Nancy Morse - Panther On The Prowl

“You mean that beat-up little strip over in the next county? I didn’t know anyone even knew about it.”

“The night watchman at the university told me about it. He’s an old Seminole with family on the reservation. He said to call him when I arrived and he would have one of his relatives pick me up and take me around. He told me I could stay with them on the reservation while I was doing research.”

The hairs at the back of John’s neck were rising. “I can tell you some of the legends, sure.”

“That would be great. I can’t thank you enough. And once I’m a little stronger, do you think you could take me around so that I can speak to some of the people? No offense, but you don’t sound very old, and we both know that it’s the elders who carry on the oral tradition of any indigenous people.”

Misinterpreting the taut silence that greeted her request, she said, “I said before that I could pay you. Not all of my money was buried beneath the wreckage.”

“No.”

“Well then, perhaps I could make a contribution to the Everglades Research Center.”

“I mean no, I won’t take you around.”

He knew now what more she could want from him, and it was far worse than he could have imagined. Suddenly she was so much more than merely a beautiful, vulnerable woman who had tumbled into his life. She was dangerous.

If she delved deeply enough, she might uncover the legend about the panther, a tale his people fiercely guarded from outsiders because of its frightening implications. But worse was the possibility that she might discover the truth about him and loathe him for it. He feared that she might see something of him in the legend, as he had come to see himself. That the same proud arrogance that sealed the ancient warrior’s fate had doomed him, as well. That the warrior’s curse to wander the earth as only part human was no worse than his own fate to live his life only partly alive.

He fought to keep his voice level so that she would not know the turmoil into which her unwitting request had plunged him. “The swamp is no place for someone who can’t see.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to help me.”

Damn it. Did she have to sound so unprotected? So in need of his help? “We’ll see,” he said roughly. “Maybe when you’re feeling better.” His mind worked rapidly to figure a way out of this mess he was suddenly in. Who knew how long it would be before she was strong enough to journey anywhere? Hopefully, by then she’d be so eager to get out of this place that she would abandon her crazy notion. If not, maybe the best thing for him to do would be to take her to the places she wanted to go. In that way he could steer her away from getting too close to the truth.

There were no clocks in the cabin, but John didn’t need one to know what time it was. He had merely to glance at the window and the shifting light beyond. He’d been so preoccupied with Rennie that he hadn’t noticed it was getting dark. The time of day he dreaded was approaching. It was time to brew more tea so that Rennie would sleep peacefully and not notice his absence…or ask more of him than was safe for him to give.

It was a place that wasn’t on the way to anywhere else. You had to go there on purpose, not that anyone ever did.

John used his paddle to press the nose of the canoe against a wall of saw grass, but the stalks were higher than John and Rennie’s heads and wouldn’t budge. Eventually, his strength prevailed and the walls parted, and little “saws” scratched at their arms as they moved through it.

Rennie knew now why John had insisted she wear his long-sleeved denim shirt. She’d been hesitant at first to accept it, when that wild and earthy scent of his had wafted up from the supple fabric to fill her head with undisciplined thoughts. She was glad to be wearing it, though, for not only did it offer her arms protection from the nasty little blades that pricked the soft cotton, but the scent that she had found disturbingly intoxicating now filled her with a feeling of safekeeping, as if nothing could harm her in his presence.

“This must be how Moses got his start in the bulrushes.”

His deep voice called her away from the thought of him and the warm surge of feelings it elicited.

Finally, the canoe broke free of the tangle. The fragrance of blossoms and earth and crystal-clear air filled Rennie’s nostrils. “John.”

He knew by the way she said his name what she was asking. “There’s a jungle of cypresses rising from the swamp,” he said, describing the scenery for her. “They’re glowing coppery with morning sunshine and their limbs are laced with Spanish moss and red and white orchids.”

“This place must be Paradise,” she said.

“Some might say that. But you should know that this paradise is dying.”

She turned her sightless eyes toward him and tilted her head questioningly.

“Years of development and agricultural poisons are killing it inch by inch,” he said. “Thanks to a plan dating back to the fifties to dry up the swamp, only about half of the original Everglades remain.” There was an undisguised anguish in his voice, as if he were talking about a good friend that he was watching slowly die. But for now it was still there and teeming with life.

Rennie cocked her head to the side and listened. There was a little plop in the water. “What’s that?”

“A yellow-bellied turtle just dived off the rock it was sunning itself on,” he answered.

A screech from above drew her attention skyward. “And that?”

“An osprey. Clinging to the edge of an elaborate nest. She doesn’t appreciate our company.”

She turned her head toward a rustling that came from a crook in the forest.

“Baby alligators,” he said, “fighting their way across the water lettuce.”

The calm green place that John described offered its heart to Rennie’s troubled soul. She couldn’t see the towering palms, the live oaks and sweet gums, the moss-draped cypresses or the gumbo limbos that he said were there, but she felt them as keenly as if she could. Out here life didn’t seem so terribly complicated at all. She leaned back in the canoe, savoring the sun’s warmth on her cheeks and listening to John Panther’s deep-throated voice describe the sounds and sights that were all around them.

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