Resort living in the great outdoors
well     Contact Us     About Us     Site Map     interior and close up     site 1     Corkscrew Sanctuary Home     BonitaBeach     corkscrew home video     Lake Okeechobee     Bonita Springs     Ortona     crackertails     Fisherhaven     fisherhavensite     convenient form     Featured property of the month     ankalodge     Sarah Barry's Blog/     DustinGold     Beachwalk     unsecured loans     N.Y. City view      
 Free advertising   a one stop resource if you are buying, selling or leasing real estate, everything you need is right there!.
 
 
Crackertails- A fictional account of Florida Cracker legend and lore.
                                                                                               
Introduction
“Crackertails”

“ Impatiently fishing the shore at the waters edge, young John Bartow sighs and waits. The moon is barely a thin silver crescent, but he can see well enough.
Waiting for a tugging catfish to signal to haul it in, John seems a little peaved. Kind of gawky looking and slim as a string bean, he looks as
 he has not grown into his tall frame, yet he is a full 24 years old so he must be grown. John is not clumsy, he just looks like it. He has long ,skinny arms,
neck and legs, he just looks a bit goofy but what a son he is and his family is so proud of this young man.
 This day was as long as it was tough. Riding in the drizzel all day chafed him a bit. All six foot six of this young man sags as
 he thinks about the way rainy days rub you raw. His feet are stinging fiercely from being tortured in the wet boots and his butt is numb as a rock. Being a
surveying engineer gave John plenty of opportunities to work in the rain. He had two years at the university in Tallahassee in mathmatics and general studies
 and four years at West Point so John knew there were far worse fates than being soaked all week.
 Last nights rain washed out the deer sign, that made it impossible to back track them from the water holes. That meant fishing for dinner.
 The mornings coffee was the last and gritty with too much dirt in it to really enjoy. When John drank his coffee this morning
 he thought,
"I should wash my hands when I get to my grub, there is more sand and grit in this pot than coffee"  John had a tin coffee pot and he perked his coffee 
over a flame and drank out of it, keeping it warm on the side of the fire, the flame just close enough for the pot to burn his hands a little when he picked it up
to sip some coffee. As he drank it he kept it gradually further away from the fire so not to burn his lips.
 
While John considered the day past, his 
horse coughing from the rain reminds him he has to hang his own dry blanket on his chestnut mare. He had on his uniform, blue and brass excluding his
boots while he stood at the waters edge with his collar up to keep mosquitoes off his neck. The mosquitoes were so thick you had to wipe your face around
your eyes and nose and keep the rest covered. There he stood, thin,and sunburned, brown haired, blue-eyed cowboy, mosquitoe bit and rain slogged
 in his soldier's blues, John is so tired he is confused by wanting to crawl under his sleeping sack to eat and sleep at the same time. He almost fell down
 because he fell asleep standing up fishing. He was dreaming he was sleeping in his sack when everything started spinning around, he woke up just in time to
stop from falling in the water. he fell asleep with his pole crossed over his chest. That catfish would not bite, he was thinking to skip it and eat tomorrow before
he falls asleep in the creek.
 
 John is mapping the giant lake for three months. Being an engineer for the Army is a life long ambition, but mapping unexplored
south Florida and the huge Lake Okeechobee is an overwhelming challenge with its 350,000 acres of water and islands full of predators and indians.
Later in the century farmers would discover that the lake is surrounded by fourteen foot deep peat bog full of nutients to make vegetables growing in it huge,
sometimes splitting from too much nitrogen.The lake is like a bowl that catches alot of the rainwater drainage from the middle of state. Many times over the century
the lake over flowed grew to 500,000 acres and when it receeded it left behind decaying leaf and vegetation, loamy soil with the rich ground heavy with nutrients.
Farming and fishing was lucrative there until the Hurricane of "26" which devastated the area.  
The vicious Seminole Indians were at home here at the lake they call "Lake Walk Across". They control the area and might take the time to kill you if you were a white man, especially
in the Army!.
 The Army has the tribe bunched up here at this lake and have had stiff resistance. They came from north Florida when they were driven from their lands, again and again.
It was easy to understand their resentment to Andrew Jackson and the white American settlers he took their lands for. The Army took the indian s farms and hunting lands and
 gave them to the settlers, that would anger most folk.
John finished his dried venison last night and really needs to catch some grub for dinner. Bone-tired,John’s sag increases to a slouch as he
 waits for his midnight catfish.  At a waterhole today he saw a pack of wild cat, 4 or 5 together, some big wild boar and cattle, a cypress head with moccasins
 every place he tried step forward, over a hundred and he just backed out of the head and found another waterhole for his water and to see where the animals came from and who went
there for water. It had been one of those days and he never found any varmit worth eating.
 As an exhausted John fishes a plant or maybe a turtle  floats innocently down the creek. As this floats by John’s survivalist instinct prickles the back of his neck.
His wild-eyed horse bolts into the black dark woods apparently feeling a little jumpy himself. Too late to react to the blur of white water, John sees an
 alligator
 twice his size at his feet.This gator was wider than his horse, no wonder he ran off. He was over 5  foot across his back and stunk of mud real strong.
 
Quicker than half a flash the giant reptile spins around breaking both of John’s legs with his tail. This alligator means business as it bites down
 on John’s thigh and starts rolling over and over faster than John can scream.
 All that can be heard are the deadly sounds of slaps, and crunches amongst hollow sounding thuds.
The huge beast busts Johns head open on the ground, it was a tender mercy considering the numerous injuries the gator inflicted, surely breaking every bone in
his body as this monster shakes John out like a cat would shake a rat in his stinking, reptilian maw.
After another minute of death rolls the gator seems to feel a little more relaxed with
 his dinner. I guess this very thorough gator had lost a few kills sneaking off when he thought they were dead and secured.
 
Bigger than life, this black,glimmering gator seems to smile with John's leg in its mouth.
The smiling gator lays on top of poor John, his bone crushing 750 pound body smashing what is left of our engineer while thoughtfully looking off into the woods.
Then after his inexplicable pause, with Johns leg firmly in his dinosaur like, three and a half foot long jaws the giant gator leisurely slides back in the
creek with his future dinner.  He will get to eat after he hides it and lets John rot a few days, then the gator would feel John was ready to eat.
Deep down inside the gator must be very frustrated. He didn’t catch the horse and it would last a month”. 
Tough breaks were common for that big gator, he had lived through
40 years of survivalist training at Lake Okeechobee. At one point he was 12 inches long and did not weigh a quarter-pound. Big bass and many birds,
waders or birds of prey plus any gator bigger than him was apt to eat him. He had two feet of his tail missing from a near death experience and his
left eye was white and blind from a fight with a Great Blue Heron he ate one day a few years ago. Being 13 foot long and 750 pounds he was not in too much danger
anymore, but he did like his meals big.
 A couple of  Seminole braves up the creek a little came out of the dark and one said "Woowee, that gator done ate that boy, let's go get his horse"
The two Seminole teenagers were watching John, drawn to his location with his flames, they saw his campfire as soon as they rounded the bend in the swift moving Fisheating Creek
 on their way home from the big river dumping in the north end of the lake. They had set in the woods and watched the gator attack and the killing of the young surveyor,
poor John. The two braves knew better than to stand on the bank of the lake like that. They had seen big gators attack their tribes duggouts and come up on land at their
home down by fisheating creek. Them old gators would come into the village from the water and eat dogs, goats and people if they can catch 'em. The  young brave's momma would cook a
 big gator in a barrel of boiling water over her lighter-knot fire to get rid of the strong muddy flavor a big gator has. Poor John had a gun but the young braves father would only need
 a sharp stick, like his lighterknot walking sticks he carried when in the swamps and around the village. He would run it in his eye as far as he could if the gator had jumped him,
 that is how momma would get the gator in the pot.
 
       One of the first to think they were taming Florida's wilderness was DeSoto, he landed in Charlotte Harbor in 1539. Once on land he marched his
 army inland. During this march he apparently lost pigs,cattle and horses to the wild swamps. Between his orange seeds sprouting groves and his errant
 farm animals creating robust feral populations he shaped the state and his impact is still felt today.
 The Caloosa tribes put up a fierce defense to DeSoto's invasion,although the european challange eventually killed the tribes with fever.
This gentleman surveyer who was ate by the gator and Desoto faced Florida during one or another of its many challenging eras. Even now all Florida creatures have to face
the Alligator in its ambush. Many early explorers, sailors and cattlemen lost their lives to the sharks, alligator, insects, poisonous snakes and worse yet 
their fellow man.Lets not forget the hurricanes and their tornadoes removing any sign of civilization as fast as it was made.
Only a wiry, sun bleached, tough Son-of Gun will survive daily to come back after Florida’s challenges.
We will enjoy their spirited courage with their faults, the Bartows and their in-laws were some of the first 600 american families in Florida. 


Chapter One
 
 
Jethro Polk went to Florida with Andy Jackson to drive the Cherokees West. With that job over he returned to Florida because he liked its unclaimed
wilderness. Countless wild cattle roamed the palmettos, oak hamlets and swamps presented an opportunity if they could be rounded, branded and
fattened for market. In the two hundred fifty or sixty years since the Spanish abandoned St Augustine scattered pockets of these critters wandered
throughout Florida and numbered in the hundreds of thousands. In the late 1820’s a few other “crackers” were doing a fair job of it so he thought he
would hire out to one of them. Near an area called Kissimmee he signed on with a man called Mizzel who had a tough but fair reputation as a leading
 drover. Thinking that driving cattle would be easier than Indians, Jethro felt he had it made.

But those long horned critters didn’t come easy. Armed with razor sharp pointed horns spanning up to six feet, the wily stubborn beasts instinctively tried
to kill anything that threatened them, especially “crackers”. “Crackers” were cowboys who got their name from the whip they used to drive cattle from the
 brush. This whip cut flesh when needed but sounded like a rifle going off. Its sound would spook any critter, and very quickly those that tasted its flaming
cuts around the nose or legs before.
Mizzel told Jethro to show him his gear. His gear consisted of two roan horses about fourteen hands tall, a roping saddle, a bedroll, a riata, jerked meat,
and a few cooking utensils including his canteen. He armed himself with a 55 caliber musket, a 14” inch knife, and an early version of the navy colt
percussion cap pistol. He had no whip having never used one. Mizzel with a glance knew he hired a green hand. But who cared, if he didn’t bring in stock
 he wouldn’t be paid. Cowboys were paid by the head. Taking an unusual liking to Jethro, he told Jethro to get two brush ponies no more than eleven
hands tall, a ten by ten by ten canvas, some lard, extra flints, more shot and 15 foot rawhide whip if he wanted a chance. Surprised but without argument
Jethro returned the next day outfitted as Mizzel suggested.

Mizzel demonstrated the use of the whip from horseback by flicking a fly off a post twelve feet away without making a “crack”. Then he made it crack when
he cut a melon in half with his next stroke. “When you can do this Jethro you’ll be ready, so get to practicing! Without a good whip hand you’d useless as
a cowboy around here. We’ll leave in a week, so be ready”.

Jethro had good hand and eye coordination; so on the first day of practice only nicked his own backside a dozen times. Cutting a melon was easy but making
 it crack at the same time was tougher. The flies went terrorized but unharmed. His horses threw him three times for getting accidental back lashes. After
three days of repetitious work and other hands’ laughter he got the hang of it. He felt he was destined to be a “cracker”.

The band of eight crackers led by Mizzel headed southeast following the high grounds just west of the Kissimmee River through an area controlled by the
Seminole Indians who had eluded all attempts by the army to round them up. With the first Seminole War over there existed an uneasy truce between
crackers and the Osceola led Seminoles. Like the pirates who holed up near Arcadia on the Peace River Mizzel knew if they stayed in camp at night and
 moved only by day the Indians would let them be. One of the pirates told him that any bounty hunter or white man moving at night was dead meat quickly
 dispatched if Indians found them. The Indians allowed the pirates to move in daylight and in effect guarded them at night because outsiders did not know
this sacred rule.

Mizzel’s planned simply. Using the high ground allowed a man on horseback to spot small groups of cattle grazing from a good distance. They would stop
and build one or two 5-10 acre pens scattered along the way to Lake Istokpooga where a larger corral would be constructed. These pens were made from
 thorny brush and fallen trees dragged into position backed up to one of the many lakes that dotted the route. Extra mounts and some grub were left at each
 pen by hands who would be working it in the days to come. These holding pens would allow the crackers to gather and temporarily hold 50 to 80 head and
thus build a larger herd in stages which could be driven to market from the main corral. Forty eight days of heavy labor later the pens and corral were
completed. Now the difficult work began, building a herd.

Back tracking their trail they slowly spread out in twos thoroughly checking for the best routes to bring the small herds to Lake Istokpooga. Mizzel took
 Jethro with him feeling that was fairer to his more experienced hands. By plan they moved toward the northern of the two holding pens but used a
different route than Pete and Witt who went in a more westerly way there.

After three days steady ride they started droving. Jethro spotted a group of cattle grazing along the edge of some thickets and motioned to Mizzel who
 was already circling toward them. Moving slowly Jethro entered the dry brushy oak hamlet a hundred yards or so from Mizzel. He had begun to
appreciate the small horse he rode because he only had to duck the many low limbs; his larger mounts would have been useless here. The noise created
by the breaking branches, twigs and palmetto fronds worked making the cattle restless and moved them out in the open. Whip in hand Jethro began to think
 this was easy, when he heard a large animal crashing at him. A 1,000 pound bull with a six foot rack headed straight for him as his pony reared. His whip
flashed instinctively cracking open a gash on the bull’s nose as it charged by. Stunned by the sting the bull veered into the brush just before it should have
gored them.

The pony’s dancing let Jethro know the horse wanted no part of that critter. Jethro reached down to pat the pony’s neck and felt wet sticky sweat, no by god
 it was blood on his hand. Looking down he saw an incision about eight inches long which had just missed the pony’s jugular. That damned critter nearly
killed his horse! Angered and wary he began to follow the bull which left a bloody trail from the gash on its nose. Again and again the whip cracked. The
chase was on. A crazy cracker riding a wise pony faced off in a thicket against a wild and mean bull. The bull circled and charged the
 dodging pony taking
another lash to its flank for the effort. An hour later they emerged from what was left of the thicket and the bloodied bull wandered off to join the other fifteen
 head which had been rounded up by Mizzel.

Mizzel laughing said, “There ain’t much beef left on that varmint, do you think it was worth the fight?”

A bone weary and torn up Jethro replied, “It’s a hell of a lot of fun though. How’d you get so many?”

Mizzel knowing he hired a good hand said, “With that ruckus goin on in thar the rest came out easy. Come on let’s get em to the pen before dark.”

Four hours of whip cracking later as the sun dipped away they were met by Pete Bartow and Jake Whitt. Pete pointed to the horizon asking, “What took
you so long, is it the company you keep?” Silhouetted on the horizon, a trio of Seminoles made their presence known.

With their 16 head mingled with the 23 head in the pen, they went to the campfire for coffee. Pete volunteered to tend the horses and used lard as a salve
 for the pony’s wound.

Around the fire they started comparing tales about each man’s day’s work. Whitt started by saying, “You know guys Pete and I had about a thousand
head rounded up but didn’t want to show you up so we only brought back Pete’s catch.”

Pete overhearing this shouted, “Did a gator try to bite your horse Jethro? It might have been the same one that spooked Whitt. You know he said a 40 foot
gator clean bit in half a cow he was driving. After that I couldn’t get away from him all day. If Whitt wasn’t so fat, I would have thought he was my shadow.
Witt did provide me some shade though.”

Mizzel added to the banter, “Pete you’re so skinny you don’t cast a shadow so I believe ya.” He added, “You know boys Jethro is more of a farmer than a
cowboy, you should see the forest he cleared today. It only took him an hour to clear out 15 acres! Or course he had some help from that little rabbit he was
 chasing. Only the big trees are left thar for a little shade.”

Whitt retorted, “If we had been thoughtful we’d brought a plow along so Jethro could plant some tobacco and corn. Come to think on it that cut on the pony
was probably made by his whip.” He laughed, “Pete is full of it. The only gator we saw today I plugged when it tried to grab that skinny carcass I call a partner.
It was too big for good meat so we skinned him and left the hide staked out.”

As the newcomer it wasn’t right for Jethro to contribute, he just leaned back on his canvas and chuckled while looking out into the star lit sky. A movement
in the dark caught his eye so he rose with his rifle as two men on appaloosa ponies rode up to the fire.

Mizzel motioned Jethro to lay the gun down as he stood to greet the two warriors. He gestured that they join him by the fire which after proudly dismounting
they did. Mizzel gestured, “Where was the third brave?” He knew the Seminoles many tricks to steal horses and a common one was using diverted attention.
 Not getting an answer he led the senior brave nearer the pen and with a torch showed him the cattle and their eight horses. It was clear that Mizzel’s
small camp blocked any exit for the animals, thus without threat the senior brave knew he was outmatched this time around. They returned to the fire for
some jerky stew brewing in a pot when the third brave came in carrying a small wild pig which was offered for the feast. The very few words that shared
between the parties were translated by Pete, who had an Indian bride, but the lack of talk did not interfere with the brotherhood of man that night.

In the morning the braves returned and were given two head of cattle which were immediately taken away. By that day’s end twenty more head were added
 to the pen, and on the fourth day they began the drive to Lake Istokpooga with 84 head.

On the third trail day Pete rode ahead to alert the other four hands where to drive their catch to join them. They met in the middle of the fourth day combining
their catches to about 180 head arriving at Lake Istokpooga three days later. From that time on three men would stay with the main herd at all times and be
rotated with the other five doing round up work at the pens. This cycle continued until around 600 head were assembled and branded with Mizzel’s double Z
at Lake Istokpooga in late April.

Late April meant drought and drought meant fire. One strike of lightning could send most of Florida to flame if the winds were right. But fire also meant the
rejuvenation of the flora so necessary to sustain the life of the many natural and rich grasses and plants which overtime would be choked out by larger
species of plants. The trick for the cowboy was avoiding the raging fires while finding the lush new growth along a cattle drive to fatten up the herd. No rain
 also meant that watering spots would be dried along the trails to Punta Gorda or would be few and far between.

In mid May billowing clouds began appear along the western horizon along with the pillars of smoke from wild fires, Mizzel knew it was time to move the herd
 out. He had taken Pete Bartow with him to negotiate a pact with the Seminoles which would give his crew and herd safe passage day and night but only
during the drive in return for 56 head of cattle to be left behind. Pete knew enough of their language to help make the deal quicker than the ten days it took;
he simply wanted time with his woman. They sealed the deal at a Seminole compound near Lake Okeechobee with Osceola present. The Indians wanted
assurances that the white eyed soldiers would not be getting the beef. Mizzel’s promise that the beef would put on boats and sent to Cuba was finally
 believed when affirmed by an Arcadian pirate to be true. Four Indian scouts were to come along to verify agreement and be paid four head each for their
time away from their wives. Not surprisingly none of these braves were ever sighted on the trail, but their signs were ever present.

They moved the 540 head herd southwest as day broke hoping to make a high ground lake that night (later to be named Lake Placid). As the elevation
increased to 300 feet the parched burnt over land offered no relief from the heat or graze for the cattle only the yellow flies that swarmed everywhere were
 being fed.

In the burnt grass Jethro saw a weird thing and asked Mizzel about when he circled by. “Mizzel, I just seen a round fat bluish colored snake eat a rattler,
am I crazy from the heat?”

“Nah”, replied Mizzel, “Them blue snakes eat rattlers, don’t that beat all! Rattlers are bad, and can kill a man, them striped indigoes are
 deadly too. But
 moccasins are so nasty not even gators mess with them.” He sighed, “Hope we get to that lake soon the cattle need water. Ten to twelve miles is a long
way for a herd to travel in a day with no grass. When they smell that water they may stampede.”

Clouds built over their heads and it started to rain with a few scattered bolts of lightning followed by thunder as they kept gentling circling the rear of the
herd. Pete rode by smiling, “I’ve got dinner tonight. Two of these land turtles, heard say there good eatin. My horse nearly broke her leg stepping in their hole.”

The herd drifted forward and settled around the lake just after dark. The campfire lit the hillside covered with burnt trees and sprouts of grass peeking
 through the amber black ground. A man could nearly see the grass grow. Turtle soup was cooking in a pot as the men relaxed after droving sixteen hours
and getting nine or ten miles behind them and the herd. With luck they’d reach Punta Gorda in seven or eight more days.

An early morning visitor startled Jethro awake. It sounded like a bull frog in his sleep but he knew it was a bull gator out courting as he awoke. The ten foot
 critter ambled toward the staked out horses that created a fuss by stomping and snorting. Jethro reached for his musket but a hand in the dark stopped him
 from getting it. Mizzel stood there in the dark and showed his blade and rope to Jethro. He whispered, “A gun shot may spook the cattle let’s drive that gator
away or kill him.”

Seeing the men coming between him and a good meal, the gator charged forward covering twenty yards in a blink of the eye. Jethro answered with his whip but
with no “crack”, which only stopped the critter long enough to change directions. And that was toward Jethro. Mizzel dashed up from the rear and got a loop
around the gator’s jaws drawing it tight. Jethro fell on the critters thrashing head a jammed his knife to its haft in the beast’s left eye. For about twenty minutes
Jethro rode that dieing but bucking gator… he was afraid to let go. Laughter filled the camp as the sun rose when Whitt said, “Where’s your saddle Jethro?”

“Jethro, you become a good all round hand”, said Mizzel, “We may have lost a pony or stampeded the herd. I’m crediting you five extra head at tally time
 when we get these critters into Punta Gorda.” He turned to the others with, “Get some coffee and let’s get em moving men!”

Three hard days of driving through and around swamp and slough they made their fourth camp just ahead of sunset. Located about fifteen miles south and
 a little east of Arcadia, they were surprised to see six riders coming in from the north. Mizzel laid his rifle across his arm with the trigger finger in place. He
faced away from the small camp fire that brewed tonight’s fare and toward the strangers which scattered out as they approached. Mizzel doubted that these
 white men wanted anything good. With Jethro and Whitt circling the herd far from sight to the east he told the other men to casually find a place to take quick
cover if needed.

One of the riders hailed the camp asking if he could come in for some coffee which Mizzel motioned he could. The other five dismounted about 100 yards
out. As the leader approached Mizzel recognized an old foe in Jack Weeks, a reputed pirate from Arcadia he swapped blows with before.

Weeks immediately shouted, “If it ain’t old Mizzel, I should have known it was you! Did you come out this way to get your ass kicked again or can we
 forget it and move on to the business that brought me?”

“Your kind of out your territory aren’t ya Jack?” growled Mizzel. “Come in and set by the fire. You’d better call your boys in too unless they want a taste
 of the Noles… it’s night and you can’t be breaking The Rule.”

At six foot six getting off a cowpony meant barely shifting one foot from his stirrup to the ground. Weeks’ wiry frame uncoiled like a panther and his black
 eyes took in the setup he faced. “Mizzel can’t say I’ve ever liked anyone except my squaw and our litter, but you’re the closest except for them. Why is it
 we just naturally feud? You know I’m the only white eye with a passage at night.”

“Have your boys leave their weapons on their horses and come to the fire. I don’t like you one whit Weeks for your way of doing things, but respect you for
 carving out a niche in these parts”, retorted Mizzel. “What brings ya here?”

Grabbing a cup of coffee Weeks came toward Mizzel with more than a little resentment in his crooked smile saying, “It wasn’t neighborly of you bypassing
 Arcadia with the herd. Sooner than you know it others will be following the trail you cut which will hurt my business. Is that how you treat a friend?”

“You cutting herds for being brought through Arcadia got us in a standoff before. I wouldn’t pay you then and won’t now. I was just trying to save you the
embarrassment of tasting my whip again Jack,” snapped Mizzel. “You aren’t a friend; you’re more like a buzzard feeding on the work of others, why the hell
ya come here?”

“Well things have changed since the last time you were hereabouts in “26”. So this time you will pay up or face another choice dead in eyes. No ship is safe
 leaving Punta Gorda which has cows on it that haven’t been cut, my mates see to that. Therefore the buyers won’t buy stock unless it’s been approved by me
 because paid for cattle lost at sea are hard to explain. Last, you made the same deal with Osceola, why not me? Fair is fair,” Jack smirked. “Of course you could
 take twenty days more and drive them to Tampa, but I can nearly guarantee you’ll lose half of them in stampedes along the way. Give up fifty head, now, or pay a lot
more later on, that’s the long and the short of it. If you haven’t agreed before you reach Punta Gorda, I’ll put the word out and nobody will even look at your cows!
 Come on boys lets go and give this cracker some room to call his shot.”

When Jethro and Whitt returned from their circling shift Mizzel told them about Jack Weeks’ visit. Surprising everyone Whitt put a new idea out. “Ya know
my brother Jake just started running cows southwest of here at place called Estero. He said the Spanish send boats up the Caloosahatchee River and
pick up cattle for Cuba quiet like there. They don’t like either the pirates or the Indians. Mizzel I’d bet it is only about a day or so farther down there than
Punta Gorda.”

“Do you know the way there?” was Mizzel’s instant reply.

“No,” Whitt wondered, “but I’ve visited there coming by boat and rode around there a piece.”

“You and Jethro circle ahead and find a trail. We’ll drift slowly west another two days like we’re fattening them up. Get back by then.
Leave before daybreak.” ordered Mizzel.

By day’s first light Jethro and Whitt rode through the western end of what later would be known as Babcock Ranch and mapped a route which required
crossing only a half mile or so of swamp. They rode as quickly as the palmetto strewn terrain would allow and in fifteen hours found the Caloosahatchee
 west of a place later to be named
Alva. After making a simple camp, afternoon thunderheads filled the sky delivering a gully washer and three inches of standing water. They laughed it off
 saying they needed bathes anyway. They hung their canvases between trees like hammocks and went to sleep.

Before morning’s light the air hummed and horses kicked up a storm. A cloud of mosquitoes surrounded every warm thing. Jethro and Witt hit the trail
 without saying a word. Nothing deserved to be bled to death this way. “Damn,” Jethro thought, “that long canvas when doubled over saved my pony.
Mizzel sure knows what to do!”

Whitt and Jethro trotted north a good clip through standing water until the mosquitoes backed off for a spell. They took breather and lathered their skin
and the ponies exposed areas with lard then continued. Deer and other wild critters splashed out of their way. The day got hotter as the sun rose and
water turned to steam that blasted their faces. Early in the afternoon of the second day they begin to pick up strays from the now scattered herd. They
found other cows dead from exhaustion and mosquito bites. With about 50 head they found Mizzel’s camp around four o’clock. They built a large fire,
started coffee then waited.

Near dark Mizzel and Pete came in last with around a hundred head. “Boys we’ve lost about 100 head”, mourned Mizzel, “I’ll put it to a vote where we
 take the rest after we hear from Whitt. What do you think Whitt?”

“Fellas you told me and Jethro about the fifty head Weeks wants, and Jethro and I charted a good trail to the Caloosahatchee but can’t guarantee anything
from there.
We may get the same money per head and pick up few more on the way to Estero, do you agree Jethro?”

“Hell we don’t need a vote, whatever Mizzel says goes with me, Whitt, but I like our chances south” Jethro put in. “We owe it to ourselves and Mizzel to
 make as much on this drive as we can.”

“Boys lets put it to a… “Mizzel started.

Pete interrupted, “We’ll head em south tomorrow”, as everyone nodded in agreement.

“Okay men, but lets do it this way, we’ll hang around here like we’re trying to fatten them up and gathering strays until Weeks’ spies check us out like they
 do everyday. Then we’ll push em out hard and fast and try to cross the Caloosahatchee the day after next. Let’s all get as much rest as we can tonight,
 the herd is tired so they won’t wander” said Mizzel as he settled next to fire.

Morning broke with fast bans of rain showers moving northeast when Pete, Jethro and Mizzel met by the fire. “I think we’re in for a blow, Mizzel. Feels just
like a hurricane to me” Jethro flatly stated. “Look at them flocks of birds all flying southeast, I don’t think them pirates will be coming this way today. They
know the signs too and will be getting their boats to safe haven”.

Mizzel shouted, “Head em out!” as a storm ban ended and the sun shown for the first time that day.

In the two days that followed the weather worsened with each passing ban. The forty to fifty mile an hour winds came from the south with the bans moving
 northeast when they reached the Caloosahatchee at night fall. They drove the herd across even though whitecaps broke over the cattle’s’ heads as weird
 full moon tried to show itself on occasion. Jethro saw Pete’s horse flounder and disappear in the black water. He got to Pete and threw him a rope only to
 have a falling oak tree on the south bank take Pete too. Damn, a twister he thought. The last thing he saw was that ornery bull he drove from the thicket
months before come flying straight at him but upside down. He felt the critter’s horn jam through his chest as he lifted into black nothingness.

Two weeks later, Zeke Whitt was scouting the damage and rounded up about 50 head of trail broke cattle all branded with the Mizzel double Z. He thought
it strange finding Mizzel’s brand this far south especially with Indian signs around. Amid the broken limbs of an uprooted massive oak he found his brother’s
J. W. initialed saddle still cinched to the bones of cowpony and picked over by buzzards. Gathering the saddle he drove the small herd back to Estero while
 pondering a man’s fate.

The four Indian scouts which followed the herd survived the storm and rounded up 16 strays. As usual they simply ignored Zeke Whitt and went about their
business unseen because because they honored Zeke's squaw’s Carlos bloodline.
. On the way back to their Okeechobee compound they found half dead Pete Bartow clinging to a fallen oak in the Caloosahatchee and they took him back to
their village to their cousin who was married to Pete"s dad.
Ma Nature played her hand of death and renewal once again, but any cracker or Indian accepted her whims as part of life. 
 

Zeke Whitt was born in Polk County on the prairie to his Cherokee dad and white mama near the Seminole town there.

He now lives in Corkscrew near Immokalee. Polk County was his first wife Martha’s birthplace and it is beautiful with its lakes and hills. 

Eventually zeke will have a thousand Florida longhorn in Immokalee that he collected and sold and collected again year after year. His herd started on the cattle he

 did not sell one year and grew bigger every year. As he got older Zeke appreciated a herd to live off of in his old age, so he bought some range homesteads and

built his ranch up until the day he got his homestead papers from Washington, D.C. in the 1890's.

 

Zeke and his family, the Whitt family, had been in the south since the 1600’s. Zekes father was from the civilized tribe the "Cherokee tribe"

His name was William Whitt. When William was a boy less than 10 he had helped the colonist stay safe by reporting british troops movements in the area

to the towns pastor who was a family friend. Fearlessly he would go to the settlement and relay messages from the elders of his tribe concerning any signs

 that the Brits would be heading to their community. Since some of William's brothers and tribesman joined the Army in the war for independence, he was the oldest

not allowed to go for being too little so in this way he fought.

 

Zeke's mother, Mary Cannon mother and father were white settlers from North Carolina and came south pioneering to South Carolina. Zekes father was an elderly 

William Whitt and he helped  the new colonial country explore the very deep south and decided to go to Florida. He married Mary Cannon and they traveled south into

Florida. When they came upon the prairie they called it home. Zeke was raised close to what is called Lake Alfred today.

There was a big indian nation to the south a days ride with Seminole tribesman and a giant herd of cattle. The Whitts never bothered the other indians and lived

 in peace with the tribe. They big indian city was populated by a peaceful tribe of Seminole, mixed with many others who just wanted to tend their families and their herd.

 

 

 

Zeke was half white but he hated the whiteman for taking the herd and town from the tribe he had grown up with. American presidents lied to all the Indian nations and were

 true enemies to any Indian. Zeke was half white and was raised in the area so he had no problems with the troops personally but so many of his freinds did, it was an assault

against the tribe.

After Zeke's wife died he raIsed their kids, including little Martha until one day when she was 14 she met Jacob at a community church gathering , although he was

13 years older than Martha he courts and eventually marries, Zeke was not thrilled but if she was happy he would be quiet and peaceful, as his Martha would

have wanted him to do. Zeke married again but she died too and that was all of the married life he needed.

 

Being born in 1810, Zeke has seen big changes in his lifetime.

Most were bad, but not all. Still riding all day at 65, he is running an empire. Zeke supposed the business

of cattle is once again growing but the way of life is too citified. He liked towns like Fort Myers and Punta Gorda growing and needing beef in

their town, but hated going to them to learn their new “Laws”. When he was a boy a man showed respect to keep his health, now tenderfoots hide

 behind new “Laws” to make life civilized like New York or Boston where no respectable man could survive.
Zeke remembers life before the Indian wars; the Indians did not bother anyone. His first love was Cherokee, and she was a very beautiful, strong

 willed woman. Martha Hicks was 21 when she died from consumption, and Zeke never loved that hard or sweet again.
Sometimes Zeke day dreamed of what it was like in the Carolinas when the Cherokee, Choctaw, and others ruled their own destinies. The Tribes

 had peace and lands for their families and their families to come. Their lifestyle had endured thousands of years and the white man replaced it with

 civilized life.
Many the time Zeke would think of Martha and her family. Martha was born in 1818 in the Cherokee nation. Her father was killed

in “25” on a trek to Oklahoma and her mother Alma Mae, who outlived Martha, survived the treacherous white man, escaped the Trail of Tears,

and joined her brother William in Florida. William had come to Florida when he sold his land in the Carolinas to the white man settlers. He lived in

Gainesville, Tampa, and ended up in Arcadia working with the Smith Ranch. William has a ranch with 160 acres where he lives in his cottage and

raises his herd.

Zeke figures he must be dead by now, Alma Mae too. Martha, born in Carolina but in Arcadia she lived and loved life, had such a short life, she died in 1838

 but those two lived a long time

Zeke did too. His 5 years with Martha was a lifetime ago that he never stopped missing. She called Zeke a "Big old Man" and loved him very much,

 he called he called her "Mollie" and spent most of his life praying they would meet again in Heaven.

 

Zeke had a bad streak in him and at the right time, although a rarity, you could see Zeke in action.

He went to Arcadia often because he had many family and friends there. Through the years he had built a reputation as a man that was quick to

 draw and did not hesitate to pull the trigger. One of his rankest days was back in the late 40's after the indian wars. There had been some soldiers that made

Arcadia home and they were not as welcome as you would think. The indian wars had not reached Arcadia but the folk knew of the atrousities of the army

against the tribes, many of the settlers had family in that tribe. Zeke was in town visiting some cousins from his Dad's side, the Whiddens. They let Martha live with them when

Zeke could not be home or staying with his Momma. Today they were complaining

about the army men and their families moving to town. A lot of the town was afraid the army officers and soldiers would bring the army back in time to ruin their

lives too. Zeke was still hurting from his bride Martha dying and was a bully when he felt like being onery. He left his cousins ranch and went to town looking for the Yankees.

Zeke entered the store and found some whitemen sharing beer stories and beer and asked them who they were Zeke said "Now who are you men, I have never seen

 you in town before"

One of the men had a face full of beard with tobacco spit stains. He slurred from the table "Well who are you bothering me?"

Sometimes a man just has to do what he wants to do, Zeke wants to fight and he replies " I am the man that is going to run you all out of town"

The speaking man at the table of Yankees with the stained beard stands up and throws his tin mug of beer on the floor and grabs his gun yelling"You half-breed sonofa"

That was all he got out as Zeke squeezed the trigger on his musket with a grin. He reached and grabbed the dead mans gun as he fell and got the drop on the 3

other fellers st the table. Zeke asked with a light in his eyes "Do I kill you all too?" A man at the table with his back to Zeke calmly said

"There is 3 of us and you have one single shot"

Zeke slammed his musket butt squarely on the nape of the man's neck and watched him drop out his chair. Zeke then kicked the man's rifle behind him and

wordlessly stared the last two down. Not moving a muscle one of the young man left at the table said "I don't want any trouble and neither does Slim"

The second man ,Slim said

"We want to live away from the cities of the north and eat southern beef, we seen enough war". Zeke started shaking as he cooled down, he knew the fight was over,

he could not bully these two to fight and at this point did not want to. He looked to the men and said

"If any troops show up because of you and yours I will finish what I have started." He turned on his heel and went to the door , turned back around to see the men still 

seated and was satisfied so he left. It did not bring back Martha but it was something to do, he was full of venom, a poison called hate.

 

And Zeke stayed resentful and hateful for a decade then one day , after a bad fall off his horse broke his arm his decided to try and live his life again, even without

his Martha. He started to worry more about little Martha and business and less about his pain in his gut and heart, in time he matured into a 24-hr cow-hunting money maker.

He came to south Florida because the big herds were north and this was the port furthest south until  Key West and you had to barge cattle there to those boats heading to

Cuba.Zeke decided to get a cuban captain to haul cattle straight to Cuba, he kind of cut into the Summerland Ranch work because Mr.Summerland was big here and shipping

to Cuba but Coconut bay was just a mile long barge ride with cattle so you could make several barge trips a day and he made it work.

In 1850 he took a trip to Havana with a 50 head herd

When Zeke got off the boat he followed his herd to a rancher who paid the freight and $3.50 a head. When he arrived at the ranch there was a courtyard encircled villa with

trellised bougainvillae and flowering vines. Zeke was led inside and guided to a parlor by a man in fancy cow duds, all black and leather with silver buckles and buttons.

In the parlor was a man in a pillowed, leather chair with three very young ladies on a large couch. Zeke was 40 years old and been through hell but was astounded by the three

sisters beauty. Wilhelmina, Maria and Evangelista Carlos were awesomely beauitiful with dark skin and black eyes, thick, pink lips and long black hair. The man in the chair said

"Here is your $175.00 in silver" It was a heavy burlap bag but no gold was offered, Zeke was pleased. The man spoke again saying "I am Alphonse Carlos and these is my lovely

daughters, Wilhelmina, Maria, and Evangelista. The ladies stood up and curtseyed, Zeke bowed and kissed the oldest ones hand when she held it limply to him. As Zeke's lips

neared her  hand he looked into her bottomless eyes and smelled her powder, which exploded a gunshot in his mind and a spark in his heart.

 

 It was Saturday evening and the rancher asked Zeke to be his guest for dinner and stay over night, Zeke stayed a month and came back with Wilma, she was a queen, and

 Zeke's second wife.
 

* By 1750 a group of Seminoles with a chief called “Abaya“ or “Cowcatcher” were raising stolen white mans livestock and Spanish mavericks on

a prairie about 100 miles north of Desoto County’s big prairie that is east of Arcadia. White mans cattle years were going strong by 1850 in the

middle of the state.

 
On Christmas Day in 1837, the Battle of Okeechobee took place close to the point where the Kissimmee River empties into Lake Okeechobee.

Today a monument to the battle stands at the spot it took place on U.S. 441 east of Taylor Creek. Dedicated in 1937 by some of the fallen soldier’s

 descendants it claims the battle was a route and it turned the Second Seminole war to the United States. From my view, this is not wholly accurate

 as the Indians inflicted more than twice the casualties on the Missouri Volunteers. Even though outnumbered two to one the Seminoles won and

 ran to fight another day. Today’s Seminole Tribe is very successful in cattle as well as tourism, real estate endeavors and keeping in touch with

their culture. The Clewiston “Big Cypress” heard is over 10,500 and one of the biggest in the state.

 

 
 
Chapter Two - Young Henry
                                                                                    “WAAAAA” Red haired, blue-eyed Henry boisterously screamed his first greeting around 7:00 on
 the muggy morning of June 5, 1852. He was born around what is now Birmingham, Alabama to his proud parents Irish John Johnstone and his fiery wife
Samantha. His father John, an agronomist in the cotton industry, was a tall slender man with broad shoulders, reddish hair, and blue eyes. Samantha, tall
 as well and with her creamy white complexion, contrasting green eyes and fire red hair glowed with classic Irish beauty. John and Samantha had been
married three years and anxiously awaited the birth of their son. At Henry’s arrival, they were the picture perfect young family and good things seemed to
 be coming their way.
Samantha and John enjoyed raising their son. Henry was an ambitious boy and from an early age worked diligently with focus. One day when he was
 four-years-old or so Henry was pulling weeds in Samantha’s farmyard. He was working on the fence rows trying to weed some post and other hard to
reach places that his mother‘s pair of Nanny goats could not get there head close enough to eat. He could pull weeds and stay out of trouble so Samantha
 and Henry spent a lot time in the yard. When Samantha wanted to set there were some slat chairs in the shade of an Old Oak. 
This day was the day Henry realized his goat had a sense of humor. Typically the goats were Henry’s friends but this day the black and white Billy was picking
on him. Usually Henry fed the goats his weedings and talked with them. Sometimes they could nip your fingers so you had to give them plenty of grass to get a
 bite on or else. Goats can be ornery and Henry learned not to take it personal, they were just contrary sometimes.  Today they were butting Henry around the
farmyard when he wasn't looking, they must have been laughing to themselves, the mean old goats.
With a jarring crunch Henry fell face first and it was a mystery to him why.
All Henry knew was every time he bent to pull on some weeds “WHAM” he would fall on his face. Samantha watched Henry and his hilarious bewilderment
as that rank old goat snuck up on Henry and butted him over a dozen times that morning. Henry finally caught him when he saw his Ma about to roll
around on the ground from laughter. 
 Henry looked at his mom with a bewildered thought and said"This darn goat keeps knocking me down, I 
am giving him all the grass I pull?
Samantha smiled broadly and said "Your billie is playing goat games with you, he plays a little rough, maybe you otta take a
break and come sit with momma a while"
Henry came and sat next to Samantha, She tussled his hair and said "I love you Henry, you are the little man I am so proud of".
Raising her son on her peaceful farm was exactly what she wanted to provide Henry, just as her family had raised her a mile
 or so up the road.
At Six years old, Henry could aim and shoot his mother’s squirrel gun accurately if she loaded it. By nine, He knew how to read, write, add and subtract
 when few grown adults could. He was always a well-behaved little man as Samantha could walk with him in the little village surrounded by cotton and
Henry was exceptionally good. He and Samantha would visit the butcher‘s farm, general store, the church and her family’s plantation when the time and
chores at home permitted. John worked for Samantha’s uncle and brother at the Cannon family plantation north of town. Personally, he and Samantha owned a
40-acre spread south of town with an old farmhouse John’s grandfather had owned. They grew greens, squash, corn, cotton and peanuts to name some
of the farm fare and enjoyed their ancient log and plank home.* Birmingham is the county seat of Jefferson County. Jefferson County was established in
1819 and the county seat was Elyton from 1821 to 1873. The Birmingham we know today was established in 1873 as the county seat and was one of the
 first southern cities to be an Industrial Mecca during the reconstruction period with its railroad access. Birmingham began where two national rail road
lines intersected in Jefferson County. Prior to the Civil war the region was dominated by cotton and the plantations that cultivated it.
The war came to Henry when he was nine. By then he was over five -foot tall, freckle-faced and skinny as a pole. He could play after school a while
but was happy to go home to his evening chores. He had goats, chickens and a yearling bull to take care of in the mornings before school and evenings
before dinner. His farm animals he understood but war was a mystery to Henry. He was worried about his animals, school friends, parents and the teacher
 he had a crush on like all the other boys in class. Although it seemed to the folks of Birmingham the war would be won by the confederacy, most were
apprehensive of Civil War.
Samantha was distraught when she woke Henry the morning of  Feb. 3, 1864. She had not been in town yesterday when the posting had been made but her Aunt
Ruby stopped by early this morning and broke the news. Ruby was in her late 40's and was Samantha's mother's younger sisiter. She had red hair and a complexion like
Samantha but not as tall.  Samantha heard the knock and saw Ruby in a black dress out the front window by the door. The red hair and white
complextion was a stark contrast to the black dress Ruby had on and it raised an instinctual alarm in Samantha as she thought
"Why a black dress on such a beautiful morning?".
Samantha answered the door with a smile that was tempered by the early hour but she was always happy to see Ruby.
Samantha wondered why Ruby did not have her daughter with her this morning thinking " Where is Savana?".
Ruby had been crying and Samantha asks  "What's wrong sweetheart?".  Ruby says she has to come in. Ruby was a little shakey and nervous, She sat down in the
 kitchen and started crying. She sobbed for Samantha to sit next to her at the table. As Samantha sat down Ruby started talking. She said "I was in town before dinner
yesterday and the colonel posted the casualties from the Army. John was on the list my love. I have cried all night and day because I fear for you and Henry.
What will we do?".
Samantha started tearing and up but did not speak. Ruby patted her back and the ladies cried wordlessly for an hour. Samantha finally said" I must wake Henry,
 please stay here and be with us". Shaking her head as if not able to believe the truth Samantha walks to Henry's room, He loved John very much and missed him so.
  
That day in 1864, he lost his hero and father. John died in a battle near Atlanta. All young Henry had left besides memories of his lost father was John’s rifle, bowie knife
 and the will to use it. He was very lonely for John and his pain grew to bitterness. Henry’s environment changed so much in this every man for himself situation
and like the little man he must become he carries on. When the town got wind union occupation was at hand, it got bad. Typically, wherever the Yankee troops
arrived all hell busts loose. Starting with the news that the arrival of Union troops is pending the trusted turned to cowards, many of them public and private officials, ran
 like thieves of the night fleeing with others property or cash. Trusting friends and family were the common prey for these thieves. Others simply left all responsibilities
not mobile behind and ran for their lives.
Fear is making the Birmingham townsfolk act as never before, they all know their world is going to be burned to the ground.
The townspeople Henry had known from birth turned into traitors or cheats, thieves, and even abolitionists.
 People were starving as the union troops were eating all their food, stored and fresh and had to claw to scratch out an existence.
The past trash was now treasure and going without was best if possible.
The townspeople gave the troops what they asked for and went home to nothing if they had a home after the troops picked
quarters. Any of the people living in the cotton plantations, share croppers and the like, knew their homes would be burnt with the cotton. With the townfolk 
 living in the street, it became grossly unsanitary. So many had no place to run.
Samantha's family had the big planatation and first the cotton was burnt to the ground
then the union army settled in its home. Her family was the reason there was a tiny village named Birmingham and the town did not notice when they were burnt and killed.
Samantha felt the Cannon family built the plantation that built the town.
 
The day the cotton burned the union army rode up to the Cannon Family's plantation eastern fence and the horsemen tore it down.Then the troops rode or marched over it.
That is when the Cannon men, father and son,  got on their horses and rode off. The women and children were already gone but the men could not leave until they had to.
The plantation had been in the Cannon family for generations and it was their life too. As the pair rode off a union musketball rang out and hit Henry Cannon knocking him
off his horse. His son Jake jumped out of his saddle and kneeled by his father asking
 "Where are you hit",
Henry growled "In the guts, now you run like hell,now!."  
As Jake got up to mount his horse he was shot in the head. He fell over his dad Henry, they both died there and were burnt with the cotton.
 
After that Henry started running around with his cousin Jake, who at 13 held a mighty big grudge against the union army.Jake had a squirrel gun and so did Henry.
Truth be known both squirrel guns were their mothers, who had them since they could hunt with their fathers and brothers. When the boy's mothers were girls the adventure
available to them was in the woods hunting and talking. When their mothers were ten they hunted everyday that they did not have to be homebound with chores.
The small bore guns were light for a girl to pack. These boys were very upset about their uncle, grandfather and Henry's dad, Big John being killed.
Jakes dad was still alive fighting in Georgia but, just thinking of him hurt made little Jake angry. Jake and Henry found some good spots to shoot union soldiers instead of squirrels.
These were some angry boys. Sometimes anger is a self medication for depression and these young fellows were hurting bad, that we can be sure of. The first soldier
they shot felt good to the boys, good to strike back at the awesome power of the union troops and the killers of many family and friends. Henry never did feel regret or remorse,
he started killing in a time of war and what was right and wrong was a fuzzy issue.
The solitary union man was walking towards town, guess he did not rate a horse. The boys wanted to kill some soldiers and here was their chance. Crouched down in the trees
about 50 yards of the road Jake whispered in Henry's ear"Cuz, Let's shoot this boy here and strike one up for the south. Little Jake and Henry aimed and Jake shot first and struck
the soldier in the head, Henry put his hammer back down gently and smiled at Jake. They stayed down for 10 minutes and when they knew the coast was clear they snuck off.
The soldier never stirred while laying in the road on the way to town, he was found the next morning.
 
They told their mothers they were going to the woods to hunt then they would sniper soldiers walking alone or in pairs. Since the union took over the plantation
lots of soldiers walked that road to town and back to the plantation. After a few killings the soldiers got nervous and started searching the woods along the road.
The boys could hear them in the woods and stayed clear of them. They picked different roads around the plantation and waited and when it looked like they were sure to get away
 they took a shot and crept off to a new spot or down by the creek to talk about the killing or Jakes dad being out there fighting or how the yankees stole all the farm animals
and ate them. No more goats, chickens or pigs. One of the chickens aluded capture and is in the woods, Henry seen it in the trees but did not want to shoot it being the last and all.
 One day the boys almost got caught. They shot 3 soldiers and only hit one. Henry missed his shot and the soldiers made a dash to the boys location.
Jake managed to get another shot off and killed the second soldier but the third shot Jake in the head with his pistol at close range as a frozen Henry watched
 his brother-like cousin Jake die, Henry could not get the powder in his barrel fast enough to stop the killing of Jake and it made Henry never hesitate again.
The soldier made sure Jake was dead and then snatched Henry by the collar and marched him to the road. Henry stumbled and
when the soldier bent to snatch him up Henry stuck big John's bowie knife in the soldiers guts to the hilt and somehow yanked the knife out to stick in the soldiers neck
and watched him die too. Henry in shock and very confused held on to the knife in the dead soldier's neck for a while. He finally snapped out of it and realized no matter what
happened he had to get gone. Henry gathered the weapons and ran to his Aunt Ruby's house. He ran in and told his Aunt
" We were shooting at soldiers and they shot at us, I think Jake is dead."
Ruby said "Take me to him Henry" and out the door they ran.  They eased up on the site of the shooting and Ruby almost fell over the soldier who Henry had knifed
and only then did she start looking over the scene. Ruby scooped up her 13 yr. old son over her shoulder and off they ran.
A few minutes away from the scene Ruby had to put Jake down. She held his hand, cried and prayed for his soul. After 15 minutes or so Ruby said
she was ready to go on. Henry said  "Aunt Ruby, I know how sad you have been and I have watched you and momma suffer and now this. I am sorry, it all happened so fast".
Ruby Looked up and said "Why were you boys shooting at the soldiers?". Henry looked her in the eyes and said "We shot them for killing our family. I want to
shoot some more" Ruby looked at him and he was not mad, just certain. She loved him as one of her own and she did not let on that she understood and might have agreed.
Her son was gone, her little brother, her father, Henry's dad Big John, and her James was fighting somewhere south of Atlanta, Ruby was becoming resentful and angry.
Henry grabbed Jake's feet and helped Ruby bring him home.
 
Henry learned to be sneaky, conniving and merciless in this cesspool for humanity.
Nothing coming out of this could be good. In this period, young Henry gained his very evil ways, the habits and methods that would serve him well when he became
the ruthless pirate of his inescapable destiny. Someday Henry would rule his domain with an iron fist and a cold heart, he would never regret doing what had to be done.

Although Samantha’s loss was genuine, she would not bow to the despair. She would find a way to leave town, travel to the Southern half of
 Florida to her brother’s house, and get away from the union army and their murdering Yankee soldiers. She was so tired of the awful war and needed to
find some family to lean on. Birmingham just took more every day. Her Momma and Aunt were already on their way to Florida and she was ready.
Life would only be so hard on a fetching lass as herself. She could always count on her charms and men’s foolishness. Samantha was very curvy and
possessed a captivating beauty.
 When the union came to town, a young Captain was an apparent Company Commander. He was tall, slim, and genuinely interested in Samantha’s troubles.
 He gave her travel money and a supply mule team driven wagon to travel with. Samantha was so very grateful.
When Henry and his red-haired mother Samantha fled to Florida in 1864, the chaos was setting in. The bulk of the Union troops on their burning trek
gallantly marching through the South closed on Birmingham just as Henry and his Ma were leaving to Samantha’s brother Luther‘s house in Fort Myers.
 Ten years earlier Luther moved to Florida and formed the Alabama Citrus Company. Luther saw the wisdom in a farming operation below Florida’s freeze
 belt.
The first day on the trail was uneventful. They found a nice place close to the trail and set up camp. The wagon had many personal keepsakes for the
Florida homestead. Some linens, silverware from Ireland and dresses from Atlanta, Baltimore or New York. Most of their possessions worth keeping had
 fit in the wagon the Captain had furnished. They had canned foods from the garden since spring and staples like flour, lard and sugar were available to
 them in the wagon. Henry and Samantha slept with smiles on their faces from their escape but woke up to no wagon or mules. The only thing left of their
 possessions were John’s rifle and gear that Henry slept with and the days clean clothes Samantha set out last night and of course Samantha’s purse.
 
Samantha looked at Henry and said"If that don't beat all" Henry looked at his Mom and replied" Ma, we don't have a thing left and no mule to carry it"
 
She said back "I know son, this is some mighty trying times, maybe we better get down the road before we don't have each other" Henry looked up
through his teary blue eyes and freckles with a fearful glance and whimpered his question "I am sore bellied for breakfast and we don't have
anything to eat do we?"
Samantha shook her head and said "We have a little to carry, we have the shovel and that box of kitchen tools by the fire, the plates and pot for coffee
and that bit of coffee in the rag in that pot but we should save that for tonight". She decided they had whined enough and said
  " Henry we need to go and start our walk to Florida." She knew the journey would be hell and the longer it took, the worse it would be.
Her brother Luther would straighten them out if they made it. After shaking off the shock they fashioned a convenient way to carry what was left and
started the day, without breakfast.
   
      Leaving in September Henry and his Ma traveled through six months of hell at a rate of two or sometimes four miles a day on foot. The small families only
hope lay with Uncle Luther and the safety of Florida. Traveling in the fall gave them cold nights and hot days. They slept hiding in the woods like animals.
 Once winter set in, they slept during the day and traveled at night to hide and stay warm. Palmetto heart and wild grapes and other wood’s fare like gopher
 berry, mulberry, and huckleberry would go right through you but was plentiful until the first freeze of winter. Some small towns were quiet and safe enough
 looking to venture into. Every town has good and bad and although Henry and Samantha had no desire in meeting either as they entered towns for food.
One incident along the trek came from a man who took interest in the pair after spotting them buying supplies near Jacksonville. This stranger Henry
observed was wearing a brown and worn leather coat and chaps. The stranger rode a brown pony about 12 or 13 hands high and had a rifle in his
scabbard. He had a dark complexion with a squinting-eyed face staring at Henry’s mother walking by herself from storefront to the next. With an
obvious obsession in his hard to see face peaking through its gray beard and hat Henry could see the man was cause for concern. In an attempt
 to avoid trouble they stayed clear of the roads with their road agents and low lives. Henry had noticed this man looking at Samantha and then paid
attention when leaving and recognized his horse from afar leaving town five minutes after Henry and Samantha. This suspicious character tracked
them from town and watched them leave the road to the woods.
It was early in the morning when this man rides to Henry’s sleeping spot for the day, he must have been tracking them all night. Henry, just dozing
off is awakened at the sound of the hooves. He hears the familiar clip-clop sound of a horse from one hundred steps or better. Henry sights his loaded
 musket just under the hat of this miscreant and takes his shot. PaPOWW" the musket ball roared as it left the barrel and hit’s the stranger in the head with a
 thud and skips through the trees upon its exit. The shot jerks the man clear of his saddle, throwing the him to the ground with a FLOP and Henry is
thrilled. The .54 caliber shoots true and packs a powerful impact. His pride in the rifle and his excitement from the guns effect are obvious by Henry’s
 shaking hands, triumphant smile and wide, happy eyes. The sight of Henry’s joy would normally warm a mother’s soul but not this time. Him standing
there in his trail weary attire of blue, faded overhauls, brown coat, his bright red-hair, shining blue eyes and grin beaming his rarely enjoyed glee
 was a sight to behold and should have been contagious to his Ma, but it did not work that way.
Samantha, awake from the shot sleepily walks to Henry shaking her head in disgust. Henry’s mother, grabbing the rifle from a flinching
 Henry cried “That man done nothing to be shot for”  
 
 Henry said" He followed us all night and was going to hurt you and me, he rode because he thought 
we had something worth killing us for". 
 
She replied, “He might never have seen us. You are too quick on the trigger. Life is not for you to take
needlessly”.  She was disgusted with any part in this mans death she might have played and for Henry  enjoying such a cowardly act.
   Then Samantha promptly whipped young Henry within an inch of his life with the musket butt. First She caught Henry off guard with a
 poking barrel to the midsection and back flipped  the butt overhanded on his forehead with a KLUNK, the same way Samantha would beat out a hanging rug with a
 broom. Standing over a dazed Henry laying on the ground she grasped the barrel and used the butt end as if she was pounding butter in a churn. His ribs were
a safe bet for his Ma once he was down to help him remember.
 She tapped his ribs with the edges of the butt to beat them thoroughly, like she was trying to separate the meat from his rib bones  while she growled at
 him about his bad behavior.
   Henry was already unconscious mercifully missing the verbal tirade from the headshot she inflicted with his rifle. Samantha
knew the whipping was brutal but Henry now is man sized and needed the strongest discipline she could muster, it might curb his lack of respect for God’s
given life and the Lord’s teachings. A mothers work is never done. 
The man’s horse looked to be starving as bad as Henry. When he shot the highwayman he had planned to eat some of it  but when he woke from
the beating it was gone, Ma had sent it off.
“Aw Ma” he croaks as he tries to rise on shaky legs, "That horse had a backstrap that would have fed us fresh meat and pounds of
  jerked for later on down the trail Henry mumbled.
It was near the end of winter and berries and varmits were gone or thin. Samantha was not about to let Henry gain anything from his
 senseless act. This was not the first man Henry killed around his Ma but was the last in her presence. Boy his ribs were sore and when he took a breath it had a
 corresponding knife sharp pain.  Samantha shook her head to herself behind Henry's back regretting the egg sized lump she put on Henry's forehead.
 
Samantha said " Henry, I am starved as much as you but you are not going to kill strangers for your needs, no matter how strong
the need is. You will not be a killer to stay fed, or have the things you want. I know you have shot men who were shooting at us and killed many at a young age
but that was kill or be killed. This was not, you just shot him because you were scared and you could eat his horse and keep a camp for a few days. We do not
 have time to set in a camp, even to eat some poor fella's horse".
 
Henry spoke to Samantha as respectful as he could when he said  "Ma, I found him following us to our camp and I think he was in town when we left. He
 followed us out of town and all night, He was going to kill us for what we have. I am scared to the bone that someone will catch us sleeping again and kill
 us this time"
Samantha said "Henry, you wait for a weapon to be drawn next time if you are going to defend us. I love you and you make me proud, this journey is so
 hard for any human and half grown you have made it possible for us to survive it, but if you became a murderer I would wish us both dead, please don't do it again".

Henry’s hate and fear were so strong that Henry just wanted to shoot anyone they cross paths with. Most grown men are bigger than Henry, who at thirteen
 had almost six feet of height, but weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. A full head of red hair and ice blue eyes caught most off guard. Henry needed
an edge and surprise was a good one. Henry had to protect his Ma and himself. That is easiest from a distance. Ma did not agree with Henry saying, “A real
 man can let people come up close enough to get to know them. You are not a coward, you can't kill everybody you run into in the woods that you do not know.”
 
Samantha felt he was using her as an excuse to kill all he could because it made him feel big and in charge. She said
 “Henry, you keep killing and someday a posse will hunt you down and shoot you like a dog or take you home to hang to death in front of the townspeople”
She prayed he would grow up and listen to his Mama.
 
Henry noticed while passing through Arcadia that most of the cowboys wore at least part of a confederate uniform. It had been a year since Henry had seen
men in the confederate garb. He assumed the union must not be this far south. Henry was right in that the union forces did not influence that area and
were weak this far south. Arcadia will be out of reach for outside law enforcement fifty years after the war. More people die in Desoto County than out west
 at the turn of the century. Arcadia, a wild cow town had up to 50 gunfights a week and range wars were constant with range justice enforced and revenged by others
keeping the pot of murder boiling for the entire decade of the 1890‘s.

As they walked past a trio of cattlemen the men invited Henry and Samantha to their camp. A big man on a roan was waving his hand at Samantha
and Henry calling "Hello over there"
He came riding up a minute later and said "What are you folks doing out here? It's hotter than a frying pan in the devil's house today"
Samantha said "We are from Alabama and heading to my brothers house in Fort Myers"
 
The Big Cowboy smiled and said " My Name is Matthew" as he come off his horse, landing on his feet he raised a dust. He dusted himself and his hands and
 shook henry's hand and took off his hat when he spoke to Samantha shyly saying
 "you both look hungry and thirsty, want a drink of my water" as he handed out his round army canteen to them.
Henry looked to his ma and she looked at the big cowboy and saw he was just a teenager. Samantha took the offered canteen and said "Thank you Matthew,
I am Samantha Johnstone and this is my son, Henry".
Matthew smiled and said "Please come to our camp, my brother and our partner have dinner for tonight
and will be cooking soon. It isn't a mile from here"
Samantha and Henry smiled and followed Matthew to the camp.
 
When they arrived about an hour later Henry and Samantha met Coleman and Jacob. Coleman Took off his hat and so did Jacob as they walked up to Matthew and
his dinner guest. Coleman was big like his brother Matthew and just as polite. He looked at Samantha and said " My name is Coleman Weeks and this here is Jacob
Bartow" then he patted Jacob on the back who smiled and nodded his head. Coleman then asked
" Would you like to go to my aunts house in town, she would feed you alot better than my cooking?
 
Samantha Smiled and squinted from the early evening sun going down behind Coleman and said
 " Thank you Coleman, My name is Samantha and this is my son Henry. We have walked from North Alabama and am heading
 to my brother Luther Cannon's home in Fort Myers. I could not think of imposing on your aunt but we would appreciate some of that fresh pork you have there".
 
Jacob spoke his first words of the meeting on the prairie  with " Please set back off the fire a bit and I will fix you a plate ma'am, Henry, jump up here and get some grub".
 Henry smiled at the young cowboys as if they were heros and waited for them to load their plates first. Jacob handed Samantha a plate and she blushed and thanked him.
She thought to herself" These boys are so polite, I hope it rubs off on Henry, I would be so proud if he grew to be like these boys". 
 
 It was early evening and the cowboys fried fresh pork smelling like
 heaven cracking in the pan, last weeks biscuits and fresh coffee to wash the meal down, which was the finest cuisine the pair had enjoyed since leaving
Alabama. It was also the first sign of human compassion to exist on the long arduous trail. These cracker cowboys, in their twenties or late teens had
mothers like Samantha and brothers like Henry at home. Two of the young men were brothers being Matt and Coleman Weeks. They said they had cousins in the
Carolinas but their family had been cowboys in Florida a hundred years. The third man, Jacob Bartow quietly made Samantha and Henry feel at home.
Jacob, a skinny cowboy, real quiet but friendly had cousins that married Seminoles and he himself looked a bit Indian, he might have been the oldest.
They all looked about the same though, tall and thin with brown hair. Florida’s hellacious sun would keep her cowboys thin and faded, but they were tougher than
 nails on the trail.Folks like Samantha and Henry were being burned alive on the trail during the hot days in the spring of 1865 in Arcadia, but these cowboys flourished.
 Samantha and Henry were ecstatic to wash the meals gear (tin plates and iron pan) and enjoy a night by the fire listening to the cowboys banter and stories.
 The next morning was a little sad goodbye for the pair who relished the security of being among friends but south they treked. Coleman had drawn a
 map in the sand by the fire and pointed them to the southwest. They were to walk in that direction until they found the River. Then they were to follow it to
 the town of Ft.Myers 
After many months of wading, crawling, and jumping away from snakes the pair arrived in southwest Florida’s Lee County near Luther’s Groves.
Samantha and Henry came to a creek bed a little before dark and decided to camp there. They had some of the cowboys biscuits, dried meat
 and sat down to enjoy their meat, biscuits, and coffee the young men had shared. Henry took the pan,fork and silverware and tin plates to the little
creek and washed the dishes in the current. Henry comes back and says, "The winds are swapping west to northwest, I hope it don't get any colder"
Later in the evening the wind had tuned to a steady western blow, strong enough to blow Henry's hair in his face when he turned the wrong way.   
Now a cool breeze is blowing from the west off the Gulf and the clouds are going by fast. The wind is a relief, blowing too hard for bugs to swarm.
Henry is just taking it all in.
The moon looks ghostly full when not hiding behind the racing clouds and the little creek is swift as well with an
occasional snap of silver mullet breaking the top. It is the fourth full moon of the year and a sweet, pungent aroma tells of a grove well into its
 flowering cycle. With their relief audible in their breath they realize safety, family and friends are near. Henry looks at his gaunt, sunburned mom
 and they hug for the first time since the killing and whipping.  Samantha said "That orange blossom smell must be Luther's groves".
The sweet smell is sweeter than the french prefume called "Orange Blossom" she had from Atlanta, but she recognized it.
Henry said, "Ma, that smells like your perfume".
Soon Henry’s uncle had him working in his grove south of Ft. Myers with the operations ramrod, Captain Wrightson. Henry loves this cow town of Ft. Myers.
 Not a Yankee in sight and life here was normal. There are no highwaymen, no troops burning towns.
Of course you could go to town and see the daily pistol and or knife fights. Sporting bare-knuckle events between friends and foe in the taverns and the
streets or alleys were common entertainment and a fight is like a flower, it blooms and throws seeds amongst the observers who, after time will start their
 own broohaw. Too soon, Henry and his rye had trouble staying sober long enough to watch the town’s sometimes lethal shenanigans or at least remember
them. As he aged Henry through his teen years he was very content to call Ft. Myers home. He enjoyed the backroom ladies occasionally but his money
did not come easy. It would be more likely he would drink on First Street and hit the mash with his acquaintances from town who worked for Jacob
Summerlin out at his Punta Rassa ranch. This ranch ranged from town southwest to today’s Iona and Punta Rassa and south.
 Mr. Summerlin had much more than that.
 
 The docks at Punta Rassa shipped 35,000 to 40,000 head of cattle some years back in the 1830’s and 1840’s, Jacob Summerlin’s cattle was scrubbed out of
 Lee County and surrounding local area but he rode all the way to Tampa and had little camps he worked along the way.
 Henry worked 5 and ½ days each week, 12-16 hours a day, but he figured catlle work was harder. He was happy to wake because he was becoming a better
grove man everyday.
 Henry learned fast in the farmyard and at school, even during the war and traveling to Florida. Henry had always learned fast and for that he was happy.

 
The union’s black troops rarely showed themselves outside of the fort during the war but they were non-existent after the war, I am sure they were happy to go home.
They had to travel battalion strength as groups of two or four would disappear, presumably in the swamps under a Gator hole. The purpose of these troops
 were to harass confederate cattle shipments and they saw some action in Charlotte Harbor and north but south of Ft. Myers was a no-no and southeast to
Immokalee was unheard of. Those cowboys Samantha and Henry met east of Arcadia said they never saw any Union troops. The Seminoles kept white man
 jumping when he was east of town, especially Union troops. I am sure Punta Gorda had plenty of armed citizens as well but it was a hot spot with it’s dock
suitable driving cattle on to large waiting ships. The Union Navy was a constant companion to the dock and the harbor was clearly a priority.
The Seminoles stayed away from town. They stayed in the swamps with the cattle and the freedom they took from the union troops a generation ago. The
three Seminole Wars had caused many Indians to be forcefully moved west of the Mississippi River and forced some stubborn maverick driving braves and
families to anchor a central and south Florida tribe.

* The Seminoles occupied the southeastern United States for 12,000 years. They were finally granted citizenship in 1934.
The Caloosahatchee River runs through Fort Myers and empties into Estero Bay. Henry worked in two groves for his uncles company. One on the bay and
one up Moccasin Creek several miles south of town.
The company had a huge grove on Moccasin Creek and Henry helped manage pickers (use to be slaves) and keeps the groves with the Captain. The
company sent the slaves down to the groves before the war with Wrightson commanding ship from Mobile Bay down to Ft. Myers and Estero.
 Uncle Luther and the Captain felt that slaves would always be slaves and Henry agreed and treated them that way.
Ft. Myers was a dandy place all right and Henry was finally home. Much to Henry and his friends chagrin the population of Florida was 25% emancipated
slaves, which was a sore subject in Fort Myers in 1865.
* In pre Revolutionary War times many of the Irish-Scottish immigrants were in servitude to pay their passage but were educated and well equipped to be
the business and civic leaders many of them were destined to become. Irish immigration began in the 17th century but they were soon to be the most
populous immigrant in the colonies excluding the English. In 1718 a large group of Irish -Scottish immigrants came to America and the stream continued
 until the Revolutionary War and continued once the war was over. Johnstone is a Scottish Surname and an Irish one as well. The first John was
 a Norman land owner in the 12th century. His sons added the son or stone we are so familiar with today.

Some other folks…

 

Chapter Three

Not a large or muscular lad, matter of fact kind of scrawny, but one look at this boy in the woods tells you he is ready for what might come

 his way. Silently still, wearing a burlap bag with holes for sleeves and dark trousers belted with a rope, he patiently waits sitting on the ground with

his back against a pine tree .Young Jehu Bartow, about 5 and a half feet tall, dark with dark hair ,sharp eyes and ever present half smile could

be one of Huck Sawyer’s friends. He looks natural as the tree he sat against with his nose to the breeze. 
 

  He worked double hard last night cleaning around the farmyard and tending his families critters so he could take a morning stand deep in Ortona’s

woodlands. He knew being  part of the woods when the day began would  make his hunt better.Some of the tweety and other birds like cardinals

and bluejays were flying around and paying no attention to Jehu. His pine tree and palmetto stand was all the cover this he needed.

Over the rhythmic dew dropping on the ground from the trees and a mild breeze, he hears the stirrings of some prospective dinner.

He can hear the mumble of a distant early riser but not sure if it is bird, or swine. He smells the distinct smell of muddy hogs so they must

close.


Filling the sky, big flocks of birds leaving last night’s roost like Curlew, Iron Head, and Hooper Crane are overhead. He can hear Mosquito swarms

thick as a horse blanket humming a quarter mile away as the fog settled on the ground. An alert a distant fox squirrel barks “Bar, bar, bahr” and squeals

 from pigs nearby can be heard over the plop, plop of the dew falling on the ground from the trees overhead.
Jehu chose this spot because there is so much sign of hog. While rabbit hunting a while back, Jehu and his father hunted the middle of a dry season

cypress head and discovered all this plowing and hog scat. 

When Jacob and Jehu came through the bull rush to the open lowland, it had a heavy green carpet.

Jehu said "Pa , this place smells like hogs" 

Jacob patted his son on the back and said " I saw a little dirt kick up on the edge of the treeline over there,

 see the dust over there where that hole is, they just ran through there when they heard us coming." Jacob, bending down there with an arm on Jehu's

shoulder as they both looked down Jacobs other arm , pointing into the tree's. There was a spot in a wall of bullrush that was open for animals to run through.

"Now don't you come out here without me, it is too thick and some big hogs are in the bunch that did all this digging"

Jacob said to Jehu as he hugged him a little and stood back up. Jehu looked at his dad and said "Allright dad" .

Jehu looked around and was astonished. The clearing looked as if it was a battle ground cannon balled a hundred thousand times.

If it was summer this land would 2-4 feet under water . That is why the hogs prefered it as the ground was moist with some crawdads to be found.

The hogs find the crawdad holes and dig or bulldose with their snout and feet when needed to catch the next crawdad, with those long piney-rooter

snouts they could smell a grub or crawdad from a good distance. 

 

Jehu snuck back on his own this morning contrary to what his dad had told him that day, this morning Jehu sat against his tree on the palmetto

 hammock in this big dry cypress head all by himself.

 

A sudden movement from the side alerts Jehu to a huge boar hog. The boar is so big and close, maybe 50 steps, that Jehu is afraid to breath. The

muddy-faced boar stares coal black into Jehu’s eyes and it begins to do what it came to do. He is starting to root for some variety of grub or crawdad. A huge boar

can “Plow” a hole a foot deep with his snout and hooves and a half-acre every hour. Luckily, for Jehu this hog did not care for him at all. Jehu did not dare twitch,

a big boar can kill ten dogs and maybe a hunter. Jehu thought it better to let boar pursue his grubs than instigate a dash to the big tree to climb in. Forgetting to breath

 for a moment, Jehu slowly exhales to ease his burning lungs.

The old 36-caliber musket is best suited for squirrel or rabbit but could kill any animal when shot proper. Jehu did not have a great deal of confidence in

 the musket for a bear or hog as big as a bear, no matter how proper he could shoot. The boar with long, shimmering black hair and bulging muscle is as big as a

bear. With a long nose and tusk, he looked like he could eat Jehu if he wanted. He is the biggest Piney Rooter he ever saw and what a tusky boar. Jehu thought to

himself  "That boar would smell really bad in the pan, and besides I am glad he didn't eat me, I aint shooting that old boy". Jehu sat there smiling thinking about

the boar. He thought "Dad would be mad if he seen me now sitting next to this big hog out here"
Wild boar are as dangerous as any animal Jehu could hunt. Many of animals he lived around could eat a person like bear, panther, and alligator or

wild old bulls out in the thick woods stomping you into a mud hole and leaving you to the buzzards. Jehu's dad had told him a few storys about evil bulls in the thick.

Many of the areas animals hunt their dinner, sometimes in teams, sometimes alone, some in the day but most at night. He supposed the big boar ate what and

when he wanted to, he was a champion hog.

 

Jehu had heard tales of a whole family ate by Alligator at Indian Hill. Old Mr. Weeks was ate by his hogs on his

 farm. Snakes are everywhere and where you least expect, one bite could kill. Granny Gitoe said if you do not wear shoes, you will always see the

 snake before you step on him. Keeping all this in mind Jehu thinks it best to sit quiet and not bother the boar.  He thought

"Maybe he will go away in a bit and I can

go walk about looking for pigs, I just have to wait for the boar to move on".

 

Jehu did not wait long to change his mind. He heard the pigs coming and when he saw the variety of hogs he knew he had hit it this morning.
More swine begin congregating to his area and several are 50-pound pigs. This could be a great day. A 50 lb pig is the perfect pig. Bringing home two

 pigs would be cause for celebration. He would not hunt all day today, rabbits were easier to clean but you had to walk a few miles to gather dinner sometimes.

 Those pigs would be small enough to drag a half mile easy and he should be home soon. He had to shoot him a few since they were so many all of the sudden.

Jehu started thinking about all the eating he was going to do tonight. 

 

Mama, Mary, and Martha would have roast, bacon , pickled feet and enough to trade Mr. Johnson for some store goods. The lard can be cooked and then used to

 store venison in a barrel in the barn. Small pigs lard was sweet, not rank like an old boars and the venison would be sweet. They would be eating good off of this

 mornings hunt! Granny Gitoe could come to dinner and stay until breakfast. Jehu loves the areas midwife and storyteller. Jehu had to get Granny when his

 sister Mary was born since Dad was herding cattle down the river to Punta Rassa. As early as 1840 Cattle were being shipped to Havana with thirty thousand

head loaded on boats at Lee County’s Punta Rassa that year through Mr. Jacob Summerlin‘s range south of Fort Myers to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee on

the Estero Bay. Jehu wanted to ride the range with his dad, but he stayed with his ma and sisters and helped run the farm. 


 

Just a little more compelled to shoot two pigs with one shot, as he was to sit quiet , Jehu pulls back the hammer with a loud “CLICK” . This click has all the

pigs grumbling and are stirred up. Jehu needs two pigs to stand close enough to line a shot through ones neck behind the head . High enough to hit the

first pig in the top half of his first neck bone and hit the second in the face or heart or backbone. The pigs are moving around but seem intent on plowing

for grubs. With a hissing snap and “KABLAM” his shot connects to the first pigs neck with a “THUMP” it is obvious as the second pig falls it worked just like

 Dad had said. Jacob told him "I shoot through ones heart and sometimes hit the one next to him too with this 45-70". Everything has a way of working out.

 The remaining pigs scattered screaming, crashing through the brush away from Jehu as the smoke cleared.
Jehu felt emboldened as he left his stand with a seriously large knife and a determined attitude in his eye. Taking life is a solemn time. As he walks to the pigs to

bleed them he can still hear the pack of hogs fussing among themselves nearby. He took a knee next to pig #2 and stuck his knife in the side of his neck behind

 the ear and jaw and found the juggler, 10 seconds and a few kicks and the pig is silent. Pig #1 is dead so he sticks his knife in its juggler and watched the blood

 flow. Jehu is excited, he thought to himself with a smile "Mama will be proud".

 

    Back at home, Jehu’s mother Martha is doing the days washing . The river made life so easy, She could garden and water her fruit trees. Martha even has citrus.

She was so afraid of the big alligator population Martha told her kids,

"Sometimes big gators can stalk you from the river but if you are careful to keep an eye open to them hiding underwater in the mud at the shore they could not

sneak up on you. If you did not see them and walk too close you could disappear and never be heard from again. That ole gator will jump out of the mud like

lightning and drag you to the bottom of the river and drown you".  Martha had an instinctual need to look under

foot and everywhere else danger could hide, especially the Caloosahatchee. It was an instinct rooted in the fear of making that fatal step. 

She passed this instinct on to her kids and they never got bit or ate, none yet. She kept them scared of anything they needed to. If a person was to step on a moccasin,

rattlesnake or alligator they were apt to die so be scared or  be dead. She told them about the rattlesnakes in the palmetto and the moccasin in the water or mud. She told

them about all the people that died from these perils that she knew and anything else that would make an impression.

 
In Ortona there are big cattle spreads on the range flourishing in peaceful times and land available to hard working,

God-fearing cattle-folk.

Jehu's dad's family the “Bartows” are one of the first families in Florida this far south and for that her father Jacob is proud, but some of them were indian fighters

which did not set well with Zeke. Jacob was born in Atlanta in 1824, Martha was born in 1837 to Zeke and Martha. Jacobs dad Peter came to Lake Alfred in 1840 after serving a hitch at

the fort there where the army forced the big seminole city to disband and run south or by a foot marched move to Oklahoma.

She and her husband Jacob eventually homesteaded these 160 acres in 1870's and had squatted darn near twenty years

before then. It was home and farm enough for man and wife and three kids to thrive. Jacob could be home sometimes, when he was not on the trail. Occasionally

 he could be gone a few months when they drive from Kissimmee and Okeechobee, or to Estero's Coconut or Punta Rassa. In the early years of their marriage

Martha stayed with her father while Jacob was gone or building the shack into a home for the family. At first it was a place her and Jehu got away but as the family

and its home needs grew, so did the home. Today the sun is pretty high in the clear sky and the chores are moving along without complexities.

 Martha’s daughters Mary and Martha are helping in the garden while they wait for dry cloths to fold and put away. Martha’s son Jehu is out rabbit

 hunting and due home by dinner. Jehu is more of a man by the minute, which is what is needed. The girls are 6, 10, and Jehu is 12.

 little Martha asked her mother from across the farmyard "Ma, do we have to dress the collards today?" Martha answered back "I think you should wait until we

water tomorrow, it is too dry"    Martha smiled and shook her head in agreement thinking to herself

"Good, I don't want to smell that manure today nor do I look forward to it tomorrow". Martha, named after her mother was a good daughter and big sister.

Mary was a dark version of her mother, you could see Indian traits with her dark skin, her mother and sister had a lighter shade of skin but the same traits.

Mary an impish 6 year old squeeled " Momma, there is a big grasshopper eating the collards, come look!"  Martha went over to her baby sister and cried

"Yew, its big and yellow, Momma it's a nasty looking bug" The three womenfolk stared down at the grasshooper, it was 3 inches long yellow and had left a trail of

 destruction on the collards newest leaves. Martha kicked it off the leafs and stomped it in the dirt, it had ruined its last leaf. The girls both groaned "Yewee"

 

 

 Jehu waits for the hogs to bleed out and reloads the .36 cal musket.

To the east, he can hear the family of hogs grumbling and squealing about fifty yards into the Bull Rush Grass.

That big boar and the others are squealing and snorting. It was a great shot and now a good time to get

home. He takes a quick look into the trail through the Bull Rush and spots that big boar. He looks right into Jehu’s eyes. He has black mud all over

his face with his eyes and tusk beaming through. Young Jehu mischievously smiles, causing a twinkle in his youthful brown eyes. This boy is dark

and tanned with both his White man and his Indian characteristics prominent, just like everything else in the state becoming unique to Florida, a blend

 of White man and Indian.
Jehu grabs a rope from around his pants, ties a pig to each end, and drags the pigs with the rope around his waist. This leaves his hands free for his

 gun. He leans forward and starts to drag. The rest of the hogs stay behind as Jehu leaves the woods, he can tell as the squeels become more distant.

Across the Roberts pasture, Jehu goes home. The Roberts are the big cattle family here. Jehu’s father worked for this family and ranch. Jehu’s father

Jacob had known the Roberts up in Polk County when he was young and had worked for them a long time. Jehu’s uncle Jehu is also becoming a

prosperous cattleman and is building an

 eventual big herd in southeastern Lee County known as Corkscrew. He is Jacob’s half brother and they compete more than speak, sharing

Jacob’s stepmother had not made the close brotherly relationship you would hope for.

 

Jehu’s slender mother wearing a faded blue dress and grey streaked black hair in a bun is hanging laundry in the farmyard; his sisters dressed

 like their mother were in the garden weeding. Over in the corner of the yard is a young bull tied to an oak tree. This bulllives on goats milk, grain fed,

and he will feed them like royalty. Once about every year and a half they slaughter their yard bull and start over with a new calf. Although beef is plentiful,

 it is easy to barter with fresh meat when it is was farm raised, hand fed stock. Jehu’s father Jacob remembered early days when there was more Maverick

cattle than people. Folks back then preferred venison to scrub cattle, wild hog being the mainstay.
Young Jehu is excited to clean his hogs. He dragged them to the barn, which is next to the well-expanded shotgun shack they live in. At the entrance

of the barn is a post with a block and tackle and a wooden spreader hung to clean game from the wild or the farmyard fare. Jacob stores his tools,

supplies, goods for his yard animals and horse in the barn. About fifty steps into the trees at the edge of the yard is a smokehouse the size of modern

day refrigerator for their smoked meats and fish. Living on the Caloosahatchee River supplied plenty of mullet, gator, turtle, deer and hog to smoke.

The “Sea Cow” is a daylong job when Jacob and Jehu decide to harvest one from the abundance of the river. Sea Cow meat is composed of fat and

 meat swirled in layers like giant Danish.
His mother waves him over yelling “What you got there boy?” 

Jehu's reply was a happy "We have 2 pigs just big enough to be worth killing".

Jehu's mother Martha smiled and patted down her dress and thought "I don't like him hog hunting by himself, those tusky varmits will cut

 him up and eat him"

She says, “Jehu , you got a lot of work there son. Where did you find those pigs?

Jehu said "Back by Robert's pasture"

"Mamma don't want you in the swamps tracking hog and cow son, they are too dangerous for you all alone"  Martha told her son,  and she continued 

"You better get a drink of water here” as she pointed to the pump "You have been working mighty hard this morning boy". While he worked

the pitcher pump Dad got from Tampa Jehu was all smiles and no stories. His mother persisted so Jehu told how he was walking in the woods

looking for rabbits and saw those pigs. 

He smiled at his Ma and said "This big bunch of hogs come running out of the woods and I shot one

 and killed Two, and didn't shoot-up any meat on either" He had a look of being up to something but his Ma could not

 imagine what, she just knew he was up to something. She nodded her head and patted him on the back as she went to the garden.Back at the Garden

 Martha and the girls talked about the hogs and if Jehu was behaving  and what Mr. Johnson would trade for the fresh tenderloin and remander of a

small pig. Little Mary wished for some cotton cloth for some dress for her that was printed with Daisy and Pansies, Martha wanted some soft cloth

she found in light blue which would be fine. Everybody will get a little something and it was exciting for them.  

 

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and went back to work. Jehu drags the pigs to the spreader bar and winched on up and tied it off.

 He cut the first pigs back feet near the Achilles and strung him up tying the rope to lock the height the pig is hanging and proceeds to skin him.
The pigs are small and his knife is freshly stone sharpened so the skinning is progressing smoothly. After skinning, Jehu opened up the pig and

 cautiously removes his guts, careful not to break the bladder or anything else placing the guts in his bucket to dump away from the barn. After

cleaning both pigs, Jehu uses a bucket of water to wash the meat off real good so his Mother may approve and enable her to clean it again

when cooking so it would not be gritty or hairy. It was well past noon when Jehu was done. He carries the pigs into the house in halves and mother

 is going to clean and quarter the pigs and go to town with one pig in quarters to sell in Ft.Myers to the little towns butcher. Jehu built a hot fire

 for the smoke house and put the shoulders on the wire shelf. The smoker was taller than Jehu and about 3'x3', with the fire in the bottom the ham

will slow cook and smoke as the fire burns down in the smoker.  when he gets back it will be seasoned.

 

He then takes a ham to Granny Gittoe to trade for a kid(goat). Granny told him she had too many goats so he knows she wants some pork.

  As he grabs a ham and a backstrap off the kitchen table where Martha is wrapping up her

butcher work He says "I want to go to granny's and trade a ham for one of her new goats, that would come in handy real good next month"

Martha smiles as Jehu leaves and waves him goodbye, already looking back to her work. He walks about two miles in a hour through open pasture

west to Granny Gitoe. Jehu arrives at Granny's home and enters through the west side of her 20 acre grove and farm. Granny had the river in the back

 and a spring where her cottage is. The grove consist of ten-year orange grafted on wild lemon. A friend of her's in Ft.Myers gave her cuttings from the groves

and some of the trees she has in her grove.

Desoto's men spit orange seeds that 300 years later a evolved to a sour, citrus tree that grew wild and independent a man's cultivation,"Florida's wild lemon".

 

 As he enters Granny's farm yard gate Jehu makes a stop at the garden where he tries a bean off the pole an a guava from a tree in the garden providing shade

 and then had a big collard leaf, which was all very good. He stepped away from the rows of the garden to the path to the house front door and stopped

at the mulberry tree for two red ones and a few purples. He knocks on the door and Granny yells "Come in Jehu"

Jehu says "Granny I have a ham to trade for a kid and some back strap to roast for you"

Granny smiled and said " By the looks of that ham I would say this is a small pig, lets throw the back strap in and stew it with the collards"

Jehu said  "Yes ma'am, I shot both in the neck and head with one shot, they died fast and didn't suffer a bit, are you going to fry the backstrap chunks in the pan?"

Granny said "Yes, do you want a piece" Jehu smiled shaking his head yes and said "Thank-you"

Granny told Jehu the kids from the new round of goat births were just old enough to leave the farm and accepted his offer with a "lets get this cooking" 

 

He talks while Granny starts steaking her ham out saving the rest for

soup. Jehu said "I seen those pigs standing there and shot 'em quick, I was so good I surprised myself"

Granny laughed and said "You ought to be humble, knowing you killed both with one shot tells a person that you shot good"

Granny loved Jehu, he was such a good boy and was growing fast.

 She had “Irish Potatoes” in the yard and collards to cook with this ham.

When Granny takes those collards and cooks a meaty hambone and some potatoes, Wow that is good stuff.

Jehu said, "Granny, your collards smell so good in the garden I tried a piece, It wasn't bad bitter at all"

Granny to smiling a big toothless smile saying" I seen you out there boy, you took a big ole piece, I seen that"

Jehu asked "Would you like me to go dig some of your potatoes and pick a mess of greens?"

Granny said "Well my young man Jehu, that would be mighty fine and if you was to wash them while you are out there it would be good.  You keep an eye

 peeled for my ground rattlers as they are apt to be hiding in the squash and don't move my vines too much, it ain't good for them" 

 

Wordlessly a smiling Jehu headed to the garden because Granny G was fixing to cook some collards and ham, ham from a 50 lb pig. While smiling

he thought to himself, "Maybe she will roast a goat when we tire of hog this week" Jehu went to the squash and there was a ground rattler under a big squash leaf'

Jehu wondered

 "Was he getting shade from the sun or hiding from the hawks, maybe there was little hopping mice for him to ambush in the garden, Wonder which?".

 
Granny’s long, white haired ponytail is black and gray today due to heating her washing water over a lighter knot fire but her eyes and beauty smiled at Jehu

through the soot. Who would have thought this slender, five foot tall Indian lady could be so strong. Granny keeps 20 acres of grove and helps the

 little community with its mid-wife needs.
Sometimes Granny smokes a corncob pipe claiming it was “Rabbit Tobacco” but right now, she is intent on the Ham Soup she would cook with

the ham she dosen't eat tonight, It will be seasoned with the collards being cooked together with them. She thought "Those leftovers with some fresh chunked

potatoes would be the best". She reached in her cool box( no ice, just out tof the sunshine through the window and safe from bugs)

 and took out the mornings goat milkJacob but it was something Granny had helped with before and was no problem. She helped the new parents feed

their baby "Goats milk" when he was old enough and watched him and his sisters play and grow all these years.

 

 Granny was about 70 years old and very wise. Wise with the wisdom you get from suffering the good life. Granny suffered pioneering, as

natural as it was. Granny never married and had tolerated few men once leaving home. Men stunk worse than the cattle and were not real

fun to be around if they owned you so, she stayed single. Granny liked the life she had, quite a few babaies called her Granny and she was pleased. 
Grannies mother was Cherokee, her father was Portuguese and when they died Granny went to her grandmother Whiddens home in Arcadia and

 worked for the Roberts off and on for 50 years. She used to work in the house for her grandma and eventually worked as a cook on the drives to

 Kissimmee or Tampa. She had a place of her own in Ortona and stopped caring for the “Chuck Wagon” a long time ago. Now she is free to raise

her goats and citrus, fruit and oaks in the pasture and along her cabins road. Of course, you can still find some wild cattle about but Granny has

 steered clear of mavericks this long she probably will never have any.
Jehu always ask about the Indians she has in her family and she could tell him to care for his family, neighbors, and respect the animals and he

would be a good Indian too! Jehu was a dark looking breed and would make any Indian grandma proud. Some of the kids made Granny lonesome

 for motherhood although she mothered anyone she saw needing it all of her life. Jehu was at her door a few times a week and he was about the

closest and oldest she had.
* By 1875 cattle was the established state business. Old cowboy clans like the Roberts and Whiddens, King and Smiths were very established

operations and each ran their particular range in southwest Florida by then. With the railroads expanding and phosphorous mining and tourism

on the rise the state economic composition was bound for change. Over 100 years later, none has outlasted the cattle industry.

Chapter four

 

     After surviving the treacherous walk to Florida Henry and Samantha settled in at Luther's house and life began again but took two different directions.

Henry worked his Uncle Luther’s groves since coming to Florida in “64”   In “68” Henry’s mother betrayed Henry and his father "Irish John’s" memory

 when she married her Yankee loving no good so and so in Ft. Myers. Within a week upon arrival Samantha met Luther's brother-in-law James Hamilton.

James was the rodbuster for Luther on his main grove at the Caloosahatchee just west of the docks around Orange creek and ranged east a mile.

He was tall and soft-spoken and he stammered and blushed when he met Samantha who recognized the foolishness of men and felt the need to be

persued, cherished and ultimatly loved.

Samantha knew this man was smitten and allowed him to court as he wished. She was in no hurry as she had a family in Henry but did need more.

 

The grove was a sqaure mile of 12 year old trees that were in the best of health. This 650 acre grove produced more than expected every year.

Luther hoped to grow thousands of grafted trees each year and plant fresh groves on easy land in the area. Luther acquired land for 10 cents an acre

and in a few years he would profit $2.00 to $5.00 an acre. It took a lot of patience and investment but Luther loved farming, especially in the sub-tropics. When he

was a boy he farmed side by side with his father Henry. He could run a plow straight when he was 11, and was born caring for a big crop like cotton.

Eleven year-old Luther worked the expansion lands, he would clear land the main operation of his father did not have time to do. Luther would grab a mule

and hook up a plow and head out to some valley that was still swamp and tame it to farm. The rich, virgin lands smelled very different than Florida's sand but

the strong rewards in Ft.Myers made up for the pale soils he cultivated  there today.

Today he buys land, tames the land and grows a crop, a citrus grove. It is a lot more complicated than cotton in Alabama, but the principles of success hold true. 

For Luther all the hard work had fond memories of his Ma and Dad, He lost his dad the day the troops knocked down the split rail around the plantation

 and shot his baby brother and father, then they burnt the cotton, 6,000 acres of cotton, garden and pasture. Rolling hills and rich, red-gold dirt is what

Luther farmed when he was a boy, when a man like his father could make a fortune every year with a decent crop.

 

Prospective grove lands needed to have access to a river and be high and dry. He could always water some grove that was dry but , as he learned a few times

he could not save a grove that was under water in wet years. A few times Luther picked 50 or 100 acres to try because the dirt was rich and moister than

the uplands but all the work and dreams went to waste when the rains flooded the area for 3 or 4 months.

 

Little Henry and James did not mix real well but Samantha hoped Henry would soften his attitudes toward Samantha and James. James had some family in

Boston and New York and did not fight in the war at all but stayed in Fort Myers and worked the grove. James came down from Atlanta in the

 1850's and heard of the tropics of Florida being the place to farm because of the seasons being so mild. He started with the Alabama Company at the grove

ten years before Henry showed up due to a letter from his sister Bess, who was married to Luther Cannon, the owner of the company from Alabama and Henry's uncle. 

Now Samantha married James and her and Luther had married a brother and sister. Samantha's life was starting over again and she was happy to start it with James.

 

     Retreating to an expansion grove south of town after his mother's 1866 wedding, Henry seldom spoke to her preferring to be alone and

 unwilling to change. He liked the loners life. He grew harder and tougher of mind, body and spirit. He asked his Uncle Luther to let him tend a new grove

and Luther thought it a great way for Henry and the grove to grow together.Working and learning day by day he tried to save every days ten cent pay towards

 his unclear future. By the time he was sixteen the tall, wiry 190 pound youth dreamt of owning his own grove. He liked a spot of open range off a nice creek

meandering east from Estero Bay that he fished often. When he saved enough money he wanted to plant his own grove there. Thinking his uncle would help

because Henry was such a good manager, his dream grew. It shattered in ‘68’ when his uncle died and the company was sold to an east coast citrus company.

Not very interested this far south the new owners still knew a bargain and got it. The best asset was Henry. These small groves produced enough to help

meet the growing demand its larger east coast operations created. With Henry there, the small self sufficient operation supported itself and created a

nice profit to boot.Operating and managing a grove consisted of a year around cycle of heavy, hot work-planting-trimming-grafting-dressing the ground-fertilizing

-watering-harvesting-crating and toting boxes to market only to start a new cycle once more. Henry loved caring for the plants, every day he looked for anything

needing his attention in the grove.
Doing the paperwork kept his solitary evenings busy. Henry was at peace sitting by a kerosene lamp at the table in his keepers shack minding

 his ledgers indicating his monthly cost and profits. Sitting in his pants, wiping his brow and drinking a shot or two of Rye, Henry felt good. He wished his

uncle could see him now, he would see he learned the business as Uncle Luther intended.

       The thing that he hated was directing the grove hands. The grove workers performed pretty well

except a few uppity ones that made it bad for all. Some ran away and came back sheepishly to take a beating; others simply disappeared at Henry’s

whim as Gator bait in Moccasin Creek. He was tired of making them work, taking sass, tired of uppity black folk peeving him.
Henry knew his work hands, some good, some bad, lazy, or mean and he really did not enjoy killing them, it was just if he would allow bad traits and habits,

misbehavior, and outright mutiny all would be lost. Once the war was long over it was common knowledge that in the eyes of the law “All men

are created equal”. Henry knew it would happen, the hands would feel free to leave and then who would do his labor?

One night Henry was informed that four men were leaving after Henry went in his house to work the books. Henry waited till 10:00 at night and

 crept outside with his shotgun loaded with buckshot. Clinging to the shadows in the light of the moon he creeps, investigating all sounds and movements thoroughly

 on his way to the road leading north away from the grove to Ft. Myers. Finding a shadowed spot behind a tree Henry waits. It did not take

long for the group of men to come by.

 Henry walks out of the shadows in to the road ahead of them and swears “ You boys go home now or go to hell” Two men turned and ran home and

two gave Henry the rush. Emptying their hands the duo of free black men lunged forward to call the big, white boys bluff.

Henry's pulling the trigger dropped the hammers on both sides of his sawed off ten-gauge which made a Hissing snap and when the men were within 15 feet the

 “BABLAMM” roared from Henry's hand-held canon. Holding down the violent bucking shotgun, Henry fell to the ground. As he got up off the ground from

 the repercussion of the blast of powder and lead shot he saw his powerful blow. In front of him two men lay in the sugar sand dying. Henry was not happy

to kill his workers anymore that he would be pleased to shoot his horse.

If old "RED"  tried to kill him he would not hesitate to kill him, that is true. Henry had known those men and one was uppity but the other seemed quiet,

until that night, Henry figured you never know what is on a man’s mind. Henry brushed himself off and went to his shack to drink a pull off his bottle and get a shovel.

Henry went in and took his bottle of Rye off his desk and took a long, hard drink and felt the booze warm his insides. He then loaded his shotgun and grabbed a shovel to

get rid of these grove hands. As he went outside he heard his friend Rufus coming because Rufus said in the dark "Mr. Henry, are you O.K.? I heard the gunshot and

knew it was bad. Them boys are laying in the dirt dead and nobody is coming out" Henry said "Come on Rufus and help me bury these fellas". Rufus said

"Lets drag them to the creek over there. There has been two gators over there this week when I went to fish. If the big one is there he will eat them both".

Henry said " Lets use the wagon and haul them over there, go hitch it up and come get me"

As Rufus ran off to put old "Red" in the harness for the wagon Henry went back inside and hit the bottle again and then went back outside and sat in the dark thinking about

dressing the grove next week and how long it would take now that he was two grove hands short.

These were the first killings that required a

 gator and many followed. Finally he let everyone left alive leave who wished to, or he would be forced to kill them all so why bother?

"It was not their fault they had been freed, it was Lincoln's and he was dead" Henry told his friend Capt. Wrightson who agreed saying,

"Killing them will not bring them back, it's just waste of your soul" Henry swallowed his mouth full of rye and said, 

"Captain, I suppose my soul has been lost for a long, long time"

The captain was 30 years older than Henry but still had a soul, he silently agreed that Henry was bound for Hell.


 

Some 160 acres south of Estero call him. The nice piece of land on the creek in open “Range” was grazed occasionally by cattle owned by Ezekiel Whitt.

 Not wanting to be shot, he called for permission from the old man about his plans to fence the land he wanted for his grove. When meeting with Old Whitt,

Henry became thunderstruck by Whitt’s Granddaughter Mary Alma Whitt. Mary or her lifelong nickname “Mollie” was a striking beauty. Mollie’s Cherokee

 blood lines were obvious from her translucent olive skin and Coal black hair and eyes. Also she was built like a brick chuck wagon with a very full

 figure that made Henry stammer. Dumb struck Henry added her to his plans. Henry had some girls up in Punta Gorda and Fort Myers but they were

 babies when he compared them to Mollie.
Mollie knew men like Henry. Men that did not respect life, man or beast. Murdering, raping and pillaging white eyes plagued the Indians throughout

 the south and anywhere else Indians try to live. Her experience with them started years ago. Mollie lost her mother and big sister to the fever and moved to

her Grandpa Zeke's ranch. As a blossoming teenager she could socialize with the town folk occasionally but was really tied to the ranch and her protective

 grandfather. She escaped by marrying a foreigner from Chicago, Jonathan Cruzski. She met him in Immokalee and quickly moved away from her

Grandpa’s ranch in the Corkscrew area of Lee County to Key West.
      

        Beatings on your honeymoon were unusual, but John was a weird guy. He fought and screamed over dinner, what Mollie liked to eat, wear and

 anything else that gave him an excuse to be a jerk. From the wedding night on Mollie had to say “Yes Sir” and ask permission to go out in the

yard, no less to town for staple and other store bought needs.  At first Mollie fought off the wish to go back home. After time passed resisting

the desire of cutting his throat in his sleep, the sleep that came to him after beating Mollie for wondering where he had been or even waiting up

for him to come home was becoming hard to not do.  To cut this white-eyes throat would give her many things she wants but the price of her soul was too high.

When her mother died she promised her she would make her proud and she could not see her mother being proud of murder.

If John thought she was going to ask to go to the little general store, or church he

 would push her around so she would stay at home, cowering from the knowledge more bullying would follow.
Three years of John at the Keys was enough for Mollie. It was a mistake. She could overlook his stupidity but his vile brutality was unbearable.

She had two sons with him hoping they would cause him to be more caring but he continued to treat her bad and not care about her or the boys,

 only himself. The boys and Mollie could starve as long as John found whiskey and women. He was too stupid to argue and his bullying ways being

taught to his sons was too much for Mollie to bear. Heart-broken Mollie knows this loveless existence was wrong and wasting her life. She would

have to kill John to stay with her babies, not wanting to murder she knows all is lost.
In fear for her life she flees back to grandpa’s ranch and his protection so valued after this first marriage out of grandpa’s reach. Leaving her children

 she divorces John. This left a burning hatred for any Anglo or white eyes. If a man was from the south there was an excellent chance he was a part

 breed of some sort, like half Cherokee or one quarter Cherokee. The Indian eyes were a little squinted and easy to recognize. She could tolerate

southern part breeds but white eyed folks and their very open eyes were not to be trusted. Her father was mostly white looking but for the rest

of them she wanted nothing to do with. Neither did her Grandpa Zeke.

In the months ahead Henry worked his dream. He planted the seed for root stock and spent the money for the grafts, tools, lumber and nails. Cheerfully

 carting 500 trees that just jumped into his cart to his new land and is going to start clearing today. To speed the process he took some grove hands for

a couple of weeks knowing no one at the company will notice that anymore than his 500 trees.
The 160 acres is fenced from the range and shaping up as a grove transcending from Henry’s mind to reality in the dirt. Every project Henry took on at

 his new grove brought satisfaction he never knew or dreamt. It is all for him, not some damn company and the results of his efforts are impressing Henry.

Once his shack was finished and the trees in the ground Henry is free to leave the company.
As Henry was explaining to the new foreman that the old grove wagon and mule were his property, He met resistance. The new guy is six foot tall and

 four foot wide. He looks like a man paid to wrestle bears or pin bulls to the ground by their horns. With his plaid shirt and big beard he resembled Paul

 Bunyan. 

Henry said "My uncle gave me this wagon the day it was bought back in "65" when I opened this grove" The big foreman looked at Henry and shook his head

like Henry had hit him on the back of the head or something. The foreman sneered "The hell you say" and Henry was taken aback but continued.

"It is true I tell you, all the tools in this grove was give to me because I was going to open more groves for him once this one was sturdy and safe"

"The mules, shovels and even the hands were mine" Henry croaked out of his drunken mouth.

The Foreman bellowed back to Henry"You lying sad excuse of a man, I don't know whether to whip you or feel sorry for you"

Henry looked into the man's eyes and said "You best feel sorry for me because I am not your boy for whipping"

As Henry explains Uncle Luther's intentions again  the foreman Says "You are a worthless waste of space, you lie and steal like a criminal and

need to get away from me before I change my mind and stomp you into the dirt right here" It now looks to be a fight as

 the two silently scowl, waiting for the eruption. Henry turns

 his wagon still full of tools belonging to Alabama Citrus Company around and leaves the scene without comment.


After riding a couple of minutes Henry turns around and rides back to the foreman. He was peaved he left the Yankee foreman still standing. The new

man from the east coast operations was filling his shoes very nicely. That pissed him off as well. The Foreman took over the grove Henry raised from

 rooted trees 4 years ago. Henry spotted the new foreman busy working at the base of a tree Henry had raised. He was 500 yards away and Henry can see

his horse more than the man. Henry parks the wagon and takes to his feet walking briskly in the direction of the new man. Henry has his old .54 in one hand

 and his not much left bottle of rye whiskey in the other. He has on a pair of dark brown pants that were once black but no belt, shirt, shoes or did he care. He

rambles closer to the foreman who is unaware of Henry’s path back to him, the wind was too loud. At 75 yards Henry stops. The wind is blowing loud and

 proud but it could not effect a shot almost point blank like this. He smiles and takes a breath while pulling back the hammer. Then after a quick glance of an

aim he fires “BLAMM”.

The huge foreman is down and bouncing back up holding his ear. Surprisingly the ground is not shaking as the Yankee foreman jumps up and down

screaming shrilly. It is funny that Henry’s shot ended the fight before it started. He only nicked the foreman’s ear yet the Yankee was incapacitated as he just kept

 jumping up and down, guess those east coast Floridian carpet baggers lacked sand. Henry was afraid he would get blamed for killing the foreman but

who could blame him for a knick on the ear.

Henry rode off thinking "When I get home I can open that fresh bottle and relax, what a day!"

Henry got home and pulled the cork on his new bottle of rye. He sat at his desk in his new shack and put his feet up on the desk. There was no books to keep on

his new grove and after his meeting with the foreman he felt square with the world. He sat back and dreamed of the new grove of grafted orange and of the woman

of his dreams. Henry felt ready to settle down and raise a family. He knew he would have to stop his killing and drinking but he was ready to be a man.

His father settled down and his mother had loved him very much, If the war had not took him and their life away he might have never went bad, maybe now he

could be the man his mother had raised him to be. His dad surely wanted him to be the dad he was, and "Irish John" was the best Pa ever and Henry wanted to try.

 

As the months went by Henry was around the Whitt ranch most Saturday nights bearing fruit baskets or fresh picked flowers. All this gentle attention

 wore down Mollie‘s will. One Saturday evening  Henry, after visiting an hour or so said "Mollie, if you would marry me I would be the happiest man

in the world"

Mollie said in return " It is nice of you to visit and I like you, you are my friend but I am scared of being trapped in marriage Henry, I have lost

so much from last time"

Henry said, "Well we will get friendly and talk a while Miss Mollie, that will please me plenty for now"

Henry and Mollie spoke of Estero and the grove of Henry's out on the river. Henry told her about the sugar sand and the gators under the shoreline rocks and trees.

Mollie smiled and thought to herself" This man is big and beautiful but he is such a "Yankee", to Mollie, Henry seemed a city boy.

One time he brought a large, new white leather bound bible. He was a total gentleman and eventually Mollie grew to trust

him and accept his proposal for marriage. Henry was happy as hell when Mollie accepted, He genuinely, unmistakably loved Mollie and of this there

was no doubt.
She moved to a grove south of Ft. Myers at Estero and started turning her shotgun shack into a home. She eagerly learned about the complexities of citrus trees,

Moccasin Creek, and Henry. After 6 months she started to suspect she was going to have a baby. How strange this baby or any of its siblings to come

 will never know their half brothers. She always will regret not cutting Jonathan’s throat while he slept and taking her boys.
Henry lumbered some pine  at a pony mill at Grandpa Whitt‘s ranch. Then he and Mollie built a bedroom on the little shotgun shack and a

outhouse in the yard. Henry knew how to sink a well with his horse and a tee-pee frame with rope and pipe and a few pulleys. Now they had

pitcher pumps in 3 different spots on the 160 acres. That made things easier and they wanted more. Mollie really took to the grove and did well.

Henry winked at Mollie as he came in the end of the day and she smiled and blushed when he wasn't looking.

Grandpa Whitt drove some prime beef critters to a half acre corral for Mollie and Henry to farm feed for tender, tasty beef. this new life was all Mollie had

ever dreamed.
Mollie has good things coming, like Henry Jr. in “79” Josephine in “80”, Luther “81”, Clyde”84” Martha in “87” and her own sanctuary in the form

 of an island, Whistlers Key and plenty more kids. Mollie birthed two children totally alone and unattended. She provided twenty families, which she

 considered her own, with a place on her Island and helped them build lives and carried the doctor work for the area with her knowledge of herbs

from her Cherokee upbringing. Magazine articles would be wrote about her generousity and she and her remedies would be sought from good distances

 away by wealthy residents on the Caloosahatchee in Fort Myers and Tampa, even New York City. Mollie loved her Granny Gitoe too and had learned

many ways of the pioneers and Indians of old in the art of survival.

 

*Ezekiel Whitt was second son of William who came to Florida way before Andrew Jackson came to round up the Creek and Seminole Indians

and send them West. Liking Florida, William and his sons Jake and Ezekial rounded up wild Spanish cattle and lived driving them to market in

either Tampa or Punta Gorda.

From those points the cattle was shipped to Cuba. After twenty years of driving cows for his father, Zeke met his second wife, the proud and

 regally beautiful Wilhelmina Carlos in Cuba delivering beef. She kept her name as was her tribes tradition. Zeke brought her back to the Corkscrew

area which was the home of her ancestry. They started a spread on open range which became known as the Whitt Place. Being this far south they

 were not touched by the Civil War and life though tough was good.
“Wilma Carlos” was a tenth generation direct descendant of Carlos( so named by the Spaniards), the head chieftain of the Calusa Indian Tribe.

This ten thousand warrior Indian tribe defeated the Spanish troops lead by Desoto near Punta Gorda. It is not known why the Calusa chose war

 after earlier allowing the Spanish to settle near the mouth of the Peace River in the late sixteenth century. The Calusa built hamlets throughout

Southwest Florida near the intercostals waterways. They also built canals between these hamlets. Known to be gatherers and hunters their survival

depended on a diet that was eighty percent fish. To be sure the large, red male warriors and their beautiful wives clothed in Spanish moss garments

had every right to rule their home since ancient times.
The ruling class was elitist and they intermarried between brothers and sisters to keep the blood lines pure or occasionally to gain political allies to

battle the other tribes of South Florida most notably tobaca. Women were considered equal but were not allowed lead religion or warfare. Slavery was

 an economic benefit for the tribe but was reserved for commoners or captives. They practiced a religion that called for human sacrifice, usually an

unsuspecting Spaniard in the early days. Hostilities with the Spanish ended with the arrival of the British and French who they trusted even less than

 the Spaniards. Most Calusa left Florida in the middle of the eighteenth century when the American Colonist began migrating to the state. The few that

 remained died fighting these new white men or the displaced and fiercely proud Seminoles and Tobaca.
It is not known with certainty that Zeke married Wilma. Wilma died in child birth with an infant son. After this misery his Daughter died and her

husband asked Zeke to raise the youngest daughter, Mary Alma or “Mollie”. Zeke raised Mollie like a daughter with the help of a ranch hands

 wife. Mollies world revolved around her incredibly difficult Grandfather. Her brother Jehu now rides with her Dad, they started a little spread in 

Muse , a lttle bit of clean pasture and swamp on Fish-eating Creek. They are building a herd because Jacob is getting ready to sit on his own ranch,

and Jacob can bring home the  maverick cows and pigs roaming from Muse to Ortona. 






Crackertails Chapter five

Born in 1878 Hewitt Bartow’s ancestry was Tar heel. The Bartow clan came from the Carolinas to Florida over many generations, beginning long before

the revolutionary war. Most of them migrated from North Carolina with a few straight from England. They fought and survived vicious pirates along the

Carolinas, some of these Pirates were kin. Many of the pirates were "Blacksheeps" of the family so many families had pirates and scoundrels. Many of the

Bartow pioneers struck out to the frontier leaving indentured servitude behind hoping to build their own town, home

 and life. Some of the first 600 pioneer families of Florida were family includes a Bartow back in Alachua in 1685.

 They resettled all the way from Massachusetts to the Florida Keys and some of the clan went west in search of gold and prosperity. Many of

the family saw action during the Revolutionary War, and quite a few gave their life to the cause.
One Bartow clan had been in Desoto County in 1821 when historic population records began. In this year it was one of two counties in the state and it

 would be 56 years later before the first Sheriff was appointed to Desoto County. Desoto was in the southern range and many crackers lived their cow

hunter lives there because the land was perfect for cattle, farming and the river provided fishing.  Most settlers were squatters who eventually were homesteaders.

The early settlers were farmers and “Cow Hunters” who ate what they needed and the rest was a cash crop. So all the cows running wild and free coupled

 with the sub-tropic farming presented a real opportunity that the pioneers took advantage of. Shotgun shacks with vegetable gardens and corrals were the

standard of home and cattle ranch. 

 

As the crackers evolved into cattle men they rounded up the wild cattle. The state indian tribe, the Seminoles ,were bunching up mavericks into

herds since the 1700's in Desoto county, but once the Florida Indian Wars seperated the tribe from its cultivated lands and cattle herds, the settlers

became cattlemen and ranchers during the 1840's and 50's. The war between the states changed the business again because the union would take your

cows if they thought the herd was destined for the confederacy and many were. When the war was over, legitmate trade commenced again and ships destined

 for Cuba and to the south were doing a grand trade.Cowboys using 16 foot leather whips that cracked like rifles as the beasts were driven from the brushy

palmettos and swamps. These cattle left by the Spanish centuries before spread through Florida like rabbits. Certainly the Seminole tribe

( Cowcatcher’s tribe circa 1750) that was raising cattle in the 1700’s about 100 miles north of Desoto’s centrally located big prairie caused the maverick

population to soar. Cowcatchers herd was so big it fed a nation in Georgia and very northern Florida and eventually sustained a large indian village for 5

generations. When the tribe was run to Oklahoma all of their cattle ran wild again and in no time multiplied itself many times over. These cattle were

what sustained the cracker and his family, and they could make him wealthy as well.
The Bartow Clan rounded up cattle and drove to Arcadia’s perfect range for the herds; it had plenty of springs and grass to graze all year long. When

it was time to cash in their crop they drove their mavericks to ports like Tampa, Manatee, and Punta Rassa. A herd could travel 5 or 6 miles a day

while they grazed and it could grow many times over along the trail because when there was no brand it was the big mans cattle or the early one.
In 1862 Charlotte Harbor became a good place to sell cattle as the Confederates built a dock suitable for blockade runners to feed the rebel troops.

This dock worked great for Cuba bound cattle as well but Texas and Oklahoma were competing for that market.


Born in 1878, Hewitt Bartow was named after his mothers maiden name. He lost her during his birth and then lost his father to yellow fever at an when he was 5 years old in Arcadia.

 Yellow fever was epidemic in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s in south Florida effecting many pioneer families.Hewitt’s Mother's family moved to Ft. Myers when

 he was a baby so he never knew them. After his father, Nicholas Calhoun Bartow’s death his Uncle John and Aunt Dolly raised him. John and Dolly were from old time pioneer stock

and had raised their children before Nicholas and Mary Hewitt got married and had their baby. Mary died in childbirth and Nicholas relied heavily on his brother and sister-in-law Dolly.

Nicholas was John's younger brother so when Nicholas lost Mary the two brothers merged their herds and households. Dolly was a little more patient with Hewitt than her own and

John was a little wiser to keeping a boy on the path to manhood than he was with his son Early, who is a fine man in his own right. John took more time with Hewitt, and gave him the

old school ways as well. Hewitt was to be polite and kind, but he did not have to let people manhandle him. He would say "Yes Sir and No Maam" but if he needed to protect himself

he was not to hesitate. If Hewitt felt someone was being disrespectful to him he could slap them hard, and if they did not take to that he could do it again. Basically Hewitt was taught

to say as little as possible and be polite, and not take guff off of people. He could ride his cousins pony by the time he was 8 and could ride quite a few miles without being tired, he

loved the saddle and the gun, and when he had time he liked to hunt the river and take a fishing pole for fresh bass and big bream. He did chores for Aunt Dolly and chores for Uncle John

everyday and then rode with John or hunted the local pastures for rabbits and turkey, quail for dinner fare.

 

In the 1890’s Arcadia was known as

one of the wildest towns in Florida. That decade was filled with the infamous “Cattle Wars“. Certainly a brutal era during which the Lynch Law was invoked liberally

in court or out on the range if dealing with horse thieves or cattle rustlers. The judges and the range riders were equally quick to hang for those offences, lots of

 times those cows was all a man had. If you had a nap sack of clothes and a horse and someone tried to steal them you would be pretty upset too. People did not

interfere in others business and everyone knew the laws of the range and accepted them, no matter how brutal they might be.

 It was a weekly occurrence to have up to fifty gun fights in town and the ongoing range wars were renown nationwide. Arcadia was at the end of the Peace River so

it had some fishing, hunting a plenty and being a pioneer in Arcadia would have been great but by the 1890's town was too dangerous. Everyone was leary of strangers

 around their spreads and would use as much force as it took to protect their families,farms and selves. Strangers were not welcome, cowboys were fighting to the death

out on the range over fences or mavericks, and retribution for these killings was common, like the Hatfield and McCoys fued many of these fueds last for generations.

Somebody would feel wronged and pass the experience to the next guy and the violence snowballed.

 Hewitt was young when he learned about the fear violence can give you when

you are near some strong stuff. While fishing along the Peace River one morning Hewitt watched some men chase a man into the water and shoot him. Hewitt was fishing with a

cane and and some cotton line. He heard the the gunshots for five minutes or so and they were getting closer. He heard the yelling in the distance and then horse hoofs running

flat out and close, then a horseman emerged into view. The man rode his appaloosa

into the river off a small mini-cliff where the bank had eroded and dropped off with last summers floods. The horse swam away from the man, he had somehow lost the reins in his

 landing. He landed in the saddle but maybe he hurt himself because he seemed disorientated. He did not go under water when the men came in view and they shot him 40 times,

or that was how it seemed to Hewitt. 7 men did unload their six shooters and the man was shot to pieces in front of Hewitt, who was white as a ghost. The killers did not pay him

any mind, they just rode off. Hewitt never forgot that man dying and those guys riding off or the relief he felt when they left. He heard about cowboys getting killed in cattle wars but

that was the first time he witnessed it.

 

 

At seventeen our cowboy was over six feet tall and weighed under one hundred and seventy pounds dripping wet. This enabled him to ride all day

without wearing him or his steed down. Hewitt was born to work cattle. He sat the back of Aunt Dolly’s milk cow until his pony days and never looked

back. Clearing cattle with his family and friends from the swamps as far east as Okeechobee and south to Immokalee, west to the coast from the Manatee

 River or a peninsula at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River called Punta Russa or Hunters Creek on Charlotte Harbor. Hewitt loved his cowboy

cracker life, out on his horse months on end, free as a bird, eating fried pork or rabbit and hunting cows and the plentiful game. Rounding up mavericks

was the big business that his ancestors had worked in for generations in Arcadia and he was born to do it.

Hewitt favored a walker horse since his early days, when he was 17 he had a walker. Big Red rode tall and stable, although every now and then he

 would get a little onrey like any other animal in god's creation. Big Red might stop fast going down hill or rub up on trees to knock Hewitt out of the saddle.

Hewitt loved his horse and never got angry when Red was mean. If Big Red knocked him out of the saddle he would just laugh in the horses face and jump

 back in the saddle. He figured Red was his boy and if he missbehaved it was to be ignored, they were a team and Hewitt respected Red and his role.

 

They were down in Immokalee one day and were rounding up mavericks for the Roberts, who would give him a dime a head for cows and two bits for a

bull brought to their corrals. One early trip to the corral nearby he saw the Roberts sitting outside the corral in their saddles Hewitt rode to  Mr. Roberts

and his sons and talk about where they thought he might find some mavericks, the Roberts

boys had worked Immokalee for generations and knew every nook and cranny. The patriarch spoke to Hewitt saying

"Hewitt , you should go south to crystal lake, you could drive ten at a time out of there"

Hewitt thought to himself "Them cows will have to be brought in before

much more rain because they will get bunched up in the little bits of uplands making it easy to find them but you have to drive them through water which is harder

and more time consuming, He wanted the easy money but wanted the tough when the easy was done".

Hewitt smiled and replied "I will be going down there before I go home this month, I am finding ten a day now in close and am doing good. I want to build

 up 200 head this month so I can get a little spread my uncle has for sale in Desoto.  Hewitt grins and says

 "Thanks to you for letting me help you fellas, there is a lot of cows down here."

Mr Roberts asks "How is your Aunt Dolly and Uncle John, I have not seen them in ten years now, been too busy here to got to town." Hewitt's Aunt Dolly was

born a Roberts and was the elder Roberts' sister and his sons aunt. Aunt Dolly was raised by a cow hunter named Samuel Roberts and he was from cracker stock,

all the way back to the Seminole "Cowcatchers" day. Hewitt replied "Oh, My aunt Dolly and Uncle said to say hello and asked how you are doing"

Old Uncle Samuel or Hewitts Uncle John were both a little old for 2 day long rides for visiting. Uncle John and Uncle Samuel would be in the saddle everyday

but able to sit when they needed. Hewitt just got in the saddle in the morning and rode until some cow needed him to get down, he rode all day everyday and

 was tough as nails, a requirement for any cracker.

Mr Roberts said  "Tell your Aunt and Uncle I will come up some time" 

 Hewitt smiled and said "Yes Sir, I sure will"

 

Hewitt worked for a dollar or two a day and it was almost pure profit. Hewitt and Red would bring in two, three or more head of cattle at a time he took care to

 protect Red by not putting them in harms way, Red protected Hewitt with his trust to stand up to the cows and the sense to run to fight and live another day,

Sometimes Red was wiser than Hewitt and he let him know it with that look in his eye, Hewitt just knew what he was thinking. Hewitt would say to Red

"Now don't go looking at me like you told me so" or "You shoulda just told me if you are so smart". Red was very sensitive to Hewitt as well and knew his moods

without being told. Hewitt kept his head when the cows made Red react and Red would light out for a safe distance with Hewitt in the saddle for a safer handle on

 their cow situation.

One day this quick thinking horse "Red" saved them both down Immokalee way. Hewitt fond a calf in a mud bog and got down off Red to get

the little guy free. He walked up to the rim of the wallow and lassoed the calves neck to drag him to freedom, when he started pulling the calf to him the

 little fellow started rasing a ruckus , crying for his Momma much louder than before. Now a tame old heffer could get pretty lively over her young. The Cow showed

 up behind Hewiit and was running to her calf and Hewitt. Red saw the cow coming and cut her off.

The big horse was loyal and aware, he stood on his hind legs and his flesh flexed and rippled with power as he snorted and flayed the air with his front hooves as if

 he was ready to box. His black eyes were wild and shining with a glare, his teeth were bared in a grimmace as he danced to the cow.

He ran her down and kicked at her until she turned away while Hewitt dragged the calf to freedom, then the cow followed them to the corrals.

 Red was a big ,strong stallion that was raised by Hewitt but, sometimes taught Hewitt some of life's lessons. Big Red knew to cover Hewitts back, maybe Hewitt

was his boy too!

       Hewitt always got Red covered at night, even if he went without. He had to keep them skeeters off Red as best he could.

Hewitt got Red from his uncle when he was a pony, about a year old. Hewiit watched him born and helped with him if his uncle asked and for Hewitts 10th birthday

Uncle John said Red was Hewitt's and they would grow together.

. Hewitt kept Red free of sandspurs in his coat and got him to the sheds for the horses in the field by Aunt Dolly's farmyard. He had fed him bottled cow's milk,

 pangola grass, oats and corn. Red grew to think of Hewitt as family and Red was what Hewitt cared about most. The men in his family needed their horse to survive ,

and people who were not good horsemen were at a disadvantage on the range,where most opportunity existed for cash earnings and food for their families.

 Red and Hewitt were brothers and so was his peers and their steeds.

Range weather had two hot patterns, hot and dry in the winter and hot and wet in the rest of the year. The summer’s thunderheads built up in the

swamps and coming to the coast like gang busters upsetting any mild day. The ground trembling thunder and cracks of lightning provided warnings

of coming storms. Sheeting rain could come for two weeks straight flooding pastures and overflowing the creeks and rivers. A time or two turned black

and screaming winds howl for two days knocking everything in its path to smithereens. Keeping herds together in these conditions and staying alive

were the test of the cracker cowboy.
When not collecting cows Hewitt entertains himself hunting, fishing, or trapping.  The Peace River provides fish for food and profit.He built quail traps in a

 line or route. He dug holes about a foot deep and as big around as a quail and tapering depth to six inches or so and covered them with pieces of worn out net.

He baited them with cracked corn. Hogs and deer were plentiful and readily accessible on paths to and from the waterholes. Sometimes he would catch five

or so Gopher turtles or some medium sized gators for fancy leather to make a boot skin or hat band,holster or gun sack. The gators that were 4-6ft. long had

thin stomach skin which made almost see through soft leather and faintly musky tasting meat that could be ate if prepared correctly. In Punta Gorda he and

 his friends could kill a manatee in the harbor and butcher the huge herbivore on the closest shoal or shore. The meat is like a swirl cake in alternating layers

of fat and meat. I hear it taste like Eagle.

 Anything he brought to his Aunt Dolly would be mouthwatering considering his cowboy fare he provides himself on the range. When Hewitt was on the range

working he would dream of bringing

in the dinner his Aunt would prepare. When he saw a small pig or a young jake turkey he knew how good they would taste, sometimes it would tempt

him to go home early just to get that diiner he saw walking away. Fried little hog over an open fire is good, real good but if Aunt Dolly cooked the same

 fare it would be one-thousand times better.  Hewitt's mouth would be watering just thinking of how good Aunt Dolly's fried Gopher turtle would be. He would be

a fool if he brought home a big gopher instead of working , but when he was a boy it was the best chore he had to do. Aunt Dolly would fry rabbit when

 he had three or more and the same with gopher turtle, it took three to five to make a mess for dinner but it was as good as good could be. When

Hewitt was a boy he had to shoot his rabbits in the eye and he shot them all there or did not take the shot at all, he did not waste powder,lead or

 opportunities, he waited and stalked and when the shot was close enough to assure an eye shot he took the shot and never missed. He did not

know anyone who did miss their shots, why take a shot you could miss when you could wait and shoot the dinner in the eye. 

    Hewitt rarely went to town but wanted to raise a family there.

Hewitt hoped to raise his family near schools and a civilized social life of church and Rose's family and freinds. Rose was a city girl whose parents

came from Atlanta before the war and moved to Tampa as teen agers and ended up in Arcadia when Rose was 7. Rose could ride a horse and shoot

 a gun but she went to church on Sunday and went to school. Hewitt went to school a little and could read and write, add and subtract but Rose taught

 school in Punta Gorda with Miss Jones, the school marm.

His life long buddy John Collier and him were raised to be cattlemen together.

 Tall, wiry and pure endurance, these two could stay on the range for a month and show up with a hell of a lot of cattle. Both brown to blond haired

 tall skinny cowboys with peace makers they saved a year to buy in Tampa. They loved their horses and family and loved to work or play out in the sun.

John and Hewitt fished the Peace River and hunted the region wide. They rounded up mavericks and brought them to John's father and his ranch

 Thinking of settling down, Hewitt saw John against a post to the porch

 of the small shotgun shack provided for the range riders when the herd is close to the southern end, He needed to talk to John because sometimes

 he was smarter than Hewitt.
Hewitt says “John, the sheriff is looking for a deputy, you think I am good enough to handle that job, do you think I should get the job?”
John smiles and says, “Rose will like that you’d be in Punta Gorda more. Everybody knows your sweet on each other.”
“Come on John, do I have to wring your neck to get a straight answer from ya?” red faced Hewitt replied. Again he tries “Do you think I’d be good

 at being a law man?”

When Hewitt approached John with that serious look in his eyes and a question John was a little apprehensive so he tried to change the subject,

 he figured that would irratate Hewitt a tad but what the heck are friends for. They had been barnyard pals since the barnyard and played and grew up together.

John looked up and said "Remember that day you caught that big Bass down by the river?"

"When?"   Hewitt quizzed back to John. John said " That day the bank gave way and I went in the river in front of that big gator, I barely got back to

the top of the bank when he come out of the water after me"

"Yeah, I remember that" Hewitt answered back  John smiled at Hewitt and said "Weren't that a good day?"  Hewitt shook his head in an irratated,

confused way and said "What does that have to do with me being deputy in Punta Gorda?"

John smiled and said " The pay is only a dollar a day, could you afford it? Hewitt smiled and replied

"I would get $40.00 a month and work only six days a week, and the work does not have to be outside in the sun at high noon. Don't you get tired of

working the herd? I think I could mullet fish with some of the Cannons too when the deputy job would allow I could make another twenty if the mornings were free"

John looked up at Hewitt as if he was shocked at Hewitt and said "I will never get tired of the outdoors and the hot sun, chasing strays and and working the pastures,

what in the world are you thinking,do you think everybody hereabouts is blind? You’re just making excuses to be nearer to Miss Rose, plain and simple”

John snickered as he started walking away.
Hewitt’s swift kick to the seat of John’s pants left him sprawled face first in the dirt. And the scrap began. Anytime either of these two gets bored fighting

 was a way to have some fun and they did. About an hour later each of them were scuffed, nicked, and bruised enough to claim victory, but

neither did. They just put an arm around each other headed to the pump to clean up.
“John, you know theres nothing between Rose and I. What makes you speak like that? She barely knows I exist. I really want to know what you think

of the deputy job” inquiring Hewitt pressed on “I ain’t marrying soon, a mans gotta have some money and a place for that! Tell me what you’d

think of me as a deputy!

"Well, you would become a town father with a big family in town, with you eating lunch at home with Rose come dinner time" cackled John to Hewitt.

John continued to speak straight to his friend "You'll miss the mavericks and the fishing and riding the pastures free as a bird, you just wait and see"

Hewitt just brooded at John from a safe distance, wanting something closer to answering his question he just looked at John with his hands open and

shrugged his shoulders like he did not understand.
“You’d probably ruin the ranches reputation if you went and did a thing like that” said John ending the conversation. Hewitt just shook his head at John

and said "Lets fish or hunt this week". John smiled and nodded leaning back against his post on the front stoop of the little shack he was living in south of town.

 Hewitt set his mind to becoming a law man. He liked the idea of living in town and getting steady pay. Also being pretty good with

 his Colt and enjoying the knocking the breakfast out of someone needing it would come in handy, to his way of thinking.
Within a few months Hewitt fessed up by marrying his sweetheart, Rose Lee Cannon with John as his best man. He went to work for the Sheriff

Rigdon Whidden of Punta Gorda. Hewitt helped patrol and keep peace in Punta Gorda and was looking forward to raising a family in a town that

was safe and peaceful. The saloon or any other place people socialized could get a little wild occasionally. Sometimes he enforced the law strictly,

sometimes he was permissive but he always had the best for the town at heart. 
John seeing Hewitt move on with his life also admitted he wanted to marry up someday.That King girl down at Ft.Myers was as beautiful as any girl

John had ever seen but he would not get hitched until he got 40 acres for himself. It would be fun to live in town

 , maybe he should work for the sheriff also. His Uncle Bill was a law man when John was a baby. John’s father was a cattle

man just like his father who was a cow hunting cracker cattleman. John knew his destiny was that of a cattle rancher and he was determined

to be a good one. The range was home and he wanted to work it everyday. When he rounded up cattle for his uncle he kept 1 out of 25 and fed them

with Uncle Johns herd on his pangola fields in Arcadia. The horses needed Pangola but the cows did well on it too.
Many days John and Hewitt spent working the range and Uncle John’s ranch or John Colliers ranch as boys. They were inseparable friends who had walker

ponies and 36 caliber muskets when they were boys and bought their colts in their sixteenth summer. They worked seperate ranches sometimes and

sometimes got to work together. For these two working together on each others chores was good fun and they tried to do good work so they would not

get split up. Sometimes they needed to work seperate and sometimes they were having too much fun and had to be seperated to get the chores done.

They fished and hunted their spare time and were friends for a lifetime. Heck, Hewitt would probably name a boy after him, "Collier Bartow sounds good"

Hewitt was setting around thinking one evening many years before Collier would be born.

 

 John and Hewitt did not join the army in the Spanish/American but young men of their age did.Many troops were transported by ship starting the voyage in

Tampa to battles in Cuba and Puerto Rico. The brave participants in the rough riders and the like were of their generation but they did not go to town to sign t

he draft letter because they were not 18 when the war was over.

When John and Hewitt were born Desoto County was 3750 square miles and had its first sheriff in 1878. With the areas railroad completion and phosphate

mining starting after it’s discovery at the mouth of the Peace River the economy and it‘s changing economics life style followed suit. Citrus could be loaded

in a rail car and be in New York to be eaten fresh six days later, only to bring back more tourist to the state. These changes instigated a land boom and

development for tourist needs and the states new residents from around the nation. Of course what goes up must come down.
* records show that from 1868 to 1878 over one and one half million head of cattle were loaded on Gulf coast ships bound for Cuba, Nassau, and

 Key West with the majority going to Havana.

John Collier will probably want to be a deputy in Punta Gorda too if Hewitt is, that sounds good. John knew Hewitt will need help staying out of trouble,

"Being a hot head could get Hewitt in trouble but John will help keep him straight and if it means he has to whip him good, so be it" John chuckled to himself

when he thought about it.

 

 

Chapter 6
An apprehensive Mollie sat at her table in the kitchen of her home regreting having to leave the creek side grove her and Henry had built.

Henry brought his bride to this 160 acre grove when there was a one room shack and 80 acres of grafted saplings. Henry and Mollie expanded and

civilized the remaining 80 acres and now all 160 acres was producing for the second year this year. The shack was now a home they were proud of and it

provided a great deal of comfort. They had three boys and two girls and wanted more. Mollie really understood citrus, what it needed and what it could

not tolerate. She had many cross bred Oranges and Tangerine, Grapefruit now maturing , she had an agreement with the old hermit they are trading the

grove with that she can take as many grafts as needed and she intended to develop hybrids for her new home. she hoped to take 2-300 grafts for seedlings

growing at the island next year. A citrus tree grows really fast if it is healthy so in seven years the trees could be producing lots of fruit. 

She knew she could grow multitudes, now she wanted multitudes of many different fruits and citrus.

 For ten years they cultivated plants and trees that made their life convenient and comfortable and now they

were going to leave them all. She lived a very contented life with Henry and did not want to mess it up. Henry has been real gentle with Mollie and

they are soulmates now. She was pretty gun shy when she met Henry but now she is happy and safe, even if they are to start over again, they will do better

than before. Mollie and Henry have learned a lot in the last ten years, especially citrus groves and exotic fruit.

In a simple pale blue dress Mollie wiped her misty tear with her hand, thinking to herself that she was just scared. Mollie knew her fears were

causing her to suffer, darn nerves can kill ya. Mollie decided to let her life go where it was destined by Gods hand and not to worry about the past or

future, just to worry about today. Mollie was still a striking woman,standing with grey streaks in her jet black hair, with a stare that belied her indian 

ancestory. She had a serious look which was comical once you knew her because she looked intense but she was not. She was an earth mother

not a stoic wooden indian statue that sold cigars but at your first glance she was indian for sure.
 

Henry is right, The little 120 acre key is worth the trade. This Island would be warmer than the grove although they would have to cistern their

drinking water and carry water to her groves when needed. Henry could make wells anywhere he wanted but it would be a while. The boys were

 growing quick and they would be on the bay every morning to fish.The girls were growing quick as well and she would need their help.

 She was going to plant a grove and graft grapefruit to grow. She would then take her lemon stock Grapefruit seeds to Kilgore Seed Co. in Tampa bay who

 buy exotic seeds by the pound. Mollie would grow tangerines,and other citrus in groves on the high sides of the hilly island.

She would have Papaya, Guava, Paw-Paw, Mango and many others filling in the open areas not suitable for citrus

and down in the swamps, where the high spots would be a good home for many different exotics.
Henry’s is excited about moving to the key because he can stop fighting the black folks to work and spend his time fishing with the boys. He and

Mollie are going to build a 5 room house on a big hill in the middle of the key where the highest elevation is to protect against flooding.

That would give them the room they needed. A room for the boys and one for the girls and one for setting in away from the

 table. Another room is for a water closet . The well water had too much salt and would make you sick as you were drinking sea water, but Henry

was going to put water to wash with and flush a stool inside. He could see it all in his minds eye and he is always explaining how things work.

At times Mollie looks forward to the new homestead. It would be far away from Ole white-eye, out in the bay all by themselves. They could come

to town but that would require a boat. It would be better for Henry and the boys. The girls and Mollie feared isolation, but not for long. It did not take

long for Whistlers key to become the social destination for Estero Bay. The ladies had company, many a cracker gail had enough adventure to visit,

They liked getting out in the bay away from the groves of Estero or where ever  they called home.
In time it will be a popular spot for the boys friends to be after fishing or getting to fish on one of the Johnstone boats. It would be a great place for

 pirates and confederates, Indians, and outlaws to live. Mollie had a good heart and tried to keep life good, eventually more than twenty families resided

 with the Johnstones. Mollie was known to cure ailments with many native american medicines and healing proceedures she was raised with.

People would come from town or from up north to get her help, Mollie was the areas midwife,doctor,pharmacist,and mother 

 She welcomed strangers and Henry tried to be good. He is rough but respectful of Mollies wishes on the key, but the bay is his alone.
       It was just as well for the family that Henry had a serious mistrust of anyone not family. Pirates tried to over run the Island many times.

 More than ten years after trading the grove for the Island Henry and his family had to diligently keep an eye open for intruders and it was at times a

challenge. Modern day pirates would try to over run the island in search for its hidden treasure from pirate days a hundred years ago, greed for gold

never gets old and pirates are born everyday.

 

One morning early Mollie and the kids were out looking for ripe fruit and herbs, firewood and other miscellaneous needs provided by Mother Nature.

 Henry had built a cistern to hold drinking water and was filling the bucket for the two older boys to carry to Mollies kitchen door. Mollie came screaming

 “Henry” and “Boats on the bay”. Henry runs to Mollie and sure enough eight mullet skiffs headed towards their little cove, about the only place clear

enough to land a boat and come ashore. Henry shoos the kids and Mollie inside, grabs his .54 caliber and heads to a good spot to defend his Island.

He shoots up a Gumbo-Limbo tree about ten feet and spies down to the bay finding skiffs full of strangers within 100 yards of Henry’s shore. Henry’s

yells of warning fell on deaf ears. He aims in front of the lead skiff and SSSSBLAMM the musket blows smoke and sends his final warning home to the

 bow of the skiff. The man in the front of that boat caught wood splinters in his arm, hand, starts screaming.
They keep coming to Henry’s shore. Henry picks a man in the lead and shoots him in the head. Charge after charge Henry digs in the left pocket of his

 wool winter shirt and finds another ball. The “Thump” of Henry’s ball hitting their mates eventually turned the convoy of bay boats home. Henry was

confounded with the motives of the visitors, but their insistence of drawing fire showed their seriousness and he assumed they would be back.

About a month later a strange skiff was sneaking around the rocky north end of the bay without dropping their net. Henry eased past these strangers and

 waits for them on the northern point of a large mangrove head waiting for the fisherman to come on by. They did drift within 50 feet of Henry before seeing

 him around the bend. He had the drop on them with the hammer’s back on an old, brown scattergun. Henry said his hellos and eased up to the strangers

skiff as they drifted up to him. Henry recognized these men from Punta Gorda. He questioned the pair about why they were there and why strangers were

popping up around his island. After a lot of asking they provided the answer. The key Henry had homesteaded was an ancient treasure depository.

 Spaniards, Caloosa Indians, Pirates and the like had stashed treasure there for centuries and the men from Charlotte Harbor that Henry had shot were

 coming to plunder because Henry was living there and he could have discovered a bunch to steal. Henry would have nightmares about faceless pirates

 catching him and his family asleep like that night south of Birmingham where the road agents stole Henry and Samantha’s worldly goods. Henry never

did wake up until the morning. If he let it happen again it could cost the whole family their lives. Henry remained diligent his entire life and nobody ever

snuck up on him sleeping, day or night.

With Henry and the boys fishing the bay night and day Mollie, Martha and Josephine had peace on their Island and people visited during the day to

break up the boredom of contentment. Families in the clan included Cannons, Hamilton, Whittens, Whiddens,Walkers and many other kinfolk came

 to visit and trade foods and plants.

Mollie always had smoked mullet and slat-dried fish and dried seeds and spices to share and trade. In time the groves would produce an abundance of

exotic citrus and fruit. Gardeners of Edison and Ford were kin and seeds were available for some pretty foriegn plants as well as trading with Kilgore Seed Co.

 for the many exotics they had in stock or had access to..
As the years passed Mollie built several houses on the island and had her own little family compound. She had missionaries and Cherokee uncles, and

anyone else she feels she should help. There was twenty families that were not all blood relatives but became her family living there. Most structures were

two room huts with household cooking done out doors when possible not to heat the house up. Mollie had xanadu for her extended family with all othe food

so readily available from the land and the bay.  It bothered Henry , all these people moving to his island but Mollie wanted to help these people so he bit his

 tounge, daily and often. He stayed out in the bay more and fished all moving tides. The ebb tides put a tired fisherman to sleep, noon or midnight.
When the boys were still young the old man known as “Black Augustus” who lived on Black Island flagged Henry down and said he was sick and needed

help. Henry ran and brought Mollie. She cared for the old man for many years and finally she helped him die. He died of old age and gave Mollie Black

Island.
When the boys had free time Henry took them with him fishing, he had some gill net to drop from some friends in town and time to wait. Fishing the auger

 hole in Moccasin Creek was his first folly and challenge. Henry mastered fishing over the last 50 years of his life and in the beginning he learned the hard

 way and the boys watched.

 The boys were 8,6, and 4 when the fishing began. Some pirates left some skiffs on shore one day after Henry caught them in the bay, the sharks must

have got them,that made sense but what Henry did not tell Mollie that they were dead before they swam off in the shark infested waters off Hickory Pass.  

Henry shared those skiffs with the boys and they worked the net with the two skiffs,

Henry in one and the boys poling behind in the other across Estero Bay in dead pirate skiffs, life did not get any better than that for Henry, him and his boys. 

Henry drops his gill net at the mouth of the Moccasin Greek and waited for the mullet to fill it up. If Henry would have been on the ball he would have

noticed the full moon heading to the west past its high noon position. That full moon tells a fisherman when the tide starts coming in or in this case,

going out. When the tide picked up Henry was caught off guard. And his net was trying to take off.

 The net had filled with mullet on their way out the creek with the tide. They were swimming in the net, and trying to swim the net away. The tugging

 forty head of four pound mullet could apply to your net,tether and wrist was fierce as it dragged the nose of Henry's skiff around and strained to break

 lose in or out of the net. Henry's handed was stinging soon as the corkline burned through his grip, then it cut into his hand a little and squeezed hard

enough to hurt his bones in his hand, but he did not fall and had stopped the net from getting away.

 
Henry got caught in the current against a oyster bar this first month of fishing the bay from Whistlers Key. He learned fishing the Bay starting from Moccasin

 Creek so he was poling south two miles in the bay because he knew the creek waters. The full moon in the high sky at midmorning should have warned

Henry of the dangerous currents the day would have. The bay was at its peak high tide for the month and was now releasing its headwaters back to the

Gulf, flushing the bay clean another month. Henry was oblivious to all the signs he would eventually learn to live by and was fighting with all the strength

he had to keep his net. All the mangrove leaves in the water racing by told of the high benchmark being reached where leaves accumulated over the prior

 month now being purged. Henry and the boys floated a few hundred yards of 2 inch gill net in a six foot wall on corks across the mouth of Moccasin Creek,

 stop netting at the lull of high tide. The swap in current direction pinned Henry’s skiff against a oyster bar peaking above the rushing waters. Henry can

barely hold the net full of mullet, bay leaves and twigs, branches against floating away with the now rushing outgoing tide. The boys poled to Henry as fast

as they could while skirting the deep waters now running strong at the narrow mouth of the creek. Henry was the oldest at eight and he beached the boat

down the oyster bar a bit and jumped out and cut his feet on oyster shells. His brother Luther followed out the boat to the sharp oysters and they both feel

for more sharp shell as the shuffle their feet gingerly through the mud to reach their Dad. Clyde knew to stay in the boat or get a serious whipping and he

did. Little Henry and Luther grabbed the net by a hunk of rope and cork and the slack gave Henry the second he needed to get a good,leveraged grip and

he pulled the net to the bar but he cut his feet as he jumped on the oyster bar to shuck the mullet into his boat. The oysters were sharp and could give

 you a wicked wound. Some cuts could take a couple of months to heal and the cracker fisherman had plenty of fresh cuts at all times and catfish stings in

 their hands or stingray holes in their feet. One time Henry had a stingray spine hobble him for 4 months, and had to have poltrices applied for the first month

 to keep down infection. 

 After his boat was full he loaded the boy’s

 boat with half as much more and across the bay they poled.The oldest brother "Little Henry" offered to pole Henry’s boat from the front but Henry declined

 keeping the lead thinking "those young rascals will run the bay soon enough". Henry was proud of his sons.

 

One day a couple of years or so later Henry and the boys were out at in the bay collecting seagrapes for Mollie and the girls to make jelly and cook with.

Mollie planted a hedge of Seagrapes 300 feet long, but they would need a few years to mature before she could pick grapes efficiently. Henry went to

Easter or Estero Island (Ft.Myers Beach) where there were natural groves of Seagrape where he could load a burlap bag in 30 minutes. He was

also looking for washed up goods on the beaches of Estero Island it was exciting to forage for goodies. After rough storms and seas passed he could

find crates of kitchen wares and other keepsakes people would bring with them on a journey to a new land. He hoped to find treasure washed up from the

past. Henry and his sons beached their skiffs in the landing surrounded by mangroves on the bayside of the Island and left Clyde and the skiffs to find

washed up booty on the beach side. Clyde always got stuck with the boring stuff like "watch the skiffs while we go work" or "you stay with Momma while

we work". Clyde's frustation was not unique, but his circumstance was. People came to the bay to rob or hurt him and his family so he was desensitised

to this circumstance over time and at seven had a pretty strong understanding of danger and peril. Clyde knew that people were killing people freely and

did not consider killing unusual. His dad had told him and his brothers about the yankee soldiers burning his grandfather's farm when he was a boy and

 how he had lost his dad in the war between the states. His mother had told him about the whiteman chased the indians off their lands and took their farms,

livestock and crops. Henry had killed a few men in front of the boys, he tried to shelter them but when it was time for Henry to kill them it did not matter

where the boys were, only that Henry killed whoever he had to to protect his family. If he had to kill he had to. He and his Samantha had never agreed on that

point but Henry did have to kill those men, he was so young that if he let them get an upper hand he would have never got it back. He was still afraid to

give up that upper hand, what if he went soft and someone killed one of his kids or Mollie. Henry followed his instincts, and when they warned him about

something he listened and if he felt the need, he did the deed, whether the boys or Mollie had to see it. Clyde was trained, ready to run and hide or whatever

it took to survive. Pirates would come to kill you, his dad said that you must kill before being killed so the day Clyde was backed into the corner it was no surprise

he would not feel remorse when he had to do what ever had to be done. Little Clyde would grow to be the enforcer of the bay and an individual to be respected, 

like you would respect a rattlesnake. This day he stood guard, waiting for danger and he did what had to be done.

 

         Clyde heard some waves slapping a skiff on the bay with three strangers in it and located it about two hundred yards to his left rounding a head of

mangrove. He hunkered him and his boat deeper and deeper under the mangrove limbs  until he reached a large seagrape tree which he hid behind.

The skiff of strangers eventually found Henry's boat and headed in that direction , near Clyde and the boy's skiff hiding in the seagrape. The strangers left

their skiff on the bay landing in silence, shiftily looking about for the boat's owner. These men or pirates carried no firearm but did have knives in their belt,

Clyde shuttered in fear of what these men would do to his dad and brothers. Pirates had been attacking his home from time to time ,he had to hide with his

momma and brothers and sisters while his dad shot people trying to come on the island. His dad said the pirates would cut their throats if they could.

Many nights Clyde woke up after a bad dream about people hurting his mom and dad in their sleep. One time he dreamed of pirates stabbing their dog spot,

and his goat Sally. Those darn pirates would kill everybody just because that was how they acted, Clyde was scared to think about it too long , he ususally

forgot those nightmares by the time he woke the next morning. Sometimes they stuck with him a while.

 Clyde and his brothers carried the .54 caliber musket in the skiff for sharks and Henry had a new Iver Johnson 10-gauge double-barrel shotgun which he

carried most places he went. Never having the desire for a side gun, Henry gladly traveled with his shotgun in hopes of finding bird or pig for food at his families

table.When the men were out of sight, Clyde snuck out of hiding and ,with the .54 caliber rifle, went hunting for his dad and brothers. After a bit of travel Clyde

heard Luther and Little Henry playing in the surf and could see his dad setting on the beach just looking out to sea.. As he followed the voices he came up on the

strangers backside as they hid watching Henry and the boys. Clyde wanted to shoot them in the back but he could not get them all. If he had Henry's 10-ga.

the buckshot would cover all three while they hid behind the same deadfall. Clyde thought he better wait till his Dad told him what to do.

 

After a short time Henry and the boys headed for the path through the seagrape and mangrove to return to their skiffs and home.

The three men came out of hiding and charged Henry with his sons. Clyde would never forget what he saw, it unfolded in slow motion as his dad Henry instinctively set

back both hammers and emptied his shotgun in the middle of the pack, crouching a bit he let the lead fly. With blues eyes blazing through the haze of gunpowder

Henry stood ready for his next move to defend himself and the boys . Two men were dead and one was coming at Henry with his knife raised. As Henry grabs his

barrels to bust this fella in the chops there is a loud "BABLAM" and the man is jerked  to the side and falls as a puppet cut free of his strings.

Clyde looked down at the smoking rifle in his hands, it bucked so hard he barely hung on. The boys and Henry see that behind the falling pirate stands Clyde,

with his blue eyes blazing in his gunpowder haze, holding the smoking musket he shot the last pirate in the back with.  Henry runs to a grinning Clyde and says

"Boys, I could not be prouder of you" as he patted himself and the boys  on the back, Clyde was a chip off the old block and a joyous Henry swelled with pride.

Henry was so happy to have someone protect him, the boys loved him as much as he would ever be loved, and he loved them likewise. 

Luther and Little Henry just shrug their shoulders and grin in shock, That little Clyde is a wild one! Little Clyde was just like little Henry was when he was

shooting Yankees during the war, ain't that ironic. 

 

Nobody ought to be bothering this family as they were very protective of their loved ones, Henry made sure of that. The boys were taught,

"If they weren't family, they were nobody"  That is what Henry said many times. He said a lot of things that Mollie would not approve of.

Some of Mollies cousins in Bonita needed her to help with the birth of their first born. She was gone for a week while Clyde became a killer at 7 years old.

Her cousin had died a few years back and there was nobody to help her daughter Beth. Elizabeth was 15 and married to Ernie Hamilton who was 17.

Mollie stayed at their house in Bonita while Beth spent her last week before the birth of Mary Elizabeth Hamilton. One morning that week Beth broke her water

and began labor.By six o'clock that evening the time had come. The cabin was hot with candles and lamps ,and all the water being boiled on the wood-burning,

potbellied stove. Mollie asked her to push and in twenty minutes the baby was born with its cord tied, lying safely in Elizabeth's arms.

 Her birth was standard and Mary Elizabeth and her parents were fine, Mollie had brought one in the world but Henry kind of lost one for her while she was

gone if you consider Clyde shooting the pirates. Mollie was so heartbroken when she came home to Clyde and his story, Henry's stature shrunk considerably

in Mollies estimation. He had taken it too far when he embraced Clydes lack of remorse and she knew she could never change him after that, not with Henry

so proud of it. Mollie could see that Henry had plans for him and the boys that really did not include her and the girls that much. He was on the water 16-20 hours a day

and never at home. Her sons would sleep till the Moon was coming up and then Henry would come in and get the boys, skiff and nets he left home. He slept 4 hrs a

night and ate dinner late. Breakfast would come after the nets were hung and fish salted, Henry and the boys would fish or farm after breakfast and lunch, fishing was

 a bit more of  an adventure but sometimes the weather or work was very tough. When you were farming you could get out of the rain, not in the skiff, not even in winter.

The wet in the cold ,strong winter blows could sting your face and in time, chill you to the bone. The fun to be had was during this time and the boys loved being on the

bay. They learned to enjoy the freedom and life they had, cold or buggy, they were happy to be tired at dark, happy to be up at 2:00 or 4:00 to work with Henry.

 

Clyde became a brute who would get you with your back turned. The brothers were all pretty tough but nobody angered the others and respected the violence

each possesed. If someone got out of hand they had to answer to their father and you know how spooky he was. The boys did not anger Henry because

they had seen his bad side and did not need to push the issue, any issue, that bad. Henry kept the bay as he saw fit and the boys followed his rules and instructions.

 
Mollie would have friends out to her island home and she came to town to meet with folks who, from all over the country,visited the area for Florida's climate and
heard about Mollies medicine and herb knowledge from the local community. She used a variety of poltrices for slow healing wounds and rashes and herb teas
for stomach ailments,as well as advice on diet change or other habit changing suggestions to assist the folks with remedies for their ailments.
She grew aloe for burns and tobacco for relaxation. She grew exotic citrus and sold grafted hybrid citrus trees to people in town  or grew them for friends and family,
 Mollie was generous with her loved ones and she had a big heart for those she could trust with it.She would mid-wife for any mother who asked and was there in
times of need like a loyal friend to many. Molly met the Church of God pastor in town and enjoyed his ministires and prayers, he sent many young women alone in
the world to give birth to their babies to her to ask for help. Mollie always helped any way she could and taught the young soon to be mothers what they would need
to know to take proper care of their new babies.Mollie was a respectable member of local society but Henry was not the social type.
Henry started allowing the boys to see his evil acts and swore them to a secret pact, if they told Mollie there would be hell to pay. If any of the three brothers leaked
any information to their sisters or Mother or anyone else for that matter, Henry would feel betrayed. The boys would watch Henry pole up to skiffs of people not of the
 bay fishing there and if he felt the need to he would take out his shotgun and cut them in half with buckshot. The boys knew if Henry told people to leave the bay
and not come back that he was being generous and must be in a good mood. After a while all three of the boys and Henry would run the skiffs up to outsiders and
the boys would be by Henry's side when he said get out and do not come back or if he just shot them and left their boat or took it. Henry would smile either way,
just when he killed some Yankees it was kind of creepy, him grining like that. Henry just did not take to everyone and the ones that made him uneasy were in trouble.



As the years flew by her sons are gone more than home. Henry had them in the bay working and being bad to people not from Estero

Bay or Fort Myers. If Henry let people move into the bay and fish they will take it over. Mollie knew in her heart he was wrong. They had lived in peace with each other

 even though both of them grew more distant from the old union they enjoyed at the creek many years ago, when Henry dreaded arguing with his grove hands to work,

and Mollie wished she had killed her first husband in his drunken slumber. 

 This difference in direction would cause Mollie and Henry to grow apart. As Mollie spent time being good to those who needed it Henry became more reclusive

and anti-social. Henry got older and more brutal, he just did not consider other people anymore, not even Mollie. Mollie embraced her community, Henry repelled them.

In time Henry would grow bitter of this ever growing distance between Mollie and him, she was growing away from him and he did not know why,

he had not changed that much. Mollie was more interested with the folks in town, even Yankee folk than Henry. He knew she was mad about him and

the boys being rough to all strangers off the Island out in the bay but the bay was his, not Mollies, she had the home and island it is on, with her daughters and friends.

Before it is said and done Henry's need to kill when threatened  would cost him and Mollie their daughter Martha's life. Martha was Henry and Mollie's youngest daughter,

 she killed herself because her dad killed a boy who kept coming out to court. Henry told him to get away and never come back but he did not listen so that hateful Henry

 fed him to the sharks to keep his boys in line and then Martha killed herself with her Dad's shotgun while he slept. This would end his marriage to Mollie, she could never

forgive that and they would seperate their homes and live apart. Josephine and Mollie grew closer and protected each other, they both were deeply injured with Martha's death

and would miss her all their lives, Henry and the boys missed her just as much, only they blamed the boy, not Henry.

You can imagine Henry was greatly peaved when years later the black folk came to live in the bay in their rickety houseboats. He had kept strangers away for 40

years and he was not giving up his bay and home to nobody, especially some of his old, useless grove hands and their families.

 Henry counted sixty boats filled with blacks.Henry had no intention of sharing the bays mullet schools with anyone, black or white. Henry used the fact that these people

 were black to his advantage. Black people could be killed socially acceptable and by society.When Henry and the rest of the local KKK was done it was one of the biggest

 slaughters of the bay. Desoto's men were killed at the beach but maybe hundreds died here. Their deaths were not documented but they did die. 

There were hundreds of black people dead. Henry thought they would kill the men and women that fought but that damned Clyde and Hewitt decided to

kill all they saw. They killed till morning and a lot of dead people were around the bay for a month or better. They were hanging in the mangroves,

rotting in scuttled houseboats and floating in and out with the tide. They would show up in the gill nets weeks later and the specter was a gruesome

reminder for those who still possess a conscience.

Henry did not have a regret and felt free. Free of uppity, used to be slave grove hands and their families at last.
* By the time the civil war ended in 1865 25% of the states population were emancipated slaves and they faced many grave injustices.


Hewitt and Rose go to Spring Creek

Chapter Seven

10 years has passed since Hewitt had decided to work for the sheriff. During that time he had learned how and why to enforce the law and the importance of peace

 in the city. Rose loved a peaceful, calm family life, Hewitt put in many long days keeping the peace, the town depended on safe streets for their families.  

When the town council appraoched Hewitt to run for Sheriff it made his hair stand on end. Hewitt knew the council to be liars and carpetbaggers or sons of

carpetbaggers which meant they were lower than low. 

A lot of water had gone under the bridge since Hewitt was a green deputy and Punta Gorda has changed so much Hewitt did not even want to stay,

no less be Sheriff.  The town had new priorities and the path the council pointed the town's future was not the one Hewitt would pick for Punta Gorda

or his family.

His old friend Sheriff Whidden is stepping down because he could not do his job proper and Rigdon Whidden had too much pride to give  

 anything  less than his best effort. The city council wanted to tell the Sheriff when and how and Rigdon knew the councilman did not understand keeping the

peace and he could not serve under their direction. Rigdon had been the Sheriff for 24 years and built the department from the ground up and he knew what

 would work and not, the councilmen did not work. There was a time not that long ago that the sheriff only answered to the voters but now the town council

 has new laws giving the council new ways to interfere. Five years ago the commission had people that supported the Sheriff but this year all the old guard

was on their way out. The men Rigdon had worked for and with were retiring by choice or being forced and the writing is on the wall for the Sheriffs office too. Rigdon and

Hewitt read the wall and decided to risk changing family plans and dreams to new and different things. No more worrying about town and politics, Rigdon had a new plan.

The Sheriff and his wife were going to raise more cattle like they always wanted and grow a big garden to share with his family

 and friends. They had two daughters and a son and 5 grandchildren and the extra vegetables and some beef will always be needed.He was tired of being a law man and ready

 to hang around the house instead of the office, the town that needed his steel resolve and courage was gone, replaced with a civilized town run by and for Yankees.

 He had 50 head of cattle and his son raised hogs, hogs multiplied alot faster than cattle. His son William would be taking care of the ranch, William felt

 care of the cattle was easier than the hogs and considered cattle the big business. Rigdon knew his son could run all of the ranch if he was gone and his wife

wanted to go to New York on the train, he wanted to fish more too!. There will be lots of things to do so Rigdon agreed to retire and do some of these things.

 

Hewitt wanted to move to Estero Bay. Everybody knew there was no law there and the Yankees were scared to venture in the area, a breath a fresh air for Hewitt.

That area south of Ft.Myers had been no mans land for centuries. The spaniard invaders of the 1500's died on Easter Island or Ft.Myers Beach at the hands of Carlos,

the Caloosa King. Very few people lived there since and Hewitt could live his life away from nosey out-of-towners trying to run his business. He could raise his family and protect them from

imposing yankees. They could all farm and fish, raise cattle and farm the land in peace. Hewitt could teach them to feed their families, care for livestock and show them

 how to suvive well out in the Florida wilds.Rose could teach the kids the schooling needed for their future in a changing world and they would all build a big, enterprising

farm and dock on spring creek. They were only two or three days from Punta Gorda so life would go on, but with more quality time because it would be Rose and Hewitt

 doing the majority of raising with nobody around to help like in town. Hewitt knew that leaving Punta Gorda was best for him and his family and he was excited about the

challanges facing them all.

The town voted for these council empowering laws and now some of the old families wish they had not. John Collier was willing to take over, but the city council

would mess that up too at some point. John came up to Hewitt last week at the office and with a serious tone said

"Bill monroe has asked me to be Sheriff, how does that set with you?" Hewitt seemed to be expecting the news and said with a nod

"You are welcome to the town, I am grabbing whats mine and going to south of Ft.Myers on Estero Bay." John shook his head and said"It is going to be strange without you

and Rigdon around here, but I guess now is my time" Hewitt smiled and smacked John on the back as he said with a full, happy grin,
"It sure is old buddy, don't let those yankees get you down, someday you will go back to your farm full time and they can mess up their own lives"

John said "I am going to be the last voice of the cattlemen in town and I am going to keep things right"

Hewitt grinned and said"Come on down and fish with us when you can, there will always be a place for you at our house"

Hewitt thought to himself

"John will learn the hard way but the yankees will too." Hewitt knew John had taught him a thing or two and would certainly be a thorn in the side of the carpetbaggers

 taking over Punta Gorda.  Hewitt and John would help each other when they could but it was going to be strange, no John

 around for months at a time and the same for John. John figured he could build him a couple of hundred head of cattle on his forty acres and maybe a little of his

 dads land. If town got him down he would always have the ranch to fall back on. He could not wait until he had sons working the ranch by his side. He wanted to build a

 barn for for tack and feed,plows and other farm fare. He could keep his horse out of the bugs and have a milk cow and goat . He wanted a grove down by the pond he

shared with his dads spread. Some oranges would be good and maybe some guava and persimmon. Millie and John would have a great farm.


Hewitt had tolerated all he could of these idiots in town and could hold back no more. They voted for a council of local folks who lived in town to run the Sheriff and Mayor.

They started getting new out-of -towner people to run for judgeship and there were so many yankees that they were elected. The laws were non-sense rules

about what other people could do with their own property, be it their farm or business shop in town. Hewitt became a deputy to protect the innocent,

not stick his nose where it did not belong and they were going to tear up the bricks in Punta Gorda and put in paved roads. That is too much change for Hewitt to absorb, the straw that

 broke the camels back. The brick roads had been installed 20 years ago but were in great shape with a hundred years to wear and still be good. The carpet baggers were making hidden

profit somewhere in there.

 Yankees are the problem, no doubt. Hewitt was born more than 10 years after the war but had witnessed plenty of new people with Yankee money opening banks or buying ranches,

farms, opening restaurants and taverns or Orange groves. Hewitt yearned for the old cowboy ways and days out north of town on the range. The cracker families had enough

control to have security. Nobody questioned the law of the land. They had their lives and would do what they had to to keep it.

One day a few years

back a carpet bagger tried to homestead some open range land near alligator slough and his house was burnt before it was finished with him in it. He came from somewhere,

uninvited, and started him a little spread by a creek off a lake the cattle watered at. The man was from the north, anything north of Arcadia was suspect. The cowboys were bound

to see this man, but he was going to live there regardless and be an obstacle to their operation. So the cattlemen took care of it quick in the socially accepted way.

 The evening had a blue-silver shine the night the young cowboys rode up to the shack with white hoods on.They got down and went inside to the wooden box of a shell that would

someday be the squaters home. Finding the man laying on some blankets on the dirt floor the largest one said " These hoods are hot, lets get this over" and roused the man from his bed.

You could see them in the blue moonlight as they dragged the man outside and kicked, punched him and pistol whipped him down flat on the ground. A couple of the men went

 back inside and lit the place on fire up with his oil lanterns. The fire started as a glow but in no time was roaring with the power it had while consuming the the strangers

 belongings. The cowboys got quiet and watched the fire and decided to finish the job to make sure the man did not become a problem.

 They threw the yankee back inside and rode off to the screams and crackles of the flames as it ate the shack and all inside.

The man might have crawled out,nobody knew but he was never heard from him again.John's older brother and his friends rode on the squatters ranch that night and fourteen year old

Hewitt and John were there, but John's brother Jim did the pistol whipping and lit the fire. Nobody hearing from the man again or seeing him did not mean much

because few even knew much of the  assumed carpetbagger, just a few knew the man had drifted to town from who knows where and had kept to himself. Some cowboys saw his house

 being built and after talking with their uncles figured that burn out  was the way to go. The sons of the clan rode to justice and burned the man out. The crackers felt safe and righteous.

Outsiders, be it Yankee or not, were not welcome on the range.The old days were full of hard attitudes against Yankees but he kind of understood why

now better than ever before.  To Hewitt someone coming down from up north and changing his lifestyles or freedoms just burned him to the quick and

that is a common denominater for the cracker pioneers, sounding like little Henry's feelings on the war between the states or William Whitt's feeling on the Indian plight after the revolutionary

 war in the south. Andrew Jackson was pretty rough on the Tribes.


 

Of course the fish house battle of ‘02”  was the old days merging with the modern days of the future. Civilized law enforcement provided by the town

was the modern approach to crime as opposed to the old days, when a fast gun ruled the day, unfortunately it still ruled this day, and it still does in modern times. 

 In the summer of 1902 Hewitt and John Collier are caught in the middle of a dispute over outsiders from Tampa fishing Charlotte Harbor. For the last few months 

the fish house had been rowdy with fistfights turning ugly and someone got their head split with an axe handle or the like over fishing rights, The local fisherman were waiting

for outsiders to turn in their catch for the day and give them a welcome to Punta Gorda speech and then kick their tails, but on this morning a firefight broke out as the outsiders sold

 their fish. John and Hewitt thought if they were there it would keep peace but their presence did not have a big effect, or maybe it was going to be a massacre if they had not been

there although it was still a massacre, just a legal one. 

For John and Hewitt it was all pretty standard until shots aimed at the loading dock started landing around them. One round splintered a post pretty close to Hewitt as he felt the

sting of a tooth pick sized splinter lodge under his eye. The outsiders did not know who to shoot except the confused one who shot John Collier as him and Hewitt scattered.

 In a rage over his very best friend’s injury Hewitt unleashes his colt on these folks up close and four shots is enough. Hewitt stood alone

against three with the smoke pouring from their guns. After the action was over Hewitt was unscathed and he is surprised to see John smiling. John had been shot through

 the butt cheek and although painful was not quite worthy of Hewitt's response. Maybe Hewitt was a little over protective but those unwelcome outsiders caused

the trouble. If they would have not shot a deputy none of this would have happened. Hewitt had every right to defend himself against as many people that wanted to cause him harm.

 Hewitt went up to John who laughed and  pulled the splinter from Hewitts cheek, the blood ran thick and handed it to Hewitt , who took the bloodless

end in between his teeth and they both started laughing.  Hewitt smiled and slapped John on the back, who in turn

slapped him back with a grin and forgot the .45 cal. hole through his butt that was burning pretty bad and worse by the minute. The slug went through one cheek

and out the side of the other side so no lead to get out, Johns Mom will have him soak in salt water to clean it up, then his dad will give him some liquor to clean it up

and sleep on.

John is 30 and getting married in the spring to one of the Cannon girls, her name is Mildred but he calls her Millie. She helps at the school and is

taking over for Rose Cannon because she is leaving Punta Gorda to chase Hewitts dream of free living in Estero Bay. Millie did not know why it bothered her that Hewitt 

is taking his family away from town but it did, it seemed slightly unfair for Rose but she was happy so it was not Millies business. John and Millie plan to raise a

family in town and go to church with her family on Sundays and holidays. Millie is black haired, tall and thin with blue eyes. She is a very quiet and peace loving girl.

She has seen the rough times of Punta Gorda while growing up and wishes to grow with the city as it changes with the times. She teaches her class in an ancient

 palm roofed and sided barn on the outskirts of town. The new town council wants to move the school into an old store next to city hall that went out of business

 when the owner, Mr. Wilson, died and left it with no kin or last wishes. It has been vacant for a while and the council wanted the town to pay for paint and benches,

 tables and new chalk board.The council was comprised of wealthy townsmen who could afford to refurbish a school and it was all very exciting to Millie. Her and

John would live at his farm on the outskirts of town and build a home out of the shack that stands there now. Millie had their life planned and John was ready to

walk the line she had drawn. John waited a long time to get married and some day he would appreciate his wisdom. 

 

 The facts that all those creeks were named after the that family lived there is a common sense thing, without a doubt many people were killed for squatting too

close to some pioneers who expected and protected their privacy. The cracker farmer needed his space for cattle,farming and other ventures off the land.

They did not wish to share their bounty from the land or sea and that was a suvival instinct, to harvest for the days when you do not have any is like saving your money

 for a rainy day, and you know what society does to bank robbers. The cattle, mullet, and land farmed were where they found their staples and someone

getting too close would cost you in the bay, it was theirs . They did not allow other people to move in next door and share their harvest. They just killed them.

They killed them in Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor and up and down the coast. Florida was becoming more popular by the day. More people were visiting and

staying, the railroad was all the way to Naples and just days to New York, Boston and all the other big cities where these people used to live. The pressures of

 expansion took its toll on the cracker cowboy and his farm as more came to share in the abundance of the land. More came to work on boats and farms and

even Sheriffs departments and alot of the pioneers felt like they were being pushed out, Hewitt felt that way and so did his boss Rigdon, pushed out by the

new people in town. Some people just shot when they saw them around their spreads. Eventually the cracker moved away from town and its yankee rule.

There were Cowboys, Fisherman and Pirates and the pirates did not ride horses that much but did work in fishing skiffs If you found a local pirate he might

be a mullet fisherman in his steady job and God knows what once out to sea.
1904 is the year Hewitt packs up Rose and the boys and ride to coastal south Lee County. Lee county is the county south of Desoto. It was where

the Union had the Black Calvary bothering the old cowboys during the war. Those old cowboys could make the Seminoles look easy, and they were

 left alone.  The old timer cattlemen south of Punta gorda are a wild bunch that don't take with outsiders interfereing with their lives and homes.

The River was wide and busy with ships full of oranges, and things the new town was in need of like tourist and commodities. The railroad was bringing in

tourist who were moving to enjoy the climate and coastal living and so did the ships coming in and out of bay into the Caloosahatchee. 

The river began in Moore Haven on Lake Okeechobee and went south to Ft. Myers and dumped into the bay. Ft. Myers had plenty of fruit and beef and

new supplies were received daily making it a modern little town bustling with business. Even the mail was coming to town from Punta Gorda daily.
Good land on Estero bay was plentiful and there is a fish house for fishing and he could farm high and dry land. Raising Okra and other garden vegetable.  

There is plenty of open land on the bay near the fish

house. Ft. Myers needs the fresh fish and there are a lot in Estero bay. Bahaia is south and close to the Gulf and wagons could pass on the road all the

 way from Ft. Myers without going through deep water. People have been fishing this bay since man showed up. Since the 17th century salted mullet

were shipped to Havana from Estero bay. Hewitt knew the reason nobody lived on the bay was the Johnstones. Henry and his sons were known to be very possesive

 of the bay and lots of whispering and raised eyebrows told Hewitt the Johnstones killed when they pleased and nobody cared. Hewitt hoped he would live in peace.

He wanted to live at Spring Creek which was a mile from the Johnstones island home. Hewitt would become friends with the Johnstones and even in-laws in time.

Hewitt would kill without hesitation, but it was not to bully or steal, just to protect. That made Hewitt deadly too, these were dangerous days. 
Hewitt follows the woods along the creek to the bay and started building his new farm. Hewitt knew he wanted to build his house so it was easy to add on to,

that was good idea because the Bartow family would be huge. Spring Creek would be his families home for the next 40 years.

He built one room and then another and in four years he had bedrooms for the boys and the girls and sitting rooms and a big kitchen and a big room

on the creekfront for him and Rose.The bay and the creek were loaded with fish, you could walk across the mullet or so it seemed. Hog ran through the

yard and fed them from the first week on. It was nice to walk out in the morning and pick out a hog to feed everybody twice and shoot the varmit for eating in your patch.

Eventually the dogs were kept in a compound next to the garden but a small garden was kept away from the dogs in sport and to draw the hogs to be culled and thrown in

Wooden cages with wooden floors that the hogs could not dig out of. They built fenced pens and filled the holes the hogs dug under the fence with big rocks,stumps,logs

or anything else the hogs could not dig out. They hauled shell out of the bay to build their roads and built a half-pony mill to rough cut yellow pine and cypress.

 He liked all the modern inventions available, especially the automobile and electricity. Hewitt embraced all the innovations in work and play. He raised the family with

love and an open mind to the future wanting a place far from the politics of Punta Gorda, Hewitt settles in a place him and his family can live their way. Hewitt hoped the

yankees would stay away and they would for 30 years but eventually he had to move back to Punta Gorda because of all the newcomers in Bonita Springs and Estero

 He and Rose have three boys and Rose wants a daughter. Hewitt would like to have more children too. He is happy with his family and he wants to have a nice farm where

his kids could be happy, like when Hewitt was young and Punta Gorda was a nice place to visit.
The Bay is full of fish and game, although game this close to the salt water is likely to taste fishy. There is a family fishing the bay but they let Hewitt live

in peace. The Johnstones live all over the bay, on islands and beaches and Bahaia . They have a fish house at the bay on Bahaia and a house. Henry is

 a quiet man but something tells Hewitt to respect him. He had been warned about the Johnstones and was resigned to get along. Hewitt will live most of his life here.

 He will have cars, trucks and even the first motorcycle in Lee County. Hewitt Bartow got to raise his family where his father didn’t get the chance and these kids would

be tough enough to survive and smart enough to enjoy it.

Chapter 8

When Collier was two years old the Bartow family moved to Lee County in late 1904 coming from Punta Gorda, an area of Desoto County that later became

Charlotte County. Collier Bartow reflected the men of his time when respect was earned. Collier like any young man of honor both gave and received it.

Keeping respect and honor when times were changing created problems some times. Maybe modern day is not as honorable as Collier's day. Collier Bartow kept his word

 or be damned.
At 19 years old Collier still lived at home because he could not or would not try beating his Dad in a fight. Each of his older brothers before leaving home

had to whip their Papa or they were not considered man enough to leave. Collier loved his father and could not see how he could ever hurt him fighting,

even though it was Papa’s rule. His brother Ray used a wrestling hold to make Hewitt submit while Hank had landed a haymaker on Pop’s chin knocking

 him down and out. Zeke and John had their butt cleaned by Pa each time they tried. Another time they both tried him at the same time and it was just a

 little closer. He and the others had not tried yet but their day would come. Collier loved and respected his Dad but sometimes could not understand him

at all.
His ex-deputy, father Hewitt and Mother Rose raised nine sons and three daughters. Ray became a woodsman like his Uncle Sudden. Gary became an

engineer, some were the best mullet fisherman but all of them were cattlemen and to be fair they all were fishermen as well. The littlest boys learned to

fish the bay from empty skiffs with older siblings to watch them adrift as Hewitt and older boys worked. Collier had early memories of being around five

years old in his own skiff watching his family and the Johnstones work the bay while chewing a corn cob pipe. His toy was a corn cob pipe and the horse

 would come early.They must have learned to swim pretty early although many boys on Florida's coast drowned and were presumably ate. 
Collier, an independent fisherman before he was ten, went fishing near Pappy’s store on Black Rock one hot summer day. Collier caught and iced his catch

 at the fish house and then went looking for some conchs. He figured some could have washed up after the passing fronts rough seas came through the

 area. He hankered for his Ma’s savory conch chowder and thought he would find them on the gulf side of Black Rock and San Carlos Pass. He found

 nine pretty quick and headed home with his catch but stopped by Pappy’s general store. His older brother had given him a cigar which he showed off

 to Pappy and some Johnstone kids at the store. His Pa walked in not noticing Collier, so Collier ditched his smoke by booting it under the shelves. That

 was close. Later at the dinner table his Pa told how some fool nearly set the store on fire by hiding a lit cigar under a shelf. Collier cringed in fear of being

 found out. Within days Collier bribed Pappy with free work to keep him quiet. Years later he heard Pappy and Dad laughing about Collier still giving Henry

free work, but boys will be boys. Thus Collier got a first hand experience how his father was prone to mischievousness too.

The scrub tough ornery Florida Longhorn breed were only matched by the tougher crackers who worked and kept them. Life as a cowboy in Estero was

 the way it was meant to be and a well respected trade at that. Besides being cowboys many of Collier’s friends had little spreads far enough off the coast

 for good farming and livestock, a few breeding pairs of cattle and maybe some goats for milk and roast meat. The back bays were best in Estero to have

a dock for their mullet skiffs. Cuban Fisherman had been salting mullet and shipping them from Estero Bay to Havana off and on since the 18th century

and it is still a viable income source today. Besides mullet, plenty of trout, pompano, and other fish that could be sold or taken home for dinner. Also open

swamp range land was available for anyone wishing to bank up a herd. Collier wanted the same.
For eight years Collier saved up his pay for fishing and working the Williams herd in Estero. He saved and bought an acre lot of land from the Johnstones

 with a dock on Estero Bay for his boat. Although he was a good cowboy his heart was a fisherman. He could smell a big knot of mullet in the dark and 

stayed very productive, cash and food. Reared on the bay and catching mullet, fishing remained a big part of his life. He netted fish every morning from

1 till 7 . If he was filling his boat he would fish until he was afraid of sinking. After fishing, his routine took him home for breakfast and then out to ride herd.

If the herd was ranging to far north he would stay home and work in his dad’s garden. They grew peppers, cabbage, collards, beans and squash among

others. He would mend nets by the mile, he was one of the older brothers at home and was an expert net builder and mender. He often dreams of having

 a seaworthy boat suitable to guiding charters down Marathon way. He knew that would take more cash. The plot and the skiff would have to come first

followed by the inevitable scrap with Pa.
Riding home for supper took a good hour and today took Collier by his older brothers still. He thought he might have just enough time to peek in on the

 mash. The still was in an old squatters shack on the Estero River in Koreshan territory and Collier could hear his brothers Sudden and Clyde sipping

and raising hell. Supper would be missed tonight. Their corn mash was strong but at least you could trust it to give you a high old time and not make

you go blind. The boys lost track of time sipping around the old cobweb encrusted shack. The fermenting corn and sugar made a powerful brew long

and as long as you drank it in sips and not too many so it wouldn‘t hurt you. It mixed well on ice and an after sipping with your friends you could chase

 it with a quart of strawberry ice cream which was always good on Saturday night in downtown Ft.Myers on the river. 
Even though Pa didn’t approve Collier and his brothers regularly drank shine then competed to see who could shoot the most bullfrogs with the fewest

 shots. It was time for the competition to begin after four or five drinks. Hearing the guns, Hewitt knew what his boys were up to as he rode along the

 river hunting just the right size gator for the holster he was making. He decided a little sport was in order to teach the boys a lesson for violating his

rule of drinking and firing guns drunk. The boys were shooting fifty yards or so down river from the shack. Hewitt opens the only door to the shack and

hides behind some trees with the boys three horses and his own . He left the door open to fake the boys into believing someone was inside and then

Mother Nature provided a child rearing helping hand. A large polecat leaping at the opportunity of getting in the still house and it’s smells dashes into

 the shack. Then a little while later the boys come back to that varmint raising hell in there and thinking it is their dad tearing up the still they indeed

did rush in with the marauding polecat. Quickly Hewitt ran and tied the door shut with his lasso as the boys detected the funky skunk spraying them

 down. Hewitt was rolling on the ground laughing at the cries of those adolescent acting whippersnappers getting perfumed thoroughly. He could

not have planned it better; Those hungovered boys would have a smelly three mile walk home and a lot of explaining to do to their Ma tomorrow.
The Bartow boys had a lot to learn before they reached full manhood. Most of this learning came from the hands on hard work they experienced daily.

Riding, branding, and roping anytime they collected strays for Mr. Williams or messing with their own farm cows who would push you around if you‘re

 timid or unsure. They learned to trap big and small from quail to 300 pound boars. If you could trap you could track and hunt and you better be a crack

 shot. Trapped sows brought home and corn fed a couple of months would be the best pork possible. When they were fishing they not only pulled net,

but read the top of the water for what you could not see below, perils to cause net tears or good ripples indicating where the big schools of fish were.

They also learned how clean or butcher all edible creatures available and in their home time they could mend nets or work the farm vegetable patches.

They had carpenter projects like skiffs and smoke houses, hog pens, gates and furniture. Mechanically they had the first motorcycle of Bonita, it was

 Hewitt’s but he would use simple engines of the time in boats and mills or anywhere else he thought of. What ever math they needed to keep track

of what they were owed or how much wood and how much was rudimentarily applied. But some of the learning was passed down to them in daily

conversation or stories at Christmas, birthdays, even someone’s passing. Family folklore could range from walking sticks spitting chewing tobacco

in you’re your unsuspecting eyes to weird shaped clouds having a prophetic message or just stories about what happened to an Uncle or friend

when they kept doing what they asked you to stop.
Uncle Albert passed down a tale of booze and motorcycling, surely another dangerous folly. One day Hewitt and his brother-in- law Albert were

visiting Albert’s cousin Franklin. Franklin had a fine still his brother built twenty years before. The Williams cousins made the smoothest mash of

all the cooks in Estero/Bonita. After sipping white shine cordially and swapping deer hunting stories and the like the duo headed home on Hewitt’s

 Indian motorcycle. Now Hewitt drove it straight enough to his house off spring creek. Towards the last few miles home Hewitt picked a short cut

through the pasture. As they were leaving the pasture Hewitt steered to the left down a trail going into the scrub and on a curve they flew around

 at a sporty forty miles an hour some cattle (ten or twelve head) were blocking the way about twenty five feet ahead. Instinctively Albert jumped off

busting his britches wide open among other aches and watched Hewitt. Hewitt had no thought of bailing out as he rode straight to the cows in the

road. Of course at the last second they spread enough to let Hewitt by. Albert sat sore assed on the trail dumbfound and slighted as Hewitt

squeezes through and does not ever wreck or even slow down. Goes to show you if you drink and drive you might leave your friends drunk

and sore tailed out where they have to walk home and be too drunk to care.
When it came to drinking, besides not using guns when drunk, they learned some Georgia folks mixed fresh peaches with their mash. Captain Wrightson

was almost an expert on booze and he said it was great on ice, so sweet and smoothing for white, fresh mash you’d think it was aged ten years. But he

always warned of not eating the peaches, I think some peaches gave him the runs.
Captain Wrightson who lived on Whistlers key with the Johnstones had many tales to spin. Wrightson was a kindly ninety plus year old man. Collier

 had a hard time believing anyone could be old enough to be in the civil war and slave ship captain. He was genuinely good to Collier his whole eighteen

 years but he was a slave master and blockade runner? The captain made the Caloosahatchee river port his southern landing and hauled cattle and

fruit to the keys or Cuba, Nassau or around the straights and up the eastern seaboard. The railroad kind of slowed down the Captains work load and

 eventually he sold his sloop. He still used his mullet skiff in the bay but seldom dropped his short net and rode with “Pappy” Henry Johnstone most

days. Collier's father Hewitt told the captains tale and when fishing with him the Captain filled in the blanks. Collier knew the tails of many people told

 by his Pa and others. Keeping them straight was a sign of maturity.
One tale was about Pappy Johnstone on Carlos Key or Black Rock. Black Rock was where Pappy built his store and was given to Pappy by Black

 Augustus, a pirate that sailed with Jose Gaspar and died long before Collier was born. The Captain said it was all innocent on his part but it would

go bad fast. It seems the captain decided to ride with Henry on one of his trips to Havana. Henry had a newer boat with 42 feet and a deep, wide

beam for rough seas. Henry bought this craft to haul much needed supplies to Estero from Punta Gorda as well as run his ill gotten mavericks and

 salted mullet to Cuba.
They traveled two days and three nights to make it to Havana. After trading the mullet for local rum and selling the 5 head of cattle they tied the

boat the “Mollie” up to a dock and went to the tavern at the beginning of the dock at the shore. They were ready for some drink and food and the

 Captain decided he wanted a lady of the evenings company after sitting down among some at the bar. In the middle of the bar was a buffet of

 sandwiches and fruit like bananas and guava. Those Cuban sandwiches were kind of stale but the pair ate more than their share with to much

 stale ale. The Captains sailor ways were starting to show as he leered at the barmaid while feeling happy but a little dizzy. Henry asked the

buxom waitress with black hair and eyes where the to the old Portuguese church was. It was the only church in Havana and had been there

since the 16th century. The Captain and Henry had heard rumor of the Chinese of Havana were paying $100.00 a person to have passage

 to Miami. Because loading and unloading passengers was much easier than cattle , fish and crates of oranges. Henry was going to take

some folks to Miami. These Miami bound passengers were said to bivouac at the old Catholic church. The Captain wanted to stop for grog

and ladies but Henry said no because he had no time for lollygagging around with the mischievous skipper and the vices of the night, besides

 he was rolled by a couple of these ladies and he was still harboring some resentment towards those Havana vixens and their grog and back room.
The churchyard was dark except for a fire in the graveyard. Lying around the fire were some folks stoically waiting for sleep. Coming nearing

to the fire they heard Cubans talking. The Cuban missionaries could speak English if they wanted to, or, were seeking boats for their passengers

to Miami. Henry did a quick round of negotiations and within minutes people were lined up for a $100.00 a head carrying there two days of water

 and food and some belongings clutched to their chest. For some reason Henry told the missionaries his boat would just take six passengers

which seemed strange to the Captain “They could haul twenty“ the dumbfounded skipper thought to himself. Henry took a liking to a grandmother,

daughter, and five children. They agreed to a package deal for 525.00 for everybody because two were under one year old. They headed back to

the “Mollie” The passengers did not speak English but Henry gently guided the group through the streets to the dock. The children were silent as

was the Captain.
Once the group was aboard the Captain untied the aft and stern lines and shoved off. Henry pulled the boat away and the Captain bunked down as

 soon as they were underway, he was kind of woozy, maybe those sandwiches were bad or not enough grog to help his digestion. “That damned Henry

 squelched any chance for some Havana women and Whistlers key does not support his amorous pursuits at all. Mollie does not talk to him so what is

his hurry” the Captain silently bemoaned as he eased off to slumber.
Morning came early for the Captain. Land was long gone and the sea breeze was stiff enough to spray him with a wave over the side. It was still hot,

hot enough to fry an egg on the deck. He was getting up with a headache and an uneasy feeling. He sensed something strange and noticed the people

 were gone.
“Henry” The Captain questioned, “ where the heck is that family?”
Henry Glared back at the Captain and said “ you get $75.00 and the boat gets the rest”
The real answer laid in the blood specks on Henry’s face and thick bloody smears all other the aft deck. The family’s belongings were aft in the same

pile they were in when he went to sleep. Henry’s bloody face and wild eye’s told the story and the Captain hastily agreed. Later on that day Henry

explained to the Captain that the easy money lay in the way he missed going to Miami and saved three days off a five day schedule. It was the way

to go for many as it was standard practice of the day to book riders, kill them on route and keep the fares and all their worldly possessions. As an easy

way to make extra money the Captain and Henry took many trips to Cuba apparently killing quite a few through the years. Colliers Dad had went to

Cuba quite a few times and Collier wondered if he had followed this practice as well.
Hewitt told Collier this story because Pappy Johnstone will kill anybody quick and a body needs to know that when he is around. A respected man

might kill to protect himself and his family but Pappy killed to live and prosper, sometimes out of anger and sometimes out of convenience. He killed

 suspected revenuers, Yankees, and carpetbaggers among others to support his family and keep his bay straight maintaining his lifestyle. He killed

to control his family. A daughter of His and Mollie’s had a boyfriend who came to Whistlers key. This boyfriend courted by the strict rules of the time

 but Henry did not like the fact that some of this boys family was from up north. After several warnings to his daughter he took the boy fishing and he

 never came back. His daughter took his 10 gauge Iver Johnson double barrel with the Damascus twist rifling grooves and put it to her breast. The

 horror and loss suffered was more than they could bear. Henry had been walking a thin line with Mollie since day one and this finished his marriage

 and life on Whistlers key. Eventually he moved to Black Rock at the mouth of the bay and San Carlos Pass and built his store. Now from that island

he would keep control of the bay and do whatever it took to keep it that way.
This attitude was proven again a few years back when the Johnstones and some others killed over a hundred black folk trying to live in Estero bay

 on houseboats. Collier did not participate but many family members and friends of his did. Collier at a pretty young age was witness to bodies stuck

 in mangroves, or scuttled boats full of what was left of families. The specter of his youthful nightmares were these murdered squatters and the

memories of the putrid odors and the acts of his cousins in the K.K.K. would terrify him for many years. He would never go along with the Klan.

Their was no respect for anybody doing what they did in Colliers book. He could not respect people who caused harm to innocents, or try to

justify the death they brought.
It all made sense until the night came and all his friends were killing whole families on houseboats. The bay became Hell for all that night.

Gunned down and burnt out a few survivors ran to Immokalee or North. Some still lived in Ft. Myers as Henry saw them living in the woods

 near his 10 acre pig farm on Anderson Avenue.
Colliers uncle Sudden had a problem with black people. He was a woodsman of the world and a loyal, proud member of the K.K.K. from the

beginning. Sudden just got out of jail after serving a year for destruction of public property. Colliers wildest uncle had dynamited the pier in

downtown Punta Gorda several times and one incident killed a man fishing. He was enraged that the man, a black man, had the audacity to

 fish where the townsfolk had built a pier for themselves. That black man had no right to be part of society or so sudden felt. He got a year after

 the city pier was badly damaged after being warned repeatedly to stop the blasting.
As soon as he got out the Desoto County Jail he went to the pier and was aghast to see black people fishing downtown. Uncle Sudden went home ,

gathered some dynamite out of his stash and headed back to town. He tied three sticks together and braided their wicks for a strong blast.

He arrived in front of the pier and headed to the underneath and walked to the waters edge. He then walked so he could see over pier from

 the side. The black folk were over the water close to the end of the pier about fifty feet away from Sudden. He lights the fuses and holds

the sticks that are tied together with twine and waits to see the wicks were burning evenly. Sudden miscalculated something because he

 blew himself up under the pier.

 

* Although from the end of WW1 to the middle of the 1920’s was an age of change, growth and prosperity

 southern racial tolerance took quite a bit longer to evolve. Membership in the K.K.K. sky rocketed and numerous mass murders were

committed in towns like Oconee, Perry, Rosewood and surely many more unreported instances statewide. Socially the state generally

 had a church society and town dinners for special occasions or unique festivals. Not too many academic opportunities or community

meetings for increased tolerance and unfortunately many Floridians had antiquated opinions on civil rights. Even in the late 1970’s Lee

 County Schools were one of the last two school districts in the nation to attempt to integrate the races fairly
Once just for fun he shot a pine tree limb out from under Collier causing Collier to fall a bruising twenty feet. He did this for all his nephews

 because he had no wife and kids of his own to terrorize, he was too wild. Sudden was plainly a wild animal.
Colliers youngest uncle Matt was real normal and never shot at Collier or anybody else. He went to college and worked for the paper and the

 county and was eventually a County Commissioner for Charlotte County. Colliers brother Gary went to school to be an engineer. Collier learned

enough to add up money and sign his name and read what he signed. He worked like a man from his first opportunity and expected a good day

from himself daily. Of course boys will be boys.
Shortly after Sudden’s death Hewitt had to go to Arcadia and sign and fill out his draft notice and questionnaire. It was 1918 and Hewitt was 40

 years old and was born in Arcadia. Many young men went to that conflict, some being from southwest Florida. It reminded him of the Spanish

 War that some Bartow and Collier cousins did not return from.

 

Chapter 9

Collier Bartow has been saving for this day since he was 13. He bought a dock and house next to the fish house at the end of Bahaia Road.

 Hewitt and Rose had raised their third born Collier a little more than 500 feet from this house. Now married into the Johnstone family,

 Collier is ready to start a family with Patience in the little fishing community. The Calusa had fished Estero bay, then the Spaniards,

the Johnstones followed by the Bartows. With a generation of Bartows now on the bay with their families there was more Bartows

 than Johnstones. Hewitt had a big family and his children were having big families and between those two families there was no room for outsiders,

 who were just run off and beat when needed. These were some safe times on the bay, the pirates of 20 years back are gone and there is plenty

of family and friends to count on to cover your back. Collier came to Estero when he was two and had spent his life learning to fish and hunt for

food and earn cash on the bountiful bay.

When Collier showed Patience the house she started cleaning right away. She scrubbed the walls and floors with bleach and burned all the garbage

 and stuff stored inside from the last inhabitant, a friend of Patiences Grandfather Henry. Henry owned the house and sold it to Collier and Patience for $200.00

knowing Hewitt and Luther could keep an eye on the newlyweds at this house next to the fish house. By the time Collier carried Patience over the threshold

Patience had everything newly cleaned and in order. Grandma Mollie helped stock the cuppards and Collier bought whatever Patience said they needed.

The bed had Patiences Blankets Sheets and Pillows and Collier brought his, all were washed and put on the rope bed or in the linen closet in the kitchen.

The kitchen window faced out front to the walk up to the front door and the bay that shined on a sunny day beautiful in the background. These kids were

 raised on the bay and was used to seeing out he window, sometimes it was even in the yard. Snook congregated to the  docks and laid in their shade.

When you cleaned your fish and threw the scraps in the water you could shoot the first big one on top of the water feeding on the scaps. They would

never starve. Food was abundant and money was not the most important thing, food and shelter were. Collier built a porch and longed for more land for his horse.

He was happy to be married and was ready to work hard and wait for his farm, he would concentrate on Patience, the house and of course making money for the

things only money can buy.
Collier had married Patience Johnstone and she was more than he could have dreamed for, they would raise their family on the bay. A full quarter

Cherokee and sassy Collier was charmed with Patience's innocence and beauty. He was suprised how fast she matured and grew to a lady.

 Her coal black hair, olive eyes and skin qualified her for beautiful Indian maiden. At five feet tall she is as tall as she will ever get. Collier had

 watched Patience grow into the beautiful girl he wanted to marry, while growing up on the bay. He would go to her grandpa's store at Black Rock

and watched her grow from little kid to the girl that drove his life's direction with her wants. He would have bigger homes and fine cars and anything

 else that they wanted in good years and survived off the land in the bad.There were times when the kids would wear burlap croaker sack shirts and

 last years pants and dresses to school and there were good fishing years that provided new clothes whenever Patience needed them. Patience had always

known Collier, she thought him as handsome as Gary Cooper who Collier did resemble. Collier was always quiet but aware like Patience. Patience did not

know what to think when Collier started paying attention to her but as she got used to it she did fall in love with the tall cowboy Collier had grown up to be.

She repected him as a man and had grown used to him as a partner by the time they were married. She spoke with her Grandmother Mollie before marrying

Collier and  Mollie said  "Pat, if you are in love you must follow your heart, it knows best if you can follow it everything will be all right."

 

Tough times did not phase this couple ever, Collier was raised on 16 hr. workdays and a day off for church some years and a easy day would be

when hard work was fun. This upbringing taught Collier that lifes lows were only so deep and the highs were not really all they were cracked up to be.

Collier and Patience were too steady to notice the tough times, they just did what was needed and ate and slept. A vacation was non-existant, 

there were few places they really wanted to go. Collier just strove to fill the kitchen with food, his coffee can with coins, and his cigar box with cash.

Patience cared for her plants at home and helped her Grandmother on the key. Her father Luther worked for the city in 1933 until he retired in 1968. 

He thought the world of Collier and helped any way he was asked. Collier did not ask for help and that was just another reason Luther loved Collier like a son. 

When Collier was home he and Patience play on the beach side or the bay in the cool of evening. Sometimes they visit with her grandmother on Whistlers Key where her family had lived

 for pretty near 40 years. His Mother and Father are less than a mile from the key and his brothers and sisters live in Bonita, Estero,Ft.Myers and Hewitt Jr. Punta Gorda.

He has known the Johnstones all of his life. When he was a little boy, too young to drop a net the Johnstones were fishing in the bay with his Father, Hewitt.

His family lives with the Johnstones and their key as one of the few neighbors in Bahaia. The year is 1927 and Collier is 22 and Patience is 13 soon to be 14.

Collier is guiding his boat’ The Queen” out of Marathon. It is six hours to Marathon from Collier’s dock and he guides every day till the fishing party goes home, two or three

days, hired by the day. He can see celebrities like the “Babe Ruth” and get 20.00 dollars per day. Ft. Myers and Naples did not draw enough tourist to support his guide

 fishing like Key West. In Key West sportsman came from around the world to fish her fish-filled waters. A standard  day of fishing could start close to isle of Grassy Key.

Collier could ran his party into a school of Dolphin four acres large, terrorizing Glass minnos of an equally large school. His party would boat 200 pounds of dolphin in 4 fish for

dinnerin the ice box and on the fifth strike a Wahoo

would be on line and shortly in the ice box. Collier, catching so quick the fishing would be over too fast, took up anchor to find the Tarpon about twenty minutes west .

Collier would locate schools of mullet and find the tarpons cutting and rolling through their school and cast net some two-pound mullet for bait and drift with the school of Tarpon and

mullet , who are following the current as well. Colliers party cast foot long bait in the school and always get a quick response, the injured mullet sticking out like a sore thumb to the

Tarpon on the prowl, and fish until the party can't take it anymore. this was typical and expected by Collier and his parties. It was easy to see why people came from all over to fish

 the Tarpon. The fish was a 200 pound acrobat and it was astonishing to see the six-foot Silver Kings jumping out of the water fully, shaking the their heads trying to get loose of the hook.

Sometimes a tarpon fisher could get twenty jumps out of a prize fish and it was something to behold. Fish big around as a man with scales big as a silver dollar and tails wide as a broom.

Guide fishing paid well and this kind of money allows Collier to buy better tools. Be it special line to sew better nets or plows to drag with his horse or specific caliber rifles for

specific task Collier was always happy to invest if he could make more that way.

Collier does not miss his shots often and it is the firearms inaccuracy that causes him missteps. He would get rid of a gun pretty quick if it let him down, when Collier missed a shot

he traded the gun for something better thinking he had shot it out or bent the barrel when it fell last time or something.

  He hunts game for his family’s subsistence and it is as vital as his fishing or farming. He can not afford to miss his dinner because of poorly planned shots

 or weak weapons and he must catch as much fish as he can. His farming is a chore daily cared for and hoped over and he had success with collards,

Irish and sweet potatoes, melons and squash and others, some exotics that are projects that patience helps with . Patience always has time for new plants and trees.

Yesterday Patience and Collier were playing on Black Island’s beach. Patience and Collier shot ghost crabs with Colliers 22 caliber pistol. Collier did

 not miss but neither did Patience.They could stand and take two clips of shots and if collier could hit Patience could. if the target was forty yards or so away

they could hit the middle or whatever they aimed for. Patience could shoot the eye out of a seagull 40 yards away. Patience is different than the other girls. She lived on the

bay since she was born and she is very Cherokee. She likes the animals in the woods a lot more than man. She said she can trust a rattlesnake quicker than old White eye,

she is a chip off the old block in respect to her Grandma Mollie.

The .22 pistol belongs to Patience, Collier bought it in Ft. Myers new. She shoots it real good and in Bahaia real good shooting is needed sometimes,

she will carry it in an alligator skin case in her purse for 70 years and it will serve her well. She also carried a stiletto-like file and nail cleaner and she was

apt to pick something up heavy to hit you with if she was afarid she was going to shoot you, she knew if she pulled that pistol she would be obligated to use it.

 

When Collier brings home deer or hog it must be an instant kill, Patience will not eat meat that comes from something that has suffered. Patience is very concerned for animals

 feelings, and prefers to eat fish, rice and okra, papaya, grapefruit to red meat. The Cherokee heritage her grandmother had passed down shined through

many ways through her life. She did not trust white man, did not bully animals and prayed to God off and on all day long. She kept her family close to her as long as

she could and took care of her friends as family. Sometimes Collier was caught off guard with her spiritual side but learned to accept her and her ways

 Collier brings home a mess of fresh snook every morning, enough for breakfast and snacks. Patience's Grandmother, Mollie Johnstone, keeps the young couples

 house stocked with fruit and vegetables to subsidize young Collier's farming. Grandma Mollie was like a Grandma to Collier too and to all the other kids of the bay as well.

Collier loved her Grandpa Henry too, although him and Hewitt were not the best of friends anymore Collier still had been raised around Mollie and Henry. Collier looked up to

 her dad and uncles and thought of them as his uncles. Uncle Clyde was Collier's favorite, he was a tough guy no one messed with and he was good to Patience and Collier.

 

Patience was the apple of her grandma's eye, since she came to be raised by Mollie she went most places off the Island Mollie did and helped her grandma

work her trees and plants, vegetables and more at home. Patience grew up with Mollie as her Mother and looked up to her for everything she needed and wanted to be 

When they left the island Patience would go to babies being birthed, and meeting grandma's friends. She listened to grandma advise and learned her 

doctoring by watching it in action. Mollie brought her treatments and advice like others would bring their neighbors a pie. In time Patience was old enough to help

with birthes and nuturing babies to help new mothers when needed. Patience would fetch whatever Mollie needed and was by her side to help with whatever was asked of her. 

This upbringing taught Patience there was more than just herself to care for. It also taught her it is not the task, but the friends you work with that makes the day.

Her grandmother took her to an old friends death one day. Mollie had known this family since they moved to spring creek before 1910. It was the Godfry house

they had to visit this one summer day, Mollie had been good friends with the Godfrys and thought them to be fine people. They were an old couple about Mollie's age,

maybe a little older and John Godfry had been on his deathbed a few days when Mollie and Patience arrived with his wife,Wilma, tending him. They were all alone,

their children were in Maryland. They moved to Florida fifteen years ago and some kids visited a couple times but not in the last few years.

When Mollie and Patience entered the Godfry home patience noticed a stale ,sick smell but she could not identify it. They went to helping , Patience fed a fire on a

big pot out in the front yard for boiling 5 gallons of water at the time for washing the linens and dishes, warm towels for Wilma and Mollie to use cleaning up John

and his bed and room. While Patience boiled water in the front yard Mollie and Wilma spoke in hushed tones in the kitchen.

Wilma said "He is breathing so hard, he can't take that much more. It seems he has been sleeping through it all day but I am afraid it is him dying." Mollie said

"I think his heart is sick, he seems to be breathing but not getting air, it is bad, he is very ill".

Wilma answered "My dad died like this and the doctor said it was a heart attack"   Mollie said

"Lets go pray by his side for you and John"  Mollie put her arm around Wilma's shoulder and walked her to John and her's bedroom.

They walked in and stood next to the bed and prayed in silence with Wilma holding John's hand. Wilma prayed John to get to heaven and Mollie prayed Wilma

would be strong enough to survive life without John.

Patience walked in and said quiet as not to wake up John " I brought in some hot water in a pot and washed some linens that were in the kitchen"

Patience noticed that strange smell again, she had smelled it before but could not remember where. It bugged her but she shrugged her shoulders to herself

and went back to the laundry pile. Mollie and Wilma got John ready for a bath and then the sheets would be dry and they could change his bed. He had a clean

nightshirt out on the couch in their bedroom and Mollie was going to help him have a dignified passing and catch her friend Wilma when she could finally fall.

 Patience was there to help hold Wilma up when John died that night and stayed a few weeks with Wilma after John was gone. The smell was death and

she had smelled that when her grandma's uncle passed from the cancer, It was a sweet putrid smell that once smelled is never forgotten. The task was hard and solemn but

when Wilma was in need it was natural for Patience to put out her hand to help. Wilma eventually moved back to Maryland to live her last days with her daughter.

Patience was reminded just how much she loved her family and vowed to take good care of them. She visited her mothers family enough to know them and she

was excitied to be a wife and mother.

 

 

Once Collier is done with the mornings fishing he can go to breakfast, after breakfast Collier can hunt or keep his small garden on his one acre lot.

 If he hunts in Williams pasture he can gather 5 or so gopher turtles for a dinner, pick guavas for jelly, check his quail traps and keep an eye open for hog and deer

sign so he knew where to get them when he needed . He knew where the turkey were roosting and some evening, once they were settled in their roost with their

 head under their wing he would stand under their tree and shoot up into the sleeping flock killing most with buckshot in their sleep. That would fill his icebox. Catching wild hogs

 in heavy wooden drop-boxs that were proped open with a trip stick standing in a wet pile of corn was a way to farm pigs to make them taste better and easier to harvest. He

raised hogs by breeding and hybriding for more meat, bigger hams or whatever trait you prefered. These could be sold at a premium to farmers in Ft.Myers who provided him

belted pigs or farm favorites like O and C. Collier was an enterprising young man and he wanted the land to farm and the range to hunt and cowpoke from time to time.

 

If he had more land his horse would run his own pasture and he would have acres of okra, collards, and fruit trees. Collier could bring

Guava and Mulberry from the woods and plant them where he could cultivate them and there were gopher berries, wild grape, huckleberries in the woods to pick.

Those were Collier's favorite wild fare but there was much more to live off the land in the wilds of Estero. there were Paw-paws (fruit),gopher plums, cabbage palm heart,

plus all the great game and fish the area was bountiful but it did have its pitfalls

 One day Collier ran a iron pole about a half inch in diameter and 16 feet long down a gopher hole hoping to hook a turtle under his shell and drag him to the surface.

 He felt the turtle and got the hook under his shell dragged the turtle and at the same time bulldozed  a 6 foot diamond back rattlesnake stuck in front of the turtle. The snake was very

upset about the way he was being treated and charged to Collier. A six foot rattlesnake is a formidable foe and probably felt itself royalty heck, if he bit your leg he could break it with his

strike. Dragging him out of the hole was a disrespect, something the rattlesnakes instincts would not let stand. Collier was quick too as he steped forward to the snake he stuck out  his .

38 caliber pistol and shot the snakes head off with his first shot, he did not aim but the snake was dead, with his dignity intact. Collier laughed at his startled moment and left the gopher

 turtle because the snake might have bit him and he would be poisonous to eat. Collier had adventure most days, and sometimes it was more dangerous than Collier acknowledged even

 to himself.The day had danger but it might as well be ignored when it could be, everyday had to be lived, dangerous or not. When sea turtles got in his net he would dive in with pleasure, with

an open case knife between his teeth to cut their throats and bring them home for steak and stew. The turtle could bite Colliers hand off at the wrist but that was the risk,

the turtle steaks the reward, not to mention the stew which was gourmet cooking.

 
 For Collier fishing was done early today, he had mullet back at the fish house before sunup and three days snook at home with Patience. Collier had no challange

in feeding Patience while he was gone as pork and fish were abundent. This morning he had found  a school of 1 pound snook bunched up in his loop of 1 inch gill net.

Collier had dropped a curtin of six foot gill net about 1500 feet long down in Hickory Pass and took it back up by the ends and bunched the fish to big to swim through the

1 inch gill or square holes down into the remainder of the net which was about a circle 100 ft around.

He poled up to the school at one side of the loop he had tightended  and cast his net of steel on them and brought them in with a few well timed cast of this heavy

8-foot steel castnet. he caught 30 head of snook, enough fish for a week plus some of the fresh mullet he brought home as well.

 He is taking “ The Queen” to Marathon and made sure Patience had all she needed while he is gone. Her Grandma will keep an eye on her too. 

He could be there by noon and dock and fuel up. He saved a bushel of mullet for tomorrows bait and will be hired out later today. Last week Collier had

 some good fishing but the Snook kept fighting the Tarpon off the bait. These sportsman travel from all over the country to fish Tarpon and they

don’t appreciate 40 lb snook (soap fish) taking their bait and time. Patience skins and fries up snook and it doesn’t taste like soap but these yanks do

not understand. She can fry a Gopher turtle and its tender? She can cook a conch stew that is so good that Collier brings home conchs several times a month.

She just never stops impressing Collier and he is very happy with her and their simple life.
Patience is going to have a baby and she has not shared the news with Collier. She did talk with Grandma Johnstone every day she thought she

 might be. It has been a full month and she is sure. Patience never knew her mother, she died when she was 19 from tuberculosis and her Father,

Luther, brought her to Whistlers Key where he was raised. Her Mothers family wanted to raise Patience but put up little argument to Uncle Clyde's 

10 gauge when they picked her up in Bonita. Her father Luther, Uncle Henry and Uncle Clyde pulled up to the ladies of the family washing their cloths in the

Imperial River and said they would kill them all if they did not turn Patience over. Clyde grinned as he put his right foot up on the top whaler of the skiff they were in and said,

"I will shoot everybody I have to to get Patience in this boat right now"  as he grinned he pulled back the safety on the double-barrel 10-gauge Iver Johnson Shotgun.

The sisters and cousins of her mothers family cried as they immediately let go of the little three-year old who looked so much like her mother.

She also looked like her grandmother Johnstone, Patience was a spitting image of her. 

They all had a role in her life, Patience made room for them all in time. She would visit her mother's family when she was twelve with her grandma's help and stayed in touch.


Grandma tried to keep the little key peaceful but Grandpa had his way too. The Indians allowed the women to run the family and tribe but

Grandpa was from Ireland where the men run the family. The Island and its 40 inhabitants were a mix of Cherokee and Portuguese, and White

 man, like Grandpa. Grandpa is a little rough but Patience loves the old pirate even if he is a bad man. Her grandpa complained about Hewitt

and him fighting and her marrying Collier but he relinquished.
Grandma does not love the old pirate. Grandma feels he only cares for himself and nobody else. Grandma cares for so many and Grandpa is

 a lot different. Grandma sold her Island to the state to buy medicines for her “family” on the key. She is Patience’s Grandma and Mother and

about her only friend. Her Aunt Josephine is a friend, like an older sister ,and can be motherly as well. Grandma is growing grapefruit and oranges in

containers for Patience’s yard at Aunt Josephine's house.

Chapter 10

Henry was closing his store down and planned to ride out the storm at Bahia with his son  Henry Jr. Still tall but stooped now and slender at 75, he had shock

white hair and beard contrasted by his cruel blue eyes and like Medusa’s, if the old, slow moving pirates gaze stayed focused on you it would likely be bad and

 possibly lethal. Henry did not hesitate to kill if it was in self defense or if it was for monetary gain such as killing the Chinese imigrants and taking their lifes

possession.He did not consider himself a pirate although he scuttled many skiffs and fed alot of outsiders to the sharks. As a pirate would, Henry had taken any of their 

possessions he wished along the way so even if Henry denied being a pirate to himself he was still a pirate.

 Henry had served 3 years for bootlegging the rum under his nets in the aft. He had been to Havana to buy some rum to bring

back to Estero and sell in town. He found rum at .20 cents american for a quart if you bought 200. He had four burlap bags with 50 bottles each in them

 and Henry was ready to leave when he saw the old woman and her son. Henry had been making the trip back and forth from Cuba to Estero for 40 years

and recognized some people trying to get passage to Florida. Henry had seen hundereds of Chinese trying to make it to the U.S. and had taken many

 the families lives and life's savings by taking unsuspecting immigrants out to sea and killing them in their sleep and finding their loot and keeping their

belongings worth keeping. He did not bring Mollie home any ill-gotten gains, she knew where they came from and thought the whole operation cursed.

 Rotten luck to be seen throwing that old lady over after her son. He had pulled a .45 revolver from under his stearn and shot the son it the head.

Henry frisked his dead passenger while the mother watched in horror. He found the suspected money belt, Henry had done this too many times

to be inefficient as he turned to the mother and shot her between the eyes so she would not jump in the Gulf,that would  make him work to make sure

she didn't take nothing away to her death in the shark infested waters.

 Henry decided to use his anchor with the corpses when he saw a boat on the horizon and used their very heavy trunk full of clothes for good measure.

They sunk fast and the federal marshals did not find them to see their wounds. Federal marshalls in a plain looking boat like Henry's

 came to his stearn and, after boarding and inspecting, took the boat, rum, money belt and pistol missing two rounds and freshly shot smelling barrel.

They suspected he had killed but they had the rum so the arrest stuck and he went to prison at 70 years old.

His store is the general store at Black Island. Old friends stop in and get their staple from him, from Bahaia and Spring Creek and Estero.

Henry had built the store 20 years ago with ill got gains. Mollie had not been civil to him for longer and the store was his life and home.

 He does not run the mail any more, the bay gets foreign to him sometimes and he has not been the same since he got home.
He crawled in his skiff and started poling to Bahia to Henry Jr's house. The bay is breezy and little whitecaps are nipping the air. The sky was blue and is beginning to

 darken out in the gulf to the south. The wind is starting to howl from time to time, whistling in Henry’s ear and pushing him around a little as he poled the bay.
Henry had spent most of his life in this bay and he could tell yesterday some sort of weather was brewing and now he was going to hunker down

 on mainland.

Henry Jr.had his father for  the storm and Mollie was at Josephine’s house. Patience was at her house with Collier. Old Henry figured most of

 Whistlers Key would go to Bahia as well. Many a storm Henry had spent in the bay, riding out the storm with a skiff tied to a mangrove island. The

mangroves could be blown across the bay but would still block the wind. Not many know that trick. Lots of the family on Mollie's island was older

than him and he was worried about them weathering a storm in their huts and shacks. Henry had known an old man on Ft.Myers Beach who disspeared in a storm

 when the north end of the Island eroded 50 feet or so. The storm cut a new channel 50 yards to the south and most of the trees were down or topped.

Henry understood people not caring if they were at risk or not but the fellow had dissapeared over night . His shack was where the new channel appeared and Henry

wondered what killed the old man. Henry was upset in prison but today he was happy to ride out the storm on the land in a stable shelter like Henry Jr.'s home.
The wind is at his back and is pushing with him instead of against, for that Henry is grateful. The penitentiary had daily, systematically drained him

and he could not shake it. Things he could do effortlessly five years ago are challenges today. Getting old is hell and the wind at his back was as good as it gets.
Henry Jr. was the Johnstone that ran the bay with his brothers, Luther and Clyde. That damned Clyde could kill in his sleep, and was not afraid

to stand his ground. Henry loved that boy who was a chip off the old block and very much like Henry. Luther was calmer and more peaceful, His

 mother made him like her and he loved her. Luther worked with outsiders better than his brothers who hated openly with contemptuous glares for

all people not local. The boys had run off all Yankees and other outsiders until the Federal Marshals arrested half of Bahia for racketeering.
That damned Hewitt Bartow turned on the Johnstones and got no prison sentence, now he is in-laws through Patience and Collier and related to Henry.

 

Henry liked Collier even though he was Hewitt’s son. Collier seems to be a mix of good family man and tail-kicker that Henry expected of his boy's 

and their sons, Collier was like one of his own. Patience is as much a daughter as granddaughter and with Collier he has no worries.
Henry cares for that Hewitt like one of his own. Clyde and Hewitt were as brothers and Henry had relied on their back-up on the bay.

 He had Hewitt and Clyde do the bay patrols that he thought required killing indiscriminately. Those two were quick and their instinctive reactions is

 kill and forget the names. The Tampa Bay bunch was always trying to push their way in the bay.

Sometimes a dozen boats will work their way down the bays from Tampa to Estero Bay. Hewitt and Clyde with his brothers go fish and catch

them alone and shoot all they find. Occasionally the law comes to Estero but no one knows the particulars, but all suspect the people on Estero Bay

do not accept new people well.
It was Hewitt and Clyde that lead the massacre of the blacks  twenty or so years back. Some cousins from Fort Myers came to Estero bay at sundown

 and dressed for hunting. The townsfolk Ku Klux Klansmen arrived carrying shotguns loaded with man killing buckshot loads. They had come because

 old Henry instigated the killing until the town came out to Bahaia, he stirred that pot of hatred until it boiled over.Everybody spread out in different skiffs of

the Bartow and Johnstone Families and hunted down families trying to squat in Estero Bay. The people being black made the deaths and the townspeople’s

complicity certain.
Hewitt and Clyde played cleanup after KKK volunteers leave revolted by their inhuman actions. Into the night they silently crept the bay listening for life

 to extinguish. Hewitt drinking foolishly hard and Clyde just content to kill as they murder mothers and babies alike, everything they hear, even

shooting a cormorant off the mangroves when they pulled up to the fish house the next morning, old drunk and happy. Clyde found satisfaction in keeping

 the bay free of outsiders, free of danger from Yankee scum or in this instance, the black people looking to horn in on the fishing in the bay. He was keeping

 the bay the way his dad wanted him to and to get Henry's approval was very important indeed.

 Clyde would lead the duo when the killing time came but, when the times got tough and Clyde needed back-up, Hewiit was there. If Clyde was under fire Hewitt

 would respond quickly and we know how fast Hewitt could shoot a person in self defense. If Clyde drew fire Hewitt would put it out, old Henry could count on

that. Henry had depended on Hewitt for many years so the betrayal cut deep, but Hewitt had tried to make ammends.

.

Henry knew Hewitt felt bad for talking about family business with the police when they caught him with a still, he did beat the police cheif and he got

 shot in the face. Henry had heard Hewitt caught the yankee law man going over fishtrap bridge and jumped on the floorboards of the police car and punched the

cheif in the face. The lawman had enough wit under fire to pull his .45 and empty it in Hewitts face. Hewitt fell from the floorboards and one could have presumed him

 dead but when his oldest son Charley ran to him Hewitt was screaming in agony and cussing, a good sign he was not dead yet. Charley helped Hewitt to his horse

and they went home. Collier found his dad at home spitting bullets in to a bowl at the kitchen table while digging them from his nasal cavity and face with his fingers

and knife. Collier had walked in on Hewitt digging in his mouth with a filet knife, dislodging the last of the .45 slugs. Collier did not say a word but shook his head in awe

 and held back a tear. Hewitt saw the horror on young Collier's face and said

"This is the last one, I will be allright ,he was shooting duds so they were all just stuck in my face" with this said Hewitt grinned and went back to the slug in his mouth.

Collier said a silent prayer of thankfulness that his father had lived through the shooting.

The cheif's powder was old and Hewitt lived while Henry went to jail.
Hard for Henry to believe how the years had flown by. Henry homesteaded Whistlers Key, President Harrison signed a homestead deed in 1890.

It was 1927 now and the bay had changed. After the war between the states  far south like Lee County was free from Yankee’s, now the federal marshals patrol

the whole state and there is talk of laws stopping people from hunting most of the year. Yankees are moving to Bonita and the town welcomes them

with open arms. The final betrayal was the town wanting yankees to join the society. When he was a boy he had enjoyed the solidarity of the community

not wanting yankees in their town, now they were accepted with open arms.
Henry remembers the old pirate, Black Augustus, Jose Gaspars first mate who gave him Black Island. The old pirate was having trouble keeping fed and

too weak to try harder. Augustus and Henry spent more than a few days talking about pirate days and the war between the states. Augustus was not in society

for the war , he had been living on Black Rock since the 1840's or before as he was not sure of dates or even his age by the time Henry and Augustus became

 friends after living in the bay together for 20 years. Old Augustus had killed many men and thought nothing of it.

Henry's friend Red Matteson came to mind when he remembered Augustus's tales of murder and pillage. Red started killing and could not stop,drove by his

unforgiving hatred for the union and their assault against the south. 

 He became Bloody Red Matteson and was known far and wide. He used to stay at Whistlers Key and fished with Henry in the bay. Red just enjoyed the satisfaction

of killing Yankees and it spread to anyone he seen. He was like a mad dog with his mind gone like that. Mollie turned him over to the law who shot him on the spot in

the bay. He made it out of the law's ambush but was killed by his neighbors who were tired of his killings. When you walked in Red's house it smelled of death strong,

like a butcher's shop. The little community was tired of fretting Red's activities so they killed themselves.

 "Oh well the good days are gone forever" Henry thought to himself.
As he pulls up to the dock at the fish house Henry Jr. waves from the ice deck. Henry walks up to his son and tells him he is tired and was going

to his house next to the fish house. Pappy headed to a lean to on Henry’s house where his father stored things and sometimes slept. Little Henry, now

in his 40's loved his father very much and was saddened everytime he noticed him aged. He watched his Papa amble up the steps to his room on the

side of the house and thought how sad his dad was. Prison had broke him and it broke Henry jr.'s heart. He followed his Dad to his room and knocked

and went inside. There was a net hammock in the corner and some old, wooden crates of Henry's with a kitchen chair pulled up to a crate on end as if

it was a table, this is where old Henry set  looking off into space deep in thought when Henry Jr. went in. Jr said " Momma is with Josephine but the rest of the Island

will not come in". 

Old Henry grunted and said, "Some of them shacks are older than you and are going to blow away someday,they would be better off in the bay in their skiffs"

Jr. said "Luther and Clyde went to Punta Gorda to help Josephine if needed"  Old Henry replied "Well, we can ride this storm out by ourselves then"

Jr. said "I begged them old cherokees to come to our house for the storm, it high and safe but they would not even consider coming in. Old Joe told me

he would get under his rug in the grove if it got bad but that don't sound too good".

After a long silence Jr. remembers he has work to do before the storm is on them and says "Dad, if you want come inside the house with us, we will probably

have some dinner on the table later when its blowing by" He went out side and went back to secure everything he needed to tie down or put up high.

Old Henry never went to dinner, he stayed in his room and thought about the old days with Mollie. He could remember their days  at the grove on the river

and it made him smile a minute or two, he spent more and more time thinking about the good times, he surely was not going to go find some new ones so

the memories would have to do. After a few hours the house started to shake with the wind and Henry thought he might as well go to sleep and ride the strong

sounding storm out in his sleep
Henry finally wakes several hours later to the howling wind, squeaks of tired timber at his Son’s house. He lays there

for hours catnapping waiting for the storm to blow by. Eventually the howling quiets and the wind will allow him to venture outside. The house is on poles

 and the water was everywhere and deep. Trees that had survived many storms were down, testimony to the storms power. Henry walks around

the deck and walks into Jr.’ s house. Nobody is in the house. The entire family was walking through the knee deep water in their front yard under the silver

and blue skied evening. The sky left behind after the storm was beautiful but one look at the surroundings told Henry he had slept through the most powerful

storm of his life. The damage varied from total destruction to not even a trace left behind. Mangrove Islands were missing and trees in the back of  Henry Jr.s

house were gone and he could not tell where they went. There might be some serious damage to his store, he had to go now.

Henry commandeered one of his grandsons skiffs because his was tied down way back

by the house and this skiff was in the water at the dock, which was a foot under water. He started poling back to Black Island. Mangrove islands had moved

their positions up to a quarter mile, some grouped together, others blown apart and some turned upside down.

Henry had not expected so much damage, leaves striped from trees, broken limbs dangling, and everything looks different. Henry had suffered many storms

but his memory did not have any storm this strong. Hurricanes had killed plenty of pioneers, he had heard of people dying in storms he had lived through and had

always been curious about why the people had died. What did he do right that they did wrong.. When it first leaves

 the water to blow over land the hurricane is at it peak, this storm must have hit directly dead center Estero Bay. Sometimes the storms hit the mainland hard

and now Henry finally understood.

 Henry wondered how the folks on whistlers key fared, he had to see his island first, just to be sure everything is alright.

The bay's damage shook Henry up and he became anxious to get home. He had lost so much and his life seemed to slip through his fingers,

one piece at a time. Henry had made this trek 10,000 times and knew if the sun was where it should be he could get home. All of the changes were confusing 

his mental compass, but not really slowing his pace as he poled a straight line home to Black Island.

. It has been about 24 hrs. since Henry had left his store and he was wishing he had stayed. Was the light playing tricks with his eyes?. Was he losing his mind?.

Henry kept rubbing his eyes in denial but he knew he was in trouble in his heart. The closer he came to his store the more obvious it became that his store and half

the island had gone out to sea.  Where his store stood was the bay ,about three foot deep, he was in shock. Everything Henry had earned was gone. His house and

store, his buried treasure and the land it all sat on was gone.

Henry just sat down on the skiff and stared at the empty spot. Eventually he gathered his senses, stood, and poled to the new beach and pulled the boat out

 of the water on to sand, packed hard from the storms rains. He stumbles around looking for anything the storm might have missed. He did not have anything.

Nothing ever showed up, not a crumb and this aged Henry 10 years overnight. Henry took a seat on a rock and sat a good time taking in all of this new reality,

He was in  shock by the traumas like jail, divorce,and lots more including this hurricane.

This ended old Pappy’s era and an era of time in Lee county, more respect would be shown to the law and contempt would be hidden.
* Two hurricanes struck the state with such fury it stopped the Land Boom cold. One in 1921 and one in 1926. In 1925 the speculator lost his

 ability to resell his acquisitions because their were no new buyers to buy. The land boom did make profits for folks buying and selling Florida

real estate. After the early part of the decade’s successes the crazy prices and the hurricanes took their toll. In 1929 the state annual visitors

 fueling the tourism trade dropped from three million to one million per year. Then the depression followed up when things could not get bleaker.

 In 2005 the state suffered its second devesting statewide storm, in 2007 the boom was over, no buyers for the houses for sale causing massive devaluation.

In 2008 it is obvious that a recession is in action and inflation is causing national economic stress with more to come, and a black man is running for President.

History repeats itself but often man fails to apply the knowledge it affords us. 

 

Collier and Patience…

Chapter Eleven

                     After the storm Patience and Collier are very worried about Whistlers Key and her family there. Her Grandma and Grandpa being with family

on the mainland kept them safe but many of her uncles, aunts, cousins and friends remained on the island for the storm. The young couple had begged the

families on the island to come to the mainland, their house even. All the folks at Whistlers Key said they would stay and ride out any store. Hurricanes caused this drama

every year and allthough it was scarey Patience and Collier had to respect the old folks wishes. 

All the young couple could do is take care of themselves and Sam. Collier had taken his skiff and tied it down to some trees and the mullet boat rode the

storm right at his front door on blocks and lashed down to the ground, it never budged. It was a great blow and trees were down in their yard and as far as the eye could see,

the destruction was entire on the trees and bushes, stripped of their leaves and many snapped in half.

 

Collier and Patience toting Sam set out to the key in the skiff. Awestruck, Collier is looking at the damage as he poled along the bay pointing out storm’s effect to the

mangroves along the way . When the key came into view it was as bad as the rest of the bay. Most trees that were not mangroves looked like tooth-picks. The island

had citrus trees 40 years old and other mature foliage that her grandmother had grown for food or the plants beauty. Mollie had planted over forty years on this island and it

was in a shambles. Mollie's Island had the top half of all the trees broke off and hardly no leaves on what was left. There were piles of fresh broke limbs and places blown

bare from the winds.

 There was a strange silence on the island. No conversation on the wind. No kitchen smells or barking dogs. When Patience pulled to the landing in the island’s lagoon

she ran for the high ground where her family had weathered so many storms with Collier close behind. Collier could not believe the devastation he was walking through. 
At the top of the big mound there were no houses, gardens, yards, pets or livestock to be found. They were fifty feet high on this big mound yet she

could not see anyone or thing stirring anywhere.Patience yelled for anyone to answer "Is anyone here"  She had no answers to their calls.

No family or friends. Did they get blown out to sea? There were no birds or grandma’s goats. Patience and Collier were raised with these oldtimers now

 missing, they cried because they knew 22 friends were gone, never to smile at or laugh with again. 

What would Patience’s grandma do? Patience needed to go home and wait for Grandma. She was struck with shock and was a little dizzy. She sat on the ground

and cried. Collier just stood with tears flowing holding two-year old Sam's hand.
Their lives would never be the same which would be good and bad. Some lives were lost, Grandma’s life’s work, her little family on the key was lost,

 Grandpa’s home and life savings lost, Grandpa had not lived more than 6 months after the hurricane blew his store out to sea. Many of Mollie's cousins died in the

storm from Estero Bay to the Western shore of Lake Okeechobee the devastation was total

and sometimes lethal.Those who could lived on. This storm began as a terror in Miami on it’s path of destruction ultimately bringing

the already slowing land boom to a total halt on our local coast. The “Great Depression” had less of an effect regionwide because the local economy

was stifled by the storms and the fear they generated during the 1920’s. The people that were wealthy seemed broke and many of their lives were shattered by the

the sudden change in the economy. They had speculated and made money many times but you only have to lose once when it is everything you have.


Ten years later life recovered in Estero bay. Collier was guiding twice a week and they have everything they need. Grandma and Grandpa Johnstone

are long gone but Patience and Collier have two sons and a baby daughter and life is good. The country is still in an economic depression but money

 is only a very small part of the wealth Patience enjoys.She has cool breezes in the morning and a busy family. Three kids keep her busy and she is very

 happy with her life direction, a happy family was all she had ever wanted. She was off the bay, away from the wild and dangerous bay she was born to.


Collier had bought them 10 acres a little farther from the bay and she was planting all the trees that survived the storm of “27.” from Whistlers key

and any other place she could. Collier brought home Guava, mulberry, and other bushes from the woods. This farm would weather the storms better

than the acre on the bay because it was not as exposed to the winds and high tides. The dirt was richer and there was no salt water wiping out the garden.
Patience’s Grandmother had worked so hard on her groves and special trees. Some she was given and some she brought back from Tampa when

 she sold her seeds. Patience had grafts from trees too big to move and seeds from trees that would grow strong new trees. She had to save

 everything of Grandma’s, she loved her so much. A good portion of her heritage was in the plants and trees her and her grandmother had cultivated.

 
Collier had some cattle and they had their goat for milk. She had some dogs and cats and 25 hens with a rooster and a couple of geese. She was

 the last Cherokee woman of the bay and was proud of her family and home. During her early years things could get wild but somehow, with common sense and guts

everything worked out. Collier had no fear that she could find and he did things she was not quite ready for. One day a rat ran up his arm on the boat and when he

 grabbed it the rat bit him on the thumb. He grabbed the gnawing rat by the top of its head and pinched the top of his head off, without making a face, not even a word,

he just grinned and threw the dead rat overboard. His thumb bled a long time and was sore a month but he paid it little mind. He fished with a cold or flu,

a stringray barb in his feet or legs, broken arm or leg. No matter the challange Collier did his job and brought home the weigh tickets for a hard days mullet fishing,

that is what supported his home and was his "Bread and Butter".

Collier was mild and protective with her and the kids but when he was gone she was all alone.
One lonely night when Patience is at home with then two year old Sam she hears the dogs bark. Collier’s hunting dogs were protecting Sixteen year old

Patience who was home alone with her first child and it was past midnight. There is a loud knock at the door, like someone was trying to knock it down.

She asked who was there but they just beat harder in response. Patience goes to her nightstand and finds her colt. She went back and listened to the night,

she can hear his feet scuffing pebbles outside the door, she had a rock walk to her door.

 She warns the intruder she is armed. She is armed with the pistol Collier bought her before they married, a .22 caliber Colt Woodsman semi-automatic target gun.

She barks her warning and it is silent, she is uncertain there is anybody out there, the feet shuffling outside had silenced. She opens the door and there stood a stranger

at the door. She quickly tries to slam the door but meets silent resistance from a foot holding the door ajar. She fires five quick shots through the crack in the doorway

 and the now wailing man howls off into the night groaning and wailing as Patience stands back from the open front door and watches the man dissappear.

It all went pretty fast but the man had his hand on the screen door and was coming in.

Patience did not recognize him, it was a drizzeling that night and dark as night can get, she could not see that good at all.She will spend a lifetime wondering who and why but she

never hears of him again. All she really remembers were the spots her rounds put on his white, buttoned shirt. I am sure a lifetime of Mollies warnings paid off more than once for

Patience and Collier. Patience was strong enough to do her work everyday and tough enough to do what she had to.

In the early “40’s” another storm comes and floods most of Bahaia. The winds are howling when Joe wakes in his bed. His father Collier had

said a storm was coming soon last night at dinner. The trees are beating their limbs on the side of the house and the wind is howling a little. Patience is standing over her 2

lid wood stove with a metal coffee perculator pouring herself a cup. She notices Joe moving and offers some cowboy coffee. She would use lots

 of sugar and cream. It was a treat on a stormy day.
Within minutes Collier is coming in the door and telling Patience to get Sam, Joe, and Dolly in some jackets and rain clothes and off they went with

 Patience clutching her purse full of pictures and the always in her purse pistol, always. Joe was surprised when they went out the door and Collier's

 boat was up to the front door step. Collier quickly loads everyone up in the skiff and poles down the road to the bay. Once in deeper water the bay rolls

up and down and the wind is picking up the surf and blowing water in his face.The treetops are swinging violently to and fro and leaning in the wind.

 Collier takes his family to a big mangrove Island and sit out the wind on the calm side. Once out of the direct force of the wind everybody in the skiff

calmed down and rode the hurricane out. After the wind died down they went back home , the water was down away from the house by then and they had to

walk a quarter mile home in the mud.

 Collier was concerned the water might collapse his house and possibly kill everybody inside so the bay was a safe bet. Try it sometime.

Chapter 12


Collier has his hands full…
Colliers first son Sam was born 6 months after the storm of “27”. Every day since Sam was 5 he had fished with Collier. Then in “36” Joe was born.

Man was he a hand full. Collier was so proud of the boys and then Dolly was born in “37“. All the kids were healthy and Patience finally had a daughter.

 Times were kind of tight but Collier could feed his family and did not owe anybody. The law had changed year after year and eventually the Game

Wardens enforced laws against hunting from February to November. Collier still had to eat in those months so he had to do what he had to do. Yankees always

 changing things makes him wish they would leave him in peace.
Hewitt’s friend the Sheriff said that the state and federal officers want to arrest Collier but the local officers refused. Collier was on short list of

 poachers to be arrested but the game wardens got no assistance from local law enforcement and shot in the ass by Collier, just as a friendly warning.
One day as Collier and the boys are working in the garden one of the few cows Collier could afford came up to the fence with a big gash on its side.

 Showing the silver on her exposed rib bone she had obviously been attacked. Not that it is a very appealing bovine.This cow was a Florida longhorn and its

bones stuck out no matter how much feed it ate. Although she is not much to look at she is Colliers. What in the world would make somebody do this?

Collier and Patience doctor up the gash which consisted of cleaning and applying a salve of aloe and herbs from the woods and or islands. Collier

knew the wound was from a sword or big knife so it was inflicted by a human. He wondered if it is the new neighbor. That old guy seemed pretty nuts.

 He was fighting with Collier’s brother about anything he could, like he was trying to run him off.
About a week goes past and an eight year old Joe comes running up to his Daddy yelling “That old man is beating the cows”. Collier is in garden and

can see the old man and the cows in Colliers pasture. Old Charley, Colliers Tennessee Walker was grazing 50 ft. or so away. Collier ran to his horse

and jumped up on him from behind, in stride. Just as he rode up to the man he dived off his horse landing on the man’s chest and face with both feet,

in stride and never missing a beat. He must have hit that bad case neighbor doing 30 miles an hour. Joe sneaks up close enough to hear the steady

stream of cussing from Collier as he jumped up and down on this mans ribs and frame. Collier is calling him names Joe never heard before but

instinctively knew never to repeat. Collier rarely cussed that Joe could hear but he sure was that time.
That old man was crazy as hell. A month goes by and one of Colliers nieces came to the house and said the man is at her house raising hell. As

 Collier pulled on the scene he witnesses the old man try to knock down his sister in law. Immediately Collier knows what to do. On the drive over

 there he wonders if it is going to be bad. Shaking his head Collier grabs his ivory handled .38 special and walks to the argument. As the old man

turns to face off with Collier again Collier lets him kiss his pistol. While he is pushing the old jerks face in he watched the new neighbors knees

buckle with satisfaction, maybe this old Yankee will leave him alone. It was a bad wound and the law was called in. The witnesses said Patience picked up

a lighter knot and protected her sister in law. Everybody including the judge felt Patience had the right to defend her sister in law. Case dismissed.
As time goes by Collier is becoming less inclined to tolerate intrusion into his life. If people wanted to move to Florida it was a free country but he

was free as well. Collier worked everyday and when he was fishing he did not let anyone take his families food or money. He stayed clear of folks

 fishing respecting their space. If someone was in distress he would assist or at least not further endangerment. Of course when someone attempted

to hurt him he would protect himself.
One day Collier, Joe and Sam are in a skiff with 3 times as much fish as the skiff should carry. The waterline is about to the top rib. Collier’s brother

Rufus saw the skiff barely making it back to the fish house and decided to swamp him in spite. Rufus is tired of his big brother Collier who could

smell the big strikes and was making all the money. As the brothers boat neared Collier reached under the bow and grabbed his 30-30 Winchester.

 As he brought up the rifle to sight on his brother the offending skiffs abruptly turn away. Collier put his gun away and pulls up to the fish house a

minute later. He weighs in his catch and puts it on ice. Now Joe knew what everybody else knew. Collier would not bullshit you and you could depend on it. 

On another day Joe and Collier were Calcutta cane pole fishing trout commercially and filling up the boat. A visitor to the bay decides to crowd

Collier as he worked. The arrogant stranger travels up current and is now fishing Colliers space. As Colliers fishing slowed his patience grew thin.

Ordering Joe to put away his fishing rig Collier then poles over to the intruder’s boat. No hellos or you dirty dog, Collier silently beat the

 man to the bottom of his boat with his boat pole. Then Collier boarded the man's boat and stomped on him for a while. The whole process required no

 other communication, no explanation, point made.
Joe had seen his father in good times and bad and Collier was good in the good times and better in bad. Joe worked side by side with his dad and

they never had a bad time. Very few whippings, maybe acres of pasture weeding but for the most part they were busy, easy going days. Now if trouble

 showed up Collier had nerves of steel. He unflinchingly dealt with his life as it came to him and his first instinct was a hunter’s reaction to find and

shoot, not run and fight when it was safe. That worked in a lot of cases.
There was the time Joe and Collier and Joe’s uncle Fred were hunting off US41 in Estero. Fred was a World War Two veteran and was seriously

injured during the war and sent home carrying shrapnel and bullets not worth removing. He had courage. He was a marine boxing champ and eventually

 spent over 30 years as a Florida State Trooper. He was Joe’s hero. While hunting west of 41 about a half mile one day they come across a gopher

turtle hole that is huge. It also had fresh tracks indicating a large inhabitant. You know looking back Joe, Collier and Fred knew something was weird

but when that 8 ft. gator came blowing out of that gopher hole at their feet it was unnerving. Joe remembered well when he and Fred were running full speed and

heard the shot. They slowed down and turned around in time to see Collier’s gun still pointed at the ground as he looked to see if he should shoot again.

 He did not have to as the gator was dead at his feet.
Joe always tried to show his lack of fear like Collier but he was a tough hombre to match . There was another time Collier killed a big boar closing in

on him fast as it ran his brother Fred by. Fred was running for his life that day in Spring Creek. Joe’s hero, Uncle Fred knew if he could get to Collier

it would be alright. Collier was good to his family and always worked hard enough to get the job done. When asked he delivered, just sometimes it

was in a way from years ago and now there is a lot easier ways to be a man. Sometimes a little more tolerance could keep peace.
Of course Joe was not a prefect kid and from time to time his quick wit and sharp tongue landed him in trouble. A little comment or two could get

you weeding four acres by hand. Collier did not want to fight with his kids but they had to respect him and their mother. He loved Joe and was

 very protective. One time when Joe was 10 Collier brought home a young colt. Collier and Patience bottle fed and anything else this little guy

needed for a year. At two years old the colt is saddle and bit broke. Early one morning Joe and Collier were riding their horses to the Williams

 pasture to dip them in a vat set up to control parasites like hook worms and red tick. It was an Autumn Saturday and the weather was mild. Joe

 was taking in the cool breeze and clear day. He came from a long line of cowboys.
Next thing Joe would remember was landing in palmettos with a sudden stop to jar him awake. He did not have any saddle glue to his ass and he

 flew as quick as a bird off Blackjacks back. He got up and shook it off.. Collier saw Joe flying that fast and far. He was getting too old for this.

 He jumps off his Charley Horse and runs to the palmettos Joe had disappeared into. A cowboy could break his neck a lot easier than that. It just

shook Collier enough to make Joe sell his horse that day. Joe begged for Blackjack but Collier would not chance losing Joe to the backbreaking he

 had had.
They take the old saddle off Blackjack and leave it in the road. Collier knows Joe’s cousins down the road would find it and take it home to ride their

cow with. Collier always looked out for his nephews and nieces and he knew they would use it. Their father was Collier's youngest brother, damn

 near 20 years younger and he and his kids were like his own.
Blackjack was sold that day and Joe and Patience silently wondered why? The roaring fifties..

 

Chapter Thirteen

Joe had watched his Dad, Collier fight for his due but Joe thought being a lover, not a fighter was the way to go. Now having 20 cousins living next door

 required a little violence from time to time but mostly it was work = money and girls = free time. Leaving school in eighth grade Joe was proficient in many

 things school could not teach. Daily he wakes in the early A.M., 12-3 depending on the tides and moon and fishes daily. Once the nets were hung if needed

and fish on ice he could go home to breakfast, usually by 8. Then he would round up the chicken eggs in the yard and any fresh snook he had to sell and jump

in his model “ A”. He has an egg route he built selling fresh eggs to homes and restaurants in Bonita and Bonita Beach. If Joe could have applied these atributes

 and talents to school he would have been an engineer in structure design but he had too settle for superintendent of construction which always irritated him, he

 could have done better than his bosses because he spent a life time fixing their mistakes in the field, but I should stick to his teen years for now.
 Teenaged Joe is a dark handsome rascal with mischeif in his eyes and smile. Unfortunately Bonita was a small town and his mother Patience heard all.

That’s the last thing she needed was Joe getting married before his 16th birthday, it just was not done in this day and time. She had her last child in “52” and her

 name is Betty. She cares for the baby and worries about Joe. He had girlfriends in Bonita and Ft. Myers and he was gone more and more. It was how it had always been.

Joe was 8 when he got into trouble playing post office many girl cousins down the road. At 10 he was locking the teachers out of the library so he and his

 girlfriends could play post office uninterrupted. Now at 16 he has girlfriends in all the families of Bonita and some are kissing cousins, probably a lot

 more than he knew thanks to Collier's shenanigans. Joe was a hard working lad who happily put in the hours and effort to be successful. He was independent

 as permitted and had his own boat,car, and business at 14.


   On a fall morning in ’52” Joe loaded up his model “A” with his shotgun and a thermos of coffee for the ride. It was 5:30 in the A.M. and Joe was heading

towards Corkscrew to hunt the Audubon Sanctuary. It was crisp and cool. The wind coming in the Chevy’s window put a little sting on his face but the sun

 would warm him up soon. In those days Corkscrew Rd. was an old trail but dirt east of the railroad tracks 1/10th of a mile east of US41. Joe drove slower

as he neared the hunting stand of the day to keep the noise down. He arrived and parked in some oaks that hung to the ground obscuring his car. The

daylight was breaking and Joe worked his way to a stump he pictured himself setting on. The dew was white and bubbly on the grass tips, wetting his trousers as

he advanced to the woods. There was nothing more natural than Joe on his stand on this brisk morning, setting on that lighterknot stump waiting for a buck and

doe to walk to close A loud snort started a second that lasted a minute and it enabled Joe to skip setting the stand as the game had began right under his

feet on his stalk to the stump.
Joe swung his gun in the noises direction and saw his target and took aim and fired. Before firing Joe heard a commotion to his left and pumped a

new round of buckshot in the receiver  and found the second deer leaving the area. He aimed and fired. When the smoke cleared two deer lay.

One 92 steps away and one 78. It took a minute to tell you but those two shots were less than half a second apart. That old Winchester model 12

was mighty fast in Joes hand as he was taught to shoot birds by Collier  who could shoot a bird in the air with a rifle or a shotgun.
A few years pass and Joe meets a new girl in town. Red hair, blue eyes and built like no other girl he had dated. Wow he was in love. He was

 seventeen and his life was going to change. He had enjoyed his bachelor life but this girl Alice was going to be his wife. Lots of cousins would like

to date Alice but she pays them no attention, they are dumb, little boys compared to Joe.
Alice is from Michigan and her family moved to Florida in “48” and by 1955 they owned Trailer parks, beach apartments and a restaurant. They had

always had fancy cars and plenty of cash but her family did not live like the Bartows. Joes Family feasted daily on steak, roast, venison, pork, and

fresh seafood and vegetables and fruit. They never cared for fancy cars or precocious things, just good family life. It was so different from Detroit

or her mothers or Grandmothers house.
As the months fly by Joe and Alice plan to marry. Her mother ,Gertrude, was a little upset things were different in the south. In the end she built

them a home on Colliers land and Collier gave them the lot. Patience is not happy but by this time she could not control Joe or anybody. She would

 try to bite her tongue and wish them good luck. They were going to live next door and that would be good. Of course Collier is still shooting the

game wardens in the ass.
On a particular day in “53” Collier is out hunting the pasture and woods maybe 3 miles from his home. The same woods he had grown up hunting

 for all of his 50 years. There is a new game warden in the Ft. Myers area and he had a thing for Collier. Collier had seen this before. Actually the

fact he was an old hand at controlling aggressive game wardens was the attraction for this young officer. He was not much older than Sam and

Collier did not want to maim him but he was following Collier around like a hungry buzzard.
Collier saw ‘Good old Dickle” following about 20 minutes behind out the corner of his eye. Collier regretfully sits on a stump in some palmettos that he

 had sat on a many times over the years. It was open to hundreds of acres of scrub with some pine heads scattered around. He is watching Dickle from the

same stand he had hunted turkey from. He would set that stump in the late afternoon and watch the turkeys find their roost in the tallest tree available.

The trick was to wait till they put their heads under their wings to sleep. Then Collier would sneak to the bottom of the most productive roost and shoot

 turkeys out of the tree over his head. It would be raining turkeys for the gunny sack. This was not skill or sportsman worthy although it required

 patience and need which he had plenty of. Now it is this squirt Dickle on the roost.
Art Dickle has been a Game Warden for a year and not busted a poacher yet. The towns people including the Sheriff and his deputies did not

support the laws governing hunting and fishing. Federal law mandates state action to enforce these guidelines and the state legislature adopts

the statute. Even his bosses asked him to leave this Collier alone. They say it is his way of life. They use to live like that in New York but they

had to conform. And this Collier would too. Suddenly Art is on the ground, he lands really hard and under close inspection discovers he has been

shot in the ass. No wonder his ass is stinging, it is bleeding. He fell back down yelling “ I have been shot”
Collier was back at the stump smiling to himself. He heard him figure out he had been shot, Collier hit right where he aimed. He aimed where he

 ass met his saddle on the down stroke as he rode. Collier could shoot a turkey, hog, or deer on the run with a .22 magnum and he got smartass

 Dickle moving pretty fast. It was a hell of lot better than old Clyde or Henry would have done. It was more of a Hewitt stunt. It did not kill or maim

 but it hurt to sit or take a crap for 3 months. There was a time where this Yankee would stay down but every year you get softer. You can get hurt

pulling your punches but his heart told him to let him go. Fare Thee well Dickle you get a second chance.

 

Chapter 14


In the summer of “52” there is a visitor to Colliers neighborhood. It was a balmy morning at about ten o’clock when Joe noticed a black man and

his dog in the field across the street from his house hunting carrying a Gopher pole. He is pulling a fifteen foot metal pole out the ground with

tortoises shells hung up on it’s hooked end and putting them in his bag. Gopher turtles and their fried meat have caused this man to collect all

 he can carry running from hole to hole with a croaker sack. Those are Colliers tortoises and this means war.
With a little apprehension Joe brings the news of these visitors to Collier. Collier was astounded that a black man would hunt his woods. As he

 stood swaying slightly in thought Joe studied Collier with anticipation and a little fear for what he was going to do.
Collier, after suffering his moment of shock grunts with a smile and heads to the barn. He emerges from the barn with his .22 magnum rifle out

of his jeep. Joe seeing the rifle emerge pleaded for the mans life. “ Please don’t kill the old man Daddy!”. As Joe is pleading Collier takes

 a bead on his target and the rifle barks with a crack suitable to a .22 Hornet. The Black man stops, ducks, cusses and turns and runs for the

hills, all at the same time. following is his black, white and tan Beagle curiously trotting almost beside his master and best friend.
After a moment of light laughter Collier smiles down at his boy and tells him “I wouldn’t kill a man I did not have to, but I will do what it takes to

 keep what is mine.” Joe was worried about Collier, what would he do if Collier went to jail for some of his social activities or work related

incidents. Joe watched in awe one time as Collier pulled a double barrel on a Baptist preacher in Colliers front yard. The preacher stopped by

as Collier was leaving to shop in town for groceries. Collier seemed courteous enough but as he had to ask the preacher a second time to leave

 so he could move on to town he started to growl. As the preacher continued to smugly ignore Colliers request for freedom Collier says “I have

 something that will move you Preacher man” as he emerged from the house with the shotgun in his hands. This shocked Joe. Collier walks up

 to the now blanching preacher and says “Get in your car and get the hell off my farm and do not ever come back or I will kick your ass.” When

 Collier finishes his words he jams the double barreled gun swiftly to the preachers mid section as an exclamation point. Well, I guess Joe knew

 even heroes can make a mistake. The preacher could still walk and wisely leaves never to return.  Joe feared the trouble that would arise from

Collier acting like that but Collier never gave it a thought, he had asked the man to go. Once he had ordered the Preacher to vacate his property

 he believed the preacher was in the wrong and that enabled Collier to protect his space and freedom on his land. Joe knew the little town would

chatter about this assault on a preacher but Bonita always did have plenty to talk about when it came to his neighbors and kin.

  A mischevious Joe liked driving down the beach and snatching fishing poles Yankees left out in surf spikes on the waters edge. He felt this was

 good fun, not like the serious stuff Collier did. It was just a few years ago the sheriff searched the farm for a .38 colt in Colliers possession. He had

allegedly pistol whipped a young man in traffic on US41 in town. Apparently the young man pulled over to fight with Collier and got more than he bargained for.

Collier certainly was not an extravert so this guy was probably a bully. The offending weapon hid well in a corn barrel. and he did not get in trouble then

or any other time but at 65 he was as rank as a twenty year old. Collier was mischevious as well and supported Joe's shannangins around town,

he was a smart young man and collier new he would be sucessful.
Now Joe’s mischeviousness required his cousin Ben to help. Ben and Joe were about the same age and they had like ideas. They played since young

boys and even fire hunted Bonita until Ben’s death in “85”. Joe could call many animals to his stands at night, his favorite is to call a bobcat up

while waiting for the deer to show their eyes. It was illegal to fire hunt but it was the good clean fun of many good boys and men in the past.
Another like idea was work, Joe and Ben would work as much as they could because they loved to make money. Being raised commercial fishing

 and farmer made the long days natural. Ben was 48 when he died his heart gave out from work. Joe just kept on going. He trained 100’s of carpenters

and had offended many architects and engineers and told a few to take this job and shove it along the way.
While Joe hoped his dad would stay out of trouble he also learned to do carpentry work. This grabbed Joe’s intellect and captured his spare time.

If he worked evenings and Saturdays he would have two jobs and two paychecks. Side work was his joy. He could double his weekly wages and

 sometimes more. After 10 or so years in the field Joe was taken off production and made project manager. This required all of his social and

 professional skills as schedules were easily upset. His peaceful ways made the jobs smooth. He easily kept his projects on schedule always,

and he had good clean fun along the way. One day he craned an employee over Marco Pass while he hid in the job site private jon house.
Five minutes craned over the pass in the jon told 50 carpenters to stay busy and do not hide from your job in the jon. Joe allowed booze after 4

 on Friday night and had boxing matches on the site after work. If the crew was wild after the Friday meeting someone might get the smart and try

to pass Joe on Isle of Capri. As they passed Joe would shoot across their windshields playfully. He also tried to shoot manatee off Jolly bridge out

 while driving his truck  home many times on the way home during his projects 8 years on Marco.
Although Joe is a peace loving man he can be serious and deliberate in times of trouble. The job he had managed for 4 years came under

 stress from the unions. He ran the only non-union job on Marco Island at the time and the trades were meeting threats of violence when

trying to cross Jolly Bridge. The union was striking and had already beat a heavy equipment operator sufficient for him to be admitted to

Naples Community Hospital. Every morning for six months Joe loaded his browning automatic 12-gauge shotgun with buckshot and led

his crew across the bridge. In bad times he was deputized by the sheriff to meet his crew. His job stayed on schedule and he did not shoot anyone.
Marco finished in the summer of “73’ and southwest Florida was in a recession. Joe went to the county and got a license to be a sub-contractor

 building a houses framing and trim installation. This would carry Joe through the rest of the “70’s” Then he would go back to supervise sites

in some of the most desirable developments in the nation and he shined.
Of course he would be blessed with a little Collier all his own. June of 1961 heralded Alice and Joe’s third child Collier Joseph Bartow, surely

he would be a peaceful man like Joe?

 

Little Collier

Chapter Fifteen
In 1961 Joe was a carpenter foreman rebuilding the municipal pier in Naples when his son Little Collier was born. Collier was born about nine months

after Hurricane Donna devastated the area. This devastation drew national attention to Naples and created a new flow of speculators and that wave of investors

really put Naples on the map. Collier Joseph Bartow weighed 8 lb 12oz., 23 inches long and was a pound bigger than Joe’s birth weight. Collier

was a big boy and Joe hoped he would be like Uncle Fred who stood six foot six.
As Collier grew so did his bad behavior as it was apparent he is a bruiser and demolition specialist. He could break any toy, escape any crib or bite

 your dog. You know you have a good dog when he does not bite your kid back. Now his grandmother would not tolerate him hurting her dogs and took

a mulberry limb to his butt more than once. At three the little aspiring Houdini would wait till alone in the kitchen

 and use the broom to open the highly placed hook on the door and be gone in a flash. Although Alice was diligent even she had to use the restroom

 from time to time. He could keep you busy and turn a saint into a homicidal maniac, bite your dog, break , well, you get the picture.
During his preschool years he spent his days with Patience, who watched him while Alice and Joe worked. Little Collier walked in Grandma’s farmyard

where she could feed two acres of animal pens with goats, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs. Patience had a nanny goat tied to an arbor 15 ft. wide of pink

 climbing rose. The goat sat there many days feasting on roses and other snacks Patience brought her from her kitchen twenty feet away. Little Collier

 could always feed this goat roses and usually not get his fingers nipped. He could walk to the hog pen and pull weeds that the hogs could not reach

 even if they stuck their heads through the fence. Collier started running in the yard with his Uncle Sam and by the time he was three could

 be trusted alone eating fruit and talking to the farmyard full of tasty pets, feeding them goodies they could not reach from the confines of their pen.
As all good things must end, eventually Collier had to share the farmyard with cousins and cousins of cousins which were infinite in southwest

 Florida. One story that comes to mind was the initiation for little Collier into the social realm. Patience helped one of her nieces by watching two

 brothers, one younger and one older than Collier. The boys did not get along well and it was not long until Collier was running to Patience crying

that the brothers had ganged up on him. Since Patience had raised her two sons with 20 cousins next door it was ingrained in her mind that every

 man had to pick his own fights and accept his defeats. She berated little Collier and told him to not come crying to her for him allowing himself to

 be bullied.
Time went by and Collier tries to stay clear of the brothers but sometimes they hunt him down to pick. They think they have his number. Then came

little cousin Annie. Blond and beautiful, Collier had a friend at Grandpa Collier’s. Things were peaceful until one day when Collier and Annie were

making mud pies. The brothers came up and bullied them by kicking their pies. Collier was pissed from the last time he was held down and beat.
He did not care any more. He stands his ground, pushing the boys down and continued to push them around until they ran away crying. The look

on Annie’s face felt good and Grandma Patience cheered from her view in the house. At four Collier was the champ of the farm. Standing up to bullies

 was a good time.
Of course once Collier was of school age his sport kept him in hot water. Maybe many years ago an eye for an eye or waiting for the bully to throw the

 first punch was correct but not in 1967. It would be a challenge to keep Collier in school which was ironic because he learned fast and liked to read.

He liked to beat bullies and sporting boys his size. Kevin Newman, a friend of Colliers came up to him and said “lets trade punches“.  Why? Collier did

not know why but he and his friend traded punches for a couple of minutes. They took turns punching each other in the face. Collier wondered why?. He

 rode the bus that morning and Kevin was normal. It ended up alright, nobody was bleeding bad. Collier was the guy to beat. Every new kid that was a

 bully sooner or later would come over and beg for a whipping. In this matter Collier was a throwback,someone who belonged in society a 100 years ago.

 


One day Collier's beleaguered principal witnessed 5 Mexican boys trying to beat Collier with their a  oversized brass buckled belt. Collier looked up at the

end of recess in third grade and most of his grade was walking through the school door about two hundred feet away. These migrant kids were pretty fresh

 from Texas were surrounding him, one swinging a big belt over his head with the buckle end for hitting Collier. As the fight begins Collier steps in the

crowd with two on his feet and two on their butts. As the buckle flys his way Collier ducks and grasps the belt. The Principle watching this from the doors

 was smiling when he whipped them from the back of the recess lot to her with their own belt He didn’t use the buckle end. Little Collier was a throwback.

 He belonged to live his life 100 years ago just like his hero, Grandpa Collier always felt about himself.
As Collier grew he learned to enjoy fishing and hunting. Usually by himself he fished the lakes of Bonita and hunted the sand flats and scrub of Vanderbilt

Beach. Back in the “70’s” Collier could hunt in the back bays or the swamp. Walking down the road in Bonita with a 12-guage would cause quite a

commotion today, but then it was allowed. Bonita Springs was a small town and front doors were not locked or cars or seatbelts.
The Bartows were loading mullet skiffs up with Columbian pot in the late “70’s”. It changed the bay forever. Eventually it stopped. One day as Collier

 visited some friend’s store they said the t.v. was reporting 1100 50lb bales floating around in the bay and some Bartow skiffs loaded up with bales of

 pot was parked at Black Island. The Bartows had reported those skiffs stolen before they were found. I guess a big boatload went into Everglades

 City while the diversionary 1100 fifty pound decoys floated around the bay and beaching up all over. Collier had friends find a bale or two and left

town to sell them in Ft. Lauderdale and he never saw them again. Did they make it? Collier had some cousins that drove filleted Snook to Georgia in

 produce trucks as well. As often noted in this book, the old, wily, cracker always found a way to survive. Sometimes the way led straight to Jail!
Collier, in time, became civilized enough to be a good husband and father and an even better Grandpa. Unfortunately it took two wives and fifty

 bosses.

 

Dinnyhorse-Chapter Sixteen
When Little Collier was at his Grandfather Colliers house they called him little Joe. He spent most of his pre-school days at Grandpa Colliers

 and got to hunt with his Grandfather most days. When Little Collier was four he could ride in a jeep without doors, car seats or even seat belts

 as long as his Grandpa wanted to hunt. They would ride hours in silence unless an alligator or other game was spotted. It was great fun that

Collier never replaced no matter how hard he tried.
He hunted by himself in his older, growing years and fished too. He and a few select friends liked to drive up and down Corkscrew Road

 before it was paved drinking bottled beer and shoot doves heads off while they sat on the electric lines along the way. This just was not

 hunting with Grandpa Collier.
 For years Collier and his Grandpa had hunted in what is now Bonita Bay and Pelican Landing, and drove the power line from the Estero River to

Pipers pasture in north Collier County. Collier was in his 60’s and could keep a four year old quiet and happy, find copper and other salvageable

 goodies in the woods as cover while he clandestinely scoped out prospects for his midnight poaching he performed on horseback by himself. Old

Collier would get in some overhauls and put a square 6-volt battery in his top pocket and a lamp like a coal miner on his head he could sight

his gun in the dark like that, with bi-focals. Tall and straight he reminded me of a scientist farmer and in the study of fire hunting he had a masters degree.
One night Grandpa Collier found the biggest gator of his life in Teagues head, east of Fountain Lakes. He and his friends the Piper brothers

had seen this gators sign for over twenty years. It was a very distinctive large sign missing one toe. One night in 1966 he found him in all his glory.

Coconut Ford is there now. Collier shot this huge gator with his .22 magnum Winchester from the front and in his left eye which went to his brain.

He went home and got his little blue gator skiff he had Joe build him out of plywood. Collier left his horse Charley pasture, put up his saddle

 and jumped in his car with his boat in the trunk wide open and went back to clean the beast.
When he started to work the gator had enough life to be spooky. Collier was cleaning a half dead, fourteen and one half foot gator in waist deep

 water. His butcher knife was a Case 4 inch, three bladed pocket knife. The little eight foot, baby blue, flat nosed wooden boat was to haul the

skin, meat and trophy head home. The method for cleaning was the hornbeck style butchering and when it was time to roll over the giant he

had to go home again and get Patience and Betty to help. Like pioneer women they jumped in the cypress head and helped Collier clean this

 dinosaur like creature. The moon was high and no gators came their way as Patience watched with the rifle for trouble and Betty helped her dad load the

boat with the hide,head
One evening shortly after the gator the two Collier and his grandson named after him were talking about dinner. As Collier started to clean the three rabbits

 he had shot in Spring Creek with his grandson, little Collier asked why they skinned the rabbits. Nodding at the ancient question Granpa Collier silently

considered. After a thought or two, said that he agreed the rabbits had a fuzzy coat, and yes he liked them but they had to eat them for dinner. Little Collier

 could remember the days dinner of fried rabbit and that little Collier ate a lot of bunny. That was all little Collier needed to know. He enjoyed many rabbits after

that enlightening conversation. Sometimes Collier wondered if that’s how Great Uncle Clyde learned about life as he took lives with his dad Henry in Estero Bay.
Little Colliers great grandfather and great uncle pretty well scared all visitors out of Estero Bay. Although they were not brothers they were cohorts

 at times. Hewitt had learned it was easy to do bad things if he was drinking where Clyde liked to drink as long as it did not mess with his killing.

They cruised the bay and when outside fisherman from Tampa, Marathon, or other places too far away to excuse persisted in fishing the bay

they killed the fisherman and took their boat and net home.
Hewitt was going to Cuba for refugees and taking their money and there lives. In the early 1920’s Bonita Springs became incorporated and hired a

Yankee police chief. This police chief was told of the dangerous people on the bay and after thorough investigations brought in the federal marshals who

 did quickly arrest Henry Sr. and Jr. and Clyde, Luther Johnstone and Hewitt Bartow on racketeering charges. 
Hewitt, once free after turning on the Johnstones immediately hunts down the police chief. Hewitt does not know for sure what he is going to do,

 but it has something to do with kicking the crap out of the policeman.

 

As the solitary peace officer drives over Fish Trap Pass on Bonita Beach Hewitt jumps on the officers car and starts dragging the chief out the

drivers window. The flustered chief managed to clear his .45 cal revolver from his holster and hastily  shot

Hewitt four times in the face. Hewitt falls from the moving car and the chief leaves the scene. Hewitt crawls back to his car,  his bother-in-law drives

home and digs the lead out of his face over a big bowl at the kitchen table. One round exited out his sinus and he dug that out of his throat.

No medical attention. The chief was apparently stretching his powder.
Collier figured Great Grandfather must have been one bad son of a biscuit eater. Of course Little Collier could play tough periodically as well. Sometimes

Little Collier naturally looked tough. If it was knocking out a bully with a flinch or standing up a motorcycle

against its will in the wind Little Collier survived a very wild life in the “70’s” and the “80’s”. How I’ve wondered many times?.
During the very wild summer of “83” Collier and his mate Lori were walking down Bonita Beach Road. They knew every body in town and this

 particular Saturday promised to be exciting. The couples friends were honking their horns and yelling their greetings as they drove by. Every

one was laughing because Collier was walking a three foot alligator down the bike path on the beach.
Collier had been walking down this road transporting pot in a paper grocery bag without incident for the past six months so he was not concerned

with a little gator in a white homemade body harness on a blue and red leash. Lori had made the body harness out of one her daughter Sara’s

mitten and two of her belts linked together made the leash.
The first stop for the duo was the “Sundog” lounge. While inside Collier saw a man he did not get along with and it woke up his mean streak.

This guy was a jerk. He had been a jerk to Lori before her and Collier started dating and that was good enough. Plus he did not respect Collier's

awesome skill at throwing the first punch. It always pissed Collier to tolerate little shits like John.
Collier walked to Johnny Dogface and showed him his gator. As Johnny turned to snootily ignore Collier he missed the movement of the gator

settling next to Johnny’s tit. When Collier tapped the gators nose it angered the little guy enough to chump down narrowly missing flesh but the

loud “clack” opens Johnny’s eyes to Collier’s treacherous side.
Johnny stopped irritating Collier after that which was a good thing. Collier had a family trait, he liked to get drunk and go from bar to bar in

Bonita on sweeps of the areas irritating patrons. He took bullying and rip offs real easy but kept a quiet little list. When he felt the town had

 outstanding butts to be kicked he kind of caught up on the backlog, with a buzz so the violence was the boozes fault. He did not always

 remember because there were lots of bars in town but Verne or Bruce would and the stories were “Cool”.
Lori and Collier bored with the Sundog crew and started walking to Gulf Gardens about a half mile west. When the next round of bloody

 marys are almost in sight a deputy pulls over and questions the two about their gator. Although Collier sounded very convincing the deputy

 loaded up the pair and their alleged Florida Cayman which Collier said he bought at a pet store in New York.
When they showed up at the sub station the gig was up. Eddie Kent was the dispatch and not only had he known Lori for 20 years and

Collier his whole life but was awesomely familiar with gators.
The Game warden came and said he would give them a ticket and set them free if they would put the rubber band back on the Gator‘s

 nose. Good, clean fun… a little wild Collier

 

Chapter Seventeen

Collier and Lori were a great team back in the hippie days. Lori had Collier so firmly under her control that he stayed out of trouble and

focused on their relationship and family. There were a few instances that were borderline. Collier just kept on trying. It was easy because

 Lori would kick his ass into line if he ever sat and gave up.
Lori’s brother Verne and Collier have been friends since grade school and sometimes get into trouble. There was a couple of years “83-85”

that they cultivated marijuana. They were arrested with a plant in “84” which was a light misdemeanor back then. They grew wonderful pot

that made grown ups act very strange. This pot was so good that it is still missed today by all that can remember.
Collier and Verne had 100 plants from afghan seed spread around east Bonita in “84” and were very weeded up all the time. They had pot

plants budding on Sand Rd. and Vincent Rd. They even hid some in the Cackles 20 acre farm. The Cackles were a family from Kentucky and

 they taught Collier about premium marijuana cultivation. They taught him to hide it good so he got a kick from hiding their crop there on their 20 acres.
Out on Sand road one Sunday the good old boys were getting high just being around these awesome plants. It is true, they were so relaxed sitting

 in their crop that Collier thought the noise in the bushes was a deer, not a game warden. Collier said sshhh, “it’s a deer!” with a twinkle in his heavy

 lidded eyes. Verne and Collier peal back the Brazilian Pepper limb in the varmint trail to expose the officer not 30 feet east of them. Collier looked at

Verne who had saucer sized eyes and said” it’s the Law, Haul ASS”. He then threw his water jug in the air and lit the rockets on his feet.
At this point Collier was running to the thick cover of a cypress head. He heard the officer yelling for him to stop but Collier was going to disappear

 instead. The officer is wearing camouflage overhauls and is running where he thinks Collier has ran. Once Collier made it to the cypress head he

 dived in the foot deep water and started playing gator like he and Verne had played in the ponds of Bonita Shores when they were kids. Apparently

 the game warden in the camouflage overhauls is Frank because his partner is standing with Verne and calling his name over and over again.
After Collier and Frank played hide and seek quietly for about fifteen minutes Frank finally responds to his partners frantic calling. Collier stayed quiet

the longest so he won and Frank was pissed. “WHAT !??” he screams at his partner and says something nasty under his breath. Frank and Collier were

ten feet apart but Collier hid in a foot of water pretty close to Franks feet unnoticed.
After Frank leaves Collier snickers and crawls to the other end of the cypress head pulling himself along with his hands in the mud with his eyes and

nose just sticking out of the water like a gator until the water crossed sand road. Then he sneaks a peak out of the big mud puddle in the middle of

Sand Road looking east scoping out his partner and Frank and his partner. Verne was handcuffed standing next to his orange B-210 four door beater

 which had the game wardens green Chevy Blazer pulled up next to it.
Last week Verne drove forty-five miles an hour in this b-210 on the side of I-75. Verne did this to be courteous because his front passenger side tire had

 blown out and he was too stoned to care about changing the flat.
Later Verne told Collier that he heard his feet hitting the water but never got to see his run. It was fast. That damned Collier was 24, Six foot two and

220 lbs and he was a fast guy. It was evidenced by Verne and the two game wardens watching his steps with their ears because their eyes were shit

out of luck, he was gone.
* Verne being six feet tall and well over 200 pounds himself and having a bad leg from past motorcycle accident wasn’t as fast as Collier. Besides

seeing the game wardens blazer next to his B-210 he knew he was caught. The game warden that stayed with Verne was drilling him for information

about the man who got away After finding one Marijuana plant Verne had to think up something quick. He told them “ I don’t know who the guy is.

I picked him up hitchhiking, he said he was training to be a navy seal on leave and they call him Josey Wales. I said Josey told him he knew where

 to steal some excellent marijuana plants. That’s why we are here” and that is why Franks partner was scared for the both of them, as the sun was

starting to set in the swamps of east Bonita.
Old Verne was on probation so Collier came back and covered his ass because he loved old Verne, not because of the game wardens. He snuck back

up on them all silently in the ditch on the south side of Sand Rd. He peeked out of the water and cattails at the group parked in the road. As Verne

standing dejectedly, cuffed outside of the blazer truck he looks miserable. The law enforcement blazer sat with the doors propped open, the game

wardens feet resting in the open windows so they could use them for foot rest while they sleep inside. Sleeping with their hats over their eyes, Verne

begs vainly for Collier to run. Gee whiz, even Barney Fife did not sleep on the job and he was paid to be a fool. Well, Collier would not let Verne take

the blame, he was on probation and would do jail time. With Colliers way nobody had a jail sentence and the game wardens could wake up and feel

special.
Now when Collier and Lori first got together Collier was a thug. She tried her best at civilizing Collier, which was a full time job although occasionally

Lori enjoyed the power she wielded with Collier’s protective nature. She had a rough first marriage and a bit of animosity towards her ex. He has given

her three beautiful kids but they have irreconcilable differences. When Collier came on the scene he edged the Ex out of the picture except one brief

moment in Bonita Shores in 1983.
Lori was allowing her ex to keep the kids on the weekends. On this Sunday afternoon at 3 or 4 the kids are coming through the door back from their

 weekend visit. It was their oldest Gwen who was upset, sobbing that the ex would not let her baby sister Sara out of the car to come inside. They

were taunting Lori in the front yard. During this explanation Collier failed to notice Lori go outside to face the jerks with their bad behavior.
It is Lori’s ex sister in law and her boyfriend with the bullying ex-spouse. Sara is in the front of the ex’s sister’s Volkswagen on the sister’s lap. Lori

charges the car and demands her kid. Sara is crying as Lori runs short of patience. She starts dragging the sister by the hair and is trying to haul

 them both out of the window. The ex and the boyfriend of the sister try to drag Lori off the sister. Unfortunately the sister of the ex had recently

removed a halo screwed in her head to keep her previously injured neck still and her brother and the boyfriend and Lori are dragging her and

Sara out the drivers window by the sister’s hair.
You might have followed all of that but Collier had no chance to understand when he looked out his front door window and saw this melee. He quickly

 grabs his single shot 12 gauge out of the corner by the front door and walks out on the front porch. You know who Colliers grandfather was so you

can’t be surprised he casually aimed the gun very slightly over their heads, from the hip, and dropped the hammer. The total shock was apparent

as simultaneously, suddenly free Sara comes running by, Lori following close behind and the intruders are screaming “HE IS Crazy”.

Drove by the terror of the moment they load up greased lightning fast as Collier warns them sternly ”Get the hell away from me before I put this

 gun down and whip your ass. As the hapless trio escapes Colliers next door neighbor came out and asked if Collier had killed anyone.

 He could proudly report he had not. Little Collier smiled as he walked inside to his new family. They looked awestruck and from that look Collier

 knew that Lori would never fear this ex’s abuse anymore.


* Just as generations before with stills and Cuban rum in the 1920’s Collier and his peers participated in the black market. Be it Spanish mavericks

feeding Confederate troops or gator skins for leather the old wily cracker found his income. Illicit drug trade from South America and Cuban

 refugees with a mix of Mexican drug cartel cocaine and marijuana and the guns they will trade drugs for create a pretty lively black market

and enhance the already opportunist wily cracker population.
In the 70’s and early 1980’s drugs came into neighboring Everglades City by the ton. The commercial fisherman were having their heyday

until the D.E.A. ‘s infamous “Operation Everglades”. When the smoked cleared over 25% of the sleepy little fishing village was arrested. Of

course in the following years the D.E.A. had operation 2 and 3. One suspect of the first operation was a former jurisprudent of the Florida

Supreme Court.  The unfortunate Judge was one of many to face conspiracy to import marijuana.

New Challenges

Chapter 18

Collier never could have seen it coming, his life was going to challenge him to his core. You have to understand he was no overachiever but

he did amazingly little and scraped lazily by, no real challenges in lazily scraping by. Always the champ or thug Collier was not shy of challenges just lazy.
This new family will give him the strength to survive. Survive when many friends do not, Survive and love like few men can. Collier learns to love harder,

care more consistently and trust things work out if you persevere. Collier's life that he knew up to this day, the day he blew up his back is no reference or

benchmark to his future trial and tribulations. In time Collier had the courage to face all challenges and accept failure as it came. Metamorphically

 emerging from a bad break to a rhinoceros like achiever Collier proudly perseveres, building a hoard of inner strengths like patience and discipline

 through daily struggles for many years. You really could not know the man without this story set in the last moments before the sunrise of sticky,

 tropical morning in 1982. A very humid and stormy-skied morning with its blue and purple clouds racing across the sky.
Joe Bartow is 45 and mostly grey and in his prime as he stands in his back yard. He can flash his perfect smile or a silent, dark brood. He is a man

 of average height and is a stocky size fifty-four jacket. He is dark brown and very intimidating when brooding, a tool he refined to keep job sites on

their toes. Although Joe loves a peaceful site, he is obliged to fire a man each week just to keep the other fifty or sixty out of trouble.
Joe is visibly agitated standing in the backyard at Six-fifteen in the A.M staring at a fifty foot pile of rubbish and storm debris that was, before last nights

 storm his huge Java Plum from his mothers home in Estero. The tree is 30 feet wide and Joe now had a hell of a mess in his back yard. He works six

 days a week and had no time for this huge mess. It must be ten or fifteen truckloads of limbs, logs and stumps. When in the hell could he clean

 this up. Joe works sixty hour weeks religiously and had no spare time.
Alice sneaks up on Joe in the early morning back yard scene as he is surveying the damage. One of her favorites is sneaking up on this Indian, no

small feat. In her right hand is a big cup of coffee. She is a striking red-head and this morning her twinkling, sky blue eyes and mischievous Irish grin say

 she is in control, and it will be alright.
She reassures Joe that it will clean up like always. She suggest they pay Collier to work in their back yard. Joe is a little impatient with his son Collier.

 All the boy does is cathouse and smoke pot, he should be working with Joe everyday trying to gain some substance. Alice calms Joes nerves and

tells him she will make sure Collier does his job.
 Collier of course loves his mother very much. When Alice asked Collier to clean up the yard he was happy to help. He knows they are a little

disappointed in how at the age of twenty-two Collier has turned out. He would like to remind them he was the hardest working man around

even if he goes through jobs like feed through a goose.
The next morning Collier wakes up and dresses for his day of clean up. A good pair of jeans and a white tee shirt will do. He has some new

ankle high work shoes and is going to wear two pair of white athletic socks to stop the new shoe blisters. Collier is intent on making those ten

truckloads easy today and be done so he and Lori can walk Bonita drinking hot sauced Bloody Mary’s for Sunday brunch as usual. I guess

without the gator on a leash.
At 7:00 A.M. it was looking to be a cool overcast day. Kind of a dark grey background with wispy dark blue clouds floating by. It is cool for

 October and Collier is ready to go. He leaves his apt. on 7th St. and cheerfully walks to his dad’s. His father, Joe is about a minute away

on 8th St. As Collier is close to the house he see Joe leaving in his truck for work, I think he waved as he went by.
Collier walks to the back yard and reminisces. He was raised in this yard and has seen it grow from sand and scrub oak to the lush, mature

landscape existing this morning. That is what is really bugging his Dad. His yard is like a bank full of his lifetime investment in fruit and

ornamental plants. Like his ancestors Joe grows many of his favorite foods or beautiful plants  with his home. Joe is pretty

concerned with his belongings, probably because he tries so hard.
Collier starts loading the truck with logs and limbs. He picks a stump that is probably 400 pounds and bends down, bear hugs the stump and

 lifts. As he walked with his stupid, mammoth load his back pops and makes a crunching snap. The pain was immediate and building. Colliers

 legs are going rubbery. He falls like the scarecrow on the Wizard of Oz when the scarecrow was lifted off the post. Collier laughed to himself

feeling shocked and bewildered with is new condition. He did not know at the moment but he had ruptured two disks in his back and they will

 never heal. After Collier regains his balance with this new pain he went back to work.
When Joe’s 1978 green Ford pickup truck was loaded Collier crawled up in behind the wheel and headed east on 8th to Vanderbilt. He turns

on a dirt trail to the woods off Vanderbilt and empties the truck where the Audubon Golf Course community is now and heads back to Joe’s yard.
On his second trip a Diamond Back Rattler crossed 8th St in front of Joe’s lime green F-150 1978 Ford. Collier was limping and crawling by now

but did not want this deadly, four foot snake roaming the Shores Community. He takes a plum limb about six foot long and two or three inches around

 from the Ford’s bed and limped to the snake coiled up in the middle of the road. Although unsteady Collier beats the irate snake to death. Deftly

 scooping the dead rattler up with the limb Collier throws him in the bed of the truck and goes back to work. Collier limped logs into the truck for ten

hours or longer. His friends Verne and Joe helped him finish. He is done at the end of the day but his life would never be the same.
After three days he either tore a muscle or needs to see a surgeon. Collier goes to the doctor who says wait and see. For over twenty years the

debilitating pain does not go away. Collier waits twenty years to break a bone in his back. Now his back is doubly caput but having arthritis that

 heavy for long made him tough and he copes with the new pain well.
In the beginning of his adulthood, when he began to hold a steady job, his value as an employee is about zero. He can’t stand very long, he can’t carry

any weight and he has spent his life making his way laboring and he does not know much of anything else. Collier learns to respect his challenges

 and opportunities because they become few and far between. He learns to use his brain because he did not have energies to waste or the physical

 strength to mindlessly carry him through .
For a few years he suffers a bit, he will stumble and fall down, strangers thinking he is drunk. He ain’t drunk, just a little crippled. He

 held a job with a news paper route and worked everyday. He got really good throwing the high floors, even from the drivers seat of his van on Sundays.

If he had to crawl it was always dark and nobody could see him.
After six or seven years he could walk a ways without being afraid of having to crawl back. After fifteen years he could restart his carpentry trade and

after twenty he is working steady, until he broke his back. All this makes Collier like iron man. Just like a rhinoceros he keeps on

plowing along, lifting his feet enough not to stumble and push the limit further everyday.

* Florida is truly the one of the least responsible for workman’s comp law enforcement and general social programs and their entitlements.

Between the huge weight of illegal aliens and the ultra conservative jurist if you break your back at work you better be over forty or you will

crawl to a bench to sit as many daily hours as you can tolerate for minimum wage. It does not seem like the system is the same up north?

Back to Verne
Chapter 19

Verne and Collier are out on the mud flats north of Wiggins Pass on Verne’s motorcycle an Automatic Honda 400. They are looking for new locations to hide the pot

babies. Currently at their house on the porch they had marijuana plants that needed to go out to the woods. The mud flat was bottomless. If you were

 on foot near the back bay you could find bad spots that sucked you up to your knee. It is not quick sand but it does get messy quick. Gingerly they

were riding along the bay parallel to Vanderbilt Road. They found a trail in the thick that deserved a second look. It was a blazing sun real darn

muggy type afternoon and Collier was sweating it.
While stretching their legs Collier prowls into the heavy brush. Today he is searching for spots big enough for four or five plants spread out here

and there. If the boys spread out the crop to small plots it is more difficult for the infrared technology used by law enforcement to detect the plants.

They hide their bucketed plants in pepper bushes or palmetto because their internal temperature was close to the 120 degrees the same marijuana

 grows at. All of their plants look like many of the other plants from the air, not in rows like so many of their peers. Collier is finding plenty of cool

shady spots that are ideal.
Sandy haired Collier, slim at one hundred and eighty pounds, tall with shoulders like iron, thick as a bull and no ass to hold his pants up. He looks

 like he might be wearing football shoulder pads but he is not. He favors the stock he and his ancestors came from. Like his father and his father,

men deserving respect and tough enough to extract it. Angular but obviously powerful, Collier’s blue eyes are alert for any action as he picks his

way through the chest high palmettos.
Verne likes having Collier as his partner, he can keep the streets safe for Verne when he is selling his weed. If someone does not pay or tries to

 push Verne around Collier makes them shit their britches. He is all mean and everyone in town knows it. It has been a long time since Collier has

 done more than talk mean because the town knows he is bad and from a long line of Bonita bad men.
Verne can think back fondly at the carnage of the past. The day 12 year old Verne and Collier could not play because Collier had beat up a group

of bullies. Unfortunately the bullies were the rangers for his ex boy scout troop. The time Collier knocked out stupid Phil Dumass with a backhand

slap before school at Naples high. The time the pair of sixteen year olds did the drive by at the Mexican pot house on Bonita beach road on Friday

 night. The list goes on and on.
Back at the trail in the Vanderbilt mud flats Verne and Collier are inspecting the site. It is about two in the afternoon and this location would give the

 plants shade, although they would have to truck water in milk jugs as always it was great. He never hunted this corner of the woods because it was

 too thick, making Collier nervous hunting as a teenager. Collier has walked the Vanderbilt woods alone,after school with his shotgun since he was eleven.
As Collier makes his way through the dark green, chest high palmettos he spots a movement, a movement with color. So subtle that color was mumbled

 and size was unknown. Intrigued, Collier investigates behind the palmetto fans. As Collier weaves through the fans he finds the granddaddy

of all diamond backs. Well over six feet long, the king of this jungle is spread out pretty straight looking at Collier gawking at him standing at his tail.

The snake did not even rattle as Collier breathlessly put his butt in reverse. Verne comes up behind Collier and ask ”what’s up?”.
Collier can only mumble gibberish about big something, at least he started breathing again. Verne is vainly trying to get him to make sense. He just

 keeps asking and Collier keeps hopping up and down and saying no and big blah, blah something. Verne needs to slap some sense to Collier but

that would be like sticking his hand in a fan.
Shaking his head in disbelief Verne goes to where Collier is pointing and looks for himself. He turns to Collier who can finally stop jumping up and

down and says “ Lets Catch Him“. Needless to say they left that snake the hell alone. Way alone. As Collier gleefully leaves the king behind he takes

 a deep relaxing breath and damn near steps on a yellow rat snake close to eight feet long. Visibly shaken Collier knows now why these woods scared

him as a boy. Instincts are amazing and not given credit due. Easily forgotten when followed but venture past their secure zone and you can recall pretty

 fast what those instincts communicate.
Collier and Verne had a pretty wild summer with the “Magic Mushroom” market in 1982. The purple ringed mushroom grows in cow pile during rainy

season when the humidity is conducive for the mushroom lifecycle. This spore is a powerful hallucinogen and is available any place shady where cattle

 roam. When properly preserved the value was up to $3,000.00 a pound for dried mushrooms and $150.00 for Verne and Colliers honey cured

canned purple ringers in pint mason jars. These jars were traded for anything but cash and since possession of this mushroom was a felony Verne

 and Collier decided to stick to the herbs after confusing themselves and most of Bonita’s rough and rowdy party crowd for the summer of 1982.
During the mushroom summer Collier and Verne ate more mushrooms than they sold. Many times the trippy pair traveled on Verne’s Honda while

hallucinating. Old Verne could drive down the road even if it looked soft as a marshmallow or was animated with mushroom magic. Collier just sat

on the back laughing to tears. After a long trippy evening they stop at their biker friend big Wayne. Wayne was a senior member of the local and

national bike club through the decades of the sixties, seventies and tolerated the boys because they were fun and Collier worked for the same mob

 he did. Collier collected respect for a local store owner hand to hand while Wayne and his friends were heavy duty, split your skull if you were lucky

 folks who had made their way like that for over 20 years. They were even violent in the peace movement era.
The boys visit Wayne unannounced and barge in on their filet mignon steak dinner. Wayne tells the boys it is gator tale and after tasting believe it true.

Collier had ate a lot of gator tail but was fooled by Madcap Wayne and the mushroom magic. Waynes violent spouse Laura was peeved at Colliers

stupidity and Wayne saved the boys from some real scary trouble from her, she did have a 44 magnum snub nose in her purse.
Verne stood in the back yard of the apt. on Seventh St. He was watering the plants in their black buckets hiding in the 3 ft. high 40 foot long bank

of Weedilia. Verne could hide an elephant in a cabbage palm so the thirty 3 foot babies were no challenge to hide in this yellow daisy like vibrant

ground cover. Of course the police kicked them over in a night walk through the yard. They were looking for teenagers playing the pranksters I guess.

It angered Verne that his plants were on their side. Collier was just relieved nobody went to jail. The dopey duo learned the police could walk on top

of things hiding they wished to find, oblivious to the obvious.
Walking back on the porch Verne starts caring for his 30-day plants. He is propping them up with pine needles and regulating their sun. These

babies are in quart containers and will soon be ready for 3 gallon pots. He grins thinking this group of thirty plants will be able to go to the back

yard Weedilia patch as soon as the big ones go out to the lost woods. Pointing to the plant in the back row Verne explains the traits and hopes

for the Afghanistan Indica Marijuana to Collier.
Standing six foot on a crutch and wholesome, blond and friendly looking, Verne is certainly easier to stand for the general public. Collier is quiet

and spooky, he just can’t help it. Lori, blond, blue-eyed and very well bottomed is patiently taming Collier day by day but he is not yet ready for

daily interaction with society as Lori aspires. The needs of his family are making this pot scene a little silly and slowly it takes a smaller position in

 Collier’s priorities. Day by day Collier grows to the man he is needed to be.
One cool evening a few days later Collier is driving his car to the lounge where Lori and Verne work. It is rare that Collier goes any place besides

work but tonight Lori is willing to risk it. Collier can be troublesome at the bar and they do not need any trouble. The wind is blowing in Colliers face

 and he is felling a bit care free. Not quite nine in the evening, the sun is long gone and for a Friday night the Beach Road is quiet. It has not been

 very long that Collier worked at his construction job but long enough where his bills were on the run and it was very comforting.
Turning into the lounges parking lot Collier drives to the back kitchen door where the help park. When parking Collier notices Verne outside with

 some losers. Upon closer inspection the losers are circling his partner and Collier’s easy going, civilized man feeling blew out the back door. So

 much for conforming, the party is on.
Collier walks into the crowd and tells the five or six strangers to get away from him because hell was coming.
Verne chuckles with a drunken slur “This fuggin josey wales you stubid bastards and he is gonna kick your ass”. Collier smiles as the boys get all

“aw shucks” and retreat. It was a rush to cover Verne’s ass. Verne and Collier walk in the front door to the bar and Collier finds Lori, getting free at

 nine just to stay with Collier and dance.
As they set down the waitress and cocktail ladies say hello to the trio and pick up an order for a round. This one fellow Collier has never met is

lurking in the shadows. Collier saw him with the eyes in the back of his head. The new guy finally is standing in front of their table. Tentatively

asking to shake hands and make acquaintance this mans instincts were screaming causing him to tremble. Collier won’t be hospitable and shake

 claiming the mans hand is already shaking. The jasper then asks if he can dance with Lori. Collier said no and bids him a sassy adieu.
Feeling pretty good Collier spots another adventure, Glen Burgomiester. Verne had borrowed a twenty last week in a pinch from Glen and Glen

 was getting pushy. Collier tells Lori he has to use the restroom and leaves following loosely behind Glen. As Collier entered the bathroom it was

 him and Glen, a man handy with a knife. Poor Glen is hunched over the urinal and not looking healthy at all.
Collier could do pull ups with Lori in his lap and it showed as Glen instinctively turns to see who is coming in. Glen figures his goose is cooked

as he glances to Collier. He recognizes Collier but only knows he is Joe Batrow’s son. Joe had told Glen to pay up a few years back and Glen

did figuring Joe might kill him over the carpentry pay Glen owed.
Ironically his skilled knife hands are busy with the most important thing he had. Collier closes fast, reading the weakness through Glen’s pasty,

forlorn, hopeless look. While reaching in his pocket Collier whips out the twenty dollar bill Verne owes, really, really fast. Glen caught his breath

 and took his money smiling. Although he had to go home to change his p-p pants at least he could skip the hospital. Collier did not know Glen

 well but thought he owed him a warning, family is a precious commodity for Collier and he could sneak up on you if you bully them. This is

Colliers town to enjoy with his family and friends, not to take bullying from outsiders. He had not hurt anyone tonight but was a little mischievous.

     One night five years later things got a little more physical. Little Collier loved his mother Alice very much and was devastated when she died in 1985.

She had cancer and had died at the young age of 45. She had raised Collier with all the love and patience a human could find and the older he grew,

the more he loved his Mom. He told me one day about trying harder to do the Christian acts his Mother had always asked for him to do. Of course

 Collier was human and one night he found a little trouble. His Father ,Joe , had given him Alices car and Collier appreciated his father's confidence to

help him and share his Mom's memory.  This night was about two years after Alice died and Collier thought the grieving was settled down to sad

 memories mixed with some bittersweet but Collier blew a fuse because somebody messed with Alices car. Collier had grabbed 3 freinds and went to

Ft.Myers to play pool in a bar that was reknowned for its young ladies and their lack of clothes. Collier stayed out of mischeif and enjoyed his freinds,

 the pool games and the ammenties fo the establishment. His buddy Sweet William drove and Collier had the back seat behind the driver. He had drove

up and  took a backseat so Bruising Bah could ride up front. In the backseat on the ride home with Collier was dumb Ray, who was a coward and turned

traitor on Collier in the years ahead. Dumb Ray and Sweet William repossesed Collier's car 7 years later and although he never whipped them they did stay

away from him for life. He told me the other day he could whip them both for good measure and it has been 20 years. Anyways somewhere around

San Carlos Park  a work van pulled along side them and threw a beer bottle at the front of the car. Collier screamed for Sweet William to pull over and

got outside to look for damage to his Mom's car. While an enraged Collier was looking at the car the offending work van pulled over in front, down

 the road about a hundred feet or so. A cocky young man ran to Collier screaming "Come on Fatboy" Between his dead mother's car being attacked by

 strangers  compounded by the offending words this young man was screaming further ratcheding up the tensions with running at him Collier gave himself the

green light to maim. He should not have felt this way but when the man reached he decided to rip his head off. By now Collier was fat, which made matters

worse. The offending young man had short hair but Collier reached out and grabbed his head with one hand and gave the 160 pound bully a shake.

He lost his grip on the hair and the bully turned to run with a suprizingly fast 270 pound Collier on his heals. I think the bully knew he had bit off more than he

could chew. Collier caught him just before he could close his door and his buddy could drive off. While the car was moving Collier filled both hands with

short hair and proceeded to pull the bully through to pull him through the passenger window. Collier pulled out alot of the bullies hair and stretched the

 jerks neck quite a bit before hitting the pavement at 20-30 miles an hour. He bounced up immediately and Sweet William was there to give chase to the

now running bullies. Into the adjacent strip mall parking lot the chase ensued and eventually the work van plowed into a column in the front of the grocery

store. As Collier came to the young bully the young man said again, "C'mon Fatboy", unfortunatly Collier was on him by the time he spit his catch phrase

 and was once again trying to pull the man's head off. It must have been surreal looking. Collier was walking around with this man in the air like a little dog.

The man kept Collier out of prison and his head on by holding on to the top of Colliers hands for dear life, trying to take the stress of his weight

 off his neck. While this took place Sweet William and Bah bounced the drivers head off the stearing wheel of his van. As Collier's furor passed Bah ran up

and said" We better leave, the cops are comming" . Collier looked at the bully and let him go. The man ran into Bah's arm's who proceeded to punch him in

the face. Collier did not call his old Freind Bah, Bruising Bah for nothing and his blows must have hurt real bad. Collier went home and ate a steak. I think

the bullies went to jail, they must have been drunk to bully Collier. Collier would never make challanges to innocent strangers but would never run from one

either. One night Verne had a rough crowd out in the living room of the house Collier, Lori, and Verne rented. The crowd was loud, rowdy and doing drugs

 around Colliers kids which, when compounded by waking him up at 3 inthe A.M. gave Collier the desire to run those hooligans off. He grabbed his

Single-shot 12-guage and went into the living room to ask the guys to leave. Once in the living room Collier checks little "arnie" trying to get

 his backpocket clear and Collier figured it was a pistol stowed away because at 120 pounds Collier would stuff a knife in the NO-Sunshine zone of

little Arnie. Collier says "Everybody stay calm orI am going to let it rip" Verne and Glenn, sitting side by side know Collier well and tell their two freinds they

are on their own if they start the fireworks.

One I think was called "Fat dumbbutt" wanted to rush Collier but his freinds begged him not. Collier was ready to put the lead-laden stock on Fat dumbbutt's

head because he knew Arnie had a hideout in his back pocket so he was saving his shot for him. Everybody left as Collier asked, grumbleing about

 coming back so Collier hid on his 60 foot porch in the back yard and waited for a sneak attack. 10 minutes go by and someone is sneaking around the

Living room. As the dark figure comes on the porch with Collier he can tell it is not any of the guys he would assault, it was Ricky, Vernes helper. Ricky

said "Collier where are you?" Collier whispers "Right here Ricky". Collier heard the air rush out of Ricky, he was two or three foot from Collier at a bad time

and Ricky still could not see him. Ricky said he had goosebumps so bad he wanted to puke. Collier was glad he was a friend because if the creeps would

 have come back Collier would have at least hospitalized them. They broke the 1. rule of Collier" Do not bother or threaten his family and friends, especially

his kids sleeping innocently. That was a close one. Eventually both Fat dumbbutt and Arnie died, but it was somebody else as Collier never saw them again.

 

 

 

 

 

* Collier and his friends saw a lot of change in the 1980’s starting with operation Everglades 1,2 and 3 Everglades City had 500 residents and 125

were arrested in the first sweep. The heartbreak continues with gill nets. The mullet fisherman’s nets were voted illegal in the 1990’s. How would

 Hewitt and the Johnstones react to that? Some of their descendants make $5,000.00 a night fishing the illegal nets, some go to prison for a

couple of years and yes they still harbor resentment and have silent contempt for people not born to the bay telling them what to do. Every now

 and then it gets loud enough to read in the local paper.

Little Collier is Grandpa Collier now.

Chapter 20
Old Joe Bartow is in his Seventies and has decided to join the cracker exodus leaving the state on the wings of the recent land boom of the 21st

century. As we saw in the 1920’s Florida land made speculators quick, strong profits only like in musical chairs some poor kid was too late to set

down. During the ascent of values the taxable values increase to the point the pioneers need to leave the settled and now more sought after areas

and move somewhere they can once again afford. As many ancestors before him Joe must sell his lifelong dream and ambition, his home and fruit

tree filled backyard.
It all started in 1964 when Joe and Alice bought two lots on a lime rock road named Eighth Street in a new community, Bonita Shores in northern

Collier County. Bonita Shores was close to woods of Vanderbilt and yet had a neighborhood Gulf access boat slip and a chain of community ponds

 for little Collier to grow up with. Little Collier could walk to the beach which would probably take half an hour or more once he was old enough to be

 near the Beach Road.
At night and on weekends Joe built his four bed room home ranch home. He borrowed money from the bank for a construction loan and worked off

draws or incremental funding for a corresponding completed stage. Joe knew all the trades personally and bartered carpentry work for plumbing and

other trades. After sixteen months of 90 hour weeks filled with steady work and effort it was time to move in. In 1966 the Bonita Banner Congratulated

 Joe and Alice for building the biggest home in town. He lost Alice in 1985 but Joe some how survived a loss which all who loved him worried he would

not.
Through the years Joe added rooms and patios, remodeled the kitchen three times and in the 1990’s installed 400 sheets of drywall and new taller

interior doors and jambs, new trim at every base and crown molding opportunity. In 1997 he installed 2600 feet of ceramic tile and built 500 feet of

 picket fence twice then replaced it with vinyl. Unfortunately when your property taxes rival the original cost of your home you better be a lot richer

than you used to be or sell and move to Georgia. Although he resisted the sale through many years of national prosperity now he must go.
Lori and Collier are selling their lifelong dream too. Lori moved to the woods many years ago as a good sport but she too is ready to sell. It seems

 Lori and Coleman’s home is in the country club belt for a very posh southern Lee County. The sale enables them a degree of fiscal comfort that

 neither thought they would ever have although they have to trade their dream for some security.
Collier found the land in the sanctuary in 1986 and built their home in 1999. Too poor to do anything but mow and dream Collier planned for the day

he could be in the woods and at home.
Lori and Collier camped weekends and saved to invest in wells, irrigation, and excavation of the pond for fill and finish grading while waiting for their

time to build. They started palm trees from seed knowing they would need years to grow to be saleable. Verne came up with the mortgage money and

 they started to build an inventory. Collier would scour the woods for pine trees, wax myrtles, oaks, and other plant materials they could get for free and

 sell for profit after his daily paper route.

Joe and Collier suffered the hurricane season of 2004 with its "Charlie" and 2005 had "Wilma". In Charlie Collier watched the storm and the morning

was black and Charlie was projected to pass about 100 miles of shore on its way to Tampa. Collier found Verne, who lived in a double wide trailer

in Estero, and brought him home to ride the storm at Corkscrew, about 15 miles inland. Once they were hunkered down The weather had turned bad

and the tracking showed the path taking a course heading for Bonita Beach. Collier called his Dad and told him to hunker down, Joe said he could

have 4 ft. of in his living room later but he was ready. Collier knew his dad understood the storm. Joe had rode out hurricanes on Estero Bay as a boy,

 in a mullet

 skiff hiding from the wind behind the stable mangrove islands. Joe had begged his freind to leave the beach in Hurricane Donna. His freind did not

respect how easy that storm could put the Bay or Gulf in your house quick enough to suprize you, to drown you in the corner of the ceiling.

He rebuilt the region with his peers in construction after the storm removed or worse the community homes and structure mass. Donna was so strong

the surving trees lean to S.E. which must have been the winds on its way by. The fortunate trees bear that distinction as many landmarks did not

bear the storms wrath. In the 1970's big pleasure boats riddle the mangroves from the storm. Collier knew after losing his Mom he could now lose his

 Dad. Joe knew he could survive the storm but what would be left he did not. Collier then called his children who were living in their homes in

Bonita Springs, about 5 miles off the beach. They were ready to hunker down through the storm but Collier was worried, worried about his brood and

 how they would manage. Charlie tore up the place but all survived, although tons of debris was removed from Joes back yard, life went on.
In 1987 Collier had a partner named Murphy for a short while. He was proud of the “Murph” He talked Collier into a business strategy and they

 partnered the five acres with rights of survivorship. Murph was a very talented landscaper and could create an immediate cash flow by selling root

pruned wild trees to his boss.  

 Murph went to 20 neighboring farmers and struck an agreement to buy the trees from the farmers for 5 dollars and sell them for thirty-five. This

 guy is what Verne and Collier needed. Two weeks after closing on the farm Murph died in a freak bicycle accident and would never be matched and

 certainly never replaced. Somehow Collier plowed on in the dark, hoping he was pushing in the right direction. He had no direction to go without the

skills Murph possessed and twenty years later is selling the land as a executive estate lot with his dream house as the guest house not a nursery.

One day in the 80’s a friend of the family makes the Verne and Collier an offer they can’t refuse. Fifty percent of 1500 one gallon Washingtonia palms

 for transporting them from the nursery this man and his used to be partner had the palms growing at to Collier and Verne’s nursery.
Upon arrival the boys hooked up the man’s trailer and loaded it full of palms. As they were leaving a group of strangers blocked their way. Standing in

 front of Verne’s Bravada was not wise. He had been run over three times and figured once for them would be alright. As Collier started to cool the crowd

a very fat, greasy, no good stinky and generally nasty man came to stand up to Collier. Collier did not like the looks of this Georgia Cracker with the big

 shiny belly. Fighting this beast would be like tackling a greased 300 pound boar.
He would need an equalizer and found it in Verne’s hand, who himself intended to be the champ that day. The fat man waddled to Verne who warned

 “I will blast my way through you if you if I have to”
The fat man said he had been shot last year and he felt lucky. Verne racked a round in the chamber and Collier said

“ Your luck has run out. You may get out of the way or be put down, Which way will it be?”
Verne’s hand trumped all and down the road they went laughing all the way. That Verne and Collier could have fun anytime which kept their

friendship intact through tough times for going on 40 years.

 

Chapter 21

Today as I write this story you will not  find Collier at home in Estero it was foreclosed in the great devaluement of Florida real estate in 2008.

In 2007 at 46 he proudly had thirteen grandchildren.He is a very worn, arthritic forty-six but has enjoyed an extra full and challenging life and still available to

 new adventure. He and Lori saved until they could buy five acres close to his

 Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather’s Whitt open range ranch in Estero. Of course Verne helped too.
Collier  passed up free dinners of bunny, deer, wild hogs and turkey because his freezer is full of Lori’s grocery treats and he never eats his yard

 animals anyway, he feels it just would not be right but his grandfather would not agree. Some years he even has tame foxes eating off his porch and

deer pay him little mind to him when in his yard at the Audubon Sanctuary in Lee County Corkscrew.
He develops start up communities in the center of the state on Lake Okeechobee (This led to the foreclosure of 2008.
One day a while back Collier returns from work to his home and visiting daughters, out to the swamp to visit their mother and father from Bonita. As an

older, fatter, grayer Collier walks arthritically to the house his Granddaughter Katie approaches running to him screaming about a gator in the pond in

 Colliers front yard.
Six year old Katie wearing a red t-shirt and jeans is the oldest granddaughter of Collier’s. She is a darker edition to her mother Sara’s inherited

Scandinavian charm and features. She is Grandpa’s Italian Princess her father is French, not Italian but she fishes, hunts and runs

 from big surprise gators with the best of the big boys.
This day Collier asked her to go inside while he investigated, she was only 5 and not ready for gators. Collier was fairly stove up from

the long ride he took that day. If his back would pop it might slow the nagging sting that is presently pretty loud. He takes a step and

 turns his neck and shakes out a pop in his neck down

 below his skull while shaking his right leg off the ground and twist ing his hips and POP. That is how he spells relief. Now he is ready to walk

comfortably as he looks for the gator in his quarter-acre pond.
It takes less than half a minute for the gator to come up to him, staring Collier down from 25 feet away. Collier’s adrenalin sure felt good when

he cussed the gator. All arthritis forgotten Collier stands his ground. The gator watches for a while and goes under. Hmm Collier thinks that

eight foot gator thought he was a ten footer.
The next morning the current stray dog Collier has decided to feed is missing. Living in the woods, Collier sees many stray discarded pets coming

through the sanctuary and Colliers five acres. This dog was always in the garbage and has a four week old litter of puppies under his porch so

 Collier has mixed emotions about the mysterious disappearance.
Two mornings later as Collier is leaving for work he sees the gator on shore for the first time and it was a doozy. Not that ten foot is a huge

 gator but it is big, especially up close. Collier thinks to himself “ That one could have ate me”. He was not the wrestling size, he outweighed

Collier by two hundred pounds. Long, black and ancient looking this gator is close to four foot wide across his back and nine foot seven with at

 least foot of tale bit off. This alligator had pretty well stopped getting much longer twenty years before but must have continued to get thicker.

With his head an enormous three foot long skull and a noncommittal look in his eye the gator throws the back half of the mystery dog in the air

 and catches it in an effort to get it down his jaws. It is about fifteen pounds of dog he is trying to swallow but can not. He leisurely slides back in

the pond and prowls the water with the dog in his jaws like a trophy. It was like he was gloatingly, silently ribbing Collier he ate his dog and

Grandpa was next. Collier calls seventy year old Joe, his father, and asked him to shoot this gator. Joe passed the opportunity content to sit

 at home and enjoy his house and yard full of fruit trees. Instead Joe called Collier’s neighbor who called a very good, reputable gator skinner

 named Buzzard or Buzz for short. Buzzard will be out in a little bit.
Collier walked out to the pond with an semi-automatic Winchester in long rifle .22 caliber. He had carried this little gun many places and hid it

 from the law, used it as a face tamper and could shoot like his grandpa with it. Collier and his favorite firearm went to the gator, Collier knew

he was going to kill him shortly and wished to talk it over with the gator and his own conscience. As Collier is standing the gator swims agressively

 towards Granpa. That was the final straw and Collier's conscience was clear as the gator closed the distance fast. Collier aims and catches the gator

behind the head as the gator veers away at the last second. He does a death roll and 5 minutes later is back on top of the water.
Buzzard arrives at high noon and he was sky high. Kind of stumbling out of his truck he said hello. Collier walked up and shook his hand.

Collier told Buzzard how big the gator was and buzz says “ everybody’s gator is ten or twelve foot long mister, I doubt it is over eight“. Collier

 assures him it is as buzzard loads his short barreled saddle model 94 chambered in .44 magnum lever-action Winchester.
Buzzard looks for the big, fat gator and throws lukewarm tater-tots in the pond claiming the grease will draw him fast. Collier thinks this guy

might be drunk. The grass across the pond is high and after twenty minutes of waiting Buzzard and Collier go there. Collier sees the path

 by the pond and thinks to himself “ Self he has a gun, you do not, time to back up“. Collier suggest this logic to Buzzard who turns and

slurred “ I knew youb be lige dat” In he goes to the short trail and out bounces 400 pounds of gator. He shoots three rounds from his

pocket gun, a .380 semi-auto pistol into the ground and water where the gator used to be, kind of shooing him away.
Buzzard, now arming himself with his lever-action Winchester walks deliberately to the bank the gator is at and aims the .44 magnum

at the gator and shoots him five times . Buzzard can not accept this gators size and places all the shots in front of his eyes on his top

 jaw which really pissed the gator off.  If he would have shot him behind his eyes it would have been over but without seeing the eyes he

guessed way short.

The gator swings his tail twice and is propelled to another part of the pond. Buzzard has lost any

buzz he had on and is on the gator quick and shoots him again six times with his pistol and this lays him down.
Buzz and Collier take a garden hoe and pull the gator to shore. As Collier and Buzzard grab the gator he opens his eyes. Collier has the

 gator by the lips and is uncomfortable with grip and animal but will not let go and abandon Buzzard who is now standing in the pond knee

deep trying to get the giant out of the pond. He looks to Buzzard and says “ Do you see that”. Buzzard replies while standing in the water

holding the giant reptile by the left side front and back legs “ I always leab one in the chamber juss ford dis occasion” .
Buzzard puts his pistol on the bump in the middle of the gators head behind his eyes and “Snap” then the .380 discharges it’s empty shell

 and the gator eyes close for good. Now Buzzard knows Collier and maybe you do too. He will not quit when you need him, even when it sucks.
The duo of swamp men could not lift the gator out of the pond and eventually drag the it out with a chain and Buzz’s truck. As they drag the huge,

 ancient reptile to the house it’s feet eerily keep up with the dragging, like Buzz was taking his four hundred pound gator for a walk with his truck.

Collier’s niece Lindsey and nephew P.J. jump up and down on the gator kicking and screaming, hurting back at the dead gator for killing the poor

stray named “Fanny”. I can see those two fitting together on it’s back, jumping up and down like his four foot wide torso was a trampoline.
He and Lori’s little group is as beautiful as that day when the ex husband was sent packing. Little Gwen has four beautiful kids and baby Sara has

 three, David has two with one on the way and Mary Pat has three boys with one on the way. Now If Collier and Lori take care of each other there

will be Great- Grand kids to protect and love in old Bonita and Estero or wherever they are. I will let you know.
Thanksgiving Eve 2006 half of the Kids and Grand Kids camp at Collier’s with a large campfire to drink beer and raise hell why the little ones enjoy

more space than at home.
In the morning Katie and Collier with Kris, Gwen’s husband trek off to the woods south of Collier’s house and try to kill a thanksgiving day deer or hog,

turkey or duck. Some years in the past Katie has been in the party to take deer and watch hogs feed, some big snook fishing and 12 foot gators stealthily

 stalking her trying to fish Lake Okeechobee. For an eight year old she has experienced the cracker way and her grandpa couldn’t be prouder.
Katie and Collier split away from Kris who takes a stand in the best location in Collier’s woods and head east. First they have a seat 200 feet from Kris

watching the tree line for dinner. Collier tries to keep Katie from stirring and she does pretty good for an hour or so. He explained to her the night before

 that if she did not fidget on her stand she would not need camouflage clothes and Collier now demonstrates.
Eventually Collier decides to take Katie into the Cypress head where these hogs are hiding. It is very dry and the best time of the year to hunt its thick

vegetation. Katie and Collier move stealthily through the swamp and find clues like fresh hog pile still shining but not steaming. Also Katie learns to smell

for sign as she can smell the fresh sand just bulldozed by a hiding, feral hog. She knows they are close. Katie is very careful of walking on twigs or anything

else that makes noise without being told. She is stealthy. Just when they are getting close another hunters shotgun shoots less than a quarter mile away.

 Katie and Collier know to turn back because safe hunting and common sense dictate staying away from others in the woods to avoid someone being shot.

This ends the hunt as their hunting companion meets them halfway back home. Kris saw another man hunting in his stands view shutting him down as well.

The previous year Kris sayed in bed and Collier, Katie and Lindsey snuck out to the swamp and Collier shot a deer for the girls to help drag back.

Next time Katie is going to shoot the deer if she wants. Unlike her Grandfather she is a picky eater and her appetitie might not talk her into pulling the trigger.
When they return home breakfast is ready. After breakfast Collier returns to last nights fire still smoldering and finds the cooler has beer. He spends

Thanksgiving pulling kids in their wagons and drinking Jay’s beer. Katie chauffeurs adults around on a really big fourwheeler. Dolphins beat the Lions

27-10 Everybody goes home by 9 that evening.
The next morning Collier gets up and walks outside and the whole pig family is out on the side of the house. Thanks giving has passed and Collier lets

the hogs slide by. He has lots of turkey leftovers. Of course the next year brought another Thanksgiving complete with the night before bon-fire and

Thanksgiving Day hunt. Katie grows into a young lady who will always have her memories of Grandpa's hunts. She watched him make shots that were

 impossible and miss shots that were easy. She has had the excitement of alligator attempting to ambush her, deer jumping out of the thick when she least expected

and Long silent times setting out in the cypress heads waiting for game with Grandpa. Why it seems like yesterday that Collier was shooting the deer on the run and

Katie was jumping up and down with excitement.

If you are interested in Realty Investment please contact me at RIC