Page 19

Mudflats

Calvin

M y legs are sinking into the mud. Not sinking—disappearing.

The bamboo next to me is thick, so I reach for a stem, but the damn thing snaps off in my hand.

I reach with my other hand, but of fucking course that hand’s got the machete and it goes tumbling out.

It lands point-down in the mud six feet away, vibrating like some damn sword in the stone that only the righteous can pull out.

I’m certainly fucked. The more I try to pull my left leg out, the more I sink. It’s down to my knee. Like thick paste. My right isn’t down that far yet. I can still see the laces of my shoes.

Rockwell’s thundering through the jungle.

“Stop!” I yell. “Don’t come any closer.”

“What is it, a goat?” Rockwell’s voice shakes.

“A goat? Fuck no. It’s some sort of soul-sucking mud. Don’t come any—” I close my eyes because the damn fool is standing right behind me.

“It’s mud.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Damn. I can’t pull my foot up,” Rockwell says. But there’s hard ground right behind him.

“That would be why I told you not to come any fucking closer.”

“Right. Okay. It’s like a mud bath the dinosaurs would get stuck in.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know all the fossils they’ve found of dinosaurs being trapped in mud?”

I want to stab him and every wannabe-paleontologist in their damn dinosaur-obsessed heart. An archeologist trapped in fucking mud doesn’t want to hear about shitty cold-blooded reptiles.

I look back at him, and he’s almost smiling. No, it’s just him. I want to stab him. But my machete is having its own King Arthur moment right now. I narrow my eyes at him. Because moving will only sink me deeper into this muck.

“Right. Well, cut some bamboo and use it to disperse our weight and inch out of here.”

I point like a hunting dog at the flap of the blade that is slowly sinking down.

“Damn. Okay, can you reach that cluster of bamboo?”

I hold up the snapped-off bit in my hand to show him. Because I’m gripping it. At least it’s keeping me from forming a fist and risking sinking even deeper.

“Right, can you grab a bunch at one time?”

“No. And shut the hell up so I can think.” There’s a thud and then a splatter behind me. I crane my neck around. Rockwell’s lying on the ground on his back. His arms are splayed out at his side. He’s moving like a snow angel, swimming backwards a millimeter at a time.

“You need to drop and disperse your mammoth size, or you’re going to end up like, well, a mammoth.

” Rockwell’s close enough to the edge of the dry jungle that he rolls to his side and shimmies up into the dried leaves.

He spits mud out of his mouth when he stands and opens his pack.

“You’re farther in. But lie down and I’ll help pull you out. ”

“We need to get the machete.” My eyes are focused on it. It hasn’t sunk any deeper, so at least there’s that.

“We need to get you the fuck out of there. You’re smart enough to know that. Let the damn blade go.” His voice smacks me.

We’re fucked without the machete. We’ve got a saw, but how long will we last without the blade? We’ve got my utility tool, and Zane has his knife from the Rock Candy too. But without the machete?

I brought as much as I thought we could to camp. Did I think that pirates were going to steal the ship? Fuck no. I thought a storm was going to push her sideways onto the reef and crack her in half, filling her with water. So hell, I brought as much to the shore as I thought we could.

I’m inching down deeper into the mud. I’ve known I need to disperse my weight from the second I got in here. But which way? I lie down, my head facing the machete. There are a few spears of bamboo growing around it.

“What the hell are you doing? You can’t move that way.”

“I’ve got to get the machete.”

“For the love of... You are the most infuriating person on the damn planet.”

“So I’ve been told.” I’m staring up at the darkening sky. I reach over my head and grab a rotten stump. It breaks apart in my hand, but it does give me enough leverage so I can inch forward to the machete.

“You blockhead, turn the fuck around.” Rockwell’s voice is moving. It’s less at my feet and more to the side now.

Another reach and pull of mud, another fraction of an inch. But my toes are free. And I fucking still have my shoes.

“Would you just listen to me for a change? Can you listen to anyone?”

“That machete is our life. We won’t make it another rainy season here without it.”

“We can go through the huts. They must have had one. The big house that Zane mentioned he saw when you went for water.”

“We’re not going in there.”

“We are, if it means getting a damn machete. Or something else we might need.”

In my peripheral, I find another medium-sized stump. This one holds, and I move three feet.

“Fucking hell, you’re going to actually do it. You’ve got another three feet, and you should be able to reach it with your left hand. I’m making my way over there. There’s a big clump of bamboo. I should be able to get close enough to throw you a vine through the trunks,” Easton says.

“Bamboo doesn’t have a trunk. They’re all stems.”

“Now you want to get into fucking semantics. Just get the fuck out of there, Green.”

“I’m working on it.” I turn my head, looking for another tree to grab, and get a splatter of mud in my left eye. I get a strong grip on another stump and drag myself another foot.

“Here, I’ll toss you a vine. Hold your right hand up.”

I put it up, and there’s a smack of mud near my head.

“Too short. Hold on.”

That continues two or three times, and then I catch the fucking vine.

The vines we picked are narrow and more suited to being bound into a rope.

I don’t have much hope that a single one is going to work.

But I wrap a length of it around my wrist because when I get closer to the machete, whatever hasn’t broken off could come in handy.

“Give me some more slack.” I hold on to the vine with both hands.

And fuck if he doesn’t move me two feet before it snaps.

But he’s also pulled me away from the blade.

I flutter, wiggling in the mud, getting myself close enough to throw the vine around the handle.

It takes more than a half dozen tries before I loop it and pull it close enough to bring it to my body.

“You want me to throw you more vine? I’ve got it doubled up this time.”

“Do it.”

This time he does it with no warning and it smacks me across my face.

“Fuck.” It stings, but it was more the shock of it.

“You good?” Rockwell asks as I wrap it around my wrists.

“Yeah.”

He pulls me directly into a clump of bamboo that smacks the top of my head. “That’s as far as I can get.”

“I’m good.” I wiggle between the bamboo, holding on to the machete with one hand and pulling myself along.

When the ground feels firmer, I test planting my feet down.

This feels different. There’s mud between my toes.

I glance back out at my right shoe. “Here.” I hand the machete over my head to Rockwell.

“Got it.”

I pull off my one shoe and hand it to him. Holding on to the end of the doubled twine, I plunge back into the mud.

“What the fuck, Green?”

I repeat the whole damn thing. Only this time, the mud is stirred up and everything takes twice as long. It’s fucking horrible. Going out to get my shoe, there’s nothing to hold on to.

When he pulls me back up and I stand next to him, my mud-soaked shoe in hand, he’s livid.

“You could have told me my shoe fell off.”

He doesn’t stop walking. We take the long way around the bamboo, taking each step with care. Being barefoot, I do it doubly so. Rockwell hasn’t said anything since he tossed me the rope.

The more we walk, the angrier I get. “If you’d told me my shoe had fallen off, we could have saved an hour.”

“You are a complete ass.” Each word is its own threat.

I’ve been threatened before, by a lot scarier and bigger guys. “Yeah, so? You didn’t know that before.”

“I did. And I’m not gay or bi or bi-curious.”

I’m gobsmacked. I have no idea where the hell that came from. I look him up and down. My forehead’s furrowed. And I know I must look like my grandad after he fell into the pigpen, back when I was five. “Okay. What does it matter? I’m not either.”

“Exactly,” Rockwell says and stomps into the jungle, drying mud sloughing off his back.

Oh—it fucking dawns on me. The other night.

“Wait. Rockwell, Easton.” I take a muddy step, holding on to my shoes, and catch up to him.

“Hold up.” I grab his arm. “The other night, damn. That felt good. That doesn’t make you gay or bi.

It doesn’t make you not bi or gay either. You know what I mean?”

He glares at me.

“I’ll take that as a no.” I run my hand over my beard, sending a spray of mud to the ground. “We’re in this thing with Haley. It’s not something that any of us—well, besides Dante—have ever done before. And things get blurred, if that makes sense. I think of you as my brother.”

He cocks his head at me.

“My brother before he fucking betrayed me.”

Easton nods.

“I love Haley, but I’m never going to love any of you guys like I love her.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t...Fuck.

I mean, what is love? That kind of love.

I enjoy being around all of you. You all drive me fucking batty.

Some of you more than others. But I like all of you.

Even Dante. I wouldn’t be able to do this thing with Haley if I didn’t.

And I want to keep you all fucking safe.

Her, you, all of you—mentally and physically.

” I hold the machete up. “It’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you or the others about the Pomelo Beach.

The place haunts me, and I don’t want—I didn’t want—them to see it.

Not until I fixed it. But I can’t fix it now, not for them.

For the ones who lived here before us..

. I suppose I can’t fix it for them either.

But I can at least give them some respect. ”

“We’re not your responsibility.” Easton wipes his hands on the little bit of clean fabric on the front of his shirt.

“No, I take that back. We’re each other’s responsibility.

I want to keep everyone safe too. But I don’t have the same skill sets as you.

Although at least I fucking knew you’re supposed to lie down in quicksand—quick-mud. That’s cartoon lesson number one.”

“I knew I had to lie down. I was just deciding if we could make it without the machete or not.”

Rockwell’s eye twitches. Which isn’t good. Because he’s really not going to like the next thing I tell him.