Haunted (11 page)

“Carmelo? He can’t swim, doubt if he even showers. Watch your balance . . .” Belton stepped aboard and reached for the console to steady himself. I realized he would see the journal sticking out from beneath the towel.

He did but said, “Do you want this?” meaning the towel, which he handed me, his eyes lingering momentarily on the leather-bound volume. It could have been one of those awkward moments but wasn’t. The gentleman from Richmond, Virginia, behaved like a gentleman.

I said, “What did you want to ask me?”

“Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea. Wait . . .” He signaled for my attention with an index finger. Turned, opened a forward hatch, then faced me, holding a mesh dive bag that looked new. Inside were a mask and snorkel, still in plastic, and cheap adjustable swim fins. “I bought these yesterday—no idea Carmelo is scared of the water. Then, when I saw what a good swimmer you are, well . . .” A humorous shrug.

I said, “You want me to see what’s down there, don’t you?”

“No. Well, unless you really
want
to.”

I had to think about it. Normally, I would have been eager. From the journal entries I’d read that morning, I knew that Ben Summerlin might have traveled this very river. If true, there was a chance he had scuttled his dory somewhere along its length. Which meant there was a
remote
possibility that Belton had found my great-great-uncle’s boat—astronomical odds, but why not take a look?

My bout of wild panic, that’s why. But I was feeling better, more sheepish than suffering any real fear of the river. Something else: I had an ulterior motive. The beer bottle . . . it was still clove-hitched to the anchor. To explain honestly, I would have to admit concealing information from a man who had been open and kind
to me. Better to nab the bottle while underwater and broach the subject of the journal later.

Using the towel, I scrubbed at my hair. “I’d like to see what’s down there myself—if you’re willing to watch for alligators. And if the mask fits. I can check without going in.”

I didn’t expect the look of gratitude on the man’s face. “I’ll get Carmelo. It’ll be safer with a younger set of eyes. You are a valuable young lady, Hannah.”

He placed the mask and snorkel within reach and moved quickly, for a man his age, up the path toward the homestead.

•   •   •

W
HILE
I
WAITED,
I tested the mask, but only after retrieving the beer bottle and touching a finger to the water, then my lips.

Very
salty.

My concerns vanished. Suddenly, the exact wording of an entry Capt. Summerlin had made in the summer of 1864 was important enough to sneak another look. I listened for noise, then opened both the journal and my notebook, hurrying so I could cross-reference a few entries before Belton and Carmelo returned.

9 June, 1864 (aboard Sodbuster): The Blues is camped at Ft. Myers & Labelle which aint much of a fort but they do have a supply shed & a brace of 4” canon that can shoot acrosst bank to bank. What they aint got is a shoal draft dory, nor a knowledge of the creek that branches north of Labelle & [NEXT FIVE LINES BLOTTED].

Hmm . . . the entry referenced the right boat and possibly the right river, but it was not the passage I was after. I continued reading.

12 July, 1864 (Old Tampa): Deserters & runaways of the roughest sort have slipped into Florida like filth from a honey bucket. The railroad yard smelt like shit too & aint no place for a ships master but it is wear sutlers deal Yankee silver for cattle. The Frenchman I was to met did not show & I fear it aint true he owns a locomotive nor even the boiler what sunk in the [NAME BLOTTED]. I got more faith in the Cubans I will meet come morn if this weather breaks . . .

Wrong entry again. But I read it all because my great-uncle’s sudden interest in trains and boilers seemed key to a bigger story. The same was true of an entry made in the spring of that year.

1 September, 1864 (Key West, Hawks Channel): Loaded aboard is 36 mixed longhorn @ $6 silver per head but not one hogshead of beef or mullet cause of this situation. The victuallers in Habana will be sore disappointed but the beef will turn a pretty profit & guarantee the money required. On the Sunday before Christmas we are promised to deliver 100 silver dollars which aint easy considering the cost of what follows in expenses . . .

Ben Summerlin had a plan. His plan included a train or a boiler, or both, and a river that fed into the Caloosahatchee from the north. He had sailed to Cuba to finance the project.

That made sense. To make salt for thousands of people, a boiler the size of a train’s might be required. But where was the reference that tied things together? Finally I found it by backtracking, a fragment from an illegible entry made earlier in 1864 I had failed to note in my time line.

27 May (Punta Rassa): . . . and what I tolt Gatrell & brothers they [NEXT FOUR LINES SMEARED] . . . that the bridge aint to far. A salt spring is there neath the surface owned by a Spaniard who is expert at [SMEARED OR BLOTTED] a master of trowel & square so this man is likely [ILLEGIBLE].

There! My subconscious had put it together, but here was written proof. The
Spaniard
was the Brazilian who had planted timber before selling the property to Charles Cadence. Proof that a master bricklayer had lived at this spot was the cistern I had seen only minutes ago. And I had just tasted the
salt spring
 . . .
neath the surface
with my lips.

Additional proof: remains of a railroad bridge were only a mile from where I sat. I wasn’t certain the bridge had existed in the 1860s, but it might have. That was good enough for me. Ben Summerlin had guarded this river’s name, but, even if he hadn’t, the name had changed since Civil War days.

It all fit.

I felt sure of it. And, because I was convinced, I knew something else: whatever had sunk here wasn’t my great-uncle’s lost dory. Journal entries from late 1864 weren’t as badly damaged, so
I knew from skipping ahead that he’d scuttled the dory while being chased by Union soldiers. Maybe the soldiers had discovered him making salt. Or maybe he had used salt as a ruse to spring a trap. The journal had yet to reveal the whole story, but Ben Summerlin was no fool. He wouldn’t have fled
upriver
—there was no escape in the cypress swamps and palmettos to the north. And he wouldn’t have scuttled his boat so close to another man’s dock.

Whatever the sonar unit had found on the bottom was too near the old homestead to be my great-uncle’s boat. In a way, I was disappointed. On the other hand,
Sodbuster
was somewhere on this river, still waiting to be found.

“We’re coming, Hannah dear!”

Belton’s voice reached me from the undergrowth. I closed the journal and slipped both books into my bag. I felt a twinge of guilt for being sneaky but then decided when the timing was right I would lay out the whole story, journal, notes, and all, for Belton to see. Who better to help than a retired Civil War expert with time on his hands and who was trustworthy?

But not Carmelo. There was something wrong about the man that had nothing to do with his weak intellect—or his simpleton act. I would have to feel out Belton’s loyalty before I moved ahead.

When the two men appeared on the bank, I had the mask pressed to my face, but it fell away—no suction to hold it in place.

“How’s it fit?”

I said, “It’ll be okay, I think.”

That was a kindness. If a mask doesn’t cling to your face, it will leak. I knew it but was unconcerned. Only two or three shallow
dives would be needed for me to find out what was on the bottom. So I wouldn’t bother with the cheap strap-on fins either. But I would use the snorkel.

No . . . No, I wouldn’t. The tube leaked, which I discovered while breaststroking toward the deepest part of the river, an oxbow shaded by mimosas. So I swam back and tossed the thing into the boat. Unfortunately, Carmelo was busy netting seedpods, for some reason, and the snorkel hit him squarely in the forehead.

Belton laughed.

Carmelo did not. His tough-guy face turned fierce. “You gonna get burnt, girl,” he said as if he wanted only me to hear. “You’ll see.”

It took several dives to locate the right spot, but the first confirmed I was diving into a salt spring. Only a body length underwater, there was an abrupt temperature change. It was like swimming into a refrigerated vault—a sealed vault, because visibility changed from fair to poor.

A leaking mask added to my discomfort. As I neared the bottom, pressure increased, temperature dropped, and water flooded in. Salinity was so strong, it hurt my eyes. Is that what Carmelo had meant by
You’re gonna get burnt, girl
?

Unlikely. A man who can’t swim is a poor adviser when it comes to thermoclines.

I surfaced, stripped the mask off, and fiddled with the straps while Belton called, “What did you see?”

“Use your hands and steer me toward the wreck,” I answered. “It gets murky near the bottom.”

He directed me away from the dock and farther downriver. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll use the fish finder and drop a buoy or something.”

I said, “You watch for gators. Carmelo, I want you to watch, too. This shouldn’t take long.”

Yes, it should have been easy, but, three tries later, all I’d found was a bottle encrusted with a white coating—salt.

“Save it,” Belton called, “or swim it to me.”

I jammed the bottle in my pocket and said, “I’m not coming back until I find the darn thing.”

That was nearly true.

I took several deep breaths and knifed downward. So far, I had done quick bounce dives. This time, when I got to the bottom, I leveled out and pulled myself downriver, feeling my way through the murk. Mussel shells, waterlogged seedpods, everywhere . . . Then my shoulder banged into something that had an elastic give to it like a rope. It startled me. I couldn’t help but grunt in surprise.

Automatically, I started up. If I hadn’t been taught to extend my hand when surfacing, my head would have collided with something that, inexplicably, wouldn’t allow me to surface. It was a black mass that raced toward my mask moments after my fingers made contact. I exhaled another grunt, accompanied by bubbles, but stayed calm. I reminded myself I was in less than ten feet of water. Find a way around the object, I would be on the surface within moments.

It wasn’t that easy. I used both hands to push myself clear, but the black mass stayed with me. It seemed to be long and tubular when my face banged into what felt like a metal wall. I turned,
tried the opposite side, and banged into another wall. Definitely metal. When I spun and hit what felt like a steel bar, I became disoriented.

A drainage culvert,
I thought.
Someone dumped a drain pipe.

But how in the world had I managed to thread my way into a pipe? And why was it suspended several feet off the bottom?

They used an anchor,
I reasoned.
That’s why it won’t budge.

Impossible. Drain culverts don’t float. Even thinking such an absurdity proved that fear had stunted my ability to reason. Something that didn’t require analysis was obvious: I would drown if I didn’t find a way out. The metal bar was the only constant in a blind world that was suffocating me. I grabbed it and felt the structure move. That provided another absurd hope—maybe I could push it to the surface, then escape.

No. My head banged against a ceiling while the object strained against its tether, the structure buoyant enough to pivot. I kicked and pulled with my free hand, but the thing refused to ascend more than a few inches. My god . . . was I going to die like this? I was trapped from above—yet my lower body remained unobstructed.

A final option came into my mind:
If you can’t go forward, reverse your course.

The idea was reasonable, even though I was beyond reason. My heart pounded, burning oxygen, and I was nearly out of air. With exaggerated calm, I did it—pushed toward the bottom, then scrabbled backward until I felt the rope, or whatever it was, graze my leg.

So far, so good. I clamped my fingers around the thing—yes, a slimy length of rope. I followed it upward and soon my eyes
fixated on an onyx glow that blessedly, blessedly, I knew was sunlight.

I had escaped. But escaped what?

Fortified by my new freedom, I indulged myself by confirming that the rope was attached to; actually paused to note a few details. Only then did I rocket to the surface and inhale big, balmy, wonderful gulps of October air.

Belton had started the engine—how had I not heard a 225 horsepower outboard fire up? It didn’t matter. I was alive. And only midway through another lazy, uneventful day in Florida. I felt like laughing but didn’t. It was because of the gentlemen rushing to my rescue. Belton’s face was white with a fixed look of terror until he spotted me. Then he visibly sagged and let Carmelo take the wheel.

I shouted, “Is Belton okay?”

Carmelo, standing with his hard, stunted eyes fixed on me, tapped the throttle forward and didn’t respond.

I watched for a moment, then yelled, “Slow down,” because the boat was already so close, I would soon disappear under the bow. Run me over, I’d be lucky to escape the skeg or spinning propeller.

Carmelo didn’t seem to hear. I shouted again: “Put the engine in neutral!” That’s when a horrible thought entered my head: Carmelo had done something to Belton. Now he was coming for me. He wanted to hurt me, perhaps kill me, for no other reason than I had whapped him in the face with a plastic snorkel.

But I was wrong—half wrong, at least—because Belton rematerialized at the wheel and switched the engine off while the stern
swung so I could climb aboard. His coloring was still bad, but he showed some life by scolding me. “Young lady, you stayed under way too damn long. My heart can’t take that sort of thing.”

With a weak smile, he tried to make light of the comment, but what he had said was true and I knew it. That changed everything. I wanted to confront Carmelo and demand an explanation, but I couldn’t risk more upset. So I, too, made light of what had happened. I replied, “I must have lost track of time. But I know what’s down there now.” I tossed the mask into the boat and got my rump on the transom.

From the way Belton rambled on about how worried he’d been, I feared he actually had suffered a stroke, but then he regained his composure. “Carmelo—help the lady up and into a dry towel. I think a cup of that red wine is in order. Hannah, then and only then can you reveal the mystery to the old fool who should have never let you dive to begin with. My god, girl, I stopped keeping track at ninety seconds.”

Only ninety? I felt like I’d been trapped underwater for five minutes—and a full minute is a long dive for me. But I only laughed and waited until I was aboard to say, “Don’t get your hopes up, Belton. It’s not a boat from the Civil War.”

I expected a theatrical groan of disappointment. Instead, for an instant, his old blue eyes glittered with the focus of a younger man. It was those eyes that bore into me when he responded, “Really? That’s too bad. Then I suppose it’s one of these hopped-up bass boats. Or a motorboat. Probably stolen, so we’ll make a pile when we tell the insurance company.” A joke, but something cold at the source of it.

“Not even close,” I said.

His expression asked
Are you sure?

I nodded. “What’s down there is—”

Belton interrupted, “Not until you’re seated with a towel. I can wait for the big news.”

His indifference was a lie, I sensed that. He’d already told me he didn’t trust Carmelo, but this was different. Something had happened, an incident or reckoning that had taken place recently. So I made a few glib remarks while I dried my hair and sought Belton’s eyes for an explanation. Within seconds, though, those youthful eyes faded into the face of an eighty-year-old man who had suffered a fright.

He asked, “Didn’t you say you brought a change of clothes? You can’t stay in those wet things. Carmelo”—Belton, from his chair, was giving orders again—“we will stand with eyes to the front while Hannah changes. And if you so much as peek, I will have you arrested and thrown into prison for the rest of your unnatural life.” An old man’s laughter should have dulled the sharpness of his words but it didn’t.

If it was an act, Carmelo accepted it. Or pretended to. He handed me an inch of wine in a plastic cup and said, “Right away, Mr. Matás,” but started the boat as if he’d misunderstood.

Now I didn’t know what to do. What I had found anchored to the bottom wasn’t shocking, but it was unusual. Was there a reason he didn’t want Carmelo to know?

Belton’s behavior became more confusing when he made the decision for me. “Shut off that damn engine. Maybe Hannah wants to take another look before she tells me. Or”—he remembered his
recent offer—“would you rather change into dry clothes and forget it?”

I decided to share a half-truth. “It was a big chunk of pipe,” I said. “That’s what it looked like. But it must have flotation because it’s anchored about six feet off the bottom or maybe snagged on something. I banged into it as I was surfacing.”

Carmelo busied himself getting a beer from the cooler, but Belton was concerned. “Did you hit your head? Let me see.”

I was thinking about what I’d actually found: a canoe—an aluminum canoe—old with dents. “No, it couldn’t have snagged,” I amended. “It’s floating parallel to the bottom, so there has to be at least two anchors. Which means someone sunk it intentionally.”

“A chunk of drainage pipe? That makes no sense whatsoever.” Finally Belton looked at me long enough to understand what I was doing. “On the other hand . . . I guess it could be some kind of fish trap or turtle trap, possibly. Damn bad luck, it not being a boat.”

I said, “Fish collect around structure, don’t they, Carmelo?”

Our guide was smart enough to know drainage culverts don’t float. Even so, he replied, “Lots of junk in this river.”

I looked toward the spot where seedpods and twigs were gathering. “One thing’s for sure, it’s not worth going back in the water.”

Belton picked up on that, too, and changed the subject. “What about that bottle you found? It looked like it was covered with coral. But not in fresh water, I wouldn’t think.”

The bottle was gone, but I patted my pockets anyway. I didn’t mention the salt spring either. All I said was, “Sorry.” That’s how uneasy I felt.

“Then the two of us should drown our sorrows in wine.” He touched a plastic cup to mine. “One of these days I’ll make a major archaeological discovery—but not here, I’m afraid. And not today.”

“You don’t want to come back here no more, Mr. Matás?” Carmelo was testing for something else. I sensed that, too.

The older man shook his head. “We didn’t find any more unbroken bottles either. The whole darn day is a bust—but thank god Hannah wasn’t hurt. All for a lousy piece of junked pipe.”

We made small talk after that, but I kept an eye on Carmelo, who had gathered a bagful of mimosa seeds. I wasn’t going to ask why. But when he felt me watching, he leaned over the side and pointed at one of the apple-sized fruits. “Them things is bad. ’Bout bad as it gets. But these things here”—he held up a mimosa pod—“they good. Not to eat. But they still good.”

Belton had already asked about the seeds, apparently. “He starts seedlings and sells them. I guess the trees here are unusual. Expensive, if you’re a landscaper.”

That’s not what Carmelo meant. “No, them little apples is poison. And them apple trees, you touch them, they burn you bad.” He checked with me to see if I understood.

Suddenly, I did. Behind us were two waxy-leafed trees mixed in with towering mimosas. I had noticed them peripherally but hadn’t made the connection with the apple-sized fruit. I asked, “Is that why you wouldn’t get in the water?”

“Not at this place, girl. It burn the hell out of some people. Burnt the hell out of me once.”

Belton was lost. “What’s he talking about?”

I said, “I owe Carmelo an apology. When he warned me about getting burned, I took it as a threat.”

“Of course you did. He shouldn’t have spoken in that tone. I told him so when we were looking for bottles, didn’t I, Carmelo?”

Carmelo shrugged and glowered, which seemed to explain the tension between the men. Or did it? I attempted to clear the air anyway. “He was doing me a favor, Belton.” I pointed behind us. “There’re only a couple, but see those trees with the low-sprawling limbs? I think they’re manchineels. I should have realized.”

“What kind?”

“It’s a Spanish name that means
little
apple
—or something similar. But they’re not really apples. Manchineel trees are common in the tropics. Since you’re from Richmond, I wouldn’t expect you to know.” As I spoke, it crossed my mind that Charles Cadence had also moved south from Virginia.

“Burn the damn hell out of you,” Carmelo said, pleased he’d finally gotten his point across.

Belton wondered, “Is that true?”

“The fruit’s poisonous and so is the bark. If you stand under one in the rain, it’ll blister the skin off you. I’ve been told that anyway. And . . . Well, here’s an example: Indians dipped their arrows in the sap and that’s supposedly what killed Ponce de León.”

“The Spanish explorer?”

“That’s what I’ve read. He died in Cuba, but he was wounded somewhere near Sanibel. It takes the poison a while to work, I guess.” After considering a moment, I added, “It’s the beginning of the dry season, but the sap might float on the surface after a lot of rain. Maybe that’s why I was okay.”