Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (76) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Roger Owens

Thursday,
December 15, 1921,
6:00 AM

The Lorelei, piloted solo by Anson “Bo” Stokes, led the Angelica, with Jim White and Alton Davis aboard. The north wind and winter swells buffeted their loaded boats, fetching their bows first up, then sideways and down, enough to make the average man puke his toenails up, or “chum the water” as they said when fishing.
    Their heading was north by northwest, having cruised from Rum Cay in South Bimini due west until clearing the Gulf Stream, then turned north towards the harbor used by the Rice gang. They would enter Jupiter Inlet, then follow the Loxahatchee River deep into the Everglades.
    The North Fork was a dead end, and already had rich folks building homes along the water. The Southwest Fork was just a dead end. But the main river, the middle channel, wound for miles through the swamps to the home and family compound of Hardy Joe Rice.

To him, John was nothing but a boy

    Hardy Joe—never just Hardy, never just Joe—considered himself the equal of Joe Ashley any day, and had had it up to his eyeballs with paying Joe and his whelps protection. To him, John was nothing but a boy, a boy whose Daddy had come out th’ swamps from God knew where, while Rices had been on this river for a hundred years.
    Jumped-up nobodies, was what they were, camping over in Gomez like they owned the place. And his boys had shown them a thing or two, hadn’t they? They’d shot the fuck out of Frank and Ed Ashley and sunk their boat. That ought to put a plain-spoken letter to the Ashleys in the God damn mail. Hardy Joe expected those boys, Stokes, Davis and White, sometime this afternoon.
    His profits had soared in the weeks since he’d struck back, since he was no longer paying them God damn Ashleys a third of every God damn dollar he made, and he almost rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

He would have a long time to wait

    He would have a long time to wait

Stokes, in the Lorelei, saw the Stonington Dragger coming east before White and Davis. She had been painted, but he knew the boat, all right. It was the quite unromantically named, and right now, most unwelcome, R.L.Frank, T. Kessler. The bastards had painted her blue, trying to disguise who they were, but he wasn’t fooled. He had no slightest doubt the murderous Tom Middleton was at the wheel.
    He yanked his craft to port, leaving Davis and White to battle the north wind while he sped south. To his delight, the other boat kept going at the Angelica like an avenging angel, but as he turned away, he saw it was Tom Maddox in the wheelhouse, not Tom Middleton, and Hanford Mobley standing casually in the bow, the arrogant little shit.
    Stokes didn’t like not knowing where Middleton was. He knew the bastard to be the most dangerous man in the gang except for John, and only then because John was smarter, and he didn’t trust him one stinking bit.
    Stokes would hide in the swampy inlet down by Riviera, give them the slip, and at least he might bring one boatload home. Hardy Joe wouldn’t be happy, but it was many a year since Hardy Joe had smuggled his own rum, and back then it was only about not paying the taxes. They’d fine you, take your boat, maybe put you in county lockup.
    Now that booze was totally illegal, they would kill you for it, lock you up for years. It made no damn sense to Bo Stokes, but then nobody had asked him. He ploughed anxiously south through the winter waves, over-running them from behind, a kind of navigation that was exhausting.
    He was just about sure he’d made his getaway clean, when he saw the other boat.
    It was another Stonington, and she looked new. Newer than the sunken Horny Bitch, that was for sure.
    Stokes cursed. Hardy Joe had been so positive the Ashleys were whipped, wouldn’t give them no more trouble, and they only had one boat. Don’t worry about a thing, he’d said. You don’t need another man, you’ll be with Alton and James, he’d said.
    Stokes tried running inside the boat towards the distant shore, but the boat cut him off. The winter swells didn’t help his speed any, throwing his loaded boat up and down, corkscrewing her side-to-side. Damn, that Stonington was fast, he thought anxiously, and was clearly not loaded down.

He had no idea the engine had been beefed up

    He had no idea the engine had been beefed up by Hanford Mobley, as good a diesel mechanic as a gasoline man.
    Stokes tried to cut offshore, and was blocked again. His only chance was to get the boat behind him, where he might have a chance to mount a Browning and give them a fight. Like theirs, his boat only had swivel rigs for the guns aft, at the transom, because if they needed to shoot it would be because somebody was chasing them.
    He thought of the .45 caliber Thompson stowed in his cabin, and leapt down the ladder to grab it, then charged back up. The Lorelei had slewed sideways and he wrestled to get her back on course, jacked a round into the Thompson, and looked up to see Tom Middleton pointing an infantry .30 caliber Browning automatic rifle at him from the wheelhouse.
    The Lorelei was loaded to the gills with volatile alcohol, which not only slowed him down but also made him a sitting duck on a powder keg. I’m a dead man, he thought, and God damn Hardy Joe Rice. Middleton was alone too, Stokes thought, then the BAR sparkled, he heard shots, and thought nothing more.

In the Angelica, also loaded to capacity, Alton Davis frantically tried to get back offshore of the oncoming Stonington. He could see it wasn’t going to work.
    With letters through his private mail system from Raiford, John had been adamant to Hanford and Joe: we need superior boats and guns. Spend the money. See to it. And kill Davis, White, and Stokes. Send them to hell in the waters just like they did Ed and Frank.
    John Ashley was back in prison, but prison guards and officials could still be bribed and blackmailed; his letters went through, and his orders were carried out. So, today, Anson “Bo” Stokes, James White and Alton Davis would all die, executed by order of John Ashley, for the murders of Edward and Franklin Ashley.
    James White was at the transom of the Angelica, trying to set a .30-06 Browning automatic rifle into the swivel on the port side in the heaving sea. He, too, thought he was safe as long as Mobley’s boat was pointed at him, that he could shoot and Mobley could not shoot back.

He was just as wrong as Bo Stokes

    He was just as wrong as Bo Stokes. As he slotted the gun into place, he looked up to see Hanford with a .50 caliber Browning machine gun already in place, with the anti-aircraft 40-round magazine, pointing it at him from the bow of the Stonington.
    James thought of Albert Stokes, how much he’d loved him, then the transom of the Lorelei, along with Jimmy White, exploded with lead, splinters of wood, and blood. A lot of blood.
    Alton Davis had the Angelica’s throttle on full, trying to jink back and forth in the waves and wind, the poor fat tourist boat bucking like a bronco and rolling like a hog, Davis barely in control. He was amazed his engine hadn’t been damaged by the wreckage of the transom.
    The new boat easily pulled up nearby, the lower profile of the Dragger giving them relief from the wind that Davis fought. His high-topped boat was literally under sail. Davis expected to be machine-gunned on the instant, and crossed himself, but saw Mobley loading another belt into his weapon. He thought he recognized Tom Maddox at the wheel.
    Then Mobley was pointing the gun at the salon deck. Where the rum was. It was only when he saw the first few rounds coming at his boat that Davis saw the tracers. He just had time to open his mouth to yell, to think of jumping overboard, when the Angelica exploded with the deep whump characteristic of a volatile gas igniting. Like gasoline, or alcohol. Debris flew a hundred feet in the air, to be blown south on the wind, along with the smoke of her burning.

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens