A False Dawn

TEN

The morning sun was topping the tree line down by the river when I started for the door. Max followed me through the house to the front door where she sat down on her rear-end watched me lock the door. She cocked her head. I almost expected her to open her mouth and speak.

“Stay here, Max, I’ll be back in a few hours.” She looked up at me with disbelieving brown eyes. Yesterday I told Max the same thing and almost caused her to develop a kidney infection. “All right, you can come along. Let’s go ask Mr. Billie a few questions. You’re the only back-up I have.”

The white letters on the cypress plank sign leading into Hanging Moss Fish Camp were faded, but I could still make out the words. It read: Bait, Beer, Boats. Under a dozen live oaks and cabbage palms were single-wide trailers, rustic cabins, and a vintage silver Airstream trailer closer to the river. I parked the Jeep in front of the bait shop.

A gunshot popped.

Max barked.

“Hush, Max!” I half-zipped the isinglass windows on the Jeep just high enough to keep Max from jumping out. I shoved the pistol under my belt in the small of my back. I could see no one. I eased out of the Jeep. “Stay, Max! Keep your head down!”

A second shot fired. It came from the direction of the river. I darted to a fifty-five-gallon trash barrel next to an embankment that gave me a vantage point to look down at the river fifty feet below me. I followed a worn flight of wooden stairs to a boat dock.

A shirtless man, bare feet grungy, blurred tattoos on both forearms, stood holding a 12-gauge shotgun. Two boys in their early teens watched something in the weeds. One boy said, “I’ll get it with a paddle, Daddy.” He took a paddle from one of the johnboats and reached into the weeds, lifting out a large water moccasin. Half the snake’s head was blown away.

“He’s still alive!” the youngest boy yelled.

“No it ain’t,” the man said. “That’s just dying nerves twitchin’ the tail. Set him down, boy. Coon’ll come along tonight and eat it.”

The man spotted me and said, “I was cleanin’ some fish over there, turned around and that damn snake had a whole crappie in his mouth. Like to eat it right off my stringer. That’ll teach the sons-a-bitch.”

“Don’t think it’ll be back for seconds,” I said.

He sat the shotgun down, shook a cigarette loose from a Camel pack, lit it with a Zippo in his pocket and inhaled a long draw. He looked out toward the water, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “River’s full of them. Moccasins are mean motherfuckin’ snakes.”

I looked at his catch. “How’s fishing?”

“Pretty good,” he said after taking a second drag. “I bring ‘em boys up here every year. We usually do good, exceptin’ three years ago when the river was so high.”

“Do you know Joe Billie? He lives here at the camp.”

“Don’t know nobody. You can check with Doris in the store.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded and flipped his cigarette toward the dead snake.

Max poked her head out one of the air holes I’d left for her. She watched me silently as I opened the bait shop's screen door. The image that hit me was of an old Florida bait shop with a faded postmark and no return address. Hanging behind the counter was a six-foot rattlesnake skin, filleted open, shellacked and tacked to a cypress board. Pickled eggs and hoop cheese were sold next to alligator-claw backscratchers.

No one was in the small store, but the images of ghosts were tacked to one wall. A father stood next to his daughter and helped the girl hold a stringer of catfish. A barefooted man in bib overalls held up a bass the size of a roasted turkey.

“Help you?” He stood at the threshold of a side door and wiped his hands on a towel. Friendly face, ruddy, perspiring skin.

“Is Doris here?” I asked

“She’s off. I’m Carl. I was skimming dead shiners out of the tank. Didn’t hear you.”

“Do you know Joe Billie?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. He rent here?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“He a friend of yours?”

“He’s a handyman. I have some work I need done.”

“I haven’t met anybody named Joe Billie. You could ask the witch in the blue and white trailer about two hundred yards on the left.”

“Witch?”

“I wouldn’t go there unless you really need to find this guy.”

“Why?”

“If you stop there, you’ll find out.”