Randy White - Seduced

That item might have helped save Roberta’s life.

From a small plane, Marco Island is a mosaic of green fairways and ivory condos that line the beach until the Gulf of Mexico floods inland, making the land uninhabitable. A thousand square hectares of wilderness lie beyond-a vast delta of saw grass and mangroves that separates Miami, on the east coast, from Naples, one hundred miles to the west.

After we had been flying low over swamp for ten minutes, a dappled orange blur grabbed my attention. Roberta circled back. The area seemed about right, so we landed. What appeared to be wild citrus trees might have been dead mangrove leaves. Sacrificial leaves, the yellow ones are called, for it is the tree’s way of venting salt-or so some believe.

I was sitting on a pontoon, my feet in the water, and explaining this when Roberta, my new partner, said, “Dang it. I went off and left my machete. You didn’t happen to bring an extra, did you?” She was standing next to me, pawing through her bag, which was in the rear of the plane.

“You won’t need it as long as you have gloves,” I assured her. This was said with the unruffled optimism that is typical of children, and the dangerously naïve. It had been years since I’d been to this isolated spot-if it was the right spot-so I could not fathom how the area had changed, nor what awaited us. We were alone, miles from the nearest boat channel or road, denied even the comfort of a horizon. Here, the sky was choked to darkness by a screen of foliage that, aside from a strip of water, tolerated no swift escape.

“I’ll go first,” I said, and slipped off the pontoon into the water. I expected to sink into muck. I didn’t, for Roberta had found an ideal spot to beach the plane: a shell ramp that angled up to a shell ridge, where the burnished trunks of gumbo-limbo trees promised high ground. Within a few minutes of hiking around, I knew it was the wrong island, but that was okay. I’d been here before as a girl. There were some interesting things to see.

“Let’s have a look,” I called. “This isn’t the place, but we’re close. I’ve got my bearings now.”

“Do we need water?”

“We won’t be that long, but you might want bug spray.”

Already, the silence of lapping water thrummed with the drone of mosquitoes. I wore sleeves, gloves, and long pants. From a Ziploc bag I removed a jacket made of DEET-impregnated netting and pulled it on. Roberta appeared. She was using one hand to swat and carrying a can of Deep Woods OFF! in the other.

“How in the world did people survive in places like this?”

I replied, “A lot didn’t. The name isn’t on most charts, but I think this is Faka Union Island. People used to farm here.”

“Any citrus?” She swatted, and stomped her feet. “Hey-do you mind spraying my back? But don’t get any on my skin-that’s important. I’ll tell you why later.”

I took the can and used it carefully. I didn’t remember seeing orange trees here, but I had remembered something else. “I’m glad you kept your maiden name-it would have been harder to find you. But I’m curious. The Daniels side of your family-where are they from?”

When she replied “Pennsylvania,” I was disappointed, at first, then mildly relieved. I hacked through the brush and found a narrow path, which was a rarity on these backcountry islands. “It crossed my mind this might be upsetting,” I said when I’d found what I was looking for. “The Daniels family has been on these islands forever.”

Before us, a cluster of tombstones peeked out from an intrusion of cactus and vines. Not stones, really, but thin tablets of cement that had been inscribed with a stick, or a knife, when the cement was fresh. After a few swipes of the machete, I stepped back.

Roberta was drawn to a tiny yellow charm-a canary-embedded in the smallest stone.

JAMES P. DANIELS JR

1911-1913

R. I. P.

“He was only two years old,” she said. “How sad for a child to die in a place like this.” She touched a meditative finger to the canary charm, then stood and looked around, puzzled by something. “Hannah… what is that noise?”

The wind moving through bushes, I’d assumed. I tilted my head and focused. Drag the weight of a fire hose slowly, slowly over an expanse of dead leaves, and the sound would be similar. More disconcerting, the activity originated from two… possibly, three directions.

“Whatever it is, it’s close,” I said.

“This isn’t where you expected to find oranges, is it?”

I continued trying to ferret out what the noise might be until Roberta pulled my arm to turn me. “Come on. Let’s get out of here-I don’t like the vibe of this place.”

When we were safely buckled into the plane, wearing headphones and voice-activated microphones, we laughed about how spooked we were.

“Like a couple of kids! I was damn near running by the time I saw the water-and me, in my condition.”

“Probably raccoons,” I said. “The sick ones, they can be weird; slow, like zombies-” I stopped. “What do you mean, ‘my condition’?”

“Tell you later.” Roberta was using the throttle to taxi us away while she perused the gauges.

I remembered her saying No bug spray on my skin and knew what her condition was. It all fit with her concerns about saving money. “Let’s head back to Immokalee,” I suggested, for that’s where the plane was hangared-a little airport east of town used mostly by the crop dusters that lined the tarmac.

“Not already. We’ve already paid, and there’s a four-hour minimum. I thought you said you had your bearings?”

I did. Even from where I sat, I could look through the windshield and triangulate the landmarks my uncle had used to find that secret place long ago. The markers didn’t appear on charts, or in GPS software. It might take a full day to find the exact spot, but I knew I could get us close.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Some of the details are coming back to me. The bottom there is probably all muck. No telling how deep. Climbing off a boat is one thing; but we can’t get that close. We’d have to wade ashore. Who knows how many tries it will take us to find that tree. Or trees . I can’t remember if there was more than one.”

“How far?”

“From here? Four, maybe five miles. But now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the spot is too narrow to land a plane. Why not just fly around; do a search from the air, then come back later in my boat?”

“We’re already here,” Roberta said in a determined way. “When we’re airborne, tell me which way to turn.”

Forking into Buttonwood Bay, miles east of Marco, are three tidal rivers that are navigable by small boat, and a fourth river that is not-unless you travel with a man who loves bushwhacking.

That’s what I’d remembered as I hiked around Faka Union Island. In the plane, I confirmed my recollections with a chart. Mangroves had sealed the mouth of the fourth river centuries ago-possibly, eons ago-so the average boater couldn’t get in. That’s why, as a child, the spot had stuck in memory as a narrow bay.

It was my Uncle Jake’s favorite place for catching what he called bronze snook. Bronze because a lifetime of feeding in tannin-red water had colored their skin that way.

Jake, like many fishermen, was irrationally territorial, and devious, when it came to protecting a good spot. I don’t know how he discovered the remains of a feeder creek that twisted into the river, but he did. He’d returned with a ripsaw and clippers and pruned his way in, foot by foot, pulling me and a skiff behind. His masterstroke was leaving a curtain of mangroves untouched so no one would notice the tunnel he’d cut nor suspect it led to a pristine stretch of water.