Pirate

I gained my footing and, once standing, I was able to use the rifle as a crutch and hobbled to the canoes. I sat on the gunwale of the closest boat and waited for the group to gather. They were ready in minutes and loaded the boats, careful to distribute the treasure and provisions equally, both for weight and to minimize our losses if a boat went down.

I was in the first boat and we were able to use the homemade paddles on the last stretch of open water. After a mile we started to see growth below the water and before we reached another mile, we were in the sawgrass. We stowed the oars and unlashed the poles. I felt guilty having to stay seated as Rhames poled our boat. The craft seemed stable, buffeted by the grass on all quarters. While he pushed us along, I tried to gauge the effort required to move through the stiff vegetation, but his face was unreadable. The grass was everywhere, dark green with some brown, and sharp edges, which appeared to give it strength. From my position in the hull, I could see little else. With nothing else to look at, I studied the field stretched out in front of us and noticed that the water must be low. There were clear delineations on the blades of sawgrass, similar to the tide markings on the mangroves by the ocean. I looked back at Rhames and watched him as the pole entered and left the water. The bottom appeared to be only a few feet below the boat.

Just as I realized how low the water was, we bumped against a mud shoal. He drove the pole deeper into the muck and the boat moved over it, but I wondered what that small bump foretold of the journey ahead.

The next few hours passed without incident, and I started to relax and eventually drifted off to sleep.

I was jarred awake as the boat grounded, and I felt Rhames jump out. I looked up and saw an island with several small cypress trees, the high-water mark on their trunks suggesting that the land would be covered during high water. In this case, the low water was a blessing, as we had solid land to make camp.

24

We ate dried deer meat and drank the juice from the last of the coconuts before savoring the fat-rich flesh, which we used our hands to scoop from the shells into our mouths. The last day and a half, we had poled the boats through never-ending fields of sawgrass. Single herons and clouds of small, white birds called ibis flew overhead, and fish jumped in the small patches of open water. But, for the most part, it had been miles of the same, the silence broken only by faraway grunts from the ever-present gators. Close to exhaustion, we took turns poling and resting. I tried to gauge our progress, but with no landmarks it was impossible.

As the sun set I had tried to take a turn at the pole. Several of the others had switched out with Rhames to take a turn in my boat. He had been stoic, as usual, in his efforts. Rory was in the bow of my canoe, leaning against a chest when I rose. The pain in my leg was unbearable for the first few minutes as the blood revisited the wound, but it eased and soon I was used to it. The exercise felt good, although I was terrified we would hit a mud shoal, and I would be unable to balance myself. Within minutes, I could see Rory’s chest rise and fall in a deep sleep.

It was close to dusk when I swatted the first mosquito from my nose, hoping it was a stray. The air seemed to get heavier and envelope me in its grasp, and I started to sweat. Mosquitos swarmed and I felt feverish. I was about to sit and wake Rory when I felt the first hint of a breeze on my face.

In itself it was nothing, but I turned and looked behind me. The moonlight revealed a long, thin line of clouds on the horizon. These winter storms pushed the humidity in front of them, making it feel like dog days of summer, far different than the drier January air, before they moved through. From the looks of it, we were in for a blow, and in the middle of miles of nothing, there was no way to protect ourselves.

“Hurry. Get the boats together.” Rory stirred in the bow.

“What’s the matter? Can’t a girl sleep around here?”

I ignored her and waved the other boats over. “Come on,” I called again.

Rhames, Syd, and Blue manned the helms of the other boats, all slightly ahead of ours. They stopped, looked back, and waited as I used my good leg to brace myself in order to push harder. I reached them, and we lashed the boats together, using our poles as anchors.

With the boats moored as they were, we were closer than we were used to. Most of our previous camps had been large enough we could spread out into groups and get some space, but here we were on top of each other. I noticed the smell of the men, at first unbearable, was no longer there. I glanced back toward the north, where I felt the breeze stiffen.

“I see it too, Mr. Nick.” Blue echoed my thoughts.

“It’s moving fast,” I said, as the wind picked up.

The rest of the group noticed our concern.

“We’re pretty exposed out here,” I said.