Lost in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby Page A

“Okay,” I say, but the quiver in my voice must have given me away.
    â€œYou all right?”
    â€œUh huh.” I take Teapot out of the sling and put her in the water. The gator, which is about ten or eleven feet long, has turned and lies about ten yards away on a pad of flattened cattails, watching me. My heart bangs in my chest as I tuck my shirttail into my shorts and start across. When I’m in waist-deep, I slip off my boots and put them down the front of my shirt. With a final look at the gator, I swim across. Teapot, sensing my panic, passes me and skids to a stop beside Andy.
    On the other side, I put my boots back on. “How come you didn’t swim across?”
    He shrugs. “Why swim when you can walk?”
    We slog another few yards, then suddenly break out of the cattails and are back in a shallow saw-grass prairie. Andy flops down and lies back. “We can’t rest long. It will be dark in a couple of hours.” He closes his eyes. “You did great in there.”
    â€œThanks.” I lie with my head on his stomach. Teapot climbs onto my chest, shakes her stub of a tail to fling the water off, and nestles down.
We’re like a little family
.
    It seems as if only seconds pass before Andy pats my shoulder. “We’d better hit it.”
    I sit up. “I’m dying of thirst.”
    â€œYour lips are cracked. Don’t you have lipstick or something?”
    â€œIn the pack.”
    Andy hands the pack over. I find my lip gloss in the top part, but am reminded by the weight of the bag, that there is Gatorade left. I take it out. “Can’t we drink this?”
    â€œYou can have a sip or two, but we have to conserve it until I can find someplace to dig a scratch well.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I take a sip, hold it in my mouth, and play my tongue through it before swallowing. I hope it will make me feel as if I’ve had more. I hand the bottle to Andy.
    â€œA scratch well is a well you dig in the mud.”
    â€œI don’t think I want to drink anything from a mud hole.”
    â€œWe’ll see how thirsty you get.”
    â€œI’m pretty thirsty right now.”
    He takes about a teaspoon of the Gatorade, swishes it in his mouth, and hands the bottle back to me. “One more sip.”
    A different sound from anything I’ve heard until now gets his attention. He rotates his head like an owl trying to locate where it’s coming from. Whatever it is sounds little, but while he’s distracted, I take a big slug, screw the lid on, and put the bottle back in the pack.
    Andy grabs my arm, puts his finger to his lips, and whispers, “Don’t make a sound.”

9
    â€œWhat?” I whisper after a minute of not moving and barely breathing.
    Andy’s got his head cocked like a dog—listening. He puts his lips to my ear. “Didn’t you hear that?”
    â€œI heard a kind of peeping sound before.” I listen for a moment; then, just as I shake my head, it starts again.
    â€œThat.” He jabs a finger at the wall of cattails off to our left.
    â€œIt sounds like a puppy crying.”
    â€œGood description, wrong baby. There’s an alligator’s nest in there, and the babies are hatching. That sound is them calling to their mother to help them dig out of the mound.” He looks left, right, and behind us. “There’s nothing that will defend a nest like a mother alligator, and I don’t want to get in her way.”
    â€œLet’s go then.”
    â€œKeep your pants on. We could head off in the wrong direction and run right into her.”
    We stand where we are for a few minutes until—in the absolutely still air—I see the cattails begin to sway. “Here she comes,” Andy whispers.
    Just watching the cattails move gives me gooseflesh. There’s no way to tell if she’s headed toward us or to her nest which, judging from the little barking