Mangrove Lightning

by Randy Wayne White

  Both were password-protected.

  A GPS app, however, still beamed out their location. He was scanning recent address searches when he heard, “My foot’s on fire, for god’s sake. What are you doing?”

  Ford replied, “Found it,” and returned with a Gerber multi-tool he always carried and a tiny first-aid satchel from his bag.

  “I’ll clean it, and use some numbing spray. That’ll have to do for now. We need to get moving. Or take the car. That’s up to you.”

  “A regular Boy Scout, you are. Are they poisonous, sea urchins?”

  “Hold still.”

  “I am. Why can’t you answer the simplest of questions?”

  “Ask an articulate question, I might,” he said. “You mean venomous, not poisonous. Look around. In a sewage dump, everything is poisonous if you’ve got an open wound.”

  “Brilliant. A grammar lecture.” She gritted her teeth, sweat beading, and leaned back with her eyes closed. “Get on with it, then, professor.”

  He moved to get a better angle and, for the first time, noticed dead fish littering the sand near the car. Wild cactus-like fins; their multicolored scales faded to leather by the sun. Most had died in full defensive display, spines erect.

  “Oh shit,” he murmured.

  “Sorry? If you’ve lost your nerve, throw a patch on it. I might be able to walk if you—” The woman sat up, saw Ford’s expression. “Oh dear. It is serious.”

  “Lionfish,” he said, motioning to the ground. “A burning sensation, I should have known. But don’t panic, you’ll be fine. We have to—”

  “Do I look panicked?” she interrupted, calmer than she’d been moments earlier. Stared at the leathery fish a moment with bitter, bemused irony. “Ugly little brutes—and I’d been worried about sharks. Is there a chance I’ll die?”

  Ford, studying her, thought, She’s running from something. But said, “No, you’d be unconscious by now. Anaphylactic shock. Those spines need to come out, though, then soak your foot in the hottest water you can stand. We have to get you to a doctor. Maybe the E.R.”

  “We?”

  He cupped her foot in his hands; lifted the leg. “Can you move your toes?”

  She did. “Isn’t this where you go off and leave the troublesome toff who’s slowing you down?”

  “Troublesome what?”

  Her eyes drifted to the ledge above the mangroves; a veiled glance as if expecting a visitor. “Go off and leave me. I have the car, my phone, and money—well, the last time I checked. I wouldn’t blame you if— Ouch! Not so damn hard.”

  “Is the pain moving up your leg? Bend your knee and see how it feels.”

  “It bloody well hurts, I already told you.”

  He stepped back, hands on his hips. “Come on, I’ll help you into the car. On the way, you can look up the nearest hospital. Or clinic—that would be better. Fewer people, and less chance of you being recognized.” He went to open the passenger-side door.

  “You’re actually taking me to get help?”

  “The pain’ll get worse. I can’t leave you like this. Some people pass out from lionfish stings. I’m not saying you will, but if you don’t, you might want to. It can get that bad.”

  After another glance at the ledge above, she pivoted toward him. “My god . . . You were telling the truth about the massage perv, then. You didn’t kill the bastard.”

  “I said I didn’t shoot him. He’s probably okay by now, but—”He shrugged, and got an arm around her waist. “Keep your foot off the ground. I’d have to clean it again, and that would—”

  “Wait.” She pulled away, suddenly anxious. A total change of demeanor as she faced him. “You’re offering to drive me? After what you’ve . . . Then we were followed, for god’s sake.”

  “I’m wide open if you’ve got a better idea.”

  “Put yourself at risk to—why? I wouldn’t do it for you. If you expect to lure me into bed, or some sort of financial deal—” Her face contorted. “Oh hell. How much worse, the pain?”

  “It varies. From mild to memorable. The sooner those spines are out—” Ford watched her eyes drift upward for a third time. Finally, he said, “Okay, out with it. Who’re you working for?”

  “What?”

  “Drop the act. Where’d you send those photos? It wasn’t to your mother.”

  Gillian—the name suddenly seemed to fit—started to deny what she’d done, then gave up, exasperated. “Does it really matter? Just go. Now. Oh . . . damn.” She rocked back in pain. “Don’t be a fool! I can bloody well manage without you mucking up my life more than it already is.”

  “A motorcycle,” he said; paused to confirm what he was hearing. “Who’s coming?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “If they kill me, they won’t leave a witness. Even if they try and miss. Understand what I’m saying? I don’t care how wealthy you are.”

  “Bugger off,” she groaned, then buckled over. “Oh god . . . I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Only two options, one of them too cold-blooded—she’d at least tried to warn him. He wiped down the car a final time, pocketed her phone, and loaded their bags into the Zodiac.

  “We’re not riding in that,” she said. “It’s a toy, not a boat.”

  Ford was carrying her; a warm, obstinate weight in his arms. “Trust me, it’ll seem a hell of a lot smaller when we’re twenty miles offshore. I don’t suppose it’s too late to call off your friends?”

  Her head pivoted toward the high tree line; her body stiffened. “Hurry,” she said.

  Above the ruins of the leper station, a man with a rifle had appeared. He braced himself against a ledge and opened fire.

  4

  Tomlinson was still rattled by the voices he’d heard, the deathless breathing from inside the old railcar, when his phone bonged with a text from Marion Ford.

  “I wouldn’t own one of those damn things,” Tootsie Barlow said from his recliner. “Don’t need the clutter—not since I gave my life to the Lord.” Within easy reach was his cane, a long-barreled pistol, and a fly-tying vise in a room that smelled of pine pitch and coffee. They’d been drinking beer, talking, for an hour while he tied bonefish flies for a shop on Tavernier Key.

  “You don’t own the poisonous bastards, they own us,” Tomlinson said, and opened his phone expecting flight info. Instead, he read, Need bio, photo of Gillian Cobourg from the UK. Unsure of E-D-A. Don’t ask.

  “It’s from Doc—a confusing garble of bad kimchi. No telling where this madness will lead now. A woman is involved.”

  “Always is,” the fishing guide said. Then asked, “Who you talking about?”

  “Doc. Seems he’s been delayed, but I can’t tell if he’ll be back by Monday, or next month— Hold on. What does E-D-A stand for?”

  “Marion, you mean? Didn’t meet him but that once, but I liked the man. He’s the sort I need to convince the cops I’m not crazy. Real solid, and he knows his fish. You mentioned a woman?”

  Tomlinson said, “Hope it’s not the Gillian I’ve read about, but, god, she’s got a sexy voice.” A moment later, re-reading the text, he said, “Estimated day of arrival. Yeah, probably the woman who’s been in the papers. Geezus-frogs, no telling how Doc snared a British Royal without a microscope to break the ice.”

  “Royal? Like she’s a princess or something?”

  “Could be. They tend to vacation in the Colonies. He’s in Nassau. Or was—or he’s in Timbuktu, for all I know,” Tomlinson replied. “This morning, he pretended he was in Lauderdale.”

  Tootsie remarked that the best route—maybe not the fastest—from Lauderdale was inland to State Route 27, I-95 being such a nightmare, then said, “Nassau, during Prohibition, Albert—that was my daddy—he ran whiskey outta there to Palm Beach for the . . . well, let’s just say, his clients. Andros was big, too, but b
ack to what we were discussing—”

  “Which ones? The Kennedys or Al Capone?” Tomlinson asked, thinking of a different sort of royalty. “The guy who built the railroad was a player, too, I’ve read. That’s something I wanted to ask about.”

  “Where they loaded whiskey was near North Bight,” Tootsie said, “on Nassau’s windward side. There’s an old leper station that kept the locals away. Spooks and dead spirits; they’re scared shitless of that stuff. Many’a Chinaman was smuggled outta there, too, but they was usually dropped off around Marco—Naples had a sheriff by then. Same time period, as you say. This was after they banned slavery in Cuba.”

  Tomlinson was getting into the subject. “Exactly. I bet the cops did some head cracking. The first time we talked, you mentioned a deputy, a guy named Cox—J. H. Cox. Was he the same man who murdered a woman named Hannah Smith?”

  “Which one?”

  “The deputy who disappeared with his wife and kids. You don’t remember telling me? Supposedly, the killer was Leslie Cox, but the old records aren’t worth a—”

  “No, which Hannah Smith? There’ve been several in these parts.”

  “The first one, I guess, from the early 1900s. I’ve been researching the old newspaper files but didn’t find much. She was murdered near here, and that’s about it.”

  “Oh, that one,” the old man said. “Yeah, heard about her.”

  Tomlinson waited, thinking there’d be more but there wasn’t. “The reason I ask is, I know her great-grandniece. She’s guiding now. Mostly out of Captiva, but she gets down to the Glades sometimes, too. In fact, Doc dated her for quite a spell, but I wouldn’t mention that when he shows up.”

  “A fishing guide, you say? Seems I read something about a woman guide.” Tootsie spun the fly vise, thinking back. “Yeah . . . Captain Hannah Smith. Same name as the girl what was murdered. Her grandniece, you say?”

  “Four generations; they keep passing the name down. Sort of a family tradition. The fishing guide, she’s Hannah number four.”

  Tootsie liked that. “Didn’t know they was related, but I’m not surprised. The one you’re talking about, this new young Hannah, she takes a nice picture. I read about her in Florida Sportsman and some other magazines. Mercy me, those long legs and black hair, I wished she was guiding back during my time. Want another beer?”

  “Don’t suppose you have a Red Stripe hidden away?”

  Tootsie, using a cane to stand, said, “If money and beer grew on trees, I’d be pissing in a sink and drinking Presidente from the Dominican Republic. Now, there’s a beer.”

  He returned with two cans of Old Milwaukee. “I’ve told many’a client that women come more natural to fly casting than men. It’s ’cause they take advice, and don’t overpower the rod.”

  He glanced around the room, its walls papered with photos and magazine articles from the past, most of them about him, or a famous client. “Wish I’d saved young Hannah’s picture. Surprised I didn’t. A woman like that, she don’t need to wear a bikini to show she’s something special. Marion was a fool to let her get away.”

  “It’s not like he had a choice,” Tomlinson replied, but Tootsie had already moved on, saying, “That’s the problem with fishing magazines these days . . .”

  He sat patiently; drank his beer, and listened. The old guide was a talker, with a high, cackling laugh. He’d spent fifty years entertaining clients during lulls fishing, and his storytelling skills were honed to rhythmical precision; music that flowed as effortlessly as a Bach fugue.

  And no less complex, Tomlinson was beginning to believe, until the topic swung back to Hannah Smith.

  “The Smith family and my people, they was shipping mullet and cattle to Cuba before Miami got its first paved road. Smuggling rum and making whiskey, too. That’s why I know what happened to the first Hannah way, way back. It worries you for some reason. Why?”

  Tomlinson nodded. “You’ve got good instincts.” It was simpler than explaining a theory he’d formulated after hearing those weird voices. It had to do with parallel universes; the repetition of concurrent lives that might unfold differently. And end differently.

  “It’s because I’ve turned my life over to the Lord,” Tootsie said, “and let Him do the thinking. Big Six, is what they called her—all them Smith women were tall and rawboned. That Hannah was killed before the Hurricane of ’26. Weren’t but thirty years old. A man cut her throat, supposedly ’cause she was pregnant with his bastard child. Some say it was Leslie Cox. I’ve got my own ideas about that.”

  The word pregnant caused Tomlinson to wince. “What kind of lowlife asshole would— I can’t speak for God, but a Barlow didn’t murder a pregnant woman.”

  He was referring to the man’s fear that God was punishing the Barlow family for something a relative had done years ago.

  “That much is true, at least,” Tootsie said.

  “Spiritually speaking, that sort of shit’s a deal breaker. The killer’s family, on the other hand, should be dodging lightning bolts, not yours.” After a thoughtful moment, he added, “The Hannah I know is pregnant, too.”

  “So that’s what worries you.”

  “Don’t mention it to Doc. No one’s supposed to know.”

  “That she’s pregnant? Why, because he’s not the father? Or because he is?”

  “I seriously doubt it, but she won’t say.”

  The fishing guide cackled. “Just like them Smith women.” His smile faded. “It weren’t the deputy who kilt her. J. H. Cox come down to the islands from Tampa. John Henry, I believe his name was. A good family man. He had a young wife, a daughter, and a son just born. The Lord would want us to help them find peace.”

  “How?”

  “Find their bodies, I guess. Do a church service, I don’t know. Hell, you’re the preacher, you tell me.”

  “If the deputy didn’t kill her, who did?”

  “Some say Leslie Cox. He was a drunken skunk from Georgia, but I think it was another skunk who cut her throat. Smuggling rum and making whiskey, even pot hauling, they’re not so bad compared to what some men in these parts did.” Tootsie Barlow, with his sun-scarred face, glanced over, a searching look. “Do you believe in Evil?”

  By the way it was said, the word was capitalized.

  “Does the pope wear a hat? Hell yes, and only a fool or a scientist would think otherwise.”

  “That’s who killed her, an evil man. After cutting her throat, he cut that girl’s belly open so she wouldn’t float. Had a baby inside her, but he did it anyway, then dumped them both in the water not far from here. That was his mistake. No one should’a found the body, but they did. Them Smith girls, they was stubborn. Hannah wouldn’t sink.”

  “Dear Jesus.”

  “Cruel times in a hard land. Probably best I don’t say more. Not for now. Besides”—the old man reached for his cane—“I’ve gotta pee.”

  —

  Tomlinson made a mental note: Never mention this to Hannah. Then wandered outside to find a shady spot of his own to piss and light another joint. He unzipped, sighed, and looked back to synchronize the landscape with what he’d learned that afternoon.

  The Barlow place was a shotgun shack the family had built after filing homesteader papers at the county seat. It was Fort Myers in those days, not Naples. Over the decades, the cabin windows had anchored themselves to the view beyond the porch: an oak hammock; domes of cypress that mushroomed up from a sawgrass horizon.

  The big timber was gone, of course. Same with the few houses that had sprouted around this railroad watering stop. It was a village that no longer appeared on modern maps as Palmetto Station. Fifteen miles south was a Quik Stop at Carnestown, but the nearest shopping center was Marco Island, forty minutes away in a decent car.

  Palmetto Station had become a ghost town in the Everglades. There were a few others along the Trail—Och
opee, Jerome, Pinecrest—where wailing steam engines had plucked the wooded flesh clean, then abandoned the scars to silence.

  Dense, the air here. Squall clouds corralled the heat, focusing it downward into the stillness of moss and mosquitoes. A sense of dread flourished in such places.

  No wonder he’d so badly misjudged Tootsie’s reasons for leaving the Keys. The old man hated being landlocked here. Who wouldn’t? But a legal issue had forced his hand.

  The family’s cabin and sixty acres lay squeezed between federally owned land. Big Cypress was to the west, Fakahatchee Preserve to the east. The feds wanted the property. Because it had been homesteaded, they had a legal right to take possession if a family member didn’t maintain a “permanent residence,” meaning live there nine months of the year.

  Most landowners were long gone, but a few remained. They, too, were being pressured. The old man had yet to go into detail about that.

  “I miss the smell of saltwater,” he’d said, “but I’ve got no choice. Not until I find a relative crazy enough to want to live here for free. Of course, it’s got to be a Barlow of legal age, who’s not going to use the place to brew drugs and nonsense. That don’t leave but a couple of candidates.”

  In January, when the feds served notice, it hadn’t seemed to be a problem. Now it was. In a few short months, two of Tootsie’s family members had died in freak, unrelated accidents—one struck by lightning, and, soon afterward, his grandson’s wife had died when their RV caught fire. The most recent near miss was in May. A nephew, on his way to Lakeland, had been seriously injured when his truck blew a tire, or had been forced off the road.

  Tootsie was unsure about that.

  “We’re running out of Barlows,” he’d said on the phone the day after it happened. “Either God or the Devil is behind this—maybe because of something my daddy did before I was born.”

  They hadn’t gotten around to that, either, but had come close a few minutes earlier when Tomlinson tested the limits of weirdness by mentioning the voices he’d heard.

  The old fishing guide had replied, “You heard them, too?”