James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

Across the farm, Joe watched a couple men patrol the walkways, rifles at their shoulders. They were the local militia he’d hired earlier today after hearing of some large cat sighted near the coast. He had been warned by radio to evacuate the area, but the Gulf was far away. And he would lose thousands in deposits and campsite rentals from the Scout troop alone if he evacuated.

Besides, the warning was just that: a warning, not an order. He hadn’t let Katrina chase him off; he wasn’t about to let some wildcat do the same. To justify his decision, he had hired four men from the parish’s sheriff’s department. In these hard times, everyone was looking for a little overtime.

Footsteps approached behind him. “Papa, I’m off to feed Elvis.”

He glanced back as his daughter crossed the porch. She carried a cookie tray stacked with chicken carcasses. “Not too many. We have a show scheduled for the morning for the campers. I want him hungry.”

“You can’t starve the old fella,” she scolded him gently.

He waved her away, feeling a welling of love and pride for his only child. At twenty-two, Stella had been accepted to business school at Tulane. The first of his family to attend college. She was aiming for an MBA, but also took classes in environmental law. While his preservation efforts here at the farm were motivated by profit, she was a true conservationist. She knew about his under-the-table dealings, but she had a good head on her shoulders. This was Louisiana. Nothing got done without some backroom bargaining. And besides, many of his illicit profits went right back into the farm and its many conservation programs.

She climbed down the stairs to the first of the elevated walkways that crossed the ponds. Footsteps again sounded behind him, accompanied by a slight shaking of the deck. His wife joined him, wiping her pudgy hands on a dish towel. She took his beer bottle, shook it to judge how much was left, then pulled out a fresh bottle from her apron pocket and handed it to him.

“Thanks, Peg.”

She settled next to him and leaned her elbows on the rail. She sipped at the remains of his old beer. She was a large woman, but he liked her big. He was not exactly skinny himself, with his belly hanging farther and farther over his belt buckle each year, and under his LSU ball cap, his hairline was retreating just as quickly as his belly was expanding.

“I wish she’d wear more clothing,” his wife said.

He watched Stella cross toward the central pool. He understood his wife’s concern. She wore cutoff shorts and a blouse tied around her midriff, exposing her belly. She hadn’t even bothered with shoes. And she definitely hadn’t inherited any fat genes from them. She was all muscle and curves, with long blond hair, like some Venus of the bayou. Joe was not unaware of the effect she had on the local boys. Not that she gave any of them the time of day.

In fact, it was long odds that he’d ever get the opportunity to change the name of his farm from Uncle Joe’s to Grandpa Joe’s. He suspected Stella’s interests lay elsewhere than boys. She talked much too much about her friend at Tulane, a girl named Sandra who wore a biker’s jacket and leather boots.

But maybe it was just a phase.

He took a big swallow from his bottle.

If only she met the right boy…

“C’MON, BIG FELLA, who wants a late-night snack?”

Stella stood on the observation deck over the largest of the farm’s ponds. Her only illumination was a single lantern on a pole. The black water below merely reflected the light, hiding what lurked beneath its surface. She unhitched the gate in the fence with one hand while balancing the tray of chicken carcasses in the other. She had freshly slaughtered the four chickens herself. Blood, still warm, spilled off the tray and down her arm.

She grimaced and headed out onto the bare plank that extended over the pond like a diving board. She moved to the end and leaned over the water until she could see her own reflection in the pond.

There wasn’t even a ripple, but she knew Elvis was down there. The bull alligator had been at the farm longer than any of them, one of the original inhabitants of the breeding pond when her daddy first bought the place. Since he’d been caught in the wild, no one knew Elvis’s exact age, but a team of biologists guessed the alligator had to be close to thirty years old. The scientists had come here to collect blood samples from the pond’s denizens. Apparently a protein found in alligator blood showed promise for a new generation of powerful antibiotics, killing even resistant superbugs.

But even the biologists hadn’t attempted to approach Elvis. He stretched eighteen feet long and weighed well over half a ton. No one messed with Elvis. Past his breeding age, he had the pond to himself and liked it that way.

He was definitely spoiled.

She set down the cookie tray next to her and knelt at the end of the plank. Grabbing one of the bloody carcasses, she extended her arm out over the water. Droplets of blood fell and lightly splashed into the water below, sending out faint circular ripples.

She waited-but it didn’t take long.

Across the pond, a new set of ripples formed a V and aimed toward her position. The tip of the alligator’s snout was all that was visible. It glided smoothly toward her, unhurried but determined. Behind, a sashaying swirl marked the swish of Elvis’s massive tail, still hidden under the water. It was that movement, almost sexual in its sway, that earned the alligator its nickname.

“C’mon, Elvis. I don’t have all night.” She shook the chicken.

As if put off by her demand, he sank out of sight. All ripples died away. Stella tensed. Movement at the corner of her eye drew her attention across the pond. Caught for just a glimpse, something bright flowed through the forest, reflecting the moonlight, then vanished back into the darkness. She stared at the spot, already beginning to doubt she’d seen anything. The swamp was full of stories of ghosts, usually attributed to glowing swamp gas, what the Cajuns called feu follet, or crazy fire.

But this wasn’t swamp gas.

She squinted for any other sign of it, concentrating with both eyes and ears-then an eruption blasted below her. Water fountained upward, along with the explosive surge of a half ton of armored muscle. Massive gaping jaws, lined by jagged yellow teeth, surged up toward her, close enough she could’ve leaned down and tapped the creature’s nose.

Elvis could leap high out of the water, clearing even his hind legs. Stella dropped the chicken into those open jaws. They clamped shut with an audible snap. Gravity took over and dragged Elvis back down. He splashed heavily and sank away with his prize.

Stella dropped another two chickens into the water. Normally alligators needed movement to draw them to feed, but Elvis was accustomed to being hand-fed. He’d fish out the other two carcasses at his leisure. Minding her father’s instructions, she left the fourth chicken on the tray.

Done with the feeding, she collected the cookie tray and turned to head back. A large shape blocked the gate. Startled, she fell back a step, almost tumbling off the end of the plank.

But it was one of her daddy’s hired guns. He carried a shotgun, a military-grade twelve-gauge, over his shoulder and leaned on the gatepost. “Done feeding the beast, eh? See you gotcha an extra chicken there.”

The man shifted so that the lamplight revealed the speaker. Ten years older, he was a bull of a man, though a bull that had gone to pot. He wore a dirty Stetson that did little to hide the greasy strings of his mud-brown hair. He sucked on a toothpick and spoke around it. One hand rested on a fat belt buckle shaped like a set of steer horns.