Alligator Park (19 page)

“It gets louder,” he says.

I wonder how Fargo could
claim to be at peace with nature while promoting such a horrendous piece of machinery
as this airboat. But he was the expert and I was the neophyte so I decide to reserve
judgment for later. Fargo ties his hair into a ponytail then puts on his
hearing protectors.

“Could you untie that rope?”
he asks, pointing to a rope near the front of the airboat wrapped around a post
on the pier. I do what he says while he unties the rope at the back of the
boat.

As I get comfortable in my seat,
Fargo revs up the engine slightly. The massive fan, only a few feet behind me, generates
a high-pitched but tolerable whine causing the airboat to creep away from the
pier. He maneuvers the boat into the channel, between groups of wooden poles topped
with markers, until we are surrounded by clear water. Then, without warning, he
shoves the accelerator to maximum turning the whine into an excruciating roar.
The airboat accelerates violently, rises in the water, and within seconds, we
are skimming across the surface scarcely making a ripple. Occasionally the
airboat traverses a submerged log or hidden sandbar causing it to become
airborne. The closest I have ever come to this sensation are the roller coaster
rides at the Jersey Shore which thrill you by launching you into weightlessness
for a few brief moments. But this is far worse. I desperately cling to the handrail
to avoid being tossed out of my seat.

“How fast are we going?” I shout.

“About sixty,” he says.

My hair dances wildly in the
wind, whipping against my face and making the whole experience supremely
uncomfortable. It becomes apparent why Fargo has his hair tied into a ponytail.
I wedge my feet under the seat to steady myself and then scavenge through my
backpack desperately searching for a rubber band. It also becomes apparent why
he’s not wearing a hat as I feel my cap begin to lift off my head. I quickly grab
it, seconds before it would have blown off, and place it in the backpack. I’m
lucky; I find a stray rubber band that’s probably left over from my school
days. I don’t remember how it got there, but it was conveniently hidden in a
remote corner deep within the backpack waiting for an opportunity to save the
day. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and tie it with the rubber band.

The airboat skims across the
lake for about twenty minutes and then Fargo suddenly changes course and begins
heading for a shoreline about a mile away. I can see Palm Trees, Cypress, and
Pines reaching high above the ground vegetation. As the boat gets closer, I realize
the shoreline is completely encased in a continuous line of bushes. They’re so
dense they reach right into the water.

When we get within a hundred feet,
Fargo unexpectedly reduces power. The airboat halts immediately causing me to
lurch forward violently.

“Why did you stop?” I ask.

“We’re here,” he says.

We’re where? I think. There’s
nothing here but bushes and water.

He brings the airboat within
a few feet of the shoreline, and then shuts off the motor. He stands up and peers
into the distance, scanning the lake, from one side to the other.

“What are you looking for?” I
ask.

“Shhh,” he says.

He continues to study the
horizon for a couple more minutes and then announces: “We’re good.”

He takes out a pole, about 12
feet long, and then, like a gondolier, uses it to push the airboat into the
underbrush.

“Watch your face,” he says.

The front of the airboat
slides under the outer branches, but as we get in deeper, some of them get
caught on the seatbacks. Eventually the branches work loose, snapping back and whipping
at my face. I slip out of my seat and onto the floor, stooping as low as
possible to avoid being hit. The lower branches scrape along the tops of the
seats and along the metal sides occasionally tugging at my hair. I glance back at
Fargo. He’s busily pushing the branches aside with an oar as they bunch up
around the massive fan, first one side and then the other.

“Why all the secrecy?” I ask.

“Keeps out the
under-age drinkers. They seek out places like this then leave behind empty beer
cans, food wrappers, and broken glass.”

I nod in
agreement.

Suddenly, there are no more
branches. They’ve snapped back to their original position effectively sealing
us off from the rest of the world. We are now floating in a small natural cove,
three times as long and twice as wide as the airboat itself. Overhead is a
canopy of pine shielding us from the midday sun and all around us is a field of
Saw Palmetto. They look to be about four feet tall and give the illusion of an
endless bright-green carpet laid out in every direction. Fargo pushes on the
pole until the front of the airboat scrapes against the sandy bottom and brings
us to a halt.

“We go by foot now,” he says.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“The trail,” he says,
pointing to a narrow gap in the vegetation.

Fargo sits on the gunwale,
then lowers himself into the water. It reaches to his waist. He drags the airboat
closer to the beach until it will go no farther. He then uncoils a rope
attached to the front and ties it securely to a sturdy pine about thirty feet
from the water’s edge. He reenters the water and approaches me.

“Here, hold on,” he says, extending
his arms to carry me.

“It’s okay, I can manage,” I
say, lifting my backpack up onto the seat. Fargo winces, then sloshes through
the water to the other side of the airboat without saying a word. He uncoils
another rope and attaches it to a different tree up on the bank. I suddenly
regret not accepting his kindness; perhaps I offended him. I throw the backpack
over my right shoulder and the lunch bag over my left, and then recall Will’s
words of wisdom about how flip-flops disrespect Indian land. I slip them off, store
them under the seat, and place the moccasins into the backpack. I then sit on
the gunwale, just as Fargo had done, and lower myself into the knee-deep water.
I make my way to the shoreline, and then wander around aimlessly examining the
vegetation. Occasionally a lizard runs by my feet or jumps from leaf to leaf on
the Saw Palmettos, but I pay it no mind. They are everywhere and completely
harmless.

Fargo wades back to the
airboat, climbs back in, and gathers his things together. I use the opportunity
to take out the moccasins and put them on. I glance over at him to see what
type of footwear he’s bringing, but he doesn’t appear to have any. I wonder: Should
I follow his example? Should I go barefoot?

Going barefoot outdoors is kind
of foreign to me. It’s not the kind of thing a typical mid-city apartment
dweller would do, even in the heat of summer.
For one thing, there’s practically no grass to walk on and the
sidewalks have degenerated into a toxic minefield of the most disgusting dross.
Who among us would be inclined to submit our bare feet, our delicate
under-soles, to the endless barrage of discarded gum flattened into tiny
pancakes, quarter-sized wads of dried-up saliva, and the nauseating remains of dog
waste, ground into the concrete by the unfortunate missteps of unsuspecting out-of-towners?
Certainly not I.

In fact, the only time I’ve
ever gone barefoot outdoors is at the Jersey Shore, and that’s only on the
beach. The security guards don’t allow it on the boardwalk, I guess, in case we
pick up a splinter or something. But I’m determined to do whatever is necessary
to fit into this way of life. I don’t want to be labeled with the stigma of an
outsider. I make up my mind; I’m doing what the locals do. I’m going barefoot.

  I slip off the moccasins and
place them back inside my backpack. Fargo leaves the airboat, and then joins me
on the bank. He points to some Saw Palmetto leaves that have grown into the
trail, partially blocking our path.

“Don’t let these slide over
your skin. They’re razor sharp.”

He turns and begins walking
at a brisk pace. I follow close behind trying to keep up. From this vantage
point, I can’t help but notice the scar on his back. I’m dying to ask him how
he got it, but Will’s warning, “Some things are better left untold,” restrains
me. Perhaps someday he’ll feel the inclination to tell me, or perhaps someday
I’ll get the courage to ask him, but for the present, it will have to remain his
secret.

About a half-mile down the
trail I feel a sharp pain in my foot.

“Ouch!” I say.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

I lift up my foot to expose a
thorn stuck in my skin. Fargo takes a look.

“It’s nothing. Just pull it
out.”

I grab the thorn with my
nails and ease it out, drawing a few drops of blood. I apply some hand
sanitizer to the wound to deter any infection.

“Maybe you should wear shoes.”

“How come you don’t need them?”

“I’ve been going barefoot
since I was two. The bottom of my foot is as tough as your shoe.”

Any illusion about me going
barefoot suddenly evaporates. I remove the moccasins from my backpack and put
them on. Fargo seems keenly interested.

“Nice moccasins. My mother
had a pair just like them.”

“They are your Mother’s.”

I explain how Will gave them
to me because I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear. I glance at him
briefly, out of the corner of my eye, hoping he doesn’t find anything offensive
in that.

“Well it’s about time someone
put them to use,” he says, and then turns and continues along the trail.

The moccasins feel wonderful
on my feet. The deerskin is soft and supple and wraps around my feet with such
precision, it’s as if they had been made especially for me. The soles are also
deerskin but of a different kind, tough enough to prevent stones and thorns
from damaging my skin but flexible enough to allow me to experience the subtle
changes in texture of the earth beneath my feet. I’m overwhelmed by a certain feeling
of oneness with nature.

“Where does this
trail go?” I ask.

“Hunting grounds,” he says.

“Where you bring your
clients?”

“No, no clients. This is
sacred land, for Indians only.”

“I’m not Indian.”

“That’s okay... you’re with
me.”

“Is it far?”

“A couple of miles.”

A couple of miles? The
moccasins are a joy to walk in and I have no trouble keeping up, but a couple
of miles? That’s more than I had expected.

“I don’t know if I can keep
up this pace for that long,” I say.

“You won’t have to,” he says.

What does that mean? Is he
going to leave me here, in the woods, all alone, with all those deadly creatures
around, while he goes off hunting alone?

“I want to stay with you,” I
say.

“You will,” he says.

This is making no sense to me
and I start to panic. But I decide to keep quiet and plod along... until which
time I can no longer keep up. We come to a clearing and I can see several
trails branching off in different directions. Fargo takes the one on the left
and I follow close behind.

I notice the vegetation
starting to change as the Saw Palmetto becomes
replaced
by low lying bushes of no particular variety. Then the firm white sandy soil on
each side of the trail becomes damp and eventually marshy, turning into this
black goo. The tall pines which protected us from the relentless Florida sun are
now thinning out and we are drifting into a completely new environment.

Up ahead I see the telltale
sheen of water and then the trail abruptly ends. We stop at the water’s edge
and I find myself at the onset of a huge swamp. Throughout the swamp is an
endless assortment of
Cypress trees, in every
direction, as far as I can see, rising out of the tea-colored water to a height
of one-hundred feet or more. Overhead is a thick canopy of vegetation which
blocks much of the daylight. Gaps in the canopy allow the sunlight to coalesce
into bright beams, shining down through the dense humidity and producing the
most surreal effect. The lower parts of the Cypress trunks widen to about five
feet in diameter and then disappear into the sandy bottom four feet below the
surface. I
t suddenly occurs to me why the trunks of these strange trees are
so wide at the base. If it were not so, the soil beneath the water is so soft these
massive trees would topple at the slightest provocation from the wind. It’s
amazing how nature adapts to the challenging demands of its environment.

“Is this part of
the reservation?” I ask.

“No, not
reservation. This is Indian land... always was... always will be.”

He declares this
with such conviction it’s obvious how much this land means to him. Even though
it belongs to the entire Seminole nation, he cares for it as if it were his
own. It was the land of his forefathers, and he would defend it to the end.

Fargo stands by
the edge of the water and peers into the distance. I see nothing that would
remotely qualify as food so I start wondering if this was all for nothing.

“What now?” I say. 

“Stay here,” he says, then
edges his way along the bank until he is out of sight. I back away from the
water and retreat to the middle of the trail, putting as much distance as
possible between me and the bushes in case some snake or spider or any other
ugly thing gets the inclination to jump on to me.

About twenty minutes have
passed and I’m starting to get antsy, still no sign of Fargo. I peer along the
bank in the direction he was last seen hoping to see him on his return, but there’s
no one, only bushes and swampland. I look in every direction thinking he might
be coming back a different way, but there’s nothing. It’s now well after lunch
time and I’m getting really hungry. The only food I’ve had all day is a half a
bowl of cereal eaten in haste. Did he forget about me? Is he leaving me here?
Am I supposed to fend for myself?

Fend for myself? How could he
do this to me? I have no experience in these matters. What if some rogue
alligator were to pass by looking for an easy meal? Here I am, dressed only in a
swimsuit, with large areas of bare flesh exposed; I would be a temptation no
hungry alligator could overlook. What would I do?

I scan the swamp
for alligators. Suddenly I hear a plop and then see those telltale concentric
circles propagating outward across the mirror smooth surface. Something just
ducked under water. Was it those eyes of death, those little bumps that appear
just above the waterline, the eyes of an alligator stalking me? Or was it just
a harmless turtle?

I’ve got to be prepared, I
think to myself. If it’s an alligator, once he gets his sights on me, I won’t
have much time to do anything. I recall a recent article in a scientific
journal where researchers concluded that alligators have far more intelligence
than anyone ever imagined. The scientists were amazed to see alligators observing
their prey for hours, even days, planning the best strategy to capture the
animal and drag it into the water. Then, at the appropriate moment, they would
leap out of the water and grab the victim before it realized what was happening.

And forget about running
away. Alligators have the advantage of surprise, and in the heat of the chase,
can gallop as fast as a horse. By the time I turned to run, it would already
have me in its jaws and my chance of survival would fall rapidly to zero. It’s
clear, I have to do something now.

Climb a tree, I think.
Alligators can’t climb trees, at least, not the tall ones. I look for a
suitable tree to climb, but the ones nearby are only saplings that would collapse
under my weight. I suddenly realize that all the trees large enough to support
my weight are either strangled by underbrush teeming with spiders and snakes or
have their lower branches, the ones within my reach, rotted off from
insufficient sunlight. Okay, maybe I can’t climb a tree; I’ll defend myself
instead. I search for a large rock but see none; this is Florida after all
where sand is ubiquitous and rocks are the exception. A stick, that’s it, I can
use a stick to drive it away. I search the bushes and manage to find a branch
about four feet long. Perhaps I can ram it into its mouth if it attacks me. I
pick up the stick and retreat to the middle of the trail scanning the water one
more time.

“Fargo, where are you?” I say
to myself. “What’s taking you so long?”

Frustrated, I look back up
the trail in the direction we originally came from, getting on my toes, and straining
my neck, to see as far as possible, desperately searching for a glimpse of him,
but I see nothing.

Then, right behind me, I hear
something that sounds like moving water. I turn my head slowly towards the
sound, and in my peripheral vision pick up the vague outline of a long green
object in the water. I gasp, and then snap my head around to get a better look.
It’s green alright, and it’s in the water, but it’s not what I thought it was.

It’s Fargo, sitting in a
canoe. He’s grinning from ear to ear and rustling the water with his oar.

“How long have you been
there?” I ask.

“Long enough to see you
sweating,” he says.

“I hate you,” I say, and then
give him the most intense scowl I can muster. Fargo laughs with more intensity
than I’ve ever seen him laugh before. I fold my arms and look away determined
to punish him for making a fool of me.

“Hey, lighten up,” he says.

But I’m not about to give in
so easily. Secretly though, I’m amazed he could sneak up on me so easily and
without a sound.

“Look, I brought you
something,” he says, and holds out his hand.

I snap a glance in his general
direction and see him holding a reed basket filled with fruit.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I promised you lunch and
here it is.”

I look away again maintaining
my scowl.