Page 92 of Refuge for Flora

“Hey. Get in.” Bradley hopped out and motioned for Conor to climb in. There was nowhere to sit except between the two of them, and he didn’t like that at all.

They’d no more than pulled out of the gas station parking lot when they whipped into the co-op’s parking lot. Darryl produced a bandana from his pocket. “We gotta do this.”

“What? Blindfold me? Are you serious?” An appropriate amount of indignation could go a long way.

“Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

“I do. If you don’t trust me any more than that, why am I doing this?”

“Because we don’tknowyou. And we ain’t takin’ no chances. You gonna wear it or we gonna call this off?” Darryl asked loudly.

“Okay, okay. I’ll wear it. Shit. Y’all acting like you got the gold from FortKnox out here or something.”

“Nah. But it’s our own little piece of heaven, and we don’t want nobody knowing about it. Only take a few minutes.” Blindfolded, Conor felt the truck pull out onto the highway again. He tried to gauge how fast they were going and how far they were traveling, but he couldn’t tell. Eventually they stopped, Bradley got out, they drove a few dozen feet, and he got back in.Opening and closing a gate, Conor told himself, hoping they didn’t have any surveillance.

The truck lurched to a stop and both men got out. “You can take that off now.” Conor untied the bandana, hoping like hell that bullshit hadn’t dislodged the button mic. When he got a look around, he almost laughed.

In the middle of the space was the most pitiful trailer Conor had ever seen. One of the doors hung by only the top hinge, and there was no lawn, just dirt.And they’re supposed to make me think I can make money this way?There was a barn at the far end of the little dirt area. “That where they are?”

“Yeah. Come on down and see ‘em.” Nothing could have prepared Conor for what he saw when he stepped into that barn.

The entire center floor of the barn had been dug out and it was surrounded with a mesh-type fencing. They’d obviously used a pump and a well, because the whole thing was filled with nasty, smelly water. In it, much to his terror, were dozens of small animals. “What are these? Gators? Caimans? What?”

“Them over there,” Darryl said, pointing to the left, “is gators. And them over there,” he said, pointing to the right, “is caimans.”

“They’re babies!” Conor barked.

“Yeah. The caimans are older than the gators. That’s why they’s so much bigger.”

“You actually have a market for them?”

“Yeah! We got buyers all along the coast. Got a truckload of gators intercepted a few weeks ago. Dumbass truck driver. But otherwise, yeah. We’s making good money.”

“And you’re living here? Like this?”

“It’s only temporary. I got a little detail to clear up and then I’ll be outta here.”

“Got it. So what would it take for me to get, say, six of these?”

“The gators or the caimans?”

“The gators.”

“They’s two fitty apiece, so that’d be, what, fitteen hunnert?”

“Yeah.”

“You got fitteen hunnert dollars?” Bradley asked.

“Yeah. I do.”

Darryl laughed. “Well, then, you done got yoreself some gators, boy!”

“What do I feed them?”

“They eat all kindsa critters. Anything that’s meat. ‘Course, they’ll eat a person too, so watch yer step!”

“Can we load them up? I need to get them home pretty quick so I can pull together everything I’m gonna need to take care of them.”

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