Alligator (17 page)

It had become so calm and beautiful that even Rye noticed it, and his muscles, which were usually strung up tight from nervous energy, uncramped and relaxed. Thoughts about land deals and mortgages, even proxy fights, blurred and softened until they disappeared completely into a warm bath of mindlessness.

The four men looked out, squinting into the bright sun and watched the passing panorama in silence. Each man had drawn into himself, for once not calculating and scheming, not weighing one another's reactions, but at peace. In the beauty of the morning, Lee almost forgot the great hulk of a man who sat next to him.

Downriver, in an open stretch of water, John caught sight of a golden-brown bobcat dog-paddling through the water toward shore. John wasn't the only one who saw him. Along the muddy river banks, several alligators watched the bobcat's struggles through half-closed eyes. They waited until the bobcat was mid-water, then slowly slipped into the water. Gliding smoothly and effortlessly, without even going full speed, the alligators began to close the gap.

"Hey, look!" yelled John.

It was a fascinating sight. The bobcat was still unaware of the alligators. Then an undefined instinct, a vague scent of danger, made the bobcat look back. He screamed in terror when he saw the five black pitted backs and the bulging eyes hunched in the water behind him. He began smashing at the water with his paws, desperate to reach shore. The alligators speeded up; their yellow eyes and snubbed snouts skimmed the surface; their armored tails sliced the water into wakes. On the other shore, several more alligators slid into the water to join them.

"Looks to be open season on bobcat," said Rye with a chuckle. "Hope you fellas don't mind if I just join in." Rye lifted his rifle, took aim at the lead alligator, and fired rapidly. Waterspouts sprang up around the alligator, and thick sprays of water haloed the air, but he hit nothing. "Son of a bitch!" he yelled as he reloaded. Rye could see Lee turn away in disgust. The tightass, he thought.

John picked up his rifle. "It's better than the bear at the penny arcade," he said, and threw several shots. He hit one of the back alligators in the tail. It didn't even slow him.

"Tough bastards, ain't they?" yelled Rye. "Aim for the head. You ain't gonna bother them none no place else."

The skiffs began to arrive at the scene. Rye held up his hand in warning to the men. This was his game. Rye, took his time aiming, and thunked a bullet home. It knocked the alligator clear across the water, flipping him over and exposing his soft, fleshy stomach. Rye took another shot. The wounded alligator howled in pain, twitching violently, then went lifeless. His body bobbed up and down in an ever-enlarging pool of his insides.

The other alligators stopped. The smell of blood had distracted them. Suddenly they turned and rushed to attack the dead alligator. The bobcat took advantage of the delay and swam faster.

Rye stopped shooting and watched John as he concentrated on the big lead alligator. An interesting thought crossed Rye's mind, and he shifted his rifle, trapping John between the cross hairs. All he would have to do was squeeze his finger, he thought. Just a little squeeze. Interesting, he thought, but not ultimately worth it. He shifted the barrel back out at the water and blasted the bobcat into the air.

"Airboat's a hell of a toy," Rye said to Maurice. The men had changed places, and Rye sat in the pilot's seat, next to Maurice. Lee and John sat in back. Lee kept a careful watch on the water ahead. He trusted Rye's nautical instincts about as much as he trusted Aaron's business acumen.

Rye steered the Saurian over the calm water directly into the brassy afternoon sun. Lee could see reflections of the shoreline quickly speed across the silver lenses of his sunglasses. Trees, birds, and flowers raced over his face; a deer was caught there for a moment, then quickly scampered back into the woods.

"Now, when I was a boy," continued Rye, "I always wanted one of these things, but we didn't have the money. Jesus, we didn't have enough to buy a dugout off a drunken Indian, and these things was a rarity then. But I surely did want one."

Up ahead, Lee could see that the water was breaking up.

"Cut the motor!" he shouted. "There's some rapids ahead!"

Rye stopped talking, looked for a moment, then turned back to Maurice. "As I was sayin', I wanted—"

"I said, cut the motor!" yelled Lee. "This boat's too flat to handle, rapids full speed."

"I heard ya the first time." Rye spun the Saurian around and headed back toward the other skiffs. "Who's game for a bit of racin'?" he yelled, shutting down the motor. "Hundred bucks says I make it over first."

"I'll make it two hundred!" yelled Marris.

"You ain't got fifty cents to your name!" yelled Levi.

"I got a hundred bucks!" screamed Ace.

"Who axed you, kid? Make way for your elders!" Marris yelled.

"Kiss my ass!" Ben screamed to Rye.

"Well now, if you win, that's just what I'll do," Rye laughed.

Lee's eyes were smoldering. "I've had enough!" he yelled. "Get out of the pilot's seat."

Rye laughed and started up the engine. He swung the Saurian back toward the rapids.

"Jesus Christ, this is crazy!" Sam yelled to Ben. The white water loomed just ahead, and he could hear its roar over the engine.

"You want me to let you off on shore?" asked Ben.

Sam hesitated. "You think we can make it over the rapids in this thing?"

"You never know till you try. Well, which is it?"

Sam nodded, and Ben drew them up alongside the other skiffs, which were lining up as best they could in two parallel rows alongside the Saurian. They pulled into the back lines; once they hit the rapids, a couple of feet here or there wouldn't make a difference.

Lee reached over and grabbed Rye's arm. "I said, enough!" Rye shook his arm loose and flashed a smirk at Lee. "Are you crazy?" screamed Lee. He shoved Rye aside and tried to wrench the steering post from his hand.

Rye pushed into gear and screamed, "Go!"

Shoving the Saurian into full throttle, Rye plowed directly into the heart of the rapids. Lee fell back into his seat and held tightly to the struts.

Suddenly the choppy water rose up. Maurice screamed, "Rye, maybe we shouldn't—" but it was too late. They were surrounded by thundering water. It roared and hissed all around them. Maurice couldn't hear; he couldn't even think. The spray whipped his face and knocked the air from his lungs until he could hardly breathe.

Rye pulled the Saurian into the lead almost immediately. It belly-flopped all over the surface. The flat platform hit the water like a pancake, then bounced up into the air.

Just behind the Saurian, Marris and Thompson were fighting to keep second place. Ben and Sam were just behind them and closing the gap. The rest of the boats weren't making much of a race of it. They were all bunched up, banging into one another and tipping from side to side.

The rapids became faster. Huge boulders were sticking out of the river and blocking up the water into boiling whirlpools. Rye zigzagged through the maze of rocks and seething water, but he was picking up too much speed to have control. As he swerved to miss a large log that was careening through the turbulence, the edge of the Saurian hit a rock. The airboat ricocheted, rising into the air, suspended for what seemed like hours; then it tottered and tipped back into the water.

John was practically thrown overboard. He held tightly to his seat and screamed, "I ought to kill you, you son of a bitch," but his words were eaten up in the roaring air.

Rye was straddling his seat as if he were riding a Brahman bull, laughing and shouting with delight. With the wet wind battering his face and the roar of the water all around him, his mind was so glutted with sensation that he felt nothing but release and joy. Ahead, the wildest part of the rapids foamed white, and Rye plowed toward them with a furious, pounding excitement.

The tight knot of skiffs had broken up, and only three of them were giving Rye anything of a challenge. The skiffs carrying the out-of-towners were the farthest back. The men had jumped out and were trying to reach shore for the portage.

Most of the others were taking the rapids closer to shore and staying out of trouble. Only Mike Sears and Ted Smallwood had stuck to the fast water and were starting to lose control. Their skiff glanced off a boulder and was thrown into a whirlpool where the spinning water picked them up and whirled them around. Mike screamed. Ted pulled out the boat pole and jabbed it against the boulder. He was pushing them out of the eddy, trying to get them to shore, when the rapid water took them up once again and they sped forward.

Ben and Sam were only a few yards behind Rye, but they were beyond seeing that. All they could see was the chopped, angry water that swirled just ahead of them, and all they could feel was the steady rhythm of their straining bodies. Sam fended off the rocks with the boat pole while Ben worked the motor skillfully. There was a clearness in their minds. They saw, then acted. Nothing more. There was no room for extraneous thought. It was only when they started to pull level with the Saurian that they remembered the race.

"Gotcha!" Ben yelled at the airboat.

"Like hell!" returned Rye.

All at once Thompson and Marris drew up, whooping like cowboys, then pulled ahead. Marris worked the motor until it screamed. Suddenly a rock loomed up before them. Thompson tried to yell a warning, but it was caught in his throat. The skiff crashed into the boulder and was thrown into the air. It flipped, throwing Thompson and Marris into the water.

Thompson grabbed hold of the spinning boat and pulled his head above water. Marris was holding on to the same side and Thompson could hear him choking and sputtering. It sounded like he was vomiting. Thompson held on even tighter as the skiff, no longer balanced by an even distribution of weight, spun from side to side, carrying the men downward in the angry white water.

Suddenly the skiff cut the Saurian's path. Rye spun hard over and tried to avoid the skiff, with its two passengers kicking and splashing frantically. The Saurian lurched to the right and just missed it, but was thrown directly in the path of a tangle of cypress logs that were caught between some rocks. The airboat plowed into the logs and was knocked off balance. It looped around like a derailed roller coaster, hanging in mid-air, then crashing back down to the surface.

The over-revved engine stalled out. Rye had lost all power, and without power he lost control. The Saurian was taken up by the swirling water. It bounced against rocks and swiveled around to the shore. For a moment it seemed that the Saurian would crash into the river bank. Maurice covered his eyes, unwilling to spend his last few seconds watching his own destruction.

Lee grabbed a pole and tried to hold the airboat steady, but he had little chance against the churning water. The pole bent double; it sprang back out of the water and into the air. Rye took another pole and speared into the muck, but it was no use; the Saurian was plotting its own course. Just as the airboat was two feet from shore, the rapids stopped. All at once the water calmed, and the Saurian drifted evenly in the quiet river water.

Maps, supplies, and equipment were strewn all over the platform of the Saurian in sticky wet globs. The water was an inch deep. Lee moved to the front and pulled the steering post from Rye so hard it knocked him off balance.

Rye laughed, trying to save face. "What's the matter, boy? Scared? Don't worry, I can handle myself. You ain't gonna lose me like you did that kid."

"Take another crazy risk like that and—"

"And what?" yelled Rye. "Just what in the hell are you gonna do?"

"You can get yourself another guide, Mr. Whitman. I quit."

"Oh, no, you don't. I paid you money, in exchange for which you promised to carry me. And that's exactly what you're gonna do. After all, you're a man of your word, aren't ya, Boone?"

Rye tried the engine. It whined a few times, then sputtered and died. He tried it again, pushing it angrily until it finally kicked over and roared into life. Rye got out of the seat and, with great ceremony, offered it to Lee.

As Rye sat down in the back, Maurice touched his arm. In that touch was a warning that he was going too far, but Rye didn't like being warned. He gave Maurice a playful punch which was meant to communicate: I don't take advice from you. Then he turned to John and yelled, "Hey, Patterson, why so silent? Don't tell me I scared you, too."

"I don't like other people risking my life," said John.

Rye laughed. "What's happened to your sense of humor?"

"I left it in Miami," John said, and turned away from him.

"Well, now, let's see if we can help you find it again," said Rye. "After all, this trip was supposed to be fun, isn't that right, Maurice?"

"Oh, yeah," Maurice said under his breath. "This trip's going to be a barrel of laughs."

It was a peaceful night, still and calm. The only sound was an occasional rustle in the trees as a night animal scurried by, and the staccato swell of crickets. A thousand flowers scented the air. The men had set up their tents all along the shore of the hummock. A kerosene lantern hung from each tent and cast a golden, liquid circle of light like a halo. Two campfires studded the black shoreline and splashed flickering red light across the trees.

Rye, John, Ben, and Marris were playing cards at one of the fires, while the rest of the men huddled together at the other. Only Lee sat alone. He leaned against a tree just outside his tent and stared into the night.

Maurice sat hunched by the fire, remembering half-forgotten boyhood fantasies of a life in the wilderness. He hadn't spoken in several minutes, and didn't particularly feel the need to speak. Except for the group that was playing cards, most of the men were silent, and those who weren't spoke only in whispers.

From the far side of the fire, Simon Long started to yodel. It was a primitive, eerie sound, but there was a rhythm and pitch to it that made it almost like music. Tucker Cox took it up, answering him. The two voices wove in and out of each other. Tucker followed along for a while, then dropped back, only to pick up a phrase again. The two came together and pulled apart as if they were doing a minuet.