After the Storm

2,293 words


Justin steered the van down the patchily paved road that led from the Everglades Park entrance toward the Flamingo Visitor Center. Flamingo was a lonely outpost; a small marina with a convenience store, a Park Ranger's station, a campground and not much else. The two lane stretch he traveled was the only road that penetrated the Everglades south of the Tamiami Trail. It ended at Flamingo. All there was to do then was turn around and go back out the way you came in, about seventy miles round trip. He wasn't going all the way to Flamingo today though, his destination was the small dock at the entrance to the Hell's Bay Canoe Trail, five miles shy of the marina.

The September day had dawned sunny and bright, still a little windy since the hurricane had blown through just five days earlier. That was okay, thought Justin, the forecast said it was going to be hot and humid, perhaps the wind would help it feel less so. He was going to be paddling his kayak alone today, possibly not the best idea he'd ever had, but he'd navigated the narrow, twisting Hell's Bay trail a few times before with a guide. He felt confident that he could find his way today. Besides, he was curious to see what sort of damage the Category Two storm had done to his beloved Everglades.

Arriving at the trail head, Justin pulled the van over and slid the kayak off the roof rack. He unloaded his gear from the back and pulled on his life jacket. He wasn't bringing a lot of supplies, just some water, fruit, his hand held GPS and an extra paddle. There was no point in bringing a cell phone, there wasn't a signal anywhere near Hell's Bay. He placed the fruit in a dry bag behind his seat, along with his wallet and car keys. The water and GPS went under the bungee cords on the kayak's deck in front of him. The trip was a moderately long one for a single days paddle, not in terms of distance, but in difficulty. Hell's Bay itself was a large, freshwater expanse about five miles from the dock at the trail head. The problem was, to reach the bay he would have to paddle a very narrow, twisting creek through mangrove stands and bogs, relying on a series of PVC pipes planted in the creek bed to find his way. There was no accurate map for this area, which featured a seemingly infinite number of tributaries leading off the main trail. Blundering blindly down any one of those snaking detours could get a paddler hopelessly lost in the vast Everglades swamp; it was imperative that you follow the PVC trail or have a good GPS to retrace your route. On his first guided trip out here he had asked the ranger why it was called Hell's Bay. "Because it's hell to get in to, and hell to get out of." was the terse explanation.

As he carried his kayak down to the dock he immediately noticed the change in water level. The hurricane had dumped vast amounts of rain as it crossed South Florida. The creek, which normally flowed a foot or more below the dock, was now almost level with its surface. Justin floated the kayak nose first into the water and prepared to swing his legs into the cockpit. As he did, a shift in the wind brought an unpleasant, sickly sweet odor to his attention from across the road behind him. He secured the kayak to the dock and went over to investigate. Five feet from the road, where the tangled roots of mangrove took over from the tall grass, was an alligator carcass. It was decaying rapidly in the hot, humid Florida weather and Justin wondered whether it had been hit by a car or had met its fate during the storm. "Either way," he thought, "I hope that's not an omen for my upcoming paddle."

Soon he was on his way, and the havoc wreaked by the hurricane took his mind away from the ominous start to his trip. Dozens of trees were down everywhere, some of them straddling the creek, making the already difficult route nearly impassable. Justin found a way to get around the obstacles though, either by working his way slowly around the branches or scrunching way down in his seat and passing underneath. After a while the trees gave way to mangroves, a plant much more suited to surviving the big storms, though they had taken a beating as well. Worse yet was the PVC trail. Most of the pipes had been uprooted. Many were gone completely, others floated on the side of the creek, no longer usable as trail markers. Justin realized that without them, finding the right route to Hell's Bay would be nearly impossible. "Well, at least I have the GPS," he reasoned, "if I don't find the bay, I can just retrace my route back to the van."

After paddling for almost two hours the GPS said he'd gone a little over three miles, horrible progress, but still he was deep into the Everglades wilderness. He began to wonder if he was keeping to the main trail when he came to a spot he recognized from his previous, guided visits back here. The creek ahead split into five distinct water trails, each leading in different directions, each looking just as likely to be the main trail as the other. It was here that one of his guides had shown him an easy way to find the right trail. On one of the larger mangrove trunks some helpful paddler had nailed a wooden arrow pointing down the proper tributary. Just follow the arrow, the guide told him, and eventually you'll come to one of the PVC pipes that confirm you're on the right path. Unfortunately the storm had ripped the arrow from the mangrove trunk, it now floated uselessly among the gnarled branches in the swollen creek. Debating whether he should turn back now - the PVC pipes were likely to be missing up ahead as well - Justin decided to pick a trail and paddle down it, reasoning that he still had the GPS to get him out of any tight spots.

The kayak glided along the mud colored creek, taking Justin further and further into the swamp. He no longer saw any PVC pipes at all. The trail he'd chosen was getting narrower as he went; the mangroves were no more than four or five feet off either side of him, their leaves now forming a canopy over his head that blotted out the sun. In the ever darkening shade he realized that he could no longer see the GPS screen lashed to the bungee on the deck of his kayak. He secured his paddle behind him and, reaching forward, untied the GPS from the cord. As he released the bungee it snapped back onto the carbon fiber deck with a loud, hollow bang. The sudden noise startled a pair of cormorants who had been hiding among the mangrove roots just ahead of him. They exploded out of the bushes in a flurry of beating wings and frothing creekwater. Justin, surprised at the sudden commotion, leaned away from them, almost capsizing his boat. Quickly he snapped his hips up into his leaning torso and the kayak slid back underneath him. The move had kept him from flipping over, but he had acted as he had been taught in his kayaking lessons and in those he had always had a paddle in hand to use as a brace. This time his paddle was behind him and as he reached out to brace himself, the GPS he'd been holding flew from his grasp. After a couple of wobbly moments he was able to get his paddle from behind him and steady the kayak. By the time he located the GPS however, it was half submerged in the murky water.

Justin fished the navigation device out of the creek and realized to his dismay that the display screen was now a jumble of lurid colors, jagged, useless lines and occasional random letters. The thing was supposed to be water resistant, but close inspection revealed a crack near the battery compartment. It appeared that water had seeped in through the crack and saturated the components. Whatever the cause, the GPS was now useless. Recognizing that trying to go any further was foolish, Justin turned his kayak around and headed back the way he had come. He soon realized how much faith he had placed in the small electronic gadget though, for without it he quickly became unsure of the proper route. There was a new creek branch every hundred yards or so and after a while they all looked like the right way to go. "Trust your instincts," he told himself, "just pick a route and follow it." In this less than scientific manner he soon found himself hopelessly lost in the vast wilderness of the Everglades National Park.

The sensation of being completely and utterly lost was one that Justin had never encountered in over ten years of paddling a kayak. He did not, it turned out, handle it well. Panic rose in his chest and he turned the kayak around and around, paddling up one tributary and down another. He tried paddling as fast as he could, hoping to locate a familiar landmark. Every mangrove stand looked just like the other though, and after three hours of frantic paddling he was just as lost as ever, and now nearing exhaustion. His legs were beginning to cramp on the foot pedals of the kayak, and he could find no suitable place to get out and stretch them. The tributary he was currently exploring was getting very narrow, soon it would be too narrow to turn around. The dense vegetation from the overhanging mangroves made it very dark indeed. He began to contemplate the probability that he would be in his boat in the middle of the Everglades when the sun went down. The thought made his heart pound in his ears and he began to wonder if he had been cursed by the dead alligator he had seen at the start of his trip. He tried to calm himself. There were people who knew he was paddling the Hell's Bay trail, they would be worried if he didn't return and they'd send help. He just needed to keep his wits about him and his strength up and he'd be fine. Though he wasn't hungry he knew he should eat something. There was an apple in the dry bag behind his seat, so he fished it out and unenthusiastically began to eat.

On a flat patch of mud not fifteen feet from where Justin floated, camouflaged by the dense undergrowth, a large female alligator crouched motionless. She appeared to be sleeping, though every sensory nerve in her prehistoric form was alive and tuned to the strange object on the creek. She was very hungry; the storm had driven her regular food sources into hiding, where they were still slow to emerge. Normally she would not have considered the large, unknown thing on the water in front of her as a possible food source, it was too big. But hunger made her bold, and she could smell that the thing was frightened and that the thing was food.

Justin floated on the creek and ate half the apple. He was sick of the swamp, sick of the mangroves and now sick of this damn apple he was gnawing on. He took the remaining half and angrily threw it towards a break between two mangroves, where it looked like there was some kind of mud platform.

The alligator immediately registered that there was something flying at her. In the flash of an instant, she bellowed and raised her massive jaws up, catching the apple and swallowing it whole, then she plunged into the water and swam towards the large thing that had intruded on her territory.

Justin had not seen the alligator until it lunged for the apple he had thrown. The primal roar it let out and the suddenness with which it sprang to life completely surprised and frightened him. He lurched in his kayak, and this time could not react in time to keep from tipping over. Upside down he slipped out of the cockpit, his buoyant life jacket propelling him to the surface. Sputtering muddy water, he tried to stand in the waist high creek, but his feet sank in the soft bottom up to his knees. He had just enough time to wrench his right foot free, wondering where the alligator might be, when he felt something crash hard into his left shoulder. His right hand whipped around and slipped over the alligator's slimy scales as he felt her powerful jaws rip through his life jacket and her teeth tear into his flesh. He lost what little footing he had in the mud beneath him and his last, strangely calm thought before she twisted and dragged him under the water was "I knew I'd been cursed by that dead 'gator."

Two days later the search helicopter easily spotted the overturned kayak nosed into the mangroves. It was less than one hundred feet from the spot where five tributaries merged to form the main water trail back to the dock by the side of the road. The pilot radioed his location and two rangers paddled a canoe out to the kayak and turned it rightside up. No survivor was anywhere to be found, but inside the flooded cockpit a wooden arrow bobbed around, pointing nowhere.