HOMOSASSA SHADOWS (13 page)

“Does that means Fishhawk and his family will be leaving, too?”

“He’s got to by the end of the week. He wants me to take the bundle burial to Tampa for him. He’s arranged for it to be re-buried next Sunday.

The ceremony will take place near some Seminole graves in a cemetery near the reservation.”

Brandy dropped her voice when she said the next words. “You mean, of course, to move the bones of the child?” The memory of the pathetic little skeleton made her uncomfortable, especially since she had met Daria. That child had been about the same size.

Hackett nodded. “He’s taken care of arrangements for the grave. My job is to deliver the package and leave. Then Fishhawk as Medicine Man takes over. He has to make sure the disturbed spirit goes west like it should and doesn’t hang around the Cultural Center.”

“So you’ve got to go to Gainesville with the pots first and then to Tampa?”

He nodded. Rain whirred against the pane and beat on the roof. “I hate to think of Annie and Daria out there tonight,” Brandy said. They ordered the prime rib special. “Grif, did you hear Mrs. Flint say Fishhawk was snooping around the site of the old homestead?”

The archaeologist’s bit down on his lower lip and looked solemn. “Fish-hawk’s likely,” he answered slowly, “to get himself in a heap of trouble.”

After dinner Brandy darted into the house through the downpour and closed the door before Hackett could step down from the van. Without the weather, she might’ve had trouble keeping him out, and she didn’t want to face a problem with Grif Hackett.

She might’ve been tempted to ask him in, to sit and talk, to get involved even more deeply, to hear him say again how much alike they were, and be forced to agree. Even drenched, Grif Hackett was a commanding figure.

Only one message flashed on the answering machine. Her friend at the paper had called back to report that she was working on the translation. A Seminole Tribune editor promised a reply from the tribe’s anthropologist in the morning. John had not phoned. She felt relieved. She didn’t want to listen to his warnings or defend herself, her job, or her postponement of a baby again.

In the living room Brandy picked up a book on Florida archaeology she’d bought at the Citrus County Historical Center. She didn’t like being ignorant about Grifs work or Seminole culture. Here she was a native Flo-ridian and she knew so little.

When she finally crawled into bed, she lay listening to rain drum on the metal roof. What would it be like to sleep under palmetto thatch in such a soaking? Tomorrow she would take Annie grocery shopping and invite Annie and Daria to stay with her. Let Fishhawk have his mumbo jumbo and his witches all to himself. She would also call Sergeant Strong.

Best of all, tomorrow she would know at last where the Seminole warrior had hidden his wretched and frightening whatever-it-was.

* * * *

Brandy was washing her breakfast dishes when the call about the translation came from the Gainesville Star. She grabbed a memo pad. “Let’s have it,” she said. “This better help.”

“Doesn’t make sense to me,” her friend said. “But the guy at the Seminole Tribune was great. He got this from an expert. Anyhow, here goes. You already have the correct translation for sugeha hoo chek . It does mean a tobacco pouch. The one you really needed was for we enkokee. It means ‘a hole in the ground with water in it,’ okay?”

“That’s it?”

“Afraid so. But it sounds like you may be onto something.”

Brandy stared at the words. A hole in the ground could be almost anything. “I’ll call if I get a real story,” she said. “In the meantime, this is only vacation time.”

Tiger Tail Island had changed over a century and a half, she thought as she hung up. Maybe there was once a spring in the woods, maybe still was. Springs were plentiful in this part of Florida; in fact the headwaters of a huge spring fed the entire Homosassa River. Settlers would logically build near a water source. Or perhaps they had a reservoir. Or it could mean an inlet, cut off from the river then by low tides. The fact that the plantation was built a few years after the Indians left might complicate finding it.

She stuffed her small note pad back into the canvas bag, checked her watch, and picked up the phone again. For the first time she reached

Detective Jeremiah Strong at his desk. “Nothing much to report, Sergeant,” she began, “but I did find out that Alma May knew Hart’s briefcase was hidden outside her house. She admitted it.”

Strong did not alter his long-suffering tone. “Not surprising,” he said. “Her fingerprints are on it. Both Mrs. Flint’s and Mrs. Grapple’s. That doesn’t prove they murdered Mr. Hart, or even found his alleged treasure. It does show they were curious, but I think we knew that.”

“You didn’t find fingerprints on Hart’s clothes? We know he was searched.”

“Can’t get fingerprints from cloth, young lady.”

“Grapple and Flint have been combing the island. I don’t believe it’s all a bottle and spoon search. They may very well be illegal pot hunters.” Brandy brightened. “I also got the translation of the Muskogee words in the lieutenant’s journal...”

Strong didn’t give her a chance to finish. He sighed. “Look, Miss O’Bannon, I have that, too. You think we’re stupid? But my men went over that area right after we found the body. Nothing. Zip. Whatever that Indian hid, it’s gone now. This Hart case isn’t the only one I’m working on. We can’t even be sure he was murdered. Maybe he was just dumb enough to gobble a whole bunch of the wrong pokeweed roots and berries.

“More than once? Even when he got sick? I think someone fed them to Hart.” Brandy tapped her pencil. She had doodled an Indian head with heavy black hair and shiny eyes. “Remember, Sergeant. Timothy Hart asked for my help.”

Strong’s voice gathered strength. “I think you’re more interested in promoting your career. Remember ‘He that passeth by and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.’”

Brandy glanced out the window at Meg, who lay under her favorite orange tree, red coat ruffled and silky ears blowing in the wind. Nothing wrong with taking my dog by the ears, she thought, but she didn’t suppose she’d grab a Rottweiler by his. “Thanks again for helpful words, Sergeant,” she said and hung up.

For a moment she actually considered Strong’s advice. It always matched John’s. Could they be right? If someone had killed Timothy Hart for his precious artifact, would that person hesitate to repeat the crime? Especially to be rid of a prying reporter? If she hadn’t divulged the comments Hart made at the bar to the Sheriff s Office, they might not be investigating his death. And she hadn’t quit nosing around.

Still, she stood and lifted up her canvas bag. She would be careful, but no one had threatened her. The island must be searched again. It didn’t sound as if the Sheriff s Office planned a second excursion.

Outside the rain had stopped, but a gray sky arched over the trees and canal. The air was still washed with the clean smell of rain. Although the wind had shifted to the east, the water ran fairly high. Brandy crossed the road to the boat slip and studied the tide chart pinned to her pontoon’s console. A steady east wind would blow the water toward the Gulf. That meant low water. Better get cracking. Her commitment to Hart wasn’t her only one. She had also made a promise to Annie Pine.

* * * *

When Brandy reached the end of the narrow trail to the Seminoles’ camp, she watched Annie pluck little Daria out of her pen made from brush and cedar branches and dust off her overalls. Today Annie wore jeans, and she had pulled both her hair and her daughter’s into tight pony tails. She slipped on a light-weight jacket hanging in the chickee and guided the little girl’s arms into her tiny one. The child screwed up her mouth with the effort, then grinned.

“Ready for a ride to the store?” Brandy asked.

“We’re ready. Daria likes to go places,” Annie said. “She’s not particular where.”

“Go, go,” cooed Daria.

Sheets of heavy plastic still hung around the chickee. Apparently the little family had weathered the rain. It wouldn’t have been so cozy in the nineteenth century.

“Be back soon as I can,” Annie called to Fishhawk.

He had piled flat rocks in a circle, lit a fire nearby to heat water in an iron pot, and was lashing together a ring of split saplings shoulder high to curve above the stones. On a nearby stump lay a fat pouch of tobacco. The makeshift sweat lodge, Brandy supposed. She thought Fishhawk’s leathery face looked more strained than the day before. Lines cut deep in his forehead and around his mouth. He set aside the cord he was using to bind the stalks and gave his wife a brisk good-bye wave.

“No hurry. I’ve got work to do.” As they started back down the trail, with Brandy in the rear, she noticed that Fishhawk did not turn again toward his sweat lodge. Instead he set off to the north. Brandy wondered if he again planned to survey the site of the old Flint homestead. Alma May wouldn’t like it.

“Fishhawk couldn’t keep the fire going last night,” Annie said, helping Daria into the boat, “but I brought plenty of blankets from Tampa. Thank the Lord we have bug repellent. They don’t spray out here for mosquitoes like they do in town.”

Annie cuddled Daria on the rear bench of the boat as they inched their way down Petty Creek and then bucked through the choppy water toward the marina. Within thirty minutes they had pulled into the dock.

“I’d like you and Daria to move in with me for a few days,” Brandy said, looping a line around the end cleat. “Let Fishhawk do his thing by himself. You might as well be comfortable.”

At first Annie didn’t answer. Ducking her head against the wind, her oval face solemn, she led the way through the marina lot, past the gas pumps, to a heavy pick-up plastered with “Save the Everglades” stickers—Fishhawk’s truck bought with casino income, Brandy imagined. Too bad the white man’s money couldn’t go to the Seminoles who suffered a century and a half ago. Still, there was ironic justice in the source of the Indians’ income now. She wished those dead tribesmen who’d been hounded into the Everglades could know.

Annie was not considering Seminole income, however, but Brandy’s offer. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “Fishhawk warned me not to come to Tiger Tail Island, but I worry about him. I thought he’d be better off if we were with him. I don’t want him to get too deep into his grandfather’s stuff. He needs to stay in touch with this century. It’s where we live. I’ll tough it out another night. After that, we may take you up on your offer. Or maybe just hang a ride back to Tampa.”

At the supermarket, while waiting for Annie to stock up on staples like bread and grits, Brandy recognized the tall, supple figure of Bibi Brier in the line at the cash register. As soon as the graduate student saw Brandy, her bored stare shifted into a frown. Brandy stepped over to speak. “How’s it going in Chassahowitzka with the whooping cranes?”

Bibi shrugged. “The ground’s too swampy to be good for them. We’re repairing the substation for roosting.” She moved forward to scoot a six pack and chips further down the counter. “The whoopers should begin to fly out sometime this month. I’m observing and helping out until they do.” She tossed back her long brown hair, then peered back at Brandy. “You still hanging out with Dr. Hackett?”

A man like Grif, Brandy knew, must have many female admirers among his students. A jealous one was easy to spot. Maybe Bibi supposed Brandy was the associate professor’s newest conquest. “He’s giving me useful information for an article I’m working on,” Brandy said, and was not surprised to see no change in the sullen expression.

When Annie finished shopping, she drove the pickup to the marina, and together they transferred her grocery bags to Brandy’s boat. They had scarcely pulled away from the pier for the return trip when little Daria leaned out to starboard and pointed into the river, black eyes shining. “Mana,” she squealed.

Brandy’s gaze followed her finger. A circle of ripples danced in the water. Annie smiled. “Manatees. She’s seen them at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park.” Quickly Brandy cut the engine.

A broad back the color and texture of an elephant’s but the size of a small walrus rose sedately to the surface. Next to it a small snout poked above water, then a four-foot, rounded body bobbed up beside the first. In a few seconds both sank again beneath the water, cruised under the boat, and swam away side by side. “Mother and calf,” Annie said. “Such gentle creatures. I love to see them. They’re rare because they’re such slow breed-

Brandy nodded. A sighting was always magical. Manatees, at last count about two thousand, were rarer even than Florida Seminoles, who numbered about 2,500, but this mother manatee was doing her bit. So were Fishhawk and Annie with Daria. Ironic, Brandy thought to herself. There were funds to preserve whooping cranes and manatees but none to preserve the endangered Seminole and his culture—unless the United States counted the money lost to them in gambling.

When the boat neared the Flint house, Brandy broached the subject of Timothy Hart. “Did you know the Sheriff s Office thinks a man was murdered last Thursday at this end of the Island? Pokeweed poisoning.”

On the boat’s rear bench Annie lifted Daria into her lap. “Fishhawk told me. You know how he is. He says he can ward off the evil on the island. So he’s purifying everything—including himself. He carries around a deerskin bundle his grandfather got from his great-grandfather. They were all medicine men. It’s a small one, not the big deal they use at the Green Corn Dance. The contents are secret.”

Brandy recalled some references she’d been reading about the Seminole people. “Anthropologists who studied the Seminoles in the past published a few medicine bundle ingredients, like red ocher, crystals, and herbs, but I know bundles vary. Some are supposed to smell of red bay and cedar.”

Annie’s face grew solemn. “All have power. It’s true. I couldn’t tell you any real details, even if I knew more about them.” She smiled suddenly. “Fishhawk collects ginseng roots. Old-time Seminoles used them as medicine. Now they’re in all the health food stores. So much for dumb Indians.” She shook her head. “But people today don’t use ginseng to keep away ghosts. And have you heard the chanting?” She rolled her eyes to the sky. “One chant was supposed to paralyze your enemies, at least for a while. He’s using that one.” She shook her dark head. “Didn’t do a lot of good during the wars.”