Lost in the River of Grass

by Ginny Rorby

“Andy, I can’t take another step.”

  “You have to. We can’t stay here.”

  “Once it’s dark, how will we know that we’re going the right way?”

  “I’ll worry about that then. Right now we’ve still got thirty minutes of dusk so we need to keep . . .” He stops and squints at the horizon. “Look.”

  “What?”

  “Right there. See that light?”

  My heart starts to race. “Is that a house or something?”

  “No, it’s the moon.”

  My heart sinks. Just breaking the horizon is an arc of golden light. Maybe I could manage another thirty minutes, but if the moon is up, he may want to keep going for hours. “We aren’t going to try to walk by moonlight, are we?”

  “Sure. It’s full, or nearly so. We’ll walk toward it until we reach the heron rookery. It can’t be that much farther. I’ve been watching them flying in for a while now. See?” He points. Off to our right, a string of herons fly past— six, I count, then four more close behind.

  “What’s a rookery?”

  “It’s an island of trees where they come to roost for the night. Safety in numbers, you know. The roost is pretty near here.”

  “How far is pretty near?” I’m too tired even to slap mosquitoes.

  In the dimming light, Andy shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t stay here, so the sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll get there.”

  My legs have stiffened to boards. I struggle to lift a foot over a branch, trip and fall, cutting my knee on the sharp limestone. Andy doesn’t stop, just calls, “You okay?” over his shoulder.

  I’m too exhausted to answer. I get up and splash a little water on the cut on my knee to wash away the blood, then start after him.

  My guess, from the position of the sun, is that we’ve been in the water for about five hours. All the energy I have left goes into putting one foot in front of the other.

  …

  Andy was right. Once the moon is up, it’s bright enough to see our way, but a hundred times scarier. I keep his shirttail knotted in my fist.

  During the day, the sounds were mostly startled birds and our own splashing, or the telltale whoosh of a gator rippling through the water. At night, all the sounds are strange. I’m less nervous when the frogs are croaking, but every once in a while something gets one. Its dying scream sounds like a woman’s, and everything else hushes for a few minutes.

  For the first hour or so after dark, we move through relatively open water with sparse, short stalks of saw grass. Animals run at our approach, then turn to look at us, red eyes glowing. With each new sound or pair of eyes, I cry, “What’s that?” I’m not even aware that I’m doing it until Andy says, “Jesus, Sarah, give it a break.”

  For a while after that, when I ask, I try to sound calmer, and Andy obliges by naming the animal. He could be lying for all I know, but it helps to think he knows and isn’t worried—or is at least pretending not to be.

  We come to an area where nothing seems to be growing. Just a wide sheet of water dotted with a dozen small, round lights floating on the surface. Some are moving, rippling the water.

  “What makes those little lights?” I try to sound relaxed.

  “Gators. Their eyes glow when light hits them. That’s why poachers look for them at night with flashlights.”

  “Why are they all together? What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know. Hunting, maybe. They’re small.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By the distance between their eyes.”

  I’m not convinced and tighten my grip on his shirttail. I keep looking over my shoulder until it’s clear they aren’t coming after us. Still, every time my foot hits something in the water, my heart leaps and a little, lopped-off scream escapes.

  It’s easier to keep moving if I think of something besides how hard it is take each step. I begin to identify the sounds back to Andy. Knowing what things are doesn’t stop them from scaring me nearly out of my skin. The easiest are the snorting, snuffling, and splashing of wild boar, then the throaty bellows and vibration of water made by male gators trying to attract a female. The sudden splashes of a deer leaping away with a flash of white tail in the moonlight is like having someone jump out at you from behind a door. Raccoons argue and screech at each other. Birds squawk and lift into the moonlit sky; then there’s the occasional scream of a panther that makes the hair on my neck stand up. I’ve started to believe the gators are more afraid of us than we are of them, but I know a panther is different, and given a choice between me and Andy, it will pick me—the smaller, weaker one of the two.

  There are moments, usually after the final cry of something dying, when the glades fall silent and there is only the sound of our labored breathing, soft moans when our feet hit something we have to step over, and the enduring sound of pushing through the weed-choked water. But when we stand still and rest, I can see that it’s kind of pretty. The moon’s reflection on the open patches of water is like a silver road to follow, and tree islands float like dark ships at sea. Off to the south a barred owl—the one bird I know by its call—hoots, and from the other direction another answers. I wonder if Mr. Vickers has ever seen it like this.

  We’ve been walking long enough for the moon to shrink from an enormous orange ball on the horizon to its high-in-the-sky size when Andy stops suddenly, causing me to run into his back. “Smell that?” he says, sniffing the air.

  I do. The breeze—which has kept the mosquitoes thinned—is out of the east and it carries the odor of bird poop—lots of bird poop.

  “That’s it,” Andy whispers. “The rookery.” He turns and puts a finger to his lips.

  We move as quietly as we can, but the birds can see us coming. The moon is that bright, and it makes them more and more edgy. The closer we get to the stand of cypress and willows, the more restless they become. There’s lots of wing-flapping, squawking, and pecking at each other. Some take off and circle, trying to find a better branch to settle on.

  Andy’s promise we would eat some of the dreaded Spam when we get to the roost makes my stomach start to rumble, and my legs get heavier in anticipation of stopping. Before swim meets, especially now that I’m on a scholarship, I sometimes have dreams like this where the more desperate I am to touch the wall, the heavier my arms and legs become, until it feels like I’m trying to swim through molasses.

  I stop for a second to catch my breath and lean over with my hands on my knees. Teapot dangles in the sling around my neck. She’s asleep, with her brown, yellow-cheeked head turned and tucked between her wings. I wonder for the millionth time today how I’d gotten myself into this mess.

  Andy has stopped to wait for me. I cushion Teapot so she doesn’t bounce against my chest, then straighten and start up again. I’ve taken two steps when my leg bumps a submerged tree trunk. I try to step over it but can’t lift my foot high enough. I pitch forward, facedown with my arms out to break my fall. I feel Teapot struggling to get out from beneath me, but my arms are tangled in the branches of the tree and I can’t get leverage to roll over. My head is underwater, so when I scream, the bubble of air breaks across my face.

  I know better, but it’s all I can do to keep from gasping for air beneath the surface. I fight and twist, trying to pull my arms free. Even underwater, I hear Andy crashing toward me then feel his hands in my armpits. He draws me, tree trunk and all, backwards so that I end up on my knees in the water with my arms still tangled in the dripping, slimy limbs. Teapot wiggles out of my bandana, drops into the water, and swims out of sight into some willows.

  “Teapot,” I cry. Then start to choke.

  11

  Andy snaps branches off until my arms are free, then pulls me to my feet. Blood seeps from a dozen cuts.

  “Teapot!” I pat my thigh.

  “You’re welcome,” Andy says.

  “I’m sorry. Thank you. Just help me find her first.” I look at him. “And don’t say a word.”

  “W
hy would I waste my breath?” Andy puts a fist to his lips and makes a sound that is remarkably duck-like.

  “Peep, peep,” comes the answer from the weeds.

  “Do it again.” I stare at the black outline of the willows for movement.

  Andy calls again, and Teapot swims out and straight into my cupped hands. I scoop her up and kiss her wet head. “That sound was cool.” I smile at Andy. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “From my dad. We hunt ducks, you know. We can’t run to the supermarket for every little thing. Our meat comes on the hoof, not bloodless and wrapped in plastic.”

  “I get it already, okay. Why are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You sound mad.”

  “Dragging that duckling along is making this harder that it needs to be.”

  “I thought we’d settled that. And besides, she hasn’t bothered you all day, so don’t start or I’ll mention a few more times how we got in this nightmare in the first place.” By the time I get to the end of the sentence, I’m shouting at him.

  “Just shut up about that, okay? I know it’s my fault.” He stops. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m as tired as you are.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “The closer we get to the trees, the more stumps and branches there will be. So watch out.” He starts off again.

  I’m trying to get Teapot to stay in the wet, cold sling. Andy has stopped and when I look up, he’s watching me with his hands on his hips.

  “Just go on, okay?” I say. “I’ll catch up.”

  I’m so suddenly aware of myself and how exhausted, scratched, bruised, and bloody I am—it feels like part of me is floating on a string just above my own body. I can see myself standing knee-deep in a swamp the size of frigging Rhode Island or something. My hair is dripping wet. My skin stings from too much sun. I’m cold and shivering and wrestling with a baby duck.

  “Why don’t I put her in the top part of the backpack?” Andy says.

  My out-of-body vision dies away. “Are you sure?”

  He nods, then wades back and turns so I can unzip the top of the bag. My brother’s Swiss Army knife is the only thing in there. I start to put it in the bottom half. “Hold her a minute, will you?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to line the pack so she won’t be sleeping in her own poop, and it will be easier to clean.”

  I cut a willow branch, strip the leaves off and coat the bottom of the pack. Andy hands Teapot over. I put her inside and zip it closed, leaving a pencil-sized gap for air to get in.

  I see Andy smile. “What?”

  “She ran back and forth a few times, then plopped down and peeped. At least one of us will get some sleep.”

  As we begin to move toward the rookery again, the birds closest to us grow more anxious. A few lift off, squawking, then land a little deeper in among the trees, dislodging somebody else, which starts another argument.

  “Are we going to frighten them all away?”

  “I don’t think so,” he whispers.

  A few minutes later, a dark cloud moves across the face of the moon. The birds quiet.

  “Let’s go,” Andy says. “This is our chance to get closer without them seeing us.”

  “But I can’t see either.”

  “Take my hand.”

  I do and feel his calluses again, dry and rough. In the dark, his hand feels like my dad’s. That comforts me.

  We move as quickly as we can toward the trees, which are now a dark silhouette against the far-off, city-light glow of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.

  “Let’s steer right until we find a tree big enough to hold us.”

  Turning right will take us to the south end of the tree island. Last night—just last night? Is it possible?—at the slide presentation, there was a series of aerial photographs showing the teardrop shape of most tree islands. Their shape, Mr. Vickers told us, was because water in the Everglades flows north to south, and debris, caught in that flow, accumulates at the north end. This build-up was future land where eventually shrubs and trees took root. The thickest tree growth was always at the north end where the soil had been collecting for the longest time. That’s where most of the birds were, with only a few at the narrow south end.

  “Andy, the largest trees are that direction.” I point to the left. “I remember from the talk last night. That end is older.”

  “So?”

  “Bigger trees have fatter branches. Shouldn’t we go there?”

  Andy stops. So do I. The cloud moves on, and everything’s all silvery again.

  “Well?” I say after a minute of just standing there.

  “I’m thinking.”

  The closer we get to the trees and the birds, the worse the mosquitoes become. “While you’re thinking, I’m getting eaten alive here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “We’ll go to the north end.” He turns left and starts walking.

  “Andy.”

  “What now?”

  “Shouldn’t we walk up the east side?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Well, look at it. The trees block out the moonlight on this side.”

  Andy turns and trudges back toward me. When he passes, I follow, but I feel pretty smart to have figured that out and wish, at least, he’d noticed. “I’m tired, too, you know,” I say to his back.

  We stumble toward the south end, paralleling the hammock. When the trees end altogether, we make an arc around the tip of the island and start splashing and stumbling up the east side.

  I’ve lost all sense of time, but it seems to take forever to reach the north end of the island. When we do get there, the grasses are also taller and denser. We have to cross through yards of tall saw grass to reach the trees. Andy goes first, holding his arms crossed in front of his face. I follow, but have taken only a few steps when I trip over a limb or a root, forget, and grab a clump of saw grass to break my fall. It feels like I’ve grabbed a fistful of needles. “Ouch.”

  “You okay?” He’s reached the island.

  “Yeah.” My hand is sticky with blood. I rinse it and wipe it on my shirt.

  “There’s a huge strangler fig here.” I hear him pat its trunk.

  I come out of the grass, wind my way through some willows, and step up onto a tiny patch of dry land. Andy is in the tree, straddling a limb. He tilts his head back against the main trunk and closes his eyes. “Heaven,” he says.

  A large limb of the tree the fig strangled is broken off and lies like a nice wide ramp into the tree. I head for it, assuming that’s how Andy got up there.

  “Not that way,” he says a second after I grab a small limb to pull myself up. It breaks away. Instantly I feel stinging bites on my hands, then my arms and legs and down into my boots. I scream and brush at the ants pouring over me. I scream again as they reach my neck and face. I can feel one in my ear.

  “Get to the water!” He swings down from the tree.

  I fight my way back through the willows and the dense saw grass to the open water, where I plunge in and roll like a gator.

  Andy pulls me to my feet. “That limb was rotten.” He drags me away from where I’d gone into the water, brushing my back. He digs his hands into the mud and smears it over my arms, then more over my legs. “Keep moving,” he says. “They’ll try to use you to crawl back out of the water.”

  My skin is on fire. Welts rise on my arms and legs.

  We’ve frightened the closest birds, which have taken off and are circling, trying to land in a safer place.

  “I lost one of my boots.”

  “We’ll find it in the morning.” He helps me rinse the mud off, then scoops me up, like Dad used to when I skinned a knee and cried, and carries me back to the hammock. At the base of the tree, he puts me down, then intertwines his fingers and turns his hands palms up. I put my bootless foot in the stirrup he’s made and let him boost me onto the lowest branch.

&nb
sp; The backpack is leaning against the tree trunk. Andy hands it up to me, then grabs a branch and, like a trapeze artist, swings his legs up and over an adjacent limb. “You okay?”

  “My skin’s on fire.” I unzip the bottom compartment and feel around for the insect salve before I remember that I left it in my duffel bag. How stupid was that?

  Teapot peeps sleepily.

  Andy gets himself situated on a limb just above me while I spray my legs with insect repellent, which makes the ant bites sting worse. It’s all I can do not to claw my skin. I hand the can to him and fan my legs. My one bare, crinkle-skinned foot glows white in the moonlight, except for my red toenails. They look as black as witch’s lips in the dim light.

  When he finishes spraying himself, he puts the can back in the pack and gets out the Gatorade.

  “Just a sip or two, okay?” He hands it down to me.

  I nod. The hunger headache that started hours ago is reaching migraine proportions from the ant bites. I sip the Gatorade, swallowing bitter-tasting bug spray with it. I run a finger across my lips. They are cracked and scaly. “Will you try to find my lip gloss?”

  He reaches in and comes up with it and the Swiss Army knife. “Ready for dinner?”

  We’re seated on opposite limbs; his is a foot or two above mine. He breaks the key off the bottom of the can of Spam, then tilts it toward the moon to find where the metal zipper begins.

  “How old is that stuff?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I don’t think cans open like that anymore. They open like dog-food cans with a ring you pull.”

  “It’s not swollen or anything.” He turns the key, and there’s a whoosh as air enters the can and the smell of Spam escapes. He sniffs it and smiles. His teeth are as white and even as pearls in the moonlight. Mine feel as scummy as a mossy rock.

  In spite of how disgusting the thought of eating Spam is, my stomach growls loudly.

  “I guess you don’t want any, right? I think I remember you saying you wouldn’t touch this stuff if you were starving, or was it if your life depended on it?”

  I look up from clawing at my ant bites. “The time for jokes was about seven hours ago.”