“Mama says that Indians, too, would suffer ‘Jim Crow’ laws if we hadn’t wiped most of them out with bullets and diseases. In south Florida today, there are few left, but Papa says they have started to come in to trade at Everglade with dugouts full of deer hides, plumes, and pelts. The women like calico in yellow, red, and black—coral snake colors, says Lucius, who knows everything there is to know about Indians and the natural world of the Glades country. Probably the coral snake has sacred meaning, our little boy explains, until Eddie scoffs at this opinions, reminding him that he is only nine.”

—Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country, 2008.