by Tom Lowe
“We’ll have Joe Thaxton as our guest this Friday during our first hour on the air. Maybe you’ll call back with questions. He’s not your average Joe, so please, don’t come back with average questions, okay?”
The caller laughed. “That’s for sure. I heard him say the other day, if a candidate refuses the influence peddling of the lobbyists, those lobbyists will just go see the opposing candidate and drop two-hundred thousand into their cookie jar. That kind of money is ridiculous and why we’re in trouble to begin with.”
The radio host said, “You’re talking about how it’s been in Florida for decades. Almost as long as the farm bills were first passed. Thanks for your call.”
“No problem. Love your show. Bye.”
“If you’d like to join the conversation, call eight-hundred, radio one-one, and the ones are digits, not the letters—that’s number one for our talk-radio station ranking and number one for our host award rankings … eight-hundred, radio one-one. We’ll take a short break and continue the conversation on today’s political races in some of the most watched contests in the nation, happening right here in Florida. Stay with us.”
Thaxton stopped at a traffic light and made the call. A woman answered the phone. “Radio-one-one with Don Berry. Would you like to join the conversation?”
“Yes. This is Joe Thaxton, candidate for state senate. I’m heading to a town meeting in my car, and I heard some of the show. Thought I might add a quick comment for a minute.”
“Oh, Mr. Thaxton. Thanks for calling. I’ll let Don know you’re on the line.”
“Thank you.”
The commercial on the radio ended, and the host said, “Timing is a lot in politics. The last caller had mentioned the name of a man he admires who is running for office. Now, that doesn’t necessarily qualify him as a politician, and that’s his appeal. He calls himself the average Joe with an extraordinary message and plans for fixing the pollution too often experienced on Florida’s beaches, rivers and lakes. Joe Thaxton is a fishing guide in the Indian River Lagoon, and now he’s running for office after watching one too many toxic algae blooms in the habitat where he makes a living. My producer tells me Joe is heading to a town hall meeting. We have him on the line for a couple of minutes. Thanks for calling in, Joe.”
“Happy to join the conversation. I know I’m booked with you for Friday, I just wanted to thank the last caller and say he’s right on the money, no pun intended about the lobbyists. You’re talking about people who have money to burn. Big Sugar’s lobbyists work both sides of the aisle, republican and democrat, to get the votes they want to keep doing what they’re doing. I believe folks should own property and be responsible land owners. However, when these massive sugar cane farms prohibit the natural flow of the water in Florida, hurting our national treasure, the Everglades, we need to look closely and ask …why? Why, twenty years after the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was passed, is so much of it the same as before it was passed. In 2014 the people of Florida voted to buy land south of Lake Okeechobee to begin real steps to restore the Everglades. That move has been delayed by the current administration and the cronies who don’t care about what the people voted to make happen. In the meantime, the glades are drying up and water managers are flushing toxic water down two rivers, the St. Lucie on the east coast the Caloosahatchee on the west coast. We got a huge problem. But it is fixable.”
“Let’s get into the solutions when you have a full hour on Friday’s program. The question the last caller asked is why the heck aren’t you running for governor. You’d have a lot better chance with your Everglade’s restoration plan if you were in a higher office.”
“One step at a time. If the people do choose to put me in office, I’m not gonna start by figuring out how I can keep that office. As a matter of fact, as soon as I can make a difference, I’m outta there. In terms of the governor’s race, I can work with the candidate the people decide to elect as our next governor. This issue, clean water and good health in Florida, is way too big for party lines. It’s going to boil down to the salvation of our way of life in the state.”
“That’s a scary but, most likely, path we’re on as a whole. If you were governor, what’s the first steps you take?”
“I’d ask for the resignations for most of the folks on the Water Management Board. I don’t think we have to replace them with scientists. Science is certainly part of the perspective. I think we need people on the board who understand what’s at stake, knowledgeable people who’ll be there to take care of our fragile natural environment. We’re at the tipping point. The water chemistry is already so altered it’s often too dangerous to breathe the air or swim on some of our beaches, lakes and rivers. We can reverse that.”
“We’re looking forward to hearing your plan on Friday. Joe, are there still seats in your town hall rally today?”
“Absolutely, if we get too big a crowd for indoors, we’ll move it outside. Come join us at 1212 Birdsong Street in Stuart. The folks at the national guard facility there have been kind enough to let us borrow the place for an hour.” Thaxton looked in his rearview mirror, the black SUV now behind him. “And, if they’re listening, I’d like to invite the driver in the Ford Explorer riding my tail to join us. I’ll give you a front row seat.”
The radio host laughed and said, “There you go. A special invitation from Joe Thaxton. Joe, thanks so much for calling in this hour. Looking forward to more on Friday. We hope you have a big crowd today. And maybe that tailgater will ease off the gas pedal and join you.”
TWELVE
I was looking for the weather forecast on the radio when I found a storm. I normally don’t listen to talk-radio, because it’s often boring. Politics rehashed like tainted potato salad never has a good taste. However, while scanning the dial, I caught part of a talk show that piqued my interest. After spending time with Chester Miller and his granddaughter, Callie, the subject of the radio discussion was fitting—the degradation of the environment.
Max and I drove northeast on Highway 41 through the Everglades, and I thought about one of the things Chester had said: The true canary in the mine for this land can be the ghost orchid. The more their habitat is changed or altered, the scarcer they become.
I didn’t see any ghost orchids out my open window, but there were miles of sawgrass. At one time the Everglades was often called the River of Grass. The sawgrass was there today, but not a river beneath it. Max slept on the Jeep’s passenger seat, and I listened to a talk radio program, the subject resonating as I drove. The caller, a fishing guide running for state senate, had some salient points. I thought about one of the things he’d just said, We’re at the tipping point. The water chemistry is already so altered it’s often too dangerous to breathe the air or swim on some of our beaches, lakes and rivers. We can reverse that.
Living in Florida for years, I’d followed the history of the environment and man’s influence. The Big Cypress Preserve and Everglades suffered massive crisscross scars, ditches dug across its face to divert the natural flow of water. The Army Corp of Engineers had good intentions, just bad results in terms of balancing the environment and the needs of wildlife with the desires of developers. The original canals, ditches and dikes were built to prevent flooding as Miami and the southeastern portion of the state were the promised land in the eyes of developers. Winter weary northerners, people with money, would flock like snow birds to sunshine and palm trees if the water levels could be controlled.
That meant literally draining the swamps. The result—a drastically changed hydrology, the River of Grass was dry part of the year, the blood-flow to the Everglades constricted to a trickle at best. For the wading birds, fish and animals, the land they knew for thousands of years was gone. What was left, especially in the headwaters of the ‘glades, the land around and south of Lake Okeechobee was muckland. Dark black mud. To sugar cane growers and farmers, it was black gold. They bought up massive tracts of land as if oil was beneath it. Might as well have be
en.
I wished the candidate luck. He was going to need it taking on corporate agriculture and the sugar industry. I picked up my phone, slowed down and scrolled to find the number to a woman I hoped was home. This land, the ‘glades, had been the home of her people—the Seminole Indians, since they fled here to escape from the U.S. Army and those who wanted to relocate the Indians from Florida to reservations in Oklahoma. The Seminole had refused to be escorted down the Trail of Tears. They’d been resilient, defiant, and were unconquered. I thought a lot of those traits were in the DNA of the woman I’d bought the flowers for, Wynona Osceola.
After earning her degree in criminology from Florida State University, she’d been accepted into the FBI. Preferring to work the job away from New York City or Washington DC, coveted locations for a lot of agents looking for visibility and a place to climb the ranks, Wynona preferred to hunt for criminals, not the limelight. She started in the FBI’s Tampa field office. Two years later, she relocated to Miami. Nationwide, her arrest and conviction records were in the Bureau’s top ten percent. After Miami it was an assignment in Detroit, and that would be her final chapter in the FBI. She’d worked an undercover sting to bust people thought to be aiding and abetting Islamic radical terrorists in the Middle East.
The home of a suspect had been bugged, Wynona and her partner on stake-out in a van parked in the dark a half-block away from the middle-class, ranch-style home. What they overheard through their earpieces was a fundamentalist father about to murder his teenage daughter in what he called an honor killing. The reason, he alleged she’d disrespected the family by flirting with a teenage boy.
By the time Wynona and her partner broke down the front door to the home, the father had already stabbed his daughter three times. Wynona shot the man once in the chest and then emptied her clip. One round at a time. Two seconds between trigger pulls, sending another seven bullets into his dead body.
The Bureau called her actions “excessive force.” The FBI’s brass demoted Wynona and took her off the streets. She was reassigned to a desk job. She quit, traveled the country for a spell, looking for nothing specific, except for trying to make sense of it, all the while searching for the elusive resolution to the unanswerable … why? Why does a man butcher his daughter and call it an honor killing? Why is the face of evil often unrecognizable until the mask comes off? Why is good too often a victim? She eventually circled back and returned home to the Everglades and her family. Now she works as a detective with the tribe’s police department.
She answered the phone. “Hi, Sean. How’s Max.”
I glanced over at Max. “She’s asleep.”
“Well, she’s earned the right for a frequent nap, not that she needs beauty sleep like the rest of us. Are you calling from your cabin or your boat?”
“Neither. We’re in my Jeep, and we’re not that far from the rez. Have you had lunch yet?”
“No, and I’m starving.” Wynona sat behind her desk in the Seminole Tribe’s Police Department. She was the only woman in the large room. Two other detectives, both men, made phone calls and worked computer keyboards. Wynona glanced down at her left hand, looking at her nails, trying to remember the last time she had a manicure or a pedicure. She had long, raven black hair. High cheekbones. Misty, brown eyes that gave the impression of depth, like something enigmatic below the surface of still water.
“We can meet you at the “Glades Café,” I said. “As I recall, they make a good burger. Frybread is outstanding. Would forty minutes work?”
“See you then.”
• • •
Joe Thaxton drove down the interstate and called his wife, Jessica. “Did you see the Midday Live interview?”
“Yes. I thought it went very well. I’m proud of you and what you’ve been able to accomplish is less than two years.”
“No pain no gain. I didn’t want to ring any alarm bells, but in the last couple of weeks, we’ve received a few threats at the campaign headquarters—one in particular stood out.”
Jessica set a cup of coffee down on her kitchen table. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because ninety-nine percent of telephone threats are just that … threats only.”
“Joe, all it takes is the crazy one-percent to go off the deep end. What kind of threat?”
“The caller didn’t ask to speak with me. He just said to my staff to tell me that, if I stayed in the race, it’ll be the last race I ever run. The producer of the Midday Live broadcast told me some guy called in and threatened to blow up the TV station for having me on the program.”
“Now you’re frightening me. We need to go to the police. The best way to take on adversaries is not to be extorted or bullied by them, but to bring in the authorities to help stop them in their tracks. After this rally, promise me you’ll call the police and report these threats, okay? I’ll go with you.”
“What can the police really do? We don’t know who made the call. The caller ID indicated an unknown number, like the guy is using one of those non-traceable phones to make his threats. And, today at the TV station, the caller, of course, didn’t identify himself. So, police have no place to look. We can’t even file a restraining order unless we know who we’re trying to restrain.”
“We might not know a name, but we know the people behind it might be the ones you’re challenging, the big ag and sugar cane operations in the state.”
“Maybe. But I’d like to think they do their fighting using lobbyists and fistfuls of money, not in some cheap, mafia-style threats coming from guys who would break kneecaps. I won’t be deterred or intimidated. Florida has suffered way too long.”
“Be careful, Joe. I’ll see you at the rally. I love you.”
“Love you, too.” He disconnected. Thaxton saw the sign to his exit, slowed and left the interstate. He stopped at the traffic light at the end of the long ramp before turning right. He looked in his sideview mirror and saw the black SUV come up very close to the rear of his truck. He looked up in the rearview mirror, trying to see a face or faces. Two men. Both wearing dark glasses, both with billed caps on their heads.
Thaxton turned right and drove two blocks before coming to a red traffic light. He stopped, the SUV pulling up to his left, the passenger lowering the window. Thaxton looked at the red light, wanting it to quickly turn green. He turned his head to the left. The passenger, a man in his early thirties, pulled a hoodie over his ball cap. The man stared at Thaxton for a second before using his index finger and thumb to resemble a handgun. He pointed his finger at Thaxton and pretended to pull his trigger thumb. Face deadpan. He lifted his index finger to his thin lips and acted as if he was blowing smoke from the tip of a barrel. He grinned, replacing his index finger with his middle finger, sticking his hand further out the window.
Thaxton turned his head, staring at the traffic light. Green. He accelerated, the driver in the SUV taking a left and driving in the opposite direction. Thaxton tried to get a good look at the license plate. He could tell it was a Florida plate. He couldn’t make out the numbers and letters. But there was no mistake that the men had delivered a warning to him—a death threat.
THIRTEEN
I drove through the largest of the five Seminole reservations in Florida, thinking about the incongruities of time and circumstance. Big Cypress Reservation is about eighty-five square miles in size. It borders the Big Cypress Preserve southwest from Lake Okeechobee. Fifty years ago, most of the tribe lived in small concrete block homes that dotted the landscape of scrub oak, cabbage palms, canals and wetlands. Some of the elders lived in chickees, wooden structures with hard-packed dirt floors and thatched roofs made from dried palm fronds.
Today, there are plenty of ranch-style brick homes with late model cars and trucks in the driveways. The Seminole Tribe leveraged their status as a sovereign tribal nation, exempt from many federal or state laws, to secure gambling rights and turn the cards into a multi-billion-dollar industry, giving them ownership of the most lucrative casinos in the s
tate. In addition, they own the Hard Rock Café brand, including its hotels, casinos and resorts worldwide. The Seminoles, who years ago, often made a living by wrestling alligators at roadside attractions for tourists and charging for airboat rides through the swamps, represent one of the largest businesses in Florida.
Where money flows, greediness often awaits downstream like hidden boulders beneath the fast water.
The massive cash flow removed abject poverty from the tribe, each member getting bi-monthly financial windfalls for life. But the Seminoles, like anyone, are not immune to the double-edge sword of the blessings and lacerations wealth can spawn. That’s one of the reasons Wynona Osceola, as a detective on the reservation, isn’t bored in her job. It might not offer her the challenges that her former position as an FBI agent once did, but she still investigates the dark side of mankind. And there is more than enough of that to go around because boundaries on a reservation can never contain or repel the ghosts of greed.
As I drove into the heart of the Big Cypress Reservation, I thought about how the infusion of cash provided many members of the tribe the opportunity to build businesses that prosper as tourists arrive by the busload to experience narrated tours through the swamps on airboats and swamp buggies. They can catch a snake show, gator wrestling, a rodeo, and visit Seminole culture, past and present, in a museum.
I slowed, lowering the Jeep’s windows and turning off the road onto the parking lot adjacent to one of the largest restaurants. Max stood on her hind legs, nose out the window, catching the scent of fry bread and hibiscus flowers. The Gator Cafe resembled an immense, sprawling log cabin or an old Florida fish camp from the sixties, made from cut and treated cypress poles. Tin roof. A wide, wrap-around porch that circled most of the restaurant and offered views into a sprawling wetland. Philodendrons grew at the base of a dozen tall canary palms, the leafy green fronds swaying in the breeze.
