Bron tried to rest on the helicopter flight to the airport in Las Vegas, but he was too anxious. He'd never traveled outside of Utah, except for a short trip to Idaho. He had no idea what to expect once his plane landed in Louisiana.
The flight to New Orleans was uneventful, and they touched down a few minutes late, arriving in the early afternoon. Olivia called Mike while they taxied in from the runway. He didn't expect them home for a day yet. Olivia pretended that they were still on a lark up in Salt Lake. She didn't tell him about their trip to New Orleans.
Neither Bron nor Olivia had packed any luggage, so they simply walked out of the airport.
As they neared the baggage claim, they found people lining the exit. Some were limousine drivers, men in fine gray or black uniforms, each holding a sign with a name, such as "Mr. Brandt." Others were family members, bearings signs like "Welcome home from Afghanistan, Dad!" A few cabbies with ragged hair held signs.
Olivia halted and searched their signs, their faces. Bron looked eagerly for something that might have his name on it. At the back of the crowd, an old coot with gray hair raised his hand for a brief flash, splaying his fingers just a bit. He didn't show any suction cups, so Bron figured that he wasn't a masaak. In fact, he suspected that the man was just waving to someone behind him, but Olivia grabbed Bron's hand and headed in the old man's direction.
When they reached him, the old man said in a heavy Cajun accent, "Come to see some big gators? You picked da right spot, by gar."
He reached out to shake Bron's hand, and that's when Bron felt the suction cups on his fingers. Bron didn't have time to flash his own sizraels. The old man pulled his hand away as if Bron's touch had burned.
"Sorry," the old man said. "I was tinkin' dat you is someone else."
He turned to hurry away, but Olivia said, "We'd love to the see gators." She grabbed his hand, flashed her sizraels, and the man halted, looked at Bron in confusion, then shook hands again. This time Bron gave him the sign.
There was so much to learn about masaak etiquette.
The old man smiled in relief. "Le's go, then!"
Bron felt nervous. "Are we going to see my mother?"
"Mebbe," the old man said. "That jus' maybe." He said it as if he didn't trust Bron and Olivia, as if he was still making up his mind.
They stepped outside, and sultry air hit them in a wave. As they headed to the parking lot, Bron studied the old man. He had a week or two of white stubble on his chin, and a large wart under his right eye, but he had the same coloration as both Olivia and Bron—skin that was slightly olive in complexion, as if they shared Greek ancestry, but this man's face was broad and heavy of brow, while his hair was as coarse as a brush.
He looked weathered, beaten.
He led them to an old red Ford pickup, dinged and rusted in spots. A couple of aluminum lockboxes sat in the back. The old fellow flipped one open and said, "Dass is whar you stow yar chut chuts." Bron had no idea what "chut chuts" were, so he just stared blankly. The old man nodded toward Bron's school backpack.
Olivia put her purse in the lockbox, and Bron dropped in the backpack. Before the old man closed the box, he nodded to the cell phone in Olivia's pocket, "Toss dat phone in dare, too, beb."
Olivia set the phone in. Bron's was already in his backpack, so he got in the truck's cab.
Bron took the middle, and when the old coot got in, he reached under his seat and pulled out a huge, old revolver. The fellow took off the safety, set it down on his lap, and then started the truck with a grin.
Bron swallowed hard. He couldn't keep his eyes off the gun. He tried to break the silence.
"So, what's your name?" Bron asked.
The old fellow smiled. "It doan matta." He dismissed the question, then let out a nervous sigh.
They rode in silence for over an hour, skirting the towns, heading down back roads past dilapidated houses with huge yards. Many of the homes had tattered barns, with a swaybacked mule here and there.
The roads looked like a kill zone. Bron spotted dead turtles and frogs everywhere, with an occasional skunk or raccoon or coyote or beaver or rabbit. He'd never seen so many dead animals in so short a time.
"Sure are a lot of dead animals on the road," Bron said, trying to get the driver to open up.
The old coot didn't speak. He neither asked questions nor answered them, and so Bron figured that the old guy just wasn't the type for conversation.
Or maybe he was just too scared. The old guy didn't trust them, that was for sure.
At last the truck pulled onto a dirt road that bordered a swamp. A sign just before the turnoff said, "Black River," and soon they reached a broad river whose water was darker than coffee.
The man pulled up beside a small wooden dock, where an old silver motorboat was chained. He got out, still carrying the gun, and Olivia and Bron tumbled out of their door.
The old fellow waved his gun at them, motioned toward the boat. "Ya all go climb 'board, now."
He let them take the lead, then stood by the pickup for a moment, eyeing the road behind, making sure that no one followed.
Bron walked over the uneven ground toward the boat, a little worried. He'd heard about the dangers of the swamps—gators and cottonmouths and rattlesnakes, and he began to wonder if he'd encounter any of those things.
On the far shore, the banks were covered in saw grass and cane. On this side the grass had been clipped a week or so ago, so that it was short enough that a big snake couldn't hide in it. A few gnarled pines clumped along the bank, creating a wooded feel. As Bron stepped onto the dock, he heard a large "plock," and something dropped into the water near his feet.
He stopped cold, unsure if he should move.
"Just a turtle," Olivia said, "trying to catch some sun."
Bron hurried onto the dock. Across the river, something long and gray slid into the water. An alligator splashed its tail.
Bron peered into the river, to see if anything might be moving within it, but thick sediments, like bits of black moss, floated in the water, hiding anything below.
Bron walked to the boat and peered up toward the pickup. The old coot was just standing there at the back of the pickup, as if peering into the bed. He had his revolver in hand, hidden just behind his back.
A black sedan with tinted windows came down the road and slowed a bit, then rolled on down the highway. The fellow watched it suspiciously, gun ready, as if trying to decide whether to pop a few rounds through the windshield. By the time that it had passed beyond a screen of trees, his fidgeting had calmed.
He limped on down to the boat, as if his hip were stiff, and unlocked the chain that held it to the dock. He motioned to Olivia and Bron. "You all take de frent!"
The both of them sat on an aluminum slab at the front of the fishing boat, while the old fellow took the back. He pushed a button on the motor, and it coughed a bit, then took hold. In moments they swung out from the dock, onto the broad river.
Bron felt stupid. With him and Olivia sitting in front, the weight on the boat was distributed unevenly, so that the bow was deep in the water while the motor rose too high, almost high enough so that the propellers were in the air. The helmsman didn't seem to mind, though. He wanted to keep his passengers as far away from him as possible.
So the boat plied the dark water, slowly at first, then picked up speed. Bron watched the banks and trees. Every few hundred yards, a dead log would poke up out of the water, often with a few turtles sunning on it. Blue herons strutted in the shallows on stilt-like legs, hunting for fish, and sometimes a snowy egret would do the same. Every few hundred yards, he'd spot an alligator floating as still as a log, until the boat neared. Then the gator would thrash and dive.