Harry was piloting the Beechcraft south of Atlanta, moving swiftly toward the Gulf and home. Once he passed Atlanta the rest of the trip home went rather quickly. He stayed alert to make the adjustments to his flight path once he reached the Gulf of Mexico. It would take him just west of the cove and the house.
Harry remembered that after Ivan’s visit on his way back to the cove, he didn’t expect him to stay at the cove for long. He worried that Ivan would come home long enough to upset Clayton, and then, he’d hit the road again.
A song kept playing in Harry’s head the day he sat across from him in his Capitol Hill office.
“How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree?”
Phnom Penh, Southeast Asia wasn’t exactly Paree, but it was once French Indochina, and Ivan was gone for a long time. He was explaining where he’d been, after Harry got the cryptic phone call years before. Harry told no one about the call. He wanted to know how Ivan became mixed up with one of the country’s secret agencies. He didn’t feel safe talking about it.
Once Ivan told Harry the story, he knew more but he didn’t feel a damn bit better about it.
A year after Ivan met with Harry in DC, he began development of Cove Enterprises. Ivan’s still being in the cove a year later wasn’t a fact Harry missed. His idea for the cove seemed a bit farfetched. When Harry looked at the cove, he saw junked boats and tangled brush. Ivan’s idea didn’t sound like much to Harry, when he first heard about it. After seeing what Ivan was up to, he saw no harm in it. Regardless of how he felt about it, Harry noticed that Clay and Ivan were back together, and he’d never seen Clay happier.
On one visit home, Harry saw the derelict boats and brush were gone. The idea of a clean cove was fine with Harry. On another trip home, Ivan had sand piled up on and near the boat ramp. There were piles of the stuff all over the place. Harry still wasn’t impressed. One mess of a cove replaced another mess. What was the boy thinking?
One of Harry’s biggest donors bragged to him on the phone how Ivan took twelve truckloads of sand off his hands. The donor had a contract with the state to dredge it out of a nearby river.
“I ran out of land where I can dump the stuff. Ivan roams over to where my men are working, and he asks to talk to the foreman.
“He tells him, ‘I’ll take a few truckloads off your hands if you need a place to dump it.’”
“Not believing my luck, I was on the phone with Ivan that night. He takes six truckloads of sand off my hands and he didn’t ask for a dime. My brother-in-law is charging me a hundred bucks a truck load to dump it on his property. Ivan’s got it piled up a few hundred yards from your house, Harry.”
“He calls me once the six truckloads are dumped. He says, ‘If you lend me a grader, I’ll smooth out the sand and it will make room for six more truck loads.’”
“I got three graders sitting behind my headquarters doing nothing. I send one over and he takes six more truck loads and he still hasn’t asked me for a dime. I got to tell you, Harry, and don’t tell Ivan I said so, the boy has no business sense. He saved me twelve hundred bucks and it cost me nothing but the use of a grader. ”
The man was delighted with himself, Harry thought. He’d put one over on Ivan all right.
It was Harry’s turn to laugh. Harry remembered how smug his donor was. He’d given it some thought, wondering what Ivan was up to. There had to be more to it than that. Ivan was no fool.
After the phone call with the contractor, Harry flew over the cove on his way home a few weeks later. That’s when Harry was impressed. Ivan was clever, he’d gotten the contractor to give him the beach he needed, and the grader he needed to create it. It hadn’t cost Ivan a dime, and Harry flew back over it to see it a second time.
Harry started laughing and couldn’t stop. It took him half an hour before he could land behind the house. He couldn’t wait to talk to his donor.
Ivan had begun creating the camp sites and about half of them had brick fire pits built by that time. He learned that Ivan called it The Cove Campground. Harry could see people coming to stay there. He didn’t know anything about Ivan’s other plans for visitors.
Each time Harry returned home, he flew over the cove to see what Ivan was doing in his absence. Developing the cove the way he had finally convinced Harry that Ivan was home to stay. He’d put too much energy into Cove Enterprises for it to be a passing fancy.
Once again, Ivan had done what he said he’d do.
Being convinced of it came before Harry learned that Ivan was in a partnership with the wily Russian fisherman, Popov. Somehow Ivan wangled ownership of the property around the cove from Popov. For this, Popov took twenty-five percent of Cove Enterprises profits.
After Popov, Ivan had become the most respected businessman in the cove. Ivan’s success meant JK’s Kitchen was always full of customers and the Fish Warehouse no longer had to ship as much of their surplus seafood all over the state. Much of the fishing fleet’s catch was bought for cooking at the beach campgrounds. No one left for home without ‘The Freshest Seafood on the Gulf of Mexico.’
Harry knew he’d underestimated Ivan. When the dust cleared, he’d done what he set out to do. The senator reminded himself not to underestimate Clayton’s young man again. Ivan told Harry he’d find a way to win Clay back and he did that too.
These days, Clayton worked harder than ever and he seemed more content than he’d ever been. The only visible change Harry noticed was that any time Harry saw Clay socially, Ivan was by his side.
Harry knew nothing about men being in love, but if it was anything like a man loving a woman, Clay and Ivan had found happiness and peace after a long struggle.
Underestimating Ivan was a mistake and Harry had grown to respect the boy’s pluck, but he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was a grown man making his mark on his world. He could have leaned on Clayton and lived a good life, but Ivan needed to blaze his own trail.
Harry didn’t consider Ivan his friend, but he wanted Ivan to like him, because he was Clayton’s man. Harry needed to include Ivan as he would include anyone’s partner in social events, but it was more than that. Ivan had been home five years, and Harry respected his intelligence and drive. He wasn’t just clever, he was smart.
Through Dylan, who was like his nephew, Harry had opportunities to spend time with Clayton’s family. Dylan’s interest in photography started once Ivan came home. Little did anyone suspect that at ten, Dylan had found something he loved to do. As time went on, Dylan’s photography was more and more about the cove and the work his father did in and around the Gulf.
Ivan’s imagination led to Dylan getting a more sophisticated camera each time Christmas or his birthday came around. That’s when Ivan became involved with Bill, the professor. As Bill’s research ship went out year after year, each summer he upgraded the ship’s photographic equipment, and Ivan began buying the cameras Bill no longer needed.
Bill, being Clayton’s professor and now his friend, began taking an interest in what Dylan was doing. Once Ivan took some of Bill’s surplus underwater cameras off his hands for Dylan, Bill became invested in what the youngest member of Clay’s family was up to. By the time Dylan turned twelve and then thirteen, he went diving with his father often, photographing him in stills and then in motion. At first, Dylan might pop up anywhere at any time in or around the cove. Everyone living in or around the area thought it was cute.
When he went out with his father on Sea Lab, he’d come back with more film to develop, and Bill offered to help with that too.
Harry couldn’t fathom kids. He found them annoying and he didn’t have time to be annoyed. Dylan had never been a child. Harry knew the boy had some rough road to hoe, but that didn’t explain his aptitude for anything his father did.
Maybe it did. He lost his mother and Clayton was his life. He was raised at the Olson house, and Harry believed that had a lot to do with Dylan’s maturity. Those were serious people and they took their lives seriously. They all excelled as far as Harry could tell.
It all came back to Ivan once again. Dylan was Ivan’s son and Harry wasn’t going to underestimate him. His early photography was cute, but it took on a new dimension once he began photographing his father underwater and in motion. That impressed Harry.
This was serious business to Harry, and he would encourage Dylan any chance he got. He would do that anyway, because Dylan was Clayton’s and Ivan’s son. That alone would have been enough for Harry to show some interest in the boy who had never been a child.
Once Dylan found motion pictures, he found what he was looking for. This was how he wanted to capture his father in action. By photographing his father at work, he’d take people underwater with him. He’d show them how important his father’s work was.
With Ivan, than Bill, and now Logan Warren encouraging Dylan, Clay didn’t stand a chance of getting Dylan to slow down. Clay got on board with a train that was already gaining speed. He wouldn’t discourage his son. If he was going to be a motion picture photographer, Clay wanted him to have everything he needed to be a big success.
This reminded Harry of how worried Clayton was about Dylan taking his first SCUBA dive. Parental apprehension dissolved once Dylan went diving with his father the first time.
Dylan was as at home underwater as he was on it. Harry heard stories of Clayton taking Dylan into the Gulf with him before he was a year old. When you start a kid out thinking he’s part fish, he’s always going to love the water. Clayton was making certain his son wasn’t going to fear the water the way his mother did.
It was hard to believe how long it had been since Harry walked into John Olson’s shop behind the Conservancy. He’d gone back there to waste time. That’s when he saw Clayton’s collection of sea creatures in bottles on the shelves his father built for them.
Harry was bored out of his gourd until he held one of those bottles. When he asked, John told them it was his son’s collection.
That was the day the journey with Clayton Olson started. Harry called Bill to come to see the bottles. This led to Clayton’s first SCUBA dive with Bill. Once he got underwater and saw a nearby reef, Clay was sold on any deal his father’s boss would make him. It was like Clayton hadn’t truly been alive before seeing the underwater world.
It had been upward and onward ever since that day. Clayton was thirty-three and he’d become a force for good concerning the environment and he was Harry’s man in the Gulf of Mexico.
The contract Clayton signed with Harry and the Conservancy ran out five years before. There was no mention of a new contract or more money. There was no mention of how far and wide Clayton traveled to spread his message on conserving the environment.
Clayton had become the voice of the Conservancy who ran things during Harry’s long absences. Clayton signed whatever needed to be signed to do business and he talked to donors who absolutely positively needed to talk to someone that minute.
Harry smiled. He’d learned a lot along the way. He knew he had the right men around him. He knew he didn’t know everything, and being a senator was overrated. There was a helplessness involved in being a politician. He had the power of one, but it took a lot of energy and wisdom to get anything done in DC, and that’s why he loved going home, even when he should be staying in Washington. Harry was home just enough to stay connected with people who thought like he did. Having Clay and Ivan, sometimes with Dylan, over for dinner was a regular feature after he’d been away for weeks. There was always catching up to do, and over a fine meal the conversation flowed easily.
Clay caught him up on Conservancy business and how things were changing in the Gulf. Ivan knew all the latest news concerning the cove, Popov, and how Cove Enterprises was growing. Dylan didn’t usually have a lot to say, but he was full of news on school, education, and his latest adventures in photography.
If there was time to have them over the first night he was home, he felt caught up by the time they left for home. Harry almost regretted having Bill and Logan over the first night. Conversation would go in a different direction with a greater range of topics being discussed.
He needed to be back in DC on Tuesday, and just having Clay and Ivan over might be arranged for Sunday afternoon. Tonight this group would be talking about their summer research trip together. Harry needed to hear what was said. He’d have questions for Bill and he might even learn something about Bill’s filmmaker. The alarm only sounded for two seconds before he it turned it off. He turned east and flew directly over the cove, over the Conservancy and the house, before he completed his circle and was on his approach to land on the runway behind the house.
Harry didn’t touch down until nearly three that morning. The landing lights came on as soon as he passed overhead.
“Good old Algie. What would I do without you, my friend?”
He told Algie that he’d be home between two and three. As soon as he heard the Beechcraft’s engines, the lights came on.
Algie was always on duty when Harry was home. He’d been his daddy’s butler for years, but he was young enough to enjoy doing things with Harry. They went fishing together and Harry even got him on a horse to go horseback riding with him.
Once Harry’s father died, Algie became his go-to guy. No matter what needed doing, Algie was ready to tackle it. He hardly slept while Harry was home. If Harry needed to campaign while he was home, Algie drove him. He was waiting for Harry when he landed, and he was there when Harry took off.
Harry taxied over to the fuel pump and let the engines idle for a few minutes before shutting her down. His mechanic would fuel her before checking her systems and rolling her into the hangar.
Harry grabbed his briefcase and the suitcase with the dirty clothes that would be freshly washed when he left for DC.
It wasn’t late as most of his evenings went, but he would sleep until noon, and there were things he needed to get done before his guests began arriving.
As high powered gatherings went, his political friends would call the guests he’d flown home to see small potatoes. Harry was meeting the men who spoke his language. He was anxious to hear their stories and their conclusions. These men would be happy to share their findings with him and listen to the senator’s opinion.
Little or nothing would be decided that weekend. Armed with new information, there would be new strategies discussed and suggestions for how best to shape policy in the most effective way.
As important as presidents and senators thought they were, none were in the same league with Bill and Clay. These were the men who worked on solving the problems they found in the seas. Problems that damaged the planet in ways no one could calculate yet.
Bill and Clayton didn’t throw money at the problems. They studied what they found and came up with conclusions. Then they passed on solutions they calculated as appropriate to improve conditions. Solutions that fell on increasingly deaf ears.
They seemed to be fighting a losing battle.
Jimmy Carter went further that any president went before. Even Richard Nixon saw the planet was in peril if we didn’t clean up our act. Harry helped Nixon pass the Clean Water Act and establish the EPA.
It seemed that America, one of the earth’s biggest polluters, was about to take responsibility for the damage done, and they were going to go about slowing the rate of pollution while cleaning up messes they’d already made.
Ronald Reagan had no such concerns for the environment. He claimed America was over-regulated and overtaxed. Bad regulations were gutted along with good. The protections put in place to save waterways and improve the air began to unravel.
Advances achieved in the 1970s were reversed in the 1980s. Harry stood beside Jimmy Carter on the roof of the White House to announce, “Twenty percent of our energy will come from renewable sources by the year 2000.”
No one stood beside Ronald Reagan when he ordered, ‘Take those damn solar panels off the roof of the White House. We’re in the business of drilling oil. Open up the taps, let the oil flow.’
Environmentally aware people cringed when the new president said, “The scariest words in the world are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Obviously Reagan was there to help big oil and any talk of renewable resources was jettisoned. Men like Harry McCallister were left to wonder what good it was being a senator when the richest and most powerful forces in the country fought against any plan that could help to save the earth.
Harry improvised and he depended on men like Bill and Clay to continue as if nothing had changed. They would report on the degradation of the planet and hope saner minds prevailed.
They were swimming upstream and no matter how powerful the currents flowing against them were, if they stopped swimming, the destruction of the planet would simply take far less time to achieve.
They wouldn’t let “Drill, baby, drill,” discourage them.
For the first time since Harry arrived in Washington, he began to consider giving up his senate seat after this term. Could he mount an effective fight for the environment outside the halls of power? Was it even possible to challenge men who cared about nothing but money?
Would people listen to environmentalists sounding the alarm? Could he be effective in DC, the belly of the beast, or had the time come and gone with Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter?
Harry wasn’t able to answer any of those questions. He’d come home to consult the men he trusted most. They had a summer of research to tell Harry about. After he consulted them, he’d be better able to decide how best to proceed.
By the time Harry managed to clear his mind from the clutter that always came forward while he was flying home, another thought came to him. It crossed his mind earlier in the flight. I don’t know Boris. He’s been here since Ivan came home. I need to correct that, and I don’t know any of the Vietnamese fishermen. I need to go to the marina to introduce myself.
This plan was interrupted by Harry’s first snore. It would need to wait until tomorrow to get sorted out.
Senator Harry McCallister was home and sleeping in his own bed.
*****
With Bill and his filmmaker, Logan Warren, coming to advise Harry about the summer’s research, he needed to be home at the same time he needed to be in DC. With these men coming together at the same time, it was the perfect time to invite them, implore them, to come to Washington and leave a lasting impression on the senate.
He needed to come home to set up a deal that would bring Harry’s first team on the environmental front to DC. His reputation was still enough to assure news coverage and the most visibly mobile politicians to want to be seen as caring about the environment. No matter what he decided about his future, he needed to take advantage of the resources available to him here and now. Having the filmmaker from Bill’s summer’s research coming east had Harry looking for a way to get him and his documentary in front of the senate. It would be a hard-hitting presentation as far as Harry was concerned. He wanted to strike fast and leave the environmental committee with something to think about.
As Harry got into his slacks and pulled a sweater on over his white shirt and tie, he was ready for breakfast and a brisk walk.
“Senator, I can bring breakfast up to your bedroom if you’d like,” Twila said over the intercom.
“No, Twila. Thanks, but I need to get moving. It’s afternoon and time for me to get going.”
“Coffee before you come down, Senator?” Twila asked.
“I’m dressed. I’ll be in the dining room in five minutes. Do I still have a chance at getting breakfast? I don’t want you stopping dinner preparations, Twila. I can have toast if you’re in the middle of anything important.”
“I have bacon and sausage on. I’m about to make you a short stack of pancakes with two eggs over easy. I’ll have it on the table in six minutes,” Twila said with a chuckle Harry heard.
The steamy cup of coffee was sitting in Harry’s place at the head of the table. An empty cup had been set in Algie’s place at the table. That meant Algie would join him at some time during breakfast. He’d have some idea or suggestion Harry needed to give thought to. Harry felt like he was getting a late start. He knew he needed to be on his game for this evening and there were things to do before the guests arrived.
A minute later Twila came into the room with a large platter of delights Harry loved to eat and couldn’t wait to get home to.
“You’re getting enough rest, Twila? You’re no good to me if you get sick again,” Harry said, immediately nibbling on the crispy bacon.
“I’m just fine, Senator. Dinner at seven?” she asked, before disappearing back into the kitchen.
Twila reappeared with a bowl of gravy, biscuits, and Harry’s favorite jams. She set them close to his arm.
“Seven would be fine. You got the prime rib OK?”
“They had one that was perfect for the number of guests, and there will be plenty left over for you to have prime rib sandwiches all weekend. Anything else, Senator? Oh, yes, the butter. Algie picked up some country butter at a stand along the highway on his way back from Fort Myers yesterday. It’s perfect,” Twila said. “But I can bring your usual butter if you would rather have that?”
“I was wondering. It is good. Algie’s in the kitchen?”
“He’s been with the plane’s mechanic. They’ve had their heads together since he arrived. He said he’d be right up a half hour ago.”
“I’m going to need to take you to Washington with me, Twila. I simply can’t go two and three weeks without your food,” Harry said, sampling each item once before doing it all over again.
He knew the answer before he said it.
“You’ll need to find another cook, Senator. I’m a cove girl. I ain’t going nowhere except to my house,” Twila said.
The senator said the same thing every time he came home.
Twila poured him more coffee and returned to the kitchen.
Harry had about half the breakfast finished when he pushed himself back away from the table. He might want some more, but he knew he’d had enough. It was his first meal after coming home. He could eat a little more now and watch how much he ate later.
As he mixed grits in his egg yolk and then arranged it on top of a piece of sausage, Algie came in from the kitchen with the coffee pot. He filled his cup and poured more for Harry, taking the pot back into the kitchen.
Harry slathered orange marmalade on an English muffin.
“You going to eat all that bacon, Harry? You know what they say about too much bacon,” Algie said. “Don’t want no clogged arteries.”
“And your arteries, Algenon?”
“Oh, I got good arteries, Harry.”
“Help yourself, Algie. What took so long? Sanchez find trouble?” Algie put his coffee cup down and leaned to put a slice of bacon on a half slice of buttered toast.
“Homemade butter. Picked it up on my way in yesterday. You know they want a buck and a half for a pound of country butter? Outrageous,” Algie said, biting into the toast and savoring the combination of flavors.
“Damn good butter though. I’d pay two bucks a pound for it. I didn’t know that yesterday when I bought it.”
“The plane, Algie?” Harry asked. “Is there a problem?”
“Aileron is bent. Sanchez doesn’t want to unbend it. Says he can if you want him to, but he’d replace it. It will cost as much for him to get it back in shape as it costs for a new one,” Algie said.
“He can get the part in time for me to leave Tuesday morning?”
“No problem. He said he’ll go get the part tomorrow and he’ll have it replaced by some time Sunday. He’s got another plane he’s working on tomorrow,” Algie said.
“We’re squared away then. Tell him to go ahead,” Harry said, sipping coffee and putting a piece of bacon on a half slice of toast.
He handed it to Algie as he headed back toward the kitchen.
“Thank you, Harry,” Algie said. “Damn good bacon.”
“You free tonight, Algenon?”
“Harry, you’re watching films tonight. You got someone else to run the projector?”
“No, I need you to run the projector. Prime rib for dinner,” Harry said.
“I’d be here even if there wasn’t prime rib for dinner, but that is another reason to hang around. Call me if you need me,” Algie said as he made his exit.