SOUTH TOWARD HORN

By Wes Dannreuther

"South Toward Horn is a captivating mystery that has it all: adventure, drama, and romance, set in and around Southern Mississippi. The reader is drawn into the story within a story that is filled with colorful, well-written characters and beautiful descriptions of the Gulf's barrier islands. Dannreuther paints a vivid picture of a young ma

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amz Pro Hub
• Release date: Oct 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868937927

Book preview

SOUTH TOWARD HORN

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Wes Dannreuther

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Copyright © Wes Dannreuther, 2023. All Rights Reserved

This book is subject to the condition that no part of this book is to be reproduced, transmitted in any form or means; electronic or mechanical, stored in a retrieval system, photocopied, recorded, scanned, or otherwise. Any of these actions require the proper written permission of the author.

Much of this novel takes place near or inside the Gulf Islands National Seashore: a national park of barrier islands and inland wildlife sanctuaries that stretches roughly 160 miles from Cat Island off the coast of Gulfport, Mississippi, to Florida’s Santa Rosa Island. With its sandy beaches, marshes, lagoons, wooded areas, and other coastal landscapes, the Seashore attracts millions of visitors from all over the United States and world every year. The United States Congress set aside approximately 135,000 acres for the park on January 8, 1971, and on November 10, 1978 designated over 4,000 acres of Petit Bois and Horn Island to be wilderness—a designation that is supposed to guarantee the utmost environmental protection.

Since 1971 the Seashore has been managed by the National Park Service, which, despite its intentions, has not prevented developers, private owners of the various islands, or even state and federal government officials, from trying to use the land for purposes other than how Congress originally intended.

All of the above information is factual.

The following is a work of fiction. Though some situations intentionally resemble real historical events, any resemblance of characters in this story to real people is unintentional, including any fictional relatives of Walter Anderson. The author’s purpose was and is merely to honor the indelible Anderson legacy on the Coast and beyond.   

In memory of Brannon and to the Down Island Crew, even though some of you have never read a book. And in the hope that the Islands will stay beautiful, wild, and free.

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1

Jimmy O’Connor slammed the truck door shut, fished around for his hard hat, and began the long walk from the parking lot to the shipyard. The sound of other workers kicking gravel along made him shake off a yawn and pick up his pace. He was supposed to be on the job site when the horn sounded. Some foremen were stricter than others, but he hadn’t met his new one yet. He had requested to join the same crew he’d been on when he worked here years ago, only to find out his boss had never come back after the storm.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have sworn the storm ended the night before. It was as if the rain in the last band had decided to stick around, to just hang in the air. He looked down, already feeling dampness inside his steel-toed boots and realizing he could hardly see them through the humidity of the morning. The storm must have taken out the lighting in the parking lot as well, but it didn’t matter. In the distance, mammoth ships and cranes rose up through the mist, and the white and yellow work lights lit up the shipyard like a small city.

Part of Jimmy couldn’t help but wonder why he ever left. He could be a work leader or supervisor by now. It would have been easier to find his hard hat in the dark this morning if it had some white on it. The white ones probably have more padding too, he thought as he rotated the dial on the back of his green hat to loosen its grip on his newly shaved head. Knowing he was about to have gloves on for most of the morning, he stopped for a moment, removed the hat, and rubbed his hand back and forth over his head several times, still not used to the feeling.

He didn’t miss the hair. It was just something else he’d let go of when he decided to come home. The only downside was he was more likely to be recognized now, as he’d always worn his hair short before he left. Not that he’d had that many friends, but still, he didn’t feel like explaining himself, about where he’d been and how things had gone wrong.

A diesel engine cranking nearby startled him. He put his hard hat back on, tightened the knob in the back and looked up. The engine belonged to a crane, already at work loading materials onto a ship. It was one of many cranes that looked to be new. Around the corner, the old supply building was gone, replaced, like so many structures along the Coast, by trailers.

Jimmy flashed his badge and collected his supplies from the trailer window, then turned to figure out which way to go. What had begun as a shadowy mass shuffling in from the parking lot had slowly organized itself into lines, each heading to one of seven vessels under construction. Jimmy joined in, stifling another yawn as he approached the elevator that would take him up the side of the ship he’d been assigned to. He was one of the last ones on, and just as he wedged himself inside, the door shut and, after a jerk, the metal cage began to climb. At each deck two or three men exited in silence until the last stop where Jimmy was met by a man in a white hat with a clipboard.

You one of my new guys? he asked.

I’m supposed to report to Alvarez, Jimmy said.

"And your name is . . . Jimmy O’Connor, he said, his voice rising as he read Jimmy’s badge, suggesting familiarity. Jimmy certainly didn’t recognize him. The man was twice his age at least, and when his new foreman looked down to write something, a grin started to form. When it did, Jimmy watched how a scar that started at his jawline connected with the corner of his mouth. Well isn’t that some shit," the man said and tapped the clipboard with his pen.

Like the shit-eating grin you’re wearing right now? Jimmy wanted to say. So what are we working on? he asked instead, hoping the moment would pass. 

The white hat didn’t answer. He just pulled the clipboard up beside his face. Burns! he barked, yelling over the sound of a grinder. Jimmy turned to see the man whose attention he’d captured. Alvarez nodded his way and pointed towards a hallway, then down with one finger. The man confirmed with a nod.

Alvarez faced Jimmy again. That’s your half-hat. He’ll show you which hole you’re working in for the next few weeks. As soon as he spoke, he barked out another name and nudged Jimmy out of the way with his clipboard.

Few weeks? Jimmy thought as he headed across the room towards the man called Burns, who was still giving someone else instructions. He stopped for a moment to wipe off his glasses. The heat was already intensifying as men fired up torches, grinders, and welders. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Alvarez was watching him. As soon as they made eye contact, Alvarez pointed to his own safety glasses.

Yeah, I know, Jimmy whispered. He finished wiping off the lenses and tucked the plastic arms between his ears and the hard hat. Alvarez never took his eyes off him.

Morning, Jimmy, he heard someone say and turned to see that Burns had approached him. I hear you worked out here before.

Yes sir, Jimmy said, and no sooner had he answered than Burns removed his own safety glasses to clean them. Jimmy couldn’t help but grin as he glanced toward his foreman, who was still looking their way. Jimmy’s grin faded, though, when his boss only stared, then wrote something on his clipboard.

Heard you flew through the training too.

Jimmy turned back around. He couldn't read Burns’s eyes, but he seemed to Jimmy like a nice enough guy. Yes sir, I did. But, I don’t guess that’s going to keep me from being down in a hole for a while, he said, smiling enough to make sure his boss knew he didn’t mind the work.

Nope. It’s not, he said and started down a hallway.

As they rounded the corner, Jimmy’s eyes fell on the back of a coworker. There was something familiar about him—perhaps the way his broad shoulders hunched awkwardly over as he prepared to work. The guy shifted his heavy stance to pull out his tape measure and some chalk, which revealed his profile, though it was still somewhat shielded by his welding mask. Jimmy watched him study his tape measure for longer than he should have had to and knew exactly who it was. The pale, round face, lined with what was supposed to be a chinstrap beard, but was patchy at best and didn’t quite connect. More than that, it was the tattoo that snaked up out of his collar towards his ear. Jimmy could only see half his face, but he knew there was a matching one on the other side.  

Consuelo’s on our crew? Jimmy asked, catching up to Burns. He couldn’t remember his real name, only his nickname. They’d trained together just before starting on the job.

Sorry, what?

Jimmy nodded towards the guy with the tattoo. Is he on our crew?

Yeah he is. Why?

No reason, just when we were training . . . Jimmy started to say, then trailed off when he saw the look on Burns’s face.

That’s your foreman’s nephew, he said, glancing toward the hallway they’d just come through. You two don’t have any issues, do you?

Even though he’d worked at the shipyard before, Jimmy had to spend the previous week going through a program to recertify. It was mostly field work using a torch and a welding machine, plus a written test at the end. During the field work, they were given tasks and an instructor walked around checking everyone’s progress and skill level. For Jimmy, it was all a formality, but he kept his head down and mouth shut most of the time. Consuelo, on the other hand, did not. He was arrogant and loud, and Jimmy had done his best to stay away from him after the first day.

During the written test, though, they were all left in a classroom together with little to no supervision. Sure enough, not only did Consuelo end up sitting next to Jimmy, but he was clearly struggling and kept looking over at his test. Jimmy figured any guy who couldn’t do this kind of math probably shouldn’t be working at the shipyard, and he’d shifted in his seat to block his paper.

Jimmy hadn’t thought much of it in that moment, but Consuelo clearly did. He ran his mouth as they left the classroom, and once they got outside he’d had some choice words for Jimmy. Jimmy couldn’t even remember what he’d replied, but it drew laughter from the other trainees and threats from Consuelo.

So he was the foreman’s nephew, and now they were working together. Perfect, Jimmy said under his breath.

Excuse me? Burns said, pulling open the hatch in the floor.

Some ventilation would be perfect, he said as he stepped onto the first rung of the ladder leading him down into the dimly lit room.

Somebody will be by here soon, Jimmy heard Burns say as he walked away.

Doubtful, Jimmy thought as he stepped off the ladder’s bottom rung. He shook his head as he looked around. This morning, as he walked into the yard, all he had hoped for was anonymity and a decent crew. Instead, the moment he’d gotten on the job site, his foreman seemed to somehow know who he was, and the coworker who’d struggled just to get out of training had landed a much better assignment. 

Just as Jimmy was about to flip down the lid of his welding mask, he heard a voice calling down from above. He looked up, hoping it was someone delivering the ventilation tube he’d requested. It wasn’t.

You should have helped me out, bro, Consuelo said.

I’m sorry, what? You still need help reading that tape measure?

All he saw before the hatch slammed down was a middle finger. Jimmy’s eyes shut instinctively from the echo, and when he opened them he was standing in a pitch black room.

Guess I should have asked for ear plugs too, he said to no one. He began feeling around for his flashlight. He found it, but he didn’t need to survey the room to realize it was going to be a long few weeks.

During a normal shift he would have taken breaks for fresh air, but after the first few hours, he decided it best to just work through the day. It was Thursday already, so a short work week for him and a three-day holiday weekend ahead. That thought buoyed him a bit, though he didn’t exactly know what he would do with the extra time he was about to have.

When the ventilation tube he’d requested finally arrived, he pulled off his sweaty hard hat and sat down for a breather. The amber light from his work lamp mixed with the green paint of the compartment walls didn’t allow him to see a whole lot besides the small area where he was working, and he laughed. It was a stark contrast to the last project he’d been assigned to out here, when he’d been able to weld the drive shaft of the ship. That project allowed him to be outside during his entire shift each day, overlooking the Sound. But that was also when he’d been recommended for the job by his stepfather instead of walking in on his own. That realization gave him an idea. 

Well, at least that wouldn’t be awkward, Jimmy said, returning to work. He and his stepfather hadn’t talked in a while, but having a conversation with Eddie couldn’t be worse than working under these conditions. And right now, Eddie was his only connection out here. Once upon a time, Jimmy had had plenty of connections in the shipyard. His grandfather was one of the higher-ups in his day. Jimmy’s own father had worked here too, and before Jimmy had left town, he had been on a good crew. Now it seemed that none of that might ever matter.

He stopped for a moment, pulled up his shield, and admired the weld he’d just laid down. It hadn’t been easy. There had been a huge gap between the two pieces of metal he’d been joining, but now they were connected as one, and the bond was smooth. It took experience to do that kind of weld. He looked at the next area he’d be working on and thought, this hole is so dark, who was even going to appreciate what he was doing?

Eddie knew this place and its dynamics. Maybe he could help. His stepfather, well, former stepfather, whatever Eddie and his mom were at this point, didn’t work at the yard anymore. He’d moved to the refinery across town after the storm, but Jimmy figured he might still have some pull here. That thought lifted him much more than the thought of time off had earlier, and before he knew it, the whistle blew.

When Jimmy climbed the ladder out of the compartment that afternoon, he was surprised to see he was one of the last men to leave. That morning he’d been crammed into the metal elevator, each shoulder jostling against another man’s as the cage jarred its way up the side of the ship. Now, on his way down, there were only three of them. No one had said a word on the way up in the darkness of the morning, but now the other men couldn’t stop talking, debating on whether to fish up river or head south to the islands this weekend. 

Just as the cage door opened, he noticed Alvarez and his nephew, along with Burns, all standing near the supply trailer talking. He avoided eye contact but could feel their stares as he walked past. He picked up his pace to catch up with the throng heading for the parking lot.

Jimmy finally reached his truck and after tossing his hardhat in the back, cranked the engine and sped towards the exit. Despite being exhausted from the day, once he finally reached the highway, he decided to take a ride down to one of his old favorite spots. He took a right at the first stoplight he got to, rolled his window down and headed toward the beachfront, glad to see that most of the oak trees had survived. They formed a canopy over the road that connected the highway to the beach, and the shade felt good. The tube that finally got delivered to his hatch earlier hadn’t done much. This was the ventilation he needed.

He cruised slowly towards the Sound, turned right onto the beach road, then turned off the radio to hear the waves lap against the seawall. The salty breeze and the particular smell of the water was all too familiar. But as he approached the boat launch, he was startled to see the house that once stood on a massive hill by the entrance was gone, with only the remnants of a slab and patchy, uncut grass left behind. All over town, familiar buildings had either been replaced with brand new versions or were just gone, leaving sometimes startling gaps in the landscape he’d grown up with. The once all-gravel parking lot of the launch, he saw as he pulled in, was now paved with actual marked parking spaces. Jimmy wondered whether that upgrade would bring order to the chaos that usually unfolded here on the weekends.

Probably not much, he said, smiling as he remembered some of the things he’d seen over the years. El Caminos trying to pull out large cabin cruisers—one driver in the car and everyone else jumping up and down on the bumper to try and give the ill-equipped vehicle enough traction to pull the boat out. Two-wheel-drive trucks straining to pull weight far beyond their towing capacity, their tires screeching and filling the launch with smoke. He’d even seen one driver accidentally go into reverse, backing his boat, trailer, and truck all the way into the Sound. Then there were the drunken screaming matches when no one was sure whose turn it was to back their trailer down. Fights. Fried chicken. Coast Guard. Cops.

But not today. Today the launch was unusually quiet, its parking lot nearly as empty as the shipyard on the opposite bank of the river. Jimmy rode by the docks, but then came to a stop as far south as he could so that the shipyard was just over his right shoulder, out of view. All he could see now was the water that eventually became the Gulf of Mexico, and a thin shadow at the edge of the horizon that he knew to be Horn Island.

As dark and damp as the morning had been, the afternoon was its opposite. A breeze had kicked up out of the southeast, and the sun made a golden path on the gray-blue water in front of him. It was the kind of afternoon that had inspired Jimmy years before to set off, first to escape to the islands on the horizon, then to sail beyond them all the way to Mexico, and finally on to Belize. It was part of a story that Jimmy had hoped not to have to retell. He’d tried rehearsing an abbreviated version, but it never quite made sense, even in his own mind.   

How he’d decided to drop out and sail away without really knowing what he’d do once he got there. How he’d had a dream of becoming a photographer, only to find out with the swiftness of a summer squall how little he knew. You get caught in a bad storm and next thing you know you’ve lost your engine, your mast is snapped in half, and you’re stranded, alone on the ocean. And even once you’re rescued, the people who thought your pictures showed promise are gone and no one around knows or cares who you are.

A tugboat’s horn startled him out of his daydream. It was returning home, just like Jimmy had, with an empty load. He took one last look out at the island, then cranked his truck and put it in reverse, heading back home along the beachfront.

.

2

Jimmy felt it coming. He rushed to put his welding rod down safely, removed his gloves, flipped up his mask, and put the rag to his face just in time. Even in the darkness, a hanging yellow work lamp his only light, he could see the black and green mix of smoke, ash, and ground up paint that had come from his nose. He inspected the rag for a second, then put it back in his pocket. It wasn’t lunch time yet, but he needed some fresh air. Most guys took smoke breaks, but Jimmy didn’t smoke, and he knew the looks he’d get if he just stood around. The trick was to look like you were doing something. He counted his welding rods and figured he could always make a run to the supply trailer.

Jimmy climbed the ladder and took a left towards the starboard side of the ship because it faced the water. At first his eyes barely had to adjust since the narrow hallway was lit with the same dim lights he had down in the hole, only there were more of them. Compartments on either side of him thundered, then screamed and hissed with activity, depending on whether the men inside were hammering, grinding, or welding the steel around them. Finally his eyes were forced into a welcomed squint as the sun and the salty breeze of the main deck washed over him.

Soon this area would fill with the lunch crowd, but right now it was empty except for one worker sitting on a plastic crate across the way, smoking of course. His cigarette exempted him from any boss’s stare. Jimmy scanned a stack of crates, seeking anything to take back with him, when he spotted what looked like a job that was only halfway done. Whoever was working here hadn’t even bothered to break his welding rod loose after he’d gotten it stuck. Jimmy bent down to inspect the weld and looked around, wondering whose work it was.

Aren’t you supposed to be down in a hole? 

Jimmy stood up. Consuelo had just come around a corner, and he was close enough now that Jimmy could see his real name. Aren’t you supposed to know how to weld, Charlie?

You do your job, I’ll do mine, he said and brushed past Jimmy. Unlike his uncle, who had a square jaw, was still fit, and looked like he could have been a marine in his day, Charlie was soft and round. But apparently made up for what he lacked in physique with an attitude.

I’ll do mine, but you aren’t ready for yours, Jimmy said as he stepped away. He had nothing to gain from a confrontation, but this was just a fact. Maybe, as he’d suspected the day before, Burns had given Charlie this assignment because he was the foreman’s nephew, but this wasn’t a job for a new hire. The door he was working on was two and a half inches thick and eight feet long, pure steel. To get it off the deck and up to the compartment where it would eventually be attached, there had to be a way to hoist it, so someone had to weld two temporary pad eyes on it to give the crane something to hook into. It wasn’t a hard job necessarily, but if it wasn’t done right and the door fell, someone