6 Miles With Courage (5 page)

The Great Horned Owl
is again awakened by Ryan but this time he does not see a gangly youth emerging from a wayward space craft. He sees a confident explorer about to set off on a journey.

The eyes of
the Owl aren’t the only eyes on Ryan. If you count the insects, there are thousands of eyes. Most eyes are there out of curiosity. A few are on the defense weary as to what they would do, should he walk their way. Some would run but others would stand their ground. One set of eyes—in particular—analyzes Ryan with
hunger
.

Ryan made up the ground he lost. In just a
short time he was back at the place where he had met the spider. Ryan decided that with every half-tick of the GPS unit, or about every two hundred and fifty feet he would tie a bright pink survey ribbon around a tree. That would be ten ribbons to the half mile, and it was two miles to the river and his camp site. That means a total of forty ribbons would be needed. The last ribbon must be able to be seen from the rescue boat. Then they can follow the ribbons to his father—should the GPS fail. He should not need any ribbons on the other side of the river. If he is successful he would be returning by boat.

Ryan peered back through the trees one more time at the cockpit
. Then he turned and headed in the proper direction—leaving the cypress behind and entering into the darker sweet gum swamp. The trees are thicker, filtering out much more light, it is darker in here.

He had a new
trick. He was not going to look down at the GPS unit as he walked. He would get direction—pick out a tree for reference—then walk towards it. The tree he picked out would be two hundred and fifty feet in front of him. It became his ribbon tree. This allowed him to watch where he was going and to be more aware of his surroundings. He was tying his tenth ribbon now which put him about a half-a-mile from the plane, one mile from “no-name” creek and one and a half miles from the Oklawaha River and his campsite. He was well into the sweet gums now leaving the cypress far behind.

The floor of the cypress swamp is much firmer than the sweet gum. The sweet gum drops large leaves which decay
, leaving a spongy deep bog to walk through. This makes for dark muddy mire compared to the clean and firm cypress swamp bottom. The sweet gum swamp is also known as “hat floater” country.

What’s a
“hat floater” you ask? Ryan’s father knew all too well what it was. A hat floater is a dinner plate size puddle in the middle of the swamp. When you step in it—you disappear—leaving
nothing behind but your floating hat. Sounds impossible but its true! Rob stepped into one and if it were not for the tripod on his shoulder he would have gone completely under. It looked like a little puddle on the forest floor.

Hat
floaters are formed when a large sweet gum has blown over due to a storm or just from old age. This will leave a large deep hole. Soon the roots from the other sweet gums and the ferns grow over the hole making it look like solid ground. But it is
not
solid ground. Step on the roots and the ferns and you’re alright. Step in the bottomless dinner plate and you disappear. Ryan was lucky for he knew not that he was already
well
into “hat floater” country. His luck was about to change.

After tying a ribbon around a sweet gum tree
, Ryan noticed that in the direction he was traveling the swamp was getting shallower. He quickly moved out onto dry ground but he was still in the sweet gum swamp. He looked back with pride at the ribbons behind him. He looked with apprehension at what lies ahead.

The late afternoon
sun is casting its long shadows giving a different look to the swamp. The sun shining on the bark of the sweet gum really shows it texture and colors. A certain tree catches Ryan’s eye. He notices a spider on the trunk of the tree. At first he did not see the spider because it took on the same texture and color as the bark. He breaks off a twig and holds it up to the spider. The spider rose up its front two legs to quickly bite the twig with its fangs. Ryan pulls back the twig and sees drops of venom. Ryan shudders throwing the twig down. He promptly slices the spider in two with the machete, leaving a green sticky blob behind. He pulls the machete out of the tree.

“I will remember to keep my hands off
of these bay trees,” he said.

Ryan has been on dry spongy ground for
one hundred feet. It feels good not to be sloshing through the water. He is on a small oak hammock. It’s small because it consists of only one oak tree thirty feet to the left of Ryan’s path. It is a huge oak tree with long and low sweeping limbs. Ryan steps into a small circular clearing. On the other side of the clearing is a fallen bay tree. All of the roots are exposed making for a curious sight. The root ball is at least ten feet tall. Ryan walks out across the opening not even knowing that he is walking across a root covered chasm that has been created by the fallen gum tree. He is walking across a “hat floater” but it is a dry one. It is dry due to the raised elevation of the oak hammock.

Ryan is halfway across when there is a sudden snapping noise. He looks down at his feet to see the ground
give way beneath him.

WHOOSH!

Ryan has disappeared
down
into the belly of the swamp. One second he was there, the next he simply vanished.

Back at the wreckage at that same moment, Rob’s seemingly lifeless body twitched jumping as though he awoke from a dream.

Down in the chasm Ryan gathers his thoughts. He has fallen through several rotted roots and stopped with his head being a few feet from the top. He is entangled and is dangling precariously in a massive root system some twenty-feet above the bottom of the abyss. The place is infested with insects of every imagination. Ryan feels them
crawling
about but it is much too dark to see them. Looking up through the crossing-maze of broken and unbroken roots he is not sure what to grab or
even what hand to move first. He was thinking it over when it came—descending down from the light above—an
arm
, the arm of a
man
!

It
is dark bronze in color with black finger nails. It stops short of reaching for Ryan and instead pointes at and then pats a certain root next to Ryan’s left hand. Ryan reaches out to grab onto the hand but the hand recoils. The hand comes back down and repeats the process on the same root. It was telling Ryan where to place his hand! But it would not allow Ryan to grab a hold of its own! This process of “pointing and patting” went on until Ryan—being directed each time as to which root to grab—climbed out of the chasm.

Once reaching the top Ryan quickly knock
s off the insects that are crawling on him and while talking and slapping said, “I am so glad you came along! I don’t know how I can ever repay you,” and spinning around he looks everywhere but sees no one.

“Hello, where did you go,
don’t
go away, I need to talk to you.” Ryan pleaded.

“Please come back, you don’t understand, our plane crashed my father is trapped, PLEASE! Tell me where you are! Oh God no, please don’t go away.” Ryan’s voice fade
s.

Then
, in a dark shadow of a sweet gum tree, Ryan sees him—or it. He is not exactly sure what he is looking at.

Hunker
ing down in the shadows is a large—hulk of a man. Two eyes are looking back at Ryan intently. They appear to be lit from the inside like a jack-o-lantern. They look peaceful, not threatening. Chills run up and down Ryan’s body. He moves
forward cautiously saying, “I just wanted to thank you,” and extends a hand in friendship. The figure rises up, and up and up until the top of his head is seven feet off the ground. He extends an open palm in a halting motion so as to say—
stop
right there!

Ryan, frozen in fear looks him up and down starting at the top.
There’s a foot of hair piled high in a bun. There are bones and feathers protruding from the bun. The face is too dark to see but it looks painted. The skin is a dark bronze. His chest is tattooed and adorned with ornaments and so are his arms and wrists. Wrapping around his loins—a white cloth. His legs above the knees are adorned with ornaments too. Ryan cannot see his feet. In one hand is a six foot long-bow. The bow has ornaments also.

Ryan does not lower his extended hand and inches closer motioning in a handshake fashion saying, “please sir
, I would just like to thank you.” The man extends a second open palm forward so as to say— stop I
mean
it. Ryan gets the message and lowers his hand. The man points down at Ryan’s feet.

Ryan
looks down and sees a stone pointer, pointing in the direction of the path he is to travel. Ryan picks the pointer up. It’s a beautiful spear point tooled out of flint. An “orange point” the collectors would say. Turning, Ryan holds it up to the sunlight—it is translucent. Ryan is mesmerized by its beauty.

A
cold fog blows against Ryan’s face.

Ryan turns
.

T
he man is
gone!

“Hey, wait a minute
. Hold on we need to talk.” Ryan said loudly dropping the spear point.

“I get it now, great get-up. I like the whole re-enactment thing.” Ryan listens intently for any sign of movement.

“My uncle is into the re-enactment thing. What are you Seminole? Are you Timacuan? What?” Ryan spins around and around, bobbing up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of the man. He starts to become frustrated.

“Hey, listen to me. I really need a ride out of here. Maybe we can take your truck or something?” Ryan stops
and gets angry.

“I am not playing around! You better show yourself I don’t have a lot of time.” Nothing heard but silence.

Then in desperation, “Don’t make me come after you. Don’t let me get my hands on you. You don’t scare me.”

And w
ith humiliation, “Ha, I didn’t like your dang costume anyway! My mother makes a better Halloween costume than what you’re wearing!” 

Finally w
ith a threat, “If I get my hands around your neck, you’re a dead-man!” Still there is nothing but silence.

And then one final insult, “
You’re a Coward!”

There is no
motion, nothing to be heard but the sound of the wind and the locusts in the trees. The echo of his last word rings with hollowness. It tells Ryan that he is truly
all alone
in this vast wildness.

Then
, out of the corner of his eye, a
movement
. A flash as something leaps up from the forest floor to a low hanging branch on the oak. Ryan turns and drops to a squat.

“
What was that?” He whispered loudly.

He watches as the branch bows
under the weight of something moving across the
top
of the branch. It is hidden from view due to the leaves and dangling Spanish moss. The falling dust and fleeing insects trace its movement. It comes to a stop near the trunk of the tree. It is high above the forest floor and out of Ryan’s site.

Ryan looks intently.

All is still.

Ryan says in a low voice,
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” trying to get a reaction, but not wanting to give away his
exact
location.

There is no reaction.

A short period of time passes.

Then there is the sound of snoring from above. Ryan looks up just in time to see something flop over the branch and dangle amidst the moss. It’s a big
hairy paw!
It’s the paw of a Florida panther.

Th
ose analyzing eyes of
Hunger
had caught up to him.

Ryan quietly picks up the spear point and slips it into his backpack. He takes his machete firmly in his hand
forgetting
all about
the man. Slowly he starts to walk away towards his destination.

A short distance and he is off the oak hammock and back into the safety of the sweet gum swamp. He can breathe a sigh of relief. He is safe for now. The panther does most of his hunting from dusk to dawn.

With a length of seven feet from nose to tip-of-tail, and weighing-in at around one hundred and fifty pounds the Florida panther is not something Ryan wants to tangle with. Oh sure, people say that they will
not
attack a full grown man. Ask any old-timer however, and they will tell you that the newspapers of the bygone days had plenty of stories about panther attacks in Florida. Out west there are many attacks each year. With the Texas panthers being brought to Florida for interbreeding, who is to say that they will not be more aggressive? Some people have reported aggressive behavior and are worried as to where it may lead. Ryan needs to be alert if he is not to be “pounced” upon.

With a renewed vigor and
a sense of determination he slips through the swamp tying ribbons every two hundred and fifty feet. He is focused. He wants to find “no-name” creek and crossover the last half mile of swamp. He is looking forward to building a nice big fire on the banks of the Oklawaha River. He hopes for an uneventful evening of drinking water, eating beef jerky and reminiscing about the day. Unknown to Ryan, the rest of the day and the evening will be anything
but
uneventful.