Crocs, page 13
Luke did as he was told.
The jagged-looking scute came off as cleanly as a fingernail clipping. It was deposited into a small container.
Next, the scientist removed the second scute from the right side of the croc’s tail. It went into the same container.
“All done,” Dr. Laura said after she had cleaned the areas. “This big female is now officially American Crocodile Right-Scute-Two, Left-Scute-Three. Every croc we catch is marked differently. Right-Scute-Five, Left-Scute-Four. Right-Scute-One, Left-Scute-Six. Like that. All based on which scutes we remove. See how it works?”
“Not really,” Luke admitted. He was on his feet, backing away.
“It’s not as complicated as it seems,” the scientist said in a kindly tone. “Later, if she’s recaptured, or even seen, we’ll note which scutes are missing. That will tell us she’s American Crocodile Right-Scute-Two, Left-Scute-Three. We can chart her movements and track her growth. These are rare animals. Very important to the ecosystem. We’ll monitor her and her hatchlings and try to make sure they stay healthy and safe.”
“Stand back, everyone,” Dr. Frank said. “I’m going to cut her loose. We’ll give her all the time she needs to recover. When you’re a safe distance away, just stand quietly and watch. It shouldn’t take long.”
It didn’t. Luke shot video of the crocodile high-walking into the water. With a thrust of her huge tail, she submerged and rocketed away like a torpedo.
“You did a great job,” Dr. Laura said to the boy. “Doc told us that you and your friends are the ones who found the croc. Was it somewhere near here?”
“Just a few hundred yards away,” he replied, motioning. “It’s a little island with shell mounds. Think she’s on her way there now?”
“Could be,” Dr. Frank said. He was typing information into a laptop. “When you saw her, did you smell sort of a musky odor?”
“Yeah, I did. Not strong, but musky,” Luke said.
The scientist nodded. “That’s probably where her nest was. You’ve got a good sense of smell. Doc also told us that you and your friends are experts at handling a small boat. That you tag sharks for him.”
“We’re still learning,” the boy replied. “But we do okay, I think. My teammates, Maribel and Sabina—I wish they could have seen this.”
“Maybe they will, when we come back,” Dr. Frank said. “That island you mentioned—I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stop there occasionally and check on how the croc’s doing? You know, take pictures and video. But keep your distance, of course. It’s best if the croc doesn’t know you’re there. Doc has my e-mail address.”
Sabina would have taken this as an opportunity. Luke did, too, but it was harder for him to say, “Yeah. Uh, sure. If you want. In fact, my friends and I were hoping to camp there over Thanksgiving vacation.”
The crocodile experts both looked at Doc Ford. “That’s not up to us but, sure, great,” Dr. Laura said. “Can you talk to their parents, Doc? A week of daily monitoring would be very helpful. Oh—there’s one more thing. Frank, do you want to tell him?”
Dr. Frank smiled, pleased by the suggestion. “When a young person helps Laura and me tag a croc, we let them pick out a name. Any name they want. It goes into our data bank, and the croc will have the name for the rest of its life. Interested, Luke?”
“You’re saying I can give that crocodile a name?” The boy frowned, unsure. It wasn’t like a seven-hundred-pound croc was a dog and would come when called. And it didn’t seem right to do something so important unless his teammates were involved.
This gave him an idea. What if he combined the sisters’ names?
“How about”—Luke had to picture the spelling in his head—“how about Sabina-Belle? Would that be okay?”
“Sabina-Belle,” Dr. Laura said, making notes on her phone. “Beautiful. Love it. Sabina-Belle it is. From now on, that’s her name.”
Doc Ford gave the boy a private look of approval. “Wise choice,” he said.
TWENTY-FIVE
RETURN TO BONEFIELD KEY
Thanksgiving vacation began on a Saturday, the day before what astronomers called a supermoon. It had been four weeks since the police had arrested Leon and his partner.
Finally, it was safe to return to Bonefield Key.
Or so they believed.
Doc Ford explained, “A supermoon only happens when the moon is at its closest point while orbiting the Earth. ‘At perigee’ is the term they use.”
Luke repeated the word in his head. Pear-ah-jee. He pictured a pear hanging close to the marina to anchor the word’s meaning.
“Thanks for letting us borrow your telescope,” the boy said. “We’ll take good care of it.”
“If we didn’t trust you kids, you wouldn’t be here,” Doc replied. “Have fun—explore around with the scope. A dark spot in the sky doesn’t mean there’s nothing out there to find.”
Luke scratched at the jagged scar on his shoulder. He liked the image that produced on the secret screen inside his head.
“Stars and planets, sure,” he replied. “Probably lots of them up there somewhere.”
That morning, Doc, Captain Hannah, and their infant son, Izaak, had followed the trio to Bonefield Key in Hannah’s fast skiff. The kids had already unloaded supplies from their much slower rental boat. After a busy hour helping the kids set up tents, a firepit, and the hammock and going over safety rules, Doc and Hannah were getting ready to leave.
They stood at the water’s edge. Izaak slobbered and cooed while his parents offered last-minute advice.
“Even without the telescope, the moon will look a heck of a lot bigger than usual,” the biologist continued. “You three picked a good week to camp. But this time”—his voice became stern—“stay out of trouble. Keep that handheld radio with you at all times.”
He turned to Sabina. “Is that clear, young lady? The police might have more questions. And all they want to hear is—”
The girl’s face reddened. She glared up at the man. “I know, I know,” she interrupted. “No more stories about being rescued by a ghost. I’m not crazy, and I’m not a liar. So I must’ve imagined everything. Fine! I’ve got five stitches in the back of my head to prove it.”
Actually, the girl’s stitches had been removed two weeks ago. To cover a strip of shaved hair, she wore a red bandanna tied at the back like a pirate. The bandanna was a birthday present from Captain Pony.
The old fishing guide was still in the hospital after suffering another stroke. Doctors weren’t sure if it had anything to do with the fall she’d taken. The kids had visited her often. With Hannah’s help, they had continued to look after the property and feed her animals.
Maribel felt a tad guilty about the situation. If Pony had been healthy, able to take care of the place, they probably wouldn’t have been allowed to spend five nights camping here, only a few hundred yards from the woman’s house. They could have fed the animals and monitored the crocodile easily enough with daily trips from the marina.
“We’ll be just fine,” Maribel said after giving Captain Hannah a hug goodbye. “I’ll check in every two hours and leave the radio on when we go to bed. Plus, we have this now.”
She held up another present from Pony Wulfert. It was the ancient shell horn made by the Calusa people long, long ago.
A person had to be at least eighteen before applying for a Coast Guard guide’s license, but Maribel proved that she’d been studying. “Five short blasts on a horn,” she said. “That’s the danger signal for boaters. We won’t need it—but just in case.”
“We probably wouldn’t hear it anyway,” Doc said. “So use the radio. And make sure to check on that crocodile at least once a day—but from a safe distance. My crocodile-expert pals want to stop back and tag those hatchlings.”
He stepped aboard the skiff. Hannah followed. She started the engine and began a slow turn. “If you find more oranges,” she hollered over her shoulder, “gather all you can. And take lots of pictures.” She took one hand off the wheel long enough to emphasize something else. “Remember—try to find a small citrus tree healthy enough to give to the experts. A seedling or a sapling that would be easy to transplant.”
The woman had provided the kids with a folding camp shovel just in case. The state of Florida was still looking for a way to combat the terrible citrus greening disease. Survivor trees and their seeds were desperately needed.
* * *
It was a good feeling to finally be on their own. Luke volunteered to cook dinner and wash the dishes even before they had decided on what to eat.
Sabina loved the idea. Maribel disagreed. “Not fair,” she said. “The cook shouldn’t have to clean up. We take turns.”
On 4-H campouts Luke had noticed that the kids in charge of cooking often left a terrible mess, unconcerned because their part of the work was done. Cooks were a lot tidier if they had to do both jobs. To him, this made sense.
“We can still take turns,” he added. “Either way. It’s up to you. And don’t forget, you owe me. I named the crocodile after you and your sister.”
Sabina had to fight back a smile. It wasn’t easy to chide the farm boy after he’d done something so sweet. “Whatever,” she said. “I think you’re just trying to get out of building our tree house.”
Luke’s jaw tightened. He’d spent hours cutting poles and lashing them together with rope. True, he had goofed up by building the platform on the ground. The thing was so darn heavy, he’d had to take it apart, then haul it pole by pole into the limbs of a nearby gumbo-limbo tree.
A table made of bamboo stalks lashed to a stump had been a bigger success. And a heck of a lot easier to make.
“Looks pretty solid to me,” Luke argued, without looking up.
Sabina did. She stared at the tree. To her, the tree house looked as if a flood had left a mess of rope and logs trapped in the low limbs.
“Maybe so,” she said, “but you’d better build the roof fast. I don’t want to sleep in a bunch of bird poo.”
He thought that was unlikely until he noticed the osprey. It was perched on the platform, watching them.
The boy tried to spook the bird by waving his arms. Are you trying make me look nerdier than I am? he thought.
Pee-pee-peep-peep, the osprey chattered, as if taunting. It didn’t budge.
“There’s something you haven’t told us,” Sabina said. “That bird knows you. Follows you around like a dog. Come on, farm boy. The morning you and Maribel got lost in the fog, I remember that osprey landing on Captain Pony’s porch. Almost like it was keeping an eye on you.”
Luke didn’t respond.
It was Maribel’s turn to be offended. You got lost, not us! she wanted to say. She backed off, though, when her sister’s eyes moved to the old gravestones. The graves were not far from where they’d set up camp.
“If it hadn’t been for your pet osprey,” Sabina continued, “Periwinkle might have stuck around and let you see her instead of disappearing. Like most ghosts, she’s shy around normal people.” Glaring at Luke, she warned, “Don’t you dare laugh at me again!”
Periwinkle—the imaginary girl—was a sensitive subject. Sabina’s head injury had not been serious. No concussion, just a bad bruise and a cut. But the doctor had warned their mother that the girl might be moody until she fully recovered.
Moody? Sabina was always moody—especially when it came to spirits, poetry, and ghosts.
Maribel slapped her hands together as if washing the subject away.
“It’ll be dark in two hours,” she said. “We still have a lot to do before dinner. We need more firewood, and those beans have to soak. The corn, too. I want to get an early start in the morning and find that orange tree.”
They had brought cooking gear. It included a cast-iron skillet, a heavy Dutch oven with a lid, plus tin cups and plates—not plastic. The kids had retrieved so much plastic trash from the bay that they avoided the junk whenever possible.
The Dutch oven had been Captain Pony’s idea. She had written down a few recipes from her hospital bed. Some included strange, old-timey ingredients the kids had never heard of. There was “fatback,” “lard,” “red-eye sop,” and “swamp cabbage.”
Other ingredients were more familiar. And they’d brought a big cooler filled with ice and all sorts of good things to eat.
“I don’t know what swamp cabbage is,” Luke said. “I’m hungry enough, it sounds sort of good. But there’s a deep spot under the mangroves that’s loaded with oysters. I might be able to find a few clams while I’m at it.”
Sabina’s mood brightened. She was hungry, too. “Maribel and I will catch some fish—but you have to clean them. We catch, you clean—that rule stays the same.”
Luke and Maribel had both learned that, outdoors, the easiest way to get along was to do more work than was expected, and never complain.
“I’ll have the cleaning table ready,” the boy replied, and wandered off toward the water.
When he returned, his pants were wet up to the knees. He had waded the edge of the bay and cut two mangrove roots covered with oysters. The old fishing guide called them “raccoon oysters” because raccoons loved eating the things at low tide.
Pony’s recipe was simple: Toss the mangrove roots on the fire. When the oysters were fully cooked, the shells would open on their own.
While the girls fished, Luke went back to work on the tree house. Thick tubes of bamboo became a ten-foot ladder to what he was trying to build. The bark of the gumbo-limbo tree was reddish amber. It had muscular limbs that grew away from the trunk at different angles. Because of this, the platform he’d made was an uneven jumble, not flat.
The boy puzzled over the problem while the osprey observed from above. The bird chattered and whistled as if offering advice.
“Quiet, I’m thinking,” he replied, then looked up through an umbrella of green leaves. Some of the higher limbs, he noticed, looked strong and straight.
A new idea came into his head. The platform didn’t have to be tied to the lower limbs. It could hang from the tree like a giant swing. The trunk and the crooked limbs might serve as anchors.
Luke got busy. When the girls returned an hour later, they were impressed.
“What do you think?” he asked.
What had been a jumble of poles was now a solid deck ten feet above the ground. There was plenty of room for sleeping. A roof of palm fronds was already under construction.
Grinning, the boy sat with his legs dangling over.
“I told you he could do it,” Sabina bragged to Maribel, which wasn’t true. “Get down here, farm boy. We caught some nice ones. You have fish to clean.”
TWENTY-SIX
CAPTAIN PONY AND SABINA SHARE SECRETS
At sunset, dinner was ready: corn on the cob and baked potatoes, skins black, hot from the coals. There were slabs of fried sea trout served with a sauce of butter, sea salt, and juice from fresh key limes. Black bean soup was ladled out over rice.
The Dutch oven was still wedged against the fire.
That was worth waiting for. Inside, wild guava, pineapple, and papaya slices had been topped with honey and cinnamon, then covered with a pie crust. Captain Pony Wulfert’s recipe again—except for the pie crust.
Luke had cheated. He had used a biscuit mix from Bailey’s General Store.
“Hold it. We forgot something,” Sabina said before anyone could touch their food. They were seated around the bamboo table. Smoke from the fire helped keep the bugs away. White birds, necks curled, crossed an orange sky in a slow V formation.
Luke snapped his fingers. “Hot sauce for the oysters. Yeah. You’re right.”
“Not that,” the girl said. “This.”
From beneath the table, she raised the ancient shell horn. “It’s a sunset tradition, Pony told us. Good luck before a meal.”
The girl curled her fingers deep inside the shell. She blew hard and blasted out three squeaky notes.
To keep from laughing, Luke had to look at the ground.
“That did not sound like a fart!” Sabina glared. “Don’t be gross.”
Maribel was laughing, too. Then they were all laughing until, suddenly, one by one, they went silent.
From the darkening shell mound came a distant reply—the faint, strong note of what might have been a horn. Then two more notes echoed as if signaling from a cave.
Stunned, the kids looked at one another.
“The Bone Tunnel.” Sabina whispered this too softly for the others to hear. Good. The old fishing guide had warned that people would not believe until they saw it for themselves. She had also told Sabina how to avoid the dangers of entering the tunnel on a full moon.
“Try the horn again,” Luke urged.
Maribel grabbed the shell from her sister’s hands. “Don’t. It could be someone at the marina. Doc and Hannah might think we’re in trouble.”
Sabina was staring at the nearby gravestones. A ray of sunlight painted the rough pioneer concrete with gold.
She got to her feet. “It’s Periwinkle. She’s calling for me. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait—please,” Maribel begged in Spanish. “Let me try the horn. I’m sure it must be someone at the marina. You know how sound travels over water.”
She started to translate for Luke until he interrupted. “I understood. Some of it, anyway. Go ahead. Blow it again.”
Maribel was good at just about everything. Sabina was used to this irritating fact. She took a seat and glowered while her sister produced three clear bell tones from the ancient shell horn.
Silence. Flames in the fire pit crackled. The osprey, eyes alert, ruffled its feathers and scanned the trees. Somewhere, roosting owls exchanged baritone calls.
Hoo-hoo looks for you? the owls seemed to ask. Hoo-hoo’s looking for you?
“Barred owls,” Luke said softly. “Doc took me out and showed me one night. Said they’re kinda rare on Sanibel. Rat poison and stuff might have killed most of the owls because they eat rats. Owls, yeah. That’s what we must’ve heard.”
