Walt Hicks - Swamper.pdf - Walt Hicks - widez2

Swamper

Walt Hicks

Darius Bonhomme slowly paddled the jon boat along the lazy current of the Loxahatchee River. Dusk

was beginning to settle on the Florida river preserve, but the clamor of roosting birds was conspicuously

absent. Dying shafts of sunlight shimmered through the heavy cypress branches, and the light breeze sent

shadows scurrying along the thickly foliaged riverbank.

Bonhomme had been aboard the flat-bottomed boat for nearly three hours, skimming along the

serpentine north fork of the Loxahatchee. His entire body was tense with effort, sinews knotted in his

powerful arms and legs. His narrowed eyes scanned the riverbanks carefully; his ears strained to hear the

slightest rustle of saw grass. A chill northerly breeze sent icy fingers dancing up his spine, a premonition of

an approaching storm. Bonhomme had seen no wildlife since his journey began, and even for

mid-autumn, he could tell something was not right.

Two days ago, Bonhomme had stood in the lavish office of the Chairman of the Loxahatchee River

District, Bennett Caldwell. Bonhomme had worked for Caldwell in the capacity of nuisance gator trapper

several times before – most notably seven years ago when a rogue fifteen-foot bull had mistaken a young

boy for a meal and drug the screaming child from the canoe of his horrified parents. That had been during

the peak of gator mating season, early May, and was considered something of an isolated incident.

"Darius," Caldwell said amiably, "please sit down."

"Thanks, I’ll stand. What’d you want of me?"

Caldwell swallowed hard and regarded the stocky, powerful looking man dressed in bush clothing, out of

place standing in the middle of the elegantly appointed office. Caldwell was a little afraid of Bonhomme,

wary of the scarred, rawboned trapper whom he only summoned in dire emergencies. Like now.

Donning the well-worn smile of the career politician, Caldwell shrugged. "Guess you heard about us

having to close down the river preserve and Jonathan Dickinson State Park?"

"We do get the news out on the Big Lake, Mister Chairman. Some of us even have indoor plumbing."

"I’m sure. Darius, I’m afraid we got a bad animal loose in the preserve. A big bull gator, I’d expect.

We’ve got three people dead, two more missing. The remains of the three dead – well..." Caldwell

indicated an open folder on his desk. Bonhomme leaned over the mahogany desk, took a quick look at

the spread eight by ten crime scene photos, and grunted.

"We’ve quietly closed all access to the park as best we could. The signs say, ‘sensitive environmental

survey in progress -- please keep out,’ but word gets around. Hopefully, nobody’s stupid enough to go

in there."

"‘Cept for me?" Bonhomme grinned.

"You are a professional..."

". . . don’t try this at home," Bonhomme finished.

The first attacks had occurred within the state park, near the fringes of the tidal estuary, where the

Atlantic Ocean stubbornly intrudes into the waterway. The third death, as well as the two disappearances

had taken place farther inland, well within the cypress swamp. Bonhomme glanced at the pictures again.

"This here is a special case, Caldwell. We’re gonna have to have a different arrangement." Normally,

nuisance gator trappers like Bonhomme weren’t paid by the state or county – they kept the hide and

meat of whatever they trapped as payment.

Caldwell pursed his lips. "I’m authorized a five thousand-dollar bounty, Mr. Bonhomme."

"In that case, my price is fifteen thousand."

"Darius..."

"There are other trappers. In the yellow pages, I’m thinkin’. The one with the picture of the cute lil

raccoons is pretty good, I hear." He turned to leave.

"Okay, okay. Done. We need to reopen, as soon as possible, Darius."

Bonhomme left without looking back.

When he thought about the pictures of the victims, Bonhomme wished he’d asked for twenty-five

thousand. When he thought about the pictures, Bonhomme knew he wasn’t after a gator. First of all,

gators were usually harmless unless their territory was invaded or their young were threatened. Or, if

stumbled across during mating season, which was April through May. Secondly, alligators, being

cold-blooded reptiles, become mostly dormant in the autumn months. Bonhomme considered that the

beast might’ve been a saltwater crocodile, since the attacks began in the briny estuary. However, he also

knew that the American saltwater croc was normally just about as docile as the common gator,

particularly in cooler weather. The victims had been torn to shreds, but there were no clear-cut bite

wounds or claw marks. The bodies had been severely mauled -- ripped limb from limb. Florida panthers

weren’t very common in these parts, neither were bears.

Darius Bonhomme had been a trapper in the Florida swamps and waterways for almost all his forty years

and found he didn’t have a clue as to what he was hunting.

Bonhomme took off his sea grass fedora and mopped the sweat from his shaved head. He hated the jon

boat, but the Loxahatchee was so narrow and shallow in many places, he had to drag the boat across

fallen cypress branches and other obstructions. He didn’t want to risk the unsteadiness of a canoe, or the

confines of an enclosed kayak. Just around the next bend was the old slash pine shack of Trapper

Nelson – now a tourist attraction – where he could make camp for the night. This thing seemed to be a

nocturnal hunter, so Bonhomme decided it would be wise to bivouac in an enclosed structure this night.

The trapper thought of the I-95 bridge he passed beneath two miles back. The unknowing traffic zipped

overhead as he slipped silently across the river primeval. Some thirty miles south, the Island of Palm

Beach teemed with oblivious opulence. Enveloped in the centuries-old cypress forest, Bonhomme

might’ve been on another world, or in some antediluvian past. It was a world and time he preferred,

mostly undisturbed by the endless plunder and machinations of modern man.

Bonhomme dragged the jon boat onto the landing and hefted his gear bag. He heard a shuffling sound

from inside the cabin and froze. The old slat door was ajar. He slowly reached over his shoulder and

grasped the neoprene grip of the Winchester Coastal Marine 12 gauge shotgun, liberating it from its

leather sling. He crept to the door, fingering off the shotgun’s safety. Bonhomme took a deep breath and

kicked the door open, flooding the musty interior of the cabin with the waning sunlight.

What he saw was completely unexpected.

A middle-aged man, dressed in an expensive tweed sports jacket immediately threw up his hands. A little

girl, by appearances Native American, cowered in one corner of the small room. Bonhomme quickly

drew the chrome-plated shotgun barrel toward the ceiling.

"What the hell you two doin’ here? This area’s off-limits to..."

Bonhomme abruptly lowered the shotgun, the bead centering on the distinguished -looking man’s chest.

The girl’s hands had been bound with duct tape – and the man was holding a leash attached to a collar

around her neck.

"Sir, that’s not necessary," the man said amicably. "My name is Hadley Van Dusen, and this is my niece

Kimberly. We were separated from our party and ..."

"Van Dusen, you’re gonna want to drop the leash, and step slowly away from the little girl. As much as

we’d sometimes like to, around these parts, we don’t tie up our kids and put ‘em on a leash."

Van Dusen’s eyes narrowed cautiously, even as he smiled in compliance. "Okay. Just don’t get excited

there, Mister ...?"

"Don’t worry none about who I am. You get down on your knees and lace your fingers behind your

head. You do something stupid, I’ll kill you."

"Not to worry, sir. Not to worry." Van Dusen yielded to Bonhomme’s demands, carefully watching the

trapper’s every move.

Bonhomme kept the Winchester trained on Van Dusen as he eased to the little girl’s side. "Kid? Kid, you

okay?"

The little girl looked up at Bonhomme, her swollen face wet with tears. She might’ve been eight or nine

years old.

"I – I think so," she said weakly.

"This guy your uncle?"

"No. He’s a bad man. A very bad man." Darkness was slowly creeping into the cabin, so Bonhomme

turned on a battery operated lantern hanging from the cabin wall. He unwound the duct tape from the

girl’s wrists and removed the collar. She rubbed her hands together and shrank shivering into the corner.

Bonhomme draped a towel from his gear bag around her. Outside, it had begun to rain, windblown

drops slashing insistently against the window panes.

"Don’t you worry about ol’ Dapper Dan over there, kid. He ain’t gonna bother nobody no more."

Bonhomme retrieved a large roll of duct tape from his gear bag and wrapped a liberal amount of the stuff

around Van Dusen’s hands and feet. He then secured a length of nylon rope around Van Dusen’s neck

and tied it off around his ankles.

"Very nice knots, trapper," Van Dusen said derisively.

"Mister --!" the girl whispered fearfully.

Bonhomme heard it. The flat slap of something heavy into the water just outside. Van Dusen chuckled

lowly as Bonhomme quickly secured the front door and lowered the steel hurricane shutters to protect

the windows. Something wet and solid thudded against the door.

"We’ve got company, trapper," Van Dusen said.

The sounds of claws or teeth scraping against the deck outside, another splash into the river, and the

cabin was enveloped in silence once more, except for the rhythmic white noise of the rain.

Bonhomme checked the door again; it was solid. "Professor, don’t know if you knew it or not, but

somethin’ in this here swamp’s already killed five people. That’s why it was closed."

"Oh, I knew the park was closed," Van Dusen said haughtily. "I also knew that it would afford the little

Indian princess and myself a good deal of privacy. Until you showed up, of course. Trapper, may I

introduce Miss Nahimana Estasanatlehi, from the Seminole reservation just up the coast. Roughly

translated, her lovely name means ‘woman of tomorrow’. Quite beautiful, I should say, though I do

prefer the ‘girl of today.’"

Nahimana glared at Van Dusen.

Bonhomme kept one ear at the door, his sideways glare regarding Van Dusen. He didn’t like dividing his

attentions like that.

"Trapper, I’m sure you’re familiar with the colorful history of our red brothers in this area. The noble

savages. Our little Nahimana’s ancestors moved down here from Georgia and Alabama, because the

original inhabitants, the Jobe, Tequesta and the Calusa had been decimated by the incursion of the white

man."

Something heavy thumped again against the outer wall of the cabin. The entire cabin shook and

Nahimana shuddered. Bonhomme grimly checked the load in the Winchester.

Van Dusen continued, unimpressed. "It seems our noble red brothers could live and actually thrive in this

hellish prehistoric environment, but they couldn’t survive the smallest enemy – the viruses of the white

man. Several tribes of peoples completely wiped out by influenza, brought here by the Spanish."

"That’s real fascinatin’ there, Professor. How’s about I tape your mouth shut?"

Van Dusen shrugged. "For one thing, trapper, you’re going to need me, by the sound of that auld beastie

outside trying to get in. Something out there’s developed a keen taste for human flesh and since the

park’s been conveniently closed, we’re the only meat for miles." He smiled dreamily. "But I digress.

Back to my point. Our little red friends weren’t completely sweet and innocent, you see. Not like our

little Nahimana, here. Oh no." Van Dusen stared pointedly at the girl. "For example, the Calusa were so

intent on keeping their land free of the white man that they began – ahem – consuming them."

"That’s a lie!" Nahimana screamed. Something smashed into the wall outside once more; this time, all the

windows shattered.

"I’m afraid not, little one. The Calusa were fierce warriors who became cannibals. It seems they became

somewhat addicted to human flesh as well. And, evidently, in the end," he smiled evilly, "they ate

something that disagreed with them."

Nahimana looked at Bonhomme beseechingly. He looked at the floor. "He’s telling the truth for a change,

kid. Seems the Calusa went on a wilding spree, killin’ and eatin’ every white man in sight til they finally

got captured, loaded on slave ships and forced to work the mines in South American. There they died of

disease, starvation and overwork. A reward for their own cruelty, I reckon."

"Bravo, Mr. Trapper," Van Dusen said with mock appreciation, tapping his fingertips together in

applause. "You seem to have a very good grasp of this region’s bloody history."

Outside, something primeval roared loudly.

Bonhomme dimmed the lantern. "My wife’s descended from the Calusa," he said quietly.

"Oh, priceless," Van Dusen giggled. "The trapper’s married to a fucking squaw."

"What’s her name?" Nahimana asked.

"Miakoda," Bonhomme answered, peering through the slots in the metal shutters. Something black and

large was moving around outside in the shrouded moonlight. Bonhomme could smell the unmistakable

stench of a very large predator.

Bonhomme thought about Miakoda at their home on the Big Lake and he suddenly was afraid for her.

He could see her ruddy, sharp featured face studied in concentration as she chanted her esoteric spells

each time he went out on a hunt. Oddly, it was only those times when she hadn’t performed her rituals,

that Bonhomme had been injured. He was trying to remember if she had chanted for him this time.

Bonhomme had come from a long line of French trappers who had settled on Lake Okeechobee in the

mid 1800's. His livelihood was a dying art form that few practiced today. Bonhomme respected nature

and while most ‘nuisance trappers’ destroyed problem gators more than four feet in length, Bonhomme

would relocate them at his own expense. Most gators were basically harmless, dispossessed of their

natural habitats by the increasing encroachment of man, trying in vain to hold their own, not unlike the

natives of this land before the white invaders came.

The thing outside was something else again. Bonhomme didn’t necessarily hold with the superstitions of

his wife, but he could smell the rot and corruption of pure evil coming from the creature. Or, maybe it

was coming from Van Dusen.

Another earth-trembling thud. From a different corner of the primitive building. The thing was trying to

find a weak point in the structure. Trying to get in.

Van Dusen shifted a little on the floor, working the duct tape adroitly. "There is an old local legend

involving a creature known as the Swamper. A fearsome monstrosity that rose black from the marshes

and drove men mad by the mere sight of it. The Jobe sent their bravest, strongest warriors to face the

aberration, but none of the warriors returned. The Swamper left their mutilated heads on the paths into

their village three days later. Eventually, the Swamper slithered out of the Loxahatchee and into the village

under the cover of night and ate the entire Jobe tribe. Overindulged, the Swamper roared off into the

night until it finally burst and the Seminole tribe was borne from the thing’s exploded entrails."

Outside, a keening howl carried on the wind.

"As I said," Van Dusen continued, "the Seminoles actually migrated from Alabama and Georgia, so this

rather morbid story was merely a folk tale constructed to frighten wayward children. Scared,

Nahimana?"

"No, but you should be," Nahimana spat.

"I fear nothing that walks, crawls or flies above this earth," Van Dusen hissed through clenched teeth.

Bonhomme glanced at the ceiling as he heard some of the shingles ripping away from the roof, carried

away by the gusting wind. "You might be able to scare little kids, Van Dusen, but I ain’t much

impressed."

Van Dusen leered, his lips wet with spittle. "My little sociological experiments with various youngsters of

differing backgrounds notwithstanding, I have managed to elude capture by authorities for the past thirty

years. Not a bad track record." He stared at Nahimana meaningfully. "I have had a nodding acquaintance

Walt Hicks - Swamper.pdf

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