Lost Man's River(267)
“Miami now, there’s a barbecue on the next block has a nigger in it who just thinks the world of me. Said he’d find them ones who beat me up, get ’em took care of. Good nigger people, they don’t want that kind around no more’n we do.
“Next day a man drove right up to the house. Very easy and polite, like he was in some kind of law enforcement. Handed me a card without no name on it, only a Miami phone number. Says, ‘Mr. Daniels, I seen in the papers where niggers invaded into your home and robbed and beat you. You think you would know them ones that done it? Cause if you ever run acrost ’em, you can call this number and describe ’em, say where they are at. You can reach this number twenty-four hours a day, you understand me, Mr. Daniels? Twenty-four hours every day. All you got to do is call and then you’re out of it.’ Got back in his big car and went away. Don’t seem like that man worked in law enforcement, what do you think?”
Asked what the man looked like, Speck said, “Well, I ain’t forgot him. Heavy-set strong-lookin feller, pale moony face, dark jowls, y’know, but clean-shaved all the same. Had these pale blue eyes with a dark outside ring. Why I recall ’em, I seen that same dark eye ring on a panther that come prowlin into camp one night, took my best hound. This was back before the Park, up Lost Man’s Slough. I heard somethin and sat up and worked my flashlight. This big cat had my best dog by the throat, haulin him off. Had that hound killed on the first jump, hardly made a sound. When the beam hit him, he dropped that dog and crouched. Didn’t back up, he didn’t want to leave it. Stared down my light beam all the while I was fumblin for my rifle. Then he was gone, weren’t nothin left, only that circle of the beam with the dead dog in it.”
Lucius called, “That man look anything like Watson Dyer?”
Speck relit his cigarette before he answered. “I ain’t never laid eyes on Watson Dyer,” he said, expelling smoke. “Him and me done all our talkin on the phone.”
“How about that military officer? In the helicopter?”
Speck chewed on this idea. “With the sunshine blazin up the windshield—oil haze and smashed bugs and scratches on that plastic—I never got a good look at the face. All the same, he looked some way familiar.” He nodded a little. “Might been that same man but I ain’t sure.”
Speck finished his jug and tossed it aside and tottered to his feet. “Got to get goin early in the morning.” He said this to all of them, by way of parting. He was already headed for his boat when he stopped short and wheeled so fast he almost fell.
“Colonel? I believe you might be right. He might been Dyer. Same real deep calm voice, like a old-time preacher. And that military man, I never got a good look at his face, but I seen his hind view when he got out to take a leak. Same set to his walk as that Miami feller, back on his heels with his boot toes pointed out, like a bear reared up on his hind legs. That sound like Dyer?”
“That’s the feller in my gas station!” Andy exclaimed. “All you got to do is call and then you’re out of it—the selfsame feller!”
Speck had come back and was swaying over the fire. “I ain’t so much for coloreds, now, don’t get me wrong. But a growed man runnin around on his own time and money, huntin down niggers he ain’t never even seen? That is a man with a bad case of race predu-juice or somethin!” Speck looked sly again, and not wishing to encourage him, the others went off to their blankets, leaving him tottering and hooting by the fire. But soon, he pitched his voice toward their blankets, and his tone grew angry as his oratory rose. He was still ranting at the world when Lucius fell asleep.
“—yessir, Friends, them Glades today is layin out there DEAD! No use to NO-body! A big ol’ godforsaken swamp, ain’t hardly fit for reptiles nor mosquiters! And these here Islands goin to wind up the same way! Don’t you dumb-ass taxpayers realize how much prime tourist coast is goin to waste right here in southwest Florida? When we could pump white sand out of the Gulf where it don’t do a single bit of good, make gorgeous beaches, dredge nice cocktail-boat canals right smack through them mis’rable ol’ mangroves, throw up deluxe waterfront condoms just like we got right here in ol’ Miam-uh? Condoms a-risin on the Sun Coast Skyline in just a thrillin silver line, all the way south around Cape Sable! If that ain’t the American Dream, I don’t know what! Sunset on the Golden Gulf, just a-glintin off them condoms, turnin ’em from silver into gold!”
Lucius Watson tossed on the hard sand. Had he lived his entire life in dread of awful revelations which in some realm below consciousness were already known? Rob’s tale seemed so utterly remote, corresponding but faintly with his own sun-filled memories of Papa and the Bend—had memory betrayed him? Had there been no shadows? Had he never wondered?