Shark River

19

That afternoon, I finished work around the lab and made phone calls. I tried to contact Hal Harrington at the numbers he’d given me, but his secretaries in Cartagena, San Jose, and D.C. told me he was away from the office. The secretary in D.C. said that he was not expected back until morning.

To each, I said, “Tell him that tomorrow I’ll be leaving for Cape Sable, just below Shark River. I’ll probably camp on the beach there. He can call me on the cell phone.”

If they found the long message odd, they gave no indication.

I told the same thing to Lindsey, who did seem puzzled. “That sounds like the place you told me about. And you’re going there without me? I’m jealous. I wish you could wait a week. Last night, when I was talking to him, my dad said he thought it’d be safe for me to be on my own, it wasn’t likely the kidnappers would try again, but just give it five or six more days.”

I explained to her that the trip wasn’t recreational, it was family business, and that we’d go another time. We talked for a little while before I asked her if she knew where her dad was.

She said, “He’s in Virginia. He’ll be back in D.C. tomorrow,” then I listened to her tell me about the skiing, how damn cold and boring it was up there when she wasn’t on the slope, and that she wished she had my bear paws to warm her, or was back in Florida, lying in the sun on some deserted beach alone with me.

Then she told me she had to run, Big Ben and Little Ben, her bodyguards, were outside in the Range Rover, waiting to take her back to the lifts. The two of them were a hoot, especially Big Ben.

I said, “I’ll call you in the morning before I leave Dinkin’s Bay,” making doubly certain she was clear about my schedule.

Twenty minutes later, I was inside South Trust Bank on Periwinkle. I made it just before they closed.

I found one of the managers, signed the log sheet, then went into the little room where she opened my safety-deposit box and handed me an old leather attache case, which I didn’t open until I was back in the lab.

Crunch amp; Des lay in the window watching me with disinterest as I opened the attache case and looked inside to make sure everything was there. I saw one folder labeled OPERATION PHOENIX and another with the words DIRECCION: BLANCA MANAGUA written on a label in red felt-tip pen, plus several others.

I returned all the folders to the leather case and put it in a garbage bag to keep it dry. Then I made myself busy readying my skiff for a long trip. I packed the starboard locker with water, ice, Diet Coke, and beer.

I packed the port locker with canned beans, corned beef, and a couple of tinned hams-enough food for several days, plus my stout Loomis bait-casting rod with a fine old ABU reel loaded with twenty-pound test. I carry it for stopping big-shouldered fish around mangroves when I need to put food on the table.

I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. I doubted if it would be more than two days, but I had no way of knowing for certain.

There is a saying I remembered from a month spent in Burma working with The King’s Own Gurkha Rifles: To catch a tiger, you must understand the behavior of goats.

After packing tent, mosquito netting, jungle boots, Navy issue crewneck sweater, watch cap, and miscellaneous camping gear, I reloaded Tucker’s old Smith amp; Wesson and placed it beneath the boat’s console beside my Sig Sauer.

Even though I hadn’t shot one in years, I’d have much preferred to have a rifle-something big bore with a first-rate scope.

I’d already spoken with Ransom. She’d seemed bubbly, almost giggly. She told me about their visit to the Koreshan Unity. Something Tuck never anticipated had happened: The place had become a state park, completely fenced in with a guard gate, so she’d had to distract the nice, handsome ranger man while Tomlinson slipped into the Music Hall and found the hidden papers, right where Tuck had said.

Interesting papers, which she described. There were personal notes and letters, all to Tucker, from enthusiastic fishermen and hunters he’d guided and introduced to Florida’s backcountry. The letters were signed by men such as Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Charles Lindbergh, Dick Pope, and Walt Disney. There were lots of photographs, too-all signed.

“Mr. Tommy, he tol’ me some of these papers might be worth more than our coins. Not that we’d want to sell them, ’course. I’m just pointing out how Daddy Gatrell thought of his daughter and took care of her.”

She also told me, if I didn’t mind, that she and Mr. Tommy had gotten a room at the Naples Hilton to celebrate. He’d been telling her about something called a massage, an herbal wrap, and a facial, womanly things she’d never heard of but wanted to try because, at her age, she said she wanted to try everything she could while she could.

She added, “If you not leaving for Shark River ’til tomorrow morning, why don’t you pull in here and pick us up? Mr. Tommy, he say Naples is right on your way. I don’t want you to make that trip alone, Doc. I got me a very bad feeling about what it is you doing. I touch my gris-gris bag, I touch my beads, and I get the really strong feeling someone gonna die.”

I told her that I wasn’t going to die no matter what her beads said-a subtle avoidance that she didn’t catch-and to please put Mr. Tommy on the phone.

After a moment, I heard Tomlinson’s voice say, “Doc? Wait ’til you see what it was the old bastard left for you two at the Koreshan Unity. These amazing letters and pictures. A handwritten letter from Lindbergh inviting Tuck to visit him in Hawaii. A letter from Walt Disney thanking Tuck for a great day fishing and his advice about where to build in Florida. There’s this other letter-you won’t believe who wrote it. This other letter-”

I said, “Hold it; be quiet for a second.” Tomlinson was talking about one thing, but the nervous quality of his voice told me he was thinking about something else, which is why I cut him off. I said, “Tomlinson? Tell me something. Are you planning on sleeping in the same room with Ransom tonight?”

“Well, because of the prices and all; it’s tourist season, you know… and we are at the Hilton. It was all kind of Ransom’s idea because she wanted to be closer to Mango so we can stop back there in the morning and really take a look around. She’s considering moving into Tuck’s old place-can you dig that?-which is why I thought-”

Yep, he was nervous alright.

I interrupted again. “Please, please… spare me, okay? I know what’s going on in that twisted and lecherous brain of yours. How many times have you told me that you’d never met an attractive woman in your life without immediately calculating the best way to get her into bed. Which is why you’re not-repeat, are not -sleeping with Ransom tonight, damn it.”

“Hey, amigo, as we both know, my you-know-what doesn’t work worth a you-know-what-”

“I don’t care about that. It’s just not right.”

Heard Tomlinson say, “Ransom? Would you excuse me for a moment?” Then, after a short pause, “Doc, I need to remind you of a couple of things. Ransom’s a grown woman-a lot older than some of the women you date, by the way. She’s been married and divorced. She’s a mother. Call me a hopeless bleeding heart feminist, but I think she’s capable of making her own decisions about who she sleeps with.”

“Absolutely not. The only reason you’re interested in her is because of the way she looks, that body of hers, and because you’re hoping she knows some kind of island spell, Obeah I’m talking about, that’ll make your equipment work. Which is bullshit, and I don’t want her to be a part of something like that.”

“Am I really hearing this?”

“You bet you are.”

“I don’t get it. Yeah, Ransom’s spectacular, but not just because she’s great-looking, man. It’s because of her age, her personality. It’s the whole far-out package. There’s like this truly karmic gig going on between us, not the least of which is that we’re both worried shitless about you. About what the hell kind of crazy, dangerous thing you are up to now.”

“I’m not going to listen to this, Tomlinson. You two are not sleeping together. You just met! End of story.”

“But why?”

“It’s not obvious? I don’t want you to sleep with her, damn it all, Tomlinson, because she’s my-” I caught myself. I’d almost said because she was my sister. Instead, I said, “Because she’s a blood relative, and the potential for complications is just too great. It would be like dating someone from the marina. And we both agree about the dangers of that.”

“I’m sorry, I really am, Doc, but no promises,” he said. “I just can’t. The attraction’s too strong, man. Very heavy vibes, which I think she feels, too. Ransom’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met; that’s just the way it is. But I’ll let you know.”

Which really infuriated me.

After I hung up, I worked around the lab. I got everything I could packaged and mailed off.

I waited until an hour after dark to trailer the skiff behind my pickup, then I drove it south toward the Everglades, Mango, and the islands beyond.

I pulled into Everglades City at a little after 8:30 P.M. It was a half-moon night with stars. Everglades is a mangrove town built at the border of sawgrass and sea by a turn-of-the-century visionary and power baron. It was to have been the political seat of a great county. The village’s fortunes ascended briefly, but isolation and swamp are formidable consorts, and it ultimately returned to being the outpost it was destined to remain.

Everglades had changed much, though, in just the last year or two-lots of new tourist facilities, several new restaurants, and a billboard near the village circle advertising a trailer park on the narrow road to Chokoloskee. There were authentic Seminole souvenirs, gator tail sandwiches, birding tours and airboat rides, all the tacky, touristy standbys that are the historic mainstays of tacky, touristy South Florida.

Like Mango, the modern world had finally moved to within reach of Everglades City and begun the slow, osmotic process of change and homogenization.

I crossed the elevated river bridge and dropped down onto a slow boulevard of palms. The village has had the same streetlights since the 1930s, glass moon-globes on ornate iron stems. The streetlights were set apart at incremental distances, creating theatrical islands of light as I toured slowly through town. I was tempted to stop and have dinner at the Rod amp; Gun Club. I remembered, fondly, a nice lady I’d once overnighted with in one of the little cottages there. We’d spent it holding one another, nothing more, two friends providing comfort. One of the few and truly good ones. I remembered her good eyes and strong heart, and I wished her another private, silent farewell.

I make it a rule not to linger in sentimentality, however; I seem to have less and less tolerance for it. Tomlinson insists that the opposite is true. He says that I have grown both spiritually and emotionally since I opened the lab at Dinkin’s Bay. He doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t consider that a compliment.

I decided not to waste time ordering dinner at a restaurant. I had canned goods in the boat, drinks, too. Instead, I turned back through town and stopped at the Circle K, where I loaded on more ice and fuel, then launched my skiff at the boat ramp.

The tide on the Baron River was ebbing. At idle, the black current swept me southward through the village and into the night. I stood at the wheel of my boat, big engine rumbling, and looked at the lights of the village. I could see people moving across scrims of windows, framed by leaves and vines, a micro-snapshot of lives being lived in this isolated Florida place.

Then, far off to the left, I could see the glow of Chokoloskee as I powered to plane across Chokoloskee Bay, running the flashing markers out Indian Key Pass, the moon following along behind me, its blue light strobing through the limbs of mangroves. The tops of the trees were individualized and set apart in starlight, a primeval canopy against the brighter sky. Then the mangroves thinned, fell away, and disappeared so that it was like breaking some gravitational hold, and I was suddenly free, running straight into blackness and a horizon of stars.

When I was well offshore, clear of coral rock and oyster bars, I banked southwest. Sea and sky were lucent spheres joined at the horizon. I sledded across, down the surface of one sphere, then up the surface of another.

In a few minutes, I picked up the gloom of Pavilion Key, the westernmost of the Ten Thousand Islands, and an effective range to deep water.

Twenty miles or so beyond, I knew, was Shark River.

I stopped only once. I calculated that I was slightly south of Lostman’s River. I took a whiz off the stern, looking up at the sky. No boats, no lights, nothing. The coast-line was all darkness here. I might have been the only human being left on earth. I switched off the engine. I sat drifting there, in no hurry now. I stripped off my clothes and swung over the side, my only way to bathe for the next few days.

The February ocean was chilly, in the low seventies, nearly cold.

Back in the boat, I dried myself and checked the cut on my left arm. It seemed to be closing nicely. I squirted antibiotic cream onto gauze and taped it into place. Then I put on fresh clothes. I hadn’t worn these clothes in so long that their use suggested ceremony. I put on camo BDUs, the dense Navy sweater over a T-shirt and the black watch cap.

Finally, I tied on my old and comfortable jungle boots before firing the engine and heading down the coast.

Look at a map, and Cape Sable is the massive riverine promontory that forms the southwestern boundary of the Florida peninsula. It is uninhabited, isolated, seldom visited-many miles of beach fringed by strands of coconut palms, accessible only by boat. It is known for silence, mosquitoes, and some of the most stunning sunsets on Earth.

There was good moonlight, but it was still too dark to see the stand of royal palm trees Tuck had mentioned, so I had to guess. I stern-anchored off Northwest Cape, and muled my gear up the beach. I pitched my red dome Moss tent, collected wood, and built a pit fire for light and as a smudge to sweep some of the mosquitoes away.

Down on the Cape, mosquitoes are distressing in winter. In summer, they can be existential-a peppered cloud that swarms and attacks, a billion winged lives competing for mammalian blood.

With pants, sweater, and headnet, though, I was protected, and worked away without much trouble. I wanted a big, public camp with lots of light and color, something easily seen from miles away. I thought about hiking up to Little Sable Creek to see if there was one of those tall, rope-straight mangroves growing there-a trunk adaptation associated with the Cape Sable area. I had the idea of putting up a little flagpole, something no one could miss.

I decided that seemed a little too much. If they wanted me, they would find me.

A frightening realization: Of course they would.

When the camp was complete, I began the more careful work of building a second, invisible camp. Because there was a chance I might need it, I took my folding entrenching tool and dug a hole in the hard sand large enough to hold me. I dug it deep enough that water began to seep in, then used my flashlight to find palmetto fronds to cover the thing.

The possible scenario was, if armed men approached my tent, I could lie on my back in the hole, wait until they’d passed, then surprise them from the rear.

Not a preferred plan of attack, but I wanted as many options available as possible.

When I was done with the hole, I walked inland a hundred meters or so to a border of trees. There were palms and Brazilian peppers-a noxious exotic-and a couple of huge black mangroves, too.

It was late now; the moon had drifted low toward the open Gulf of Mexico and by its light I saw, for the first time, the feathered crests of the royal palms that Tuck had mentioned, and that I also remembered from my first solitary visit to this place years ago as a boy.

A royal palm tree looks as if it is made from cement poured into an eighty-foot tube, then topped with a crown of fronds. Get up into one of those palms and you’d be able to spot any approaching boat miles before its arrival. Trouble was, I needed climbing hooks and a climbing belt to get up one of those trees. Worse, even the closest tree was too far from my false camp, and I didn’t feel like moving all that equipment again.

I decided the black mangroves would be good enough and picked the stoutest, not the tallest, tree. I climbed until I was about twenty or thirty feet above the ground, then chose two strong branches that were about the right distance apart. Between those branches, I strung my good jungle hammock with its camouflaged roof and no-seeumproof netting. Using sawed limbs, I also constructed a solid little platform big enough to hold me comfortably. Then I cut branches until I had a clear view of the beach camp, and used those branches to build a blind.

Back on the ground, I considered angles and distance. Years ago, with the Sig Sauer, I’d been able to shoot consistently and accurately up to about fifteen meters. I paced off the distance from the mangrove tree and built a makeshift lean-to on that spot. Also I constructed a small fire pit, then lit a pile of twigs and let it burn until it smoldered.

This had to be a convincing little outpost.

I thought I had everything I needed in my backpack but, of course, didn’t. Twice I had to make the long walk to my boat to get something I’d forgotten. A typical camping exercise.

This, however, was not a typical camp.

I kept the big fire burning for light. I opened a can of black beans and a small canned ham. Stuck them near the coals and made forays down the beach to collect driftwood for the fire. I had a stack of wood that was belt-high before I finally stopped to eat. I chopped ham into beans, and squeezed in the juice of one of the limes I’d brought. Sat back in the shadows, looking out across black water, eating, looking at the fire.

Driftwood makes the best of fires. It’s saturated with sea salt and ocean minerals. The chemical combustion of those salts and minerals creates flames that burn translucent blue, green, and violet-colors never seen in other campfires. Each piece of wood burns differently; each chunk creates its own prismatic display. Driftwood accurately translates the iridescent hues of Caribbean water into heat and flame.

As I sat there, my memory moved automatically and without conscious interest to that evening, years ago, after I’d loaded my little wooden skiff with camping gear and arrived alone at this place. I remembered my first view of the mangroves of Shark River. To a boy of eleven, they’d appeared massive, prehistoric-a black and green border at the Earth’s end.

The river, too, seemed well-named. For water to suggest the presence of predators, it must be sufficiently dark and volatile to create swirling ambush points and unexpected drop-offs. It must have some depth to it, too, enough to shield that which lies beneath and thus demonstrate a potential for attracting creatures unseen-creatures that are unexpected, dangerous.

The second day of that long-ago camping trip, I’d baited a heavy boat rod with a live mullet and drifted on an incoming tide along the sheer mangrove wall. The mullet was the size of a bowling pin. I never expected that there was anything around big enough to hit it.

I was wrong. Within a few minutes, something below turned on the bait so hard that it nearly snatched the rod and me out of the skiff. Then it ran off a hundred yards of fifty-pound test line, pulling the skiff and me along behind like a ski boat before it popped the monofilament as if it were string.

I’d pitched my Scout tent on Shark Point. After hooking and losing that fish, though, I moved camp south to Cape Sable, miles from the river. Even then, I loved to swim open water, but the experience had done something to my confidence, to my sense of security above water and below. I didn’t want to risk swimming again in a place that attracted animals so large and predatory.

Staring at the fire, I also thought about my mother. No longer able to recall her face from memory, I now remember her only from photographs. An attractive woman with strong cheeks and good eyes. By all accounts, she’d been a gifted amateur naturalist and one of the earliest advocates for a save-the-Everglades movement. She’d spent a lot of time lobbying hard up in Tallahassee.

I found it oddly comforting to know that just around the far curvature of Cape Sable was Flamingo, once an isolated fish camp, now headquarters for Everglades National Park. There, nearly hidden by mangroves, is a little brass plaque commemorating the founding of the park. My mother’s name is there, second column, about midway down.

The last thing I did before climbing the tree and zipping myself into the hammock was re-anchor my boat. I anchored it bow pointed seaward, double-anchored, stern tied by a long line to a stake I drove into the beach.

Then I went for a quick swim. I swam out a couple hundred meters. There was a fresh wind blowing and I rode the waves up and down, the horizon all around me. From the crest of each wave, I could see the stars that form the Southern Cross.

The Cross was at eye level, afloat way, way out there at open sea.

Several times that night, I awoke to the sound of wind and to the niggling despair of old memories. Once I heard a powerboat come in close to shore and shut down abruptly. I thought I saw a light in the far distance. Thought I heard something going thud-thud-thud, like wood hitting wood.

I waited, watched, listened. Decided it was probably a pompano fisherman working the beach, banging his hull with a paddle to spook fish into his gill net.

Cordero or his hired helpers could not possibly have had time already to rent a boat or steal a boat and track me to Cape Sable.

I checked the cell phone to make certain it was still on.

Plenty of battery remaining.

If I had to stay there a few days, I could always recharge it from the adapter on my skiff.

I tried to call Harrington one last time. Got his voice mail. Didn’t bother leaving a message. There was no need.