I brushed the sand off my jacket and pointed with my cane. “They say the man was struck by lightning as he tried to signal a ship. Some say on a stormy night you can still hear him scream, right from the top of the lighthouse, miss.”
Anna clung to her grocery box and shivered slightly. “What a terrifying history for such a little town with the strange name of Jupiter.” She was a fairly tall redhead that was about sixteen years old, but even though she was fairly skinny, every one of the young men in this town took notice right away. Well, that wouldn’t be too hard since in this town there were only three boys near her age. The town’s kinda small.
Her eyes squinted in the Florida sun as she peered at the lighthouse across the water. I could see her shiver. Her name was Anna Elizabeth and she was a sad creature, never smiling since the moment I met her. Good reason for it, though. Her daddy had been killed in a battle - I think it was Bull Run something or other - and though her mother tried to keep food on the table, they eventually left their home in Hannibal, Missouri. It was hard for Anna Elizabeth but the famine after-effect of the War Between the States didn't leave many options.
I pushed my hat back. “You like your new home, Miss Anna?” I asked.She turned toward me and shrugged. “It has it’s quirks, Mr. Burl. Mother knew it would need repairs when she bought it from my Aunt Nel, ” Anna told me as I put my cane in the rowboat. “A few of the windows are broken and the chimney is clogged up so much that we cannot use it but we’ll soon fix it with the money we have. I got this delivery job to help out a bit. Now, sir, tell me, “ She pointed at the island. “Are there spirits in that lighthouse?”
I ignored the question. “Ah, you’ll get to fix things up soon enough, miss,” I said as I eased myself into the boat and held out my hand for her. “So now you have some groceries to deliver to our mysterious lighthouse on the tiny island, eh? Come on then, rowing is the only way to get there. Bannister and his son work on it.”
“Isn’t that scary for them, Mr. Burl?” She took my hand and stepped in, placing the box of groceries carefully on the bottom of the boat. She sat and wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at the tall structure across the water. “Doesn’t your preacher deal with the lighthouse demons?”
I shook my head as I took up the oars. “No regular preacher in our town yet, miss. Only a circuit rider once a month. Besides, Bannister and his boy can handle themselves. The Jupiter Lighthouse might have a terrifying past, but the two of them have never seemed frightened by it.”
Anna looked up and squinted. “Still seems lonely. That lighthouse is over a hundred feet high, I’ll bet.” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “I see someone working at the top. A young man.”
I nodded as I rowed. “Ah, you’ve got good eyes. That would be Raleigh Bonaparte Bannister, an easygoing boy who lives and works with his pa. Just the two of them. Moved here to this section of Florida about a year after the Civil War ended. Nice boy, tough as a mule.” I pulled hard on the oars and we came to the shores of the little island. “You’ll need to deliver the groceries up to the top of the lighthouse, since Ral’s pa goes out fishing during the day and the house is locked. Are you afraid of heights?”
“No, sir, not if it means I lose this delivery job.”
I chuckled. “Good answer. Go, now, you’ve got quite a climb. That’s a pretty tall lighthouse. Go through that stand of trees and you’ll see the doorway.”
Well, Anna carried those groceries and climbed that reddish tower of over one hundred feet in hardly any time at all. Anna stopped at the top of the stairs and saw Ral as he slowly wound the steel cable around the lighthouse mechanical spool, his thick forearms bulging with the effort. Ral’s strength was nearly equal with any man along the Florida Atlantic coast; in fact, many people were surprised that the lighthouse keeper’s son was so young. He had the chest and shoulders of a man much older and stronger.
“Hi. I have your groceries,” said Anna, placing the cardboard box on the floor.
Ral turned around quickly. “Who are you? Never mind, you’re just in time. You got our groceries? Good. Watch this, “ said Ral, grinning as he ran over to the box. “I’ve been waitin’ to show somebody this, but the timing had to be right.”
“What do you mean, ‘timing’?” asked Anna.
“Well, I needed some one up here to watch it,” said Ral, turning and pointing over the railing. “And someone right down there to be my target.” Anna saw the small cluster of men at the base of the lighthouse, chatting and smoking pipes. When she looked back, Ral was carefully handling an armload of eggs.
Anna reached out her hand. “I don’t think you should- “
But it was too late. Ral had lobbed the half-dozen eggs into the air.
Ral watched the trajectory of the eggs carefully. “I kinda did some calculating and figured that if I let them out just right, they wouldn’t hit the side of the lighthouse.”
Anna saw the eggs splatter with surprising force on and around the clutch of men below. They leaped and yelled in surprise before looking up and shaking their fists. Ral leaned against the railing, laughing helplessly.
“I suppose you think that’s funny,” said Anna coldly as she saw one man vigorously rubbing yolk from his arm. “But where I come from, you don’t waste good food on some foolhardy joke.”
Ral laughed and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “Yeah, well, I don’t know where you come from.”
Anna shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant to say, wasting good eggs during these hard times is wrong. Those eggs could have fed a family.”
“Well, that’s your view of things,” Ral said, still chuckling as he went back to the steel cable. “But around here, you take advantage of a situation when you can get away with a good joke, no matter what you gotta use to get a punch line.” He grinned at her. “That’s the view from Jupiter.”
Anna smiled thinly. “The town or the planet? Both ideas are equally far off.”
Ral shrugged his shoulders, gripped the cable and started to pull. “Whichever you want to figure. It’s my decision, it’s my choice, and as a matter of fact, this is my property.” He nodded his head toward the stairs. “So why don’t you take your fancy ideas, your red hair and gangly legs and get out of here?”
Anna spun on her heel and stomped every step on the way down the lighthouse. As mad as she was, though, she stopped when she saw the moldy wood-rotted casket propped just below the last steps of the staircase. Part of it was chopped open. She ran without turning back.
----------------------------
Anna didn’t see Ral for a week or so, when she had to make another delivery. She stepped out of the boat and saw Ral and his father talking. Anna approached them from the eastern side, unsure if she wanted to face this sassy boy again. She figured she could just leave the groceries at the bottom step and leave, but she was unnerved by that broken casket nearby. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she darted into the stand of trees near the doorway. She put down the box and peered through the branches.
Ral and his pa were sitting on a tree log, rubbing their forearms and breathing heavily. Ral seemed especially worn out. I might tell you that Ral and his pa shared the chore of oiling the lighthouse mechanism and cleaning the lamp itself. However, Ral alone bore the back-breaking work of winding the cable of the 250 pound lead weight around a cylinder - he had to do that so that it could drop slowly and keep the light rotating. That’s the way the light beam would swing around, you know.
“Mornin’ folks.” It was a deep voice. Anna saw a muscular man with a neck as thick as a tree trunk approaching, with two heavy-set men behind him, one bald and one with yellow hair. “We’s looking fer a man who sells a recipe.”
Ral’s eyebrows rose and he grinned widely. “‘Recipe’? There ain’t no cooks here, mister. Just me and my Pa. The nearest eating place is at least ten miles down the road.”
Pa lowered his eyes and spoke in a low tone. “Hush, son. It’s me they want to talk to.”
Anna retreated back deeper into the trees as she saw Ral shake his head. “Pa, this ain’t the right –“
The yellow-haired man took a step forward. “Sonny boy, best you shut yer mouth. Children are see’d and not heared.”
Pa looked up and set his jaw. “Mister, I’ll be glad to talk with you peaceable-like, but if you ever tell my boy to shut up, I’ll slap you so hard your clothes will be outta style.”
The yellow haired man’s eyes widened as the bald man giggled, but the thick-neck man scowled. “We ain’t here to talk about manners, we’s here to get some recipe. Now, old man, you got some or not? We boated a long ways to get here.”
Pa rubbed his chin, thinking. “Lemme think on this.”
Anna let out a small gasp. Was Ral’s father a moonshiner?
Ral stepped forward. “Pa, you promised. No more…”
And that’s right when the yellow-haired man balled a fist and caught Ral on the side of his head with a clout so hard that it knocked Ral clean off his feet. The two other men in the back laughed while Ral lay there, shaking his head and blinking his eyes.
Pa lowered his head mournfully. “Mister, I sure wish you wouldn’t a done that. Now you’re gonna have to pay up.”
The yellow -haired fellow turned and stuck out his chin. “Who’s a’gonna whup me? You, old man?”
Pa shook his head. “Nope.” He pointed at Ral. “He is.”
The man turned and looked at Ral getting up slowly and setting his feet level again. The man bellowed out a laugh so hard that it seemed to ring in the treetops.
Let me just say that it was the last laugh heard from the man while he was on the island.
Anna gasped as she saw the young man fly into those men, fists slamming in lightning-quick speed and with locomotive force. The bald man was sent spinning into the wall of the lighthouse. Shocked, Anna stepped back even more and her heel bumped against a crate hidden within the branches. She looked down, expecting to see bottles or jugs – that was the way of many a moonshiner, to hide things in small ditches or secret caches.
But she didn’t find liquor. What she did see made her scream out loud.
Anna clung to her grocery box and shivered slightly. “What a terrifying history for such a little town with the strange name of Jupiter.” She was a fairly tall redhead that was about sixteen years old, but even though she was fairly skinny, every one of the young men in this town took notice right away. Well, that wouldn’t be too hard since in this town there were only three boys near her age. The town’s kinda small.
Her eyes squinted in the Florida sun as she peered at the lighthouse across the water. I could see her shiver. Her name was Anna Elizabeth and she was a sad creature, never smiling since the moment I met her. Good reason for it, though. Her daddy had been killed in a battle - I think it was Bull Run something or other - and though her mother tried to keep food on the table, they eventually left their home in Hannibal, Missouri. It was hard for Anna Elizabeth but the famine after-effect of the War Between the States didn't leave many options.
I pushed my hat back. “You like your new home, Miss Anna?” I asked.She turned toward me and shrugged. “It has it’s quirks, Mr. Burl. Mother knew it would need repairs when she bought it from my Aunt Nel, ” Anna told me as I put my cane in the rowboat. “A few of the windows are broken and the chimney is clogged up so much that we cannot use it but we’ll soon fix it with the money we have. I got this delivery job to help out a bit. Now, sir, tell me, “ She pointed at the island. “Are there spirits in that lighthouse?”
I ignored the question. “Ah, you’ll get to fix things up soon enough, miss,” I said as I eased myself into the boat and held out my hand for her. “So now you have some groceries to deliver to our mysterious lighthouse on the tiny island, eh? Come on then, rowing is the only way to get there. Bannister and his son work on it.”
“Isn’t that scary for them, Mr. Burl?” She took my hand and stepped in, placing the box of groceries carefully on the bottom of the boat. She sat and wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at the tall structure across the water. “Doesn’t your preacher deal with the lighthouse demons?”
I shook my head as I took up the oars. “No regular preacher in our town yet, miss. Only a circuit rider once a month. Besides, Bannister and his boy can handle themselves. The Jupiter Lighthouse might have a terrifying past, but the two of them have never seemed frightened by it.”
Anna looked up and squinted. “Still seems lonely. That lighthouse is over a hundred feet high, I’ll bet.” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “I see someone working at the top. A young man.”
I nodded as I rowed. “Ah, you’ve got good eyes. That would be Raleigh Bonaparte Bannister, an easygoing boy who lives and works with his pa. Just the two of them. Moved here to this section of Florida about a year after the Civil War ended. Nice boy, tough as a mule.” I pulled hard on the oars and we came to the shores of the little island. “You’ll need to deliver the groceries up to the top of the lighthouse, since Ral’s pa goes out fishing during the day and the house is locked. Are you afraid of heights?”
“No, sir, not if it means I lose this delivery job.”
I chuckled. “Good answer. Go, now, you’ve got quite a climb. That’s a pretty tall lighthouse. Go through that stand of trees and you’ll see the doorway.”
Well, Anna carried those groceries and climbed that reddish tower of over one hundred feet in hardly any time at all. Anna stopped at the top of the stairs and saw Ral as he slowly wound the steel cable around the lighthouse mechanical spool, his thick forearms bulging with the effort. Ral’s strength was nearly equal with any man along the Florida Atlantic coast; in fact, many people were surprised that the lighthouse keeper’s son was so young. He had the chest and shoulders of a man much older and stronger.
“Hi. I have your groceries,” said Anna, placing the cardboard box on the floor.
Ral turned around quickly. “Who are you? Never mind, you’re just in time. You got our groceries? Good. Watch this, “ said Ral, grinning as he ran over to the box. “I’ve been waitin’ to show somebody this, but the timing had to be right.”
“What do you mean, ‘timing’?” asked Anna.
“Well, I needed some one up here to watch it,” said Ral, turning and pointing over the railing. “And someone right down there to be my target.” Anna saw the small cluster of men at the base of the lighthouse, chatting and smoking pipes. When she looked back, Ral was carefully handling an armload of eggs.
Anna reached out her hand. “I don’t think you should- “
But it was too late. Ral had lobbed the half-dozen eggs into the air.
Ral watched the trajectory of the eggs carefully. “I kinda did some calculating and figured that if I let them out just right, they wouldn’t hit the side of the lighthouse.”
Anna saw the eggs splatter with surprising force on and around the clutch of men below. They leaped and yelled in surprise before looking up and shaking their fists. Ral leaned against the railing, laughing helplessly.
“I suppose you think that’s funny,” said Anna coldly as she saw one man vigorously rubbing yolk from his arm. “But where I come from, you don’t waste good food on some foolhardy joke.”
Ral laughed and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “Yeah, well, I don’t know where you come from.”
Anna shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant to say, wasting good eggs during these hard times is wrong. Those eggs could have fed a family.”
“Well, that’s your view of things,” Ral said, still chuckling as he went back to the steel cable. “But around here, you take advantage of a situation when you can get away with a good joke, no matter what you gotta use to get a punch line.” He grinned at her. “That’s the view from Jupiter.”
Anna smiled thinly. “The town or the planet? Both ideas are equally far off.”
Ral shrugged his shoulders, gripped the cable and started to pull. “Whichever you want to figure. It’s my decision, it’s my choice, and as a matter of fact, this is my property.” He nodded his head toward the stairs. “So why don’t you take your fancy ideas, your red hair and gangly legs and get out of here?”
Anna spun on her heel and stomped every step on the way down the lighthouse. As mad as she was, though, she stopped when she saw the moldy wood-rotted casket propped just below the last steps of the staircase. Part of it was chopped open. She ran without turning back.
----------------------------
Anna didn’t see Ral for a week or so, when she had to make another delivery. She stepped out of the boat and saw Ral and his father talking. Anna approached them from the eastern side, unsure if she wanted to face this sassy boy again. She figured she could just leave the groceries at the bottom step and leave, but she was unnerved by that broken casket nearby. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she darted into the stand of trees near the doorway. She put down the box and peered through the branches.
Ral and his pa were sitting on a tree log, rubbing their forearms and breathing heavily. Ral seemed especially worn out. I might tell you that Ral and his pa shared the chore of oiling the lighthouse mechanism and cleaning the lamp itself. However, Ral alone bore the back-breaking work of winding the cable of the 250 pound lead weight around a cylinder - he had to do that so that it could drop slowly and keep the light rotating. That’s the way the light beam would swing around, you know.
“Mornin’ folks.” It was a deep voice. Anna saw a muscular man with a neck as thick as a tree trunk approaching, with two heavy-set men behind him, one bald and one with yellow hair. “We’s looking fer a man who sells a recipe.”
Ral’s eyebrows rose and he grinned widely. “‘Recipe’? There ain’t no cooks here, mister. Just me and my Pa. The nearest eating place is at least ten miles down the road.”
Pa lowered his eyes and spoke in a low tone. “Hush, son. It’s me they want to talk to.”
Anna retreated back deeper into the trees as she saw Ral shake his head. “Pa, this ain’t the right –“
The yellow-haired man took a step forward. “Sonny boy, best you shut yer mouth. Children are see’d and not heared.”
Pa looked up and set his jaw. “Mister, I’ll be glad to talk with you peaceable-like, but if you ever tell my boy to shut up, I’ll slap you so hard your clothes will be outta style.”
The yellow haired man’s eyes widened as the bald man giggled, but the thick-neck man scowled. “We ain’t here to talk about manners, we’s here to get some recipe. Now, old man, you got some or not? We boated a long ways to get here.”
Pa rubbed his chin, thinking. “Lemme think on this.”
Anna let out a small gasp. Was Ral’s father a moonshiner?
Ral stepped forward. “Pa, you promised. No more…”
And that’s right when the yellow-haired man balled a fist and caught Ral on the side of his head with a clout so hard that it knocked Ral clean off his feet. The two other men in the back laughed while Ral lay there, shaking his head and blinking his eyes.
Pa lowered his head mournfully. “Mister, I sure wish you wouldn’t a done that. Now you’re gonna have to pay up.”
The yellow -haired fellow turned and stuck out his chin. “Who’s a’gonna whup me? You, old man?”
Pa shook his head. “Nope.” He pointed at Ral. “He is.”
The man turned and looked at Ral getting up slowly and setting his feet level again. The man bellowed out a laugh so hard that it seemed to ring in the treetops.
Let me just say that it was the last laugh heard from the man while he was on the island.
Anna gasped as she saw the young man fly into those men, fists slamming in lightning-quick speed and with locomotive force. The bald man was sent spinning into the wall of the lighthouse. Shocked, Anna stepped back even more and her heel bumped against a crate hidden within the branches. She looked down, expecting to see bottles or jugs – that was the way of many a moonshiner, to hide things in small ditches or secret caches.
But she didn’t find liquor. What she did see made her scream out loud.
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