The Man Who Ivented Florida

FIVE

An investigator from Florida's Department of Criminal Law arrived at Dinkin's Bay Marina on a late Thursday afternoon, just after the fishing guides got in and just before Ford left in his twenty-four-foot trawl boat-the cedar-plank netter he'd bought used in Chokoloskee more than a year ago and had chugged up the inland waterway past Mango and Naples and Fort Myers Beach, so he could drag the shallows off Sanibel, collect specimens for his marine supply business.

The investigator's name was Walker, Agent Angela Walker, out of the St. Pete office, sent down by the governor's office in Tallahassee. She could have signed out one of the department's white four-door Chryslers, but she drove her own new Acura Legend LS instead, plum red, with brown leather interior, slowing at the highest span of the Sanibel Causeway to get a better look at the bay below, the Gulf glittering toward the western horizon, the long green island with its white beach borders, mansion-sized homes showing through the trees, and the black cowling of a lighthouse sticking up above the palms and casuarinas.

My, my, my, she thought. Look at all the money…

At the stop sign, Angela Walker turned right on Periwinkle Way, stopped at Bailey's General Store for directions, then followed Tarpon Bay Road through the mangroves and into

the shell parking lot, trying to find some shade beside the Dinkin's Bay Marina sign-BEER, BAIT, FISHING GUIDES.

Stepping out of the Acura, with its tinted windows and CD player, was like leaving a small, cool fortress; like stepping into a kiln, the whole place silenced by the heat, the parking lot nearly empty, a sleepy little clearing on the water with docks and boats that was a blur of searing white until she got her sunglasses on and her eyes adjusted.

October in Florida is too damn hot. Shoulda taken the job in San Diego…

She was wearing a linen skirt and a sleeveless silk blouse, both from Dillards, oyster-shell white over navy, and she considered leaving the linen jacket in the car but decided it wouldn't look professional. Be like going off without her ID, badge, and. 38 snub-nosed S amp;W with the checkered grip, all department issue, all kept in her purse unless she was on a hot call. Then the ID was pinned outside the jacket, the. 38 S amp; W kept under the jacket in the Jensen quick-draw holster. Not that she had ever been on a hot call. No. She'd been with the department less than a year, recruited out of New York University right after graduation, master's in criminal science, lured to Florida through the state's minorities hiring program-not that that was ever mentioned to her. But she knew. She also knew that with her 3.5 GPA she could have gone anywhere she wanted.

In the jacket, in that heat, Agent Walker was already sweating by the time she got to the marina office and asked the man behind the glass counter where she could find a Mr. Marion Ford.

"You're looking for Doc?" The man behind the counter had an accent, Australian… no, New Zealand. She could tell by the upward lilt when he said, "Just once, it would be nice if a pretty woman came in and asked for me."

Walker said, "You're very kind," and waited.

"Doc lives down the shore there-you can see just the corner of his place through the mangroves. See? The little gray house on piles." The man was leaning, looking out the window. "I'd call for you, but he's been keeping his phone off lately. Rather a private man."

"Yes, I've tried his phone."

"You might walk on down. Just follow the path from the parking lot, and if he's not there, you can leave a message. Or I'll pass a message along-"

The woman said, "Thank you very much. I'll check at his house."

In the parking lot, she let her eyes linger on her new car, finding that some of the delight in it had already faded. She'd had it only two weeks, and the payments were going to be a strain. A Japanese car, at that-they were notorious racists-but it was such a beautiful car, machined like a fine watch, sleek and solid, and she'd fallen in love with the damn thing. She trailed a long brown finger over the fender, noting the patina of dust. From now on, maybe she'd drive one of the pool cars. Save washings, and this salt air couldn't be good for the finish.

"Hello… hello? Anyone home?"

A gray boardwalk wobbled out to the house, and Agent Walker stood with one foot on it, calling. Quiet-looking place with its tin roof and wash hung out on the line. All men's clothes, khaki and whites, nothing feminine about the place at all except a kind of measured neatness.

"Hello?"

She could see movement at the far side of the house, someone on the dock below, and she walked on out, glad she'd worn plain flats, because the spaces in the dock would be a hell of a place to catch a heel. Fall off the dock and she'd go right into the muck, no water at all, like the tide was out.

A man's head poked up over the dock. "Yeah?" Man with wire glasses, hair salt-streaked, blond, his expression none too friendly. But she walked on out anyway, taking her ID from her purse as she went, ducked around some pilings, and stepped down onto the lowest dock, where she could see the man was standing in a funny-looking boat-wide wooden thing with poles and nets. Beside it was tied a sleek fiberglass boat, turquoise green, with a big black engine. Fast, probably cost a lot. She wondered what it would be like to try skiing.

"Are you Marion Ford?"

"That's right."

Walker introduced herself. The man made no effort to shake hands, but he did take her ID wallet. He studied it, his eyes swinging from the laminated photograph to her face. "Florida Department of Criminal Law," he said. "You've had your hair cut shorter."

She gave him her professional, congenial smile. Had to be friendly with them if you wanted them to talk. "Florida is a lot hotter than I thought it would be."

"Not like New York, huh?"

"Well, it can be hot there, too." She stopped talking, her expression puzzled.

The man said, "Your accent."

She replaced the smile. "I keep forgetting-I'm the one who talks funny down here."

The man held the ID wallet for her to take, then turned his attention to the boat, messing with ropes and nets, not looking at her.

"I was wondering if you might have time to answer a few questions."

Instead of saying, "About what?"-that was almost always the first thing they asked-he said, "I'm just getting ready to go out. I have to catch the low tide."

"It wouldn't take long. We're trying to get some background information on a relative of yours. Strictly routine. A man named Tucker Gatrell."

Instead of asking, "Is he in some kind of trouble?"-they almost always asked that if the questions were about a friend or a relative-the man in the boat said, "Then why don't you talk with Tucker Gatrell?"

"I've already spoken with him."

"He suggested you talk with me?"

"No. But for our background files-"

"The tide's waiting, Ms. Walker. I've got to start the engine and get going."

She tried a different approach. "Mr. Ford, I've driven all the way from St. Petersburg. I haven't been with the FDCL long, and they've given me this assignment, more than thirty people to interview, and if you could just give me a few minutes…" Playing on his sympathy, something she hated to do.

The man stooped, pressed a button, and the boat's engine clattered- Pop-apop-POP-POP-POP. She had to talk over the noise. "Maybe I could go out in the boat with you?"

For the first time, he smiled a little. "You'd get your clothes wet. Shoes all messy. I'll be dragging the nets." He had an irritating confidence, sure she would refuse.

"That's all?" Agent Walker swung down onto the boat, not giving him a chance to reply. "It'll be a good place for us to talk, out on the water."

Ford was thinking, Exactly what I deserve, giving her an opening like that. She set me up. He was standing at the wooden ship's wheel, one of the old ones made of fitted mahogany, steering across the shallows of Dinkin's Bay. The woman stood beside him, looking out the windshield, small black purse on the control console between the compass and the throttle lever, not saying much. Long-bodied woman, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five, had the practiced professional aloofness that more and more females were affecting when dealing with men-so determined to deflect any male assumptions about their competence that they also voided any chance of personal interaction, upon which acceptance and judgments of equality were based. Wore perfume. Nails glossed, but not long, and she had the gaunt facial bone structure and coloring Ford associated with people of the western Sahara.

First the sandstorm, now her.

"Is this what you do for a living, net fish?" In the little wheel-house, Walker didn't have to talk as loudly to make herself heard over the engine.

"That isn't on the printout they gave you? My occupation?"

"It said 'Sanibel Biological Supply.' That's all. Well, that you're a marine biologist."

Ford said, "Uh-huh," steering the boat past the fish-house ruins off Green Point, then back into the main channel, past Jack Thomas's house and Esperanza Woodring's place, where chickens scratched beneath palm trees by the dock. He turned west into narrow Tarpon Bay cut, then angled north onto the grass flats before throttling down, stopping the boat. Pine Island Sound spread away northwest to southeast, a gray water field of flux and flow that showed the swirls of rising bars and the contours of grass bottom smooth as a golf course. Low tide, late afternoon, and not many boats were out. But having the woman along neutralized the delight Ford would have felt being alone on a spring low, watching water drain away until the sea bottom showed itself.

He unlashed the net booms and cranked the outriggers down, listening as the woman said, "Maybe I should tell you why I've been assigned this interview." She was still standing by the wheel, trying to stay out of the way.

"Why you're interested in Tuck Gatrell," Ford said.

"He is your uncle."

"He's my uncle."

"But we're not interested just in him. We're interested in everyone who lives in that little village, Mango. And other places along the boundaries of Everglades National Park, too. We're trying to build our files."

Ford eased the boat into gear and threw the nets out, watching to make sure they didn't swing out tangled. He said, "Oh?"

Walker hoped he would say more; hoped his tone would suggest the approach she should take. So far, the man didn't fall into the textbook categories of friendly witness or hostile witness. It was as if he was standing back, watching from the gallery, not even there. She had a sheath of data sheets on all the work-ups-people she was supposed to interview-but Marion Ford's was only two paragraphs on a single page. The biology business, navy, and ten years with the NSA, National Security Agency, which implied all sorts of interesting possibilities, and why she'd jumped onto the boat instead of just setting up a phone interview. See what the guy was like for herself.

She said, "Part of that area-around Mango, most of the village-is being annexed for a state park project. A sort of add-on to Everglades National Park, and we're doing backgrounds on landowners to see who might be hostile to the project. A kind of survey."

She watched his face to see whether he believed that. He said, "That explains it," though she could tell he didn't buy it at all, something in his tone. Way too passive. So she added, "Of course, that's not the only reason."

Ford was at the throttle, looking back at the nets, checking his watch. He wanted to do a short drag, seven minutes tops. Didn't want to crush any of the unwanted specimens in the accumulation of tidal grass and sea hydroid. Easing back on the throttle, he smiled at the woman and said, "You mean there's more?"

"You've probably heard that three men disappeared in that area within the last few weeks."

Ford said, "I don't think so. Where?"

Walker studied him for a moment, thinking that he might be lying. "Three men in separate boats on separate days," she told him. "You haven't heard anything about it? It was just south of Mango, on the park boundary."

Ford said, "And you suspect Tucker Gatrell?"

"No, not at all. I'm-we are-just trying to assemble a picture of the people in the area, trying to get background. Two of the men had been hired by the state to complete an environmental survey project. A census, they call it. And we're trying to come up with a list of people who might have a reason to… ah, object to the survey." She smiled, watching him. "People think law enforcement is all guns and car chases, but it's not. Not at the FDCL. It's mostly research. Interviews, like I'm doing now."

"Must be a long list."

"Of people to interview? They gave me only thirty names,-maybe that's not all of them. The third man was a fishing celebrity. He had his own television show."

Ford said, "Were they similar? The three boats. That could be a key."

"No. I mean, I'm not sure. Three boats couldn't all be alike. That would be too much of a coincidence." The question had thrown her. He'd been way back on the fringe of the conversation, then suddenly he was at the heart of it. "The key to what? You mean they could have been faulty boats and sunk?"

He said, "But you're just doing the interviews. Someone else is doing the investigation."

"Well… yes and no… but back to the three boats-"

"What did Gatrell tell you?"

"He didn't say anything about the boats."

"About anything else, I mean."

"I know, but-"

"Did you go down there, talk to him in person?"

"No. I talked to him on the phone, a preinterview, trying to set up an appointment. He didn't tell me much."

Ford said, "I never found a way to make Tuck shut up." Already, he was dropping back from the topic. In and out, Walker thought, like a mongoose.

Walker said, "Oh, he talked. But not about what I wanted. He just rambled. He's… kind of charming in an odd sort of way. He talked about himself, the way old people like to do. Perhaps exaggerating a little-not that I minded."

Ford said, "Only a little?"

"He told me he had invented some kind of fishing-stone crabbing?"

Ford said, "That's true. Back in the fifties, he and his partner- an Indian named Joseph Egret-experimented until they found an effective trap. They supplied a Miami restaurant called Stone Crab Joe's."

"He told me that he had discovered shrimp fishing, too."

"At night, that's what he meant. He was one of the first to figure out that shrimp came out of their burrows at night. Shrimpers have fished at night ever since. He wasn't lying there."

Agent Walker was beginning to sense a small rapport growing, built around questions about Tucker Gatrell. She said, "He told me he'd poached those pretty birds, egrets, and alligators. That one night he'd shot and skinned more than three hundred-"

"Only Tuck would brag about that."

"And that he was part of the reason so many Cubans had migrated to Miami. He'd supplied Castro with guns."

Ford said, "He ran guns."

"And rum."

"From Cuba and Nassau. All true. During Prohibition back when he was in his teens."

"And that he'd worked for the man who built the road across the Everglades, but it was a failure because the equipment kept sinking in the mud, and it was his idea to use a-what did he call it?"

"I don't know what he called it, but it was a floating dredge. A dredge on a barge that dug its own canal and floated along behind. The fill created the roadbed. Tuck was a boy, a water boy for a man named Barron Collier, and supposedly he said-"

Walker said, "Yeah, it was something funny-"

"Tuck says a lot of funny things."

The woman finished the story for him. "He said, 'Jesus Christ, Barron, man only makes two things that float, shit and boats. And you can hire yourself another boy if you think I'm walking through shit clear to Miami.' "

Ford said nothing, listening to her. The woman had a nice low laugh; let a little bit of the girl show through, but Ford could see what she was doing, trying to build a working intimacy. Pretty good at it, too.

Behind them, on the slick water, was a roiled trail, like a brown comet's tail, showing the path of the nets. He shut down the engine, cranked the outriggers up, swung the nets over the culling table, and spilled the contents. A whole world of sea life gushed out: filefish, pinfish, sea horses, parrot fish, tunicates, grasses, comb jellies, spider crabs, blue crabs, a calico crab, a couple of horseshoe crabs, and flopping rays. For a moment, sorting the specimens, he forgot that the woman was there, but then she said,

"He told me this other story, too, about how Disney World got started up there in Orlando."

"Tuck's not shy about taking credit-"

"But it wasn't Walt Disney, or anybody like that, it was this other man-"

Ford said, "Dick Pope. That's Tuck's Dick Pope story, about how he was the one who got theme parks started in Florida. Tuck used to take Mr. Pope fishing, the guy who started Cypress Gardens-it was always Beautiful Cypress Gardens in the newsreels, the ones with Esther Williams and the old movie stars-and Tuck says he's the one talked him into it. Then the Disney people came along and a lot of others. Reptile World. Sea World. A lot of them."

Agent Walker said, "Truly an amazing man."

"Tuck always kept moving," Ford said.

"And that he was President Truman's favorite fishing guide, the one who decided they should make the Everglades a park."

"No… well, yeah, but he's stretching it. It's not as big a deal as it sounds. The old-time Florida guides-there weren't many of them, only a handful-took out a lot of people like that, famous. Presidents and athletes and movie people. Forty, fifty years ago, west Florida was still wilderness. Sparsely settled. Tuck was one of only two or three guides in the whole region, so he got his share."

"And Thomas Edison-"

"It was a big wild area with just a few small-town access points-"

"That Edison put him, Mr. Gatrell, in one of the first moving pictures, them fishing for some kind of fish."

Ford said, "That's what he says. But I'm not sure I believe Tuck's Edison stories. Edison died in, what? The early thirties. Tuck was pretty busy running liquor then."

"It sounds like he's done everything."

"Seventy-some years in a young state, it adds up."

"And that he's the last Florida cowboy… only he didn't call it that. It was something else-"

Ford said, "See? The guy exaggerates. There're a lot of cattle people left in Florida. Florida's one of the biggest cattle producers in the country. He's always been like that."

"Being his nephew, you've probably heard a lot of them."

Ford turned from the culling table to look at her. "I've heard my share of Tuck's stories. But why don't we go straight to the questions you want to ask, save us both some time."

Walker thought, Just when I thought he was softening up… She said, "There're no set questions, just background stuff. I'm trying to-"

Ford cut her off. "You're trying to establish who in the area has a history of violence. You have a profile built, and you want me to supply a few pieces of Tuck, see if they fit. Who would kidnap or kill three men? Who knows those islands well enough to get away with it? I imagine the county law-enforcement people did air searches until they got frustrated, then called you in. Your department. And if you had suspects, you'd be talking to them, not doing deep background."

Walker had been looking at all the flopping, crawling, oozing creatures on the table, watching the man sort it so quickly, putting most of the mess back in the water. She was thinking, I'll never go swimming in the ocean again. She said, "That's right." She looked at Ford, who was shaking the nets out, getting ready to head back. "You know him. Is he prone to violence?"

"You've checked his priors. You know he is. But not in that way."

"He knows the region. I mean, there are thousands of islands, like a jungle-"

"He guided in the Everglades, I already confirmed that. Tuck grew up in the islands. He knows them."

"Considering all he's done in his life, he's certainly shrewd enough. Maybe even brilliant."

Ford said, "I wouldn't say that."

Walker said, "Do you think he fits the profile? I'm only asking for his own good."

"How would I know anything about the profile of a kidnapper or killer?" Ford started the boat, smiling at her. "I'm a biologist. Isn't that what it says on the data sheet they gave you?"

"Yes… from what they gave me-"

Ford kept talking. "Tucker Gatrell can be irritating as hell, and he has a temper, but he's not the guy you're after. He's an old man, for God's sake. He should probably be in a home or something."

Agent Walker said, "I'd love to meet him. Maybe I'll drive down there tomorrow," using her tone to tell Ford she'd be the judge.

Ford said, "You do that. See for yourself."

Ford sorted the specimens, putting sea horses and horseshoe crabs into the big saltwater tank on the deck, watching the sea horses right themselves in the aerator stream of raw water, finding tailholds on blades of turtle grass, while the horseshoe crabs plowed along the bottom. Ford's eyes lingered there, the cool haven of salt water, then looked to see whether Agent Walker's car was gone from the parking lot. It was. No strange cars, anyway. Jeth's four-by-four-he'd left it there while he was traveling-and MacKinley's Lincoln, Ford's own old blue Chevy pickup, then the cars that belonged to the live-aboards.

He checked his lab to make sure everything was orderly, the stainless-steel dissecting table sponged clean, all the specimen and chemical jars in their places. Then he stripped naked and stood beneath the rainwater cistern, showering the sweat away before changing into fresh shorts and a blue stone-washed cham-bray shirt off the clothesline.

It was sunset, the pearly after time, and the sky over Sanibel Island was wind-streaked with cantaloupe orange, purple swirls of cloud. Beyond the docks, mangroves settled charcoal black, blurring into smoky hedges as light drained from the bay. The lights of the marina bloomed on, and out of the closing darkness came the squawk of night herons hunting crabs on the mud flats and the mountain stream sound of tidal current dragging past the pilings of Ford's house.

He stepped out onto the porch and looked at Tomlinson's sailboat. It was a dark buoy on the copper-glazed water, and he could see Tomlinson's silhouette, lean as a bird, straggly-haired, sitting on the bow of the boat. Meditation time. The man was out there every dawn, every dusk, even in storms, as if the sun might drift off station if not for his shepherding. Communing with nature, or maybe talking with God. No telling with Tomlinson. Or maybe thinking about his baby daughter, Nichola, with her mother up there in Boston, where Tomlinson had flown at least once every two weeks since the baby had been born-until recently, suggesting to Ford that things weren't going too well between Tomlinson and the child's mother.

Even mystics have their problems…

Ford hated to interrupt him, but he didn't relish the idea of driving to Mango and seeing Tuck one-on-one. Tomlinson would be just the right buffer. Give the crazy old fool someone to hound while Ford stayed on the periphery and tried to decipher just what kind of scheme he was cooking up now.

Three men missing… well, he'd wondered about it since the first time he saw it in the paper. Christ… Tuck couldn't be involved… But then Ford thought, The hell he couldn't.

He stepped down to the dock and started his flats boat-a skiff with low freeboard and a poling platform over the outboard motor-and idled toward the west side of the bay. At the channel opening to the marina, he heard a hoot and looked over, to see JoAnn Smallwood and Rhonda Lister sitting on the stern of their old Chris-Craft, waving to him. Holding something in their hands for him to see-margaritas, probably, inviting him over for social hour. Maybe they'd broken up with their boyfriends. Or maybe their boyfriends were out of town. Two good-looking working women-one tall with short hair, one small with a body-who lived aboard at the marina, so Ford had not allowed himself to get physically involved. Didn't want to risk emotional discord in the small marina community. But now, knowing he had to go see Tuck, he found them more tempting than ever.

No wonder I don't have any social life…

At the sailboat, Tomlinson said, "Hey, you bet man. Love to meet the old dude, your uncle. But maybe I should change clothes."

Ford said, "Well, yeah… I don't think a sarong's the thing to wear." He could smell incense burning in the cabin below, sandalwood or rosewood, something musky.

Tomlinson said, "Sarongs are nice and cool, though. Perfectly sensible when you think about it. But we're slaves to fashion in this country. You ought to see the looks I get when I wear this thing to town. And it's the best, top of the line, pure silk I bought in Jakarta. The Pierre Cardin of Indonesia, but people just don't appreciate that kind of quality here."

Ford said, "I think I'll run my boat back. I'll wait in the truck for you."

"Hell, I ought to give you a sarong for your birthday, Doc. 'Bout time you wore something that didn't come from Cabelia's catalog. Just the thing for you, out there wading the flats. Except you get kinda weird tan lines."

Ford started the boat. "You could wear a shirt, too. People are old-fashioned down there in Mango."

They drove across the causeway off the island, then turned south onto Highyway 41, the coastal highway that linked Tampa and Naples before crossing the Everglades to Miami-the road that pioneered South Florida's development. Built with a floating dredge, it was also known as the Tamiami Trail.

The Tamiami Trail had become the region's trunk line of growth, a stoplight artery of shopping malls, 7-Elevens, Kentucky Frieds, and shoe outlets, with access roads that led to planned country club communities with their guarded security gates, Bermuda grass vistas, and dredged lakes. Spring Meadow, Royal Hawaiian, Coral Reef-names invented by advertising agencies that had no linkage to reality, to the makeup of the land, but the logos looked great, and sanctuary from the crush of Florida-bound humanity sold big. They scraped the land bare, trucked in the sod, the prefab house frames, the PVC, and plasterboard. Then they built the boundary walls high.

Ford drove along at a steady fifty-five, windows down, taking in the night scenery and smells, listening to Tomlinson, slowing through Estero and Bonita Springs, then took the Naples bypass south and almost missed the narrow road that angled west into Mango. It had been so long, perhaps fifteen years, that he didn't recognize it. But he remembered the twisting mud-flat route well enough. The tide came right up to the road and crossed it in some places. Then the road curved sharply beneath palm trees. Mango Bay rose out of the mangroves to the right and the village was on the left: moon-globe streetlamps and a few old houses on a low ridge of Indian mounds that looked over the water. Tuck's ranch was at the end of the road on the highest mound, a low gray shack with a tin roof and a sand yard cloaked by trees. Lights from the windows glimmered through the leaves.

Tomlinson said, "Does it look smaller? When you go home, the place is supposed to look smaller."

Ford said, "It never seemed that big to begin with."

He turned down the drive and parked beneath a tree beside Tuck's pickup, saying, "Tuck's usually got at least one or two mean dogs around. He always did. So watch your step."

He stepped out into high weeds, walked to the porch, and rapped on the door. No answer. He could hear cattle behind the house, the occasional bawl, as he peeked through the window. Dishes were piled in the sink. Some kind of grease had slopped down the stove, coagulating in midstream. Beer cans and spit cups marched across the kitchen table like figures in some crazy chess game. The house was just as Ford remembered it: comfortable chaos beneath a layer of dirt. Just seeing it irritated him. The mess. The disorderliness of Tuck, his life, the whole damn backwoods Florida lifestyle.

Then he turned a little, not wanting to look, but he looked, anyway. There was Tucker's junk pile out beyond the barn. The rusting, rotting spore of a long and sloppy life. All the random shapes smothered over with vines, and there was the cloaked shape of an old boat's fly bridge, as if the boat were growing out of the ground.

Within him, Ford felt a fluttering hollowness, a bone-deep sense of loss. The fly bridge might have been a tombstone, hunched there in the weeds. Then Ford felt anger.

That pathetic old son of a bitch…

Tomlinson broke into his thoughts, saying, "He couldn't have gone far. His truck's here."

Ford cleared his throat and kicked at a shell. "He's got a horse, so the truck doesn't mean anything. He could be anywhere- Marco Island, Miami. When the mood's on him, he just saddles up and goes."

"You want to wait?"

"No. But I will. I've got to talk to him."

Tomlinson was fanning his hands in front of his face, smacking at his bare legs. "Geeze-mosquitoes! I'm getting eaten up. No wonder this place hasn't been developed yet."

Ford said, "That's the only reason, you're right. But then your body becomes immune to the blood thinner they inject and they don't bother you so much." He was standing with his hands on his hips, trying to see out into the pasture, looking along the water's edge. "I want to get this over as quickly as I can."

"Don't blame you, man. I'm being drained dry."

"Maybe you can take a walk around, check with a couple of the neighbors, ask if they've seen him. I'll stay here in the bugs in case he comes back."

But Tomlinson said he'd rather wait, if Ford didn't mind him standing down by the dock where there was a breeze. So Ford walked down the road and tapped at the door of the first place, a trailer with flower boxes in the windows. He could hear organ music coming from within the trailer, so he banged louder until an elderly woman in a pink housecoat answered. She told Ford, no, she hadn't seen Tucker since that morning when she made him and his big friend breakfast.

Ford said, "Big friend?"

The woman said, "The man who doesn't talk much, the one with long hair. Tuck's partner."

Ford said, "That big friend," thinking, So Joseph's still around. That made him feel better at least. He'd always liked Joseph.

The woman said, "He's such a sweet man, that Tucker. All the problems we've had around here with our things sliding all over the place. One night to the next, I never know which way my furniture is going to roll. I think it's earthquakes. And Tucker's always right there to help. Checks on me a lot better than my son ever did."

Ford said, "Uh… yes ma'am. Things can sure slide around," and hurried on to the next house, a pretty white clapboard cottage with yellow shutters and a Spanish tile roof, a place that he vaguely remembered, only he didn't remember it being so neat. Someone had put a lot of paint and time into renovating the house, getting the yard just right, hanging baskets on the porch, like something out of House Si Garden, with louvered blinds and a little bit of light showing through. Ford pushed the bell, and when the door opened, he was already saying, "I'm very sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find-" before he realized he recognized the woman who stood looking through the screen door at him: sizable woman, lean, in T-shirt and running shorts, with copper hair pulled back in some kind of braid, holding a book in one hand. Ford said, "Hey-" because he was surprised. It was the woman from the sailboat, the one photographing birds in Dinkin's Bay.

When she opened the door, there was a nice expression on her face, pleasant, expectant, but the expression faded and her mouth dropped open a little. "It's… you!"

Ford said, "Wait just a second here-"

"How did you… what do you mean by-"

Ford said, "I know this looks bad, but you don't understand."

"You followed me!"

"No, I didn't even know it was you. I mean, your house." He raised his hands, a gesture of innocence, which the woman misinterpreted. She jumped to lock the screen door.

She said, "I'm calling the police! And if I ever see you around here again-" She slammed the wooden door.

Ford could hear her working the lock inside, and he raised his voice. "My uncle lives down the road. I'm trying to find him, Tucker Gatrell."

There was a silence. Then the door cracked against the chain lock, and Ford could see a wedge of hair and one pale eye, probably blue, though it was hard to tell in the porch light. The woman said, "You're lying."

"No, I'm not. Tucker Gatrell's my uncle."

"I don't believe that nice old man could be related to a pervert like you."

"Hey, watch it there."

"Now you're following me around!"

Ford started to say something, then just shook his head. "Believe what you want." He turned to leave, but then he stopped, thinking. He tapped at the door again. "Hey," he said. "Hey, one more thing. Are you listening?"

The door was closed. He waited in silence-maybe she was at the telephone dialing 911-but then her voice said, "Now what do you want?"

"I'm curious about something. How did you happen to anchor in my bay? Dinkin's Bay, I mean."

"I don't see how that-"

"Did Tuck suggest you go there? Maybe he planted the idea somehow-"

"I was on my own schedule, doing my own work…" But the way she paused told Ford she was thinking about it.

He said, "He did, didn't he?"

"No!"

"Are you sure?"

"He told me there were some nice rookeries there, that's all."

Ford said, "That old bastard tried to set me up."

The door cracked open again. "How dare you call him that!" Now she was mad again. "Did Mr. Gatrell make you spy on me through your telescope! That's a crappy thing to do!"

"I wasn't spying. Well, just once, but then I-"

Bang. The door slammed again.

Ford jammed his hands into his pockets and walked back along the road, not looking at anything, fuming. No more searching for Tucker. No more trying to help. Let the woman from the Florida Department of Criminal Law show up unexpectedly and hold his feet to the fire-he didn't care. Let them implicate Tuck in the kidnappings and send him off to Raiford Prison. Even if he didn't kidnap anyone, the world would be a safer place with Tucker Gatrell behind bars. Someone should have locked him away twenty years ago, him and his schemes.

Ford stopped walking, his ears alert to an odd noise. He had passed through the gate onto Tuck's property and was standing in the middle of the shell drive, headed up the mound to Tuck's shack, his brain scanning to define the soft swish-swish sound getting louder, closer, perhaps-like someone slapping a scythe through tall grass, plus a rumbling vibration almost like a growl-

"Gezzus!"

It was a dog charging him, hunkered low and running through the tree shadows, teeth bared, not barking until Ford reacted by taking three panicked steps and diving toward the limb of a gumbo-limbo tree, swinging up.

"Good dog, nice dog-get away, damn you!"

The dog was leaping at him, throwing itself into the air, mouth wide: a big-shouldered dog, brindle-striped, with a head the size of an anvil. Some kind of pit bull, or a crossbred catch dog. Yeah, that was it. One of his uncle's cattle dogs, used to take cattle down; grabbed rogue cows by the nose and held tight.

"Tomlinson!"

No answer.

"Tomlinson, you okay?"

Silence.

The damn dog had probably already gotten to Tomlinson; probably ate him up on the spot. Clinging to the tree, Ford had the fleeting vision of Tomlinson rationalizing some kind of karmic intent while being chomped to pieces, perhaps even finding a moment of peace as he was reconstituted and introduced into the food chain.

"Hey, Duke, that you boy?"

It was his uncle's voice.

"Tuck? Tuck, you call this animal off!"

"Don't worry, he won't bite."

"The hell he won't!"

Tuck's voice was getting closer, sounding as if there was no need to hurry, saying, "No reason to get huffy about it. Sounds like somebody got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Ford could see him walking down the drive in no big rush, big bandy-legged man in jeans and scoop-brimmed hat, two men coming along behind. Tomlinson and probably Joseph. At least they were hurrying.

"Gator, hoo dog! That ain't no coon you got treed! Back off!"

Tomlinson had caught up to Tuck and he was first to the dog, grabbing his chain collar, cooing, "Now, now, Gator boy, we sort of lost control there, didn't we?" Which sent the dog into convolutions of gratitude, wagging his tail, slopping Tomlinson with kisses, rolling on his back to get his belly scratched. "O-o-o-o, you act so mean, but you're really just a sweety pie. We're just a big scar-faced baby, yeah… yes we are…" Rubbing the dog's ears.

Ford dropped down out of the tree. He'd lost a sandal, and he flapped around looking for it in the darkness, too angry to speak. He heard Tuck's voice. "Looka that, Joe, don't it make you want to kick that damn dog? Goes all fish-eyed over a hippie but tries to bite my own flesh and blood."

Tomlinson said, "Animals love me. I can communicate tele-pathically."

Tuck said, "Well, there ain't been no telegraph in Mango for forty years, so don't get no fancy ideas about my livestock. You ever heard something so crazy, Joe?"

Tomlinson said, "I mean silent communication, mind to mind. The indigenous peoples know about it, isn't that right, Mr. Egret?"

Joseph said, "I don't think I know them people." Then he asked Tuck, "What's he talking about?"

Ford found his sandal about ten feet from the gumbo-limbo tree-he'd made an amazing leap, getting away from the dog. He turned full-faced to his uncle for the first time as Tucker Gatrell said, "Duke, it's my opinion they shoulda gassed your whole generation except for you and Oliver North and maybe about twenty others."

The sandal was broken, damn it-his favorites, which he'd bought in Guatemala, handmade just for him up in the mountains near Chichicastenago. He'd done some work there during the revolution and had had them all those years. Ford picked up the sandal. The leather thong had snapped. He begin to limp up the drive. "Tuck," he said, "for the last time, don't call me Duke."

Christ, Tuck had his photograph hanging on the wall, right where it'd always been, covering the plaster hole above the couch-the bullet hole from the pearl-handled revolver Tuck used to carry like a gunfighter on cattle drives and that had gone off unexpectedly while being cleaned. Or so Tuck said. He'd been drinking whiskey at the time; white liquor, he called it, though it wasn't. He'd bought it at the store, just like anybody else. Jim Beam.

Tomlinson said, "Hey, Doc, you were about the straightest-looking kid I ever saw." He was looking at the photograph: Ford in high school, head and shoulders, crewneck football jersey, green numerals showing. "Man, you had hair like one of those guys who used to go around punching us at the demonstrations. Seriously cold-looking eyes, man. The vibes still jump right out."

Tuck was getting something out of the icebox, bent into it with the door open, so his voice had an echo. "So you're hanging out with hippies now." It was his "so it's come to this" tone. He stood up, holding a six-pack of Old Milwaukee, red-and-white cans. "You boys thirsty? Don't got no illegal drugs, we shoot the bastards down this way."

Tomlinson smiled. "Brewskis! I could use a couple of those."

Ford said, "We're not staying. I want to talk with you about something. It won't take long."

"You bet, Duke."

"Tucker, my name-"

"I mean Marion. Gawldamn, why my sister ever named you that-"

"Then call me Ford."

"That don't sound right, neither. You're a lot more Gatrell than Ford. Just like your mama." Now he was talking to Tomlinson. "My sister was real prissy neat, too. The boy here would get so pissed off if I left my boots out or spit on the floor. Even when he was ten, he acted like he was an old man. Couldn't hardly get him to smile. Going around collecting things, bugs and fish, like he was trying to tidy up the world. Locking through those glasses of his."

Tomlinson was nodding, taking it in. "You two even look a lot alike. I can see it now."

Ford had his hand up, rubbing his forehead. "Oh man oh man…" He hadn't wanted to come; had avoided it for precisely this reason. All the years he'd worked to break free, now here he was right back where he'd started, knee-deep in it.

Tuck said, "Tell you what we'll do, Marion. Let's walk out to the pasture and I'll show you boys that little spring we found, the one's gonna make us rich."

"I don't want a beer, I don't want to see the spring. I want to talk with you in private, then I'm leaving."

"It's up this pretty little Indian mound."

"Indian mound?" Tomlinson's attention vectored. "I'd like to see it. Count me in right now. That's one of my main areas of interest, you know. Did Doc tell you?" Then he said, "You got any bug spray I could wear? You got the worst mosquitoes I've ever seen. Some Jungle Off, maybe? Or Cutter's?"

To Joseph, Tucker said, "When he gets to gasoline, let him have all he wants."

Tomlinson reached out and put his hands on Joseph's shoulders and said in a slightly louder voice, "Atsi-na-hufa o pay-hay-okeel"

Joseph stood motionless.

Tomlinson said, "You understand? I bet you do." He turned to Tuck. "I was asking him if he was from Big Cypress or the Everglades. I can only speak a little Creek, which I know is distantly related to the Miccosukee tongue."

"Yeah, yeah, ask him all about being a Seminole." Tuck was grinning at the possibilities, nodding his head. "You hear what he called you, Joe? Why don't you take him on out, show him the spring, and explain things to him. Take your time."

Tomlinson was talking right along. "I can speak quite a bit of Lakota though. Some of those AIM people-the American Indian Movement?-they're like my brothers. You know, from back in the old days. You and me"-Tomlinson held up a clenched fist- "we've got a lot to talk about, Joseph. No, seriously. They even gave me a name, the brothers. It's Tenskawatawa. Means the prophet."

Joseph's big face was troubled, flustered. "I can't understand nothing when he talks, Tuck. I don't want to show him around."

Tuck said, "Me and Marion got to have a little private talk. You two go on now."

Tuck was sitting across the table from him, already on his second beer. Ford hadn't had any. In just a little bit, he'd have to get in the truck and drive. Plus, he never drank more than three beers a day and he didn't want to waste those three down here with Tuck. When he got home, then maybe he'd sit on the deck, over the water, and pound them one by one. After all this craziness, it might help him sleep.

Tuck kept talking about the spring he'd found, about his horse, Roscoe, about Joseph's miraculous recovery-the point being Ford should help out by testing the water, give the stuff some credibility-and every few minutes he'd look at Ford and say, "You're looking good, boy. By gad, it's good to see you. Back here where you belong!"

Ford didn't feel as if it was where he belonged, and Tuck didn't look so good to him. He looked old, as if he'd shrunk down smaller after so many years of rough use. Bowlegged old man with skin stretched tight over a bony face, as if it had been soaked in salt water, then sun-dried until just before it split. What hadn't changed was Tuck's eyes; politician's eyes, robin's egg blue, always set on wide focus, taking in everything, picking out angles and calculating approaches. Ford could sense him calculating now and wanted to beat him to the punch; keep him from getting started so he could say what he had to say, then get out.

"I'm going to make this quick," he said.

"Hell, boy, you just got here!"

"A woman stopped to see me today-"

"Bet she was a good-lookin' thing. Hah!"

"A woman agent from the Florida Department of Criminal Law."

"Oh. You ain't in some kind of trouble?"

"She was asking questions about you. You heard the name Angela Walker? Agent Walker?"

"Can't say as I… Wait a minute, now-"

"Woman asking questions about the three men who disappeared down this way."

Tuck had his cowboy hat off, wiping his hands over his hair. On top, there were only a few wisps of thread, almost bald, but the sides were still sun-bleached, not much gray. He put the hat on the table. "Now that you mention it, seems I did talk to a woman like that, only I got to telling stories and she didn't say much about nobody disappearing. It was on the phone."

"She will tomorrow. She told me she was coming to see you."

"Always good to get company, specially female. Is she a looker?"

Ford said, "She's a cop, and you better not forget that. Now here's what I want to ask you." He leaned forward, trying to get his uncle to pay attention. "Those men, did you have anything to do with it?"

"The men that disappeared?"

"Damn it, you know that's what I'm talking about! A surveyor and an environmental consultant; had something to do with connecting Mango with the national park. Is the state trying to condemn your property?"

"Condemn my property?" Tuck appeared offended. "This house is solid as a dollar. Why'd they condemn it?"

Ford stood up so fast, his chair fell backward. "Don't pull this act on me! Your dumb and innocent act, Christ. I don't have time for it, and my guess is you don't, either. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Okay, okay, sit yourself down-"

"For once in your life, try being straight."

"You're right, you're right. Hell, Marion, you're always right. Always were. Never seen such a boy for being right all the time. Used to drive me nuts, the way you was always right. And here I am acting like the original shitheel."

Ford had righted the chair and was sitting down, adjusting it to the table. "Okay then. The three men."

Tuck said, "The three what disappeared, yep. I heard about them. I got a radio, don't I? I listen to the country station WHEW, the Country Giant, and they talked about it. The surveyor. And something they call a state ecologist. Environmentalist? Something like that. The one man was, and third was that fat television fisherman. They all got lost down in the islands and never made it back. But what you're askin' me is, did I make them disappear? Answer to that is no damn way."

"You never saw them?"

"I didn't say that." Tuck had the foil pouch of Red Man out, then got up to rinse his Styrofoam spit cup in the sink. He wadded a paper towel and put it in the cup, saying, "The surveyor and the ecologist man, they came here. Boy named Charles and a boy named… something else, I don't know. Hell, my memory. But they was here, but not at the same time. The one named Charles, he did the ecology stuff. He called it an environmental survey, only it wasn't really surveying. He just took little samples of this and that across my property. Looked at the birds and wrote things on a paper.

"Now, most surveyors, they're okay. Boys who like to get outside and found a way to get paid doing it. But this Charles was a asshole, got right up on his high horse just 'cause Gator tried to take a chunk outta him. But, hoo-you know about that!" Laughing, thinking about Ford up the tree.

Tuck said, "I'd a run him off, but me and Lemar Flowers-did you ever know Lemar? Well, me and Lemar worked out a kinda deal where I had to let them do their damn tests, taking water samples and looking at the birds. That sorta thing. I had to let 'em, or they'd put my butt in jail. And I been to jail. So he come down and looked at the water, took little bottles of it, and then this other man come and put down a bunch of stakes with little flags, and that was that. As far as the fat fisherman, I seen him on the television down at the Rod Gun,- they got a TV in the bar. Catch a fish, and he'd read poetry. Least he said it was poetry, but it didn't even rhyme. Great big fat boy with a pink face. Way I see it, good riddance. One television fisherman down, only about three hundred more to go."

"If the state took water samples, why do you want me to test it?"

Tucker said, "Because them state boys might be liars. I want my own tests." He winked. "You want a level playin' field, it's best you do your own rakin'. Besides, that Charles man, he's one of the ones disappeared. Him that took the water samples."

Ford said, "The lady cop, Agent Walker, she's trying to find people who'd have a motive."

"Anybody with a TV's got motive to kill a TV fisherman. Hell, there ought to be a bounty."

"Did you ever see them in their boats? If I knew what the boats looked like-"

"Never saw the state boys in boats. The TV guy, they was always boats too small for a boy his size. But them disappearing, hell, people been disappearing in the islands my whole life, Marion."

"Well, yeah. But not three."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, I hear what you're saying, but listen to me." Tucker sat up straight and leaned across the table to make his point. "To them, it looks real safe sitting home, drinking tea with their pinkies out, studying the charts. But then they get out there in a boat by themselves, everything looks the same, 'bout a million islands. The water's black, not blue, and the bars will rip a motor right off the transom. Maybe about twenty or thirty of those islands, people used to live on and farm, raised their babies and buried their dead. Gravestones still out there, growed wild with weeds, like Fakahatchee. 'Cause they had a few Indian mounds on them. High land. The rest of the islands, which means about nine thousand nine hundred, nobody's ever even been on 'cause it's all mangrove swamp and the skeeters is so bad, you suck them down your lungs." Tuck sat back, held the cup to his lips, spit, then took a drink of beer. "That's how I growed up, Marion. Joseph, too. Hell-your mama, she told you what it was like, making a living down in these islands. And she came along way late, the youngest of the litter, never had to go around dipping stump water outta air plants for something to drink, never had to sleep out in the mangroves, huntin' enough skinny birds to feed a family. Every day of our lives, we had to scrape and scratch to live, and that's no bullshit. These modern timers, they'd cry like babies if they had to spend one night out there. You'd think they'd give us a little credit, let us be. We're the ones who toughed it out and settled this place." Tuck was getting angry.

Ford didn't like the man mentioning his mother. Didn't want to hear any more of it. He said, "Agent Walker doesn't care about how tough you had it. Nobody else does, either."

Tuck said, "If she thinks I give a good goddamn about three pussy-assed outsiders went and got themselves lost, I'll set her straight right off. Come down here waving their college dee-plomas around, think they can take our land away-" Starting to lose a little bit of his control. Ford watched him, thinking, If he's not a suspect now, he'll be a suspect when Walker gets done with him.

Tuck said, "That's the hell of it. They can take my land, do whatever they want, 'cause they got the law on their side. Or what passes for law. Come down here high and mighty, snot-nosed kids working for the government, bossing us old-timers around, the ones gutted out the pioneer days, and, mister man, that's not exactly what Harry had in mind when he talked to me about making the Everglades into a park."

Ford thought, Harry-Harry Truman. Tuck sitting there talking like he and the President were best buddies, used to toss back beers together. Well, maybe they had. There was a black-and-white photo Tuck used to keep in his wallet, him and Truman with about thirty snook and redfish strung on a bamboo pole, each of them holding an end. Truman with those wire glasses glinting beneath the brown fedora, Bess smiling in the background in a flowered dress. Taking out the photo, Tuck would always say, "Here's Harry and me when I got back from fighting Japs in the Pacific. My way of thanking him for dropping the bomb."

Now Ford said to Tuck, "You lose your temper with Agent Walker, she puts you on the list of suspects, they'll take you in for questioning. That means getting a lawyer, sitting in a room-"

Tuck said, "I already got the best lawyer around. And you don't tell me about sweet-talking cops. If she asks my address when we're done, it'll be to send me a Christmas card."

"What she's going to ask is where you were October first, October fifth, and last Wednesday, the days the men disappeared."

Tucker started to say something, but then the phone rang and he got up, saying, "I'll try to make up something good." Grinning, with teeth missing, back under control again. Into the phone, he said, "Big Sky Ranch."

Ford had forgotten he called the place that. Thirty-some feet above the bay, house and barn built on shell mounds, made it one of the highest points in the southern part of the state. Tuck's little joke.

Tuck said, "Hey, it's you…" He listened, then said, "Yeah, I got a nephew-hell, you know him. Right, yeah… that's the one.

It is, too. I wouldn't lie…Naw, he didn't. Peeked at you through a telescope? I can't believe he'd do something so low…" It went that way for a while, Ford fidgeting in his chair, then before hanging up, Tuck said, "Come on down and tell him yourself." He turned and looked at Ford, tilting his head and smirking. "You've been bad, Marion. Got my neighbor all riled."

Ford took the offensive. "That's another thing. Tricking that woman into anchoring in Dinkin's Bay, hoping we'd get together and I'd have a reason to come to Mango. Just so you could get me involved in your little scheme. Geeze!"

"Tell me true now"-Tuck was taking his chair, rocking back- "what's she look like in the all together? I been tempted myself, but I known her so long, it'd be like peekin' at my own daughter. A telescope-hoo, that's fancy!"

"Where the hell's Tomlinson? I've got to go."

"I got to walk you back and see the spring first. You ain't give me a chance to tell you what's goin' on, what they tryin' to do to this place."

Ford was at the screen door, cleaning his glasses with his shirt-tail. He said, "You want me to stay so I can meet your neighbor," as he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Hey-Tomlinson! Let's go!" He could see two dim shapes, Tomlinson and Joseph, coming back through the pasture.

Ford heard the chair screech on the wood-slat floor, heard Tuck's boots and knew he was standing right behind him. "Meet her? Hell, boy, you already know her. You known Sally Carmel most your life. You didn't know that's who it was?"

"That's not… wait a minute-" He paused, considering the hazy memory of a strawberry-haired child in jeans, skinny-legged, teeth missing, following him around asking lots of questions. What kinda bug is that? Why do you keep those fish in jars if you're not gonna eat 'em? Ford said, "My God, that's her?" Feeling Tuck's hand on his shoulder as he said it, then heard Tuck's voice: "Been a long time since you come home boy. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get you back to Mango again-"

Ford cut him off. "Tucker, I'm not back. I'm just delivering a message."

"You say that like a man who still holds a grudge."

"Can you think of a single reason why I shouldn't?"

"I can think of about twenty. Twenty years, that's a long time."

Ford turned to look into the man's face. "Yes. Yes it is. Twenty years is a lifetime to some." Then he called, "Hey, Tomlinson! Let's get going."

Tomlinson's voice: "Sure, man. But you got to see the spring, taste that water. I got a jar of it, Joseph gave me." Tomlinson bouncing along behind the bigger silhouette of Joseph Egret, the mean dog, Gator, trotting out front.

As Ford started his truck, Tuck came hurrying up to the window, his cowboy boots clomping in the shell drive. He thrust in a brown envelope, papers inside. Ford could tell by the feel. "You get some time, read this. It'll help you get started on your research."

As Ford's truck backed down the mound, Tuck called, "Next time, don't let it be so long between visits. Hear?"