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Wild River Adventure
By: Global Nomad
Chapter 2
We found the small dirt path indicated on the directions given to us by Dr. Cortez and turned my poor tired car down the rugged road. Not that you could really call it a road.
“Now keep going for about half an hour.” Ellie read off the paper
“Half an hour! That’s a long ways out.”
“It is isn’t it? And after this dirt road, there should be a house. That’s the office it says.”
“I sure hope they’ve got some good facilities after what we’re going through to get there.” I muttered to myself.
After an entire hour of excruciating pain in my bladder on that road before we found, not a house but a tailor.
“Oh for Pete’s sake!” I cried looking at the dump.
“Let’s go in and ask.” Ellie suggested as I shut off the engine. We got out and walked towards the trailer in the heat of the Florida sun. We walked up to the screen door and seeing nowhere clean to knock and no bell, I yelled.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
“Hold yer horses I’m a comin’!” a female voice called from inside. After a minute, this rather robust lady came and pushed at the screen door. She had red frizzy hair done up in a style that could only be described as a mullet cut.
“We had reservations with Thomas Bailey about a boat trip?” Ellie said showing her our receipt.
“Oh yes! I’m Marla Bailey, please come in. Pardon the mess but we weren’t expectin’ you till this evenin’.” She said. She seemed very friendly as she stepped back and pushed the door open wider for us to come in.
It was hard to pardon the mess when it was everywhere. It seemed like there was endless amounts of stuff piled into this small trailer.
“Usually I like my house clean but I went away for a day and left the boys in charge. I have managed to find my sofa though. Would you girls like anything to drink?”
“No thanks, but I would like to use the bathroom if I could?” I said.
“Of course you may. It’s right out back, help yerself.” She said smiling. Ellie stated she needed to go to and followed me out the door and back around the trailer. There was a makeshift fence and without warning a large dog leaped up almost over the fence and started barking wildly at us.
“Talk about Trailer park life huh? I try not to stereotype but this scene sure does make it hard doesn’t it?” Ellie commented as she clung to my shoulder.
“It does, this must be the bathroom.” I said looking at the outhouse in front of us. I daringly decided to go in first.
It wasn’t too bad though. It had been cleaned and they must have thrown lime or some sort of disinfectant down the hole cause it didn’t smell too bad either. I quick did my thing before letting Ellie go.
We headed back to the ‘house’ together and we saw a rather old pickup in front next to our car. We went back inside to find another girl in the house about the age of nineteen or so.
“Pat these are the two young ladies going’ down the river with yer daddy.” Marla introduced us. “This here is my daughter Patricia. And one of my boys is in the house too somewhere. John!” she called.
“Yeah?” a man answered. He came from down a small hallway wearing a tank top and shorts that were dirty and covered in various spots of paint and oil. His hair, which looked like it was once blonde, was made into a heedful of black and grey dreadlocks tied back from his face in the back.
“John is my eldest, he’ll be going down the river along with his two brothers and a friend of my husband’s. John be polite and say hello.” Mrs. Bailey said with a nod of her head.
John’s face was hardened and it sure seemed that with his looks he should be so Rastafarian guy from New York rather than way out here.
“My name is Kerri Fiscer and this is my friend Elizabeth.” I introduced us and put out my hand. He took my hand in his and shook it firmly. Then he reached over and did the same for Ellie.
“Nice to meet you ladies. If you don’t mind though I have some work to do before our trip.” His voice was less rugged than his mother and sister’s and I wondered if perhaps he’d gone to school somewhere else.
“No problem, go right ahead.” I said and he disappeared out of the trailer.
“Don’t mind old John, he’s always like that.” Pat told us. I smiled at her and noticed that he belly was a bit swollen, probably with a baby. Other than her stomach, she was quite pretty with her mother’s red hair and a nice complexion.
“My husband just called.” Marla announced. “He’s over at a friend’s house pickin’ up some supplies and he’ll be back by dinner time. Meanwhile is there anything I can get you two? I’m afraid space is limited so you’ll be sharing a bed in Pat’s room if that’s all right with you.”
“It’s fine.” We assured her.
“Good, Pat why don’t you show them around a bit.” Marla suggested. Pat said ‘Okay’ and then took us through the back of the trailer.
“This here is my brothers’ room, they’re a pile of pigs so we don’t want to go in there. And this is my parents’ room over here, my mom’s a very neat person so her room is always clean. And this is the bath room. We don’t have a sewer pump or anything so it’s only for washing. And this here is my room, come on in.”
She opened the door to a small bedroom that looked quite orderly with a twin sized bed on one side and some drawers on the other. There were posters on the wall to cover the dirty colored walls and a small lamp on top of the dresser.
“You two can make yerselves at home. If you need any help bringin’ in yer stuff just let me know.”
“Thank you Patricia we appreciate your help.” I said to her.
“Oh it’s no problem at all. Other than my mom, I don’t get to see many other females around here. There’s the Matley sisters but they don’t talk to me much, they’d rather spend time with my brother Bailey.”
“Isn’t you last name Bailey?” Ellie wondered.
“Yeah, it’s was Pa’s idea to name him Bailey Bailey. Then there’s Mark my younger brother, he’s not named after anybody.”
There was a moment of silence as she sat down on the bed. I wasn’t sure what to say to her so I kept my mouth shut and just looked around. It seemed that Ellie was in the same predicament.
Luckily, Marla came in to break it with the announcing of the rest of her brood. Ellie and I followed her out to the living room again to see her other two sons sitting on the sofa.
“Mark, Bailey, these are the two young ladies we gone told you about. This is Kerri and Elizabeth.”
“Nice t’ meet you Ladies.” The older of the two greeted putting his hand out. He was shirtless and there wasn’t anything wrong with that because his body looked too good not to look at. No wonder those Matley girls would rather spend time with him than Pat.
“Nice to meet you too.” I said before going to shake Mark’s hand. He was a bit more shy about the affair and just said ‘Hello’. He was probably about seventeen or so and not as built up as his elder brothers.
“Why don’t you two help the girls with their things?” Mrs. Bailey suggested.
“Would you like some help?” Bailey offered.
“That would be nice, but we don’t have very much.” I told him. I turned and went out the door towards my car and Ellie and The two younger Bailey boys followed behind.
I opened the trunk to reveal our three rather well sized bags. I took the bag with the testing supplies because there were some fragile bottles and tools inside while the two men took the other two for us.
“Would you like me to take that one too Miss Kerri?” Bailey asked.
“No I’ve got this one, thank you.” I assured him as we carried the bags towards the house. Once we’d gotten our things into Pat’s room we started moving things around so that we had only a few necessities in our two small bags.
“Here Ellie how about you keep tally of the wildlife and I’ll collect some samples.” I said handing her the forms to fill out.”
“Got it. What so you think we’ll see?”
“Who knows, but whatever it is you write it down and if you have time try and sketch a picture of it if anything seems abnormal.”
“Sure, sounds good to me. Say that Bailey is a nice drink of something isn’t he?”
“I’m not going to deny that one. But try and stay focused, you hear me? Last thing I need is a colleague who can’t keep her eyes off the tour guide and misses the Loch Ness monster.” I laughed remembering it had happened before when we’d had to do something similar to this.
“Don’t worry about me Kerri. You just do what you need to do and I’ll do what I need to do. Here’s the litmus paper and ‘scope.” She handed over a few more things and we were packed.
Not long after Pat came to tell us her father and Mr. Hezzy were here and dinner was ready.
“Why hello there!” Mr. Bailey greeted us when we came out. “You two ladies look like you stepped right out of a magazine or somethin’. Oh well you’ll get plenty dirty on this trip I assure you. This here if my friend Hezekiah. He and I know this river like the backs of our hands so don’t you ladies worry about a thing. Why don’t you come and sit down fer supper and I’ll tell you more while you eat.”
There were two chairs empty on either side of the table. I took the seat between Mrs. Bailey, who sat at one end, and Pat who was in the middle. Ellie placed her butt right in between John and Bailey.
“You won’t be seein’ such good food for a while ladies so dig in!” Thomas Bailey warned us.
The food was very tasty and Ellie and I were very grateful for the hot meal after nothing but fast food for the past two days while driving. After everyone had slowed down in their consumption of the food Thomas and Hezekiah explained more about the trip.
“You two are the first ever to actually go on this trip who isn’t from around here.” Thomas told us. “I will have to set some ground rules though to make sure nothin’ happens to you lovely ladies. First if we say duck just do it with no questions asked until it’s safe. Sometimes the birds will fly right at you if you don’t know they’re comin’ and can do some serious damage. Second, there are some weird things out there and if you ain’t careful, they can get you. One of you will have one of my boys with you in a boat so if they have something to say you’d best listen ‘cause they know this river better than you do. Now have either of you coned before?”
“Yes quite a bit.” I answered.
“Good, our boats are built a bit differently but the concepts are the same.”
“Don’t ferget about the squirrels.” Hezzy added.
“Oh yes. You see the fields that the river goes through have these broccoli plants. Now the squirrels live n hide in these plants and there’s somethin’ in these broccoli that makes these creatures gone crazy. Another friend of ours, we’ll be stopping for a rest on their property on this trip, he wasn’t payin’ too good attention and all a sudden there was this squirrel gnawin’ on his ear and birds peckin’ at his flesh. He got some mighty big wounds from that experience.”
“Oh my goodness! You mean this comes from the broccoli?” I was shocked.
“That ‘mong other things. There’re corn fields too, those two are their main crops.”
“Who’s they?” I wondered. Hezzy answered this time.
“Them dang produce people. They started out like nice wholesome farmers like the rest of us then WAM! Suddenly they were goin’ global and we were out o’ business and they controlled the water.”
“Do you know what there company is called?”
“I can’t read too good but my kids tells me they called themselves Sunshine Produce Incorporated.”
“You’re kidding! They ship everywhere!” Ellie gasped astounded.
“Well all I know is that around here we sure as hell ain’t buyin’ any o’ their goods, we know what’s in it, or at least what it does to ya.” Hezzy spat.
“Well we’d better get up early tomorrow so maybe you ladies had better get off to bed. And you three boys better do the same as well as soon as yer finished with yer chores.” Marla interrupted.
So Ellie and I said our goodnights and headed to Pat’s room were we went to bed.
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