by Watt Key
I pushed myself from under the limb and sat up and paddled toward the middle of the river again. This time, when I felt the current take hold, I didn’t fight it. I hung the paddle over the side and used it like a rudder. I looked up at the sky and used the gap of light to get a sense of where the channel was. The technique wasn’t very accurate, but it was enough to keep the boat far enough from the riverbank so I wasn’t swept under more limbs.
After a few minutes I was no longer startled by every explosion of the sturgeon. I settled into my new routine and let the river take me gently along under the stars and through the darkness.
16
My confidence grew as I drifted farther downriver. The jon was clumsy, but as long as I didn’t count on any fast maneuvers, I could use the paddle to move in the direction I wanted. The echoing smacks of the sturgeon never let up, like there must have been thousands of them racing the black depths. But I gradually realized they tended to stay in the middle of the straightaways and the outside edges of the turns, preferring the swiftest, deepest parts of the channel. By aligning the jon a little off-center and steering the inside of the river bends, I was able to avoid most of their traffic. It was only when the river changed direction, and I had to recross to reach the slack water inside the bend, that I became tense and felt my adrenaline spike. I gripped the paddle tightly, imagining I was drifting over a minefield.
On a long, straight part of the river, I had time to get out my penlight and pass it over the water. The weak beam didn’t travel far, but enough to see something that sent fear coursing through me. The reflective orange eyes of alligators floated quietly in all directions. As the jon approached, they submerged, but I knew they were still down there waiting for the boat to glide over. And when I turned and shined the light behind me, they were there again.
For a while I waved the light from side to side, trying to spot all the alligators, like it would somehow fend them off. But gradually I realized the uselessness of my efforts. And I reminded myself what it was I had come to do and that I was safe in the boat. And that I needed to conserve the penlight batteries. So I shut off the light and scooted more to the center of the seat and kept my hands away from the water.
* * *
It was close to two o’clock in the morning when I saw a scattering of lights along the left riverbank. Even with the fast-moving current, it surprised me that I would have arrived at Fowler’s Bluff so soon. According to Stanley it was the only landmark between Yellow Jacket and the Gulf of Mexico. And my last chance to stop if I wanted to turn back.
As I came closer I saw several houseboats and a store and boat ramp. Behind the store were a few houses and street lights. I thought of the people inside, sleeping in comfortable beds. These people were different than me now. They didn’t have images of giant ape-men burned into their memories. They could sleep at night, believing the world was only what they’d been taught. I slipped quietly past it all, my mind already made up. I wasn’t stopping.
I left Fowler’s Bluff behind and slipped into the dark canyon once again. By Stanley’s reckoning, I’d traveled close to nine miles and was halfway to Gopher Creek. I’d been on the river about three hours and estimated I’d come to the northwest bend at about five o’clock that morning. Then a worrisome thought came over me. It was probably going to be dark when I reached the bend. And then it was going to be almost impossible to spot the entrance to the creek.
I contemplated stopping once I reached the bend, tying up along the riverbank, and sleeping until first light. The only problem I foresaw was encountering fishermen on the river at daybreak. Uncle John surely had the police looking for me by now, and I didn’t need anyone asking me questions. But if I missed the creek, there was no way I could paddle upstream against the current. I finally decided to stop before Gopher Creek and take my chances in the morning.
* * *
After nearly three hours the gap in the trees made an obvious turn to my right. I switched on my penlight and looked at the compass on my knife and verified the northwest heading. There were still a couple of hours left until daylight, so I knew I had to stop and wait.
As I rounded the bend, I had to cross the river only once more. Then I would be in the slack water. I could tie up against the riverbank there and wait until sunrise.
I took a stroke with the paddle and thrust the jon toward the opposite side. As I felt the current take hold, I lowered the blade behind me and began to steer across, just like I’d already done at least ten times that night. But for some reason I was more nervous than ever. As I angled closer to the middle, it seemed I could feel the thrum of the giants racing beneath me. It was like I knew what was coming. Or that my luck had run out. Or maybe through my concentration against such a disaster, I willed it to happen.
The enormous fish erupted soundlessly from the water and rose before me, a wall of hard, glimmering scales. It seemed to hang six feet overhead for an impossible amount of time, its powerful tail whipping at the air while it gradually twisted onto its side. I gazed up at a glassy black eye that stared back at me with no emotion. And then, slowly, the ancient creature fell toward me. The full weight of it crashed onto the right gunnel, and it rolled into the boat. The jon tilted onto its side and threw me toward the water. As I clung to the seat, trying not to go over, the sturgeon beat on the aluminum with its armored tail like someone hitting a steel barrel with a sledgehammer. Then I heard the sucking sound of the river pouring into the boat and felt it soaking my jeans. I threw my hands into the air, grasping for the left gunnel above me, but the cold water was already sliding over my waist. Within seconds the boat and fish were gone into the depths below.
17
I floated in my life vest, slapping at the surface, trying to grasp something—anything. I saw my backpack to my left and grabbed it. Then I felt the paddle and pulled it to me. I looked around for anything else, but there was nothing. The food and supplies I’d stored had sunk or floated away into the darkness. I suddenly felt the turbulence of something jet past my feet, and I thought about the sturgeon racing beneath me. Then I thought about the alligator eyes I’d seen that night. I let go of the paddle, put an arm through one side of the pack, and began to swim for my life.
It was too dark to tell where the riverbank was, but I swam and thrashed across the current with all my strength, aiming for the silhouette of the tree line. I expected to get rammed by a sturgeon or pulled under in the jaws of an alligator. The thought of my feet touching anything sent white-hot fear racing through me.
Go! my head screamed. Go!
I thrust my arms ahead and plowed forward. Eventually I felt the current release me, and I breast-stroked into the slack water. After a moment I sensed the darkness getting even darker. Then I was startled to feel something scrape my cap. At first I thought it was a snake, then realized I was swimming under overhanging limbs. I expected to feel solid ground underfoot, but when I kicked down there was nothing but liquid space. This confused me and caused me to panic even more. I flailed my arms until I felt a tree and pulled myself to it. I scraped my feet along its trunk but found nothing to stand on. Finally I hugged it and pressed my cheek against the bark. I tried to cry but nothing came out except coughing.
I rested for only a moment before the fear of alligators and snakes was overwhelming. As tired as I was, I took off my cap and stuffed it down my shirt. Then I let go of the tree and kept swimming deeper into the flooded timber. Limbs slapped me and tore at my head and face, but I plowed through them until my feet pressed into soft mud. I stood up in waist-deep water and fell and stood again and then stumbled forward.
I must have waded a hundred yards into the river bottom before the water was below my knees and the ground was firmer. I began tripping my way through cypress knees and rotten logs until I eventually trudged up onto muddy ground. I collapsed, backed against a tree, clasped my knees close to me, and shivered.
I stared wide-eyed into the darkness, listening to my heavy breathing and chattering
teeth. Then the swamp sounds slowly pressed in on me. Frogs and crickets and cicadas. A distant owl. Something splashing out in the water behind me.
I’d always been comforted by the fact that I could make it back to civilization if I really wanted to. That I could give up. Stanley had said there was no other place to stop until you reached the Gulf, but it would have been easy to run across a fisherman. And maybe I could have paddled to shore somewhere and walked to the nearest house or town. But I no longer had those options. Now, I was truly stranded. Nobody would ever find me in this place. And there was no way to get to the river for help without swimming and hanging onto a tree among the snakes and alligators.
I have this trick I play in my head when I’m worried. I try to think of the worst possible thing that can happen and compare that to my own situation. Then I try to diminish the problem enough to feel better about it.
At least I’m still alive, I thought.
I’d never compared myself to being dead before, but it was really the only thing I could think of. The only thing worse than the situation I faced.
I’m going to have to walk out of here. I’ll have to find a way out on foot.
I thought about what I’d already seen of the hammock around me. The horror of having to trudge through it overtook me. My fear was so great that I couldn’t even process it. If you’d asked me then to choose between coming face-to-face with Bigfoot and walking miles through the Suwannee river bottom I would have chosen Bigfoot without hesitation.
* * *
I remained backed against the cypress tree, quiet and trembling and terrified. I didn’t look at my watch, but it seemed like I wasn’t there long before the frogs and insects grew silent and the hammock began to purple with daybreak. And as the landscape revealed itself before me, I couldn’t have imagined a bleaker sight. Nothing but black mud and rotten logs and cypress knees under a tall canopy of hardwoods for as far as I could see. The place looked dead. I heard no birds or squirrels or any other animal sound usually associated with dawn. I stood slowly and looked out over the dark water and trees I swam through to get here. I knew the river was somewhere in that direction, but I couldn’t see it at all. I was so far into the timber that I couldn’t even hear a passing boat.
I leaned over and picked up the L.L.Bean backpack. At least I still have this, I thought. I have a poncho and what’s left of my snacks. And a change of clothes that will eventually dry out.
I felt my pocket. And the pocketknife and penlight.
It’s not much, but it’s something.
I had to start moving as soon as possible. Every minute I spent in that soupy wasteland brought me one minute closer to getting eaten by an alligator, being poisoned by a cottonmouth, or starving. I pulled the wet cap out of my shirt and slid it on. Then I slung the pack over my shoulder and started walking away from the river, deeper into the hammock.
18
The river bottom was a landscape from the age of the dinosaurs, home to nothing but reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids. I made my way under a shadowy forest canopy of tupelo gum and cypress, waving away spiderwebs, tripping through cypress knees, and climbing over giant decaying logs. In some places the mud was thin and watery with an oily rainbow look to it. I stepped around these places, thinking of quicksand, all the while watching for snakes and other unknowns lying in wait.
The first animal I encountered was a loggerhead sea turtle the size of a trash can lid. I came around a tree to find myself face-to-face with him, hissing and snapping at me. I quickly retreated and gave him a wide berth.
After about an hour I came to a narrow creek choked with duckweed and water lettuce. I stopped and studied it, wary of alligators lurking nearby. I didn’t see any but decided to keep my distance from the bank just in case.
I knew the river flowed generally southwest, and I assumed most of the tributaries would come in at right angles, draining the distant uplands. If I was right about that, I figured following the creek would take me somewhere to the southeast, where I’d eventually find higher ground. I didn’t know if this was Gopher Creek or some other slough I’d stumbled across. Whatever it was, it was impossible for a boat to get into.
I turned right and began following the watercourse upstream. A half hour later I came to more flooded timber, except this time it was so thick with ferns and briars and underbrush that I didn’t see a way through. I was either going to have to walk around it or wade out into the creek and travel up the shallows. It made my heart race just thinking about getting into the water again. Even though I’d yet to see an alligator or a snake that day, I knew they were out there. But heading off in the wrong direction and spending no telling how long trudging miles through the wetland muck seemed even more dangerous. I couldn’t survive long in this place. I had no choice. Getting into the water again was my shortest and easiest route to higher ground.
The pack was still wet, but I didn’t want to get it any wetter. I hoisted it higher on my shoulders and stepped down into the creek. I pushed my way through the floating vegetation that smelled like broccoli and onions. When I was a few yards from the bank, the canopy opened overhead and sunlight fell over me, warm and welcomed. I continued to the center, relieved to find the channel was no more than waist deep. Then I started upstream, pushing through the water lettuce and stepping softly through the gooey mud.
I must have traveled a quarter mile in this way, the creek gradually narrowing and the aquatic plants thinning. The sky began to cloud over, but the sun still warmed me in brief intervals. And any sunlight was better than the cool dark shade of the river bottom.
The creek was no more than ten feet across when the tree limbs closed overhead and the sunlight was filtered away again. The surface was now clear of all floating vegetation, and the underbrush along the bank had thinned. I stopped and peered deep into the shadowy interior of the swamp. Except for the flash of an occasional yellow or red bird, there seemed to be no color but shades of brown and dirty green. Tall reeds and palmetto and leafy ferns. Then I saw my first cottonmouth, thick as my arm, brown as the mud, oozing through the cypress knees. But my fear had already accounted for these things, and I only studied the snake curiously, convinced that wading the creek had been the safest course after all.
I continued on, and the creek became as shallow and clear as an aquarium. The channel was only a couple of feet wide, bordered with reeds and thin swamp grass hiding glassy minnows and small green and brown water snakes. I stopped and knelt and gazed at my reflection in the water. My face looked a mess. The tree limbs from the night before had left a dozen or more thin cuts. Fortunately they had not reopened the older cuts from the car wreck. These wounds still stood as swollen pink lines with tracks of black sutures. I put my hand to the scar on my cheek and tugged gently at the stitches. The pain made me wince, and I decided to leave them alone for a few more days.
Raindrops began to spot the water around me. Then I heard the distant rumble of thunder. I looked up but saw only leaves and branches overhead. I knew I needed to press on and find high ground and make shelter.
I ducked and splashed up the clear creek. I watched for cottonmouths, but it was hard to see anything. At times the brush was so tight around me it felt like I was walking through a culvert pipe. The sky continued to rumble, and it seemed I could hear the rain hitting the canopy far overhead. In the tunnel the few raindrops I saw dripped from the leaves overhead and twitched the fragile ferns alongside me.
Moving with my head down most of the time, I noticed the creek bottom gradually changing from the muddy silt to white polished gravel. A different type of grass grew here that was flat-topped and thick and broad-stemmed. The water seemed to be getting colder and clearer and cleaner, as if the grass and gravel were filtering it. Occasionally I saw cabbage palms and oaks and sweetgum, a sign that I was moving out of the river bottom and into the upland hammock.
* * *
It was close to noon when the tunnel suddenly opened into a small clearing. I was shocked
to see a jade-blue spring about twenty feet wide and forty feet long, surrounded by a perimeter of shallow, grassy marsh. The creek source bubbled from the center of what looked like a bottomless cave of white limestone.
I approached the spring and stared down into it. Suspended in its depths were all sizes of alligator gar, another long-snouted, primitive-looking fish. I was so amazed it took me a moment to realize how hard the rain was coming down. I backed away from the pool and ducked into the tunnel again. I dug the poncho out of my backpack, tore it open, and pulled it over me. Then I walked up to a small ledge just above the limestone and sat under a cabbage palm.
As I watched the rain falling over the spring, I thought about Dad. I remembered us walking through the forest and him telling me about cabbage palms and how their fronds were dense enough to make a good temporary shelter during a storm. It all seemed so long ago. Like maybe it had never even been real. And I could see myself walking beside him and listening and not really wanting to know about trees and plants, only wanting to shoot the gun. It was hard to think of that boy as me. It was like somebody I didn’t know anymore.
I hugged my knees close and pulled my cap brim low over my face. Then I put my forehead down, closed my eyes, and slept.
19
When I woke the rain had stopped. I looked over the spring and knew I had a decision to make. I had come to find the creatures, but now everything had changed. Or had it? I was stranded, but stranded in the same place I’d been trying to reach—or at least somewhere close to it. I only had enough food to last about two more days if I didn’t eat much. And I remembered something Stanley said: “Until you run out of food and have to live like an animal. Until you’re so primitive you dig worms from the ground with your hands and eat them just to go on another day. Then maybe they’ll show themselves to you.”
