The Caloosahatchee River is a treasure for both residents and tourists alike and serves as an iconic landmark here in Southwest Florida. The river and its estuary are vital for a broad spectrum of the region’s flora and fauna. The Caloosahatchee’s once narrow winding oxbows have been dramatically altered throughout history by dredging and development, but nonetheless, News-Press story-teller Amy Bennett Williams tells us, the river can be a great place for a mother and her sons to spend an afternoon swimming, splashing and exploring.
We had an afternoon to kill: a long, clear early spring afternoon. That, and a back seat full of dogs.
So the destination was never really in question: the river. Where else to keep two boys and three rowdy young canines entertained?
There's a place we know, a vast, empty field leading down to the Caloosahatchee, where it's possible to bump over a rutted path toward the water, then tuck the car in behind some reeds next to an ancient citrus grove, long since abandoned.
After smearing the kids with sunscreen and hooking the car keys to one of my belt loops, we made our way down the steep limestone bank, the dogs leaping from boulder to boulder, surefooted as subtropical klipspringers.
They charged in; we followed moments later. Now, D.P. has long been taller than I am, but Nash was holding steady at about 4 feet, so depth was a safety consideration. But for some reason -- drought? the lake upstream? -- the river wasn't even knee deep.
It was like stepping into a bath -- a cognac-colored bath with rocks at the bottom. Between the rocks, smaller versions of what we'd scrambled down, pooled squishily silky mud. As soon as it was stirred by our feet, it mushroomed up in dusky clouds, so we had to feel our way along slowly, the dogs splashing ahead of us.
Suddenly, D.P. reached under the surface and pulled out a dented Bud can he'd almost stepped on. His eyes widened. There, on the weed-bearded aluminum, squirmed a leech, just oozing along like a tiny detached muscle out for a stroll. I touched it with a fingertip, and it reared up, a little liver-colored cobra. With a shudder, D.P. pitched the can way up onto the bank and we started off again.
For some reason, Nash was a bit cranky that afternoon. The fact that D.P. was randomly flinging flecks of algae at his little brother and calling them leeches wasn't helping, and my intermittent scolding wasn't having much effect.
He’s a teenager, I thought to myself, as I felt what was then a brand-new -- and to me, shocking -- sense of disconnection from this child, with whom I've always been sentence-finishingly close. More experienced parents assure me this just comes with the terrain, but it’s still unnerving.
In any case, nature stepped in to break up the bickering. The vegetation on the banks thickened to a tangle of hog plums and it was their fallen, floating fruit that evened up the battle.
Nash fished out a handful of plums and started giving back as good as he got, while the dogs gleefully chased the stray shots. The kids pelted each other for a while, then quit, spent and visibly happier. We walked in silence, save a tickle of wind through leaves and the small plashes of our feet shuffling through the shallow water. A lone brindle gar snaked slowly through the cattails. High, high above us, a vulture wheeled slowly around the sun.
Then, just past a gentle bend, we came on a stand of old sabal palms, bent toward the water, a couple of their slender trunks stretched nearly horizontally across the river. From the higher of the two hung a long knotted rope, maybe 4 feet over the sky-mirrored surface.
In a flash, D.P. pulled himself onto the lower tree, heedless of my pleas to be careful, go slowly, watch out. Instead, he drew himself to his feet, inched his way out toward the rope, slowly, slowly, eyes locked on the frayed end, hanging just an arm's length away, then stretched, leaned, reached. And missed. With a flail and a splash, he plummeted into the river.
He emerged, spluttering and shaking like one of the dogs. From his dry perch on the lower tree, Nash howled with laughter,
Undaunted, D.P. slogged back over to the trunk, hauled himself up and picked his way again out over the water, now practiced as an old-fashioned high wire artist. But when he got across from the rope and tried to grab it, he still couldn't.
This time, though, he didn't lose his balance. He squared himself, turned and looked at me. "Mom, please?"
A thousand reasons why I shouldn't surged up as I inched my way through the dark water, reached up for the old rope and swung it over to my son.
He caught it, steadied himself, then launched with a lunge, legs flailing, hair flying, my living arrow soaring into the spring sky, before plunging back into the warm river.