A Gentle Rain Read online

  A tiny river ran through the heart of it. The Little Hatchawatchee. Much of what's old and venerable in Florida has a Seminole Indian name. The river was surrounded by buildings, barns and work sheds. A cattle ranch in a part of the world most people associate with beaches and oceans. Florida has a long history of ranches and cowboys. Fascinating.

  I sat back, gazing at the satellite image. Thocco Ranch. Thocco. Another name of Seminole Indian origins. Interesting. From the Amazon River to the Little Hatchawatchee. From one native culture to another.

  Ben Thocco, I hope you are a kind and decent man.

  I burned his name on a piece of notepaper, too. Asking the spirits to let me lulow.

  Ben

  It started out just like any other morning at the ranch, with everybody complaining about my greasy scrambled eggs and a two-foot king snake curled up behind a sack of potatoes in the store room.

  "Snake's back," Lula grunted as she went past me with a platter of biscuits I'd singed in the oven. Nothing like the combined smell of burnt bread and Lula's fake designer perfume to put a man off his coffee.

  "Take the bacon to the table, please-ma'am," I told Dale. Dale frowned at Lula. She read Bible storybooks-the kind with pictures-and was pretty much convinced Lula was Jezebel.

  Dale hustled out of the kitchen carrying a pile of extra-crispy pork in a black iron skillet. I tossed my oven mitt at a tabby cat who was trying to sneak a paw into the margarine tub.

  "Out of there, Grub." He just purred at me. I grabbed a hammer and some tacks, pulled a flattened cereal box from the trash can, and went to shore up the walls of a hundred-year-old Cracker farmhouse against king snakes.

  Mac walked out of the store room with the snake curled comfortably around his big forearm. Lily limped beside him, admiring the catch. "Red, yellow and black. King snakes are so pretty. Like Halloween candy. The poor baby was just hungry, Ben." Every needy critter was a'poor baby' to Lily. She hadn't named the gray mare, yet. Just kept calling it Poor Baby.

  "That king snake's why we haven't seen a single palmetto bug in the store room yet this spring," Miriam called. "I say leave it be. It's cheaper than a can of roach spray." She went back to spearing her greasy eggs. We ate in the kitchen at a ten-foot picnic table built from leftover construction lumber. Seven hands, two aging mermaids, Joey, and yours truly could fit around that makeshift dining spot with room left over. Joey commanded one end in his wheelchair.

  He waved one ofhis favorite breakfast treats, a mix-and-bake miniature muffin with real-fake blueberry flavoring. "You didn't burn this one, Benji."

  "Yeah, it escaped."

  Joey dunked the burned muffins in saw palmetto honey. Everybody else said my muffins tasted like wall plaster with blue specks, but Joey, God bless him, loved `em. Joey chewed and swallowed. "Maybe the snake'd like you to cook him some breakfast, Benji."

  "Naw, we don't want to kill him."

  I stepped into the storeroom and squatted down, poking the potato bag aside with my hammer. Mac stood in the doorway, stroking the snake's bright-ringed back. "I'll t-turn him loose in the g-garden." He and Lily went out through the back screened porch, her cooing to the snake.

  I found a hole the squirrels kept re-chewing in the wall underneath a bottom shelf and tacked the cereal box over it. That should work for, oh, at least a day. I heard Joey talking to Miriam at the table. "I'm extra-tired this morning," he said. "Will you turn my oxygen up for a few minutes?"

  "Sure, hon," she said.

  He was getting weaker. Day by day, little by little. I squatted on the storeroom floor, my head down, my shoulders hunched. The main attic fan, whumping in the front hall ceiling, caught my thoughts and wouldn't let go. He's dying, it said. He's dying, you're helpless, he's dying. I heard Mac and Lily's loud footsteps hurrying back. I pretended to look for other squirrel holes.

  Lily stuck her head in the storeroom. "Ben," she cried. "My poor baby's run away."

  I figured she meant the gray mare, not the snake.

  Damn. It was going to be that kind of day

  Kara

  At the state line

  I said a mantra to myself every day. No sugar. No trans fats. No processed foods. Love the planet. Eat lean, eat raw. When you grow up being called Porky Wbittenbrook, you learn to revere broccoli.

  But that morning, I was seduced. Seduced by the most venerable lure of a Southern interstate: Stuckey's pecan log rolls. They are a gooey, chewy, sugary roll of white molasses and crushed pecans. The recipe dates to the 1930s kitchen of Mr. and Mrs. Stuckey, when the teal-blue roofs of their Stuckey's roadside pecan emporiums began to pop up along the raw concrete automotive paths snaking thorough the countryside.

  Modern Stuckey's have survived the hype of lesser competition and are flourishing. I stopped on the interstate just inside the Florida line that morning, squinting from a restless night in a mosquito-challenged tent with Mr. Darcy walking on my head.

  "Try this, hon," the Stuckey's cashier said, peeling the plastic wrapper from a pecan log. "It's good for what As ya." I took one more swig of high-test black coffee then sank my teeth into the confection. Invisible hearts swirled around my head. Love.

  I bought a box of six delicious pecan logs, clutched them to my organic cotton sweatshirt like an illegal drug, and hurried to the hatchback. Mr. Darcy perched atop my luggage, nibbling raw pecans, peanuts, sliced oranges and sunflower seeds. His diet was low-cal even if mine was not. I ate an entire pecan log, washing it down with more black coffee strong enough to thrill even a snobbish Brazilian, then glanced at myself in the hatchback's rearview mirror.

  "Oh, no." My hair had gone Southern, too. All my life I'd fought the battle of curly frizz. Mother's auburn locks had been smooth, straight, elegant and resilient. I had tried desperately to mimic her look, but my shoulder-length red hair was hyperkiletic and faithless. My hair made love to every change in humidity. Now its professionally layered and flattened strands exploded into tiny spit curls and whiffs of windblown cottoncandy.

  I pulled the voluminous mass to the nape of my neck, trapped it there with a limp white scrunchie, then stared at my freckled, fuzzy, fattening self in the rearview mirror. "Please don't let this be the real me," I said.

  "Stuckey's," Mr. Darcy countered, lifting a seductive pecan to his beak.

  Fate gallops out of nowhere when one least expects it.

  By late morning I drove into a magnificent wilderness of palm shrubs and moss-draped live oaks. The hatchback's air conditioning had broken. I sweated. Suddenly, a gray horse streaked out of the forest to my left. I stomped the hatchback's clutch and brake while throwing out my right arm to block Mr. Darcy from hurtling into the windshield.

  The hatchback went into a screeching fishtail, slid off the pavement, continued sliding on the road's flat, grassy shoulder, then careened into the nearest giant oak trunk. The impact was relatively mild-a teeth-rattling jolt-then stillness. Mr. Darcy flapped his five-foot wingspan. The tip of his powerful left wing slapped me in the head as he righted himself. He was beyond words, reduced to primitive shrieking.

  I knew how he felt.

  I stumbled from the car, dazed but unhurt. I heard the horse rattling the stiff palmetto underbrush as he/she made his/her reckless way deeper into the woods. Then suddenly, a crashing sound. Small tree limbs snapping. A large equine body hitting the ground. Sinister silence.

  "Let's go," I called to Mr. Darcy. He climbed atop my shoulder as I dug through my camping gear for helpful tools. Carrying a short nylon rope and a knife, which I slung across my chest via its colorfully woven strap and scabbard, I headed into the unknown.

  Ben

  Noon. Still no gray mare. I had to give her credit for plenty of smarts. I'd kept her locked in a big foaling pen at the horse barn. I figured we'd never catch her again if l put her in the pasture with the herd, plus she might kill and eat her fellow horses. She was Hannibal Lecter with hooves.

  Lily and Joey had taken to chitchattin' with her for hours every day and
had gotten her to where she'd nibble carrots if they laid `em on a fence post and backed away. They were the only two people she wouldn't try to bite or kick.

  Now I decided it had been an act. She'd conned us. As best I could tell, she escaped by flipping the bar lock on the foaling pen's gate. Some horses are nervous nibblers; it's like they think they're big puppies, and they'll play with toys. She musta been lipping the lock out of boredom and got lucky.

  If we ever found her again, I'd buy her a chew bone. Human. Her favorite.

  I sent the hands in all directions at the ranch, hoping she was still on the property. My spread was small compared to the big ones in the state; there are ranches in south Florida the size ofwhole counties. Thocco Ranch was three-thousand acres; two-thousand of that in fenced pasture.

  The other thousand, all wild woods and dangerous swamps, circled the rest like a moat. All in all, my ranch was nearly five square miles of God's Green Mean Florida Earth, and I loved it. But hell, a herd of elephants could hide in that Southern jungle, much less a single mare with personality problems.

  Cheech, Possum and Bigfoot headed out on horseback; Roy, Dale and Lula drove the fence lines in a slow, all-terraii vehicle we used to haul sick calves, Joey and Miriam waited in the barn with a bag of carrots, and I scouted the local roads in the pick-up truck, with Lily and Mac beside me.

  "My poor baby's all alone and scared," Lily moaned. She stared out the open passenger window and hugged Rhubarb for comfort. Like I've said, Rhubarb's main dog talent is passing gas. But his other talent is givin' people lots of tongue-lollin', fur-shedding dog to hug. Joey slept with one arm over Rhubarb at night. Now Lily hugged him so hard he farted.

  "We'll f-find your b-baby," Mac said. He patted Lily's shoulder from the back seat, then rolled his window down further.

  I scanned the forest. The springtime sun threw pretty shadows under the trees, but nobody should be fooled by how invitin' it was. A Florida forest is a world of lalee-high saw palmetto. By summer those sharp, stubby palms'd be home to rattlesnakes and wasps. Only a Cracker horse would brave that underbrush.

  Either the mare was bogged down somewhere in a swamp or she could hide better than a cat at a dog show. Like I've said, it's not all that hard to disappear in our part of Florida. Moonshiners and rum runners used to do it all the time in the old days.

  Now drug dealers vanished in the cypress backwaters. Their bodies turned up eventually, missing a part or two. Our fat gators just smiled.

  I slowed my truck as we rounded a curve shaded by live oaks so big their arms made a canopy over the road. What I saw there made my libido, as Paula called it, shrink up tight in the front of my jeans. Radiator steam rose from the crumpled front end of an old silver hatchback.

  The car's front bumper was bent around an oak's trunk. Black skid marks showed where the driver had tried to stop in a hurry.

  On the road's other side sat a rust-streaked old tow truck. Marko Pollo Brothers Tow Service. "The Pollo B-brothers!" Mac said grimly. Lily put a hand to her heart. Rhubarb growled.

  Yeah. Bad mojo. The Polio brothers spent more time in jail than out of it. When they were out on parole they wandered the county roads looking for suckers with car trouble and fat wallets. I parked behind the hatchback and leapt out. Not a soul in sight. A quick once-over of the scene made my libido shrink to the size of worried walnuts.

  Hoof prints headed from the hatchback, going into the forest along a narrow deer trail. Little human shoes followed. Big, redneck, Pollo boot prints tracked after the little ones.

  I had a bad feeling I'd found the gray mare.

  And so had someone else.

  What I saw in the woods was a sight I'll remember the rest of my life. It was the kind of sight that becomes a story you tell around the fireplace with the lights low. The kind of sight that proves how, every once it a while, a magic lightning bolt makes ordinary life pretty extraordinary.

  Two mad, bloody Polio brothers stood there, one with a long knife cut across his left forearm, the other with a shoulder wound the exact width of the gray mare's teeth.

  The gray mare was on guard with her ears flat back on her scarred head and a man-eating look in her eyes, even though she was trapped with all four legs still tangled in a wad of thick muscadine vines.

  A beautiful little redhead sat astride the gray mare's back.

  Which, itself, was hard to believe. Not to mention the fancy, jeweled knife the redhead raised in one hand, and the giant blue macaw that perched on her shoulder.

  The redhead had managed to get a nylon lead tied to the gray mare's halter to make a loop of reins. A miracle. She sat the mare like nobody's business, her rein hand low and calm on the mare's withers, her back straight, her head up, her strong legs hooked strong around the mare's sides. Wisps of curly red hair floated around a face you could take home to Mama and then on to bed. I couldn't quite catch my breath when I looked at her. It took me a minute to wrap my mind around the whole concept. "You okay?" I called.

  She looked down at me without a bit of fear, and she didn't lower the knife. "That depends on who you are and why you've joined this discussion." Like the exotic blade, her voice wasn't from these parts. "These two gentlemen insist this mare belongs to them. But I have my doubts."

  "You're right. That mare comes from my ranch. I've been trackin' her all morning. Name's Ben Thocco."

  "Ben Thocco." She cocked her head and studied me with new regard. Like she might not stab me, after all.

  I pivoted toward the Pollos. "You boys are about to have a problem, here. And the problem's gonna be me."

  Brave talk, but the Pollos craned their bearded necks like copperhead snakes who've been poked with a rake. I'm six-one and skinny. They're sixfive and not. "Me and juicy wuz attacked," Inny snarled. Inny and Juicy. Daddy Pollo was the Marko. Why he named his boys Bury and juicy was anybody's guess.

  I figured it for character traits.

  Juicy thrust up his knifed arm. "Yeah, we got attacked by that little bitch of a woman and your bitch of a mare, when we was only tryin' to help."

  "Aw, now you've gone and used bad language in front of a lady, on top of bein' horse thieves."

  "Who you callin' thieves?" Inny gave a big bar-bar and looked at juicy. "We're bein' called bad names by El Diablo."

  Juicy grinned. "Maybe he'll put on his tights and his mask and try to knock us down with a flyin' scissor hold."

  They both chortled.

  Okay, they'd pushed all my buttons, now.

  I pointed at the ground. "Good God, Inny, whatever you do, don't step on that. I think it's poisonous."

  Being an idiot, Inny couldn't resist looking down. I took the opportunity to elbow him between the eyes. Here's a little professional tip I learned in the ring: The big bone in your elbow is a better weapon than the little bones in your fist. Inny went down for a nap.

  But that still left juicy, and he was the smarter of the two. "I'm gonna kill your ass," he promised, coming at me. "And then I'm gonna knock that knife-happy bitch off her high horse."

  I kicked Juicy in the knee, but that just slowed him down. He got me with one punch to the shoulder, and while I was trying to find my arm he clamped a hand around my throat. I sank. two fingers in the soft spot under his armpit and tried to pull out a top rib the hard way, but that just seemed to tickle him. My knees buckled and I started to see black specks about the time Juicy said, "Oommph," and let go of me.

  He swung around with a long, bloody gash already showing on his back. My redhead yeah, even half-strangled, I thought of her as "my" redhead-stood there wielding that mean filet knife of hers. Things stopped being fun for me, then, because juicy raised an arm to slam the living life out of her, and I couldn't make my legs work well enough to stop him.

  "Run," I managed to tell her.

  "Never," she answered. She raised her knife. I loved her then. Right then. That's when I fell in love.

  A big hand came out of somewhere and clamped hard on Juicy's fist. A secon
d later, three-hundred pounds of Juicy got slung against the nearest tree. Juicy slid to the ground and sat there, blinking. It was clear he had some thinking to do while he sorted through what was left of his brain.

  The redhead froze. She stared up at someone behind me. I turned, rubbing my throat. Mac stood there. He patted the air at her. "It's all r-right, little g-girl," he stuttered. Then he blushed, because he hated to stutter in front of women and strangers. He ducked his big head and looked away.

  She kept looking up at Mac like she'd never been rescued, before. "What's your name, valiant knight?"

  Mac was so flabbergasted by being called valiant and a knight he said, "Mac. Mac Tolbert, little girl," without stuttering.

  This look came in her eyes. She had blue eyes, and they turned bluer. "Sir Mac," she said slowly.

  "Poor baby!" Lily came limping up the deer path, wringing her hands. "Poor baby! Poor baby." The mare, the redhead, me, Mac. We were all her poor babies. But she had eyes only for the redhead. "Are you all right? What's your name, poor baby? My name's Lily."

  Sad blue eyes. So blue. "My name is Karen," the redhead finally said. "Karen Johnson." Like she had to think about it, and it was hard to get out.

  Behind us, the gray mare snorted.

  Like she lulew something we didn't lulow.

  Kara

  Arriving

  A legitimate tow truck operator towed my hatchback to a garage in the nearby town of Fountain Springs. The mare was unhurt, and so was 1. Bury and Juicy Pollo were not so fortunate. They were on their way to the doctor's, then jail. Ben Thocco looked a little worse for wear, but said "Aw," and looked away when I tried to thank him.

  Laconic. Iconic. Humble. And extremely handsome.