The Man Who Ivented Florida (26 page)

"You like the idea of that Cypress Gate horse owner recognizing that horse on the television and having us thrown in jail?" Tucker leaned forward and spit over the porch railing to punctuate his point. "It ain't like that man ain't gonna have time to look. With them chickens around, he'll be up watching the television all night long."

"What're you talking about? I ain't being on no television. Buster ain't, either."

Tucker stood and stretched. "We'll see about that." He looked at Joseph's soggy T-shirt. "Hope you didn't run yourself outta energy. We got a long ride today. Next day, too, and the next day after that. Hey—" Joseph felt Tuck squinting at him. "What the hell happened to your hair? A big chunk missing . . . ?"

Joseph let his breath out, some of the anger going with it. "The hippie come down, Marion's friend. He cut some of it with a knife. Pulled a couple out by the roots, too. It hurt."

"Jesus H. Christ, and you let him?"

"He don't make no sense when he talks, but he's . nice. Sure. He didn't take much."

"Probably using your hair to make a voodoo doll right this minute, sticking pins in it. Or rolling it in paper to smoke like mary-wanna. Don't you be givin' away your body parts to no hippie."

Joseph didn't reply. He was thinking about Buster, how silly he looked with those spots painted on his rump. But Tuck was right—there was no denying it was a smart idea to disguise the horse just in case the owner came looking around. He said, "Every day, I been walking up to the main road, then running back. Well, kinda joggin' back. I can't run too fast no more. Sally loaned me a watch. I been timin' myself."

"That's all I need—for you to die on me now." Tucker snorted, disgusted. "All the problems I got."

"You don't seem too worried to me."

"Hah! You ain't paying attention, that's why. I got a stolen horse, a couple thousand stolen milk jugs up in the loft—"

"You got the bottles?"

"No thanks to you." Tuck spit again and turned toward the screen door. "I got a woman cop snoopin' around askin' questions, callin' me on the phone. I got them state park people breathin' down my neck, helicopters flyin' all round like I robbed a bank. My tallywhacker ain't been hard since the night I fell asleep against the icebox, and Ervin T. Rouse was expectin' us
yesterday.
Now you're out trottin' around in the heat, seein' if you can get a heart attack. My schedule's too tight for funerals, Joe."

"I run my fastest time. Ran almost the whole way. It's because of the water."

Tucker said, "When the television people ask you, you tell 'em just that. Sell that water. Now you go saddle up the horses."

Agent
Angela Walker, now driving one of the department's white Dodge Aries to save miles on her new Acura, slowed for the turnoff to Mango, scanning the narrow road ahead for passing cars or crazy drunks. This road across the Everglades had seen its share of carnage, and she had no intention of becoming one of its statistics. All along the way, there had been vultures on the wires, red-faced or black-hooded, as if they were just waiting for an accident to happen. Sitting on the PORT OF THE ISLANDS signs, the wooden AIRBOAT RIDE billboards. Gave her the shivers, seeing those evil-looking birds.

The turn was clear . . . the pitted macadam road to Mango empty, glittering in the morning heat as it curved into the mangroves and disappeared. But ahead, on the main road, she could see something—cars pulled off to the side . .. blue lights flashing . . . looked like a couple of figures on horseback, too. If it was a wreck, she didn't want to see it—not that it would have bothered her. At least not that she would have shown any emotion. She'd been through emergency driving school and the combat driving school in Pennsylvania, and they had shown the bloody films of highway accidents, complete with sound. She knew how a professional was supposed to react in those situations. But the Florida Department of Criminal 'Law didn't work accidents.

Still, her instincts told her to go have a look ... something about those people on horseback.

She checked the rearview mirror to make certain some fool wasn't passing her at the last minute, then accelerated back to highway speed, past the turnoff to Mango.

The car with the flashing lights was FHP, Florida Highway Patrol, black and gold—they drove Fords—and there were other cars pulled off into the shade of a little roadside picnic area. A couple of vans with television logos on the doors. Three or four cheap compacts with PRESS plates.

Something must have happened—all these journalists, and no free booze.

No bottles she could see on the picnic tables, anyway, set beneath cypress trees beside a creek that had white flowers floating in it. Some kind of lilies, maybe—she didn't know. But there he was, right in the thick of it: the old man, Tucker Gatrell, sitting on a horse, with people standing around him, some of them holding cameras, looking up at him and talking. Another man beside him on a horse ... an Indian-looking man wearing a cowboy hat that was even dirtier than the saggy felt mess Gatrell wore. And a sleepy-looking cow with horns, too, packs tied to its back. The Indian had the cow on a lead rope.

Crazy old crackers . . . probably drunk. And me with questions to ask . . .

Trying to access some of the cop cynicism she was trying to cultivate, but it didn't last. There was something about Gatrell that she liked, something that amused her at least. Then she realized what it was: He reminded her of her grandfather. Wild old man—Popee, she'd called him. Said a lot with his eyes but not much with his mouth. The relative she most favored, her father had observed more than once—always said it like a criticism too

Well, that was it, the thing that had been tickling at the back of her mind every time she saw Gatrell. He was a little bit like a southern Popee, with those narrow eyes and see-everything smile.

Not that it would influence the way she handled the investigation.

Walker parked in the shade and pulled on her blue blazer before getting out, touching the pocket to make sure her ID wallet was there.

She could see the state trooper: a short black man,^very thick shoulders, and with a belly pushing against his gray uniform. The straw patrolman's hat he wore made him look taller, but not much. He was standing to the rear of the small group of people that circled the old man's horse, shaking his head about something. Some kind of dialogue going on between the trooper and the old man. Or maybe he was just listening—yeah, that's what the trooper was doing, because when he saw her approach, he stepped away and said, "You might as well keep on moving, miss. I'm breaking this up right now. Show's over."

Seeing the look of acknowledgment in his eyes—one black person meeting another in this isolated southern place. That look, a brief softening of the facial features, was not so welcoming as some probably thought. Sometimes there was suspicion in the exchange, sometimes animosity. An "I know what I'm doing here— but what are you doing here?" look that Walker ignored.

"I didn't come to see a show." She took out her ID and flipped it open. "I stopped to see if you needed any help, Officer Cribbs." He had the silver name badge over his pocket, black lettering.

The trooper leaned to read. "Flor-dah Department—" Then he looked up at her, a little startled. "Florida Department of Criminal Law? What, you people driving around, checking up on the FHP?" as if he was joking, but he wasn't—she could read that in his expression. He looked guarded.

"No, just on my way to an interview and saw your flashers, these guys on horses. Thought I'd see if I could offer any assistance."

"Howdy there, Miz Walker! You lookin' particularly pretty this morning." Tucker Gatrell was calling to her over the heads of people. Grinned at her, teeth missing, then took his hat off in a respectful old-time way. "Don't she look pretty, though, Joe? That's Miz Walker." Tucker turned to the other man, the Indian-looking man, but the Indian hardly moved to stare. Just sat on his horse, glum-eyed, miserable, as if he hated being the center of attention.

Walker smiled, nodded.

Gatrell hollered, "Be with you soon's I'm done getting interviewed," while the trooper said, "You
know
these men?" Incredulous.

"The one, I do. I've met him. It had something to do with a case."

Trooper Cribbs said, "Running dope, I bet. These old guys down here that know the islands, I've worked a couple of those calls with the DEA. They call us in sometimes."

"No, not drugs," letting him know with her tone she wasn't going to say anything more about it. "What's going on here?"

"You tell me, if you know the guy. I got a call to check it out. Some motorists were complaining about men on horses backing up traffic. I came out of Marco Island and found them about five minutes later, 'bout one klick down the road. These two guys towing that steer. Not right out on the road, but close enough on the shoulder to slow things down."

The trooper's gun belt creaked when he leaned his weight on it—probably a Vietnam vet, Walker guessed, from his age and the way he said
klick.
Kilometer.

"That's why all these newspeople are here?"

"Wait, I was just telling you," Cribbs said. "The one guy there, the white, the Caucasian guy, he won't pull over when I tell him to stop. Can you see me? Driving along with my window open, about two miles an hour, and this old dude won't pull over." He was chuckling, looking at her to see how informal he could tell it. "I mean, what am I gonna do, run him off the road? Him and his horse. He says, 'I've got an appointment at the picnic place,' pointing up here. He says, 'Us cattlemen got a right to move our livestock, road or no road. Check the law books; they never took out the part about open range.' The old guy just chattering away, me listening, with the window down."

"Where does he say he's going?" Walker was listening to Cribbs but looking at Gatrell, who was still sitting on his horse talking nonstop and-gesturing with his hands to the men and women looking up at him.

"That's what he's been telling them about," Cribbs said. "Next thing I know, these news cars start pulling in. They're looking for some kind of protest cattle drive someone's called them about, and they are slightly piss—not too happy about finding only two guys on horses and one cow. But they stuck around and listened anyway, took a few shots. Figured since they were already here, I guess. One of them tried to get some quotes out of me, but we've got a no-comment policy; everything has to be cleared. Same at the FDLC?"

Walker said, "Yes, that's the same."

Cribbs didn't say anything for a moment, just stood there puffed out in his uniform, leather creaking. Then said, "You going to be around a while, maybe we could get some coffee together. Fve got a call in now, checking on that law thing, the legal aspects, I mean, of them riding horses and having that cow on the road. I've got some time, once I get this squared away."

Walker knew he had looked at her left hand, the bare ring finger, but she had pretended not to notice. This middle-aged guy hitting on her already, and she'd hardly said two words.

"I'd like to, but I'm in kind of a hurry—"

"Hey," Cribbs said, "that's the dispatcher calling now," walking toward his car. "Don't run off."

Walker stepped into the shade, closer to the horses. The mosquitoes were thick, buzzing around her head, covering her legs. Swat them and she'd have blood splotches all over her panty hose, so she shifted from one leg to another, trying to spook them away.

That's what the two horses were doing—the cow, too—moving their legs, swatting with their tails. She heard Tucker Gatrell say, "I don't want to tell you your business, but you television people want, you can follow us the whole way. Ervin T. Rouse, he won't mind. He's used to being famous."

One of the newspeople said, "I've never heard of that guy. The song 'Orange Blossom' what?"

"You tellin' me you never hearda the greatest bluegrass song ever been written?" There was something touching in the way the old man said that, genuinely taken aback. And Walker guessed from the look on his face, things weren't going too well. Whatever it was the old man wanted, he wasn't getting it. He said, " 'Special,' the 'Orange Blossom Special.' That's its name. I suppose you ain't never hearda Johnny Cash, neither."

"These goddamn bugs!" The newspeople were dancing around, too, flapping with their hands.

"What I was sayin', you television people can follow us right along. Meet Ervin T. Rouse, get him playin' the song on his fiddle. And I brought plenty of Glades Springwater along. Jugs of it on Millie there."

He must have meant the cow, Millie—as if he was introducing the thing.

But the newspeople were talking at the same time, no longer pretending they were listening. She could hear them.

"Christ, this is a publicity gag. Cure all your aches and pains."

"We could do a bit, like it's an old-time medicine show."

"I do journalism, not advertising."

"I've had it, man—"

"What we ought to do is a piece on all these goddamn mosquitoes! Why they should make the whole place a park, leave it to the bugs."

Swatting as they moved away, leaving Gatrell and the Indian standing there. Most of them jog-walking, slamming the doors of their vans and their cars, acting as if it had just begun to rain.

"Have you ever heard so much bullshit?"

"Got us out of the office, anyway."

"Sure, but we've still got to come up with two minutes and an intro. Maybe stop at Marco, do something on pelicans?"

"The
National Enquirer,
he should have tipped them. Weirdo stuff like this, they love it."

Walker heard a woman's voice, not very loud, say, "That's right, we do." Mousy little woman in a strange velvet jacket with lace facing and a little feathered box hat, as if she bought her clothes from one of those secondhand boutiques. She was the only one still standing there listening to Gatrell. Writing in a notebook and holding a tape recorder under her arm. Stepping back to take some photographs as Gatrell swung off his horse for a moment to point at his horse's underside.