Randy White - Seduced

“Mosquitoes,” Martinez grumbled. I couldn’t see him but guessed he wasn’t far behind. “Cold as it is, you’d think these bastards would give us a break.”

Without my bug jacket, insects were tormenting me, too. They hovered in a frenzy as if mammalian blood was a rarity here.

No doubt, it was.

Up a steep embankment, through a coil of catbriers, I saw the remnants of a game trail: an earthen indentation that tunneled through the brush. No tracks, no animal scat, no signs of recent use. The report I’d read about the Everglades came to mind. Pythons had killed ninety-nine percent of wildlife, from raccoons to white-tailed deer, in areas where they were “well-established.” This evoked more details. The snakes were ambush hunters that chose hiding places based on the habits of their favorite prey. On land, in water, or in the tree canopy.

I looked up (not for the first time) and saw a rare patch of winter sky. That’s how dense the trees were. No nesting birds, just a lazy pinwheel of vultures circling high above. I patted my bag to communicate with the ornate whelk. Hopefully, the birds had scented a monster python that lay dead on a distant part of the island.

This is insane, I thought. At the first sign of trouble, I’m out of here.

For a moment, I hoped an excuse was provided, when, somewhere downhill, I heard branches crack, then the stumbling crash of Martinez falling. “Hell’s blazes… Shit…”

“Are you hurt?”

“Damn mosquitoes; I’m sweating like a pig. Does it thin out up there?”

“Sabin, answer me. What happened?” It felt okay using the man’s first name. “I heard you fall.”

“Just tripped a little… Don’t worry…”

“If you’re hurt, just say so. It’s not going to spoil my day, if that’s what you’re thinking. Did you sprain something?”

“My ego… Is it as thick up there as it is here?” Before I could respond, his voice dropped in pitch. “Hey… you hear that?”

“What?”

“Probably nothing. Yeah… there it is again.”

Backcountry silence is a shrill subtext of cicadas and frogs and wind. Not here. Aside from hearing mosquitoes, my ears strained in a vacant abyss. I held my breath for as long as I could, but no results.

Martinez said, “My imagination, I guess. Thought I heard limbs breaking; something coming through the woods, but a long way off. Guess it could have been a boat… maybe a plane. You know how sound plays tricks.”

“From which direction?”

“Hang on, let me catch up. Wish to hell I’d’ve brought some water. You were right about these-ouch-these damn mangroves.”

I cut a walking stick and waited. When I got a glimpse of his red sweater, I continued up the mound, trying to avoid the game trail. On both sides, though, briars were so dense, I was forced to follow its course. Every few steps required effort. Ficus trees grow by dropping vertical limbs to expand their radiuses. The limbs were spaced like latticework and dominated the lower regions where gumbo-limbos towered. Again and again, I swung the machete, advanced a few yards, then swung again. The air was crisp but warming. I, too, began to sweat.

The mound leveled off. Ancient shells breached a carpet of loam so thick, it was spongy. Over every square foot of earth, plants or moss or saplings competed for sunlight. None flourished, but all reproduced in a relentless effort to prolong the struggle.

The game trail curved inland. Movement in the low branches caught my eye. I stopped. A patchwork of colors created a slow, gelatin spiral that rustled among the leaves. I approached cautiously. It was a snake, no longer than my arm. A checkerboard of buckskin yellow and brown told me it was a young python. I did a full turn, concerned something bigger was watching, then moved close enough that I could have prodded the snake with my walking stick but didn’t. Better to wait and confirm the creature had been affected by the cold snap.

It had. The python moved as if anesthetized onto a branch. The branch gave way and the snake thudded to the ground. I feared the impact would awaken the thing. Instead, it lay motionless for several seconds, then muscle contractions began to spiral its body into a slow coil.

I used the walking stick to poke it a few times. The python did not respond. It might have been dead.

After one swing of the machete, it was… or soon would be.

Whether fish, fowl, or reptile, I am reluctant to take a life. This was different. The animal I’d just killed was killing the Florida I love, choking the life out of her, one native species after another.

If not for my doubts about Martinez, I might have called him over, let him see that my confidence had ballooned after the encounter, which was true. If a small python was comatose because of the weather, a snake with a much larger body mass would be the same, or more so.

The game trail became a more comfortable path but no easier. It curved inland, where I stopped again. In the distance, a dusty column of yellow light suggested there was an opening to the sky. Suddenly, I craved air. Using the machete, I hacked my way toward it, so fixated I almost failed to notice what lay on the ground nearby.

An orange.

I made certain of what it was before hollering, “Found one!”

“You found the tree? That’s… Shit, I can’t keep up with you. Give me a minute. Geezus… these bugs.”

Downhill, to the right, the muted crackle of branches told me he had lost my trail. I yelled, “Follow my voice,” and said it again as I knelt to pick up the orange. Its skin was knobby, which was typical, and the fruit was firm. Juicy, too; deliciously sour when I split it open.

I looked up, scanned the canopy but saw only a cavern of leaves. My eyes moved toward the column of dusty light. It drew me like a magnet. The machete provided the means. When I was closer, I stopped and marveled: there, suspended in a high haze of green, clusters of oranges asserted their right to sunlight. They glowed above a darkened stage. More lay on the ground near the trunk of a massive fallen tree.

I laid the walking stick aside and began to gather the windfall while Martinez homed in on my voice. The area was so thick with ficus roots, logs, and walls of saplings, I dealt with the absurd problem of singling out the actual citrus tree.

Bizarre. Overhead, just out of reach, dozens of oranges, some ripe, some green, proved the tree existed. But which tree? Of the many dozens, bound root to root, none appeared sufficiently mature to bear fruit. Most of them, their trunks were no thicker than my wrist.

When Martinez appeared, I was standing on the giant log, moving from one sapling to another, giving each a shake. Sometimes fruit fell to the ground. Often, it did not. Because of my vantage point, peering up at the oranges, it was impossible to tell which branch was connected to what.

“I’ll be damned… you’re right again. Found the mother lode, by god.” His excitement was unexpected. He shifted the shotgun to his other arm while staring up. “I figured you imagined the whole thing as a girl, but, by god, here we are. Is that the tree you were looking for?”

“There must be more than one,” I said. “The tree I remember was full-grown. It was in a little clearing, and closer to the water. Lord knows, there’s not enough space here to turn around. Step back a little and see if you can tell which limbs move.” When he was ready, I chose a sapling and used my weight to rock the thing back and forth. No oranges broke free. The timber on which I stood was so wide, I used it as a walkway, and tried another young tree.

Three oranges fell… then a fourth.

“I think this might be it.”

Martinez murmured something I didn’t hear and backed away to get a broader view. “Try again, a different branch. I want to be sure before I say something stupid.”