The Man Who Ivented Florida (17 page)

Sponges consisted of a cooperating community of different cells, and Ford was remembering something he had read. A biologist had done a census on a loggerhead sponge, counting more than sixteen thousand animals, most of them snapping shrimp and crabs, living in the canal system of that single sponge.

He looked up from the microscope and readjusted his wire glasses. "I don't suppose you could bring the pitcher of iced tea in here? It's so damn hot for October."

"No lie, October's always hot. Just as soon as I finish sorting these papers."

Ford was nodding his head. Hot, hot, hot. Through the window, the noon sky was a white haze, the bay greasy flat. The marina baked at the water's edge, the boats immobile in their slips, gray and blue and fiberglass red. Except for Mack sitting on his chair in the office and one of the live-aboards standing on the dock hosing the deck of his boat, there wasn't much movement. Everybody off at work, or maybe sipping beer at the Lazy Flamingo, trying to stay cool. Ford said, "I don't know, maybe I should get air conditioning. I keep thinking about it."

"You've got the ceiling fans, and you get the nice breeze off the water. Air conditioning's not natural, man. We've raised a whole generation of canned-air zombies. My daughter, Nichola, that's not going to happen to her. You know the type: Give me Freon or give me death. It goons up the brain cells. I know about that stuff." Tomlinson had separated the papers into little piles, patted them, then went out the screen door.

Ford heard the volume on his Maxima marine stereo system kick up, Jimmy Buffett singing "Cowboy in the Jungle," which flashed Tuck Gatrell into his mind. Wiry man with great big brown wrists and wild blue eyes ... he looked so damn much older than Ford had expected.

Tomlinson came back with the iced tea and a can of beer for himself. He picked up a packet of papers to show Ford. "These are all newspaper stories. You look at them?"

Ford said, "Nope," returning his attention to the dissection scope, the Wolfe Zoom binocular system. He loved the feel of it, the finely machined parts and the superb objective system, solid beneath his cheek and big right hand.

Tomlinson said, "These stories are all about miraculous cures, about healing waters and mineral springs. Some of these stories are from the . . . yeah, from the
National Enquirer.
Then some other newspapers—"

"Are they all Xeroxed?"

Tomlinson said, "Let's see... yeah, all but a couple. How'd you know that?"

Ford said, "Because I know Tuck."

Tomlinson was reading, not aloud, but making a noise with his mouth, skimming the stories one by one. He said, "There's a well near Lourdes, in the south of France, where people go to be healed by drinking ... hey, I know that place. It's where Saint Bernadette saw the Virgin." Tomlinson grinned. "Chalk one up for parochial schooling, huh?" He was reading again. "Here's another about a pond in Quintana Roo—that's Mexico, right? Cured a bunch of people with yellow fever. A river off the Zambezi, a stream in County Galway, Ireland . . . here's one about a lake in Mongolia where people bathe and live to be two hundred years old. All these places, like local treasures. That's what this one's about—"

Ford said, "Uh-huh," using surgical scissors to clip open another tiny section of the sponge. The sponge was air-light, almost hollow. The animal seemed to be all fiber and air. What kept it alive?

Tomlinson said, "Now here's a couple of stories about the state planning to acquire land around Mango to create a park that adjoins Everglades National Park."

Ford said, "They're originals, not copies."

"Right! You did look at this stuff. Let's see"—he was leafing through the piles—"and here's a plat map of your uncle's property. He had . . . one hundred twenty-seven acres—'more or less,' it says—and he sold off all but twenty-five to a company called ... It was right here, the copy of a letter on legal stationery."

"Who's the attorney?"

"Wait a minute ... he sold it all to a company called Development Unlimited, which it says is part of some kind of enterprise— Kamikaze? Geeze, that's what it says. Sounds Japanese."

Ford said, "I wouldn't think they'd name a company that."

"Why not?
Kamikaze
means 'divine wind.' You know, I speak quite a bit of Japanese—oh, here's the attorney. Lemar Flowers, that's the man's name, the guy who handled the deal for your uncle. Sounds like your uncle sold off his property, but now he's found this spring, he wants it back."

Ford was removing the slide from the microscope, thinking that if he transferred more sponges and tunicates into his big tank, he might not need such an elaborate filtering system. They were perfect cleaning systems, perfectly designed. He said, "What's the date on the newspaper story about the state planning to acquire the land?"

Tomlinson picked up the papers again. "December of last year."

"And when did he sell his property?"

"Ah . . . February this year. Three months later."

"Are there any dates on the copies about those places, the different springs around the world? Not on the stories, but on the photocopies themselves?"

Tomlinson said, "No-o-o, but he had to start collecting them after he sold his land. If he'd known about the spring and believed he could make a lot of money on it, why would he have sold?"

Ford said, "Yeah. Why would he?"

A
few minutes before Angela Walker pulled into the drive, Tuck and Joseph were walking homeward along the bay road after eating a late breakfast at Sally Carmel's. Tuck's dog, Gator, and his old Appaloosa, Roscoe, followed along behind, and every few yards the horse would nose up and butt Tucker in the back.

Finally, Tuck turned and said, "Dang it, Roscoe, if I'd wanted to ride, I'd a brung a saddle!"

The horse shook its head, mane flying. To Joseph, Tucker said, "The old fool's been acting like a colt ever since his
cojone-e-es
growed back." Like he was complaining, but smiling because he was pleased. "Wants to head out on the trail, see if he can find a friend."

Joseph recognized the manipulative tone; knew this was not just some innocent comment, and he replied to the declaration it was. "I ain't got a horse. I can't go on no saddle trip—and I ain't riding double with you."

Tuck began to protest but then dropped the pretense. Joseph was too suspicious for it to be any fun. He said, "I can get you a horse. They got a bunch of them up to Cypress Gate Acres."

Joseph thought for a moment, couldn't place the name—Cypress Gate Acres—then remembered the big development they'd built in the north part of Everglades County with all the houses and canals and even a nice shopping center with a store where Joseph had once stopped to buy beer. He asked, "They sell horses up there, too?"

"A few of them people keep horses. I reckon one of them's bound to be overstocked. Little five-acre ranches with corrals where they teach the horses to jump. Jumping horse, that'd be nice to ride, huh?"

"If I had enough money for a horse," Joseph said, "I wouldn't 'a been at that county rest home. I'd a been at the other place, that Sunset Retirement place, the one that plays church bells every night. I heard they got a sauna bath there."

"First time I ever heard you worry about money."

Joseph knew what that meant. "Uh-oh," he said.

"Uh-oh what? What's that supposed to mean?"

"You plan to steal it. The horse. That's what it means."

"Not steal, just borrow it. Take it for a test drive, then pay when we're flush. I'm no horse thief."

"Just long as it's not some kid's. I'm not gonna make some kid cry by stealing his horse."

Tucker said, "We'll find one with a fat owner. Do the horse a favor. Besides, we used to graze cattle up that way and I don't remember giving anyone permission to build a dang city. 'Bout time we got a little payback."

Joseph was thinking about the last horse he'd owned, a tall chestnut gelding, seventeen hands high, worked cattle on free rein and would hold until dawn. Buster, that was the horse's name. But then Joseph had gotten married the second time, moved to Miami with the woman who sold real estate and who apparently liked bird-watchers, and Buster had jumped the fence at the place he was being boarded and got hit by a cement truck. That was . . . twenty-five years ago?

Tuck was talking about the trip, taking horses and bedrolls, saying how they'd ride right across the Everglades, pick up Ervin T. Rouse, Tucker's fiddle-playing friend, bring him back to live in Mango. That was part of his plan. Find about a half dozen of their old friends, get them to drinking the water. Then when the government people said the water was a fake, Tuck would say, "Look at these old-timers. They don't look spry to you?" Make enough money to buy his land back that way. Only why the state would want to give up its park idea, Joseph didn't know. Not that it mattered. Joining up with Tuck was better than going back to his chikee hut in the Glades, staring at the old
Playboy
calendar on the wall.

Tuck had been naming names, people he wanted to see again. Then he said, "The only one we can't take horses to is Henry Short. That little mulatto bastard's still alive. Must be ninety-five. I hear he's squatting down in the islands again, that patch of mound. Hell, it's so far back in, I doubt you even know it. No Name Mound, that's what I used to call it when I was fish guiding."

Joseph asked, "The mound back in from Lostman's River or the one north, closer to Loser's Creek?" When Joseph was little, in the years before his grandfather died drunk in Immokalee, the old man had taken him to all the mounds to camp and fish. All told, it took the whole summer. But the one near Lostman's was so jun-gled up, they hadn't stayed more than a night, and his grandfather had refused even to stop at the other mound—it was a "power place," his grandfather had said—whatever the hell that meant. "Indians, we never stay here. Too many spirits. And the mosquitoes are bad, too."

"The Loser's Creek mound?" Joseph said. That would be just like Henry Short, staying on a bad mound.

"That's the one. The water's so thin, you can't even use a motor. Hell, maybe we
could
ride the horses!"

Joseph was thinking about Henry Short, wondering whether he really was alive. Sometimes Tuck talked just to talk, making up things, but it was interesting to hear Henry's name after so many years. A long time ago, a bad man by the name of Ed Watson had lived in the islands. Henry Short was supposedly the man who shot him. Shot him first anyway, before the whole island of Chokoloskee joined in, shooting the corpse so they could all say they did it. Watson had supposedly murdered a lot of people—shot Belle Starr out west before running south—but then he ran into Henry. As a boy, Joseph had seen Henry once, a small, creamy-skinned man with funny-looking eyes, like his body was there but his mind was off living someplace else. Him carrying a shotgun in the crook of his arm, standing there beside the Smallwood General store in Chokoloskee, quiet among the white people, and scary-looking because of it. At least he had scared Joseph.

Joseph
started to say something about Henry Short, ask whether Tuck was joking, but instead he said something else, figuring Tuck wouldn't tell him the truth, anyway.

"Tuck?"

"You keep interruptin', Joe, how you gonna learn anything?" Tucker had stopped at the shell drive to his ranch house, studying the small white car there sitting in the shade and the woman in the nice clothes standing beside it.

"Tuck, when I get my horse, I think I'm gonna call him Buster."

"Well now, that ought to bring us some luck." Tuck was walking again, fixing a friendly expression on his face. "Ought to attract every cement truck for a thousand miles." Then he said, "Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking." Meaning the woman.

As if Joseph wouldn't have done that, anyway.

Tucker
was on his best behavior—Joseph could see that. Smiling at the woman policeman, saying, "Yes, ma'am," "No, ma'am," "Wish I knew, ma'am," to almost every question, looking at the ground, his thumbs over his belt, his face shaded by the brim of his cowboy hat. The two of them standing, leaning against the porch railing after the woman said she'd been sitting for two hours, the long drive down, so she didn't feel like taking that chair on the porch. To which Tuck had said, "Ma'am, I hate to see a young woman pretty as you out in the heat. So why don't we move to the shade and I'll bring you a nice glass of sweet tea."

Oh, he could be charming . . . and the way he acted even older and more hobbled-up than he was. Grandfatherly—that was it, the way he was behaving. Which made Joseph think the old bastard knew more than he was saying, the woman asking him about three men she said had come to the islands and disappeared.

Tuck hadn't mentioned that before. Some famous fisherman and two men hired by the state, sent down to check out Tuck's land, or what was once his land, so they could present the information at some meeting so the government could get its permits and do whatever it had to do. That hearing Tuck had told him about, only now the state was having to hustle around, do a lot of retesting because nobody could find the men who had done the original testing.

"There's an element of law called the chain of custody," the woman, Agent Walker, said, looking right at Tuck. "There's a strict procedure for taking samples and having them tested. The bottles, the envelopes—whatever—they have to go straight from one person's hands to another person's hands, everything sealed, labeled, and signed for. Now those men have disappeared, the chain of custody has been broken because some of those sam-pies—I don't know what, soil and water, maybe?—they disappeared with them."

Tucker looked real serious and concerned. "Makes you want to move to Canada, don't it?" he said.

"Something else," Walker said. "I understand the state is having trouble finding the principals who purchased your land. What was it, some kind of blind land trust when you sold it? The hundred acres. So legally, I guess there's no way they can find out for sure who owns it. At least not yet."