The Man Who Ivented Florida df-3

by Randy Wayne White

  Another way to buy time was to kill or shanghai a couple of state employees, but Ford didn't say that.

  Sally said, "You two are just so different." There was nothing chilly in her voice now. Instead, she sounded troubled. A little hurt, too. Ford found that unsettling, as if he'd explained to someone why there was no Santa Claus. She said, "Then what about the artesian well? He seems so sincere."

  "That's one thing Tuck's good at, sounding sincere. But consider this: Even if he sold his land to a dummy corporation, he still had to pay sales tax and capital gains. On a hundred acres, it probably cleaned him out. He's probably telling the truth about being flat broke. He needs the money." Ford could see that hurt her, too, so he added, "Understand, I'm just guessing at all this. I have no proof."

  "Yeah, I know but…" She was thinking about it.

  Ford said, "But here's what I suspect is his real motive. The spring he says he found? Let's say he convinces a bunch of people that water from the spring really is beneficial. That there really are some health benefits. Let's say the water has all the necessary minerals-whatever it is people look for in bottled water. And he proves that by having the water tested. Okay, that makes his property even more valuable. If he can prove the water is a marketable, inexhaustible resource, the state will have to pay him ten, maybe twenty times the current accessed worth of his property. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, of course… Well, no, but it makes sense. The way you say it."

  "I just want you to see why I don't want to get involved with Tuck. One of his schemes. That it had nothing to do with… what you were talking about."

  Sally stood, putting her hand on Ford's shoulder as he stood to face her. "I think it does."

  He could look down right into her eyes, her face softer in the darkness. He put his hand on her waist, not even thinking about it. "You're leaving?"

  "I have to. It's late."

  "But you're not mad."

  As she shook her head, her hair made a wind sound, brushing against her shoulders. "No. Just confused. And sleepy."

  Ford wanted to say, "Then why not stay over?" but the words couldn't get past his own reserve. Instead, he said, "I'll wash your clothes and dry them. You can pick them up next time you're here." Looking at her face to see how that was accepted.

  Sally touched her finger to his cheek. "You really are a nice man. I wonder if you believe that." Studying his eyes with hers.

  "Or I could drive down to Mango tomorrow. Drop them off. If Tomlinson will let me use my truck."

  Using his shoulder as a brace, standing on her toes, she leaned slowly, slowly, and pressed her lips to his, eyes open… then closed as Ford pulled her to him, feeling the weight of her breasts flatten against him. Then, talking into his chest, she said, "I've wanted to do that for a long, long time, Marion. Kiss you."

  Ford didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing, just held her.

  She said, "Maybe I could make dinner for you tomorrow night. At my place."

  Ford whispered, "While I'm there, I can take some samples, have the water tested? I'll have to call someone, find out the proper procedures."

  She kissed him again, then said, "I'd like that. But I'd make dinner for you, anyway."

  NINE

  As Charles Herbott, the thirty-year-old environmental consultant, paused to stretch his back, to rest his arms, he said to Chuck Fleet, the thirty-five-year-old surveyor, "I've finally figured out why you keep lying about what day it is. You're trying to manipulate me, make it seem like it's not as bad as it is."

  "What?"

  "That's right. So I won't take care of you-know-who." Herbott motioned with his head toward the old man sitting in the shade of a ficus tree, shotgun in his lap. "Because you're so afraid. That's why."

  Chuck Fleet didn't bother to look. He was hunched over, holding stalks of sugarcane with his left hand, cutting the stalks with his right. He'd cut for three or four steps, then bundle up the cane in his arms and carry it to the bamboo sled. When the sled was heaped high, he would harness himself into the rope and drag the sled to the old cane press on the other side of the mound. That's where the Captain kept the fire going, a huge black pot suspended over the buttonwood coals, boiling the cane water into syrup. Ten gallons of cane water made one gallon of syrup, after a lot of skimming, stirring, and more skimming to make the syrup clear.

  Charles Herbott said, "It's Wednesday, not Monday. You're lying about that. I'll been on this goddamn island two weeks tomorrow. I've been keeping track. I know."

  Chuck Fleet said, "Okay, it's Wednesday, not Monday. Whatever you say." Thinking, First Bambridge goes crazy, now Herbott. The difference is, Bambridge isn't dangerous. Herbott is potentially homicidal…

  Herbott returned to cutting, hacking at the stalks with the rusty machete the old man issued him each day, then collected each evening. Cut-cut step, cut-cut step. Cut the base of the stalk, then lop off the top. Stalk after stalk after stalk. Christ, he was beginning to feel like an animal, his clothes rotten from sweat, his hair and face caked with the black sand. All the work he'd done, everything by hand. "The way I know you're scared is, you won't even listen to my plans anymore."

  Fleet said, "Keep your voice down. The Captain's old, but he's not deaf."

  "And quit telling me what to do!"

  From the direction of the ficus came the old man's voice. "Yew boys got a job a work to do! Fuss on yer own time."

  "Sorry, Captain!"

  They chopped in silence for a while before Herbott said, "You're getting bad as Bambridge, the way you kiss that crazy bastard's ass. 'Least Bambridge gets something for it. Living up there in the old man's shack, cooking the meals. That fat asshole's happy as a clam now, acting like he's one of the guards instead of one of the prisoners. But you, hell… he's going to work you to death. Which I don't mind, only you're going to take me down with you!"

  Fleet started to respond, but then thought, What's the use? He gathered two cane stalks into his left hand, then cut them at the base with a single swipe of the machete.

  "We run off right now, at least we've got the knives. That's what we ought to do, just scatter. Catch him dozing in the shade."

  Fleet shook his head, "These old-timers, crackers, they aren't like people today. They say they're going to do something, they do it."

  "So?"

  "So he'd shoot us. At least one of us. He'd have time for that, to get both barrels off."

  "But he's never threatened to shoot us-you're the one who keeps saying that!"

  "I know, but he means for us to do this work. He'll do whatever it takes. I think he'd get at least one of us with the gun."

  "No way, man. We just dive for the brush, then we've got the whole island. We'd be free."

  Chuck Fleet said, "I'm going to say it one more time: Then what? Huh? Then what? We're free on the island. Big deal. Even if we could find our boats, they're broken down. What are we going to do, walk across the water?"

  "Couple of nights ago, I heard a powerboat-you did, too. We could flag somebody down. Couple of times, I've heard a boat."

  "Twice, maybe three times in almost two weeks. Nobody comes back in here. It's so shallow, nobody in their right mind, anyway. Only novice idiots like us."

  "I know, I know, it's shallow enough, we could walk. We could walk a lot of it-"

  "Twenty miles back to Barron Creek Marina? All of it mangrove and muck. Just keep on walking and have a nice dinner at the Marco Island Inn. Might as well do that while we're at it. Get serious, Charles."

  Herbott said, "We take his boat, I've already said that. Take his rowboat, use the mast and sail. He had it rolled up in there on the deck. I saw it. Or you could create a diversion while I've got the knife, and I could-"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Murder him. Cut his throat." They'd been through this a hundred times. Every night, sitting in the pit with the mosquitoes clouding around them. Herbott talking about different ways to ambush the old man, saying just leave the rough stuff to him. Ge
tting wilder and wilder, the way he talked. The heat, the bugs, the fear rendering what sensibilities the man had into a bedrock hatred that now scared even Fleet.

  Herbott said, "You keep using that word, but I'm talking self-defense. It's not murder."

  "What is he, eighty, maybe ninety years old? That's murder."

  "You think what you want. But I've got enough connections in Tallahassee, they won't touch me."

  Fleet had heard a lot about that, too-Herbott's connections. Out of college, Herbott had worked as a biologist for the state long enough to learn the system. Testified in suits against outlaw developers and provided input in the writing of some of the state's environmental-protection laws. But then Herbott had gone where the money was, set up his own consulting firm. That way, the outlaw developers could hire Herbott to circumvent the very laws he'd helped write. Environmental audits, water testing, permitting-his small company could take a development project from conception to ribbon cutting. Called himself an environmentalist, but what he was was a developer. Not that all developers were bad-it just irritated Fleet the way some of the new environmental consultant companies pretended to be one thing but in fact were something else.

  "You're going to tell me about your buddy the governor again."

  Herbott said, "That's right, a personal friend. I got permits for a condo project-almost all on wetlands-nobody else could push through. For his cousin. Why you think the state still hires me? For the tough projects, that's why. The Captain there puts a gun on me, nobody's going to say a word. No matter what I do."

  "Just kill him. That'll solve everything."

  "I'm getting a little goddamn tired of your attitude."

  Chuck Fleet stood with a bundle of cane in his arms and yelled, "New load ready, Captain!" Then in a lower voice, he said to Her-bott, "We get his cane in and make his syrup, he's going to let us go. He salvaged our boats; we owe him. That's the way he sees it. If you talked less and worked harder, we could be done in a week. Maybe less."

  Herbott took a wide swing with his machete, lopping the cane he was holding but also just missing Fleet's leg. Looking up at him, Herbott said, "Don't try to manipulate me! And when the time comes for me to take the old man down, don't you get in my way!"

  The surveyor walked carefully away and dropped his armload of cane onto the bamboo sled. His heart was pounding; pounding from the work and the heat, but mostly from adrenaline, knowing how close Herbott had come with the knife. The man was nuts.

  "Yew there! Tall'un." That's what the old man called him: Tall'un. Never used his name. He was Tall'un; Herbott was Short'un; Bambridge had been Fat'un before he'd gone to work inside and became the Cook.

  "Captain?"

  "Yew let Short'un take a turn on that there sled."

  "Yes sir, Captain!"

  "You can go to hell!" Herbott was suddenly standing, looking up toward the old man on the shell ridge. Holding the machete out like he meant to use it. "You can call me by my name, or you can drag the goddamn stuff yourself."

  Fleet called out, "I'll pull it, Captain. I don't mind," as the old man got slowly to his feet, feeling around for his straw hat on the ground beside him, not taking his eyes off Herbott.

  The old man said, "Mister man, you raise a knife to me on my island again, it'll be the last time," lifting the shotgun, pulling the two hammers back with his thumb but holding the barrel toward the ground. To Fleet's ears, the noise the hammers made, ka-latch, ka-latch, deepened the island's silence and turned the constant whine of mosquitoes into a long, steady scream.

  Herbott's voice had a new unsteadiness: "You have no reason to call me… by anything other than my name."

  "Yew workin' for me, I'll call you what ah want!"

  "But it's not… fair! It's not fair, and it's not right."

  The barest twitch of expression came to the old man's face. A smile? "Life ain't fair-that why yew short, boy! But the way I works my crews, that's fair 'cause I don't let one man do all the draggin'. Now get yo'self pullin' that sled!"

  Fleet didn't want to look at Herbott. Didn't want to see the anger drained from his face, replaced by fear. Didn't want the burden of seeing Herbott's humiliation. The man was dangerous enough without sharing that.

  "No more your sass! Move!"

  Behind him, Fleet heard the metal sound of a machete dropped onto shell, and Herbott brushed by, headed for the sled, whispering as he passed, "I am going to kill him…"

  Because morning was his favorite time, Tucker Gatrell was up before everybody. All his life, it had been that way. Now he was up before Joseph-or so he thought. Tuck put coffee to fire and added a handful of chicory for body. Outside, birds made their tentative first twitterings from the hush of jasmine and poinciana, and in the autumnal darkness the wind was freshening from off the bay, smelling of open sea and far islands. When the coffee was ready, he carried his mug to the porch, propped his boots on the railing, scratched Gator's ears to make sure he was there, then settled himself in that quiet time to watch the landscape change.

  In the east, there was no sun, but an orange corona boiled over the horizon, throwing shards of westwarding light. The sky was a fragile lemon-blue, translucent as a pearl, and clouds over the Gulf absorbed the light in towering peaks, fiery, like snow glaciers above a dark sea. Birds flying… Tuck could see their gray shapes closing. A formation of ibis-curlew, he thought of them-glided across the bay and were briefly illuminated, combusting into brilliant plumes that produced an ethereal white light. Then the birds banked into shadow, silent as falling stars, and were gone.

  Tucker watched them, feeling a strange sense of loss and a curious ache, like nostalgia.

  Used to be thousands of them birds. Millions. Me an' a lot of other dumb butts chewed up this land pretty good.

  From the mangroves arose the catlike buzz of raccoons fighting-or mating. Across the road, tail-slapping their way across the bay, a carousel of bottlenosed dolphins-porpoise, Tuck called them-foraged the grass flats, exhaling moistly while a pileated woodpecker thudded like a drum on the dead palm that leaned toward the junk pile near the barn.

  He paused to consider the junk pile. In the dusty light, the rusted fenders and coils of wire, the sections of wood and discarded fencing, the broken bottles and rotted pilings and the tilted fly bridge of the wooden boat became a single unit, all grown over with vines-a single strange shape, like a sculpture-or a monument.

  Every screwup in my life ended up in that junk heap. Surprised it's not bigger than the barn by now. Bigger than all the islands. Makes me tired just lookin' at the gawldang thing…

  That's the way Tuck felt, tired. Not sleepy, just weary. All the running around he'd done in the last few weeks, all the planning, all the phone calls, all the reading, all the… thinking…

  Used to feel like I was flyin', like them curlew. Now it's like gravity's got a hook in my butt, cranking me toward the ground.

  That was the problem: gravity. Tuck crossed one boot over another and sipped at his coffee, musing. Gravity wasn't just a problem; it was the biggest problem. Tuck gave it some thought:

  Moment you come outta your mama's belly, gravity's right there and the fight starts. A baby spends a year wrestlin' with it before that baby can finally get up on his legs. After that, he just keeps gettin' stronger and stronger until he thinks the fights over, gravity can't do nothin' to him ever more-but it's a lie. Get old, and gravity starts draggin' your shoulders down. Then it stoops your back. Then your brain starts gettin' heavy, like lead, 'cause the damn stuff's always there tryin' to pull you back into the dirt. Gravity don't like a man walkin' upright.

  The novelty of the thought pleased Tucker. He still had the ache in his stomach, that nostalgic feeling, but thinking about gravity helped focus the feeling, made it something he could deal with.

  If a problem ain't been solved, it's 'cause nobody's give it enough thought.

  Same thing he'd told Ike the time Eisenhower'd come down to fish, out of the Rod amp; Gun Club in Evergl
ades.

  Tuck had liked Ike. Liked him better than Truman, the little man with the hat and the goggles, though it seemed to interest people more when he told them about Truman.

  Course, Harry fished with me more'n Ike, too…

  He caught himself-his mind was drifting--Which was nothing new, but it seemed to be getting worse and worse ever since he'd had what the doctor up to Fort Myers called a "little stroke."

  "It's called old age," the doctor had said. "Do you understand what I mean by that?"

  "You can kiss my ass," Tucker had replied with heat. "You understand what I mean by that!" Filled with anger-not at the doctor but at the damn circumstances. The feeling that his brain was a traitor, of having no control.

  Now Tucker concentrated, forced his mind back to the topic and turned his full attention to gravity; thought about ways to neutralize it. Helium, that was an idea. Like the gas they put into balloons to make them float around-he'd seen how that worked at the fair in Miami.

  Maybe take everybody when they were born and give them a squirt of it…? No… people would just burp it out, kids especially. Kids loved to fart and burp. So… maybe put the helium in a sack, a plastic sack, and have doctors sew it in.

  Tuck pictured all the sack makers and the helium makers getting rich. The doctors, too. Nope, he wasn't going to give away any more great ideas. He'd done that enough.

  Problem is, I'm thinkin' about this the way everybody else thinks about it…

  There it was! The answer wasn't to neutralize gravity,- the answer was to get rid of it altogether. Go to the source!

  But what the hell causes gravity…?