Free Everglades Assault by Randy Wayne White Page A

McKinney just nodded. He said, “Back in the twenties, I worked some long hot months building the Tamiami Trail with your granddaddy, Panther James. Fine man. Bunked with him and worked shoulder to shoulder with him for nigh onto a month before he spoke the first word to me. And that was under kind of unusual circumstances. Ol’ Baron Collier had us building that road out of muck and swamp, from Naples to Miami, straight across the Everglades.”
    Grafton chuckled and continued, “Heck, there weren’t nothin’ out there but about a million snakes and gators, and so many skeeters you could swing a pint jar in front of your face and catch a quart of’em. Only the ’glades Indians, like your granddaddy, didn’t seem to mind. In the afternoon that swamp became a hellhole, but we just worked on and on, a couple of hundred of us followin’ that floating dredge in the sun.
    â€œNow, the way ol’ Panther James started talking to me was this: I’d gone off in the bushes to take a crap. Always had to stomp around first—to chase the snakes away, don’t you see. I’d hung my shovel in a tree and every now and again I’d reach up and hold it for balance. And I was just about done—reached up one last time, but instead of grabbing the shovel I caught holt of a big old cotton-mouth moccasin by mistake. I’m here to tell you, son, I took off a-runnin’, pants down and all. Your ol’ granddaddy just thought that was funny as hell, he did. Damn near wet his pants laughin’. Then in perfect English, you know what he said to me? He said, ‘Only a white man would try to wipe himself with a snake.’ How about that! For a whole month I thought he was deaf and dumb—and then to learn there weren’t nothin’ wrong with him but a damn weird sense of humor.”
    â€œYou became friends after that?”
    Grafton McKinney sipped at his coffee thoughtfully. “I was closer than anybody else to him, but you still wouldn’t call us friends. The Miccosukee Indians are a shy people, but I have plenty of friends among the Miccosukee. He was shyer yet—that’s why I wasn’t surprised when you said he thinks of himself as a Tequesta.”
    â€œHe never told you that?”
    â€œNever said a word about it.”
    â€œDusky here says you know the ’glades as good as anybody around. You got anything to say about that swamp-monster business?”
    The older man shrugged. “Some of the old blanket Indians mention it every now and again. I don’t personally put much store in it. I’ve spent most of my life in them swamps, and I never seen hide nor hair of it.”
    â€œSo who do you think might be trying to chase the old man and his family off their property?”
    â€œDamned if I know. This is the first I’ve heard about anything like that going on. But I can tell you this: The Indians in the ’glades are changing. And changing fast. Especially the Seminole. They’re really starting to hit the tourist wagon. You ever been to that reservation up near Hollywood? The old Indians won’t even hardly go there no more. Because it’s Indian land, they can sell cigarettes tax-free there. Got big neon signs advertising ’em, and they got a fastmoney bingo parlor up there that seats over a thousand people. There’s even some talk that they want to get Las Vegas-style gambling houses built—anything to separate the tourists from their money. Like I said, they figure because it’s Indian land the state don’t have no control over what goes on there.”
    I said, “It doesn’t sound like you approve, Grafton.”
    He snorted. “Approve? Why should I? The damn developers around the state are killing the Everglades fast enough as it is. Draining and dredging and building—all the time sayin’ pretty as you please that they ain’t hurtin’ a thing. And