The Weirdo

  She rose up, leaving her mother, and quickly walked across to the other side, hearing the bo'sun falter, knowing he'd seen her. She'd made the walk under his nose. Sitting down again, she took Chip's good right hand in hers. He squeezed back and smiled.

  Her papa continued. "We are the best argument for managing wildlife. We try not to shoot females so there can be bumper crops of deer and bear and other species," the bo'sun was saying. "We never kill fawns or cubs...."

  Chip whispered, "I'll be all right. I ever tell you I was the champion high school debater in Columbus?"

  Sam shook her head.

  "I wasn't. I've never debated anything in my life. It's time I learned. The weirdo's coming out of hiding tonight...."

  "You're not a weirdo," Sam whispered fiercely.

  "Yes, I am...."

  "Where is your father?"

  "He and Dunnegan went to the AA meeting. They'll be along."

  "We eat what we kill," the bo'sun was saying.

  Sam could feel her papa's eyes boring into her and refused to look up at him until they went away.

  "... and by picking off individual animals we ensure the health of the whole species...."

  She couldn't help but be impressed by the ease with which he was making points. She'd never known this side of her father. He sounded convincing.

  "Because of careful hunting, there are more an' healthier animals now than ten years ago."

  "B.S.," Chip murmured.

  Oh, boy, Sam thought. Stand by for a ram, dear Papa.

  Soon Dunnegan and Chip's father slid in beside them, having come down the left-hand aisle.

  Dunnegan leaned toward them, whispering, "I got to be out of my mind. None of 'em will probably ever spend another dime with me."

  Clewt whispered back, "They buy from you or drive fourteen miles. Don't worry."

  Bo'sun Sanders went on: "We're now takin' the role of the predator, keepin' nature in balance. If that bear population in the swamp isn't thinned, you can bet they'll be comin' out o' there in droves, destroyin' hives, tearing up orchards, ruinin' corn crops, raidin' every garbage dump within twenty miles...."

  There were "yeahs" from the audience, and hand-clapping. The photographer was busy.

  "On top o' that, there's always the danger to our children. Who knows when a rogue bear will attack a kid playin' in the yard? So I say, open that swamp to huntin' next year, as Fish and Game promised us four years ago. We'll pass the hat and get organized. Thank you."

  More applause.

  Sam felt his eyes on her again as he came down off the stage. She knew he was fuming, knew she'd get it on the way home. And tomorrow, and the next day. Defiance did not rest well with the bo'sun.

  There were three more speakers, including Lew Petracca, who said it was time to "get tough" with these knee-jerk environmentalists.

  Sam only half listened. Last week, Chip had asked her to help. Did she now have guts enough to get up and say something? Just the thought of getting up in front of three hundred people made her knees weak. She might make a puddle on the floor or just faint dead away.

  The final hunter, having said almost exactly what the others had said, sat down, and Bo'sun Sanders went back to the microphone. "Anyone else?"

  Do it now, Sam said to herself. Now!

  She stood up, turned toward the audience and said, "I'm the daughter of a hunter, and what you're trying to do is wrong...."

  Sanders ordered, "Sit down, Sam!"

  She remained standing, glaring at him.

  He said to the audience: "In case you didn't know, that's my daughter. Her wires have been crossed all week."

  Sam repeated loudly, "It's wrong—"

  "Sit down, Sam," he ordered again.

  Eyes locked with his, she remained standing defiantly.

  A tense hush fell over the audience and seconds stretched into minutes.

  Finally, the bo'sun decided to ignore his daughter and shaded his eyes to look around the auditorium; then he zeroed in on Chip as if he'd just discovered his presence. "Okay, boy, come on up an' tell us we're a bunch o' killers..."

  Sam could have clubbed her father. She murmured to Chip as she sat down, "Go get 'em..."

  ***

  CHIP took off his faded baseball cap, exposing that half head of hair, the bald left side—he wasn't hiding anything this night—and limped up to the stage. He gazed at the hushed audience a moment, letting them take a long look at the marred face, the one gloved hand. Then he took the glove off. He was doing it for effect.

  "My name is Charles Clewt. C-l-e-w-t! Most people call me Chip. Some call me something else. I live with my father in the Powhatan, and for the past year I've been working with a biologist named Tom Telford, studying and counting bears. You've read about him. I wish he was here tonight, but he seems to be missing and may have been murdered. Maybe the murderer is sitting right here in this room...." He didn't seem afraid or even uneasy.

  "Last Sunday night someone shot at our house by the spillway, then slashed our tires. Maybe he's here tonight, too. If he is, I've got a message for him and all of you. My father won a Bronze Star Medal for combat as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and Monday we bought a shotgun and deer slugs. Anyone who comes up the ditch and starts playing games again is going to get his head blown off...."

  Sam wanted to cheer, even though he'd just started. He was talking their language. That they didn't expect.

  He paused, then said, changing tone as if he was debating in Columbus, "Between seven and ten million Americans kill wild animals for pleasure each year, according to Field & Stream. Just for pleasure. Few do it out of necessity. It's for thrills, for kicks. It's the destruction of species for pure pleasure, and it's also a billion-dollar business...."

  "Oh, come on!" someone yelled from the rear. There was a chorus of boos.

  Chip ignored the taunts. "Working with the bears, I've seen them as living creatures, not targets. Individuals, not just species. Not just dumb animals. You may think they can't feel pain or enjoy life. But they do."

  There were more catcalls.

  "Sometime try watching them without a gunsight."

  "Go back to Ohio, you jerk," someone yelled.

  "Tom Telford believed hunting is necessary if there are too many animals and too little food. But before a shot is fired that case should be proven, he said. His work remains to be finished. But so far all indications are that it will take another five years, or even ten, before there is any sign of food shortage in the Powhatan or that bears are damaging the plant life of the swamp...."

  More boos cascaded.

  "Fish and Wildlife will make a decision in January to open or not open the swamp for bear hunting next fall. Telford had planned to recommend the ban for another five years...."

  There was outrage from the floor.

  Chip shouted, "Give it a chance to work!"—but his words were drowned out.

  Dunnegan said, "I wish we had an army tank to go home in."

  Chip shouted again, "Give it a chance to work!" Then he came down off the stage, ignoring the angry voices.

  Sam rose up and met him, kissing his scarred cheek, hugging him, surprising herself in front of all those people.

  "You did good," said Dunnegan.

  "Very good," his father said.

  Sam said, "Super good."

  Then she looked away. "I've got to go back over there," she said, nodding toward her parents.

  "Hang in there! Call me, huh?"

  They hugged tightly.

  As she crossed toward her mother and the bo'sun, Sam was aware she'd changed this last week. She'd stood up to her father, with a gun in his hand; she'd stood up for Chip tonight. Whatever flak was coming, she hoped she could handle it.

  ***

  THE NEXT day, Sam met Chip at Dunnegan's about ten. She'd bicycled there, and he'd come down the Feeder Ditch. Soon they were sitting on the green bench, Sam commenting on how great it was that the Pilot had printed almost every word of Chip's speech and
had run his picture, cheek by jowl with the bo'sun's.

  "I hope someday I'll look better than that," Chip said. "I look goofy."

  "Not to me," Sam said.

  "That's a lie, but a nice one."

  "I don't think Papa exactly appreciated that story. He'll get over it, I hope. He wouldn't speak to me this morning. Didn't say a word on the ride home except to Mama."

  "He'll come around," Chip predicted.

  "What's going to happen now?" Sam asked.

  "The university is probably going to send someone else to finish the study. Hopefully I'll work for whoever they send, do the same thing I did for Telford."

  "But you're not going away?"

  Chip shook his head. "I'll go back to Columbus in the summer to see if they can't make my ear look less like a scorched biscuit. And Dad keeps talking about taking a month's trip in Europe."

  Would I like to go along? Sam asked herself. Yes, I would. If wishes were horses...

  "What about the rest of the winter? And spring?"

  Chip smiled over. "I'm available."

  "For movies?"

  "Better than that. There's a Puerto Rican dance called the merengue.' You drag one foot. I should be good at it."

  Sam laughed softly.

  "Or we could just talk a lot," said Chip. "Like we're doing now."

  "That would be okay, too," Sam said.

  They talked for almost an hour, mainly about the night before, but also about Tom Telford and Buddy Bailey. Chip said he couldn't understand why Bailey hadn't been arrested. Then they got up from the bench. They held hands for a moment, and Chip said he'd drop by the Dairy Queen that night. Sam kissed him on the lips and rode back to Chapanoke as if her tires were filled with helium.

  She was still floating around Sunday morning while setting the table for. breakfast. Finally, she couldn't hold it any longer and said, "Mama, I think I've got a steady."

  Dell smiled secretively. "I couldn't have guessed in a hundred years...."

  "He'll be here all winter and spring...." Her voice trailed off as the bo'sun entered the kitchen.

  "Who'll be here all winter and spring?"

  Sam took a deep breath. "Chip Clewt."

  The bo'sun stared at his daughter a moment, then said, "I finally gotta tell you, Sam, I'm proud o' you for standin' up to me when I was about to shoot that bear, proud o' you for speakin' out at the Community Center. You likely gotta lot o' me in you. Yes, you do."

  Sam went quickly into his sinewy arms, hearing him say, "... he's sure a funny-lookin' boy, isn't he?"

  After a moment, he held her away from him and looked into her eyes. "But that don't mean we're not gonna fight for the right to shoot in that swamp..."

  "I know, Papa."

  Sam glanced over at her mother. Dell Sanders had done a lot of talking in that bed upstairs the last two nights.

  An hour later, having met him at the head of Trail Seven, Sam watched as Chip waved the hand-held antenna around, listening for Number 43-89. She'd been assigned the job of logging the coordinates. They were in the black gum forest not too far from the lake.

  A few minutes before, Chip had stopped to point at a dead cypress. High up in a fork was a clutch of heavy sticks. "Telford told me that years ago, a bald eagle nested there. They're all gone."

  Chip sang out the first bearing for Number 43-89. Then they moved a quarter mile down the trail to get another coordinate. They were now into vine tangles. Virginia creeper and supplejack and woodbine all twisted with dried honeysuckle in jungles so thick the eye couldn't penetrate more than a few inches.

  "It's like I'm seeing it for the first time," Sam said.

  "Happened to me when I started working for Telford. When that yellow-and-white honeysuckle is in bloom in the spring, the whole place smells like perfume."

  By midmorning, tracking another bear, they were deep in the cedar swamp, with the mistletoe clumps clinging high up and gray-green Spanish moss festooning the low-lying branches.

  "Telford called it a living laboratory."

  At last she was beginning to see why. Telford, wherever he was, remained close to them.

  Just past noon, Chip took Sam back to Chapanoke. That dull Dairy Queen beckoned once more. Hard to believe Sam Sanders, the swamp-hater, now wanted to linger in the Powhatan.

  ***

  THE NEXT Sunday, six weeks after they'd departed, Uncle Jack and Aunt Peaches arrived back from Paris and the Mediterranean and Africa and were shocked at the sight of Baron von Buckner, CDX, SDX, RDX. "My Lord," said Uncle Jack. "What happened to him?"

  Fortunately, Sam's mother and papa were attending an open house at the Coast Guard base. They did not have to listen to Uncle Jack and Aunt Peaches.

  There were visible ridges all over Buck's usually sleek coat where the thorns had cut him. The slashes had healed, but left forever were ripples that ran from his neck to his hindquarters. His nose was scored, and there was a chip out of his right ear.

  Aunt Peaches began to simper and weep, kissing Buckie on his mouth. "I can't believe this, Samantha.'

  "I'm sorry, Aunt Peaches. He chased a bear named Henry into the swamp. I ran as fast as I could to catch him."

  "How could that happen?" asked Uncle Jack. "If you'd called him, he'd a come right back."

  "Believe me, I called him. I had to spend a night in a stump because of Buck. I tried to catch him. Did you have fun in Paris?"

  "Who cares about Paris?" moaned Aunt Peaches. "I'm brokenhearted, Samantha."

  "And no one'll ever want to breed a bitch with him. One look an' they'll say he's got a permanent skin rash," said Jack.

  "I don't plan to charge you, Uncle Jack."

  "It's not money. We trusted you, Samantha."

  "I'm truly sorry. If he hadn't run after Henry it wouldn't have happened."

  Sam decided not to tell them she now had a boyfriend because of Buck.

  "We'll take him to a skin doctor," said Aunt Peaches.

  "We'd a been better boarding 'im," said Uncle Jack, consternation all over his jowls.

  "I guess," Sam said, apologizing again.

  "Fifty thousand-dollar dog now worth maybe half that. People go by looks as well as papers when they get ready to breed."

  "I really am sorry," said Sam again, certain Buck had never had such a good time in his four years on earth.

  Soon the Le Sabre went up Chapanoke with Baron von Buckner looking back. Sam could have sworn he was grinning.

  ***

  FEBRUARY: Sam and Chip sat in the coffee shop across the wide street from the three-story Albemarle County Courthouse. It had been built during the Civil War. They were awaiting the decision of the Fish and Wildlife Committee on lifting the ban.

  Sam was jumpy. "I don't know why they have to take so long to make up their minds."

  Chip said, "Just relax and think positive thoughts."

  The hearings, postponed from January, were taking place in a room on the first floor of the courthouse. James Emerson from the National Wildlife Conservancy had testified in the morning, along with Joe Simonette, who'd taken Telford's job. They presented the current estimated Powhatan bear count, 290, give or take 20. Others speaking to keep the ban had come from Raleigh, Charlotte, and Norfolk.

  Sam's papa and some of the same men who'd spoken that November night in the Community Center represented the hunters. The district congressman, Mallory, said passionate words on their behalf, likely earning votes. All the hunters were eating down at the Elks Lodge.

  When he'd spotted her at the hearings, the bosun had come over to ask, "What're you doin' here? Why aren't you in school?"

  "I cut classes. This is more important."

  "To who?"

  "To me, Papa."

  With a shake of the head, he'd walked away. This new daughter was unsettling to Stu Sanders.

  The day was dreary. Light, cold rain fell. The mood inside the coffee shop, with its permanent aroma of fried potatoes, matched the somber exterior.

  Truesd
ale had come in for a hurried lunch. Chip asked him what was going on with Buddy Bailey. "Not a thing. I say again, we've got no proof he did anything. Can't charge a man with murder when you've got no proof."

  To Sam he said. "You ready to swear that was Buddy? You ready to swear you saw his face? You see, for a fact, that he was carryin' Telford? You see Telford's face?"

  Sam answered, "No, sir," to each and every question.

  Truesdale said, "The prosecutor'd send me back to the police academy if I brought him this case...."

  After finishing his bowl of chili at the counter, Truesdale came over to their Formica-topped table. "What's the news from across the street?" he asked.

  "We're supposed to know soon," Sam answered "They promised a decision after lunch."

  Truesdale said, "Good luck," and departed.

  "I still wish they'd let you testify," Sam said to Chip.

  "Better that Simonette did it. I get too emotional."

  "You know more about those figures than Simonette."

  "They were Telford's."

  A few minutes later, Simonette came in and sat down. He'd been making calls to the university. "What's good to eat here?"

  "Almost everything," Sam said. "Country cooking."

  Simonette was older than Telford and built like a fireplug. His thick black hair was a crew-cut mat, and he likely needed to shave twice a day. He looked like a Greek middleweight wrestler. He ordered a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy.

  "I stopped by the hearing room on the way over. They're still talking. It could go either way," he said.

  "If we lose, can we appeal to Washington?" Chip asked.

  "Washington is in that room over there," Simonette said. "If we lose, bears will be shot in the fall."

  Sam asked, "Why does it have to be so cut-and-dried?"

  "That's the way hearings work. You present your case and sit down. Then they can ask questions. You heard it all."

  Everyone except the politician had been low-key, even her papa. The committee chairman said they only wanted facts, like Truesdale said he wanted. Wasn't there ever any place for emotion? Chip had talked about how the bears felt at the Community Center, Sam remembered. Was it just young people who thought that way?

  Even Mr. Emerson, the Conservancy man who'd testified first and was already on his way back to Washington, had sounded like he was announcing numbers in a bingo game.