The next right took me around a steep bend in the road, a section of the Old US-90, unchanged for 90 years, and right up to Henry and Pearl Noegel’s store. It stood silent, deserted, but permanent and clean, its roof line like a castle’s. Between the store and the river is the residence/office for Camp Suwannee, a “campground for vacationists and travelers,” also operated by the Noegels. Near the front door, under the shade of overgrowth, was the only other living creature in sight, a cat stretched out, taking no notice of me.
I walked from one end of the Hillman Bridge to the other, through its truss spans, the last ones on the Old Spanish Trail, and the only ones in Florida. I watched a freight train, CSX, three engines, cross the river on the trestle just up the river, pursued a butterfly the color of the rust of the bridge’s iron, and dropped a pine cone in the river to judge the distance to the surface and the speed of the current. I read dates and depths of the most memorable times the Suwannee rose and rose. The highest one was 1948, two years after the post office there closed. That one flooded everything.
After nearly 20 minutes, a quick walk from one end of the bridge to the other and back, I had not seen another person and not heard enough traffic through the trees of nearby US-90 to be distracted.
As I drove away, slowly, I imagined I had just pulled out, having had the tank filled and the water and oil checked while I grabbed a burger and a beer, I accelerated, leaving the Suwannee River, its bridge and its store to sit as quietly as I had found it.
