S.O.S., page 19
Without another word, Verne reached out with one long arm and snatched the gun from his hand.
Collins gawped. “You can’t do that,” he protested.
“Well, I think I just did,” Verne said. “And the others are probably thinking it’s none too soon. You’re acting like a crazy man with that thing.”
“Dadburn right!” Ryan heard Mr. Donaldson say. The other men muttered agreement.
“What am I supposed to do if the Germans come?” Collins whined. “I ain’t got no weapon.”
“What you can do, is get,” Verne said. “Go on home and brag to your poor wife and that juvenile delinquent kid of yours what a big man you are. And what a bunch of crackers we all are.”
Collins got a stubborn look on his face, but Verne just edged Big Red in closer until he towered over the man.
“Now, get!” he said.
“But my gun,” Collins said.
“You can pick it up tomorrow at the sheriff’s office,” Verne said. “Now get! I won’t say it again.”
And Collins got. Charging off on his horse, hurling back a blue streak of curses when he thought he was far enough away to be safe from Verne’s wrath.
Verne turned to the others, a big grin lighting his face.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “Shall we proceed?”
“Your dadburn right,” Mr. Donaldson said. “And we’re all dadburneds grateful to you for gettin’ rid of that dadburned party boy. Good fer dadburn nothin’ but fancy dadburned cocktails and sellin’ overpriced dadburned cars.”
There were mutters of agreement and laughter and soon the patrol continued on in high spirits, with Verne and Ryan in the lead.
They met the posse coming from West Palm about ten o’clock. Munched on sandwiches, washed down with thermoses of coffee, while sharing gossip—including the incident with Collins and the sea turtle. Repeated with a record number of dadburns from Mr. Donaldson and much laughter at Collins’s expense. Ryan could see that the Ford dealer was known and loathed up and down the coast.
The moon made an appearance an hour or so later, lighting the sea and beach for long stretches and making the patrolling job more pleasant for everyone.
Ryan moved Sheba closer to Big Red. He had questions that he wanted ask, but hadn’t had nerve until now. He cleared his throat, catching Verne’s attention.
“What do you have on your mind, son?” Verne asked.
“Well, sir,” Ryan said, “when you told Mr. Collins to hand over his gun, weren’t you worried he might get mad and shoot you?”
Verne chuckled. “With that dinky little thing?” he scoffed. “If he had, it would’ve been the last time he shot somebody.”
Ryan grinned. He could hardly wait to tell the story to Alex and Hattie. And wouldn’t Sally get a big laugh too?
“I guess you’ve been shot at before,” Ryan said. “Back in the first war against the Germans.”
“I’ve been shot at, yes,” Verne said. “But not in any war.” He touched his eyepatch. “They wouldn’t take me on account of this.”
“Oh,” was all Ryan could manage. “Then… uh… how…” He gave up. “Sorry, sir. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not,” Verne said. “But we’re family now and I think we know each well enough now that I can confide in you.”
“Yessir, I guess we do,” Ryan said, pleased at the compliment.
Verne got out the makings and started building a cigarette. “Back in my carny days,” he began, “I took up fairground wrestling. I was no more than nineteen or twenty and full of piss and vinegar, as they say. Those were tough times. Hungry times. And when you are as big as I am, it takes a lot of feeding.”
Verne lit the cigarette and tucked the spent match into a vest pocket, then continued:
“Anyway, I struck out on my own, taking on all comers. I put up a hundred dollars against ten. And I’d wrestle five or six guys a day. In one town I took on ten. Although I won all the matches, I was so battered and bruised I couldn’t fight again for two weeks, so from then on I limited myself.
Verne shook his head in wonderment at his youthful foolishness. “Those were the days of no holds barred wrestling,” he said, “and it was illegal as all get out. Had to dodge the sheriff wherever I went. Or, more often than not, pay them off. Once in a rare while I let one of their deputies take me on with no entry fee.”
Verne was silent for a moment, remembering. His cigarette tip glowed as he drew in, then exhaled smoke.
Sighing, he said, “Anyway, last match in my short career was in a logging camp on the other side of the Canadian border. Up past Niagara. They called it, ‘Devil’s Hole’ and the way things turned out, it was well named.”
“Because it was in Devil’s Hole that I finally met my match. He was a big old boy. Bigger even than me. And he was a scary sight. Had a knife scar running from the top of his head all down his cheek to his neck. I didn’t notice until later, but he’d let his thumbnails grow to outlandish lengths. They stuck out almost half an inch and I soon learned they were filed, razor sharp.”
Ryan shivered, imagining the scene.
“Well, we must have fought for half an hour,” Verne continued. “Men were whooping and hollering for my blood. Finally, he had me flat on my back in a hold I just couldn’t break. And he hit me such a shot in my balls that I thought I’d die. I slapped the ground, saying, ‘Give!’ But he kept on going. And I’m shouting, ‘Give! Give!’
“But he just laughed and kept going. Then he reached up and stuck his thumb in my eye.”
Ryan gulped. “He what?”
“Stuck his thumb in my eye,” Verne said. “Dug in with that long, sharp nail. It was like a red hot poker.”
Verne stopped for a moment. Painful memories twisting his features. He pinched out the cigarette, not noticing how it burned and when he spoke next he unconsciously touched the patch covering the empty eye socket. And his voice was so low, Ryan almost stopped breathing in his effort to hear.
“Shoved his thumb right in. So easy, you could tell he’d done that sort of thing before. And then he… well… twisted… and my eye popped right out. I could hear it go. And now I’m not just shouting, but begging him to stop.
“And then… and then…” Verne took a deep breath. “And then he went for my other eye.”
Ryan gasped. “What did you do?”
Verne squared his big shoulders. “I don’t know how I managed it. But somehow I reached inside myself to a place I didn’t know existed. And I found the strength to fight back.
“Big as he was… strong as he was… I broke his hold and came up off the ground. And I grabbed him and flipped him over. Put his back right across my knee and then… well…
“I broke it.”
Ryan gaped like a fish. “You what?”
“Broke his back,” Verne said. “Killed him dead.”
“Oh, my God,” Ryan said.
“God had nothing to do with it,” Verne said. “To this day I think it was old Scratch himself. Hiding out in Devil’s Hole.”
A long silence followed. A thousand thoughts and images bounced around Ryan’s head.
Finally, Verne said, “I didn’t tell you that story to shock you, Ryan. Or to brag about what a big brave man I was.”
“Nossir,” Ryan said—low.
“I never forgave myself for what I did,” Verne said. “For outright murdering a man.”
“But it was self defense,” Ryan protested.
Verne raised his massive shoulder and lowered them again. “I made that excuse to myself. Although the local law didn’t see it that way. I took off on the run, bouncing around the country for years. Even went to sea, like I told you.
“But I was guilt-bit big time and no matter how much time passed, it continued to haunt me. Even after I’d gone on to become a big success buying and selling farm property and breeding horses and all.
“Then I met your grandmother. I’d never met such a fine woman. Didn’t think I deserved someone like her. But she got me to see myself a lot clearer than before. And although I never have forgiven myself, she’s taught me how to live with it. Put it in the proper perspective.”
He chuckled. “She’s a pistol, old Myrtle is,” he said. “All upright and proper. Sure, she’s got some strange ideas about folks. But she has a way of making a man see things in himself he never saw before.”
Verne looked over at Ryan. “You haven’t met that particular Myrtle yet, son,” he said. “But you will, by and by. Just give her a chance.”
“Yessir,” Ryan said. But deep inside, the jury was still out.
As they neared the lighthouse, and the end of their patrol, a brisk wind picked up. It had a chill to it that Ryan hadn’t experienced since he arrived in Jove Beach.
Mr. Donaldson came trotting up on Mary Belle, who, despite her age, looked as fresh as when she started out.
“Looks like we’re in for a dadburned cold snap,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Snake Hunt
Alex came tapping on Ryan’s window at daybreak.
On the way to meet Hattie, Ryan teased Alex about the miraculous recovery he and Hattie had made—just in time for the weekend.
“I was sick of bein’ sick,” Alex said. “Besides, it might be the last cold snap of the season and then we’d be out of luck when it came to snake catchin’.”
Trailing their pole boats, they biked to the Coast Guard base, Rex joyfully bounding along behind them. Hattie met them at the gate.
She wore dungarees and a thick sweater against the chill and had a watch cap pulled over her ears. Her feet were shod in rubber fisherman’s boots.
“It’s c-c-cold,” she said. “Last thing I wanted to do is get outta of my n-n-nice warm bed.”
“You won’t be feelin’ like that when we start cuttin’ up the money,” Alex said. He wore trousers instead of shorts and an oversized flannel shirt against the cold.
Ryan pointed at his friend’s feet and laughed. “First time I’ve seen you wear shoes since we went to the show in West Palm,” he said.
Alex shorted. “Oh, yeah. Well you look like Mr. Philadelphia Yankee in the flesh.”
Laughing, Hattie said, “He’s got a point.”
Ryan grimaced. For a change, he felt comfortable in his Philadelphia wear—dungarees, a jacket with a fur-lined collar, heavy shoes and a leather cap, with the ear muffs snapped back. Although, if pressed, he might admit that despite the cold snap he was feeling a trifle warm. He was finally becoming acclimatized to South Florida.
“I don’t know why everybody keeps saying that,” Ryan said. “I might have been born in Philadelphia, but I’ve never spent more than a few months at a time there.”
“Where were you before that?” Hattie said, with a mischievous smile.
Another shrug. “Oh, you know, Connecticut. New England. Boston. Places like that.”
Alex removed his glasses. Polished them with his shirt tail. “And everyone of them in Yankeeland,” he said. “I rest my case,” he said.
“Got everything?” Hattie asked. “Don’t want to be standing there empty-handed when the rattlers come charging out of their holes.”
“They won’t be doin’ no chargin’,” Alex said. “It’s too blamed cold. They’ll be all slow like and sleepy.”
“You hope,” Hattie said. She pulled a little from her back pocket. “Let’s go over the list before we start out.”
She examined her list. “Gasoline?” she said.
“Check,” Ryan said, lifting up a red two-gallon can.
“Hose?”
“Check,” Alex said, indicating the eight-foot length he had in his basket.
“Burlap bags?”
“Check, check, and check,” Ryan said, holding up several large gunnysacks.
“Hope they don’t have any holes in them,” Hattie said.
“They did,” Ryan said. “But I fixed them.”
“Okay, how about the snake pole?”
“I’ve got that,” Alex said, pointing to the bamboo rod tied to his bike. It had a noose with a slipknot fixed to the end.
“What about Rex?” Hattie asked. “Aren’t you worried he might get bit?”
Ryan dropped to one knee and pulled Rex close. “Not a chance,” he said. “If you saw him with that coral snake, you’d never doubt him. If anything, he’s our weapon of last resort.”
“Okay, we all agree he’s a wonder dog,” Alex said. “Now, let’s go make us some money.”
Keeping the big red lighthouse over her shoulder, Hattie led them to the back end of the base, where one of the Seminole’s many tributaries flowed out of a grove of magnolias.
“I’m pretty sure we were over yonder when Sally brought us in,” she said, indicating a familiar spot by the creek.
“Looks good to me,” Alex said and started unloading his pole boat and snake hunting paraphernalia.
When they were done, they stashed their bikes and pullcarts out of sight and climbed onto their boats with practiced ease.
“Come on, Rex,” Ryan said, slapping his knee and Rex obediently jumped aboard.
Hattie took the lead, poling smoothly away. Of the three, she was by far the most graceful and athletic. They moved in congenial silence for a half hour or more, taking in the beauty of the river and the wildlife.
The deeper they went, the more Ryan thought it felt like a cathedral, with magnificent trees forming the vaulted ceilings and sun filtering in through leaves in a rainbow of colors, like the fabulous array of stained glass windows in the Cathedral Basilica in Philadelphia.
At one point, Hattie came to a stop. She held a finger to her lips to shush them and pointed ahead.
There, perfectly poised on the edge of the far bank, was a blue heron—nearly as tall as a man. It was a shimmering blue gray in color, with long, elegant legs and a fabulously curved neck that carried an elegant head with a long beak. Ryan thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful.
Then Rex spotted the heron and barked. The startled bird took off in an explosion of wings. They were nearly seven feet long from tip to tip. The wings beat once, twice, then the bird soared away leaving behind an empty space in their hearts.
The three friends looked at each other, too overcome to speak. Then Hattie dug in her pole and they moved onward.
Finally they reached the place Sally had indicated. There they beached their boats, gathered their supplies and set off on a deer trail so narrow it was barely visible.
Eventually, it opened on an area teeming with rabbits and other small animals. Rex flushed several of them out to give chase, but Ryan called him back.
“We’re gettin’ close,” Alex said.
They moved onward a few minutes more then broke out of the trees into a dewy meadow glistening under the morning sun.
Rex bounded around the meadow, stopping here and there to bark at unseen presences.
“Gopher holes,” Alex announced, getting out the length of hose.
He found a likely snake den, shooed Rex away, then inserted the hose into the hole—standing well back as he fed the hose into the hole—then moving closer until the hose could go no further. He wiggled it around a few times. Nothing.
Then he did it more forcefully, ramming the hose back and forth.
“Appears nobody’s home,” he said.
“Try this one over here,” Hattie said, indicating a spot where it looked like there had been some activity in the surrounding area.
He started to pull the hose out, but then they heard the chilling sound of a dry, angry rattle.
Alex dropped the hose as if he’d been bitten and they all took big steps back.
“Shoot! There’s one in there!” Alex said.
“Well, let’s get him,” Hattie said.
Alex approached the hose. Very gingerly he lifted it up.
Another dry rattle.
Another scramble to perceived safety.
“Here, I’ll do it,” Hattie said, grabbing the hose before Alex could pick it up again. “Somebody get the gasoline and stuff.”
She rammed it into the hole several times, producing more angry rattling sounds. Ryan approached with the can of gas and the funnel. He inserted the funnel into the opening of the hose.
“You pour,” he told Alex.
Alex’s already huge eyes grew to moon size as he gingerly tilted the can.
Nothing happened.
“It works better if you remove the cap,” Hattie said.
“Oh,” Alex said, hastily removing the cap.
Ryan couldn’t help but laugh. Of the three, Hattie was the only one who managed to stay cool.
Alex poured, sloshing gasoline all the place. He almost dropped the can when the buzzing sound was joined by another, louder one.
“There’s two of ’em,” he said.
“What’ll we do?” Ryan said.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Nobody ever said anythin’ about two of ’em.”
“Quick! Get the snake pole,” Hattie cried, “I think one ’em’s crawling out!”
Ryan grabbed the snake pole and freed the noose so a wide loop dangled from the end.
Alex came alive. “I’ve got a gunnysack,” he said, voice full of excitement.
And now Hattie was slowly backing away, pulling out the hose. A moment later a large reptilian head appeared. Nasty fangs exposed. Tongue tasting the air for signs of the enemy. Beady eyes looking for likely targets.
“I got him!” Ryan shouted, pushing the noose over the head, then pulling the cord to close it.
But the noose failed to respond. It was hung up. And the snake was still coming, rattles going like crazy. Rex barking furiously. Ryan trying to push him away with one foot, while he kept jerking on the cord.
Finally, it closed. Caught in the noose, the snake lashed back and forth. Ryan staggered under the onslaught.
