Read Online Everglades Assault by Randy Wayne White - Free Book Online

know for sure.
    But in 1893, the first post office established the name—even though the rare flamingos you will see there now are probably escapees from the racetracks in Miami.
    I brought Sniper along through the dredged channel, raising the concrete buildings and palm trees before us.
    The people of Flamingo once lived at the water’s edge in wooden houses built on stilts. But that all ended when the national park system took the place over in 1947. Now Flamingo looks like vintage government national park issue: cement block motel, restaurant and marina, with American flags flying and plenty of khaki trash cans with plastic liners.
    I brought Sniper up to the fueling docks and shut her down while Hervey worked the lines.
    Because we had gotten a late start, the sun was closing toward dusk. There were a few tourist cars in the parking lot, and several small flats skiffs and charter boats were tethered to the fine government-quality docks. I looked for the boat of a friend of mine, and saw that it was there.
    Hervey came ambling up. He wore faded jeans and a button-up shirt that made him look more like a cowboy than a sailor. “This place has sure changed since I was here as a boy,” he said.
    â€œI don’t doubt that.”
    He shooed a covey of mosquitoes away from his face and smiled.
    â€œBugs are just as bad, though. They’re the one thing no government on earth can chase away.”
    I looked off across the water toward Key West, where the freaks and street merchants would be gathering at Mallory Square for the sunset.
    â€œIf we hustle, we can make it up to Whitewater Bay before dark,” I said. “We can anchor there, or just keep on going toward Shark River. There’ll be some tricky water, running at night, but once back into the Gulf, we could be off Chokoloskee in a few hours.”
    Hervey put his hands on his hips and stretched as if his back hurt. “With me handling the spotlight all night, right?”
    â€œRight.”
    He grinned and spit an amber stream into the water. “You know, if we could cut straight through the ’glades here, my ma’s place ain’t but about twenty-five miles away. As it is, we got about eighty miles to go.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound like you much care for the idea of running all night.”
    â€œAnd the look on your face tells me you ain’t too crazy about it either.”
    â€œYou’re right. So let’s get a room at the motel so we can grab a shower, have a drink and a hot supper at the restaurant, and head out early tomorrow.”
    â€œFor an old married man like me, it’ll seem like a vacation.” He gave me a wink. “They tell me the waitresses here tend to be real pretty.”
    â€œAnd if one so much as smiled at you, you’d break a leg running away.”
    â€œHah! I ain’t that old!”
    I let Hervey take care of the refueling while I tried to hunt up my old friend. Hervey was right. If—through some strange vehicular combination of canoe, swamp buggy, and airboat—we could head straight cross-country, our final destination was very close indeed.
    There aren’t many roads in south Florida, and only two good ones in the Everglades—and they both go east and west. So travel is not easy. Even in these times, it makes the few rural settlements there even more remote—and more than occasionally lawless.
    But however far apart they are, people who live in the Everglades are a community unto themselves. They know each other and take care of each other, and feel it almost a duty to pass on the bits and pieces of fact and gossip they have heard when they meet.
    And that’s why I wanted to find my Flamingo friend. If there was some shady business going on in the heart of the ’glades, he just might know about it.
    I stopped at the little concrete office of the houseboat concession. Outside at the cement quay, the thirty-six-foot houseboats were lined,