The Weirdo

  As Sam watched, he backed out, turned around, retraced his exact steps as if they'd been laid out and numbered. His face was drained and taut. He took a deep breath, then said, "Tom may soil be in the swamp."

  She followed him to the trail.

  "Let's go. back. I'll call Truesdale. This could be the proof of foul play that he wanted."

  As they trudged toward the Jeep, she could see that he was grief-stricken, fighting back tears.

  "I'm so sorry," she said. It wasn't the right time to tell him about Alvin Howell.

  Suddenly he stopped. "I've got to find out what happened to Tom. I have to find out. Do you understand? Do you?"

  Sam kept silence but nodded.

  "He changed my whole life. If you'd been up on the roof a year and a half ago, before Tom, I probably would have helped you down, but then I likely would have gone into the house and shut the door."

  "Why?"

  "So I wouldn't have to show you any more of my face or my hand. The time with Tom changed some of that—not all, but some. In a different way I love him more than I do my dad."

  He began walking again, and Sam fell in beside him, not knowing what to say.

  ***

  THE CALL to Dairy Queen came at about eight-thirty, and Sam took it in the back room.

  Chip said, "I talked to Truesdale. They'll ask the Norfolk city police to send a crime lab unit. I'll meet them and show them where the truck is. In the morning. They'll take fingerprints and footprints. I'm sure that was dried blood on the ground." His voice was low and flat.

  "Don't give up," she said.

  "I don't have a lot of choices. Let me ask you something. What was that guy you saw in the swamp wearing? A red-and-black mackinaw?"

  "It was too dark to see him that well. I just saw he was carrying something. But I think he had on a hat."

  "What land of a hat?"

  "One of those floppy cloth kinds, one like soldiers sometimes wear."

  "I'll tell Truesdale. Maybe he'll want to talk to you again."

  "Okay."

  BOOK 4

  Hunting season for bear and deer outside the Carolina refuges begins the first week in November, with archers having the first crack at big game with their compound bows and broadhead arrows. Had the animals a choice, I believe they would prefer death by gunfire. Arrowheads drive deep inside them, tearing through flesh and muscle, the shaft of the arrow dancing with each tortured step as the animal bolts away. Hopefully, the archer finds the animal quickly and ends its pain.

  The second group of hunters allowed to shoot bear outside the refuges are primarily after deer. They can begin pulling triggers the Monday after Thanksgiving. A week later, the monthlong season for hunters using dogs opens.

  The State Game Commissions wildlife management department talks about the death of bears in terms of harvest: X number of bears are "harvested." I'd always thought of harvest in terms of bountiful crops, goodness, and grace. The number harvested annually is about five hundred, not counting those poached. If the Powhatan were opened up, the number would be sure to rise to six hundred or more.

  Powhatan Swamp

  English I

  Charles Clewt

  Ohio State University

  ***

  "I THINK there might be a connection between Mr. Howell and Tom Telford," Sam said.

  "Alvin Howell?" Ed Truesdale sputtered, blinking. "Alvin Howell? You gotta be kiddin'. You know how long he's been dead?"

  Sam knew exactly. "Seven years."

  She was sitting with Chip in Truesdale's cubicle in the sheriff's department in County Hall. Law enforcement radio cross talk and voices from the main room bled into the tiny cluttered office.

  Truesdale laughed, scratched his head, lit up his cold cigar, and asked, "Why do you think that, Samantha?"

  "The swamp had something to do with Mr. Howell and has something to do with Tom Telford."

  "As I recall, you found Howell on the edge of the swamp in front of your house, and there wasn't anything to indicate he'd been shot in the Powhatan. I think I remember that much."

  Chip had suggested they go to Truesdale after she'd told him about Alvin Howell and the pickup she'd seen in her dreams.

  "But there wasn't anything to say he wasn't shot in the swamp."

  "I'd have to look back at the records. They're on microfiche for that long ago."

  "I still have dreams about Mr. Howell," Sam said.

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "Sometimes I see a truck in those dreams...."

  "And?"

  "I don't think I've ever told you."

  Truesdale laughed hollowly, confusion showing in his eyes. "Look, no unsolved murder is ever closed, but Alvin Howell's case is ancient history. We just don't have the resources to keep it active."

  "I don't see the truck in every dream. Just sometimes," Sam said, unwilling to let the subject go.

  Truesdale sighed. "What kind of truck do you see?"

  "A pickup."

  "Well, we probably have three thousand of those in Albemarle County. What model, what year, what color?"

  "I don't know. It's too vague."

  Truesdale sat back in his chair. "Samantha, I'm glad you dropped by, but I'm afraid I don't make a connection between Tom Telford and Alvin Howell and a pickup truck you see in a dream. Forgive me for that, but I don't make it."

  "I just feel it's there, Mr. Truesdale," Sam insisted.

  "Feel doesn't work very well in this business," the deputy said patiently. "Neither does coincidence."

  "I know it's there."

  "Are you a psychic of some sort?"

  "No, I, ah..."

  "I'm not a great believer in these psychic and ESP things." Truesdale sighed.

  "I also think that gambling and gamecocks have something to do with Howell's murder."

  "Samantha, I discarded that idea five years ago. We busted him a couple of times for cockfighting, but there was never a link between what he lost on roosters and the bullet he took."

  The deputy began shuffling papers on his desk.

  Chip sensed that Truesdale was becoming annoyed. "Sam, maybe we should go."

  Truesdale said quickly, "If either of you hears anything that'll help with Telford, call me. Don't hesitate."

  Chip said, "We will," and nudged Sam. Time to go. Now.

  He rose and began limping away. Sam followed.

  Behind them, Truesdale urged, "Don't give up."

  Chip looked back. "We won't."

  Outside, by the Volvo, Chip said, "It didn't hurt to talk to him. Keeps Tom's case alive."

  "I do see a truck now and then. I really do."

  "I believe you."

  Soon the Volvo was headed up Main, then to the highway and Chapanoke Road.

  "You never mentioned gambling or gamecocks before," Chip said, glancing over.

  "It's just a hunch."

  "Howell raised them? Bet on them?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "How'd you find that out?"

  "His widow told me, then Dunnegan confirmed it. I asked Dunnegan who else went to the fights, and he told me a man named Jack Slade."

  "I've met him. Lives in Skycoat. Smelly old man."

  Sam nodded. "I drove down there and parked in front of his bus once but didn't have the courage to go in."

  "I'll go with you."

  "Dunnegan said to stay out of it."

  "All Slade can do is tell us to take off...."

  After a mile of silence, Sam asked thoughtfully, "Do you think we'll know it's him? If it is him?"

  "Who? I'm confused."

  "The man I saw from the stump and the man you saw when you were behind Telford on Trail Six."

  "I think I'll know. He'll touch all my alarm buttons just by being there. I'll 'feel' him, despite what Truesdale said."

  "So will I," Sam said.

  ***

  CHIP and his father were in the front room of the spillway house. Chip said, "Truesdale asked her if she was a psychic
of some sort. He was nice enough about it but didn't take any stock in her dreams."

  "And he didn't think there was any connection between the other man ... Howell ... and Telford?"

  "Nope," Chip said, flatly.

  John Clewt turned away from his easel. Under the floodlights, he was making a great blue heron come to life. "I'm not sure you can blame him. Dreams are pretty iffy."

  "What are they?"

  "Who knows, exactly. I've read they're connected to rapid eye movement—visual images lasting a few seconds or longer. They're brought on by anything from aching muscles to traumatic happenings. Supposedly, they're necessary for good sleep."

  "I've certainly had some that didn't make me sleep well," Chip said. His plane-crash nightmares had been horrendous.

  "Me, too," John said. He was fine-lining feathers with a tiny brush. Then he asked, "Is Truesdale giving up?"

  "He told me not to, but he's got a lot of other things happening, I'm sure. How much time can you spend on someone who's missing?"

  "Has anyone thought about hypnotizing Samantha?"

  Chip was startled by the idea. "I doubt it."

  "Do you think she'd be willing?"

  "I don't know."

  "Medical science doesn't really understand it, but it does seem to work with some people. I've heard it's harmless."

  "I've seen it a couple of times on the tube—Your eyes are getting heavy, so very heavy.... Your arms are getting heavy.... You're becoming drowsier and drowsier.... You want to sleep...." He closed his eyes.

  "You can laugh about it, Chip, but it does work."

  "What could we learn?"

  "I don't know. Some detail she draws a blank on now. Her memory could be sharpened."

  "Who could do it?"

  "I'm sure the Norfolk police would know."

  ***

  CHIP had asked her to meet him at Dunnegan's. When she'd asked why, he'd said he wanted to show her a special bear.

  Her papa didn't buy the idea of tame bears, and the rogue that had bitten Grandpa Sanders certainly wasn't tame. Yet she wanted to watch Chip Clewt with them, watch this relationship he had. Or thought he did. Or maybe she just wanted to be with him.

  It was Saturday again, sun rising in a cloudless sky to melt sparkling frost-tips.

  Chip nodded, studying the far shore. "When we get closer I'll just idle in. Seventeen is about a mile back in there. I'll cut the engine, and we'll wait a while."

  "Seventeen?"

  "Seventeenth bear we snared last year."

  "Chip, my papa said to stay away from them."

  "The truth is they stay far away from us. We'll follow the prints and scat—that's dung—back to where it's feeding. I know exactly where it is."

  Sam was tempted to say, Let's just walk along the shore.

  Or, Let's go back to the house.

  Or, I should really get back to Dunnegan's.

  Skeptical, she wanted to turn back but couldn't bring herself to tell him.

  As he dropped the engine to an idle, Sam asked, a nervous edge in her voice, "Chip, what's the real purpose in this?"

  "I just wanted you to have the thrill of seeing one in the wild."

  "I'm scared, if you want to know the truth."

  "Don't be. Just stay close and do what I say."

  He cut the engine, and twenty feet later the bow of the boat shoved up onto the mushy shore. As the exhaust died out, the swamp sounds faded in.

  He whispered, "Just sit here quietly for a few minutes."

  He was facing her on the stern sheets, and she realized that as days went by the jolt of seeing what the fire had done to him was lessening. There was a one-armed girl in school, and no one except newcomers even noticed she was different.

  "I'm getting to know them, Samantha. Truly know them. Every day I learn something new about them. I'm keeping a notebook for college, writing down everything I see out here."

  "You really like them, don't you?"

  "They've become friends. You can laugh, but I'm even practicing the way they grunt and growl. I do a pretty good whuff...."

  She saw no reason to laugh. Whatever Chip Clewt did wouldn't be much of a surprise.

  Finally he said, "Let's go—quietly," dropping the binoculars' strap over his head. Around his waist was a canvas pouch. "Another thing, in case you're worried. I've got a can of pebbles and a bear-chaser in here."

  "Pebbles?"

  "You rattle them. The bear doesn't like the noise, and you move away."

  "What's a bear-chaser?"

  "Capsaicin. Telford left it with me."

  He opened the pouch and help up a vial that looked like a breath atomizer. "You spray it into their eyes. It wears off in a few hours. But I don't think we'll need either one."

  "I hope not," said Sam.

  ***

  HE POINTED as they walked: paw prints. Putting his mouth almost to her ear, he whispered, "Five toes, just like ours. The right forepaw pushes down more than the left, left hindpaw more than the right. Rolling walk..."

  Twenty-five or thirty yards farther on: "Tracks here..."

  She saw an unmistakable bear trail, a tunnel into a shrub thicket. It looked well used. Sam felt herself being drawn into a secret place where humans seldom ventured. Confidently ahead was her gimp-legged, egghead guide, who understood how bears talk.

  About five minutes later he held up a hand, stopping her, nodding off to the right, whispering, "They're back in there...."

  "More than one?"

  "Seventeen is a sow. She has two cubs."

  Sam could hear faint noises in the stillness. She whispered, "The worst thing you can do is get near a mother and cubs." With all his knowledge, didn't he know that?

  Apparently not the least bit worried, he whispered back, "Just follow me. Don't talk; walk softly...."

  Sam shook her head at the idiocy, both his and her own, but followed him across a pair of rusted-out narrow-gauge tracks that led toward a small grove of gum trees. She knew he was challenging her.

  They crossed a small lily-padded ditch with a few inches of water in the bottom, then Chip held up his hand again, pointing ahead and to the left. In the distance she saw the cubs. They were at the foot of a black gum, in a damp area.

  Chip sank to his knees, looping the binoculars' strap back over his head. He passed the glasses to her. "Look up in the tree," he whispered. The branches were shaking and cracking.

  Dropping to her belly, Sam focused the glasses.

  The radio-collared mother was pulling in the limbs with her paws, gathering them to her mouth, busily eating the frost-ripened blue-black berries, completely unaware she was being observed. She was much too occupied stuffing herself.

  "She'll tear some off, then drop them down to the cubs now and then. Watch."

  Rising on their hind paws, the cubs appeared toylike, with big, erect ears. They replied in squeaks to the grunts overhead.

  "They're less than a year old. We put the collar on her before they were born."

  She passed the glasses back.

  "No, you watch. I've seen it before."

  "You have a name for her?"

  "Eliza."

  Eliza was well named. With a small potbelly, she looked like one of those life-sized bears in a toy store.

  Chip was watching the cubs, and Sam studied his face. He was smiling.

  Down came a laden branch, and the little ones went after it in a scene straight out of a Disney film.

  Soon, Number 17-88 backed down from the branches, full up for the moment, stretching out on the ground near the trunk.

  "Watch the cubs," Chip whispered.

  They wrestled awhile, and then one began to pester the dozing mother.

  Sam looked at her watch. It was already eleven-thirty. She'd be lucky to make it back to Dunnegan's by twelve-thirty. "I have to go, Chip. I'll be late for work."

  Sitting up, looking at her intently, he said, "Okay, but I've got a question. Do you want to see them killed?" His head ti
lted toward the gum tree.

  She frowned back. "Certainly not. What kind of person do you think I am?"

  ***

  IN THE boat, recrossing the lake, Sam warned, "Chip, people around here won't take to anyone stopping their hunting rights. They only put up with it once. After five years off-limits, they're going to be cleaning guns by this time next year, my papa first among them."

  As if he hadn't heard a word, Chip said, "It'll be announced tomorrow morning in the Pilot."

  "What will be announced?"

  "The National Wildlife Conservancy campaign to save the Powhatan bears. Dad will paint posters for it."

  Sam shook her head in disbelief. "God, Chip, you and your father could get hurt. There are men living around here who might run you away at rifle point. Beat you up! Maybe that's what happened to Telford?"

  "Will you help me, Samantha?" Chip said, evenly. "Telford told me last month that he'd decided there weren't more than two hundred fifty, two hundred sixty bears in the swamp, that the habitat could handle eight hundred or more, that he was going to fight against opening it up. Now he can't and I have to...."

  "My papa would put my clothes out in the middle of the road and lock the door on me."

  "We'd make a good team, I think."

  "You are not listening to me, Chip. My papa's a hunter. And there's five or six hundred more like him in this area. Bears are wild animals. That's how he thinks. He's made a steel trap to catch. Henry and plans to shoot him dead."

  Chip ignored her. "We won't even try to convince him. It's the Wildlife Service that needs convincing."

  "But they'll also listen to the hunters."

  "The bears can win! And tell your father he'd better not shoot Henry."

  Sam shook her head. This strange boy just didn't listen.

  Chip said offhandedly, "Why don't you strip the rest of those apples out of the treetops, and maybe Henry won't come back."

  Sam looked out across the lake in frustration. What else could she say? He had an iron head.

  The voyage back to the spillway house seemed to last an eternity.

  Chip stood in the stern, fingers of the gloved hand barely touching the tiller of the outboard, looking over Sam's head to the far shore as he shouted.