The Man Who Ivented Florida df-3

by Randy Wayne White

  Joseph started to say something about Henry Short, ask whether Tuck was joking, but instead he said something else, figuring Tuck wouldn't tell him the truth, anyway.

  "Tuck?"

  "You keep interruptin', Joe, how you gonna learn anything?" Tucker had stopped at the shell drive to his ranch house, studying the small white car there sitting in the shade and the woman in the nice clothes standing beside it.

  "Tuck, when I get my horse, I think I'm gonna call him Buster."

  "Well now, that ought to bring us some luck." Tuck was walking again, fixing a friendly expression on his face. "Ought to attract every cement truck for a thousand miles." Then he said, "Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking." Meaning the woman.

  As if Joseph wouldn't have done that, anyway.

  Tucker was on his best behavior-Joseph could see that. Smiling at the woman policeman, saying, "Yes, ma'am," "No, ma'am," "Wish I knew, ma'am," to almost every question, looking at the ground, his thumbs over his belt, his face shaded by the brim of his cowboy hat. The two of them standing, leaning against the porch railing after the woman said she'd been sitting for two hours, the long drive down, so she didn't feel like taking that chair on the porch. To which Tuck had said, "Ma'am, I hate to see a young woman pretty as you out in the heat. So why don't we move to the shade and I'll bring you a nice glass of sweet tea."

  Oh, he could be charming… and the way he acted even older and more hobbled-up than he was. Grandfatherly-that was it, the way he was behaving. Which made Joseph think the old bastard knew more than he was saying, the woman asking him about three men she said had come to the islands and disappeared.

  Tuck hadn't mentioned that before. Some famous fisherman and two men hired by the state, sent down to check out Tuck's land, or what was once his land, so they could present the information at some meeting so the government could get its permits and do whatever it had to do. That hearing Tuck had told him about, only now the state was having to hustle around, do a lot of retesting because nobody could find the men who had done the original testing.

  "There's an element of law called the chain of custody," the woman, Agent Walker, said, looking right at Tuck. "There's a strict procedure for taking samples and having them tested. The bottles, the envelopes-whatever-they have to go straight from one person's hands to another person's hands, everything sealed, labeled, and signed for. Now those men have disappeared, the chain of custody has been broken because some of those sam-pies-I don't know what, soil and water, maybe?-they disappeared with them."

  Tucker looked real serious and concerned. "Makes you want to move to Canada, don't it?" he said.

  "Something else," Walker said. "I understand the state is having trouble finding the principals who purchased your land. What was it, some kind of blind land trust when you sold it? The hundred acres. So legally, I guess there's no way they can find out for sure who owns it. At least not yet."

  "You know, ma'am, I think I heard somethin' about that."

  The woman waited for Tuck to say something else, but when he didn't, all she said was, "I'm sure you have."

  "Word gets around. Even in these parts."

  Joseph felt the woman about to say, "I'm counting on it," but she didn't. Looking around, she said, "This little place is so pretty.. . those old streetlights, the little houses… so pretty I wouldn't blame anyone for trying to come up with a way to stop the park."

  Tuck was right with her. "Stop it, ma'am? Who the heck would want to stop it-forgive my language."

  "You mean you like the idea?"

  "I think it'll be da… dar… awful nice when they get that park built. Maybe they'll kill off these skeeters so they can put out their picnic tables and camping places for trailers. Be nice to have some folks from Michigan and O-hi-ho runnin' around. You think they'll be a swimming pool?" He slapped a mosquito on his arm and flicked it off with his finger.

  The woman said, "I wouldn't know about that, Mr. Gatrell. I'm trying to find out what happened to those men."

  Tucker started walking toward the woman's car, saying, "Just wish I coulda been more help," handling her so easily that Joseph had to admire him. Tuck had his talents, there was no denying.

  But getting into the car, Walker said, "Oh-there was something I forgot to ask."

  "You name it, ma'am."

  "Are you familiar with Barron Creek Marina just south of here?"

  "I should say I am. Used to work for Barron Collier when I was just a sprout. You ever wonder how they figured to build a road right across the saw grass-" "Yes, you told me that story, Mr. Gatrell. The floating dredge. When I called you on the telephone last week."

  "I did?" He chuckled as if befuddled. "I gotta tell you, old age is 'bout the most unexpected thing ever happened to me. Now my brain's gotten leaky-"

  "What I wanted to ask was, were you at that marina on Thursday, October first, and Monday, October fifth? The Barron Creek Marina?"

  Tucker had his hand on his jaw, thinking. "Is this October we're in now?"

  "You know Larry Baker, don't you?"

  "Larry runs the marina, ma'am. He's a regular peach. I knew his daddy-"

  "Mr. Baker told me that you were at the marina those days. The morning, both times. He said he saw Chuck Fleet and Charles Herbott talking with you, going over a map. Nautical chart, I mean. He said you might have been giving them directions."

  "Now those two names don't ring a bell. Those men, the two you mentioned, are they from around here?"

  "Herbott is an environmental consultant and Fleet is the surveyor you said you met working in your pasture-"

  "That's why the names sounded familiar!"

  "You talked with each of them the day they disappeared. That's what Larry Baker told me."

  Joseph was thinking, Look who's handling who now, watching Tuck smile as if he was a confused old man. Tuck said, "Ma'am, I was a fishing guide in these parts prob'ly before your daddy was borned, so I can't go near a marina without people hauling out their charts, askin' me this or that. Where the snook? Where the tar-pawn? How you get to so and so? Don't want to brag on myself, but I'm kinda famous in these parts as a waterman."

  "I realize that, Mr. Gatrell."

  "You ever wonder why President Truman come to these islands to fish? He come to see me."

  "Last week, on the phone, that was one of your most fascinating stories. But what I need to know now is, what did Charles Herbott and Chuck Fleet ask you?"

  "Wish I knew, ma'am. Like I said, there's always so many. But if Larry Baker said I talked to 'em, you can bet it's the truth. If he wasn't drunk."

  "Do ybu remember anyone asking you the shortest route to the boundary of Everglades National Park? What is that, about twenty miles from the marina?"

  "When people ask that, I always send 'em to the outside, down the coast in open water. They get back in those islands, it's awful tricky and dangerous, ma'am."

  "I guess Mr. Fleet and Mr. Herbott found that out." The woman started her car, adding through the open window, "You try to remember, Mr. Gatrell. I'll be talking to you soon. Or perhaps someone from the local Sheriff's Department."

  Tucker was waving, smiling. "Look forward to it. Company's better'n cold beer at my age."

  As the car pulled away, already going fast along the bay road, Joseph said, "If it was you who messed with those men, I hope you tried to shoot 'em. That way, I'd know they're still alive."

  Tucker said, "Joe, sometimes you remind me of a lost ball in tall grass."

  "That woman'll be coming back-I ain't lost about that. She sees something in you. Did you do it?"

  "Hell no. You think I'd a been seen in public with men I was about to kill?" Then walking up the steps to the porch, Tuck said, "Better get your gear together. We go horse shopping tonight."

  SEVEN

  Along with the typical Friday-night procession of telephone complaints about loud drunks, loud parties, domestic squabbles, and burglaries, the Sheriff's Department's Cypress Gate substation, locate
d in a cinder-block annex beside the Toys "R" Us shopping center, also received two unusual calls from one of its solid citizens, Mr. Pendergast, owner of the community's three McDonald's restaurants.

  At slightly after 9:00 P.M., Mr. Pendergast notified the department that he had received an anonymous inquiry that had left him uneasy. "A man just called saying he had heard great things about my son's favorite horse and said he was interested in buying it," Mr. Pendergast told the dispatcher.

  "What's odd about that?" the dispatcher wanted to know.

  "I don't have a son," Mr. Pendergast said. "Then the man who called me said, 'Well, maybe it was your daughter's horse I heard about.'"

  The dispatcher said, "And you don't have a daughter?"

  "Right," Mr. Pendergast said. "The caller, he sounded like an old man, or I would have hung up on him right then and there. All the cranks out around these days. But he sounded nice. Very polite in a southern sort of way, and I happened to mention that my wife would be very happy if I sold all my horses-horses are a hobby of mine, you see."

  "And?" the dispatcher said.

  "And then the man said something very strange. He asked me if I was a bird-watcher."

  "A bird-watcher?"

  Mr. Pendergast said, "Does it sound to you like he might be ah.. . unbalanced? I've been sitting here worrying."

  The dispatcher said, "You have no idea who the man was? You didn't recognize the voice?"

  "Not at all. Old man, as I've said, southern accent. I have no idea how he knew I had horses or how he knew my name and number. That's what worries me. He asked me if I was a birdwatcher, and when I said no, he thanked me and hung up."

  The dispatcher asked, "Do you have your name on your mailbox, Mr. Pendergast?"

  "Uh… yes."

  "And your name's listed in the phone book?"

  "Oh right, I see how he could have gotten the number now," Mr. Pendergast said. "That makes sense. But why would anyone ask such strange questions?"

  The dispatcher said, "If the old man calls again, I'd try to find out."

  At 11:35 P.M., Mr. Pendergast telephoned the Sheriff's Department substation a second time, but this time the call came in through the 911 system, which flashed onto the computer screen the name and address of Donald H. Pendergast, 1861 Old Naples Road. The dispatcher recognized the name, but Mr. Pendergast's voice sounded different because the man was clearly near panic.

  "I've called to report there are chickens in my stables!"

  "Could you say that again."

  "Chickens, for Christ's sake. In my stable!"

  "Mr. Pendergast, you need to calm down if I'm to understand-"

  "Chickens! Do you understand me now? Someone put chickens in the stalls with my horses. Chickens everywhere! There must be twenty, thirty of them."

  The dispatcher had picked up the VHF microphone with his free hand to put on-duty deputies and emergency medical services on alert. But now the dispatcher was beginning to wonder whether Mr. Pendergast, the solid citizen, might also be a little drunk. "Let me get this straight, Mr. Pendergast. You say chickens are harassing your horses?"

  "Yes! I mean, no-not harassing, but they were in the stalls and my horses were terrified, trying to kick the place down. I went out to see what all the noise was about, and that's when I found the chickens."

  "Your chickens escaped and got in with your horses?" The dispatcher was thinking, Man, I'm glad we've got this one on tape. C shift will love it.

  "No, the chickens didn't escape,-my horses did!" "But I thought you said the chickens were in the stalls. I mean, your horses were in the stalls with the chickens-"

  "Would you just shut up and listen, for Christ's sake?" Mr. Pendergast was shouting now, thinking about all the taxes he paid and the disrespect he heard in the dispatcher's voice. He had to fight the urge to say, "I pay your salary!" Instead, he said, "About twenty minutes ago, I heard a terrible racket out in the stables. I went outside to take a look. I thought there might be a fire, my horses were so hysterical. I went straight to Wildfire's stall, and that's when I saw them."

  "A horse?"

  "No-chickens, goddamn it!"

  "I mean Wildfire, that's a horse?"

  "Of course it's a… Listen you-Wildfire is a ten-thousand-dollar jumper. You'd better start paying attention."

  "A jumper's a horse? I really am trying to understand here, Mr. Pendergast-"

  "Of course it's a horse. I mean it is… I mean he is, Wildfire. There were chickens in his stall. All the stalls. That's what was making my horses terrified."

  "So your chickens did escape and got in with your horses."

  "No… look, this is the only time I'm going to say this-I DON'T OWN ANY CHICKENS!"

  "So where did they come from?"

  "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Someone snuck in here and put chickens in the stalls. Horses that aren't used to chickens go nuts when that happens. They were kicking down the doors. That's why I had to let them out."

  "I think you did the reasonable thing. So now the chickens are free-"

  "The horses! I let the horses out! Seven purebred jumpers. Now they're running loose around the countryside because whoever brought the chickens left the pasture gate open."

  "Mr. Pendergast, you're calling nine-one-one to report you've been sabotaged by chickens-"

  "Listen, you goddamn dolt, I'm calling to tell you to get some squad cars over here right away to help me catch forty thousand dollars' worth of horses!"

  The dispatcher, raising his voice to match Mr. Pendergast's, said, "Hey, buddy, I don't have to put up with the name-calling."

  "The hell you don't," Donald Pendergast yelled. "I pay your salary! And if we don't find all those horses by dawn it'll be your ass!"

  Joseph Egret had ridden all kinds of horses in his life, but he'd never been on one so smooth-gaited as this. Big-withered stallion, so black that he looked glossy blue when the light was just right, and man could he fly. The scrawny little cattle ponies he and Tuck had ridden in all the far-off range places, Cuba, Nicaragua, the Pacific coast of Guatemala and Costa Rica, they were knot-hard and knew the business, but they would have looked like terrier dogs compared to this animal. The night before, Friday night, Tuck had stopped at Rigaberto's place, the neighbor who kept the loud chickens, and bought twenty of them, little brown banties. Paid cash and put them in cages.

  "If I didn't hate these little bastards so much," Tuck had said, "I coulda never forced myself to eat as many as I did. Now they're finally gonna do something besides stick in my teeth."

  Three hours later, about an hour before midnight, they sat in Tuck's old truck with a horse trailer hitched to the back, pulled off on the side of Old Naples Road, and Tuck said, "Looka there at all the horses coming. Running down the road like scared rabbits."

  Joseph had said, "We gonna steal all of 'em?"

  "Steal?" Tuck snorted "We ain't stealin' nothing. I give away some chickens for free, and now we've found a bunch of horses running wild. This used to be free range, remember. My advice to you is, pick out one of those mustangs and see if you can break it before morning. That's when we saddle up and head east."

  Only they hadn't pulled out that morning because Tuck had said he'd thought of some stuff he had to do, mostly contact more television and newspaper people. "Advertising," Tuck kept saying. "Not advertising is the only reason I ain't rich right now." But Joseph guessed Tuck had postponed because he was so tired, the way he looked after being up most of the night catching the tall horse, then getting him into the trailer, then getting him into the same barn with Roscoe without anyone getting kicked or horse-bit.

  Tuck didn't look good. Looked like some of the air had seeped °ut of him, he was so worn down.

  So now it was Saturday afternoon, late, with thunderstorms building over the Everglades, purple clouds the size of castles drifting toward Mango and the Gulf, which was one of Joseph's favorite times of day if he didn't have to be on the water. Nice breeze and it smelled good, too. The
bay smelled salty, like oysters, and there was the lemony smell of key lime trees growing on the shell ridge that crossed the pasture. And the horse-there was that smell; a little lathered up because they'd been riding for about two hours, along the bay road clear to the Tamiami Trail with its fast traffic, then through the melaleuca and oak flats to where the saw grass began.

  Joseph liked the saw grass. Clear to the horizon, it didn't stop the wind. But the wind made designs in the grass, drifting pale streaks and swirls on yellow fields that spread away to cypress hummocks in the distance: dark domes of shade in so much sunlight that it hurt the eyes. Joseph had missed the saw grass.

  "Good Buster, nice Buster. How you like this, Buster?" Joseph kept talking to the horse, getting acquainted. "See that slough there? I kilt a deer there once. See that little creek there? Used to be a prime place for otters. Goddamn, Buster, you got to canter the whole way? I'm an old man-couldn't you walk a bit?"

  But no, the horse had a sweet quartering gait, bouncing along as if the earth were a trampoline, smooth as a rocking chair. Unless they came to a fence, then the horse wanted to go; wanted to open the throttle, and Joseph had to lean back on the reins to hold him. "Them ain't no breakaway fences like the horse show's, Buster; them's the real McCoys. You're in the real world now."

  Finally, though, Joseph decided to call the horse's bluff; let him go just to see what would happen and, God almighty, that horse went from a dead stop to a full run in about two strides-or so Joseph would tell Tucker later-headed straight for a five-strand barbed-wire fence. The next thing Joseph knew, he was airborne, arching over the fence with Buster beneath him.

  "Lordy, Buster, you must got wings!"

  After that, no fence stood in their way or altered their route. Buster didn't know a thing about cattle-Joseph had tried to work him a little on the way out, using a couple of Tuck's half-wild Brahma crossbreds. The horse had shied, fighting him the whole way, stopping only to lift his tail and splat a load. Buster didn't give a damn for cattle. But he could jump.

  Joseph considered riding clear to his old chikee shack, but it was way back in, about ten miles off the Trail, along a natural lane of high ground that drifted in and out of the saw grass-Pay-hay-okee, his grandfather had called the region. Joseph had headed that way automatically, not really considering the distance, but when he got to the weed-choked ridge, he turned the horse abruptly. There were all kinds of trails and byways in the Glades-people didn't know about them anymore, but they were there. Joseph had been traveling them since childhood, so why should he waste his time on this one? He'd been up that trail plenty of times before. Besides, the idea of seeing his old chikee put a hollow feeling in his stomach, a strange ache he couldn't define.