“Hey, Mr. Freeman, how you doin’?”
“Dan.”
“I was startin’ to think maybe I ought to put a FOR SALE sign on your canoe there,” he said, subtle humor in his voice.
I smiled at the trust it showed. Old Florida country folks do not grant that trust easily to outsiders, and it had taken me some time to earn it from Dan. A few years ago when I was new to the river, I’d brought a tragedy with me. The longtime and locally beloved ranger had been killed by a criminal drawn to this place in part by me. I wasn’t complicit in his death, but I wasn’t blameless, either. And even though I would eventually get retribution for the loss of their friend, the locals did not forget easily.
“I hope you would have split the asking price with me, Dan,” I said while I unloaded. We shared the joke with complimentary smiles.
Dan was doing one of those “looky here” strolls around the polished Gran Fury and was about to utter some whooo-eee utterances when Luz Carmen stepped out of the passenger-side door. The ranger quickly took his hat off and said, “Ma’am.”
I introduced the two and told Dan that Ms. Carmen would be staying out in the shack for a few days “for some peace and quiet.” He nodded and grabbed one of the grocery bags and followed me to the stand of palmetto trees where I stored my canoe.
“Well, you’ll surely get that, ma’am. We do have quiet in abundance out here.”
I winced at the language. It always amazed me how so-called country folk can find sophisticated articulation when they want to. Dan’s predecessor, the Old Florida cracker who’d been killed, used this homey technique to his advantage, acting unworldly as a cover while he intensely studied and read everyone he met. I doubted that Dan’s intention was the same, but he’d learned from a master. He knew Sherry, knew we were a couple; the presence of an attractive Latin woman suddenly on the scene would have intrigued him.
Luz did not respond to his comment, and only stepped closer to me.
Dan helped me flip my canoe, and while I wiped away some accumulated webs and their weavers-a couple of golden silk spiders that scrambled away into the brush-he went to fetch my paddles, which they kept in the ranger station when I was away. I dragged the sixteen-foot canoe down to the edge of the river and then started packing in the fresh water, canned goods, a couple of bags of ice, and some fresh vegetables and odd perishables from the grocery. Included was a twelve-pack of Rolling Rock in bottles that I never traveled to the shack without.
Dan returned with my wood-carved paddles and the chemical toilet I ferried to and from the shack, as well. It was originally designed for a sailboat, and worked fine in the backcountry. Because of the pristine nature of this river and its designation as a National Wild and Scenic River, restrictions on pollutants were tight. My adherence to the rules was one of the things that kept the state from tossing me out of the shack, which Billy owned, and which had been grandfathered in when they’d turned the area into a state park.
While I’d been packing, Luz had twisted her long dark hair into a rope and secured it with some band from her pocket.
“Have you ever been in a canoe?” I asked, and she held out her hand, motioning me to give her one of the paddles.
“I have been many times in a dugout on the rivers of my native Bolivia, Mr. Freeman,” she said. “I will be fine.”
I simply nodded and watched her carefully step into the bow and sit. Before shoving off, I turned to Dan. “Your buddy Joey will be dropping off my truck when he’s finished fixing her,” I said. “Give me a call, eh? We should be out here a couple of days.”
“Will do, Mr. Freeman,” he said. “Enjoy.”
Although I always felt a certain internal cleansing every time I came out to the shack, the memories of last year’s damaging trip had not stopped diminishing that feeling. That disastrous outing would stick in my head forever. And as long as Sherry had to live with the loss of her leg, I would have to live with my bad planning and poor choices and foolish perception that modern man is somehow immune from the whims of nature and the whims of the human animal that resides in all of us.
Still, there was something about the movement of a craft over water, the undulation of liquid over a thin skin of a boat hull, and the leaving of noise and machinery and stop signs and unnatural lighting that calms even the most turbulent soul.
My river flows from gathered water in an Everglades basin that is well inland, and then follows a twisting path east to the ocean. Because of the ocean tides, the water into which we pushed can be silently swift, or eerily still. Because I was familiar with her watermarks on the shoreline, I guessed we were near slack tide, and wasn’t disappointed when we glided out onto a surface that was flat and seemingly unshifting.
As I settled into the stern seat, I watched Luz Carmen’s back and her handling of the paddle. She was perfectly balanced, careful yet strong with her stroke. After a few minutes, she was leaving a nice swirl in the water when she feathered the stroke, and then reached out for the next. I was not only satisfied that she wasn’t going to accidentally flip us; it looked like we might make good time.
Once we caught a good rhythm, the boat moved smoothly and easily. Because of the load we were carrying, there was little glide, but the prow still cut nicely through the water and left a defined V behind us. I said little except to call out a direction, or to indicate the next curve of land to aim for. Luz only nodded and kept her thoughts to herself. Within an hour, the shoreline had morphed from sandy pines to low grasses spiked with the occasional tall bald cypress.
Because of the saltwater intrusion caused by man-made canals and the simple thirst of South Florida’s population draining the freshwater aquifer below us, even this protected area showed the signs of nature under siege. The indigenous grasses were being invaded by cattails. The sable palms were losing their foliage, and their trunks were rotting from the creeping salt. Still, being out here was like a massage to the back of my neck, the thumbs of nature rubbing my temples. I realized I was breathing deeply again and was surprised at the way I had somehow forgotten how to do that while living in the city. By the time the banks narrowed and we reached the entry into the deep canopy of trees of the upper river, I was ready to let the shadowed greenness of my home fold over me.
In minutes, we were in a different world. The light changed: The overhead covering of leaves and cypress boughs created a kind of green cheesecloth, filtering the sun and creating streaks of sunlight that dappled the ferns and pond apple leaves lining the banks. The tea-colored water absorbed the sun, at points glowing as it reflected off spots where the bottom was pure white sand. The temperature fell several degrees, the shade diminishing the heat of the sun and cooling the air enough that it chilled our sweaty skin.
And the quiet we’d been enjoying was dampened even more by the closeness of thick foliage. A thousand years slipped away-ten thousand.
While we moved up stream, Luz Carmen sat mesmerized, her paddle resting across her knees, her head turning from side to side. A turtle the size of a dinner plate slipped off a downed tree trunk and disappeared into the water. Twenty yards away, a great blue heron stood on a spur of sand, its snakelike neck and sharp beak pointing out like an Egyptian hieroglyphic dancer. It gave us a few more yards and then spread its five-foot wingspan like a cape and flapped up into the air, disappearing upriver with a harsh squawk.
Luz couldn’t help herself and turned to see if I had been a witness; I allowed a small smile. She did not, though her eyes were still big from the sighting.
“My place is about a half-mile more,” I said. “Watch for the cypress knees. The water is kind of low.”
Luz only nodded her head and put her paddle back in the water, stroking slowly. Farther up, we slid toward a gathering of knees, a protruding part of the cypress’s root system that can gouge the hull of a canoe, but Luz used an impressive J-stroke to avoid them. The maneuver relaxed me. I made a note to ask where she’d learned it. Out here, there would be time to talk. I was confident she couldn’t keep up her silence forever.