“I doubt if he comes back,” Ardell said. “It ain’t just clubbing you with a pistol barrel he’s got to worry about. He stole a horse, and that’s fifty lashes with a bullwhip in any man’s camp.”
“We ought to string him up,” Roy muttered darkly. “That’s what they’d do in Texas.”
“We ain’t in Texas,” I reminded him, then glanced at Punch, who was standing back out of the way. “You still got some of that salve Müller gave you?”
“Yeah, near about the whole tin.”
I winced inwardly at his reply, recalling the old German’s admonitions for me to look after my young friend’s wound. I’d done a poor job of it, I reflected, remembering Punch’s hang-dog expression in the days following Calvin’s death, not to mention the danger I’d put him in by bringing him along after Klee’s brigands. Shaking my head as if to banish any regrets, I said: “Go fetch it.”
“Just keep your damned salve,” Roy grumbled. “The day I can’t take a rap from a gun barrel and keep on ridin’ is the day I’ll throw myself in a ’gator hole and call it quits.” Then he flashed me and Casey a guilty look, but neither of us took it the wrong way. It was just an expression in those parts, like “that’s how the cow ate the cabbage,” or “it’s hotter than nickel night in a whorehouse.”
“Let’s get mounted,” I said, as Jim appeared with my bay and his little marshtackie. “We can eat in the saddle.”
It took only minutes to ready our mounts, then ride out of that clearing with its mixed bowl of memories—real bread and pineapple jam, alongside an act of treason that burned in my craw like lit kerosene. I don’t think anyone looked back as the trees closed in behind us.
We kept riding south, following the same trail we’d held to the day before. I could see fresh tracks in front of us, but didn’t bother to examine them. That sandy ridge was only a few miles wide, according to the information Ardell had picked up in Fort Pierce. There wasn’t anywhere for Klee’s men to go unless they wanted to sneak off into the brush and double back, which none of us expected.
I put Roy up front where I could keep an eye on him. His color improved as the day went on, which I took as a good sign, but it was his steady complaining about allowing an asshole like Pablo Torres to ride along on such an important mission when everyone knew he couldn’t be counted on that gave me the most reassurance. A blow to the head can be tricky, but Roy seemed to be recovering just fine.
We reached the remains of Fort Jupiter early the next morning, guided the last half mile or so by the crown of the Jupiter Lighthouse, glimpsed through the trees. The lighthouse had been disabled early in the war by Confederate sympathizers who’d feared the structure might be used to aid the enemy, but it remained a towering landmark for a motley bunch of bone-weary cow hunters. The fort itself had been abandoned years before and was already being overrun by jungle. Florida never did waste time reclaiming what man discarded.
There was a settlement of sorts at Jupiter, too, maybe a dozen homes looking as fragile as toadstools in a cow pen. There was no saloon and not much of a trading post, just a sign nailed to the veranda of a squatty log cabin that announced hides and plumes bought and sold. A “Whiskey Available” addition had been scratched out with a knife, then shaded with charcoal.
A lanky man with a thick-gray stubble came onto the porch as we drew up. He was carrying a fine Kentucky long rifle—the fancy kind, with rococo carving on the stock and wire inlay running throughout its tightly curled, maple stock—like he knew how to use it, and I didn’t doubt that he could.
“What do you want?” the storekeeper asked.
“What have you got?” was Roy’s bristly response, even though the rest of us could tell it was the wrong approach to take with a man like that.
Swinging the rifle around to cover Roy’s belly, the trader said: “Nothing I won’t give up dear.”
“Easy, friend, we mean no harm,” I remarked. “We’d buy some bread or jam, if you’ve got it. Gunpowder and caps for our pistols, too.”
“Ain’t got no powder nor lead nor caps to spare. No bread, either, but I got some blackberry jam I could let you have . . . assuming you can pay for it.”
“We’ve developed a sweet tooth after sampling some Fort Pierce pineapple jam last night,” I replied. “I’d buy a small crock of whatever you’ve got if the price is fair.”
The trader’s gaze narrowed shrewdly. “Ten cents. It’s a pint jar.”
“Done,” Ardell said swiftly. He reached into a pocket for a dime that he tossed to the trader.
“Jilly,” the storekeeper called over his shoulder, after checking the coin for purity, but the woman was already there, a dark-glass jar in hand. “Toss it to that young fella over there,” he ordered, “but don’t get ’twix them and my rifle. Then get on back in the house.”
She did as instructed, and Ardell snagged the jar deftly out of the air, then tucked it inside his saddlebag. By the time he looked up again, the woman was gone.
Scowling, Roy said: “It strikes me that you’ve got a prickly manner for someone who wants to sell his wares.”
“Mister, I don’t much care if I sell anything or not. It’s bushwhackers and thieves I worry about. Which are you?”
“Neither,” Casey and I said simultaneously, and Ardell added: “We’re just cow hunters, friend, looking for some stolen horses and a Negro girl that was taken off our friend’s ranch.”
The trader looked at me when the others did. “She was your gal, then?”
“My pa’s, rightly,” I answered, “but he’s off north with a herd. I was left in charge. We intend to get her back. The horses, too.”
“No offense, mister, but you don’t hardly look tough enough to go up against that Miami bunch.”
“We’ll hold our own, and then some,” Roy fired back.
The trader shrugged. “You’ll have to do better than holding your own, but it don’t make me no never mind.” As if finally satisfied that we were not a threat to home or family, he allowed the muzzle of his long rifle to swing toward the porch ceiling, the butt thumped solidly between his feet. “They was through here yesterday afternoon, extra horses on a lead and a pretty little colored gal that looked like she’d fetch a fair reward.”
“What kind of reward?” I asked suspiciously.
“Don’t go jumping the gun, mister. I ain’t got her, and wouldn’t want her if she was offered to me. I just said she looked like she’d bring a good price on market, if somebody took a notion to sell her.”
“She ain’t for sale,” Jim blurted, and I think he surprised himself as much as anyone else with his boldness. He looked at me like he was going to apologize, but I gave him a small wave of my hand to let him know that it was all right.
“Your daughter?” the trader asked Jim.
“She was promised to his son,” I explained.
“Well, for what it’s worth, she didn’t look none too hurt when I saw her, although I can’t speak for what’s in store for her down south. That’s a rough crowd around Fort Dallas. Didn’t use to be that way, but things have changed since the war.”
“How do you know they were taking her to Dallas?” Ardell asked, voicing a question that had been on my mind ever since the trader mentioned Miami.
“That’s where all the vermin ends up any more.”
“Have you ever been there?” Casey asked.
“Not personally, but I see the kind of men who pass through on their way. I wouldn’t want to tangle with any of them if I didn’t have to.” He slew a glance toward Roy. “Reckon that’s why I’m so touchy around strangers, friend.”
Roy just shook his head and looked away, not quite ready to let go of his anger. Ardell said: “You reckon we ought to ride, Boone? We’ve got a lot of country to cover before sundown.”
“Likely we should,” I agreed, gathering the bay’s reins. “Obliged for the information, friend,” I told the storekeeper, then started to rein away.
“That your brand?” the trader as
ked suddenly, nodding toward the bay’s hip.
Hauling back on my reins, I allowed that it was.
“It’s the Flatiron brand,” Casey elaborated. “From over on the Pease River.”
“It does look kind of like the bottom of a flatiron,” the man admitted. “Reason I asked was because I saw that brand again this morning.”
“This morning?” I echoed, frowning. “Where?” But even as the query exited my lips, the answer came back like a sack filled with rocks.
“Was a Spaniard, looked like. He passed on by without stopping. I noticed the mark, though. It’s a hard one to miss.”
“A Cuban,” I corrected quietly.
The trader shrugged. “Both about the same in my eyes. This guy had a flighty look about him, though. I doubt I would have lowered my rifle, had he come over.”
“That’d be smart thinkin’,” Roy growled. He turned to me, his eyes ablaze. “He’s headin’ south, Boone, headin’ for Fort Dallas.”
I nodded almost sadly, the knife’s plunge complete now—to the hilt. It was Casey who put my feelings into words.
“That damn’ turncoat is going to join up with the Klees.”
Session Eight
We left the Jupiter settlement in a swirl of emotions, although I think it’s safe to say we were sharing similar feelings in regard to Pablo’s betrayal. We didn’t talk about it, but you could tell from the grim expressions on everyone’s faces that it was heavy on their minds. It sure was on mine.
There was no longer a ferry over the Loxahatchee River, not even a dugout moored to the bank, so we had to construct a makeshift raft out of palmetto, lashed together with vines, to float our gear across the river. Then, stripped down to bare butts atop the bony spines of our horses, we swam to the south bank, towing the raft with us. That would have been a hell of an adventure and a wagonload of fun under normal circumstances, what with the river’s powerful current sweeping us steadily toward the Atlantic inlet barely a hundred yards away, but we clambered out the far side just as doleful as when we went in.
The old military road below the river wasn’t hard to find. Like so much of the development along Florida’s southeast coast in those early years, the road was a remnant of the Seminole Wars, a jungle passage for troops and supplies between Fort Jupiter and the New River Settlement at old Fort Lauderdale, a two-day ride to the south. [Ed. Note: Florida’s Military Trail was constructed under the command of Major William Lauderdale’s Tennessee Volunteers in 1838, following the Battle of Loxahatchee during the Second Seminole War; the original fort and current city are named after him.]
Nightfall caught us on a narrow strip of land squeezed down between a long, freshwater lake on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Being so near the coast, we decided to camp on the beach. Ardell found some turtle eggs buried in the sand, and we kindled a fire of driftwood from who-knew-where and had eggs and ham for supper. Afterward we finally began to air our feelings about Pablo. I don’t guess there’s much point in relating everything that was said that night, other than that we were all pretty burned about it and didn’t get to sleep until late.
We set off the next day under a mantle of clouds as gray and dismal as our mood. The wind blew brisk out of the northwest, and the temperatures dropped rapidly. Around noon a series of rain squalls swept across the coast, making travel miserable, although no one suggested stopping. We reached Lauderdale just before dusk on the second day after crossing the Loxahatchee and reined up at the edge of what was then known as New River Settlement. There wasn’t much left of the old town, and what looked like it might have been recently inhabited was deserted when we came through. We briefly explored the place and finally found an old Negro man in a hut along the river, but when he saw us coming, he scrambled down the bank into a cypress dug-out and swiftly set paddle to water. Roy, being Roy, started to reach for his rifle, but Ardell told him to put it away and not be so stupid, a suggestion Casey and I both seconded.
“I don’t know what he was so afraid of,” Roy grumbled, sliding his rifle back through the leather loop that hung off the side of his saddle.
“Maybe some crazy-eyed cow hunter with a rifle,” Ardell told him. Glancing around the rain-soddened community, he added: “Let’s get out of here, Boone. This place is giving me the cold jitters.”
“Suits me,” I agreed, reining my horse around.
I left Fort Lauderdale with the same impressions I’d had of Forts Pierce and Jupiter, not an especially nice place to visit, and I’d sure as hell never want to live there, although I’ve heard that since the land boom of the 1920s, it’s not nearly as desolate as it used to be.
We were in our saddles before dawn the next morning, the landscape still damp and chilly from the previous day, but at least the skies were clear. I remember us startling a flock of egrets out of a slough shortly after setting off and how amazed I’d been by the brilliance of their feathers against the deep blue of the sky, like shards of broken china tossed into the air. The vividness of the colors nearly took my breath away.
That was happening a lot the farther south we traveled. Like I was really noticing the world—its scents and sights and sounds—for the first time. Even the feel of the breeze against my flesh triggered odd sensations throughout my body. I figured then it was because of the newness of the country we were traveling through, but I think now it might have been more the uncertainty of what we were riding into and the possibility that some of us might not ride out again.
I was hoping the ridge we’d followed south from Fort Pierce would take us all the way to Fort Dallas, but it didn’t. We were still well north of the Miami when the pines finally gave way to more traditional terrain. It wasn’t long afterward that we found ourselves once again following a narrow track through dense foliage, surrounded on both sides by swamps. The cooler temperatures of the day before gave way to a damp, oppressive heat, and mosquitoes, midges, and greenhead flies swarmed us in thick clouds that nearly drove our horses crazy with their incessant biting.
Despite these rough conditions, we pushed on with a dogged determination. As the sun edged nearer the horizon, I began to fear that we wouldn’t find a suitable spot to make camp before nightfall closed the trail. Sure as hell, we weren’t going to cover much ground after dark. In that thick jungle of mangrove, cypress, Spanish moss, and wrist-thick vines that created a tunnel-like canopy above us, we’d be like blind men in a maze, only this one baited with poisonous snakes and deadly alligators. It was just about dusk when I heard Jim’s soft call from the rear. I reined up hock deep in still water as the old Negro rode up beside me, his eyes darting anxiously.
“Marse Boone,” he said quietly. “You know I rode with your daddy in the Indian Wars.”
“Yeah, I know it.” Jim’s participation in the Seminole Wars had never been a secret, so I was wondering why he was bringing it up then.
“Thing is, Marse, after a few months down in those swamps below the Caloosahatchee, a lot of us what was scoutin’ for General Harney and them, we got to where we could feel trouble a-comin’.” Jim’s gaze had been probing the shadows, but then he turned to me with a look in his eyes that sent a chill down my spine. “I gots that feelin’ now, Marse. Real bad.”
“What do we do?”
“Well, I’s thinkin’ was your daddy around, he’d maybe want—”
“Jim,” I cut in, although careful to keep my voice low, in case someone was close by, listening and watching. “Just tell us what to do.”
“Yes’um, well, I gots me a powerful urge to get off this here trail, and I think we’d all—”
“Jim,” I interrupted again.
“Yes’um?”
“Lead the way.”
Jim nodded briskly and said—“Follow me”—and reined off the trail, plunging his mount into the deeper waters to the west. Twisting in my saddle, I ordered the others to stay close and not make any more noise than they had to. Then I heeled my bay after Jim’s tough, little marshtackie.
I
’ll tell you what, that’s spooky country down there around Miami. At least it was when I was there in ’64. The cypress trees grew close and tall as we wound deeper into the swamp, and the exposed roots of mangroves hugged the edges of the wetlands like arthritic knees. We covered maybe half a mile—no small feat in that watery terrain—before Jim began angling south again. We were belly deep to my bay horse at the time, crossing an algae-green pool, and movement off my shoulder caught my eye.
My heart just about shot past my tonsils when I spotted a four-foot water moccasin cutting a serpentine path through the green scum toward us. I started to call to Jim, but he’d already spotted it. He looked at me and shook his head, a warning for me not to shoot, but I’d be damned if I’d let that moccasin drive its deadly fangs into my horse.
That snake was heading toward me like it was being reeled in on a fishing line. I waited until it was about ten feet away, then kicked out with my boot to splash water and algae in front of it. The snake immediately drew up, kind of coiling right there on the water, and reared its head several inches out of the slime, it’s mouth opening wide and threatening.
I’ve heard people call water moccasins cottonmouths, and if you’ve ever stared down the throat of one, you’ll know real quick where that description comes from. In the dusky twilight, the inside of that snake’s mouth—even its tongue—looked as white as a freshly washed cotton boll. It made a kind of hissing sound, and I swear the aroma of cucumbers nearly choked me in my saddle. I don’t know why it is that I smell cukes when a cottonmouth is near, but I have ever since I was a toddler, running around in the woods behind our house.
A water moccasin can be aggressive when it feels threatened, and I guess kicking pond scum in its face constitutes a threat in a snake’s mind, although I doubt it was feeling any more vulnerable than I was at the moment, trying to keep a tight rein on my frightened horse, my eyes on that snake, and not get dumped from my saddle, all at once and the same time, as they used to say. I heard Jim snap—“Put that gun away”—and saw Roy from the corner of my eye looking startled that a black man would speak up so authoritatively. Nonetheless, he slid his revolver back into its holster, and that snake, after a moment of floating there, hissing and exposing its fangs, hooked back over itself and started swimming away. I waited with my heart thumping hard against my rib cage until I saw it exit the pond about thirty yards away. It paused there on the bank for a moment, as if waiting to see if I intended pursuit, then slithered off into the grass and disappeared.
Miami Gundown Page 17