NaNoWriMo: Day 5

As the sun set on the St. Johns River it cast evil shadows of the cypress trees over the whole of Herlin Hall. The Spanish moss that hung from their branches swayed in the light breeze that blew in from the river as Buckley walked out onto the dock and looked to the north. He knew that he was in for a long night. The gator would come soon. He waited on the dock for the last rays of light to disappear into the water before he went into the house and turned on all the lights.

When he had been touring the property with Rhodes and Leland this afternoon he had been less interested in what they were viewing and more interested in what they said and how they acted. He wanted to know what kind of men they were. It didn’t take him long to realize that they were loud, proud, boastful men and he had a feeling that they were the cause of their own undoing with the gator.

Once all the lights were on, he walked over to the record player and selected a well worn album from its sleeve: Alabama. He placed the disk on the turntable and as it began to spin put the needle on it. The first song began to blast through the speakers.

Oh play me some mountain music, like grandma and grandpa used to play . . .

Then he sat on the stairs and waited. The door to the Florida room was still damaged from the previous night so if the gator was so inclined, it would have not problem getting into the house once again.

It wasn’t long before the guest of honor arrived.

Pushing the broken door open with its snout, the gator padded into the room like he owned the place. Buckley watched it from the stairs as it surveyed the room. Suddenly, the two made eye contact and the game was on. Buckley leapt to his feet and the gator opened its mouth and let out a hiss. With only a hook and a buck knife, Buckley crouched as though he were going to pounce on the beast. The creature whipped its tail in displeasure as Buckley made his way close and closer to it. Then, in one deft move, Buckley straddled the beast’s back, snapped a rubber band around its powerful jaws and stabbed it in the throat with the buck knife. It was a lucky break for Buckley that the gator’s mouth was closed at that moment, for if they had been open he might not have walked away from the fight.

The gator began to bleed out of the floor of Herlin Hall and as it did, Buckley said a prayer of it’s dying body, that it might die swiftly and painlessly. He hadn’t wanted to kill it, but it was a man killer and there was no other choice. Killing it in this way was the best way to preserve the meat and the skin for food and other uses.

When Buckley was certain that the gator was dead, he called Rhodes and Leland to come up to Herlin Hall and look at the body.

“How’d did you manage it?” Rhodes asked.

“I just lured him in the same way y’all did, with light and noise. I figured that he wasn’t too happy about the house being so close to the water and he was coming up here causing trouble in protest of  y’all disturbing his peace.”

“Huh. How’d you figure that out?”

“Well, there was no evidence of a gator up at your mama’s and if he was looking for food he would have gone up there as well. And you said that he made all of his appearances when the house was full of people. I figured he was riled by the parties.”

Leland kicked the gator’s corpse. “Well, now what? How are we going to get this thing out of here?”

“Oh, I was going to dress it.” Buckley said. And with that he began to drag the body of the gator toward the deck. The gator, mind you, must have weighed 800 pounds. “Do you have a wench?” he asked.

“There’s one down at the farm.” Leland responded. “I reckon I’ll go get it.”

“Thanks.”

With Leland gone, Buckley and Rhodes were left alone together in the dark with the body of the gator. The night was cold and dark and there was nothing much to talk about so naturally, Rhodes asked Buckley about his father.

“So what does your daddy do nowadays?”

“He died a while ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I don’t think about it that much.”

“How’s your mama?”

“You knew my mama?”

“No, but it seemed like a nice thing to ask.”

Buckley laughed. “I see. Well, she’s alright. She gets by. She’s made a hobby of going to estate sales. I worry about her sometimes though. I don’t know where she’s going to put all the stuff she brings home.”

“A pack rat?”

“Something like that.”

By this time Leland was back with the wench and they were able to string up and dress the gator before all the meat went bad.

            Once the gator had been killed and the meat had been tended to they thought all that was left was to put Buckley up for the night, pay him for his services and send him on his merry way. They had no idea how wrong they were.