Sanibel Flats

by Randy Wayne White

  Half of which was probably pure invention, but the part about the cold eye Ford now wondered about. All through high school he and Rafe had been family, done everything together. They'd had one of those closer-than-brother relationships in which they were continually plotting against each other, trying to gain advantage, laughing like hell at making life into such a game. Rafe, it seemed to Ford, usually got the better of it; not that it mattered because they were like Hope and Crosby on the road, best friends trying to catch each other out. But now the lean handsome one, Rafe, had taken a really big fall, and Ford didn't feel anything inside even close to tears, just that sense of waste.

  Maybe his eyes had grown cold; maybe he'd always been cold. Or maybe four years in West Africa, a year in South America, and five years in Central America had leached away most of the emotional niceties. But Ford didn't believe that, not really. After all, before yesterday, he and Rafe hadn't exchanged a word or a letter in more than eighteen years, aside from those two brief talks, so it was almost as if a stranger had gone and gotten himself killed.

  Or killed himself. . . .

  Suicide?

  It was the first time suicide had crossed Ford's mind. At first he had just thought dead, Rafe's dead, then he thought murder, as if maybe the Indios had gotten to him. But now the thought of suicide flashed. He didn't like the idea; couldn't reconcile it with the Rafe he had talked with the previous morning, but here it was. Ford took a few steps closer, his hands at his sides like someone in an art gallery. He began to study the body with clinical interest.

  First things first: Could he be positive it was Rafe?

  Not much was left of the face or ears; the eyes were gone. But what was there seemed to match—the heavy jaw, the high cheeks and broad forehead beneath a plucked mange-patch of black hair. The clothes seemed about right, too. The corpse wore khaki slacks, not the cheap kind but expensive ones with cargo pockets, and a black knit shirt with a tiny tarpon over the breast. Rafe had always liked nice clothes. There was a bulge in the rear pants pocket, and Ford removed a leather billfold. Inside was an out-of-date Visa card, a photo of a seventeen-year-old Rafe Hollins in full football gear throwing a jump pass, a photo of an older Rafe Hollins holding a tiny, wide-eyed infant, and four dollars in cash. That was all. Ford used the tail of his shirt, first to wipe the billfold clean, then as a glove as he placed the billfold back into the rear pocket.

  Ford stood thinking for a moment, considering the scene before him. Was it murder, or was it suicide?

  On the corpse's left foot was a pale leather boat shoe, no sock. His right foot was bare, the matching shoe on the ground four feet in front of him and to the left—his feet weren't tied and he had done some kicking. A man intent on hanging himself wouldn't tie his own legs, and that was a vote for suicide. His hands weren't tied either, hanging limp beside the distended belly, and that made it look even more like suicide. Rafe had been six two, two twenty-five, maybe; a big man. There was no way he could have been forced into a noose and up onto the chunk of log that lay nearby if his hands were free, unless he was already unconscious. But if he was unconscious, could he have kicked a shoe off? Ford didn't know. Besides, the shoe might have been placed—weren't some murderers supposed to be clever?

  Ford stood on his toes and studied the face more closely. The vultures had made it impossible to tell if his friend had been beaten. Ford touched the bloated right hand for a moment, turned it and looked for rope burns on the underside of the wrist. There were none. On the left wrist was a Seiko dive watch, the lens shattered and green hands stopped at 2:18. A.M. or P.M.? Probably P.M. the previous day, judging from the condition of the body. Only a few hours after Ford spoke with him on the phone. The heat and the vultures had had plenty of time to do their work.

  Ford lifted the watch bracelet and studied the pale wrist skin beneath, then moved around to the back of the body and considered the noose. The knot attached to the tree limb was one of those overtied messes that formed a kind of loop so the running end could pass over the limb and through. The noose was formed by the same kind of bad slipknot, and it had cut into the corpse's neck, judging from the dried blood. These weren't Rafe's kind of knots, no way. He'd spent too many days on the water, working boats. The bad knots were a strong vote for murder; to Ford, in fact, they seemed conclusive. Rafe had made it clear he believed someone was after him.

  Ford walked quickly away, took a breath. He looked back for a moment, used his shirt to clean his glasses, then began a slow search of the area. He didn't know what he was looking for—footprints maybe—but the ground was like mulch and didn't hold any. He poked his head into the cabin and waited for his eyes to adjust. The cabin was a mess, as if it had been ransacked. There were canned goods scattered, some clothes in a heap, a half bottle of Southern Comfort right in the doorway, six cans of Copenhagen snuff torn out of a cellophane tube, a snapshot of a little brown-haired boy with the words Jake Age 5 written on the back. Ford almost picked up the photograph, then caught himself. He wrapped his right hand in a towel and held the photograph to the light. The child had Rafe's cleft chin, the same high cheeks, and dark, dark eyes: a bright, innocent face, open to the world. He considered putting the photograph back as he had found it, but stuck it in his pocket instead. Still using the towel, he opened the Southern Comfort and poured a quarter of the bottle over the vulture bite, letting the alcohol sting.

  Outside, he stared at the dark doorway for a time, then remembered one more place he might look. When he and Rafe built the cabin, they had found need of a place they could hide things they didn't want stolen, or didn't want to leave in plain view of their guests—high school girls, mostly. It took him a while to find it, a huge old gumbo limbo tree halfway down the back side of the mound with a hole near the base of the trunk. Ford got down on his knees, fished around inside, and pulled out a package of something—a cellophane mess, black with eighteen years of humidity, TROJAN CONDOMS barely legible on the cover. Ford threw the package into the bushes, then reached in again. This time he touched something geometric, metallic, and retrieved a small fireproof box. He snapped the latches and flipped open the lid. Inside was a blue spiral-bound address book, two one-hundred-dollar bills, a large empty plastic sack, and something in a cloth bag. Ford pulled the drawstrings and dumped the contents out of the bag. He sat, staring. There were several pieces of intricately carved jade, tiny parrots and pre-Columbian god figures with bleak, drilled eyes. There were also two bright-green gemstones among the jade. The stones were large, each about the size of a robin's egg, roughly cut, multifaceted, pulsing with light in the dusty sun rays that filtered through the tree canopy.

  Emeralds.

  As he returned the stones and the notebook to the box, the plastic sack caught his attention. It wasn't completely empty. Gathered in one corner were small beige flakes of something; something that looked like dried leaves. Ford dipped his finger in, aware of a familiar smell; a smell similiar to that of old leather. He stood quietly for a time, thinking, then put everything back into the metal box, latched it, and carried it slowly back up the mound.

  The wind had turned the body so that it now faced the cabin. The vultures were back at work, and it was when Ford averted his eyes that he noticed the note for the first time: a piece of paper tacked to the avocado tree, hanging there like some kind of public notice. Ford stood looking at the note without touching it. Finally he took a few steps closer, reading: It is nobodys fault. I just can't take it no more. Rafe Hollins

  Ford rocked back and forth on his heels, back and forth, staring. Finally he ripped the note away, carried it out into the sunlight, and read it again. Then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.

  Damn.

  He stood on the high mound looking at the bay. The bay glittered in a grid of harsh afternoon light. It would be dark within two hours, and it was a forty-five-minute boat trip back to Sanibel Island. Ford stood thinking hard, hating his own indecision, then turned suddenly.

  In
the boat he found old three-strand nylon rope. He carried the rope back up the mound and used it to tie the bloated hands and legs. Finally he forced the shoe back onto the corpse's swollen foot.

  TWO

  The last thing Ford did was jot down the registration numbers of the trihull boat tied to the mangroves. He also made a fast trip around the perimeter of the island, kicking grass and mud the whole way, making sure there wasn't a second boat still hidden somewhere.

  There was not.

  On the trip back he stopped at a bayside restaurant that had a phone booth and started to dial the sheriff's department in Fort Myers, but then remembered that Sandy Key and Tequesta Bank were in Everglades County, just across the line. He got the number of the local sheriff's department from the front of the book. He told the woman who answered: "A man named Rafe Hollins has been murdered. You can find his body on Tequesta Bank," and immediately hung up. At a 7-Eleven he bought a quart of beer—Coors in a bottle—then got in his boat and headed straight out into the Gulf, needing air. The sun grew huge at dusk, pale as a Japanese moon, and Sanibel Island materialized on the horizon as a thin black line on the gray flexure of sea.

  It was nearly dark by the time he got to Lighthouse Point, and he ran beneath the causeway and turned south into Dinkin's Bay. At the mouth of the bay was a strand of beach where there were coconut palms and secluded piling homes. Jessica McClure lived alone in the last house, an old clapboard place with a tin roof that was built on a point among the gumbo limbo and casuarina pines. In his first weeks on Sanibel, he'd had occasional glimpses of Jessica standing at her easel on the dock: a striking figure in faded jeans and T-shirt, a tall, lithe woman with a private, introspective expression but a friendly wave. They finally met one morning when Ford was wading the sandbar across the channel from her house, digging beak-throwers more than a foot long with chitinous beaks and pairs of wicked-looking black teeth. Jessica had watched from the dock for a time, then climbed into her little wooden skiff and puttered over. She had waved again as she got out of the boat, strode to his side, and peered into one of the collecting buckets.

  "Hum ..." She had looked up at him, her expression quizzical, interested. "They're sea snakes, right?"

  Ford told the woman they were clam worms, as he got his first close look at her: pale, pale-green eyes, long auburn hair that was copper streaked in the fresh sunlight; her face like something out of a 1940s movie, Carole Lombard maybe, high oval cheeks, full mouth set in an expression of slight bemuse-ment, good skin and no makeup at all. She was probably in her late twenties but carried herself as if older; reserved but sure of herself; a woman who lived alone and liked it. She was almost as tall as Ford: the gawky, awkward teenager come of age whose beauty, in developing late, had probably spared her the self-consciousness common in beautiful women who had lived too long with the knowledge that they were always, always under inspection.

  Looking into the bucket again, Jessica had said, "Clam worms, huh? I like the color, that iridescent green. They're really kind of pretty. "

  In the collecting bucket, the clam worms were writhing, their beaks protruding and retracting mechanically. Ford told her that beak-throwers had to be dug carefully, not just because they were delicate, but because they could bite, and not many people would agree with her that the worms were pretty.

  Jessica had said, "I guess most people wouldn't," which could have come off sounding self-congratulatory but didn't because she said it so objectively, a simple observation which pleased Ford. She was smiling, more at ease but still aware she was standing knee-deep in water with a stranger. "I'm Jessi McClure, the woman who's been waving at you."

  "I know. You're the artist."

  "And you're M.D. Ford, the guy who fixed up the old stilt house. But I don't know what the initials stand for, just that everyone calls you Doc." She was still smiling, but not giving it too much. "I asked about you the last time I was at the marina. So which is it?"

  "Which is what?" Ford had picked up the bucket and was moving down the sandbar again.

  "Do they call you Doc because of the initials, or because you have a lab and look at things under a microscope? Or maybe it's those wire-rimmed glasses."

  "I had the initials before I had the microscope. Back in high school, though, it was because my first name is Marion."

  "Marion's a nice name."

  "Easy to spell, too."

  They had spent the rest of the day together and then had dinner: Ford sitting across from her at a table at Gran Ma Dot's, feeling the sensual impact of her face, her body, but not quite sure he wanted to pursue the attraction. For one thing, he thought the quick pass might offend her. He had already found out she preferred classical music to cult rock, ocean swimming to aerobics, so maybe she was an anachronism when it came to curb-service sex, as well. For another, Pilar, the last woman he'd been involved with, had almost gotten him killed; worse, he'd been in love with her—a first for Ford. What he'd most enjoyed about the past year was living without the complications of romance; of doing whatever he damn well pleased without having to yield to the exigencies of emotion or the plans of some woman.

  No involvements, he decided, not with her—at least until the rules had been established, the parameters set.

  He saw her nearly every day after that; at first on the pretext of teaching her something about marine biology, then just because it was fun. Some evenings he would boat to her house on the point, or maybe jog the back way, come up quietly and surprise her. Other nights he would look out and see her porch light go on, a sure sign that she was leaving. A few minutes later he would hear her skiff's motor, and soon she would holler up from the darkness, "Hey, Ford—how about some company?" It was a couple of weeks before he finally kissed her; touched his lips softly to hers, then harder, feeling her mouth respond, feeling her body go soft and slack as her back arched slightly. But she had pulled away then, pressing his hand to her cheek, looking up with those eyes. "Whew ... I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to do that."

  Ford had said, "I guess it just hadn't crossed my mind before," smiling with Jessica because it was such an obvious lie.

  "Well, it's been on my mind. So maybe it's time we talked about it, huh? Do you know that I've told you things I've never told anyone? It's true."

  "I'm flattered."

  "Not so quick. Do you also realize that I've told you very little about my past? And you—you, you big lug, have told me even less about yours. In some ways we're complete intimates; in other ways, complete strangers. Don't you think it's about time we sort of dropped the shields a little; dispense with some of the cowshit?"

  Grinning, Ford had said, "Sure," enjoying the way she phrased things: You big lug . . . dispense with the cowshit; but he was also aware, from the way her eyes bore in on him, that she was hoping for a more heartfelt response.

  After a time she had said, "You've become important to me, Ford. I wake up in the morning anxious to get done with my work, wanting to hear the sound of your boat because, once you're here, it's like I can let my breath go and relax. I've had lovers before, Doc ..." letting that hang in the air until she saw that he wasn't going to respond, then continuing, "but I guess I've never really had a male friend before; a man who was an intimate. Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time with this. But you know what I'm getting at; we're close enough that you know what I'm trying to say. I can see it in those damn chilly eyes of yours. Help me out here, buster!"

  Ford had laughed with her, but said nothing because he had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say.

  "I like you, Doc. I like you a lot."

  Ford waited, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Christ, she's not going to start talking about marriage already, is she?

  Jessica had pressed on. "It frightens me a little. I keep wondering what happens to intimate friends when they become lovers. What happens to them, Doc?"

  Ford, who hadn't been with a woman since the day before he left Masagua, said, "Well, we could stick
with it for a while—"

  He meant they could try being lovers, but Jessica had interrupted.

  "Then you're willing?"

  "Ah . . . sure; more than willing." He had shaved until his skin burned and showered, just in case. "On a friendly sort of basis, I mean."

  "I knew you could tell what was on my mind! You dog, letting me go on and on like that. It could be kind of like an experiment, Doc."

  "An experiment, sure. That's one way of looking at it."

  She had hugged him quickly, then stepped back. "I'm so damn weak! I was ready to jump into bed with you that first night. And just now, when you kissed me, my knees got all watery, like some schoolgirl. But I think you're right, Ford. Why not just be friends, a man and a woman, and see where it takes us? How many people have ever had that opportunity? You know ... I'd rather have you as a friend. And it's a great feeling knowing I can say that and you're not going to go away with a damaged ego, worrying about your sexuality or whether I find you attractive or not."

  Finally realizing what he had just agreed to, and wincing at the force of her enthusiasm, Ford had said, "I'd be silly to worry about that," and immediately began to wonder about both.

  In the weeks that followed, though, Ford regretted the misunderstanding less and less. Abstinence was frustrating, but it had its good points, too. There were no obligations, no hurt feelings, no bruised egos. Jessica told him things she probably never could have confided to a lover, and Ford began to take a distant, almost clinical interest in the emotional differences of men and women.