Two days later, Jackie was in a far better mood. The billboard vandalism had upset folks in a way that nothing else had. Jackie r eported a flurry of letters to the editor coming into the newspaper’s office. Not all of them were printed, but Jackie, on the sly, had been reading each one and was ke eping a secret tally—for, against, and why. The billboard vandalism was a big boost in our favor. Ultimately, she hoped to go to Tallahassee with a petition asking the state to intervene with Darryl’s plans. With enough opposition from local citizens, she hoped Dreamsville Estates might be dropped altogether. Still, Jackie admitted that it was unclear if we could turn back the tide. Meanwhile, Ted had returned from a business trip up north that included a day trip to check out Darryl’s investors. “Ted did some exploring for us,” Jackie said. “Well, actually, of course, he was doing this on Mr. Toomb’s behalf, but he rented a car and drove to Basking Ridge.” My heart lurched. “What did he find out?” Mrs. Bailey White asked impatiently. “He actually got to meet the main investor,” Jackie r eplied. Then she turned to me. “Dora, I don’t know how to tell you this exc ept just say it straight out. The young woman Darryl is marrying—just as we suspected— is the daughter of the man who owns the investing firm. Her name is Celeste.” “I bet she’s ugly as sin,” Mrs. Bailey White said with conviction. “Well, Ted didn’t actually meet the daughter,” Jackie said quickly. “He met with her father and his colleagues for drinks at a country club. It was all very collegial. And Ted said it was a very quaint town, Basking Ridge, and just an hour from Manhattan. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Anyway, that’s all I know right now.” I realized they were looking at me. “Can we change the subject?” I asked, a bit abruptly. “I’m sorry, Dora, but I had to tell you,” Jackie said. “Well, now what do we do?” Plain Jane asked. “That doesn’t sound very promising in terms of using it against Darryl. I mean since his investors seem on the up-and-up.” “Well, it would be great if it turns out they’re corrupt in some way,” Jackie said cheerfully, “but it almost doesn’t matter.” “How can it not matter?” Plain Jane asked uneasily. “Because I’m going to use it against them anyway.” She refused to say anything further but her column the next week provided an answer. YANKEE CASH TO PAY FOR DREAMSVILLE DEVELOPMENT? Neapolitans, sources suggest that Mr. Darryl Norwood’s real-estate development is being quietly funded by a wealthy investor who resides far north of the Mason-Dixon line—in New Jersey, in fact. While the investor and his colleagues appear to be aboveboard, should it not raise the question about the future of our beloved Naples? This angle was both shameless—since, after all, Jackie was a Yankee herself, through and through—and brilliant. If there was one thing you could count on, it was folks’ distrust of rich Northerners. “Now I see how they won the war,” Mrs. Bailey White said, with grudging admiration, to Plain Jane and me. “Yankees will throw their own kind off a cliff to get what they want.” The column raised alarm bells and sparked the ire of the Collier County Sons of the Confederacy, one more important group now squarely in our back pocket. Jackie’s new estimate of letters to the editor was 50 percent in favor of the development compared to close to 90 percent just two months before. While I was pleased with Jackie’s progress, it was anyone’s guess if her plans would actually work or how long they would take. The fact was I
needed to get back to Mississippi or I’d have no job at the library and no rented room at Mrs. Conroy’s. It was late October 1964. It was time to fish or cut bait, or, in other words, stop postponing. Jackie and the others knew I had to leave. But someone—and, unfortunately, that person was me—needed to inform Dolores Simpson. I could have gone away without saying good-bye to her, I suppose, but I knew I’d never be able to live with myself. She deserved to hear that even if I hadn’t been successful, I had tried. Sometimes, that had to be enough. And, surely, it counted for something. But I sure wasn’t looking forward to saying that to Dolores. I’d stood up to her and survived but I wasn’t sure my luck would hold a second time. To be honest, I was still scared to death of her. I decided I should bring a present—an apology of sorts—so I spent hours making Mama’s homemade biscuits. I took a basket that I’d used for picking flowers and filled it with the biscuits and a small ham I bought at the Winn-Dixie. Even though I was sure that her son, Robbie-Lee, must be sending her money when he could, she was not likely to spend it on luxuries like meat. When I arrived and she saw the basket, she knew it was either a celebration or a farewell gift. A glance at the guilty look on my face, and she knew which one it was. “So, you weren’t able to stop him,” she said gruffly. I watched her hands as she worked with a tool the size of a nail file on a flat piece of pine. It took me a moment to realize that she was making a sign. “I didn’t know you were such an expert woodworker,” I said. “Oh, girl, there’s a whole lot of things you don’t know about me,” she said, without looking up. “What’s your new sign say?” I asked. She turned it around and held it up for me to see. It read Trespassers Will Be Shot, exc ept one letter was out of place so it actually said “Tr epsassers.” “Well, now,” I said, “that’s what I call a mighty friendly sign.” I said nothing about the error. “Just want to warn folks off, fair and square, if they come snoopin’ around here. Like your Darryl, for example. I’m half expectin’ him to show up at any time—” “Like I told you and everyone else, he’s not my Darryl!” I said. “Not anymore.” “Well if he comes ’round here he’s likely to get his head blowed off,” she said with a sniff. “Look, Dolores, I’m here to say I’m sorry,” I said wearily. “I’m going back to Mississippi. But I wanted you to know that I tried. I really did.” I set my present of ham and biscuits down beside her. “Thank you,” she said. “For that there present. And—thank you for trying.” “Well, I’m a-gonna go now,” I said. “Next time I’m back, I hope to get to see Robbie-Lee. I hope he comes home to Collier County by then.” She shrugged. “Don’t know if we’ll ever see that day.” “I’m going to write to him to let him know what’s going on,” I said. “He would be here helping you if you told him the truth.” I expected her to say, “Don’t you dare.” But instead she muttered, “Suit yourself.” I turned to look at the night heron and for some reason tears filled my eyes. “I wish there was more I could do,” I said sadly. “About Darryl, I mean. I wish I’d never married him.” She didn’t say anything so I added, “Well, good-bye, Dolores,” and I turned and walked away. I’d gone ten or fifteen yards away when she called out to me. “He don’t own the land.” I stopped in my tracks. “He don’t own the land,” Dolores r epeated. “He didn’t buy it fair and square.” I turned around warily. Was this a ploy to ke ep me from giving up? Did she want me to postpone my trip back to Mississippi, stay here, and continue the fight against Darryl? “What do you mean?” I called back. “Darryl told the newspaper that he bought it from some folks in Kentucky who have been hanging onto it for years.” Dolores drew in a sharp breath. “That’s a lie,” she shouted. “He didn’t buy it. He must have made that up, because I’m the one from Kentucky. I mean my people were from Kentucky. I own it. The land. The river. The whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised if the night heron had started singing “How Great Thou Art.” I thought, Surely I didn’t hear that right. But if it was true, or partly true, it could change everything. And something about the expression on Dolores’s face made me realize it wasn’t a lie. She looked frightened. Vulnerable. “Well,” I said slowly. “What in the name of our sweet Savior would you be talking about?” “Come inside and I’ll show you.” “Show me what?” “Like I said, you’ll have to come inside.” “Why are you telling me about this now? I’ve been home two months. Why did you wait?” She hesitated. “I was hoping it could be handled some other way,” she said. We had a standoff for about three or four minutes, which in the swamp heat of far South Florida feels more like three or four hours. Finally, I gave in, but I tried to look tough as I did so, although I didn’t feel it. She directed me to the small table I remembered from my previous visit. “Now, sit down and close your eyes,” she said. This seemed like a stupid thing to do but I did it anyway. For all I knew I was about to get a hatchet over the top of my head. But again, there was something new in the tone of her voice. There was no edge to it, no bitterness, as if she’d set down a burden too heavy to carry anymore. Her voice actually sounded younger, like the woman she might have been years before. She walked away from me in the dim, indoor light. “Are they closed?” she called. “Oh, all right,” I said impatiently. “Yes, they’re closed. But they won’t be for long.” I heard a board creaking, followed by what seemed to be her shuffling around. Then I heard what sounded like the top of a large jar or container being unscrewed. More shuffling around. Then the top being screwed back on again. I heard a scraping noise, followed by a latch clicking into place. “Dolores, I am not going to sit here forever with my eyes closed,” I said, trying to sound angry and impatient when in fact I was terrified. There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and I think I’d crossed it. I heard her footst eps as she moved closer to me. I held my breath. “Okay,” she said, “you can open your eyes now.” She stood less than three feet from me, on the opposite side of the table, holding several pieces of paper in her hands. “What in the world?” I asked. She didn’t r eply. She set them on the table in front of me. I picked them up carefully, but there wasn’t enough light in the fishing shack to read them. I squinted but still couldn’t decipher the words. We’d left the door ajar, creating a shaft of light, and without thinking I stood up and walked toward it. “You ain’t leaving here with them papers!” Dolores shouted. “I’m not leaving!” I said quickly. “I just need some light so I can read them, that’s all.” I stayed stock-still until she was reassured. A long minute passed, and I slowly handed the papers back toward her. “Here,” I said, “take them back. I don’t want you to be upset.” I thought she might grab them and—woe is me!—I would never get to read them. Maybe, the papers were nothing important at all. Or maybe they could change my life and hers, and a whole lot of other people who loved the river. Instead of taking them from me, though, she moved closer to me and took my arm, a gesture which took ten years off my life. Yet all she did was gently steer me closer to the ray of light by the door. “My eyes are not as good as they used to be,” she said. “And the ink has faded. I haven’t looked at them in a long time. Now, you read them to me.” I began to read the first one. Instantly, I realized it was a deed of some sort. The language came from a lawyer, I had no doubt. Lawyers had a peculiar way of making the English language seem a lot more con voluted than it actually was. There were lots of “herebys” and other highfalutin words until I finally got to the good part: the name of the person who owned the property and the date, “the Third Day of April 1877.” I recognized the name: General John Stuart Williams, a United States Senator from Kentucky who had been a Confederate general. Williams was generally credited as the founder of Naples. As for the property, I knew it immediately. It described the exact spot where I was standing, and all the way past the Negro village. In other words, it was almost exactly the same parcel that included the river and surrounding land
where Darryl was planning to build his Dreamsville. • • • AN HOUR LATER I HIKED back to the main road carrying the precious deed, along with a few other miscellaneous pieces of paper that might or might not have had anything to do with the deed. Dolores had gently rolled the documents into a scroll which she covered with a layer of spatterdock lilies and tied with Florida bear grass. All this, to ke ep the elements from attacking our precious documents during my walk back to town. Still, I prayed it wouldn’t rain. The skies had been threatening all day. I say “our” documents because that is what they had become. Once they left their secret hiding place inside Dolores’s fishing shack, they were mine, too. Mine to protect, and mine to share. It wasn’t that Dolores trusted me. I was simply her best hope and last chance. I went directly home and put the papers into Mama’s old trunk. Then I went back out, locking the door behind me, which, I realized, was only the third or fourth time in my life I had bothered. I was so energized by my exciting secret that I commenced to walking all the way to Jackie’s house. One of Jackie’s twins opened the door a crack, announced that her mother was not home, and shut the door. Never mind that Jackie’s car was in the driveway. I knocked again, and waited an embarrassingly long time. When Judd swung open the door, I was happy as a Cheshire cat with a new container of Py-co-pay Tooth Powder. “Come on in, Mom’s in the kitchen,” he said. “Sorry about my sister.” Jackie was trying one of Mrs. Bailey White’s recipes, Died and Gone to Heaven Cake. She was five minutes away from taking it out of the oven. She took one look at me—I had hardly ever walked all the way to her house —and knew I had big news. The problem was the twin daughters were lurking about, and I didn’t trust them one bit. Even Judd—I wasn’t sure he should be in on this, either. He had gone out to the carport to work on one of his science experiments. Finally the cake was done, and Jackie set it out to cool. “Girls,” she shouted, almost knocking out my eardrum. “I’m going out with Miss Witherspoon. The meatloaf is still in the fridge—just take it out when you’re ready for dinner. And be sure to leave some for your brother, would you please? Don’t be greedy! And—are you listening to me? Don’t any of you touch this cake until I get back.” To me, she said, “My girls hate me. I wish I knew why.” She started demanding answers before we even got to the car. The convertible top was up; Jackie was anticipating that it was going to rain. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where are we going?” “I guess to Mrs. Bailey White’s,” I said with a shrug. The old Victorian murder house was, more than ever, a refuge for the remaining members of our old book club. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Jackie pleaded. “I have something to show you,” I said. “Some old papers.” “Old papers?” “Yes, but I didn’t bring them with me because it looks like rain.” In fact, the wind was picking up and a deluge was increasingly likely—one of those tropical rains that comes down so hard that it feels like someone in heaven opened a spigot. “Dora, please tell me what’s going on,” she said. “Well,” I said breathlessly, “you are not going to believe it. I almost don’t know how to say it.” “Oh for Pete’s sake, Dora, just spit it out, would you?” I frowned. Yankees could be so rude. What an expression—“spit it out.” Mercy. “All right, all right,” I said. “I think there may be a way to stop Darryl.” I paused, then blurted out, “Dolores gave me some old papers. One of them looks like a deed.” “What? A deed? You mean a land deed?” “Yes. And it appears to be a large piece of land that includes the river,” I said. “But I didn’t look at it all that long.” “So you don’t have it with you—this deed?” “No, it’s hidden in a safe place, along with the other papers.” “Where?” “My house.” Jackie hit the brakes and did one of her famously sloppy three-point turns, right there in the
middle of the Tamiami Trail with me screaming the whole time. How I wished I had my own car. “Where we going?” I howled. “Back to your house, to see those papers, of course!” Jackie yelled. The woman was crazy. Plumb jack crazy. “Now wait just a minute!” I shouted, surprising myself as much as Jackie. “I’m the one who has been entrusted with the papers, and I think I should have some say in what we’re going to do!” Jackie surrendered. “Okay,” she said, pulling to the side of the road. “You tell me what you want to do.” “We can get the papers but I’m not showing them to you until we’re at Mrs. Bailey White’s house where we can all look at them at the same time.” Jackie started to protest but I held my ground. “Stop your fussing, Jackie, and drive the car.” And to my surprise, she did.