A Land Remembered, Volume 2, page 16
“A hundred and thirty thousand acres. And a good bit more at other places.”
“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, not knowing whether to believe him or not. But he said it too matter-of-factly to be lying. Then she said, “If you’re so tired of being alone, how come you haven’t married? It would be a whole lot cheaper than hiring a cook at that price.”
“Pappa told me once that getting married is like owning dogs. You get to liking them too much, and it pains you when they go away. I saw it happen to Grampy when my granny died, and then to Pappa too. It pained them both worse than I’ve ever seen. I’m just not sure yet I want to try it. Maybe someday. You’ll be just a housekeeper. But we need to start to Okeechobee now. You want to go and tell your daddy, or what?”
“No way!” she said, still not sure to believe what was happening. “He’d beat me. He’s done it before, and I don’t want any more of it. He doesn’t work Saturday afternoons, so he’s home now. I can’t even get my clothes.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Sol said, getting up. “I’ve got enough money with me to buy out a store. We’ll stop and get whatever you need.”
As they walked back to the truck Bonnie said, “I don’t believe this! It’s just not real. I thought I’d never get out of that café. You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about running away to Miami or Jacksonville but didn’t have the nerve to do it. And here you come out of nowhere, and suddenly I’m gone. Just like that. I don’t believe it’s really happening to me.”
“It’s real, Bonnie,” Sol said. “I wish I had found you a long time ago. The moment I saw you in the café I knew I wanted to do this. I was afraid you’d turn me down.”
She stopped momentarily and said, “You know, Sol, you’re a real nice fellow. I mean it. I’m sure glad you stopped at the café.”
“I am too, Bonnie. You’re the kind of girl my mamma would like. I’ll take you to our homestead sometime. It’s up on the Kissimmee River. You’ll like it.”
“I already do.”
“We best get on the way,” Sol said, smiling. “That truck stops after dark, the skeeters’ll suck us dry.”
“Then let’s go!” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY
1918
The Ford car bounced along the road leading past the east shore of the lake, swerving when it hit sand pockets. Sol said, “If it wasn’t for saving time, I’d rather be going up there on a horse. It’s a lot smoother.”
“Does seem a bit rough,” Bonnie replied, almost shouting over the roar of the engine. “But I’d never make it that far on a horse. I don’t know how you stood it when you drove those cows clear across the state.”
“Sometimes I don’t either. I guess I was tougher then, and surely a lot younger. But I’d like to do it one more time just for the heck of it. I remember when it took us three days to move cows as far as we can go in one hour with this flivver. But we weren’t in any hurry and didn’t know the difference.”
“Are we going back by Punta Rassa?”
“Yes. I want to check on the cabin and see if they got the fence done like I ordered.”
“When you come to a nice shady hammock we can stop and have a picnic. I’ve brought a real nice lunch.”
“There’s one just past Basinger,” Sol said. “We’ve got to get to the place by early afternoon. I’ve got a lot to do there before we go on to Punta Rassa.”
“That letter has really upset you, hasn’t it?”
“Tim Lardy would never have written me twice to come back in a hurry unless something is bad wrong. I should have gone after the first letter. But I’m anxious to get there now and find out what it is that’s got Tim in such a stew.”
***
Bonnie was a housekeeper, but she was also a companion. She became Sol’s business partner as well, doing all the clerical work and offering advice when Sol was in doubt about what he was doing. And her advice always proved right.
For several years after Sol left the homestead he went back every few months to check things out, but as the vegetable business continued to grow and prosper and demand more and more of his time, the visits became less frequent.
On one of his visits he loaded the remaining money trunks on a Model T truck and took them to his house at Okeechobee, and this also made it seem less necessary for him to go back on a regular schedule.
It had been over two years since he was at the homestead, handling all business matters by mail. This had not bothered him, for the old place produced more and more cash income, and Clayton’s books were always in order. But a year ago Clayton wrote him that he was going into business for himself at Bartow and recommended that a man named Donovan replace him as manager. He assured Sol that Donovan was experienced with both citrus and cattle, so Sol hired Donovan by mail.
Sol had no reason to doubt his decision, for the income from the place continued to increase steadily. Then came the first letter from Tim Lardy, urging him to come back as soon as possible. He knew he should have gone at once, but he put it off for one thing and then another. And than a second letter arrived, this one even more urgent. At this point Sol dropped everything, and he and Bonnie set out immediately, Sol regretful that he had not responded sooner.
***
Sol turned from the main road and followed a trail leading across a section of prairie, the tall grass making swishing sounds as it brushed the underside of the vehicle. When he came to an area that should have been open pasture but was now an orange grove it confused him, thinking perhaps he had taken the wrong turn.
He stopped for a moment and said, “I know this is where the corral was. We never planted trees here. Something is powerful strange, Bonnie.”
“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” she asked.
“I think so, unless I’ve gone crazy. Let’s go on to the house and see what this is all about.”
He continued following the trail and became even more confused when he arrived at the spot where he thought the hammock would be but found only more orange trees. He began to wonder if he really had come to the right place, but at the same time doubting he could have forgotten so soon.
Bonnie remained in the car as Sol started walking through the grove, searching for some sign of recognition, startled once when a rabbit bounded from a clump of grass right at his feet and rushed away. And then he came to it, right in the middle of two rows of trees, five stones, all bearing the name MacIvey. He stared for a moment, at once not believing, then realizing what had been done. He screamed furiously, “You no good son of a gun! I’ll get you!”
The sound of it frightened Bonnie so badly she jumped from the car, trembling as Sol rushed from the trees and slid beneath the steering wheel. She climbed back in quickly, her eyes terrified as Sol cranked the car and spun it around, going full speed back down the trail, crashing into limbs and showering the air with twigs and leaves.
His hands gripped the wheel. They skidded sideways when the trail split with another path leading off to the left. The Ford righted itself and roared forward again, the motor straining and leaving a trail of blue smoke.
Soon he came to a small clearing containing a house and two small cabins off to one side, all of them new and made of pine. The car skidded to a stop and spun around, facing back the way it had come.
A cloud of dust boiled up as Sol jumped from the car and grabbed a Winchester from the back seat. Tim and Jessie then came from one cabin, and as soon as they recognized who it was, Jessie started crying.
Tim ran forward and said, “I couldn’t stop him, Mistuh Sol! I tried, but he wouldn’t listen to me!”
Donovan came around the side of the house, trotting, drawn by the sound of the unexpected commotion. He was a huge man, six and a half feet tall, gruff-looking, built like an ox. Sol knew who he was without being told. He cocked the lever of the Winchester, pointed it and said, “I’m going to blow your head off!”
Donovan froze, looking at the trembling hand pressing the trigger, the barrel pointed directly at him, the rage in Sol’s eyes. He spoke as calmly as possible, “You must be Mister MacIvey. How come you’re in such a huff?”
“What you mean by what you’ve done?” Sol demanded, hatred for this unknown man pouring from him like sweat.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know!” Sol shouted, his face now as red as his hair.
“Them houses was rotting down,” Donovan said, still looking at the rifle and not at Sol. “They wasn’t worth nothin’. And there’s three hundred acres of good land where that hammock was. I was hired to run a grove on a percentage basis, not look after some old shacks and run a old-folks home. You ought to be glad I cleared off all that stuff and put it in oranges. It’ll mean more money for you.”
Bonnie had never seen Sol so angry, and she knew he was going to do it. She ran to him and pleaded, “Please, Sol, don’t! What’s done is done, and killing him won’t bring it back! It’ll only bring trouble! Please listen to me!”
He looked at her terrified face, then back to Donovan, and then he said, “I want you off this place in ten minutes! You get in that truck over there and go! Whatever you leave behind we’ll burn! Now move it and count yourself lucky! If you’re still here in ten minutes, so help me, I’ll kill you!”
Sol watched as Donovan went into the house and then came outside dragging a frightened woman by the arm. He did not lower the rifle until the truck sputtered down the trail and disappeared.
Tim then said, “I tried to stop him, Mistuh Sol! He just wouldn’t pay no mind to me at all!”
“What’d he do with my granny’s cook stove?” Sol asked.
“He give to a junk man from St. Cloud. All the old tools and other stuff too.”
Sol looked around and said, “Where’s Lester?”
“Over in his cabin. He don’t work anymore, Mistuh Sol. He’s been too poorly. Mistuh Donovan was goin’ to run him off the place, and he would have too if you hadn’t come right now.”
Sol tried to calm himself and think, but the anger wouldn’t go away. He said, “I can’t stay here any longer today or I’ll go after him and kill him for sure. Tim, I want you to take over as manager and run the place from now on.”
Tim’s eyes widened, and then he said, “Mistuh Sol, I appreciate your saying that. I know the orange and cattle business as good as anybody, but I’m sure not a bookkeeper. I just couldn’t handle that part of it at all.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll hire a bookkeeper in Kissimmee to come here once a month and take care of that. That’s not important, but running the place is. And you can do it, Tim. The first thing I want you to do is rip out all those trees where the graves are. Clear it all out, and then put an iron fence around it. And plant some oak back in there.”
“I’ll do it, Mistuh Sol. It near ’bout killed me and Jessie when he done that. We knowed how you’d feel, but I just couldn’t stop him.”
“We’re going to go now,” Sol said, his voice still trembling. “I’ll go to Kissimmee and talk to a bookkeeper, and I’ll also hire a couple of hands to come live here and work under you. I’ll come back in about a month and help you set things up.”
“I’ll do a good job for you, Mistuh Sol. And I’ll see to the grave site right away.”
Without speaking further Sol got into the car and drove off. When he reached the place where the corral had been he stopped, leaned forward against the steering wheel and cried bitterly.
He finally straightened up and controlled himself, and then he said, “You know, Bonnie, he bulldozed two whole lifetimes. Everything Pappa and Grampy did is gone now. It’s a wonder he didn’t pull out the stones and plant trees there too. I should have stayed here and looked after the place. Those vegetable fields aren’t worth this. It’s all my fault.”
“That’s not true, Sol,” she insisted, feeling the pain with him. “You couldn’t have known this would happen.”
A shocked realization came on Sol’s face as something unexpected came into his mind. He suddenly understood why Toby had been so angry when he destroyed the custard-apple forest, a place that both Zech and Toby loved. To them it was much more than just another stretch of raw swamp and forest. And he had done the same thing Donovan had done, only it was for vegetables rather than oranges.
He brushed his eyes and said, “They’ll never forgive me for this, Bonnie, and I know I won’t forgive myself. All they left behind is gone now, and regrets won’t bring it back. Toby knew this, and now I do too. Toby was right and I was wrong, but it’s done now, and what’s done can’t be undone. I guess nothing in this whole stinking world lasts forever.”
She did not know who Toby was, and none of it made sense to her. She passed it off as rambling grief, but the puzzled look stayed on her face as he cranked the car and drove off. When he reached a turn in the trail he stopped and glanced back briefly just to be sure the old corral was really gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
1924
After moving to Okeechobee, Sol made many trips into Miami selling his produce. On his first visit in 1908 the place did not even look like the sleepy little village he and Zech and Glenda rode into that summer day in 1895. The coming of Flagler’s railroad, which arrived the next year, changed the face of the area. With each visit Sol found something new.
He made no plans whatsoever for the land they owned there, merely paying the taxes each year and letting the vegetation grow wild. Twice he bought other small plots and threw the deeds into a box with the others. During one early visit he did hire a skiff and cross the bay to see his beachside property—a mangrove swamp occupied by chattering birds and roaming animals, the beach itself a haven for sandpipers and gulls and terns and pelicans.
In January of 1912 Sol and Bonnie went into Miami and bought tickets on the first train to run from Miami to Key West over Flagler’s overseas railroad, seeing the old man himself dressed in a black frock coat and silk stovepipe hat, the two of them staying in Key West for a four-day celebration. The whole island was one big party. They were both exhausted when they arrived back in Miami and then returned gladly to the calm life of their Okeechobee home.
Sol and Bonnie watched from the sidelines as Miami grew, and waited, frightened by all of it, Sol knowing that day by day and week by week his property became more valuable. Each rumor and each newspaper ad and circular listing land values stunned him, and he knew he would have to do something, but he continued to wait.
In 1923 he made his first move, hiring a contractor to build a house and office in Miami, the first floor to be the business area and the second floor the living quarters. It was a small place compared to the Spanish-style mansions rapidly dotting the area, the ten-story office buildings and the vast hotels and apartments.
Sol built his house as if building a fort, with foot-thick concrete walls and iron grills across each window. One of the first-level rooms contained a walk-in vault, the same type as in a bank. The contractor thought Sol was crazy, warning him that such a vault located inside a house would probably cost as much as the house itself.
His reason for this unusual addition was that he would keep his money himself, just as his father and grandfather had done, and trust no bank or anyone else with it. Had it not been for the MacIvey system of banking by trunk, as started by Tobias and continued by Zech, there might not have been any MacIvey land and no reserve money to purchase more or to develop what he now had. Sol figured what was good for them was good for him, only his new trunk would be a great deal stronger than the steamers purchased by Tobias in Punta Rassa. He soon owned the only house in Miami with a full-sized steel and concrete vault, and from the outside appearance of his place, no one else would know it was there.
As soon as the house-office was complete Sol hired a foreman for the vegetable business and set forth to participate in the great Florida Boom. The sign outside his office read, “MacIvey Real Estate and Development Company.”
***
After having it surveyed, Sol found that the six thousand acres of Miami property covered a portion of the commercial area of the city and extended into one of the most sought-afterresidential areas, including waterfront. None of it was swamp or muckland, so there would be no need of drainage or filling before placing it on the market. He plotted only a small section at first just to see what would happen, breaking an acre into individual lots of seventy feet by one hundred feet. Then he studied current prices listed by other firms, finding that lots ranged from twenty to seventy thousand dollars according to location. The Miami Beach acreage was even more valuable. He could not believe that people would actually pay so much money for land.
By the end of a month they loaded a car with suitcases and set forth for the peaceful country, leaving behind over $80 million in their Miami vault.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
September 15, 1928
Sol turned left at Belle Glade and headed for Lake Harbor and the Okeechobee house. It was Saturday, and they had driven up from Miami that morning, leaving the city because of advance warnings that a hurricane was approaching from the south. Memories were still too fresh of what had happened in Miami and Miami Beach two years before when a September hurricane virtually destroyed the area, bringing an end to the greatfrenzied land boom.
Sol and Bonnie had ridden that one out in their little concrete house, coming out unhurt into a city littered with the trash of scattered houses, flattened hotels and apartment buildings, the harbor blocked by sunken vessels, forty-foot yachts resting on dry land a half mile inland. People had wandered the streets dazed, not believing that the great Florida Sun God could do this to them, seeing all their hopes and dreams swept away by the shrieking winds and surging tides.
