Randy White: Gone

I wasn’t worried, though. Half a mile away, I could see a tin-roofed cabin built on stilts, standing lonely as a stork in shallow water, a mile from the nearest land. A married man had willed the place to my late aunt-out of guilt, I’d heard-so our family owned it, but how and why, I wasn’t exactly sure. The cabin-a “stilthouse,” locals called it-was built with thick walls for storing fish back before there was refrigeration, so it was a good safe spot to be, if we could beat the rain.

We did, but only by a minute or two. Throttle backing, I stood with one hand on the wheel, the other holding an anchor, as we approached what would soon be the leeward side of the shack. Not until we were a few boat lengths away did I reduce speed, then dropped the anchor, playing out line, after punching us into idle so we continued toward the dock.

“Nicely done,” Mr. Seasons said, but he was watching the squall charging us, only a hundred yards away. Rain was loud as a mountain river and getting louder.

“Stay put until we’re tied!” I replied. I had snubbed the anchor to a stern cleat, hoping I’d guessed right about how much scope to use. Sure enough, just before my skiff’s nose bumped the dock, I felt the anchor line stiffen and stretch, which is when I stepped up onto the dock and threw a quick clove hitch around a piling.

“Ladies first,” I called, offering Ms. Calder-Shaun my hand, then helped her onto the dock. The woman looked a little woozy but was smiling, and gave my fingers a squeeze that meant something, I wasn’t sure what.

Soon, both clients were sitting beneath a waterfall that blurred the world around us, but they were snug and dry inside the stilthouse, where I was lighting a Coleman stove to make coffee. When the coffee was ready, I poured them each a mug, then stood outside beneath the breezeway so they could have their privacy. Some fishing guides try to be entertainers, too, telling jokes and stories during boring times, but that’s not my way.

After a while, when the rain had slacked, I returned to check on the two. Mr. Seasons was looking at Ms. Calder-Shaun, who was staring at me, both with odd expressions on their faces as if they’d just made a surprising discovery.

“I’m right about this, Larry,” the woman said, her eyes still studying me. “After today? Goddamn right, I’m convinced- if the agency is still licensed.”

The first thing that came into my mind was the private investigation agency my uncle had run-obviously the “other work” Mr. Seasons had mentioned before-and where I’d helped out at every once in a while. But I thought it was better to keep my mouth shut, so I pretended to want more coffee.

The man was nodding as I stepped toward the stove, then caught me off guard by including me in the conversation. “Would you be willing to meet for lunch tomorrow, Hannah? Just me, Martha has to fly home for the day. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Fishing?” I said, turning.

The man exchanged looks with Martha, his New York attorney. “Around two would be good,” he said. “I’ll explain everything then.”

“Noon’s better,” I replied, because it irks me when people dodge simple questions, and also because it was embarrassing to admit I had an open date tomorrow, at the height of tarpon season, when most guides were busy. “Even on days I don’t fish, I’ve got a lot to do,” I added, which was mostly true.

“Noon it is,” Mr. Seasons replied, then said nothing more about it. Soon enough, though, I would discover that outrunning that storm had meant more to my clients than I ever could’ve guessed. How I’d handled myself had convinced them a woman fishing guide was a good choice to go in search of a missing girl-although it took some doing on their part to convince me, the woman fishing guide.

Considering all that happened afterward, good and bad, I have no reason to regret beating that storm. But it has made me fretful about how one small event-something as common as lightning and heavy rain-can change a person’s life in ways so big, there is no hope of returning. Only hope for what comes next.

MY MOTHER SAYS I REOPENED UNCLE JAKE’S PRIVATE INVESTIGATION agency because I’m always losing men, so it’s natural for me to search for things that are missing. This would offend some women my age, but she had a stroke two years back and now her damaged brain relies on honesty instead of good manners, so I’ve got no choice but to take it in stride. One thing I’ve learned is, don’t argue with the truth on those scarce occasions when you’re lucky enough to know what the truth is.

Mother was heavy on my mind the next morning. It’s because of something that had happened the night before, after the storm. Loretta-that’s Mamma’s name-got into Uncle Jake’s paint shed, then sprayed swearwords all over the walls of a house being built next door. Not a house, really. It’s more of a concrete box the size of a Walmart, and just about as tasteful-which is only one of the reasons Loretta hates the building so. Some of the words she wrote were so foul, they had never even passed my lips-not louder than a whisper, anyway-let alone would I use Day-Glo orange to write them in cursive, exclamation points dotted, t ’s neatly crossed, for all the world to see.

Well… as much of the world that ventures down the road to York Island and our little fishing village, which is on the Gulf Coast of Florida, just across the bay from Sanibel Island.

Thank goodness, it was only an hour after sunrise when I discovered what that addled woman had done. I was on the dock, making sure my skiff had enough fuel for the trip to Mr. Seasons’s place, when Arlis Futch whistled and waved to me from the throttle of his mullet boat.

I waited for the man to kill his engine and drift closer before calling, “How you, Arlis?”

“My Lordy, Hannah, you lookin’ more and more like your dead aunt every day-God rest her soul.”

Old Arlis loves to talk, and I had things to do, but it peeves me when men confuse lying with flirting. “Aunt Hannah’s been in the grave ten years, Arlis, so that’s not much of a compliment. Except to her, maybe, but you might be right. Hannah Three in her coffin is probably prettier than me and all the rest of us put together. Don’t you have some work to do?”

There have been four Hannah Smiths in our family, which Arlis knows better than most, so there was no need to explain. My aunt was a pretty woman, and more than a tad wild, which is common knowledge. Along with the stilthouse, which a guilty husband had left her, I had inherited Hannah Three’s name, height, and crow-black hair. Unfortunately, that was about it-until a few years ago, anyway, when my body began showing some of her other assets as well.

The old man started to apologize, saying, “Dang it, I wasn’t comparing you to a dead person-though you are lookin’ pasty since you moved across the bay. Tell the truth, now. You been eatin’ too much that damn hippie food and not enough fried mullet. Ain’t I right?”

Hippie food, I guessed, was anything that didn’t produce grease for gravy or a good old-fashioned heart attack. I was about to suggest this to Arlis by inquiring about his recent double bypass, but the man slipped the hook by staring over my shoulder, with a weird expression on his face, like an image of Jesus had just materialized in the sunrise clouds behind me.

“I wouldn’t’ve missed this for nothing,” he said to himself, chuckling, then began to laugh. “Loretta and me learned cursive from the same schoolteacher, so I recognize her hand. But her spelling used to be better. Tell your mamma the word truckers starts with a t -same t that don’t belong in the word ship .”