Chapter Five

 Saint Julians River 

 Copyright Bill Gallagher

Tampa Florida 

Deming New Mexico

 
 5.




     Days of work can drag along and become monotonous, even tedious, but days of leisure always fly right by, leaving you to wonder where the time went.  This rule is universal.  It doesn't take a surgeon to figure out why that is, either.  Johnny woke early in spite of all the activity the night before, not wanting to waste a minute of his leave in this ever more interesting place.
    He and the Captain had returned a couple or three hours after midnight, leaving the boat at the back of Cooeys restaurant, at his pier there.  The Captain said the fish were for the restaurant, and that was fine by Johnny.  Tonights Special.  Before they parted he made sure there was no more work to be done, and then the men shook hands.
     "Thank you Matthew, thank you very very much."  
     "Well John, thanks for the good company, and you are welcome very much.  This is just between us, yeah?"
      "Of course."
     They waved to each other as Matthew made his way down the river road, toward the boatyard, and Johnny went up the hill to the fort.
     Prestwick was never a big one for words, though he had been abnormally talkative on the canoe trip back, even telling Matthew about his parents' accidental deaths, and about being raised as an only child by his grandparents, his mothers folks.  Then his grandparents had died, first Grandpa, when Johnny was 17, and then Grandma a year later.   There was no thought of university for Johnny, he felt fortunate to find a place in the enlisted ranks of the Army, and never looked back.  He still owned the house on the lake, it was his inheritance, and he sent money regularly to a caretaker who did the minimum to maintain the place.  Johnny was thinking of selling it, but the value kept rising around there, and he thought it best to hold onto it if he could.  He could now, thats for sure, with no problem.
     He was rich!  The thought had never entered his mind as even a possibility, but all his pockets bulged with spanish treasure.  Some was very old gold jewelry with gemstones.  Most pressing, he needed to find a place to keep it out of the way and secure, soon.  That was not the easiest thing to do.  There were eyes everywhere, and people many times shared the same ideas as far as hiding places were concerned.  His Grandpa had told him about this, telling him a lot about human nature in general as he did.
     Johnny found his way to his bunk, everyone had their own rooms, very small, but private.  He threw his clothes in the laundry bag under the bed, finds and all, and didn't even dream for the next four hours.  Once the roosters began their daily sound design he jumped up and got busy.  The room was really just large enough for a bunk and a small table for a lantern, but with its own door and latch.  For this he was thankful.  He tried to imagine doing this at the other Fort Brooke, and just shook his head.  He secured the finds in a leather bag he was using for his spearpoints.  Pulling his small pack from under the bed he began making a plan for the near future, like right now.  It was time for a walk about, a little exploring.  He would hit the cantina for coffee and bread, then take the rifle and walk out back of the fort a ways, follow the road a few miles, see what he could see, end up over by the rope swing Ben Grierson had mentioned.   
      Once he got where he was going he sorted things and put most away.  He was on his way in no time at all.  A place he would always remember.  He would never forget.  He saw no one and no one saw him.   He left a lot of his metal, everything except some rough gold bullion, 6 unmarked bars, and most of his spearpoints.  More than good enough reason to come back to Esteenhatchee, just that.  His pack felt a lot lighter when he swung inland a few more miles, to come out on the river near where Ben Grierson had described the rope swing being.  It was not far off.       

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     As he walked up to the area of the rope swing Johnny recognized several of his troop even from a distance.  All the Riflemen were there, Ben and Shane and Charles Holloway, and Danny Smith the cook.  Someone was swinging out on the rope, maybe the cooks assistant.  Everyone was in short sleeve undershirts and trousers cut off at the knee.  John had a set in his own bag, and stopped to change before any of the others saw him.  When he walked up he put his back pack and rifle by some others which were stacked around a light wooden box with a lid on it. The rope was now swinging back in and the next in line was grabbing for it.  Once it was retrieved, the participant then walked it up a valley which both nature and man had cut into the bank of the river.  There were a lot of rocks and one had to be careful, especially not to let go of the rope at the wrong time.  Most rope swings had rules like that, because their location is dictated by convenience only.  In fact the first contingency to be addressed is a tree from which the rope swing hangs.  If there is a good enough tree, usually someone has made a rope swing there at one time or another.  When near water all the better.  This giant oak was even larger than the one the barge was tied to down at the boatyard.  It looked like it was leaning over and dipping its toes in the river.  The river was slowly eroding around the roots.  This would not be a rope swing forever, but nothing is forever.  People are here to use the world, to light up the moments, all little lanterns direct from the sun, pieces of it, made from the dirt of this place, and the water.  
     Mostly the water.  
     The rope swinger jumped and swung down through the valley he had traversed, and picked up great speed.  The rope was ship surplus hemp, looked like.  A big knot was what you had to hang onto.  And friend, you HAD to hang onto it too, lest you fall and become minced meat on the rocks below.
     YIP YIP HOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO yelled the rope swinger as he glided through nadir and headed toward zenith.  It was over in seconds, splash, and the rope swung in again, a wobbly pendulum powered by people.  One of the men saw Johnny then and let out a holler.  The initial rope swinger had in fact been Charlie Stevens, cooks assistant, who liked to be called Chuck.  He was coming out of the river as Johnny strolled up to the immediate rope swinging area and got in line.
     "Hey Johnny! Where you been?"
     "Hi Chuck."
      Ben Grierson was nearby and said "Hey Johnnys Here!  Late sleeper are we?  How was special duty?"
      Somebody pushed a bottle of beer into his hands.  So thats what the box was for.
     "Did you guys tote that box all the way up here?" he asked.  Ben said he asked his question first, but no the Captain let them use his canoe when they saw him at Cooeys this morning.  It was tied off now down the other side of the rope swing.
     Johnny said "Did you see the fish?"
     Ben nodded.
     "Special duty.  I told you it would be interesting."  He told them all about catching the fish on cane poles and lures, one right after another, for as long as you cared to fish.
      This made everybody smile and Danny Smith the cook said he thought the Captain was an ace of a guy, better than sugar beets grown in bear poop.
      That stopped conversation for a few seconds, then grins and guffaws filled the air as the next rope swinger, Charles Holloway, Rifleman at large, jumped off into space.

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      Later Johnny and Ben took the boat down the river to Cooeys for more beer.  They began talking the minute they were out of ear shot.
     "I wasn't sleeping this morning, I went hiking."
     "Oh you don't get enough of that?"
     "I was curious about the lay of the land.  The land is flat.  I followed the road for several miles, then jogged east.  The land is flat and mostly dry over there."
     "Yes, well that might change a little farther east."
     "What do you mean?  Have you been here before Ben?"
     "Was here once before, 7 years ago.  Over east is a large swamp.  Devils Garden."
      Johnny knew nothing about the swamp or Devils Garden.
     "Were you here with the Captain, Ben?"  
     Ben looked at him a little more closely then.
     "Yes, with the Captain.  It was my first time out with a crew.  The Captain had just become a Captain then.  I became his friend after he helped me get even with one of the officers down at the other Fort Brooke, Tampa, you know."
     And thats how Johnny heard about an activity known among some people but not many, really, because it is an activity of revenge, and most people do not engage in any serious revenge.  That is left to Presidents and Kings, though among a few regulars it is considered a Sport, with rules, and etiquette concerning the sub-activities within revenge, some deemed honorable and some not.  The activity of revenge explained to Johnny then was called "Cheesing", and did no actual harm, though it could cause unexplained involuntary twitches of the whole body for up to a year or more.  That was purely psychological, and only a few of the victims of Cheesing actually developed long term mental illness.
     Ben told it quickly.  He was at Fort George Mercer Brooke Tampa to in-process as an enlisted Rifleman before being assigned somewhere in Florida.  A lieutenant, younger than himself, made a habit of singling him out in front of people, giving him the devil about minor aspects of his uniform.  Finally it happened one day in front of a bunch of civilians, and though Ben wanted to strike out and knock the man to the ground, he could only see bars in that future, iron bars.  So he waited.  
     Matthew happened to be in Tampa on the business of picking up additions to his crew.  They would be reporting to Esteenhatchee for further surveying of that Fort Brook, and environs.  Captain Gilmour witnessed the dressing down of Rifleman Ben Grierson by the little lieutenant and thought it was one of the uglier episodes he had been witness to in the service, so far.  He first requested that Ben Grierson be assigned to him, then, on the survey crews last day in Tampa he told Ben what to do.
     Johnny was all ears, he knew this would be good.
     The Captain had noticed that the lieutenant used the same small latrine every night on his way to officers quarters.  There was spring water out of tap there.  Matthew Gilmour prepared a piece of white goat cheese by wetting it and letting it rot a little, then leaving it dry in the sun.  It looked just like a used bar of soap.  Ben planted the fake bar of soap at the sink in that fateful latrine a few minutes before the lieutenant got there, and was gone before the man showed up.    He watched from a distance and so did the Captain.  No one else visited the latrine, and everything worked perfectly.  Several people saw it all from a closer vantage, but thats because they were innocent bystanders.
     The lieutenant washed quickly at the sink, using the soap to scrub his face and combing his hair with his wet fingers.  Among many other things, the lieutenant was possessed of vanity.   He shook dried his hands because there was no towel damn it, then left the latrine quickly, an habitual hurrier.  As he walked away from the latrine observers noted that he stopped abruptly in his tracks, then squatted down slightly, as if trying to dodge something, or as if he was about to draw two pistols in a gunfight.  The soap which was not soap was drying on the lieutenant, and the more it dried the worse it smelled.
     "Stinking horses arse..." said the lieutenant out loud, as he began walking again.   
     Johnny laughed.
     Stopping again, the lieutenant looked around wildly, swiveling his head, dilating his nostrils.  Sampling the wind, as it were, searching for the source of the evil awful stink.  A few civilian people looked at him queerly from across the street.  He then raised his hands to his nostrils and uttered a guttural cry not unlike an old hound baying mindlessly at the moon.  This exclamation of disgust ended in what can only be called a long squealing sound.  
     One man described the lieutenants face as looking just like the sad mask painted on the playhouse.  Definitely not the happy mask, he said.  The lieutenant turned around quickly and headed back to the wash room.  He came out with what looked like a piece of soap pinched between two fingers of his right hand, holding it out as if it was offensive, and it was.  He dropped it on the wood slatted sidewalk, and began stomping upon it with first one foot and then the other, all the time muttering curses and odd whining sounds.  Whimpers is what they were.  
     Finally he jumped with both feet upon the piece of cheese, which took on the aspects of real soap suddenly, acting like a lubricant, causing both the lieutenants legs to slide out from under him as if this was a practiced act of slapstick comedy.  He fell hard and people heard his head hit the wood of the sidewalk with a very solid THONK.
     One of the civilian wives asked her husband "Why is that man killing himself dear?"  Her husband muttered "Don't know" and continued to gawk.
     The lieutenant rose shakily.  His features had become twisted into a frightening visage of angst, and hate, and spite, and malice, and a few other diabolical things.  He waddled away as if he'd loaded his pants.  
     Once the tawdry little scene ended, after the air cleared and the crowd moved on, Ben went back to the latrine and replaced the soap and towel, and cleaned up the sidewalk, throwing the cheese into Saint Julians River.
     Johnny laughed again, a good belly laugh.   
     Matthew Gilmour had put everything in order, so when he and Ben got back to the surveyors area all the wagons were loaded.  Every single one of the surveying crew had had enough of Tampa and Fort George Mercer Brooke for awhile, so when Matthew Gilmour said "Lets take a little bit of an early leave fellows,"  there was agreement all around.  The only sounds became squeaking carts and horses hooves on the shell road heading northeast to Jolly Corner.
     Johnny wondered if it could be the same lieutenant as the one who gave him all the anger over his buttons.  He thought that unlikely though.  Lieutenant Reich would have to have gone without rank for a very long time.
     Or been demoted.
     Yes, Johnny did wonder, thinking about it.  There was a chance he had been caught before and demoted, and was lucky to have a career at all.  The man was a thief, and tried to deflect attention from himself by finding any fault possible among the enlisted ranks, doing his job right by God, a stand up officer, a shining example of fortitude and righteousness.  There was more than one of those type in the service though.
     Johnny was still laughing as they tied the boat to Cooeys dock.  The men entered the restaurant through the back door, from riverside, versus road side, crossing the patio that overhung the river.
     They were still smiling.
     Their clothes were almost dry, and they'd put boots on, loosely tying the laces to keep them off the floor.  As Johnnys Grandma sometimes said about him and Grandpa after a day in the fields: they looked a fright.  Johnny immediately noticed that the special was indeed fried sea trout chunks, with fried potato chips and okra.  They ordered 6 specials in a bag and two dozen bottles of beer in a box.  Mr Cooey said that would be one dollar in silver, and he would like the box back when they were finished.  And please bring the empty bottles with it.  
     Before the men could get their money out the Captains voice rang across the room.
     "Put that on my bill Eldon, thank you."  
     The bartender said "You got it Matthew" as Ben and Johnny looked around to see the Captain at a table over in a corner, and he was with a woman!  She was beautiful, with long black hair and the bluest eyes Johnny had ever seen.  Johnny and Ben made their way to the table while the order was being prepared, and the Captain introduced his lady friend as Roberta Haines, of the Esteenhatchee Haines.  
     "Everyone calls me Bobbi," she said, smiling.
      "Hi Bobbi, I'm Ben and this is Johnny.  Sorry Cap, didn't see you when we came in."
      Johnny nodded, smiling.
      "So what are you two all dressed up for?" asked the Captain with a grin and a wink.  
      Both men turned slightly red when they realized how they must look, but the lady took up for them.
     "Now Matthew behave yourself, you know they are just enjoying the local attractions..."
     The conversation continued as Ben and Johnny openly admired the river and its surroundings, especially the rope swing.
     Just then Eldon Cooey put the soldiers order up on the bar.  The clank of beer bottles in their case did all the announcing needed.  The two took notice and began their farewell.
     "I might get down there a little later myself," said the Captain, "If not today then tomorrow.  You men be careful and have yourselves a grand time."
     They both said thank you, told Bobbi again that it was nice meeting her, then clomped across the wood floor in their loosely tied leather boots.  
     Ben grabbed the bag and gave it to Johnny, taking the case with the beer in it for himself.  He then backed into the door, pushing it open.  Johnny allowed Ben to pass by holding the door with a booted foot. With both arms around the large bag he moved quickly out onto the patio, out of the way of the door as it swung shut, keeping it from slamming with another booted foot.  Removing his foot he looked up and was confronted with a sight which filled him with wonder and consternation.  The young girl from yesterday evening was there, she was delivering some items in a basket.  Her hands were dainty and well kept, with longish fingernails, and clean.  It looked like eggs and vegetables in the basket and it was.  She wore a sun bonnet over long blonde hair, and a dress that reached the tops of her leather shoes.  Johnny was spellbound for a second or two.
      He made to get the door for her and she said:
     "Please don't bother, your load is much larger than mine."
      Johnny couldn't argue that.  He straightened and said:
     "My name is Johnny Prestwick."
     "Nancy Huntington, Mr. Prestwick, a pleasure to meet you.  I just have to drop these off, do you care to escort a lady back to her home road?  Its not far.  And it looks as if you are swimming today, so it is on your way.
      "I'd be delighted. I have to bring this bag to my friend.  I will be here when you come out."
       Johnny hurried across the patio as she let herself in the restaurant.  He quickly took the bag of food down to Ben Grierson.
      "Ben I have an engagement which won't last long but I can't ride back with you, I will make my own way back in an hour or so, thanks, I'll row next time."
      "But..."
      Johnny was already gone.  
      He was seated on a chair, re-tying his boot laces, when she came out.
      They made for the shell road out front of the restaurant which diverged from the river somewhat, running along the face of a large hill.  Old trees abounded, and the flora of the area was becoming more lush on a daily basis as summer approached.  They began walking east, talking all the while.  They were headed in the direction of the rope swing, she said her home road was about halfway to it.
     A man in a skiff paddled by then, way out on the river, and as he passed he waved.  Johnny and Nancy waved back.


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      "Local Attractions Indeed!" said Ben Grierson loudly, as the rest of the men opened bottles of beer and bags of food, "I would say Local SPECIAL Attractions.  The girl can't be 17 years old!"
      "Well Johnny ant a lot older than thet when you think on it, what is he twenty? twenty one?"  asked Danny Smith, who was paying Cooeys cook the ultimate compliment.   A cook himself, he gobbled the food from the restaurant like a starving man, only stopping to belch ever so often, or, more rarely, wax philosophic.
     "Johnny Prestwick is Twenty TWO as of March 2.
     "He didn't say!"
     Well you don't either, nor do I."
     "Thats true.  I don't like birthdays.  Guess nobody does."
     Ben Grierson was getting himself busy with a beer and some fish.  
     "At least Prestwick can catch some good sea trout, thats for sure."
     Everything became peaceful and quiet as the men ate, and it wouldn't be long before some began nodding off into nap time.  Except for the breeze in the trees, and the slight rustling of the river as it swept massively by, there were no sounds, even the birds were quiet.  The sky was clear and sunny, as it had been since their arrival, with an occasional bright white cloud puffing by.  Here at the rope swing the width of the river was an eighth of mile or more.  Even so the water was deep and clear, having been born in springs to the north which literally bubbled out of white coral rocks, though the coral rocks were far away from any ocean.
      Rifleman Charles Holloway, who hardly ever uttered a word, and who wore spectacles even to shoot, surprised everyone then with a personal observation:
     "This is the prettiest place I ever been."

    
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     The walk with Nancy Huntington to her home road was short but wonderful as far as Johnny was concerned.  She was fresh and open.  Nancy said her age was really 18 and she hoped her young looks lasted into her older age.  She doubted they would though.  
     "You never know," said Johnny.  He asked if she got much attention from the men at the fort, and she looked downward, and then away, then back to his eyes, and held them.
     "You are the first soldier I have ever talked to.  Father forbids it, you see."
     Alarm bells went off in his mind, but he was doing no harm, and this girl, this young woman, seemed destined somehow to know him.  The effect was not overpowering, but he could see where it could become so quickly.  
     "Will there be trouble over this?"
     "I don't care.  There is not a lot that can be done, am I to be a prisoner?  I think not.  As soon as I saw you I felt something, a power, it drew me like a lodestone.  Forgive me being forthright, but time is not to be wasted.  Ever.  Feelings are not to be ignored."
     At first Johnny was surprised by her serious honesty, but soon found it charming, even enchanting, and they talked about many things in the half hour it took to get where they were going.  Nancys mother had died recently, and Johnny thought this had something to do with the urgent nature of her perceptions.  He too had faced a lot of death.  It was a fact of life.  
     Time was not to be wasted.  Ever.
     They dawdled at the dirt tracks leading off the shell road which led to her fathers farm.
     "Well it was very excellent making your acquaintance Miss Nancy Huntington, and I do hope to see you again soon.  I will look for you at Cooeys."
     "I will be there again tomorrow in the later morning time, to make my daily delivery."
     "I will be there too then."  He reached out and they touched hands.  She lightly raked her fingernails across his palm and it stirred his soul.
     Johnny smiled, and waved goodbye as he turned to go.
     He could barely feel the ground beneath himself.


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     Johnny walked the path off the shell road that led to the rope swing.  Everything was quiet.  He was feeling exuberant and tried not to show it.  Ben Grierson noticed right away of course, he was expecting it.  Ben said he could see it in Johnnys eyes.  Some of the others were rousting from their after lunch naps, and the rope was already aswing.  There went Charles Holloway again, he was having fun.
     Johnny asked did they leave any fish for him.  Of course said Ben, and okra and chips too.  And by the way how are we enjoying the local attractions Mr. Prestwick?