Randy White - Ten thousand isles

She used expressions like that: My gosh, gee whiz, holy cow, I'll be darned. Midwestern, probably small town or the farm.

"So what do you do for recreation?"

"Movies. I absolutely love movies. The place I grew up, out there in the cornfields, there wasn't much else to do but read and watch the VCR. I love those action movies with all the suspense. Car chases, explosions. Escape from all that boredom, I guess. You know the ones I'm talking about?"

I'd heard of the actors she named, but hadn't watched their movies.

She said, "I bet you like the arty foreign films. The kind with subtitles that everyone pretends to understand but no one really does. Why're you smiling?"

"I've never been accused of being arty."

"Then what about the old action films? To Have and Have Not, Bogie and Bacall. In Harms Way- the Duke. Man, one of my favorites."

"The Searchers?" I said.

"I loved that movie!"

We talked about films for a while before I asked her what else she did for recreation.

"I get into boats with total strangers. Let them shanghai me to God knows where."

Which was a way of letting me know that she was willing to make peace.

I listened to her tell me that my chart book was at least a couple of years old. The way she could tell was, the place we were headed was an island named Swamp Angel Ways-swamp angel being a common cracker euphemism for mosquitoes, "ways" indicating the place where sailing boats were hauled out on rails and scraped clean.

The days of winching sailboats ashore were long gone. The mosquitoes, though, Nora had been told, were still terrible. Even so, certain local chambers-of-commerce types had battled to have the island's name changed. Anticipating development, a mosquito eradication program and perhaps even a bridge, newer charts were showing the island as Cayo de Marco.

"See what I mean?" she said, speaking not much louder than normal. No reason for her to. I was running at a comfortable cruising speed with a very quiet engine. "People don't care about history. Worse, they have no respect for it. Some of these greedy jerks would rename the moon if they thought it would increase their cash flow. Moon? That's an offensive word, right? Like teenagers sticking their bare butts in the air. So give it a new name and make it marketable. Call it Satellite de Lunar."

It seemed to please her that I smiled.

Chung had been born and raised outside Davenport, Iowa, a little place called Eldridge. She'd applied to the University of Florida on a lark with a friend, never really expected to come south, but the academic scholarship that Gainesville had made available was so enticing she'd accepted. That plus the ROTC scholarship made school practically free. But she'd dropped the ROTC program after a year because she was offered a work-study package through the Everglades University's new Museum of Natural History.

"So much for my career in the Army. That's one thing I could tell about you right off. You're not the military type."

I said, "Oh?"

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"It's amazing you can tell."

"That's what I figured. It's a hobby of mine, looking at people, trying to figure out who they are, what they do. You can tell a lot about someone if you pay close attention."

"No kidding. Give me an example."

"There's the obvious stuff like rings and watches and necklaces. But if someone doesn't wear jewelry-like you? — then you just have to read the person. From the way you handle yourself, I can tell that you're perceptive. The way you take things in, snipping little bits and pieces of what you see and filing it away. But not in an aggressive way. More the studious type. Like maybe a professor at a small college. Laid-back, passive except for the occasional zinger or two. The kind who has stacks of books laying around; always losing your glasses."

I said, "You've been talking to my friends behind my back."

I told her maybe it was because of what I did for a living.

"A marine biologist?"

That seemed to please her, too.

Her father was George Temple, a Yavapi Apache mix, who'd served with the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam. After returning home, he'd wired his wife-to-be money for a plane ticket and helped her get a visa out of Bangkok just before the fall of Saigon. Nora was born more than a decade later, less than two years before her parents divorced. Thus the maternal last name.

"Quite a coincidence, me, a transplanted Iowa girl, ending up down here in the land of coral." She gave me a knowing look. "Don't worry. I'm not suggesting there's some great significance to it or anything."

I sat at the wheel; made no reply.

"What I mean is, I don't believe in things like that. The pseudo-sciences. I don't believe in numerology, phrenology or providence. None of that."

I said, "See? We do have something in common."

"Amazing, huh? Numerology, that's the new thing. Go to a bar, at least one guy comes up and wants to add the letters in my name. It's a come-on, I know, but they really seem to take it seriously. Which is why I didn't much care for the guys I met in college."

I asked, "Oh, what kind of men did she like?" Just making conversation, but I saw in her expression that I had crossed a line. I was being a little too personal, so I wasn't surprised that she quickly changed the subject.

We'd run through Big Marco Pass into the open Gulf. We ran along the beach looking at all the tourists roasting in the sun, high-rise condos behind them. Lots of jet skis and a couple of inboards pulling parasails. Summer scent of coconut oil,

Coppertone and burgers. Pool bars seemed to be doing a booming business for hurricane season. The Marco Island Hotel had a big buffet going on, reggae band playing for several dozen men and women wearing name tags as they mingled around the pool. We were that close.

Then we cut north into Caxambas Pass; followed it inland through No Wake Zones where ranch-style houses, Spray-Creted white, sat in rows on irrigated lawns fronted by seawalls.

"That must be it," Chung said, meaning Swamp Angel Ways. She was matching the chart to the mangrove maze ahead and off to the right.

I could see the dome of gumbo limbos that are always indicative of mounds.

"Does the chart show any water?"

"There's a little cove this side, a little cove on the east side. Not much water in either one, so it doesn't much matter."

It mattered to me.

I wanted to take a look at both coves before wading ashore. Make certain someone wasn't already there.

It comes from old habit. I don't like surprises.

The mound islands of Florida's Gulf coast have a distinctive odor, a mixture of decomposing wood, skunk leaf and lime, dampened by rain and photosynthetic density, incubated by white shells that absorb sunlight then radiate heat.

I'd chosen the cove on the eastern side, shielded from the boat traffic of Barfield Bay. I poled my skiff in through the shallows, anchored off the stern and tied the bow to the limb of a black mangrove.

"Gosh almighty, do you hear them coming?"

I didn't know what she meant at first, but then I did. It was an electronic hum, like a wave of miniature bombers approaching.

Mosquitoes. A pewter cloud of them above the tree canopy.

Then they were on us, glittering mobiles orbiting around our heads, creating a cobweb feeling on nose and ears, collecting on my bare forearms and legs as if I'd been doused with black pepper.

"We should have brought some bug spray!"

I said, "You ever wear a bug jacket?"

"A what?"

From beneath the console, I took two Ziploc bags. In each was a hooded jacket made of wide cotton mesh, not unlike fish netting. I'd saturated the mesh with citronella oil; kept the jackets in bags so the oil wouldn't evaporate.

Nora opened one of the bags and made a face. "Smells like crushed-up orange rinds. Or really cheap perfume. You come home with this stuff all over you, what do the ladies say?"