In the Glades, the drought of 1906 crowded the gators into the last pools and the slaughter was awful. “We have killed out that whole country back in there”-that’s what Tant told Lucius at Caxambas. But in the spring rains, when the water level was unusually high, Bembery Storter’s brother George accompanied some Yankees and their Indian guide on a three-week expedition, traveling by dugout from the headwaters of Shark River east to the Miami River, lugging along a two-thousand-pound manatee in a pine box. What they wanted with that huge dismal creature and whatever became of it I never learned, but that expedition was probably the last to cross the Florida peninsula on the old Indian water trails through Pa-hay-okee, which means “grassy river.”
Napoleon Broward was the new governor, and his plan to conquer the Everglades for the future of Florida agriculture and development got under way with the christening of two dredges for the New River Canal, which would drain the lands south and east of Lake Okeechobee and extend the Calusa Hatchee ship canal to the east coast. With the band music, flags, and patriotic oratory so dear to the simple hearts of politicians, canal construction was begun on Independence Day, which Broward dedicated to the creation of rich farmland where only sawgrass swamp had lain before, including the auspicious planting of an Australian gum tree guaranteed to spread with miraculous speed across the swamps, sucking up water and transpiring it back into the air.
Our southwest coast was next in line for the blessings of modern progress, with the governor’s good friend Watson taking the lead. My invitation to the statehouse in Tallahassee could show up in the mail almost any day. Meanwhile, I had months to wait for income on my harvest. Being in debt again, with little cash left for supplies and none for wages, I fired all hands except Sip Linsey and the hog fancier G. Waller; the rest were told to get their stuff and board the boat. At Fort Myers, with a loan from Hendrys, I paid half their wages and gave IOUs for the balance, which I hoped they would never dare come ask for.
On the way home, I stopped off at Pavilion Key to visit Netta’s Minnie and Josie’s little Pearl, which I did every chance I got, but brief visits were never enough for those two girls. “Daddy, how come you go away again each time you come back?” my red-haired Minnie said. I was happy she had forgiven me for that mistake two years before when I got drunk and took her home with me because I felt so lonesome. She never stopped wailing for her mama so I brought her back.
That summer, we took Sundays off to give our folks some rest. I near went mad waiting for Monday but kept myself busy with repairs, mended some tools. Lucius showed Kate and Laura how to fish for blue crabs off the dock, using a scoop net and old chicken necks rigged to a string. These spiky creatures with quick claws scared sweet little Ruth Ellen, who would turn to me, screeching, “Dada!” in delighted terror. Sometimes Jane Straughter would join in, and those three young females would spend hours at it; every crab caused a great shriek and commotion. Crabbing was done on laundry day. The bushel basketful was emptied into the big boiling cauldron after the clean clothes were fished out.
Lucius was delighted to show off the attractions of the Bend to our new family: it thrilled him as much as it did them when he pointed out our giant crocodile. Unlike Eddie, he had no use for Fort Myers and little interest in the Fort White farm. Lucius loved boats and the water, fresh and salt, river and sea. How it tickled me to see him grown so strong, this quiet boy who had started out in life so sickly that he very nearly died in the Indian Nations.
My son was reading all about old Florida history and the Calusa relics that Bill Collier had dug up at Marco. He was out to explore every piece of high ground in the Islands: he already knew he would like to be a historian or naturalist. Though he hunted and fished for the table, he refused to shoot the scattered plume birds or trap otter, no matter how often it was pointed out that others would take them if he did not. But raccoons were common and in cooler weather he would hunt them at night the way Tant taught him, using his new Bullseye headlamp for his torch.
Lucius was still dueling with Old Fighter, the giant snook Rob had hooked but lost in an oxbow up toward Possum Key. Out of loyalty, Lucius would claim that Old Fighter was still waiting for Rob back in the shadows, tending to the small fishes in the current that swept along under the mangroves. One day his bait would come drifting past, turning and glistening in that amber light, and-whop! In some way he felt that the triumph over Old Fighter would be Rob’s vindication.
Sometimes at evening, sitting in the dark watching the moonlight on the river, we sang grand old songs-“Old Folks at Home” and “Massa’s in de Cold, Cold Ground,” also “Lorena” and “Bonnie Blue Flag.” Because everyone else thought it too gloomy, I would wait until all had gone to bed before I sang “Streets of Laredo.” What I lamented all alone, I did not know. I had learned that old dirge in the Indian Nations, is what I told anybody who inquired, though the truth was I had picked it up in prison. Once it came into my head, I might be stuck with it for weeks.
One evening Kate asked if that old Texas song reminded me of my “cow-boy days” out West. Knowing I had never been a cowboy, Lucius flushed and looked away, aware that his Papa had told a few tall tales to enhance his courtship of this girl of his own age. Even white lies made my son uncomfortable. He did not judge me, but his forbearance was a judgment, even so.
For the moment, Kate seemed happy at the Bend, forever giggling with her dear Laura, heads bent over some discovery or other. Yet she was so raddled and exhausted by the child that she had lost interest in our loving, falling asleep before I was half started-not that that stopped me. Manfully I would clamber on and toil away, feeling grotesque and lonely in my struggle. Sometimes her old fire got poked up and she came with me but more often not.