Free Racing the Rain by John L Parker Page B

involved.
    â€œWell, it was serious. A man named John Dykas ended up dead. For a while some people thought I had something to do with it. All of a sudden I didn’t have many friends around here. Floyd and Bobby, though, they became long-lost cousins. It took me awhile to convince them I didn’t want any part of their tomfoolery.”
    Cassidy still wasn’t sure what this was all about, so he studied the reef line moving slowly beneath them in twenty feet of clear water.
    â€œWhat I’m saying is that it would be best to steer clear of them. No need to be rude or anything, just keep your distance. They try to talk to you, just say yes, sir and no, sir and politely make your excuses.”
    â€œYes, sir. That’s what Mr. Tolbert said.”
    â€œRight. And a smarter gentleman you won’t find on this whole coast. Okay, then, here we are. Hop on up and let’s pull the skiff up. Then we’ll get loosened up.”
    â€œWhat about the other man, the one in the back of the boat, dressed kinda like a tourist?”
    â€œThat was Joe Peel.”
    â€œIs he a businessman? He didn’t look like he belonged with the other two.”
    â€œBusiness? Yeah, if you count monkey business. Nah, he’s a municipal judge and an attorney in West Palm, and he’s had problems of his own. He’d be another one to steer clear of.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Cassidy rarely got down the coast this far, so Trapper Nelson told him about the history of the area. The coast south of Hobe Sound was a particularly desolate stretch of beach. In 1696, a hurricane-wrecked party led by a pious Quaker named Jonathan Dickinson straggled up that same beach in the dead of a particularly chilly winter. The hardscrabble Native Americans who lived along the coast were so destitute they happily stripped the survivors of everything they had, including their clothes. Even Dickinson’s young nursing wife and child were left with hardly a stitch. But at least the locals grudgingly kept them alive as they painfully made their frozen way north to St. Augustine, where the Spanish took pity on them.
    Most of the people who lived in the area knew about Jonathan Dickinson, and they knew this barren stretch of beach. Even those with poor imaginations could empathize with the half-starved castaways who’d passed this way centuries before.
    But for Cassidy, this barefoot run was a different kind of trial. He had jogged and run with his friends, but he’d never encountered a fit adult who actually knew how to run. Trapper Nelson not only kept up a good pace, he kept up a steady stream of chatter while Cassidy concentrated in silence just to keep up.
    At first Cassidy had tried to chat back, but he soon found himself gasping from the effort. He went back to running and listening. The sand was too soft for comfortable running in most places, so he concentrated on staying parallel to the edge of the water where the waves always pounded a solid strip along the beach. It took a lot less energy to stay on that strip, but he noticed that Trapper didn’t even bother. He slogged along quite happily in the looser sand and kept chattering away. They were both barefoot and shirtless, moving along steadily down the deserted strip of coral sand, and after a mile Cassidy began to feel a little exhilarated, despite the effort.
    There wasn’t much in the way of buildings along here, just a few fishermen’s shanties and an occasional sun-bleached weekend cottage. When they got to a place where they could hear traffic from A1A, Trapper veered off into the water, woo-hooing and high stepping as far out as he could get before diving headfirst into the surfless green water.
    Cassidy followed along, if not quite as enthusiastically.
    Trapper surfaced, huffing and blowing and shaking water off like a dog, then looked at Cassidy with a big grin.
    â€œTurnaround time. I always have a little cooldown splash before heading