Apocalypsis 01 - Kahayatle

something to do with indians.”
    Bodo read from the brochure, “The Miccosukee indians settled da area generations ago, building villages and structures on da wetlands and Cypress forests of da Everglades.”   He turned a couple pages and said, “Dey have houses and stuff dare.”
    “Well, we don’t want houses.   At least not a place where there’s a bunch of them.”
    “Why not?” asked Peter.   “It’d be a lot less work.”
    “Yeah.   And easy and convenient.   Do you not remember the whole point of swamp life?”
    Peter sighed.   “Yes, I remember.   We need to go someplace hard to get to and inconvenient to live in.”
    “Exactly.   Keep reading.”
    “How about this …,” said Peter.   “Canoe and rowboat rental.   Discover the forested wilds of the Everglades.”
    “Let me see,” I said, taking it from him.   I looked it over and saw that the pictures were promising.   I could see us hiding out in some of the areas depicted there.
    “My turn,” said Bodo, holding out his hand.
    I passed him the brochure.  
    He looked at the back and then turned to the last page of the other booklet he had, comparing something on the two of them and frowning.
    “What?” asked Peter.   “What are you looking at?”
    “Well … it looks like on dese maps dat da two places are not very far away from each udder.”   He put the two maps down side by side next to Buster.   “What do you think?   Am I crazy?”
    Peter and I studied the two illustrations.   They probably weren’t to scale, but they sure looked almost exactly the same.   And the red dots marking the two places weren’t very far apart.
    “How far are those places from here?” asked Peter.
    I pulled the map book from my backpack and found the page that showed where we currently were.   “What are the coordinates of that map?   Can you tell?   Is there, like, a landmark of any kind?”
    Bodo took the larger book and looked closer.   “Oh.   Dare are directions here above da map.”
    As he read them out to me, I followed the track on my map, turning the page over to one that had very little showing on it other than swirls of uninhabited water, wetlands, and green parts that hopefully meant they had trees on them.
    “Bingo.   Here’s the spot where the canoes are.   And here’s the place where that indian village thing is.”   I pointed to the two areas on the map for the guys to see, while Buster got up and wiggled around under my arms, using his head to butt up against my hands, insisting on being petted.   I sat up straight and dragged him over into my lap, petting his chin absently while we discussed our options.
    “That looks like it’s about an hour from here,” said Peter.   “We could do that easy.”
    “What time is it?” asked Bodo.   “We want to get dare at da right time, too.”
    I checked my watch.   “It’s about nine or so.   Yeah, a bit after, actually.   It’s getting a little late to travel.   Canners will be getting up soon.”
    “How about if we go to the place with the canoes and see if maybe we can stay there today?   Then we can take them out tomorrow morning at four or whatever.”
    I shook my head.   “I really don’t want to travel through the swamps at night, in the dark, our first time out.   We need to see where we’re going not only so we can find a good spot but also so we can find our way back out again.”
    “I’m agreed with dat,” said Bodo.   “I think we can risk doing dis today, if we hurry.   I doubt dat da canners are going to be out in canoes on da water dis early in da morning.   Besides, dare prey is on da land, not in da water.”
    I looked at Peter and he shrugged, apparently not disagreeing with the plan.  
    “Fine,” I said, looking down and realizing with slight disgust that Buster had taken advantage of my preoccupation and was currently several hundred licks into cleaning my hand.   I grabbed his muzzle and closed it, turning his face up to look at me.   “You’re a punk, you know that, Buster?”
    His butt wiggled, carried away again by his tail wagging.  
    “Stop licking me, you freak.”   I let him go and he jumped out of my lap, barking once at me, obviously excited about the prospect of being called a punk and a freak.   I guess so long as someone was talking to him, he was happy.  
    It made me think of Celia, all alone in that crazy shell shop.   She’d been so starved for affection she’d asked the girl