Chapter One
Key West, Florida
1942
J.T. Montgomery stretched his long legs out in the motorboat, resting his injured calf against one of the crates in the bottom of the boat. He was the remarkably handsome product of generations of remarkably handsome people. His dark hair had been cut too short by the navy but that did not detract from his good looks: brilliant blue eyes, lips that could be as cold as marble or as soft and sweet as the balmy air surrounding him, a slight cleft in his chin, and a nose that on a smaller man would have been too large. His mother called it the Montgomery nose and said it was God’s attempt to protect their faces from all the fists aimed by people who didn’t like the Montgomery hardheadedness.
“It still doesn’t make sense to me,” Bill Frazier was saying as he maneuvered the stick on the motor. Bill was a striking contrast to J.T. Bill was six inches shorter, hair already thinning at age twenty-three, and built like a stack of concrete blocks. Bill was grateful to have J.T. as a friend because, wherever J.T. went, the chicks followed. Six months ago, Bill had married the pick of the bunch.
J.T. didn’t bother answering his friend, but just closed his eyes for a moment and smelled the clean salt air around him. It was heaven to get away from the smell of oil, from the noise of machinery, and away from the responsibility of taking care of others, of answering questions, of—
“If I were a bachelor like you,” Bill was saying, “I’d be down on Duval Street having the time of my life. I can’t understand anybody wanting to spend time alone on one of these godforsaken islands.”
J.T. opened one eye at Bill then turned and looked out over the ocean at several mangrove islands surrounding them. He couldn’t explain what he felt to Bill, who had grown up in a city. J.T. had grown up in Maine, away from the noise and confusion of people and their machines. And there had always been the sea. When other boys had bought their first cars at sixteen, J.T. had received a sailboat. By eighteen he had been sailing three-day trips alone. He had even dreamed of sailing around the world alone. But then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the war began and—
“Hey!” Bill was calling. “Don’t leave this world yet. Are you sure that’s enough provisions? Don’t look like much to eat to me. Dolly says you’re too skinny as it is.”
J.T. smiled at the mention of Bill’s pretty little wife. “It’s enough,” he said, and closed his eyes again. City people were never able to look at the sea as one long banquet table. He had brought a net, a fishing pole and hooks, a couple of pots, a small box of vegetables, and his mess kit. He planned to live like a king for the next few days. The thought of the silence, the solitude, and the lack of responsibility made him shift on the hard seat.
Bill laughed, his very ordinary face crinkling. He was a man who would have made an excellent spy since he could have faded into any crowd. “All right, point taken. But I still think you’re crazy. Anyway, it’s your life. The commander wants you back next Monday and I’ll be here to pick you up. And Dolly said to tell you that if you don’t swear you’ll use that burn salve she’ll be out here tomorrow to apply it herself.”
Bill snorted when J.T.’s eyes flew open with a look of horror on his face. “Now that would be my idea of a visit to a island,” Bill said. “I’d lay in a hammock and have two beautiful—no, three—gorgeous dames feeding me mangoes.”
“No women,” J.T. said, his blue eyes darkening. “No women, please.”
Bill laughed again. “What happened with that little WAVE was your own fault. Anybody could see marriage was in her eyes. And why didn’t you marry her? I can highly recommend the state.”
“That’s my island over there,” J.T. said, ignoring Bill’s comments about marriage.
“Beats me how you can tell one island from another, but it’s your funeral. One good thing is you’ll be so lonely out here you’ll be glad to get back to work.”
J.T. grimaced at that. Peace, he thought, that’s all he wanted. Nothing but the sound of the wind and the rain beating down on his tarp. And the food! No more navy chow, just fish, lobster, shrimp, conch, and—“Cut your motor,” he half shouted at Bill. “You’re going to hit the beach.”
Bill obeyed and eased the motorboat onto the narrow white sand beach.
Holding his left leg stiff in order to minimize the pulling of the burned skin, J.T. untangled his six-foot-long body and stepped out of the boat and into the shallow water. The heavy navy boots felt awkward on the slippery bottom and he suddenly couldn’t wait for Bill to be gone so he could get out of the stiff uniform.
“Last chance,” Bill said, handing J.T. the first crate. “You can still change your mind. If I had time off, I’d get drunk and stay that way until I had to sober up.”
J.T. grinned, showing even white teeth and making the cleft in his chin almost disappear. “Thanks for the offer and tell Dolly I swear I’ll use the salve and try my best to fatten up,” he said as he took the second crate ashore.
“She’ll probably still worry about you and when you get back she’ll no doubt have twenty pretty girls lined up to meet you.”
“I’ll be ready for them by then. You’d better go, it looks like it might rain.” J.T. couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice.
“I can take a hint, you want me gone. I’ll pick you up on Sunday.”
“Sunday night,” J.T. said.
“All right, Sunday night. But you don’t have to live with Dolly. She’s going to worry me to death about you.”
“All right,” J.T. said, stepping toward the boat. “Now you’ve made me a decent offer. I’ll live with Dolly and you stay here.”
“Some joker,” Bill said, the smile leaving his face. His buxom little wife was the love of his life; each day he still marveled that she had married someone like him. For all that J.T. was his friend and had even introduced them, J.T.’s looks aroused Bill’s jealousy.
J.T. laughed at his friend’s expression. “Go on, get out of here and don’t get lost on the way back.”
Bill revved the engine and backed off the narrow beach with J.T.’s help.
J.T. stood at the edge of th
e water and watched his friend until Bill rounded another island and was lost to sight, then J.T. opened his arms and breathed deeply. The smell of decaying sea matter, the salt air, the wind on the mangrove trees behind him made him feel almost at home.
In another minute he had grabbed most of his things and was heading north along the beach. Nearly a year ago when the navy had first sent him to Key West to supervise their ship repair operation, he had seen this island through binoculars from the deck of a ship. He had known then it was a place where he would like to spend time.
Over the past year he had read a few books about the land around Key West and he had gotten an idea of what was involved in camping on a hostile mangrove island.
Saying that the interior of a mangrove island was impenetrable was an understatement. The branches of the trees that had formed the island hung down to the ground, creating a prison of woody stems.
J.T. removed his shirt, took up his machete, and began slashing a narrow path through the growth. He meant to reach the freshwater cut in the center of the island.
It took him four hours of hard work to reach the cut and by that time he was down to his skivvies. Dolly was right in saying that he was too thin. He had lost weight in his three weeks in the hospital and the burns on the left side of his body were still pink and now beginning to itch from sweat. He stood panting for a moment and looked about him. He was completely enclosed on three sides by the short, glossy-leaved mangrove trees, but in front of him was the cut of water and a small area of land and sea debris. The water flowed out before him, its source hidden under the trees. There was room here for his tarp tent, a campfire, and his few provisions; it was all he needed.
He wiped the sweat from his face and turned back down the path he had just made. The track had many twists and turns, and twice he had let it lapse, crawling under the looping, low branches for a while before starting to hack away again. He didn’t want a freshly made path leading to his sleeping area. Several times German submarines had come into the Keys and J.T. had no desire to awaken one night to a bayonet at his throat.