Chapter 6
Carter was a much more conservative driver than Ida Belle, but then I was pretty sure Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a more conservative driver than Ida Belle.
When we reached the place in the lake where the shrimpers pulled up the skins, Carter killed the engine and scanned the area.
Finally, he threw a stick in the water and watched it move with the tide.
“I guess that means the skins came from a channel to the south of us?” I asked.
“Yeah, but that leaves a lot of ground to cover.”
I pointed off to our left. “I think Ida Belle and I were somewhere over there, but I’m not sure exactly. They all look alike to me.”
“Unless you spend a lot of time out here, it’s easy to get lost. Between Gertie fishing, you and Ida Belle tearing up the bayou in the boat, and Wildlife and Fisheries hanging around, my guess is the poacher wasn’t anywhere near you guys.”
“Sooooooooo, to the right?”
He started the boat and swung it to the right, picking one of the medium-sized channels to cruise. We were about halfway down the channel when I thought to ask, “What are we looking for exactly?”
“Bait line, floating skins, or other parts that are buoyant.”
We cruised that channel until it became too narrow for a regular boat to navigate without potential problems and turned around.
Carter repeated the process with five more channels.
When we were about to exit one of the channels, I saw something dangling from a branch on a cypress tree next to the bank on our right.
“I think I see something there,” I said, and pointed.
Carter slowed the boat to a crawl and approached the cypress tree. The sun was going down on the other side of the tree, so it cast a dark shadow onto the bayou.
“Where?” Carter asked as we pulled underneath the tree and he cut the engine.
I scanned the tree, looking for the rope, but couldn’t find it. “Maybe I was mistaken,” I said. “Wait! There it is.”
I pointed to the black rope hanging directly above us, and that’s when I realized the rope was moving.
Carter reached for the ignition, but it was too late.
The snake dropped out of the tree and right onto me.
I yelled and grabbed the snake from my shoulders, flinging it in the air.
Not even a second later, I leaped out of my seat, pulled my nine, and shot it.
As the snake split into two pieces and dropped, two men rounded the corner in a small fishing boat.
The snake parts fell into their boat and they both jumped up, pulling out guns and firing.
Carter dove off his seat and we both hit the deck, covering our heads with our hands and praying that they ran out of bullets soon.
Finally, the gunfire stopped and all that was left was yelling.
We peered up over the edge of the airboat and saw the two men grabbing fishing poles and tackle boxes as their boat sank lower in the water.
Carter jumped up and started the boat, then rushed it forward next to the sinking fishermen.
I managed to stuff my pistol into my waistband and get back into my seat as the two men jumped into my boat, hands full of fishing tackle.
We all watched as the boat gave its final glurg and disappeared below the surface.
“What the hell were you doing shooting the boat?” the first man yelled.
The second man glared. “I didn’t shoot the boat. You’re the lousy shot. I got the snakes.”
“Gentlemen,” Carter interrupted. “Your insurance company can sort out who shot the boat, assuming, of course, that’s the story you give them.”
The first man must have been the boat owner, because he looked at Carter as if he’d lost his mind.
“Hell no, I ain’t telling insurance how it happened.
You think they’re going to believe we were attacked by flying snakes?
I’ve lived in these bayous fifty-six years and never heard of such a thing.
Wouldn’t believe it now if I hadn’t seen it. ”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Carter said. “Maybe you can say you hit something and started taking on water too fast to recover. Probably best if you claim you were out in the middle of the lake somewhere. Then they won’t send a diver for it.”
The boat owner frowned, then nodded. “That’s good. That’s really good. But ain’t you got to file a report or something?”
Carter shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t see a thing. As far as you’re concerned, I was never here.”
We dropped the men off at the sheriff’s department dock and headed back to my house. Carter pulled the boat onto the bank, and I hopped out and tied it off to a post in my yard. He climbed out and stared at me for several seconds, not saying a word.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t give me that look. I kept my promise. I didn’t get out of the boat.”
“No, John Wayne. But you managed to indirectly sink a boat.”
“If you want to run around with snakes on your head, feel free, but I have personal space issues.”
His lips quivered for a moment, then he finally laughed. “Did you have to shoot it?”
“If I’d just thrown it, it probably still would have landed in their boat anyway. The only difference is it would have been alive.”
“For about a second. Then those two would have blasted it into a million pieces, right along with their boat.”
I held both hands up. “See. Same ending.”
He shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me you were carrying?”
“You really want to know every time I strap on a gun?”
“Look, I’m not even going to try to tell you not to. I get why you do it, but it would make me feel better if I knew there was a chance you were going to open fire on defenseless creatures.”
“How about you assume that unless I’m naked, I’m carrying.”
He smiled. “Sounds like a good excuse to get you naked.”
I was dreaming of a bowl of crawfish étouffée when my phone rang.
I grabbed it off the nightstand and jumped out of bed and into a firing positing, the phone pointed at the bedroom door.
I sighed and lowered my arm, rotating it at the shoulder.
I was getting stiff from lack of exercise.
I needed to work out more, and not in an aerobic-bad-guys-chasing-me sort of way.
Definitely not in a snake-dropping-from-above sort of way.
I realized I’d never answered the phone and saw I’d missed a call from Gertie. A second later, the phone signaled an incoming text.
Emergency meeting at my house asap.
She’d sent it to both Ida Belle and me.
What the heck now?
An emergency call from Gertie could mean anything from losing the television remote to an explosion or possibly even a body.
It was a troubling call on many levels, but mostly because I was never quite sure what kind of supplies to bring—tarp, shovel, fire extinguisher, spare remote—the list was endless.
I threw on clothes and hurried downstairs, grabbing my Jeep keys and a soda on the way out of the house. I’d just go assess the situation, then if there was time, have some breakfast, then head home for whatever supplies were needed to handle Gertie’s latest situation.
Ida Belle’s age-reducing SUV wasn’t at Gertie’s when I got there, so I pulled into the driveway and headed up to the house.
The front door was unlocked, so I pushed it open and called out, but all I heard was the oven timer.
I headed back to the kitchen, but it was empty except for whatever was baking.
I pulled open the oven and took a whiff, then covered my mouth and nose with one hand and slammed the oven shut with the other.
Whatever Gertie had in there, I hoped she wasn’t serving it up for breakfast. It smelled like rotting fish.
My appetite completely gone, I headed to the staircase and yelled up for Gertie, figuring she was probably in her bedroom.
When no answer was forthcoming, I started up the stairs, getting a bit aggravated that Gertie had disappeared after her emergency summons.
I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a noise below me.
It sounded like something bumping against a wall.
When Gertie was injured, she sometimes took up residence in the downstairs guest room to keep from going up and down the stairs.
She wasn’t injured when Ida Belle and I had left her yesterday, but there was a lot of time in between and it didn’t take too much of it for Gertie to get into trouble.
What if she’d fallen somewhere? But then why didn’t she call 911 or say she’d fallen in her text?
I hurried back down the stairs and down the hallway to the guest room, but the bed looked the way it always did when it was made up for company, every pillow in place.
Then another bump rattled the wall behind me and I whirled around and stared at the bathroom door, which was closed.
That door was never closed. There wasn’t an AC vent in the bathroom, so unless it was in use by a visitor, Gertie insisted the door be kept open for circulation.
I was also fairly certain she wouldn’t close the door to use the bathroom if she was alone in her own house.
Nor would she have left the front door unlocked if she was sequestered in the bathroom.
So who was in there?
I stepped over and put my ear up to the door, but all I heard was a couple of knocks, like someone was bumping into the toilet or sink. I knocked on the door.
“Gertie? Are you in there?”
The bumping stopped. I knocked again.
“Are you injured? You’ve got three seconds to respond, then I’m opening the door. One, two, three.”
I pushed the door open and immediately realized my mistake. This was one of those times when I should have inched it opened and taken a peek, because all I’d done was provide a wide exit for the creature inside.
The alligator took one look at me and launched out of the bathtub of water, hissing. I slammed the door shut and took off out of the bedroom as if it were about to explode…and it sorta did.