Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,12

a few miles from here.”

“I saw a photo in the paper,” I said. “Tomlinson probably did, too, but I’ll pass it along.”

Futch wasn’t done. “I’m serious, I wouldn’t want to do much walking out here. In an afternoon, those guys counted eighteen boas and six or seven pythons. And I’ve spotted two snakes so big I circled around and watched them from the air. Those bastards breed like rabbits—same as the iguanas on Boca Grande. So be careful if you reach to pick up a limb . . . or have to squat for some reason.”

“Got it,” I said. “No latrine stops, and keep track of my fingers. Holler if you need me.” I could hear Tomlinson’s feet splashing aft of the plane, so I grabbed two rolls of towels from the cockpit, then slogged off in his direction.

Truth was, some time in the Everglades was just what I needed to decompress. I had followed news accounts that claimed the population of exotic snakes—escapees from zoos and pet store mistakes—wasn’t just growing, it was exploding. The media, however, have a long history of sensationalizing stories about Florida, usually exaggerating the bad, seldom the good. From hurricane damage to oil spills to red tides, I could not think of one exception. Now the possibility of seeing a boa or python gave me a reason to stop obsessing about almost dying and think about something else.

I wasn’t the only one fixated on our near demise. Tomlinson heard me bulldozing through the sawgrass toward him and hurried to wipe his eyes before turning. He’d had a breakdown, I realized, but I pretended not to notice. “Depending on how much weight the plane can handle, Dan thinks we can fly out of here.”

“Fly!” he replied, as if the prospect horrified him.

“Yeah . . . if he can fix whatever happened to the tail section. What? You’d rather hike three or four miles to the road through this stuff?” Sawgrass isn’t a grass, it’s an abrasive sedge, each three-sided blade defended by serrated edges. It cuts clothing, shoe leather, and skin.

Tomlinson didn’t want to be convinced. “Walking’s good for you, man. I love to walk. It’s, like, one of the healthiest things on Earth. Drink lots of water and walk every day. In the marina office, there’s a Reader’s Digest story if you don’t believe me.”

I was nodding. “I know, I know, your body’s such a temple. But I forget sometimes. Maybe it’s all that dope you smoke, plus the nightly pint of rum. And how many beers? Think of it this way—”

“Plus, the wildlife,” Tomlinson interrupted. “Hear all those birds and frogs? The Glades . . . it’s alive, man. I see this as an opportunity . . . get back to nature. You know: simplify, simplify. And, suddenly, I’m not exactly in love with airplanes—”

“Think of it this way,” I said again. “If we hike out, it’ll take all day. Then we’ve got to hitch a ride—and that northeast front is due late afternoon. Hitchhike in the rain? On the Tamiami Trail, where nobody in their right minds would pick us up even on a nice day? Fly, though, thirty minutes from now we’ll be back in Dinkin’s Bay, sipping a beer. An hour at the most.”

I took a step closer and gave his shoulder a friendly shake. “You fall off a horse, ol’ buddy—you know the rest. If Dan says it’s safe to fly, I think you should fly.”

Expression glum, Tomlinson looked at the ground. “I don’t know, man, I’ve . . . I don’t think I’ve got the balls to climb back in that thing,” which was as out of character as the clothes he wore: a khaki safari shirt with epaulets and creased slacks he’d bought at the Sanibel Goodwill store on Palm Ridge. The shirt was baggy, and the pants so short I could see his beanpole ankles sticking out of red Converse high-tops, size 13. Sockless, of course, and he’d used a girl’s barrette to clip his hippie hair atop his head—a warrior samurai meets Barbra Streisand.

I tossed him a roll of towels, saying, “Think about it,” then motioned toward the plane’s landing track. It was a curving swath of sawgrass, bent like harvested wheat that terminated at the seaplane’s tail, where Futch was still working. “Use a couple of towels to mark any snags or rocks that would knock the floats off. You walk this side, I’ll take the other. Then he wants us to spread out