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Billy and I had already talked about the coincidence of Cyrus Mayes's reference to the name Noren and the photo of the road workers on the wall of the bar in the Frontier. I'd wondered if the name was that of the dredge manufacturer or the construction company. Billy had already done an Internet search and had not found any dredge manufacturers by that name in the twenties or thirties, and he was moving on the assumption that the contractor's name had been affixed to the dredge boom. "That's the one I'm working on, but the name might be buried in old archives," Billy said. I was always impressed by his abilities to paper-chase. It was a skill for which I had little talent and less patience. Still, I had to hand it to Mayes. Even if it had been unintentional, he'd pushed Billy's buttons, got him on a chase I could tell he wasn't going to give up on easily.

The kid had more going on in his head than just curiosity about his great-grandfather and uncles. He was putting most of his grandmother's inheritance on the line to find answers. But maybe his real questions had more to do with what he had inherited from the men he never knew. That icon around his neck wasn't there as a style statement. Something was chewing at the young man. I didn't know what, but I could almost feel his need for the truth. Maybe he was pushing my buttons, too.

CHAPTER

7

Early the next morning I heard the "thunk" of wood on wood before I felt the shiver in the foundation. My physical sense of touch has always been less sensitive than my sense of smell or taste or even hearing. Thunk. But still, it was the vibration that finally popped my eyes open. From my bed I looked to the east window and could tell that it was not much after dawn. Thunk. Someone was on my dock. The unexpected visitor. I rolled off my mattress onto all fours and instantly the ache in my shoulders from last night's paddling almost caused me to cry out. I thought about the 9 mm stashed in the armoire, still wrapped tight in oilskin since it had last been fired in anger and then recovered from the river bottom. I'd tried to put it out of my head, the feel of it in my hand, the violence of it. But still it was there. I hadn't thrown it out, despite what it represented in me. Leave it, I thought, and then stood and moved quietly to the door. Thunk.

I held the knob and eased pressure up into the old hinges to keep them from squeaking and opened the door enough to see. Down on the landing, sitting with one foot in his wooden skiff and his hands working a small line in the water was Nate Brown. He moved his leg and the skiff banged lightly against the dock piling. Thunk.

"Mornin', Mr. Freeman," he said in a slow drawl that was pure dirt Georgia. "Your memory is 'predated."

He was dressed in a long-sleeved, light-colored work shirt and denim overalls. His steel gray hair was cut short to a scalp that was as tanned as the rest of his skin. His wiry build seemed folded and angled and delicate, but I knew better. He diverted his eyes from the water and looked up the stairs.

"I heard y'all was lookin' for me?"

I made morning coffee and brought two large tin cups with me and sat on the bottom steps. Nate nodded a thanks for the coffee and took a deep draw from the cup without flinching from its steaming heat. I blew air across mine.

"How's the river running this morning," I said, attempting small talk and knowing better.

"Prolly high, what with that rain yestiday," he said. "Don't rightly know. I come in from the west."

I looked into the homemade flats skiff, a workmanship long forgotten from a time when the Gladesmen used the small boats and hand-shaved poles to push themselves over miles of channels and shallow, grass-filled water. There was a single small bundle tucked in one corner and a long, canvas-wrapped object I knew would be Brown's old Winchester rifle.

"Just out on a little hunting trip?" I said, making my mistake twice. I had not seen the man in two years, the last time being when he had saved my life.

"No, sir," he said, his clear eyes working into mine from over the rim of the coffee cup. "I heard you was lookin' for me."

After that I talked for an hour, telling Maye's story while the old man listened to each word, looking up from his fishing line to judge my face when I hesitated or to correct my assumptions of the years or the locations of the road-building project that had ripped the land he and his family had known all their lives.

"So, I thought you might have some ideas, some recollection or knowledge of what happened to these men," I finished.

Browns eyes came up from the water and took in the cover of foliage above us. The sunlight was now spackling the oak leaves and ferns with spots of leaking light.

"My daddy an' his brothers mostly tol' them stories," he said, not looking at me. "Was before my time, but we heard about them days whilst sittin' round the buttonwood fires out on coon hunts and such.

"Folks then wasn't too welcomin' on the idea, bringing a road through some of the finest huntin' pieces in the Glades. But they was payin' money and it was tough times then. The construction boys brought bidness down to Everglades City, an' the locals didn't seem to mind when they got they pockets full.

"Even daddy's brother, Mitchell, went out an' worked on the dredge rig with some other local men, but not for long. He tol' stories 'bout how miserable them city boys was with the swamp angels, what we call mosquitoes, an' the heat and all. He said some of them boys like to abandon ship after just a couple of days, and some of 'em did.

"Mitchell and them finally just walked away-Course they knew them Glades since they was kids, so's it was easy for them."

Brown stopped and searched the water again, tickling the line, weighing his words.

"Wasn't till later, after they'd pushed 'er out near Shark Valley that Daddy said they heard stories 'bout men goin' out on the job and not comin' back in.

"Mitchell would tell a story 'bout a dead man's island where they buried them quittin' boys up to they necks in muck an' marked the spot with a Christ cross, but us kids thought he was just tryin' to scare us round the campfire."

"And nobody ever said anything?" I asked. "No sheriff or any authority?"

Brown let a wry grin pull at the corner of his mouth.

"Hell, weren't never no law out there to speak of. Besides, Daddy always said them boys didn't have no bidness comin' into our country anyways, an' what happened to 'em weren't none of our bidness either. Daddy said the Glades weren't never meant to have no road over it anyways."

I went back upstairs for fresh coffee and came back with Mayes's letters. When I offered them to Brown, he cut his eyes away, and I felt a flush of embarrassment at my own assumption that he could read warm my throat and ears. When I read the pages, Brown listened without interruption. When I was done, both of us went quiet and the old man rewrapped his line. When he got to the end, I noticed that the barbless hook was bare.

"So, what do you think? Just a fireside tale? Or are there bodies out there?" I said while he stood, preparing, I knew, to leave. He stepped into his skiff and took up the long pole.

"Y'all come down and meet me at the hotel," he said.

"When? Tomorrow?"

"Gon' take me a couple days, son. Might even do a little huntin' on the way," he said, and pushed off to the west.

I was too anxious to spend another day fishing. I have a vision of truth in my head and it is a smooth, logical, ethical stone that occupies my brain. But the chunk there now was growing more and more jagged despite my chronic grinding, and it was just about to sprout another flawed edge.