Seminole Bend

by Tom Hansen

  As he stood directly over Willy, Pancho dang near passed out. The deputy’s leg was limp where the bloody shirt was wrapped around the enormous, muscular thigh. Pancho put his ear to Willy’s nose to see if he was breathing. Then, with lightning-fast quickness, Willy opened his eyes and grabbed Pancho’s neck firmly with his two robust hands. Pancho’s heart was beating way beyond the speed limit as he gasped for breath. Willy whispered to Pancho as he held him at bay with his outstretched arms, “Help me. Help me.” Pancho’s face was beginning to turn blue as he tried to undo the grip Willy had on his neck.

  Seconds later, Willy’s eyes rolled upward into his skull, and then his burly grip loosened, dropping Pancho right on top of the deputy’s belly. Pancho scrambled up and was going to run, but stopped himself. He glanced down at Willy and noticed there was no more rising and lowering of his chest. Pancho placed his left hand over Willy’s nose and couldn’t feel any air. Then he turned his head and put his ear right up to Willy’s nose, but couldn’t hear anything. Pancho panicked, but remembered watching a lifeguard out at Sand’s Beach save the life of his buddy, Jose, after Jose tried to swim for the first time in the Atlantic Ocean. Pancho gambled that his memory of that life-saving lesson he had witnessed might also help save this massive man.

  Willy’s mouth was dribbling mud and muck, which was quite different than the clear salt water that had erupted from Jose’s mouth shortly after the lifeguard pressed his chest downward. Pancho wasn’t sure his stomach was up to this task. But then he shook his head to get a grip on what was happening and muttered to himself, “What the hell, if it were me, I would hope this hombre would do the same.”

  Pancho kneeled by Willy’s side and tilted the deputy’s head back. Nope, Pancho could tell that was only choking the man even more. He needed to clear out some of the mud in Willy’s mouth, which he did with his eyes closed! Pancho then pinched Willy’s nose, clamped his lips around Willy’s and breathed air until he saw Willy’s chest rise. As he released, Willy’s chest fell to its original position. Pancho then crossed and overlapped his hands, just like the lifeguard did, and placed them firmly on Willy’s heart. He pushed six times. Nothing. He tried again, pushing with all his might against the muscular chest. Nothing. Time to get out of here!

  Pancho rose and was turning to hi-tail it out of the swamp when he heard the cough and sputter. The big man was still alive. Pancho mustered enough strength to roll him over on his side and a blast of black slime ejected from Willy’s mouth.

  “Mierda!” Pancho knelt back down and pounded his fist on Willy’s back until he once again regained consciousness. Willy then rolled over, facing upward.

  Pancho sprinkled a few drops of water from his canteen onto Willy’s face and mouth. Willy coughed again, and looked at Pancho helplessly. Pancho shook his finger at Willy and said, “Now you keep them fat black fingers offin my neck and I’ll try to get you some help!”

  Pancho reached under Willy’s shoulders and with all his might, began to drag the wounded deputy to the boat. As he approached the side of the tiny vessel, his arms were weakening quickly.

  “How the hell am I going to get you in this damn thing?” Pancho gasped.

  Seeing a chance at revival and rescue before him, Willy sat up. He placed his arms on the boat’s rim and pushed himself up, fighting off the searing pain of the bullet lodged in his scapula. To keep from further bleeding, Willy tried to put a minimal amount of weight on his gashed leg. He then turned and flopped himself into the boat, head first, and his nose smashed into a dead night crawler that was lying stiffly on the floorboard. Rigor mortis had shriveled the earthworm to half its original size, and the dryness of the open air sucked the fatty tissue away making it look like a string of beef jerky from an emaciated cow. Willy rolled onto his back and Pancho lifted his legs, placing them oh so gently on the bench seat.

  Pancho then jumped out of the boat and tried to push the front end back into the water. He heard an inauspicious snapping sound. He turned around and saw the blind alligator at his feet trying desperately to seek revenge for his loss of sight. Pancho ran into the swamp and grabbed the boat’s stern handle that was just to the side of the motor. He yanked with a new found strength that was generated from pure adrenaline. The boat slid off the sandy shore into the water as Pancho struggled to climb back into it. But his weight, and the weight of Willy lying in the boat, caused the boat to tip to one side and it looked as if it were about to roll.

  The huge alligator slipped into the water and dove underneath where it couldn’t be seen from the surface. Willy knew that within seconds, Pancho would be a tasty meal for the hungry reptile. He reached over and grabbed Pancho’s wrist, lifted him out of the water and placed him on the thin ridge of the boat’s side panel. Pancho was now bent backward at his midsection, balancing his torso in the boat while his legs dangled just over the water. Willy let go of Pancho’s wrist and clutched his pants crotch, yanking the petrified Mexican into the boat as the gator plunged wildly at the sound of Pancho’s flapping legs. With sight, the gator wouldn’t have missed.

  Pancho scrambled to the stern. The motor started this time with the first pull of the rope. Pancho headed directly for the channel that linked the backwater with the Kissimmee River. As they came in sight of the Jackson ranch, Willy whispered to Pancho to go slowly and make no wake. The engine barely hummed as it crept along the far banks of the swamp. Across the way, Pancho noticed several men talking by some docks that moored three bass boats. He felt his heart pulse rapidly, hoping they wouldn’t look in his direction.

  Pancho turned into the channel and gunned the engine. Too early . . . the noise echoed across the swamp and the men at Jackson’s ranch caught a glimpse of the stolen boat as it sped into the narrow waterway. They quickly hopped into their flat bottom bass boat cruisers and began to chase Pancho and Willy. The 200 horsepower engines steamrolled the bass boats across the swamp in no time, but they had to slow down to maneuver the winding channel. Jackson’s bad boys were only ten yards behind the stolen Alumicraft when Pancho and Willy cut into the wide Kissimmee, almost broadsiding a pontoon cabin cruiser that was returning to Seminole Bend from the Chain of Lakes.

  The bass boats throttled down, not wanting to raise suspicion from pleasure boaters who may be on the river. However, although they couldn’t make out the man driving the boat, one of Jackson’s men did get the DNR license number before it veered left and became hidden out of sight behind the cabin cruiser. The bass boats turned around and Pancho could hear their loud engines fade as they headed back to the ranch.

  An hour passed before Pancho reached the Angler’s Delight marina. Willy was slowly losing blood and slipping in and out of consciousness. Pancho tied the boat up at the end of the dock so the gas tender wouldn’t offer his services. He sprinted to the restaurant and headed to the pay phone just outside the front door. He dialed “O” and connected with the operator, thus avoiding the twenty-five cent charge. The operator answered, “May I help you?”

  Pancho shrieked, “Emergency! Doctor needed now! Black man dying in a boat at the end of the dock at Angler’s Delight!” Before the operator could reply, Pancho hung up and ran toward the highway. He couldn’t miss his rendezvous with the migrant van at McDonald’s, especially not today!

  CHAPTER 15

  Wednesday, February 10, 1982

  8:00 a.m.

  T he Department of Natural Resources confirmed to Roy Jackson that the small boat with plate number JL 4106 FL belonged to Calvin Potts, a retired appliance salesman from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Calvin’s double-wide manufactured home on Taylor Creek was his annual winter home. He left his snow shovel back in Michigan every October hoping he would have no need for it upon his return in April. Roy had no trouble extracting the boat’s identification from Sam Dulie, the South Florida DNR Supervisor, because Sam was appointed to his administrative position by Governor Hank Daughtry, a key player in Roy’s secret business. Sam’s job description: oversee the DNR operations in the state
from Tampa to Melbourne to Key West, and most importantly, take good care of Roy Jackson.

  Sam’s office was in Homestead, just miles from the entrance to the Everglades National Park. On a desk near the window in Sam’s office was an unusual looking electronic contraption that was wired through the wall to an even more unusual looking contraption located in a secure, fenced-in area outdoors behind the building. It was shaped like a huge, six-foot diameter saucer with a four-foot antenna in the middle. The contraption was actually a satellite receiving system that Sam explained to the visiting common folk as being a short-band radio wave gadget used for rapid communication with his DNR officers out in the field. Sam was a liar.

  Sam was also known as Abdul Samad, an honor graduate with an earned doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of electromagnetism. However, it appeared his background relative to his expertise in the area of his current job, Natural Resources Supervisor, was limited to a college all-night beer party at the Glen Charlie Pond up New England way in Wareham. It started as a simple fishing trip . . . Abdul’s first and last. A buddy, Jimmy Granger, who attended nearby Dartmouth, got together with Abdul one night and offered to teach Abdul the fine art of angling. Now Abdul had no problem measuring oscillation wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, but handling a fishing pole with grace was beyond his comprehension. After the first attempted lob of a Spinnerbait lure went awry, Jimmy had to rip two hooks from Abdul’s sweatshirt when the cast snagged him by the collar. While Jimmy was extracting the barbed copper hooks, Abdul noticed a fire pit on the shore with a bunch of rowdy kids hooting and hollering. The Rolling Stones blasted from a car radio parked behind them. Jimmy and Abdul rowed over to the party and joined in the fun. So much for the fishing lesson.

  Abdul officially changed his name to Sam Dulie in late January of 1979, two weeks after Ayatollah Khomeini forced Shah Pahlavi into exile. During the Islamic Revolution, a Middle Eastern immigrant could find it a daunting task securing employment in the United States. No one’s sure if Sam wrote that he was an “elite one-night fisherman” on either his resume or DNR application, but for some unknown reason, Governor Daughtry appointed him as the first electromagnetism graduate of MIT to head up a department that protects the flora and fauna of southern Florida!

  Shortly after arriving in Homestead, Sam conceived a way to jam aircraft radar functions at Miami International Airport based upon research data he had compiled working covertly with rogue CIA agents a few years ago. Roy Jackson was delighted with Inventor Sam Dulie! His partner’s business plan was ready for action, and his suppliers could fly undetected by the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI.

  * * * * *

  “You’re sure the plate number was JL 4106 FL?” asked Roy to the head of security at his ranch.

  “No doubt about it, boss. Two of my boys had binoculars and each saw the number clearly.”

  Roy couldn’t understand why an old man like Calvin Potts would be fishing so far away from his home when the bass were biting like crazy just off the weeds on the other side of the Taylor Creek locks. But Roy really didn’t care: all he knew was that Calvin may have found something he shouldn’t have. Jackson’s lookouts said the seventy-two-year-old snowbird was certainly in a hurry to get out of the large swamp. The strange thing was that Roy’s men didn’t think the man in the fishing boat looked very old and he seemed to have darker skin like a Mexican. However, they couldn’t tell for sure because their view from behind was restricted and they were in the midst of a mad water chase.

  Meanwhile, Calvin’s decision to play golf with his poker buddies Monday and Tuesday proved to be unfortunate, for he did not happen to notice that his boat was missing until early Wednesday morning when he traipsed out the back door of his Florida room and headed for the dock.

  “What . . . the . . . hell?” Calvin muttered to himself when he found he had no boat in which to toss his casting rod and net. He glanced downriver and across the creek, just in case the mooring line had come undone and the boat floated away. No such luck.

  “Stolen, damn it, couldn’t be anything but stolen. Dang high school kids, no doubt!”

  Calvin stomped back to his house and called the sheriff’s office. Deputy Johnny Murphree answered the phone. Calvin described his situation to Johnny and wanted to file a police report right away.

  “Can’t come over right now, Mr. Potts. Most of the sheriff’s department is down at Angler’s Delight investigating an accident one of our boys had with a gator yesterday. But if you don’t mind coming down to the station, I’ll file you a report right here,” Johnny explained to Calvin. Calvin said he’d be right there.

  Calvin’s wife, Agnes, never got up before 9:00 a.m., and Calvin figured he’d be back home before she even knew he was missing. He quietly opened and closed the screen door leading to the carport, and then hopped into his unlocked car. Calvin backed out of his crescent-shaped, crushed seashell and sand driveway at 8:15 a.m. With the stolen Alumicraft boat on his mind, he didn’t see the dark blue Ford LTD parked across the street, or the big man wearing black Levi’s, cowboy boots and a muscle t-shirt climb out the passenger-side door of the car and dash to the back porch of Calvin’s manufactured home.

  Max Miller worked as a driver for Roy Jackson for several years, but no one in Seminole Bend had ever seen him. He was always shielded behind a virtually opaque tinted windshield that didn’t draw too much suspicion in the bright Florida sun. Calvin didn’t happen to notice Max in the rear view mirror following his Chevy Nova during the two-mile drive to the sheriff’s office.

  Why would Calvin be going to the sheriff’s office, Max wondered? He assumed Calvin was about to file a report and provide details of his terrifying escape from Jackson’s swamp yesterday. When he saw Calvin heading into the sheriff’s station, Max diverted quickly into the Dixie Food and Drug parking lot across the street, and then floored it to a phone booth perched on top of a cracked and warped blacktop parking space on the far end.

  Lance Billips called that phone booth “home” ever since he lost his last job at the sugar cane factory. The foreman laid him off for being tardy to work each and every day of the two weeks he was employed there. Of course, it wasn’t Lance’s fault that the convenience store next to his apartment had a backdoor lock that was broke and he could accidently sneak in and steal a bottle of liquor each night. How was he expected to get any sleep and get up on time for work with all that temptation? Wasn’t long after losing his job that Lance was looking for a new home, one where the rent was free.

  Anyway, he was curled up inside the small booth, snoring like a buzz saw while clutching a half empty bottle of Mad Dog like it was the Crown Jewels or something. You couldn’t find Mad Dog around Seminole Bend, but Lance’s cousin Lenny from Stuart would bring a bottle for him almost every week when he was passing through on his delivery job. However, a bottle of Mad Dog was hard to keep around for a week to a wine connoisseur like Lance. He certainly wasn’t planning on sharing it with anyone, except maybe his lady friend, Ev.

  Lance was the self-appointed emperor of the local homeless clan. He had deep, dark-shadowed eye sockets and a long, crooked nose that had hair hanging out a good half inch below the nostrils. Yes, Lance was disgusting, even for those who pitied his predicament. His particular financial mode of operation was mobile panhandling. He was such a repulsive, sorry sight that every snowbird or retired Seminole Bend resident would gladly part with a quarter to keep Lance from following them. He was six foot, six inches tall with a long beard, scraggly mustache and narrow lips that were too thin to filter out his nasty liquor breath. Lance’s shadow, extending over your shoulder onto the sidewalk in front of you, would induce you to strut down the pavement at record pace.

  Max Miller, the driver of the Ford LTD, had little time to mess around. After slamming his brakes and causing a high-pitched squeal clearly noticeable by all the grocery shoppers, he jumped out of the car and ran to the booth. Max had no time to spare
and no patience for a human grub snoring the morning away in the only phone booth for blocks, perhaps miles. He grabbed Lance by his flowing reddish-blond beard and yanked his head up. Pulling groggily out of a whopping good dream, Lance sat up in shock and looked into the driver’s glaring eyes. He wanted to take his bottle of MD 20 and crack the phone booth perpetrator in the skull, but hey, it was Mad Dog, and the fruit of the vine should never be wasted! Lance scrambled to his feet and Max shoved him out the door. Lance stumbled a few feet, and then fell off the curb, shattering his beloved bottle into pieces. He squinted up at his home, now occupied by an alien, and Lance swore he would remember that face.

  The driver dialed seven digits and was curtly greeted after two rings, “Speak.”

  “Danny’s at the house. I followed the old man to the sheriff’s office. He was in a big hurry. Knows something, I’m sure of it! Bet he found that dead Buckwheat cop in your swamp yesterday, Roy.”

  “Eliminate him. Make it an accident.”

  Max bolted out of the phone booth, jumped back into the front seat of the LTD and jammed the key into the ignition. He fired the eight cylinders and raced northward through the parking lot at light speed, sending gravel and broken glass flying clear over Lance’s lanky body! Yep, Lance would definitely remember that face.

  At the end of the parking lot was a traffic light where the lot intersected with Main Street. With no thought to who might be noticing from the sheriff’s office across the street, the blue Ford ran the red light and turned sharply left onto Main forcing an oncoming Pinto station wagon to veer right and fly uncontrollably into the ditch. Momentum caused the station wagon to bounce back out the other side of the ditch into the Dixie Food and Drug parking lot. There, the car’s front bumper struck Ev Pritchard’s shopping cart, sending egg yolks and milk to omelet heaven. Fortunately, Ev had seen the out-of-control car aimed, loaded and torpedoing right at her, and in shear panic she dove headfirst to the asphalt.