HOMOSASSA SHADOWS
Page 25
“If Alma May or Melba had found the necklace—or even knew where to look—they wouldn’t still be digging holes in the area. I’m sure Tugboat pried the story out of Melba, but he hadn’t a clue where to look. He figured someone had found the treasure, and he was after whoever had it. In the meantime, he threatened Melba, probably Alma May, too, if they told the Sheriff about his pot hunting and drug running. Of course, they got involved with the pot selling, too. I once thought they might be holding Daria, but Strong said the sound I heard in a room there was just what Alma May claimed it was—a sick cat.
“Both Strong and I suspected Fishhawk for a time because he didn’t want deputies searching for Daria. We know now he was afraid of what
Hackett would do to her. He believed I was in on the theft and the kidnapping because I was Hackett’s friend.”
John tugged at his tie. He’d come dressed for a formal occasion that he could scarcely see, and the sun was growing hotter. Brandy patted his arm.
“Actually, Hackett’s girl friend was his grad student. This morning Strong told me she was caught at the airport trying to leave the country. She’d held poor little Daria in the wildlife preserve. At the hospital, deputies found two one-way tickets to Mexico on Hackett. Now Bibi Brier’s singing like a bird.”
“And what happens to the necklace?”
“It belongs to Alma May. She’ll sell it for thousands to a Mexican collector, like Hackett planned to. It’ll go back where it belongs. As for Melba, Tugboat’s in the tank to stay for a while. It gives her a chance to sell out in Homosassa and move back to New Jersey, sadder but wiser, I’d say.
“And the Seminole tobacco pouch you were so concerned about?”
“I gave it to Sergeant Strong. He thinks he can persuade Alma to sell it through a middle-man to the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki museum off Alligator Alley. It really belongs in a Seminole collection. Fishhawk will like that.”
They heard the scramble of small feet and turned to see a flash of red and blue. Annie and Daria had come in the car they’d just heard arrive. The little girl scampered to Brandy, her wide, fluted collar fluttering above a skirt ringed with red and white bands, each brightened by a lightning motif. She raised her hands to be picked up. Brandy smiled, encircled the squirming body in her arms and laid her head against Daria’s cheek.
“That something else we need to talk about,” she said to John. “I’ve been thinking.” She looked into the child’s dark eyes, at the round, laughing face.
“I’d like to spend more time in Tampa, as long as you’re here. I might even look for a job on one of the Tampa Bay papers. I might try my luck at freelancing. I want to write that article about Tiger Tail Island. Maybe more about the Seminoles. I think I could find markets.”
“Wait for Mother!” Annie called, rushing up in another skirt of brilliant horizontal stripes. She swept Daria into her own arms and peered toward the figures at the far side of the cemetery. “Didn’t want little miss here to interrupt the ceremony.”
In front of their minivan, Sergeant Strong was striding toward his car. He waved briskly. “Got to get back to Citrus County.” He paused a moment. “You worry me to death, O’Bannon, but I got to admit, you get a few good ideas.” He gave a vigorous nod to his head. “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” Brandy agreed that the Biblical quotation was relevant to their morning’s discovery. Smiling, she waved back as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
Fishhawk had finished and was hurrying with the others toward the road that wound between gravesites. He had released the Safety Harbor child’s spirit to go west. Brandy wondered if Fishhawk’s chants and medicine bundle had been able to send those other spirits west, the slaughtered settlers on Tiger Tail Island, Timothy Hart himself.
“Some day I’d like to go back to the island,” she said, “and see if I get the same awful feeling there.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Of course, you won’t. You won’t expect to. Those presences you feel are in your mind, Bran. They’re not external.” When she looked stricken, he pressed her hand. “It’s not a bad thing, you know, to be aware of the suffering of others.”
Brandy knew she couldn’t explain a sensation that she couldn’t prove. She brushed back her damp, coppery hair, glanced at mother and child as they rushed to greet Fishhawk, and spoke softly. “I wanted to tell you, you were right about a family now.”
John’s arm crept around her waist and tightened.
She thought of all that had happened since she first saw Timothy Hart at the Tiki Bar. Especially, she remembered Hackett, crumpled on the Cultural Center walkway. The monster on Tiger Tail Island had been conquered, and the sorcerer had laid aside his staff and book. “The Hart murder case is over,” she said. “I guess our revels now are ended.”
“Not if what you say is true.” With both hands, John tilted her face up to his. “I’d say our revels have just begun.”
Reference books, in alphabetical order by author, used as sources
Carter, W. Horace, The Nature Coast Tales and Truths, Tabor, N. C.: Atlantic Publishing Co., 1993; Nature’s Masterpiece at Homosassa. Tabor, N.C.: Atlantic Publishing Co.,1981.
Downs, Dorothy, Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Gainesville, FL et al: University of Florida Press, 1995.
Hall, Francis Wyly, Be Careful in Florida: Know These Poisonous Snakes, Insects, Plants. St. Petersburg. FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Co.,1980.
Jumper, Betty Mae, Legends of the Seminole. Sarasota, FL : Pineapple Press, Inc., 1994.
Mahon, John K. History of the Second Seminole War 1835-1842. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1985.
Milanich, Jerald T., Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Florida. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1994; Florida’s Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 1995; Florida’s Indians from Ancient Times to the Present. Gainesville, Fl et al: University Press of Florida, 1998.
Perry, I. Mac, Indian Mounds You Can Visit, 165 Aboriginal Sites on Florida’s West Coast. St. Petersburg, FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Co., 1993.
Seminole Tribune, 1994-1999. 6300 Stirling Road, Hollywood, FL 33024
Singer, Steven D., Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press Inc. 1998.
Snow, Alice Micco and Susan Enns Stans, Healing Plants, Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indians. Gainesville, FL et al: University Press of Florida, 2001.
Weisman, Brent Richards, Like Beads on a String: A Culture History of the Seminole Indians in North Peninsular Florida. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1989; Unconquered People; Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Tuscaloosa and London: University Press of Florida, 1999.
Wickman, Patricia Riles, Osceola’s Legacy. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press 1994; The Tree That Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the Maskoki People. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1999.
Table of Contents
HOMOSASSA SHADOWS
Copyright
Contents
Foreword
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
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