Alligator Sam's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Sam followed the second sound to another mire patch and pulled his rope from his left pocket. It came out in a wet knot, still caked with mud from the woman. He worked at the tangle with cold fingers. The knot only tightened. Out past the reeds, he heard a man cough water, then slap the surface twice. Sam had nothing ready to throw. He pulled the knife from his right pocket and cut the rope free of itself. Half of it fell useless into the water. He kept the dry end coiled in his fist and looked for anything else he could reach. A tree above him held a wide sheet of web between two branches. At the center sat a spider the size of his palm, yellow-legged, watching him. Sam had seen its work before. The silk held rainwater in beads and never soaked through. "I need line," Sam said. He held up the cut rope. "Long as you can spin. Now." The spider dropped on a thread and began to run between the branches. Silk pulled from its body in a bright, thin cord. Sam grabbed the end and wound it around his forearm as fast as the spider laid it down. In under a minute he had a length that reached across the mire. He tied the silk to the last dry foot of his old rope and threw the weighted end. It landed across the man's chest. The man grabbed it. Sam braced against a root and pulled. The silk held. The mud let go with a sucking noise, and the man came sliding out onto the bank, coughing, alive. Sam sat back and breathed. On his lap he found something the man had clutched the whole way in: a braided leather strap, thick as a wrist, tied to a soaked oilcloth vest with reflective stripes and buckles. A rescue vest. The man had been coming to help. "Others," the man said, when he could speak. "Three more. That way." He pointed into the fog. Sam looked at the vest in his hands. The buckles were dry inside. The strap was long enough to loop a chest. He stood, pulled the vest on over his overalls, and clipped the strap to the front. He asked the spider for more silk and coiled it into the vest's chest pocket where it would stay clean. Three more people. He started walking. His old rope he left in the mud. He would not need it again.