Free Ten Thousand Islands by Randy Wayne White Page A

to the library.
    Over the years, in different parts of the world, I’d dealt with enough drug people to know that they are prone to fixation. If the drug person happens to be dangerous, it is a wise thing to take his fixations seriously.
    Tomlinson was a drug person, always would be. The difference was, he wasn’t dangerous.
    Hadn’t been dangerous for many years, anyway.
    I said, “Could you just paraphrase so I don’t have to read through all that? I don’t see the point. It seems obvious that the girl found something that someone wants badly enough to risk digging up a grave in a public cemetery. Financial gain, that’s what robbery’s all about.”
    “Tomlinson says no, that’s not it. Money has nothing to do with it. He says it’s a lot more complicated. Like an ancient-curse sort of deal, only it’s not a curse. They’re after things that will give them more power. That’s why they’re after what Dorothy found. I’ll sum it up and make it quick. It can’t hurt at least to listen, can it?”

6
    W hat Tomlinson had her find at the Sanibel Library were a couple of books plus translations of letters from Spanish Jesuits who’d been sent to what is now the west coast of Florida. This was back in the late 1500s, when missionaries were an important political arm of colonialism.
    When Europeans arrived in Florida, they found a complex society living on the Gulf Coast. The dominant tribe of the region, controlling both coasts and what is now the Florida Keys, had built great pyramids out of shell, ornate plazas and a highway system of canals. Because Carlos was ruler of Spain, or because the conquistadors misheard, they called the chief Carlos, although
Caalus
was probably closer. The kingdom and people over which he reigned was soon mispronounced,
Calusa
.
    Physically, the Calusa were much bigger than the Spaniards and impossible to intimidate. A member of Ponce de Leon’s crew described the men as being morethan seven feet tall, though that was an exaggeration. The Jesuit missions all failed and Ponce de Leon was mortally wounded in battle and later died in Cuba. The Calusa never accepted Christianity, nor the Spaniards who came later. They had controlled the peninsula for several thousand years and would not submit. However, they had no way to fight European diseases, and they gradually vanished, leaving their cities abandoned.
    At one point, from the work of an anthropologist, JoAnn read, “The Calusa operated as a conquest kingdom with a pattern of tribute collection that resembled that of the Aztecs and Incas. There are indications that the Calusa language originated in the interior of South America, around the Orinoco River, nearly 2,000 years ago.” Then she added, “Tomlinson said that would interest you, because you’ve spent so much time in Central and South America.”
    I said, “Uh-huh. What I’m trying to understand is what any of this has to do with someone opening the grave of your friend’s daughter.”
    JoAnn also read a series of letters by a Jesuit missionary, Father Juan Rogel, and also one written by Juan Lopez de Velasco, both of whom lived for a short time among the Calusa. “You picture these guys with shaved heads, swatting mosquitoes, writing on parchment in the Florida jungle. I find it interesting as can be.”
    Some of it was.
    According to the priest, Carlos was the most powerful man in Florida. His people didn’t view him as a leader. He was divine, like a god. They believed that he controlled the heavens, and he had secret religious knowledge that he wouldn’t share with commoners. He’d go to the burial areas at night and talk to ghosts. From thoseconversations, the priest wrote, Carlos could correctly predict the future. As a symbol of his divinity, the missionary described Carlos as wearing a golden medallion and carrying a wooden totem.
    “Now we’re getting to it,” I said. “Pure Tomlinson.”
    According to the priest, Carlos enjoyed the absolute loyalty of