The Man Who Ivented Florida (36 page)

Tuck rolled the paper out on the table, scratching his head. "Little dots and dashes .. ." He glanced up. "These are my shacks?"

Bill came around to stand behind him, pointing to show him what was what. How they'd rip out such and such beams, put pilings in where, how they'd re-tin the roofs and pour cement for new foundations, where the flower gardens would be planted, what the porches would look like. "A couple of us want to keep our units here, sort of commute," Bill said. "But most of us are willing to move in, go to work right away."

"It would be like camping out," one of the women—Jenny— said. "An adventure, like in the pioneer days."

Tuck said, "Just so you can be near the spring?" Enjoying it, letting all these people convince him.

"No," said Dunn, "the spring has nothing to do with it—no offense, understand. We don't question your claims—"

Thelma said, "I certainly don't," smiling at Joseph, watching him sigh and look at the ground. "I'll be drinking that water! I have a feeling I'll need the extra energy."

Dunn said, "That's up to each and every individual. What I'm saying is, Tuck, we'll support your claims when it comes time for you to talk to the park people. That'll be part of the agreement. We'll be your neighbors, and neighbors help neighbors—that's the way I see it. My own reasons for wanting to move to Mango are . .." He smiled softly, looking from face to face. "My personal reason is, I see it as a chance to do something constructive, something different. Personally, I'm damn tired of being old."

Riding
the horses, still leading the steer, Tucker and Joseph followed a winding ridge known, in the old days, as Fahkahatchee Trace. The Trace crossed the saw-grass prairie, east to west, and sometimes swooped far enough south so that they could hear the piercing vibrato of truck tires on the Tamiami Trail. It was an odd noise to hear amid all that silence; sounded like a prolonged animal cry, fading and rising on a gusting wind that diffused the heat, then propelled it in drifting, oily pools across the Everglades. Joseph on Buster lead the way, though every so often Roscoe would lunge ahead and try to nip Buster on the rump, only to be yanked down by Tucker, who would hiss, "You dumb bunny! You want to get paint-poisoned?"

Not that Tucker really minded. The horse had spirit, and Tuck was feeling pretty good about himself. True, his back and butt hurt a little and, if he sneezed or coughed, he could feel that tender vessel up in his head throb, reminding him that his own flesh and blood body was still a traitor. But he was used to that; didn't let it bother him much anymore. Hated to give the damn thing credence by worrying about it. Otherwise, he felt okay,- full of ginger, as a matter of fact.

As he rode, Tuck let his brain drift around, grazing on those topics near and dear to him. He pictured the Monday-afternoon meeting with the park people from Tallahassee. He'd have a table set up outside so the mosquitoes would feed on them; see if those shitheels could survive a couple of hours without air conditioning! The folks from the trailer park would be there, too—but they'd be too busy cheering for his speech and getting interviewed by reporters to pay much attention to the bugs. Tuck imagined that pretty lady, Thelma, smiling at him, telling him how smart he was. Now there was a woman with potential. Any woman with enough heart to feed a worn-out old Indian like Joseph had to have some spirit, as well. True, she wasn't as pretty as his old Cuban love, Mariaelana, but that didn't mean Thelma wouldn't know what it took to make a man happy.

Tuck imagined the way Mango would look. The trailer park folks would have only a few days' work under their belts, but they were energetic as bees. The women had been ordering supplies when he and Joseph left, while the men assembled their tools. That would be a nice shot for the TV cameras and the newspaper photographers: men on ladders hammering, hauling off trash, setting pilings. Give Mango the look of a young town, too full of life to be killed by them Tallahassee shitheels. Of course, Marion would be there. Henry Short, too! And that girl policeman, Miz Walker, if Tuck could arrange it. She was so smart and pretty, it would make him feel good to give her career a boost.

Tuck imagined the look on Duke's face as he listened to old Lemar Flowers give them government people what for. Lemar with his white hair and old-timey black suit, while him and Duke stood there listening.

That was a nice thought, him and Marion on the same side, for once, two grown men standing shoulder-to-shoulder, blood relatives.

Tuck allowed the image to linger, musing on it, getting the taste of it, feeling what it would be like to beat those shitheels, using the same water he'd been drinking for more than seventy years to make 'em cry uncle.

Sell water! Get the whole country's attention, everybody wanting to buy the stuff.

Maybe those French people with their little green bottles weren't so dumb, after all. . ..

On his saddle, Tucker jolted abruptly, then hollered out to Roscoe, "Whoa, gawldamn it! You run up that big black's ass, you'll get us both kicked!"

Ahead, Joseph had stopped. Stopped at the edge of a myrtle flat and little cypress head. From the trees, egrets and ibis flushed white as ice shards, swirling out of the hot swamp gloom.

Tuck took his hat off, used a red neckerchief to wipe his face. "Joe, sometimes I think the onliest thing that separates the Glades from the equator is a sick palm tree and a Key West whore. Ain't it hot?"

Joseph had dismounted. He said over his shoulder, "Find some shade. I want to take a look around."

"Why you stopping?"

"Just am."

Tuck let his eyes roam, getting his bearings. "Hey—ain't this one of your old hunting camps? Didn't we use this little hummock as a gator base once?"

Joseph said, "I won't be long," walking toward the woods, hoping Tuck wouldn't follow—but knowing he would, the man was so nosy.

Joseph stepped into the shadows of the cypress dome, and the temperature instantly dropped ten, fifteen degrees. The ground was soft as sponge, all those cypress needles, and the roots of the trees poked up out of the black-water pond, orderly as headstones in a cemetery. Joseph found the old path that circled the pond to the back of the cypress head, and there, beneath silver limbs, was his shack. What was left of it, anyway.

Joseph stood staring, hands on hips, feeling as if there was a weight on his chest.

The door had been ripped off its rope hinges, and part of the palmetto thatching had imploded. He ducked under the doorway and stood inside, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Someone had a made a mess of the place. Beer cans and cigarette butts all over the ground, and the bed tick he'd filled with egret skins had been kicked open, gray feathers everywhere. The shelf that had once held the few tin plates and cups he owned had been ripped down, too. Joseph stooped to retrieve a cast-iron fry skillet, noted the rust on it, then tossed it into the corner by the wooden bed frame near the
Playboy
calendar that was still tacked to the timber post there.

Behind him, he heard Tuck's voice. "This was where you was living? Nice place. No wonder they figured you was crazy and took you to the rest home."

Joseph said, "I don't 'member asking your opinion."

Tuck stepped inside. "Sure is a pretty picture on the wall, though. I always was partial to redheads. Grab her and let's get going. I want to make Mango before sundown."

"You're in such a hurry, go on ahead. Me and Buster don't mind riding alone." Joseph had picked up the bed frame and was swinging it out of the way; paused to say, "Smells like somebody crapped in here." He was down on his knees, digging with his bare hands.

"What you looking for?"

Joseph didn't answer, just kept digging. After a few minutes, he said, "At least they didn't find this," and held a canning jar up for Tuck to see.

"Who didn't find what?"

"The bastards who tore my place apart. I had money buried here, all my life savings." Joseph was trying to get the rusted lid off, then took his knife out of its sheath and began to pry.

"No kidding, how much we got?" Tuck was thinking, A partnership is a partnership,- shouldn't be too hard to convince Joseph of that.

Joseph said, "Forty-three dollars, I think. Maybe more—it's hard to remember." He had the jar open and was counting the soggy money.

"Forty-three dollars? That ain't a life savings; that's one weekend at The Gatorhook. If it hadn't burned down." No longer paying much attention, Tuck was looking out the door toward the horses, eager to get going.

"Couple of silver dollars my grandfather left me, plus a brass medal from the old days when soldiers was down here in the Glades." Joseph was still counting. "Thirty-four, thirty-five . . . thirty-seven, counting the silver. I musta spent some when I was sick. Don't remember that." Standing, he put the money in his pocket and brushed off his pants.

"No wonder the treasure hunters was back here," Tuck said. "Looking to get rich on your life savings."

Joseph either missed the sarcasm or ignored it. "Probably was. They're always looking for Indian places, treasure hunters. Hike in looking for mounds to dig up—" He stopped in midsentence. "Hey, that's probably just who it was. Treasure hunters. I didn't think of that." He pushed past Tuck outside, suddenly in a hurry.

"Where you going now?"

"I want to see about something."

Tuck snorted, irritable. "Any chance of getting out of here while I still got hair on my head?" He watched Joseph duck under limbs and disappear into the brush at the back side of the cypress hummock. He called after him, "I'll give you ten minutes, then I'm leaving!"

After about five minutes of impatient waiting, though, Tuck decided to follow along and find out just what in hell the fool Indian was doing now. He wasn't easy to follow—the ground was too springy to hold tracks. But after casting back and forth through the trees, moving toward the saw grass while calling Joseph's name, Tuck finally heard: "You don't give up, do you?"

He saw Joseph through the trees, kneeling on a low earthen ridge. Looked like someone had been digging there, the way the dirt was piled up. Joseph was studying something, holding it in his hands, and he didn't reply when Tuck said, "You find some more money? Hell, you're bad as a squirrel."

Tuck drew closer. Saw that Joseph was holding what appeared to be a length of bone, using his shirt to polish the dirt off it. Tuck said, "If you buried you a side of beef, too, that was bad planning. What the hell is that?"

Joseph turned toward him briefly. "Just what I thought it was." As if that explained everything.

"Ah."

"They didn't know what they was looking for, just started digging. See there ... and there? More holes. Thinking they might be Indian graves and they'd find some beads, maybe. Or some pots. Stuff like that, so they could take it home, put it on their shelves."

"Dead Injuns, huh? Them beads worth anything?" Tuck was momentarily interested.

Joseph shrugged. "Doesn't matter, 'cause the only thing in this hole was my grandfather."

"You buried him?"

"How else you think he got here? Shoulda known back then it wasn't safe, somebody'd come looking with shovels."

Tuck took the bone, considering it. "Looks skinny enough to be the old fool. Hum. Damn if he ain't scattered all over the place. Probably good for him, up here getting some air." Joseph was assembling the bones in a pile. "You want to push him back in and cover him up?" "What I ought to do is bury him someplace else. Here, they'd just find him again. Maybe I'll come back with a sack."

Tucker liked the sound of that. "Come back later, you mean. Another day."

Joseph was placing the bone shards in the hole, covering them with sand. "No offense, but it's something I'd like to do in private. So, yeah. Come back another day." Joseph stood, dusting his hands off. "Besides, he ain't in no hurry now." Relieved, Tuck added, "Well, we are."

FIFTEEN

Just
when Ford was beginning to feel claustrophobic—his stilt house was simply too small for two people—Sally Carmel told him she had to get back to Mango for a few days, check on her cat, the phone messages, and mail.

Ford had said, "I'll try to stay busy with work," hoping he didn't show the private undercurrent of relief he felt.

Then she said, "Well, maybe we both need a little time away from each other to see how we ... feel about all this." Letting him know that she was a little relieved, too.

Not that Ford was worried about that. People always built a little distance into good-byes when they knew they weren't going to be apart long.

She said, "I'll call you from home."

That was Saturday afternoon, but by Sunday evening, he still hadn't heard from her.

He had both hundred-gallon tanks nearly finished for his demonstration on the effects of filtering species on turbid water, and that's what he worked on all afternoon and right into dusk. The only interruption was when his friend from Tampa delivered an envelope-size package: the test results from water samples Ford had taken from Tucker Gatrell's artesian well.