Randy White - Seduced

I was wrong. Didn’t realize it, though, until I tripped again and landed on my butt in the shallows, facing the boat. My eyes zoomed in: the snake lay in glistening, docile segments. Its tail had become my warning flag, yet not so much as a twitch.

The reptile wasn’t dead and it wasn’t playing possum; I’d witnessed the billows-like contractions of its breathing. The python was hypothermic: not dead but only in a lethargic sleep until its body warmed.

As an experiment, I kicked the water a few times, then freed the bowline from the trees and let the skiff swing. I thumped the bow with the rope. No response. I did it again, as if cracking a whip. This created an animated seesaw motion that unseated the snake’s belly section from the casting deck. Like a loop of overstuffed sausage, it fell as deadweight, vanishing from view.

I paused to think while I snapped the shotgun open and checked the breech. The shells, made of brass and paper, were soaked. They couldn’t be trusted. The only option this left me was as dreadful as it was unavoidable.

Carrying just a pistol, I would have to get close enough to fire a round point-blank in the snake’s head. If that couldn’t be done without disabling my boat, I would have to climb aboard to find a safer angle. If there was no safer angle, I would have to…

Dreadful did not describe what would come next: with the snake sleeping at my feet, I’d have to drive at high speed and use a series of slalom turns to vault the reptile overboard. Or flood the hull, let the snake’s buoyancy float it out… Or rocket away after looping the anchor line around the snake’s midsection.

All scenarios were workable but terrifying.

It came to me then: a better solution. Why had I not thought of it immediately?

The machete.

Of course! I’d already used it to dispatch two pythons. All I had to do was sneak up on the creature and cut off its head while it slept. If it took several swings, that was okay. The blade wouldn’t do serious damage to my boat. Even the snake would benefit. Swing the machete hard and true, it would all be over before its reptilian brain sensed danger.

There was no need to retie the boat. I dropped the bowline in the water and hurried into the mangroves. I’d left the machete hanging on a tree with my shoulder pack, but which tree? I couldn’t find it. Water had obliterated my tracks. I searched along the outer fringe, then returned to the area where I believed it should be. No luck. Trouble was, I’d been in such a frazzled state, I hadn’t marked the spot. Here, in the tangled shadows, all limbs blended.

I wandered deeper, zigzagging, until a sickening possibility knotted my stomach. I stopped, listened to a gust of wind crackle through the trees. Only then did I admit what my subconscious knew was true: I hadn’t lost my pack and machete. They’d been stolen.

Larry Luckheim had found me. He’d been watching from the shadows, or, possibly, had just now stumbled upon my things.

Either way, his next move would be to steal my boat.

I drew the pistol and backtracked as fast as I could go, vaulting roots, ducking limbs. When the water came into view, I slowed before exiting the mangrove fringe-and was knocked sideways by a blinding impact.

When I looked up, Larry towered over me, his charred face grotesque beneath the silhouette of a machete that was poised to strike. Only one long bar of his mustache remained. The effect was surreal.

“The boat key?” he yelled. “Where is it?”

I scrambled backwards, and said, “In the boat!” because I was too dazed to invent a lie.

“Show me your hands! I’ll cut your head off, damn you. Where’s that gun? Pull your gun, I’ll do it.”

There was a panicked edge to his insanity. He was as scared as me, I realized, scared I’d shoot him, but it was more than that. Kill me now, he was doomed if I was lying about the key. Police would link him to my murder-if a snake didn’t get him first.

I extended my hands, palms out, to prove they were empty. “Take it easy… I’m lying on it. There’s a holster on the back of my belt where-”

“ Don’t. Don’t reach for anything. And stop your damn squirming. Spread your arms-not like that, dumbass. I want your hands away from your body; as far from the gun as you can get them.”

I lay in a sodden crevice between trees. My shoulders were blocked by coiled roots and deadfall. I scanned the area around my head before threading my left arm through the tangle. Then, with exaggerated difficulty, I extended my right hand until it rested behind the roots. It was because of what I had just seen: a flash of silver. My pistol had landed there.

“What’s your problem, girl?”

“It hurts. I think you broke my arm.”

“ Good. Your shooting hand. Tell me the truth. Where’s that goddamn key?”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s a python on my boat. Look for yourself. It crawled up there to get warm.” In a hurry, I added, “Don’t-I was lying!” because he straddled me, moving as if to crush me with a knee.

“No more of your bullshit. Where is the key?”

“In my bag,” I said. “There’s a zipper pocket on the flap. The key’s in there.”

The man stepped back and went through the bag. As he scattered my things on the ground, a baritone voice called, “Hey… Buddy. Buddy Luck! Don’t leave me, man. I’ll triple what I paid. Are you there? Goddamn it… ANSWER ME.”

Larry howled in response, “Kiss my ass, Martinez!” and held up the spare boat key in triumph. Then, looking down, started to say, “Put on your dancing shoes, girl, because-”

That’s as far as he got before he saw the pistol; me, sitting up now, my eyes staring cold, ready to pull the trigger. And I would’ve done it, shot him square in the chest, had he moved toward me. Instead, he backed away and dropped the machete as if in surrender.

It was a ploy to defuse my willingness. He waited until I was getting up, then sprinted toward the water, using trees as cover.

I followed. By the time I exited the mangroves, he was almost to my skiff, which had drifted a little but not far. A huge man with a charred mustache was easily tracked over the pistol sights, yet I didn’t fire. His back was to me; he was slogging along, muck up to his knees. An easy target.

That’s not the only reason I didn’t fire. I wanted to see what happened. If he made it to the boat and climbed aboard, yes, I’d pull the trigger-better to wound an unarmed man than to be lost to a place like this.

It all depended on the python. Larry hadn’t noticed what resembled six feet of fire hose stretched across the stern. The tail, my warning flag. That’s all that was visible. It lay as motionless as a hose, too. The snake was still a lifeless lump due to hypothermia.

Larry doesn’t know that, I thought. When he sees what’s in there, he’ll panic again and run.

If he didn’t…?

That decision could wait. I would let it play out, watching from the water’s edge.

Larry stumbled, fell sideways. His bulk made a mighty splash, displacing a geyser that sprinkled the deck of my skiff.

I watched the python’s tail twitch, then twitch again. Or was it an illusion created by waves rocking the hull?

The big man righted himself, tried to stand and fell forward, but this time lunged within a body length of the skiff.

I watched the python’s tail slowly curl itself into a question mark. Or was that imaginary, too? When angry, I am often guilty of perverse hope.

Larry did something smart that Roberta and I had learned weeks ago. He closed the distance by belly crawling, then reached up and slapped a big hand on the gunnel so he could hang there and catch his breath.