“Did you hear any of what I just said?”
He stared downriver and wagged his tail.
Over the next hour, whenever we passed a sailboat or motorboat, I’d hail the captain and point to the dog. “This your dog?” I asked a dozen or more times. No takers.
The reality of the change in my condition was starting to settle on me. “I can’t very well keep calling you Dog, so you’ve got to help me with a name. What do you want me to call you until we find who you’re looking for? Or they find you?”
Again, no response.
“You’re not much help.”
He sat in the bow, staring straight forward, eyes downriver.
“How do you feel about Swimmer?” I pointed at the water. “You seem pretty good at it.” I said the name a few times to myself and figured it sounded sorta stupid. “Okay, so maybe not Swimmer. What about Whitey?” That didn’t sound too great either. His feet were pretty big, so I said, “How about Paws?”
He looked over his shoulder, then back at the water.
“Not so much, huh?” I scratched my head. “How about Ditch? It is where I found you.”
His ears moved, letting me know he heard me, but he never turned.
“Okay, so maybe that’s too close to another word, and you’re not one of those, so . . .” The thought of my island and the remains of the slaves’ tabby homes occurred to me. Oddly, the tannic acid in the water had made his white coat look almost tabby in color when I pulled him out. “What about Tabby? You do look like it—sort of. In a small way.”
He looked over his shoulder and wagged his tail.
“Tabby it is.”
I idled through downtown Jacksonville as the sun disappeared behind my stern and the moon rose off my bow. When the river dumped me into the IC, I turned south and was about to put the boat on plane when I gave him a final warning. “Last chance. You want off?”
He sat and glanced over his shoulder, acknowledging he’d heard me. Fingers’ orange box was wedged beneath his feet. Fingers would like that.
“Okay. Suit yourself. But this is a working boat, and you’ll have to carry your weight.”
He lay down. Facing forward. Tail wagging.
We settled into an easy rhythm of checking off miles, one after another, while my silent friend straddled the orange box and let his ears flap in the wind. Every few minutes he’d leave his post, come to me, sniff my leg, look up, sniff the head and the door leading into it, then return to the bow. After the third time, I had a feeling he was trying to tell me something, so I pulled over at a beach on the west side of the IC. He hopped off, did his business, sniffed eight or ten crab holes, dug down into one of them, and then hopped back up on the boat.
This was a smart dog.
But we had one problem. His feet. “Look, dude. You can’t go digging in the mud and then just hop up here acting all brodie.” I pointed at the water. “Wash your feet first.”
He pushed his ears forward and tilted his head. The expression on his face said, “You’re crazy.”
I pointed again. “I’m not kidding.”
He jumped off the bow, dog-paddled in a circle around us, then climbed up on the swim platform in the rear. He shook and waited for my invitation.
“That’s better.”
We ran the ditch south through Jacksonville Beach. Ponte Vedra. Marsh Landing. And the eastern edge of the Dee Dot Ranch—owned by the same people who started Winn-Dixie. The Dee Dot is a ginormous private ranch where buffalo used to roam until mosquitoes and snakes drove them insane. I passed beneath the Palm Valley Bridge and on through Guana River State Park.
Midnight found me in the St. Augustine inlet. Not the best place to be at night, especially with a twenty-knot wind. Like all the pirates before me, I turned due west—away from the frothy Atlantic—and pointed my bow at the old fort of St. Augustine. The Castillo de San Marcos, which was the Spanish claim to the new world built somewhere around 1565. Jamestown claims to be the first colony in America, but by the time Englishmen set foot in Jamestown, the Spanish—aided by Europeans and Africans—had given birth to grandchildren in St. Augustine. If America has a birthplace, it’s here in these improbable waters and mosquito-filled shores.
We passed beneath the Bridge of Lions and moored at the north end of the municipal marina. I was too tired to go in search of a hotel, so I spread out across the bench seat in the stern and slept five or six hours until a massive, slobbery tongue started licking my face just after sunup.
Chapter 5
I pushed him off me. “Dude . . . I know you’re feeling like your world’s been turned upside down, but we gotta set some boundaries here.” I stuck up one finger. “First, you can’t lick my face while I’m sleeping. That’s gross. My mouth was open and I’ve seen what you lick and . . . and I don’t want to even think about what’s squirming around inside my mouth right now.” I stuck up a second finger. “And two, we gotta get you some toothpaste.” I wiped my face on my shirtsleeve. “You could gag a maggot.”
He sat wagging his tail. The look on his face said one word: “Breakfast?”
I rigged a makeshift leash from an unused bow line, and Tabby and I headed for town. I needed some coffee. Walking out of the marina, I recognized a large yacht tied up on the far side, somewhat hidden from view. This time her name wasn’t covered. The Sea Tenderly sat quietly pulling against her lines without a soul on deck. Either they were sleeping it off or they’d vacated in search of the next party.
I found coffee and bought Tabby a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, which he devoured in two bites before looking up at me, wanting more, while the egg yolk drained off his jowl. He ate four more before I put my foot down and found a grocery store where I bought him a large bag of food, a five-gallon bucket with a sealable top, a bowl, and a collar.
He didn’t like the collar, but I sat in front of him and tried to explain. “I don’t like this any more than you, but you gotta wear it.”
He whined.
“I know, but . . . you just got to. It’s the law.” He sat up, regal like, and turned his head side to side, refusing to let me put it on him.
“I’m the boat captain, right?” He wagged his tail. “Boat rules. All dogs must have a collar, and that includes you.” He whined again.
“Come on. I’ll keep it loose.” He walked around me in a circle, licked my face, and finally lowered his head. Somebody had spent some time both training and loving on this dog. I felt sorry for whoever was looking for him.
I tried to think like someone who’d lost a dog. I checked with newspapers and social media from Jacksonville south to Daytona and north to St. Simons, but nothing came up. Then I walked down to animal control. They thought he was beautiful, but they told me that if I left him there, his stay would be three days and then he’d take a really long nap.
I told them he wasn’t sleepy.
Not knowing his history, I had no idea what to do about his shots, so I asked them to bring him current without killing his liver and kidneys. They did, which he wasn’t crazy about. Especially the stool sample. He was looking a little puny when they brought him back to me.
To make it up to him, I took him to get one of my favorite things. I can’t leave St. Augustine without it. Gelato on St. George Street from Café del Hidalgo. I ordered an extra-large, and he and I sat on the sidewalk amid the myriad of street performers and shared a cone. When finished, I brushed his teeth, which he tolerated.