Acts of Nature

sitting, circled around Brown like he was some Indian chieftain or voodoo shaman. It was only later he’d learned of the marijuana smuggling activities of his father and the others and tied them in with the strategy meetings. After Brown had done his time in the federal pen, he’d come back home and had made a visit to Buck’s mother, to offer his condolences on the death of her husband. Buck remembered the quaking of his mother’s entire body and the anger of her response: “You was supposed to be the one looked after them men, Nate Brown. You and your goddamn old Glades wisdom,” she spat, and Buck remembered the old man’s gray, unflinching eye going, for the first time he’d ever witnessed, to the floor.
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Morris,” he’d said. “But each man makes his own decisions dependin’ on his nature, ma’am. That’s just God’s way.”
    “Fissst,” Buck’s mother hissed and he still recalled the recrimination in the unspoken expletive and how seeing it fly from his mother’s mouth had scared him enough to step back.
    “Don’t you bring God into it none, Mr. Brown,” she’d said. “If you was such a believer you’d remember that you was not supposed to lead them men into temptation.”
    Brown had continued to stare at the floor that day, and for a long time Buck thought the old man had been struck to stone by his mother’s call on the Almighty. But Brown finally looked up and spoke: “I’m not a kingdom nor a power, Ms. Morris. I am just a man my ownself.”
    Despite his mother’s recrimination at Brown and her admonishment to him to stay away, Buck not only continued to be obliging to the old man, he also took it upon himself to ask for his advice and guidance on things pertinent to the Glades and fishing and hunting. And Brown was willing to give it in those instances. It was the line into what he called thievery that the old man would not cross and would turn his shoulder to Buck if he smelled it coming into a discussion.
    But if Buck had even one of his father’s traits it was his careful ways. He did not rush headlong into things. He did not like to react emotionally to threat or doubt or even opportunity. He was no knee-jerker. So he’d given thought to this newly hatched plan. He heard the same stories the boys had of the new generation of Glades camps filled with the things that others’ money can buy. It could mean a big haul. It could mean enough cash from Bobby the Fence to get him off this rail to nowhere. Maybe he’d find a way to clear out of this place, find a better way up in central or north Florida. Some guy in prison had told stories of cattle ranges up in Hendry County. Maybe this was his ticket to another century.
    But Buck also knew that any job had its dangers and a careful man tried to plan, and no one in this world knew more about the Glades than Nate. So he’d brought the map he’d made to get the old man’s sense of the spots they’d marked, the areas they planned to visit.
    Buck set the coffee down on the damp tabletop and pushed a cup to Mr. Brown’s side and then unfolded the map.
    “I’ve got a bit of an airboat trip planned here, sir, and thought I might get your take on some of these here spots you might recognize,” he explained, sliding the chart to edge up against the mug he’d given Brown.
    The old man raised the thick china cup to his lips, took a long draft even though the heat of the coffee still sent steam up and around his prominent nose, and men leaned out over the map. Despite his unknown age, Buck had never seen the man wear a pair of glasses. Brown set the mug down and then reached out and placed his fingertips on each X-crossed spot on the map like he was feeling the place, conjuring a memory.
    “This ’un here is too far north for any good fishin’,” he said. “It’ll be wet now after this blow, but in dry times they ain’t but a foot or two of water.
    “Now this ’un might could get you a few smaller tarpon, maybe some snook. This other is ’bout the same.”
    Buck just nodded his head, watching the old man’s brow, the deep furrows made by a lifetime of squinting into the reflected sun rays bouncing off open water.
    “This ’un here is in an awful pretty spot up in Palm Beach County. Ain’t much to fish ’cause the river over this way draws ’em all, but there’s some gators in a old hole we used to take ever season near there. Big, nasty sumbitches too, pardon the cussin’, son.”
    “I’ve