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This synopsis and excerpts are from P.C. Zick's NATIVE LANDS.Thank you, PC, for sharing this with us!
Synopsis
Native Lands is a novel rich in intrigue and history as a tribe of Native Americans, thought to be extinct, fight to save their beloved heritage. They join with others willing to sacrifice everything to save further destruction of the Everglades and St. Augustine.
Forbidden loves, deceptions, and murder threaten to destroy nature and families in a saga stretching from the 1760s to the present day.
Join Locka and Mali as they lead their tribe of Timucuans away from the Spanish near St. Augustine in 1760 and settle into a new life in the Everglades alongside the Calusa Indians. Their progeny grow up in the Everglades, attempting to keep their bloodlines pure.
By 2010, Mangrove Mike, Joey Cosmos, and Rob Zodiac live among the white people and learn that the human connection transcends the fear of extinction of their people. Barbara Evans in the Everglades and Emily Booth in St. Augustine are the glue as the different cultures combine forces to fight a conglomerate of international interests.
It’s a dangerous journey as this oddly matched group attempts to halt the destruction of the natural world they treasure. Cultural boundaries established centuries ago are erased as love and nature seek the balance lost during the battle for power and control of the last of the Florida frontier.
Chapter One
1760 – near St. Augustine, Florida
Locka walked from his village through the marsh, carefully
stepping between the sharp reeds as he headed to the estuary. He wanted to
reach the weir before the tide retreated. Perhaps he’d have caught a mullet or
pompano that swam into the estuaries during high tide. Locka inhaled the heavy
salt air as the humidity of late May washed over him, and the smell of decaying
plants emanated from the soggy soil with every step he took.
Behind him lay his village of Seloy tucked into a grove of
live oaks dripping with gray moss as the sun edged its way up from the horizon.
He noticed Mali walking parallel to the marsh carrying a large basket, most
likely on a mission to gather blackberries from the bushes ripe with fruit
after the spring rains.
Every
movement was graceful as she carried the basket on her hip just above the line
of her moss skirt. More moss, entwined with small shells and pearls, hung
around her neck. It swung from side to side revealing her full breasts not yet
turned soft from nursing a child. Her sturdy physique, caramel-colored skin,
and raven hair made her an attractive prospect for one of the young warriors
who vied for the attention of this beautiful woman.
He wanted to
turn away from watching her, but couldn’t. Her hair hung straight down her
back. She’d wear it up in a knot to keep her neck cooler once the intense
summer heat settled for a long visit. Her almond-shaped brown eyes and her
ample body made him feel the risings of something he hadn’t felt in a very long
time. Mali’s body and carriage reminded him of his wife Suri before she gave
birth to their son Olio. When Mali turned and saw him staring, he quickly
turned away. Even though his wife had vanished five years earlier after a raid by
the Spanish, he still ached for her. Chief Calumba often encouraged him to seek
out one of the maidens, but he kept his distance. He didn’t want to feel the
pain he’d experienced the day he learned Suri and Olio were missing.
Locka was a
perfect specimen of a warrior with his broad, muscular shoulders and beefy
chest. His eagle-like nose, chiseled jaw, and bronze skin created a stir among
the maidens whenever he appeared in the village. They had all made it clear
that they’d welcome the head warrior’s attention, but he ignored them, despite
urgings from the chief that he should marry again. The only one who never
fawned over him was Mali. She kept her distance, always polite and circumspect
whenever they came into contact.
When he
turned back around, he saw her nearing the blackberry bushes. He also saw a
white man wearing boots and a tall metal hat walk out of the woods. Locka
recognized him as one of the Spanish soldiers from the fort downriver. The
soldier moved toward Mali, and when he stood in front of her, he reached for
her breasts.
“Locka!” Her
voice carried across the marsh to the estuary, but it only excited the soldier
more as he pulled Mali toward him and pushed his leg between hers. With one
hand holding her close, he used the other to rip the moss skirt from her body
and reached down between her legs.
Locka was
already moving, even before her screams rang across the marsh. Mali was
spitting and pushing the soldier away, but he held her tight, continuing to
probe her with his hands and mouth. So absorbed was he that he failed to see
Locka’s approach.
Locka leaped
at the man, shoving him to the ground as Mali escaped to the side. She watched
as Locka rammed his spear into the man’s chest. The Spaniard died quickly, his
smirk replaced by the open-mouthed shock of surprise.
Blood dripped
from the spear as Locka wrenched it from the dead man’s chest. He reached down,
rubbed the soldier’s blood on his hands, and smeared it on his face.
“He won’t
bother you again.”
“Thank you,
Locka,” she said. “I was certain he was going to kill me or take me back to the
fort.”
Locka wiped
the blood off his spear with his bloodstained fingers.
Their blood
is the same color as mine, he thought. A chill descended over him, despite the
heat of the morning air.
He looked
down at the man he’d stabbed through the heart.
“Go back to
the village now. I’ll take care of the body,” he told Mali as she attempted to
cover herself with the moss the Spanish soldier had ripped from around her neck
and from her waist. “Stay to the estuary.”
She reached
to touch his arm, but Locka pulled away, turning his attention to the dead man.
“I’ll cover
him at the base of the burial mound.”
“Do you scalp
him like the rest before burying him?” Mali asked.
“No, and I
teach my warriors not to do it either, but they are young and foolish,” Locka
said. “I hate these white men who’ve taken over our land, but I respect the
soul of all living things. Now go back, and tell the others to stay close to
the village today.”
Mali nodded,
and then headed back to Seloy.
He dragged
the body by its boots to the line of trees away from the water. When he came to
the base of a mound twelve feet high, he dropped the boots and began digging a
shallow grave with his spear. If the animals came and dug him up, so be it. He
had at least made the effort to bury him.
When he
finished, Locka stood and looked east to the estuary and the river beyond. The
sun was higher now, and the water was receding from the mud flats. On the
opposite bank of the river, Locka could see the dunes thick with the orange
sunflowers and yellow daisies of spring. Tall and spindly sea oats waved in the
wind. He couldn’t see the ocean beyond because the land was so flat and the
dunes were taller than his six-foot four-inch height, but he could hear the
waves.
Now that the
water was receding, he could go to the weir and see if he’d captured any fish
in the nets. He’d also try to fill up his pouch with whelk and oysters.
Locka climbed
another mound, this one made from centuries’ worth of shells thrown there by
his people. His eyes took in the different landscapes. He’d missed living near
the sea. The Seloy had returned from their wintering site deep in the woods to
the west a few weeks ago. He pulled his thoughts from the violence of a few
minutes earlier to the sights and sounds of the marsh and the ocean beyond.
Balance slowly returned to his blood.
He watched as
the egrets and ibis pecked in the mud for food. A lone great blue heron stood
on the edge of the water, patiently waiting for a fish to appear. A pelican
flew close over his head spying to see if he had any fish he was willing to
sacrifice. His village lay to the west in a low-lying canopy of live oak
trees weathered by the constant salt breezes. He surveyed the river immediately
in front of him and let his gaze wander south to the settlement of St.
Augustine.
The peace of the moment disappeared as he thought of the
Spanish. They called his people Timucuans.
“We are Seloy,” Locka shouted to the wind as he tilted back
his head with its tall top knot. He raised his tattooed arms and shook his
fists at the fort on the riverbank.
The Spanish worked continuously to clear land to build
houses and churches. They ripped trees from their roots as a black bear ripped the meat from fawn’s
bones. Locka’s heart broke every time he thought of it.
Chapter Two
2012, St. Augustine, Florida
Emily Booth watched as the sun began its descent over the
marsh during an idyllic evening ritual. Daniel intruded into her reverie with
the fading reds, oranges, and yellows of the grasses before her when he made
his announcement. The day turned as sour as the margarita mix in the
cocktail-hour drinks. Her mood changed from peaceful to dark and murky as she
faced her husband. His words from only a moment earlier sunk into her brain.
“Why in the world would you ever run for the county
commission?” Emily asked.
“It’s time somebody stood up for the environment in this
town.” Daniel Booth turned from his wife to look at their daughter Janie and his
father-in-law Jack.
Emily left unsaid what she was thinking: “Why didn’t you discuss this with me first?”
She knew the answer to that question as well as she knew that she’d probably
lose this battle. Daniel made his announcement during the family happy hour
because he knew the others would outnumber her. Emily fumed at her own surprise;
Daniel often proceeded in this manner. He went to the people with the least
resistance first, and Emily knew as his wife of sixteen years, she didn’t rank
high on that list.
Evenings often began on the Booth’s front porch as the sun
set over the marsh grasses in front of them. The Tolomato River flowed on the
other side of the rusty brown reeds now backlit by the light of the sinking
sun. Unseen, but felt in the heaviness of humid salt air, lay the Atlantic
Ocean which greeted the river around Porpoise Point. The Tolomato met with the
Matanzas River to the south as it flowed past the riverfront of St. Augustine.
Emily often imagined the native Timucuans who once lived on the land where her
house sat. When she dug in the sand around the house, she often found remnants
of shells. She shuddered to think that the homes here on the edge of the marsh
might have been built over shell and burial mounds of the extinct people of
north Florida.
Emily cherished these moments with her father, Janie, and Daniel.
Her father came by on his way home from work, and many nights stayed for dinner
before heading to his condo at the beach. They usually discussed the day’s
events, sharing the tidbits of time spent as newspaper editor, high school
student, and environmental lawyer. They laughed and planned as Emily sat and
listened. She knew the details of her day running a hair salon didn’t match the
observations and experiences of the others. Now Daniel ruined the peace with
his pronouncement. Emily resented the intrusion as much as she hated what he
intended to do. Even though she knew it was useless, she tried to enlist her
father in her protest.
“Tell him, Dad, tell him what it would be like,” Emily said.
“You know about those meetings and the pressure and the nastiness of politics
in this town.”
Jack Dugan, editor at The
St. Augustine Record for the past decade, cleared his throat.
“Emily asked you a question, Daniel,” Jack said. “I’d like
to hear your answer before I say anything else. Why do you want to run?”
“I don’t like what I’m seeing and hearing. The current
commission is filled with land developers and real estate moguls who approve
projects without asking questions about environmental impact,” Daniel said.
“Harbors and inlets and creeks are dredged and turned into marinas. Cars drive
up and down the dunes of St. Johns County. All the while, our beaches are
eroding, and populations of sea turtles and shorebirds are diminishing. Just
look at Porpoise Point,” Daniel gestured across the marsh to the inlet. “We are
doing just what south Florida did: Growth
and human consumption above all else, including nature.”
“Sounds as if you’ve been practicing your campaign speeches
already,” Jack said. “But knock it off, Mr. Tree Hugger. Talk to me, not your
adoring choir.”
“Daniel, you can’t change things with just one vote,” Emily
said. “And besides you’re a Democrat.”
“I can have my voice heard more than when I speak during
public comment time at the meetings,” Daniel said. “All right, Jack. Here’s the
truth. I’m tired of Julia Curry shutting me up whenever I try to protest or ask
questions. ‘Speak to the subject, Mr. Booth,’ she says. She keeps getting
worse, and you know it. And it’s not just me; it’s anyone with a question on
her questionable decisions. She’s killing democracy in this county.”
“You’ll put me in a difficult position with the paper,” Jack
said.
“Haven’t you said for the past year that you’re ready to
retire to the front porch to read about the news rather than report on it?”
Daniel asked his father-in-law. “You know you’re not made to sit back and
relax, but I know you want to retire from what you’re doing. If you did, you
could help me win a seat on the commission.”
“Honestly, Daniel, you don’t expect Dad to retire just
because you’ve gotten a notion to run for the county commission,” Emily said.
“Next you’ll ask me to close the shop so I can be your campaign manager.”
“It’s all right, Emily. Daniel’s right,” Jack said. “I’ve
been looking for something else to do, and here it is. I’ve been in the news
business far too long; I’m losing my objectivity when I see what’s happening
here with the same things Daniel’s mentioned.”
“Meredith is going to run the campaign, so you don’t have to
worry about that part of it, Emily,” Daniel said. “It won’t affect her job at
your shop, but she’s committed to helping me win, too.”
“You talked to Meredith about this before telling me?” Emily
asked, but Daniel and her father had already started strategizing. His ears were
shut down to everything else that might interfere or go against what he wanted.
Emily fumed to think about Daniel and Meredith, her
assistant at A Stylish Affair, keeping this from her. In addition, he’d
convinced her father to retire. She knew her father and Daniel were friends and
confidantes before father-in-law and son-in-law. It had been that way since the
first time she brought Daniel home from college. It was bad enough that for the
past sixteen years of their marriage, Daniel continually brought public attention
to himself, first by representing the poor in civil rights cases, and more
recently by fighting the land grabbers and developers and championing the
wetlands, beaches, and sustainable living. He didn’t bring in much income as a
lawyer, but he gained the respect of the street artists, the homeless, and the environmentalists
in the community. Daniel received all the attention, while Emily brought in
more than half the family income. Now, he’d recruited her assistant without
consulting her first.
“I think it’s a great idea, Dad,” Janie, their
fifteen-year-old daughter, said. “Ignore Mom. You might be able to get the
beaches closed to cars if you win the election. And I can help get the students
at Flagler registered to vote in this county.”
“That’s good,” Daniel said. “We need the college kids to
vote, if we can get them registered as Democrats. We’ll need that in this
Republican county.”
“The Flagler students are fairly conservative, but it’s
worth a try,” Jack said.
“You haven’t met them yet, but two new kids—a brother and
sister—just moved here, and they joined the ecology club on their first day at
school,” Janie said.
“Invite them over for dinner some night this week,” Daniel
said. “I think it’s important to get the youth involved.”
“I will. Peter and Lori moved here after their mother
married Eric Dimsdale,” Janie said. “Do you know him?”
“I know him,” Jack said. “I hear he might be running for the
commission, too, in District 3. If he follows the Dimsdale legacy, he’ll
probably run as a Republican and be in cahoots with Curry in no time, if he
isn’t already.”
“Maybe his new step-kids will have an influence on him,”
Janie said.
Emily decided it was useless to fight all three members of
her immediate family. Janie, finishing the ninth grade, took more after her
father in temperament and passion. The teenage years brought a rift between the
mother and daughter that separated them more each day as Emily fought to retain
some sort of control over her family. The careful, methodical approach she
learned to use first on her mother, and then later on her husband, failed when
it came to Janie. She envied her daughter’s fearlessness. With her long and
thick sandy-colored hair, Janie looked like a typical teen. But once she opened
her mouth, she sounded like a grown woman. Janie’s interests separated her from
kids her own age, so Emily was heartened to hear she’d made some new friends
her own age.
The year before, Janie’s passion for the environment led her
to volunteer with the sea turtle patrol. Daniel and Emily joined as well and
participated in the early morning walks with her during nesting season. Emily
walked with her husband and only child on Saturday mornings, before the sun
rose, because sometimes it was the only time the three of them did something
together without quibbling. Those quibbles usually saw Emily on one side and
Daniel and Janie on the other.
Now as she sat on the porch listening to the discussion
about Daniel’s bid for commissioner, she knew she’d eventually help. She
believed in the same causes as her husband and daughter, but not with the same
intensity. While Emily believed the environment needed protections, she also
knew it wasn’t her passion. She failed so far to determine what that was. It
certainly wasn’t styling hair and catering to the rich and pampered women of
St. Augustine, even though she’d made a success of the salon. Despite Emily’s
floundering sense of self, she knew she would have made a better choice as
campaign manager than Meredith, whose talent lay in life’s more esoteric and
ethereal matters. That type of mind had no patience for planning, plodding, and
figuring. Emily felt as if a brick had been laid across her shoulders.
As the waning light turned the marsh grasses from yellow to
brown, she watched the shore birds dive into the swamp waters for the last bit
of the day’s morsels as the light of the fading day cast deep shadows over the
marsh that lay in front of them. Then she went inside for drink refills while the
conversation continued. When she
returned, the discussion went on uninterrupted even when she handed fresh
margaritas to the men and a soft drink to Janie.
“Daniel, there’s one
thing that concerns me,” Jack said. “You’re still considered an outsider in St.
Augustine. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here; you weren’t born here.”
“I thought about switching party affiliation, but that lost
George Stone the election a few years ago. He lost his Democrat voters, and the
Republicans were wary of him. I have to do something. This commission is
rubber-stamping anything developers want. They don’t even ask questions
anymore. And there are plenty of folks moving here who know it and will support
my campaign.”
Emily thought about her drives with Daniel around the
county. He incessantly complained about what he saw on the landscape and often
exploded with frustration when all seemed hopeless. She was sympathetic when
she saw bulldozers occupying the sides of U.S. 1 from the city limits of St.
Augustine to the Duval County border north, which encompassed nearly twenty
miles of roadway. The bulldozers stood like a platoon of King Kongs in a city
of trees ready to step on everything in their path. Daniel ranted about the
dangers of the rapid development to his family and anyone who’d listen. When
Julia Curry, the chair of the county commission, came to the salon for her
weekly styling, Emily heard the other side of the story. Julia loved to brag
about her accomplishments in developing St. Johns County. Sometimes hearing
both sides confused Emily, but mostly she sided with her husband.
“Now Curry wants to limit the public comment time,” Daniel
said. “I meant to tell you, Jack, that your editorial chastising her for
severing the ties to democracy in local government was a brilliant piece.”
“Thank you, but that doesn’t change the fact that you know
absolutely nothing about running for office or about being a politician,” Jack
said. “Let me think about it for a few days before I make a commitment.”
The phone rang, and Daniel went inside to answer it. Emily
grabbed the opportunity to change the subject.
“Dad, I heard on the news earlier that they’re predicting an
active hurricane season this year. Think we’ll feel it here?” Emily asked.
“I never say never, but we’ve been pretty lucky so far,”
Jack said. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. NOAA usually does a good job of
predicting the number of storms, but not the intensity.”
“There’s so much variability in tides and winds that
anything could happen,” Janie said.
Emily looked at her daughter with a slight grin. “Where did
you learn that?”
“I read, and our science class is studying climate change,”
Janie said. “There’s more involved in global warming than melting glaciers.”
Daniel returned from the phone call as Emily sat there
musing about her daughter and her intelligence.
“That was a friend of mine who lives in the Everglades,”
Daniel said when he returned to the porch. “He wants me to connect with an
environmental writer who lives down there. Something about fish dying.”
“Now you’re broadening your scope to the whole state?” Emily
asked.
“It’s all connected, every bit of what they do down there is
connected to us up here,” Daniel said.
“He’s right, Mom. We’re learning about the mangroves in
environmental biology. The loss of mangrove trees in south Florida impacted
species as far north as Georgia when they started removing whole groves near
Tampa and the Everglades.”
“And don’t forget what happened to the snowy egret a century
ago just because women wanted the feathers in their hats,” Daniel said. “It
nearly wiped out the whole population across the state even though the hunting
usually took place in the Everglades. It’s all connected, Emily.”
“I know an environmental writer down in the Everglades. She writes
environmental columns for The Miami
Herald. You remember Barbara Evans, don’t you, Emily?” Jack asked, but no
one heard them because they were watching a tall, copper-skinned man walking
toward the side door of the porch.
“Daniel, isn’t that the Zodiac fellow from the Plaza?” Emily
asked quietly as the man looked around the yard before spotting the family on
the porch.
“Hello, Rob. What brings you to the marsh?” Daniel asked,
walking to the screen door.
“I’m sorry to bother you and your family, Daniel, but I
wanted to tell you something about the work they’re doing out at the place
where they’re making those canals off U.S. 1.”
“You mean Venice Village?” Daniel asked.
“Right. Some of the homeless vets have holed up there under
the bridges since they’ve been kicked off the benches in the Plaza. I don’t
want them to get kicked out of there, but I thought you should know something.”
“What’s the problem?”
Daniel asked.
“I discovered today that they’re bulldozing shell mounds,
maybe even a burial mound, to make way for the canals,” Rob said. “Jeremy—he’s
one of the vets—showed me some mounds out there in the marshes, and I’m sure
they contain artifacts. I know the Timucuans had a settlement near there. How
can this project be allowed to continue? One of the mounds is already flattened.”
“Let me make some inquiries with the folks at the University
of Florida,” Jack said. “It might be reason enough to stall. Isn’t that a
Global Seas project?”
The mention of Global Seas caused Daniel’s hands to rise and
ball into fists as if warming up for a boxing match. “Yes, those bastards. I’d
like to see that company destroyed.”
“They’ve got their hands in too many things,” Rob said. “I’m
going to contact Florida’s AIM, too. Sometimes when they get involved some
action can be taken.”
“What’s AIM?” Janie asked, saving Emily from having to ask
the same question.
“The American Indian Movement,” Rob said. “They’re a group
of activists fighting for the rights of all Native Americans.”
“I’ve always worried that our house was built on or very
near one of their mounds,” Emily said. “But I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“Not much to do once it’s been destroyed,” Rob said. “But
maybe we can save at least something out there. I didn’t know the Timucuans had
a settlement that far away from the estuary, but maybe flooding moved them
further out.”
“Didn’t they call themselves the Seloy?” Janie asked.
“They did indeed,” Rob said. “You’ve been studying your
history of the area.”
“We don’t get much in school, but I read a lot. It’s so hard
to believe a whole tribe could disappear like the books say they did. It’s the
same with the Calusa in the Everglades.”
Rob smiled. “We need to sit down and have a long talk about
it one day, Janie.”
“Are you noticing anything else out there?” Daniel said.
“That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. The fish in
the canals used to be plentiful, but now the guys either can’t catch anything
or dead fish float to the surface. I’ve asked Jeremy to make sure they don’t
eat those dead fish out of hunger. He told me they haven’t caught a live fish
in more than a month. Something’s not right out there, Daniel.”
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About the Author
P.C. Zick began her writing career in 1998 as a journalist. She's won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction. She describes herself as a "storyteller" no matter the genre.
She was born in Michigan and moved to Florida in 1980. Even though she now resides in western Pennsylvania with her husband Robert, she finds the stories of Florida and its people and environment a rich base for her storytelling platform. Florida's quirky and abundant wildlife—both human and animal—supply her fiction with tales almost too weird to be believable.
She writes two blogs, P.C. Zick and Living Lightly. She has published three nonfiction books and six novels.
Her writing contains the elements most dear to her heart, ranging from love to the environment. In her novels, she advances the cause for wildlife conservation and energy conservation. She believes in living lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion.
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2 comments:
Thank you, Aaron, for this lovely feature for Native Lands.
Patricia, you are most welcome!
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