The Weirdo

The truck bothered her, because she didn't remember any truck that day. Yet she'd seen it again in the nightmare she'd just had. Vague, like it was in light fog.

  When she was nine, ten, eleven, she'd always run into her parents' bedroom after spiraling away from Mr. Howell. She'd even been tempted to do that when she was twelve.

  Now she was too old to go into Dell's arms. Growing up had its penalties.

  She turned the bedside light on.

  ***

  TOM TELFORD had been away from the swamp for a week, and now Chip was positive something had happened to him. He'd waited for Tom to call him. When he didn't hear anything, Chip had called the university office in Raleigh, had called Tom's girlfriend, Sara. She'd checked with his parents in Statesville. She'd also checked with the highway patrol. They had no reports of his truck being stolen or involved in an accident. Everyone was worried.

  In late afternoon, the sound of Dunnegan's boat strumming up the Feeder Ditch caused the dogs to bark. Chip was in his room plotting the morning's signals, and went down to the dam to see who was paying a visit.

  Two men got out of the boat. One of them, who said his name was Truesdale of the county sheriff's department, asked if Mr. Clewt was home. Truesdale opened his wallet and displayed his badge, introducing the other investigator as Deputy Marvin.

  Chip said, "No, he's in New York. He'll be back in two days."

  "You're his son? Chip? Dunnegan said you might be up here. We're trying to locate a man named Thomas Telford. Dunnegan said you work for him."

  Chip nodded.

  "We'd like to ask you some questions."

  "Sure," Chip said.

  Truesdale had sad eyes, a big nose, and a wart over his left eyebrow. He was an older man, Chip saw, and had a tired face.

  "When was the last time you saw him?"

  "A week ago yesterday. He was supposed to check in once a week, and he hasn't called me."

  "Where did you last see him?"

  "Back here in the swamp. Actually, over on Trail Eight, west of the lake."

  "Was anything wrong with him? Was he sick or anything?" Truesdale asked.

  "He seemed all right to me."

  "What were you doing on Trail Eight?"

  "Tracking bears."

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  "We were listening to signals from their radio-collars. We're doing a study."

  "What time of day was it?" Truesdale asked.

  "About now. About four-thirty. That's when we quit in the fall and winter. In spring and summer, we work until six."

  "You back in there on foot?"

  "He had his four-wheel drive."

  "You drive out together?"

  Chip shook his head. "When we work on that side of the lake, I always take our boat across and meet him on the trails. If we're on this side, I walk to meet him."

  "Did he say anything to you when he left?"

  "Said he was going back to Raleigh the next morning and would see me again in January. I've been wondering why he hasn't called. I have a lot of data for him."

  Marvin said pointedly, "He hasn't called anyone."

  Truesdale asked, "During the day, did he say he had problems of any kind? Did he act like he was worried?"

  "Not that I remember."

  "We checked again with highway patrol, and they've still got no reports. We searched his trailer yesterday. No signs of a problem, no notes."

  "How about Sara, his girlfriend?" Chip asked.

  "She called me again late yesterday. He hasn't called her or shown up in Raleigh or anywhere else, that we know of. I talked to his parents. Nothing there. Same with the university. He's just vanished. Temporarily, anyway."

  Chip said, "I can't see him doing that." What had been anxiety in the past few days was now growing into fear.

  "No one else can, either," said Truesdale. "But you never know. Maybe he found another girlfriend and they've gone to Vegas. I've been in this business long enough not to second-guess what my unpredictable fellowman might do. I just take things as they come."

  "How long have you known him?" Marvin asked.

  "A year and a half."

  "Did he ever just disappear, go off somewhere without telling anyone, during that time?"

  Chip shook his head. "No."

  "Did he drink a lot?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Puff weed, snort coke?" Marvin asked.

  "I don't think so."

  "You ever see him argue with anyone?"

  "No. We don't see many people in the swamp. A geologist or two, refuge people. We surprised a poacher once. He ran..."

  "A poacher?"

  Chip nodded. "He ran about thirty or forty yards, then turned and fired once...."

  Truesdale interrupted with a frown, "Was he shooting at you?"

  "Over our heads. Telford thought the gun was fired up into the air so we wouldn't follow him."

  "How did he look?"

  "A big, burly man wearing a red-and-black mackinaw."

  "You ever see him before?" Marvin asked.

  Chip shook his head.

  "If you saw a picture of him, would you recognize him?"

  "I was behind Telford and didn't see him until he ran."

  "What was he poaching?"

  "He had just killed a bear."

  "Telford report the incident to the wardens?" Truesdale asked.

  "Yes."

  Truesdale said, "Okay, Chip, think real hard. Aside from the poacher incident, have you any idea at all why Telford might be missing?"

  Chip slowly shook his head. "No, sir."

  "Aside from Dunnegan, you, and your father, did he have any friends in this area?"

  "I don't think so. Now and then he'd talk to a farmer or someone like that about the bears. Usually they'd ask him, the farmers who live along the edge of the swamp. But he wasn't friends with any of them, to my knowledge."

  "Anyone else you know about?"

  "His girlfriend stayed with him last summer for about two months, and again this summer."

  "What'd you think of her?"

  "Very nice. I thought she was very nice."

  "You never heard them argue?"

  "No."

  "Well, if you do think of anything, give us a call. Unless he shows up or calls someone by the weekend, we'll be putting him on the national police wire as missing. We've already told the paper."

  He handed Chip his card.

  Marvin said, "You're here by yourself?"

  Chip nodded. "I've got the two dogs you heard. Not many people come around."

  Truesdale laughed. "I don't blame them. I've lived around here fifty years and have never had any interest in the Powhatan."

  Chip said, "It's really very beautiful."

  Marvin said, "Depends on what you call beautiful."

  A moment later the boat pounded down the ditch, raising birds, as usual.

  ***

  CHIP stood out by the spillway a few minutes, then walked slowly back up to the house and a moment later was on the phone to Sam Sanders.

  "You told me about hearing shots, then seeing someone carrying something while you were in the stump."

  "I did see him."

  "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

  "Everybody asks me that. Everybody I've told it to asks me that." Binkie and Darlene, her papa. "No, I wasn't dreaming, I saw him. Why?"

  "That guy I worked for, Tom Telford, the one from NC State doing the bear study, is missing. No one has heard from him for more than a week. I think I'm the last person who saw him...."

  "When?"

  "The afternoon before I found you on our roof. I'm really worried about him."

  "Have you asked the police?"

  "An investigator named Truesdale and another one named Marvin just left here."

  "I know Truesdale."

  "Everybody knows everybody else around here." He knew he sounded exasperated.

  "Maybe you should tell him what I heard and saw. Tell him I'm Bosun S
anders's daughter."

  "How are your feet?"

  "Still on my ankles. Let me know what's happening."

  "I will," he said and hung up. He sat there a few minutes, wondering if she really had seen a man in the swamp.

  Tom Telford was on Chip's mind almost every waking hour. He could hear his voice, see his ready smile.

  Where was he?

  ***

  I came around some pocosin shrubs, on foot, on Trail Seven, and suddenly, not twenty feet away, was an un-collared bear, a big one, sharpening his claws on a loblolly. Standing erect, his back to me, he was raking diagonally through the bark, one paw downward to the right, the other downward to the left, making a diamond figure.

  I did what I thought Tom would have done. I froze. More startled than frightened, I wondered what he'd do when he discovered I was there. In my shirt pocket was a spray vial of capsaicin, like tear gas or Mace, but I decided not to even reach for it. Just to make myself a statue and hope he wouldn't attack.

  He finished his sharpening, and then I saw his head lift slightly. He swung it in my direction, his nostrils working. The light morning breeze had carried my scent. Bears are nearsighted, but he knew I was human. Danger.

  Watching me carefully, he dropped to all fours and turned, going back into the thicket with great dignity.

  I think Tom would have been proud of me.

  Powhatan Swamp

  English I

  Charles Clewt

  Ohio State University

  ***

  WAITING at the gate in Norfolk International for his father to arrive from New York, Chip remembered again that flight he'd taken from this same airport in 1979. He'd always have to deal with it. That stormy night had even been relived briefly, painfully, when he'd landed at Norfolk a year and a half ago. He'd thought about taking a bus or Amtrak then, but the Columbus psychiatrist had said, "No, Chip, you have to confront it." Easy for the brain-pickers to say.

  On the drive up from Dunnegan's, Chip felt he was slowly conquering another fear—that his father would slide back into the mess he'd been before Dunnegan took him in hand.

  Only from Dunnegan had Chip learned just how low his father had sunk in the years after the crash, haunting bars all over Norfolk, seldom drawing a sober breath. Arrested a half-dozen times for drunken brawls, driver's license revoked, in and out of detox centers, finally begging on East Main Street and near the Waterside complex for wine money.

  "I ran into him and didn't recognize him at first," said Dunnegan. "Then I thought, There but for AA is me, and took him home."

  "Is my father a weak man?" he'd asked Dunnegan.

  "I don't think so. There are all kinds of weaknesses. Booze happens to be his. Any marine in Bravo Company who lived through Hill 174 is hardly weak. Get him to tell you about the mortar attack on us, if he will. Blood, metal, noise. Fright. A lot of fright. No, I don't think he's weak."

  And now here he was, walking toward Chip after four days in the Big Apple, in his white turtleneck, custom jeans jacket, and white cotton Dockers, shining Italian boots on his feet.

  There wasn't the slightest indication he'd had more than soft drinks and coffee. He said, smiling and shaking his head, "Twenty-minute takeoff delay and then a headwind. How are you?"

  The longish, slate gray hair, styled by a lady in Lizzie City, and the full beard to match made him look distinguished, uptown, not of the swamp—his New York-visit look.

  "Still no word on Tom," Chip said. "I'm really worried."

  "I'm sure the law people are doing everything they can to find him."

  "They haven't really started. They're still waiting for him to show up somewhere. I called Truesdale, and he said that missing persons are usually a low priority unless there's some proof of foul play. I rode the trails for three hours yesterday looking for Tom's truck."

  "You think he's still in the swamp?"

  "I don't know what to think. I'm worried sick."

  They began walking toward the baggage carousels.

  Chip asked, "Everything all right in New York?"

  "Couldn't have been better. I have three checks for twelve thousand each and another coming for eighteen. They sold most of what they had. We won't starve. What's new with you?"

  "I think I found a girl."

  "Found a girl?"

  "Met one."

  "That's great, Chip. Where?"

  "Up on the roof."

  John Clewt laughed. "I want to know everything." He was working very hard to try to bridge the gap that still existed between them.

  Chip went into detail about the dogs chasing Sam, and Sam's blistered feet.

  "How old is she?"

  "Sixteen. She's a junior at Albemarle High."

  The bags began to slide out of the chute and circle around.

  "She pretty?"

  Chip hesitated. "After the night in the swamp, her hair was messed up and she had char on her face and hands. But she cleaned herself up as best she could. She's got freckles...."

  "You sound interested."

  "I think I am."

  The bag finally rotated around. Clewt lifted it off, and they headed for the parking lot.

  "The Conservancy is going to announce the campaign a week from Sunday, as I told you. The Pilot called, wanted my picture. So I drove in Wednesday. A reporter is coming down one day next week to do a feature story on us...."

  "Us?"

  "You painting and me working with the bears."

  "Hmh. They know about Telford?"

  Chip nodded. "It was in the paper yesterday, along with his picture, one of those anyone-knowing-the-whereabouts stories."

  "That may help," said Clewt.

  Chip nodded again. "Truesdale called me yesterday to say the last message on Tom's recording machine in the trailer was from Raleigh. They said to scratch 20-88 off the list. The highway patrol said he'd been killed by a tanker truck on One Fifty-nine. That was Alfred. Tom had warned me about road accidents."

  "More bad news."

  "That's four we've lost so far. The farmer shot one, the poacher shot one, the one we lost, and now a truck."

  "Maybe all the rest will survive."

  "I hope so."

  Soon Chip was guiding the Volvo along 64, past Glenrock and along the outskirts of Virginia Beach, then along the south edge of Chesapeake City, bearing steadily southwest toward the Powhatan.

  "She hates living on a farm...."

  "Who?"

  "Samantha Sanders..."

  "Oh, okay. Why?"

  "I don't know. We didn't go into it that much."

  "I thought most people liked living on farms nowadays."

  "Maybe not young ones. And she doesn't think too much of the swamp."

  "Not many people do."

  "Why don't they see what we see?"

  "Not that many get deep enough in—or stay long enough. It's not a matter of eyesight. I didn't understand it, either, until I started living in it."

  The miles swept by, John Clewt falling into another one of his silences.

  Finally, Chip said, "You know, I'd never held a girl until I got her down off the roof." Anything to get his father to talk.

  Clewt glanced over.

  "It felt good, Dad. I could have walked around with her in my arms all afternoon."

  Clewt remained silent.

  "You asked me a little while ago if she was pretty. All I have to do is look into a mirror to know I'm not a judge of that. She may not be beautiful, but she looked and felt that way to me."

  "I'm glad," Clewt murmured. "And I hope you'll be good friends." Silence again.

  The Volvo carried them to Dunnegan's in less than an hour.

  ***

  THE BUS having dropped her at the Chapanoke intersection minutes before, Sam was about halfway up the road toward home, moving slowly along, when her father pulled up behind her and stopped the pickup. "Hop in, little daughter," he said.

  She knew he didn't mean it the way it sounded. That stage was
long past. "Hi, Papa."

  "How'd it go today?"

  "Okay."

  "Feet holdin' up?"

  "Uh-huh." She was wearing the soft, sponge-lined hiking boots.

  He glanced over. "I jus' come from the warden's. Took out a permit to kill that greedy bruin."

  "He might not come back." How could she escape the subject?

  "If he has a lick of sense, he won't. I finished that trap this mornin' an' tested it. I'll show you. It broke a two-by-four clean as a whistle...."

  "When will you put it out?"

  "Next week sometime. Just as soon as the game warden comes by to look at the tree damage."

  He steered the truck into the yard and slid out in one effortless motion. Sam, carrying her books, took longer.

  He was standing by the truck bed when she passed. "Look at this, Sam."

  The gleaming steel band had jagged teeth; the spring was at least a half-inch in diameter. A heavy chain with a ring-eye was attached. The trap had an icy brutality about it.

  "It looks mean enough," she said quietly.

  "That it is," said the bo'sun.

  She shivered, picturing the jaws snapping shut on Henry.

  ***

  SATURDAY morning, another of those cloudy coastal October days, a perfect gray day for swap meets and football games and hunting in the fields and ponds. Duck fever had infected the region.

  Sam called the Clewts at eight-thirty.

  When Chip answered, she said, "Hi. I wondered if you'd be home today?"

  "Yeah." He sounded as if he hadn't expected the call. "Yeah...."

  "I'd like to bring your slippers back."

  "Can you walk?"

  "Sure. I'm still a little tender, but I can walk okay. I went back to school Thursday. Mama drove me there, but I took the bus home."

  "Give me a time, and I'll meet you at Dunnegan's."

  "How about ten-thirty?"

  "I'll be there." He sounded pleased.

  "Anything new on Tom Telford?"

  "Nothing. I think they'll put him on the national police wire today."

  "What's that?"

  "A bulletin that goes to all the police stations everywhere. I keep hoping...."

  ***

  BO'SUN Sanders had loaded Rick, the yapping Lab, into his pickup well before dawn to go to the duck blinds on the Chowan, and Delilah Sanders had loaded her Bronco with ribbon-tied jars of jams and jellies to sell at the weekend swap meet in Lizzie City. Pin money for her. She'd be back at one-thirty, time enough for Samantha to get to Dairy Queen.