beads placed on a cheap plaster statuette of the Virgin Mary.
“Tula has been in the States just over a week,” Tomlinson had explained to me, “but already word has spread that a child lives here who speaks with God. Tula didn’t have to tell these people anything about herself because she’s a thought-shaper. One look at her, her people knew that she’s special. Word travels fast in the Guatemalan community. Their survival depends on it.”
“In that case,” I’d said, trying to get the man off the subject, “park residents will naturally keep track of her movements. They think she’s special? Then she’ll attract special attention. Someone around here is bound to know where her secret place is.”
But no one did. Finally, Tomlinson and I started going door-todoor, but the neighbors were so suspicious of us, two gringos asking questions, that they probably wouldn’t have told us where the girl was even if they had known.
My guess, though, was, they didn’t know.
Now, two hours later, as Tomlinson and I walked toward my rickety old fish house, we discussed what I was going to make for dinner. It was my way of changing the subject. I was hungry, and it had also been several hours since Tomlinson had had a beer. It was an unusually long period of abstinence for the man, so it was no wonder his nerves were raw.
I was relieved to be home. My house and lab are more than a refuge, although they have provided refuge to many. The property, buildings and docks that constitute Sanibel Biological Supply are a local institution, second home to a trusted family of fishing guides, live-aboards and an occasional female guest.
Of late, though, I’d been going through a period of abstinence as well—not the liquid variety. So I was ready for a few beers myself. It had been one hell of a crazy night, and Tomlinson wasn’t the only one who felt a little raw.
There are fewer and fewer houses like mine in Florida. The place is an old commercial fish house built over the water on stilts. The lower level is all dockage and deck. The upper level is wooden platform, about eight feet above the water. Two small cottages sit at the center under one tin roof, and the platform extends out, creating a broad porch on all four sides.
I use one of the cottages as my laboratory and office. The other cottage is my living quarters, complete with a small yacht-sized kitchen and very un-yacht-like wood-burning stove that is a good thing to have on windy winter nights.
When we got to the first flight of steps, I paused to turn on underwater lights I had installed near my shark pen. Underwater lights, to me, are more entertaining than any high-tech entertainment system in the world. The drama that takes place between sea bottom and surface is real. It is uncompromising. There is no predicting what you might see.
Tonight turned out to be a stellar example. Even Tomlinson went silent when I flipped the switch, and the black water beneath the house blossomed into a luminous translucent gel.
Simultaneously, a school of mullet exploded on the light’s periphery, and we watched the fish go greyhounding into darkness.
Beneath my feet, under the dock, spadefish the size of plates grazed on barnacles that pulsed in feathered ivory colonies like flowers, raking in microscopic protein. There were gray snappers and blackbanded sheepsheads, circling the pilings.
In a sand pocket beyond, I noticed meticulous shadowed bars—a small regiment of snook, their noses marking the direction of tidal flow. I also saw a lone redfish, with copper-blue scales, dozing next to a piling, while, above, dime-sized blue crabs created furious wakes as they sprinted across a universe of water, oblivious to the danger below.
“Doc ... you see that? Over there—see it? There’s something moving.”
For some reason, Tomlinson whispered the question, and I followed his gaze into shadows of mangrove trees at the shore’s edge. My friend’s tone communicated
“Tula has been in the States just over a week,” Tomlinson had explained to me, “but already word has spread that a child lives here who speaks with God. Tula didn’t have to tell these people anything about herself because she’s a thought-shaper. One look at her, her people knew that she’s special. Word travels fast in the Guatemalan community. Their survival depends on it.”
“In that case,” I’d said, trying to get the man off the subject, “park residents will naturally keep track of her movements. They think she’s special? Then she’ll attract special attention. Someone around here is bound to know where her secret place is.”
But no one did. Finally, Tomlinson and I started going door-todoor, but the neighbors were so suspicious of us, two gringos asking questions, that they probably wouldn’t have told us where the girl was even if they had known.
My guess, though, was, they didn’t know.
Now, two hours later, as Tomlinson and I walked toward my rickety old fish house, we discussed what I was going to make for dinner. It was my way of changing the subject. I was hungry, and it had also been several hours since Tomlinson had had a beer. It was an unusually long period of abstinence for the man, so it was no wonder his nerves were raw.
I was relieved to be home. My house and lab are more than a refuge, although they have provided refuge to many. The property, buildings and docks that constitute Sanibel Biological Supply are a local institution, second home to a trusted family of fishing guides, live-aboards and an occasional female guest.
Of late, though, I’d been going through a period of abstinence as well—not the liquid variety. So I was ready for a few beers myself. It had been one hell of a crazy night, and Tomlinson wasn’t the only one who felt a little raw.
There are fewer and fewer houses like mine in Florida. The place is an old commercial fish house built over the water on stilts. The lower level is all dockage and deck. The upper level is wooden platform, about eight feet above the water. Two small cottages sit at the center under one tin roof, and the platform extends out, creating a broad porch on all four sides.
I use one of the cottages as my laboratory and office. The other cottage is my living quarters, complete with a small yacht-sized kitchen and very un-yacht-like wood-burning stove that is a good thing to have on windy winter nights.
When we got to the first flight of steps, I paused to turn on underwater lights I had installed near my shark pen. Underwater lights, to me, are more entertaining than any high-tech entertainment system in the world. The drama that takes place between sea bottom and surface is real. It is uncompromising. There is no predicting what you might see.
Tonight turned out to be a stellar example. Even Tomlinson went silent when I flipped the switch, and the black water beneath the house blossomed into a luminous translucent gel.
Simultaneously, a school of mullet exploded on the light’s periphery, and we watched the fish go greyhounding into darkness.
Beneath my feet, under the dock, spadefish the size of plates grazed on barnacles that pulsed in feathered ivory colonies like flowers, raking in microscopic protein. There were gray snappers and blackbanded sheepsheads, circling the pilings.
In a sand pocket beyond, I noticed meticulous shadowed bars—a small regiment of snook, their noses marking the direction of tidal flow. I also saw a lone redfish, with copper-blue scales, dozing next to a piling, while, above, dime-sized blue crabs created furious wakes as they sprinted across a universe of water, oblivious to the danger below.
“Doc ... you see that? Over there—see it? There’s something moving.”
For some reason, Tomlinson whispered the question, and I followed his gaze into shadows of mangrove trees at the shore’s edge. My friend’s tone communicated
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