Deadly Waters (4 page)

M
ore than a thousand years ago, the Calusa Indians lived in the Everglades. They used oyster shells to build mounds, and over the centuries the mounds rose high above water to make islands. Soil piled up on these islands, turning them into rich farmlands where the Calusas lived in
harmony with animals and nature.

After the Civil War, white men discovered this place. By the 1890s, many hunters came here to kill birds for their feathers and alligators for their hides. In those days, egret plumes were used to decorate ladies' hats; the white, fluffy feathers were actually worth more than their weight in gold. So many egrets were killed that they almost died out. And tens of thousands of alligators got slaughtered. But the hunters skinned only the alligators' undersides—that was the most valuable part of the hide—and left the rest to rot in the hot Florida sun.

“The earth is bleeding,” the Indians said, and it really was. “If this killing doesn't stop,” a medicine man warned, “the land will be cursed. More blood will spill—the blood of men who don't respect all Earth's creatures.”

It was just about then that the mysterious man called Bloody Watson arrived in the Everglades. With his family, he came right here, to this very spot we're standing on, to this mangrove island that started out as a shell mound built by the Calusa Indians so long ago.

“I'm not interested in hunting critters,” Mr. Watson told everyone. “All I want to do is farm and grow sugarcane.” Mostly he was very polite, tipping his hat and saying “Howdy” to the folks at Chokoloskee and Everglades City. He paid his bills on time at the grocery store and made the best sugarcane syrup in southern Florida.

Mr. Watson always wore a black hat and a black frock coat, and beneath that coat he carried a gun, a .38 revolver. He could whip out that revolver faster than a man could blink, and he had a deadly aim.

Everglades City was a wild town, back then. Desperadoes showed up, stayed for a while, and vanished back into the fog and the mangrove forests. Some were never seen again—at least not alive. Whenever a man got killed, Mr. Watson usually was blamed for it, even though he might have been miles away.

Folks around these parts spread stories about Bloody Watson, trading rumors at night behind windows shuttered tightly against mosquitoes. They whispered that he was a cold-blooded killer.

Each time Mr. Watson walked into a store or tavern, the other men acted real nervous. Mr. Watson kind of enjoyed that. If he could scare people, he figured, he could do pretty much anything he wanted to in the Everglades. When anyone dared to question him, he'd stare at them with his steely blue eyes, give a little smile, and say, “You know I never killed anybody—except in self-defense.”

The same folks never worried much about the Indian curse. “That's just Injun superstition,” they'd say. “They only tell it to keep us from huntin' on their land.”

One day a couple of fishermen were rowing close to here when they saw something sticking up in the water. Something large and gleaming white, like the underbelly of a fish. Except—it had toes! It turned out to be a human foot.

They pulled out two bodies, one a woman who'd been Mr. Watson's cook, the other a man who'd tended hogs on the Watson Place. When people came to investigate, they found a third murder victim—a foreman on the plantation. And in the barn, swinging from a rope, was the body of a young Indian woman. She'd hanged herself!

Mr. Watson said he'd been away on his boat when the murders took place, but he got accused anyway. By then, the townspeople of Chokoloskee decided they'd had just about enough of Bloody Watson. They blamed him for all the bad things that were happening around here, and they began to plot against him.

Twenty men, all armed with shotguns and rifles, gathered on the shore in front of the store owned by the Smallwood family, just waiting for Mr. Watson to arrive in his boat.

“If we all shoot him at once,” they reckoned, “why, then, they can't blame any one of us fellers for his murder.” When Mr. Watson arrived by boat and stepped onto the shore, all 20 men shot him at the same time. They kept on firing even after he fell dead, pumping 33 or more bullets into him, not counting buckshot. His blood reddened the ground.

They buried Mr. Watson on a lonesome sand bar not far from here. But the troubles weren't over. For many years the slaughter of the animals continued, and the Indian curse hung over this land like a shadow. When another family moved into the Watson house, here on the island, they found bloodstains on the walls. No matter how hard they scrubbed, the blood would never wash off….

Bridger scoffed, “What'd I tell you? A ghost story! A place is just a place, Ashley. These trees—just trees. Grass—just grass. No bodies in the water. No curse.”

“I'm not scared of bodies,” she said. “It's just—maybe other bad things could happen while we're here! Maybe the old Indian curse is still working. How do we know it isn't?”

Turning to Jack, Bridger raised his eyebrows. This time he didn't say “Girls!” but that's what the look meant. Instead, he swatted at the mosquitoes on his arms and asked Jack, “You think Frankie might have some of that bug juice in the box of fishing tackle? These mosquitoes must think I'm a T-bone steak, the way they're chewin' on me.”

“I have some in my camera bag.” Jack found the can, and this time Bridger squirted it all over himself. Jack and Ashley sprayed themselves again, too, because the mosquitoes were thick, and the repellent did seem to keep them from biting.

After that, Bridger pulled out the fishing gear and the portable canvas seats Frankie had given them. Ashley moved up and down the boardwalk, rubbing her arms as if she were cold, which Jack knew was impossible in the 90-degree heat. Maybe she was just trying to rub the repellent farther into her skin.

With a sure, quick motion, Bridger baited his hook, then silently handed Jack the plastic tub of minnows. Ashley was suddenly at Jack's side, her dark eyes big and round.

“Wait—Jack—you're not going to stick a hook through that little minnow, are you? It's still alive!”

“Live bait's the best kind,” Bridger answered her. “Mr. Watson used live bait, too, I bet—'cept maybe it was people, not minnows.” He laughed out loud.

“Ooooh! That's sick!”

“Lighten up, Ashley, I'm just kidding you. You can't let stuff like that story get to you.”

Ashley narrowed her eyes at Bridger. “I guess you're not scared of anything 'cause you're a guy, right?”

He scratched the skin under his ear. “Well…” he said slowly, “me and Jack just heard the story, and we didn't freak out. Guys are different, I guess. Watch your brother now—he's gonna bait that hook, no problem. Right, Jack?”

“Right.” Actually, Jack wasn't too comfortable about putting a hook through a live minnow; before, when he'd gone trout fishing in Wyoming, he'd always used artificial flies. His parents had taught him that every living creature, no matter how small, was valuable and had a right to life. And Ashley's story about the slaughter of the helpless animals still hung in his mind.

But then, he'd been slapping mosquitoes all day, and they were living creatures, weren't they? Thrusting his hand into the tub, he brought up a wriggling minnow.

“Jack, don't!” Ashley cried.

But he did.

Bridger smiled approvingly. “See? Nothin' to it. You can look now, Ashley. Jack threw his line into the water.”

When Ashley uncovered her eyes, they looked mad. “Just because I don't want to see a little fish speared doesn't mean I'm not as tough as you guys,” she snapped. “Besides, why should I have to kill a minnow to catch a big fish so I can kill that, too, and eat it? Would that prove I was brave or something? How do you think the fish feels?”

Expertly casting his line overhanded, Bridger said, “Didn't see you turn up your nose at that Big Mac you ate yesterday. Where do you think hamburgers come from, a hamburger tree?”

Ashley colored. “That's different.”

“Not to the cow, it's not,” Bridger told her, laughing at his own joke. “You know, I hope you're right about the Indian curse on this place, Ashley. I'm hoping bad things happen to a couple of big snappers. You hear that, fish?” Cupping his hand around his mouth, Bridger called into the water, “You're under the evil spell of the Watson Place. Bite my hook.”

That was more words than Jack had heard Bridger say all at once since he'd come to stay with the Landons. He was actually making jokes that were even kind of funny, Jack had to admit. Rolling her eyes, Ashley went to the end of the dock and flopped down, cross-legged, her back to them.

Jack watched Bridger's red-and-white bobber gently float in the still water, like a round, sightless eye.

“You better cast farther out,” Bridger advised him.

“Yeah. It's just, the water's so dark, you can't see what's down there.”

“What difference does that make? You think there's a skeleton in the water?”

“Sure. Right.” Jack reeled in, checked his bait, raised his arm over his head, and tried to cast the way he'd seen Bridger do it. Jack had only been fishing two or three times, and he was far from expert. As his line landed—15 feet closer to the shore than Bridger's—the two boys settled into the quiet rhythm of fishing.

The steady hum of insects throbbed in the hot air, like a human heart beating from inside the shadowy trees. Could there be a body, one no one had found, hidden among the mangroves just yards away from where he sat? Stupid, Jack scolded himself. Stop thinking about stuff that happened nearly a hundred years ago. If there'd ever been a body over there, it would have been long gone by now.

Indian curses—things like that weren't even real. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. The mangrove roots seemed to claw at the Everglades like gnarled fingers; he thought of that cook's foot sticking up out of the water. Whew! He needed to get his mind on something else. Bridger's right, Jack decided. Guys need to be tough.

Ashley didn't help. “Jack, I keep seeing circles coming up in the water over there.” She pointed in the opposite direction from where the boys' lines were creating their own ripples.

“Circles?”

“Yeah. Little, round water wiggles that keep rising to the surface. It's like…like someone's trying to breathe underwater.”

“Oh, come on, Ashley!”

“But I saw them! Over there!”

“If you want to think up weird things with your imagination, keep it to yourself,” Jack grumbled, but he did glance over once or twice to where she'd pointed. He didn't see any circles in the water.

Overhead, an osprey skimmed the treetops, then dove to the water's surface and scooped up a large silver fish that writhed in its talons. Suddenly another, larger bird swooped in at close range, dive-bombing the osprey.

“Look at that!” Ashley cried, pointing to the birds.

Squinting at the sky, Bridger asked, “What? A ghost?”

“It's a bald eagle!” Jack answered. “Man, I can't believe we're this close to it. I think the eagle's trying to steal the osprey's fish. Look at the wingspan on the eagle—it must be six feet! I've got to get my camera! Ashley, can you hold my pole?”

“OK. Hurry, Jack. That'll be a great shot!”

It was all over before he could even get the lens cap off. The eagle won. Its fierce stare and curved beak must have spooked the osprey into giving up its dinner; the eagle flew up to a tree branch to enjoy its stolen meal. It's a rough world out there in the mangrove swamp, Jack decided. Big fish eat little fish, and hostile birds steal from weaker ones.

Peering through his telephoto lens, he followed along the edge of the mangrove forest, examining the weird shapes of the roots. A certain clump of them looked awfully solid for roots, he thought. He twisted the lens to get whatever it was into focus, and realized he was looking at a big bull alligator sunning himself on the bank.

Just stay where you are, big guy, Jack told it without saying so out loud. Don't come down here where we are. But even as he thought that, the alligator slowly slid into the water. In a moment Jack knew why. The gator had been scared away by the faint sound of a motor coming around the bend, to the south of the Watson Place.

A boat moved into the camera's viewfinder. And it wasn't Frankie's boat.

E
ven through the telephoto lens, Jack couldn't get a good look at whoever was piloting the boat, since the craft was still too far away. From the person's height, he guessed it was a man. Using the most powerful setting he had on his zoom lens, he watched the man halt his bullet-shaped boat beside some pilings that stuck up out of the water like matchsticks. When the man finally cut the motor, the Watson Place was quiet once more, except for the ever-present buzz of insects and the sound of water lapping against the dock.

“Hey, look up there, the birds are fighting again,” Ashley exclaimed.

Jack's attention was caught by the osprey, still trying to find dinner. It scooped up another fish, and once more the eagle came after it. This time Jack was ready. He kept firing off one camera shot after another, not sure if he got anything, because the birds moved as fast as shooting stars. This time the osprey won the battle. With its sharp beak, it tore the fish to pieces and swallowed it, triumphant.

“All right, osprey! There's justice,” Bridger said, shading his eyes as he peered into the sky. “What's the other bird to the right of it?”

“A great blue heron,” Jack answered excitedly. “I can't believe we get to see so much different wildlife on this trip. The Everglades has everything!” The heron flew gracefully overhead, silhouetted against the sky, close to where the man had stopped his boat. When the bird settled on a mangrove root, Jack finished off the roll of film, taking half a dozen pictures of the heron.

“Hey, Jack, if you're gonna fish, then do it,” Ashley complained. “If you keep taking pictures, I'm putting down the pole.”

“OK, I'm coming. Hold on just another minute.” Quickly he changed film and dropped the used roll inside one of the gear boxes. Carefully he set his camera on the splintery wooden dock, then thought better of it and put it inside the gear box with the film.

While he was fussing with the camera, he heard the engine fire up again; the boat in the distance had left the pilings and was chugging toward the Watson Place.

“Look, he's coming our way,” Bridger commented.

“He'll probably go right by us.”

“I don't think so,” Ashley said. “He's coming right for us. I don't think we should talk to strangers.”

“Ashley, for heck's sake,” Jack answered crossly, “if he stops here at this dock, what are we supposed to do—ignore him? He's just some fisherman.”

As the boat came closer, Jack admired the man's piloting skills. He was able to maneuver around Bridger's fishing line without snagging it, and he pulled up exactly at the end of the dock, cutting the motor to a slow idle. The boat bobbed in the wake, but the man moved with the boat as easily as Frankie had, as though he'd been born on the water.

“Hi, kids,” he said pleasantly. “When I saw you three all alone out here, I thought I'd check things out and make sure you're OK. Is everything all right?” The man was tall and thin, wearing an expensive-looking short-sleeved shirt that stopped just above his elbows, revealing bronzed skin the color of a penny. The blond hairs on his arms had been sun-bleached until they gave off an almost metallic sheen in the light, which seemed at odds with his coffee-brown beard. He wore knee-length khaki shorts that were surprisingly crisp, since most everything else was wilting in the Everglades humidity, including Jack. He couldn't help but think this person looked a lot more put together than Frankie.

“What makes you think we're alone?” Bridger asked, sounding wary.

“Well, there's no boat docked here that I can see, and you can't get through these islands except by way of the river. I'm guessing y'all didn't swim to the Watson Place.” He smiled broadly and asked, “Am I right?”

Ashley stayed silent, but Jack nodded in agreement. The man seemed nice enough, and he was just making sure the three of them were safe. People in Jackson Hole acted that same kind of friendly.

“Mosquiters eat you up yet?” the man asked.

“We're OK. We practically took a bath in bug repellent,” Jack told him.

“Good idea.” The man shifted his footing. “My name's Gordon,” he said. “What's your name?” He was looking directly at Jack when he asked.

“I'm Jack, this is Ashley, and that's Bridger.”

“Where y'all from?”

“Jackson Hole, Wyoming. How about you?”

“Oh, I'm from up north. Massachusetts. Well, you kids seem to be fine, so I'll be off, then. I'm fishing, too.” He swept a tanned arm in the direction he'd come from.

Gordon's boat was about half the size of Frankie's, maybe only 17 feet from bow to stern, and it didn't have a cabin like Frankie's, just a white pilot seat midships and a bench in the stern. Jack didn't know a lot about boats, but he could see that this one had a powerful outboard motor, painted a deep, shiny blue that looked as though it had been buffed and polished just that morning.

“You guys had any luck fishing the Watson Place?” Gordon asked.

“No, not yet,” Jack replied. “But we just started.”

“Well, you gotta be patient. It'll happen.” Gordon smiled, revealing straight white teeth that gleamed even whiter against his tan skin. “What are you using for bait?”

“Minnows,” Bridger answered tersely. “Maybe you'd better leave before your motor scares the fish away from here.”

Jack turned to stare at Bridger, surprised that he sounded so rude. He couldn't think of a reason Bridger was clamming up like that, not just untalkative, the way he was when he'd first met the Landons, but downright unfriendly. This guy Gordon had been nothing but nice. Maybe Bridger just didn't take to strangers. Whatever it was, his brusqueness didn't seem to bother Gordon in the least. The man kept his gaze fixed on Jack, as through the two of them were the only ones there.

“Looks like you have a nice camera. You taking lots of pictures of your trip?”

“You could see that from way downriver?” Jack asked, surprised.

“I have sharp eyes.”

Jack couldn't make out the man's eyes at all, because he wore mirrored sunglasses, and the peak of his cap was pulled pretty far down. Only his nose really showed, sunburned and peeling. The rest of his face was covered by his neatly trimmed brown beard.

“You know, I'm interested in cameras,” Gordon went on, resting his forearms on the boat's rail. “I fish for fun, but my real love is pictures. I'm actually a professional photographer.”

Ashley broke her silence to exclaim, “Really? Our dad's a professional photographer, too.” Forgetting about not talking to strangers, she jumped to her feet. “Dad's been teaching Jack how to take good pictures with his new lens. It's awesome—he can shoot anywhere with it!”

“Wow—what kind is it?” Gordon asked, ignoring Ashley, directing all his attention toward Jack.

“Canon EF. 75 to 300 millimeter.”

“Man, that's heavy duty. I was thinking about buying one of those babies myself. They're ranked as the best.” Gordon moved closer, balancing easily even when the boat rocked in the water. “Mind if I have a look at it?”

Flattered, Jack took the camera out of the gear box. Holding it up, he said, “This lens cost me a lot of money.”

“And he earned all of it himself,” Ashley added. “Last winter he shoveled snow for everybody on our street.”

“Ahhh, an entrepreneur.” Gordon tugged at the peak of his baseball cap. “Can I have a look? It's different when you actually peer through a lens in the outdoors. You get a better feel for what it can really do. I'd like to give it a test drive before I buy, you know?”

“Uh…” Jack hesitated, because he didn't want to sound impolite, and yet he didn't really want to hand over his camera. “I—don't know….”

“I'll be careful, I promise,” the man assured Jack, reaching out. When Jack hesitated, Gordon quickly jerked the camera out of his hands.

“Hey!” Jack cried.

“I'm just going to look,” Gordon answered quickly. “That won't hurt anything.”

Jack tensed. The air seemed to shift, as if the calm of the Everglades had turned threatening. Worried, he tried to figure out what to do next as Gordon moved around his boat, lifting Jack's camera in front of his face, peering in different directions.

“Give it back, OK?” Jack said, his voice low.

“This is great! I can practically see to Miami with this thing,” Gordon exaggerated. “Let me check out one more view.”

From the dock, Bridger's eyes were following Gordon's every move, the way the eagle had watched the osprey. Gordon kept changing his position in the boat, looking through the viewfinder from odd angles, ignoring Jack's outstretched hand. “Yeah,” he said again, “it's exactly the kind of lens I want.”

Unwinding his long frame, Bridger got to his feet. His jaw was set square, and his arms were crossed in front of his chest. The heels of his boots clicked hard as he strode forward. “My friend said to give it back. I suppose you ought to do that, mister. Right now.”

“You're right. I suppose I should.” Looking up, Gordon flashed a cool grin. “But I never was one to do what I should.” In one fluid, pantherlike motion, he leaped to the steering wheel. As the motor roared, he gave Jack a wave with the back of his hand. This time, Gordon didn't worry about Bridger's fishing line. The propeller caught it and flipped the pole right into the water as the boat shot forward, leaving a
V
-shaped wake that cut the water like the tip of a sharp knife.

“Hey—my camera!” Jack yelled at the top of his lungs. “Give me my camera! Where do you think you're going?” He lunged toward the edge of the dock, but Bridger caught him and held him fast. Jack was so angry he felt as though his skin would split right off him, felt bile sting his throat, felt blood pound in his temples. If it hadn't been for Bridger, he might have jumped in the water to swim after Gordon and his fast speedboat. “Come back here!” he screamed, pulling against Bridger's strong arms.

“Give it up, Jack. He's outa here.”

Too quickly the drone of the motor faded away, and in a moment, Gordon was gone. He never looked back.

“He took my camera!” Jack raged. “Why'd he—”

“He stole it,” Bridger said. “There's thieves everywhere. He took you for a sucker, Jack.”

“I'm not a sucker! He grabbed it right out of my hands!”

“You were showing it to him, some guy you've never even met before. What did you think was going to happen?”

“Jack—” Ashley began, but Jack ignored her. He was too furious with Gordon, and even more, with himself. He felt like he had to hit somebody, to vent his fury on something besides his own stupidity. It was bad enough that his camera was gone. It was worse that he'd just handed it over, like a little kid who didn't know any better. But Bridger had known. Right from the start, Bridger had figured out that Gordon was up to no good. For some reason, that made Jack even madder.

“Bridger, if you thought that guy was a crook, why didn't you say something at the beginning? Why did you let me keep talking to him like that?”

“I'm not your mother,” Bridger snapped, color rising to his cheeks. “Besides, anybody with a brain in their head wouldn't go handing over something worth mucho dollars to a total stranger.”

“Oh, so now you're saying I'm brain dead?”

“Yeah,” Bridger said, pumping his fists so tightly that the veins bulged beneath his skin. “Dumb for trusting a stranger.”

“Jack!” Ashley called again.

“Hold on, Ashley. I didn't hand it over, Bridger. He took it. Maybe I should have jumped into the boat and slugged him, maybe that's what you would have done, but that didn't seem like such a great idea at the time.”

“Look,” Bridger said, his tone softening, “I guess I'm just more careful 'cause I've seen a lot on the rodeo circuit. I learned the hard way.”

“Jack, Jack,” Ashley cried tugging on his shirt. “Pay attention to me.”

“What do you want?” he yelled, so agitated he was stuttering. “I'm t-trying to deal with my camera. Don't bother me now.”

It was Bridger who focused on Ashley's pale face, her frightened expression. “Hold it, Jack. What's wrong, Ashley?”

“Over there, swirling all around!” she said, pointing a shaking finger. “You see it? Right there!”

“See what?” Bridger asked, squinting toward where Ashley pointed.

“Blood. There's blood in the water!”