Chapter 9

Bri

As the sun rose golden beyond the thick canopy of Spanish moss-laden cypress, the nocturnal creatures laid down to rest. I spent that day pushing the small boat around fallen logs and trees through thick patches of marsh grass, lilies, and duckweed in the shallows and paddling through deeper channels. The familiar sounds of my bustling home in The Big Easy were gone now as the buzzing of insects and the drone of cicadas filled my ears, the occasional calls of birds sounding off in the distance. Telltale disturbances disrupted the murky expanse of the stagnant waters as gators, frogs, and slithering things moved within its depths.

It was impossible to know what exactly lay beneath the dark brown water below, it was void of light. The biggest gator ever recorded was a behemoth of 19 feet. That one must have inherited some prehistoric DNA. My father used to tell me stories about all his dramatic encounters as a boy growing up in Cajun country, and though I'm sure there were many exa