The old Greek behind the bar twisted his handlebar moustache and Nick could tell from the expression on his face that, certainly, he had intended taking the money but there was little he could say now and he waved the money away and told Nick Joe was right he would never take their money. Then, because of his embarrassment, even offered to pour them one for the road which Joe accepted before Nick or Old Gus had had a chance to answer. They left finally and as they walked to the car, and for about twenty miles down the highway, all Joe talked about was the hospitality of the Greeks.
In Nashville they stayed with some friends of Joe’s for a day. The friends owned a shoe-shine stand. They were very happy to see Joe and meet Nick and Gus and prepared huge meals and Little Joe, almost seventy, got very drunk on the resinous wine again and danced the Greek dance with such passion that Nick became very frightened for him. Nick enjoyed the food and the drink but did not especially care for the mother of the family as Nick could tell the mother at once had an idea for Nick and her daughter. Her daughter was very dark, very pimply, short, stocky, and knew it, and seemed to be ashamed of it in a way that made Nick feel sorry for her and sorry, too, for the poverty they lived in though Nick knew that many Greek families who lived very cheaply in poor districts had much money and property and he suspected that they were one of these families.
After they left Nashville they decided to drive straight to Florida, to stop at Chattanooga on the way back. They spent one night in Clearwater with Joe’s friend who had a bar there. It was a big night. They ate at the friend’s house and drank all evening in the bar and did not pay and after the place was closed Gus got out his zither and the owner had some of the local Greeks in and they danced and sang and ate until the sun came up, then Gus and Nick started for Marco in the Ten Thousand Islands after making arrangements to meet Joe in Tarpon Springs.
It was very hot that day and rained several times but they left the top down. Nick and Gus were both very tan from driving all the way with the top down. Nick drove fast and steady all the way to Marco. They checked in at the Marco Island Inn a little after eleven that night and took separate rooms. They were both too tired to even inquire about the fishing that night.
Nick was up with the false dawn, wide awake quickly with a strange excitement within him and the warm, balmy gulf wind coming through the window and the sound of the water of the bay lapping out near the docks mollifying the excitement, feeling all at once downy pliant supple clean-from-the-sun-tan but not tired anymore, never tired anymore, not pulpy anymore, but sharp, acute, wired, ready for the air, the sun, the water, the extending all of himself.
He dressed quickly in khakis and sneakers and put on his old (how very old) khaki shirt with the sleeves buttoned down to protect him from the mosquitos and rubbed mosquito repellent on his hands and over the now gruff four-day stubble of beard the familiar smell of the repellent that had been in his fishing box for how many years now since he had last used the box. The repellent had not deteriorated, at least from the smell it had not, he thought. It was good not to shave, to feel the warm wind and the rasping sound of the dry palm fronds brushing together and to know you were on this island with less than a thousand people who were different from any you had ever known in this country real frontier people were they Spanish descended some from those days when De Soto’s ships plied what was then known as this the Mangrove Coast there is pirate blood in these people, he said to himself, and Indian blood and upon these beaches the blood of those Indians who defied the rock upon which that church was built the rock of Inquisition and Scotch and Irish and English and French blood and the blood of rumrunners, bootleggers, slavetraders still here and then Nick remembered the Jack Dempsey looking French Indian fishing guide that he had fished and drunk with that year before this war, Larry was his name, he said there was not such thing as background on this island only backbone, yes, that was the way these people were still wary of strangers who might spoil their land, their sea and soon he, Nick, would be out among those islands where there were no people. No people at all only mangrove keys spread out like pellets of mercury south all the way to the Keys, his mind’s eye visualized. Keys spread out like pellets of mercury inland to what is known as the Everglades and where the Glades begin and the islands end no one would ever know for the land was governed by nature’s tidal waters and an island that once was soon might not be at all and where there was once only water (if nature’s whimsy so wills it) an island will suddenly begin to form which might become a mangrove key of considerable size lined with wide white sand beaches and no people and where the proliferous bird life of the islands will abound the sea turtle come to lay and hatch its eggs the fiddler crab to form its colony and no one would ever know where the islands ended and the Glades began or when a storm would blow out of the night and an island vanish and the eye of his mind saw the pirate treasures shifting in the sand and the gold on the floor of the ocean and no man no man no New York Chicago Los Angeles psychiatrist even ever would know, he thought with a kind of half hysterical gleeful laugh in his mind’s eye, ever would know where the islands end and the Glades begin.
I must go wake Gus now, he said to himself suddenly. No, I will go down to the docks first then wake him. He is tired from the trip and old. The sun is coming up now. I can talk to the dockmaster to see how they are running. If the snook are running we will go for snook today and if we score today with snook we will take a crack at the tarpon tomorrow. I do not think I will fish Big Marco Pass for snook, he said to himself. I will fish Caxambas. We can drive the car down there and take a boat from that camp. I know the spots better at Caxambas Pass and the tides. I wonder how the tides are now. We should fish them mostly on an out tide. But today I think I will fish all the tides. If I get a fast enough boat at Caxambas I can move about quickly enough to practically fish an out tide all day. If I must fish in tides I will fish with a top water bait for the smaller snook along the coral formations that protrude from the water. On the out tides I will use a big dude in the deeper waters along the islands that run out to the pass. I will start deep inside with the higher part of the tide and work” towards the pass and the Gulf as the tide lowers. That is the best way to fish for the big ones. I will use the eight pound monofiliment for the small ones. The ten pound monofiliment for the big ones. I will lose some big ones with the ten pound monofiliment if we tie them but it will be better sport. I bet I shake like hell when I get my first strike. Your first strike? You shake like hell every strike. I wonder if fishing is partly sexual, he asked himself. I never thought of that before. I should think about that. On second thought, I will get the old man up. We came to fish and he’s a tough old man. He will like this fishing here. I think he will like the people too. It is too bad that he does not know how to use a spinning rod. He will have one hell of a sore thumb if he tries thumbing that casting spool without a glove. But he will not use a glove. I know that.
He went next door to the old man’s room. Old Gus was already awake in his bed. Nick said he would meet him in the lobby. Gus was down in five minutes. They walked down the stairs of the hotel toward the dock. In front of the inn, Nick stopped and stared at the bright orange blossoms on the big royal Poinciana tree.
“The snook are here. They are in to spawn. Not all in. But almost,” Nick said.
“How do you know this?” Gus asked.
“That tree. For over seventy years it has been true that when the blossoms of that tree, in front of this lodge, are at the full of their bloom the peak of the snook spawning is on. It has never failed I have been told. Sometimes it blossoms in mid-May and sometimes at the end of June. Even July several times, I heard. But that is when the snook come in from the sea. When this tree blossoms.”
Nick looked at the old man now staring at the big Poinciana, looked at him as he stood there in his black work boots with his baggy old brown pants and wide suspenders and his denim workshirt, tall and slightly stooped, with that sweet sad smile on the Christ’s face and almost shaved gra
y-black hair, and those kind melancholy black eyes. Nick just stood there looking at him, the long arms that came almost down to his knees and the huge bony hands and those kind eyes that did not waver from the tree. Finally Gus said: “Where do the snook come in from the sea?” Still looking at the tree.
“No one knows. The marine biologists at the University of Miami have been trying to find out for some time now. But they’ve had no luck. I think they come from the coral banks far out. The reason I think that is because I have talked to the Greek sponge fishermen at Tarpon Springs. In fact, I was out with them once for a month. They say they see them around the coral when the water is warm. So I think they follow the coral where the water is warm. I mean to the southern coral during the winter. Of course there are many snook that never go to sea. They are creek snook. The biologists know that.”
“You know much of this.”
“I thought we would fish the snook today. Maybe tomorrow too. Later we will get some heavy tackle from the dock-master and I will catch you a tarpon.”
“I have always wanted one of those. But they cannot be eaten I understand.”
“That’s the story. But if we ever get to Tarpon Springs we will eat some anyhow. The Greeks there know how to make stew of it. I have never found out the secret. But it is the finest fish stew I have ever tasted. They can be eaten.”
“That is a beautiful tree.”
“Yes. I have a mental picture of that tree from the first time I saw it. It was in the rain. I have never forgotten it. Let’s walk to the dock.”
They began to walk slowly. The sun was coming up and it was warm already. Gus was looking at the sky and at the trees and Nick knew he was looking at the trees to tell which way the wind was blowing.
“It will be cloudy later,” Gus said, “maybe even rain.”
“I like it overcast for snook. You cannot see them then except in the shallows. But they cannot see you either. And they do not spook so easy.”
“Spook?”
“Run frightened,” Nick said.
“Oh.”
“We will fish as much as possible the outgoing tides,” Nick said. “And the change of tides.”
“I have heard in ocean fishing it is best to fish the change of tide. But I do not know the reason. Nor do I know why, in particular, you fish the out tide. Is there a reason?”
“Yes,” Nick spoke seriously, interested and patient and pleased to be able to be informative to Old Gus. It had always been the other way—Gus the teacher, Nick the student. “Yes. You fish the change because the fish know that when the tide changes the waste of the ocean breaks loose. In other words, the dead things or the decapitated things that have drifted and lodged against coral and other objects there by the pressure of the tide—they turn loose. Certain smaller fish come out to feed on this ocean waste matter. And the larger fish come out to feed on the smaller fish that have come out. It is good to fish a change. Many fish, at certain times, wait to feed on the change because they know then there will be feed.
“But most all salt water fishing in bays is best on the outgoing tide. Especially during the spawning season. The reason the fish come into the bays in abundance this time of year is so that when they spill their roe it will be on the in tide and wash back into the safety of the backwaters, safe from the predators of the deep sea. Therefore they feed on the outgoing. Spawn on the incoming. That is, as a rule, though. If they are not ready to release their roe, they will hit on an incoming. And snook will hit a bait sometimes not out of hunger but out of irritation. You can’t tell when they will hit really. Sometimes you can catch them in a pattern. And know exactly when, where and how they will hit. I have done that. But that lasts only a few days.”
“That is a marvelous thing that they release their roe to the backwater. It is wonderful to know.”
“If we find them, then we can follow them. That I do know how to do. Pound for pound they are better fighters than a fresh water bass. And it is my opinion better than the muskie. But that is a matter of opinion.”
“That must be some fish.”
“You will see for yourself.”
They were on the dock now and Nick looked out at the mangrove islands of the bay, out over the blue green water that was running swiftly in, out past the wide white sand beaches of Big Marco Pass to the blue green blue again green again of the Gulf.
“That is Big Marco Pass,” Nick said.
“It is not very big,” Gus said.
“It is about the same size as Little Marco Pass but deeper. It is a famous pass. Pirate ships used that pass and hid in these islands. I will tell you some of the history later.”
There was a great splash suddenly in the water about fifteen feet out from the dock, and a big porpoise rolled and rolled again and slapped his tail ganglingly on the water as it rolled once again and you should see the frightened fish race out from the clear water under the dock, several big snook Nick noticed, and then the porpoise came up snout first holding a six or seven pound snook between its jaws and shaking its head playfully then went down again and its head came up the snook still in its mouth and then went down and did not come up until it was far out. “Porpoises do that often—scare fish from under docks and other shallows by the slapping of their tails,” Nick said to Gus. “They are the only creatures in the world besides a gorilla that have a larger brain area than man.”
“That, too, is something to know. I did not know you had so much knowledge of things like this. This will be an interesting trip.”
“The fun will start now,” Nick said. “You will see much. Birds. And great turtles upon the beaches. And I will take you in the boat to a key called Pelican where a man, a well-educated man, Harvard with honors, lives in a shack and has lived for years. And you will see rare birds. And hear laughing cranes. And I know a cove that is difficult to find where you will strike a trout with every cast. And a beach, a sand beach, where we will fish for pompano.”
“Pompano! That is my favorite of all fish to eat,” Old Gus said.
“Wait until you taste the snook we catch,” Nick said. “We will get small ones. At least try for small ones, every day for eating.”
“This is some trip.”
“Yes. I’m really glad I came. I feel good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good. I want to fish like hell. And eat like hell. And drink like hell. And sleep like hell. And when I get back I’m going to give that woman some hell in bed that will be one heaven of a hell,” he said. “And something tells me I’m going to get in one hell of a fight before I leave this place.”
“You feel your youth,” Gus said.
“It’s about time,” Nick said,’ “isn’t it? I’ve felt so goddamn old so long. As long as this war. This damn war which seems to have been forever. And here now seems like maybe it never was—only a dream.” A dream? he thought A dream? A dream, hell. A nightmare with smells, that’s what. With putrid, fetid, decayed smells. “Let’s go talk to the dockmaster.” Nick said gruffly. And started for the shack at the far end of the dock.
The dockmaster was the same one; old, bald, more Indian than French, with a deeply tanned ruddy face and great crevices of lines in his face and powerful forearms and a great swelling chest and a huge chaw of tobacco distorting his right cheek. He was working on a motor outside the shack and did not look up for over a minute until he had finished what he was doing. He did not speak then but stared at Nick for a moment, then his vulture eyes shifted to Gus, then back to Nick, waiting.
Nick, remembering him, did not speak for a moment then said: “Hello, Jean. You look the same.”
There were seconds of silence.
“You don’t remember me then,” Nick said.
“Yes. But not from where or when.”
“I’m Nick Stratton,” he said, “and we fished together the year before the war. And we fished apart and had a contest and I won ten dollars from you and you took me to Molly’s beer joint and drank up the ten dollars and got into a fight with Larry and got
beat bad.”
“Christ,” he said, “what happened to you? The war?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “But I feel better than I look.”
“My kid got killed,” he said with no search for sympathy nor trace of apathy. “At Normandy.” He chewed on the tobacco, then spat, then picked his nose. “Snook, eh? Well, there ‘ere. Big ones. You can get him ‘ere at night. Or this morning when the tide changes, meb-bi.” And spat again.
“How’s Caxambas?”
“You wanna fish Caxambas?” he asked warily.
He was a Big Marco Pass man and knew the spots here but did not fish Caxambas and was easily irritated, Nick remembered, by anyone that fished Caxambas with success.
“Maybe,” Nick said.
“Well, you can fish anywhere you want. You want a boat?”
“I asked how the fishing was at Caxambas,” Nick said.
“I ain’t heard—much,” he said. “Who’s your friend?”
Nick introduced Old Gus.
“You wanna boat. I got a good boat.”
“I’m not takin’ any boat from here, out in that Gulf, without twin engines. Is that boat over there with the twin Evinrudes yours?”
“That’s mine,” he said. “That’ll cost you more. Twenty a day,” he spat. “Plus gas.”
“I’ll take it. For five days,” Nick said.
“Awright,” he said. “I don’t know why you don’t get a boat from up at Caxambas though. As long as you’re going to fish there.”
“I like that boat,” Nick said.
“Awright,” Jean said. “Take it. It’s your business. You can fish wherever you damn please,” he said nastily and went back to work on his motor.
Nick grinned and turned and winked at Gus.
“We can take the boat from here,” he said to Gus, “and go out the pass here and follow the beach south about six miles and we come to Caxambas. With these motors we can run it in twenty minutes I think. Then we can leave all our crap in the boat every night. And we won’t have to haul the fish back in the car. Let’s get our stuff.”
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