thirty-seven
LeBlanc and Ezell had advised Peyton to ditch A1A when it split from the Overseas Highway on Stock Island, a few miles east of Key West, and follow US 1, unless he had a burning desire to pedal a whole lot more than necessary. If he didn’t turn off, it would take him straight to Duval Street, which LeBlanc called “the dadgum main artery of Key West.”
An expansive bridge between Boca Chica and Stock Island gave Peyton another infinity view of the most beautiful water he had ever seen. Fishing boats dotted the horizon in both directions, and seabirds were gliding overhead. He saw ospreys, herons, and even one brilliantly plumed roseate spoonbill.
Once he made it across, with marshland as far as he could see to one side of the highway and not much else on the other, Peyton became acutely aware of his solitude. He was pedaling through a coastal wilderness, without a soul in sight and nothing to get him across but two wheels and his own two feet. It made him feel not just alone but lonesome. And he had to wonder if his quiet-natured father, who always needed more time to himself than most, had felt the same way. Or had he relished his time in the marshlands?
With no traffic in sight, Peyton stopped in the middle of the highway and looked around. Cicadas were singing in the Florida heat. A slight breeze stirred the palms now and again, but not nearly enough to offer a cool respite from the sun. The occasional flap of wings overhead would draw his attention to a pelican or an egret in flight. He could hear much more than he could see: croaking frogs and the occasional plop-splash of one hopping through mud and into the water. The call of an ibis, which was part quack, part caw, and part old man complaining. Seagulls filled any break in the conversation. Peyton had the unshakable sense that something was about to show itself, but what?
He got his answer soon enough. Out of the swamps and marshlands they came, a swarm of mosquitoes thick as a cloud, biting Peyton with such frenzied ferocity that he almost lost his balance trying to swat them away. Bloodthirsty and relentless, they showed no pity as he pedaled as fast as he could while swatting madly at his crazed attackers, cursing himself for using all of Aunt Gert’s contraband bug lotion before he reached the one place where he needed it most.
As he made the crossing onto Key West, still flailing one arm while steering with the other, he followed the split LeBlanc and Ezell advised and soon could see open water. He sped off the highway and into the sea oats, dropped his bike without thinking about his belongings, and ripped his shirt off as he sprinted to the sand. Quickly kicking off his shoes, he laid the aviators inside one of them and jumped into the translucent water. Even when he came up for air, he kept his whole body beneath the surface as he clawed at mosquito bites. Peyton had sense enough to know that scratching bites only turns them into welts, but he couldn’t help it.
Just as he was about to climb out, a pickup truck pulled over. It was covered—every inch of it—in seashells. A scraggly man who looked about Finn’s age got out of the truck and, without saying a word, unfastened Peyton’s duffel and saddlebag, tossed them aside, and loaded the bike onto his truck.
“Hey!” Peyton shouted. “Hey, mister, that’s my bike!”
“Finders keepers, losers weepers!” the man shouted back. Before Peyton could get out of the water, the shell-covered pickup drove away. He ran to the highway to see which direction the truck went, but it turned and disappeared onto a side street. For all Peyton knew, it could be on its way back to the mainland.
He felt abandoned—barefoot and bare-chested, covered with itching, painful bites, his shorts dripping saltwater, stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere. Peyton sat down by the highway and put his head in his hands, battling his emotions so fiercely that he was trembling all over. He had worked so hard, and this was all he had to show for it?
A mosquito buzzed around his head, and as he looked up to swat it, he realized he was sitting next to a brightly painted sign that read “Welcome to Key West.” Welcome? WELCOME? To what? A miserable, spiteful, mosquito-ridden island at the end of the world? He picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could at the sign, which stood steadfast and unfazed as the St. Christopher medals softly jingled around his neck.
The rock thrown in anger immediately conjured an image of Uncle Julian. A tantrum was exactly how his uncle would react to Peyton’s situation. He would lay blame on anybody and everybody but himself, howling in anger at the sand and the sea. And if there was one human being on earth Peyton refused to emulate, it was his despicable uncle.
He wrapped his hand around the St. Christopher medals, which brought Gina back to him. What was it she had said? You are not the only one who has felt forsaken. That is how you know you are not. Peyton imagined Gina and Mama Eva standing on either side of him. And he pictured his father in this situation. What would he do? He would take stock of what he had to work with and move forward. Peyton still had his clothes and his tennis shoes, with what money he had left tucked inside one of them. He still had his father’s map. And he still had the aviators, which, for whatever reason, mattered more to him than the money and almost as much as the map.
Returning to the water’s edge, he picked up the sunglasses and slipped them on, then put on his shoes, grabbed his bags, and started walking down the highway.
He couldn’t imagine what he must look like—shirtless, covered in bites and welts, walking down an island road carrying everything he owned as he fought the urge to scratch. Even in the Florida heat, with his mosquito bites itching and throbbing like crazy, Peyton could see that Key West was a different kettle of fish from all the other islands. There was just something about it. Maybe it was knowing you had reached the end of the line—or that nobody from your real life could touch you here. It was just an island like all the other keys, floating in the same turquoise water, connected by the same highway, yet it was nothing like the rest.
Turning his face to the cool breeze coming off the water, Peyton felt oddly comforted by Key West, by the rustling of palms and the call of seabirds flying overhead. It was relief that washed over him now. He was hot and tired and a little bit dizzy, but most of all, he was relieved. Finally, after all this time, he had reached his father’s island.
“Where you headed, son?”
To Peyton’s astonishment, a fisherman pulling his boat behind a black Ford pickup had stopped to see about him.
“I was on my way downtown when an old man stole my bike.”
“You that Bike Boy?” the fisherman asked with a grin.
“Yes, sir. Got covered up with mosquitoes a ways back and jumped in the water to get away from ’em, so I’m kind of a mess.”
“Well, you’re in luck ’cause I know just where to take you. Hop in.”
Peyton climbed into the truck, grateful to be out of the sun and off his feet. “I’m Peyton Cabot,” he said, shaking hands with the fisherman, “and I sure do appreciate your help.”
“Wally Whitehead,” the fisherman said. “Pleased to meet you. Now tell me about that missin’ bike.”
Peyton described the scraggly man as Wally drove down the highway. “And he said the weirdest thing when I tried to stop him.”
“Lemme guess,” Wally said. “‘Finders keepers, losers weepers’?”
“How’d you know?”
“That’s what he always says. Peyton, you just had an encounter with Luther Bunch, the Key West Collector. He takes stuff all the time and arranges it into what he calls vision works in his front yard. But we all know where he lives, so if something we really need turns up missing, we just go to his house and get it. Luther’s strange as they come but harmless. We’ll swing by there and get your bike, and then I’m taking you out to the Navy base near Fort Zach.”
“But I need to get downtown.”
“And you will. But you’re not lookin’ at what I’m lookin’ at. You’re covered up in bites and you need to get ’em doctored. Heat and mosquitoes will get you quicker’n anything else down here. Let’s get you fixed up, and then you can be about your business.”
“I ’preciate the advice—and your help,” Peyton said. “Now that you mention it, I don’t feel so good.”
“Well, you just hang in there a few minutes, and I’ll get you fixed up.”
Wally zigzagged down a few side streets until they came to a tiny, unpainted house with the craziest arrangement in the front yard—pots and pans, an old motor, several oars, rusted metal chairs . . . but no bike.
“Guess he hasn’t had a vision for your bike just yet,” Wally said. “But he will. And then you can get it back. Just remember corner o’ Thomas and Amelia. You need a ride, ask somebody at the base to call me and I’ll carry you over there.”
Wally pulled into the base entrance, where a young guard greeted him at the gate. “Mornin’, Mr. Whitehead!”
“Mornin’, Robbie! Ginger on duty today?”
“Yes, sir! Waved her in about an hour ago.”
“I got a young man here that needs tendin’ to. You read about the Bike Boy bound for Key West?”
“Sure have.”
“Well, this is him. Peyton Cabot, meet Robbie Sykes.”
“Hey, Peyton!” Robbie said with a smile, stepping up to the truck window.
“Pleased to meet you,” Peyton said.
Robbie frowned as he got a closer look. “If you don’t mind my askin’, what on earth happened to you?”
“Came through a marsh a ways back and the mosquitoes ate me for breakfast,” Peyton said.
Robbie whistled and shook his head. “Man, that’s tough. Thought for a minute there you had the chicken pox. Don’t worry. Ginger’s the best nurse on the whole base. Y’all head on over to the sick bay, and I’ll call up there to let her know you’re comin’.”
“Thank you much,” Wally said as they passed through the gate.
Peyton was about to experience his second stay on a military base—a place where he was starting to feel very much at home. Something about the entrance gates, guarded by soldiers in uniform, gave a promise of protection that you just didn’t find everywhere. There seemed to be a sense of shared pride and purpose. Most of all, Peyton was drawn to the clarity of military life—the certainty of knowing exactly what you were supposed to do and how you were supposed to do it.
Wally escorted him into the sick bay, where a nurse with warm brown eyes and a dimpled smile was waiting for him. “Peyton, this is Ginger, best nurse in the whole Navy.”
She looked over his bites. “Boy howdy, when you make up your mind to get bit, you don’t mess around, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I reckon not,” Peyton said.
“Do they hurt, sugar, or just itch like crazy?”
“Little o’ both. The really bad ones kinda hurt.”
“Bless your heart. Come on back and we’ll see what we can do about that. Step into examining room number 1 and take off your clothes, underwear and all. There’s a sheet on the examining table you can cover yourself with.”
Peyton hesitated. “Take off everything?”
Ginger lightly pinched his cheek. “Don’t be embarrassed, honey. If I see anything that looks suspicious, I’ll alert the Pentagon.”
Peyton awoke to see a Navy nurse he didn’t recognize standing over him, blotting his face with a cold cloth.
“It’s okay,” she was saying, but her voice sounded far away. “You’re running a fever, but the doctor says it’s not malaria. Just a reaction to all those bites. Can I get you anything?”
Peyton couldn’t answer. His ears were ringing, and he felt as if he were floating somewhere above the bed. He tried to tell the nurse, but no words would come.
“Don’t try to talk. Just get some rest. I’ll be right here.”
Peyton couldn’t stay awake anymore. He felt himself drifting away—from the nurse’s voice and the sick bay and Key West . . .
The next time he opened his eyes, he was standing on a rapidly vanishing sandbar, surrounded by rising water. A boy who looked about his age, tall with blondish hair, was walking toward him through the surf. Once they stood together on the damp sand and Peyton could see the boy eye to eye, he recognized him right away.
“Dad?” he said.
The boy nodded.
“Have I lost it?”
“What are we doing here?”
“Don’t be afraid,” the boy said. “It’s just a little water.”
Then he turned and waded back into the waves. He was looking over his shoulder as if he were about to say something when a familiar voice brought Peyton around.
“See? I told you you’d make it!”
He opened his eyes to see Ginger standing over him.
“What happened?” Peyton asked. He felt groggy and confused. “Did you see my dad?”
“No, honey, there’s nobody else here. You ran a scorcher of a fever. And I’ll bet you’ve been dreaming because you’ve been mumbling for hours. Do you remember anything?”
Peyton didn’t have the energy to tell her about the conversation with his dead father, so he just shook his head.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Here, take a little sip of this.” Ginger gave him some ice water from a cup—the best water he had ever tasted. “Easy now—just a little bit at a time.”
He tried to pace himself, but his mouth was completely dry. Ginger stayed with him until he’d had all the water he wanted.
“I don’t think solid food would be a good idea just yet,” she said as she fluffed his pillows. “But I’ll bring you a little homemade broth from the kitchen and maybe some saltines. Does that sound like it might stay down?”
“I think so. Hey, Ginger—I’m sorry for takin’ up your time when you’ve got real sailors to look after.”
She gave him a dimpled smile. “Honey, you’re a welcome break from the swabbies. Don’t you worry about me. I’m here to get you well. Then we’ll get you some clothes and put you up for a few days, and you’ll be shipshape.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, honey. I’d like to think somebody would help one of my boys if they got into a pickle out there all alone. That’s what women do—we keep you men patched up.”