“He wants people to use it.”
“You got a point there. But did you see what he’s charging for a ham sandwich? And I’d have to want a beer real bad before I’d pay that much.”
“After a long hot day of digging, I imagine Herbie can charge whatever he wants to for a cold beer. If he could keep this racket going, he could retire from the insurance business, except he’s gonna run out of artifacts, sooner or later. Looks like he’s trying to make his money while he can.”
“Should we tell Sheriff Mike?”
Faye sighed. “It’s not his county. And I don’t know that there’s any laws being broken. Except maybe Herbie should be paying sales tax on all that money. It’s his land and he can dig it up if he wants to. I guess he can charge people to do it for him. If they don’t disturb any burials, they’re probably in the clear, legally. But, yeah. We should tell Sheriff Mike. He’s working two murder cases, and we just got a look at several dozen people who are willing to skirt the law in a pretty serious fashion.”
“Why do you think there’s so much treasure for those people to hunt way out here? One of those guys said something about a battlefield. Did the Civil War come through here? Why?”
Joe scanned a landscape that didn’t look like a strategic military target. Unless you were an alligator. This swamp would look especially good to a gator.
“You taking American History this fall?”
Joe nodded.
“Then listen and learn, my young apprentice. You can get a paper out of this. An A-plus paper. The Confederacy started life as a nation under some severe disadvantages. Name some.”
“Well…they were in a war, right away.”
“Yep. They were at war before they’d had time to set up a government, generate some income, acquire some weapons, form a military hierarchy…it’s a wonder they managed as well as they did. What else?”
“They didn’t have the factories they needed to make guns and ammunition and ships.”
“Nor the raw materials. Anything else?”
“They could’ve used a few thousand more soldiers. A lot of thousands of more soldiers.”
“Very good. But that’s all military stuff. What does everybody need?”
“Um…food and water?”
Faye slapped him on the shoulder. “Good. I hope I’m the teaching assistant in your class this fall. Most of the South had water, plenty of it. It was a farming culture, so food wasn’t an immediate issue, but it became one. First, they had to feed an army that wasn’t producing food. Then the war destroyed crops and disrupted transportation. The coastline was blockaded the whole time to keep foreign imports out. All those disadvantages added up. As early as 1863, women were rioting for bread in the streets of Richmond.”
Joe looked around him again, surveying this gator haven for the solution to the Confederacy’s food supply problem. “Not much to eat here but fish.”
“Precisely. There were canneries on the Florida coast. Saltworks, too. Bachelder may well have sold this property to an industrialist—someone who could make more money off salt and fish than he was making by growing cotton that he couldn’t sell, anyway. Or maybe he was businessman enough to run those enterprises himself.”
“The Yankees sent an army down here because somebody was selling fish and salt?”
“Sure. The Confederacy needed food to keep their army on its feet, and the Federals knew it. There were battles in this area with the sole purpose of keeping that protein out of the hands of the rebel army. I’m thinking that Herbie owns the site of one of those skirmishes. Those divers may be looting a ship sent to the bottom of the river nearly a hundred-and-fifty years ago. It’s tragic.” She fell silent.
“You’re not sneaking back out here to look for a sunk ship or a fish cannery, Faye. You’ll get shot.”
The sound of Joe’s voice caught her up short. It had a harsher edge than usual.
“You telling me what to do?”
“I’m hoping you’ll listen to good sense.”
“Well, okay. If you put it that way, I’ll leave Herbie and his friends to rape history in peace.”
Why was Faye surprised to see Ross sitting in Sheriff Mike’s office? She should have been no more surprised to see him there than she was to see Sheriff Mike working today, on a Saturday.
Ross looked very comfortable, leaning back in his chair, feet flat on the floor, legs spread, hands resting palms-down on his thighs. But then, Ross always looked relaxed, strong, and in charge.
The snippet of conversation that she overheard before both men rose to greet her involved squirrels, dogs, and ammunition, so she knew that Ross had gotten the sheriff to talking about his favorite subject: hunting. Did Ross hunt? She had no idea. She doubted he’d spent much time stalking squirrels during his formative years in Brooklyn, but he lived in Atlanta now. He was also a lobbyist. She supposed that people who hoped to influence Georgia politicians would do well to learn how to shoot woodland creatures. If Ross needed any help developing those skills, all he had to do was to ask Joe.
Perhaps Ross’ newly acquired hunting expertise had stood him in good stead today. Perhaps he had wanted to see her and had made his daily call in person Sheriff Mike as a way to “accidentally” bump into her.
Now she was being paranoid and silly. She had a cell phone. If Ross wanted to see her, he would call her like a normal human being. He had no need to manipulate events like a…well, like a lobbyist or a politician.
“Where in the world have you two been?” Sheriff Mike asked. Responding to Faye’s blank look, he ran his fingers through his graying hair like a comb.
She did the same, and pulled a twig and two leaves out of her hair. Peeking at Joe out of the corner of her eye, she saw that he had a good deal more than that caught in his mane. Because he had a lot more hair that she did. Right now, he seemed to be wearing the equivalent of half a tree. He was also muddy to his knees.
She sneaked a peek at her own feet. Yes. A good portion of Bachelder’s swamp had come home with her.
“I told you I was planning to get dirty. Remember? We went to look for Jedediah Bachelder’s homesite.”
“Found it, too,” Joe added proudly. “Also, we found a bunch of people I didn’t like much.”
Faye wished Joe had kept this bit of information to himself. She’d planned to tell the sheriff privately about stumbling onto the pothunting party. And she’d planned to make their encounter with a host of dangerous characters sound tame and non-threatening. Like a walk in the park. Swamp. Whatever.
“Were they dangerous?” Ross reached a hand toward Faye, then stopped himself.
“One of them was holding a gun…” she began.
Ross’ face was the very picture of consternation. So was the sheriff’s.
“…but it was a hundred-and-fifty years old. Give or take. And it was real rusty.”
“I think the barrel was jammed full of clay, too,” Joe offered.
“You two are going to be the death of me.” Sheriff Mike looked a little stressed. He had jumped to his feet at Faye’s mention of a gun, and Faye regretted teasing him about such a thing. It was in really poor taste, considering the events of the past few days. She almost told him to sit down, then she remembered that he had Magda to nag him into a healthy old age.
“Who were these people and why were they carrying an old, dirty gun?” Ross asked in a tone of infinite patience.
“Pothunters. Collectors. Connoisseurs of historical artifacts. Call them what you like. They were tearing up a Civil War battlefield with gusto. And they were paying through the nose for the privilege.”
“Listen to me carefully, Faye.” The sheriff still hadn’t sat down. His badge glittered under the fluorescent lights, as if to remind Faye that his words carried serious authority. “Stay away from unsavory characters. There are murderers out there.”
Ross nodded at the sheriff’s words.
“We thought we’d be alone with the snakes. Really. We should have been alone. Who knew these idiots would be there, too? But I thought you’d want to know who we saw out there. Herbie, the Civil War re-enactor. It’s his land. And a bunch of his re-enactor friends. Also, two skinhead-types that hang out at Liz’s place—Wayland and Nita. I think they’re married. To each other, I mean. And speaking of Liz, I saw Chip, too.”
“Sit, everybody,” the sheriff said, pulling in a chair from another room. “Does it seem weird to you that you recognized so many of those people?”
“Not really. Herbie and Wayland and Nita are regulars at Liz’s. They must live around here. And Chip obviously does. The rest of them were new to me this weekend, but according to this, they’ve been digging that battlefield for days.” She pulled Herbie’s rules out of her pocket and pointed to the dates posted on the bottom. “Liz’s place is the closest restaurant by miles. I imagine everybody got tired of Herbie’s overpriced ham sandwiches fairly quickly. Even Herbie.”
The sheriff finally sat, taking the paper from her hand and adjusting the glasses on his nose. “Where is this swamp where you and Joe went wading?”
“Out of your jurisdiction. Wakulla County. And I don’t think Herbie and his bunch are breaking any laws, beyond selling beer without a liquor license. But you might want to let your counterpart there know what’s going on.”
“Do you tell everybody their business, Faye?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “She does.”
A smile was flirting with the corner of Ross’ mouth. He took her hand and squeezed it.
She liked him a lot. Because he liked her the way she was.
“Well. That’s enough business for today, I think. Faye, you stay out of trouble. You hear me? And Joe. How’d you like to spend some time with your goddaughter?” Sheriff Mike pointed to this week’s photo of Rachel, displayed prominently on his desktop next to three others. “She and my wife are bothering Miss Emma this afternoon. And Ross tells me that he wants to take a boat ride.”
“Wanna show me Joyeuse?” Ross asked. “You’ve told me so much about it that I don’t really need to see it for myself. But I want to.”
So there it was. The political maneuver that had brought Ross here. A few minutes of hunting talk with the sheriff had camouflaged the larger topic—replacing Joe as her bodyguard, for an afternoon or, if Ross had his way, forever.
Faye considered whether she should be offended. She thought about refusing to cooperate with this clumsy effort to take care of her, when she didn’t really need it. She decided, instead, to go with the flow. Joe’s face was alight with the thought of spending the afternoon on his hands and knees, following Rachel as she crawled all over Emma’s satiny wood floors. The sheriff looked satisfied with his efforts to keep Faye safe from harm. And an afternoon in her island paradise with Ross, alone, sounded irresistible…once she’d set him straight on a thing or two.
“You want to see Joyeuse? Then let’s do it. I’ve got a boat at Liz’s, so we won’t have to take Joe’s and leave him stranded. But we’ll need to stop at Miss Emma’s and get you a bathing suit.”
“I stashed one in the car. Just in case I wangled an invitation.”
Faye had to give the man credit. He made a plan. He implemented that plan. And he forgot not the first detail.
***
Liz was giving Ross the same all-over scrutiny that she habitually gave Joe. Joe usually didn’t notice, but Ross did. Faye felt for him.
Liz leaned over the bar and said, “I need to talk to you, Faye,” in a hoarse whisper. Ross gratefully excused himself and escaped into the men’s room.
“Good God, girl,” the red-headed restaurateur said in a voice that boomed off the back wall and echoed back. “Where do you find these men? You never come in here without some kinda arm candy.”
“I wonder how Sheriff Mike would feel if he knew you called him ‘arm candy.’”
“Wasn’t talking about the sheriff. And you know it.”
“Magda thinks he’s cute.”
“You’re not gonna tell me where you find them, are you? You’re gonna pretend they just drop out of the sky.” Liz turned around, flipped a half-dozen burgers, then turned back to Faye. “Anyway. I wanted to tell you that Chip was back at school.”
“That’s great!” Faye started to say more but stopped, confused. “But it’s the end of the semester. He can’t be back at school until the summer term, at the earliest.”
Liz waved the question away with a grease-smeared spatula. “I didn’t say he was back
in
school. I said he was back
at
school. One of my customers saw him on campus yesterday, and she called me on the spot. Everybody around this place knows how much I want to see that boy back in college where he belongs.”
“Have you talked to Chip about it?”
Liz snorted. “Are you nuts? He’s twenty-two, and those three-and-a-half years of college make him a whole world smarter than his old mother. At least, he thinks so. If I told him the sky was blue, he’d say it was green. Also, he’d shake his head because I was ‘clinging to outmoded tropes to form my world view.’ Or something like that. But I don’t care if he thinks I’m ignorant or outmoded or just stupid. I want him to go back to Tallahassee long enough to get that last semester done. You can’t know how valuable a flimsy scrap of diploma paper is until you try to get by without one.”
“You still don’t know why he dropped out in the first place?”
Liz leaned forward with a gossip’s smile. “It was woman trouble, for sure. My customer saw him walking around campus, following some girl like a lost puppy. So here’s what I think. He had a girlfriend. She dumped him and he came home to lick his wounds. Now she’s taking him back. That’ll make him happy. He’ll go back to school, just to be with her, and that’ll make me happy. End of story.”
Ross stepped out of the bathroom, so Liz lowered her voice. “My customer says the woman was a little skinny and plain, compared to how good-looking Chip is. But she walked tall, like somebody who knew where she was going. My boy needs somebody to keep him straight, because I can’t do it forever. She sounds like marriage material to me.”
Faye didn’t respond. She just grinned and took Ross’ arm, saying “Let’s take a boat ride.”
But she was thinking,
Marriage material? You don’t even know her.
She hoped for Liz’s sake that Chip’s girlfriend stayed with him long enough to see him through school. After that, they could marry or not, but he’d have that all-important bachelor’s degree. Like Liz, Faye had spent a lot of years trying to do without one of those.
Faye couldn’t resist forming a mental picture of Chip bringing a woman home to meet his mom. Any ordinary woman would be intimidated by her tough demeanor. Maybe Liz would make some kind of effort to be less scary. It was a good thing Chip had chosen somebody who walked tall.
The thought of Liz dressed like somebody’s mother—demure dress, sensible shoes, and all—made Faye laugh out loud.
***
Faye enjoyed watching Ross sit back and surrender control. He didn’t look like he was enjoying it much, but he was doing it.
It seemed only fair that she should be in control of the boat. On land, he was a confident driver who owned a high-powered driving machine. So he should drive, if he wanted to. On water, she had a lifetime of experience. Also, she owned two boats which, though battered and ugly, purred like kittens and moved like barracudas. So she should be the boat pilot, if she wanted to. And she did.
Ross sat beside her, looking like a man who didn’t know what to do with his hands. Since he was noticeably off-balance and since he had no way to walk away, this was as good a time as any to pick a fight.
“So. You went behind my back and talked to Sheriff Mike about Joe. What have you got against Joe?”
He had the good grace to look sheepish. “I don’t have anything against Joe. He seems like a good guy. I’m just worried about you. Some terrible things have happened and—”
“You don’t think Joe can protect me from the bad guys? He’s done it before. And I take care of myself pretty well, too. In case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I noticed.”
She could tell he was trying not to smile. Faye was pretty sure he wasn’t taking her complaint seriously, so she pressed harder. “I also hear tell that you think Joe’s too dumb to be trusted with my safety.”
“I never said that.”
“Sheriff Mike says you did.” That would teach Ross to try to manipulate her friends and presume that they wouldn’t tell her.
“I didn’t use the word ‘dumb.’ I wouldn’t do that. But, yes, I did ask Sheriff Mike if he didn’t want someone looking after you who…um…could think quicker.”
Faye cut the motor. They were as far from land as they were going to get. The mainland was a dark band reflecting in the water behind them. They were just close enough to Joyeuse Island to see individual live oak trees reaching their gnarled branches out into the air. If Ross didn’t want to hear what she had to say, then he was going to have to jump out of the boat. And it was a powerful long swim to dry land in either direction.
“You don’t believe Joe thinks quickly? Go hunting with him sometime. He thinks quicker than a dove can fly. I know, because I’ve eaten the doves. And you don’t think he can protect me? Once, a man was trying to kill me. He almost got the job done, too, but Joe put a stone spear point right through his throat. Another time, a woman was about to shoot me at point-blank range, and Joe took her out with one shot. Could you do those things?”
Rather than answer her question, Ross said, “My point is that maybe Joe shouldn’t let you get into those situations. Maybe I could think of a way to avoid them altogether, if I were the one looking after you.” A withering glance from Faye prompted him to amend his statement. “Maybe you and I
together
could figure out a way to stay safe.”
Faye snorted to acknowledge that this suggestion was a step in the right direction. “I don’t think you like Joe, and I can’t figure out why. Do you require all your friends to have advanced degrees?”
“Faye. He’s young. He’s good-looking. He lives with you. I’m human enough to be jealous. So sue me.”
“Here’s how things are. Joe’s lived on my island for three or four years. Most of that time, he didn’t even live in the house. He sort of…camped. During that time, he’s had girlfriends. I’ve dated several men, including you. Joe and I are friends. Roommates. Um, I guess ‘housemates’ is a better word. And when you see my house you’ll know that you can be housemates and live about a quarter-mile apart.” She couldn’t keep the smile off her face when she thought of showing Joyeuse off to Ross. “If Joe and I were going at it like rabbits, I wouldn’t be driving all the way to Atlanta to see you. So give it a rest, okay?”