Salt River

by Randy Wayne White

  Josiah, after a long afternoon on the water, was too weak to join the group. He had instructed us to meet him at sunrise, but had yet to agree to my proposal.

  My phone buzzed. Surprise, surprise—Hannah was finally returning my call. “How are things on Staniel Cay?” I answered cheerfully. I was inside the restaurant, where there were ceiling fans and a menu that varied with the luck of local fishermen.

  Static—buzz-buzz—then a sentence fragment that sounded like “Izaak’s having a fun . . .”

  Back and forth we went, a failed conversation that consisted mostly of “Can you hear me now?”

  Three dropped calls later, I switched tactics.

  A boom box filled the restaurant with the music of choice, which was country-western or gospel, not reggae, on this agrarian island where everyone it seemed attended church and went to bed early. I signaled for Rusty, the bartender, to lower the volume, then went outside and I tried my local BTC mobile phone.

  “Who’s calling, please?” Hannah answered. She was wary of the unfamiliar number.

  “Finally,” I said. “I’ve missed seeing you and Izaak. Got a minute?”

  “I called you, remember?” There was a warmth in her voice. In the background were steel drums and occasional hoots of laughter.

  “Is there a party going on?”

  “Always, with Birdy around,” Hannah said. “Doc, guess what? Izaak and I caught our first bonefish this morning.”

  “You brought a fly rod?”

  “A little pack rod, an eight-weight. I put him in the tummy sack, waded out right in front of our cottage. Had to be a hundred fish in that school of bones. You ought to see this place.”

  “Where are you sitting?” I asked.

  “I’m not, I’m standing. Are you asking if I’m with someone?”

  “No, look to the east. I doubt you can see the lights, but I’m on Cat Island about forty miles away. If you and Birdy want to go for a plane ride, I can pick you up . . .” I had to think. Tomorrow, Monday—maybe Tuesday, too—was booked. So I finished lamely, “Why don’t you stay until Wednesday? You can all fly home with me.”

  That created an awkwardness until the conversation swung back to fishing.

  “The first bonefish, I’d guess four pounds,” Hannah said. “And that first run . . . My Lord, not even snook compare. A man here—one of the managers, I guess, nice man, British—he watched me catch a couple more and asked if I’d be interested in working here as a guide. Isn’t that funny? You know, because he saw me cast. I’m a licensed instructor, and they get a lot of tourist ladies who want to learn—”

  “The man, is he British or Australian?” I asked a little too sharply.

  “What’s it matter? From London, I think. For heaven sakes, he was paying me a compliment.”

  “Plus, you’re beautiful,” I said, hoping to gloss things over. “Is his name Ellis? I used to know a guy who—”

  “Good Lord, Doc, don’t tell me you’re jealous of him, too. I swear.”

  “Then his name is Ellis?”

  “No!”

  “Too bad,” I lied. “The guy I’m thinking of—he’s probably mid-eighties by now—knows more about bonefishing than anyone around. I was hoping you two had run into each other.”

  Some warmth returned to the woman’s voice. We talked for several minutes. When Delia’s ID flashed on my personal phone, I hit DECLINE. Hannah and I talked for another ten. I told her that Tomlinson and I were treasure hunting because no one takes such a subject seriously.

  “What about your shoulder?” she wanted to know. “Is it healed up enough? You can’t go in the water with an open wound.”

  I dodged that.

  She asked, “What sort of treasure?” not really interested until I described Marl Landing as a place that was forbidden to outsiders. “How’s that possible?”

  I sensed a chance to lure her over on this trip. Or the next. “By international agreement,” I said. “Thirty years ago, the island was designated as something called an Indigenous Protected Area, an IPA, and now it’s under government jurisdiction. The program’s based on the Australian model created in the nineties to protect Aboriginal culture. There now are IPA preserves in South America, Polynesia—”

  “Indians live there?” she asked. “How’d you and Tomlinson manage to—”

  “They’re mixed race. Unusual people, very striking,” I said, then explained. In the 1700s, a Scottish ship had foundered on an uncharted shoal in a thousand fathoms of water. Survivors included men and women. The island was far off the known shipping routes. They were marooned. The survivors intermarried with the last remnants of the indigenous people, then with slave castaways from later shipwrecks.

  A century and a half passed before inhabitants saw the first airplane pass overhead. By then, after generations of isolation, farming the land and living off the sea, the islanders had morphed into a unique subculture. They no longer cared about outside contact. In fact, they discouraged it. The Maroons of Jamaica were an example. The blue-eyed, copper-haired progeny of the Pinder family on nearby Eleuthera were another.

  “The captain of the Scottish ship,” I continued, “was a man named Marl Bodden. The Marl People—that’s what they’re called locally. He and most of his crew were members of the same fraternity. This is where it gets strange.”

  “Already sounds strange enough,” Hannah replied. “Doc, have you been drinking?”

  “I’m on my second beer,” I said. “The fraternity is very old—nothing to do with colleges. Ready for this? Tomlinson belongs to the same fraternity. Masonic, the Freemasons. On Marl Landing, it’s evolved into a kind of a weird Euro–Afro–Knights Templar sort of religion.”

  Hannah found this interesting. “Just on that island or everywhere? Reason I ask is, some churches—the one Loretta and I used to attend—claim the Masons worship the Devil.”

  “Witchcraft, more likely,” I said, “knowing Tomlinson.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  I chuckled the question away. “He’s friends with one of the direct descendants—an old guy, a preacher. You’d like him. If you’d like to visit the place, I might be able to get permission.”

  “A preacher?” Hannah asked. She wanted to talk about that, so we did. The topic had shifted to her friend Birdy when she suddenly was interrupted by a whooping noise, and said, “Guess who just woke up? That boy sleeps less than you do.”

  “Call me back,” I said.

  “Tomorrow maybe,” she replied, and hung up.

  I returned to the bar, where Rusty had just delivered a basket of fried conch and potato salad. After I ate, I wandered out to watch Tomlinson and his friends bang domino tiles.

  Delia phoned me a second time. If her bio dad had not been present, I might have answered. No, I was in a jaded mood, nothing to do with Hannah, just people in general of late. Rayvon had thought nothing of having an old man tortured. Nanette, an estranged wife and mother, had disgusted me with her willingness—no, eagerness—to trade sex for profitable information. In Nassau, I’d gotten a perverse satisfaction out of sending her away. It had more to do with two daughters I’d never met and her husband, the poor fool, who inexplicably was still in love with the woman.

  Ironic—I felt pity for the IRS agent who had threatened me with extortion. Leo, at least, was trying to kick the pills and booze and salvage what was left of what he perceived to be good in his life.

  As a species we are, at once, complex and idiotically myopic. To judge is to risk an inspection of one’s own skeletons. I’m a hypocrite and know it. This might have been worth discussing with Hannah despite her tough personal code of morality. Delia, on the other hand, was more open-minded. She would’ve been a better choice had I needed someone to talk to.

  But I didn’t. Not the ever-self-sufficient Marion Ford.

  I declined the g
irl’s call again and ordered another beer. But she was persistent. A text arrived. It contained several images. I carried the phone to the end of the porch and swiped through them. Tomlinson was still playing dominoes with a cluster of locals. Their table was illuminated by a single bulb where moths the size of bats collided blindly. I noticed him checking his phone.

  Good. Delia has sent him the same text.

  In the rental car, my pal delighted in sharing what she’d sent. Photos of a 60-foot two-story houseboat. Twin outboards, a galley, plus four tiny staterooms, with bunk beds, and a screened party area topside. Perfect for the bio sib reunion they were planning.

  “Plenty of space. Couches up there fold out into beds,” he explained, delighted that Delia had contacted him. “She wants to rent the thing for an overnight, all of us together. The Bio Launch, they’re calling it now. Get it?”

  Launch, as in boat. “Clever,” I said.

  “The marina’s out of St. Pete Beach,” he continued, “but I’ll rent Mack’s cottages anyway. You know, September is slow season. Don’t want to piss him off. And some of the kids might want to hang out, spend a few extra days.” He pushed the phone toward me. “Read it yourself. I’m getting sort of excited about this.”

  I already had. Or so I thought. But, in Tomlinson’s version, Delia had not included what she had confided to me: I’m still worried about you-know-who. Please be there.

  * * *

  —

  Josiah’s 28-foot tri-hull was a bad risk, if Rayvon didn’t provide a government vessel. I decided this the next morning after a rough twelve-mile crossing. It was our second attempt to get to Marl Landing.

  Yesterday, we had turned around because of the seas and the old man’s health. Today, the weather wasn’t much better. The deck of the preacher’s boat felt as soggy as a trampoline when whitecaps met us outside Cat Island’s lee. Its twin Chryslers predated four-stroke dependability and its CB radio was no match for an area so isolated.

  Finally, we raised Little San Salvador, a misty knoll on the horizon. Closer, to the west, Marl Landing revealed itself as a low bank of clouds girded to a single limestone peak. The island was a seamount that pierced the surface from 4,000 feet below, the water velvet black where it plummeted into an abyss only a hundred yards from shore.

  “How’re you holding up?” I asked Rev. Bodden. Last night, someone had changed the dressing on his hand. It was already leaking blood.

  “Fine, fine,” the preacher replied. “Sit your ass down.”

  Wind was a steady fifteen out of the northeast. Frigate birds, black on a high sapphire horizon, shadowed flying fish that skimmed ahead us.

  As we drew nearer, the island took form. There were ridges grazed green by goats, a low tangled forest. A limestone bluff was capped by a seemingly miniature church. At the base of a hill, hidden by palms, was the largest of three villages. Even from a distance, I could see people. Some were working on their haunches in fields among papaya and corn. Woodsmoke, cooking fires—it was the scent of life, of contentment, that I associated with rain forest cultures in Brazil, Micronesia, Vietnam.

  We didn’t tie up, just idled around the island’s main dock, where a sign warned

  Federal Indigenous Preserve

  No Visitors, No Cameras, No Trespassing

  “Shut the engine off and let’s drift,” I suggested. It took a while for Tomlinson and the old man to train their eyes to see what I could see. Here, on the windward side, water was a hazy green lens but clear enough to see the bottom 20 feet below.

  “All those little splotches?” I said. “Some with pieces of rope still tied. See, the rope sort of looks like ribbons of seagrass. The buoy markers are long gone—if there ever were any.”

  This is where Jimmy had dumped his homemade anchors, I explained. “He probably chose this spot because he knew Marl Landing is off-limits to the public.”

  “He had to have had some help,” Tomlinson pointed out.

  I had researched this oddity as well. “Two of his employees died in a dive accident, just before he was arrested,” I replied. “It didn’t make big news in the U.S.”

  Josiah displayed a stubborn reluctance to admit that a thief could’ve done such a thing so close to where he, like the Boddens before him, reigned as captain.

  “Seems my people woulda noticed,” he said, not for the first time. “Must be a hundred of them things down there. They all pure gold?”

  I replied, “That’s my guess. I only took one. It assayed out as twenty-two-karat. Like I said, the anchors weigh just over a hundred pounds apiece.”

  “Only stole one,” the old preacher corrected with a stern look. He pulled out a red neckerchief, removed his hat, and wiped his face. The man wasn’t doing well. “How many more you plan to steal?”

  “At least two,” I said. “What happens to the rest? That’s your call.”

  Tomlinson was surprised, but the old man seemed to appreciate my honesty. “Twenty-two-karat, huh? Same as Spanish coins. Over the years, we found thousands of those on the north shoal.” He wasn’t exaggerating. As an aside, he glanced at my pal and said something indecipherable over the noise of the engines.

  “The shoals here are the Marl People’s private bank,” Tomlinson explained. “Question is, preacher, how much is enough? The two dudes who tortured you—and who knows how many of those vultures are still looking for Lydia—it’ll never end until word gets out that Jimmy’s stash has been found. Doc’s plan is brilliant, I think. It’s the only way.”

  I hadn’t said my plan was the only way, but it was workable. Better yet, it was simple. When a cache of gold is measured by the ton, the news media would not quibble over an exact amount. Nor would the ruthless factions racing to find it.

  “Yeah, but found by who?” Josiah muttered to Tomlinson. “I’ve got my people to think of. You got no idea the bribes we have to pay to cowans of all types to keep this island private. Government thieves, they the worst. Always snooping with their hands out.”

  I opened my phone to a photo of Rayvon. I had found the image on the internet. “Recognize this man?” I asked.

  Josiah had cataracts, a translucent gray. I had to shade the screen from the sun. “Oh yeah. Wears a uniform. The man’s been here a few times askin’ about Ciboney.”

  “Who?” I was lost.

  “That’s the girl—Lydia Johnson. Ciboney is what was given as her Marl name. Last couple months, had to run that gentleman off several times. She still scared to death of being found.”

  “Did he see her?”

  “Wouldn’t of mattered, the way Ciboney looks now,” Josiah said. “You wouldn’t recognize her either.”

  Actually, I probably would. The last time I’d seen Lydia was from the shadows, her unaware of my presence. She’d had wild spiked hair, her face, in the sunlight, soot-covered. In white rubber boots and a baggy sarong, she might have been born on the island.

  “He’s Rayvon Darwin,” I said, “a Nassau customs agent. He’s the one who had you tortured.”

  “For true?” Josiah was unconvinced. “He weren’t the one who done it. When the time comes, I’ll recognize those two. Ellis—did I mentioned that bastard’s name?”

  “Doc knows the dude,” Tomlinson put in. “He’s setting Rayvon and Ellis up for a big fall.”

  “Maybe. Don’t count on it,” I said. “I’m not sure how this is going to work out. Rayvon’s greedy, and he can’t be trusted, that’s all I know.” I scrolled through my phone and found the photo of Ellis Redstreet. “Is this him? He and Ray were partners for a while. Now they’re supposedly on the outs.”

  Josiah looked from the screen to the bloody gauze on his hand. He flexed what was left of his fingers. His voice dropped a spooky half octave. “The foreigner. Man with the snippers. Oh yes, sir, I recognize that Ellis. You wanna make me a deal?”

  “That’s wha
t we’re talking about now,” I said.

  “A different sort of deal,” Josiah responded. “Deliver that gentleman here, my people will never speak a word of your help. Or what we do with him.” He nodded to a huge commercial reel bolted to the gunnel. It was loaded with braided cable, not monofilament, for deep drop fishing. “Take four of them gold anchors as a reward, we’ll haul ’em up right now.”

  I said, “I can’t promise that either. What I hope is, Rayvon shows up here tomorrow night, early Tuesday maybe, in a government boat and tries to steal it all for himself. I have no idea who will be with him. That’ll give your people all day tomorrow to take, let’s say, half of what’s down there?”

  “Ain’t gonna let that happen,” the preacher said. “Not some damn government boat. Rayvon’s his name? A man you say had my ass kidnapped, me out hunting crabs, not botherin’ nobody?” He glared up from his injured hand. “As the Book says, ‘To me belongeth vengeance and recompense.’ That’s from Deuteronomy, I forget the verse. Those two Babylon filth will be jumby-fucked. My people will take every damn ounce what’s there before giving it to that spawn with the snippers.”

  The preacher had a temper.

  I looked at Tomlinson for assistance. “Brother Bodden,” he said, “you have to let it happen. Listen to Doc. He’ll explain how things will go if we pull this off.”

  I corrected, “Might go,” then turned away to allow the men privacy as they talked back and forth, mouth to ear.

  Finally, Josiah put the boat in gear. “I’ll listen,” he said to Tomlinson. “Owe you two that much, I guess.”

  We idled a crisscross pattern and scanned the bottom while I laid out what I had in mind. Bodden dressed like a peasant but had an elite IQ. The old man listened, he asked the right questions, including a few that stumped me. Finally, when we were closer to the island, he told Tomlinson to get the anchor ready.

  I helped. When the anchor line was taut, Josiah killed the engines. Onshore, a hundred yards away, a cluster of men had gathered on the pier. Beyond was a warehouse and a large fish-cleaning table. One man signaled with his arms—a right angle, then a slow flap. Josiah’s response was lengthier—a series of precise movements with his arms.