of money, donate a kidney, or give up their firstborn child to get a spot on that stretch of cold, clear water when the caddis hatch was on.
“An amazing piece of water, but you are in the salt world now. Let me show you around.”
The Island of the Lost Boys was my favorite part of Peter Pan, and now as Bucky showed me his camp, I was seeing life imitate art. From the beach, we took a path through a small patch of dunes speckled with sea oats. This led past a cave that had been carved out of the rocky shore by the sea.
The camp itself sat on a tiny peninsula and consisted of a group of small thatched cottages all painted in bright Caribbean colors. The smell of fresh paint and turpentine hung in the afternoon air, and sawhorses and stacks of lumber were piled near an unfinished cottage with a red thatched roof. A main clubhouse with a large screen porch had been built at the far end of the enclave facing the water. In the middle of the camp stood a colossal banyan tree with giant, thick limbs that sagged just a few feet from the ground, from which hung a cluster of rope hammocks. The tree was covered with vines, climbing nets, rope ladders, and a set of wooden stairs that ascended to the top. Up in the high branches perched a sprawling driftwood tree house. At the base of the tree, a weathered bamboo fence encircled a patch of thick green grass.
Bucky pulled back the unhinged gate to the corral, and Mr. Twain strolled out of my grip and immediately began munching the grass.
“How did you find this place?” I asked.
“Kirk found it for me.”
“How did you guys meet?”
“That’s better discussed up there,” he said, pointing to the top of the tree. “You game?”
“I’m game.”
“Going up,” Bucky said as he grabbed a vine and swung over to a low limb where the ladder rungs began. Like Cheetah following Tarzan, I mimicked his movements.
As I measured the distance to the ground, I realized that I was already as high as a tall ship’s mast, and there was nearly the same distance left to the top of the tree. The huge orange sun hung motionless out over the water as if it were waiting for us to get to the top before it traveled beyond the horizon.
Bucky narrated as we climbed the wooden ladders and branches to the tree house. “It started out as just a lookout platform. Ix-Nay says that this tree has been used for centuries to scan the horizon for enemies and storms. We use it to check the wind conditions, watch the sunset, and point the telescope at the stars.”
“Who’s Ix-Nay?”
“He’s my head guide—and the only guide at the moment. He’s off island right now, but you’ll meet him soon enough.”
When we reached the deck of the tree house, I was puffing hard. The view from the top of the tree was incredible. I could see all the way to town. There was an enclosed area with a guardrail and a ship’s ladder that led up to another level. Bucky led the way up the last steps, and we popped through a hatch into a makeshift observatory where a big brass telescope rested under a viscuine cover.
“Have a look,” Bucky said.
I shut my right eye, put my left eye to the lens, and turned the big wheel at the base until the blurry circle transformed into sharp images of the world below. I could make out the birds on the channel markers and the waves crashing on the distant reef. Directly below us, I spotted Captain Kirk out on one of the flats, stalking a school of mullet with a cast net, silhouetted by the falling sun.
“He’ll be out there till dark,” Bucky said. “How about a boat drink?”
Bucky slipped behind a little bar area and produced a bottle of Haitian rum, limes, and ice. He punched a button on a cassette deck lashed to a tree branch, and a familiar melody filled the air. I sipped my drink and gorged on the view, listening to the perfect background music. Joni Mitchell sang of beach tar and the Mermaid Café.
“I love that song,” I said.
“You heard that a lot on the boat, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Joni is the reason Kirk and I met.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, this ex-girlfriend of mine from Denver took me to New Orleans to Jazz Fest. You ever been?”
“To New Orleans,