The Rising of Glory Land

by Janie DeVos

  She let out a small, soft groan as though it hurt to have to come back to consciousness; then her eyes fluttered open and she turned her head sharply to see who or what was kneeling next to her. The grimace on her face told me she’d painfully felt that sudden movement, but, then, as recognition dawned in her eyes, all traces of pain were lifted, replaced with an expression of relief and absolute joy. She started to sit up, but I quickly stood and gently held her shoulders down. “Lie still, Mama. Lie still. I’m here,” I whispered, leaning over her and softly kissing her lips. “I’m all right, and Dylan is fine, and I’m here. I’m here,” I repeated, my voice cracking and the tears falling freely.

  She said nothing, but took my hand, kissed it, and then held it to her cheek and closed her eyes. “Eliza,” she whispered. “Oh, my Eliza.” Tears escaped the corners of her eyes and slowly made tracks down her battered face.

  “Don’t talk, Mama. I’ll sit here with you, but you just rest now. I won’t go anywhere.”

  Just then, my father’s eyes opened. Startled at hearing someone else in the room, he lifted his head off the pillow and turned toward me. At first, he looked a bit confused, but then he realized it was me and joy replaced the confusion on his face, just as it had on Mama’s. “Ah, baby girl,” he whispered, lowering his head and closing his eyes, but smiling as he did. “I told you she’d come,” he whispered to Mama. Then, he drifted off.

  I tip-toed to the door and opened it slightly. Striker was standing alone in the hallway, leaning against the gallery railing. “You want to come in?” I whispered. “They’re sleeping, but at least you can see them.”

  “No. I don’t want to take the chance of waking them,” he said.

  I walked out into the hallway and quietly closed the door behind me.

  “How do they seem?” Striker looked deeply concerned.

  “Well, they’re hurt bad, but at least they responded to me. I want to sit with them for a while. Is that all right?”

  “You stay with them for as long as you want. I’m gonna go get that fuel I keep trying to find. It might take me a while, but I’ll be back.”

  I re-entered the room, closed the curtains a little more so that the sun wasn’t shining directly in my parents’ faces, and then sat down in a wicker rocker in the corner closest to them. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, and I didn’t, until the light of the day became the shadows of the night.

  Chapter 33

  Bound by Love

  Mama and I sat on Mrs. English’s porch waiting for Striker and Papa to return from the Port of Entry so that we could make the journey home. It had been three days since we’d found my parents but they hadn’t been in any shape to leave before now. While we’d waited for some of their strength to return, Striker had returned to Alligator Light to let Dylan know that our folks had been found. His reaction was as expected; he was overjoyed that they were alive, but terribly worried about their injuries. Striker reassured him that they were being well cared for, and that the outlook for their recovery was good. And he also delivered Mama’s message asking Dylan to keep the light burning brightly to help guide us back home again.

  While Striker waited for my parents to heal enough to be moved, he helped with Key West’s massive clean-up. There was nothing for him to do at Mrs. English’s, so pitching in to help the community was a good way for him to pass the time until we were able to leave. He slept on the boat at night, while I slept in a small bedroom Mrs. English provided for me. I would have slept on the floor to be near my parents, but the kind woman graciously gave me a comfortable room, while also providing breakfast and supper for all of us, Striker included. Thanks to her good care, Mama was quickly recovering from her nasty head wound, and Papa’s badly lacerated back was responding nicely to the salve which Mrs. English applied thrice daily. Papa had teased the good woman by asking her if she wasn’t really a medicine woman who had run off from her tribe. With a twinkle in her eye, she assured him that she wasn’t, and that what she lacked in training and skill, God had made up for with good common sense and stubbornness. “Ain’t no one dying under my roof,” she’d firmly said. “Bad for business,” she laughingly added. Now, as we sat on her porch on White Street, watching a neighbor hauling away debris from what had been a large shed, Mama wanted to know what was going on with Owen. She knew something was very amiss for I hadn’t mentioned his name once, so I told her the truth, in all of its ugliness.

  Mama was both stunned and furious, but I told her that Striker had had a little talk with Owen as we were leaving for the Keys, and that it was highly unlikely Owen would ever be a threat to me again. I also told her that Papa needed to know about Owen, Adam, and Ezra’s ownership in the Florida Land Expansion and Acquisition Corporation, but that he didn’t need to know about Owen hitting me. There wasn’t any point in it and the consequences might be catastrophic.

  “I thought I’d lost y’all once, Mama. We don’t need to lose Papa to the penal justice system,” I said with a small smile. Then, wanting to move on, I asked her, “How did you and Papa survive the storm? Do you remember much of it?” Mama said she remembered all of it until she was hit in the head, and from that point on, she could only recall scattered bits and pieces. It was bad, she said, but it could have been so much worse.

  “We’d left Key West, and were making a mad dash for Alligator Light,” Mama began. “That’s where we wanted to be when we got hit with the brunt of the storm. We knew it was comin’ in because we’d gotten word earlier in Key West, but we thought we had time to make it to Alligator. But just off Boot Key, a huge freighter making a beeline for Key West swamped our trawler, dousing the boiler. We were dead in the water. Soon as the next big wave hit us, we slammed into the reef, and I was thrown against the bait box, or somethin’ on that side of the boat. Your father was slammed hard against the ship’s wheel. He injured a couple of his ribs, and I got knocked out, but your father got us off the boat and onto Boot Key. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. There was nothing around us but vegetation, so your father tied us to a red mangrove tree and we rode out the storm bound to each other and that tree.”

  “Good Lord, Mama! You mean you had no cover of any sort?” I asked, horrified.

  “Well, I did, but your father didn’t,” my mother said, her eyes welling up.

  “What do you mean?” I was confused. “I thought you said you were together.”

  “Oh, we were. Very much so,” Mama said, smiling softly and pulling a handkerchief out of the pocket of a pair of my pants she was wearing. Mama wiped her eyes, gently blew her nose and went on. “Your father covered me throughout the entire storm. He kept his back exposed to the wrath of it. He had sand and shells, and God knows what all, tearing at his skin like he was being whipped by a cruel hand. And he didn’t make a sound through it all, except at the end. Something fairly large must have hit him pretty good, and he let out a sharp grunt from the impact. Then he made no other sound for a long time. That was the scariest part of all. Oh, I knew he was still alive, ’cause I could feel him breathing against me. But I didn’t know if he’d regain consciousness again.”

  Mama said no more, so we just sat there sipping our coffee and looking out beyond Mrs. English’s front gate as I imagined the horrific scenes that my parents had barely lived through, while Mama relived them all over again. Finally, my mother broke the silence and returned to another painful subject; she asked me what I thought my plans for the future might be now.

  “Well, the first thing I’m gonna do when we get home is to cancel all of the wedding arrangements,” I replied. “I know it’s going to cause our family some embarrassment and I’m so sorry for that.”

  “Oh, hogwash, Eliza!” Mama scoffed. “Nobody’s gonna be embarrassed about anything! As far as calling off the wedding goes, why, the hurricane took care of that for us! It’s a good excuse to cancel it, and no one will be any the wiser. Now, back to more important things, like h
ow you’re really feeling about all of this.”

  “Honestly, Mama, I know I should say I’m devastated over what happened with Owen, but I really don’t feel all that broken up about it. I know that sounds strange. I don’t know, maybe I’m just numb at this point, and the reality of it will hit me later. But I don’t feel like I’ve received a crushing blow. Tell me the truth, Mama. Am I strange? Am I in denial?”

  “Well, first of all, you’re not strange.” Mama smiled as she reached for my left hand, which was gripping the end of the rocker’s arm. “And as far as denial goes, I don’t believe you were ever in love with that man. Honestly, Eliza, I believe that the man you love is with—”

  She didn’t get the chance to finish. Mrs. English came out of the front door with a large bag and set it on the small table by Mama. “Here’s some dinner for y’all to take with you. It’s just some ham biscuits and a few chicken legs…and maybe some ginger snaps, too.” She winked. Her cookies were wonderful, and we’d managed to eat every one of them up. “None of it’s fancy, but it’ll hold ya. I’ve also prepared some extra salve for you to take. Remember, you only need to apply it twice a day now.”

  “Bertie, what are we gonna do without you?” Mama said, taking the woman’s hand and holding it against her cheek.

  “Oh, poppycock!” Mrs. English exclaimed, but she looked pleased all the same. “You know I’m gonna miss y’all,” she said.

  “Well, there’s no need to go missin’ us, Bertie. You come to Miami whenever you want to. I’ve already told you that. There’ll always be a room ready and waitin’ for you. And you know we’ll be back down,” Mama assured her. It was obvious the two women had become friends for life.

  Papa and Striker returned from the Port of Entry soon after, and both were in a pensive mood. While they were gone, I’d explained Striker’s suspicions to Mama, and what we’d found in the Port of Entry log book. When the men walked onto the porch, no one said a word about what they had done at the Port of Entry. We all understood that this was something to keep among the four of us, at least for the time being. Thirty minutes later, after bidding a tearful Bertie English farewell at the front gate of her bright pink Victorian house, we boarded Striker’s boat and pulled away from the salty mangroves of Key West. We wouldn’t stop at Alligator, since we knew that Dylan was fine, and he knew that we were, as well. Instead, we set our course for North Key Largo. It was time to find Uncle James.

  Chapter 34

  Scattered and Shattered

  Soon after we left Key West, we had a lengthy discussion about Papa and Striker’s findings at the Port of Entry. We had to contact the Secretary of the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. once we returned to Miami. From that point, the Secretary would decide how to proceed. My father agreed with Striker that a formal investigation would likely ensue, and when I asked what they thought the punishment would be for something of that magnitude, neither one could say. Striker said that he’d never heard of a situation where a lighthouse keeper had been the cause of a wreck. That wasn’t to say it hadn’t happened before, but, if it had, no one had ever been caught.

  As we approached North Key Largo, and specifically Angelfish Key, all talk about corrupt lighthouse keepers ceased while we focused our attention on the devastation that had occurred in this particular area. It was here that my uncle had built one of Flagler’s hotels, and would soon start on a home of his own, as well as a second hotel for the railroad baron. It was also here that the railroad had been in the process of laying tracks down. Looking around, all we could see was an enormous amount of rubble. It looked as though a giant hand had reached down and simply ripped up buildings and train tracks. Metal and construction materials had been tossed about as though they were the tiny pieces of a child’s dollhouse. There was little left to salvage in the scattered wreckage of so many people’s shattered dreams.

  Mama and Papa had visited Uncle James in Key Largo when he’d been in the midst of building the first hotel, and he had proudly given them the tour of what he expected would be his greatest accomplishment. Now, only half of it was standing. The building originally had four floors, but the top two were now gone. It looked as though they’d been sheared right off.

  Drawing my attention away from the destruction, Striker told me to be ready to jump off the boat and tie us to one of the pilings at the dock. Once we were secured, Striker and I helped Mama and Papa off the boat. Not too far away was a group of men throwing things onto a heap of debris. “Maybe they’ll know somethin’ about James,” Mama said anxiously, immediately heading over to them. One of the men, a tall lanky fellow, stopped working and met us halfway between the dock and the debris pile. It was obvious from the look on his face that he was curious as to why we were there.

  “Can I help y’all?” the man asked once he was close enough to be heard.

  “We’re the Harjos from up Miami way,” my father said. “James Stewart is my wife’s brother.” He nodded toward my mother. “We haven’t seen or heard from him since the storm. Would you know him or his whereabouts?”

  The hot Florida sun had tanned the worker’s skin to the color of a nut, but upon hearing my father’s question, the man literally turned a couple of shades paler. “Uh…Mr. Harjo—ya say yer name is?” The man removed his cap, and wiped sweat away from his forehead with a filthy handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket. “Might I speak with ya private-like?”

  “If there’s somethin’ that needs saying,” my mother said firmly, “then it needs to be said for all to hear.”

  The man walked closer. “Ma’am, my name is Patrick Wright, and I worked with your brother—have for a couple of years now. When the storm started comin’ in, Mr. James made sure all of us workers were headin’ out. A large barge was sent in to get us, and it got here early enough, but your brother decided to stay behind. We had a crew headin’ back up here after takin’ some lumber down to Tavernier, but they weren’t back yet and the small window of time we had for gettin’ out was closing. Mr. James said he wasn’t leavin’ without ’em, and that they’d try to get on another boat bound for Miami. Said if they couldn’t then they’d ride the storm out in the safest part of the building. Last I saw of him, he was standing right on that dock there.” He nodded toward our boat. “He was jus’ watchin’ us pull away.”

  I heard a small whimper from Mama, and I looked over to see Papa step up to her and wrap his arm firmly around her waist.

  “Did they find his remains, Mr. Wright—or any of the others?” Papa asked.

  “Found four of ’em, but we lost a total of nine men. The four we found was in the men’s bathroom on the second floor of the hotel,” he replied, nodding toward the sheared-off building. “The floors above just came down on ’em.”

  “Was James among those found?” my father quickly asked. It was unnecessary to hear any more gruesome details. Dead was dead. At this point, it didn’t matter how it had happened.

  “Yes, sir, he was,” Patrick quietly confirmed, glancing over at my mother as he did. She said nothing, however. She didn’t moan or cry or whimper. She looked frozen in place.

  “Where’d they take his body, Mr. Wright?” Papa asked.

  “We buried him over yonder. We tried to let the families in Miami know, but only one of the bodies was claimed, and it was gettin’ too hot to try and keep—”

  “Please just show us where he’s buried.” Striker said, cutting him off.

  “O’ course, o’ course,” Patrick quickly agreed.

  We walked about fifty yards beyond the debris pile to a place that had three separate mounded graves. At the head of each was a rough wooden cross with the deceased’s name, date of death, and the letters R.I.P. carved into it. Uncle James’s grave was on the far left.

  Mama fell to her knees at the foot of it. She leaned forward, placed her hands on top of the mound, and then she bowed her head and sobbed. I gave her a moment—we all
did—before I knelt down beside her and rested my hand on her back. Striker and Papa came up behind us as if to guard the grieving, while Patrick Wright softly muttered his condolences. “He was one of the finest men I’ve ever known,” he said softly as he stood there awkwardly spinning his cap in his hands. Then, unsure as to what else he could do or say, Patrick walked away and left us to mourn.

  Chapter 35

  Shadows

  A certain darkness hung over our home, and though we tried to be strong and positive for each other, times of overwhelming sadness, grief, and anger came and went like stealthy shadows. We’d been home for nearly a week, and while we tried to return to some semblance of normalcy, we trudged our way through each day as though we were wading through mud, and found that sleep was an elusive comfort at night.

  Mama was quiet and withdrawn as she struggled with the loss of her closest sibling. And Papa was frustrated and angry at himself for not having gotten to James in time to bring him home before the storm. He blamed himself for the death of his brother-in-law and close friend, and for the suffering that the loss caused Mama.

  Meanwhile, I tried to process all the changes that had taken place in such a small span of time, not the least of which was my relationship with Owen. In reality, what bothered me the most was that I had been so blind to Owen’s true character. I analyzed and dissected every day we’d spent together, which actually hadn’t been a great many considering the fact that he spent the majority of his time at Fowey Rocks Light. And I rebuked myself over and over again that I hadn’t been more attuned to the fact that what I had once considered to be Owen’s ambitiously strong personality was, in truth, a downright conniving and deceptive one. But, as Mama was quick to remind me, hindsight was twenty-twenty, and the man had fooled us all with his charm and dishonorable intentions. While I was grateful for my mother’s attempts to comfort me, especially since she was so weighed down with her own terrible sadness, I still blamed myself for being so easily deceived.