Alligator (35 page)

Rye wasn't sure whether to cry or to laugh. He had aged at least ten years in the past two weeks, yet he found it funny. He leaned closer, searching the face of the primitive who stared back at him for traces of Rye Whitman, Chairman of the Board of Whitman Industries, member of the Elks, the Rotary, the Masons, the White Oaks Country Club, friend of the Museum of Modern Art, the Symphony, the Boy Scouts of America, the Board of Realtors, large contributor to the campaigns of the Democrats, the Republicans, and even the Socialists, just in case, backer of Little League baseball, Junior Football, the City of Hope, Muscular Dystrophy, the United Fund, the Red Cross, and various other institutions.

He laughed when he thought about the other Rye Whitman; he felt no connection to him at all.

Lee walked over to Rye, surprised by the laughter, but when he looked down into the water, he too discovered a savage. His tall, lean body had taken on substance and muscle; there was something almost animal-like about his movements. His face was so burned and weathered that he too looked ten years older. His curly hair stood out from his head in huge, matted ringlets, and his beard had grown long enough for him to see that it was red. Perhaps it was the crow's-feet that were etched into his skin, or his deep tan, but his eyes seemed softer than before, and the hook of his nose less sharp and cruel.

They stared at themselves in wonder for several minutes, each man sensing that the sun and the sawgrass which had torn the clothes from his body had stripped away everything else, too, leaving only the essence. Both of them felt that, no matter what else happened, they would never be again what they were before.

Lee was still asleep when Rye awakened early the next morning. It took Rye a long time to move. His belly ached terribly, as if a burning acid were eating up his insides. The occasional frog or fish that he found only accentuated the empty ache in his stomach. He knew he'd be better off if he didn't eat at all. If he completely starved himself, as Lee was able to do, eventually the hunger would subside.

He was losing strength quickly; every movement took more and more effort. He was sleeping better than he ever had before, yet when he awakened he felt more drained than when he had lain down. This morning, just standing up seemed to be a momentous task. He wished he could just lie where he was and give in to the fatigue, the hunger, the desolation which drained him of everything but his one burning purpose.

Still he pulled himself from the ground and stared out into the flat, featureless land, looking for a bent blade of grass, listening for the slightest movement, something that would tell him that the alligator was still there.

For days he had tried to understand why this fight meant so much to him; now he no longer cared. Understanding the reasons behind things didn't seem nearly as important as before. He had to get the alligator; that was all he knew, that was all he cared to know. Nothing had relevance for him except the alligator, not even the land, not even the gnawing hunger.

As he dragged his weakened body to the water's edge, he knew he wouldn't be able to make it beyond another day, two at the most. Lee was young enough to take the deprivation and the hardship, but Rye was old, much older than he had ever before realized. In the city, he'd been able to keep the truth from himself, but out here, there were no lies. He was old. and this land was making him older, probably even killing him. Yes, he decided, if the land continued as it was, he would die in a few more days.

Rye dipped his hand into the brown water and scooped it to his mouth, allowing the algae to slip down his throat as at least some kind of nourishment. Suddenly Rye was surprised by sound. When he looked up, he saw a heron swooping into the water. It emerged with the flashing silver of a fish. He watched greedily; he hadn't seen a heron in three days, and the sight of another life was stirringly beautiful. Near his feet he discovered several grasshoppers, and in the next moment two dragonflies sped past him, copulating on the wing, linked together in their insect passion. Straining his eyes, he thought he could make out a break in the flatness at the edge of the horizon.

Rye was stunned. The possibility of a tree astounded him; the thought of diversity, differentiation, noise, color, food, shade, and sharing the earth with other living creatures delighted and baffled him. The notion of marsh rats, gator bugs, loony birds, water moccasins, custard apple, cypresses, angel-hair moss, pond lilies, poison ivy, morning glories, and mangroves overwhelmed him. He ran to wake Lee with the news.

By midday, the world was once again green. Height, depth, shape, and definition returned. The men began to see animals again. The mosquitoes were among the first to return, and even their bite seemed a blessing. Scrub began to appear, then an occasional fragile tree, and finally tall trees with sweeping branches, tunneling over their heads, splashing shade across the face of the earth.

Lee stopped to make a trap, and was rewarded with two otters. Unable to wait until it cooled, they burned their fingers on the greasy flesh. Their stomachs, unused to such bounty, ached, but still they ate more, washing it down with handfuls of water that was cooled from the shade. At last their stomachs were so distended that all they could do was fall back on the soft earth, close their eyes, and allow blankness to take them over. They drifted between sleep and wakefulness for several hours, never certain which side they were on, and not particularly caring.

At three o'clock, Lee had slept himself out. Propping himself on his elbow, he gazed out at the swamps, feeling more contented than he'd ever felt in his whole life. When Lee noticed something bright red in the trees about fifty yards away, he was surprised. Red wasn't a usual color in the swamps. He got up to investigate.

Even as he came close enough to distinguish what it was, it didn't bring him closer to understanding. Above him, tilting almost jauntily from one of the upper branches of a tree, was a bright red turban with ostrich feathers, and a calico vest. It was Osceola's hat—of that Lee was sure. There wasn't another like it anywhere in the swamps. He picked up a rock, and was about to try to knock it down when he saw what hung below. Pinned to one of the lower branches, almost hidden by the leaves, was the body of a man, fluttering in the wind like a scarecrow.

Lee moved closer. The body was pale and water-bloated; the blood-drained face glistened blue-white like mother-of-pearl. Millions of ants crawled across the face, busying themselves on the lips and eyeballs, touring the ears, taking home minute pieces of flesh to be stored away for future meals. The man's clothes fell in shreds from his stiffened body; a huge hunk of flesh had been torn from his side, exposing bones, arteries, and veins to the hungry multitudes. Pus oozed from the gaping wound, falling to the water in heavy droplets.

The body must have been hanging like that for several days, but the face was clearly recognizable. It was Aaron.

Lee felt the ground slipping from under him. He didn't know if he was screaming, but it felt as if he were. It was impossible, of course: Aaron was back in Everglades City, most probably drunk, undoubtedly trying to cadge some money to gamble away on the horses or cards. Lee tried to remember if he'd seen him the day he left. It didn't matter. There was no possible explanation for his being here, or rather there could only be one, and that was impossible. Aaron was a drunk and a coward, but at least he had enough sense to know it. It was a coincidence that this man resembled Aaron, perhaps even a hallucination. He moved closer to the body, and was about to touch it when he felt Rye's hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Jesus," murmured Rye. "Oh, Jesus God." He put his arm around Lee.

"The fool," Lee said with a lifetime of bitterness in his voice. "What made him think he could come out here after the gator."

"You think you're the only one who's got that right?" asked Rye. "A lot of us came out here tryin' to prove one thing or another. It's the ones who stayed back who were the fools." Rye tried to keep his eyes away from the blue-white skin and the ants. "At least he tried," he said.

"And look what tryin' got him."

"It got him this far and that's got to count for somethin'. Boone, you're one of the most unforgiving men I ever met; you got your standards up so high, ain't no one who can meet their mark, includin' yourself. Let me show you somethin'." Rye held Lee firmly by the shoulder; he could feel him shivering under his grip. "Squint up your eyes and look at him," he said.

Lee pulled away. "Have you gone crazy?"

"Yeah," answered Rye, "haven't you noticed? But do it anyway. See, when you squint up your eyes and look at him just right, he almost looks like one of them Indian totems."

Rye was humoring him, and Lee felt more fond of him for doing that. Rye took Lee's chin and guided his face up to Aaron. With a shock, Lee realized there was something to what Rye was saying. Skewered by the tree limb, surrounded by the green foliage, Aaron didn't look like a shrunken little man, but like a statue carved out of wood. There was a dignity, almost a magnificence about him, a stature in death that he never was able to achieve in life. For the first time, Lee could believe he was a descendant of Osceola. Maybe the fact that he'd come this far did count for something; maybe he did deserve Lee's respect. Lee continued to look at Aaron for a few minutes, then turned to leave.

Rye was surprised. "Aren't ya gonna bury him?" he asked.

Lee shook his head. He knew that if he took him down from the tree, he'd just be Aaron again. To leave him as he was would be something Lee could do for him; it would be an act of respect.

Rye and Lee slowly walked away. Neither of them said a word for several minutes, each knowing the question in the other's mind, each terrified of the answer.

Finally Rye gave it words. "He's back, isn't he?" he asked.

"What else could've done that?" answered Lee.

That night, lying on their sleeping platform, the pale moonlight making leafy patterns on their faces, Rye and Lee stared out at the black night, each encased in his own thoughts. A tremor of nervous energy passed through Rye; every muscle was alert, on edge, prepared for flight. Trying to repress it was impossible, so he slipped off the leafy bed quietly, hoping not to disturb Lee.

Lee watched as Rye walked over to the shoreline and gazed out at the moonlit water. Lit red by the glow of the dwindling campfire, with the night owls shrieking like harpies and the plaintive cry of an occasional bird all around him, Lee saw Rye more clearly than ever before. The wild craving was in his eyes; there was a power imprisoned in his body that, turned inward, had become frantic. He looked more like a caged beast than a man. Lee watched Rye as he paced back and forth along the shore, his eyes riveted to the water with an incredible intensity. He knew that fear of failure was heavy on Rye; for all his talk about Aaron getting so far, the thought of not succeeding was plaguing him, driving him beyond what his aging body could endure, and pushing him into a madness from which he would not return.

Lee wondered what it was that drove Rye. What made a man like him become so obsessed with winning that it ruled his life, separating him from everything and everyone, eventually even from himself? A week ago, he had condemned Rye for it; now he was not so sure. He was beginning to feel that in his own desperation to live right, he had never lived at all. It made him suspect that he had used his high principles, or, as Rye would call them, horseshit sayings and fancy ideals, as a way of getting himself off the hook. He'd put his standards so high that he had to fall short of them, which gave him a good excuse not to even bother trying. Having discovered his own weakness on the dusty ground in Viet Nam, the smell of female and his own sweat had clung to him. The sound of the villagers' voices, the rasping of his own heavy breathing, had stayed in his ears. He had judged himself on that day, and he'd ruled against himself. It wasn't as everybody said, that he thought he was better than everyone else; what scared him was that he was the same. He was a man, and men could be ugly and cruel.

Rye had his number, all right. He was running away. He'd been operating under the principle that the less you did, the fewer mistakes you made. Well, so far he'd made very few mistakes in his life, that was for certain, but in exchange he'd missed a lot, too.

Rye hadn't. He'd always lived as completely as he could. It didn't make him a good man—Rye was anything but a good man—but he was a man.

As Lee was turning this over in his mind, it occurred to him that this might be their last night together. He knew Rye must have had the same thought, because all of a sudden he turned from the water, walked back, and lay down next to Lee. "He'll come out tomorrow, won't he?" he said.

"Yeah," answered Lee. "I can feel it too."

"You know," said Rye, "for a moment there, I thought I could see him. Rising out of the water, black and crusty, huge like a hummock. He seemed to be watchin' me, like he knew what I was after. The truth is, I ain't never really seen him. Even when I went down in his den, I didn't really see him, just his shadow. But this time I thought I saw him."

"He exists, all right, if that's what you're thinkin'."

"Sometimes I wonder," said Rye.

"You won't after tomorrow," answered Lee.

"If I make it past tomorrow."

"You'll do all right."

"Will I?" Rye's voice was thick with fear.

Lee was taken aback. "I ain't never heard you doubt yourself," he said.

"Hell, there's a lot you ain't heard. I was tryin' to figure out why I wanted him so much while I was standin' there. He's nothin' more than an animal—why do I have to kill him?"

"And you decided?"

"Nothin'," answered Rye.

"Sounds to me like maybe you didn't try real hard."

"Maybe I didn't," said Rye, "but it don't much matter, because he ain't mine anyway." Lee looked over at Rye surprised, but he didn't say anything and just waited for Rye to continue.

Rye didn't notice Lee's silence; he was too much in his own thoughts. Finally he said, "Oh, he'll fight me, all right, fight me, maybe even kill me, but he's yours. I guess I've known it down deep ever since we went out."