Lost in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby Page B

the north end. This build-up was future land where eventually shrubs and trees took root. The thickest tree growth was always at the north end where the soil had been collecting for the longest time. That’s where most of the birds were, with only a few at the narrow south end.
    â€œAndy, the largest trees are that direction.” I point to the left. “I remember from the talk last night. That end is older.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œBigger trees have fatter branches. Shouldn’t we go there?”
    Andy stops. So do I. The cloud moves on, and everything’s all silvery again.
    â€œWell?” I say after a minute of just standing there.
    â€œI’m thinking.”
    The closer we get to the trees and the birds, the worse the mosquitoes become. “While you’re thinking, I’m getting eaten alive here.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œOkay, what?”
    â€œWe’ll go to the north end.” He turns left and starts walking.
    â€œAndy.”
    â€œWhat now?”
    â€œShouldn’t we walk up the east side?”
    â€œWhat difference does it make?”
    â€œWell, look at it. The trees block out the moonlight on this side.”
    Andy turns and trudges back toward me. When he passes, I follow, but I feel pretty smart to have figured that out and wish, at least, he’d noticed. “I’m tired, too, you know,” I say to his back.
    We stumble toward the south end, paralleling the hammock. When the trees end altogether, we make an arc around the tip of the island and start splashing and stumbling up the east side.
    I’ve lost all sense of time, but it seems to take forever to reach the north end of the island. When we do get there, the grasses are also taller and denser. We have to cross through yards of tall saw grass to reach the trees. Andy goes first, holding his arms crossed in front of his face. I follow, but have taken only a few steps when I trip over a limb or a root, forget, and grab a clump of saw grass to break my fall. It feels like I’ve grabbed a fistful of needles. “Ouch.”
    â€œYou okay?” He’s reached the island.
    â€œYeah.” My hand is sticky with blood. I rinse it and wipe it on my shirt.
    â€œThere’s a huge strangler fig here.” I hear him pat its trunk.
    I come out of the grass, wind my way through some willows, and step up onto a tiny patch of dry land. Andy is in the tree, straddling a limb. He tilts his head back against the main trunk and closes his eyes. “Heaven,” he says.
    A large limb of the tree the fig strangled is broken off and lies like a nice wide ramp into the tree. I head for it, assuming that’s how Andy got up there.
    â€œNot that way,” he says a second after I grab a small limb to pull myself up. It breaks away. Instantly I feel stinging bites on my hands, then my arms and legs and down into my boots. I scream and brush at the ants pouring over me. I scream again as they reach my neck and face. I can feel one in my ear.
    â€œGet to the water!” He swings down from the tree.
    I fight my way back through the willows and the dense saw grass to the open water, where I plunge in and roll like a gator.
    Andy pulls me to my feet. “That limb was rotten.” He drags me away from where I’d gone into the water, brushing my back. He digs his hands into the mud and smears it over my arms, then more over my legs. “Keep moving,” he says. “They’ll try to use you to crawl back out of the water.”
    My skin is on fire. Welts rise on my arms and legs.
    We’ve frightened the closest birds, which have taken off and are circling, trying to land in a safer place.
    â€œI lost one of my boots.”
    â€œWe’ll find it in the morning.” He helps me rinse the mud off, then scoops me up, like Dad used to when I skinned a knee and cried, and carries me back to the hammock. At the base of the tree, he puts me down, then intertwines his