Chapter 8
I whirled around, trying to come up with a cover story, but my inventory of smuggling-alligators-in-pirogues tales was completely empty. Gertie and Ida Belle didn’t appear to be doing any better. They both stared at Carter, their brows scrunched in concentration.
“No one?” he asked. “Unbelievable. The first time I’ve seen all three of you speechless.”
“That’s because none of us can come up with a decent lie,” I said.
“That statement should bother me,” he said, “but coming from you, it makes perfect sense. I’m not even going to ask you what you’re doing, because no way in hell do I want to know.
What I’m going to do is tell you to get that gator back into the bayou before someone calls Wildlife and Fisheries and they arrest you for poaching. ”
Crap. I hadn’t even thought about that angle of this mess.
“I guess now isn’t a good time to be caught with an alligator in your backyard,” I said. “I mean, if you live on the bayou then maybe, but since it’s wrapped up in pants and sitting in a pirogue, that would probably look suspicious.”
Carter raised one eyebrow. “You think? Look, I already have the state stepping all over my toes on this one. The last thing I need is the three of you arrested over whatever this is.”
“I was just—” Gertie started to explain, but Carter held a hand up to cut her off.
“I said I didn’t want to know.” He pointed at the pirogue. “In the water, now.”
“That’s exactly where we were going,” Ida Belle said.
Carter looked at the three of us, clearly not convinced.
“I swear on Francine’s banana pudding,” Ida Belle said.
That seemed to mollify him. “Fine,” he said. “Then hurry.”
“It would go faster if you’d help us slide the pirogue on the trailer,” I said.
He sighed. “Great. Then I can be party to the illegal act. That’s exactly what I need.”
We all ignored his completely accurate statement and pulled the tarp over the pirogue, securing it on the sides with duct tape.
I positioned the trailer in front of the pirogue, and Carter and I grabbed the front of the boat with Ida Belle and Gertie pushing from the end.
I tipped the trailer back and we tugged until the pirogue was in place, then I drove my Jeep through the wide gate on the side yard and we hooked the trailer up.
“This trailer is rusted pretty bad,” Carter said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to hold up, so don’t drive fast.”
“We’re just taking Godzilla to—” Gertie started, and Carter held up his hand again.
“Don’t want to know where you’re going,” he said. “Don’t want to know why you’ve named an alligator. Don’t want to know why he’s wrapped in pants. I already have to forget all of this on the way to my truck and come up with something to tell your neighbors.”
He whirled around and stalked out of the backyard.
Gertie, Ida Belle, and I headed for the Jeep, Ida Belle riding shotgun, or .
45 as the case was, and Gertie sitting in the back, watching the trailer.
I pulled out of the backyard and onto the street, cringing when the trailer banged as the tires rolled off the curb.
“It’s still holding up,” Gertie said, “and Godzilla hasn’t moved.”
I let out a breath of relief. “We can do this, right? It’s only a few blocks.”
“Famous last words,” Ida Belle said.
And we almost made it.
A block from my house, I stopped at the corner and was preparing to turn when two teens roared out of a driveway in an enormous truck with ridiculous wheels and barreled down the road in front of us, blaring a horn that sounded like an ocean liner.
We all froze, then whirled around to look at the trailer.
At first, it appeared we’d escaped unscathed, then we heard a loud thump, and the pirogue shook.
The second thump was even harder and this time, the top of the tarp flew up, pulling a section of duct tape loose.
I whirled around and floored it, squealing around the corner and racing for my house.
I glanced at the rearview mirror and saw the pirogue jumping back and forth on the trailer, and I prayed that the rusted piece of metal would hold long enough to get us to my backyard.
I hit my driveway at an angle, attempting to get the trailer up the slope rather than jumping the curb, but I was only partially successful.
I looked in the rearview and saw the alligator’s head shoot out of the pirogue, tearing the tarp loose on the front of the boat.
The wind caught the tarp and ripped it completely off.
I steered across the driveway and into the yard, headed for the side of the house.
If I could make it around back, then it would just be a matter of getting the gator into the water.
“The hitch is breaking,” Gertie yelled. “If you make another turn, it will break off.”
“Hold on!” I yelled as I drove into the backyard and straight at the bayou. Ida Belle secured her seat belt and Gertie flopped around, grabbing the roll bar. I floored the Jeep and just a couple feet before I reached the water, I made a hard right turn.
I heard the trailer hitch snap as it broke away from the Jeep.
Free of the additional weight, the Jeep leaped ahead tossing us all back against our seats before I slammed on the brakes, flinging us forward.
We all turned around and watched as the broken trailer ran straight into the bayou.
The alligator, seeing that home was in sight, clawed his way over the side of the pirogue and disappeared in the murky water.
The front half of the pirogue had come loose when it hit the water and was trying to float off with the current. The back end was still attached to the submerged trailer.
“We have to get that out of the water before someone sees it,” I said.
Ida Belle nodded. “Someone being Carter.”
“We can put a rope around it and haul it backward into the lawn,” Gertie said. “Even without the hitch, we should be able to wrangle some way to get it back to my house. It’s not that heavy without the gator.”
“The problem is not getting it back to your house,” I said. “I could walk it back to your house. The problem is getting a rope on it because I am not getting in the water with that thing. I barely have an advantage on land. I’m not wandering into his house after we hacked him off.”
“That gator is probably long gone,” Ida Belle said.
“Really?” I asked. “Then you won’t mind securing the rope.”
“No way,” Ida Belle said. “This is Gertie’s mess. She can secure the rope. I’ll stand ready to shoot.”
Now that the gator was back in the water, Gertie didn’t look as sure of her scaly friend as she had before.
“Fine,” she said finally, and grabbed a rope I kept behind the backseat of the Jeep.
She climbed over the side and headed for the bayou.
Ida Belle jumped out and stood at the shoreline, pistol drawn. I backed the Jeep up to the bank.
“Tie it off to the Jeep first,” I said. I didn’t add the part about, in case something happened, we still had the rope.
Gertie looped the rope around the hitch and then walked to the edge of the bayou.
She scanned the surface, looking for any sign of the alligator, but the only movement on the water was the outgoing tide.
She clutched the other end of the rope, a determined look on her face, and marched into the water.
“Tie it off anywhere on the trailer,” I said. “Just get a good knot and get the heck out of there. I’ll drag it up the bank.”
Gertie nodded as she bent over and stuck the rope under the water. A boat passed by on the bayou, not bothering to slow, and Ida Belle yelled at them.
“Watch for the wake,” Ida Belle said as the waves created by the passing boat rolled in.
“I’m almost done,” Gertie said. “Got it!”
She rose up to leave just as the first wave hit her. It wasn’t that big so I didn’t anticipate any issues, but all of a sudden, Gertie’s eyes widened and she screamed.
“It’s got me! Lord, help me! It’s got me!”
I jumped out of the Jeep yelling at Ida Belle to shoot.
“I can’t see anything,” Ida Belle said, waving the gun at the surface of the water surrounding Gertie.
Gertie attempted to bolt forward, but one leg didn’t go along with the rest of her body and she pitched face-first into the bayou. Ida Belle tossed the gun on the bank, and we both dashed into the water to help Gertie up and pulled her onto the bank.
“I’m going to bleed out and die,” Gertie cried. “Did I loose the leg?”
Ida Belle grabbed the gun and scanned the shore, and I checked Gertie for injuries. Then I saw the polyester pants wrapped around her ankle and trailing into the water, where I would bet money they had been caught on the trailer.
“Your leg is fine,” I said as I leaned over and pulled the pants off her ankle. “You’re tangled in the pants. The alligator didn’t bite you. If he heard you scream, he’s probably halfway to Florida.”
Ida Belle shoved the gun in her waistband and walked back up the bank, shaking her head. “You have got to work on that panicking thing. So much drama.”
Gertie flipped over and eyed her legs, as if she didn’t quite believe me. Once she was convinced that there was no bite, no blood loss, and probably wouldn’t even be a bruise, she rose from the ground.
“Pull this thing out of the water,” she said. “What are you standing around for? I might want to use that pirogue sometime.”
Before I could even open my mouth to reply, Ida Belle pulled out the pistol and fired a hole in the front of the pirogue.
Gertie shot her a look of dismay. “What did you do that for?”
Ida Belle shoved the gun back in her jeans.
“Because I had the overwhelming urge to shoot something, and I couldn’t shoot you.
Besides, the last thing you need to do with that awful balance of yours is get on the water in a pirogue.
You’d think every piece of marsh grass in the bayou was trying to drown you. ”