As I settled into the stern seat, I watched Luz Carmen’s back and her handling of the paddle. She was perfectly balanced, careful yet strong with her stroke. After a few minutes, she was leaving a nice swirl in the water when she feathered the stroke, and then reached out for the next. I was not only satisfied that she wasn’t going to accidentally flip us; it looked like we might make good time.
Once we caught a good rhythm, the boat moved smoothly and easily. Because of the load we were carrying, there was little glide, but the prow still cut nicely through the water and left a defined V behind us. I said little except to call out a direction, or to indicate the next curve of land to aim for. Luz only nodded and kept her thoughts to herself. Within an hour, the shoreline had morphed from sandy pines to low grasses spiked with the occasional tall bald cypress.
Because of the saltwater intrusion caused by man-made canals and the simple thirst of South Florida’s population draining the freshwater aquifer below us, even this protected area showed the signs of nature under siege. The indigenous grasses were being invaded by cattails. The sable palms were losing their foliage, and their trunks were rotting from the creeping salt. Still, being out here was like a massage to the back of my neck, the thumbs of nature rubbing my temples. I realized I was breathing deeply again and was surprised at the way I had somehow forgotten how to do that while living in the city. By the time the banks narrowed and we reached the entry into the deep canopy of trees of the upper river, I was ready to let the shadowed greenness of my home fold over me.
In minutes, we were in a different world. The light changed: The overhead covering of leaves and cypress boughs created a kind of green cheesecloth, filtering the sun and creating streaks of sunlight that dappled the ferns and pond apple leaves lining the banks. The tea-colored water absorbed the sun, at points glowing as it reflected off spots where the bottom was pure white sand. The temperature fell several degrees, the shade diminishing the heat of the sun and cooling the air enough that it chilled our sweaty skin.
And the quiet we’d been enjoying was dampened even more by the closeness of thick foliage. A thousand years slipped away-ten thousand.
While we moved up stream, Luz Carmen sat mesmerized, her paddle resting across her knees, her head turning from side to side. A turtle the size of a dinner plate slipped off a downed tree trunk and disappeared into the water. Twenty yards away, a great blue heron stood on a spur of sand, its snakelike neck and sharp beak pointing out like an Egyptian hieroglyphic dancer. It gave us a few more yards and then spread its five-foot wingspan like a cape and flapped up into the air, disappearing upriver with a harsh squawk.
Luz couldn’t help herself and turned to see if I had been a witness; I allowed a small smile. She did not, though her eyes were still big from the sighting.
“My place is about a half-mile more,” I said. “Watch for the cypress knees. The water is kind of low.”
Luz only nodded her head and put her paddle back in the water, stroking slowly. Farther up, we slid toward a gathering of knees, a protruding part of the cypress’s root system that can gouge the hull of a canoe, but Luz used an impressive J-stroke to avoid them. The maneuver relaxed me. I made a note to ask where she’d learned it. Out here, there would be time to talk. I was confident she couldn’t keep up her silence forever.
By the time we reached the entrance to my place, the afternoon light was fading fast. As we approached two towering bald cypress trees that some believed where at least four hundred years old, I directed Luz to steer in between them. Through this entrance, we slipped onto a short channel of still water that led us through some giant ferns and leather-wood shrubs until the water opened up to reveal my shack.
Built in the early 1900s, the structure is a small, eighteen-foot cube with a spiked roof that sits up in the air on four sturdy pilings. The water surrounds but never touches the “house.” We maneuvered up to the small dock and once I had a strong hand on the deck, Luz expertly balanced herself on one foot on the centerline of the hull, rose, and stepped out. I lashed the boat to the dock. Then without a word of instruction, Luz began accepting the supplies as I handed them up out of the boat.
When we were set, I looked carefully at the weatherworn steps of my staircase. Out here in the swamplike humidity, anyone using the steps would leave a visible footprint behind, like a sunrise golfer on a dewy morning. Yes, the rain might wash away the markings, but I still used the early warning system as a way to tell if I’d had visitors. Today it looked clean, so I picked up some of the bags and headed up. At the top, while I keyed the padlock on the front door, I pointed out the oak barrel and nozzle that I used for a shower.
“A rain barrel shower is something you’ll never forget if you’re a city kid,” I said to Luz, who had gathered her own bag and followed me up.
“I remember,” she said, looking up at the contraption, which was little more than a short length of hose leading from a gasketed hole in the bottom of the barrel. Only one of the four roof gutters fed water into the open top, but it was always enough.
It’s a crude device, and rare. But when I looked at Luz Carmen to explain her comment about recollecting such a thing, she turned without offering more. I didn’t probe. I reminded myself that I knew very little of this woman and her life, both past and present. If she was going to open up, she’d do it on her time.
When I pushed the door open and stepped into my shack, I was met by the odor of must and mildew, inescapable in this environment. I dropped the bags and immediately went to the windows, opening the sashes one at a time for air flow and pushing open the Bahama shutters to let in the remaining light outside. Then I lit the kerosene lantern and placed it in the middle of the big, door-size table that dominated the middle of the room. The light spread a coppery glow throughout the place.
Luz was still standing just inside the door, her bag in her hand.
I nodded toward the bunk beds against the opposite wall.
“If you don’t mind, I like the lower one,” I said. When Sherry had come out, we put both mattresses together on the floor and dealt with the gap in the middle. That was obviously not in the plan this time.
Saying nothing, Luz deftly swung her bag in an arc up onto the top bunk. Again, I was surprised by her athleticism. Then she did a sweep of the place: the two mismatched pine armoires where my clothing and books were stored; the row of cupboards; the butcher block countertop; a pre-electric ice box at one end, and slop sink at the other; and the walled-off corner where the chemical toilet would be kept. I didn’t have to explain that it wasn’t much.
“It was originally built by a visiting industrialist from the northeast who used it for hunting and fishing trips,” I said, feeling a need to say something in the cabin’s defense. “Then in the 1950s, it was used by scientists who were studying the Everglades, mapping the moving water and doing marine population surveys.”
Luz nodded her head as if it made perfect sense.
“Billy either bought it or accepted it in payment from some client. I rent it from him.”
Again, she barely acknowledged me. I was starting to feel like a babbling idiot. I went back out and brought up the rest of the supplies.
When everything was put away, I rekindled the fire in the potbellied stove, scooped out coffee from a three- pound can into my old metal pot, and waited for the boil. Luz had taken a seat in one of two straight-backed chairs that flanked the table and was seemingly watching the flame of the kerosene lantern that I’d set in front of her. The shadows played on her face, creating an even deeper sense of sadness, if that were possible after losing a brother and blaming yourself for his death.
I sat down on the opposite side of the table and determined that I would not say “so how are you holding up” or some other inane comment.
Outside the night buzz had begun, with myriad insects, lizards, and bats doing the whole nocturnal dance of “eat and be eaten.” When I first moved out here from Philadelphia, I thought the sounds would drive me crazy. My urban ear was in tune, or able to tune out, the constant sound of cars and horns, yelps and sirens, late-night television through an open window and predawn garbage trucks in nearby alleys. I thought I could sleep through anything. But the sound of nature in its nighttime chaos was so unsettling it took me months to rejigger my brain.
“You get used to it,” I said, making a passing comment on what I was listening to without thought of what Luz was tragically carrying in her own head. She cut her eyes up into mine. And if she’d said “fuck you” to my face, she would have been justified. “The night sounds, I mean,” I said quickly, trying to cover.
Her face relaxed, but only a bit.
“I have heard it before, when I was a girl. We would visit with my aunt in Rurrenabaque, where the jungles are thick and the animal life is abundant.”
“In Bolivia?”
