Fallen Out: Jesse McDermitt Series, The Beginning (19 page)

Deuce went on to tell the story again of his dad’s passing and last wishes and Rusty said, “Real sorry to hear about that. Russ saved my ass quite a few times when I got falling down drunk at Whisper Alley, on Oki. Anything I can do for you, son, you just name it.” Then he looked around, studying all three men the way only someone who’d once been one of them could and said, “You boys got hair too short for civilians, but too long to be Marines. Stationed down at Key Weird?”

“No sir,” Art replied. “Dam Neck, VA.” He offered nothing further. But nothing more was needed.

Rusty and I looked at one another, then both nodded as Rusty said, “Nuff said about that, then.” Dam Neck is home to some of the Navy’s finest warriors, Seal Team Six, now known as Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU for short. They are a very tight-knit bunch, who seldom socialize outside their team and rarely spoke of their jobs. Rusty went to the bar and came back with a bottle of Pusser’s Navy Rum and five glasses. We toasted Russ and other lost warriors, then the sea stories started. After Rusty and I told the three men a little about our own backgrounds in Marine Force Recon, the three SEALS relaxed somewhat. By midnight, Jimmy had come and gone, there were two empty bottles on the table and five fairly drunk Special Operators around it. I learned that Deuce was a Lieutenant Commander and Tony and Art were both Petty Officers, First Class. Equal in rank to a Marine Major and Staff Sergeants.

Some time about 0100, Rusty said, “You know, Jesse here earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, when he and your dad was in Grenada.” I rolled my eyes at my old friend, but there was no stopping him now. “He was just promoted to Sergeant and transferred back to Second Force Recon, up to Lejeune. Took a bullet in the shoulder, but kept fighting his way toward a machine gun nest. He finally got close enough to lob a grenade in to take it out.”

“Dad talked about that action a few times,” Deuce said. “He always said it was one of the most rewarding times he had while he was in the Corps.”

The sea stories went on and on, until Julie finally called it a night for us about 0300. By then, the bar was empty. Somehow, I had found my way back to Dockside, where I took my new flats skiff I kept there for when I came down to take out a charter or cavort with the locals, and miraculously made it home. The trip was either twenty-five miles across some very skinny water, or nearly forty miles if I’d followed the channels, without becoming a permanent part of the Seven Mile Bridge. At least this is what I thought must have happened. I don’t remember much after leaving the Anchor.

Actually, my house is little more than a shack on stilts, just over a thousand square feet, with a large combination living room, dining room and kitchen in front and a bedroom and head in back. But it’s solid, keeps the summer rain and winter wind out. As far as solitude, it’s better than sleeping on the boat, though not nearly as luxurious. I’d built this place by hand on an island in the Content Keys, northwest of Big Pine Key. This group of islands is mostly uninhabited scrub and mangrove covered swamps and sand bars. When I retired, I’d used up nearly all my savings which I’d scraped together over twenty years in the Corps, supplemented by an inheritance from my grandfather about six years ago, to buy Gaspar's Revenge and this tiny island. It was no more than two acres in size at low tide. It had no beach and the water around it was so shallow you could walk to any of the neighboring islands and not get your shorts wet.

It took me a whole winter and spring to dig a channel by hand from Harbor Channel, just deep enough for my little skiff to get to the island. There I’d carved out a part of it and spent all of the summer building my stilt house above the channel. I’d planned to make the channel wide enough and deep enough to get Gaspar’s Revenge through it, but it proved to be too much work to do by hand. One day I’ll rent a dredge and do it, but for now I’ll keep running back and forth in the skiff.

I’d gone up to the commercial docks in Miami during that summer and scrounged through the discarded piles of pallets. There were lots of them from South America and I managed to find a lot of mahogany planks and quite a bit of discarded lignum vitae posts, along with other hardwoods rare in the states, but plentiful down there. The siding on the walls of my house is mostly mahogany. The roof is corrugated steel I’d scrounged from the Naval Air Station in Key West when they’d torn down some of the old Quonset huts that had been there since before WWII. The floor is fourteen feet above the narrow channel at high spring tide, just enough room for the Revenge. The floors, studs and beams are solid lignum vitae and it was through these heavy boards that I could now hear the constant banging noise. My little house could withstand anything Mother Nature could conjure up, but something down below was trying its best to knock it down.

I finally gave up trying to ignore the noise from below the house and the pounding at my temples and slowly got up from the bed. It was hot.
Too hot to be morning
, I thought. I went to the head to take a leak, then walked out onto the deck and saw that I was right. The sun was directly overhead and though it was looking like another hot south Florida October day, there was a strong wind blowing out of the southeast, churning up white caps out on the flats as far as I could see. The shallow waters north of Big Pine Key were normally flat in late summer and fall. Usually not even enough wind to make a ripple, unless a squall blew in from the Gulf. I figured there must be a storm brewing and the pounding I’d been hearing must be my skiff banging against the dock below. I went down and found that the skiff looked like it had been tied up by some rookie sailor, and was indeed banging against the pilings. My skiff is an eighteen foot Maverick Mirage, with a 150 horsepower Yamaha engine, under the poling platform. It’s a fast little boat and can handle the skinny water around Florida Bay with ease.

“Jesse,” I addressed myself again, “you really outdid yourself this time. Lucky that old skiff ain’t halfway to Cape Sable by now.” I tightened the mooring lines, then went back up to the house to get some water, aspirin and food for my growling stomach. The pounding in my head finally subsided a little, as I wondered how I’d gotten home. It wasn’t like me to not remember a fifteen to thirty mile boat ride. But I must have done it as there was nobody else on the island. After three bottles of water, four aspirin, and a ham sandwich, I felt nearly human again and thought back to the events of the previous evening.

Russ Livingston drowned? It was a stretch to think that’d be how Russ would leave this world,
I thought. The man practically lived in the water. He was an accomplished diver, as was I. We’d once swam completely around the island that Hammocks Beach State Park was situated on, near Camp Lejeune, a distance of some six miles, half of it in open ocean, just on a dare. In the fall of 1982, we were on leave and had been diving for lobster off Fort Pierce and found something far more interesting. The whole area of ocean from Saint Lucie Inlet to Sebastian Inlet was where the 1715 “Plate Fleet”, twelve treasure laden ships, had sunk in a hurricane. While trying to get at a really big and exceptionally stubborn lobster, I pulled out a big black rock from under a ledge. Once the lobster was in the bag, I turned and found Russ examining the rock I’d pulled out. It was nearly two feet long and about a foot square, black and heavily encrusted with barnacles. Even under water, it was very heavy. I’d almost dislocated my shoulder dislodging it to get at that lobster. I tapped Russ on the shoulder and gave him the universal “What’s up?” sign with my hands out, palms up and a shrug. He replied by rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together in the universal “Money” sign. When we got back up to the boat, Russ said, “Jesse, I think that might be silver.” We rigged a line around the rock and hoisted it into the skiff. Out of the water, it was really heavy.

Since the whole coast there was still an active salvage site of the 1715 Fleet, we knew we had to keep our find on the down low. Russ said he knew a guy that could help us out. Turned out, we’d found 256 silver bars, encrusted together, about four inches long and one inch square. They must have been in a chest and the wood had just rotted away over nearly three hundred years, since it was wedged under that ledge. Each bar weighed about ten ounces, giving us a total of over 160 pounds. Russ’s friend gave us $100,000 in cold, hard cash, no questions asked. Russ, being the man he was, didn’t want a share of it at first. “You found it, Jesse. It wouldn’t be right for me to take any money.”

“Russ,” I’d said, “I found a big, black rock, trying to get at a $5 lobster. You’re the one that recognized it for what it was. Half of this is yours. No more argument.”

Russ was hooked. He had just been promoted to Staff Sergeant earlier that year and was due to reenlist in the spring. He decided to pass on it and left the Corps after twelve years, to devote his time to hunting treasure.
Well,
I thought,
we’re not getting any younger.
Russ must have been in his early fifties at least. But still, something kept gnawing at the back of my mind, that I ju
st couldn’t let go.

Wayne Stinnett is a Veteran of the
United States Marine Corps. After serving he worked as a deckhand, commercial fisherman, Divemaster, taxi driver, construction manager, and commercial truck driver. He currently lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Travelers Rest, SC with his wife and youngest daughter. They also have three other grown children, three grandchildren, two dogs and a whole flock of parakeets. He’s the founder of the local Marine Corps League detachment in nearby Greenville and rides with the Patriot Guard Riders. He was born in St. Albans, WV, and grew up in Melbourne, FL. He's also lived in Marathon, FL, in the fabulous Florida Keys and Cozumel, Mexico.

Wayne began writing in 1988
, penning three short stories before setting it aside to deal with life as a new father. He took it up again at the urging of his third wife and youngest daughter, who love to hear his ‘sea stories’. Those three short stories formed the basis of his first novel, Fallen Palm. After a year of working on it, he discovered self-publication and offered it for sale.

Since then, he’s written two more in the Jesse McDermitt action/adventure series
and now this prequel. His next novel should be out late in 2014.