I didn't say anything; wanted to get away from the marina first. When we were out of the harbor, I let it go: 'You damn dumb old hippie! Why'd you tell the guides we're going to Sulphur Wells?'
'Hey,' he said. 'I'm not that old. What's this 'old' business?'
'It didn't cross your mind they might be just a little upset about their boats?'
'For sure. Exactly what I intended, too. Those fellas—I love 'em, don't get me wrong—but those fellas, they're way too hung up on material possessions, man. Man gets killed, all they can think about is their boats.'
'Yeah, and making their mortgage payments and feeding their kids. Jesus, Tomlinson!'
He was making a calming motion with his hands. 'Don't freak out on me here, Doc. You'll ruin the whole ambience of the trip. Although . . . although ... at least you're showing some emotion. A growing experience—that's good.
'A growing experience, my ass! Like you're doing me a favor? Let me tell you something, Tomlinson—I may have lost a couple of friends tonight. And I disappointed a lady who doesn't appear to need any more disappointment. All because of you.'
He was suddenly interested. 'A lady, huh? No shit. Pretty? Who's the lady?'
I told him. Watched him fold his hands and nod sagely. 'Yes, Janet has had some trouble. Heavy domestic stuff. . . but I can't go into it. We've had some long talks.'
I found that irritating—was there anyone who didn't pour out their soul to the guy? But I didn't want to hear anymore of his Ping-Pong talk. I stood at the wheel and pressed the throttle forward. Felt the wind-roar torque, felt the trim of the skiff settle low and fast over the water as I steered us out past Woodring Point, then west toward the Mail Boat Channel, running backcountry as far off the Intercoastal as I could get. The sun was low, diffused by clouds. The clouds resembled desert mountains . . . bronze-streaked, like an Arizona landscape. To my right, far across the water, was St. James City. To the left, Sanibel was an expanding mangrove hedge above which a crown of milky light bloomed: they were playing Softball at the school field; already had the lights on even though there was an hour of daylight left.
Tomlinson went forward and began to rummage through the cold-storage locker. 'Want a beer?' he yelled.
He'd forgotten that I no longer drank beer during the week. Popping three or four Coors prior to bedtime had gotten to be a habit, and habits have a way of ultimately dominating the host. So I now drank only on Fridays and Saturdays. Today was Thursday.
'Nope,' I said.
Ten minutes later, when Captiva Pass was a small breach of silver in the charcoal void, he was pawing through the ice again. Looked up at me to say, 'You ready for another one?'
Chapter 3
Sulphur Wells was a back bay island named for the artesian springs that Spanish fishermen found when they settled there in the 1700s. The island was isolated by shallow water and a haze of mosquitoes that bred in the mangrove fringe. Because Sulphur Wells had no beaches, it had yet to be divvied up, reconstituted, and sodded by resort conglomerates and international investment groups. But the island's day would come. Florida developers were running out of beachfront property, so the back bay islands were the next logical target of the concrete stalwart. Now, though, the economy of Sulphur Wells—what there was of it—was still based on agriculture, commercial fishing, and blue-collar winter residents who didn't have the money for big-ticket properties over on Gasparilla Island or Manasota Key.
In this way, Sulphur Wells was a Florida anachronism. The people grew peppers and pineapples and mangoes; they wholesaled mullet and blue crabs caught from boats that they had built up from wooden stringers and glassed themselves. There were a couple of stores, but no mall, no 7-Elevens, no car lots. The Florida of Disney World and Holiday Inn, the slick destination of interstates and jetports, was far away, over on the mainland, across the steel swing bridge that joined Sulphur Wells with the current decade; a decade which, inevitably, presaged the island's own future.
I ran up the eastern rim of Pine Island Sound toward Charlotte Harbor, hugging the mangrove banks. I had visited the island a few times by truck on recent buying trips. Still had a few friends who lived there; guys I'd known back in high school. But it had been years since I had boated to the small settlement where Darroux was said to have lived, Gumbo Limbo.
Which meant that I wasn't familiar with the submerged creeks and gutters that constitute channels on the flats. The water was seldom more than a couple of feet deep and, worse, the weak light made the bottom tough to read. The tide was up but falling, so I held to the wind-roiled water; avoided the slick streaks that can be created by the surface tension of protruding sea grass or oysters. Had the engine jacked high, Tomlinson on the bow, running sheer.
Sulphur Wells lay to the east, a long ridge of mangroves and casuarinas. Occasionally, the mangroves would thin to reveal the docks of a fish camp or a cluster of mobile homes. The trailers were set up on blocks, like derelict cars, their aluminum shells faded a chalky white or pink. As we flew past, a man looked up from a fish-cleaning table and stared. A woman gathering wash gave us a friendly wave. Both were quickly absorbed by the marl shore and crowding mangroves. Just east of a mangrove thicket called Part Island, we raised Gumbo Limbo: a curvature of land that extended into the water, its perimeter fringed by a strand of coconut palms. Now, at afterglow, the trunks of the palms were yellow, the canopies black, their heavy fronds interlaced like macaw feathers. A dozen or so wooden houses were elevated on shell mounds beyond. I could see the glow of their windows through the bare limbs of gumbo-limbo trees. Some of the windows were still trimmed with Christmas lights. Houses and palms appeared buoyant on the small raft of land, supported by the mass of water, but adrift, as if the freshening wind could blow the village out to sea.
'I don't suppose you know which house was Darroux s?'
Tomlinson was standing beside me at the console, staring. Probably tuning in the vibrations, expecting karma to point to the place. 'Don't know,' he said. 'One of them.' He shrugged. 'There aren't many.'
'Then we'll have to use the commercial docks. I don't want to beach it. The tide's going, we're losing our water.'
'Those hills, the shell mounds. Reminds me of Mango.' He was talking about a place where an uncle of mine, Tucker Gatrell, lived. 'Old Florida, man, with those Indian mounds. They still do farming—smell the cow manure?'
'I smell it. Open that bow hatch and get the lines ready.'
The channel into Gumbo Limbo was lined by a bank of limestone— that much I remembered. Miss the cut and you could kill your boat—
maybe even kill yourself—on the rocks. So I used the good water to run in close to shore, then dropped down off plain when I picked up the first wooden stakes that served as markers. The markers led us into a dredged canal, at the mouth of which was a warehouse on pilings. The docks were lined with simple plywood boats that were brush-painted blue or white. Men in jeans and white rubber boots moved around beneath the lights. Someone's radio was blaring. The whine of twangy, achy-breaky music was louder than my outboard. There were commercial scales and a cable hoist mounted on the loading platform. A sign above the warehouse read:
As we idled down the channel, men on the dock stopped what they were doing. Put down the crates they were carrying and watched us. Tomlinson smiled, waved—got blank stares in return. Still looking at the workers, he spoke to me out of the corner of his mouth: 'These fellas don't seem too friendly. Kind of standoffish.'
'That's one way to put it. Standoffish.'
'The way they're staring at me.'
'I noticed.'
'Hey . . . I'm not still wearing that damn sarong, am I?' He had his chin on his chest, inspecting himself.
'Nope.'
'That woulda explained it. A sarong would get some funny looks around here. Not as sophisticated like Sanibel.'
