CHAPTER 8 IRON JACK
IRON JACK
Ijerk my head up.
While I was examining the holes made by iguanas, Greta has gotten herself in a predicament.
I force myself not to laugh as I watch her sink sideways in the mud.
She can’t even turn to look at me. The marsh has a good hold on her legs. “Do not laugh,” she growls.
I cough to cover the chuckle. “All right, city girl. You got yourself in a wet spot. Hold on.”
I test the mud carefully as I move toward her. It’s not so soft that I sink until I get a couple of feet out.
Greta smacks the wet ground with an already muddy hand. “This is not an episode of Scooby Do! Do not get yourself stuck trying to help me get out!”
“I won’t,” I tell her, searching the nearby trees for branches the right thickness. “Take a breath and stop fighting it.” I unsnap my knife sheath and pull out my father’s old Winchester.
“It’s not possible to stop fighting it!” she cries. “I’m sinking!”
“I’ve got you.” With several quick strikes of the blade, I have a handful of mid-sized branches.
“Those will never get me out of here!” Greta wails. “They’ll break!”
I pay her no mind as I crisscross them on the ground to create a mat that will distribute my weight and prevent me from sinking. As I step closer to her, she says, “Oh.”
“Hands are better than sticks,” I say as I extend mine. “Give me the clean one.”
She does, and grasps mine like a lifeline.
“I’m going to get you close enough to grab you under the arms. Just don’t fight me, and I’ll have you right out.”
She nods.
“Flex your toes up toward the sky and you’ll keep your shoes on as you come out.” I pull her part of the way out, until I can reach her torso.
I have no idea if she’s able to move her feet, but I give her a second to adjust, then with a slow, steady motion, pull her legs out of the marsh.
The lower half of her jeans are caked with a solid layer of mud. I set her on the thatch of branches. She’s covered so thoroughly that at first, I can’t see if she still has her shoes or not.
She bends over, palms on her thighs, leaving a brown handprint on one side. Her breathing gradually slows down. Red locks of hair stick to her damp forehead.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks.”
“Did your shoes stay on?”
She shifts her feet. “Yeah. They’re there.”
“Good.”
“And we thought quicksand was dangerous.”
“The mud runs deep here. Most places you’d hit dry dirt before you got too far, but this is underwater during the wet season, so it’s pretty sludgy.”
She stands up and pushes her hair off her forehead, forgetting one of her hands is covered in mud. Now there’s a streak across her temple. I hold back my smile.
She looks at her hand, then uses the clean one to check her face. It comes back muddy. “Great,” she says. “I’m sure I look a fright.”
“I like a woman who gets her hands dirty,” I say. “And her face. And her ankles.”
She looks down. The bottom hem of her jeans has broken free of the mud casing, exposing a line of smudged skin above her shoe. “This will require a pretty serious shower.”
“Come on, it’s less wet this direction.” I tilt my head to the right, where I was planning on taking her when she got entranced by the birds.
Greta glances in the direction where the spoonbills were fishing before she startled them by yelling for help. “It was nice while I saw them.”
“You’ll like this.”
She shakes her legs as she walks, trying to shed some of the caked mud as we move into a copse of trees.
I pull off a fat leaf from a low-lying plant for her to use as a makeshift towel. “For your hand.”
“Thanks.” She wipes the mud on its soft underside.
I point at the tall, willowy trees. “There’s solid ground when the cypresses are thick,” I tell her. “If it’s just mud or dead sawgrass, it’s likely to be a wet spot.”
“You keep saying that word,” she says. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
That gets a genuine chuckle. “Well played. At least we don’t have to worry about any rodents of unusual size.”
She finally manages to laugh. “I guess you are Westley to my Buttercup. But please tell me this isn’t a fire swamp.”
“Not in the Everglades. And I’m more of the Dread Pirate Roberts version of Westley than the hero in the end.” I lead her a few more feet into the trees, then stop to listen, holding up a finger.
She pauses behind me.
I listen. Bird chatter. An occasional splash. The shifting of twigs. It’s too quiet here. A sure sign of what I’m looking for.
The mud beneath our feet is mostly empty of debris, but I gesture to fallen branches. “Try to avoid those,” I whisper.
She nods, and we move slowly forward, picking our way around any brush.
I hold up my hand to tell her to halt, peering through the cypress. We’re in a copse. The water is deeper a few yards out, fish gliding through in dense schools, compressed into tight quarters.
But there are no birds feasting here. There’s a reason.
I scan the space, careful to take in every break in the continuity of the sawgrass, the surface of the water, the edge near the trees.
And I see her. A great female alligator. This is the copse she has built to get her through the dry season.
I turn to Greta and point.
She follows my aim, searching for a while.
I know when she sees it because her eyes go wide. She takes in the circular space, the water, the fish. I told her about this last night. She understands.
Her shoulders relax. It’s the one time we’re in the actual presence of danger, and now she’s calm.
She doesn’t like to feel unprepared. I see it now. The ride last night. The footwear, not knowing how soft the ground was, failing to pay attention. That upset her.
But this is something she knows and expected. She’s informed. She can assess the risk for herself.
A white egret swoops down as if to pluck a fish, but it barely touches the surface before taking off again. It recognized the danger.
When a second one does the same, the alligator moves forward, making herself known.
The fish switch direction, also sensing a change in the tranquility of the space.
Then, quick as lightning, the alligator lunges into the water, jaws wide, and takes in a full mouth of fish.
Greta sucks in a breath, but seems to recognize that we’re all right among the trees. Mostly, anyway. The gator could come for us if she wanted, but she won’t risk it when there’s an easy meal right in front of her.
She snaps her jaws shut, taking her time now, gliding through the water to a high spot to enjoy her meal and sun herself.
She’s gorgeous and long, a glossy green-black. Her round eyes close in contentment as she takes in her catch, her throat bobbing as she swallows.
It’s the good life. She built it herself.
Something tickles the edge of my fingers, and I look down to see Greta’s clean hand taking mine for a squeeze.
“She’s beautiful,” she whispers.
“She is.”
We stay there for a while, watching the alligator sun herself. Slowly, the fish return to their leisurely patterns in the pool. In the distance, birds call again. The tranquility is restored.
Greta’s hand remains in mine. I don’t remember the last time I did such a simple gesture with a woman. A lot of straddling bunnies. Some NFNF here and there.
But standing in a copse of cypress trees on a sunny winter day, watching an alligator relax after a meal with my hand in another’s?
Maybe never.
I might be in over my head with this particular member of the Pickle family. She’s smart. Fiery. Willing to get a little dirty. Resilient, too. She recovered from the mud predicament and didn’t demand to go home.
She’s only here for six more days.
I wonder if that’s enough time to convince her to stay.