Deep In The Bayou

By the time the sun rose the next morning, Zeke and Merlin had both fully recovered from their ordeal the night before. Hastily eating a hearty breakfast, they packed their lunch in backpacks and headed out, making their way deeper into the bayou. Cypress and tupelo trees grew high above the soggy undergrowth, their branches twisting and turning to reach the sunlight above, as long, silky tendrils of Spanish moss clung tenaciously to the branches and trunks. The sun was high in the sky when they reached the water's edge and set off in an airboat across the bayou. 

Crisscrossing the water as they tried to hide from the sun's rays, they traveled upriver, following waterways that wound under the trees and through swampy marshes. They passed alligators lazily sunning themselves on the riverbank or floating inconspicuously just below the water's surface while some were bold enough to swim up to the airboat and stare, with one eye, at the occupants. 

It was late af