Throw Down Tuesday: NaNoWriMo Edition #2

Day 4

As Leland and Rhodes led Buckley around Cypress Estates they couldn’t help but wonder at both the size and the youth of their guest. They were half tempted to call down south and check out his story but there seemed no reason for him to lie about his credentials. What sort of halfcocked thrill seeker comes with that sort of equipment and anyway?

Rhodes was more interested in engaging the young man than was Leland who was more embarrassed at the possibility of being shown up by a kid. “So, how’s your daddy?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Been stayin’ out of trouble.”

Rhodes laughed. “Yeah he was something of a hell raiser in his day, wasn’t he?”

“That he was, sir. As I understand it, he even got himself into a little trouble not too far from here. I believe it was your father who helped him out of that tight spot.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”
Rhodes scratched his head, perplexed. He had no idea what the boy could be talking about.

“I believe the town is called Micanopy?”

The light went on in Rhodes’ head.
“Oh my goodness. It was your daddy that my daddy bailed out of jail in Micanopy?

Buckley hung his head a little, but still he smiled a downright charming smile. “Yes sir, that was him.”

Leland became interested in the story at this point. “What happened, Rhodes?”

“Buckley, you mind if I tell him?” Rhodes asked.

Smiling, Buckley nodded his approval.

“See, Hansford and Daddy was out in Micanopy at the same time getting some shoes put on some horses and the furrier put a shoe on one of Daddy’s horses wrong. Hansford called the furrier out on it and one thing led to another until punches were thrown. Of course, bein’ that Hansford was an Indian from down south, they hauled him to jail. It wasn’t an hour later that Daddy’s horse threw the shoe and the furrier looked like a right ass. So of course Daddy had to do the right thing and bail him out and apologize. The damn furrier never did drop the charges, but somehow Daddy made it all go away. Never went back to Micanopy neither.

Leland looked impressed. “Rhodes’ daddy was a hell of a man. Did you ever meet him, Buckley?”

“No. I can’t say as I did. I heard a whole lot about him growing up though. My daddy said he owed him a lot. He seemed to think that if Mr. Shield hadn’t bailed him out when he did that he wouldn’t have left that jail cell.”

“I’d like to think that’s not true,” Rhodes said, “but times were different back then, and some folks were more than a little unwelcoming to people who weren’t their kind.”

“I don’t know how much that’s changed.” Buckley said eyeing Leland.

This did not go unnoticed by Leland, but he chose to ignore it. By this time the three men had walked nearly to the old farm house. Buckley began to check all around the perimeter of the house for evidence of the gator’s presence. Buckley had been hunting gators with his daddy since he could hold a gun as was his want. As was the need of the tribe. He knew how tell if a gator had been there or not.

“No gator has been to this place. Why don’t you just stay here tonight? I will stay at the place where the gator comes. And when if comes, I will kill it.”

Leland couldn’t help but laugh. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

“I am sure. I will kill it,” Buckley said with a perfectly straight face.

Rhodes was standing by, staring at his mother’s house, slack jawed. “You mean that thing hasn’t been up here at all?"

Leland looked at his agog. “Why does that matter?”

“Then why is it laying siege to Herlin Hall!” Rhodes cried. “What’s the difference?”

Leland laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Herlin Hall is closer to the water for one thing. Maybe it doesn’t like all the light and the noise so close to its den. I don’t know.”

“I’ve started to feel like the thing is waging war on me personally. It’s attacking my house. Killing my friends. There are hundreds of people who have houses along this river. Why me?”

Day 5

As the sun set on the St. Johns River it cast evil shadows of the cypress trees over the whole of Herlin Hall. The Spanish moss that hung from their branches swayed in the light breeze that blew in from the river as Buckley walked out onto the dock and looked to the north. He knew that he was in for a long night. The gator would come soon. He waited on the dock for the last rays of light to disappear into the water before he went into the house and turned on all the lights.

When he had been touring the property with Rhodes and Leland this afternoon he had been less interested in what they were viewing and more interested in what they said and how they acted. He wanted to know what kind of men they were. It didn’t take him long to realize that they were loud, proud, boastful men and he had a feeling that they were the cause of their own undoing with the gator.

Once all the lights were on, he walked over to the record player and selected a well worn album from its sleeve: Alabama. He placed the disk on the turntable and as it began to spin put the needle on it. The first song began to blast through the speakers.

Oh play me some mountain music, like grandma and grandpa used to play . . .

Then he sat on the stairs and waited. The door to the Florida room was still damaged from the previous night so if the gator was so inclined, it would have not problem getting into the house once again.

It wasn’t long before the guest of honor arrived.

Pushing the broken door open with its snout, the gator padded into the room like he owned the place. Buckley watched it from the stairs as it surveyed the room. Suddenly, the two made eye contact and the game was on. Buckley leapt to his feet and the gator opened its mouth and let out a hiss. With only a hook and a buck knife, Buckley crouched as though he were going to pounce on the beast. The creature whipped its tail in displeasure as Buckley made his way close and closer to it. Then, in one deft move, Buckley straddled the beast’s back, snapped a rubber band around its powerful jaws and stabbed it in the throat with the buck knife. It was a lucky break for Buckley that the gator’s mouth was closed at that moment, for if they had been open he might not have walked away from the fight.

The gator began to bleed out of the floor of Herlin Hall and as it did, Buckley said a prayer of it’s dying body, that it might die swiftly and painlessly. He hadn’t wanted to kill it, but it was a man killer and there was no other choice. Killing it in this way was the best way to preserve the meat and the skin for food and other uses.

When Buckley was certain that the gator was dead, he called Rhodes and Leland to come up to Herlin Hall and look at the body.

“How’d did you manage it?” Rhodes asked.

“I just lured him in the same way y’all did, with light and noise. I figured that he wasn’t too happy about the house being so close to the water and he was coming up here causing trouble in protest of  y’all disturbing his peace.”

“Huh. How’d you figure that out?”

“Well, there was no evidence of a gator up at your mama’s and if he was looking for food he would have gone up there as well. And you said that he made all of his appearances when the house was full of people. I figured he was riled by the parties.”

Leland kicked the gator’s corpse. “Well, now what? How are we going to get this thing out of here?”

“Oh, I was going to dress it.” Buckley said. And with that he began to drag the body of the gator toward the deck. The gator, mind you, must have weighed 800 pounds. “Do you have a wench?” he asked.

“There’s one down at the farm.” Leland responded. “I reckon I’ll go get it.”

“Thanks.”

With Leland gone, Buckley and Rhodes were left alone together in the dark with the body of the gator. The night was cold and dark and there was nothing much to talk about so naturally, Rhodes asked Buckley about his father.

“So what does your daddy do nowadays?”

“He died a while ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I don’t think about it that much.”

“How’s your mama?”

“You knew my mama?”

“No, but it seemed like a nice thing to ask.”

Buckley laughed. “I see. Well, she’s alright. She gets by. She’s made a hobby of going to estate sales. I worry about her sometimes though. I don’t know where she’s going to put all the stuff she brings home.”

“A pack rat?”

“Something like that.”

By this time Leland was back with the wench and they were able to string up and dress the gator before all the meat went bad.

            Once the gator had been killed and the meat had been tended to they thought all that was left was to put Buckley up for the night, pay him for his services and send him on his merry way. They had no idea how wrong they were.

Day 7

            The men had considered telling the sheriff that they had killed the gator, but it seemed a pointless venture. The charges had been dropped in the Harley Quitman case and Jerry had testified that a gator had attacked him. He was going to be lucky to keep his leg, but he would live. Leland and Rhodes went to see him at the hospital the morning after Buckley dispatched the gator while Buckley slept in one of the many guest rooms at Herlin Hall.

By late afternoon Buckley finally roused himself from his slumber and realized that Rhodes and Leland had still not returned from town. He assumed that they had stayed up at the hospital to celebrate the demise of the gator with Leland’s brother. Having neither a truck nor a license to drive one he walked down to the dock, got into the air boat and took off on the river. He’d been on this man’s land for too long it felt like. He needed to get out for a little while.

Buckley piloted the boat down the St. Johns River towards Dunn’s Creek and then into Crescent Lake where he finally docked at the Tangerine Cove Motel and Restaurant. He hadn’t wanted to eat any of Rhodes’ food and it didn’t seem like a stretch for him to boat 30 miles downriver to get a catfish dinner.

He ordered his food and a cherry coke. The waitress, a pretty young blonde who wasn’t sure whether or not to flirt with him or to be terrified of him, brought his food him a hesitant smile and left him to eat as he stared out over the lake at trees that made up Bunnell and Flagler County on the other side. Buckley, didn’t know what he was looking at, of course. He had know way of knowing just how close to the beach he was, other than the fact that he could faintly smell the salt air and the unusual amount of seagulls that congregated on the dock.

The only reason he’d come this far upstate via the rivers and estuaries was because he’d heard about the gator on the Res from a deputy who had been traveling through Putnam county the day before. He thought that the work would be worthwhile and it would be a welcome vacation from the troubles he’d been having with his mama.
            When Rhodes had asked about his mama, Buckley hadn’t really known what to say. To say she was a pack rat might have been insulting to pack rats. But he didn’t want to blame her and he didn’t feel like it was her fault. It was hard for her, having grown up in the depression, she was terrified that she was going to have to once again do without. She’d be damned if she ever had to go through that again. So, she’d manufactured a new kind of hell in her manufactured home that was over flowing with the discarded remnants of other people’s lives.

He had been telling the truth when he’d said she went to estate sales, but these estates weren’t the kind you think of when you think of estate sales. These were the last things of people who didn’t have a lot worth owning to begin with, and his mother took the last of everything that no one else wanted.

She had a pallet of size B batteries. She had 47 different unworn left shoes from the estate of a man who only had one leg. She had enough laundry detergent to last her until the next millennium. She had sausage gravy lined up in her hallway that went on for days. She had a collection of little porcelain dolls that were all named “Cynthia”. She didn’t know anyone named Cynthia. She had little silver spoons from every tourist attraction you could think of: Silver Springs, Busch Gardens, Cypress Gardens, Wild Waters, Disney World, Universal Studios, - and all the smaller ones too, like Ripley’s, Marineland, and Gatorworld. There were more than 100 of these spoons in a jar on the mantle of her trailer.

Try though he might, he could not convince her that these things did not belong to her and that she did not need them. At this point they were cluttering up her life to the point where he was worried about her health and her well being, but the woman would not listen to reason. Sometimes he just had to get away. And he knew that no gator was  a match for him. He was impermeable to nature. It was man that concerned him.

He didn’t care for being around Rhodes and Leland very much. They made him uncomfortable. They were too loud – too much. He wanted to help them but he didn’t feel like he could trust them. He certainly wasn’t going to tell them about his troubles with his mama. That was his own cross to bear. Still, he wished that he had someone he could talk to about it.

He thought of Stella from school and how she always seemed to know what to say to make him feel better. How her touch always seemed to calm him. It seemed so long since he’d seen Stella. She’d left and gone off to school almost four years ago now. He smiled, thinking of her studying to be a teacher. Maybe she’d come back and be a teacher on the Res.

Stella was not a Seminole although she looked it with her big brown eyes and long, wavy brown hair and that had always been part of the problem. His mother had liked her but she was never one of them. She was always just a little different. Underneath her dandy clothes she was just a shade too white*. Not that that ever bothered Buckley. He liked the way her hand felt in his. Her hand was so tiny and delicate and his was so big and hulking and yet they fit together perfectly. Unlike most other people, she was never afraid of him because of his size. She took the time to get to know him and to listen to him when he spoke. She saw him, and he had loved her for that.

He had thought at one point that she may have even loved him, but he realized when she left him for college that he’d been mistaken. He told her that he would move to where she was going, that the end of high school didn’t have to be the end, but through tear stained eyes she said that she had to move on with her life and that this had to be goodbye.

He had gone rigid and then limp. He kissed her forehead and then walked away and never spoke to her again, but how he wished he had handled it differently now. Not that he thought he could have handled it any differently, but he wished he had a friend to discuss his problems with his mother with. Stella would know what to do. She was so much smarter about these things.

$$$

Rhodes and Leland were having a good time with Jerry in the hospital. Being that he was on an epic cocktail of pain medications he was in excellent spirits.

Day 8

Stella was at this time in another part of the state thinking not of her studies and not  of gators, but of Buckley. Their time apart had not erased him from her memory one bit and as her senior year of college came to a close she was no closer to getting over him than she was the day she broke his heart.

Sitting in a study room in the University of West Florida library, she looked out the window over the canon green and sighed. She didn’t give a damn about the pedagogical theory she was studying and if she was being honest, she thought her whole major was Mickey Mouse bullshit. Education she had come to find was a joke. The system was broken and flawed. The final straw had been when she had been forced to endure a module on “how to treat impoverished students and their families with dignity.” As though that were something that needed to be taught in a college. As though that were not something that were basic human decency. Stella was disgusted. She wanted nothing more than to be done with the whole field, but unfortunately she had figured this out too late in the game to pick a new major. Her plan at the moment was to go back home, start teaching, hope for the best, and figure out a new plan from there.

She wondered if Buckley were still around. She’d heard from some of her friends that he’d stayed in the area to help his mama. She had hoped that he would have gotten out of that little town and made something of himself, but what could she make of hearsay from her friends? They were never fond of him anyway. What did they know? Now that she thought about it, they weren’t exactly friends, were they. They were people she knew. Buckley was her friend. And she broke his heart.

For what?

She didn’t have much time to go down the painful road of her breakup with Buckley though, for just as she started to relive those painful memories there was a knock at the door and in popped the head of her friend, Paige.
            “Hey, girl! Are you up for a coffee break?”

“Sure.” Stella said. “I’ve been in this room for hours poring over this pedagogy stuff.”

“Oh, what fun. I think you deserve a break. Come on. I’ll buy. What are you having?”

            “A medium latte, I think.”

            As the two girls walked down to the café on the ground floor of the library, they ran into their friend Lottie.

            “Hey, did y’all hear about the gator that’s been raisin’ hell in Putnam County?”

            Paige and Stella looked at one another then said in unison, “No.”

            “Well, there’s been one. Apparently, they’ve already killed it, but I was thinking of going down there over spring break and interviewing some of the people involved. Y’all wanna go with?”

            “Where are we gonna stay?” Paige asked.

            “With my mama, of course.” Lottie replied. “I’m from there, you know. It’ll be fun. A trip to the old stompin’ grounds.”

            Stella smiled. It would be better than going home and hoping to run into Buckley again. “Sure. You can count me in.”

            “Me too,” said Paige.

           

            When Buckley finished his catfish dinner, he paid his bill, got back into his boat, and went back to Herlin Hall. When he arrived he had a sense that something was wrong. Rhodes and Leland were still out with Jerry at the hospital and the property was still and quiet, but Buckley had the uncanny sense that he was being watched. He certainly did not care for being on the first floor, so he went up to the guest room where he’d slept earlier and tried to put himself at ease.  Failing that, he found a book on the bookshelf and tried to read. Well after dark Rhodes finally arrived back to Herlin Hall alone. Leland had decided to remain at the hospital with his brother for the night.

            Buckley decided to come down and have a word with Rhodes – to be polite. When he descended the stairs, he saw the master of the house was on the couch with a woman. He turned to ascend the stairs once again, but the woman saw him and rose to greet him.

            “So you must be Buckley!” she cried, extending a hand as she ran to greet him.

            Buckley stood rigid, not quite knowing how to respond to this blonde woman.

            “Yes, ma’am. Yes, I am.”

            “Rhodes here has told me all about how you’ve dispatched that nasty old gator. I am just amazed at your prowess, especially as young as you are. However do you do it?”

            “Practice?”

            “You are a riot, Buckley! Won’t you come and have a drink with us?” and before he could refuse, she had grabbed his hand and led him into the bar in the Florida room and was pouring him a drink.

            “Um, thank you, ma’am.”

            “Oh, would you stop with that “ma’am” stuff? I’m too young for that!”

            “Yes ma’am.”

            “Leave the boy alone,” Rhodes interceded, “he’s got manners. That’s a rarity nowadays. So, what are your plans now, Buckley? Going back down south or are you going to hang out up her for a spell?”

            This was the first time he’d given the matter any real thought. “I don’t know, sir.”

            “Well, would you like a job?”

            Buckley nearly spit out his drink. “Excuse me?”

            “Well Leland and I were talking and I think it might be good to have someone like you on the payroll to take care of any animal related issues that might arise in the future.”

            “You think there will be more?

            “The gators do tend to get into the drainage ditches. This is just the first time one’s gotten into my house.”

            “I see.”
            “I was thinking you could help to relocate the gators on the farm. Make sure they aren’t harmed. I figured you’d like that.”

            “I would.”

            “So you’ll come work for me?”

            “There’s one problem.
            “Your mama?”

            “Yes.”

            “Bring her on.”

            “I don’t think she’d come.”

            “Well, you ain’t gotta make a decision today. Think about it. Let me when you decide. Meanwhile, stay here a spell. Get to know the area.”

            “Thank you for the offer.”

            “Thank you for killing that gator.”

            Selena smiled at Buckley after this exchange. “So, Buckley, what do you think you might like about Putnam County so far?”

            “I think your river is very beautiful. But then again, I have always had a fondness for the water.”

            Selena would never admit it to anyone, but she had rather enjoyed spending the evening with the young half breed from down south. He was everything Rhodes was not and although she loved Rhodes having someone so completely unlike him around was delightfully refreshing. Buckley was quiet and reserved and shy whereas Rhodes was always trying to prove himself to someone. Buckley’s actions spoke far louder than his words. Of course there was no sexual attraction there. She was far too old for the boy – and they were just not at all compatible.

            But there was this electricity that he brought out in her. She couldn’t wait for him to go to bed so that she could release it all on Rhodes. He wouldn’t know what had hit him.

            Only, when the time came, it wasn’t nearly what she thought it would be. It was not what she’d expected. She began to wonder if it was Buckley she had been attracted to after all and if her lust had been misplaced. The sex had been a disappointment. As she lay in bed with Rhodes she began to think about Buckley’s massive frame and he petite one moving together in unison and she started to feel her body tingling with desire. She could feel his hands reaching between her legs and touching the wetness that was beginning to gather there and she began to breathe faster and faster. Yes. She could deny it no longer. She wanted Buckley and that was a very bad thing. A very dangerous game, indeed.

            The next day when she woke up, she had forgotten the lust she had felt the night before. She rolled over and kissed Rhodes on the shoulder. He leaned into her kiss and said “Mornin’ baby.” There was nothing out of the ordinary about the morning at all. There were no thoughts of Buckley. There were no thoughts of anything other that this moment.
            Then she went into the kitchen to get their coffee and saw Buckley, all 6’6”, of him, with his long black hair down to his waist, in nothing but boxer shorts standing at the stove frying an egg.

            “Oh, my. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were still here.” He said.

            She wanted to be as embarrassed as he clearly was but her baser instincts took over and she couldn’t do anything other than smile and enjoy her good fortune.

            “It’s alright, Buckley. You don’t worry about me. I’m just going to go make us some coffee.”

            Buckley looked sheepish. “If you don’t mind watching my egg, I think I’d feel better if I put a pair of pants on.”

Selena smiled at him. “Whatever makes you happy, darling.”
He handed her his spatula and very quickly walked to the stairs.

Selena was amused, but disappointed. The view had been superb. She kept an eye on his egg while starting the coffee, all the while wondering what Rhodes would have thought if he’d come down with her. Rhodes . . .

Buckley was beyond mortified. As he ran up the stairs in his underwear, he thought how stupid he had been to go out of his room dressed that way. He’d gotten too comfortable around there too quickly. But he hadn’t expected Selena to be there this morning. She was a new addition to the equation. He hadn’t even known she had existed until last night. Rhodes hadn’t even mentioned her. Funny, since she was the one taking care of his mama.
            He got up to his room and put on his pants and a t-shirt before heading back down stairs while praying that she wouldn’t mention this little infraction to Rhodes. While he wasn’t sure that he was going to take the job he was offered, he’d still like for it to be on the table. He just had to figure out what he was going to do with his mama. Maybe he’d just have to leave her down south to fend for herself. That didn’t seem fair though. Why did he have to be an only child?

He had begun to wonder if there would be a way to entice her to move up here? If she could bring all of her treasures?  Maybe he could even figure out a way to set things up for her to have a store or something? He would check things out in town and see. He wondered if Rhodes would loan him a truck to do so. The boat wouldn’t be much use in this case.

            When he got back down stairs Rhodes and Selena were having coffee together in the kitchen and his egg was on a plate with a piece of toast.

            “Thank you,” he said to Selena.

            “Don’t mention it.” She replied.

            Rhodes looked up from his newspaper. “So, what’s on you’re agenda today, Buckley.”

            “Well, sir, I was thinking about your offer from last night and I was wondering if I might borrow a truck so I can check out the town?”

            “I don’t see why not. I’ll get Leland to bring one down here for you. Anything you’re really itchin’ to see?”

            “I was thinking about going to a few real estate offices. Looking at some properties. That sort of thing. I gotta see what I can find to entice mama, you know?”

            “Yeah, I hear you. Well, I wish you luck Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

            “Thank you sir. I wish I knew what I was looking for.”

            Buckley was grateful to Rhodes for his kindness, the problem was that he had no idea what it was he was looking for, but he knew he would know it when he found it. It might be a store, it might be a house, it might be both, but whatever it turned out to be, it would have “mama” written all over it. He knew this for a fact. This was the only thing he could be absolutely sure of.