Randy White - Shark River

She was surprised that I wasn’t interested in the photo or Tuck’s letter. Then she seemed stupefied when I refused to accept two of the four coins. She’d yelled, “Man, you don’t want to help me? Then I don’t understand why the hell I lied to help you!” and stomped off.

That night, I had dinner with her and Tomlinson at the Tarpon Lodge, but she’d recovered her composure. Didn’t mention the subject once. Spent the evening holding court in the bar, telling funny stories, flirting with the waiters. Wearing that black skirt with her long legs sticking out and a white blouse that illustrated well why she didn’t need a bra. Then Leo sat down at the piano bar while Ransom took turns dancing with every man in the room until jealous wives began to intervene and lead their husbands home.

Now it was Friday and we were in my trawl boat, skiff in tow, puttering home to Dinkin’s Bay. Tomlinson had paddled the rental canoe back to the mainland at first light, then loaded his backpack onto his forty-two-foot Morgan No Mas, along with Nimba Dimbokro and her five big suitcases for a farewell cruise to Sanibel before he called a cab to take her to the airport the next morning.

Our stay on Guava Key, we’d both decided, was over. For Tomlinson, it was because he wanted to help Ransom go find her inheritance.

For me, it was because of what I had been forced to promise Harrington.

When I said to Tomlinson, “Is Nimba mad because she has to leave a day early?” he shook his head, disconsolate. “It’s gonna take me five hours to beat my way to the marina, and she says she’s going to oil herself up naked and give me one last try. Then she’s sleeping aboard, and I know damn well she’s gonna try again. Ransom staying over last night brought out a competitive streak in Nimba that her Zen instruction didn’t touch. The pressure, man, it’s really starting to take its toll.”

Meaning Ransom had to ride with me.

Ransom said, “Know what the feeling is I get? From reading Daddy’s letter over and over, I get the feeling he may have stolen that money, which is why he had to hide it. Him and someone else, the big Indian he mentions. The doubloons back on Cat Island? It took me awhile to admit it to myself, but same thing. Daddy stole that gold from a very mean man there, and had to hide it away in the monastery ’cause he couldn’t get off the island with it.”

For some reason, I found that hilarious, and had to fight back the laughter as I replied, “Tucker Gatrell a thief? Well… I guess it’s something we have to consider… yes, as upsetting as it may be to you. That Tucker would send you off to find stolen money… now that you mention it, uh-huh, we have to admit it’s a possibility.”

Stealing money, stealing horses, pigs, chickens, small planes, and the lyrics from country-western songs-there wasn’t much that Tucker hadn’t stolen at some stage in his life. I didn’t share that with Ransom, but I was thinking: Finally, she’s catching on.

We’d crossed Charlotte Harbor and left the Intracoastal markers off Bokeelia on Pine Island and cut in behind Patricio Island, running back country. Running doesn’t seem like an accurate word to describe a rattling, rumbling twelve knots, but at least we were moving steadily over the bottom. It was one of those low-pressure-system lulls we sometimes get in winter. The air had a summer density but the sky was Rocky Mountain blue. On the far curvature of earth and sea were borders of cirrus clouds. The clouds were a fibrous silver: crystalline illustrations of wind sheer, adrift, like sails.

We’d picked a good day for passage. In a chop, my flat-bottomed trawler pounds miserably. In a squall, it’s borderline dangerous. Today, though, the bay had a gelatin texture, lifting and rising with the slow respiration of distant oceans and faraway storms. The air was balmy, scented by the tropics and syncopated with cool Midwestern gusts of wind that touched the face, then vanished.

From my elevated spot at the wheel, I could look down and see the bottom slide by. Could see the floury white sand pockets and meadows of sea grass-individual grass blades leaning in the tide as if contoured by a steady breeze. Could see crossing patterns of spooked redfish and sea trout, pushing expanding wakes through the shallows. Could see table-sized stingrays explode from the marl, could see the astro-shapes of sea stars and brittle stars isolated in their own paned universe. Could see anemones and comb jellies and drifting medusoids, their tentacles angling downward and behind, like storm clouds dragging sheets of rain. There is something intimate about sea bottom, when you have the opportunity to see what exists there, a sense of an unclothing, which makes it personal, private.

“Are you hearing what I jus’ said?”

I answered, “Huh?”

Ransom was shaking her head, smiling. “I keep talking, I get the feeling you not listening, my brother. The fish and things, them sea creatures, you get a real happy light in your face when you look at them.”

It was true that she’d been talking right along. Not the maddening, nonstop meaningless chatter of a neurotic. Talking with passion, though, about Tucker and his letters, which is why I wasn’t listening. I much preferred to concentrate on the sea bottom.

She was sitting in the captain’s chair beside me, barefooted, feet propped up on the bulkhead. She was wearing the yellow canvas shorts again, but with a pink tank top, on the front of which was printed:

Her beaded braids were tied back with a pink ribbon, and I noted that around her neck she wore strings of cheap red and white beads as well as beads of white and yellow. From my trips to Cuba and the islands, I recognized them as Obeah beads. Or Santeria beads. Because to understand a people you must also understand their beliefs, I’d had to do some research for my work in those places. Obeah is a potent religious mix of voodoo, Catholicism, and old African superstition. The beads would have been blessed or empowered by a priestess, known as a Babalao in Cuba or, on most of the islands, as an Obeah “vitch” or witch.

I couldn’t remember for certain, but I thought that the red and white beads that Ransom wore honored the God of Destiny. The meaning of the white and yellow beads, however had stuck with me. They were worn only by women and invited grace from Ochun, the goddess of rivers and love and female sensuality.

I’d always found that a charming combination: river, love, sensuality.

Judging from the way she’d fondle the beads while in thought, I guessed her to be a true believer, which was not surprising. More so than most religions, Obeah and Santeria both offer quick relief from emotional suffering without moralizing sermons. For every physical or spiritual ailment, for every lapse in luck or judgment, the priests can come up with a combination of herbs or spells or beads to make things right again. Obeah doesn’t have much interest in morality or ethics. Among the world’s poor, those two things can be an expensive indulgence.

“What I was telling you about was the bad man that Daddy Gatrell stole the gold from. You didn’t hear a word, did you?”

“Sorry.”

“I tell you one more time if you stop lookin’ at all the fishes down there. Why you like them things so much, man? Down in the islands, we got those things, but we don’t care about them. They just somethin’ nice to eat.”

“I like them because…” I let the sentence trail off. To describe what she considered food as a fascinating lineage of cause, effect, and ruthless adaptation seemed pompous. Same with the philosophical imperative: The microcosm can be a perfect mirror of the macrocosm only if the source of creation is the same. So I finished, “I like them because it’s always been a hobby. So tell me about the bad man again. I’ll listen. Promise.”