Swamper

Walt Hicks

Darius Bonhomme slowly paddled the jon boat along the lazy current of the Loxahatchee River. Dusk was beginning to settle on the Florida river preserve, but the clamor of roosting birds was conspicuously absent. Dying shafts of sunlight shimmered through the heavy cypress branches, and the light breeze sent shadows scurrying along the thickly foliaged riverbank.

Bonhomme had been aboard the flat-bottomed boat for nearly three hours, skimming along the serpentine north fork of the Loxahatchee. His entire body was tense with effort, sinews knotted in his powerful arms and legs. His narrowed eyes scanned the riverbanks carefully; his ears strained to hear the slightest rustle of saw grass. A chill northerly breeze sent icy fingers dancing up his spine, a premonition of an approaching storm. Bonhomme had seen no wildlife since his journey began, and even for mid-autumn, he could tell something was not right.

Two days ago, Bonhomme had stood in the lavish office of the Chairman of the Loxahatchee River District, Bennett Caldwell. Bonhomme had worked for Caldwell in the capacity of nuisance gator trapper several times before – most notably seven years ago when a rogue fifteen-foot bull had mistaken a young boy for a meal and drug the screaming child from the canoe of his horrified parents. That had been during the peak of gator mating season, early May, and was considered something of an isolated incident.

"Darius," Caldwell said amiably, "please sit down."

"Thanks, I’ll stand. What’d you want of me?"

Caldwell swallowed hard and regarded the stocky, powerful looking man dressed in bush clothing, out of place standing in the middle of the elegantly appointed office. Caldwell was a little afraid of Bonhomme, wary of the scarred, rawboned trapper whom he only summoned in dire emergencies. Like now. Donning the well-worn smile of the career politician, Caldwell shrugged. "Guess you heard about us having to close down the river preserve and Jonathan Dickinson State Park?"

"We do get the news out on the Big Lake, Mister Chairman. Some of us even have indoor plumbing."

"I’m sure. Darius, I’m afraid we got a bad animal loose in the preserve. A big bull gator, I’d expect. We’ve got three people dead, two more missing. The remains of the three dead – well..." Caldwell indicated an open folder on his desk. Bonhomme leaned over the mahogany desk, took a quick look at the spread eight by ten crime scene photos, and grunted.

"We’ve quietly closed all access to the park as best we could. The signs say, ‘sensitive environmental survey in progress --please keep out,’ but word gets around. Hopefully, nobody’s stupid enough to go in there."

"‘Cept for me?" Bonhomme grinned.

"You are a professional..."

". . . don’t try this at home," Bonhomme finished.

The first attacks had occurred within the state park, near the fringes of the tidal estuary, where the Atlantic Ocean stubbornly intrudes into the waterway. The third death, as well as the two disappearances had taken place farther inland, well within the cypress swamp. Bonhomme glanced at the pictures again.

"This here is a special case, Caldwell. We’re gonna have to have a different arrangement." Normally, nuisance gator trappers like Bonhomme weren’t paid by the state or county – they kept the hide and meat of whatever they trapped as payment.

Caldwell pursed his lips. "I’m authorized a five thousand-dollar bounty, Mr. Bonhomme."

"In that case, my price is fifteen thousand."

"Darius..."

"There are other trappers. In the yellow pages, I’m thinkin’. The one with the picture of the cute lil raccoons is pretty good, I hear." He turned to leave.

"Okay, okay. Done. We need to reopen, as soon as possible, Darius." Bonhomme left without looking back.

When he thought about the pictures of the victims, Bonhomme wished he’d asked for twenty-five thousand. When he thought about the pictures, Bonhomme knew he wasn’t after a gator. First of all, gators were usually harmless unless their territory was invaded or their young were threatened. Or, if stumbled across during mating season, which was April through May. Secondly, alligators, being cold-blooded reptiles, become mostly dormant in the autumn months. Bonhomme considered that the beast might’ve been a saltwater crocodile, since the attacks began in the briny estuary. However, he also knew that the American saltwater croc was normally just about as docile as the common gator, particularly in cooler weather. The victims had been torn to shreds, but there were no clear-cut bite wounds or claw marks. The bodies had been severely mauled --ripped limb from limb. Florida panthers weren’t very common in these parts, neither were bears.

Darius Bonhomme had been a trapper in the Florida swamps and waterways for almost all his forty years and found he didn’t have a clue as to what he was hunting.

Bonhomme took off his sea grass fedora and mopped the sweat from his shaved head. He hated the jon boat, but the Loxahatchee was so narrow and shallow in many places, he had to drag the boat across fallen cypress branches and other obstructions. He didn’t want to risk the unsteadiness of a canoe, or the confines of an enclosed kayak. Just around the next bend was the old slash pine shack of Trapper Nelson – now a tourist attraction – where he could make camp for the night. This thing seemed to be a nocturnal hunter, so Bonhomme decided it would be wise to bivouac in an enclosed structure this night. The trapper thought of the I-95 bridge he passed beneath two miles back. The unknowing traffic zipped overhead as he slipped silently across the river primeval. Some thirty miles south, the Island of Palm Beach teemed with oblivious opulence. Enveloped in the centuries-old cypress forest, Bonhomme might’ve been on another world, or in some antediluvian past. It was a world and time he preferred, mostly undisturbed by the endless plunder and machinations of modern man.

Bonhomme dragged the jon boat onto the landing and hefted his gear bag. He heard a shuffling sound from inside the cabin and froze. The old slat door was ajar. He slowly reached over his shoulder and grasped the neoprene grip of the Winchester Coastal Marine 12 gauge shotgun, liberating it from its leather sling. He crept to the door, fingering off the shotgun’s safety. Bonhomme took a deep breath and kicked the door open, flooding the musty interior of the cabin with the waning sunlight. What he saw was completely unexpected.

A middle-aged man, dressed in an expensive tweed sports jacket immediately threw up his hands. A little girl, by appearances Native American, cowered in one corner of the small room. Bonhomme quickly drew the chrome-plated shotgun barrel toward the ceiling.

"What the hell you two doin’ here? This area’s off-limits to..."

Bonhomme abruptly lowered the shotgun, the bead centering on the distinguished -looking man’s chest. The girl’s hands had been bound with duct tape – and the man was holding a leash attached to a collar around her neck.

"Sir, that’s not necessary," the man said amicably. "My name is Hadley Van Dusen, and this is my niece Kimberly. We were separated from our party and ..."

"Van Dusen, you’re gonna want to drop the leash, and step slowly away from the little girl. As much as we’d sometimes like to, around these parts, we don’t tie up our kids and put ‘em on a leash." Van Dusen’s eyes narrowed cautiously, even as he smiled in compliance. "Okay. Just don’t get excited there, Mister ...?"

"Don’t worry none about who I am. You get down on your knees and lace your fingers behind your head. You do something stupid, I’ll kill you."

"Not to worry, sir. Not to worry." Van Dusen yielded to Bonhomme’s demands, carefully watching the trapper’s every move.

Bonhomme kept the Winchester trained on Van Dusen as he eased to the little girl’s side. "Kid? Kid, you okay?"

The little girl looked up at Bonhomme, her swollen face wet with tears. She might’ve been eight or nine years old.

"I – I think so," she said weakly.

"This guy your uncle?"

"No. He’s a bad man. A very bad man." Darkness was slowly creeping into the cabin, so Bonhomme turned on a battery operated lantern hanging from the cabin wall. He unwound the duct tape from the girl’s wrists and removed the collar. She rubbed her hands together and shrank shivering into the corner. Bonhomme draped a towel from his gear bag around her. Outside, it had begun to rain, windblown drops slashing insistently against the window panes.

"Don’t you worry about ol’ Dapper Dan over there, kid. He ain’t gonna bother nobody no more." Bonhomme retrieved a large roll of duct tape from his gear bag and wrapped a liberal amount of the stuff around Van Dusen’s hands and feet. He then secured a length of nylon rope around Van Dusen’s neck and tied it off around his ankles.

"Very nice knots, trapper," Van Dusen said derisively.

"Mister --!" the girl whispered fearfully.

Bonhomme heard it. The flat slap of something heavy into the water just outside. Van Dusen chuckled lowly as Bonhomme quickly secured the front door and lowered the steel hurricane shutters to protect the windows. Something wet and solid thudded against the door.

"We’ve got company, trapper," Van Dusen said.

The sounds of claws or teeth scraping against the deck outside, another splash into the river, and the cabin was enveloped in silence once more, except for the rhythmic white noise of the rain. Bonhomme checked the door again; it was solid. "Professor, don’t know if you knew it or not, but somethin’ in this here swamp’s already killed five people. That’s why it was closed."

"Oh, I knew the park was closed," Van Dusen said haughtily. "I also knew that it would afford the little Indian princess and myself a good deal of privacy. Until you showed up, of course. Trapper, may I introduce Miss Nahimana Estasanatlehi, from the Seminole reservation just up the coast. Roughly translated, her lovely name means ‘woman of tomorrow’. Quite beautiful, I should say, though I do prefer the ‘girl of today.’"

Nahimana glared at Van Dusen.

Bonhomme kept one ear at the door, his sideways glare regarding Van Dusen. He didn’t like dividing his attentions like that.

"Trapper, I’m sure you’re familiar with the colorful history of our red brothers in this area. The noble savages. Our little Nahimana’s ancestors moved down here from Georgia and Alabama, because the original inhabitants, the Jobe, Tequesta and the Calusa had been decimated by the incursion of the white man."

Something heavy thumped again against the outer wall of the cabin. The entire cabin shook and Nahimana shuddered. Bonhomme grimly checked the load in the Winchester.

Van Dusen continued, unimpressed. "It seems our noble red brothers could live and actually thrive in this hellish prehistoric environment, but they couldn’t survive the smallest enemy – the viruses of the white man. Several tribes of peoples completely wiped out by influenza, brought here by the Spanish."

"That’s real fascinatin’ there, Professor. How’s about I tape your mouth shut?" Van Dusen shrugged. "For one thing, trapper, you’re going to need me, by the sound of that auld beastie outside trying to get in. Something out there’s developed a keen taste for human flesh and since the park’s been conveniently closed, we’re the only meat for miles." He smiled dreamily. "But I digress. Back to my point. Our little red friends weren’t completely sweet and innocent, you see. Not like our little Nahimana, here. Oh no." Van Dusen stared pointedly at the girl. "For example, the Calusa were so intent on keeping their land free of the white man that they began – ahem – consuming them."

"That’s a lie!" Nahimana screamed. Something smashed into the wall outside once more; this time, all the windows shattered.

"I’m afraid not, little one. The Calusa were fierce warriors who became cannibals. It seems they became somewhat addicted to human flesh as well. And, evidently, in the end," he smiled evilly, "they ate something that disagreed with them."

Nahimana looked at Bonhomme beseechingly. He looked at the floor. "He’s telling the truth for a change, kid. Seems the Calusa went on a wilding spree, killin’ and eatin’ every white man in sight til they finally got captured, loaded on slave ships and forced to work the mines in South American. There they died of disease, starvation and overwork. A reward for their own cruelty, I reckon."

"Bravo, Mr. Trapper," Van Dusen said with mock appreciation, tapping his fingertips together in applause. "You seem to have a very good grasp of this region’s bloody history." Outside, something primeval roared loudly.

Bonhomme dimmed the lantern. "My wife’s descended from the Calusa," he said quietly.

"Oh, priceless," Van Dusen giggled. "The trapper’s married to a fucking squaw."

"What’s her name?" Nahimana asked.

"Miakoda," Bonhomme answered, peering through the slots in the metal shutters. Something black and large was moving around outside in the shrouded moonlight. Bonhomme could smell the unmistakable stench of a very large predator.

Bonhomme thought about Miakoda at their home on the Big Lake and he suddenly was afraid for her. He could see her ruddy, sharp featured face studied in concentration as she chanted her esoteric spells each time he went out on a hunt. Oddly, it was only those times when she hadn’t performed her rituals, that Bonhomme had been injured. He was trying to remember if she had chanted for him this time. Bonhomme had come from a long line of French trappers who had settled on Lake Okeechobee in the mid 1800's. His livelihood was a dying art form that few practiced today. Bonhomme respected nature and while most ‘nuisance trappers’ destroyed problem gators more than four feet in length, Bonhomme would relocate them at his own expense. Most gators were basically harmless, dispossessed of their natural habitats by the increasing encroachment of man, trying in vain to hold their own, not unlike the natives of this land before the white invaders came.

The thing outside was something else again. Bonhomme didn’t necessarily hold with the superstitions of his wife, but he could smell the rot and corruption of pure evil coming from the creature. Or, maybe it was coming from Van Dusen.

Another earth-trembling thud. From a different corner of the primitive building. The thing was trying to find a weak point in the structure. Trying to get in.

Van Dusen shifted a little on the floor, working the duct tape adroitly. "There is an old local legend involving a creature known as the Swamper. A fearsome monstrosity that rose black from the marshes and drove men mad by the mere sight of it. The Jobe sent their bravest, strongest warriors to face the aberration, but none of the warriors returned. The Swamper left their mutilated heads on the paths into their village three days later. Eventually, the Swamper slithered out of the Loxahatchee and into the village under the cover of night and ate the entire Jobe tribe. Overindulged, the Swamper roared off into the night until it finally burst and the Seminole tribe was borne from the thing’s exploded entrails." Outside, a keening howl carried on the wind.

"As I said," Van Dusen continued, "the Seminoles actually migrated from Alabama and Georgia, so this rather morbid story was merely a folk tale constructed to frighten wayward children. Scared, Nahimana?"

"No, but you should be," Nahimana spat.

"I fear nothing that walks, crawls or flies above this earth," Van Dusen hissed through clenched teeth. Bonhomme glanced at the ceiling as he heard some of the shingles ripping away from the roof, carried away by the gusting wind. "You might be able to scare little kids, Van Dusen, but I ain’t much impressed."

Van Dusen leered, his lips wet with spittle. "My little sociological experiments with various youngsters of differing backgrounds notwithstanding, I have managed to elude capture by authorities for the past thirty years. Not a bad track record." He stared at Nahimana meaningfully. "I have had a nodding acquaintance with the disappearance of nearly one hundred little girls in seventy-five major cities, from Sacramento to Bangor."

Bonhomme eyed a crack forming in the ceiling. "Well, you’re all done now."

"That remains to be seen, trapper."

The trapper whirled without warning, jamming the Winchester’s barrel into Van Dusen’s forehead, slamming his head against the wall. "You’re nothing but a worthless piece of shit. You gotta use little kids in order to feel somethin’ --anything. You’re less than nothing, Van Dusen. And you keep fuckin’ with me, I’m gonna feed you to whatever’s prowlin’ around outside. Got it?"

Bonhomme slowly eased the shotgun to the middle of Van Dusen’s face. There was a bloody semi-circle in the center of Van Dusen’s forehead. He chuckled softly. "We’re all on the smorgasbord, trapper. I just hope I live long enough to see our friend eat a squirming little Nahimana." Bonhomme’s eyes narrowed and his finger tightened on the trigger.

"No." It was Nahimana. "That’s what he wants you to do." Trigger finger relaxed, Bonhomme grinned and laid the shotgun across his broad shoulder. "You know, kid, I think you’re right."

Van Dusen shrugged. "I have escaped from much more complex and dangerous entrapments than this."

"He’s afraid," Nahimana said with wonder.

The thing outside – the Swamper --slammed wetly into the front door of the cabin and the wood splintered.

"Yeah, well, so am I," the trapper replied.

The entire structure began to tremble. Bonhomme knew that the shack had been built upon short stilts to accommodate the crest and fall of the river. The creature was rocking the old shack back and forth on the pilings, attempting to topple it.

"Everyone hang on!" Van Dusen shouted merrily.

Bonhomme was nearly to Nahimana when a shriek of wind ripped the roof away. Swirling thunderheads shrouded a blood red moon and Bonhomme could see a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye in the inky darkness. Van Dusen had freed himself from the tape and rope, and was rushing the trapper, shoulder first.

The shotgun somersaulted into the screaming wind as Van Dusen plowed into Bonhomme, knocking him from his feet. The four walls of Trapper Nelson’s shack – which had withstood numerous hurricanes and tropical storms for nearly a hundred years – fell into the river and underbrush. The hardwood floor, covering the railroad ties that supported the building, remained.

Bonhomme frantically reached for the shotgun, but found only debris. He searched the darkness for Nahimana, but she was nowhere to be found.

"Looking for this, trapper?" Van Dusen asked mockingly. Van Dusen had the Winchester pointed at Bonhomme’s head, point blank. "I thought about tying you up and torturing you to death slowly after I finish up with little Nahimana, but you are far to dangerous for that." Might kick his legs out from under him, Bonhomme thought clinically, but he’d still get the killshot off.

"After I’d done with Nahimana, I think I shall pay your lovely wife – what was it, Miakoda? – a little visit. A bit long in the tooth for me, perhaps, but I think she might prove – interesting." Van Dusen’s finger tightened on the trigger as he smiled at Bonhomme in triumph. "The timeless convergence of good and evil, trapper? I think not. Merely proof positive of the implacable laws of survival of the fittest." That was when Bonhomme saw it.

The storm clouds abruptly cleared and the enormous scarlet moon briefly illuminated the swamp. A huge black, greasy oil slick – with giant serrated triangular teeth – rose up from the swamp behind Van Dusen. The hide was obsidian, smooth, and it encased the shape of an enormous writhing eel. The eyes were curved slits, even more unfathomable than the ebony skin. The thing – the Swamper – moved faster than the eye could follow, and abruptly Van Dusen was gone – except for his thrashing legs protruding from the black thing’s maw. Bonhomme thought he heard the muted sound of the Winchester firing off a round

– inside the Swamper’s mouth.

Somewhere, Bonhomme thought he heard Nahimana whimper, and he tried in vain to go to her. A fat bolt of white-hot lightning split the night sky, shattering a centuries old cypress tree nearby. The last sights burned into Bonhomme’s mind were the man-sized lump in the Swamper’s gullet as it seemed to swallow Van Dusen, the moon overhead appearing to smile down on the scene, Nahimana running toward the beast, and finally, the ragged cypress limb hurdling toward him.

A sensation of light and the gentle lapping of the waters of the Loxahatchee on a nearby bank awoke Bonhomme. Other than a painful lump in the middle of his forehead, and feeling like he’d gone ten rounds with a young prizefighter, Bonhomme was uninjured. Beyond the flooring and foundation, the remains of Trapper Nelson’s shack were nowhere to be seen, reclaimed by the river, swamp and forest. He sat up, head spinning, vision blurred.

To the west of where the cabin formerly stood, the swamp had been trampled in an area as wide as a city bus, leading into the forest as far as the eye could see. At the edge of the new pathway, the cypress ruined by the solitary lightning strike. Otherwise, the ancient swamp seemed undisturbed. At the point where the entrance of the cabin once was, Bonhomme’s jon boat, gear bag and Winchester shotgun were neatly lined up. In the old days, it was the highest compliment paid to an enemy warrior –

returning his gear to him, even in defeat. Bonhomme stood shakily.

Nestled in a shrub near the riverbank, Bonhomme glimpsed a flash of colorful clothing – Nahimana’s sun dress. He hobbled to the edge of the gently swirling Loxahatchee.

It was Nahimana’s sun dress. As well as her raven hair and her flesh – looking like the shed skin of an immense snake.

Bonhomme gazed skyward with moist eyes. Low between the towering pines to the west, a pale ghost of the moon smiled back at him dolefully. He thought of his wife Miakoda – whose name meant ‘Power of the Moon’ --patiently waiting for him in their home westward on the Big Lake. As he climbed gingerly into the jon boat, he spied one of Van Dusen’s ragged, bloody shoes along the white sandy riverbank. As intelligent as Van Dusen had been, he had gotten the translation of Nahimana’s name incorrect.

Translated from the original Calusa, it meant, "Mystic Woman Who Transforms." Bonhomme swallowed hard and began the long journey home.

***