Alligators Live Forever

Before he steps from the airboat, walt rhodes leans over and pokes around in the muddy brown water with a chewed-up boat oar. "Just making sure mama gator's not here," he says, squinting across the marsh against the South Carolina sun. "She could be lying out here, and I don't want to step on her." He waves off a cloud of mosquitoes and swings his big rubber boot over the side of the boat. A few feet away, fire ants swarm an alligator's nest— cordgrass heaped three feet high and baking in the late-August heat. The warm center is filled with eggs.