Nokosee & Stormy: Love and Bullets

The sequel begins with Stormy Jones, a 17-year-old punk rock chick with "sky eyes" and a pink tipped blonde Mohawk, riding her Indian bike 1,200 miles back to Nokosee, the 17-year-old loincloth wearing teenage Seminole pagan caveman she abandoned at the end of the first film. Nokosee is the first of the New Seminole, groomed by his nut case dad Busimanolotome Osceola, founder of the New Seminole (NS) to wage an eco-war on the "Outside" that will restore south Florida to its natural state and its rightful caretakers, the NS. But that's not Stormy. She's not a tree hugger. She's a boy hugger, a one boy hugger and it's not her fault people are dying all around her.

And it's not her fault she's carrying Nokosee's baby. She took precautions but apparently it was meant to be.

To prove her love for Nokosee, she does two things. First she stops at a tattoo studio and gets spear tats on each side of her shaved Mohawk. The second thing she does is steal the Seminole Tribal Chairman's custom chopper, the thing Nokosee was on a "walkabout" to find in the first movie and return to his dad. That gets the cops on her tail with a mad dash out of the city into the swamp, something that is televised live across the nation-- including law enforcements' shooting at her.

And Busimanolotome shooting down a police helicopter with a rocket-propelled-grenade.

Suddenly, Stormy is a household word and on-the-run through the Everglades with the NS, a ragtag bunch of outcasts of heavily armed Native Americans and "Outsiders." Moving at night, the NS travel from one hidden hammock camp to another to avoid getting caught by a slew of Federal and State agencies. When it appears the "right moment" will never come to tell Nokosee she's pregnant, Stormy casually drops the info on him while resting under a camo-covered chickee. Of course Nokosee is muy surprised-- and also very happy. His parents are less than thrilled to say the least. Although dad wanted to keep the New Seminole line pure and is quite angry about the outcome, Nokosee's Cuban mother is more upset because she doesn't want her son and Stormy starting a life together on the run in the swamp where the chances of getting killed are very high. In an effort to dissuade "the kids" from becoming part of this dangerous world, they try to break Stormy's spirit and her resolve to be with Nokosee by making her go on her own walkabout to prove her allegiance to the NS. Over Nokosee's objections, Stormy is blindfolded and airboated deep into the Everglades where she is dropped off on an uncharted hammock. Left alone, she is expected to find her way back to the tribe within three days. Over those three grueling days and nights where she suffers an intense sunburn and is attacked by bats, snakes, mosquitoes, and alligators, she stumbles into the NS camp naked and dehydrated. BUT she manages to overpower an NS guard first, taking his AK-47 and marching him into camp. Hallucinating, she manages to fire off a few well-chosen curse words and a couple of rounds at the feet of Busimanolotome before collapsing into Nokosee's arms.

Still reluctant to accept her, Busimanolotome forces them to get married-- with the hope that Stormy will run for the nearest road to civilization. That doesn't happen. In fact, Stormy sheds her Outside persona to take on one of her own imagining, a combination of the the Outside with the Inside. Unfortunately, the wedding party that night is rudely and abruptly interrupted by an attack by Army Rangers who force the NS to retreat deeper into the Everglades.

With the conflict now escalating, Stormy joins Nokosee and his father in an over-the-top "pro-active" strike on the Outside by taking down one of its Predator drones circling high over the Everglades. They use a small Micco single engine plane (hidden under an Everglades levee) equipped with pontoons to fly to its maximum altitude of 14,000 feet to fire a Stinger missile out of the open cockpit to reach the Predator at 25,000 feet. The first one misses and Uncle Sam fires a Hellfire missile back at them. That one misses too but the trio's second Stinger strikes the drone. Escaping death and striking their target gets them to shouting and high-fiving each other. And, unexpectedly for Stormy, bonding with Busimanolotome. And he with her.

Skirmishes mount over the following months as the NS continue to run and fight and hide in the swamp until it reaches a climax with a moonless night attack on their camp by Army Rangers. Lots of people die on both sides and Stormy, now very pregnant and wearing nothing more than a loincloth and bikini top, fights right alongside Nokosee. But this battle is different. The intensity is overpowering. They run. Again. Stormy stumbles. Nokosee picks her up and carries her running through the swamp. She fires her automatic weapon over Nokosee's shoulder back at the soldiers. She gets shot. Nokosee takes her weapon and fires back while Busimanolotome picks Stormy up and continues to race through the swamp. They stumble upon a bithlo lying in the sawgrass. Busimanolotome puts Stormy in the dugout canoe just as an alligator attacks him-- a gator that had ironically been set loose by the NS to attack the soldiers. He pushes the bithlo away to fight the gator but the gator ultimately wins, pulling him through the water away from Stormy. She reaches out to him, screaming. He looks back and tries to grab her hand but is yanked away. His last words to her are "Ooshtayke." Daughter.

Nokosee finds her, jumps into the bithlo and pushes them deeper into the dark night and away from the fire and death and sounds of the battle. Their baby girl Haalie, short for Haalapatee (Alligator) is born among the sawgrass.

Although the story is multi-layered thematically (environmental issues, clash of cultures, warring families à la “Romeo and Juliet,” coming-of-age and teen sex issues), it may also be compared to the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan franchise except for one major difference: this story is much more plausible. Instead of being raised by apes in an African jungle, Nokosee is raised in the deep Everglades by a Cuban mother and Seminole father. “Nokosee & Stormy: Love & Bullets” is an empowering antidote to feeling impotent when the news is all about oil spills and melting ice caps. newseminole.com/blog