He asked, “Didn’t you say you brought a change of clothes? You can’t stay in those wet things. Carmelo”-Belton, from his chair, was giving orders again-“we will stand with eyes to the front while Hannah changes. And if you so much as peek, I will have you arrested and thrown into prison for the rest of your unnatural life.” An old man’s laughter should have dulled the sharpness of his words but it didn’t.
If it was an act, Carmelo accepted it. Or pretended to. He handed me an inch of wine in a plastic cup and said, “Right away, Mr. Matás,” but started the boat as if he’d misunderstood.
Now I didn’t know what to do. What I had found anchored to the bottom wasn’t shocking, but it was unusual. Was there a reason he didn’t want Carmelo to know?
Belton’s behavior became more confusing when he made the decision for me. “Shut off that damn engine. Maybe Hannah wants to take another look before she tells me. Or”-he remembered his recent offer-“would you rather change into dry clothes and forget it?”
I decided to share a half-truth. “It was a big chunk of pipe,” I said. “That’s what it looked like. But it must have flotation because it’s anchored about six feet off the bottom or maybe snagged on something. I banged into it as I was surfacing.”
Carmelo busied himself getting a beer from the cooler, but Belton was concerned. “Did you hit your head? Let me see.”
I was thinking about what I’d actually found: a canoe-an aluminum canoe-old with dents. “No, it couldn’t have snagged,” I amended. “It’s floating parallel to the bottom, so there has to be at least two anchors. Which means someone sunk it intentionally.”
“A chunk of drainage pipe? That makes no sense whatsoever.” Finally Belton looked at me long enough to understand what I was doing. “On the other hand… I guess it could be some kind of fish trap or turtle trap, possibly. Damn bad luck, it not being a boat.”
I said, “Fish collect around structure, don’t they, Carmelo?”
Our guide was smart enough to know drainage culverts don’t float. Even so, he replied, “Lots of junk in this river.”
I looked toward the spot where seedpods and twigs were gathering. “One thing’s for sure, it’s not worth going back in the water.”
Belton picked up on that, too, and changed the subject. “What about that bottle you found? It looked like it was covered with coral. But not in fresh water, I wouldn’t think.”
The bottle was gone, but I patted my pockets anyway. I didn’t mention the salt spring either. All I said was, “Sorry.” That’s how uneasy I felt.
“Then the two of us should drown our sorrows in wine.” He touched a plastic cup to mine. “One of these days I’ll make a major archaeological discovery-but not here, I’m afraid. And not today.”
“You don’t want to come back here no more, Mr. Matás?” Carmelo was testing for something else. I sensed that, too.
The older man shook his head. “We didn’t find any more unbroken bottles either. The whole darn day is a bust-but thank god Hannah wasn’t hurt. All for a lousy piece of junked pipe.”
We made small talk after that, but I kept an eye on Carmelo, who had gathered a bagful of mimosa seeds. I wasn’t going to ask why. But when he felt me watching, he leaned over the side and pointed at one of the apple-sized fruits. “Them things is bad. ’Bout bad as it gets. But these things here”-he held up a mimosa pod-“they good. Not to eat. But they still good.”
Belton had already asked about the seeds, apparently. “He starts seedlings and sells them. I guess the trees here are unusual. Expensive, if you’re a landscaper.”
That’s not what Carmelo meant. “No, them little apples is poison. And them apple trees, you touch them, they burn you bad.” He checked with me to see if I understood.
Suddenly, I did. Behind us were two waxy-leafed trees mixed in with towering mimosas. I had noticed them peripherally but hadn’t made the connection with the apple-sized fruit. I asked, “Is that why you wouldn’t get in the water?”
“Not at this place, girl. It burn the hell out of some people. Burnt the hell out of me once.”
Belton was lost. “What’s he talking about?”
I said, “I owe Carmelo an apology. When he warned me about getting burned, I took it as a threat.”
“Of course you did. He shouldn’t have spoken in that tone. I told him so when we were looking for bottles, didn’t I, Carmelo?”
Carmelo shrugged and glowered, which seemed to explain the tension between the men. Or did it? I attempted to clear the air anyway. “He was doing me a favor, Belton.” I pointed behind us. “There’re only a couple, but see those trees with the low-sprawling limbs? I think they’re manchineels. I should have realized.”
“What kind?”
“It’s a Spanish name that means little apple-or something similar. But they’re not really apples. Manchineel trees are common in the tropics. Since you’re from Richmond, I wouldn’t expect you to know.” As I spoke, it crossed my mind that Charles Cadence had also moved south from Virginia.
“Burn the damn hell out of you,” Carmelo said, pleased he’d finally gotten his point across.
Belton wondered, “Is that true?”
“The fruit’s poisonous and so is the bark. If you stand under one in the rain, it’ll blister the skin off you. I’ve been told that anyway. And… Well, here’s an example: Indians dipped their arrows in the sap and that’s supposedly what killed Ponce de León.”
“The Spanish explorer?”
“That’s what I’ve read. He died in Cuba, but he was wounded somewhere near Sanibel. It takes the poison a while to work, I guess.” After considering a moment, I added, “It’s the beginning of the dry season, but the sap might float on the surface after a lot of rain. Maybe that’s why I was okay.”
Carmelo said, “Don’t touch them apples either,” and plopped down behind the wheel, a bag of seedpods at his elbow.
About the waxy-leafed trees, I said, “I guess we ignore the things we don’t expect. Usually, they grow closer to a beach. And I’ve never seen manchineels that big-they’ve got to be a hundred years old. But those apples should have warned me.” Now I was thinking of the Brazilian who had planted exotic trees before the Civil War and the schoolteacher who had written about blistered skin. The mimosa trees were different here: tall, lean, with lichen-splotched trunks, their seedpods longer and thinner than the mimosas in my mother’s yard.
I spoke to Carmelo. “Can I see one of those?” He had lost interest and was focused on the sonar again. When I reached for his sack of seeds, though, he came to life and blocked my hand.
“Mine,” he said. He spoke like a simpleton, but his eyes were sharp and sure and seemed to taunt.
The look on Belton’s face told me Let him have his way. So I did, no problem. There was a seedpod on the deck I could cover with my foot, then pocket later. Belton acknowledged that option with a nod.
During the return trip, we discussed harmless things-an unspoken agreement to wait until we were alone to talk. It proved to me that Belton’s distrust of Carmelo ran deeper than a misunderstanding.
WALKING FROM the flimsy docks and fish-cleaning table toward the RV park, I nodded hello at the tiny blondes who didn’t look like twins but did look stoned. Belton waited until they were past to ask what I’d found underwater.
I said, “Maybe it was silly keeping it from Carmelo,” then, without including how frightened I’d been, told him about the canoe.
He was disappointed. “Was there a motor on it?” That sounded important for some reason.