All that Remains

(I wrote on the prompt for the Florida Weekly–the picture of the cypress swamp)

“Damn.”

Penny pounded the steering wheel of her swamp buggy, disgusted that the 40-inch-diameter balloon tires were mired in muck. After reliably churning the two-ton, converted Jeep through a mile of liquid land, the rig had growled to a halt. She was stuck in the swamp.

Swamps hold myriad mysteries—and probably as many bodies. Penny was about to add to that number, if only she could get the buggy going.

The woman ran thick fingers through hair that resembled burnished Spanish moss. Like her coppery skin and eyes, it matched her name. Or used to, anyway.

 “What do I do now, Nudie?” She talked to her companion of 30 years as if he would answer. She was being held hostage by cypress knees that looked like the knuckles of nearly-submerged bodies.

Bodies. What was she going to do with Nudie and Pappy? They sat alongside her. She’d never make it to Pappy’s old campsite now that her buggy was dead. Her buggy. She threw back her head and laughed.

“So it’s my buggy now, eh, Nudie?” He, Pappy, and their friend Joe had cobbled this vehicle from two old Jeeps, miscellaneous tractor parts, and lots of solder. They kept it at Joe’s place on Middle Creek. That’s where she’d left her car.

 But Joe was no help now. A quick glance at her phone confirmed what Penny already knew. No signal. He’d help her tomorrow or next week. But today she had to bury their bodies. Today was their birthdays.

Born 50 years apart, Nudie and his grandfather stuck to each other like sweat. They especially loved fishing. Only a few months ago, as Penny helped them clean a day’s catch, the old man had grabbed the young one’s arm.

“Promise me, boy, you’ll bury me at the old campsite.” He was referring to a shell mound down in Big Cypress. Nudie nodded, then turned to Penny.

“Promise me, Pen, you’ll bury me there, too.”

“You?” Penny’s deep laugh culminated with a high squeak. Brawny, bawdy, and held together with screws and plates, Nudie seemed indestructible. “You’re gonna outlive everyone.”

But the two men died a few weeks later when Nudie’s skiff capsized in a squall. Maw claimed the bodies of her father and son, had their remains cremated, and buried them in the family cemetery. Penny waited for a soaking rain and a moonlit night to dig up the urns and transfer the ashes into pouches that would be easier to conceal and transport. Then she waited until today to honor her promise.

Had the grave-digger done wrong? Maybe, but evidence disappears where mud is abundant, earth is scarce, and motive looks like a snowy egret in breeding plumage, its delicate feathers wisping against the dark canvas of a cypress fen.

This bird was Pappy’s favorite. His family, 19th-century gladesmen, got rich trading feathers for fashion. Disavowing their wealth, Pappy retreated to his camp, where he sorrowed over the near decimation of herons, flamingoes, and roseate spoonbills.

Penny had to get him and Nudie back there. Fearing the wrath of the dead more than the perils of gators, pythons, and panthers, she contemplated her options.

Donning the waders she kept in the cargo hold, she could walk to the camp. But getting there, back, and then to Joe’s was a three-hour hike. She was a prudent woman and that was not a prudent plan.

She could walk to Joe’s. But what about the men’s remains? Trek them out? No. She’d also have to carry water, gear, and a gun, only to come back. Leaving them here was disrespectful.

The whomp-whomp-whomp of heron wings startled her. A breeding egret landed a few feet away and looked at Penny, reminding her that swamps abide no boundaries.

Penny nodded. She yanked on the waders, cradled the men, and climbed out of the buggy. She stood across from the egret, who watched her unfold a sheet of parchment.

“A time to be born and a time to die,” she read from Ecclesiastes. “A time  to search, a time to keep, … a time to laugh, a time to weep.”

Then she touched the edge of her eulogy with a pocket lighter. It disappeared into caramel waters flecked with sun, her tears, and the ashes of the men she loved. All that remained was serenity. It smelled like home.

That’s where she headed. Maw was fixing a birthday dinner for her men. Tomorrow, Penny would deal with the buggy.