Acts of Nature

his huge body away and the slew of his huge tail sent a wave at us, catching me up in the chest as if a ski boat had just peeled by, and when I shook the water from my vision I saw the ass-end of the gator slipping through the greenness headed in the opposite direction.
    We were frozen in silence for a few beats, listening to the rustle in the brush echo away, listening to me breathe in gradually slowing gulps, listening, each of us, to our own heartbeats trip down.
    I finally turned to Sherry and it appeared as if she had not moved since I left her. Her face was sallow; either sweat or water from the gator splash had covered her face. But at the corner of her mouth was a tickle of a grin.
    “I would have just shot the bastard,” she said, and the tickle went to both sides.
    I retrieved the fresh water for her, which she drank carefully and also with one of the aspirin. I then gave her the package of chocolate, which she started to gobble, but thought better and licked more than bit at the mushy bar. I told her about the cabin, that it was intact and that there were some medical supplies but nothing that was going to help much with the pain.
    “Just get me inside, Max. The pain I can deal with.”
    I backed the canoe out and climbed in. There was now a good four to six inches of water in the bottom but I didn’t bother bailing. I could remember the route I’d figured from the treetop and we paddled around to the water entrance of the cabin in less than twenty minutes.
    “How long was that thing lying there watching you?” I finally asked as we got underway. I was still cutting my eyes in either direction, watching for unnatural ripples.
    “Seemed like forever,” Sherry said from the bow. “Probably as long as we were watching him over the past few days.”
    The water and no doubt the chocolate had raised her energy and her humor.
    “Wally?” I said.
    “Same beady eyes,” she said and again the smile had partially returned.
    She whimpered only once when I lifted her out of the canoe and set her on the deck. The splint was holding up. But when I carried her through the entrance of the cabin and lay her down on one of the beds, I came away with a dark bloodstain on my shirt sleeve and right hip. I got out the first aid kit, ignored the scissors and used my own sharp knife to cut away the duct tape and then the old sheet bandages, and finally more of the leg of her sweatpants.
    Her thigh was swollen, maybe from infection, maybe in combination with the tightness of the wrapping. The skin around the wound was puckered and white and I guessed that it was from the constant moisture. Keeping anything dry out here was a struggle. Under these conditions, impossible. I laid the knife next to her and then poured the alcohol onto the wound and used the sterile gauze to clean it. Sherry watched but didn’t make a sound even when I picked up the flap of skin and poured more into the gash. I slathered on the antibacterial cream and then used the other sterile pads to cover and then wrap the thigh with another gauze roll, not as tight as before. She needed antibiotics, probably a straight IV drip, probably a drip with all kinds of fluid to hydrate, fight the sure infection, stop the possibility of gangrene.
    “OK,” I said. “Let’s get your shoes off, make you comfortable.”
    She was already looking around the room.
    “Anything in the back room? Radio? Keys to the helicopter?”
    I pulled off her mud-covered shoes, those funky red Keds with the yellow laces.
    “Haven’t gained entry yet to check it,” I said and used the alcohol-soaked gauze to clean her toes and get a take on their color. I was looking for pinkness, hoping for circulation.
    “Yeah, gained entry,” she said in a mocking tone. “I see the digital lock, Max. What’s up with that?”
    I was concentrating, very carefully poking the pads of her toes with the sharp tip of a corner of the aluminum medicine tube, hoping for reaction, but getting none.
    “You saw the digital lock, right, Max?”
    She couldn’t feel her toes. I needed to get her out of here to a hospital.
    “Yeah,” I said, standing up. “I gotta check that out. Who the hell does that out here, right?”

FIFTEEN
    Harmon was in his bedroom, going through the closet, his closet, the one he didn’t share with his wife, the one in fact that he forbade her to use. He knew she probably had gone through it in years past, just looking. You don’t keep secrets from your wife for