God Builds A Cowboy

Larry turned on the spotlight to sweep the water ahead. That is when I saw it, or should I say them. The “EYES” were everywhere. Dozens, if not hundreds of eyes. It did not matter in which direction the light was shown, the reflective glint from their eyes came right back to our own. Talk about Crackers Last Stand. As we moved, slipping along the river channel, some of the eyes would turn away and we lost them in the dark. Many time the eyes would drop below the water line – us not knowing which way they then moved under the water. Usually, but not always, a gator when approached will drop to the swamps underwater floor waiting for the unsuspecting creature to come closer and then move in to strike. It has long been a rule of thumb that the distance from the tip of the gator’s nose to the eye would give an indication of its overall length. Every inch should by multiplied by a foot to equal the overall length of a gator. A nine-inch nose to eye space is a nine-foot gator. This was our guideline for our hunt that night. For us to consider even going after one, it had to be well over twelve inches from the ripple that the gator’s nose made in the water to the glint of the eye. Moving south on the St Johns River, we passed over a thousand alligators. Many were large and would have made a nice trophy, but for us, we were looking for the right one. Then, suddenly in the distance, we saw it! Was it one or perhaps two different gators? The spread was that wide. Many times, that night, we had moved in for the strike only to turn away at the last second; still searching for an even larger one. That was not to happen this time. As we moved closer and closer, it became apparent that this was one huge alligator – at least fourteen to fifteen inches nose to eye, maybe more. Larry quickly steadied himself on the bow of the airboat. Scooter throttled up as he hunkered down into the seat. Just as Joyce and I leaned forward to watch Larry stride and set the buoy line into the back of this monster from prehistoric time – Then it happened! Have you ever been in that small moment of time when several little things go on, each insignificant to the other? But when you add them all up and compress them into a couple of seconds huge things go terribly wrong.