“Better have Bodo do it. I was following Coli the whole time.”
“Come on. I’ll bring you. Bryn, you can get our bed ready.” He winked at me.
“Try beds. Plural,” I said.
Bodo pouted for a second before reverting back to his default Bodo look. “Come on, Peter. I will show you. Bring your clean clothes.”
They disappeared a minute later, and I got to work making a bed of sorts. I took the blanket that had glass pieces in it and worked on picking them out, putting the shards in a small pile on the top shelf of the pantry. It was relatively easy work since they were all in a neat line and big enough to see.
Once the blanket was cleaned up, I opened it and laid it down on the floor of the second hut. I figured one hut should be for living in and one for sleeping in. I went to my backpack to get my mosquito spray out. I still had almost an entire bottle of it, using it only in emergencies. Right now felt like one of those times, since I had so much skin showing. The cool spray was a relief on my hot, itchy skin. At least five bites had appeared in the last fifteen minutes, and it was the middle of the day. The evening was going to be awful. I wondered if the indians had a homemade brew of some sort that kept them away, because at this rate, my bottle would be empty in a few weeks at the most.
Bodo came back alone a few minutes later.
“Peter all set?” I asked.
“Yeah. He’s taking a shower. I wanted to give him some privacy.”
“Good thinking.”
“Is dat our bed?” he asked, gesturing to the blanket on the floor.
“It’s part of it.” I pulled my sleeping bag from my backpack. “Here’s the other part of mine.”
“Oh. I don’t haff one of dose.”
“Maybe Peter will share,” I said, unrolling mine and putting it down on the blanket.
“I’d radder not,” he said, coming over and laying on the edge of the blanket, next to my sleeping bag. “You sleep in the middle. Udderwise, I’m going to get too hot.”
“Fine.” I tended to get cold in the middle of the night, so I didn’t mind having two warm bodies on either side of me.
Bodo folded his arms behind his head. “So, what do you think of these people here … dese indians?”
I came over and laid down on top of my sleeping bag, bringing my mosquito repellant with me and pulling one of his arms out to spray it for him. He allowed me to manhandle him, putting each arm back when I was done. “I guess they’re okay. That girl Coli told me that she’s not Miccosukee. She’s Creek, like the girl at the shell shop. They’re cousins.”
“I’ll bet all of da indians around here are related in some way.”
“Probably. I wonder if it’s normal for Creek indians and Miccosukee indians to get together like that.”
“Dats what the Seminoles are,” said Bodo.
I put my spray off to the side and laid down on my side, turning to look at him. He was staring up at the ceiling. “What do you mean? Seminoles are Seminoles.”
“I did a study of Native Americans when I was doing my semester abroad here. I lived near da casino, so it was interesting to me. In Chermany, indians and cowboys are a big deal … very mysterious and exciting. I chose dis subject because I always wondered about it when I was a little boy.”
“So what’s the deal with the Seminoles then?”
“Dey are a tribe made up of other tribes. All of dem came together with an alliance. It made dem stronger and more powerful.”
“What tribes?”
“I don’t remember all of dem, but I do remember Miccosukee and Creek were includedt.”
“Coli hinted around, and so did Kowi, of some sort of issue going on with their tribes. Do you think this Seminole business is a problem for them right now?”
Bodo’s voice was sounding sleepy. “I don’t know. Maybe. Dey might have different ideass about who owns da Everglades now.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice drifting off to my own ears. “That makes sense.” I rolled onto my back, my eyes closing of their own accord.
The sound of Bodo’s light snoring put me to sleep. To my exhausted brain and newly washed and relaxed body, it almost seemed liked I was falling asleep by the beach, resting in the shade of a palm and listening to the sound of the waves. In and out they were going, a light breeze keeping the humidity and heat at bay, a soft bed of sand beneath me.
***
I woke sometime later, sitting up and wondering why there was so little light showing between the trees. I looked at my watch and was shocked to see that I had slept for several hours. Bodo was still snoring next to me.
I nudged him with my hand. “Get up.”
He turned in his sleep and reached his arm out, putting it across my lap.
I looked down at it for a second, liking the feel of its weight there and the warmth that quickly spread from it. I looked to see what Peter was up to, and for the first time, realized he wasn’t there. A quick scan of the hut we were in and the one next to us told me he wasn’t anywhere around.
I lifted Bodo’s arm off me and let it drop at his side awkwardly. “Bodo, get up. Peter’s not here.”
Bodo mumbled something in his sleep and turned on his back again. His mouth was hanging open, a snore coming out.
“Bodo!” I said more sharply, pushing on him with two hands. “Get up! Peter is missing.”
Bodo’s eyes opened three times in quick succession. He was blinking them over and over; I could tell he was trying to figure out where he was and who this person was that was pushing on him and telling him to leave his peaceful sleep.
“It’s me, Bryn. I know you’re tired, but I need you to help me find our roommate.”
Bodo sat up, scrubbing his face. “Oh, yeah. Sure. What’s da problem?”
I sighed. “Peter is missing. We’ve been sleeping for three hours and I don’t think he’s been back yet from his shower.” I stood up and could see there were no signs of his clothes on the floor, and I knew Peter well enough by now to know that he would never have showered and put dirty stuff back on.
Bodo got up and did a few jumping jacks.
“What are you doing?”
“I neet to get da blood flowing better. I’m too tired to think right now.”
I nodded. “Whatever works.” I went into the other hut and kicked the dirty clothes around. There was nothing there of Peter’s.
“Let’s go to the shower and see if he’s maybe lost over there.”
“Follow me,” said Bodo, taking the lead.
We arrived at the shower and I was not happy with what I saw there. Peter’s dirty clothes were sitting in a pile, soaked from the shower, left there as if discarded.
“Peter would never leave his clothes like this,” I said, picking up his cammo shirt and then letting it drop.
“I agree. Something is wrong here.”
I looked at the surrounding trees. “Do you think he wandered off? Maybe he’s going to the bathroom somewhere.”
“We can sit and wait for a while. But I still don’t think he wouldt just leave his clothes like dat on the ground. It’s not like him to be making a mess.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Someone had taken him, I just knew it. “Who did this?” I asked, not expecting an answer, really.
“Let’s go findt those indians and ask dem.”
“Do you think they did it?”
“No, do you?”
“No. It seems weird that they’d offer us a place to live and then kidnap one of us.”
“Exactly. So it’s someone else, but probably someone dey know. Dey sneak aroundt in dese trees and dis swamp all da time. Dey must know everyone who iss here.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go back to the hut and see if we can figure out how to get in touch with them.” I was kicking myself that I hadn’t thought to ask them where they actually lived.
We went back and roamed around the area immediately surrounding our huts. I gave up finding clues of their whereabouts and just yelled instead. Bodo looked at me but didn’t tell me to stop.
“Hey! Kowi! Coli! Someone! Where are you?!”
After a few long and stressful minutes of no response, Bodo lifted his fingers up to his mouth. “You might want to cover your earss,” he said, just before taking in a big breath.
I covered them just in time, but it still wasn’t enough to totally block out the sound waves.
When he was done I pulled my hands away. “Holy crap, Bodo. Are you full of some serious hot air or what?”
He smiled. “I’m good at da football games, belief me.”
Yokci came walking up from behind some trees. “You called?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. We didn’t know where to find you.”
“What’s so urgent you have to let every person within three miles know that you’re here?”
I ignored his scolding tone. “Peter’s missing. We need your help finding him.”
Yokci frowned. “What do you mean, he’s missing?”
“I mean, he’s not here. He went to take a shower and disappeared … never came back.”
“Are you sure he isn’t just taking a break?”
“For three hours?”
Yokci shrugged. “I don’t know him. It’s possible.”
“Not Peter. And he left his clothes in a pile at the shower. He’d never do that.”
“How do you know?”
I gestured angrily towards our pantry. “Hello? He’s totally anal about organizing things. Look!”
Yokci scanned the canned goods and other items, all neatly lined up and evenly spaced on the shelves. The labels all pointed in the exact same direction and it looked as if he’d used some sort of spacer to make sure that each can was separated from the one next to it by the exact same distance.
“Wow. It’s even alphabetized.”
“See? So are you going to help us find him or what?”
“Yeah. We’d better. It’s getting late.”
He stepped outside the hut and let out his bird whistle call. I tried to figure out how he was doing it, but all he was using was his tongue and teeth. I seriously had to figure out how to do that.
I heard a soft whistling sound and turned in time to catch Bodo trying to imitate it. He stopped when he saw me watching and smiled self-consciously.
A few more bodies came out of the trees, Kowi and Coli among them.
“What’s up?” asked Kowi, striding towards us.
“Their friend is missing,” said Yokci. “I’m thinking Creek.”
Coli’s bottom jaw stuck out in anger. “You always think that, Yokci.”
“Shut up, Coli,” he said, not even looking at her.
“Both of you, shut up,” said Kowi, turning to face me. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Three hours ago, when he went to take a shower.” The look on all their faces and their body language was screaming out to the world. There was some messed up shit going on around here. “What the hell is this all about, Kowi? Did some Creek indians take him?”
Kowi sighed heavily. “It’s possible.”
Yokci snorted. “More like probable.”
Coli leaped forward and shoved him. He fell back a couple spaces and moved quickly to regain his footing, acting like he was going to go after her. Coli stood there, her hands in fists at her side, her jaw thrust out. “Go ahead, Yokci!”
I almost expected her to say make my day next, but Kowi got in the middle of them and stopped it from going any further.
“Enough!” he shouted. “This is not the time or the place. Coli, go get the others. Yokci, go start tracking him from the shower area.”
They both shot each other a death glare and then moved on to obey his orders.