Though the Everglade Lodge had replaced the Storter trading post and the Storters had moved to Naples, Hoad returned here often. Lucius found him in a wicker chair on the lodge porch overlooking the tidal river, expounding on the river scene to a little boy who looked much like him, chipmunk cheeks and all. Hanging back, Lucius listened to his friend explain everything from the net booms on the big shrimp boats to the gold-purple bronzing on the heads of the spring pelicans on their crude nests on the high mangrove walls across the tide.
Hoad hailed him cheerily and waved him to a seat. “Cap’n Lucius Watson, fish guide! Same old khakis and salt-rotted sneakers!” But Lucius was too restless to sit down, and seeing his exhaustion and the silence in it, Storter gave him time to collect himself while he finished describing to his son how he and Cap’n Watson netted pompano off the Gulf beaches, mostly at night, following the schools from Captiva Island south to the middle Keys. “Wasn’t that something, Lucius? To have your own boat at your own dock and go to work only when the tide was right?” Hoad whistled in amazement. “Mullet schools two miles across, not a mile out of Caxambas!” he told the boy, who was twisting in his seat.
The boy ran off and Hoad sat back, a little sad. “Way things are going, our children will never see a mullet school as big as that, poor little fellers.” He frowned. “Heck, I have nothing to complain about, I know that. It’s our own darn fault. Sold away our good old river home under the trees for a new house on a new street in Naples with no trees at all. My wife likes it, I guess, but a backyard don’t amount to much compared to riverfront.”
Hoad fell still, awaiting him. He jumped up when Lucius told him what had happened. “We’ll go look for him.” Hoad’s boat was hauled out upriver by the bridge, she only needed to be launched and refueled. They could leave for Chatham first thing in the morning.
They walked along under royal palms toward the village circle, then headed north toward the bridge to see to Hoad’s boat, then back along the river. At the far end of every street, the encircling green mangrove lay in wait, as if after dark it might infiltrate and smother the small settlement, reclaiming it as jungle. Already insolent hard weeds were pushing through big cracks in the broken sidewalk.
Hoping to cheer him, Hoad told him that according to the radio this morning, the E. J. Watson claim on Chatham Bend had been dismissed by the state court. “Looks like the new park is on the way,” Hoad chortled.
At the lodge, they sat outside gazing across the twilight channel where the sun falling to the Gulf out to the west still fired the highest leaves on the green wall. On other days these common miracles were healing, but this evening, the burning mangrove leaves, the dying light’s faint flashes in the current-the quiet beauty in that transience-stirred only loneliness. Arranging with Hoad to meet early next morning, he excused himself and, picking up his glass, went inside and crossed the lobby to the telephone.