Fallen Palm (Jesse McDermitt Series) by Wayne Stinnett Page B

Alex the house, so I steered a rhumb line, straight across Florida Bay, toward Johnson Keys and the Spanish Banks. After we were several miles out Alex said, “Out here on the water, you’d never know a major hurricane had just passed through. You have no idea how much I’ve missed being on the water.” She stood up next to the helm then, and spread her arms wide above her head, her blonde hair flying in the wind. She let out a loud yell. I admired her love for the open water, it was the one thing I knew we’d always have in common. Ten minutes later, we rounded Little Spanish Key and the small island just to its north and turned due west, to cut between Big Spanish Key and Cutoe Key. The water here is usually very skinny, but the tide was high, so I knew we had at least eighteen inches under the keel. More than enough for Rusty’s skiff.
    “What’s that,” Alex said, pointing toward the small island on our left.
    I turned and at first didn’t see anything. Alex, being a flats guide had a much more attuned ability to read the water. Then I saw what looked like a coconut just off the tip of the island. The coconut suddenly lifted from the water and splashed. What the hell? Alex was already unhooking the pole from under the gunwale and said, “Turn that way, it’s a dog!”
    I turned toward the island and slowly backed down on the throttle. When I reached idle speed, Alex stepped back to the poling platform and I shut down and raised the engine. She poled us closer and sure enough, there was a dog in the water. It kept jumping and going under, as if it was in trouble. Then suddenly, it came up, with a good-sized snapper firmly in its jaws. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “A fishing dog?”
    Alex poled closer. The dog hadn’t noticed us yet. It was too wrapped up in catching the fish. It turned and headed back to the little island, which really wasn’t anything more than a sand bar, with a couple of palm trees on it. About twenty yards from shore, we grounded. I stepped out as Alex put the pole on the deck and joined me. Together we hauled the skiff a little higher onto the sand bar and walked in ankle deep water after the dog. Our sloshing must have alerted it. It turned toward us, the snapper still in its mouth, flopping to get free. The dog’s ears came up and it started wagging its thick tail.
    “He’s some kind of Labrador retriever mix, I think,” Alex said, walking toward the large dog. “How’d you get out here, boy?” she asked the dog. “You think he was washed away from wherever he lived, during the storm?” she asked me.
    “Could be,” I answered. “But, there’s not a house or a soul for five miles out here.” The dog looked expectantly at me. “Here boy,” I said. The dog trotted straight to me, with the fish still in his mouth. He stopped directly in front of me and sat down, right in the water, his large tail stirring the sandy bottom. I reached my hand out and the dog dropped the fish right in my hand. “Unbelievable,” was all I could say.
    “I think you’ve made a new friend, Captain Canine,” she said, laughing.
    The dog looked over at her, then back up to me. He wasn’t wearing a collar, or anything to identify him. He was a large dog, probably over sixty pounds, with a face shaped like a lab. His salty black coat was coarse and stringy, the hair on top of his head was matted, and curling up, making him look like one of those Gremlins from the movie. “We can’t leave him here, Jesse,” Alex said.
    “No, I don’t suppose we can. Let’s try to get him into the skiff. We can take him back to Marathon with us tomorrow. Maybe the vet there can scan him for a microchip, or something. I don’t think he’s a wild stray. He seems pretty well trained. Want to go for a boat ride, boy?” With that, he sprang up and went straight to the skiff in about four big leaps. “Unbelievable,” I said again. He stood waiting by the side of the boat, as we waked back.
    When we