Lost Man's River(211)
In recent years, the Caxambas factory had been moved to Naples, where it failed for good, and the local economy had been struck down by the Red Tide. With the whole coast stinking of dead fish, and the clams dying, the Red Tide seemed an unnatural affliction associated with the coming of the Park, since both had descended on this coast in the same year. When the last clams died off in epidemic, with stone crabs, conchs, and sponges close behind, there was fear that this was no red tide but something much more evil and mysterious. Eventually the blame was put on Capt. Bill Collier’s big clam dredge, which dragged up five hundred bushels every day and tore up and disrupted the sand bottom.
The vast clam flat had never recovered. Today this shallow shelf was so plagued with sharks that men disliked going overboard to wade. Nobody knew what drew the sharks from deeper water. It wasn’t fish, because the fish had never returned after the tide, not the way they were. These days, there was talk of a shark fishery. “Imagine our granddaddies goin after sharks!” Whidden exclaimed. “I ain’t never et a shark, and I sure ain’t aimin to start now!”
“The Lord’s Creation is too old to adjust to all our meddlin.” The blind man had heard that down on Northwest Cape, two hundred killer whales had run aground and died—who had ever heard of such a thing? They all fell quiet, wondering if those doomed leviathans were a sign of the Apocalypse, a signal that the old ways of the earth were near an end.
Where islands shifted in the mist, Whidden called to Sally, who had remained on the forward cabin, hair flying in the salt Gulf wind. “That’s Mormon Key, there where I am pointin at!” Mormon Key was where his grandfather had settled after turning over Chatham Bend to the old Frenchman. “Course Mormon was closer to the Bend than Granddad Robert might of liked, bein just off the mouth of Chatham River.”
“Well,” she cried, “Mister Colonel’s daddy was never their real enemy along this coast!” Whidden nudged Lucius, then hollered back, “How come you know so much about them old-time Hardens? You think you know my family history better’n me?”
“Yes, I sure do! I spent evening after evening talking with your family when you were out in the swamp breaking the law!”
“Well, the family had our Harden story taught me pretty good by that time!”
Sally clambered back into the cockpit. “Those older Hardens always said they kept a sharp eye on your father but they learned to trust him,” she told Lucius, “and they certainly trusted you.” She helped Andy bring his chair forward to join them.
Whidden said, “Well, they didn’t care to have E. J. Watson as their enemy. And he was always generous to ’em, very kind. Never thought about ’em as mulatta people, the way some did.”
Sally groaned. “Whidden? Maybe that’s because they weren’t mulatta, ever think of that?”
“Them men from Chokoloskee Bay harassed Whidden’s family something unmerciful,” Andy said tactfully. “Once they seen how many sea trout come up on these banks on the flood tide, they aimed to run that pioneer family right off Mormon Key, and was very indignant when the Hardens would not let ’em do it. I heard this from my dad, y’know, because I’m talking about way back, now, when Colonel here was just a boy, up in Fort Myers.
“The Hardens all knew how to shoot, and they held this place with guns. Mormon Key was the real start of the Fish Wars. Men from the Bay would come down here”—he waved his arm with that uncanny orientation—“and fish this northwest side, stake gillnets all around the grasses, catch sea trout coming off the flats on the falling tide. But sometimes they left them nets too long, and couldn’t lift until the tide come in again, and by then they was lucky to save a third of the fish caught, because the rest was dead. And the Hardens hated being crowded out, hated that waste, and they would put a bullet past those fellers’ heads, to scare ’em off, and the boats took to shooting back as they departed.
“Robert Harden give up on Mormon Key because he was fed up with being harassed by the Bay people. It was only a matter of time, he reckoned, till them men bushwhacked one of his boys when they went north for their supplies. He sold the quitclaim to E. J. Watson around 1899 and bought Nick Santini’s claim to Hog Key and Wood Key, down around Lost Man’s. Stayed for life. All that old man wanted was his peace and quiet, which meant plenty of space between Hardens and Chokoloskee.”
Andy said, “Bill House got his fill of Chokoloskee on the same day Colonel’s daddy did, October twenty-fourth of 1910. Just took him a few years more to realize it. All the same, my dad loved that island, loved them people. I do, too. Can’t tell you why, cause a lot of ’em ain’t lovable. I guess Chokoloskee’s in my blood, like my cousin Ned. I just can’t get him out.”