Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [24]
“Push,” shouts someone.
We’re all trying to turn the boat back over. It’s not that heavy, how could it be this hard? We’re pushing and I feel movement around my ankles. Alive and quick.
Someone screams.
The skiff turns and slaps right side up on the water. We’re instantly in moon glow, eerie and quiet.
“Me first. Then do what I say!” Ben shouts.
The skiff rocks violently as I hold on to the rim. Ben must have gotten in from the other side. Someone’s still screaming.
“Rock, get in and pull in Charles,” barks Ben. “Calo, say where you at.”
The boat rocks hard again, but I hold on. And the screaming is right beside me. It’s Cirone. Oh, God in Heaven, I’ve killed Cirone.
“Calo!” shouts Ben. “Where you at?”
“Here,” I manage.
“I got you.” Ben grabs me under the armpits and pulls hard. I’m in the boat now, lying in the middle beside someone panting hard. Charles. “Cirone!” I call.
“I got him.”
The boat lurches at one end; Cirone sloshes in. “My foot,” he sobs in English.
“Hold still,” says Ben. “Rock, help me. A loggerhead. Small. But it won’t let go.”
“I still got my knife,” says Rock. “I’ll kill it.”
I scrabble over to the shadowy figures and my arms circle Cirone from behind. He twists around and clings to me.
I feel a spurt of cold liquid on my arm. “What was that?”
“Turtle blood.”
“Help me, San Giuseppe,” mumbles Cirone in Sicilian. “Don’t let me die a miserable death. Spare me and I’ll pray to you every day. Please, San Giuseppe, please.”
“Whatever you saying, stop,” says Ben. “That turtle dead. Can you feel your foot?”
“Hurts like hell,” says Cirone in English.
Someone laughs. “Some spirit.”
“That foot got mashed,” says Rock, “but it ain’t even bleeding.”
“You got those good shoes to thank,” says Ben.
“We all owe thanks,” says Rock. “The swamp nearly got us tonight.”
We’re silent a moment.
“My ’gator!” Charles pushes himself upright, then drops back down limp again.
“Floating away dead. Can’t hardly see him. Oh, there.” Ben points.
“Really dead?” I ask.
“Dead as a hammer.” Rock’s right beside me, still holding Cirone’s leg.
“How? How did you kill him, Charles?”
Charles is panting too hard to answer.
“The spear worked its way into his brain,” says Rock. “Like a charm every time.”
“Get him,” says Charles in a raspy whisper. “Get my ’gator.”
Cirone starts to moan and gulps it back. Maybe he’s going to be sick.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. “Let’s get out while we’re still alive.”
“Get my ’gator.”
“Everybody rock to this side.” Ben waves one arm through the misty dark like the wing of a giant owl. “Easy like. No more turning over.”
We rock. The skiff moves. We rock more. It moves more.
“Now stop and lean the other way, but don’t rock. Just lean.”
We lean, and Ben leans out the opposite way. “Got it. I got a pole.”
“See the others?” asks Rock.
“No. But one will do. Here, Rock.”
Rock stands and takes the pole.
“Move us this way.” Ben waves that arm again. “Okay, good. Now, you two—y’all sit tight. No helping. Your helping flipped us last time.”
Cirone and I crawl to Charles, pushing the turtle away. His neck is cut halfway through, so the head hangs crazylike. And he isn’t small. He’s as long as my forearm.
Ben and Rock pull that ’gator and he slides in on a sheet of moss. He’s longer than Charles. Must be six feet.
Ben stands in the front of the skiff and stares out. “I lost the lantern.”
Rock stands at the rear and stares out over the water. “Must have sunk.”
“We got the ’gator,” says Charles. “Let’s go.”
“Not without that lantern.” Ben gets on his knees and leans out. He puts both arms in the water and swishes around.
“Don’t do that!” says Cirone. “You know what’s in that water. Let’s go home.”
“I can’t go without it,” says Ben, and the way he says it, I understand: that’s someone’s lantern.
“Let’s go back to where we turned over,” I say. “We can feel with the pole.”
Rock poles us along,