Acts of Nature

to argue with him. Besides, when Buck wanted to roll, it usually turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than sitting around this place. They could easily tell their mothers that they’d been hired to do some kind of rescue or salvage work and with the promise of money on their lips they’d be off the hook for any cleanup at their own homes.
    “I already been over at Owen Chadwick’s tour business shed and his airboat is intact and I have the key,” Buck said while he turned his back on them and stuffed something into his black, zippered duffle. They were both in that sort of uncomprehending dumb-assed mode he’d seen a dozen times in their teenage faces when he grabbed up the bag and turned back to them.
    “What? You two suddenly lost your comprehension of English overnight?
    Again the boys stood quiet. They had learned that if they looked at each other for some kind of shared intelligence they’d get another dose of Buck’s shit. So they stood mute.
    “We got opportunity here, fellas. Those camps are either out there with their doors blown out for easy access to what’s inside. Or they’re in pristine shape while their owners are scurryin’ around at their big-assed mansions in the city worryin’ about how to get their air conditioning back on,” Buck said.
    “Nobody’s thinking about them camps after a hurricane, boys. We got a window of opportunity here and, fellas, we’re gonna climb right on through.”
    He ordered them to grab up some bottled water and some food and “whatever tools you think you might need” and meet him over at Chadwick’s boat shed. Then he slung the duffle over his shoulder and started down the outside staircase.
    “And hurry your asses up,” he called out to them as they went in opposite directions. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”
    Buck liked to quote from John Wayne movies and with these two he often dredged up lines from that one called The Cowboys about Wayne taking a bunch of young kids on a cattle drive because the Duke couldn’t find any men to help him with the job. In the Old West Buck would have been a leader, a man admired. He figured that might have been why he never objected to the nickname that got stuck on him in high school. Buck. Just like in the 1800s. Now there was a century he knew he would have fit into. Maybe driving cattle up in Hendry County wasn’t that different today. Maybe he hadn’t been born too late.
    The boys must have heard the chug of the airboat engine turn over twice, three times while they were walking across the mud that used to be Marshall’s Circle because when it finally caught and burst into a roar, they started running.
    “Son of a bitch will leave without us for sure,” said Marcus, toting his quick packed duffle and a Lil’ Oscar cooler filled with water bottles.
    “Yeah? Where’s he gonna go without us to do his lifting and totin’,” said Wayne, who sounded cocky, but didn’t stop running either.
    When they jogged up to Chadwick’s place, Buck had the big airboat out on a new mud slick near the old mechanic’s nearly submerged dock. It was there that he usually loaded in the tourists who had been lured by his AIRBOAT TOURS OF THE ANCIENT EVERGLADES sign posted out on the Tamiami Trail. Anybody who’d lived here for any of the last three or four decades could still pick up some business from folks passing by from Naples on the west or Miami to the east who wanted a peek at the gators or bird flocks or just the open sawgrass range of still-wild land. The boys could never see the attraction. Buck thought it was as bad as running carnival rides, catering to gawkers and thrill seekers who had little respect or appreciation for what they were seeing. But he’d still served as a substitute driver for Chadwick as long as he got paid in cash.
    The boys stepped up onto the flat boat deck, built like a pontoon skiff in light aluminum but with an angled bow so it could slide up over a small bank or plow right over tall grasses and thin-stalked trees. Buck had loaded the big open deck with a line of red five-gallon gas cans, a cooler, and his duffle. The boys tossed their bags behind the raised seats and then climbed up behind Buck’s pilot chair. The huge, wire- caged propeller was right behind them and the airplane engine roared when Buck pushed the throttle forward to keep the rpms high. He reached back to them to offer a plastic bottle of little yellow chunks of spongy material you could stuff into