Water Witch (24 page)

Trying to still the gnawing concern in my
chest over not having any life jackets, I turned to face the
fork—and a decision. Now or never . . .

I thought about the kids, focused on how
frightened they must be, then held out my left hand. The reaction
was immediate and painful, as if someone had grabbed hold of it and
yanked hard, pulling it sideways towards my wrist. I glanced over
at my sister. The direction was clear; there wasn’t a need for
words.

I saw fear flickered in her eyes, and I could
only imagine what she saw in mine. So many emotions were rolling
through me, I couldn’t stick a label to just one.
Panic—excitement—anger—fear . . . fear. Okay, so I could label
one.

Angelle nodded once, inferring, “Ready?”

I returned the nod. This was as ready as I
was going to get. The whine of the engine returned, and as the boat
veered left, I hunkering back into position, faced west, keeping my
left hand out in front of me.

The burning, firecracker sensation in my
little finger intensified as we pushed through the darkening water,
this channel much narrower than the one behind us.Still holding the
flashlight in my right hand, I clicked on the switch and used the
beam of light to direct Angelle. Right, into another chute—right
again into a wider bay—left, quick left into a much darker
slough.

So much of my attention was focused on the
kids that I barely noticed the scenery. An occasional houseboat, an
egret the size of a snow goose, things I would have normally gawked
at only irritated me, distractions that caused my finger to go dead
and me to regroup my attention. Worse than the distraction, though,
was the length of time this was taking. Already it felt like we’d
been sloshing around the swamps forever, going around in circles.
Everything looked the same. Green—dark—wet.

A time or two we’d happen upon what looked
like a field of grass, which were actually the water lilies Angelle
had warned me about earlier. It was slow going through those
patches, Angelle working the throttle, fretting every time the
engine sputtered. The lilies were bad enough, but the darkness . .
.

Night didn’t fall upon the swamp, it collided
with it. One minute shadows were gently merging over the water, and
the next, I could hardly see the front of the boat, even with the
flashlight and the glow from the moon. I slapped at a mosquito
whining in my right ear, surprised I could hear it at all.

Although we seemed to be the only humans on
some watery planet in a lost universe, we were far from the only
creatures here. The collective sounds of what must have been a
bazillion insects, and God only knew what else, was so loud I could
hardly hear myself think.

Following the pull and pain in my finger, I
aimed the flashlight to the right. “Turn there, between those two
big cypress trees.” I glanced back to make sure Angelle had heard
me.

She nodded, then batted a hand across her
face, swatted the left side of her neck, her ear. “What’s with all
these mosquitoes?”

“I said to turn right—right—you’re going to
miss the turn off.” I aimed the flashlight at the opening of the
slough, and she quickly banked right. The passageway was narrower
than any we’d traveled through so far. A little over twenty-five
feet from bank to bank. The brush and thicket of trees much
heavier, too.

“Jesus!”

Hearing the surprise in Angelle’s voice, I
jerked the flashlight beam in her direction.

It looked like a light gray veil had settled
over her head and shoulders. Her left arm flailed about. “Jesus . .
. God, look at all these fucking mosquitoes!” She spat, spat again.
“Ugh!”

The beam from the flashlight acted like a
sword, cutting through the gray veil, splitting the swarm of
mosquitoes that covered her in half, sending them off in another
direction. They swooped up, around, and behind until they’d settled
on top of me. I barely had time to close my mouth before I felt the
sting on my lips, them drilling into my nose, my ears. A mass of
buzzing, whining, flitting gray matter that crowded my vision.
“Shit,” I muttered through clenched teeth, lowering my head,
batting the air around me. I felt tiny pinpricks on my face, my
neck, my arms.

I braved a glance at my sister through
slitted eyelids. She was still doing the batting, swatting mosquito
dance, all the while sputtering and spitting, swinging her head
from side to side. She finally let go of the throttle to use both
hands, and the engine sputtered twice, then died. She stood up, arm
still swinging, turned towards the motor.

I held the crook of my left arm over my mouth
to minimize the number of blood-suckers I’d have to eat, and
started to yell at Angelle to get us out of there, but all I got
out was, “Get us—“ before something hit the left side of the boat,
jostling me hard in my seat. I dropped the flashlight. “Fuck!”

Something hammered against the boat again,
nearly knocking Angelle overboard this time. “Shit!” She grabbed
onto the throttle for balance. “Shit . . . shit!”

“What the hell’s doing that?” I yelled,
scrambling for the flashlight.

She didn’t answer. Her back was to me now,
and she was leaning over, evidently meaning to restart the
motor.

The boat bobbled in the open water as I
chased the rolling flashlight on the bottom of the boat. As soon as
I got a grip on it, I shot the beam over the side of the boat,
aiming it into the murky water—and on an alligator with a head the
size. . . of a fucking Camaro. The moment the light hit it, the
gator opened its jaws wide and snapped at the thin wall of
aluminum, our only protection.

“Go!” I yelled to Angelle. “Get us the hell
out of here now!
Now
!” I didn’t want to take my eyes off the
alligator, as if that would make any difference on the timing of
its attack.

“I’m trying!” The engine coughed,
sputtered—died. Sputtered again, then chugged, the sound of a motor
gasping to turn over but flooded with too much gasoline.

“Gelle, get us the fuck—“

“—I’m trying, goddammit, I’m trying!”

The engine whined, then revved, chugged and
died.

Suddenly, another
THUNK
on the side of
the boat. The attack came so fast and hard, my butt slipped off the
seat, and I fell onto the floor of the boat. That time, though, I
kept hold of the flashlight. No way was I going to let it go again.
If I was going to die, they’d have to bury me with the
sonofabitch.

Whine—chug—whine—
grooommmm. . .
the
engine finally caught, and in the next moment, Angelle had us
flying down the slough as if the boat were propelled by rockets.
She yelled something to me, but her words were snatched away by the
wind.

I held onto the side of the boat, squinted,
aimed the flashlight ahead, hoped she could see where she was
going.

Too fast . . .too fast. We were going way too
fast for oncoming cypress stumps—oncoming cutoffs we needed to
take. I yelled over the rush of wind,“Slow down! Slow down!”

Whether it was from the speed of the boat or
our location, I couldn’t tell, but my finger suddenly became
multi-directional. My entire hand vibrated with fire and
electricity, and my finger waggled as if wanting to point in every
direction at once. North—east—south—it was as if the kids had
exploded, and my hand meant to find every molecule that floated
back down to earth.

I shouted to Angelle again, “Slow down! I
can’t pick anything up. I don’t know where we have to go. You’re
going to slam into something!”

Evidently figuring out that I was trying to
tell her something, Angelle geared back the throttle, and the roar
of the engine quieted. The boat slowed. “What did you say?”

“I said slow down.”

“I got that, the other thing.”

“I’m not picking up anything specific. Not
sure where we’re supposed to go.”

Her shoulders slumped.

On trembling legs, I got to my feet and
carefully made my way back to the seat at the front of the boat.
Grimacing, I aimed the flashlight out over the water, trying to get
a feel for our surroundings. My right hand shook so violently from
the pain in my left that the beam of light jittered and jumped. A
giant firefly on amphetamines.

I patted the air with my hand, signaling for
Angelle to slow down even more. I didn’t feel certain about our
direction anymore. Just as before, everything around me looked like
everything else I’d seen since we’d left the landing. Left looked
right, and right looked absolutely wrong. I threw nervous glances
over both sides of the boat to make sure Crocodile Dundee’s mascot
hadn’t followed us. Seeing all was clear, I started drawing in
long, deep breaths, attempting to refocus. Slow . . . easy . . .
breaths.

Calm
. . . .c
alm
. . .
think
about the kids . . . the kids . . .kids. . .

“Which way?” Angelle asked.

I shook my head, still not feeling a clear
direction. It was as if my entire left hand had been forced on top
of a hot plate that had a short in it. At least the beam from the
flashlight was growing steadier by the second.

“Which way?” Angelle asked again.

“Not getting anything specific.”
“Still?”

“I can’t help it. It’s not doing like it was
before.”

“God, Dunny. It has to. I don’t know where
the hell we are. I don’t even know how far out we’ve come.”

I looked back at her sharply. “I thought you
knew these swamps.”

“I said I got out in the boat sometimes. I
didn’t say I knew all the sloughs and flats and lakes around here
or how one turns into the other. I was only following your
direction, and I figured if you could get us out here, you’d get us
back.” She was nearly panting with panic now. “You
have
to
do something!”

“Do what? I can’t
make
it do anything,
Gelle, you know that.”

“Jesus . . .” Angelle shook her head, fiddled
with her ponytail, swiped the back of her hand over her mouth.
“Fuck . . .”

While she fretted and fidgeted, I turned back
to the front of the boat, squinting to figure out what lay ahead of
the flashlight beam, beyond in the path of moonlight.

Trees and more trees—water and more
water—turtles slipping off logs on the a nearby bank—the plop of
fish leapfrogging from their schools—and something else . . .

“Still nothing?” Angelle asked.

Instead of answering, I trained the
flashlight beam on something pale near a clump of cypress trees
lining the bank about a couple hundred feet or so ahead on the
right. It looked like a white seven . . .

My interest piqued, I pointed to it. “Go that
way. Slow, though. Go slow.”

“What is it?”

“Just go.”

No sooner did Angelle aim the boat in that
direction than the fiery hot sensation radiating through my extra
finger did an about face. It turned cold. Antarctica cold. And cold
meant dead.
Oh, God
. . .c
old was dead.
Whatever was
sticking up near the gnarled base of the largest cypress tree was
dead. I was sure of it . . .stone cold, dead sure of it.

“Please don’t let it be one of the kids,” I
whispered. “Please, not the kids.”

“What did you say?” Angelle called over the
sputter of the motor.

“There . . .that white thing by the trees.” I
struggled to hold the flashlight beam steady.

Angelle pushed the boat forward a little
faster, moving us up closer . . .closer still.

I leaned forward, squinting.

“It looks like a seven . . .” Angelle said,
directing the comment more to herself than to me.

“Yeah. I . . . wait . . .” Either I’d cocked
my head the right way, or the beam of the flashlight managed to
slice through just the right shadow because suddenly that pale
silhouette came into stark view. It was a seven all right . . .
created by a human leg and foot. And we were coming on it too fast.
God . . . shit . . .
I threw my left hand up. “Stop! Stop the
boat.”

Angelle immediately killed the motor, but not
soon enough. The boat continued forward until the bow hit the large
cypress, dislodged the leg and sent it sliding under the water.
After regaining my balance, I held my breath and pointed the
flashlight over the bow and peeked over the edge, not wanting to
see, but needing too.

“What was it? Did you see?” Angelle asked,
clambering towards the front of the boat.

“Stay back,” I said. And of course she
didn’t.

“What is it?”

The flashlight suddenly blinked off, then on
. . .off, then on. Then off, and we were left to the milky hue of
moonlight. I beat the head of the flashlight against my left palm.
“You have extra batteries for this thing?”

“I put fresh ones in before we left the
house. It can’t be the batteries. Maybe when you dropped it earlier
. . .”

I tapped the flashlight again, harder.

“What was it?” Angelle asked again. “Did you
see it?”

In that moment, the flashlight chose to blink
back on, and its beam ricocheted from the cap of aluminum on the
bow, into the water, and right into the eyes of death. Angelle must
have spotted the dead woman at the same moment I did because her
scream rang out so loud and long, it made my ears sting.

There was little question it was a woman. Her
face and torso bobbed to the surface, tapped against the boat as
small waves sought the shore of the bank. Her face was narrow with
a pointed chin, and a mole sat high on her right cheek . . . right
below an empty eye socket.

“God—oh, God . . .” Angelle scrambled for the
back of the boat, causing the skiff to rock, jerk from side to
side.

The flashlight blinked off again. No light—no
life jackets. . . “Calm down or you’ll flip the boat!”

“How the hell you expect me to calm down!
It’s a dead woman for heaven’s sake! A dead woman right up against
the boat!” She stomped her feet in fear, her shouts echoing through
the swamp.