by A. Stone
CHAPTER XI
Seemingly some people never observe the fact that the calendar travelson a non-stop schedule, and the longer we live the faster it speeds.
After my talk with Charlie Haines about Norma Byng, I spent anotherfour years in Europe, and by that time we were up to the catastrophethat rocked the world and butchered millions of people.
It caught us short of men in all departments. I was given some oddjobs outside the regular schedule, while we were trying hard to beneutral, and waiting for the Monarch of Death and his cohorts ofthree-cornered, degenerate minds, to discover they had overlookedanother big bet besides Belgium and Italy.
Suddenly I drew a trip to Florida. I was to attach myself to theUnited States' Court as an ostensible necessity, for the purpose oflearning what the Boche were doing toward helping themselves to ourcotton, copper and crude rubber in the Gulf by means of undersea cargocarriers, and also, if they were trying to cash in on their mortgageon Mexico.
One morning the judge, hard-headed and practical, called me into hischambers and gave me two warrants to produce dead or alive the body ofa certain man in court to answer charges of smuggling tobacco fromCuba, and violating our neutrality. He said the "Paper case," whichmeant the affidavits, upon which the warrants were based, werealtogether regular, but there was a distinctive odor about them thatindicated "a nigger in the woodpile." And that meant that if I wentslow, it was believed that I would find out something worth while.
The clerk and myself studied elementary geography for a while, andfound that the best we could do was to locate the defendant bylongitude and latitude, either on the barren Keys, or on one of thenumerous islands nearby. The affidavits appeared to be made by membersof the firm of Bulow and Company, in Key West, and thither I went atonce.
Bulow and Company were big handlers, wholesale and retail, of heavyhardware, ship chandlery, and spongefishers' supplies. They had a fewsponge boats themselves, deep-sea vessels, also docks and tugs. I sawnothing to justify the honorable judge's angle on the case, but tookhis advice and went slow.
At the hotel in Key West I met Ike Barry, a traveling man in just sucha line.
"Been selling the Bulow people for twenty-five years," he informed me."Always discount. The manager is director in the People's National.The Bulows were German--all dead now. Will take you down and introduceyou to present managers--fine people. No--well, I'm going to be here aweek or two fishing--see me if I can make you happy--I know what KeyWest has for breakfast."
I was making no progress in getting a line on the man Canby charged inthe warrants. Finally I changed clothes and went down to thewaterfront looking for a job as marine engineer, or anything in thatline. It may have been an accident that I got on the Bulow wharf firstwith my license, membership card, and enough letters to convince evena doubting Thomas that I was fit and willing.
I found Scotty in the engine room of a speedy gasoline craft and priedhis mouth open with a hard-luck story. This boat was used as sort ofscout for trade all the way from the Bermudas and Cuba to Vera Cruzand New Orleans.
Scotty soon showed his Highland Scotch by starting in to brag.
"It'll split the water faster than anything on the Gulf," said he,looking proud, "but I've got to give the Devil his due--there's oneboat down here that passes us at our best, like we hadn't cast offyet, and the old man is wild about it--or maybe it's something elsethat's the real reason."
This was the first information I had received regarding Canby. It washis boat that excited Scotty, and I soon had the story and enoughgeography to locate him.
Scotty walked uptown with me, and before parting said, after swearingme to secrecy, that unless things looked better on the other side hewas going back home to take his old place in the Royal Navy, and thatif I stuck around awhile I might have his job. In fact, there weresome things about his job he didn't like, he informed me, getting morefriendly before I left him.
I had to get an order from the superintendent to have the train stopthe next morning about midway between Key West and the Everglades. Theconductor, a veteran on the road, said he had never stopped there. Asfar as he knew it was a sort of a Saturday and Sunday rendezvous forspongers and thought that, without an arsenal on my person, I wastaking chances. "Queer fish," he added, shaking his head, "but someonethere knows something about flowers."
I wondered what he meant.
He let me off at the open back door of a rambling building of manyadditions, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet long, beginning near thetrack, and ending with two stories near the water on the Gulf side.
Not a soul was in sight and everything as still as a country church ona weekday. I went through the store stocked with fishermen's supplies,encountering no signs of life, until I emerged at the other end on awide veranda with a double-canvas roof. Here I saw an old-time darkeystanding near the side rail, sharpening an eighteen-inch,murderous-looking knife on a big whetstone held in his palm.
He jerked his head toward me and double-tracked his face from ear toear, but did not speak. Then I saw a boy of about twelve, with a riflebeside him, a hundred feet away, his bare legs dangling over the pier,which began at the veranda and extended out into the water,terminating at a corrugated warehouse that looked like adaddy-long-legs, in the retreating tide.
The boy glanced at me, then riveted his eyes on a spot in the murkywater twenty feet in front of him and seemed to forget my presence.The old darkey silently continued whetting the big knife. There wassomething in the situation that I didn't understand. Had I struck acrazy house?
But that straight-nosed, clear-featured boy, as alert as a sparrow,was not crazy. Faded khaki pants, puckered above his knees, and asleeveless garment of the same material pulled down over his headcovered a plump, well-developed chest and body, round and sinuous as aminnow.
The negro continued to whet, occasionally trying the edge with histhumb and glancing at the boy, who continued to gaze at the water asthough hypnotized.
I moved a little uneasily, clearly unable to understand. I recalledwhat the conductor had said about flowers and noticed that the spacebetween the veranda and high tide, more than fifty feet, and a hundredfeet either side of the narrow pier that passed above it, was a mostluxuriant flower garden, planted in artistic figures. The coralformation threw an arm nearly around the warehouse on the wharf,enclosing several acres of water, protecting it from the fiercetropical Gulf storms. A smart-looking motorboat tugging at its chaincompleted the scene.
I became fascinated and moved over near the edge of the veranda somedistance from the negro, who had stopped work on his knife; the boy'shand moved cautiously toward the rifle, a watchful glitter in hiseyes; then raising it to his shoulder, fired at a spot in the water hehad been watching. Instantly the waters of the little bay were lashedinto a crimson foam. He had shot a bull alligator through his sleepingeye.
The boy's hand moved cautiously toward the rifle.]
"That's the fellow who has been wallowing among my flowers lately.Don't go near him yet, Don!" cautioned the boy, bounding to his feetwith rifle in hand, and watching his victim like a hawk.
"He's done dead, ain't he?" asked the negro, seeing the giant saurianfloating on his back, his yellow belly turned toward the sky.
"Maybe not, Don. Wait till I reach his heart through the flank,"replied the youngster, moving near me in order to get a better shot.
The second aim was more effective than the first, the monster's taillashing the deep water into a repulsive shade. He then turned bellyup, inert; his heart had been pierced.
"Now he is safe!" exclaimed the boy to the negro, who was alreadywading out with the murderous knife and a short-handled axe. The boythen walked toward me with a frank, honest gaze of inquiry, stillholding the rifle, which was fully as long as himself.
At that moment I discovered that this marksman was not a boy but agirl!