by Tom Hansen
The day after witnessing the Piper Cubs hovering around the Jackson estate back in December, Sam and Willy told the sheriff that they were concerned that some kind of unlawful activity was taking place. Sheriff Bonty smiled and said, “Never mind them little airplanes, boys. They were just being flown by harmless folks who liked to pretend that they were birds, that’s all.” What kind of grown man pretends he’s a bird?
Since that night in December, Sam and Willy noticed that on Mondays after sunset, for some unknown reason, the Piper Cubs would rendezvous over the Jackson estate. Finally, curiosity, or maybe nosiness is a better word, got the best of them. So on Monday, February 8th, the boys set sail for what would prove to be a fatal mistake.
Sam figured the route over water would be long, but the airboat could cover the territory in no time flat. The plan was to put in on the rim canal behind Bennett’s, swing around to the Taylor Creek locks on the north end of the lake, cross eight miles over Lake Okeechobee to the mouth of the Kissimmee River and head northwest for another twenty-two miles. There, with the flowage tucked under a forest of mangroves, they would enter a small tributary creek that ran straight east for five miles and merge into the wide spread, murky swamp, better known as Jackson’s Moat. Finding the tributary creek would be the most difficult task, especially in the bitter blackness of the cool and moonless February evening. Would it be better to wait a few days until there was a full moon to shine some of nature’s light, or would that make the risk of being seen on Jackson’s land even more likely? Sam and Willy decided that no moon on the eighth was the safest bet.
Crossing the big, shallow lake in the airboat was no problem, although the strong winds from the west almost flipped the boat into the gloomy water. Sam and Willy didn’t worry about drowning, seeing the depth of the lake was barely over their heads; however, the more predominant fear came from Betsy, the sixteen-foot gator who was Florida’s version of the Lochness Monster. Betsy’s last victim was an unlucky water skier from Scranton who was visiting his retired parents back in November. The thirty-year-old man couldn’t wait to ski in the Florida sunshine, seeing just the week before he was actually snowboarding the frozen Pocono’s mountains of the northeast Pennsylvania Appalachians. Who would have guessed that Lake Okeechobee could produce a four-foot wave? The young man could have easily handled the surf, but his dad eased down on the throttle to keep the boat from flipping, which caused his son to wipe out. Hungry Ol’ Betsy left only the plastic skis floating in the red-stained wake.
Willy and Sam found the mouth of the Kissimmee River with little effort thanks to the lights encompassing the Angler’s Delight marina and restaurant. Most of the bass boats were moored for the evening; just a few night fishermen remained on the lake to shine for crappies. Actually, with two cases of Bud Lite tucked away into their built-in deck coolers, most of the so-called “sportsmen” hoped the fish wouldn’t bother them!
About a mile upstream and away from the sleeping residents of Mill’s Trailer Court, Willy gassed the throttle for the twenty-two-mile trip northward. The huge fan attached to the strident, six cylinder Banks-Maxwell engine pushed back the crisp nighttime air and the boat raced swiftly up river. A short time later, Willy eased up, and then completely shut down the engine as the two audacious men approached the hidden inlet that led to the Jackson estate. They paddled with beat-up wooden oars the last mile on the Kissimmee to keep the noise from startling any of Roy Jackson’s lookouts that might be watching from the moat. Rowing the five-mile trip against the flow of the stream on the small tributary creek would take a couple of hours. Sam and Willy were upset that they didn’t think to take along a small, quiet electric motor for the final leg of the journey.
The men had departed Bennett’s at 10:30 p.m. on the eighth and had finally arrived on the outskirts of the swamp just before 2:30 a.m. on the ninth. Willy sculled close to shore, dropped a small anchor, and the airboat bobbed gently in the mild current. The two police officers hid behind a large mangrove tree with arched branches that reached out about three feet over the water’s edge. The past five Monday nights, while working the graveyard shift patrolling State Road 98, they had witnessed the Piper Cubs approaching Jackson’s property between three and four in the morning. Sam wanted Willy to row closer to the estate, seeing there was no moon to illuminate the box-shaped airboat, but Willy refused to budge from the safe haven of the river bank.
After fruitlessly waiting, watching and listening for almost two hours, Sam and Willy were about to start paddling back to the Kissimmee River, when both heard a diminutive buzz in the distance, seemingly coming from the south. They put the oars back into the boat’s side slots and lifted the binoculars to their eyes. The buzz became louder with each passing second, and soon Sam saw the single-engine Piper on the horizon heading straight for them. About two or three miles out, the plane’s navigational lights were shut down, but Sam could still make out the faint silhouette of the aircraft as it approached Jackson’s property. The pilot immediately made a steep descent and came close enough to the swamp to cause ripples in the water.
Sam and Willy were anticipating that the plane would make an easterly turn in order to approach Jackson’s cracked asphalt airstrip and land into the slight breeze moving from the west. But as the plane flew nearer, the deputies noticed two oblong pontoons budding from the fuselage and realized the Piper had been converted into a seaplane. Moments later, five barrel-shaped containers dropped from the belly of the plane onto the swamp where they sunk, then emerged and bobbed on the water’s surface. The pilot pushed full throttle and the aircraft rose quickly into the dark night sky. The navigational lights reappeared as the plane circled to the east then turned south heading toward Florida’s Gold Coast.
Sam and Willy glanced at the wooden containers floating and bobbing quietly on the face of the swamp. Through the binoculars, they could see the barrels were aided in floatation by Styrofoam supports. Each container was approximately a foot in diameter, and now sat portentously perched above the hungry heads of the many nocturnal marsh creatures. Sam grabbed an oar and quickly snapped it into the holder, but Willy reached over and clutched his arms.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Willy whispered forcefully as he peered angrily into Sam’s energetic eyes.
“We got to get them barrels before Jackson does!” steamed Sam, on the verge of breaking the whispering soft talk with a roar of thunder.
“So you think Jackson doesn’t already have eyes locked in on them targets?”
“So what’s your plan, Willy? Just sit here like we watching the damn fishing channel on TV!” The sarcasm carelessly flowed from Sam’s tongue as his eyes danced with excitement and impatience.
“We’re police officers, Sam. Let’s see who snatches them barrels and where they take them. If they head to Jackson’s, we get ourselves a search warrant and arrest them bastards.”
“And Chief Bonty would have our asses! He told us to leave Jackson alone,” Sam murmured as spit was spraying off his tongue trying to keep the conversation to a whisper.
“But if we bust Roy legally with a shitload of drugs, we’ll be heroes. Bonty will give us a promotion and all else will be forgotten.”
“Jackson owns this damn town. Bonty would be too dang chicken to get a warrant from Judge Boone cuz the judge and Jackson are fishing buddies. Our only chance is to snag one of them barrels and get the hell out of here on this swamp jet, so let’s get cracking Willy.”
Suddenly, two flat-topped bass boats appeared out of the darkness and hovered near the barrel that was floating the farthest distance from Sam and Willy. Within seconds the barrel was snared out of the water by a supersized, silhouetted figure in the first boat, while the second boat headed to the next container. Before Willy could stop him, Sam slid over the side of the airboat into the dark water. He submerged quickly to quiet his strokes as he swam to the closest barrel that lay about twenty yards away. Willy stood recklessly balanced in the rocking boat as he peere
d through the binoculars but couldn’t see Sam or any trace of a human wake. The first boat was now heading right towards Willy, but it stopped to pick up the third barrel that was floating gently in the middle of the low, grassy swamp. Finally, Willy saw the back of Sam’s head surface alongside the last container.
The simultaneous blasts echoed through the mangrove trees and rang for several seconds in Willy’s ears. A double-barrel, twelve-gauge shotgun peppered the surface of the water with copper BB’s, while nearby herons screamed and scattered through the thick brush. Willy looked up to see both bass boats racing to the last container, and he quickly scoped the surrounding water with binoculars to find Sam. He muttered his best Baptist prayer trying to convince the Lord to bring his buddy back to the airboat, but the Lord had a different destination for Sam.
A mallard that had just arrived for the winter from his Minnesota home, took to flight at the thunderous sound of the gun, but his left wing had been grazed by several stray pellets from the shotgun cartridge shell. He flew for several seconds, then belly flopped back to the swamp directly behind Willy’s airboat. Both bass boat lookouts heard the splash and looked over at the direction of Willy’s hiding place. The men pointed and gunned their boats toward the mangrove tree hideout. Willy rammed the ignition button that fired up the engine, and then yanked up the anchor from its muddy basin. He quickly pushed off the shore with his oar, reversing the airboat 180 degrees. When he slammed the throttle down, Willy left the bass boat riders sucking both wind and wake from the huge fan.
Branches of mangrove trees scratched Willy’s face and arms as he soared westward towards the Kissimmee River. The darkness had become his enemy, making the “s” turns in the small tributary creek a perilous venture. Willy remembered paddling by a partially submerged log stump during the trip inland, but forgot its exact location . . . until now. The menacing wood chunk appeared too late for Willy to avoid, and the boat’s front float caught it dead on, jilting the rear of the boat upward and sending the colossal-sized police officer airborne. Willy flew twenty feet before his body slammed into the shore and his skull hit a turtle-sized oval rock protruding from the mud and tropical undergrowth. His body lay still and silent, while his face and nose were jammed into the soft ground. Willy had no air inlet through the mouth, and what little pocket existed through his nasal passages was filling quickly with blood.
CHAPTER 13
Tuesday, February 9, 1982
7:00 a.m.
W illy coughed and moaned, then opened one eye. He wanted to rub it, but for some reason he couldn’t move his arms. Willy rolled his body over so that he was lying flat on his back, and then realized his arms were bound with thick rope, the kind used to lasso cattle. He blinked several times to clear his vision and noticed Roy Jackson and a group of five or six gun-toting thugs standing ostentatiously over him. A putrid smell was rising from the wooden floorboards on which he lay, and it dawned on him that his uncomfortable bed was actually a foul mixture of hay and cow manure. The walls of the structure that surrounded him were made of concrete blocks that were stained brown with feces, probably from the artistic wagging tail of Ol’ Bessy. It was obvious no one took much pride in keeping the milking bins clean, but then again, the dairy industry was just a mask for Roy’s real business.
Willy wasn’t sure how he got there, nor how long he’d been there. His Seiko watch was shattered, which most likely happened during the catapult into the rocky shore of the riverbed. But the sky was becoming light and that meant sunrise was commencing and a new day was about to begin.
“Sit your fat ass up and listen to me, Willy Banks,” Roy bellowed as he stooped on his haunches, then grabbed Willy’s chin and pulled him into a sitting position. Willy flinched and winced in pain, but his eyes made contact with Roy’s and an evil look of hatred radiated from them sending the message that Willy was fearless, regardless of the current predicament.
“Sam? How is Sam? Where the hell is Sam?!” Willy hollered, even though the slightest sound from his mouth left a throbbing pain in his temples.
“Shut up, you mutt! I’m doing the talking and you’re doing the listening. It’s too bad, but your buddy became a midnight snack for a couple of gators last night. Trespassing is against the law, but I bet you know that, seeing you’re a smartass lawman, Willy Banks.”
Willy glared at Roy, but decided to say nothing. He wasn’t convinced that Sam died in the jaws of an alligator, but getting himself dead wouldn’t save his friend and colleague. If Sam had met his death in the swamp, he wanted to check the body and see for himself if shotgun pellets or reptile teeth were responsible for Sam’s final demise.
“I’m sure Sheriff Bonty would like to know why Seminole Bend’s finest was violating state law. Think a felony conviction would help your career much, Willy? You’d be cleaning fish guts off the floor at Mucker’s Produce Market for the rest of your life, just like your damn brother!”
* * * * *
Willy had two brothers, Tyrus and Otis. Tyrus, the oldest of the Bank’s family had the looks, Willy had the brawn, and the youngest, Otis, well, he was still searching for his talent. Otis struggled in school: he never could make much sense out of learning A’s, B’s and C’s or how knowing that stuff might help him be a better fisherman.
Otis found his dream job working for Slim’s Guide Service, a fly-by-night group of three brothers who overcharged tourists to find and catch bass. Otis rode along on the boat to bait hooks for the rich customers, and then filleted the fish upon returning to shore. One night, Otis finished slicing and deboning his ninth largemouth for some folks from Indiana, and then went down to shore and dumped the heads, guts and scaly skin into the muddy water for the catfish to feed on. He glanced to his left and noticed a small, wooden rowboat rocking and rolling in the weeds about ten yards away. Now, Otis was not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he figured something wasn’t right because the boat was moving all over and there wasn’t a puff of wind anywhere to be found. Otis snuck up quietly, just in case a hungry gator was resting close by, or worse yet, was in the dinghy. He tiptoed into the knee deep water, lifted up the loose canvas cover, and peeked nervously inside of the boat. Suddenly a huge, dark-skinned creature with long hair braided into a pony tail, jumped up and was face to face with Otis. Startled, Otis slipped and fell backward into the water. He looked up to see the human beast grabbing an object from the floor boards, and noticed a young lady behind the man covering her body with the other end of the canvas. Otis pushed up with his arms and scrambled backward, splashing wildly in the shallow water. He managed to duck beneath the swinging oar aimed directly at his forehead. He rolled and wallowed, then sprang to his feet and made a mad dash back to Slim’s.
Otis was out of breath and sweating profusely trying to explain to Slim and his brothers what he saw.
“It was Jenny Jackson doing a little hanky-panky with some damn big Injun, it was!”
“No way, Otis! You gotta be shittin’ us! Roy Jackson’s daughter?”
“I knows it was her cuz my nephew Tyrone’s been tugging at her skirt, ya know! I sees him eyeing her while he be warming up before basketball games. Tyrone be out on the warpath iffin he knew she was rolling in that boat with a Seminole!”
Trying to be proactive to save her hide, Jenny Jackson returned home and told her papa that Otis Banks had been putting the moves on her. The next morning Otis was looking for another job and Slim’s got a brand new, twenty-four foot Bayliner Cabin Cruiser as his reward for firing Otis. Otis looked at Slim with tears welling up in his eyes and asked, “Why did ya sack me, Slim? I works real hard for ya.”
Slim didn’t have the heart to look at Otis when he replied, “Tourism has dropped round here, you know, and I can’t afford you anymore, Otis.”
“I ain’t had much schooling, Slim, but if this here business of yours is so bad, why am I’s always up all night cleaning fish? And why is there a sparkling new mini-yacht tied up over yonder on your docks?” Otis had no idea th
at Roy Jackson’s powerfully intimidating pocketbook was hard at work again.
Otis moved in with Willy, and after three months living and dining off his brother’s trifling paycheck, Otis finally got a janitor job at Mucker’s Produce. But Deputy Willy had to surreptitiously take care of Matt Mucker’s citation from the county health department so he could stay in business. That was the only way to keep his little brother duly employed.
* * * * *
“Otis is living an honest life, Jackson. More than can be said for you,” Willy proclaimed proudly while staring up at Roy. Roy stood up and placed his boot directly on the center of Willy’s face and pushed his head back to the ground. He then twisted the rubber soul back and forth into Willy’s nostrils and mouth. Brahman cattle dung jammed into both nasal cavities causing Willy to choke and spit. Roy’s thugs took turns kicking Willy in the ribs, and when one pointed, steel-toed cowboy boot landed square on his temple, Willy was out cold again.
CHAPTER 14
Tuesday, February 9, 1982
9:00 a.m.