Faye was behind the wheel of Joe’s car, a white Chevy Cavalier that was ancient but utterly reliable. Getting supplies to the cleanup workers was Priority One, but she had a second mission that was more selfish. She wanted more information on the mysterious dark blotch on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, and she was pretty sure she knew where to get it.
People with cash or functioning credit cards had pooled their resources for this trip to civilization. Faye had used those dollars to fill the Cavalier’s trunk and back seat full of bottled water, energy bars, baby formula, diapers, and wet wipes. Since Faye was good at making cash go a long way, she had stretched the budget enough to fill the passenger seat with practical luxuries. Handing out things like apples, oranges, peanuts, deodorant, and dry shampoo was going to feel like playing Santa Claus.
It was sheer luck that there were open stores in Crawfordville, close enough for her to make a round trip in a single afternoon with time to spare. If that weren’t true, people would be a lot hungrier and a lot thirstier. Those in the storm’s path had been lucky in some ways, if one is willing to call being walloped by a Category 3 hurricane lucky.
First of all, at least the storm hadn’t been a Category 5. It had pulverized the lightly populated Micco County coastline, but it had spared the beach resorts to the west and the popular fishing areas to the east.
Second, there had been luck in the storm’s small size. Like the Category 5 Hurricane Camille, one of the most powerful of all time, its eyewall had been a fierce but small circle of wind and rain. Hurricane force winds had extended barely sixty miles from the eye, so the counties to either side of the storm’s center were windblown but functional. This meant that the Wakulla County towns of Panacea, Crawfordville, and Sopchoppy were open for business. When Faye and Joe had first ventured out after the storm, they’d been shocked to find that the marina where they kept their boats was barely touched.
It was as if God had pointed at Micco County and said, “Here’s a good place to try out my new wind tunnel.” Faye didn’t want to think about what would have happened if the thing had been the size of fellow Cat 3 Hurricane Katrina.
Unfortunately, mere Cat 3 storms don’t get a lot of media attention, unless they’re Katrina, so the news cycle had moved on. Government-sponsored help was falling into place, but it was inadequate. Insurance money hadn’t started flowing. In short, people were largely on their own.
The small size of the devastated area meant that its residents were within reach of the trappings of civilization. Faye and Joe had access to gasoline at the marina, so they fetched the fuel that kept people’s cars and chain saws running, and they did a lot of driving themselves. Today, it was Faye’s turn to make the afternoon supply run.
As she drove away from the grocery store, she detoured to her friend Captain Eubank’s house. If anybody could help her identify the dark blotch off the coast of Joyeuse Island, he could.
She turned her car into his driveway, parking near the freestanding garage behind his house. The captain leaned out his side door before she’d even put the car in park. He was a slim, gray-haired man with gray eyes that surveyed the world with a sharp intelligence. The captain was past retirement age, but he still carried himself with a military bearing.
“Come in, come in. It’s always so good to see you, Faye.”
He lived in a white wood-frame house built shortly after World War II. It was surrounded by a neat green yard, front and back, and a white picket fence. The house looked freshly painted, but then it always looked freshly painted. If the hurricane had dropped a single twig on its grassy lawn, it was gone now.
The captain seated her at a table smack in the middle of a 1950s fantasy kitchen. “Have a seat in here while I fix us some tea.”
His sink was shiny white porcelain, his refrigerator was shiny white enameled steel, and his counters were shiny red laminate. Faye didn’t know you could still buy kitchen wax. Maybe Captain Eubank had a lifetime supply stashed in his garage.
The captain was a big tea drinker, so the teakettle on his stove was permanently hot. He made a pot of tea and poured Faye a cup, then he dropped in a sugar cube and a splash of milk, because people who operated at his level of efficiency never forgot how their friends liked their tea.
Picking up his own cup, a celadon-green antique that suited the captain’s love of the past, he said, “Now that we’ve got our tea, do you want to sit in the library? It’s more fun in there, because that’s where the books are.”
Faye never passed up a chance to soak in the ambiance of the captain’s fabulous library. “Absolutely.”
Captain Eubank’s body might live in Crawfordville now, but his heart had never left Micco County. It was where he had lived the first sixty years of his life. His passion for Micco County history knew no bounds, and his book collection showed it. His personal library held documents so rare that they brought historians to him.
He lived for those historians’ visits, which gave him opportunities to ply them with tea and pick their brains. His door was just as open to people researching their family trees, Civil War re-enactors trying to get their uniforms just right, and school kids working on history projects.
Faye wasn’t sure what branch of the military the captain had served in, or when. She’d never wanted to ask him, maybe because she wasn’t convinced that he’d actually served. She’d always harbored a private suspicion that “Captain” was his first name, until she’d read the inscription on the plaque that had pride of place on his library wall. It read:
In Recognition of Long and Faithful Service to the Citizens of Micco County, Florida, Captain Edward Eubank is Hereby Awarded the Title of Honorary County Historian.
For a time, she’d thought that this inscription had finally answered her question. Then she’d decided that the inscription didn’t actually clear things up. Yeah, the captain had another name and it was Edward, but Captain could still be his first name. The mystery remained, and Faye decided that she liked it that way.
The plaque adorned a room that most people who weren’t Captain Eubank would have called the living room. He had filled it full of books. Then he’d filled the dining room full of old maps. And he had crammed two of the house’s three bedrooms full of old newspapers and ephemera. If the captain didn’t stop collecting stuff, he would need to move out of his bedroom and sleep on the couch.
His books were labeled and shelved just as they would be in a public library. The captain had told Faye on more than one occasion, with some vehemence and more than a little passion, that he favored the Library of Congress system over the Dewey Decimal system. He’d never specified his reasons but she did not doubt that he had them.
Since the captain had lived most of his seventy-ish years without computers, he still maintained a physical card catalog made possible when the Micco County Public Library went digital and gave him their card cabinets. They had also given him their old stamp-and-ink book checkout equipment. These things had brought his system into the 1970s. The metallic smell of library ink pervaded his home, and it took Faye back to her childhood bookmobile visits. She always left Captain Eubank’s house with a daffy smile that made her look like she’d been sniffing glue.
Faye and the captain sat down at a reading table in the center of the living room library, and he said, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“Well, I mainly wanted to be sure you made it through the storm okay. From the looks of things, you certainly did. Your yard looks like we never even had a hurricane, so I’m guessing that you spearheaded efforts to make every other yard on the street look just as good.”
The captain grinned, but he didn’t say no. “We’re all fine. It wasn’t near as bad here in Crawfordville as it was over in Micco County.”
“What about your sister? She lives in Micco County. Do I remember that Jeanine has been ill?”
“I don’t know that Jeanine’s ill, really. Maybe old age is just creeping up on her, but she doesn’t get around like she used to. Her legs don’t want to go, and her breathing’s not too good. I’ve been beside myself worrying about her. You know how far she lives from town. Her phone wasn’t working—still isn’t—and I can’t get a call through. Haven’t been able to get through by car, either. And, believe me, I’ve tried. Every day since the storm, I’ve tried. Can’t even get halfway there. Still too many darned trees in the road.”
“I bet you have.”
“Every morning, I’m in my car, trying to find a way to get to Jeanine. Every afternoon, I’m working with my neighbors to get this town cleaned up. I’m so happy you caught me here when you stopped by.”
Now Faye was really concerned. “It was that bad where she was, and you still haven’t seen her? Or heard from her?”
“No, no, no, don’t worry. She’s okay. One of her neighbors was able to chain-saw his way out far enough to get a cell signal. He called to say that her house is in terrible shape but she’s fine, just scared and lonely. He thinks the road to her place will be open tomorrow. She may even have cell service by then. I’m heading out bright and early to lay eyes on her, maybe even bring her here. If she’s willing to leave her house, that is.”
“Well, I’m glad she’s okay, and I’m glad you’re going to able to see her.”
“I was actually more worried about your family, living out there on that island, but I saw Joe at the store. He said you missed the worst of the storm.”
She began, “Thanks, but speaking of my family, Joe took a picture that you really need to—” but he was too excited to wait for her to finish.
“I saw it!” he said. He reached into a pile of papers on his desk and pulled out a newspaper, smacking it down on the table with Joe’s aerial photo facing up. He jabbed a finger at the dark spot off the coast of Joyeuse Island.
“That picture is why I’m here. Well, besides making sure you’re okay,” she said. “I thought you’d be interested in that spot. Actually, I thought you might know what it is.”
“I don’t know what it is, but I have a theory.”
His face had an ask-me-please glow, so she did. “What’s your theory?”
“Somewhere near here, a ship went down during the Civil War.”