Rusty was thinking about the empty amphitheater at Fifty Mile Bend Campground.

The park-style bench seats – pew-like with backrests – faced straight ahead to where he’d be standing.  Just one more hour to go.

An aisle ran up the middle to a flood lamp and electrical power outlet in back.

Most of all there was the screen. 

It was giant and white with a frame of red wood.  Well, not white, or not completely.  In the light of the day the screen was mottled with lime green splotches of mold. 

To Rusty that screen was an intrusion. 

It looked hokey even fake. 

Hidden in the front corner – almost an afterthought – was the metal campfire ring that gave the Campfire Program its name.

“Who comes to a ranger-led campfire talk to look at a Power Point presentation projected up on an outdoor screen?” he thought.

Apparently he was thinking out loud.

“How’s your Power Point coming along?” Ranger Shawna asked.

Rusty shrugged.

He didn’t shrug because he didn’t know.  He shrugged because he wasn’t sure about the whole thing. 

Who wanted to be stuck behind a screen watching a Power Point around a campfire at night in the middle of a National Park?  Didn’t people go camping to get away from computers and all that other modern-day stuff?

At least that’s how Rusty saw it, but nonetheless even he wasn’t sure.  He was the new guy in town.  He didn’t want to jump to conclusions on personal impressions others didn’t see as facts.

“I don’t know. It’s okay. I suppose they’ll like it.”

“Well what’s the topic?” Shawna asked.

Rusty was a bit miffed. Didn’t she remember? 

“My topic is the geology of the Big Cypress Swamp.  That’s what you told me I was supposed to do.”

Shawna looked at him surprised.

“Well … that was just an idea.  Nobody’s done that but it’s always been on the list.  I thought it’s would be a good topic for you to dig into.  Every park has its rocks.”

Rusty gave a nervous laugh.  “Well, I thought that’s what I had to do.”

“No,” Shawna said factually.  “We can pull up the email if you want.  I only gave you a suggestion.  I’m sure I made that very clear.  It’s a dry topic.  Nobody ever talks about it.  I thought maybe because you were out at Arches it would be your thing.  You did a geology talk out there, right?”

Rusty tried to gather his thoughts.  Even out West he thought the geology talk was boring.  What interested him was the open space and the freedom and most of all the people. He didn’t want to give a presentation just to cover a base.  Getting people to care about the swamp was what it was all about.

Shawna seemed irritated.  Ranger Rusty wondered if it had something to do with where he had hung Effie’s artwork on the auditorium wall. 

Shawna turned back to Rusty as she was leaving through the front door.

“Well good luck.  It is an … intangible … topic I’ll admit … with the geology pretty much being buried and hidden under the swamp … but that’s what makes it … interesting … I think,” she said as if trying to convince herself.

“Besides, it’s an easy crowd,” Shawna added sarcastically.  “If they liked Effie’s artwork they’re gonna go nuts at your talk.   Just make sure you have a lot of pretty pictures … and not trash.”

Rusty laughed on the outside but inside he sighed.

Here he was trying to gather everything he needed for a nighttime presentation he was increasingly not interested in one bit.  If only he’d known (and he wasn’t going to go back into the email to check) that he had the freedom to pick any topic he wanted, the last thing in the world he would have ever done is a talk on swamp-covered rocks.

For the past three weeks he’d done nothing but cram-course through boring textbooks on geology.  Granted, some of it was interesting in an abstract sense, but it didn’t speak to him – and he doubted it would speak to the audience, either – at least in a way to make them care more deeply about the swamp. 

Deep Lake for example was pretty interesting. It dropped a hundred feet down. Rusty remembered how some of the locals said it was a bottomless pit, that it didn’t stop until it connected to the gulf by way of a complex labyrinth of tunnels that even contained a blind pigment-free fish.

That seemed improbable to a seven year old Rusty the first time his father took him there as a kid.  Standing on its lime rock bank he tried to fathom the math.

Where they were standing was nine miles from the coast.

Rusty’s father looked out across the open surface of water.  A huge flock of swallows was circling overhead.  Both Rusty and his father stood silent for a few minutes to watch the black squadron as it twisted, then summersaulted and finally swooped down to take a drink at the lake.  Or were they catching bugs?  The giant alligators floating in the middle didn’t seem to mind either way.

“I don’t know how else to explain the tarpon?” Rusty’s father pointed as one rolled at the surface.

Rusty caught a glimpse as its fins flopped across the water, slightly splashing, and then resubmerging back below, almost like a miniature white whale.

The species was prized among coastal fisherman who roamed the Ten Thousand Islands looking for the “silver kings” that teamed in the saltwater inlets and backwater bays.  People were fishing for tarpon before there were even roads.  But it was a saltwater (not a freshwater) fish.  That’s what made seeing it in a freshwater lake – and so far from the coast – such a mystery.  

Later that afternoon they walked around the grounds surrounding the lake.  It looked completely natural to Rusty – prehistoric in fact.  Giant ferns covered the ground, and a treasure trove of orchids and other air plants were dangling from the air where they walked.  His father hoisted up the branches so Rusty could follow along.  Towering royal palms and what Rusty thought were ancient cypress trees shaded the view.

Rusty’s father pulled away some vines to reveal a lichen-covered stone wall, possibly Rusty thought, an old fort from the Seminole War.

His father went on to tell him how the place had been a grapefruit grove and there were still seed-grown sour citrus – the descendants of the original orchard – hidden under the canopy of recovering cypress trees.

Rusty’s father walked the length of the stone wall until he came to one of the heirloom trees that still had fruit on it, one of which was hanging low.

“Can I pick it? Is it good to eat?”

“Well it’s an orange,” Rusty’s father grinned.  “It won’t kill you.”

Young Rusty twisted the fruit at the stem until it came loose in his hand and looked at his father to see if it was alright.

“Sure, go ahead. Give it a try. You go first.”

Rusty took out his pocket knife and sliced into the mottled rind. It startled him a bit when it split it in half: on the inside were two perfect wagon wheels of orangey pureness ― quite a contrast to the rather imperfect peel.  He gave one half to his father.  The other he kept for himself. 

Rusty’s father nodded again reassuringly.

“You picked it.  Picker goes first.”

Juice from the orange was oozing in his hand and drip drip dripping on the triangular ferns below.  Rusty could think of no other way to cleanly eat the orange than to just take a big bite.

“The tree’s feral,” Rusty’s father chuckled heartily as Rusty’s face contorted into a grimace and he spat it all out.  “—When they grow straight from the seed they are almost always sour like that.  All the commercial groves are grafted.” 

Rusty’s father went on to explain that Deep Lake was the Garden of Eden of the swamp. “Used to be a tree out here … it’s gone now … that carried seven different types of fruit.  Valencias. Honey Browns. Navels. Pineapple … even a tangelo, too.” 

Rusty’s father took out his buck knife and sliced at an angle into the bark, “If you think about it, it’s the commercial trees that are unnaturally sweet, not the other way around.”  He pointed with the tip of the blade at the diagonal gash. “—That’s where you’d graft in the shoot.”

Rusty’s father took a drag from his cigarillo.

“Anyhow it was fun while it lasted … then Hurricane Donna came through … and that was that.  Out here there was Pre Donna and Post Donna.”  He said melancholically as he flicked some ash to the ground.  “— And now I guess whatever happens next.”

Rusty was still bothered by the lingering bad taste in his mouth. 

“Here,” his father said.  “Drink some of this.”

Rusty took a gulp.

“Are you sure that orange was alright?”

Rusty’s father nodded his head reassuringly. “Well, if it hasn’t killed you by now … I suppose you’re gonna be alright.”