The bad news: Ollie had noticed the commotion in the water. He slid off the bank and was swimming our way.

Mama had her back to the alligator. I thought it best not to let on that Ollie was bearing down. A hysterical woman and a hungry gator make for a bad combination.

“You’re almost safe, Mama.’’ I forced a reassuring tone. “Just walk along the sand to your left until you come to the pathway out. There’s a steel gate at the end. I’ll be right behind you.’’

“It was Emma Jean all along, Mace. How could she? She was my friend.’’

I looked over my shoulder. Ollie had covered three-quarters of the pond’s length. “Not now, Mama,’’ I said quietly. “We need to get out of this water. Immediately.’’

All I could see of the gator was his snout and one eye. I knew that beneath the surface, his powerful tail was moving to and fro, propelling him closer and closer.

“Steady, now.’’ I boosted Mama by the butt onto the steep bank. I was in calf-high water, about to follow, when I felt a hard bump at the back of my knees. Ollie. I swallowed my panic. The pond here was shallow. The slap of the gator’s tail slamming on top of the water sounded like a bomb going off.

“Watch out, Mace!’’ I heard Mama screaming, as if in a dream. “Get out of the water!’’

I didn’t want to take the risk the gator would follow me onto land. He might attack Mama—a weaker, easier prey than me. I whirled around and saw acres of teeth in a mile of jaws. It was all instinct at this point: Ollie’s to eat; mine to survive.

Yelling louder than a legion of warriors, I drew back my foot. The steel-toed boot struck the gator on the top of his snout. I did it again, aiming directly for his one good eye. I kicked at his closest nostril, shouting the whole time. Ollie backed off and began to turn. I sent a parting blow to the less protected skin of his underside, where the organs are close to the surface.

That last kick convinced him to move on to a more docile prey. In his thumb-sized brain, he was probably trying to puzzle out what had happened to his usual meal—the dead, whole chickens that never fight back.

Adrenaline still coursed through my body as I hauled myself onto the bank. Ollie had retreated to the far end of the pond. The damage I’d done was more irritation than lasting injury. A gator’s body is like an armored battleship.

As I sat, leg muscles quivering, lungs gulping in air, I was aware of Mama blubbering beside me. She ran her hands over my arms, then my legs, as if to convince herself I was whole. “My God, Mace! Wait until I tell your sisters. You fought off an alligator!’’

“Well, it was shallow water, Mama,’’ I said. “If he’d have gotten hold of me in the deeper part, it would have been the end. He’d have grabbed me in his jaws and pulled me under in a death roll to drown me. We wouldn’t be talking right now.’’

Mama shuddered. “I’m just glad you were here, Mace. I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to do what you did.’’

“Not to mention the footwear,’’ I said.

We both looked at Mama’s bare feet, covered in mud. We started laughing. It felt good.

“Before you go bragging around town, turning me into Himmarshee’s Heroic Gator Gal, you should know a couple of things.’’ I held up a finger. “First, Ollie’s not nearly as big as those eleven or twelve-footers that have made the news. Those were some fearsome gators, taking three victims over a week’s span in different parts of the state.’’ I put up another finger. “Second, Ollie’s used to getting regular meals. If he was hungrier, he might have fought a lot harder.’’

Mama took my chin in her hands. “Don’t downplay what you did, Mace.’’ She pulled my face to hers and kissed me under my bangs. “You saved my life.’’

Tears sprang to my eyes. I rested my head on her shoulder as we sat on the bank.

“Now,’’ she patted my arm, signaling the moment was over. “Let’s get the heck out of this death pit.’’

___

Pond water squished in my boots as we made our way across the clearing, back toward the park office. Mama’s polyester pantsuit stuck to her like honeydew-green plastic wrap. It wasn’t even eight-thirty, and already the sunlight was turning white, blinding. It was going to be a scorcher, which isn’t exactly a news flash in middle Florida in September.

Birds sang. Butterflies stirred. We were about halfway across the field when a man’s voice punctured the happy bubble we’d been floating in since surviving an attempted murder and an alligator encounter.

“You two aren’t going anywhere.’’ The accent was flat. Midwestern.

Mama grabbed my hand and slowly we turned.

Bob Dixon stared at us with the deadest eyes I’d ever seen. His hand was steady on his .38.

“I should have known better than to send a woman to do a man’s job. Emma Jean is just like all of you.’’ Pastor Bob sneered at us. “Can’t be trusted.’’

Delilah’s confession about cheating on him ran through my mind.

“Every marriage has its ups and downs,’’ Mama said, echoing my thought. “You’ve committed murder and caused a lot of heartache. Have you done it all because Delilah strayed?’’

The minister blotted sweat from his neck with a white handkerchief. Then he laughed out loud, showing us his teeth. “I don’t care a fig about that fat sow. None of this was about my wife—or even about Emma Jean, though I was banging her.’’

Mama blinked in disbelief at his crude language.

“It was about money, plain and simple.’’ He shrugged and sopped again. “Jim Albert had a lot, and I wanted some. I’m not cut out to be a poor pastor in a Podunk town.’’

“But you’re a man of God,’’ Mama protested.

“Yeah, that was a mistake.’’ He picked his teeth with a pinky nail. “I’d watched some of those big-time TV evangelists get rich. Thought it could be my path, too. I tried making the DVDs; thought they’d sell a million. But they didn’t. And I didn’t want to wait.’’

“I don’t understand,’’ I said. “Who killed Jim Albert? You or Emma Jean?’’

“I don’t suppose it matters now. You’ll both be dead soon.’’ Sweat stains darkened his light blue dress shirt. He tented the wet fabric off his chest, trying to find a nonexistent breeze. “I told Emma Jean all she had to do was set up her boyfriend so the two of us could take his money and run off together. I knew all along we’d have to kill him, though. Jim Albert wasn’t the type to forgive being robbed. I figured Emma Jean was so crazy about me, I could convince her to do it. But when it came right down to it, I had to kill him. She lost her nerve.’’