In the Florida Boom, back in ’24, the Chevelier Corporation had sent Andy’s father to this Turner River land to demonstrate to the Trail settlers how tomatoes could be grown commercially on palmetto prairie. “Once the company learned how Dad done that, it took that fine new farm right out from under him. That’s when he had to go back to Frank Tippins. Dad worked this prairie so darn well he worked himself right out of his job!
“Turner River was a clear wild stream before the Trail construction broke her. There’s a little lake back in this strand where fish are plentiful, but because there’s no trail through that hot thicket no more, nobody don’t even know about that lake, let alone go there! Why go sloggin through the backcountry when you can ride in a nice auto to Miami or sit on your sofa, watch your new TV?”
Back at the picnic grove, the blind man raised his hands in a vague gesture. “Right about here where they got these roadside tables, that’s where Henry raised his watermelons—”
“Darkies love watermelons,” Sally said, laying out forks.
“Sally? You plan to jump on Andy every time he opens his mouth from now on?”
“Well, she’s right, Colonel. Maybe I talk too much. Talkin about old times makes me happy, and when I’m happy is when I tell all the old stories.” For want of a way to give vent to his well-being, he circled the table, sniffing the air, lifting his big arms, letting them fall. And in a while, finishing his meal, he was reminded of Henry and his brothers.
ANDY HOUSE
Henry Short come to Turner River with our family, and this is where his long-lost past caught up with him. This was in 1928, maybe 1929, because the Tamiami Trail was just put through. Well, one day two white fellers showed up in a old flivver. Never mixed words about who they was and what they come for. Got out of their car and told my dad that Henry Short was their half brother and they come to visit with him. If they was ashamed of it, that never showed.
First time them brothers tried to find him was way back before World War I, a couple years after Ed Watson was killed. They tracked him all the way south to Lost Man’s River. Henry was living at Lee Harden’s then, but he hid back in the bushes, never showed himself nor talked with ’em at all, because he believed them men had come to kill him. Hardens was pretty leery, too, so they said nothin to help. Them big barefoot men just stood there with their guns, set to run them strangers right back where they come from.
At Lost Man’s them brothers left Henry a letter, and when he come in out of hiding and he read it, that poor feller wept. He kept that letter all them years, he must of read them words one thousand times, but he never showed it to our family, only said politely that his letter was them brothers’ business. I reckon he didn’t want to take a chance that some word or joke or maybe just somebody’s expression might go spoiling something. But over the years, he referred to it some—he had it memorized—and finally we had the story pieced together.
After the lynching of Henry’s father, his young mother was punished severely, but her father kept his ruined daughter, he took her back and her child, too, least till the age of four, when he got rid of Henry in the way I told you. Once the child was gone, he found some feller to marry her, and she give her husband them two sons, as white as you or me. And them two come south just to make sure their half brother was getting on all right. And when they showed up on the Trail, Henry’s eyes was shining like he seen a miracle. I met them men myself, four or five times. The name of those two brothers might been Graham, and they had settled some good land west of Arcadia, around where the old settlement called Pine Level used to be. They were ranchers—they owned cattle, they weren’t ranch hands—and both of ’em were good steady men, polite and very quiet like their brother.
Well, our House family could not get over that. We used to wonder if Henry’s mother sent ’em. Her community had made her witness it when Henry’s daddy was burned and killed, and she never forgot it. She was yearning to know where her firstborn was, and if he was all right. In the eye of God, she was a sinner, but to us mortals she must be a good woman if she could raise up two white sons to take responsibility for that half brother they had never seen and never had to see, him being a poor colored field hand way off in some godforsaken part of Florida who didn’t even know them two existed.
Granddad House told his boys many’s the time what that lynch mob done to Henry’s daddy, but I’m shamed to say I never give much thought to it. It’s sinful how we shut things out that we don’t care to look at! But after I met his two half brothers, I had a gruesome dream about Henry’s father, a man of flesh and blood like me who become me in my dream, or I was him, nailed up to that oak in that night fire circle, sufferin them torments of the torch and rope in woe and terror, looking down into the howling faces of them Christian demons. That dream has come back all my life, no matter how hard I try not to think about it.
One night before his white brothers showed up, Henry whispered, looking deep into the fire, “If there is one thing that is sorrier than a nigra, it is a white woman who traffics with a nigra.” We never did know if he meant his mother or his wife, but we was shocked to hear such bitter words. After his brothers come and claimed him, and told him how much his mother missed him all her life, I never heard him speak such words again. I believe he was tore up and sick at heart that he had said something so cold and hard about his mama.
If Henry understood why his half brothers stayed in touch with him, he never said, but knowing Henry, he probably thought them men was plain darn crazy to go up against the common prejudice that way! All the same, he was very very grateful, he would whistle and smile for days after they left, we never seen him look that way before nor since!
I was always sorry I never knew them two men better. What they stood up for, so simple and so clear, made me ashamed of my whole way of thinking about nigra people, it woke me up and turned me right around. Yessir, I was mighty impressed, and I am today.
The last time Henry’s brothers came to Turner River, we was real happy to see them, and we invited ’em to share our supper. We meant well, but it didn’t sound right, it felt funny, and it made ’em uncomfortable, so they would not eat with us. They didn’t act angry or upset, they were polite about it, but they said, No thank you, they had come there to see Henry, and they built their own cooking fire off a little ways. I never got over the sight of them three men setting on their hunkers by their fire, chuckling and trading stories while they cooked and served each other, like Henry had ate with other people all his life.
After they left, Henry never said what they had talked about, it was too precious. That was his life, the only family life he ever had. And the following year, Henry left the House family for good, and we never saw them Graham men again.
Sometimes Henry rowed down Turner River and headed north or south along the coast, hunting for gold. That feller was a fool for gold since way back in the nineties. Picked up tales of buried treasure from Old Man Juan Gomez on Panther Key, who claimed he’d sailed before the mast with Gasparilla. The God’s truth never did catch up with that old Cuban. Drowned in his own net off Panther Key but his lies are going strong right to this day.
One time Henry worked for strangers who come to Everglade in a old schooner, hired a crew and went prospecting on Rabbit Key. Took ranges all over the place and worked like beavers for two-three days digging up that island. Well, E. J. Watson had been buried on that key, and Henry was scared to death of Watson’s spirit. He knew the body had been dug up and taken to Fort Myers, but he weren’t so sure Watson’s spirit had went with it. A hoot owl was calling from the mangrove clumps, and Henry knew there weren’t no owls out there, he knew that owl weren’t nothing in the world but a wandering spirit.
Henry had the ghost of Watson on his mind when a shovel struck something deep down in the sand on the third evening. It was close to dark, so the men was ready to knock off, but first they wanted to dig up whatever the heck it was that shovel scraped on. But the strangers told ’em to go back to
camp on Indian Key, they would set a guard and start fresh in the morning. And when the men come back bright and early, thinking to finish up, get paid their wages—yep! Them strangers was all gone. The schooner was gone, and their wages was gone, too. There was only this square pit in the sand, shaped like a chest.
Henry never got over being so close to Gasparilla’s treasure, he was prospecting gold for the whole rest of his life. Seemed like there was rascals setting up all night making genuine parchment maps to sell to Henry. He drilled on Pine Island, Sanibel, wherever Gasparilla might of gone ashore. Sent away for a certified surefire drill and drilled up and down the coast, he was hot for gold. Even drilled on Chatham Bend when nobody was looking, cause there was rumors that your daddy struck Calusa gold or maybe Ponce de Leon’s gold when he first plowed that place. As Dad used to say, “Henry Short is a smart man, but that gold fever has diseased his brain.”
After the Hurricane of ’26 Henry went over to Pelican Key, and there he seen these lumps of metal laying on the sand where the storm cast up big slabs of coral rock. He could have had ’em for the picking up, he told me, but he thought they was scraps off an old engine block half sanded up out there. Later a feller showed me scraps from the same spot, said, “Looky here what I just bought! Pieces of eight them Spaniards buried out on Pelican Key!”
Never come out until years later how Gasparilla the Pirate weren’t nothing but a publicity stunt thought up by some city slicker to fool tourists. To this day you can read about Gasparilla’s buried treasure right there on your lunch mat in your Sun Coast Restaurant while you’re waiting on your jumbo shrimps and key lime pie. Wipe off the coffee spill and ketchup and that mat will tell you all you need to know about how Emperor Napoleon patted Juan Gomez on his head back there in Madrid, Spain, and how Juan sailed with Gasparilla, who become so famous that all kinds of tourist enterprises got named after him. Yessiree, that Sun Coast menu got a real nice picture of Gasparilla in his official pirate hat with skull and crossbones and a eye patch and a sword between his teeth. You got that authentical evidence right there by your plate alongside your home fries and red snapper, and a lot of other history thrown in for free.
Henry Short was the most able man in this coast country, so my dad always found some work for him to do. Bill House was a good man, kind to black men, and they give him back a lot of work. Treat ’em like fine horses and they’ll run for you, is what he said. He always had a nigra to help out, whether we needed him or not—it just come natural to him. If Henry Short weren’t nowheres around, he’d find another, but he always said he liked Henry the best.
In the Depression when it got so hard to make a living, Dad sent Henry with a bunch of men who was going to Honduras hunting gators. Well, Henry didn’t want to go. He was near to fifty now, and he’d heard life was dangerous in them Spanish countries. Dad told him not to be a fool, this was his chance, and after so many years, it never occurred to him not to do what my dad told him. But when I took Henry to Immokalee—he was going to Fort Myers to board ship—he got out at the bus stop with his little bindle and stood a minute looking down the street. Then he turned slowly and he said, “Your daddy’s tired of me. He’s getting shut of me before I get too old.” He said good-bye and walked over to the bus and went down to Honduras.
Them hunters like to starved to death, couldn’t find no gators. They never come close to making their expenses, couldn’t pay for their own beans, so bein Spaniards, the authorities locked ’em up without no food. The American consul got some grub in to ’em, bribed somebody, finally shipped ’em home. Henry Short came back from Honduras but he never came back to Bill House. He was very bitter. Lived mostly at Immokalee, La Belle, ricked charcoal and cut cane, done what work he could find. The House family ain’t heard from him in years.
But God works in mysterious ways, and God saved Henry Short at Turner River, because after Henry left for good, he was tracked here by that stranger he had been afraid of all his life since Watson’s death. We caught this man skulking around toting a rifle with a hunting scope. Dad hollered, told him to lay down that rifle and step out where we could see him. Well, he steps out from behind that bush but he don’t put that rifle down. Seeing none of us is armed, he rests that weapon back over his shoulder. He was a city feller from the poor color of him. He says real bold, “I ain’t here to hurt you people, and I ain’t broke no law. I got some business with a nigger name of Short.” Claimed he had something for Henry but would not say what.
Dad never took his eyes off him. He had the idea this man was sick inside his head or some way crazy. I was whispering how I better run and fetch his gun. Dad said, “Don’t try nothin.” He told the man we didn’t know where Henry Short was at and wouldn’t tell him even if we did. He said, “Mister, you are trespassin, and trespassin is breakin the law. Don’t never come back onto my property.” And the man laughed at him. He said, “It ain’t even your property! I know all about you, Bud!” Then he walked off down the Trail to where he’d hid his car and headed back east where he come from.
When I finally got out of the convict labor business, I drove a school bus, I become a carpenter, I went back farming just so I could eat. Then I quit farming, went over to Miami, built me a gas station, and a few years later, this same man rolled in there. Course he was older, but I knew him—same ice blue eyes with that dark ring, same solid set to him. He said straight off he was still huntin that nigra, said this man Short was kind of like his hobby. I told him to get his automobile out of my station.
This feller nods but he don’t go no place, he’s setting there lookin me over out his window. And I’m getting edgy, I’m starting to get mad, when he says to me real soft, “Back up, my friend, don’t get your pecker in the wringer. Let’s say some nigger shot your daddy, and none of your brothers had guts enough to go take care of it. Now what would you do?”
I guess he figured he had brung me around to his own way of thinking, cause he flashed me a bad grin like he had proved his point. And damn if he don’t hand me this card with a phone number—no name, only that number. And he says, “You understand me, Mr. House? All you got to do is call and then you’re out of it.” Lifted his fingertips to his brow in a kind of a salute, and winked and drove on out of there, screeching his tires!
Not long after that I left Miami, because all them Cubans that was taking over, they wouldn’t buy no gas from us poor Angle-os. Spanish-American War all over again, guns and all, only this time them Spaniards run us Angle-os right out. My last customers give me a nice sticker to put on my rear bumper when I left for good: LAST AMERICAN OUT OF MIAMI BRING THE FLAG.
The Ten Thousand Islands
South of the Tamiami Trail, the road entered the coastal mangrove, arriving at last at a humpbacked bridge over the tidal creek called the Haiti Potato River, from which, in the late nineteenth century, black muck had been heaved to build a patch of high ground for a hunting camp. The Haiti Potato became the Allen River, after William Allen, the first settler, then the Storter River, after the family which established an Indian trading post and post office in 1890. Before 1913, when Walter Langford and his partners dredged a canal from Everglade north through the swamps, using the spoil bank to support a railway to Deep Lake, the shack community called Everglade, three miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, had only been accessible by sea.
The original idea for that small gauge citrus railway came from E. J. Watson, who had offered to manage the Deep Lake Plantation in a letter that his son-in-law Banker Langford never answered. George W. Storter, Senior, had driven the first spike and George W. Junior drove the second, and the rest of the fourteen-mile track was laid by convict labor. Four years later, 17,000 crates of citrus were shipped out by sea. When Deep Lake Plantation collapsed in the early twenties, the railway was used to haul construction materials eight miles north to the Tampa-Miami Trail. Subsequently the rails were removed and the rail bed surfaced for this county road.
From the small bridge across the tidal rive
r, Lucius described to Andy House what was left of the old landmarks. In the period of Trail construction, a small community of black laborers known as Port DuPont had sprouted up across the river from the fish docks. “Looks like this river isn’t wide enough,” Sally commented, “because with all this new talk about civil rights, the white folks here on the south bank aim to move the black ones to the old construction camps back north at Copeland. As long as they stay ten miles out in the sticks, they’ll be free to enjoy any civil right they want!”
“Folks on the Bay don’t take to nigras and they never did,” Andy admitted sadly. “Black feller tries to catch a fish anywhere down around these islands, he might get a bullet past his ear to run him off. Ain’t one black man lives today at Everglade or Chokoloskee, neither one.” He looked troubled. “Course there’s good folks that don’t feel that way, but they don’t do nothin about it—they just don’t speak up. And you know something? I might been one of ’em.”
On the south side of the bridge, behind the seafood-packing sheds along the river, small, low houses were scattered loosely like spilled produce, and beyond them rose the ornamental palms in the civic center of what was now Everglades City. “A lot of these old cottages through here, that’s my kinfolks,” Sally said. “Got ’em in Everglade, got ’em in Chokoloskee, all hitched up to one another like stuck dogs. When she married a Harden, this li’l ol’ gal got disinherited from the whole bunch. Got disinherited from an old nail-sick hulk that’s sinking away into a mud bank back upriver, and an old step-side pickup with a paint job that never did get past the prime coat, and maybe some kind of measly share of one of these old shacks with the tin roof sagging from rain leak and mold, and mosquitoes riding mean dogs through the busted screens, and crusted plastic dishes and grease-stained unpaid bills on the kitchen table.