Randy White - The Man Who Ivented Florida

Tomlinson said, "Does it look smaller? When you go home, the place is supposed to look smaller."

Ford said, "It never seemed that big to begin with."

He turned down the drive and parked beneath a tree beside Tuck's pickup, saying, "Tuck's usually got at least one or two mean dogs around. He always did. So watch your step."

He stepped out into high weeds, walked to the porch, and rapped on the door. No answer. He could hear cattle behind the house, the occasional bawl, as he peeked through the window. Dishes were piled in the sink. Some kind of grease had slopped down the stove, coagulating in midstream. Beer cans and spit cups marched across the kitchen table like figures in some crazy chess game. The house was just as Ford remembered it: comfortable chaos beneath a layer of dirt. Just seeing it irritated him. The mess. The disorderliness of Tuck, his life, the whole damn backwoods Florida lifestyle.

Then he turned a little, not wanting to look, but he looked, anyway. There was Tucker's junk pile out beyond the barn. The rusting, rotting spore of a long and sloppy life. All the random shapes smothered over with vines, and there was the cloaked shape of an old boat's fly bridge, as if the boat were growing out of the ground.

Within him, Ford felt a fluttering hollowness, a bone-deep sense of loss. The fly bridge might have been a tombstone, hunched there in the weeds. Then Ford felt anger.

That pathetic old son of a bitch…

Tomlinson broke into his thoughts, saying, "He couldn't have gone far. His truck's here."

Ford cleared his throat and kicked at a shell. "He's got a horse, so the truck doesn't mean anything. He could be anywhere- Marco Island, Miami. When the mood's on him, he just saddles up and goes."

"You want to wait?"

"No. But I will. I've got to talk to him."

Tomlinson was fanning his hands in front of his face, smacking at his bare legs. "Geeze-mosquitoes! I'm getting eaten up. No wonder this place hasn't been developed yet."

Ford said, "That's the only reason, you're right. But then your body becomes immune to the blood thinner they inject and they don't bother you so much." He was standing with his hands on his hips, trying to see out into the pasture, looking along the water's edge. "I want to get this over as quickly as I can."

"Don't blame you, man. I'm being drained dry."

"Maybe you can take a walk around, check with a couple of the neighbors, ask if they've seen him. I'll stay here in the bugs in case he comes back."

But Tomlinson said he'd rather wait, if Ford didn't mind him standing down by the dock where there was a breeze. So Ford walked down the road and tapped at the door of the first place, a trailer with flower boxes in the windows. He could hear organ music coming from within the trailer, so he banged louder until an elderly woman in a pink housecoat answered. She told Ford, no, she hadn't seen Tucker since that morning when she made him and his big friend breakfast.

Ford said, "Big friend?"

The woman said, "The man who doesn't talk much, the one with long hair. Tuck's partner."

Ford said, "That big friend," thinking, So Joseph's still around. That made him feel better at least. He'd always liked Joseph.

The woman said, "He's such a sweet man, that Tucker. All the problems we've had around here with our things sliding all over the place. One night to the next, I never know which way my furniture is going to roll. I think it's earthquakes. And Tucker's always right there to help. Checks on me a lot better than my son ever did."

Ford said, "Uh… yes ma'am. Things can sure slide around," and hurried on to the next house, a pretty white clapboard cottage with yellow shutters and a Spanish tile roof, a place that he vaguely remembered, only he didn't remember it being so neat. Someone had put a lot of paint and time into renovating the house, getting the yard just right, hanging baskets on the porch, like something out of House Si Garden, with louvered blinds and a little bit of light showing through. Ford pushed the bell, and when the door opened, he was already saying, "I'm very sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find-" before he realized he recognized the woman who stood looking through the screen door at him: sizable woman, lean, in T-shirt and running shorts, with copper hair pulled back in some kind of braid, holding a book in one hand. Ford said, "Hey-" because he was surprised. It was the woman from the sailboat, the one photographing birds in Dinkin's Bay.

When she opened the door, there was a nice expression on her face, pleasant, expectant, but the expression faded and her mouth dropped open a little. "It's… you!"

Ford said, "Wait just a second here-"

"How did you… what do you mean by-"

Ford said, "I know this looks bad, but you don't understand."

"You followed me!"

"No, I didn't even know it was you. I mean, your house." He raised his hands, a gesture of innocence, which the woman misinterpreted. She jumped to lock the screen door.

She said, "I'm calling the police! And if I ever see you around here again-" She slammed the wooden door.

Ford could hear her working the lock inside, and he raised his voice. "My uncle lives down the road. I'm trying to find him, Tucker Gatrell."

There was a silence. Then the door cracked against the chain lock, and Ford could see a wedge of hair and one pale eye, probably blue, though it was hard to tell in the porch light. The woman said, "You're lying."

"No, I'm not. Tucker Gatrell's my uncle."

"I don't believe that nice old man could be related to a pervert like you."

"Hey, watch it there."

"Now you're following me around!"

Ford started to say something, then just shook his head. "Believe what you want." He turned to leave, but then he stopped, thinking. He tapped at the door again. "Hey," he said. "Hey, one more thing. Are you listening?"

The door was closed. He waited in silence-maybe she was at the telephone dialing 911-but then her voice said, "Now what do you want?"

"I'm curious about something. How did you happen to anchor in my bay? Dinkin's Bay, I mean."

"I don't see how that-"

"Did Tuck suggest you go there? Maybe he planted the idea somehow-"

"I was on my own schedule, doing my own work…" But the way she paused told Ford she was thinking about it.

He said, "He did, didn't he?"

"No!"

"Are you sure?"

"He told me there were some nice rookeries there, that's all."

Ford said, "That old bastard tried to set me up."

The door cracked open again. "How dare you call him that!" Now she was mad again. "Did Mr. Gatrell make you spy on me through your telescope! That's a crappy thing to do!"

"I wasn't spying. Well, just once, but then I-"

Bang. The door slammed again.

Ford jammed his hands into his pockets and walked back along the road, not looking at anything, fuming. No more searching for Tucker. No more trying to help. Let the woman from the Florida Department of Criminal Law show up unexpectedly and hold his feet to the fire-he didn't care. Let them implicate Tuck in the kidnappings and send him off to Raiford Prison. Even if he didn't kidnap anyone, the world would be a safer place with Tucker Gatrell behind bars. Someone should have locked him away twenty years ago, him and his schemes.

Ford stopped walking, his ears alert to an odd noise. He had passed through the gate onto Tuck's property and was standing in the middle of the shell drive, headed up the mound to Tuck's shack, his brain scanning to define the soft swish-swish sound getting louder, closer, perhaps-like someone slapping a scythe through tall grass, plus a rumbling vibration almost like a growl-

"Gezzus!"

It was a dog charging him, hunkered low and running through the tree shadows, teeth bared, not barking until Ford reacted by taking three panicked steps and diving toward the limb of a gumbo-limbo tree, swinging up.