A Tinker's Damn - Hardcover

Wimberley, Darryl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1878448048 ISBN 13: 9781878448040

Publisher: MacMurray & Beck, 2000

Synopsis

As the nation readies to enter WWII, Tink Buchanan has one concern: his personal battle to regain the land, and home, that are his birthright. A generation earlier the Ogilvies had forced his father to turn over the land to cover a debt, and with the Depression grinding on, Tink sees his change to return the favor - if he can only dredge up a bit more cash. So he pulls his son, Carter, out of college to work in his lumber mill and sets his eyes on going home. But Tink's plan unravels when Carter's affection for Julia Ogilvie threatens family ties - and as racial tensions mount following the brutal murder of his employee, Saint MacGrue.

Set in the swamplands and tobacco fields of Laureate, Florida, and born out of the gritty Southern literary tradition of hard knocks and rough lives, A Tinker's Damn is a story of redemption, and the blurred distinction between the two.

About this title

About the Author:

Darryl Wimberley is an author and screenwriter who resides with his family in Austin, Texas. He is the author of "The King of Colored Town". He also wrote the Barrett Raines mysteries, "A Rock and a Hard Place" and Dead Man's Bay".

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

"Seems to me you're wound a little tight," Tink replied. "Nothing like a day on the water to fix that."

The sun was still hidden behind a ridge of cypress and pine. A fog clung like silk to the skin of the water. We had a boat, a kind of long john, that you could pole or paddle to some likely ambush of bass or perch.

The lake was clear and brown as coffee. You could see the bass beds in the shallows, irregular patches on the white sandy bottom looking yellow through the lens of water.

"Gators," Tink pointed casually ahead. About a hundred yards to starboard you could see twin wakes of gators' snouts approaching each other from opposite sides of the lake. The reptiles hunted in tandem, each chasing fish and turtles into the jaws of his mate.

"Should be a good day," Tink's baited hook fell with a lead shot and cork beside a cypress knee.

I used the activity necessary to prepare my line as an excuse for silence. I clamped the lead shot onto my line with a pair of pliers, and sliced the cork halfway to slide in the line and set the depth of my still unbaited hook. "Something you wanta say, Carter?"

This overture came unexpectedly. I tried to take it.

"I don't want to manage mills and timber all my life," I said. "I want to get done with school. Have my own life."

"You will, Carter. Things go well, you'll be back in Atlanta in time for the fall term."

"That's assuming Dave can't stay ahead of his mortgage. What if he can? What if he makes his crop and pays off every dime of interest?"

"That ain't likely."

"You don't know. For all you know he'll make his crop, throw the dice again on Wall Street and be right back in business."

"I'll still have the mortgage," Tink shrugged. "Worse comes to worst we can try again next year."

"I don't want to try again next year. I didn't want to try this year!"

"Did it ever occur you might be owing me something, Carter?"

"I've done everything you wanted. Everything. But I can't do this."

He sighed.

"It's Julia, isn't it? Dave's little girl."

"She's not little. You don't have to be so damned patronizing."

Tink's cork bobbed with a bite. He didn't take that first tease. Just nudged the line, slowly. And waited.

"You aim to marry that girl, Carter?"

Another question I didn't expect.

"We've talked around it some. I guess, sure. But Dave won't let her go. Not 'till he's free of the mortgage."

"Well, he ain't never goin' to be free of that," Tink declared softly. "Not so long as I've got breath to breathe."

"Why can't you just leave me out of this, Daddy? I don't want a quarrel with Dave Ogilvie. Julia doesn't want to think badly of you."

"Julia wants to get away from her daddy," Tink popped his cork gently as a soda pop top on the water. "I don't blame her."

"Let me go, then. Let me go, give me money to finish school. I'll marry her and you and Dave can finish your business by yourselves."

My own line dipped sharply, then. A big strike. I paid no attention. Tink seemed focused on some distant point across the lake.

"You ever notice that sawgrass? On our lake?"

"Sawgrass? How'd we get on sawgrass?"

"You ever notice?"

"Sure I have. 'Course I have. Why?"

"Surprised you haven't asked about it, is all."

"What do you mean?"

"You're studyin' plants, aren't you, Carter? I know I'm not an educated man, but I can make out a transcript. School sends 'em to us, you know. Ever term.

You're studyin' plants a lot."

"Well, yes, I am."

"Mmmhmm. Well, then, don't you ever ask yourself-How'd it get here?

How'd it get here onto our lake?"

"No. Damned if I see what you're driving at."

"Well, sawgrass is a saltwater plant, Carter. Brackish, at least. And this here lake's fresh water, true enough?"

"Yes, sir."

"So how'd the sawgrass get on our lake?"

"God put it here!"

"No. he didn't."

Tink pulled in his line. Cast again.

"I put in the sawgrass."

"You did?"

I looked again to the ragged boundary of our lake. There was indeed sawgrass everywhere. Cladium jamaicense. Our lake was well inland and relatively elevated; we certainly had no saltwater. And yet there was sawgrass plainly visible and familiar all about me.

But it should not be here.

How had such a contradiction escaped me? Why had I not seen this for myself?

"You planted the sawgrass?" I asked my father.

"It was years ago," Tink affirmed. "'Bout the time you was born, actually, I brought some sawgrass back from the coastline. Picked me a mess right there near Deserter's Island, near to the Gulf. I always loved the smell of salt on the water. And the sight of sawgrass."

"So you came back to our lake and, what-just stuck it in the muck?"

"Ah hah. In a little corner. Right over on that point. Where those gators are trollin'. Right over there."

"It's growing fine," I observed.

"That's the problem," Tink spit. "It's growin' too good. That rascal started out in a little patch on that point. Now it's takin' over the whole lake. I even tried burning it out once. No good. And sooner or later I'm goin' to lose my fishing hole because of it."

About this edition

• Publisher: MacMurray & Beck
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1878448048
• ISBN 13: 9781878448040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 281