by Janie DeVos
I was sailing down to Fowey in the morning, which was Saturday, to spend the day with Owen, and I was bringing plenty of cleaning supplies with me. Though part of a lighthouse keeper’s daily chores was cleaning and maintaining the entire facility, the men’s housekeeping left much to be desired. The new keeper from Key West would be coming in within the next couple of weeks, and, as a way of thanking him for switching places with Owen, I decided to give the quarters a good scrub down. Besides, I needed something to keep me busy since Mr. Burdine had started my replacement the day before, and I didn’t teach at the village on the weekend.
The late afternoon was giving way to dusk and as I got closer to home, I could see the lights beginning to shine out of the windows of the few homes along the way, as well as in the massive Royal Palm Hotel down at the river’s mouth. Just a ways down from me was the Strickland home, and I could see light emanating from the open shed door. Striker was in.
I hadn’t seen him since we’d talked in his kitchen, and that was intentional. Our relationship was strained, at best. Somewhere along the line, we seemed to have lost the ability to be friends. I’d been busy with wedding plans, and preparing for my new life with Owen, while wrapping up my old life in Miami, which didn’t leave me much time for socializing. But, as I rode closer to Striker’s shed, I knew I needed to say something to him, to neatly tie up and put away that part of my life. So, I pulled Sundae’s reins to the right and rode up to the door.
Striker was hunched over his workbench, working on something that his body blocked from my view. But what wasn’t blocked from my view was the sleek, unusual boat sitting on a trailer in the middle of his shed. The boat had no masts or sails. Instead, there was a motor with a three-pronged propeller positioned in the center of the craft.
“Striker,” I said almost reverently. “You’ve built a motor boat.”
My sudden intrusion startled him, and he dropped whatever was in his hand; the loud bang as it hit the workbench startled me.
“Hell, woman, you scared the bejeezus outta me!” he laughed, holding his hand to his rapidly beating heart.
“And you did me,” I laughingly countered.
Then the room grew quiet as we stopped laughing and just looked at each other.
“It’s good to see you,” Striker said, not moving from his stool.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said before turning my attention back to the boat. “It’s beautiful, Striker,” I marveled. “How long have you been working on it? I’m…well…I’m just amazed.”
“Don’t be. It’s far from perfect.” He pushed himself off the stool and walked over to the boat as he wiped his hands on a rag. “I’ve been doing some experimenting, and a lot of reading.” He nodded toward a stack of magazines and manuals spread across a small table in the corner nearest to me. “The French are way ahead of everyone else in the field of motor boats right now, and I’m learning from their successes, and everyone else’s mistakes, including my own.”
“How long before she’s ready?” I asked, running my hand along the smooth lines of her starboard side.
“Probably never,” he laughed. Then, “Honestly, Eliza, I’ve just been tinkering around with it. It’s something to do when I’m home. Anyway, enough about that,” he said, obviously wanting to change the subject. His days of boat building—at least from a serious standpoint—were over as far as he was concerned.
“So, how many days to the big event?” He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes—eyes that couldn’t seem to meet mine.
“Just a little over two weeks,” I replied, finding something else in the room to look at. “Striker…I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to the wedding.” I turned to face him. “We just invited immediate family. Owen’s mother is the only one of his parents still living, but she’s ill and unable to travel from Washington State. So, that just leaves my family.”
“It’s fine, Eliza,” Striker interrupted, smiling softly. “I have to be at Fowey, anyway. And even if I didn’t, I…well…it’s just better the way you planned it. So you’re going to Key West right after, I hear,” he said, moving on to another subject, though this one didn’t feel any more comfortable than the last.
“Yeah, we’ll go right after our wedding night…” This was definitely not the conversation I wanted to have. “Striker, I have to get going. Sundae needs to be fed and—”
“And you have a new life to start,” he finished. Striker walked up to me, looked me directly in the eye and asked me if I was sure this was going to make me happy. When I assured him that it would, he gently cupped my shoulders, leaned in and kissed me softly on my forehead. “May the wind be always at your back,” he said, quoting part of an old Irish blessing, one that was particularly significant to anyone who sailed the seas.
Without another word, I turned and walked away.
Chapter 21
More than Enough
The small sailboat I’d borrowed from our neighbor, Gus Mueller, struggled to make any headway in the light breeze. Papa and Mama had taken the trawler to the Keys a couple of days before, and our larger sailboat, the Eve of Salvation, was too much to handle by myself. When I finally got close to Fowey, I saw Owen hurry down the steps to the dock, ready to catch the boat lines to tie the craft to the pilings.
“Lack of wind held you up, didn’t it?” He smiled knowingly.
“One of these days, I’ll be zipping around these waters in a motor boat,” I replied as I handed him a bucket filled with cleaning supplies, and then a basket of food for our dinner.
“The engines are too unpredictable,” he said as he reached a hand down to pull me up from the boat.
“You look ready to work,” he laughed, assessing my outfit from head to toe. I had on an old pair of canvas trousers that had paint spattered all over them from the numerous times we’d painted our boats, and the denim shirt I wore wasn’t much better.
“Well,” I laughed, looking down at my clothing. “I could have worn a lovely little dress, complete with bustle and parasol, which would have allowed me to do nothing more than sit and look pretty for you. Or wear this and leave you with fresh, clean living quarters at the day’s end—quarters you’ll be proud to turn over to Lincoln Nodd.” I’d learned the new keeper’s name just this past week. “With a name like that, I envision a tall, stately watcher of the seas, complete with well-manicured goatee and a full-bent mahogany pipe.”
Owen laughed. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve met the man before and he’s not much bigger than you are, and is missing a couple of teeth and a finger or two from his left hand.”
“How in the world did he lose his fingers? Please tell me it was something as heroic as pulling a shipwreck survivor from the jaws of a shark.”
“Again, I hate to ruin that Jane Eyre-worthy picture you’ve created, but he lost his fingers in a wood chipper when he was just a kid on a farm in Oklahoma.”
“Ah, well, a girl has a right to dream,” I said in a breathy voice. “But, enough dreaming,” I said firmly. “I have a meeting with dirt and grime.”
“Ladies first,” he said, bowing slightly and sweeping his arm out in front of him to allow me to go first up the steps.
Jim Altman was up in the lantern room cleaning the lens and windows, and Owen needed to get back to work on his log book. But before he could retreat to the quiet of his bedroom to work on the daily entries, I asked him to get a large pot of water going on the stove. While I waited for the water to boil, I started on the outhouse, but other than scrubbing the floor with a stiff brush and soapy water, along with the board that acted as a seat, there was nothing more to be done. Going back into the quarters, I stripped all of the beds, and stuck the first set of sheets into the pot of water. After stirring them with a paddle, I let them boil for a few minutes before using the paddle to carefully lift them out and drop them into a basket by the stove. Then I hung them on th
e clothesline to dry in the fresh air and sunshine. When I returned to the kitchen to wash the rest of the sheets, I found Jim sitting at the table with a folder of papers spread out before him.
“Ah, Eliza, I bet I’m in your way here. Just give me a minute to move my mess.”
“Don’t be silly, Jim. Stay where you are,” I assured him. “Let me get these sheets on to boil, then I’ll grab a cup of coffee and join you—unless I’ll be in your way, of course.”
“Gal as pretty as you are could never be in my way,” the good-natured keeper replied.
After putting the rest of the sheets in the pot, I grabbed a cup and the coffee pot, then sat down at the table. As I topped off Jim’s coffee, I glanced at the papers he’d been reading. The documents were very official looking, but they looked different from the usual ones the keepers were required to regularly fill out.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” I asked before carefully taking a sip of the scalding hot liquid.
“Oh, just this F.L.E.A.C. stuff,” Jim said, as though that would explain it all. “Owen finally convinced me to invest in the company. Lord, God, but that man o’ yours won’t take no for an answer,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Anyway, looks like you and I are gonna be partners—that is if I can ever figure out what all of this legal mumbo jumbo means.” He shook his head again before taking a sip of his own coffee.
I was at a complete loss as to what he was talking about. “The F.L. —what, Jim?”
“You know; the Florida Land Expansion and Acquisition Corporation,” Jim replied. “Bless the Dawes Act,” he beamed. “Though I’m sure the Seminoles would replace the word ‘bless’ with ‘damn.’” Jim laughed at his small attempt at a joke.
“May I?” I asked, reaching over and pulling the folder to me before Jim could object.
Inside were about a half dozen bills of sale, as well as additional legal paperwork pertaining to them. Every purchase was for a large parcel of land in Florida, and each bill of sale contained the same identical sentence in legal description: “…as authorized under the amended Dawes Act of 1905.” Rifling through the documents, I found what I was looking for, a copy of the amended Dawes Act itself. Quickly scanning what that was, I saw that the original act gave individual Indians the right to own one hundred and sixty acres. However, the amendment declared that any land left unclaimed could be purchased by others—whites included. My stomach dropped. Included was a map of each parcel of land that the F.L.E.A.C. had purchased, and one of them was for the land that Paroh’s tribe lived on but in all likelihood had never legally claimed. All together, over ten thousand acres of Everglades land had been purchased by this group, and, according to the purchasing agreement’s description:…for the primary purpose of bettering the land through large monetary investments, as well as large-scale projects of development that can only occur through an aggressive rerouting (or draining) of the overabundance of water presently contained within the property.
At the bottom of every legal document was a set of signatures, and when I saw them, I knew that I’d be sick. Quickly going back to a page I’d seen moments before with the F.L.E.A.C. letterhead on it, I saw that the company’s address was in New York. Below the address were the names of the company’s officers and board members and they matched the names signed on every bill of sale. Among them were: Owen Perry, Vice President; Ezra Asher, Treasurer; and Adam Wilson, Board Member. Ezra Asher and Adam Wilson? I thought. Owen is involved with Ezra? And Adam is involved with them both? My mind was reeling.
I glanced up at Jim and saw that he was watching me. He said nothing, but looked very ill at ease. If the look on my face mirrored the anger building inside of me, Jim was starting to realize that he’d somehow opened Pandora’s box.
“Eliza, what are you doing?” Owen was standing at the kitchen door, and though his voice was calm, it was flat and somehow chilling. Neither Jim nor I moved. We were frozen in place by the anger that was clearly etched into Owen’s face.
“I—I was just saying to Eliza here that we’re gonna be partners ’n all,” Jim said, finally finding his voice and the legs to get up out of his chair. “But you can do a better job of explaining than I can.” He laughed nervously. “’Sides, I gotta get back to that lens. Damn smudges and…” His voice trailed off as he quickly rushed past Owen and out of the room.
Owen’s eyes had remained glued on me since he’d appeared at the door, and as soon as Jim was gone, I rose up from my chair, holding the map of the Seminole village land out to him with a shaking hand.
“What have you done?” I whispered hoarsely. My mouth was so dry I could barely speak.
Owen crossed the room in two strides and snatched the paper from my hand. “This has absolutely nothing to do with—”
“It has everything to do with me!” I countered. “I care deeply for these people you’re running off.”
“I’m not running them off, Eliza! They’ve made their own beds. What you don’t pay for you lose. It’s as simple as that.” Owen’s voice grew louder.
“I’m not gonna let you do it, Owen!” My voice nearly matched his in volume. I was angrier than I’d ever been in my life. “I swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ll do whatever I need to do to stop this—to stop you! How dare—.”
Before I could finish, he viciously backhanded me across the left side of my face. Immediately, there was a ringing in my ears from the blow. I staggered sideways and stumbled against the table, which kept me from falling to the floor. Owen grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him so that we were face to face, just inches from each other’s nose. “Don’t you ever try to interfere—”
Before he could finish, I yanked my arm free from his painful grasp and ran through the kitchen door, and out of the keeper’s quarters. Making my way down both sets of ladders, I fearfully watched for Owen to pursue me, but he didn’t. I reached the dock and struggled to untie the lines holding my sailboat to the pilings for my hands were shaking badly. As I worked at the knots, I kept looking back at the ladders to confirm that I wasn’t being pursued. With no sign of Owen there, I looked up and saw that he was watching me from the railing on the second platform. The sun was in my eyes so I wasn’t able to see his face clearly, but the image of him so full of rage just moments before was enough to last a lifetime.
Chapter 22
The Smell of the Wind
The breeze had picked up substantially. So much so that I made it home in a third of the time it’d taken me to get to Fowey. After returning the boat to Gus’s dock, I ran back down to ours, saddled up Sundae, and headed to the village to see Paroh. I felt sure he didn’t know about the sale of his land or he would have said something to me about it. What I didn’t know was how long the tribe had before they’d have to vacate it.
As we hurried along the river, I kept thinking about the fact that Owen, Ezra, and Adam were in business together. After what I’d experienced with Ezra, and now Owen, that didn’t surprise me. But Adam? He’d always seemed so good and sweet! Now I knew there was a whole other side of him. As I rode along, trying to connect the dots, to figure out when and under what circumstances they’d joined forces, I realized there were just too many things I didn’t know to be able to make all of the connections.
I stopped at our usual low spot on the bank of the river to let Sundae get a drink, and to wash some of the tears and grit off my face. Looking at my reflection in the water, I saw the swollen, bruised area at the corner of my left eye and upper cheekbone, but there was nothing that could be done for it now. Remounting Sundae, I hurried on to the village.
When I got there, people were busy working on projects or chores, and though most of them stopped for a moment to greet me, they returned to their work immediately. Dismounting, I saw Rose coming toward me, smiling as usual but also looking a little surprised to see me. She knew my schedule well, and I was never there on the weekend.
“Eliza, you come on
extra day!”
“Yes,” I said, smiling, “but no lessons today. Is Paroh here?” I asked, looking toward his chickee but not seeing him. Rose could undoubtedly hear the tension in my voice.
“Yes,” she said quietly and I saw her look at my bruised face. “He just over at creek fishing for mud fish. I get him. Wait in his house, Eliza. He want you to. I bring you cool drink…and salve,” she said, tapping her face in the same area I was injured.
After tying Sundae to a cabbage palm, I stepped up into Paroh’s chickee, glad to be out of the sun, and away from the others. I hadn’t been there for more than several minutes when Paroh came in with Rose directly behind him. He looked at me hard and immediately his eyes went to my injury; then he patiently waited while Rose applied the salve. As soon as she was done, she left.
“Who did that?” Paroh said, lifting his chin slightly toward the battered side of my face.
“Owen. Owen Perry. The man I was going to marry,” I answered without hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because I found out about something he didn’t want me to—something concerning this village, Paroh.” My mouth was bone dry. The chief waited as I took a long drink of the cool coconut milk Rose had left for me. I continued. “A company he’s a part of has bought this land. Y’all are going to be forced to leave it—and probably very soon. They’re going to dredge it. I’m sorry. So sorry,” I repeated softly.
