The following is Chapter 1, from The Dry Tortugas,
available at Amazon
A drunken sailor finds sobriety in
The
Dry Tortugas
The Silver
Dollar
The
bartender carefully took the bottle of Flor de Caña
rum from the shelf with his right hand, tilted it slightly to
assess its dark content, and methodically carried it over the
divide between the wall and bar. The slogan from two decades
earlier burst into Adrian Wright’s mind as he watched the bottle
inch toward him. “Flor de Caña:
Hoy lo toma y mañana
cero goma.” Drink it today and no hangover tomorrow, the radios in
Honduras blared. Clearly false advertising based on Adrian’s
experience but what the hell. Deal with the headache tomorrow. The
bottle was a foot from the bar when Adrian felt a surge of phantom
alcohol in his blood, settling his body, numbing his mind. The
bartender snatched a short glass from under the bar, set it down
with a whack, and inched the bottle toward it. Then the familiar
tilt as the neck neared the rim of the glass. A hand covered the
glass, the fingers gripping the sides. The bartender abruptly
turned the bottle upright.
Adrian was stunned and disappointed. He turned to Captain Richard
Coburn, who shook his head as he released his grip on the glass.
With a quick motion of his head, Coburn directed the bartender to
return the bottle of rum.
"Drink Crystal,” he told Adrian. To the bartender, Coburn muttered,
“Crystal.”
Adrian finished one glass of Crystal to Captain Coburn’s three and
shivered with each swallow. Coburn, a small, wiry man with a dark
growth of beard, rested both arms on the bar and gazed straight
ahead. He had not yet given Adrian a price for towing his sailboat
off the reef at the entrance to Guanaja harbor.
“So how much, captain? I’m not looking for charity,” Adrian lied.
“What’s it worth to ya?” Coburn held his gaze on the wall of
bottles.
If Coburn had a price in mind, Adrian was sure he would exceed it in
his offer.
“Tough voyage around Cape of Good Hope,” Adrian said. “Five days of
getting the shit beat out of me.”
“I was there."
"Then my GPS chart plotter craps out between Martinique and here in
fair weather. I was without electronic navigation. It was just bad
luck to hit the damned reef. I saw it too late on the depth gauge.”
Captain Coburn took a deep breath. He fixed his blue eyes on Adrian.
His eyebrows were long and thick, his black and gray hair cropped
short and ragged.
“Like I said, whatever it’s worth to ya.”
Adrian took fifty dollars from his wallet and slid it over to
Captain Coburn. Coburn stuffed it into his pocket without counting
it. “Will that do?” Adrian asked.
“If that’s what it’s worth to ya.”
“Shit.” Adrian put another ten on bar. He was almost out of money.
Coburn put the money in his pocket. “I’m buying the drinks,” Adrian
said.
“You paid your bill.”
A few decades ago, the Silver Dollar played only one song. Trini
Lopez sang Shame and Scandal in the Family over and over. An
island boy wants to marry a girl, but his father tells him a
secret—the girl is his sister and his mother doesn’t know. So are
the next two girls. He complains to his mother, who tells him a
secret. Since then, the Silver Dollar had upgraded its sound system.
Adrian was relieved to hear the fiery voice of Joseph Hill pulse
from the speakers. Otherwise, the Silver Dollar was same dark,
rustic, smoky bar where shrimpers, fishermen, and a few island girls
hung out like it was their front porch. Adrian told Coburn he was
heading home after two years at sea. He described five days of full
gale when he left Cape Town. “Seas that put the mast in the water.
“You know the original name was Cape of Storms,” Adrian said. “That
was a good goddamned name for it. That’s what they called it when
the first Portuguese explorers rounded it and headed for the spice
islands. King John, fearing sailors would not enlist to sail through
Cape of Storms, changed the name to Cape of Good Hope.”
“I heard that story long time ago. Old fake news. Now you want to
talk about fake news. Look at your president. We read about him. He
doesn’t like something, he calls it something different. He doesn’t
like the facts. He makes his own. King John’s gone. King Donald’s
here.”
“I heard about it in the ports. I read about it online.”
“You call mainland Honduras the ‘Banana Republic,’” Coburn said.
“What right do you have now?”
“Good point. What do you mean, mainland? You’re all Honduras.”
“No, we’re the islands. The islands are not Honduras.”
“OK.”
Jimmy Cliff was singing Sitting Here in Limbo. Coburn
reached into his pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. Adrian
declined an offer. Coburn lit up and blew smoke at the ceiling. The
bartender brought an ash tray. Coburn slid his empty glass toward
the bartender. He extended two fingers. “Crystal.” Two more glasses
appeared and Coburn began talking freely. He made a good living in
shrimping for the past decade but used to work on big ships where
money flowed. He knew the Southern Ocean, Cape of Good Hope, Cape
Horn, the North Atlantic. He had visited ports in Bora Bora, Tahiti,
Fiji, the Seychelles, Juan Fernandez, Cape Town, Lisbon, on and on.
“Name a port,” he said. “I’ve been there.”
“Miami.”
“Oh fuck.” Coburn sputtered and laughed for the first time since
Adrian had met him. He wiped his mouth and hit his fist on the bar.
With his small cargo ship, he cruised to Miami a few months ago to
procure engine parts and other equipment for his shrimp boat.
“Engine parts,” Adrian said. “Does that old story about engine parts
go over with customs?”
“OK, I was there on business. You going there?”
“Maybe, to sell my boat and buy some dirt.”
“Nice port once. Not now. Most dangerous port in the world. They
tried to kill me in Miami,” he said.
It was evening. He was down by the docks waiting to depart for the
islands. The moon shadows of two men raced along the warehouse
walls. “The only port where I had to kill a man. Two. Don’t go to
Miami unarmed.” “I don’t have a gun.” Coburn shook his head, reached
in his back pocket, and retrieved a long object wrapped in thick
cloth. He unwrapped it and pulled a knife from a leather sheath.
Holding it in his palm, he pushed it toward Adrian. It had a dark
wooden handle and a blade curved from many sharpenings. “This is
Sheila. She’s sharp and she’s fast and she don’t meck no nise.” “I
have to quit while I can.” Adrian slid off the bar stool. Coburn
wrapped the knife and returned it to his back pocket. “Come on,” he
said. “Some people you have to meet.” The settlement of Bonacca
seemed unchanged from Adrian’s visit many years ago. The tiny key
off the main island could not hold more houses. Narrow sidewalks
became docks between shacks on stilts as the town spilled over the
water. On land, walls lined the narrow sidewalks, helping the
inebriated stay on course. Maneuvering the docks was more difficult
because they had no walls and seemed to sway. People in small houses
over water laughed and shouted. Some were white. Some were black.
Most were drinking. A large black man offered drinks. Adrian asked
for Crystal. And again. Sometime in the night he thought he heard
familiar lyrics of Trini Lopez.
His mama, she laughed, she said, “Go
man, go
Your daddy ain’t your daddy but your daddy don’t know."
Adrian
covered
his head with a pillow but the lyrics did not go away. His head
throbbed to the syncopated beat. When he threw off the pillow, the
music stopped. He squeezed his head between his hands to try to
pop out the pain.
“You under the weather, mon?” The young woman laughed. Adrian
tried to focus on her.
She was sitting on the foot of the bed arraigning her braids, damp
from a shower. She was partly naked but quickly covered herself.
The light from the window cast a sheen on her light brown skin.
She stopped working her hair and turned to Adrian.
“I guess you under the weather. Can’t talk?”
Adrian
stared
at her. She was young and statuesque. Her face was round and soft,
her forehead framed by braids with red beads that hung by her
cheeks. She fixed dark blue eyes on Adrian and seemed to wait for
a response as she again plied her hair with calm, patient hands.
She paused and put her right hand on his foot. “We get you aspirin
at the chemist before we go.” Her voice was soothing.
“Go where?”
“First Utila. Then Miami.”
“Miami?”
“You said that’s where you going.”
“It is. You’re going too?”
“Yes, you and Captain Coburn made a deal.”
“A deal?” He sat up and pressed his forehead. “My electronic
charts have failed and I have limited paper charts. I have no good
navigation. I take my chances alone, but with a passenger—”
She stood up and glided across the hotel room. Adrian followed her
graceful motion toward a makeshift desk. She returned with a book,
old and fragile. Navigating
the Honduran Bay Islands. Carefully he opened the cover. It
was written in 1894.
“Captain Coburn said there are instructions in there for getting
into Utila harbor. Oh, he left something else for you.” She went
back to the desk and returned with a small package wrapped in
cloth. Adrian unwrapped it and pulled the knife from the leather
sheath.
“Sheila.”
“Now you remember last night.”
“I remember the knife is Sheila.”
“I’m Sheila. I live in Utila. I work in a dive resort on Guanaja.
I’m going to say goodbye to my mother. I may never see her again.
You don’t remember this?”
“I’m sorry but I don’t. I remember talking to Captain Coburn in
the bar. He made me drink Crystal. Crystal is strong stuff. I am
very sick.”
She returned to arranging her hair. “Are you going like that? You
get dressed.”
“Is your mother’s name Sheila too?”
“No, she’s Florence.”
Sheila walked to a chair where her clothes were folded and began
dressing. “Someone tried to poison Captain Coburn recently. He
almost died,” she said. She slipped into a loose gown. “The poison
is yellow. That’s why he will only drink clear liquid, Crystal.”
“Why would someone want to kill him?”
Sheila returned to the foot of the bed and put her hands on her
hips, signaling time to go.
“I don’t know. A lot of competition with the shrimpers. He’s the
biggest shrimper. Maybe other things. I don’t know.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“You are a beautiful woman. My daughter was twenty-two and she was
beautiful.”
“How old she now?” Sheila realized the meaning of the past tense.
“Oh no.”
“I lost her.”
“Melissa?”
“Yes.”
“You said her name in your sleep.”
Adrian nodded and threw the sheets off the bed. “I have done that
before.”
“Please don’t you go tell Captain Coburn I stayed with you. I said
to him I was going to a friend’s house and would meet you in the
morning. But by the time I got you up the steps and in bed, it was
easier to stay and make sure you didn’t go out staggering around
the island. And don’t you go thinking that something happened with
us last night ‘cause it didn’t.”
“I didn’t think so. My loss. I doubt I’ll see Captain Coburn
again.”
Sheila picked up his clothes from the floor and tossed them on the
bed. “Maybe not.”
A
steady breeze churned up moderate seas as they sailed southwest
from Guanaja. Sheila’s light cotton gown fluttered in the breeze.
They spoke briefly and casually about mundane topics. At times she
closed her eyes and faced the wind. She was serene. The silence
between them was natural and comfortable. In late afternoon, she
spent several hours riding the bow. When she returned to the
cockpit, they talked about her work on the island. The only way to
make money was drugs, shrimping, or working at dive resorts. Dive
resort work was lonely.
“With tourists, there is always a wall. I am always a picture on
the wall,” she said. “Divers and tourists come, expect sex from
the island girls and stop being friendly when they don’t get it.”
Adrian smiled. “It’s hard to imagine a young woman as lovely as
you being lonely.”
“Because you do not know the islands.”
“I suppose that is true.”
“Boys who remain on the island are poor and know nothing of life.
For a boy to make money he ships out to sea for years. Before a
boy ships to sea, he makes promises of a rich life so a girl will
wait for him and not marry a poor island boy while he is gone.
Listen. I found a song in your player that I will play for you.
This is my mother’s favorite. One of mine too.”
Sheila
slipped
into the cabin and soon Adrian heard the sweet voice of Harry
Belafonte.
I
will bring you diamonds for your hair
And of gold a cloak so fine
And wake you from your slumber with a silver bell
And rings for your every finger, Marianne.
Oh
there’s
some that say of a sailing man…
Adrian
interrupted
the song. “A boy you loved shipped to sea. You waited for him. Did
he not come back?”
“I waited for him. Oh he came back. And he brought me treasures
from all over the world. But he was not same. The sea changes men.
The storms, the ports, the brawls, the whores, the drink. The sea
is cruel, Mr. Wright. It makes monsters of men.”
The sun settled near the empty western horizon as the last of
Harry Belafonte’s songs ended. “Something to eat, Mr. Wright?”
There was very little. Adrian told her where to find bread and
cheese. After a few minutes in the cabin, she emerged. “We’ll need
to stock up in Utila. Good pan de coco there but it don’t keep.”
Adrian
held
the wheel and watched the stars emerge in the topical sky. Ahead,
Polaris rested above the horizon. He felt an urge to drink but
fought it as Sheila seemed to have no interest in alcohol. Finally
he could wait no longer. He snatched a bottle of rum from under a
hatch and poured a short drink. He sipped the rum as he worked the
wheel and watched the red glow from the compass light. As darkness
settled in, Sheila went to her cabin. Adrian set the autohelm.
When
he
awoke, he looked about the dark horizon. The faint running lights
of a ship were visible to the south off Cayos Cochinos. Soon the
lights would sink in the dark water. Ships in the night—an
expression he knew well but had understood only in nautical terms.
Tonight the expression acquired meaning—the brief, chance
encounter of people sharing warmth, feelings, tenderness,
companionship too spontaneous to foresee, too intense to forget,
too ethereal to last.
What the hell am I going to do with Sheila?
Pumpkin
Hill pierced the horizon. Trees grew out of the watery rim. As
they neared, Sheila took out her father’s book and leafed through
the pages. She read the instructions to set a compass course on
the church steeple, take a new course when the iron buoy is abeam
to starboard and sail through the coral heads into the harbor.
“That was over a century ago,” Adrian said. “Church steeple? Iron
buoy—we can’t rely on that.”
“My father says it’s OK.”
Heading for the steeple, Adrian watched the menacing coral heads
glide by. Minutes later, a rusty buoy appeared to starboard. He
set the next course and sailed into the harbor. He was the only
cruiser at anchor.
“You have a friend here,” Sheila asked.
“I do. From a long time ago.”
“The book says for navigating around, ask an islander. What’s his
name?”
“Mack Chadwick. He goes by Tom. I don’t know where to find him.
He’s a black guy. He’s an artist.”
“He’s a friend of my family. If he’s out, I expect you find him at
the Bucket O’ Blood.”
Adrian prepared the dinghy and helped Sheila get in. They motored
to the city dock.
“I’ll get a ride out at first light,” she said.
The
Bucket O’ Blood was a one-room bar, finished in bare two-by-fours.
The pine floor was polished by thousands of feet of islanders,
sailors, speculators, treasure hunters. Tom was at the far end of
the bar chatting with a man who tapped lightly, thoughtfully with
his index finger on a pair of congas. Adrian surprised Tom with a
hand on the shoulder. He leaped from the stool.
“Long time,” said Adrian, “but you look the same. I thought the
fountain of youth was in Bimini.”
“Come on, mon, have a drink. You come by boat?”
“Yes, my boat. Intrada. I’m giving a woman named Sheila a ride. I
think you know her.”
“I do. I know her mother. Is she on the boat?”
“No.”
“Who on the boat?”
“No one.”
“Adrian, we have to go to the boat. You don’t leave a boat alone
in Utila harbor. Not anymore.” He grabbed Adrian by the elbow and
waved goodbye to his friend.
A
large dinghy with three men approached Intrada as Adrian and Tom
arrived. “Cut them off,” Tom warned. Adrian steered a course
between Intrada and the dinghy. The boats collided like bumper
cars. When Adrian shut down the engine, Tom stood up.
“You stay away from this boat,” he shouted.
“Sure Tom. We stay away until we feed you to sharks.”
“You feed nobody to de sharks. The constable will know about
this.”
The men laughed and repeated “the constable, the constable.”
“Go back the way you came,” Tom said. “Nobody has pointed a finger
at you, Carson Stewart, or you Jonathan Reid, for driving away the
cruisers that feed our island. Your greed has left many broke on
this island while you get rich from robbing boaters.”
“Go home, Tom. Sell your trinkets.”
“Tomorrow I go home.”
The three lingered, whispering among themselves. One pulled the
cord on the outboard and they motored away. Once in the cockpit,
Adrian mixed drinks. He drank three to Tom’s one. “Things have
sure changed since I left. That was more than twenty years ago.”
“The world has changed, not just here. How long you been gone from
the States?”
“Two years.”
“You don’t know what’s been going on?”
“I hear in the ports. There’s always political shit going on. And
there’s always somebody bitching about it.”
“It’s different now,” said Tom. “The Ku Klux Klan loves your
president. Hatred is boiling in the streets. The cops are enflamed
by the president and shoot black people. There is war on
foreigners. Maybe war with Korea. America is rogue. Your country
is very dangerous—not just for a black man.”
“Yea. I’ve seen it come and go. The country will get straightened
out.”
“You think? Stay here, Adrian. Bad as it is, it is better than
where you are going.”
“I’d love to Tom. Can I get you another drink while I’m—”
“No. I’ve had enough. You’ve had enough. What’s become of you?”
“I’m still me. Anyway, I’m taking Sheila to the States. I don’t
know how that happened. But that’s what I’m doing.”
“Then go to the States. Better for her. She is the town’s beloved.
Her mama is class. She is class. Her father is in the drug trade
and there is war. Somebody going to win, somebody going to lose.
Either way, her life is on the line. Take care of her, Adrian.”
Tom
sat on the bow watching the sunrise while Adrian made coffee. The
sound of an outboard motor grew as a dinghy approached. Adrian
emerged from the cabin as Tom helped Sheila aboard.
“I catch a ride back with you,” Tom said to the man in the dinghy.
“Give me a minute.”
He hugged Sheila. From his satchel he took out a small, black
object polished to a glass finish, pierced with a string. He put
it around Sheila’s neck.
“This piece I name Sheila. Don’t wear it around SCUBA divers. My
diver doesn’t harvest black coral. He picks up black coral lying
on the bottom. The piece is blessed by Garifunas to protect you.”
“Beautiful, Tom,” Adrian said. “Let me pay you something.”
“I don’t want money.”
“Tom, you are an artist. You need to be paid something for your
talent.” Adrian went to the cabin and returned with this wallet.
“Holy Christ.” He sorted through a handful of money. “There’s more
than a few thousand dollars here at a glance. Normally, I get
drunk with a full wallet and wake up with an empty one. What’s
going on here?”
Sheila laughed. “My dad asked how much to take me to the States.
You said, ‘what’s it worth to ya?’ That’s what he gave you. I
don’t want to know how much I’m worth.”
“I can tell you, Sheila, you’re worth a lot. Lucky not to lose my
wallet last night, with the pirates and all going on—”
“There was nothing going on last night except you and your damned
drink,” Tom said.
“In any case, I forgot provisions. Here is a hundred fifty
dollars. Could you pick us up some provisions? Whatever is edible
and will keep. Some pan de coco. Some Flor de Caña.
And fifty bucks for the dinghy man. And fifty bucks for you.”
“I don’t need your money. Take care of the girl.”
The dinghy sputtered off with Tom seated on the bow. When it
returned an hour later, Tom had bags of groceries. Adrian and
Sheila stowed them and prepared to weigh anchor. With a wave of
his hand, Tom bid farewell.
Four
days out from Islands, Adrian needed a fix—a navigational one. He
dusted off the sextant, took out the manual and sat down at the
nav station to prepare the complex forms. His watch was pretty
closely calibrated for accuracy. Sheila observed from the galley.
As the sun settled below the horizon Adrian took his shots on two
stars and returned to the nav station to do the math. Once he
finished and tried to plot the position on his chart, he sat back
and nodded.
“So where are we, captain?”
“Off the coast of Chile.”
Sheila laughed until she had to sit down. “When I was a little
girl, my father said, shoot the stars before the bottle.”
“At least we’re in the water. In any case, I feel that we are
picking up current. So we are in the Gulf Stream. We’ll soon pass
between Cuba and the Yucatan. From there it’s pretty simple.”
That evening, Adrian
spotted a flashing light to starboard on the dark horizon. He
timed the flashing—every five seconds. “Cabo Corrientes,” he said.
“The western tip of Cuba. By tomorrow we’ll be sailing east toward
our destination.”
“Miami.”
“I’m thinking the Dry Tortugas is a better place to make landfall.
There’s an old fort, some cruisers, a couple tour boats, a few
park rangers. That’s where we’ll figure out what the hell I’m
going to do with you.”
“I’m sorry to be a burden.”
“You are a burden. You don’t just go to the United States and drop
somebody on the shore and say, ‘good fucking luck.’”
“You can keep the money and take me back.”
“No. I’ve let people down in the past. Sailing alone makes sailors
selfish, self-indulgent drunks. But I can’t let you down. I just
don’t know what to do. I do have something that may help.”
Adrian went to the cabin and emerged with a passport. “This is my
daughter’s passport. If we are required to show ID, you are
Melissa Wright. Do you understand? If immigration scrutinizes
this, you may not make it. But at a glance, you’re close. I am
putting this in the nav station. Before we make landfall, we’ll go
over some details—birthday, mother’s name, address, social
security number.”
After
dinner,
Adrian gave Sheila a history lesson followed by a quiz.
“When were you born?”
“June 30, 1992.”
“Where?”
“San Pedro Sula, Honduras”
“Mother’s name?”
“Marta Fiallos.”
“Father’s name?”
“Adrian the navigator. Sorry, Adrian Wright.”
“Residence in the United States?”
“Albany, New York.”
“Travel?”
“Cruising with dad, the celestial navigator. Southwest Chile.”
“Take this seriously. You are circumventing a would-be wall
designed to keep you and your kind out of the land of the free.”
“Honduran Bay Islands.”
“Last landfall?”
“Utila.”
“There’s no stamp in your passport. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a clerical error. They stamped my dad’s.
They’re sort of lax there in de islands. You think my dad found me
swimming in the Caribbean?”
“Just answer each question. Do not be sarcastic. Do not volunteer
information.”
In
the afternoon, Sheila stood on the bow scanning the sea to port.
The tip of a structure emerged shimmering on the blue expanse.
“Sweet. Almost there,” Adrian shouted from the cockpit. He set a
new course. Soon the brick walls of Fort Jefferson rested on the
horizon.
Inside the harbor, Adrian stood up and stared. “What the hell is
this?”
Sheila broke into laughter. “You way off course again, captain
navigator. Is this Miami?”
The island was alive with activity. Dozens of people walked about
outside the walls of the fort. Men were unloading cargo from a
barge. A forklift transported pallets of wood and bags of mortar
into the fort. A few men standing on scaffolds worked on one of
the walls. A wind generator rose above the fort on the far side.
People sat around a dozen tables shaded by colored umbrellas along
the shore. Voices and music drifted across the bay. A large sign
stood at the end of the dock next to a shed. Only the words
“Welcome to the Dry Tortugas” were clear at a distance.
As
Intrada
neared the pier, Adrian could read the first few lines of the
island rules—no alcohol, no firearms in the fort, on the island,
in the harbor. A man emerged from the shed and spoke through a
loudspeaker. “Please drop anchor and dinghy in. The dinghy dock is
on the west side of the pier. Please bring your ID and heed the
rules.” He pointed to the sign.
“Roger.”
“Roger is not here now. He’ll be here in a couple weeks,” the man
replied.
When the anchor was set and the dinghy ready, Adrian packed a
satchel including Sheila’s passport.
The dockmaster handed papers to Adrian and Sheila.
“My name is Tony Vitolli. Please complete the form. Be sure every
section is filled in. Print the type of ID you are submitting and
I will review your documents. The fee is twenty dollars per person
for the day. There is no lodging for visitors.” He motioned to a
small table on one side of the dock where they could complete the
paperwork. They returned the forms along with two passports and
forty dollars.
“Is this immigration,” Adrian asked.
“No sir. If you have been abroad, you must clear customs and
immigration before coming here. That’s in Key West.”
“We’ve
been
cruising the Keys. So what is this?”
“We
are
consortium involved in several related missions under authority of
the federal government. The island has been converted into a safe
haven for people with alcohol addiction and limited resources. Our
obligation to the federal government is to restore sections of the
fort. Among our permanent staff are several contractors, a
carpenter, a mechanic, and many others. All are alcoholics in
recovery. Our patients work and learn. The federal government no
longer wants to spend money on this kind of thing. By that I mean
national monuments and people with addictions or any other needs
for that matter. Here is a brochure that explains the program.” He
glanced at the passports. “Welcome Adrian. Welcome Melissa.” He
pointed to Adrian’s satchel. “I must inspect it.” Tony pulled out
a silver flask and held it up. “You want to tell me what is inside
this?”
“Sorry,” Adrian replied. “I packed it before I saw the rules.”
“You want to leave or do you want to dump it?”
After a thoughtful pause, “Dump it.”
Inside
the
walls of the fort, a middle-aged woman with strawberry hair
greeted Adrian and Melissa. She was outgoing, warm and inviting.
Her fair complexion suggested an Irish ancestry. She extended a
hand to Melissa and introduced herself as Angela Monroe. By her
demeanor and the fact that she emerged from a door immediately to
the left of the entrance, Adrian assumed she had some authority in
the project.
“And where are you headed,” she asked Adrian after shaking his
hand.
“Well, to be honest, a nearly deserted island and federal monument
on the Dry Tortugas. I wasn’t expecting this. I have been sailing
for a few years.”
Angela smiled and looked away, choosing her words. “This is a
special project by a special senator from New York, Roger
Caulfield. You are welcomed to stay on your boat and visit the
island by day. You will learn much more about this amazing
project. By the end of the month, we expect a visit from our
benefactor, Senator Caulfield, who has established this retreat as
his life mission. Feel free to tour the island. Keep in mind we
have patients here who are going through our rehabilitation
program. We must respect their recovery efforts as well as their
confidentiality. I guess you understand, alcohol is prohibited
along with weapons.”
Melissa turned to Adrian and touched his shoulder. “Well, Dad, you
come to de right place. Don’t you think?”
Angela glanced between the father and daughter. She saw the
confused contortions of Adrian’s face, slight hollows of his
cheeks, thin film that washed sheen from his eyes, uncertain
placement of his feet, slight sway of his walk, hesitancy in his
speech. Adrian Wright was a serious alcoholic.
“Some of our staff started here in the recovery program and
continue to work for us,” she said. “We could always use a boat
captain. If he’s sober.”
Melissa flashed him a contrived grin. Adrian nodded to Angela and
looked down to the involuntary shuffling of his feet.
“Feel free to walk around,” Angela said.
Adrian would later describe his meeting with Sheila and his
arrival at the Dry Tortugas as a turning point in his life. You
will see why.
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Songs by Roscoe from
The Dry Tortugas.
The Dry Tortugas is available at Amazon.com
Adrian Wright sails into Guanaja harbor in Honduras, hits a reef
and becomes mired in a captain’s effort to save his daughter from
vengeful drug dealers. This is no time for smuggling aliens into
the United States, so Adrian sets course for the Dry Tortugas,
where in the solitude of the remote island he hopes to develop a
plan for her clandestine immigration.
The Dry Tortugas, however, has become a rehabilitation center
established by New York Senator Roger Caulfield, himself a closet
alcoholic and philanderer who has remained in office by dodging
reporters, Republicans, and police. Following a car accident in
Cooperstown, New York, Caulfield’s luck has run out.
His aide and lover, Jennifer Alexander, arranges for his
rehabilitation treatment as his political enemies hone their
strategies for his demise. Capitalizing on the decline of Fort
Jefferson and other national monuments, Caulfield recruits
recovering addicts to staff the rehab center, counsel patients,
and restore the monument.
The island retreat seems ideal for rehabilitation as well as
romance, camaraderie, and purpose until political forces
infiltrate the island. As betrayal, assault and murder surface,
the senator and his followers repudiate the law and redefine
justice.
A cast of characters from Upstate New York, Washington, D.C.,
Florida, and Honduras struggle with addiction, politics, greed,
and deception as their paths lead them inevitably to the Dry
Tortugas.
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