Buck set the coffee down on the damp tabletop and pushed a cup to Mr. Brown's side and then unfolded the map.
"I've got a bit of an airboat trip planned here, sir, and thought I might get your take on some of these here spots you might recognize," he explained, sliding the chart to edge up against the mug he'd given Brown.
The old man raised the thick china cup to his lips, took a long draft even though the heat of the coffee still sent steam up and around his prominent nose, and men leaned out over the map. Despite his unknown age, Buck had never seen the man wear a pair of glasses. Brown set the mug down and then reached out and placed his fingertips on each X-crossed spot on the map like he was feeling the place, conjuring a memory.
"This 'un here is too far north for any good fishin'," he said. "It'll be wet now after this blow, but in dry times they ain't but a foot or two of water.
"Now this 'un might could get you a few smaller tarpon, maybe some snook. This other is 'bout the same."
Buck just nodded his head, watching the old man's brow, the deep furrows made by a lifetime of squinting into the reflected sun rays bouncing off open water.
"This 'un here is in an awful pretty spot up in Palm Beach County. Ain't much to fish 'cause the river over this way draws 'em all, but there's some gators in a old hole we used to take ever season near there. Big, nasty sumbitches too, pardon the cussin', son."
"I've heard worse, sir," Buck said, like he was back in his teenage years and his father was alive and Brown was back in his seventies.
"Yep, I know," Brown said without looking up. "Prison'll learn you that."
They both sat in silence for a moment. Buck knew what the old man thought of him and his arrests. Even though prison was familiar to them both, Brown's and Buck's father's incarcerations had been considered a different breed.
"But you ain't goin' to these places to do no huntin' or fishin', are you, boy?"
It was an accusation, not a question and Buck hesitated in his response. He could try to make up a story, something with a taste of civilization that the old man might not be familiar with.
"No, sir," he finally said, eschewing a lie in the face of a man he begrudgingly revered. "It's a salvage operation."
Brown did not look up but Buck could see the lines of a sneer start at the bridge of his nose like he was beginning to smell something foul.
"You mean like when them boys found that there Caddy Escalade out of gas on the highway up to Naples and salvaged the wheels and electronics?" Brown said, this time looking up at Buck with a single eye. Buck was mildly surprised that the old man had heard of that incident with Wayne and Marcus. The fancy wheel rims had sold for a nice price. He avoided the old man's look, shifting his own back to the map.
"You know them boys is headin' for trouble. Don'tcha, son?"
Buck was not going to get into a philosophical debate with the old man.
For some men in Florida, trouble had been a natural way for a long time. He thought of the stories his own father had told of citizens in the early 1800s who often "salvaged" the broken holds of ships carrying goods from New Orleans around the tip of the Florida Keys and up the east coast to New York on the tide of the Gulf Stream. When those ships ran aground on the sharp- edged coral reefs, it was considered a Floridian holiday and pillaging was nearly a civic duty. Near the turn of the twentieth century, land owners selling useless deeds to Florida swampland created millionaires overnight who fled with the cash and left the losers behind. Nate Brown himself had poached gators out of his favorite hunting holes even though they were considered off limits after the federal government created the Everglades National Park in the 1940s and the practice was deemed illegal. Those men all used the excuse that what they did, they did to survive. Buck had heard that rationalization a thousand times coming in late-night conversation from the darkened bunks of men up in Avon Park Correctional.
"Maybe it's just trouble of a different nature," Buck finally said, but he was still not willing to meet the old man's eyes.
"No, son," Nate Brown replied, his voice holding a weak resignation that Buck had never heard before. "The nature's the same. Sometimes that's the part of people that don't never change."
Buck pushed his chair back, knowing the old man was finished. He stood and started to roll the chart, but Nate Brown's finger was still pressed down on one last X.
"Let me give you some advice, Buck. If that's what you come for," he said, using the young man's name for maybe the first time since his childhood. "Stay clear of this one here."
He was indicating the X farthest south on the map.
"They's stories on this one. One told is that an old-timer built here and must have died over the years because no one seen him for years. Word was someone in his family took it over but they somehow got spooked and left the place empty. Then new owners that put out the word of no trespassin' and meant it. I been out there myself and heard awful strange music comin' from the place when there wasn't a shred of light on the property.
"Steer clear, son." And with that the old man removed his finger and sat alone at the table while Buck gathered the map, and said his thanks.
"Yes, sir," he said and then turned back to retrace his steps to his own place.
"We're gonna hit those places now."
The boys just looked at each other with a mirror expression that said surprise, but what the hell. They'd shown up midmorning after wandering around town in their boat boots, checking out the damage from the night. Buck was in one of those suspiciously dark moods of his. Wayne figured this was the way he must have been in prison and it was not a good idea to argue with him. Besides, when Buck wanted to roll, it usually turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than sitting around this place. They could easily tell their mothers that they'd been hired to do some kind of rescue or salvage work and with the promise of money on their lips they'd be off the hook for any cleanup at their own homes.
"I already been over at Owen Chadwick's tour business shed and his airboat is intact and I have the key," Buck said while he turned his back on them and stuffed something into his black, zippered duffle. They were both in that sort of uncomprehending dumb-assed mode he'd seen a dozen times in their teenage faces when he grabbed up the bag and turned back to them.
"What? You two suddenly lost your comprehension of English overnight?
Again the boys stood quiet. They had learned that if they looked at each other for some kind of shared intelligence they'd get another dose of Buck's shit. So they stood mute.
"We got opportunity here, fellas. Those camps are either out there with their doors blown out for easy access to what's inside. Or they're in pristine shape while their owners are scurryin' around at their big-assed mansions in the city worryin' about how to get their air conditioning back on," Buck said.
"Nobody's thinking about them camps after a hurricane, boys. We got a window of opportunity here and, fellas, we're gonna climb right on through."
He ordered them to grab up some bottled water and some food and "whatever tools you think you might need" and meet him over at Chadwick's boat shed. Then he slung the duffle over his shoulder and started down the outside staircase.
"And hurry your asses up," he called out to them as they went in opposite directions. "We're burnin' daylight."
Buck liked to quote from John Wayne movies and with these two he often dredged up lines from that one called The Cowboys about Wayne taking a bunch of young kids on a cattle drive because the Duke couldn't find any men to help him with the job. In the Old West Buck would have been a leader, a man admired. He figured that might have been why he never objected to the nickname that got stuck on him in high school. Buck. Just like in the 1800s. Now there was a century he knew he would have fit into. Maybe driving cattle up in Hendry County wasn't that different today. Maybe he hadn't been born too late.