The Adventure of Peter Paddle

His family has arrived at a fishing camp. For the first time Peter, a juvenile manatee, has encountered humans sitting in a small boat moored to the dock. He is terrified by these creatures above the surface of the water. He should be. Man is the manatee’s only predator.

What if the thing jumped into the water and came after them?

The thought threw Peter into a complete frenzy and he was several yards upriver and hopelessly entangled in a raft of lavender hydrilla when Mother's indignant bellow stopped him short. Peter circled back, dragging a huge wreath of the bell shaped hyacinths and their round leaves along the surface as he went. Straightway Mother came steaming along with the entire family right on her tail. Peter immediately fell in beside her and traveled nose to flipper until the fish camp and the monstrosity in the boat were left behind in the afternoon haze.

At sunset they found themselves at something of a delta, a vast open area of marsh, mud flats, and great wide vistas where the clouds were mirrored in the flawless surface of the water. Only here and there were there the slightest ripples as small fish broke surface to feed on lighting mosquitoes. The rasping call of the herons carried far over the water as they rose in flight. There was the purring of the young bull gators and the din of the ceaseless pulsing cicada. Above the stars were waking up. The view from manatee level was monotonous, to the east a purple sky above the cattails, bulrush and sun baked sawgrasss. Far, far to the south thunderheads piled on the horizon, blazing golden against the sun. Beneath them purple shifts of lightning tickled the distant savanna.

There was just enough waning light to catch huge bursts of pink rolling up from the salt flats as startled flamingos took wing. Up and up they rose, hundreds and hundreds of birds, awkward until airborne with their long legs trailing. Flock after flock of birds, storks, roseate spoonbills, the small choppy flying Quaker parrots coursed across the sky, disturbed by the approach of something barely sensed, something miles away, just a vibration. By and by it became just barely audible, just enough to ruffle the air; a soft sound, not wind, not thunder. More like an insect, a droning ...and then it stopped.

The manatees settled in for night.

Peter liked nighttime. It was peaceful. It was just sort of hanging there, nose near surface, letting the big manatees worry about whatever might be lurking in the dark. Peter was in no hurry to find out. Days were one thing. Night was another.

When there was new moon one could see shapes. At half-moon one could make out quite a bit of detail, fish, rock, tree roots. Snakes. At full moon the water world was teeming with interesting stuff. Shrimp with pin points of orange light for eyes. Flounder and rays winging along the bottom. Once Peter met an octopus, a very blue, very antisocial octopus that squirted a nasty spurt of ink and zipped off into the rocks. Tonight there was no moon at all so Peter was slow to waken.

A noise again, closer but still the barest of a hum. His own breath, moving through those long lungs, lungs from his flippers to his tail to float Peter level in the water, was louder. Mother moved against him in her sleep and Maltida jostled him from the other side. Peter actually woke himself up with an ill-timed breath that became a sneeze. He moved forward out of the female squeeze and began to listen. He moved further from the girls, hearing it now. A hum...the low pitch of a mosquito but coming closer. Time to wake Mother who budged the senior bull who nudged his female who pushed her own calf until he woke with an impatient squeak.

The sound was louder and getting closer.

A bat jittered overhead and moved on.

A big gator thunked his romantic message, then growled off everyone but his ladyfriend. Their tryst would be short-lived at best.

As it was with the manatees nothing would do but that all the youngsters were wakened and the entire pod ushered into a more sheltered, deeper channel.

And by the time everyone was awake, alert and organized the sound was closer. The locusts and the crickets were still singing away but the bull gator had stopped thunking and the thunder rumbling on the horizon had become background noise.

Suddenly, the timbre of the sound, the pitch of it rose, and the animals sensed the source of it was moving rapidly and in a different direction.

Toward them. Approaching. And fast. Very fast.

Now the adults were becoming restless. A sense of unsquealed alarm settled over the pod and the young were gently pushed to the center of the formation. The largest males, several over thirteen feet long, moved slowly around their perimeter. Then the din stopped and complete silence hung over the delta for a few seconds. Everyone tensed.

Peter nearly bolted out of his flippers when several deafening explosive reports rang out. The youngsters were so shocked none of them uttered a single peep. Gunshots punctured the night again, three rounds of them, and then there was quiet. Nearby the huge gator sloshed audibly into the water and powered off deeper into the grasses.

Peter gathered his wits enough to squeeze out a strangled squeal. "Mama! What was that?"

Mother's answer could never adequately describe what the source of the entire racket was.

The animal just below manatee on the evolutionary ladder...humans!

Mother harbored no real fear of them, nor was there a concept of resentment or dislike in her nature. But this particular species of human was one which filled her with dread...this was the hunter.

The roar of the giant propeller blasted through the marsh, its wash flattening the palmetto and sawgrass behind it as the square, flat hull whipped around and started forward. The darkness above the manatees was shattered by a blinding gash of spotlight beam. It played over their backs and the adults forced the juveniles to submerge and swim away from the airboat at once. Peter heard something he could not identify... shouting...and watched as the lights traced circles on the surface. There, in the distance, the silhouette of a huge alligator, snout on surface, tail anchored, eyes protruding above the water. Red eyes that reflected all the way to where Peter and the others cowered.

In the next instant the airboat planed across the shallows and carved an arc around the big gator. The boat settled, rocking from side to side and one of the same monsters Peter had seen at the fish camp leaned out over the gunwale, struggling to drop a snare around the reptile's thick neck. The water boiled to life. After two or three tries the wire loop closed behind the gator's wide head and the animal thrashed its tail against the aluminum hull when the hunters yanked him into the boat. There was a series of thumps and bangs as they subdued the creature and wrapped duct tape around its mouth. Peter watched in horror as the boatmen tied the animal down, hissing and twitching. Then one of them climbed back into the raised pilot seat and the other two braced themselves. The big Grumman engine roared back to