I hesitated only a second to look at the new cream-colored canvas tarp, then pulled the bag into the opening and unzipped it. A mask and snorkel, a breathing regulator and mouthpiece, a set of huge fins, a sleeveless wetsuit top and the piece of luck I was hoping for, a buoyancy compensator.
"You're a scuba diver, Fred," I said aloud. Gunther probably ferried clients down the Keys, where the only living coral reefs in the continental U.S. lay just off shore.
I'd seen the guys from rescue-and-recovery use scuba equipment in Philadelphia, watched them slip down the banks of the Delaware River one morning in their slick black wetsuits and ease themselves into the water looking for the remains of a homicide victim. Strapped across their chests and attached to the air tanks were buoyancy compensators, inflatable vests that they could fill with air or empty out, to keep them afloat or let them dive.
I took the vest and wetsuit out of Fred's bag and climbed back onto the wing.
"OK, Fred. We're going on a hike, man. Help me out with this and I promise we're gonna make it."
I checked Gunther's pulse. Maybe I was kidding myself, but it seemed stronger. I wrestled his arms into the vest and clipped it over his chest. I found a stem labeled "manual inflate" and started blowing. My ribs screeched twice with each breath, when I sucked in air and when I blew it out. Ten minutes of pain got it done.
I then took up the wetsuit jacket and slipped it under the big man's broken thigh. Looking for something to wrap it with, I stripped off the pilot's belt. Attached to it was a leather scabbard. I unsnapped it and took out his knife. The blade was small and oddly curved but was so sharp it sliced easily through the rubber and cloth of the wetsuit. I trimmed it and then cinched it around the leg using the belt to secure it. I was cutting the corded shoestrings from his boots to help tie the jacket when I fumbled the knife and it plunked into the water below and out of sight. I cursed its loss for no apparent reason.
"OK, Fred. Moment of truth, my friend."
I pulled the big man to the crook of the fuselage and let his legs dangle. I got back down into the water and with both feet planted on the matted sawgrass, inched Gunther off the wing and let him slide down my chest and thighs and into the water. I laid him out. The inflated vest kept his massive chest up. Even the wrapped rubberized wetsuit seemed to float his injured leg some.
By now we'd lost most of the light. The sky had gone dusky and a few early stars had already popped. My night eyes had adjusted and the white plane held a slight glow. I took a bearing on the wing edge, fifteen degrees, and stepped deeper into the water.
"Just like a night paddle, Fred," I said, looking at Gunther's pale face. "Let's muscle through."
I don't know how much time passed. We were in hell on earth. You can't keep track of eternity.
Every step into the grass wall was a process. I would sweep at the high, saw-toothed blades with one arm and try to find some half-solid purchase with my forward foot. Then, with my left hand gripped on the shoulder strap of the inflatable vest, I would pull Gunther forward and try to plant another foot in the muck below. I was sweating before we started and three steps into the wall the mosquitoes began to swarm around my face and arms. I could feel them in my hair, knew that the few I splattered with a swat on my neck were instantly replaced. They were so thick I drew an occasional group into my mouth with a breath. I would flail at them with my free hand. Then sweep the grass, move the foot, yank Gunther forward eighteen inches, move the other foot, flail the insects, and begin again. Early on I stumbled and fell, going under over my head in the water and discovered it gave at least a few seconds of relief from the mosquitoes, so I took to voluntarily dunking my head every few steps. Oddly, the insects didn't seem to light on Gunther. Maybe they could sense the odor of imminent death. Maybe the stink of my own sweat and animal oils drew them away from him.
I checked the pilot's pulse. Still there.
"Stay with me, buddy. Work with me," I said, then swept the grass, moved the foot, yanked him forward…
I quickly lost sight of the plane. I thought I could establish a line and then use my own created trail to keep it straight. But once we were enclosed in grass and darkness it was impossible to know if we were making headway toward the camp or skewing off to either side. Above me the first few stars had multiplied into a thousand and twice my heart jumped when a breeze momentarily split the grass and a beam of light seemed to flash through. I thought it was a search light at first, only to realize it was a low moon starting to climb the eastern sky, sending its beams flickering through the Glades. I kept moving.
The night was pulling the warmth out of the water. My legs were cold as it leached away body heat. I tried to concentrate but was losing focus. Gunther had groaned a couple of times when I yanked at the flotation vest. He was slipping in and out. At times the water was so shallow I was able to get good footing and fall forward to gain three feet. In deeper water every lunge brought us less than one. I tried counting the pulls, closing my eyes to concentrate on twenty pulls, then resting, then doing twenty more. As I weakened the moon came full into view above the grass, hanging in the air like a soiled silver dollar. The pain in my ribs became a dull mass. I could no longer feel the razor cuts on my arms and face from the sharp sawgrass. I reduced my pulls to ten at a time between resting.
I tried to think of the paddling, the rhythm and strokes of the canoe. I tried to think of running, pushing through the ache, and then cussed myself for putting in three miles this morning and how that strength could have helped me now. I tried to use the stars as some kind of guide to keep a straight course. I'd lost count of the pulls long ago.
I'd quit sweating but couldn't remember why that was a bad thing. I'd lost any sense of the mosquitoes and then cut my pulls to five at a time and quit talking to Gunther. I thought, more than a couple of times, of leaving the pilot behind.
I was giving up when I swung my arm into the grass again and the back of my hand thunked into something solid. The pain seemed to snap a few brain cells alive.
A piling, I thought, prying my other hand from a cramp-locked grip on Gunther and then using both to feel the squared pole in front of me. I reached up and touched the wood like a blind man. There was a platform above that sloped down in the opposite direction like some sort of ramp. I yanked Gunther around. I got a step up onto solid wood and dragged his chest out of the water. Once he was secure I crawled up the planks toward the moon.
We'd hit the camp off to the south at a short boat ramp that must be used to drag up canoes or skiffs. In the moonlight the weathered wood of the structure glowed like dull bone and the surrounding horizon of sawgrass took on the color of ash. I stumbled along the dock, my legs stiff and barely holding. At the main cabin the door to one side was unlocked and it swung open on crusted hinges.
Inside it was darker, but like in my own shack, I could make out shapes of a table and bunks against one wall. I found a slick blue rain tarp folded on top of an old trunk and carried it back outside to where Gunther lay. He groaned again when I pulled him onto the flattened tarp.
"Bedtime, Fred," I said, and then twisted two corners together and somehow dragged him up the ramp and into the cabin. Inside I pulled a mattress from one bed to the floor and after deflating the vest and prying him out of it, I rolled the pilot onto the mattress and covered him with every blanket I could reach.
I finally sat on the edge of the bunk, breathing hard and shallow as if only half of my lungs were working. I was caked with mud from the crotch down. A filmy mixture of blood and water covered my arms. My face felt swollen from the insect bites.