I yawned, glanced at the window, then buckled down to copying the entries, but used ellipses to skip over sentences that did not apply. When Capt. Summerlin omitted a location or date, I included a question mark. When his writing was illegible, I noted that, too. The code he’d used began to make sense: the first letter of a word followed either by hyphens that approximated the number of letters the word contained or sometimes by a number. Because of the man’s poor spelling and his whims, translation required guesswork. S with three hyphens could mean sail or seed or salt, while S4 was a profanity-shit. I chose words that seemed to fit but added a question mark when dubious.
The temptation was to jump straight to the scuttling incident in December 1864. But I stayed on task, determined to finish entries from 1863 before turning out the light.
7 August, 1863 (Sanybel): The Blues has blowed up rum stills from Pensacola to Key Marco without no whimpering but has now burnt all saltworks along the coast. This will win them a bullet from many if a chance given. Shooting cattle aint won them no friends nether. Nor will their looting gerillas when they come ashore drunk…
21 August: Thank the Lord for green turtle meat cause of the fix we are in. Damnt if I know how to make salt & who does cause salt is like breathing air. Them that do know quick find the attention of the Blues & whatever dynamite needed. This is because saltworks is always built on the coast which is handy but aint smart. Men such as Captain Gatrell & brothers has been studying this matter & we will meet soon.
12 September, 1863 (Sanybel): Yankees from Juseppa Island found salt pans on La Costa Beach & threatened hanging. Damnt spies is among us. I will never again run away after such sneaky business as this. Acourse the Yankee bastards accused me with nary proof. Prove this in court I told their snot nosed lieutenant. I am both judge & jury which you would do well to remember sir, he says. Addressing me as sir saved the snot nose a licking for I will not tolerate rude behavior from them sech as he. As to my expenses for them salt pans & other supplies, they are as follows…
24 February, 1864 (Key West Turtle Kralls): News is that pony horses is sellin for $2000 in Confederate paper but you kant buy a hogshead of salt for 10 times that. This was tolt to me by a Yankee officer at Ft. Taylor. He come aboard to inspect for contraband but cut things short after asking about the name Widow’s Son. He had never seen a 40’ sloop bilt of yeller pine & rigged with leeboards that can be razed in shoal water. I’ll bet she’s fast, he reckoned. I gave him the handshake & says, She’ll float on fog & nary cut a mark.
It is a smart name I chose cause 18 demijohns of rum was stowed among cigars & molasses under the man’s feet. But no salt. Even Habana aint got no salt.
15 April, 1864 (Old Tampa): Off loaded molasses & seen the worst with mine own eyes. People muddy as hogs is digging up floors of meat houses & leaching salt that has leaked into the soil. They shovel dirt into hoppers & fire the mess with a blacksmiths furnace. Cheesecloth is dear so it is rank burlap they use as a filter after water boils. 50 people stand in line for a days filthy work & come away with a cup of something that grinds like sand in the teeth but has the tang of salt. Damnt this war & damnt an ocean that won’t part with its salt unless you’re a drowning man. Or own a furnace the size of a steam engine for rendering…
19 April (off Manatee River): Salt Famine! These are words I could not imagine 3 years ago but is now spoken in every port & it is time to act, by God. Gerilla fighting is what is left us. But how to bait a trap when bait is the prize? Gatrell & brothers has voted & not 1 black ball against…
Salt Famine! My great-uncle had underlined the phrase twice and added the only exclamation mark I’d found thus far. He had also underlined steam engine, but did not explain his reference to a vote.
What did it all mean?
In my notes, I underlined the same words, then stretched and went to the restroom before I resumed reading.
20 May, 1864 (Cattle Docks at Punta Rassa): Gatrell & brothers has packed axes & tackle & smudge pots cause we will have to cut our way through the skeeters. It aint far from the bridge but a long stretch of river up [NAME BLOTTED] which runs north off the Caloosahatchee. There be the place to boil salt or so I recollect. As to my Cuban wife, not one word from her as to me spending next Christmas in Habana…
His Cuban wife? I didn’t know which thread to pursue. Many of the entries were new to me and this was the first mention of a wife. But I was also riveted by Capt. Summerlin’s unfolding plan. Or what I perceived to be his intent. He, a man named Gatrell, and Gatrell’s brothers wanted to manufacture salt. They were seeking a source inland which wouldn’t be spotted by the Union Army-and they were willing to fight to do it. This all seemed evident.
Gradually, as I burrowed through the early months of 1864, I understood the seriousness of Ben Summerlin’s plans. I also began to suspect he might have something to do with Civil War graves on the Cadence property. If true, it was one of those weird bonding coincidences that hinted at the orderliness of family destiny and fate.
Captain Summerlin and I had something else in common: he, too, had been worried about spies getting into his journal. More and more, he protected himself by scribbling out words-names, usually. Names of associates and also the name of the river he had visited that summer, a river that fed into the Caloosahatchee from the north, which couldn’t be far from Labelle. It was here, I suspected, that he, Capt. Gatrell, and Gatrell’s brothers were setting a trap or laying bait-I wasn’t yet certain.
Was it the Telegraph River? I combed some of the illegible entries for meaning but stopped when I heard voices outside. Birdy was saying good night to Brit. A minute later, she tapped at my door.
It was one forty-five in the morning, but she’d seen my light. I expected her to have a devilish smile on her face when I answered.
No… my friend the deputy sheriff was scared.
9
“You won’t believe what he just told me,” Birdy said, pushing her way into my room. “I’m surprised you’re still up, but this is important.”
“Who, Brit?”
“Of course. That’s why I made him leave early.”
“Early? Did he do something stupid?”
“Brit’s not the problem.” Birdy looked at the bed, saw the journal, then noticed her own bare feet and legs and the baggy Red Sox T-shirt she was wearing. The shirt was on backward, which we both realized at the same instant.
“Shit,” she muttered.
I said, “At least you had some quality time.”
“Not as much as I wanted. Are you ready for this?”
“I’d prefer not to hear details, if you don’t mind. Well… maybe a few.”
“Lock the door and use the dead bolt,” she told me, then plopped down on the bed, full of nervous energy. “Remember when Brit mentioned a crazy person but he wouldn’t tell us the name?”
I was fiddling with the lock, my back to her. “He’s not a gossip. Good for him.”
“It’s Theo.”
It was so late, I had trouble processing that. “What do you mean?”
“Theo-he’s not really an archaeologist.”
“What?” I spun around, then rechecked the dead bolt because of what she’d just said.