The Weirdo

  "Mr. Slade, I'm being serious."

  The old man stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. "So am I serious. Ain't many square acres you couldn't hide a body. Enough have been hid."

  "Where?"

  "Oh, tossed in ponds wired to concrete blocks, tossed in that quicksand patch, tossed in any of a thousand peat pits. Or tossed back into a thicket. Them animals'll take it down to bones in no time."

  Chip had already told Truesdale about the possibility of Tom being in the Sand Suck, reminded him of what Samantha Sanders had seen.

  "So you think it's a waste of time to hunt for him? Drag those ponds?"

  "I do. If he's in there, there's a coupla-million-to-one odds somebody'll stumble 'crost his skeleton someday. I doubt either one of us'll care by then."

  Chip felt sick.

  "Guess you're right."

  Slade said, "You betcha I'm right. You gonna waste taxpayer money? Take you two year to dig out that quicksand patch. And the wildlife people ain't 'bout to let you do it anyway."

  Truesdale nodded. "Mr. Slade, you know anyone who's poaching in the swamp? Deer or bear? Maybe someone's offered you a bear steak in the last year or so?"

  Slade's eyes narrowed. "No, Detective, ain't no one offered me illegal meat."

  "You know a hunter who wears a red-and-black mackinaw? Big burly guy?"

  "Can't say I do, Detective."

  Truesdale rose up and passed over his card. "Well, if you hear of anyone poaching, I'd appreciate a call."

  Slade stayed seated, saying, "If I hear o' anyone doin' somethin' awful like that, I'll surely git in touch."

  Truesdale murmured a thanks, and they departed.

  Truesdale said, "I'd just as soon trust one of his dead muskrats."

  They went back up Coach Road, took a right, and Chip steered around the locked gate to reenter the Powhatan.

  As they bumped and jerked along, Chip asked, "What are the chances of finding him?"

  "Telford?"

  Chip nodded.

  "If he's just missing and alive, pretty good. If he's dead, slim to none. If people are murdered in town, there's a fifty-fifty chance you'll find the body. Out here in this brush, slim to none, I'd say."

  Chip found it hard to say the words, but he wanted to know. "If he is dead, what are the chances of finding out who did it?"

  "Slimmer-than-ever to none. Chip, I'll drop a statistic on you. If a guy shoots or stabs someone on a street corner and there are witnesses, you may have a case. If he does it in a cow pasture with only the cows looking on, forget it. Less than two percent of that kind of murders are ever solved...."

  Maybe Tom Telford's case was hopeless.

  They bumped along in silence, then Chip said, "I've been thinking about what Sam said she saw in the swamp and wonder if you've thought about hypnotizing her?"

  Truesdale laughed. "You must see a lot of TV."

  "Don't police do that?"

  Truesdale laughed again. "On TV, yes."

  "Don't they do it for real?"

  "Okay, sometimes. Very rarely but sometimes. Big city forces I've heard about."

  "Can't you try it?"

  "Chip, I can understand why you want to find out what happened to Telford, but there are limits."

  "I can get my father to pay for it. I know I can."

  "It's not so much a matter of money. I'm not sure I believe in it."

  "Will it hurt to try?"

  Truesdale sighed.

  ***

  JUST before five, Jack Slade hobbled over to the filling station and said to Grace Crosby, "If Buddy Bailey comes by, tell him be sure an' come see me. Tell him twice." What he had to say was for Buddy's ears only.

  Grace said, "Aw, Jack, you always got somethin' earthshakin' to say to somebody. Ever try talkin' to yourself?"

  Slade cackled. "All the time. Jus' tell Buddy."

  Then he hobbled back to the school bus.

  Buddy Bailey showed up just before dark, still in his spattered housepainter's coveralls, pounding on the door, getting a "That you, Buddy?" from inside.

  Then Jack opened the door, letting out the smells of the evening meal he was preparing. The bus was steamy.

  "Grace said you wanted to see me."

  "Had a visitor today, Buddy." Jack was standing at his two-burner gas stovetop.

  "Who?"

  "Deputy from the county sheriff's. Card's on the table."

  Buddy glanced at it. "What's that got to do with me?"

  "He's investigatin' the college boy that's missin', that Telford fellow from Raleigh."

  "What's that got to do with me?"

  Jack turned from the stove. "He ast me if I knew any poachers. 'Course, I said I didn't."

  "And?"

  "Then he ast me if I knew one who wore a red-and-black mackinaw, a big man."

  "And what'd you say?"

  "I said I didn't."

  Buddy was silent a moment, rubbed his square jaw, took another look at the card on the table. "You said the right thing, Jack."

  Jack grinned—a grin of the hobgoblin variety, due to his lack of teeth. He wore dentures only when eating.

  Buddy said, "How ya doin' with the meat supply in that ol' freezer?"

  "It's gettin' right low, Buddy."

  Buddy smiled. "Well, I can take care o' that. I better get on home."

  Jack nodded.

  Buddy's brown pickup shot away from the school bus, throwing gravel.

  Arriving home, he barely said hello to his wife, going straight to the back porch to his hunting closet, extracting a red-and-black mackinaw, taking it to the front room—where he stuffed it into the Franklin stove that was burning brightly on this chill night. The plastic buttons would melt.

  ***

  THE BEAR got caught in Bo'sun Sanders's trap about noontime, drawn to it by a whiff of honey and meat. Sanders had freshly baited it the night before. His left paw was caught in the steel jaws, and he'd been making a pitiful commotion ever since.

  The penned dogs heard die bear's first cry of pain, and it was their caterwauling that Sam heard when she trudged home just after three-thirty. All three heads were pointed in the direction of the orchard, and Sam knew, almost instantly, what had happened. She hadn't sprung the trap before going to school. She couldn't work up the courage to do it.

  Dropping her books on the front porch, she ran along Chapanoke toward the orchard. The dog barks diminished, and the sound of the bear faded in. She'd never heard a sound quite like the one carrying toward her. Anger, fear, and pain mixed into a cry that rose and fell like the call of a loon.

  Soon she saw it—hooked by the heavy chain to the base of the front tree, the left paw extended. She'd heard about trapped animals trying to eat a paw away just to escape. Closer, she saw the bear hadn't done that as yet.

  It—and she had a hunch it was Henry because of the radio-collar around its neck—looked at her as she approached, fright and pain in his brown eyes. His coat was muddy from rolling on the ground. Fearing her, he tugged on the trap, letting out another grunt of pain. Foam was around his mouth from exertion.

  Tears came into her eyes, and she cursed her father, then ran back to the house to phone Chip, thinking he might be able to get near enough to the bear to use a crowbar and spring the jaws.

  "There's a bear caught in that trap Papa set in the orchard," she blurted after Chip answered.

  "He really did it?"

  "Yes, he did." Chip had no idea about Bo'sun Sanders. He usually did what he threatened to do.

  "Okay, just calm down. You think it's Henry?"

  "I don't know. It's got a radio-collar. It's big and black. Is that Henry?"

  "Okay, calm down. Get him, or her, some water. Also get it something to eat. Take its mind off the pain."

  "Like what?"

  "Samantha, anything! Bread, biscuits. Leftovers. Bacon. Anything. Just food. Don't get too near. Put it on a tin plate and shove it close with a stick. And talk to it, talk to the bear, Samantha."

>   "Are you coming here?"

  "Yes, I'll use the Jeep and come the inside way. It's going to take twenty or thirty minutes, but that'll be faster than going down the ditch and using the highway."

  "Hurry. I can't stand to hear him."

  "I will. Is your papa home?"

  "No."

  "That's good."

  "Hurry."

  "I will."

  There was leftover stew in the fridge, still in the pot, and Sam slid it out, then filled a bucket with water, carrying them both up Chapanoke, thinking she'd personally catch it when the bo'sun found the trap was sprung, if Chip could indeed do it.

  Reaching Henry, if it was Henry, she said, in a soothing voice, "I've got something for you, and there's help on the way...."

  Then she looked around for a stick. None there. Okay, he could only bat out so far with the paw that wasn't in the trap, and she decided to drop down on her hands and knees, shove the cast-iron pot toward him with her fingertips.

  The big black eyed her and stopped making noises as she kneeled down. Maybe he's smelling the stew, she thought.

  "Take it easy now, bear," she said, gingerly inching the pot forward, keeping her fingers at the bottom, looking at him steadily, ready to roll back if he made a move.

  He seemed to be regarding her with curiosity, she thought; watching her closely, totally silent. She was now near enough to smell him, even though she was barely breathing. He needed a deodorant and Listerine.

  Another six or eight inches and the pot would be under his nose. Still no sign of attack. If this was Henry, he wasn't a rogue.

  There!

  She withdrew her hand as if she'd touched a hot grill as his nose went down into the pot, sucking up the cold stew. Almost simultaneously, she grabbed the bucket while he was still occupied and shoved the water up alongside the pot, then jumped back again, feeling relief.

  Six feet from him as he licked up the last shreds of meat and potatoes, then noisily lapped water, she said, "Chip Clewt is coming to get you out of that trap." He'd said to talk, so...

  "You remember Chip. He's the one with half-a-prune face and rocks in his head."

  The bear had finished his snack and quenched his thirst and was now staring at her. He stayed on all fours, waving his head from side to side. She'd seen bears in zoos do that.

  "He's about the smartest boy I've ever been around, and probably the nicest. But I'm not in his league. He's from Columbus, Ohio, and that makes him a city boy. I had a dream about him the other night, and both sides of his face were the same. I couldn't believe how handsome he was. We were in a city somewhere, in a little French restaurant, and he was holding my hand across the table. Then I woke up and was right here by this dumb cornfield in the same room and same dumb bed I've always had...."

  Sam talked on for another fifteen minutes, noticing that the bear was quiet and not pulling against the trap. The head movement had stopped. There was dried blood where the trap's jaws held him.

  Chip came east down the Chapanoke and pulled the Jeep up in front of the orchard. He hopped out, saying, "That's Henry, all right."

  "I'm glad you're here. I ran out of things to say."

  "Has he been quiet?"

  Sam nodded.

  "How ya doin', old boy? Got yourself caught, didn't you? You never learn."

  Even the dogs had stopped barking, somehow sensing the fun was over. Either that or they were pooped. Four hours of continuous barking would tire any dog.

  "All right, I'm going to put him beddie-bye," Chip said, reaching back into the Jeep for tranquilizing drugs.

  "You know how to do that?" Sam asked, impressed.

  "Yep."

  He went about loading the dart gun with the Ketacet and Rompun mixture, saying to Sam, "Why don't you go get me a crowbar or piece of pipe? I'll have to pry him out."

  As she was leaving, he said, "This trap would hold an elephant."

  Sam said, "Papa always goes all-out."

  By the time she returned, Henry had been injected, and now there was nothing to do but wait until he toppled over.

  "Will he be at the meeting Friday night?" Chip asked.

  "Who?"

  "Your father."

  "Sure he will. He organized it."

  "Maybe I should talk to him before then."

  "I don't think that would be a good idea, Chip," Sam said.

  They were leaning against the Jeep. "You seem to be afraid of him. I'm not."

  "You've never met him."

  "There comes a time you've got to stand up for yourself."

  "Are you really serious about going to that meeting? Mama said there'll be two or three hundred there."

  "Absolutely. What are they going to do? Beat me up?"

  "They may."

  "They'll have to do it in front of cameras. I've called the Pilot. They're sending a reporter and a photographer."

  "Chip . . ."

  "They want to play games like trashing our car, we'll play another game."

  Sam shook her head, but she felt a growing respect for him. He was actually going to stand up against Bo'sun Sanders and dozens more.

  Five minutes later, Henry was showing the usual signs of submission. Chip checked his watch. "I want him all the way under. He's had trauma."

  Sam spotted a white pickup coming west on Chapanoke and said, breath taken away, "Oh, my God, it's Papa."

  Chip looked that way. "Well, I guess we'll meet before Friday night."

  "Oh, my God," said Sam, face white and stricken. "I better talk to him."

  She began running toward the house.

  ***

  LOOKING up the road, Stu Sanders asked, "What's that Jeep doin' up there?"

  Sam said, "It belongs to Chip Clewt."

  "What's he doin' here?"

  "Papa, there's a bear in the trap, and I asked Chip to come and get him loose."

  "You did what?"

  "I asked Chip to free him."

  "What the hell's wrong with you, daughter? I set the trap last night to catch that bear."

  "Please, Papa, he wasn't raiding the orchard. There aren't any more apples in the trees. Let him live."

  "You're crazy, Sam. Why do you think I went to all that work to make that trap?" He spun around toward the house.

  "Where are you going, Papa?"

  "To get a gun."

  Sam put a fist to her mouth and then ran back toward the orchard to tell Chip to leave. Hurry and leave.

  By the time she got to the orchard, Chip was levering the trap jaws open with the crowbar; holding them open, then easing Henry's paw out.

  "Chip, go. Just go." She was panting.

  "Why?"

  "He's coming with a gun."

  "You think he'll shoot me?"

  "I don't know what he'll do. Just go!"

  "I'm not going anywhere until this bear wakes up and goes back into the swamp."

  "Chip, please go. I wish I hadn't called you."

  "You know, I'm amazed at you. Scared of your own father? Now I really want to meet him."

  "Chip, please go. Please..."

  "Nope, I'm going to drag that bear out on the road here, county property, and stay here until it wakes up."

  Using his good right arm, the strong one, he towed Henry's three hundred pounds out into the road.

  Coming toward them, in long strides, was the sinewy, bean-pole figure of Bo'sun Sanders, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver hanging from his right hand.

  Chip then straddled Henry's body, planting a foot on each side of it. He was looking straight ahead, straight at the bo'sun.

  Heart thumping, Sam thought it would be pretty silly to introduce Chip under these circumstances. It wasn't necessary. Her papa knew who he was.

  On the bo'sun came, looking like a gunfighter from an old western.

  And Chip didn't budge.

  Sam gathered strength from what he was doing and stepped over beside him.

  When her father was no more than eight or ten feet away, she heard
herself saying, "Shoot me, Papa. Don't shoot him."

  Bo'sun Sanders stopped. "Which one? This troublemakin' weirdo or the bear?"

  "Shoot me, Papa, shoot me," she heard herself saying again, trembling while she said it, not quite believing what she was doing. She hoped she wouldn't faint.

  "This is stupid! Now, daughter, jus' get the hell out o' the way, an' I'll do what I came up here to do."

  "Papa, if you want me to stay another night in our house, don't shoot this bear."

  The bo'sun frowned and blinked. "You have to be crazy, Sam. That's a stealin', wreckin' animal down there. Now, stand back, both o' you...."

  "Papa, we're not moving. Put the gun away."

  "Well, I'll be damned. I will be damned," he said, shaking his head. "I never thought you'd defy me. Maybe I don't want you to spend another night in the house...."

  Sam felt Chip's withered left arm slip around her waist, and she gathered more strength from him.

  The bo'sun stood there a moment longer, then turned around and began walking back toward the house, his hard, square shoulders noticeably slumping.

  Sam felt tears coming, a whole rainstorm of them, and she held on to Chip Clewt, her legs giving way.

  FEELING caved-in, exhausted from the crying and tension, Sam stayed beside Chip until Henry recovered consciousness and wobbled back into the swamp; then she said, "I have to go home."

  "Do you want to come and stay with us?" Chip asked.

  Sam shook her head.

  "He won't hurt you, will he?"

  "No. I'm too old to spank."

  "You'd be welcome with us."

  "I know. I have to go." She was exhausted.

  He nodded. Then his lips found hers. It was a quick, uncertain kiss, but a kiss, nonetheless. It seemed a natural thing for him to do, and she lingered in his arms a moment, torn by all that had happened, then turned and began walking up the road, hearing his "Thanks, call me."

  She felt desperately tired. Never had she defied her papa openly; never had she faced him down. She didn't know how he'd act, and she decided to avoid him. Dell should be home soon.

  Finally entering the house, she went directly to her room, shut the door, and collapsed on the bed, tears coming again. There was silence from below. She was hoping he'd come upstairs and say he understood.