The Last American Martyr (12 page)

Then, as if it was nobody’s business but his own, he removed the nozzle from my camper and hung it back on the pump.

I was going to yell, but I’d learned many years earlier, in Southeast Asia, just how valuable the element of surprise can be. I figured now, if I could sneak back into the driver’s door, I could get a hold of my pistol before he even knew I was there.

The guy then stopped in the back, surely seeing the license plate. Next, he went around to the far side where I could no longer see him. After giving Solace’s leash a slight tug, we did a quick half-trot back over there.

Damn
, I thought, as we made our way toward the pump island,
what the hell was I thinking. Middle of nowhere, pitch-black out here, not a soul around other than the store clerk, and I‘m out here without the Glock. Shit! What an idiot I am!

Then Solace blew my plan wide open. From her low vantage point she’d seen the guy’s legs moving on the far side of the camper. She did what she did best and went ballistic. Before we were close enough to the door, the big man had come around to the front! Right on the other side of the concrete island when we reached it, face to face with us, he said, “Whoooah, take it easy killer!”

Then, smearing a grin across a face wide as those atop Rushmore, he said, “Now, just you take it easy big boy.”

He then turned his head to the side and spit tobacco juice through his teeth. It splashed on the cement about eight feet away. As he did this, my eyes were drawn to a holster at his side. Yes, he was packing. The flap on the holster was unbuttoned, which wasn’t a good sign. On top of that, this guy was huge. He had to be about six-eight, crowding three hundred pounds. He was carrying a little extra weight around his midsection, but he was one powerful looking man. His green cap said “Remington” across the front, and it was tilted back on his head. A shock of thick brown hair hung from beneath it, covering his forehead. His blue jeans were rolled up, and where they met his knees they were wet. Standing there in his bare feet this guy looked like a cross between Paul Bunyon and Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t know what to make of him, and what he did after spitting did nothing to calm my nerves.

He turned back towards us then drew up his right hand. In the process he brushed up against the holster flap. For sure I thought he was reaching for his pistol. I was just about to jump on him, try to bury my thumbs into his eyes. I’d once seen a very small friend of mine do exactly that in a bar fight and totally disable a man twice his size. But thank god I didn’t have to resort to such a measure. After brushing the flap he finished his motion and simply wiped the residue saliva from his mouth.

“Ya’ll ain’t from around here, I see.”

“No … we’re not. We’re just passing through; just making a pit stop.”

Solace was now on top of the cement island, still carrying on like she wanted to tear him apart. As I held her back with the leash, he crouched in front of her and gently offered his hand.

“Be careful.” I said, “She may very well try to bite you.”

“Naw, she won’t bite me, will you girl?” he said, ever so slowly easing his down-turned hand toward her.

I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing. This fortyish giant was like one of those animal whisperers. A moment later Solace actually stopped all her barking and sniffed his hand. Soon he was stroking her head, and I felt a whole lot better.

Still down on his haunches, looking up at me now, he said, “Hope you don’t mind, I pulled that there nozzle out of your gas tank. You were up to a hundred and two bucks and fuel was spillin’ all over the concrete there.”

“No, no, heck no! Thank you very much. I’d thought for sure it had had an automatic shut-off.”

“I’ve been tellin’ ole Jasper in there,” he said, nodding at the store, “he needs to update. But hell, nobody round here’s got that kinda money, ‘specially Jasper. Only thing he’s got for sure is a missing letter on his sign and a gambling problem.”

Rising to his feet he put out his hand. “Name’s Franklin Dewitt. I live just down the road. Where you headin’? I see you got New York plates.”

I shook his hand and immediately knew how that J. Henry Logsdon character must have felt when I was fool enough to shake his. I felt like a Boy Scout shaking with his scout leader.

“I’m Jay, Jay Henry,” was the best I could come up with at the moment. “Solace and I are just bouncing around a bit. In the spring I want to go out West, but for the time being, we just want to stay somewhere warm. The main thing, right now, is to find a nice quiet campground. We’ve been driving all night, and I’ve had it.”

“Well, Fallin’ Waters State Park is back just a ways, off I-10. They have camp sites there. There’s a little bitty mom and pop place just the other side of DeFuniak Springs, too, but none of ‘em would be open for at least a couple of hours. Can’t be any later than five, five-thirty about now.”

Checking my watch I said, “Yup, you’re right, it’s only five-twenty. But that’s OK. I’ll just pay for the gas. We’ll figure something out. Thanks for shutting off the pump and…”

“Whooa, hold on,” Franklin interrupted. “Like I said, my place ain’t far, just a couple a miles from here. You want to, you and Solace here can set up there for the day, get caught up on sleep, whatever.”

Under normal circumstances I’d never consider such an offer, especially from such an imposing stranger. Granted, the guy seemed to be on the up and up, but you never know. On the other hand, was I better off parking somewhere—here in the middle of nowhere—for two hours until the state park or the other place opened up? Who was to say a bored country sheriff might not happen along with an arsenal of questions? I didn’t even know if it was legal to have a loaded gun in my glove compartment.

“Look,” he said as I deliberated, “it’s up to you, but I got sixty acres in the woods. It’s just me there, ain’t no wife around or nothin’. Got a pond out back that’s full of bream and bass, and the place is a lot prettier than those campgrounds. A lot more private, too.”

Bingo! The word “private” lit up inside my head like neon. It might just be the perfect place to get a good day’s sleep. What did I have to lose? Even though I only knew this man for five, maybe ten minutes, I somehow couldn’t help but to trust him. Of course, I’d still lock all the doors before going to sleep. And if by some chance my instincts proved wrong, I still had the Glock.

“I really appreciate the offer, and I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass, but if you have any loose dogs or anything, Solace would never let me sleep.”

“Don’t worry. I ain’t got no dogs. Just buried my Missy ‘bout two months ago. It’ll be a long spell before I get another dog. Can’t take that kinda hurt, if you know what I mean.”

That was it! The way I saw it, anybody with the capacity to truly love a dog like he seemed to, couldn’t be all that bad. The fact that Solace actually warmed up to him also threw a lot of weight into my decision. I offered to pay Franklin Dewitt but did not press the issue when he refused to accept money. His overgrown boyish face actually looked disappointed, maybe even a tad insulted. In my neck of the woods, a monetary gesture would be expected; in his, it obviously would not be tolerated.

I still had to pay for the gas, and Franklin wanted to buy some chewing tobacco, so the three of us headed toward the store. As we approached his truck, with the boat in back, I asked him if he’d been out doing some night fishing.

“Nuh uh,” he said, “take a look in the boat.” And I did. There was a hand-held spotlight wired to an automobile battery in there, along with about a twelve-foot pole. Stretched out next to the pole, and just about as long, were two freshly-killed Florida alligators. Just like Franklin’s knees, their bodies were still soaking wet. The storefront lights eerily reflecting off the hulking primeval creatures. With both of them lying on their bellies, the light seemed to glisten off their wide, treaded backs in a thousand different directions.

It turned out Franklin Dewitt was a true gentleman—a genuine prince. For far too long, I’d believed that the bigger the man, the bigger his ego and attitude had to be. Boy, did Franklin disprove that nonsense. Solace and I went on to spend most of the winter at his place, and he could not have been more accommodating. The only money he would accept was thirty dollars a month for the electric I used.

When he wasn’t using his boat, he’d leave it alongside the six-acre pond for me and Solace. And it was no accident that, whenever we felt like using it, there was always fresh bait, a tackle box, and a well-cared-for fishing rod sitting in it. Whenever he roasted a wild hog or barbequed meat, he’d always cook a few bass or bream fillets and bring them to me. If I happened to be outside the camper when he was heading to Jasper’s iffy Stop, he’d always ask if I needed cigarettes, beer, or anything else.     

Franklin’s place was two miles off the paved county road. The only way in was a dirt road through the thick pines and palmettos. If it was possible anywhere, this was the perfect place to try to simmer my fears and pain a bit. A place I never left except for the occasional trip to Jasper’s or to dump the camper’s sewage. It was a refuge, so to speak, a place where I could disassociate myself from the rest of the world.

I never once looked at a newspaper and did not miss them. Not reading all those slanted views allowed me a refreshing hiatus from my usual early-morning funks. My only connection to the so-called real world was the cell phone. There was no DSL for the laptop, no cable for the TV. Franklin didn’t even own a television, and that certainly added to my sense of security. He said he once put up an antenna, but it was worthless.  

The only other structure back there was the remnants of an old, wood-framed cracker house. Totally collapsed by now, his great-grandfather had built the place in 1901, when he was seventeen-years old. Boar and deer were still in good supply, and on the occasions Franklin killed one, I totally understood. He was a man who lived off his land and earned very little money when he was off it. That’s why he poached alligators, had a nuisance trapper’s license to remove them, and totally disregarded all hunting season dates. As for me, I stuck to my jogging routine on his dirt road, and wrote the entire first half of this book during my stay.

In early March, on the last night before Solace and I were to move on, I learned something else about Franklin Levi Dewitt—something else he occasionally did for money. Something, had I known the night I met him, dog-tired or not, I would have sped out of Walton County so fast the camper would have gone airborne.

He and I were lounging in Adirondack chairs on the deck behind his cabin. The huge Florida sun had dropped beyond the tree line, leaving a pale pink smear on the fading sky above it. Franklin and I, nursing cold ones, watched a great blue heron wrestle a small flapping fish he’d just plucked from the pond. Franklin dropped his massive arm over the side of his chair and gently massaged Solace’s ear, as she lay sprawled between us on the cypress planking. The crickets had begun their usual chorus and Franklin said, “You know, Jay, I’m a lot like that there heron.”

Hating the fact that after all he’d done for me, and all the time I’d spent at his place, I still couldn’t tell him my real name, I said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, just like that bird, there are times I have to travel around to hunt down my next meal.”

“Hunt down?”

“Yeah, in a way, I’m just like that bird. I’ve been gone the last four days haven’t I?”

“Yeahhh?”

“I sure as hell didn’t want to go nowhere. But sometimes, when the money’s low and the opportunity comes a knockin’, I gotta go for it.”

“What did you do, remove a few gators for somebody?”

He tipped his Remington cap farther back, scratched his forehead then said, “Naw, I’ve been out to Pensacola. Did a job for somebody I know. A little tracking, like that heron did to run down that shiner. Only I hunted down a man.”

Jesus Christ
, I’m thinking now,
no, no, don’t let this be true. It can’t be! No way could I have been wrong about this guy all along. I refuse to believe he’s involved in some kind of clandestine shit? Wait, could I have been wrong? Could he be some kind of murder-for-hire head-case? Is that why he stays out here, all alone in the woods? Damn, the last night we’re here and this has to happen.

“Look, Franklin, I said, unable to hide my concern, “I don’t know what you’re involved in, but maybe it’s best I don’t. I don’t want to…”

He then interrupted me with a howling laugh. “Hell’s fire, Jay, what do you think I am, some kinda mass murderer?”

He let go of Solace’s ear and gave me a little jab on the shoulder. “I just do a little work for an ex-sheriff I know. His name’s George Tyson. When he retired he opened up a little business in Pensacola. From time to time, I just help him out a little is all. Hot damn, you’re a pisser!”

Lucky for me it was getting dark. The hot blood rushing to my face surely turned it scarlet. I felt like an A-1, top-of-the-line, gold-plated idiot. And a traitor as well.

How
, I asked myself,
could I ever have thought he might be capable of such malevolence?

You can only imagine how relieved I was. Think about it, one minute you believe you may be sitting alone, in the woods, with a possible axe murderer; the next you find out your imagined death-sentence was just a ridiculous misunderstanding. It‘s like going from doomsday to Christmas day in a flash.

Unfortunately, the huge flood of relief I’d felt dried up as quickly as it had arrived. What Franklin told me next made all my previous imaginings seem like petty, inconsequential concerns.

Still wearing an embarrassed smile, I said, “Alright, alright, Franklin! I’m sorry. I guess my mind was off in the twilight zone for a minute there.” Then, hoping to quickly switch subjects, I said, “How do you help your buddy out? What do you do for him?”

“Between me, you, and the wall, Jay, I sometimes do a little bounty hunting. That’s what I was doing for ole George the past few days.”

Oh my good God! A bounty hunter! Shhhit! He still called me Jay, but is he just toying with me? Maybe his buddy found out about Soleswatch.com. Maybe Franklin himself threw me under the bus. Maybe in Pensacola they were contacting bloggers on that fucking site; making deals. Maybe Franklin IS a hit-man after all! He might’ve been up there with that guy lining up as many prospective customers as possible. If they could get a half—dozen clients to pay for a single job, why not—that’s what they call good business nowadays. Oh hell, what am I going to do? I don’t know what to think anymore. Am I totally losing it? It is possible I’m not his sacrificial lamb. Is it possible that, even if my hunch is right, Franklin would never do me in? Is my hunch just that-a hunch-a sick perverse hunch?