Everglades df-10

by Randy Wayne White

  Surprised, and pleased that we’d been provided an interesting diversion, I took the paper from her and read parts of the story aloud.

  Yes, I was wrong about earthquakes in Florida. Seismographic experts from the University of Florida are investigating the source of three or more earth tremors that were reported yesterday afternoon by South Florida residents from the Everglades to Captiva. According to seismologist Dr. Smith Douglas, the University of Florida maintains a seismograph network with stations in Gainesville, at the Everglades Beard Research Station and at Oscar Shearer State Park near Sarasota. “We’ll be checking our data, and working with the National Earthquake Information Center in Denver to determine the origin of the tremors,” Dr. Douglas said. “It’s certainly possible it could have been a small earthquake. According to the Florida Geologic Survey of 1983, Florida’s had approximately thirty earthquakes or ‘events’ that date as far back as 1727. This could be another.”

  I stopped reading, took a gulp of my coffee and said to Dewey. “I grew up here and never heard anyone ever mention earthquakes.”

  “Live and learn,” she said. “It’s kind of interesting.”

  Yeah, it was.

  I continued reading: According to the National Earthquake Information Center in Denver, Florida is mistakenly considered “earthquake free,” yet several quakes have occurred here. One of Florida’s most violent earthquakes occurred in 1879. In St. Augustine, in the northeastern part of the state, walls were shaken down and articles were thrown from shelves. The tremor was strong at Daytona Beach and Tampa, where residents reported a trembling motion, preceded by a rumbling sound. Two shocks occurred, each lasting 30 seconds, and were felt as far south as Punta Rassa and Bonita Springs. In January 1880, Cuba was the center of two strong earthquakes that sent severe shock waves through the town of Key West. The tremors occurred at 11 p.m. on January 22 and at 4 a.m. on the 23rd. Many buildings were thrown down and some people were killed. In August 1886, the next serious tremor experienced by Floridians had its epicenter at Charleston, South Carolina. The shock was felt throughout northern Florida, ringing church bells in cities and villages in the northern half of the state. In recent history, southwest Florida experienced minor quakes in July 1930 and December 1940 that were felt from Fort Myers to the Everglades. In November 1948 an earth tremor caused jars to break and windows to rattle in Lee and Collier counties. Residents reported that the apparent earthquake was accompanied by sounds like distant, heavy explosions. According to anecdotal stories, however, the deadly Mississippi River Valley earthquakes of 1811-12 rumbled through the American South, and may have caused the most powerful tremors ever experienced in Florida. The anecdotal information comes from Florida’s Anglo pioneers, and some Native Americans, both Seminole and Miccosukee. Usually referred to as the New Madrid (Missouri) earthquakes, they rank as the most powerful and deadly in U.S. history. The area damaged by the New Madrid quakes was three times larger than that of the 1964 Alaskan earthquake, and ten times more violent than the infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As described by one survivor of the New Madrid quakes: “The ground began to rise and fall, bending trees until their branches intertwined and opened deep cracks in the ground. Large areas of land were uplifted. Larger areas sank and were covered with water. Huge waves on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed others high on the shore. Mountains caved and collapsed into the river.” The New Madrid earthquakes traumatized people throughout the South. In his journal, George Heinrich Crist, a Kentucky farmer, wrote: “There was a great shaking of the earth this morning-all of us knocked out of bed. The roar I thought would leave us deaf if we lived. All you could hear was screams from people and animals. It was the worst thing that I have ever witnessed. “In a storm you can see the sky and it shows dark clouds and you know that you might get strong winds, but with this you can not see anything but a house that just lays in a pile on the ground. “A lot of people thinks that the devil has come here. Some thinks that this is the beginning of the world coming to a end.”

  When I stopped reading, Dewey took the paper from me. Folding it, she seemed subdued and reflective, as she said, “Sooner or later, I guess we all experience an earthquake or two. It’s inevitable.”

  I said, “Yeah. Inevitable.” Then I said, “Let’s go run.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was standing a little more than two miles from the shell road that leads to Dinkin’s Bay Marina, bent at the waist, hands on knees, my T-shirt soaked with sweat and gasping for oxygen.

  Dewey stood beside me patiently, not sweating and not breathing much faster than normal. “Sorry, Doc. Maybe I was pushing a little hard. I’ll slow the pace way down.”

  Her kindness hurt me far worse than her characteristic sarcasm.

  “How long’s it been since the last time you ran?”

  I had to clear my throat to form words. “Eight months,” I croaked. “A year.”

  “Oh my God, no wonder. Maybe we should just walk. Have a nice relaxing stroll, then get you back to the house.”

  She said it sincerely. Like she was talking to her decrepit old father. chapter twenty-three

  On Wednesday, April 16th, three days before an associate and friends reported Frank DeAntoni and Sally Carmel Minster as missing, the wide-bodied former wrestler called me on his cell phone just to talk, he said, but also to ask a favor.

  Because my answering machine has a recording that suggests callers try me at the marina’s number, that’s where he found me.

  I was sitting on the stool behind the glass counter next to the cash register where Mack, the owner and manager of Dinkin’s Bay, holds court and keeps an eye on the money. Mack’s originally from New Zealand; a Kiwi who loves cold cash even more than he loves cold Steinlager.

  We’d been discussing the most recent of governmental outrages imposed upon our little boating community. It concerned Captain Felix Blane-all six-feet-five inches and 250 pounds of him-who’d been out in his twenty-four-foot Parker, Osprey. He’d had a party aboard when an unmarked flats boat came screaming up alongside, portable blue lights flashing, and forced him to stop.

  Two plainclothes U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers then proceeded to accuse him of ignoring the new Manatee Protection Laws that require boaters to travel at idle speed when within five hundred feet of certain mangrove areas.

  “One of the Feds had a ponytail,” Mack told me. “The smart-ass undercover-agent type, and he gave Felix a lecture about how he needed to learn basic boating skills, and start caring about wildlife. In front of his clients.”

  Captain Felix, who’s been guiding around Sanibel for nearly thirty years endured the lecture like the professional he is, then told the officers, “Do you have navigational equipment? Check your GPS. We’re more than half a mile from the mangroves. I’m way outside the manatee zone. I haven’t broken any laws.”

  The long-haired officer replied, “In my judgment, we’re closer to the mangroves than your GPS says. And that’s all that matters. If you want to hire an attorney, I’ll see you in Tampa federal court five or six times over the next few months. So you can start canceling your bookings for May right now.”

  May, the beginning of tarpon season, is one of the busiest times of year for guides on Sanibel and Captiva.

  I said, “If that’s true, it’s terrible. That’s a sophisticated kind of extortion. No fishing guide can afford to fight federal attorneys, plus miss all those days on the water over a couple-hundred-dollar ticket.”

  Mack said, “It is true. Almost the exact thing happened to one of the guides out of Cabbage Key. You know Captain Doug. The plainclothes Feds stopped him twice. The same hippy-looking bugger pointed and told him where he was allowed to run his skiff above idle, then a second unmarked boat pulled him over and wrote him a ticket. It’s not that they tricked him. It’s just that those sots don’t know the area, they don’t know boats and they don’t know the water.”

  Sadly, he was right-I’d heard too many similar horror stories to
doubt it. I was nodding, as he added, “I enjoy the outdoors and wildlife, manatees, as much as the next man, but it’s just getting too crazy. Environmental wackos, mate. I think they’re tryin’ to take over the entire bloody earth.”

  Because I didn’t want to get into an argument with Mack, I shut my mouth tight, walked out to the docks and stepped down into my twenty-one-foot Maverick. I had several five-gallon buckets aboard, and I’d stopped at the marina to fuel up before heading out on a collecting trip.

  I don’t have much patience with the term environmental wackos or the callous, shortsighted philosophy the phrase seems to signal. As a marine biologist, I am also, necessarily, an environmentalist. I take pride in the fact that some of the research I’ve done, certain papers I’ve published, have played a role in protecting our dwindling marine resources.

  In the minds of many, what is now known as the “environmental movement” began in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. It is a fact that, at the time, America’s natural resources were in terrible shape. The Great Lakes were so polluted they were unsafe for swimming. Our rivers were such cesspools of chemicals and petroleum waste that they caught fire and burned. In industrial cities, all six of the most dangerous air pollutants tracked by the EPA measured off the scale.

  Private enterprise and a profited-minded government were slowly killing an entire continent. The environmental movement deserves full credit for changing that.

  Half a century later, though, what was once a movement has now become the very thing its founders battled. So-called “environmentalism” has become a profit-driven, power-hungry industry in which private political agendas are more important than biological realities, and monetary objectives excuse any perversion of scientific fact.

  A few months back, I was talking with someone familiar with Mote Marine, the organization I’m now doing contract work for. He told me that Mote had received an official letter of protest from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) that condemned Mote for housing and studying jellyfish. I’m paraphrasing, but there was a line in the letter that read, “These magnificent creatures should be allowed to roam free in the wild!”

  That a national “environmental” organization could pen a letter so stupid, so childishly ignorant of the species that they referenced, is not just sad, it is frightening. Unthinking extremists have taken possession of what was once a noble title, environmentalist, and they are destroying our credibility, just as surely as they are giving credence and power to people who use sad phrases such as environmental wackos.

  In the Everglades, when I’d listened to Billie Egret’s short tirade against legislated efforts to save the region, I’d disagreed with her cynicism, but I understood the source of her mistrust: the environmental industry. The En-dustry is made up of governmental agencies, private businesses and “nonprofit” organizations.

  Fortunately, each has, in my experience, at least a few men and women who are rational and well-intended, who put the well-being of the environment before their own self-interests. But, like our own natural resources, the numbers of honest ones seem to be dwindling.

  I don’t trust the En-dustry, either. No thinking environmentalist should.

  So I was sitting in my skiff, ruminating over national matters that are far, far out of my control, when Mack paged me over the PA, telling me that I had a phone call in the office.

  It was Frank.

  As I listened to DeAntoni, I was also aware that Mack, Jeth and Captain Neville were listening, too, and so I told him I’d telephone him from my house.

  A few minutes later, Frank answered, saying, “So how’s it going with you, Dr. Nerd? You still hanging out with that dope-smoking goofball with the cannon for an arm?”

  I told him that Tomlinson had pitched against Naples on Sunday, had given up six runs in three innings, plus done a lot of heavy drumming later that night, and so his “cannon” was probably still hurting him on this clear spring morning.

  “Fucking Tinkerbell, man. You could throw a tent over the guy and call him a circus. Weird thing is, though? I kind’a like the skinny little dork.”

  I had to laugh. It was Tomlinson’s guileless candor that made him likeable, and DeAntoni possessed the same rare quality. You couldn’t help but like the man.

  He was headed for Miami, he told me. Traffic sucked. There were so many Third World former donkey-cart drivers on the road, Cubans and Haitians, that I-95, he said, should have its named changed to the Refugee Express. If he survived, he was going to meet Sally for lunch, then spend the rest of the night in his car, watching her house.

  “Stu Johnson, the security guard they found floating? The medical examiner says he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. A vessel in his brain popped. But there was also a nasty bruise on his throat. So they’re figuring maybe he hit the dock when he fell. That’s what my cop buddies are telling me.”

  I said, “The question is, why would a security guard get out of his car and go stand on a dock?”

  DeAntoni said, “Exactly. Sally swears someone’s been in her room, and that lady’s word’s good enough for me.” There was a little smile in his voice, when he added, “Hey, listen to this. We had a great dinner together Saturday night. She was real upset about Mr. Johnson and her dog, too, but we still managed to have some laughs. So we’ve had dinner together every night since. But this one, you’re not going to believe, Ford.”

  I said, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I went to church with her, Mac. Me, the big wop who stopped going to confession when I started having shit to confess. Sitting there in a sport coat in this little white church with a bunch of jigs and crackers and beaners, but they were all nice as hell, everybody singing and clapping. It was fun, Doc. I enjoyed it.”

  DeAntoni’s voice had a schoolboy quality. He sounded like an adolescent with a crush, but his tone changed abruptly when he said, “But that’s not why I called. I’m calling ’cause I need someone I trust. Someone who knows how to take care of himself, and bust a head or two if things get tough. I need a favor.”

  He then told me that he suspected that one or more men were following Sally. He didn’t know who, or why. But he wanted to set a trap for whoever it was, and the trap required a third party to do a careful, long-distance surveillance.

  As he explained the circumstances, asking for my help, I felt a sickening tension building in my stomach. Lately, when I have attempted to help friends, the results have been tragic. If I’m involved, the people I’m trying to help are almost always the ones who end up getting hurt.

  I said, “Whoever it is breaking into Sally’s house, that’s who you think’s following her?”

  “Bingo. I need someone to watch me while I’m watching her. From a distance, understand? That’s the only way to nail them. Something else, Ford: Whoever’s doing it, he’s a pro. And he’s very, very damn good. ”

  “What about asking your cop pal in Hialeah?”

  “He left on a cruise two days ago. You’re the only other guy I’d trust. Hey, I’ll tell you the truth. Most guys, they’re either too stuffy or too Mister Macho, which is to say they’re a pain in the ass. But you, I wouldn’t mind hanging out with some. Tell you what, come to Coconut Grove, help your old pal Sally, and we’ll have some yucks, you and me.”

  I told DeAntoni that I’d like that-and meant it-but that I’d have to check my work schedule to see if I could take the time off.

  It was a lie.

  Same thing when I told him I’d call him later that night.

  Sailors have an old word for it-Jonah. I was bad luck, a Jonah, when it came to helping friends. I wasn’t going to risk contaminating Sally.

  DeAntoni finished, saying, “Hell, what we could start doing is find a gym with wrestling mats. Maybe shoot for takedowns, get in a little bit of shape. Roll around a little; get rid of our bellies. We’re both carrying a few extra pounds.”

  I told him that sounded like a good thing to do, too. We chatted for a while long
er before I hung up the phone.

  It was the last time I would ever hear Frank DeAntoni’s voice.

  As I headed back to the docks, I noticed that Tomlinson was standing by the Red Pelican Gift Shop, encircled by a dozen or so people-tourists, judging by the number of cameras they carried. When he saw me, his wave was more of a signal- Wait for me -and he then began to walk in my direction.

  The people with whom he’d been talking watched for a moment, then, as a group, began to follow him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Tomlinson walked faster.

  The little gaggle of people walked faster.

  Then Tomlinson began to jog.

  They began to jog-a mixed group, mostly younger men and women with gaunt, European-looking faces, plus a couple of Asians.

  Now Tomlinson was running, his long hair swinging behind him like a flag, barefooted in tank top and baggy surfer shorts. As he ran, he called to me, “Doc! Are you headed out on your skiff?”

  I stood for a moment, engrossed by the bizarre scene, then called back, “I’m leaving right now.”

  “If you got room, I’m going with you!”

  “Plenty of room. Come aboard.”

  I stepped into my skiff, started the engine and popped the lines.

  Quick-release knots-I love them.

  A second later, Tomlinson swung down onto the deck beside me, breathing heavily. On the dock behind him, his pursuers stopped abruptly, cameras up and snapping photos, as a Japanese-looking girl, her accent heavy, said, “Why do you refuse us, to be our Roshi? We have come so far, and searched so long. It was you who wrote the divine Surangama of this new century. Our destinies, our desire for kensho, we are now all mingled!”

  Tomlinson groaned. “My dear, you are wrong. So wrong. All of you.” His voice sounded pained and apologetic, and he was holding up both palms- Please stop. “I’m not worthy to teach you or anyone else. Not anymore. I’m… I’m a terrible person. I abuse drugs. I’m a fornicator- nothing’s beneath me. My God, I tried to strangle a man a few days ago! Basically, I’m an absurd wanderer. I… I was sent to this planet to conduct inhuman experiments on the human liver.”