Shooting alligators is one thing in which I have never indulged, and I
watched the show with undisguised wonder and admiration. Discovering
that the little rifle expert was a girl excited me, and as she came
closer she eyed me critically from shoes to hat. Then I observed that
she was older than I first thought.
"I wouldn't want you to shoot at me," I said, attempting to put her at
ease. I could detect a sort of distrust in her clear gray eyes.
"I never miss a 'gator, if that's what you mean," said she, toying
with her rifle and reassured by my voice. "I've been shooting 'gators
all my life."
"I think it's wonderful; few men could do as well."
Still doubting, she smiled slightly and continued to study my face, my
tropical clothes, even my shoes.
"Mr. Canby is not about?" I asked as I smiled down upon her.
"No, Daddy went away before daylight," and turning away to glance out
toward the Gulf added, as if reassured, "The weather is good and I
don't know when to expect him." Then her innate courtesy moved her. I
felt that if she raised her rifle and shot me through she would do so
delicately--she could not be vulgar, her straight-chiseled nose
settled that.
"Won't you have a seat?" she asked, pointing to a rustic table and
some chairs worked out of wreckage which stood in the center of the
veranda. I thanked her and sat down, while she hung timidly on the
edge of a chair opposite, trying to account for my presence.
"Don't you get lonesome and feel afraid here all alone?"
"No, I'm never afraid, and Don is always here. At the end of the week
the harbor is full of boats coming in to trade. I can protect myself.
A long time ago my father taught me how to shoot with a rifle and a
pistol, and also to use a knife. The knife's for sharks, though."
"Then your father is not here much?" I ventured.
"No--lately he lets me run the store, and he goes away to buy sponges,
'gators' hides and sharkskins."
"Where does he sell his stock?"
"Well, I don't exactly know--sometimes in Key West, sometimes in
Tampa, sometimes in Havana. He takes the skins and hides to the
tannery. What do you want to see my father for?" she suddenly asked,
looking straight at me.
I was off my guard. A man's question would have been easy. I knew that
to make any progress I must satisfactorily answer that question at
once, and instantly I thought of Ike Barry.
"I came to sell him some goods," I replied calmly.
"What kind of goods do you sell?"
"Hardware and ship chandlery--from New York," I added, so that she
would not ask the name of the house--as I wasn't sure what house Ike
Barry represented.
"I am sorry you did not let him know you were coming, so he would have
been here. We do need goods. Trade has been good lately and we are out
of a great many things," she replied, much relieved at being able to
fix my status. She continued, "Have you ever seen our store? We have
made it bigger lately and have much more room. Come in and I will show
you."
I saw danger in this. She might ask me prices. If she did I was
stumped. But I walked along with her through the store, she pointing
out empty shelves and enumerating articles wanted, showing a
precocious knowledge of goods, but, continuing her rôle of hostess,
talking freely.
"You see, Daddy makes friends with everyone, especially the fishermen,
and they come here instead of going to Key West as they used to. They
say we sell for less, and all on the Gulf side trade at our store. We
have been a long time building up our business. Daddy is very proud of
it and likes to give them good things, just what they want," she said,
with a naïvetté delightfully refreshing.
I don't know why I stared at the child so long. I was somehow
beginning to like her. She interested me, and I began to feel as
though I would hate to find anything wrong with her father to whom she
referred so affectionately.
When we started back to the veranda I asked if she had any cigars. I
was dying for a smoke.
"Our trade don't smoke cigars; they want only smoking and plug
tobacco, but I can give you some out of Daddy's private box; he always
keeps them for himself."
From a shelf she handed me a box and insisted on my taking enough to
last a while, saying that it was her treat. I was surprised to see
from the factory number they were an expensive popular brand made in
New York.
"Now you must come out in my garden. Daddy and I have the greatest fun
with the flowers. If I didn't have them I would grow very lonesome.
They are my friends and are just like nice people; they talk to me,"
she went on, now entirely free from restraint. Her flowers were really
more wonderful than they seemed at first.
Along the high-tide mark was a trimmed hedge of stunted mangrove trees
with their ariel prop roots carefully trained into a fence; next to
that was a row of most beautiful water lilies, seemingly ever
blooming, as white as the soul of the girl who pointed them out with
so much pride and joy.
"You see," she explained with artless simplicity, "one time our garden
was nothing but jagged rocks and coral that grows to look like
flowers. Don had to carry mud out of the water to make soil before we
could do any planting. That is why I wanted to get that 'gator; he
wallows them down and abuses them, and Daddy says that every 'gator's
hide I get will keep me in school for a month, and, you see, before
long I'm going away up North to school. Do you know anything about the
schools up there?" she looked up at me eagerly for my answer.
"No--I don't know much about the schools, but I can easily find out
for you," I replied.
"Oh--I hate to think of leaving Daddy here alone, but he says--I must.
I often lay in bed by the window where I can see the stars, the North
star, and wonder if people I will meet there are as nice as my flowers
and if the great cities are as beautiful as the forests and caves I
see at the bottom of the sea when I dive for sponges."
I stopped and looked at her, astonished. Evidently she divined the
question I would ask.
"Oh, yes, ever since I was a child and until lately I have gone with
Daddy sponging, and can stay down longer than he can--he stays longer
than anyone else. Of late he won't let me go. He says I stay down too
long. But I just can't help it, for I see such beautiful things down
there, great ferns as big as trees, streets, parks in so many colors
about which I can only dream and can't describe. I feel so happy I
don't want to come up, and sometimes he has to give me oxygen to bring
me to. He is afraid something will happen to me so he won't let me go
any more--only once in a while, in shallow water."
I saw the smoke of a train in the north and looked at my watch.
"I am sorry to leave but I must catch this train. It will stop for
me."
It was like drawing her back from another world. Visibly disappointed,
she started toward the store. "How did you get the train to stop here?
It never did before. The trains run past here as though they were
afraid," she said, more as audible thought. "Are you coming back?" she
asked wistfully.
"Yes, I will come to-morrow," I replied. Then swung on the train and
waved back at the lonely little figure standing beside the track.
I dropped into a seat, thoughtful indeed. If there was anything wrong
with that little girl, her father and his business, then my years of
training had been wasted. I thought of what the judge told me when he
gave me the warrants. On the way back to Key West I formed a plan.
In front of the hotel in Key West I found Ike Barry. "Ike, you sell
from a catalog, don't you?"
"Yes--why?"
"If you will loan me your catalog I'll get an order to-morrow, and
won't charge you anything but some smokes."
Ike was agreeable and explained the uniform discount on the catalog
price as we drank at the soda fountain.
I was hurrying to my room to change back to working clothes, when I
saw Scotty of the night before, in the lobby. He was in good clothes
and bad liquor, or both. I tried to dodge him until I could get back
in working garb but the light of recognition appeared in the little
eyes under the deep shelf. He arose and stood near me. I was sure of
the liquor then and it did not take long to develop the trouble.
"I had half a slant after you had gone last night that this was your
lay," he began, after we were seated in a corner of the bar room.
"It's pretty hard to fool the Scotch," I observed as he poured out
Black and White, and watched me fill a glass with gin as full as the
water glasses beside it. But he did not see me change the glasses and
drink the water instead of the liquor.
"Scotty, you seem troubled. How is it you are all dressed up instead
of burning gasoline on the blue?"
"Think I'm in bad," he said, eyeing me closely. "I've had me doots,
and your nosing around settles it."
"Scotty--you saw enough last night to know I have a first-class
license for the U. S. N. I have served," I continued, as he poured out
more Black and White, "and can convince you I have worked as a
first-class mechanic in the German and French shipyards."
"Think you did--I know you did--and all the time was using another
tool on paper that went to Washington. But I believe you are on the
level for all that, and I don't mind telling----"
"Then, Scotty, what's the use of being so tight? Will you tell me
something?"
"Weel--weel--maybe," with a vicious glitter as he glanced down at his
empty glass.
"Tell me how you know so well where this man Canby's place is up on
the Keys?" I asked, ordering again.
"I might have told you that last night, but ye never asked me, and
that has a lot to do with me just now. I don't like the way things are
going with Bulow and Company. In fact, I'm downright suspicious, and
I'm ready to throw up me job."
"Now you're getting down to it. What do you know about Canby?"
"You see, I've been with this Bulow job near five years. Since the old
man died and this manager came in things have not been goin' right.
Some time ago there comes a pink-cheeked, taller-bellied chap, I
never did know his name, or just who he is. The firm has always been
sore on Canby, because he's been takin' spongers' trade from them. But
lately there is somethin' else. And it's him you want to know about?"
"Yes, I especially want to know about him--just now."
"No one seems to know how he got up there on the bare Keys," replied
Scotty. "One morning the manager and our big-waisted pink-cheek came
down to the dock in a devil of a sweat to get away up the Keys on the
Gulf side. When we got opposite Canby's he ordered me to make the
little bay and Canby's wharf. It was a bad place to get, drawing as
much water as we did, but I got alongside the little wharf inside all
right and made fast.
"The two of them looked about a bit, but no one was to be seen. They
walked up to the store, went inside for a little while, and then
returned. The manager said both Canby and the girl were away and the
nigger was asleep somewhere. Then they began looking sharp about the
little warehouse on the end of the wharf. But it was shut tight.
"The manager asked me for a short pinch bar I always keep and I handed
it to 'beer-tub.' He was fussing with it and raised his left hand to
hold the padlock while he was prying with his right when of a sudden
there was a shot. I could see it came from the second story.
'Beer-tub' came rushing aboard with the manager, his hand bleeding,
scared stiff, like the hell of a coward he is, and ordered me to get
away quick. The shot had gone clear through his fat, dumpy, soft hand
like a skewer through a roast of beef. It's bandaged yet. Now what did
he want there? How did he know the Canby boat, the fast one I was
telling you about, was at the Tortugas at exactly that time? It was
the damn girl, they said, who did the shooting--they talk of how she
can split a dime with a pistol every shot at a hundred yards."
I yawned, as if my interest was at an end, and, noting his drooping
eyelids, got up and walked around for a while until he could regain
himself.