The Savage Green

The river was dead. There was no current visible on the surface, aside from the wake left behind as the boatman dipped his oars into the brown water and pushed us interminably towards the far shore. The seething heat was alive with the mincing whine of a thousand mosquitoes.

The boatman seemed oppressed by my silence. I never caught his name. I’ve thought about that crossing a lot, over the last few months. How it felt to pull off the asphalt, onto the red dirt road. How the countryside changed from palmetto scrubs to dense thickets of thorn and brush. How insignificant the landing spot was on our side of the river, almost completely smothered by overhanging spanish moss. I would have never been able to spot it if I’d been on my own. The university had sent their landscaper to come pick me up from the airport. Despite the dense foliage I could smell nothing but hot mud, freshly wet and now baking beneath the sun. I remember watching the landscaper’s battered truck, emblazoned with the university’s logo on both doors, slowly evaporate into the heatwaves as he drove away. And then I stepped onto the dock to wave the boatman across.

He tried a lot to break the ice. His twang was thick. It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was saying after he stopped speaking.

“Sorry it took so long to row over. Nobody called ahead for any visitors.”

He dipped the oars and kept paddling.

Plunk. Swish. Plunk.

The mosquitoes swarmed us. A dense cloud of them, buzzing at hypersonic frequency. I tried swatting them away, even though I knew it was futile.

“Guess you’re not used to this, huh?” he asked.

Plunk. Swish. Plunk.

The river was flat and wide. Dense greenery loomed over the sides like the walls of a canyon. I could see no treetops, only shrubs growing upon shrubs. Kudzu and thorn battling their way up to the canopy, attempting to choke each other out.

“Where is it you’re from, anyway?”

Plunk. Swish. Plunk.

My ears began to buzz in the heat. My eyes were growing heavy. Finally, the boatman managed to grab my attention.

“You’re lookin’ for that scientist.”

It wasn’t a question. I tried not to look surprised.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, you don’t look like you got relatives in the area. Most of the time, when strangers come out here, they’re looking for that scientist.”

“What kind of strangers?”

“Well, the law comes around asking questions every now and then. Wondering if anyone’s seen him, that kind of thing. And the wildlife department is anxious to put a stop to his poaching.”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, sometimes we get a couple young fellows who think he was really on to something with his research. They want to come help him out, or see what he’s learned. They don’t usually make it too far though. And the ones that make it far enough don’t ever make it back. You know, if you’re looking for him, you’re traveling awfully light.”

I wasn’t traveling with anything besides a machete, a canteen, some paracord, and a poncho.

“I aim to move fast.”

“How fast you gonna move without eating?”

“They say the swamps have more protein per square mile than any other environment on Earth.”

He chuckled. It would be easy to get the impression that I don’t like people.

“Well, yeah, but that’s all bugs. It’s kind of like a joke. You don’t intend to live off of bugs, do you?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“My wife-”

He stopped suddenly and drew his oars from the water. The boat rocked as he stood up. In his hand he held one oar like a spear as he scanned the surface of the water.

“Hang tight!”

He began to repeat himself, quieter every time, like a cryptic chant.

“Hang tight, hang tight, hang tight…”

I peered over the edge of the hull, into the water. Ruddy brown, the color of rust. Not so much as a ripple on the surface. No jumping fish. Just pure, unrelenting stillness. The boatman kept chanting.

“Hang tight, hang tight, hang tight...”

I followed his eyes as they darted back and forth. He gave the water a fierce stab with the flat end of the oar. There was a thud as the oar made contact with something, and then the boatman exhaled and sat back down.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Will you look at the size of that fucker?”

A stunned alligator had floated up to the surface. From tip to tail, he easily dwarfed the aluminum boat. The gator shook its head and then sank back below the water, gentle ripples whirling away in his trail. The boatman began rowing again, jerking his head back in my direction.

“Grab that other oar. He could flip this boat in two seconds if he wanted.”

I grabbed the oar and we began paddling with feverish intensity. It was too hot for this. I could feel myself beginning to lag almost instantly. The boat began to turn in an arc. The boatman slowed his rowing. I sped up. We couldn’t match our rhythm, and I got the feeling he would have told me to leave the rowing to him, except he didn’t want to insult me . Eventually we made the landing on the other side. The boatman grabbed the dock line and hit the ground at a trot, nearly tumbling me off into the water as he dragged the boat ashore.

“Hurry up,” he said. “Them fuckers are faster on land than they are in the-”

He froze, staring at something behind me. I turned around. The gator had dragged himself ashore without so much as a splash to betray his presence. His mouth was open. The inside of his cheeks were like pink cotton. His teeth were two rows of jagged yellow glass. His nose was bleached with age, his face and body covered with thick scars. The veteran of a thousand battles. Never defeated.

Ever so slowly, I reached towards my machete. Millimeter by millimeter, my hand slid down towards my belt. At first, the gator remained fixated on the boatman. But then, suddenly, some imperceptible movement of my hand crossed the tripwire of the gator’s peripheral vision, and he flicked his head towards me. We sat staring at one another as the gator made a low, dragging noise halfway between a growl and a hiss.

“On second thought,” the boatman said. “Maybe you oughta just stand real still. I’m gonna back away and-”

About twenty feet behind the gator, the river began to tremble. A small ripple grew into a rolling wave as an enormous brown fin split the surface. The wave broke ground around the gator, rolling and foaming, lifting and rocking the boat as I reached out to steady myself against the hull. For a brief moment, the gator looked almost like a kicked puppy: scared, confused, and desperate. Something had hooked onto his tail, and then suddenly he was jerked backwards with alarming speed. The boatman and I watched, mesmerized, as the gator rolled and thrashed in the shallows, twisting and turning, scratching and biting, until eventually he slipped off into the deep.

A red bloom, barely visible against the brown water, slowly spread across the surface.

“Huh,” said the boatman.

“Huh,” I replied.

The river landing let onto a narrow, uphill strip of red dirt. On both sides the underbrush grew thick and wild, the bright green rapidly distilling into a deep blackness as the vegetation wove up, over, and into itself beneath the blazing sun. There was a tunnel hacked through it, and the ground was still fresh with that morning’s thunderstorm. The steaming moisture of the ground met the shimmering heat waves of the air. Water dripped down from the branches like a captive thunderstorm. As we walked forward in silence, the bush came alive with the buzzing of insects and the chirping of birds. We crested the hill and emerged into an open plain carved out of the forest.

There was a sign just inside the trail.

“Welcome to Fievre Rever, FL: Forgotten Gem of the Panhandle. Trespassers will be shot.”

The settlement here looked exactly the way it was described by the university. Dozens of trailer homes, arranged in haphazard streets. Sparse yards of red dirt fenced in with chicken wire. Clothes hung out to dry. Air conditioners humming ceaselessly in every window. And beyond: a thick green underbrush of tangled thorns, snaking up the looming trees like an impenetrable lattice.

The boatman led me up into the settlement, and we eventually came to a rest in a sort of crossroads, from which the other muddy paths branched off. Everyone was inside, except the two of us. The air thrummed with heat. My clothes were soaked with sweat. Mosquitoes tickled my eardrums. I was feeling hungry.

“When did you last see this scientist?”

My stomach grumbled audibly. The boatman looked at me in confusion.

“I can’t say for sure. He used to come visit for supplies and stuff. At first it was once a week, and then it was every month, and then maybe twice a year. I think it’s been at least five years.”

“Which way did he go?”

“There used to be a trail up on the north end, near the general store. It got grown over a couple years after he stopped using it.”

“Can you show it to me?”

“You aren’t planning on leaving today, are you? It’s gonna get dark soon. There’s supposed to be  a storm tonight. The forest ain’t a comfortable place to spend the night when it’s raining.”

“I don’t want to get comfortable. I want to get this over with and go home.”

He snickered and shook his head.

“If you go out there, you ain’t going home.”

“Up north, you said?”

He took a moment to look over his shoulder. I followed his glance. I could see a few parted curtains in the trailer homes, but it was too dark inside to see who might be watching us. He spat on the ground and continued.

“Listen to me: I’ve been living here a long time. And I still ain’t used to the shit that goes on out there. Every time I go out there, I see something new. I swear to god I’ve seen a swarm of mosquitoes take down a bear. Just sucked that fucker dry like it was nothing. Buddy of mine went hunting out there, walking along, just minding his own business. Suddenly he feels sleepy, can’t lift his feet. Just drops dead asleep in the forest. Woke up with kudzu vine wrapped all around him. Took two hours to chew himself free. Turned out he was asleep for two days. This is the last piece of America you’ll see for a long time. It’s something else out there, man. That slice of country got left behind a million years ago. It’s savage out there in the green. And the savage green don’t give a hell who you are or what’s waiting for you at home. It’ll swallow you whole. Won’t even leave behind the bones.”

I can’t imagine they got very good internet out there. It must have been difficult to pass the time. I’d heard it all before: dinosaurs alive in the Congo, three-foot spiders of the Amazon. Every tenth person along the equator has seen a fifty-foot snake. This man reeked of beer. I’m sure his buddy did, too, when he passed out drunk in the forest and forgot what day it was. People like this; they always take a sad pride in their terrible living conditions.

“But that scientist stayed alive for five years?”

The boatman smirked and ran his tongue around the inside of his gums before he continued.

“I don’t know what the hell he was doing out there, but it sure as hell wasn’t living. He stopped coming here because we started chasing him off.”

“He was causing problems?”

“Just the opposite. Never said a word. Never looked you in the eye. Some of the younger kids say they still see him at night sometimes, just kinda hovering around the edge of town. I don’t believe it.”

“What do you believe?”

“I believe we were a lot better off before he came through. But if shit gets hairy, promise me you’ll try to drag your ass back here in one piece. Folks come to live out here because they like their peace and quiet. We don’t need the cops to come around looking for another dead guy.”

“I can promise you no one is going to come looking for me.”

I can’t quite describe the look he had in his eyes. Was it respect? Fear? Pity? Either way, he shrugged and led me forward.