Lost Man's River (90 page)

Like I'm sayin, that is only their excuse, because long before they went off soldierin, them kind done what they pleased around the backcountry. And that is because they know for a damn fact that the Everglades is their God-given inheritance. Got it straight from the Bible, Faith, and Revelation that the Merciful Lord hates nigras and won't stand for Yankees, turned His back on Injuns and despises Spanish. The Almighty, He detests a Jew, the same way they do. Nosir, their Redeemer won't put up with nobody who ain't Old-time Religion, which is why it's okay to go persecutin in His Holy Name.

So when them fellers say, “This here is God's Country,” what they mean is, it is
their
country, and not only the Park but the Big Cypress. Not countin Injuns—who just naturally don't count—their granddaddies was the first to hunt out here in the last century, so these boys don't give a hoot in hell whether it's state, federal, or private-owned. A man who ain't local born and bred tries to build him a legal huntin camp back in the Cypress—well, it just don't matter if he paid his lease, paid up his taxes. If he ain't one of 'em, they burn him out, cause he don't belong out there no more'n them Australia trees or them walkin catfish that come in from Louisiana. Them boys get wind of that invader, they'll grab their guns and a few six-packs of beer, go roarin over there, swamp buggies or airboats, high-power rifles and bad
dogs, throw gasoline and torch that camp right to the ground. Maybe they'll look-see who's inside, maybe they won't. And what's to stop 'em, way to hell and gone out there back of that Glades horizon?

Tryin to deal with that mean kind is like baggin up a bunch of bobcats. Older generation now, they played hell with a new warden or park ranger, but they wouldn't kill him, not if they could help it. These fellers here, I ain't so sure. Older ones, if the warden was a local man, they'd tease him, play along with him, maybe throw a scare into him so next time he might shy away, all the while knowin that no local jury would convict 'em.

A few years back, this young ranger spotted Ol' Man Speck in his binoculars, slippin across between two hammocks in the sloughs. Speck was mindin his own business, just huntin along in his own private preserve, maybe two-three miles inside the Park boundary. He was snarin his gators, so's not to create no disturbance. This ranger used a scullin pole to sneak around the backside of a hammock, took him half the mornin probin through the saw grass, but finally he was set. Let Speck work his way to him, he had him dead to rights—
Mornin, Mr. Daniels!
Speck's rifle was layin where he couldn't reach it, and havin the drop on this bad ol' feller, that ranger laughed at him, feelin real cocky. All that sweat and nerves and plain hard work had made him the first man and the only man who ever brung this wily old rascal to the bar of justice.

When that young ranger comes up alongside, Speck is shakin his head real pathetic, doin his best to look old and slow and heartbroke, is what he told me. Real wore-out and discouraged. He takes this three-foot gator by the tail, says “Ye ain't fixin to run a old man in for this here
lizard
, are ye?” Distracted that ranger for one second, which was all Speck needed. Before the poor feller could speak up and say, “Yessir, I sure am!” Speck is uncoilin like a cottonmouth. Brings that young gator up off of the deck, whaps that feller upside of the head and knocks him sprawlin. Grabs that boy's rifle, pumps the cartridges into the water, jams the muzzle deep into wet mud, then lays it back real careful in the ranger's boat so's nobody can't never say he broke nor stole no gov'mint property. Ol' Speck cranks up and heads for home, and no hard feelins. And sittin up watchin him go, that poor feller felt so sheepish and so stupid that he clean forgot to report his great adventure with Speck Daniels!

In the old days, we had a tougher breed of warden. A lot of them men was hunters theirselves and knew the country, and generally they had a local clan behind 'em. You messed with one, you was messin with 'em all. You take and hit one them old wardens with a gator, you better finish it. You best leave him out there.

Whidden watched Sally's boat on its way from shore. “Before them other boys come home from overseas and Speck went over into runnin guns, we was just your common moonshiners and gator hunters, puttin to use what Speck was taught by his uncle Tant and Old Man Joe Lopez. We never bothered with no gator longer'n eight feet, cause after that they grow these hard buttons inside that spoils the hide. No market for that hornback, not no more. We stripped off the belly flat and left the rest, except for maybe a few tails to sell to restaurants. Any damn fool can shoot a gator, skin it out, but strippin that flat quick without nickin it or tearin it, that's another breed of gator man entirely.

“Big gator now, before you cut that tail, you have to cut the back open, use a stick to pry the spinal cord and twist it out, otherwise that tail could spasm, break your leg. But gator tail is ‘larripin good,' as Old Man Smallwood used to say! Tastes somewhere between frog legs and a rattler, so they tell me.”

Andy said, “You never et one, Whidden?”

“Never et them crawly things, nosir, I didn't. Ain't one gator hunter out of five that cares to try one. We had our fill of 'em already, from all that raw meat and guts and blood smell, skinnin 'em out.”

“Well, I weren't never a real gator hunter,” Andy said, “so I always et a piece if someone give it to me. Them crawly things is pretty good when you know how to fix 'em like the Injuns done. You get hungry enough, a nice fat rattlesnake can put you in mind of some lean chicken.”

“Mikasukis eat them cold-blood things but they won't touch a rabbit. Claim it takes away your manlihood. Can't get your courage up, you know.” Whidden leaned down to help Sally aboard. When he hugged her, she grumped, “I'm going to fix you some nice rabbit then. Get me some rest.”

For supper, they fried small jack and mangrove snappers, and two blue catfish, pin-hooked by Andy from the stern. “Better'n ladyfish, I guess,” he said, to disguise his pride in them, “but them sail-fin cat in the deeper channels eat a little better than these blues. Course in the old days, we wouldn't touch these things. We'd have a good snook or a pompano, maybe trout or grouper. All them good kinds was right here for the takin.”

Because of mosquitoes, they prepared to sleep aboard. Whidden said, “Sally and me'll sleep here in the cabin, and you two fellers can lay out on deck in this nice Gulf breeze. I got some mesh, so miskeeters won't be too bad. We'll give you a blood transfusion in the mornin.” He put his arms around Sally from behind, but she was still brooding, and was cool with him. “Or maybe I can take turns on deck with you two fellers,” Whidden sighed.

Sally said she had been told by Sadie Harden that whoever last pillaged the Watson house had stripped out the only built-in cabinets in all the Islands—

“You sneakin up on those bad ol' Carrs again?” Whidden was cross. “Dammit, Sally, them young Carrs killed two young Hardens in an argument over some coon skins. We
all
know that, known it for thirty years! That don't mean that all that family are no good from here on out!”

Sheepish, she said in a whiny cracker voice, “Honey, ah ain't nevuh said
all
of 'em was bay-yud! Ah jus' said the
mos'
of 'em, is all!”

“Killed a couple of dirty Hardens, that's all,” Whidden said.

“ ‘Dirty Hardens'! That's exactly how they talked! There was still lynch talk when I was in school!”

“Even in the thirties, lynching was common all around the South,” Lucius reminded them, “and up north wasn't much better. And there were massacres.”

Andy nodded. “I guess we all got our bad story. Cousin of mine was in Tavernier around 1933 when some sports fishermen went in and gunned down an old black man and his family. Didn't like what the old man charged for bait and didn't care for the expression on his face when they cussed him out. Went back for him after dark, of course. Drank some shine to get their courage up and found some more brave fellers to help out. The son got away, come running with his baby to get help. They was the only survivors.”

“And nobody was charged, I don't suppose.”

“Well, the Monroe Sheriff done the sensible thing, to keep the peace. He charged that hysterical young nigra with massacring his own family, and nobody bothered their heads no more about it.”

The blind man stared away into the night, as if awaiting the judgment of the heavens upon Florida. “I ain't too proud about them days, are you? God Bless America, we say, but I'd hate to think that God would bless the ignoramus gun-crazy Americans that done things like that.” His words were uttered quietly with a terrible finality, as if he had slowly opened up his hands on his stigmata.

Lucius lay down on the cabin roof with a life jacket under his head and hunted the Southern Cross in the Gulf sky, but fear for his brothers, seeping back into his lungs, made him sit up again. How long could an old man survive, tied and gagged in the suffocating heat and stench inside that house! The image wrenched a small cry from his throat, and beside him, the blind man's eyes opened wide under the starry heavens.

Considering the poor alternatives of flight or prison, was an octogenarian such as Rob better off dead? If that old man were killed, he would be grief-stricken—oh God! of
course
!—but would he also feel that Rob's end might be a mercy?
No!
He denounced himself for an unworthy idea which he vowed never to recognize again.

Above the bank of thunder heads to westward, the Gulf night was clear, and heat lightning flashed across the firmament as if shot from the farthest bright clear stars of deepest heaven. That lightning shimmer would be followed in a day or two by a southwest blow, after which the wind would back around to the northwest. The winds came and went away again, with more wind at certain times of year, more heat and rain, but fundamentally the Island seasons remained monotone, as they must be, Lucius imagined, in the realms of purgatory.