LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Well?” Barrow asked quietly.

      “I don’t think the stash is here,” she said honestly. “Anthony Green talks about having a shack out in the Everglades. My dad and his University of Miami buddies used to have one. They went hunting—they had their licenses and their permits to take two alligators each. But usually they just went to their shack, talked about school and sports and women—and then shot up beer cans. The shacks were outlawed twenty or thirty years ago. But that didn’t mean the shacks all went down, or that some of the old-timers who run airboat rides or tours off of the Tamiami Trail don’t remember where a lot of them are.”

      “So, the stash is in one of the old cabins,” Barrow murmured. “But you don’t know which—or where.” He hesitated. “A place like Lost City?”

      Kody stared at the man, surprised. Most of the people she knew who had grown up in the area hadn’t even heard about Lost City.

      Lost City was an area of about three acres, perhaps eight miles or so south of Alligator Alley, now part of I-75, a stretch of highway that crossed the state from northwestern Broward County over to the Naples/Ft. Myers area on the west coast of the state. It was suspected that Confederate soldiers had hidden out there after the Civil War, and many historians speculated that either Miccosukee or Seminole Indians had come upon them and massacred them all. Scholars believed it had been a major Seminole village at some point—and that it had been in use for hundreds of years.

      But, most important, perhaps, was the fact that Al Capone—the real prohibition era gangster—had used the area to create his bootleg liquor.

      She hesitated, not sure how much information to share—and how much to hold close.

      Then again, she didn’t have a single thing that was solid.

      But...

      It was evident he knew the area. Possibly, he’d grown up in South Florida, too. With the millions of people living in Miami-Dade and Broward counties alone, it was easy to believe they’d never met.

      And yet, they had.

      She knew his eyes.

      And she had to believe that, slimy thief that he was, he was not a killer.

      Yes, she had to believe it. Because she was depending on him, leaning on him, believing that he was the one who might save them—at the least, save their lives! She had to believe it because...

      It wasn’t right.

      But, when she looked at him. When he spoke, when he made a move to protect one of them...

      There was just something about him. And it made her burn inside and wish that...

      Wish that he was the good guy.

      “Something like that,” she said, “except there’s another version of the Al Capone distillery farther south. Supposedly, Anthony Green had a spot in the Everglades where he, too, distilled liquor. Near it, he had one of the old shacks. The place is up on an old hammock and, like the Capone site, it was once a Native American village, in this case, Miccosukee.”

      “You know where this place is?” Barrow asked her.

      “Well, theoretically,” she said with a shrug. “Almost all the Everglades is part of the national parks system, or belonging to either the Miccosukee or the Seminole tribes. But from what I understand, Anthony Green had his personal distillery on a hammock in the Shark Valley Slough—which empties out when you get to the Ten Thousand Islands, which are actually in Monroe County. But I don’t think that it’s far from the observation tower at Shark Valley. There’s a hammock—”

      Kody stopped speaking when she noticed him staring down at one of the glass-framed historic notes she had set next to the Anthony Green journal she’d been cross-referencing.

      “Chakaika,” he said quietly.

      She started, staring at him when he looked up and seemed to be smiling at her.

      “A very different leader,” he said. “Known as the ‘Biggest Indian.’ He was most likely of Spanish heritage, with mixed blood from the Creek perhaps, or another tribe that had members flee down to South Florida. Anyway, he was active from the center of the state on down—had his own mix of Spanish and Native American tongues and traded with other Native Americans, but seemed to have a hatred for the whites who wanted to ship the Indians to the west. He attacked the fort and he headed down to Pigeon Key, where he murdered Dr. Henry Perrine—who really was, by all historic record, a cool guy who just wanted to use his plants to find cures for diseases.

      “Anyway, in revenge, Colonel Harney disguised himself and his men as Native Americans and brought canoes down after Chakaika, who thought they could not find him in the swamp. But they found a runaway slave of the leader’s who led them right to the hammock where the man lived. They didn’t let him surrender—they shot him and his braves, and then they hanged him. And the hammock became known as Hanging People Kay. I know certain park rangers believe they know exactly where it is.”

      Kody lowered her head, keeping silent for a minute. Her parents had been slightly crazy environmentalists. She knew all kinds of trivia about the state and its history. But while most people who had grown up down here might know the capital and the year the territory had become a state or the state bird or motto, few of them knew about Chakaika. Tourists sometimes stopped at the museum heading south on Pidgeon Key where Dr. Henry Perrine had once lived and worked, but nothing beyond that.

      “Chakaika,” he said again. “It’s written clearly on the corner of that letter.”

      “Yes, well...they found oil barrels sunk in the area once,” she murmured. “They were filled with two of Anthony Green’s henchmen who apparently fell into ill favor with their boss. I know that the rangers out there are pretty certain they know the old Green stomping grounds—just like they know all about Chakaika. The thing is, of course, it’s a river of grass. An entire ecosystem starting up at Lake Kissimmee and heading around Lake Okeechobee and down. Storms have come and gone, new drainage systems have gone in... I just don’t know.”

      “It’s enough to give him,” Barrow said. “Enough to make him move.”

      Kody leaned forward suddenly. “You don’t want to kill people. You hate the man. So why don’t you shoot him in the kneecap or something?”

      “And then Capone would shoot us all,” Barrow said. “Do you really think that I could just gun them all down?”

      “No, but you could—”

      “Injure a man like that, and you might as well shoot yourself,” he told her. “And, never mind. I have my reasons for doing what I’m doing. There’s no other choice.”

      “There’s always a choice,” Kody said.

      “No,” he told her flatly, “there’s not. So, if you want to keep breathing and keep all your friends alive, as well—”

      Dillinger came striding in. “So, Miss Cameron. Where is my treasure?”

      “Dammit! Listen to me and believe me! It’s not here, not in the house, not on the island,” she told him. She realized that while she was speaking fairly calmly, she was shivering, shaking from head to toe.

      It was Dillinger and Barrow in the room then.

      If Dillinger attacked her, what would Barrow do? Risk himself to defend her?

      There certainly was no treasure at the house—other than the house itself—to give Dillinger. She’d told him the truth.

      “So, where is it?” he demanded.

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