JL04 - Mortal Sin (30 page)

And then the splash.

It was something between a belly flop and an Olympic medal, closer to the former. I went under, not knowing how deep it was but thankful for once that Nicky Florio had dredged, with or without permits.

I heard another blast and felt the ping of pellets in the water above me. I stayed under as long as I could.

I surfaced and took a breath, my lungs exploding with pain. My breathing sounded like a locomotive in my ears. I tried not to splash. The sun was sizzling on the horizon, the black water glinting with morning light. I wondered what Nicky could see from the high-stilted porch.

I listened to the sounds of the swamp. Birds chirping, frogs burping, the screech of an animal I had never heard before. I floated on my back, my legs weighted down by my wing tips. I discarded the shoes and kicked gently, moving away from the house.

Another roar from the shotgun, but farther away.

Still moving backward, I bumped into something rough and scaly.

A log?

I whirled around, searching for yellow-green eyes, or worse, red ones…

It was a large branch of a lignum vitae tree.

I resumed my easy backstroke, tearing off my suit coat and letting it float away. I maneuvered around the hardwood hammock, putting more distance between the house and myself. Five minutes later, I could barely see the light from the windows through the tops of the mahogany trees.

I was trying to conserve my energy, floating, swimming, floating again, when I heard it.

A heavy breath beside me. I rolled to the side and was sprayed by a fine mist from two nostrils just above the water’s surface. The rest of the animal was hidden below the surface.

From diving, I remembered what to do when you encounter a shark. Don’t panic; don’t splash; don’t strike out. I wondered if the advice applied to alligators. No matter. I was too scared to do anything. I just floated there while it moved closer and breathed its hot breath on me and finally nuzzled me with its snout.

I
TREADED WATER AND THE ANIMAL RAISED ITS HEAD
.

Dull gray, the color of an elephant, with a blunt-nosed face. It reminded me of a hippo.

Then it squeaked and nuzzled me.

A big, lumpy manatee. A sea cow with bad breath. It squeaked again. I treaded water some more, backpedaling. Lumpy moved its arm like front flippers and came close enough to kiss me. This guy, or gal, must have weighed half a ton.

I didn’t know what to do, so I imitated its sound. Mine was more of a squawk, a little off key. I hoped it was the manatee version of hello, and not a war whoop. Or a mating call.

The manatees are essentially harmless and friendly. They eat grass and drift through life not bothering anybody. Man is a much greater danger to the manatee than the other way around. The big lugs float just below the surface in our waterways and canals, where power boaters frequently slice them up with their propellers.

Sirens of the sea, they are the sea maids from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Five hundred years ago, Columbus saw manatees floating by as he approached the New World. His log revealed he thought they were mermaids. Columbus had been at sea too long.

Another squeak from Lumpy, another squawk from me.

Then it did a pirouette, slowly spinning 180 degrees, showing me its wrinkled gray back. I tentatively stroked its head, provoking a
squeak-squeak.

I stopped stroking, and it turned and faced me again.

The sun was an orange fireball just above the horizon. A heron croaked as it flew overhead. There was the splash of feeding fish nearby.

I was tired of treading water. “What do you want, pal?”

Another squeak. Then another pirouette.

It just floated there, its back to me.

Waiting. It expected me to do something. But what?

Growing even more tired, I put my arms around its neck and held on. Lumpy started swimming. So that was it. The manatee was a cabbie, and I was the fare. We would not break Mark Spitz’s records, but we were moving. Judging from the position of the rising sun, we were headed north and maybe a little east. Not that it made much difference, since I didn’t knowhow to get out of here anyway, but we were going deeper into the Glades and away from Tamiami Trail. Keep it up, and we might hit Lake Okeechobee.

We passed dozens of hardwood hammocks, staying in the deep water well offshore. Live oak and royal palm trees were outlined as silhouettes against the brightening sky. I heard a woodpecker
rat-a-tat-tatting
and watched a black-and-white wood stork wading in the shallow water near shore. We swam through patches of green water lettuce and lilies and kept on going.

I saw an osprey dive-bomb the water and come up with a fish in its talons, then head back toward a hammock and what I imagined was its nest filled with young birds. A black-and-yellow snake slithered by, and I told myself it wasn’t a diamondback rattler.

By the time we approached a strand of bald cypress trees, my arms were starting to cramp. In the distance I heard two thudding explosions, the same sounds I thought had been thunderclaps the morning after Gondolier was killed. A heavy mist hung over the water, and the air was cooler here. This time of year, the trees were bare of their needles but were cloaked with ethereal tapestries of Spanish moss. I was trying to figure it out. We had headed north, farther from the national park, farther from the Trail, deeper into Micanopy territory.

Of course. We were in the Big Cypress, the part of the Glades that truly looks like a prehistoric swamp. The water, stained by tannin, was the color of richly brewed tea. The rising sun was shimmering behind the Spanish moss. Air plants and red bromeliads and white orchids grew out of the cypress trees, which, in turn, grew out of the dark water.

Figuring the water was shallow, I let go of Lumpy and tried to stand. The water closed over my head, and I never did touch bottom. I came up and found my friend waiting, squeaking, then turning around for me. I felt unworthy of such tender care but climbed on anyway.

I lost track of time. The sun was high overhead, and my throat was constricted with thirst when I saw the hardwood hammock in front of us. It seemed larger than the others, and there was another difference, too. At the shoreline, covered by gumbo limbo trees, was a wooden dock that even Lumpy knew was the sign of man.

I figured the manatee brought me here thinking I wanted to be with my own kind. You’re wrong, Lumpy. I’d had enough of Nick Florio and his buddies to prefer the company of a thousand-pound creature with halitosis. But maybe this place had a fishing cabin where the thoughtful owner left a six-pack of beer behind.

Lumpy stopped about twenty yards from shore. I let go, swam three strokes, and was able to wade the rest of the way on the rough limestone shelf. I heard the manatee squeak again, then watched it turn and drift away in the current.

My knees buckled, and I collapsed on the beach. Total exhaustion. I lay there a few minutes, then began shivering as a breeze rattled through the cabbage palms and chilled me. I remembered from my windsurfing days just how easy it was to suffer hypothermia. And die from exposure. Which made me think of Peter Tupton all over again.

I was determined to get warm. The air was cooler than the water had been. I stripped off what was left of my sopping-wet suit and stood there, stark naked, trying to figure out what to do. I walked along the beach. A great blue heron eyed me from the shallow water, then began wading. From the underbrush near the shore, I heard a rustling and saw an oppossum scurrying for cover.

Then I found what I needed. A depression in the beach maybe two feet deep and five feet long. A gator hole. During the dry winter months, the alligators make their own swampy condos. It was filled with mud warmed by the midday sun. I stepped into the hole and started slathering the mud on my chest and arms, then legs. I reached around and did my back, finally applying a thin layer to my face. Hey, women pay big bucks for something like this at a Bal Harbour spa.

Finally, I was warm. But thirsty.

The water of the swamp was brackish. I headed away from the beach and into the trees. On the trunk of a gumbo limbo, I saw several pine airplants, looking like pineapples with their leaves curling up and out toward the sky. I climbed the tree and found rainwater in the cup of the plant. I had to chase a tree frog from one, but I leaned down and slurped out the moisture from each of them. Two black vultures circled overhead, drifting in the air currents. Best I could tell, neither was a member of the Bar. I figured they had spotted a dying bobcat, maybe a raccoon, or even a white-tailed deer. I hoped it wasn’t a scared, exhausted lawyer.

I went back to the beach and began walking the circumference of the hammock. I tried to count my steps but lost track after 1,232. I found the remnants of a campfire that couldn’t have been more than a few days old, and on the far side of the hammock, another wooden dock, this one larger. What seemed to be a path led into the woods, and I wanted to follow it, but I promised myself I’d finish the trek around the island first. I did, but there were no other signs of man. No boats, no cabins, no Styrofoam cups from 7-Eleven.

It was already afternoon by the time I got back to my starting point. I had stopped to drink from more wild pine plants, but it did nothing to alleviate my hunger. How long had it been since I had eaten?

I knew from my secretary, Cindy the Vegan, that lots of grasses and seeds were edible. I just didn’t know which ones. She had a book with pictures. Some of the plants were gourmet delights; others were toxic one-way tickets to the emergency room.

A few hundred yards from the shoreline was marshy ground surrounded by dark green bulrushes with stems eight feet tall.

Brown bristly spiked flowers hung from the ends of the stems. Unless Domino’s delivered out here, I really didn’t have a choice. I broke off some shoots and sprouts and tried them. Not bad. Sort of like a health-food cereal with lots of crunch and zero taste. Nearby were greenbrier vines with woody, prickly stems. For some reason, the long leaves reminded me of a twelve-dollar salad at a trendy South Beach restaurant. I sampled the heavily veined leaves. Leathery but tasty. Some virgin olive oil and fresh garlic would have helped.

I kept moving toward the interior of the hammock. The tree trunks were covered with colorful snails. Escargots anyone? I passed. I came upon a strand of pine trees, bursting with male pollen antlers. Maybe a burger would have tasted better, but the pollen probably had as much protein. I ate a few, then picked some cones from the tree, cracked them open, and swallowed the seeds.

I was scurrying through the woods, sniffing leaves and flowers, nibbling this and that, when I saw the glint of sunlight off glass. It didn’t register at first. I just squinted at the glare.

Sunlight off glass!

I dropped a handful of acorns and padded through the brush toward the light.

A gleaming white truck with a series of antennae and satellite dishes. On the side of the cab in black letters,
ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS, INC
. It was either the same truck I saw the first day I headed to Florio’s cabin or one of its brothers. But no guys in ball caps and coveralls.

A blur of questions.

What was it doing here, half-hidden in the trees?

How did it get here?

Where were the men?

And what the heck was it anyway, this space-age machine so out of place deep in the swamp?

I climbed to the cab. Doors locked, windows up tight. Hey, what were they expecting out here? In the underbrush, I found a decent-sized log of a live oak tree. So decent-sized, I could barely hoist it with two hands. The ship called
Old Ironsides
was made from this wood, and the history books say it could repel cannonballs.

My first try, I toppled over backward and dropped the log, then sat down and laughed. There I was, naked and alone and covered with a layer of dried mud, attacking this steel-and-glass monster with a stick. The second try, I got under the log, using my legs and back for leverage, and tossed it from my shoulder squarely into the driver-side window. The glass shattered with a startling noise.

I reached in, avoiding the jagged fragments, and opened the door. Being careful not to cut my feet, I climbed into the cab, brushed the broken glass from the seat, and sat down. A few added touches not usually found in your everyday truck. A computer keyboard, a printer, sets of dials and gauges that made no sense to me. A stack of computer paper was piled up in the printer’s receptacle. I looked at it. Sharp lines, forming peaks and valleys, like an electrocardiogram. Next to the keyboard was a map, neatly folded. I opened it. The northern part of the Everglades, including the Big Cypress Swamp.

The hammocks were numbered. A red
X
on each of thirty or so hammocks, a date written in ink alongside. One of the dates was yesterday. That had to be this hammock. At least I knew where I was. Next to each date were letters and numbers that were meaningless to me.

I got out of the cab and looked around. A canoe with two flotation devices and two paddles was stashed under some big-leafed ferns. So far, that was the best news of the day.

And that was it. No tents, no shovels, no six-packs of beer. I followed the tire tracks through the woods to the shore. It was no more than five hundred yards. I emerged near the larger dock on the far side of the hammock from where I first set foot. But the tracks stopped where the path from the woods hit the beach. I bent down and looked closer at the sandy soil. The ground had been whisked clean by palm fronds. I had missed it my first walk around the hammock.

Okay, smart guy, what do you know?

Somebody hauled the truck here, either on a barge or on the back of a very large manatee. The workers were here yesterday and would likely be back soon. That was good for me, or was it? Who did they work for, and what were they doing, and why did they hide the truck like that?