“Joe Egret,” I repeated softly.
“And you?”
“Plain Hannah Smith. Your name sounds familiar for some reason.” It was true. Joey Egret… Joseph Egret… it was attached to some person or memory in the back of my mind.
“Same with Smith,” Joey said. “Nothing plain about that name… Captain Hannah.”
Laughter, and he was gone.
AT ONE-FIFTEEN A.M. I gave up trying to sleep and settled back with my great-uncle’s journal. Written on the cover was:
Receipts & Expenditures
Benjamin F. Summerlin
Master/Owner Vessels for Hire
Widow’s Son (40' Sharpie)
Sodbuster (24' Dory)
The first entry that referenced the Civil War was twenty pages in:
13 August 1861 (Habana, Cuba): $3 silver for a new hat mine being stoled by a drunkard on Duval St. War-he says the dumb bastards finely dun it & the Greys has kilt thousands at a place called Bull Run but the Blues won Pensacola & kilt only 100. These numbers do not seem right to me. I have been learning my Spanish rather than risk Yankees for neighbors…
Captain Summerlin had been a candid, insightful man. The book smelled of incense and smoke after sitting over the fireplace-chrysanthemum resin, Theo claimed-a scent so strong it made me wince. Hopefully, the thing would air. It had already benefited from the dry heat. New pages could be separated with the help of gentle pressure or a fingernail.
Not all, though.
Spiral notebook at my side, I started at the beginning, after reinspecting the fresh cracks and newly dog-eared pages. It was a leather-bound volume produced by Wilmington Maritime of North Carolina. Designed for bookkeepers, not a seagoing cattleman who cared more about numbers than spelling. Captain Summerlin had used it as a ship’s log and a notebook and also a place to doodle. On the inside cover were clumsy attempts at birds, a dolphin, and what might have been a cow.
On the next pages were sketches of women. Much attention had been devoted to their hefty breasts and hair, but no effort made to adorn them with clothing, let alone the kindness of a nose that resembled a nose. They all beamed back at me, however, with cheery, inviting smiles. Two wore flowers where Eve would have worn them.
You lecherous old man, I thought yet smiled. The sketches breathed life into my long-dead relative. He wasn’t old when he’d taken pen in hand-early thirties, which was my own age. He had found a way to entertain himself when he was alone. No harm in that. Better still, the sketches proved that indecent thoughts weren’t new to our family’s bloodline.
That alone provided some comfort after the thoughts I had been battling.
No wonder. I was lying in the chill of a wall air conditioner, wearing only a T-shirt, while Birdy and her cowboy guest did god-knows-what just three rooms away. The marine biologist was on my mind. Officially, we had stopped dating, but he was still an occasional late-night visitor-a welcome visitor-and it had been a while since he had come tapping at my door. He was out of the country or I might have called him to talk.
Restless didn’t accurately describe my current state of mind.
I had no physical interest in the airline pilot or the attorney I’d been seeing. No commitments either. There was no reason in the world I shouldn’t replace my sleeplessness with harmless conversation if, say, someone within walking distance was also awake-aboard the houseboat, for instance.
I was rationalizing. I knew it but didn’t care.
So far, I had refused to allow myself to go to the window and check. Captain Summerlin’s bawdy sketches, however, seemed to grant full permission. I laid the book aside and opened the curtains: a light was still on in an aft cabin of the boat.
Joe Egret. I thought the name softly, trying to nail the connection. The window didn’t provide sufficient motive, so I cracked the door and used my ears: trilling frogs and wind cloaked the river’s silence, but Garth Brooks would have been easy enough to hear. There was no music.
Damn… damn it to hell.
I felt free to say whatever I felt because I was alone. Several sharp comments later, I decided, Instead of complaining, do something productive.
I returned to the journal.
Theo-or someone-had found the entry about the missing hundred silver dollars. I was certain because the book opened naturally to the place as if it had been butterflied open and mashed flat. That angered me, angered me enough to push biologists and cow hunters out of my mind.
Men-nothing but trouble.
Yes, they were, especially with none around to show an interest in me.
I turned the air down, got back in bed, and tried to put myself in Theo’s place if he had, indeed, copied entries from the journal. The Civil War and the missing silver dollars would have been his only interest. So I referenced dates and tried to create a bare-bones time line that might point me to where Capt. Summerlin had scuttled his dory, then buried or hid or dumped a box of coins.
Back and forth between the pages I went. First, I had to work out the man’s abbreviations and odd spellings. At times, he inserted numbers for letters which seemed a form of code. I soon gave up trying to figure that out. Then I focused on content. Between August 1861 and December 1862, only three of the forty-some entries mentioned the war. These were vague or sardonic references to shortages of salt and coffee, and a jab at the Confederate Navy’s inability to take St. Augustine. Between 1863 and 1865, however, the war received more of my great-uncle’s attention.
What had changed?’
The answer, I decided, was in a file on my laptop, which I had already summarized in longhand after stringing my hammock that afternoon:
From the war’s start, Florida’s 140,000 residents had mixed sympathies. The Union depended on locals to control Key West, Tampa, Pensacola, and Jacksonville. Only 14,000 Floridians joined the Confederate Army.
In 1863, the Battle of Vicksburg changed everything. It closed the Mississippi River as the South’s main supply conduit. That left only Florida to provide cattle, salt, and other staples of war. Cattlemen and mariners, whatever their sympathies, were caught in the middle. The Union had to cut off supplies. That meant killing Florida’s cattle where they stood and controlling waterways. It sparked the cattle wars and salt wars of inland Florida. Blood began to flow.
The Caloosahatchee River, which connected two oceans (aided by a short overland trail), was a major prize. The Union took Ft. Myers at the mouth of the river. But control of Ft. Thompson-an outpost near Labelle-varied. There was heavy fighting, especially near Tallahassee, Jacksonville, and also at Lake City where 10,000 troops engaged. After six hours of fighting, 3,000 lay dead.
By 1864, the Cattle Wars had shifted and hardened sympathies. Union sympathizers formed a unit called the Florida Rangers. Those who sided with the South formed the 1st Battalion “Cow Cavalry.” Men without politics but who owned boats and cattle could get rich if they wanted. Or they could risk their lives by aiding a cause they hadn’t believed in from the start.
A few cow hunters and captains did both. Even for them, times were hard. Beef on the hoof was valuable, but worthless without salt to cure and preserve the meat. In the end, it was salt, not gunpowder or gold, that controlled the fates of Florida and the South.
After I’d reread the summary, I sat back, wondering about the accuracy of what I’d written. Salt… Such a common item. My eyes moved to the kitchenette, where a plastic shaker sat on the counter. For me, a dollar would buy a year’s supply. Not during the Civil War. Salt was mentioned in historic references, but it was Ben Summerlin’s journal that proved its value in a world without refrigeration. Those same entries also provided clues to where he might have scuttled his dory Sodbuster-and why he was on the run from Union soldiers.