Roy’s Uncle Buck built a house on Utila, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. It was an octagonal structure with eight doors on a spit of land accessible only by boat when the tide was in. Buck had transported a generator, refrigerator and other appliances on the ship Islander Trader from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Utila, and when he returned on the same boat two and a half months later, Roy met him at the dock.
“I had to go to Teguci for a few days to renew my residency visa and take care of some other business,” Buck told him, “and I was walking down a street with my friend Goodnight Morgan, who used to live on Utila but now lives on Roatan, when a car came by, slowed down, and someone fired three shots at us, then sped away. Neither of us were hit. Drive-bys are common in Tegucigalpa, it’s the murder capital of Latin America, if not the world, but I didn’t know why anyone would want to kill us. Goodnight Morgan used to be High Sheriff of Utila, so I asked him if he thought he could have been targeted by a political rival or a criminal who held a grudge against him. Goodnight said either was possible, but he didn’t think so. ‘Gangsters in Teguci kill for no reason other than to intimidate the population,’ he said. ‘That’s why almost nobody is on the streets. To shop they go to malls where there are security guards with automatic weapons to protect them.’ ”
Roy and his uncle were driving on the bridge over the bay on their way to Tampa when Buck said, “The Islander Trader started leaking fuel when we were a day from port, and the radio was on the fritz. We barely made it to Roatan. The leak had to be patched up before going on to Utila. Then came the shooting in Teguci. Keep in mind, nephew, when a person walks out the door you might never see him or her again.”
It was a hot and humid day, which was not unusual, but the exceptionally heavy cloud cover, without wind, portended rain, at the very least.
“This weather reminds me of the time I was in Callao, waiting for a ship to take me to Panama City, where I could get a plane to Miami,” said Buck. “Hundreds of dolphins invaded the harbor, making it impossible for boats to get in or out. They sensed that a giant storm was coming and they were trying to get out of its way. I’ll never forget the sight of those blue-green dolphins crowded together like cattle in the stockyards in Chicago. Dolphins are big, the adults average seven feet long, and they were jabbering to each other, loud, squealing and honking that drowned out everything else.”
“Did a big storm hit?”
“About four hours later, the rain started, then huge waves inundated the Peruvian coast, followed by a hailstorm, the kind you get in Kansas or Oklahoma. Nobody there had even seen hail before. All of the ships tied up or at anchor in and near the harbor were damaged, and a number of boats out at sea capsized.”
“What about the dolphins?”
“They dove deeper to avoid the hail. But when the bad weather passed, the dolphins were all gone, no sight or sound of them. They were already miles away in the Pacific.”
“How long were you stuck in Callao?”
“About a week. I went to Lima for a couple of days, then went back to get my ship.”
Rain hit the windshield, so Roy slowed the car down. They were almost across the bridge.
“Dolphins are smart, Roy, they know when and how to escape from the weather and other cetaceans. Human beings are the biggest threat to their existence. I told Goodnight Morgan about the dolphins in Callao, and you know what he said?”
Roy shook his head.
“That’s why you never see any dolphins walking down the street in Tegucigalpa.”