Salt River

by Randy Wayne White

  I was too pissed to respond. After a long silence, he asked, “Moe? You still there?”

  “A Bahamian customs boat,” I said, “that’s what we agreed on. I couldn’t have been clearer about that. Don’t put me in a position where I’ve got to change our deal at the last minute.”

  “Whoa, brother! No need for talk like that. I didn’t know it was such a—”

  “It is,” I said. “A big problem. I’m not doing a salvage project like this without a government boat on the job. One of your planes flies over, or the local cops show up, then what? What do we tell them?”

  “Oh,” he said, “an official vessel with the markings and shit. My bad. I was thinking one of our undercover boats so we wouldn’t draw any—”

  “We don’t want any attention,” I said. “That’s the point. Someone sees a customs boat anchored, they’re not going to ask questions. Ray, can you handle this or not?”

  “Now that I finally know what you need, hell yes,” he said, flustered but already working on it in his head. “Yeah . . . Yeah, I know just the one. It’s been out of service for . . . Never mind, leave it to me.”

  “Out of service where? I need specifics or I’ll put my associates on it, and we’ll find our own damn boat.”

  “Hold on, Moe. When I say I got this covered, I . . . Damn, man, okay. North of George Town in the Exumas—the port at Moss Town. We got a cutter there, forty-some feet. It’s an older vessel, been up on the ways for about a year, but she’s ready now. Fresh paint, all the markings and lights.” Rayvon sounded more confident. “It’ll take a day for me to work my magic, so not tomorrow, but Monday, Tuesday latest. How’s that sound? Now all I need is the GPS numbers where Jimmy hid the stuff. You know, approximately—so we can meet up. I got a pen handy when you’re ready.”

  No way. I wasn’t going to reveal the gold’s location until the last minute.

  Tomlinson exited the store. He’d bought so much beer and ice that Cindy’s husband, Alfred, was lugging one of the boxes. Through the open window, I signaled for him give me a second. To Rayvon, I said, “Not so fast. The boat at George Town, does it have a derrick?”

  “A crane to lift shit? Oh hell yes.”

  “And it runs? Don’t screw this up, Ray.”

  “Dude, the vessel’s got twin inboards, runs like a scalded cat. All kinds of electronics and—hey, you ready for this?—a fifty-cal machine gun mounted on the bow. The boat was a present from your DEA.”

  “That ought to do it,” I said. I was mildly amused—a DEA assault cruiser. “What about scuba gear and the guy you’re bringing as crew?”

  Rayvon’s ego was tired of being on the defensive. “Whoa! Come on, man. You do your job, I’ll do mine. Where Jimmy hid the stuff—how far we talking from George Town?”

  “About fifty miles from where you’ll pick me up,” I guessed, “then another twelve to the spot.”

  “To the north of Cat Island?” he asked.

  “Northwest,” I said, which was true.

  I could picture the man narrowing it down in his head. “From George Town, that’s right on my way,” he said. “See? It’s all gonna work out. I’ll hit you up in the afternoon—but, damn it, answer your phone for a change.”

  Tomlinson got in the car, popped a Kalik, in its clear bottle, and waited until we were driving to ask, “Suppose you were talking to Delia, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.” He drank in silence for a while. “Seemed sorta secretive, that’s all. She got mad because she wanted to come along. Don’t worry, I took the heat. Figured she might have called you. Man, I was tempted to say yes. Know who’s still hitting on her? That damn bomba hound, Figgy. That Cuban’s got the morals of a Republican love bug.”

  “No need to take the blame,” I said. “I already told Delia coming here was a bad idea. You want to stow your gear at the house and go for a swim? Or try the wharf first? Josiah might show up early.”

  “Told Delia when?”

  “Yesterday, maybe. No, late Wednesday night, when I was still in Nassau.”

  “You called her?” He tilted the Kalik bottle. “Kinda weird, ol’ buddy, you ask me, calling my daughter all hours of the night from a town where most normal people are paired up and drunk by sunset.”

  I turned onto a rutted limestone lane toward Fernandez Bay. “Don’t start with that nonsense again. Delia has called me, I’ve called her, we’re friends, so what?”

  “Just catchin’ up on the local gossip, I suppose, you and her?”

  “Some. She and a few of your other biological kids did a FaceTime session. Fun, she said, but a couple of them still won’t share their real names. I find that a little disturbing, don’t you? I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to worry her.”

  “Sounds like you two talk almost every day. What’s up with that?”

  “She needs advice,” I replied. “The sugar co-op in Belle Glade invited her back for a second interview. She’s worried it could damage her reputation—political internet stuff. And her ex-boyfriend has been hounding her to the point of stalking. Delia’s smart, very rational, objective way beyond her age. But we all need an outsider’s view sometimes.”

  “Phil’s stalking her? That pompous academic quack. You were supposed to scare the hell out of the prick. Now you’ve suddenly lost your badass skills, too? She didn’t say a word about it to me.”

  I was pulling up to our rental house—one story, two wings of native limestone with a commons. It was an isolated property built on a lagoon of electric indigo, miles of distant mangroves, wind-sheared.

  “Why would she bother?” I countered. “So you can debate Phil into submission?” I jammed the car into park, done with the man’s insinuations. “Let’s clear the air here. Her dad has rallied, so her mom booked another week in Asheville. That’s why she pressed the issue about coming here. Oh, you’re gonna love this.” I reached over and got a beer for myself. “Promise you won’t get pissed off?”

  “Oh, please. Long ago, I mastered my anger by embracing—” He stopped. “Hold on, poncho. What kind of ugly kimchi are you gonna lay on me now?”

  “Not ugly, just the opposite. Before I left, Delia and I spent part of the night together at one of Mack’s cottages. We talked, had a nice time. Just thought you ought to know.”

  Tomlinson stared. His Adam’s apple bounced as if in eloquent speech, but all he got out was “Wha—”

  “Yep, just the two of us.”

  “You . . . her . . . alone.”

  I said, “Unless you count the two bottles of wine. We started in the bedroom. I told her I needed to search the cottage—which was true. She’s still worried about Deville. Then we ended up on the couch and almost finished the second bottle.”

  “Of wine, two bottles . . . What kind of wine?”

  “Red, I’m pretty sure. Hey, pay attention. When you two talk, don’t let on you know unless we’re all together. No more secrets between us. I think that’s a good rule from now on.”

  Tomlinson continued to stare while his mind dissected all this. “You and Delia . . . all night drinking wine.” He attempted to finish a beer that was already empty. With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth, then his face rebooted with a slow grin. “You asshole. Doc, you don’t drink wine, you hate wine. And a couch? Oh, come on. With a perfectly good bed available?”

  “It was more comfortable,” I said. “She had one of those little electronic smoke things—a vape stick. We passed it back and forth a couple of—”

  Tomlinson started to laugh before I could finish. “Oh, right . . . Doc Ford, smoking a bone, drinking some red. Grooving on some Grateful Dead, were we?”

  “No, a vapor pipe, maybe it’s called,” I said. “Marijuana. It was in kind of a tube. Had a little button.”

  “A little button! Hilarious.” My pal threw his head back and roared. “Geezus
frogs, Doc, think I’m gonna fall for this bull—” He had to get himself under control before continuing, “I know, don’t tell me—then you got married again. What, you fly to Vegas and rent the Elvis Chapel? Had to be hell landing your seaplane in the freakin’ desert.” He opened the door, his chest heaving. “Okay, okay, I’ve learned my lesson. Just one question: When’s my grandkid due? By the time we get back, I hope.”

  More laughter.

  I switched off the engine and sat for a second. “Well, at least you know the truth,” I said, which I doubt my friend heard.

  * * *

  —

  Josiah wasn’t at the wharf when we arrived that afternoon. We waited on the quay. Tomlinson had another beer while I paced the water’s edge, tallying life-forms along the seawall. From a cluster of food shanties, a woman called out. She offered us a map, drawn with a shaky hand, saying, “Ol’ Rev. Bodden, he ain’t doing so good after what that Nassau trash done to him. You tell him Miss Mary said ‘Hey,’ you hear? I’ll carry him some fish stew tonight. Tell him that, too.”

  In the car, Tomlinson fumed as we drove north. “Wonder how bad they hurt the old guy. Geezus, the man’s in his nineties. Who are these assholes you’re dealing with, Doc?”

  “People who don’t know who they’re dealing with,” I replied. “Saddest part is, Josiah doesn’t even know where Jimmy dumped the stuff.”

  “Yeah, but he knows where Lydia is,” Tomlinson reasoned. “I wonder if she’s had her baby yet? Josiah wouldn’t let anything happen to a mother and her kid.”

  A short distance north, I turned inland onto a single rock lane hacked through an impossible thicket of vines and dwarf trees that clawed at the car. A twisting half mile led to a clearing that invited sunlight. Goats, a pig or three, wild chickens, scratched in the shadows of a crooked block home probably built in the 1800s. Walls of stick and wattle, freshly whitewashed, a roof of tin.

  “You think Josiah has family here or is he hiding out?” I asked. I knew that he and his congregation lived on a remote private island an hour’s boat ride away. The island was off-limits to the public, including me. But he and Tomlinson were tight. There was the Masonic connection. And they both had a fondness for quoting the Bible.

  My pal replied, “I’ll go first and wave if he’s willing to see you.”

  No need. The Rev. Bodden appeared in the doorway of the cabin. He was a leathery beanpole of a man, bent over a cane that he used as he shuffled toward us. Baggy, torn overalls, no shoes, a massive straw hat. He also wore a black frock coat as if dressed for Sunday service.

  The old gentleman waved, grinned, but appeared weak. Tomlinson met him halfway. They exchanged a secretive handshake. They embraced, and Tomlinson whispered something, mouth to ear. A mitten of medical gauze, I noticed, covered the old man’s left hand.

  Josiah was a talker. He was an animated antique from the days when islanders built their own sharpies and fished under sail. Tomlinson installed the old man in the passenger seat. My pal curled himself into the back. I listened to a nonstop, singsong exchange of topics, but Josiah often had to stop and take a few breaths before rejoining the conversation. They discussed the weather, apocalyptic clues from Revelations, and the price of snapper. Tomlinson asked about the Masonic Lodge, which had fallen into disrepair, then made a vague reference to a married woman who Bodden had been seeing on the sly off and on for forty years.

  Finally, I interrupted to ask how Rayvon’s people had handled the interrogation. The old preacher pretended it was no big deal. Tomlinson disagreed. “Tell him what they did to you.” Then told me himself, saying, “Bastards cut off two of his fingertips, for Christ sakes!”

  Josiah seemed okay with that, too. “Still got eight left. That ain’t bad,” he said. “Lost only two in the last ninety years. What’s that come to? My math ain’t good—one finger every forty-some years? Never told them boys a damn thing either.” The man thought about it, then reconsidered. “Now, if they’d applied those odds to my pecker . . .” He allowed the sentence to fade into contemplative silence.

  “Can you describe the men?” I asked.

  Josiah banged the tip of his cane on the floor. “Oh yes, one of them was Nassau trash. The other, a foreigner of some kind. His name was . . . Ellis . . . I believe.”

  “Ellis,” I repeated.

  “Yep. Don’t you worry about those two. As the Book says, ‘Blessed be the Lord who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.’ If those boys woulda known their Scripture, they woulda kept cuttin’.”

  “Book of Isaiah?” Tomlinson suggested. He wasn’t sure.

  “Psalm 144,” the old man replied. “The Good Lord’s gonna jumby-fuck them fellas, yes siree bob. And I’m gonna be there when it happens.” He inhaled a heavy breath as if he was about to pass out.

  “You want to stop and rest for a while, Reverend?” I asked.

  In reply, he whapped me on the shoulder. “Damn it, boy, pay attention. Slow down, take the next left. My boat’s down yonder, all fueled and ready to go. I want to hear about this plan of yours that’s gonna rid us of the burden my people bear.”

  There was no need to explain the backstory. Josiah had played a key role in helping Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend, Lydia, and her husband disappear into their new lives. I said, “How often do treasure hunters come poking around, looking to get rich?”

  The old man addressed Tomlinson. “Ain’t no way to stop that, the greed of the modern world. Poor girl still lives in fear, especially now they got the baby. What’s your friend getting at?”

  I said, “About a year ago, I found it—Jimmy’s gold. I probably should’ve told you, but I didn’t. It’s just offshore on the east side of your island. Marl Landing. That’s why I’m here. To show you.”

  Marl Landing is how locals refer to an island that, on charts, is unnamed. Josiah, his congregation, and their forebears had inhabited the place since a shipwreck in the 1700s. Generation after generation, their families had lived there in isolation—by choice.

  “You knowed about this all along?” he asked Tomlinson.

  “About the gold. Yes, brother. It was Doc’s secret to share, not mine. But if your people had been in need—”

  “Guarding your friend’s secret,” the old man interrupted. “That there’s very righteous. As it was said, ‘No man shall question the faith of others, for no human being can judge the intentions of God.’”

  My pal guessed. “Book of Matthew, verse 51?”

  “You thinking of ‘Judge not, least ye be judged,’ verse 7,” Josiah replied. His voice had deepened as a melodic sermon. “No, the wisdom I just shared was spoke by Brother Haile Selassie. Worshipful Master of Ethiopia’s Ancient Masonic Lodge, by the grace of Prince Hall and JAH Almighty. Treat thy friends as brothers in the hope one day they seek the light. Good for you, Brother Tomlinson.”

  Tomlinson nudged me from the backseat. “Isn’t that cool? Wish I could explain, but it’s, like, totally cryptic shit.”

  The road had widened, potholes unavoidable. Ahead, a giant land crab scampered sideways but was in no rush. I said, “Jimmy melted down the treasure he found and made mooring anchors, about a hundred pounds each. They’re spread out over about half an acre of bottom in the shallows off your island’s main dock. He probably worked at night.”

  “You joshing me?” Josiah asked. “Water’s so clear at the Landing, surprised my people didn’t notice ’em.”

  “The anchors? I’m sure they did. Probably still do. But they’re flat, spoon-shaped, with a kind of gray coating. Last time I was there, most were buried under a couple of feet of sand. You probably see them every day, just don’t know what they are.”

  “Oh yeah, Mr. Ford, I remember our time together here.” Josiah twisted around to address Tomlinson. “Right off, I read your friend as a sinner, but a good heart when it come to that poor lost girl and her idiot husband. You still
vouch for this man?”

  “Doc? Yeah, I do . . . Well, as long as we’re not talking about some of the truly nasty kimchi I’d rather not get into.”

  The Rev. Bodden smiled his approval.

  I said, “I’m not sure how the law works in the Bahamas, but in most countries property rights end at the mean low-tide mark. The Bahamian government owns everything on the bottom. That seemed like a problem, until I really thought it through.”

  “Marl Landing,” the old preacher replied. “We our own government. All that gold out there waitin’ to be took . . . Well, I’ll be dog-blessed . . . Maybe we’ll salvage it for ourselves . . . Hmm . . . Tell me what you got in mind.”

  I did. It took a while. I parked in the shade of casuarina trees on an inlet with a view of old docks. The docks were built with planks and raw poles. Getting out, the Rev. Bodden asked over the roof of the car, “You bring that gizmo that scares the deacons away?”

  “Repels sharks,” Tomlinson translated. “At the landing they’re, you know, considered spiritual visitors, deacons who come to collect tithes.”

  The preacher was referring to an ankle strap with coaxial cable I’d been experimenting with—a “shark zapper”—that emitted a continuous low-voltage electrical field. Fish were not fazed, but sharks, if they came too close, received a shock because their noses are dotted with supersensitive pores. I’d used the device on my last visit.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “Not with me. But tomorrow, if you’re willing to help on our first dive.”

  “You gonna need it,” the old man cackled. “The deacons don’t like outsiders no better than we do.”

  EIGHTEEN

  We were at the Starlite Restaurant—an eloquent name for a place on an empty stretch of road that needed no sign because the food was that good. It was a single room with a bar, doors open to the trill of frogs outside. On the porch, Tomlinson slapped dominoes with a gathering of his Masonic buddies—strangers until tonight, yet that didn’t seem to matter.