Shark River

18

Tomlinson said, “I thought you had to work in the lab, now here you are driving a rental car. You have some weird little crevices in that brain of yours, my friend. You make some odd behavioral choices.” Then: “The old town’s changed, hasn’t it?”

Yep. Mango, what was left of the original, had certainly changed. Mango had once been a tiny clearing in a massive plain of marl and swamp. It was a collection of houses and docks on a weak curvature of mud flat that created a harbor, and the harbor curved away toward the charcoal gloom of Ten Thousand Islands, mangrove keys all in a maze, joined by water and shadow. They separated Florida’s mainland from the Gulf of Mexico. Florida Bay was to the south, Key West seventy miles beyond, and nothing, neither house nor road, between.

Before these obvious changes, it wasn’t a town, really. Not even a village. Mango used to be what was once known as a fish camp. It was a mangrove outpost: a row of peeling houses with rusted tin roofs built haphazardly, their impermanence uncontested, as if it were just a matter of time before a hurricane came and swept them away, or until roots and vines grew up through the floors, out the windows, and covered them.

Drive the winding mudflat road through seven or eight miles of swamp where the tide comes right up and floods across, then around a curve beneath coconut palms. Mango Bay rises out of the mangroves to the right. The village is on the left: streetlamps and houses on a low ridge of Indian mounds that face the water. The houses sit on squat pilings, the shell road separating them from the bay. There were also five houses built in the shallows, joined by individual boardwalks leading to the shore. They reminded me of my place on Sanibel.

Tucker had owned all those stilthouses at one time-fish shacks, he called them, but they were in much better shape now. In fact, all of Mango looked to be in better shape… modernized, anyway. The houses had been rebuilt, remodeled, repaired, and all of them had been painted or sided with aluminum, in Caribbean pastel colors, conch pink and coral and blue. Even the little store had been reopened, Homer’s Sundries-only now it was a Circle K with a big plastic sign, cars parked in the shell lot, cars moving up and down the street. There looked to be a half-dozen new duplexes, too, all waterfront; a lot of money was being invested, with more being built down the shoreline, judging from the crane and cement trucks, all the construction noise in the distance. A busy place. Modern Florida had finally found Mango.

To Tomlinson, I said, “Yep. It certainly has changed. Except for this place.”

Meaning Tuck’s ranch house, the last house at the end of the road, built on the highest mound-a low gray shack with a tin roof and a sand yard cloaked by trees and Spanish moss. A fallen-down barn out back: hay and a couple of stalls; a little room with a cot and a hot plate-Joseph Egret’s room, Tuck had called it.

I’d found Ransom and Tomlinson on the porch, waiting for the caretaker to come unlock the place.

Tomlinson was standing, looking out at the new houses, at the convenience store and a passing cement truck while Ransom moved from window to window, looking in. “The contrast,” he said. “Tupperware America and mudflat Florida. Obscene, man. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. You should never let them change this place. Ever.”

I was impatient to leave, find out what Tuck had left-if anything-and get going, back to my lab. I said, “That’s entirely up to Ransom.” I watched her big, slow smile when I added, “This is her house now. Whatever she wants to do with it.”

Silence has a museum quality in a house vacated by death. The wooden floors amplified the sound of our shoes as we walked inside; the grandfather clock made its familiar metronome noise from the corner near the fireplace.

Similarities to a museum didn’t end there.

The man with the keys, John Dunn, told us, “Captain Gatrell wanted the house to stay just the way he left it. I think I mentioned that to you on the phone, Doctor Ford. Just after your uncle’s death? So that’s exactly what our owners’ association has made every effort to do. Keep the place in good repair without changing the look of it. We owe him a great debt of gratitude. Captain Gatrell changed our lives. We’ve tried to honor his wishes to the letter.”

They had succeeded. The place looked like Tuck had just walked down the street to buy chewing tobacco. In other words, the house was a mess. Clothes thrown on the floor, a couple of his prized cowboy hats hanging from the antlers of a mounted deer head. Dishes in the sink, books he’d been reading spread-eagle around the room, spit cups everywhere, but the big brass spittoon by his rocker, at least, had been cleaned. Bullet holes in the walls, too. Several. And a big, hand-painted sign nailed to a rafter: GLADES SPRING WATER

FEEL FLORIDA FRESH MANGO, FLORIDA

Dunn cleared his throat and chuckled to cover what might have been embarrassment. “Your uncle seemed to think… or have the belief that he had such a strong spirit that he… I mean, his ghost… no, his spirit, let’s say. That his spirit would return to this house once he’d passed, so he wanted it ready to use and just the way he liked it after he died. Particularly the spit cups. He said he’d never had enough spit cups.”

I had a vague recollection of John Dunn. Tuck had met him and several other men and women who lived in some gigantic trailer park off the Tamiami Trail. Somehow, Tuck had recruited them to move to Mango and help him fix it up, for which they received options to buy up some of Tucker’s properties.

Ransom seemed delighted with the prospect of Tuck’s ghost still hanging around. “That my daddy,” she said, touching the Santeria beads she wore. “He a good man, so he have a good spirit. Someone to watch over me if’n I decide to live here. What you think, Mister Tommy?”

Tomlinson was looking toward the ceiling, hands on hips, considering it. After a few moments, he said, “Definitely. He’s here. Tucker Gatrell is definitely here. He has not left the building. If you want, we can hold a seance some night, invite him back, and let the old gentleman speak through me. After all those shock treatments I had, I’m a hell of a good medium.”

I said, “Another time. When you’ve rounded up a couple of space aliens, too. Mister Dunn? Isn’t there something you’re supposed to give us?” Trying to hurry things along.

There was. It was another letter from Tuck, written on the familiar yellow paper, sealed in an envelope. Before he handed the envelope to me, though, he said, “Captain Gatrell’s personal letter to me was very clear on this point. I am supposed to confirm that your sister is with you.” He looked at Ransom, puzzled. “Your half-sister, I guess.”

“She’s my cousin, not my sister, but you can see from the photographs on the wall, she’s the one Tuck meant.”

There were lots of pictures, some framed, some just tacked to the rough wood walls. There were a couple of me, and several of Ransom. She never looked much older than in her teens. Another one I’d never seen was a photo of Tuck and Joseph Egret, a horse in the background. Tuck was wearing his favorite gray roper’s hat, Joe a blue wind ribbon to hold his long hair. Another element in the Gatrell Museum.

Dunn had stepped to the wall, looking through his bifocals from one of the photos then back to Ransom. He smiled. “Young lady, you are a very beautiful woman. Handsome, I think that describes you even more accurately, and in a very feminine way. One of the most handsome women I think I’ve ever seen. I mean that.”

Ransom did something similar to a curtsey. “And you a very nice-looking white gentleman. Got a nice little butt on you, Mister Dunn.”

The woman had a great gift for making male friends very quickly. Dunn had to be in his late seventies, but he was suddenly doing his best to look and sound younger. He made a waving motion with his hands. “What the hell, I think we can dispense with any more ridiculous red tape. I look in your face and I trust you-and it is a lovely face, so sweet and angelic-but there is one other thing your father-” He seemed to remember I was still there. “-that your uncle also wanted me to ask you. Is there any third party forcing you to come here? I have a feeling there could be that possibility.”

Did he mean Tomlinson?

I said, “This is a good friend of mine. In fact, I think you two met a few years back.”

“Actually, I was thinking of a couple of other people, no one that’s here. A few days ago, a couple of black men-” He glanced at Ransom. “Sorry. Two African -American men came here asking about Captain Gatrell, where he lived, did his relatives ever come to visit his old house. Captain Gatrell once told me personally to keep my eyes open for… well, for men matching that description.”

Ransom said quickly, “Did one of ’em got gold stars on his teeth, and the other was big as a cow?”

Dunn was nodding. “And accents. Accents very much like yours-not as lovely, of course.”

Ransom ignored him. She looked at me, her eyes fierce. Said, “It them two no-account Rasta niggers again. They not done fuckin’ with us, my brother. We see them come around again, what I’m gonna do is mix up the herbs and powders and drop a spell on them that’ll make their prissy cocks shrivel up like raisins.”

Tomlinson was suddenly very interested. “Really? I don’t suppose there’s some spell you know that does the reverse?”

Hers was a bawdy, lusty laugh. “Mister Thomas, somebody done already dropped a double whammy of that spell on you judging by that big ol’ thing you got swingin’ between your legs.” Then she turned back to Dunn, who had paled slightly, and she said, “Thank you very much for them kind words. Now can we see that letter?” Dear Duke, If that witch bastard and his goat-humpers have forced you to come looking for what I took from him, and they’re standing there holding a pistola on you, chew up this note and swallow before they can stop you. Unless you think they’re gonna kill you for it, then let them have it. No amount of what I stole is worth you or Ransom dying. If you get the feeling I am afraid of them people after what they did to me and to Rumer, you are right and I am man enough to admit that cold-blooded killers and filth such as them do scare me ’cause they ain’t got no morals or conscience, so will do anything and it don’t even cause them to blink. Which is why I’m making it not so easy to get what I left for you. Just in case, I am going to tell you something only you would know. Then I’m going to tell you something else that only you would know. The first thing is, remember where my old dog, Gator, used to sleep? He’s a good old dog though he has bit an asshole or two and he’s probably gone now, dead like me and I hope he went out with a smile on his face. Right over his head was a place I used to hide cash money and such, things I didn’t want some of the no-account people around Mango to steal from me. Go to that place and take a look. There’s a nice little surprise for you there. Plus another letter. If the goat-humpers are with you, run for it right now. Your Uncle, Tucker Gatrell

There was a postscript written in a different color of ink: I’d meant to leave you six thousand dollars cash but had to spend it ’cause Joe and me need some traveling money plus to pay some vet bills.

After I’d finished reading, I handed the letter to Ransom and walked to the fireplace. Tucker had owned a big, rawboned Chesapeake that he adored, and the dog usually slept in front of the stone fireplace.

I leaned my weight against the mantelpiece and knelt to look at the rock. The fireplace had been made by stacking uneven layers of fossilized pink coral-coquina rock, some people called it-that had been quarried from Key Largo nearly a century before. As a child, I’d found those blocks fascinating because every close inspection revealed something not seen before. Imprinted on the limestone were miniature brain corals, staghorns, and the fabricked impressions of sponges-all sorts of animals that had lived and died a thousand years or more before the first calendar was conceived. Something I also remembered about that fireplace was that a couple of the rocks slid out like heavy drawers and, behind them, Tuck would sometimes hide money or anything else he thought was valuable.

But which rocks?

Tomlinson said, “Secret compartments, man. That’s what he’s looking for. Ol’ Tucker was a true romantic. I love stuff like this.”

I was feeling around the edges of the rock with my fingers, trying to remember. I knew it was toward the top, but I wasn’t quite sure where. “No secret compartments. Just sloppy workmanship. Tuck built the house himself, which is why it should be no surprise whatsoever.”

High on the fireplace, off to the right, I felt one of the slabs move at my touch. It seemed to be in the right area. I wedged my fingers into the cracks and pulled… out came a section of stone that I nearly dropped, it was so heavy. I placed it gently on the floor and looked into the cavern its removal had created.

“Mister Dunn? I don’t suppose you have a flashlight?”

“Why, yes, I do. Got one out in the truck.”

As he went out the screen door, I pulled out another section of stone. I could see a box or something set back there; I decided to wait for the light.

Yes, there was a small wooden box, heavily waxed, made out of some black and exotic wood. Probably something he’d picked up on one of his trips to Central America or Cuba.

I handed the box to Ransom, then reached in again. I removed what had the weight and feel of a weapon.

It was: Tuck’s pearl-handled and engraved revolver. It had been wrapped in an oilcloth, mounted inside its holster, then wrapped again in more oilcloth. He was seldom fussy about the maintenance of anything he owned, but the revolver was in good condition. It was an old Smith amp; Wesson. 44 long barrel, a weapon with sufficient fire-power to bring down-in Tuck’s words-“anything on two legs and most things on four.”

I flipped the loading gate and spun the cylinder. Five of the chambers were loaded, the sixth empty-an old-time safety measure used particularly by men who rode on horseback.

I remembered Tuck saying more than once, “The only dangerous gun is a gun that’s not loaded.”

Not necessarily.

I pressed the ejector rod, punched out all five cartridges, dumped them in my pocket, then looked down the muzzle. Clean rifling, too.

I heard Ransom say, “My oh my, you don’t believe Daddy Gatrell left us something nice now? I don’t care a thing no more about that cash was supposed to be there.”

She had the box open. She was holding up two more gold coins, one large, one small, similar to the ones she’d already showed me, but not the same. On these, the name of the king was Philip, and the dates were 1612 and 1640.

“He left us three silver coins, too. See there in the box?”

Tomlinson held up a lead-colored coin between his thumb and forefinger. It was about the size of a nickel. He was squinting to read what was on it. “Interesting, very interesting. These coins, they were all struck between 1556 and 1598… and let’s see… they’ve got the Habsburg shield plus the legend. It’s in Latin, it says ‘Philippus II Dei Gratia,’ which means ‘Philip the Second by the Grace of God.’ That’s the way I translate it, anyway.”

He stopped and turned the coin, showing it to Ransom. The kindly teacher sharing knowledge. “On the obverse… the back side, I mean, there’s the Spanish cross with castles and royal lions in quarters, and the words, ‘The King of Spain and the Indies.’ ” He handed the coin to her for inspection.

Ransom was beaming. She said to Dunn, “These two men I’m with, they about the smartest people you ever gonna meet. This one-” She used her chin to indicate Tomlinson. “He reads languages. Knows all about everything.”

Tomlinson seemed pleased. “Oh… not really. The way I know is, I lived aboard in Key West for awhile. Did some work with dear old Mel Fisher when his people were salvaging the Atocha. So I learned a little about coins. These silver ones, they’re called eight-reals-portions of pieces of eight. Two pieces of eight are worth a gold escudo”-he touched his finger to the smaller of the gold coins that Ransom held-“and eight gold escudos equal a doubloon.”

She was following along. “Why’s the gold one perfect, very round, but this silver one look like it made by a child?”

“The reals, they’re irregular like that because they were made by cutting little chunks off bars of silver bullion and carved down ’til the weight was right, then hand-hammered between engraved dies. Very crude stuff. The mint was down in Ecuador, I think.”

“And they worth a lot of money. A man in Nassau offered me three hundred dollars apiece for the gold ones. Said even the little gold one, he’d give me the same.”

Tomlinson made a sound of derision. “Never trust that shyster, ever. By weight, yeah, they might be worth something like that. But they’re worth twenty, maybe thirty, times their weight because they’re so rare. A doubloon in excellent condition, even the escudos-” He shrugged. “-my guess is, if you had forty of them, you could sell them off carefully, find the right collectors, big money people, and you’d end up with enough to buy a pretty nice house on Sanibel. If you had sixty of them, you could buy an inexpensive place on Captiva.” He shrugged again. “That’s about all I can tell you. Where they’re from, how Tuck got them, I have no idea.”

I was beginning to have my suspicions, although I said nothing. Presumably, the coins had all been lost during transit somewhere between South America and Spain, but they obviously were not from the same ship nor the same shipwreck. They immortalized different kings from a variety of dates. That suggested to me that Tucker had not gotten the coins from some lucky diver who’d found a solitary wreck. He’d gotten them from a collector, someone who had acquired them over a period of time.

Sinclair Benton, according to Ransom, had been a powerful man on Cat Island for many decades. He’d sold his spells to the locals and they weren’t cheap, so they had to pay for them with what they could. So make some rough calculations. For two and a half centuries, the Spaniards shipped gold and silver from the mines of South America to Spain. In those two hundred fifty years or so, they lost many dozens of ships throughout the Caribbean to poor navigation and storms. Over the passage of, say, thirty years, what are the chances that people on Cat Island and surrounding islands found the occasional Spanish coin or two while beachcombing or diving or hacking coral out of the reefs?

Of course they did. People are still finding gold and silver coins on the beaches of Florida, particularly places like Sebastian Inlet and Key West.

Okay, then multiply X number of lucky people by X number of accessible coins and you’d probably end up with a sizable number of available doubloons, escudos, and reals. Or maybe Benton found the coins himself-listened to the fishermen, tracked down the rumored wrecks, and had his people work them. He could have found a little; he could have found a lot.

Ransom was beaming, very pleased with the knowledge of her new wealth. She reached into the box again and said, “Here you go, another letter he wrote to you. My brother, how can you not like a man who so thoughtful he always writing you notes?”

As she handed me the envelope, I said, “Yeah, he’s really starting to win me over, that father of yours.” Dear Duke, If you come this far, the witch bastard is probably dead and gone and not still after us, but he might not be dead and he might still be after us. So you got one more step to go. You will soon see why I don’t want to take no chances. There ain’t been much I done right in my life, and I want to do this thing right. First thing I want you to do is go to the Estero River where them loony Koreshans thought they lived on the inside of the earth and built all them wooden buildings in what used to be jungle but ain’t no more. Used to be a nice old lady there who took an interest in my papers and old pictures and such from my years as a famous hunting and fishing guide and all the famous people I showed how to fish and shoot. Many a times I kept my skiff at the Koreshan dock to fish the Estero River and them bars off Hendry Creek with Mr. Edison and Mr. Lindbergh and Harry Truman and Clark Gable, too. I didn’t trust them papers being around the ranch ’cause, as you know, this damn roof is likely to leak like a faucet come the rainy season and it do make paper and such rot. The Koreshans had themselves what we used to call a music hall and that’s where she put my stuff. It’s all in one of them nice big wooden boxes I brought me back from British Honduras, stored under the stage where no one ain’t likely to look. Walk inside and you’ll see two wooden columns and this big black globe that shows stars on the outside of the earth, us living on the inside. Them Koreshans was loony but they did know how to build good buildings in a hard land. Who knows, you might get a smile out of seeing them old papers and pictures. Second thing is, Duke, Joe and me, we got one more thing for you to do. Remember where it was you took off to after your mama and daddy died? You know the name of the river and so do I ’cause I had to hunt around for a week by skiff to find you. Just down from that river is a big long stretch of beach, which is where you had your camp set up, and behind there is a stand of royal palms and the stone pilings of a house that burnt down. Man name of Dr. Lunsford got control of some of the Ingraham property, built a little dock and airstrip, and tried to raise cattle there, which Joe and me supplied, but the skeeters run us all off. Cattle ranching down on Cape Sable, something else I failed at, too. Underneath one of the stone pilings, we buried a bottle that’s got a note in there for you. Joe cut an X into the top of the piling with an old saw, so it should be easy to find and ain’t going nowhere. Go find it and I promise you won’t be disappointed by your old uncle this time.

After Tomlinson read the letter, he looked at me and said, “You know what he’s doing, don’t you?”

We’d walked outside, putting some distance between Dunn and ourselves so we could speak privately. The three of us standing in the shade of a big oak, Spanish moss hanging, Mango Bay holding blue light beyond, its islands undefined, ledges of black and gray.

“Taking one last opportunity to manipulate people,” I answered. “He could have trusted his attorney with the letters, the photos, the coins, everything. But that just wasn’t Tuck’s way.”

Tomlinson was shaking his head, his arm over Ransom’s shoulder, telling me I was wrong. “No. You don’t see the pattern? It’s for Ransom. All of it. And you. What he’s doing is making sure the daughter he never really got to know sees the Florida he loved. Tucker had his quirks, I don’t argue that, but he was crazy about this country. That’s what this is all about. He figured out a way to get you two together, a way so you’d have to take her around to the places he cared about, the places that made him the man he was.”

Ransom found that touching. I could see it in her expression as she said, “You really think that it?”

“I’d bet on it. I didn’t know Tucker well, but there was always a reason for his goofy ideas. Everything on separate levels. You think about it, Doc, the man’s whole life is a metaphor for all kinds of stuff. With some people, their only attempt at art is the way they live their lives.”

I had my hands on my hips, indifferent, not the least bit interested in hearing it.

Ransom sniffed and touched a finger to the corner of her eye. “Back when I was a little girl, I used to pray he’d come take me away. And when my sweet boy, Tucker, disappear in Horse Eatin’ Lake, I prayed even harder. Now he done it. My daddy found a way to come take me.” Then: “What that stuff about Koreshans mean? He talkin’ about that crazy man who burned up with all them people awhile back?”

Tomlinson took the letter again, rereading it, as I explained that no, there wasn’t a connection. At the turn of the century, Florida attracted-and continues to attract-odd religious splinter groups. The Koreshans had been led by a New York physician, Dr. Cyrus R. Teed, who convinced his gifted followers to come to Florida and found a New Jerusalem in the wilderness. They’d built a beautiful, functional little town on the banks of the Estero River. Teed had also preached celibacy, which is probably why his sect hadn’t lasted beyond the lives of its followers.

Not that requirements of celibacy intimidated Tuck. Joseph Egret had once told me that my uncle kept a boat at the Koreshan docks because of all the love-starved women who lived in the female dormitory there. He’d pole his boat in quiet, at night, and leave a little lantern on for ladies watching from windows to see.

Tomlinson folded the letter. “Isn’t there an Ingraham Bay down below Shark River? That whole Cape Sable area, it’s beautiful. No roads, no houses for thirty, forty miles. That’s where he wants us to go next.”

I told him, “You two find the Koreshan music hall, I’ll go to Shark River alone. I’ll either rent a boat in Chokoloskee or run the Maverick down. Depending on the weather.”

Chokoloskee is an island south of Everglades City. There’s a boat ramp there, a few rental skiffs, and a small marina.

I thought about it for a moment. How much delay should I allow the Colombians? There had to be sufficient time for logistics to be arranged. I thought about the guy in the Taurus, the guy who’d try to tail me, telling me about the three men in the Chrysler. I thought about Dunn describing Clare and Izzy-not that there was any reason to expect Clare and Izzy to react, anticipate, or understand, nor could I rely on their behavior. After a moment, I said, “Tomorrow afternoon, that’s when I’ll go. I’ll head down there right after the guides leave and the fuel pumps are open.”

“You don’t want company? Amigo, it just so happens I got the whole weekend free. I’d love to go.”

“Nope.”

I am rarely so short with Tomlinson and he was taken aback. “You seem undecided-hah! Kidding, just kidding.” Then: “What’s the problem, Doc? You don’t buy my theory that the old cowboy-Tucker I’m talking about-that Tuck came up with a way to get you two together. Ingenious. It really is. So you at least ought to take Ransom, plus it’s been more than a year since I poked around Shark River myself. I wouldn’t mind going back.”

I was shaking my head, walking away. “Another time. I’ve got my reasons.”

I listened to Ransom say, “See? Didn’t I tell you something had him very scared? He a very frightened man, though he won’t admit it,” as I opened the door of my old truck, removed the cell phone off the dashboard, slipped it into my pocket.