image via wikipedia

This story should have been written 22 years ago when I was employed as a reporter for the Lake Wales (Fla) News.  It was not because I was saving it for myself since I believed I had stumbled upon a phenomenal circumstance that could result in my personal gain through perhaps a documentary or a major magazine article far more financially rewarding for me than my newspaper salary.  It began in this manner:

On December 6, 1987 two armed men held up the First Union Bank in downtown Lake Wales, shooting and wounding the bank’s security guard and fleeing south on Scenic Highway toward Frostproof with thousands of the bank’s dollars.  A massive manhunt was launched on foot, horseback and four-wheelers which included myself, partly because I was a Special Deputy and mostly because I was a newshound anxious to be in on any capture.  Men, boys and a few women trudged through oak hammocks, piney woods, cypress heads, swamps groves and pastures fighting mosquitos, rattlesnakes and alligators for three days before the sheriff at that time declared that the pair had eluded capture and had fled the area.  I was hot, stinky, scratched and insect-bitten and did not have a story.  My editor was pissed because I had missed two important city meetings that he had to cover in my absence.  The next day was Sunday.  The posse could give up.  I would not.

I borrowed a friend’s four-wheeler and struck out on my own armed with a pitiful .22 caliber sidearm.  I didn’t intend to corral anyone–just confirm the suspects were still in the vicinity.  The pistol was for rattlesnake defense.  I launched the ATV on a grove road near Lake Reedy north of Frostproof and headed south past a grove where pickers were busy gathering the first of this year’s harvest.  When I came to the north line of the Langley Ranch I noted it was all palmetto and cypress…still fenced but obviously not pastured for many years.  I parked the ATV, scaled the fence and went on foot toward the east knowing full well I was trespassing.

Langley cowboys had a reputation back in the early ’70s of scalping hippies who wandered on to their pastures in search of those hallucinogenic mushrooms that sprouted up through the cow pies  that dotted the vast pastureland.  I was glad this part of the ranch was no longer in use.  Soon, I reached the line fence, climbed it and faced a small lake not of my acquaintance and not marked on my map.  How strange.  It took me about 20 minutes to skirt the lake and when I did I came to a clearing and I could not believe what I was seeing.  I was taken back to the 16th century right before my eyes.
     
    image via wikipedia

It was like a picture page out of a history book except people were moving.  An encampment…a big one…with people…lots of them…over 600 as it turned out.  I had found a lost colony of native Americans dating back to days of the Calusa and Tegesta tribes that the shipwrecked Spaniard Escanlante Fontanedo described as “having no gold, no silver and even less clothing.”  It was true.  What I saw were men covering themselves with what appeared to be turkey or sandhill crane skins and women wearing skirts made of Spanish moss and a few palm leaves.

I was on to the story of a lifetime…mesmerized and almost too petrified to move.  I finally took a step forward.  So did a few small children but an older man uttered a harsh word and the young ones halted.  So did I.  Then a middle-aged man came toward me and spoke in a sort of understandable English.  “My name Jacob.  The elder wants know your purpose.  You no safe here.”

(To be continued)