Because I was irrationally irked that Arlis Futch might be right about the cold front, I replied, “No fire. I want to give the chimney a few more days to seal. Besides, I was in the middle of telling you about the lake he found.”
The aging fisherman had finally shared the details of how he had found what he believed to be the famous lost plane. I wanted to bounce his proposal off Tomlinson before guests arrived.
Tomlinson had dumped a bucket of oysters in the sink, shells and all. He was shucking the oysters, placing the spoon-sized shells on a tray where there was rock salt piled on a slab of stone and wedges of lime scattered. Looked good.
The hatch-cover table was set for four, the breakfast counter for one. I had invited two ladies for dinner, a current love interest, plus also my current workout buddy—a potentially dangerous mix, but what the hell. The fifth setting was for the sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquent, Will Chaser. The boy was another volatile unpredictable.
I said to Tomlinson, “This is Arlis talking, not me. Understand?,” attempting to continue the story.
Tomlinson replied, “You’ve got two floor heaters in the lab. Couldn’t I drag one in here? Just to sort of take the edge off.”
He knew the answer. There were a dozen living aquaria in my lab, plus the new sea horses. Most of the aquariums have their own little heating systems, but the room needs to stay at a consistent temperature.
Tomlinson pressed, “Then what about those socks? You got some I can borrow?” The man was still wearing the Thai fishing pants, baggy around his waist, and a RED SOX hoodie. No shoes, of course.
I walked into my bedroom, opened a drawer and lobbed a pair to him, saying, “A month ago, a rancher hired Arlis to remove a nuisance alligator. That’s how the whole thing started. A gator big enough to kill a steer and eat most of it—or so he claims. While he was looking for the gator, Arlis found a propeller from an old plane wreck. Not in the lake, but in a swampy area nearby. Arlis can be convincing. He believes it’s the gold plane.”
Tomlinson replied, “He convinced himself, so what? That doesn’t mean anything.”
I said, “He felt sure enough about it to buy the property. Ten acres, including the lake—plus a deeded ingress and egress. He closed on the property yesterday. He says that’s why he waited to tell us.”
Tomlinson was paying attention now. “That had to cost him a chunk of money.”
“He had to mortgage his place on Gumbo Limbo. Something else,” I said. “He says he found two gold pesos lying in a sand clearing. Just lying there, not far from the propeller.”
“I’ll be damned,” Tomlinson said. “Sounds like it really could be the gold plane.”
Batista’s gold plane, that’s the way it’s referred to in Florida legend. No need to explain the backstory. The only thing typical about Tomlinson is that he has lived a boat bum’s atypical life, gunk-holing the Caribbean, cruising from port to port, seeking a larger universe by simplifying his life within the cabin walls of an old Morgan sailboat named No Más. Like me, he has heard a thousand miles of treasure stories, including the legend of Batista’s plane. Like me, he is seldom impressed.
“Did he show you the coins?”
I said, “He says he keeps them in his truck because it has a better security system than his house. Which I don’t doubt is true.”
Tomlinson said, “Hmm,” before asking, “This thing killed a full-grown bull, huh?” He was more interested in a giant alligator than a massive fortune, I could tell—characteristic of the man.
“He claims something killed a yearling steer, not a bull. Even so, an animal that age would have to weigh seven or eight hundred pounds. And it wasn’t the first time it happened. The rancher told Arlis his family had lost a lot of cattle in that area over the years.”
“How many years?”
“Forty or fifty,” I said, and couldn’t help smiling.
Tomlinson was smiling, too. “Florida’s version of the Loch Ness monster, huh? So the thing’s become a family legend.”
“The rancher doesn’t actually work the land much anymore,” I told him. “He inherited it. But back to the steer—”
“Bull or steer, what’s the difference?” Tomlinson interrupted. “Half the males I know have lost their balls, one way or the other. That makes them malleable--and marriageable—not eatable. What’s harder to believe is some rancher hired Arlis to kill a nuisance gator instead of doing it himself.”
I said, “Yeah, I’ve got a problem with that, too.”
Florida’s interior is home to a sizable population of cowboys. Real cowboys, although historically they are known as cow hunters. The tourist brochures have no reason to mention that beef cattle are among the state’s leading exports.
I added, “The way Arlis tells it, the rancher’s afraid to go near that lake. The same with the men who work for him. Plus, the place is tough to access. There’s no road, you’ve got to hike or cut a path.”
Tomlinson continued shucking oysters, his expression dubious, as I said, “A more likely explanation is that the wildlife cops have cracked down on killing protected species. If you get caught killing a gator, there’s a big fine, even some jail time. But Arlis has a state license, so it makes sense that the rancher called him.”
“That’s right,” Tomlinson agreed, “he’s licensed, which adds up, you’re right. So he went to the lake, caught the gator and found the propeller, plus the two coins. So far, so good—not that I’m sold yet.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t find the gator—if there is one. There’s more than one lake in the area, he says. The property I’m talking about is fifty miles inland, northeast, near a little crossroads named Venus. You know the place. It’s in Highlands County—hilly country, by Florida standards.”
Tomlinson nodded. It was mushroom country, too, although he didn’t say it. Fanciers of psilocybin mushrooms tend to be closemouthed about their favorite hunting areas. Instead, he said, “There’s a lot of cattle pasture and palmetto, elevation more than a hundred feet above sea level. Sure, I’ve spent a day or two in that area. But you wouldn’t notice the elevation unless you’re on a bicycle. I remember a Baptist church and a stand at a crossroads where they sell beef jerky and boiled peanuts. Really good peanuts.”
I said, “It’s probably still there—for now. It used to be ten thousand hectares of free-range cattle, but the strip malls are closing in. Now the rancher is ready to sell off a few hundred acres, and I guess he was afraid a cow-killing gator might ruin the realtor’s sales pitch. That’s why he accepted Arlis’s offer and sold him a little chunk that included this lake.”
“It was probably a panther,” Tomlinson said. “Or wolves. I hear they’re making a comeback.”
“They found the steer—what was left of it—floating in the water. It could be anything.”
Tomlinson was smiling. He liked that. “Something big lives in that lake.”
I said, “The steer could have died of natural causes and fallen in. Or it could have waded in and drowned. Still . . . an oversized gator is easier to believe than a plane loaded with gold.”
“Then how do you explain the two coins?”
I replied, “I don’t doubt that Arlis found a plane wreck. But it’s unlikely he found the plane wreck,” as I crossed the room to make sure the windows were sealed tight.
I had been standing at the propane stove, making one of my specialties: pan-seared snapper with peanut gravy, which is sort of like satay sauce only easier. Fish renderings in a pan, then add a glob of peanut butter, a couple shots of chili oil, then simmer with flour and water until it thickens.
I was feeling the chill now, though, despite the propane burners on the stove. I live in what is known as a “fish house”—two small cottages built over water on stilts, under a single tin roof. In the early 1900s, fish were stored in one house, fishermen in the other. When I bought the place, I converted the larger cottage into a lab, the other into my home.