In For A Dime
Everything Jake had learned in forty-one years, every nerve ending, pulse and muscle twitch told him he’d have only one chance at leaving the Glades alive.
Susan’s last night voice streaked among the clatter of birds. “I don’t want you going out there in gator mating season. Lord knows, its bad enough with the moccasins, and now pythons.”
Jake said he wasn’t an idiot, said the snake season didn’t begin until the rains came, and until then he’d keep shooting. “Need more landscapes. Can’t sell what I haven’t got. You know it’s my job. Gators and anything else that crawls out there ain’t gonna stop me. One big hothouse of activity this time of year, but its work. Hell, it feeds us, doesn’t it?”
Susan’s fingers danced faster on the Blackberry game controls. She glanced at the TV, said she should’ve married someone not so hardheaded, someone who cared enough to come home in one piece. He touched her shoulder. She jerked back.
Now his heart trip-hammered, mouth cork dry, palms oozing as he glanced sideways so fast it didn’t quite count, a less-than-glance. At least a dozen elongated, black heads lurked on the water’s surface to his left. On his right side a pool dropped fifteen feet straight down. He’d slid into it the week before, which was why he owned this new camera.
Jake scrunched his brow, narrowed his eyes. Gators never been any trouble, just curious. Respect their habitat, but man’s keeper of this earth, isn’t he? Got that right. I’ll go where I want. They’re the ones should be afraid.
He breathed deep, let it out. Since dawn his camera had gorged on olive green and chartreuse, reflected blues, burnt umber and limestone grey, while he drew pure oxygen made by broad-leafed alligator flag, clinging red-stem vines, and stately cypress brandishing filigreed lime green needles, all within the steaming incubator, the river of grass.
And the pools, it amazed him how a solemn alligator could hang motionless in pristine water, halfway between heaven and earth as though cast in sinless resin.
Now uncontained evil waited on the bank. Jake had watched the huge bull slicker out of the water, blacksmith armor plate glistening in sub tropical sun as it turned and posed solid defiance, mouth wide open, eyes like hundred watt sapphires. Bastard’s in rut. Fit my whole body in those jaws. Wish he’d close them.
For all the times he’d bragged to Susan, told her gators didn’t scare him, and all the man things he’d do if they did attack, none fit this situation. He loved Susan. Why didn’t he listen and stay home, agree to her common sense pleas?
The saw tooth tail swished to one side, tremendous dragon head snapping to the other. Jake had made wrong choices before, but this one left him hollow, helpless. He’d never see Susan again. He felt like crying, except men didn’t do that. Besides, the devil on the bank wouldn’t wait.
Jake looked down at his new Nikon and zoom lens. He moaned and gripped the steel grey monopod with both hands, a jouster’s lance. Got no choice. Gotta ram it down his throat. He sighed. In for a dime, big mouth. Now you’re in for a dollar, the whole stinking, no-good buck.
He crouched, and as twelve feet of reptilian muscle shot like a coiled spring toward him Jake charged blind into the tidal wave. The lance stopped. Jake grunted, and kept moving, didn’t see anything, but his face sure hurt. He spit. It didn’t go anywhere. Tastes like shit. Oh no, the charge. Oh God. It’s eating me headfirst. Slid right into its mouth.
He wiggled his hands, found something hard and pushed, his face making a pluck sound as it came free. He rubbed, fingers squishing, and then he wiped his eyes. “Mud. Not gator crap. Just mud.”
He turned, stretched his neck, saw the dozen heads close now, but no big bull. Jake twisted onto his knees, looked down at the monopod stuck in the embankment, camera still attached in a foot of water. “Idiot. You’re a damn idiot.”
Wayne Willison.