branches on either side of me, positioned my feet for the best spring, and then leaped. I passed over the alligator’s head and tumbled to the ground, rolling into a dead run without even looking behind me. I could hear his claws vigorously scaling the ground and his leathery belly dragging. He was after me, jaws snapping at my bare heels. I felt his hot breath on my ankles and heard each swift step crunch in the ground cover as I stumbled as quickly as I could through the trees toward the hole in the fence. I had to reach my shotgun. That would be my only chance against the beast.

When I reached the fence, I dove through it, rolling in the grass toward Nomad, who was standing exactly where I
had left him. The alligator got caught up on the fence, but he managed to unhinge himself, persisting just as quickly. Those few lost seconds might have saved my life. Nomad reared at the sight of the beast and turned toward me, putting the weapon just within reach. I slipped my hand into the leather sleeve where my shotgun rested and in one motion pulled it free and racked a shell, spinning toward my pursuer. Just as he approached me and opened his mouth for one final strike, I squeezed the trigger, unleashing a load of buckshot into his throat. The sound echoed for miles. Flocks of birds squawked and retreated from the trees nearby. Then there was silence.

I sat for a moment of reflection next to the smoking carcass of my assailant. He would make quite a meal. The level of adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream had numbed me to the sensation of pain, and I didn’t realize until I saw it that I was wounded. My leg was painted red. I wiped away the blood with my hand, but more gushed through the torn skin. The ’gator had not eaten the entire load of buckshot, and some had ricocheted from a nearby rock and caught me in the calf. After the battle was won, the only injury I had sustained was self-inflicted.