Crocodile Dundee Dave

Of Crocodiles, Gun Fights and Friendship

Packing up and traveling halfway around the world tends to leaves one with mountains of questions.  Not the least of these is, what will the people be like? The answer has proven to be far more curious than we would have guessed.  These people have carved a life from the Jungles of the tropics.  They have survived among crocodiles, jaguars, tarantulas, and the climate.

David and Daphne are a couple who have befriended us and we have come to love time spent in their company.  Daphne is the no nonsense math teacher with a heart for her students as big as the hills she lives in.  David on the other hand is a rugged, character with a dark swarthy look from working under the tropical sun.  When he pulled up to the Gilmour’s house one evening to show us a couple of six foot snakes he’d burned out of the grass my image of him as the Crocodile Dundee of Blue Creek was again reinforced. 

David instructs in the way of coconuts

Kerianne, Dave and Daphne's daughter, chops
coconuts with a machete.

Nikki is brave with the dead snakes

This is Paul trying to tease out the croc

David has lots of stories about crocks although it’s his brother Paul who called us to come see the nine footer he caught in the rice fields one Sunday afternoon.  Paul had taken some friends and the kids to look for ducklings. Instead he found this old crock and decided to catch it.  When we arrived all 300 pounds of it was still tied to a tree along his driveway and Paul wanted to get his rope back before turning the beast loose into the swamp.  This meant at one point I was holding the end of said rope with the crock still tied to the other end while Paul casually threw chunks of trees into the lizards jaw to distract it.  Unfortunately the powerful jaws crushed the wood easily while I haplessly held the end of the line which was to keep the crock from charging Paul.  I couldn’t help but wonder what made this rope so valuable as there was nothing stopping the crock from reversing its direction and charging back towards me.  Finally freeing the crock Paul left him on the edge of his driveway to find his own way into the swamp below.

Paul just left the crock to find his own way home

One of David’s crock encounters was from when he was a kid.  Green lake is a big lagoon at the bottom of the hills which also serves as a popular swimming spot for teenagers.  We drove our 4x4 out there once, almost throwing the Gilmour kids from the box as we bounced through the muddy ruts or catching them on the tree branches and vines that hung down from the canopy above and into the truck box.  We arrived to find two of Kevin’s high school boys trying to impress a couple girls by climbing a 25 foot rope from the water into a tree and then leaping back in.  As the water goes almost strait down with no beach, it’s not really suitable for the kids, so we packed up and left the boys to continue their exhibition unhindered by their teachers.

Boys trying to impress girls at Green lake.  We left so they
could proceed unhindered by their teachers. 

David tells us that he and friends often swam across the lake.  As the beach on the other side is often cluttered with weeds and debris, getting back into the water requires a good run and a diving leap from the shore.  On one such occasion, David’s leap ended up on the back of a crocodile that was hidden in the weeds.  While he calmly assured us that a three or four footer doesn’t usually represent much danger to people, this was a hand to tooth encounter that the crocodile hadn’t expected and couldn’t avoid.  His nearby friends saw the commotion and quickly identified the crock in the water but were powerless to do much as David negotiated this unexpected meeting.  As quickly as the encounter began the crock had extricated himself from the bout and had disappeared into the depths of the lake, at which point the other kids continued into the water and swam back across the lake. It’s not next thing I might have done but it’s sort or response that seems fairly typical here. 

Gunfight at the O.K. Coral

The next tale from David’s earlier days made us wonder that he was here to tell it at all.  No, this wasn’t the story where he lept from his 30 ton bulldozer as it tumbled down the steep side of a hill, crushing the cab and almost taking his life.  Nor is this the story of his panic-stricken sprint alone through the jungle.  For over two desperate miles he prayed he would reach the lifesaving shelter of his pickup as a cloud of killer bees stung him again and again.  It was a near miss.   No, this was a story from when he was still a kid and in the dark of a moonlit night he was asked to enter a life and death struggle to protect his community.

Back in the early years of the Blue Creek, they had established a community owned co-op store and a basic communication system between homes based on short wave radio.  Late one night David’s father, David Sr. woke him from a deep sleep. “The store is being robbed.  Get up quick and grab your hunting rifle.”

The community store had been set upon by three fortune seeking Mexicans from across the Rio Hondo.    Their downfall was that their covert activity had been picked up by the intercom radio in the store.  Within minutes the community was aware of their presence and had sprung into action.  The message had travelled via radio waves down to the village on the plain below the hills of Blue Creek.  The Belizean police constable had been woken and alerted.  Knowing that he needed to catch the thieves red handed to get any kind of conviction in court, he ordered the men to allow the robbery to proceed and set in motion a plan for their capture. 

Down on the plains, the only road in and out of Blue Creek was blocked with a tractor placed just in front of the bridge crossing a creek.  The tractor bristled with men, armed with hunting weapons who would cover the constable as he confronted and arrested the thieves.  Back up the hills by the store, David and his brothers stood in the back of their fathers pickup. Hidden within the darkness of the trees, they watched the unknowing thieves load their getaway car under the light of the full moon.  These men were to follow the thieves and trap them with their pickup from behind, forcing a quick surrender.  A sound plan until it completely fell apart and David would find himself in the fight of his life.

As the time ticked by tension built.  David nervously watched for the thieves to finish their work.  Finally loaded the criminals jumped into the car and were off.  David Sr. and two other pursuers started their trucks and slowly pulled out from the protection of the darkness but left their headlights off, driving by only the light of the moon.  As the thieves wound their way down the Blue Creek hills, thinking themselves safe they turned on their lights and the car accelerated to freedom.  David held on tight as his dad kept pace in the darkness, bracing himself for springing the trap waiting below.

The getaway car shot out of the hills onto the quiet plain.  Within minutes however, the driver noticed something in the road ahead, David watched the car slow, then finally stop as the car light illuminated the blockade and the thieves realized their freedom might be short-lived.  While a sudden heated discussion erupted in the car ahead, David Sr. drove the truck forward until it bumped the rear of the car, trapping it.  The thieves discussion was cut short by the realization they were trapped.  The driver franticly pulled ahead then threw it in reverse and slammed down the gas ramming the pickup.  This lasted for minutes until the car became completely wedged between the tractor and truck.  Springing into action the constable led the approach to apprehend the criminals.

Rather than going quietly however, the criminals decided to fight and quickly complete mayhem seized the scene.  As the constable approached the driver’s door he attempted to flee.  He was immediately caught in a struggle with the constable, who began screaming “Fire!  Fire! Shoot them!” as he fought.  David’s father was covering the back door with a pistol and likewise suddenly found himself struggling hand to hand with a shotgun pointed directly into his face by a desperate Mexican man.  Now gunshots were going off everywhere as David tried to get a shot at the man fighting his father. 

David Sr. grabbed the Mexican’s gun barrel gripped tightly in his hand and a fierce struggle ensued.  As he struggled to keep the gun pointed away from himself he managed to squeeze off a shot with his own pistol.  The bullet glanced off his opponent’s shotgun severing his fingers that were wrapped around the weapon.  The fight only increased in intensity.  Then suddenly David Sr. felt a piercing pain in his ankle.  David heard his father cry out “I’ve been shot!” as he continued to fight. Suddenly his opponent disengaged and made a mad dash for the nearby cornfields.  In the darkness and chaos the runaway was a tricky target for David and his brothers shooting from the back of the pickup truck.  The man managed to escape, though not unwounded.

In the mean time the third man had been laid out by gun fire.  He rolled in the grass writhing in pain.  The driver had also run and escaped over the distance to the cornfield apparently dodging shots from the Blue Creek posy. David rushed to his father fearing he may be mortally wounded as he sat bleeding on the ground by the car.  It was quickly discovered that the ‘shot’ was a broken ankle.  The struggle had been so fierce that David Sr.’s ankle had snapped beneath him, allowing the distraction for the criminal to get away.

In the aftermath of the struggle the constable decided the wounded thief and David Sr. needed to be taken for immediate medical attention.  David Jr. and others were left to stand guard because although the other two criminals had escaped they were clearly wounded and not able to go far.  Their cries of pain carried through the darkness to the road.  As the night wound on towards day break one of the men surrendered themselves and was also taken for medical attention.  The third escaped and was not caught.  He managed to struggle his way through the fields and across the river to Mexico.

Of course this story just furthered my image of David as a fearless pioneer in this rugged wilderness.  David on the other hand will readily admit that the experience terrified him.  I guess that walking the line so close to life and death makes one ask certain questions.  David who was not a religious man at that time says the experience led him to the Lord.  Maybe that’s the supernatural protection that has carried him through the many dangers that made him into Blue Creeks very own Crocodile Dundee.  In my mind anyway.

Dave shares the coconut of friendship