Bone Deep

by Randy Wayne White

• • •

  I CANCELED THE VODKA in time to get another beer and watched the ball game. A couple of Boca Grande fishing guides stopped to say hello and to remind me the full moon in June was only a week away.

  The Tarpon Moon, local anglers call it. The best night of the year to hook one of the world’s great game fish—until recently. Because of a snagging technique misrepresented as jigging, Boca Grande Pass had become a freak show of fast boats. The number of spawning tarpon had declined. Last year, during the Tarpon Moon, there were no tarpon.

  The guides took a seat and we discussed it. My trips to Bone Valley had given me a new insight, which I wanted to share. For unknown centuries, tarpon have massed in Boca Grande Pass to feed and engage in a behavior not yet understood. Daisy-chaining, it is called. Packs of male tarpon pursue females in a rhythmic pattern that suggests ritual. Biologists I respect theorize that tarpon make the annual migration to meet and fatten before heading offshore to spawn.

  I didn’t doubt it was true. But why Boca Grande Pass? There are dozens of passes that link the Gulf of Mexico with brackish backwater bays. Yet tarpon always chose that single outlet to the ocean, a space less than a mile wide.

  The guides listened while I offered an explanation based on what I had learned from Bone Valley.

  “The Peace River flows into the bay, then exits through Boca Grande Pass,” I said. “Thousands of years ago, when inland Florida was underwater, a river emptied near the same place. That’s why Venice has so many sharks’ teeth. Tarpon might be coded like salmon to return to the same spawning ground. Ancient behavior in an ancient species. Impossible to prove, of course, but it fits.”

  We continued talking until, from outside the door, Tomlinson summoned. I paid the bill before he explained, “Duncan forgot to get gas, but he’s back. He says Rachel wants to talk to you. He gave me her number.”

  “His aunt?”

  “Dunk will explain when we get to Jensen’s Marina.”

  Actually, Fallsdown didn’t explain. Sitting on the porch of his cabin, which was nearest the water, all he said was, “It’s only eight o’clock in Billings. The Home Hospice nurse told me aspens are already turning, so, don’t worry, Rachel’s still awake.”

  I didn’t see a connection but asked, “Why does your aunt want to talk to me?”

  He considered the crested charmstone, holding the photo at arm’s length, before signaling Tomlinson with a look.

  “Rachel doesn’t trust us,” Tomlinson explained.

  Say no more—I was convinced.

  I carried my phone past the bait tank to the end of the dock and called Montana.

  • • •

  ON THE DRIVE HOME, I was reviewing my conversation with Rachel Fallsdown when I received a text from Hannah: Are you awake?

  It was eleven-fifteen, late by her standards. Trying to hit redial, I dropped the phone. At the same instant, another call came in. Quirt had busted my dome light, so I had to pull over to find the damn thing, the phone ringing while I searched.

  It took a while. Ringing stopped, the phone beeped with a message. When I checked, instead of Hannah’s voice, a Sanibel detective’s voice said, “Call me. We got the guy.”

  Quirt had been detained, hopefully arrested.

  If it had been any other reason, I would have postponed returning his call. Rachel, a dying woman with smoker’s lungs, had impressed upon me the brevity of life. Had reminded me that we are allowed only a finite number of screwups with family, friends, and lovers. Not in those words but from what Rachel had said, her struggle to breathe while telling the truth about how sacred artifacts had ended up in Florida.

  So I called the detective first but kept it brief.

  Police had caught the psycho biker on the bridge. They had arrested him for stolen plates, after a wrestling match, but had yet to confirm his identify. “Quirt Reno,” he had told them, which matched a driver’s license that was fake and a registration that looked phony, too.

  “Until someone bails him out,” the detective said, “his new address is the county jail. But, Doc, stay on your toes. He blames you for setting him up.”

  “I wish I had,” I said, then we discussed the best time for me to stop at the station and sign some papers because I wanted to press charges.

  With the crazy biker out of the way, I felt better about leaving the retriever alone at the lab tomorrow—I was diving with Mick’s fossil group in the afternoon, then was meeting Leland at what he called the ranch.

  It put me in a more positive frame of mind when I dialed Hannah.

  “I’m surprised you’re still awake,” I said when she answered.

  Hannah wasn’t awake but said, “I’m glad you called. Do you realize we talked more when we were just workout partners, not dating?”

  “I thought we were done with dating,” I said, “but you’re right.”

  “I blame myself. I’ve been lying here thinking about it. What I figured out is this: Sleeping with a man can funnel all the fun into the bedroom, then lock the door when you leave. The relationship gets so serious, you know? I liked the way we were before better.”

  I slowed for the Blind Pass Bridge, whitecaps slapping at darkness to my right. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “I’m telling you how I feel. It’s not a criticism.”

  “What the problem might be is, sex isn’t a major deal to many people,” I said. “Maybe we both need to lighten up.”

  “I don’t have sex, Marion. Making love, is what I call it, and it is a big deal. That’s not going to change. But there are other kinds of closeness. Like tonight, I was tying up at the dock—this was after my late charter—and Loretta came out and yells, ‘No matter what the sheriff says, I didn’t do it!’ Can you imagine?”

  I smiled. “Your mother’s a character.”

  “She used some swearwords, too, so right away I knew she’d done something. Used to be, I’d call you and we could laugh about whatever it was. Not just Loretta’s behavior, of course. Whatever was on my mind. That’s what I wanted to tell you. No matter what, I want to keep our friendship.”

  “What did Loretta do?”

  I was being too literal or sounded overly concerned. Hannah explained, “It’s not what she did. I miss talking. Not the serious talks—lord knows, we’ve had enough of those. Just picking up the phone and gabbing about things. Birdy and I, we send texts back and forth, and we talk, but it’s different talking to a man. You, I mean. Not just any man.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  Hannah yawned. “I’m being silly . . . and it’s late.”

  I liked the way this was going and wanted to keep it alive. “It’s weird you brought it up. Not fifteen minutes ago, I was talking to Duncan’s aunt in Montana. She’d ask me to call. First thing I wanted to do when I hung up was tell you about it.”

  “Really?”

  “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Talking like friends,” Hannah agreed, “I miss that. Did Duncan’s aunt say anything about the owl carvings? The way that stone felt when I held it, I’d like to know more.”

  I’d chosen the wrong topic for light conversation but trusted Hannah enough to stay on track. “Actually, she told me about three stones, plus some other artifacts. Have you heard of the American Indian Movement? Twenty years ago or more—Duncan’s aunt wasn’t sure of the dates—she came to Venice Beach with some other AIM members on a protest bus. Something happened there that she’s ashamed of.”

  I pictured Hannah sitting up in bed, heard the click of a light switch, serious enough about the subject not to push for a quick explanation. “What’s her name?”

  “Rachel. She was married but went back to her maiden name, Rachel Fallsdown. Tomlinson’s known her for a long time.”

  “Did she bring the owl stones to Florida? I’m guessing she lost them somehow.”


  “That’s not when it happened. Her group came to Venice to protest a collection of Indian relics owned by”—I decided to omit Finn Tovar’s name—“Well, it doesn’t matter, but a guy who was disliked by Florida Indians—Seminoles, Miccosukee—and I don’t blame them. Rachel at the time must have had a drug problem. She didn’t tell me that, I’m guessing. Somehow she got involved with the guy, this collector, and he paid her cash to become what they call a pot hunter.”

  “Is that like pot hauling? Rachel shouldn’t blame herself if she needed money.” Hannah was more tolerant of smuggling marijuana than most because of where she lived and how she’d grown up.

  “Out west, pot hunters are people who dig up Indian relics. And, yes, Rachel did it for money. The collector put her in touch with more buyers. She sold the owl carvings and some other things to different people over the space of a few years. Then her conscience started getting to her, so she stopped and turned traditional, went back to the reservation. Duncan doesn’t know she’s the one who stole the carvings.”

  Hannah processed the obvious questions in silence. “She was right to trust you, Marion. Now she wants to make amends. I hate to ask, but how long does she have to live?”

  I didn’t remember saying that Duncan’s aunt was dying, and it didn’t matter. Hannah, with her good instincts, had figured it out. “Pancreatic cancer is fast,” I said. “She’s already on a morphine drip.”

  “Does she know you’re the one who stole that owl stone back? I’m wondering why she didn’t confess to Tomlinson . . . No, wait. He probably slept with her, and it’s none of my business anyway. What’s important is that you find the other carving before she dies. That’s why she wants them, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think I would’ve liked Rachel if I’d met her a few years ago,” I said. “And vice versa. She’s a good person, though. She wants a clear conscience, and to do all she can for her tribe before she goes. I was struck by that—we all make mistakes. We all run out of time.”

  Hannah said, “Heaven knows,” with a familiar huskiness in her voice that made me want to see her, not turn left at the stop sign ahead, Dinkin’s Bay and my lab not far. Which she sensed. “I’m glad you told me. Maybe I can help. A private investigator is allowed computer access to files you wouldn’t be able to open.”

  Hannah, who had inherited a part-time agency from her uncle, didn’t know I had friends who worked for the world’s most sophisticated spy agencies—the NSA and others. And that’s the way it had to stay, but I indulged her, saying, “Sure—would you mind running a background check on a few people?”

  Dalton and Harris Sanford, and Owen Hall were the names I wanted to give her.

  While Hannah got pen and paper, I decided there was something I could admit. When she returned to the phone, I told her I was diving with Mick’s group in the afternoon and, on Sunday, joining Mick and several other collectors at an unnamed spot on the Peace River.

  “This isn’t just about the owl stones, is it?” she said.

  Good. She’d figured that out, too.

  I replied, “It depends on what the Florida Wildlife cops find and who they arrest when they get there,” and used an insider’s inflection to communicate what I couldn’t say.

  A bad-boy glint came into Hannah’s voice. “Why, Marion Ford. You never struck me as the tricky type—but, then, my Uncle Jake didn’t either.”

  “I’m too straight, you mean.”

  She said, “I don’t know about that, but it would be nice to believe you’re not a drug-smuggling criminal.”

  “Believe it,” I said.

  “I want to,” Hannah replied, then rewarded me by saying, “That leaves you with Monday open, sounds like. Why don’t the two of us go fishing—just you and me?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The next afternoon, as I stepped through the gate into the elephant’s pasture, Leland Albright told me, “Years ago, redneck kids lived around here and they’d shoot at him with pellet rifles. A .22, a couple of times, and tranquilizer darts. Used the poor old boy for target practice out of pure meanness.”

  “Tranquilizer darts?” I said. “How did kids get ahold of something like that?”

  “Every cattleman in the area uses them. Shooting a steer with a pneumatic rifle is a lot easier than culling him out of the herd, then roping him. That’s why Toby doesn’t come to the fence for strangers. Elephants are smart.”

  Toby was plodding toward us but not in a rush. With Owen, I remembered, the elephant had stayed away.

  It was nearly sunset. In my truck, where plywood now covered the broken window, my dive gear was still wet from diving with Mick’s fossil group.

  Leland commented on how vicious people could be, then said, “If it was the twins, Toby would move a lot faster. I don’t get out here much. Plus, it’s bad for animals to associate people with food. Try to tell Tricia that. Esther is the steady one, but she’s just as bad when it comes to spoiling Toby.”

  It was an opening to ask about the twins. Did he know about yesterday’s screaming match between Ava and Tricia? Instead, I waited while Leland unlocked the block-and-steel building I’d thought was for storage but had a little office, too. Bars on the windows beneath a metal roof painted white to deflect heat; cool inside, with air-conditioning, and fluorescent lights that snapped on.

  Something else: Chipped megalodon teeth and other fossils were scattered haphazardly on the desk and cabinets as common as golf balls at a driving range. I followed him through the office into another room with a steel door that locked—two antique gun vaults and cabinets inside—then into a double garage, where there was a tractor, tools, and maintenance stuff but no scuba equipment that I saw. A pneumatic rifle, though, stood in a rack next to a medicine cabinet.

  Leland noticed me looking at it and said, “The redneck kids didn’t bother loading the darts with tranquilizer. They did it just to shoot at something alive out of meanness. Even if they had, Toby’s hide is too thick.”

  On the bench was a packet of darts, needles an inch and a half long. I asked, “How does Owen get along with the elephant?”

  “Okay, I guess. No, that’s not exactly true. When Madison and I first married, he was only four, and he had a bad experience. Toby was just being friendly, but Owen has kept his distance ever since.” Then Leland touched a button to open the garage, me blinking at the sudden sunlight. Outside, pasture sloped toward cattails and the pond, the skeleton of a barn beyond.

  “When my father was alive, I stayed out here by myself a lot. We didn’t get along, but I guess that’s typical.” He handed me the lid from a storage container. “How’s your son doing?”

  “Haven’t heard from him,” I responded, then asked, “Have you ever dived that pond?” It threw him for a moment, but then he saw me staring across the pasture.

  “Oh, I forgot. You need more water samples.”

  “My dive gear’s in the truck,” I said.

  Leland kept his hands busy while he told me, “That’s a bad idea. There are snakes as thick as your leg down there. Gators, too, sometimes, but the gators don’t last long.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Like I said, elephants are smart. My grandfather’s first one was a bull—bigger than Toby, even—this huge guy, but sweet as could be unless he saw an alligator. He’d stomp them to death. Thought they were crocs, I guess—something in their brain from way back in jungle times. Toby’s the same way. They all are. Did you look at the pictures Owen gave you?”

  I said, “I’m not sure what you mean,” then remembered the old photos I’d looked at in the Jeep. “Oh—Barnabus, that was the first elephant’s name,” I said. “Him, and there were at least four others in a couple of shots. From what I know about boys—though you grew up here, Leland, and it’s hard to imagine a boy not going in for a swim. What about Owen?”

  “Swim in the pond, you mean?
”

  “He told me he likes to dive.”

  “Neither one of us, no way. The elephants own that pond—ask the gators,” Leland replied, then closed the subject by asking why I hadn’t heard from my son.

  We talked about that while he did a few things, then carried what looked like a block of brown salt outside. Heavy, like a salt lick for cattle, although I wondered. Toby was waiting, but at a distance.

  “He doesn’t know you,” Leland explained. “Those damn rednecks terrorized him for years. As much as he loves this stuff, he still remembers.”

  A block of molasses, is what I suspected, but asked, “Is that salt?”

  Leland said, “Watch this,” standing close enough for me to smell alcohol on his breath. Then used a post to shatter the block, the largest piece slipping from his hand. Said, “Damn . . .” and picked it up, calling, “Toby . . . Hey. Say hello to our visitor!”

  It was a command. Twenty yards away, the elephant’s head bobbed, he trumpeted a halfhearted farting sound.

  Leland glanced at me for approval, then ordered, “Toby—wave!”

  The elephant flapped a haze of flies from his ears and lifted one massive front foot.

  “Good boy.” Leland held out the block. The elephant approached, a white cattle egret settling itself on his back. “When he was younger, he could do all the tricks. Rear up on his hind legs, all the basics, but I don’t make the old boy work for it anymore. You reach a certain age, you know?” The man smiled, relaxing for the first time since I’d arrived half an hour earlier.

  It was after seven, the sun hot above cypress trees at the water’s edge, yet the sun vanished behind Toby’s gray mass as he neared. A musky peat bog odor and buzzing flies accompanied him. His trunk, framed by ivory tusks, became a separate creature, extending, mouthing the air for taste, then swiping the block from Leland’s hand and slinging it into his mouth.

  Wave a magic wand and shrink yourself to the size of a chimp. That’s what I felt like, standing next to a five-ton bull elephant, when his trunk snaked toward me and sniffed my crotch.