"But I don't hear anyone getting angry about the killing, if it happens."
Chip laughed, saying to Simonette, "She's worse than I am now."
Sam blew out a breath of frustration and moved around in her chair. "I just don't think it should be necessary to even hold these hearings. That's supposed to be a wildlife refuge back there. Refuge!"
As his steaming turkey was served, Simonette said, "Tell me one thing on earth that is forever."
"Some things should be," Sam replied, then sealed her lips.
Chip said, "Be realistic."
Ten minutes later they walked across the street and up the courthouse steps, then turned left down to the musty, well-worn room in which felonies were tried. The committee members, seated at the table where the prosecution usually resided, were still deliberating.
The hunters had already returned from the Elks Lodge, and Sam went over to her papa. "Hope you won't be angry with me again...."
He gave her a half-smile. "Hope you won't mind if I bring home a carcass...."
The bo'sun was always the fighter, always confident.
Sam returned to sit beside Chip and Simonette, taking Chip's hand in hers.
A moment later the bow-tied chairman shuffled some papers and looked around the room, saying, "We have made a decision...."
Sam thought impatiently, Well, what is it?
"We'll abide by state regulations. To hunt big game in North Carolina a state license, costing fifteen dollars, is required, as well as a special permit that costs an additional ten dollars. The special permit allows deer hunters to shoot bears as well as deer. One bear per hunter per season is the limit...."
Get to the point, Sam said, silently, to the bureaucrat in the bow tie.
"... The coastal plain, excluding the Powhatan refuge, allows the taking of bears between mid-November and January first...."
Sam gritted her teeth.
"... The committee, by unanimous vote, has decided to open the Powhatan for a deer season beginning and ending with the usual dates and usual limits...."
The hunters roared approval.
As soon as the noise subsided, the chairman continued, "And also by unanimous vote, the committee decided to extend the moratorium on the hunting of bears in the Powhatan for another five years...."
Leaping up, Sam and Chip let out a simultaneous whoop and wrapped arms. Joe Simonette grinned.
The bears had won. So had Chip and Tom Telford. And Samantha Sanders.
***
THROUGHOUT the late winter, Chip and Simonette monitored the bears; Sam helped whenever she could. When spring returned they began snaring again.
Thoughts of Buddy Bailey and Tom Telford haunted them day after day and week after week. One afternoon in April, they saw Buddy Bailey in his paint-spattered, rattling brown pickup on the highway by the canal. He was driving slowly, and they passed him about a mile beyond Dunnegan's. They looked at him. Block-headed and small-eyed, his huge body filled the cab. A free man, perhaps forever.
He glanced over at them. His gimlet eyes were frightening. He was wearing a white cap with "Dutch Boy" inscribed on it. Not the floppy hunter's hat he'd worn that day on Trail Six.
Chip said, "I wonder if he knows who we are?"
Sam answered, "I hope not."
Her papa had said, "You let Buddy Bailey alone. Understand me. You're not the law."
Just being near the man had made their pulses speed up and their stomachs hollow out. They pulled far ahead of him.
Nearing Chapanoke, Sam said suddenly, "I want to go see Julia Howell again. Don't take me home." She told Chip how to get to Tucker Road.
A LITTLE later she was knocking on Mrs. Howell's door, and when Alvin's widow opened it, Sam said, "Hi again, could I talk to you for a moment?" She introduced Chip.
Julia Howell was puzzled but said, "Come on in."
Sam explained, "I'm still trying to find out who lolled your husband."
"Oh, I do wish you'd give that up." Mrs. Howell said, "You're so young and have so many other things to do in life."
"I've tried to give it up, Mrs. Howell, but I can't. Chip and I think we know who did it. It's the same man who killed Chip's friend. You've heard about Tom Telford?"
Mrs. Howell frowned.
"It was in the papers. He was doing a bear study in the swamp and then just disappeared last October...."
"Oh, yes, I did read about him," the widow said. "Do you know a man named Buddy Bailey?"
Mrs. Howell shook her head.
"He's a housepainter. Lives in Skycoat."
Mrs. Howell shook her head again.
Sam offered, "He used to go to cockfights."
Mrs. Howell shook her head once more. "Alvin never mentioned him that I can remember. But like I told you before, he didn't tell me much about the chicken fights. In fact, he didn't tell me anything. He knew I didn't want to hear it."
"Do you think it's possible that Mr. Howell owed Buddy Bailey some money?"
"I have no idea. I guess it's possible."
Sam persisted. "Did Mr. Howell ever say he needed some money to pay a gambling debt?"
"Child, that's the last thing Alvin would have ever told me. I'm sorry I can't help you. I'd like to forget my husband ever had anything to do with cockfights."
Sam looked over at Chip. He shrugged. She said, "Well, thank you for talking to us."
Mrs. Howell nodded. "Please try to forget Alvin. Try hard for both our sakes. The memories are painful."
"I'll try," Sam promised but knew she wouldn't.
Outside Chip said, "I think she's right. I've had to go beyond the plane crash, and now I think we have to go beyond Tom and Buddy Bailey."
Sam remained silent as they drove back to Chapanoke. Just before she got out of the Volvo, Chip said, "I'll try to bury Tom and you try to bury Alvin Howell. Okay?"
She nodded, kissed him, and went into the house. It wasn't that easy. She'd lived with Alvin Howell for a long time.
Just before dinner the kitchen phone rang and Dell said, "Samantha, it's for you. Some lady."
Sam then heard the voice of Julia Howell. "I got to thinking after you left," she said. "I saw a slip of paper a few weeks before Alvin was shot that had forty-eight hundred dollars written on it. He'd written it down with a question mark. I asked him about it and he said, 'Never mind.' He seemed angry that I'd asked. I told the deputy about it back then. He just shook his head. But it might have been a gambling debt."
"Did you save the piece of paper?" Sam asked.
"I never saw it again," Mrs. Howell said.
"Did it have Buddy Bailey's name on it? Even his initials?"
Dell's head swerved around. Her eyes widened at the mention of that name.
"Not that I recall," Mrs. Howell said.
"Thank you for telling me."
"That's all the help I can be. But I do wish you'd forget the whole thing. Good-bye, Samantha."
Sam said good-bye and hung up as Dell queried her sharply. "What's that all about? Didn't Papa tell you to steer clear of Buddy Bailey?"
"I am steering clear of him."
"I hope so," said Dell, skeptically. "Who was that?"
"Mrs. Howell."
"My Lord," Dell said in an anguished tone.
***
AFTER dinner Sam called Deputy Truesdale on her phone. She said she was sorry to bother him and asked if he had a moment.
"I'm sittin' here watchin' the Giants beat the Dodgers. Nothin else. Haven't talked to you in months, Samantha."
Sam quickly told him about the meeting with Julia Howell and her call an hour ago to say she remembered a piece of paper on which Alvin had written forty-eight hundred dollars.
"I think she told me about it years ago. He hadn't written what it was for, right?" Truesdale asked.
"Right. And she doesn't know what happened to the paper, either."
The deputy's laugh was desert dry. "Well, Samantha, I know what you're tryin' to do once again—connect that money
to Buddy Bailey an' the cockfights. Doesn't work. That information wouldn't be worth doodlysquat in front of a jury—"
"But if she testified..."
"Sometime I got to teach you a little bit 'bout evidence, not that I know much myself. Meanwhile, Miss Samantha, I haven't forgotten Mr. Buddy Bailey, an' I might tell you why sometime down the road."
Even without the phone, Sam's sigh could've been heard in Currituck.
***
JUNE: Chip had gone back to Columbus for more cosmetic surgery on that scorched biscuit of a left ear "to make it prettier," he'd said, before entering Ohio State in the fall. Already Sam's phone bill was showing signs of distress.
On this humid Sunday morning, with high white clouds from the Atlantic drifting over the coastal plain, Sam pedaled out to the highway to retrieve the Pilots from their orange ovals, dropped Mrs. Haskins's paper on her front doorstep, then pumped on home.
Her plan for the day was to do chores after breakfast, study a little, go jump in the canal before lunch, then head for Dairy Queen at about one.
The plan was altered a few minutes after eight when the phone rang in the kitchen. A moment later, her mother called up the stairs, "Deputy Truesdale is coming by. Wants to talk to us."
The bo'sun wasn't home. He'd gone fishing on Albemarle Sound, out of Grandy, at daybreak.
At about eight-thirty, Truesdale's car came up Chapanoke, and soon he was sitting at the kitchen table in shirtsleeves having biscuits spread with Dell's best blackberry jam. Having talked about the hot weather, complimented Dell on her biscuits, the jam, and the good coffee, he still hadn't said why he was there.
Finally, with a grin on his seamed face, he said, "I arrested Buddy Bailey last night on suspicion of murdering both Tom Telford and Alvin Howell. We may even charge him with the murder of that game warden eight years ago. I got a warrant signed yesterday mornin' an' got him into county jail last night. So, Samantha, I think you were right all along."
Sam was almost speechless. She'd thought Truesdale had given up. "How'd you find out?"
The deputy grunted a throaty laugh. "Well, it's like takin' out an oak stump. I been diggin' 'round it for six months, tryin' to get at the taproot. I bet I talked to Jack Slade fifteen times. You know, he's like one of those foxes he used to trap. He played me along, gave me a teensy bit every time we talked...."
Truesdale paused to sip his coffee, and Sam asked, "What did he finally tell you? And when?"
"Friday. He had Grace Crosby call me. Grace said Jack had something to say. He sure did. Buddy shot Alvin because of a gamblin' debt, an' he shot Telford when he was caught poachin'. He'll get life if not worse.... Seems Buddy'd made a business of poachin' for a long time. Sold bear steaks to a Washington restaurant, one of those places that caters to people who like wild meat."
The deputy paused again, reflecting, then chuckled softly. "Never can tell what your fellowman will do, especially if he's old an' cantankerous. Seems that Buddy promised some of those frozen bear steaks to Jack an' never delivered 'em. Well, Jack decided he'd get a lick in."
Truesdale shook his head and chuckled again. "Some lick..."
Tom Telford and Alvin Howell could finally rest in peace, Sam thought. She said, "Excuse me," and raced up the stairs to call Columbus.
***
The last time I saw Henry he was in the cedar swamp exploring a rotten log that hosted a village of white ants. He pulled outward with his claws, opening the wood, then his darting tongue scooped up the fleeing insects. Henry split many such logs in his constant quest for food. About ten minutes was all it took to finish off the appetizers, then Henry happily meandered back toward the black gum groves.
Bears, like most humans, have no desire to slog along in mud and muck. Skilled at keeping their paws dry, they seldom wade in ponds except to dine on fish. They maneuver through the Powhatan, from dry spot to dry spot, taking advantage of fallen trees to cross streams.
For Henry, that particular day was like all his yesterdays and tomorrows, occupied essentially with finding food and getting sleep, unless he was unlucky enough to meet a two-legged creature with a gun.
I'll always remember the Powhatan. Those strange but beautiful, lonely acres gave me my father and Tom Telford and Henry and a girl named Samantha. I found her up on our roof. But the greatest gift of all was when the swamp told me that I didn't need to hide anymore. Anymore.
Powhatan Swamp
English I
Charles Clewt
Ohio State University
Reader Chat Page
Aside from Chips appearance, what makes him different from the other locals?
How does her discovery of Alvin Howell's body continue to affect Sam's life?
How does working with Tom Telford change Chip's outlook on life?
What is the purpose of the work that Tom and Chip do with the bears?
How do Henry and the other bears behave in ways that are similar to how humans behave?
The swamp is a misunderstood landscape. What surprising facts about swamps did you learn from this story?
What is revealed through Sam's hypnotism that she hadn't remembered previously? Why is that information important?
Sam feels torn between her loyalty to her father and her belief in Chips ideals. What would you do if you were in her place?
Both the environmentalists and the hunters have valid points in their battle over the Powhatan. Explain how each side supports its perspective.
Theodore Taylor, The Weirdo
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