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John searched for a pistol or other weapon as Marc, Ringo, and Young came toward them, followed by a dozen men from the crowd.
Ariel was positioned behind John and saw them coming. She glanced around and saw what to do. She grabbed the lighter fluid bottle, saw another near the kitchen and pointed Pansy at it, saying “John, Pansy, come this way!”
She sprayed a liquid path of fire from the fireplace to between Marc’s group and the three of them, then she and Pansy squir
ted the fluid further toward the group, creating a ten-foot wide wall of fire that was not high, but too wide to leap across.
Ariel led as they ran toward the back door, now torn from its hinges because of the tornado.
Marc ripped covers from two tables and threw on the fire, smothering it enough for them to cross and give chase. Denson was first across and coming fast.
Ariel sensed the unseen danger in front of them and said to John and Pansy, “Jump high!” She went out first, sailing high and far, followed by Pansy, who stumbled when she hit the ground. The naked woman looked back at John coming through the door. Her eyes widened in terror.
John leaped high, and when he looked down, he saw a huge alligator below the back door, mouth open and ready to bite.
Denson didn’t hear Ariel’s words and raced out the back door. The alligator caught him before he touched ground, clamping the huge jaws on Denson’s upper thigh and spinning over and over in a death roll.
Marc and the others still inside skidded to a stop, then backed away as the alligator put its head, then its enormous body into the opening and bellowed as it crawled into the safety of the building and away from the storm. The bull was frightened and angry and ready to attack anything that moved.
John reached Pansy and passed her when he yelled so his voice would carry over the wind, “The airboat!” Ariel glanced back when she heard him. She stopped. John looked behind and witnessed Pansy running to the writhing, bloody man near the cabin’s back door. Running to Denson, John thought.
“Get on the airboat!” John yelled and started forward again as sheets of hard rain hit his face and made it almost impossible to see.
Inside the cabin, Marc yelled, “Go out the front door and circle the building! Don’t let them get away!”
Everyone but Marc left the building. He stepped in front of the alligator and kneeled as the big reptile hissed and opened its mouth. Marc said soft incantations in creole and inched closer. He put his left hand low to the floor, palm up, and moved it slowly, and by inches as he kept the alligator’s eyes on the right hand, held high above the animal.
Shaping his fingers like a cup, Dessaline lifted his left hand up as if he was moving in slow motion. When he touched the lower jaw, he continued the upward pressure. The alligator’s jaws closed.
Marc clamped his hands around the beast’s mouth, preventing it from opening. He spun in a fast circle above the alligator’s head so his legs straddled the front legs as he continued holding shut the jaws. Then he twisted the jaws and neck of the thousand-pound animal. Using every ounce of his strength, Marc slowly rolled it onto its back. He rubbed its stomach for a moment, then looked up as he heard the airboat engine roar to life.
Ariel hopped into the airboat as John ran to it, grasping the flat bow and shoving it hard for the water behind it. The force of his push almost toppled Ariel into the water, but she hung onto the engine strut.
John hopped into the boat, climbed into the seat and found the keys in the ignition. He turned them and, like a blessed prayer, the large propeller turned over and the engine caught. He gunned it and pulled the boat into the water, cut it in a backwards spin, and roared away into the deepening gloom of wind and rain.
Ariel looked back, hoping to see Pansy, but the sheets of rain were like a curtain. She asked John, “Where are we going?”
“Back toward town, if I can figure out where to go in all this.”
She moved beside him and touched something hard to his arm. John looked down at a cell phone. She said, “I took if off one of them you put down. Can you call for help?”
John said, “I can try.” He had to pay close attention to what was in front of them, which meant he couldn’t go very fast. He punched in Randall’s number, but got no answer. When he looked at the phone he saw there was no coverage. He said to Ariel, “I’ll have to try when we’re closer.” She nodded.
The rain continued increasing, as did the wind. The gray-black clouds were almost on the deck and looking as swollen as black widows. Living things were moving in the swamp, hunting for shelter. Snakes and alligators were everywhere, and John ran over several that he didn’t see in time. The snakes weren’t too bad, except the occasional pythons, but hitting the alligators was like slamming into a black log. Ariel bounced into the air and almost missed landing in the boat on the first one. Since then she kept a strong grip.
The airboat sometimes fought for forward motion as the winds coming off the hurricane gusted so hard they stopped its momentum. John learned not to fight it, and wait for the wind to die before starting forward again.
As they stalled with another hard wind in their faces, Ariel screamed and stomped the floor of the boat.
John looked down and saw a snake crawling into the boat, a very long snake. It hissed at Ariel and moved from her as the rest of the coils slapped into the bottom. It was a python, and John estimated it at seventeen or eighteen feet. The largest snake he had ever seen.
It didn’t want out of the boat, either, and curled up in the bow. John told Ariel, “Stay back here with me. Maybe he’ll stay on his side.”
John tried the phone again and got a static-filled ring. He heard Randall’s voice for a second, then lost the connection. He said, “We’re getting closer. I heard Randall for a second before I lost him.”
Ariel nodded, but her thoughts were with Pansy Brown, and she felt a foreboding.
The Haitians realized they couldn’t catch John and Ariel on the airboat, so they returned to the cabin carrying Denson and pushing Pansy ahead of them.
