LC 04 - Skeleton Crew (22 page)

"Not that I'm complaining," said Harper. "This is the most
adventure I've had in years."

The trail widened into a clearing, and they stopped to rub
themselves down with repellant. "This place has lots of ticks," said
Lindsay. "Rub yourselves down good."

"I'll bet insecticide is illegal on this island," said Bobbie. "You
know, toxins in the environment."

"I won't tell the biologists if you won't," Harper replied. "Don't
you get some kind of dispensation for emergencies?"

A bird flew over, landed in a nearby tree, and called out in a
loud screech. "That's a parrot!" Harper exclaimed.

"Yes," said Lindsay. "I told you this is a subtropical island."

"I know. But, well, you just don't expect to be lost in the jungle
in Georgia. We won't run across any lions or anything will we?"

"No," said Bobbie. "But if we're lucky, we might spot a manatee in one of the rivers. I understand there are several who live
near here."

"Really?" said Harper. "They're endangered, right?"

"Yes," said Lindsay. "It's illegal to approach them, but we can
look if one swims by."

"Aren't manatees where the legend of mermaids came from?"
Bobbie asked. She handed Lindsay the repellant, and Lindsay
stuffed it into the sack with the blanket and first-aid kit, and they
set out again.

Lindsay nodded. "Sailors saw them and thought they were
women with fish tails. Presumably, the sailors had been out to sea
for a while." They giggled.

"I understand that Darien, Georgia, has a sea monster," said
Bobbie.

"A sea monster? Like Loch Ness?" asked Harper.

"That's what I hear," Bobbie answered. "Gina was out with
Rick, and she said it nudged their boat. There have been lots of
sightings over the years."

"What do you suppose it is?" asked Harper.

"People seeing what they want to see," Lindsay replied. "Some
of the descriptions I've heard describe a large snake-looking creature with two humps. I think they might have seen a pod of dolphins. A couple of dolphins, one behind the other, jumping out of
the water and back could give the impression of a serpent, kind of
like an optical illusion."

"Maybe," Bobbie replied thoughtfully, "but they described the
head and everything."

"It's thought that the whole idea of sea serpents started with people finding the bones of beached whales," Lindsay said. "You take
away the flesh and collapse the ribs, and you have a head and a very long vertebral column. It would look like the skeleton of a sea serpent. They described what they thought the head would look like if
it were fleshed out, and the descriptions were handed down."

"That's not as romantic," said Harper.

"But it makes sense," said Bobbie.

"A lot of legends are rooted in some real observation like that.
The cyclops, for example," said Lindsay.

"You mean Odysseus' cyclops? The big guy with one eye in the
middle of his head?" asked Harper.

"Yeah, that one," said Lindsay.

"Don't tell me you have a logical explanation for that?"

"The fossil bones of pygmy elephants. Elephants have their
eyes on the side of their head, and their orbits are open. They don't
look like orbits when you see them in a skull. But the nasal passage-for the trunk-is quite large and does look like an eye
socket. You find one of those skulls, you think you've found a giant
guy with one large eye in the middle of his forehead."

"That makes sense, too," said Bobbie.

"Well, Bang. Lindsay just burst another bubble."

They marched through another thick forest of hickory, birch,
and live oaks hanging with Spanish moss. After about a mile the
terrain began to slope downward dramatically, and they found
their way blocked by a seemingly endless field of reeds and cordgrass populated by egrets looking for food in the shallow marsh
water. Lindsay stopped and walked the length of the edge of the
marshland looking for a trail. Harper and Bobbie waited, taking
several sips of water from their bottles.

"Here," Lindsay called. "I believe I see a wooden bridge ahead.
This must be one of the trails used by the biologists. It skirts the
woods."

Lindsay led them down the trail and over the footbridge, all the
while followed by a swarm of small black flies.

Harper swatted at her face. "Are we going to get malaria?"

"No. These are just gnats," Lindsay replied. "Pesky, aren't
they?" Lindsay brushed her legs.

"Too bad we didn't have the foresight to wear something more
suitable for being marooned in," said Bobbie, waving her hands.
"Yuck, they flew in my mouth." She stopped and spit. "Ugh. I
thought these things were confined to the beach."

Lindsay looked at her watch. They had been hiking for an hour and a half. Though not high, the sun had long since knocked the
chill off the air, and she was perspiring.

"There's another footbridge up ahead," said Harper. "Let's stop
and rest."

This bridge, like the last, spanned several feet across a wide,
slow-moving stream. They stopped on the bridge and took several
long drinks of water.

"Oh, look, look, look!" shouted Bobbie, pointing at the stream.

"What? What?" yelled Harper, jumping away from the railing
of the bridge.

"In the water. It's a manatee."

"It's beautiful," said Lindsay, watching the huge gray walruslike creature glide under the water.

"Oh, perhaps the sailors weren't so crazy, after all," said
Harper. "They look so gentle. This is certainly worth all the trouble we've been through."

Before continuing their trek, they watched the manatee swim
under the bridge and out of sight. After another fifteen minutes of
walking, they saw another large expanse of woods ahead where
the terrain again sloped upward.

"Are we about there yet?" Harper asked.

"I think we only have about four miles to go."

"Four miles!" exclaimed Harper. "I think rowing would have
been easier."

"No," said Lindsay, "rowing would not have been easier."

"You say that because you're good at walking. I'm better at
rowing. Oh, look ..." Harper pointed at a herd of gazelles in the
distance. "I don't believe it!" She rushed ahead to watch them
bound out of sight.

"Don't get off the trail," Lindsay warned.

"We're almost to the woods, surely-" Harper screamed.

"Oh, God, quicksand!" Bobbie exclaimed.

"Harper, don't panic. You'll be fine. Grab my hand."

"It's sucking me down," Harper cried.

"No, it isn't," Lindsay calmly replied. "You are sinking, but
you'll probably hit bottom in just a second. You'll be able to float.
It won't suck you down, I promise. Most of what people think
about quicksand is a myth. Now stay still and grab my hand."

Harper was up to her chest in the sand. Lindsay tested for the
edge, lay down, and reached for Harper's hand.

"I think I've hit bottom," Harper said, making an effort to
breathe slowly.

"Good, now we're going to pull you out. Don't try to pull
against us. Just let us pull. Bobbie, take her other hand."

"Wait, my shoe came off," Harper protested.

"Don't worry about your shoe," said Lindsay.

Bobbie reached in to grab Harper's other hand, but as she
pulled her arm out of the quicksand, she screamed and shook her
hands back-and-forth, and something flew into the bushes.

"I've pulled her arm off! Oh, God, I've pulled her arm off. Oh,
God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" Bobbie jumped up and down screaming.

Harper looked at her own mud covered hand, startled. Lindsay
let go of the hand she held and stood up. "Bobbie, you probably
grabbed a branch ..."

Harper shifted, trying to get out. "Hey, help, I'm falling," she
yelled.

Lindsay turned to her. "You'll float. Just lean back."

As she did so, Lindsay's eyes widened in surprise. Bobbie
screamed anew in horror. Harper saw their faces and turned her
head. Her scream cut through the air, drowning out all other
sounds.

As HARPER LEANED back, a head rose from the mud behind her, and
a muddy arm reached around her shoulder. She screamed, panicked, and fell forward, trying to scramble out of the quicksand pit.
Lindsay grabbed for her hand and pulled.

"Bobbie, help me," Lindsay yelled.

Bobbie kept screaming.

"Bobbie, now! I need help."

Bobbie grasped the arm that Lindsay held, and they both
pulled as hard as they could. Lindsay managed to turn herself to
use the ground for leverage. Harper grabbed Lindsay's arm with
her other hand, and finally, she scrambled onto firm ground,
crawled several feet, turned over, and scooted backward.

"Oh, my God! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" she shrieked. "What
was that? I thought you said no one gets ... Oh, God, I think I'm
going to throw up."

"Me, too!" Bobbie exclaimed. She ran to the edge of the grassland and plunged her hands into the brackish water, scrubbing
them against the sandy bank.

"What was that?" asked Harper.

Whatever it was had settled back into the quicksand and now
looked like a lump of sandy mud, vaguely in the shape of the
upper torso of a man.

Lindsay examined the thing that Bobbie had tossed into the
bushes. It was indeed an arm. A decayed arm.

"What was that?" repeated Harper. "Someone get trapped
before me?"

After she said it, the two of them looked at each other. "You
don't think-"

"It's a good possibility," said Lindsay. "Keith Teal."

Harper started to put her head on her arms. Seeing the mud,
she stopped and looked down at herself.

"If I live to be a hundred, I will never have a worse experience.
Oh, no."

"What?" asked Lindsay and Bobbie.

"My purse. It's in the quicksand pit."

"It'll be retrieved. Along with anything else down there," said
Lindsay.

Harper stood on shaky legs and walked to where Bobbie was
washing her hands as if she were Lady Macbeth.

"I touched that thing," said Bobbie. "I touched it." She dipped
her hands into the water again.

Harper looked around for a place to climb into the water.

"Don't," said Lindsay. "You don't want to get stuck in the mud
in the water. Besides, there are live creatures in there."

"I don't care. Nothing could be worse than that thing, and I'm
going to wash this stuff off me." She sat on the bank beside a
pooled-up part of the marsh and tested the bottom. "It's muddy,
but I'm going to get in just long enough to rinse off."

"Well, scream if you need help. I know you can," said Lindsay.

While Harper washed off, Lindsay cut some of the marsh grass,
found a couple of rocks and pounded it flat, folded it over and
pounded it again until she had two more or less rectangular
shapes. She then cut the blanket into four strips.

Harper got out of the water, rinsed of the quicksand, but soaking wet. Lindsay tossed her the remainder of the blanket to dry off
and came over to her with her creations.

"What's that?" asked Harper.

Bobbie, deciding her hands were as clean as she could get them,
sat back and watched.

"You lost your shoes and you are going to need something."

"Is that the something you have there?"

"Yes. We'll wrap your feet in these two strips of blanket. I've
made some soles out of marsh grass. It won't be the first time the
grass has been put to the same use. It's usually woven, but I don't
have time. Anyway, we'll put the soles on and hold them in place
with these other strips."

"You're kidding, right?"

"We have about four miles to go through the woods, and these
woods are full of briers, thorns, and other sharp and sticky things. Unless you're accustomed to going barefoot and your feet are well
calloused, you'll have to wear these-unless you have a better
idea."

Harper stood, her feet wrapped in Lindsay's makeshift boots,
standing first on one foot then the other, testing them out.

"Okay," Harper said, "this is the plan. Lindsay, you'll take point
like you've been doing. Bobbie, you'll walk in the middle, and I'll
bring up the rear. You see anybody coming or we reach civilization, give me a warning and keep everyone at bay until I can get
these things off. No one-but no one-is going to see me in these.
Is that straight?"

"I wish I had a camera." Bobbie laughed.

"If we had a camera," Harper replied, "we certainly could have
documented the trek of the century."

"All right," said Lindsay. "Let's go. And keep in line and on the
trail. No side trips."

"You've got it," Harper agreed. "From here on out, it's walk like
an Egyptian."

The way was mostly sand, as most of the trip had been so far,
and not too hard on the feet, but they stopped frequently to allow
Harper to rest hers.

"How you doing?" Lindsay asked.

"Not too bad," Harper answered. "I'll make it."

"It won't be much farther."

"I'm going to run a hot bath and stay there the rest of the day
and into the night. Maybe I'll get Trey to massage my feet."

The path narrowed into a thin animal trail bordered by sharp
palmetto leaves.

"I used to love this stuff. Now I hate it." Bobbie rubbed her
arms and legs as they finally emerged into a wider trail.

"Look," Lindsay yelled, "I see the roof of the lab."

"Okay. Let's stop and let me take these things off my feet."

"We still have a ways to go," said Lindsay.

"I'll manage. Not that I don't appreciate your effort ...

Harper pulled off her primitive footwear, tossed the reeds
aside, rolled up the strips of blanket, and stuffed them in the sack
Lindsay carried. She wiggled her toes in the sand.

"Okay, I'm ready."

They didn't get far before one of the crew spotted them and
went to get help. Before they knew it, they were surrounded by Trey, Lewis, and Agent Ramirez. Trey hugged Harper. Lewis
radioed John, who was searching with the Coast Guard in the
ocean.