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KASTLE KRAGS
A STORY OF MYSTERY
BY
ABSALOM MARTIN
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD AND COMPANY
1922
Copyright, 1921, 1922
BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
Printed in U. S. A.
KASTLE KRAGS
CHAPTER I
Who could forget the Ochakee River, and the valley through which it
flows! The river itself rises in one of those lost and nameless lakes in
the Floridan central ridge, then is hidden at once in the live oak and
cypress forests that creep inland from the coasts. But it can never be
said truly to flow. Over the billiard-table flatness of that land it
moves so slowly and silently that it gives the effect of a lake stirred
by the wind. These dark waters, and the moss-draped woodlands through
which they move, are the especial treasure-field and delight of the
naturalist and scientist from the great universities of the North.
It is a lost river; and it is still a common thing to see a brown,
lifeless, floating log suddenly flash, strike, and galvanize into a
diving alligator. The manatee, that grotesque, hair-lipped caricature of
a sea-lion, still paddles in the lower waters; and the great gar, who
could remember, if he would, the days when the nightmare wings of the
pterodactyls whipped and hummed over his native waters, makes deadly
hunting-trips up and down the stream, sword-like jaws all set and ready;
and all manner of smaller fry offer pleasing possibilities to the
sportsmen. The water-fowl swarm in countless numbers: fleet-winged
travelers such as ducks and geese, long-legged dignitaries of the crane
and heron tribe, gay-colored birds that flash by and out of sight before
the eye can identify them, and bitterns, like town-criers, booming the
river news for miles up and down the shores. And of course the little
perchers are past all counting in the arching trees of the river-bank.
In the forests the fleet, under-sized Floridan deer is watchful and
furtive because of the activities of that tawny killer, the "catamount"
of the frontier; and the black bear sometimes grunts and soliloquizes
and gobbles persimmons in the thickets. The lynx that mews in the
twilight, the raccoon that creeps like a furtive shadow through the
velvet darkness, the pink-nosed 'possum that can only sleep when danger
threatens, and such lesser folk as rabbit and squirrel, weasel and
skunk, all have their part in the drama of the woods. Then there are the
game-birds: wild turkey, pheasant, and that little red quail, the Bob
White known to Southern sportsmen.
Yet the Ochakee country conveys no message of brightness and cheer. Some
way, there are too many shadows. The river itself is a moving sea of
shadows; and if the sun ever gets to them, it is just an unhappy glimpse
through the trees in the long, still afternoons. The trees are mostly
draped with Spanish moss that sways like dark tresses in the little
winds that creep in from the gulf, and the trees creak and complain and
murmur one to another throughout the night. The air is dank, lifeless,
heavy with the odors of vegetation decaying underfoot. There is more
death than life in the forest, and all travelers know it, and not one
can tell why. It is easier to imagine death than life, the trail grows
darker instead of brighter, a murky mystery dwells between the distant
trunks.... Ordinarily such abundant wild-life relieves the somber,
unhappy tone of the woods, but here it some way fails to do so. No
woodsman has to be told how much more cheerful it makes him feel, how
less lonely and depressed, to catch sight of a doe and fawn, feeding in
the downs, or even a raccoon stealing down a creek-bank in the mystery
of the moon; but here the wild things always seem to hide when you want
them most; and if they show themselves at all, it is just as a fleet
shadow at the edge of the camp-fire. These are cautious, furtive things,
fleet as shadows, hidden as the little flowers that blossom among the
grass-stems; and such woodsfolk as do make their presence manifest do
not add, especially, to the pleasure of one's visit. These are two in
particular--the water-moccasin that hangs like a growing thing in the
wisteria, and the great, diamond-back rattlesnake whose bite is death.
The river flows into the gulf about half-way down the peninsula, and
here is the particular field of the geologist, rather than the
naturalist. For miles along the shore the underlying limestone and
coraline rocks crop up above the blue-green water, forming a natural
sea-wall. Here, in certain districts, the thickets have been cleared
away, wide areas planted to rice, and a few ancient colonial homes stand
fronting the sea. Also the sportsman fishes for tarpon beyond the
lagoons.
A strange, unhappy land of mystery; a misty, enchanted place whose
tragic beauty no artist can trace and whose disconsolate appeal no man
can fathom! Forests are never cheerful, silent and steeped in shadow as
they are, but these moss-grown copses beside the Ochakee, and crowding
down to the very shores of the gulf, have an actual weight of sadness,
like a curse laid down when the world was just beginning. Yet Grover
Nealman defied the disconsolate spirit of the land. He dared to disturb
the cathedral silence of those mossy woods with the laughter of carefree
guests, and to hold high revelry on the shores of that dismal sea.