Immortal Water

by Norman Brian Van

  “Then this sacred water does not exist?” Juan Ponce said, turning to her, his face very close to her face. One eyebrow rose in a quizzical manner. He is having second thoughts, she thought, now the time is at hand.

  “It does exist,” she said. “It is proof of never ending existence.”

  “Why does it exist only here?” he questioned.

  “How would I know?” she replied. She had to be very careful now, anticipating this anxious Spaniard’s moods. These questions were not good, his sudden doubts worse. Her plan would be a shambles. “I only know of this one. Perhaps there are more to the west.”

  “But why are there none in the old world?” he asked.

  “For that very reason: your world is old; this is the New World as you and your friends never tire of claiming. In your old world you must have heard of sacred springs ...”

  “In historical tales; nothing comes of them.”

  “Because those springs have been stopped up by your roads and walls and buildings and rules. The friar’s church alone has dammed up all beliefs but its own. It ignores the world to believe in a world which it says comes after life and, as far as I know, doesn’t even exist. Only one man has ever claimed to have been there. So your people put all their faith in his tale. What if this Jesu is lying?”

  “Are you lying?” the Spaniard cut to the quick. His grey eyes were like the steel of his armour.

  “Why do these doubts come to you now? Why would I lie?” she answered. “You think I don’t want the sacred water as much as you?”

  She could see him physically settle. Her words had mollified him. He wanted to believe in the water. He was desperate for it to heal his age and so help him quell the forces aligned against him. He had come so close with his final questions yet the overwhelming prerequisite of his life had triumphed.

  He lived for revenge.

  As did she.

  “Medel!” Juan Ponce barked. The boatswain stepped to the railing above the boats.

  “Aye, your honour,” he answered. His eyes found the cloak enwrapped figure of his Captain-General.

  “We will depart in a few moments, just at nightfall. You will take charge of the ships. No lights. Keep men up in the cross-trees to look out for skulking canoes. Alvarez has charge of the camp. He knows what to do. If he is attacked in the night he will set an oil-soaked signal fire. It will flare suddenly. Should that happen you are to fire your bombards. Aim past the camp and into the forest. Use hot shot. Set the trees alight and so stop the Calusa advancing.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Good then. If it is canoes approaching fire your bombards upon them. Use every armament you have on board, even harquebuses. Keep them, at all costs, from boarding you.”

  “I will.”

  “We have enough food and water aboard these boats for three nights?”

  “As ordered, sir.”

  “Of course. You are a man who knows his work, Medel.”

  “Thank you, your honour.”

  “We should be back in four days. I cannot anticipate how far upriver the water will become fresh. I assume from the flatness of the terrain it will be some way. If you don’t hear from us after four days wait one more. Do not send out scouts but bring everyone back on board. Take the ships to the mouth of this bay and lie to. Three more days. If you hear or see nothing by then we are dead. Allow Sotil and Miruello to take the ships back to Santo Domingo. You command this one, Alvarez the other. Once back sell everything and pay the men.”

  “What of you, Don Juan?”

  “I will no longer matter. If questioned by Colon’s underlings, just tell them we met with overwhelming resistance and you were ordered to return. You may keep my chart of this place, Medel, for yourself. Give Sotil my second book; not the ship’s log, the other. Inform Sotil to ensure that my daughter Isabella receives it and that no one else opens it.”

  “You fear so much danger here, your honour?”

  “I anticipate it, as a commander must. But if all goes well, we will return with the most joyous of news!”

  “A site for the colony?”

  “More, my old friend. Much more. A thing that possesses worth far greater than gold or silver.”

  “Jewels?” the boatswain’s eyes lit up.

  “Beyond them. Beyond everything you have ever dreamed. Cast us off now. It’s dark enough to cross the bay.”

  “I wish you good fortune, your honour.”

  “Mine will be yours, Medel. Be sure.”

  “Go with God, Don Juan ...”

  The boats moved away silently, furtively, toward their destiny.

  28

  Strait is the gate, And narrow is the way, Which lead unto life, And few there be that find it.

  —MATHEW 7:14

  Spring — The Present

  He finds a motel room on Sanibel, the Parrot’s Nest. It is a fine place, used and comfortable, with a window looking out over the bay. It will be his centre. Even after St. Augustine he is still sure there is something to his dream and yet, he feels simultaneously, there is something missing. He is grocery shopping when he hears a familiar voice.

  “Mr. Porter?”

  The soft lilt of a librarian. Another girl.

  Why is this happening?

  “Mr. Porter, is that you?”

  He turns to face her. She has delicate features, tanned skin; he remembers her honey blonde hair and her slimness. He doesn’t remember her eyes. She wore glasses in the library which somehow concealed their lustre. Unusual eyes. Sea green. Stunning eyes. She wears a crinkled cotton skirt which flows down to her ankles and an East Indian style white blouse. On her wrists are bangles. This is not the same buttoned down library girl he recalls; this one is unique.

  “How are you? Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t remember me,” she says, blushing.

  “Of course I do. Angela, from the library.”

  “Angela Sayer.” She extends her hand, her grip soft and warm.

  “Just call me Ross, Angela,” he says tentatively. After Darlene he is frightened of this meeting. She notices.

  “I’m a little surprised to see you here. The season’s over and I’d thought you’d left when you returned the books. Well, nice meeting you again.” She begins walking away.

  “Yes I did leave, but I’m back,” he responds. It comes to him then that this young woman might help him. She knows the history. She knows the land and shares his interest in it. She might even know waterways and places he would not think to look. “I’m following up on some of that history you gave me.”

  “And your wife? How’s she?”

  “She passed,” he murmurs. “Three months now.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It was sudden?”

  How could she know his despair?

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Of course. Well, I’d better be going.”

  “Angela, have you any idea where I could find topographical maps?” he asks, taking a desperate chance. She could easily brush him off.

  “Of this area?”

  “Yeah. I’m, well, I’m looking for something.”

  “There’s an outfitter just up the street.”

  “Could you show me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I thought I’d look more into the Calusa, see if there are more sites.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I’m a history teacher, you’ll recall, or I was. I just can’t seem to let it go.”

  “That’s cool!” Her eyes sparkle.

  “I think you said you were interested in them, the natives,” he says, smiling.

  “Oh, I’ve been a Calusa buff a long time. I find them fascinating; kind of spiritual warriors. I just can’t get over what they accomplished building their culture in the mangrove.”

  “Lucky for me I met you,” he says.

  “Have you got time for coffee?”

  She invites him into her world. She is too open, too
innocent. He cannot go that way again. There can be no more desperation. It must be a compact between them, or nothing.

  “Actually, I’ve got to get groceries. Just came into town this afternoon.”

  “Okay, maybe some other time. I’ve done a bit of exploring. Actually, I have all the top-maps you’d need. I could lend them to you.”

  Right now he has nothing. He is cautious. She is so young. He is afraid he will look a fool. He is afraid from Darlene. Then in an instant a memory flashes. It has been forty years since he felt this way.

  “Don’t you think you’re a little young, Ross, to be considering marriage?” Emily’s father in his study speaks to Ross with concern. He peers through his black horn rimmed glasses and habitually places his hands inside the pockets of his cardigan. He appears relaxed. Ross knows he is not. “After all, Emily’s just finished high school; you’re still in school yourself. It seems sensible to ask you to wait. Finish university, or perhaps when you’ve found a steady job.”

  “We love each other, Mr. Wilson. We’d rather not wait.”

  “And how do your parents feel about this?”

  “They trust my judgment, sir.”

  “There’s nothing you haven’t told me, son, for wanting this marriage so quickly? You and my daughter, well, she’s not ...”

  “What? Oh no, sir, it’s not that at all. Believe me, Mr. Wilson, Emily and I, we haven’t ... I mean, we wanted to wait and ...”

  “Alright, Ross. But with you in school, well, you understand. I don’t want Emily getting into something she might regret. She’s just a teenager.”

  “Yes, sir. I, uh, we, love each other. We’ve thought about this for more than a year.”

  “She’s never mentioned it,” he responded, seeming to feel a little betrayed.

  “No, sir. Nobody knows but my parents. You were supposed to be first but you’ve been out of town.”

  “Business. Still, she could have called me.”

  “It’s not something, sir, we thought you should hear by phone. We also thought it should come from me. She insisted I ask your permission.”

  “I don’t like it much, Ross, but if it’s what Emily wants ...”

  “It is, sir. It is.”

  It was.

  “You know, I wouldn’t mind coffee. Some place close?” Ross says.

  “Just around the block,” she says, smiling. Her smile is beautiful. Her teeth gleam. Her smile spreads to her eyes. They sparkle emerald.

  The café is a funky mix of taxidermist fish on the walls, old tackle boxes and rods, rough grey tables and chairs. It perches upon a dock in an inlet. The aroma of fish and salt water wafts up to them. In the twilight they sit outside by a railing just at the water. Their server lights a candle on their table. They drink their coffee, order more, and become lost in their meeting of minds. He is surprised to discover how much she knows about the Calusa. She is excited about his theory of their fearlessness toward the Spanish. He does not reveal his true reason for being here. He does not know her well enough.

  “I visited the Randell Research Center on Pine Island,” he says, “and toured the Calusa Heritage Trail. And Emily and I took your advice and went into the mangrove at Ding Darling. We found a burial mound there.”

  For a brief moment he is surprised at himself; that he can speak his wife’s name so easily to this young woman. A flash of Emily’s reaction to the mound touches his mind. He pushes it aside. It is the past. He can do nothing now but what he is doing. And Angela gives him little time to reflect, she is so animated in her response.

  “Have you tried the Estero River? Or the Peace? Or the Caloosahatchie? Those must have been their waterways to the interior. They must have traded inland. There are some spots that look a lot like remains to me, though they’re so overgrown I don’t think anyone sees sense excavating them.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “Yeah. I’m a bit of a camping nut. Comes from my parents. When I get the chance, I get out there. I love it, just being in nature. There are so many quiet, beautiful places here but they’re not that easy to find. Florida needs more environmentalists to keep development down. Did you know our water table shrinks every year? The swamps are drying up. It makes me so mad just to think of it.”

  “Angela, you surprise me ...”

  “Call me Ange. Everyone does. Angela just seems so formal.”

  “I know the feeling. My full name is Rossiter. Scottish background. What can I say?”

  “My dad wanted to call me ‘Angel’. My mom stepped on that one. They compromised.”

  “These places, Ange, could you show me on the maps?”

  “I’d love to. In fact, I’ve got a bit of a secret, Ross. I’ve always wanted to be a guide, work for some outfitting company. I just haven’t taken the time.”

  “Are you saying ...”

  “What if I took you myself?”

  “What about the library?”

  “Temp job. I’m just standing in for Josie. Contract’s up in a week. I was thinking I might try an outfitter when it’s done. But this could give me more experience. Maybe, if it works out, you’d write me a reference?”

  “I’d pay you, of course.”

  “Just expenses. After all, I’m not really a guide. I’ve got money saved from the library job. I don’t need much anyway; live sort of hand to mouth. That’s from my parents, too. Back to nature types. I think people in the sixties would have called them hippies. They’re up in Oregon now.”

  “You looked so conservative in the library.”

  “The Board insists on old-school clothes.”

  “So you’re a hippie like your parents?”

  “Hippie? Ancient history. Even for them. They’re even younger than you.”

  “No, I just meant ...”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “Believe me, you haven’t!” He laughs for the first time in a very long time. “What’s the terminology now?”

  “I don’t bother with that. If I had to come up with something, I guess you’d call me a spiritualist. I was pagan once; my parents’ religion. Now I’m just a free spirit!”

  “Good lord! Look at the time. It’s nearly ten.”

  “This has been fun.”

  “But I’ve kept you too long. I’m sorry ...”

  “So about the guiding? I know I’m not experienced but I wouldn’t waste your time. I’ve explored a lot of this area.”

  “You don’t know me, Ange,” he says, arresting her eagerness with reality.

  “I’m not often wrong about people,” she says, smiling.

  “There’s a bit more to this than just the Calusa.”

  “I thought as much. So tell me.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “You mean do I think you’re trying to hit on me? I’m the one who asked you for coffee. Somehow I don’t think you’re like that.”

  “It’s complicated,” he mutters lamely. She doesn’t know his obsession.

  “Aren’t we all?” she says, laughing.

  “I’m going to be honest with you. This might take some time to tell you.”

  “I’ve got work until four, tomorrow. You can tell me then. Why don’t you come by my place after four? It’s a walkup on Periwinkle. I’ll write the address. At least you can pick up the maps. But I’d really like you to think about me helping you. See you tomorrow?”

  “After four ...”

  “Think about the guiding ...”

  She is gone, waving back at him, into the softness of Sanibel night.

  A guide. What was missing. But will she accept it all when I tell her? I won’t lie to her. I’ ll give her everything: the dreams, the feelings, the research, the obsession ... perhaps even Emily’s final word. No. Not that. It would be too much. I will not abuse what has been bestowed. And it has been given somehow, I know, by the mystical water. It leads me on through a dream, through a need, through all my errors and terrors and even despite them.
<
br />   So, here is faith.

  The next morning he calls his son. He can hear the relief in Robert’s voice. He tells him he’s fine and will be home soon. He says not to worry about the house; thanking Robert for caring. He tells him how beautiful Florida is in late spring and he wants to stay on to see it bloom, see all its natural places. He tells Robert he has a guide who knows the land and will keep him safe. Robert accepts it. He has such a warm, resonant voice; like his character. Ross is proud of him and relieved as well. They are no longer enemies.

  That afternoon he finds Angela’s place. It is up a stairway which climbs the outside of a clapboard shop. She is there to greet him. Her apartment is extraordinary. There are beads in the doorways; brightly painted, fierce wooden masks on the walls; the living room is alight with crystals and stained glass ornaments. She makes tea as he studies the maps she provides. She brings the tea on a driftwood tray. Flute music swells from concealed speakers.

  “It’s chai, I hope you don’t mind,” she says, smiling.

  “Not at all. My wife was a bit of a tea connoisseur.”

  “I wish I’d met her.”

  “You’d have got along well.”

  “Did you think about the guiding?”

  He is not ready yet to lay his truth before her: be rejected, be mocked. He fears that most of all from this young woman who seems so free and so generous. He changes the subject.

  “These masks: they’re Calusa? I’ve seen pictures ...”

  “Oh, they’re just my little reconstructions. My hobby is woodwork. I like to carve, paint. I lived in a commune for seven years. You tend to pick up some skills.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “You think so? My friends think they’re too ferocious. But to me they represent spirits. Warrior spirits. Did you know caloos meant fierce? Their chiefs wore the masks in their ceremonies. I think they somehow symbolized their gods.”

  “That’s very pagan. Maybe you haven’t left your parents behind after all?”

  “Maybe not,” she says, laughing. “I just think there’s more than what we perceive.”