Jonathon King - Shadow Men

"From the trap lines," he said. "When they start to pullin' them traps, they got the trap line on that power winch an' she don't never slow down. A man got to hook the trap when she comes up from the bottom, snatch out the crab, throw the new bait in, lock it down an' dump her over agin, just in time to hook the next trap. Got to do it like clockwork, and it goes on for hours.

"You get your glove or your movin' hands caught in that line, it'll wrap on you and pull your arm off. Every stone crabber takes that chance."

I took another deep sip of my coffee and silently chastised myself for whining about sore muscles.

"He wasn't willing to talk about this Jefferson character Mr. Mayes mentioned in the letter," I said. "But it sounded like he might have known the family."

"Oh, everybody knowed of the family," Brown said, and went quiet, concentrating on his spoon. Across the road a half-dozen pure white ibis worked a low patch of grass. A heron let loose a high "quark" somewhere behind us.

"First time I seen ice cream I was eighteen years old," Brown said, staring at a new lump on his spoon. "It's still like a miracle to me."

Brown kicked the throttle up, heading out through Chokoloskee Pass. The Gulf was green in the late afternoon light, and out to the southwest low clouds were scudding just above the horizon.

"We'll take her on the outside an' beat that line a squall," Brown said, looking out in the same direction. "Course, a bit of rain never hurt. An' it'll maybe keep them folks in the helicopter out of the air."

His words made me look back and scan the sky. It was empty except for a line of pelicans, their crooked wings fanned out as they cruised north over a long lump of mangroves. Brown swung us toward the east and pushed the boat up on plane and we began slapping over the light chop. I stood up next to him, gripping the console, and asked him why he had not told me that he recognized Jefferson's name when I'd first read him the Mayes letters.

"I was thinkin' on it," he said.

The old Gladesman kept his eyes fixed ahead and seemed to squint them down even though the sun was mostly to our backs. He was looking back, and then started putting words to what he remembered.

"He was a small, mean fella. Least that was what folks said, and that's what they believed. Even my own.

"It wasn't easy to avoid people out this way back in them days. But my daddy always said he stayed clear of the Jeffersons. Fact was, Mr. Jefferson was about the same age as my daddy, and the talk that gets told is that the two of them was the best shots with rifles that there ever was in these parts.

"Now, I seen my daddy shoot the eye out of a racoon at fifty yards. Seen him drop a squawk on the wing out of the sky at more 'n that. An' you know how boys are. We'd ask him if Mr. Jefferson could match him, an' he'd go quiet on us. Never said yep. Never said no."

Brown looked back over his shoulder and I did the same. The cloud line had darkened and massed up into a curtain that was soon going to shut out the sunset. It was another twelve miles or so to the entrance of Lost Man's.

"So the rumors just kept on a growin'. Some said Jefferson learnt to shoot as a criminal, others that he'd been a hired gun and come out this way to lay low. Then there was some killin's. A game warden who watched over the plume hunters was found shot out in the rookery. A state revenue agent workin' the illegal stills come up missing. Course, we'd hear the men, speculatin' around the fires at night and Jefferson's name would come up, him havin' the talent and all."

"So no one would have been surprised to hear that this Mr. Jefferson signed on with the road-building crew to be the company sharpshooter to clear the way of alligators or panthers so the men could work?" I said, watching Brown's face for a reaction. He let the sound of the outboard and the erratic smacking of the hull on water fill the silence.

"To some, like Daddy, it just made sense to put a man with a gun out there. But to others it just hardened up the rumor. They said Jefferson was a hired gun who'd shoot anything for money, an' that's just the job the road company hired him for."

"Captain Dawkins said something about family that Jefferson had. Are there relatives still around?" I asked.

"Long gone," Brown said. "They lived in a place on the Chatham River an' left it. His one son was in the war and when he got back he stayed a bit until the old man passed and they sold out. They was a grandson and rumor had it that he moved north up by the lake and become a preacher. That one must have been about the same age as Captain Dawkins, but I ain't never seen him."

The western sky had turned a pearl gray by the time we made the river entrance and we headed north onto a winding path. As the light continued to fade, I watched as hundreds of white egrets came in and thickened the sky like a noisy cloud and began their nightly spinning and dancing above the tall mangroves. The squawking rose to a crescendo as the birds picked out a roosting spot for the night, and within minutes they had settled in the branches. Brown cut back on the throttle to match their noises and we watched the last of the day's light get caught in the globs of white feather and the trees take on the look of tall cotton rows in a darkening field. To my city-bred eyes it was an unreal display. But even the old Gladesman seemed momentarily transfixed. We slid on through the growing shadows and did not share another word for some time. After an hour or so, Brown shut down the motor and the boat glided into a patch of cattails. From inside the console, he reached down and came out with a flashlight. He flipped on the beam and pointed it out ahead. I was surprised to see it reflect off something chrome.

"Yonder is your truck, Mr. Freeman. 'Bout twenty yard or so," he said, handing me the light.

Again I eased myself over the gunwale and into the thigh-deep water.

"How do I get in touch with you?" I said.

"When you're ready, son, y'all let the girl at the hotel know. They'll get me the word."

I never heard him crank the motor back to life, and by the time I got to my truck a light rain was falling. I used the flashlight to find the door lock, and it wasn't until the interior lights came on and I slid in behind the wheel that I noticed the bullet hole.

A single shot had been fired into the windshield, face high on the driver's side. A spray of spidery cracks webbed out from the hole. I stared through the opening and my fingers went involuntarily to the scar on my neck and stayed there.

It was nearly ten when I got back to Lauderdale. There had been no other damage to the truck and I had not bothered to report the incident to the local police. It would have been written off to rural vandalism, the sort visited on stop signs, or even a hunter's stray round. And it could have been just that, but I didn't believe it.

I pulled over for gas and made a call to Richards from a pay phone. Maybe she could hear the exhaustion in my voice. Maybe she was intrigued by the short description of my day.

"I'll start some coffee and a hot bath, Freeman," she said before I could gracefully invite myself.

When I arrived she was able to keep any look of disgust out of her face but directed me to the outside shower by the pool. Under a steady spray I peeled off the salt-caked clothes and waterlogged boots and washed some of the Glades stink off my skin. I was standing naked on the pool deck when she came back out with a steaming mug of coffee.

"Shall I just burn these, nature boy?" she said, picking at the pile of wet clothes with her toe. I was too tired to think of anything clever.

"OK. Into the bath then, Freeman."

After an hour of soaking in water as hot as I could stand it, I finally got out and dressed in a pair of canvas shorts and a T-shirt I'd left on a previous visit. Richards had cooked up a plate of scrambled eggs with ranchero sauce. She poured more coffee and we sat at the kitchen table. I ate and talked and she listened until I was through.