Lost in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby Page B

sound, is awfully close, but between us and her.
    â€œOuch.” Andy pries my hand off his arm and shows me the half-moon dents my nails have made. “She’s probably the co-owner of that gator hole.”
    â€œYou mean she isn’t the one who shot out of there?”
    â€œLook for yourself.” He nods to the right.
    We’d created a gap in the cattails where we broke through. It’s not a very wide break, just the width of us walking single file. From where we are I can see back down the trail we made, and I’m not seeing anything and say so.
    â€œSee those cattails moving?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIf it was a breeze, they’d be listing the same direction.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAre they?”
    â€œNo . . .” They’re being parted; something is coming along the trail we made.
    â€œDo the fathers guard the nest, too? What if we’re surrounded?”
    â€œWe’re not surrounded. And the fathers could care less.”
    It’s “couldn’t care less,”
I think to myself, though I’m not at all sure why, under the circumstances, grammar has become a concern of mine.
    The little barks increase, and we hear the scrape of the mother gator’s claw against the mound.
    â€œCome on,” Andy says. “But no splashing. Pick your feet up.”
    Like that’s easy.
    We move straight out from the sound of the babies calling, then make a large, slow arc toward an old pond-apple tree on our left. It isn’t very tall, but it’s bushy, with thick sturdy limbs.
    When we’ve put enough distance between us and the nest, we make a splashy dash for the tree. Andy climbs up first and pulls me up after him. The tree has lots of leafless, twiggy branches that cut and scratch my bare legs.
    â€œThere she is. Can you see her?”
    I spot the volcano-shaped nest first. Leading away from it is a wide, muddy path of flattened cattails that opens to the water at the far end. The mother alligator is walking away from the nest and us, across the packed-down cattails. She reaches open water, glides in, and propels herself away with her massive tail sweeping back and forth like a thick wet noodle. “Where do you think she’s going?”
    Andy shrugs and starts to climb down.
    â€œWait. I want to see a baby hatch.”
    The mound is flat on top and reminds me of a swan’s nest I saw once in a picture, only the gator’s nest is bigger, a lot bigger, maybe seven feet across and three feet high. “How did she get all that stuff here?”
    â€œI’ve never seen them do it, but a hunting buddy of Dad’s watched one build a nest,” he whispers. “It took days. She bites off the cattails and carries them here in her mouth. She even brings in branches and limbs and mouthfuls of mud. The mound heats up like a compost heap. I read somewhere that how hot it gets decides whether boy or girl gators are born.”
    â€œIt’s the same with sea turtles,” I say and want to cry. “My dad . . .” Tears brim in my eyes. I swallow and start again. “When I was eight, Dad volunteered us with a sea turtle rescue group. Every Saturday that summer, he’d wake me before dawn and we’d drive to the beach at Crandon Park to dig up sea turtles’ nests. The females come ashore at night to lay their eggs.”
    He glances at me. “How’d you find the nests?”
    â€œWe looked for the flattened mark in the sand the mother turtle’s belly scraped as she dragged herself from her nest back to the water. We’d follow the trail, then dig up the eggs.”
    â€œWhy bother?”
    â€œLoggerheads are endangered. Moving the nest someplace safe gave the babies a better chance to survive. That’s why we had to get there ahead of the beach-cleaning tractors, which drive up and down, scooping up the trash people left and the seaweed that washed ashore at high tide.”