The Weirdo

  Delilah hadn't arrived yet, and Sam said, "I'd like you to meet my mother. She's as grateful as I am."

  Chip said, "Some other time; I have to get back."

  "Well, I can't thank you enough for all you've done. I'll return your slippers soon."

  "No problem. Glad to do it. Sometimes it's lonely back in there. See you."

  With that, he recrossed the highway, and soon she heard the outboard fire up and knew he was headed back up the Feeder Ditch.

  BOOK 2

  Spring, in the temperate Powhatan begins in early March, erupting out of the muck, the first green shoots spearing up overnight. And older males, like Henry, come out of their slumbers in whatever dens they chose in January, having not defecated for almost sixty days. They stretch luxuriously and go on the prowl for grass and tender stems. The males' winter houses are usually flimsy, sometimes only a few branches over an earthen shallow. Some even sleep comfortably beneath a tree for two months, exposed to wind, rain, and snow.

  Some of the younger males den for less than two weeks; some not at all, their bodies needing fat. After sleeping nights, they forage during the day for what food is available.

  Not until mid- or late April do the mothers emerge with their cubs, having given birth while sleeping.

  Meanwhile, dwarf trilliums have burst into bloom. Bell-like honeycups carpet the swamp floor, and the fragrance of early wild magnolias fills the air. Beads of moisture glisten on leaves turning golden in the filtered sunlight. There is a drip-drip-drip sound, a tinkling that speaks of the wet winter just past. Waterways overflow their banks.

  Migrating songbirds make their own announcements of the new season. River otters stir in the streams, and fawns, usually twins, greet an often dangerous world. The great blue heron and the smaller green one scud around Lake Nansemond. Now and then a screeching osprey splashes down.

  Orchids, yellow jessamine, and silky camellias quiver with morning dew, along with ferns so green they shock the eye. Solomon's plume and Queen Anne's lace and marsh marigolds explode.

  So spring, my favorite time, arrives.

  Powhatan Swamp

  English I

  Charles Clewt

  Ohio State University

  ***

  MAY: A YEAR and a half before Field Champion Baron von Buckner bounded into the swamp after Henry. A year and a half before Sam Sanders thought she saw the swamp-walker and Chip Clewt retrieved her off his roof, Thomas Telford came up the Feeder Ditch in the beat-up boat he'd borrowed from Dunnegan. He was twenty-eight years old, a graduate student in biology at North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

  The two mongrels sounded off from the backyard when khaki-clad Telford approached the house. Always a menace when the Clewts were away, the dogs were mostly docile when they were home. Father and son, home this day, came out on the porch to greet their visitor.

  "Hi," Telford said. Smiling, he extended a hand.

  Dunnegan had told Telford that Chip Clewt was a burn victim, had suggested he prepare himself for a jolt at seeing the boy. It was a jolt. Worse than Dunnegan had described. Much worse.

  Telford handed over a business card, saying he had a grant from the Fish and Wildlife Service to study the black bears and just wanted them to know he'd be around for a year or so.

  "I'll try to track as many as possible from now to early December, put radio-collars on them, and build up as much data as possible. Try to get an accurate population count...."

  He noticed Chip's sudden interest, the way the boy shifted his head.

  "Well, there seem to be quite a few out here," said John Clewt. "I've seen them now and then, but they stay pretty well hidden."

  "That they do," agreed Telford, watching Chip. "I was on a study in Pennsylvania three years ago, and it's catch-as-catch-can."

  Chip was listening intently now, Telford noticed.

  "I see them across the lake now and then, snooping around on the shore. I've even seen mothers and cubs several times. They disappear fast, don't they?" Clewt said.

  Telford nodded. He had a pleasant, craggy face and sandy hair; an outdoor look about him.

  "I really came up here for another reason. I asked Dunnegan if he could recommend some bright young person I might hire as an assistant. But I can only pay minimum wage."

  Telford glanced over at Chip. "Dunnegan recommended you. He didn't know what your schedule was or whether or not you'd be interested...."

  Surprised, frowning a little, Chip said, ever so slowly, ever so uncertainly, "Well, I don't have any particular schedule...."

  "You'd be helping me track bears."

  "Helping you track bears," Chip repeated, looking over at his father. Was this visitor serious?

  Telford remained silent for a moment but thought he saw a light coming on in Chip's eyes.

  "It takes two people to do what I have to do," Telford explained.

  Chip glanced over at his father again, looked back at Telford, then took a deep breath and nodded. "I don't know anything about bears, Mr. Telford, but I'll try to learn."

  "That's good enough for me. I'll be back next week with radio-collars, snares, tranquilizers, the usual equipment. We'll start then."

  Chip suddenly grinned at the young scientist, brown-bag skin tightening around his mouth on the left side.

  The grin was devastating and tugged at Telford. He tried to fight off any sign of pity.

  "One more thing, Mr. Telford. I've got a bum hand."

  Chip held up his withered and gloved left hand apologetically.

  Telford shrugged. "Call me Tom. I'm too young to be a Mister. We can work around it."

  "Okay."

  Telford smiled again, saying, "See you next week," and trudged off toward Dunnegan's boat.

  ***

  CHIP watched him go, thinking that luck had finally touched him.

  He'd arrived in the Powhatan the previous month. After the first three weeks exploring the swamp in the old Jeep and by boat, free time had become deadly dull time. How many books could you read? How much TV could you watch? Telford had come up the ditch at the exact right moment, Chip decided. The exact right moment.

  Bears? Black bears, brown bears, polar bears. He'd never thought much about them. His father had told him he might see one now and then.

  "You have any books on bears?"

  John Clewt shook his head. "But we can try in Elizabeth City. I've got a library card."

  In the afternoon, he was reading to his father as the Volvo returned from Lizzie City: "The only distinctly American bears, the blacks came down from the Bering Strait a half-million years ago. Experts at hiding in woodlands, they manage to survive even fifty miles from cities as large as New York and Chicago, often moving by night near populated areas...."

  Chip saw that the book had general information about black bears throughout the country and up in Canada.

  Chip wanted to show Telford just how interested he was in the project, so he asked Dunnegan to recommend someone who might know about Powhatan's bears. Dunnegan suggested an old swamper named Slade who'd trapped mink and muskrat back in there for more than fifty years, almost to the day the government outlawed it. Slade lived in a converted yellow school bus in Skycoat, a hamlet on the southwest edge.

  Chip drove the Jeep along Trail Nine until he was opposite Skycoat, parked off the trail, then crossed the last few yards of swampland and into the tiny settlement.

  Slade had white hair and badly fitting false teeth. He drooled out of the right corner of his mouth. But his mind was still working, Dunnegan had said. His eyes were sunken and milky blue. His straggly beard was the color of his hair. He was seventy-seven, Dunnegan had also said, a gossipy hermit.

  No sooner had Chip knocked on Slade's door, introducing himself, saying he wanted to talk about bears, than Slade asked, "Wha' happened to yuh, boy? Looks like yuh stuck yer fool head into an oven."

  "Airplane crash, Mr. Slade."

  He'd thought of hanging a sign on his chest: Burn victim!
Plane crash! It did no good to become angry, even annoyed. Just shrug and answer.

  "Well, yuh are sure messed up, boy."

  "I know," Chip said, patiently.

  "You gonna study bars, eh?"

  Chip nodded. "That's right, Mr. Slade. I'll help a graduate student from NC State. He's doing a two-year survey to try and count the bears back here. He's a biologist."

  "Whatziz name?" The milky blue eyes narrowed.

  "Thomas Telford."

  "I ain't never had much use for students o' any kind."

  "Well, he's more than a student. You'll meet him, I'm sure."

  Squinting, suspicious, Slade asked slyly, "Yuh two got anythin' to do with liftin' the huntin' ban?"

  "Dunnegan told me the count will help Fish and Wildlife make a decision."

  "Them meddling jackasses," Slade snarled, wiping the corner of his mouth, milky blue eyes catching fire, fists knotting.

  The ban wasn't why Chip had come to Skycoat. "What do you remember about bears? What single thing sticks out in your memory, Mr. Slade?"

  Chip talked to Slade for more than an hour, getting a feel for the Powhatan blacks—what part of the swamp they usually stayed in, where the food was, things he could relay to Telford.

  When he got up to leave Skycoat, Slade asked again about the bear count and what it had to do with lifting the ban. Chip repeated himself and hurried away, wondering if he'd made a mistake talking to the old trapper.

  ***

  HALF an hour later, Slade was in Grace Crosby's, the only filling station in Skycoat.

  "There's a young fella from Raleigh gonna count the bars so the governmint can keep us outta the swamp some more. Name is Telford. Him an' a boy with a messed-up face..."

  Skycoat wasn't much. Sloan's, the general store; Crosby's; and the farm equipment repair shop. They wouldn't have existed at all if two country roads didn't cross there. Sloan's had been there since Model T's chugged along, before the roads were paved. Crosby's and the tractor garage had come later.

  Slade always made a point of hanging around Sloan's or Grace's from five to six or so to get his day's talking in. That's when the area people usually showed up for one reason or another. Slade preferred Crosby's and sat by the doorway now, cane in hand.

  Grace suffered Skycoat's biggest gossip. She usually had greasy hands and wore a smudged blue polka-dot bandanna on her bushy brown hair.

  By nightfall, the news had spread. Area hunters began to hear about Tom Telford, a bear counter from Raleigh, young college "fella."

  ***

  LATE MAY: Sam stopped her mother's Bronco in front of the small farm on Tucker Road, another of those lonely, unpaved two-lane country lanes that crisscrossed Albemarle County. Hesitating about what she planned to do, she sat for a moment looking at the meager frame house. Weeds had conquered the yard, and the dingy, peeling one-story place, window blinds at half-mast, badly needed a face-lift. Only the presence of a dusty old Dodge in the driveway indicated someone was probably home.

  Almost hidden by the weeds was a sign, Julia Howell—Seamstress, with a phone number.

  Sam took a deep breath, climbed out, and walked up to the porch. She said to herself, "She will think I'm crazy," but she pushed the bell button nonetheless.

  A moment later, the door opened, and Sam said, "Mrs. Howell?"

  "Yes," the woman answered, likely expecting a customer.

  She was pale and gray-haired and wiry, but not frail. Her horn-rimmed glasses were shoved up on her forehead as if she'd been interrupted from work. She wore faded jeans, a pink cotton blouse, and fluffy blue bedroom slippers.

  "I'm Samantha Sanders. You may remember my name...."

  Mrs. Howell frowned.

  "I'm the one who found Mr. Howell...."

  The frown widened. "You're the little girl...."

  "Not so little anymore," Sam said. Six years had passed.

  "No, not so little..." The frown disappeared.

  "May I talk to you for a few minutes?"

  "Come in," Mrs. Howell said, opening the rusty screen door.

  Sam went inside, Mrs. Howell saying, "I converted our front room to a workroom."

  Sam could see a cutting table, a sewing machine, a clothes rack for hanging dresses and coats, and a three-way, full-length fitting mirror. But there was a couch to one side.

  "Sit down, please."

  Sam went to the couch, and Mrs. Howell took the swivel stool that was in front of the sewing machine. "I probably should have called you years ago to thank you for finding Alvin, but I was pretty upset with all that was going on," she said, tapping a cigarette out of a pack.

  "You mind?" Mrs. Howell asked.

  Sam shook her head, having rehearsed what she was going to say. Tobacco odor wasn't of consequence. "Mrs. Howell, I still have dreams about that afternoon. I had a bad one last night."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. I know Alvin wouldn't want you to suffer."

  "I see him in these dreams. One night about two months ago he said, 'Help me! Help me!' Last night he said, 'I know who killed me....' I think he's trying to send a message."

  "Oh, child, I'm so sorry. I wish an adult had found him." Her pale face was knotted with concern.

  "So do I," Sam said, letting out a long breath. "Mrs. Howell, do you have any idea who might have done it and why?"

  The older woman slowly shook her head. "Deputy Truesdale asked me that twenty times if he asked me once. I have no idea. Though he was inclined to argue with people, I don't think Alvin had too many enemies."

  At the time of his death, Sam had read that he'd been a truck farmer but had given it up quite a while before. He worked at the Albemarle Lumber Mill and raised gamecocks.

  "I've always thought it had something to do with fighting the roosters," the widow said. "The men gambled, you know. They bet on or against his cocks. Sometimes big money, though Alvin never won much. I kept asking him to quit, but he was hooked. I truly felt for those poor birds and never went near a fight. I sold 'em all within a week after he died."

  "You think he owed some gambler a lot of money?"

  Mrs. Howell sighed. "I don't know. He knew I hated what he was doing so he usually kept a closed mouth...." She blew out a plume of smoke.

  Sam looked around the room. There was no photo of Alvin Howell to be seen. As she recalled, they didn't have children.

  "Have you gone to a doctor about these dreams?"

  Sam nodded. "A few months after it happened. She said time would take care of it. It hasn't...."

  "I do wish I could help," Mrs. Howell said, dismay evident.

  Sam had figured it would be a useless mission to visit Mrs. Howell but had been willing to try anything. She rose now, saying, "Thank you for talking to me."

  "You're welcome," Mrs. Howell said and escorted Sam to the door.

  ***

  EARLY JUNE: Chip found himself bumping over Trail Eight in a white Toyota four-wheel-drive, all-terrain vehicle. "First thing we have to do is find tracks on the road or along the sides. Or see scat. That's plain poop," said Telford. He had his window rolled down and leaned out of the cab. "The good berry season will soon start. That's caviar and strawberry shortcake to a hungry bear. Like deer, they feed in early morning and late evening."

  About ten minutes later, he stopped the camper-topped truck. "Mr. Big Bruin has been here, I'm sure." He eased back in reverse gear, then shut down the engine.

  Chip followed him out.

  "Tracks!" Telford pointed, then knelt down.

  In the soft sand were paw prints at least three inches deep, five distinct toes and imprints of the soles in each.

  "Bears are plantigrade, Chip, just like we are. Walk on their soles. Look closely, you'll see the tips of the claws. He can't retract them."

  "Why do you say it's a he?"

  "Look how deep the impression is. He'll go over three hundred pounds. Sows are half that big."

  Telford stood up. He studied the prints, then raised his head to look off ah
ead and right. "I'd bet he crossed that footbridge up there and went back toward those loblollies." He nodded that way.

  The tall yellow pines, topped at about a hundred and fifty feet by rounded domes, stuck up on the west horizon a quarter mile away. Crossing the footbridge, they followed the dust traces.

  "Look where they've chewed the bridge. This has to be a common route for them."

  May through July were mating months, and the males staked out territories. Soon Telford pointed at one tall loblolly. The flat red ridges of bark, separated by deep furrows, had been chewed and rubbed on. Dried white sap streaked the lower trunk.

  "He's left some hair as advertisement."

  "Well, where is he?" Chip asked, scanning in a circle.

  "He's not about to tell us. Let's go back to the truck."

  Since seven o'clock, when they'd rendezvoused across the lake, Chip had been happier than he could ever remember. Here he was, for once doing something useful and unusual. But he was also worried that he might fail, not having worked very often during the past three years. For four months after the last skin graft he didn't even leave the house except at night. His grandfather had arranged a job programming computers for a Columbus insurance agency, working at home. This job with Telford was perfect; it was fun, and he didn't have to appear in public—show his face. He could stay safely hidden in the bogs and marshes.

  Please, God, don't let me screw up, he said to himself. Please, God....

  The weather was beautiful over the coastal plain, sky cornflower blue, sun lancing down through the trees, warm, light wind ruffling the trail grass as they moved toward the footbridge over the rush-lined ditch.

  Chip, limping along on a gimpy left leg, pushed himself to keep up with the long-legged man. He was pleased that Telford was making no allowance for knee damage. There was nothing he hated worse than those looks or gestures or words of sympathy. He could cope just fine, even run a little in an awkward way. Cope just fine.

  Returning to the chewed-up loblolly, equipment in their backpacks, they unloaded, then Telford began to set up the snare.

  "You can use a snare or a culvert trap, a steel barrel with a door on one end that drops down after the bear goes in to eat the bait. I prefer this spring-activated snare. Better than lugging the culverts around. Okay, find me some small logs and sticks. Branches a couple of feet in length, sticks about pencil size—a few inches long."