When cold death stares you in the face, you can do amazing
things. Your body is capable of much more than you think. Sometimes it isn’t
enough, but sometimes it is, even when you’re handcuffed in deep water.
My heart rammed in my aching chest as my mind wavered from
lack of oxygen. I had been beneath the dark surface of the Alabama River for just
over a minute, but it felt much, much longer. I craned my neck toward the
surface and that was when I felt the large alligator’s powerful jaws close on
my lower right leg. As the maneater pulled me down, two words passed through my
mind like a curse: death roll.
With all the
strength I could muster, I kicked out at the gator as hard as I could. This
caused my filthy, khaki pants to tear just enough in the gator’s teeth that it
loosened its grip so that I could fight free. Without looking, I knew that the reptile’s
teeth had gashed my leg badly, and that blood was no doubt pouring from the jagged
wound.
I suddenly had the advantage
and did the only thing that came to mind. Drawing on a technique I’d learned in
the military, but had not performed in years and never outside of training, I
put my knees and ankles together and dolphin-kicked toward the surface. Several
strong kicks sent me crashing up into the night air.
The muddy, fishy-smelling
river air never smelled so sweet. My head swam, and my vision blurred as the
blood loss and exhaustion tried to take hold. I scanned around for the gator,
but I knew he’d been impossible to see at night in the water.
This quick look
around showed me that the base of the bluff that I’d fallen from was only about
20 yards away. Still clutching the dead policeman’s uniform pants and shirt to
my chest, I kicked furiously towards the towering bluff. Swimming this distance
took an exhausting eternity, and I expected the gator to launch a second attack
at any moment.
I finally reached
the bluff and to my surprise there was a shallow shelf of firm sand a few feet
below the water line. The current was strong, but I managed to stand there and
catch my breath. With one eye out for the gator, I quickly searched the uniform
shirt and pants for the handcuff keys.
I was just about to give
up and throw the entire bundle into the river when my fingers fell on a small
metal object in the breast pocket of the shirt. “Thank you, Jesus,” I said
under my breath. It was a small, silver ring holding two tiny keys.
A few seconds later,
I had the cuffs off and threw the uniform, handcuffs and keys as far as I could
out into the river. I stood there on the shelf of sand resting, rubbing my
wrists. I was close enough to downtown Claiborne to see the bridge, and the streetlights
across the river reminded me that most of the city’s citizens were still in
bed, oblivious to the deadly drama occurring in my little spot of the river.
What now?
No sooner had the
thought crossed my mind when I heard a boat motor. I turned to look upriver and
saw a white boat with a blue stripe down its side: Claiborne River Patrol. The
beam from a high-powered flashlight illuminated the spot where I stood at the
bottom of the bluff.
A few seconds later,
my ears were met with by a loud, rough voice from a bullhorn – “Claiborne
Police. Hands where I can see ‘em.”
(All rights reserved. This
story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are
products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely
coincidental.)
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