The Weirdo

  Telford tried frantically to go into reverse, but the Toyota stalled. In a few seconds the man in the red-and-black mackinaw, moving with incredible speed for someone so big, stood by the open window. His rifle aimed at Telford's head, he said, "Now, college boy, jus' ease on outta there with your hands up...."

  ***

  AT THE lake, Chip climbed into the boat. He found it hard to believe that a year and a half had gone by since Thomas Telford came up the Feeder Ditch to announce he was going to study bears in the Powhatan. The outboard soon sputtered and caught, and Chip headed for the spillway house.

  BOOK 3

  GOING TOWARD HOME in the Bronco, Sam told Delilah about the noisy, sleepless night in the swamp, the terrifying swamp-walker, dogs chasing her up on the roof of the spillwayman's house. Also about Chip Clewt.

  "He's been helping with that bear study. He seems very nice."

  "The crippled boy with the scarred face? I've heard about him."

  "He isn't really crippled. He walks with a limp, but he carried me like I was a cotton ball."

  "You meet his father?"

  "No, he's in New York."

  "New York?" Dell said it as if New York were in Australia. "What's he doing in New York?"

  "Exhibiting his paintings."

  "I've heard he paints."

  As they turned left on Chapanoke Road, crossing the canal bridge, heading directly toward the farm, Sam said, casually, "Chip has been in touch with the National Wildlife Conservancy to extend the ban on hunting and fishing." She didn't need to say "in the swamp."

  Dell laughed in disbelief. "How old you say he was?"

  "Seventeen. But I think he's a very smart seventeen, Mama. He's been in touch with them-for months."

  Dell braked to a sudden stop. "He's got those people started?"

  Dust floated in the air behind the vehicle.

  Sam nodded. "Said he has."

  Delilah surveyed her daughter, then turned her head toward the golden burnished fields, studying them. After a moment, she looked back at Sam. "Someone'll stop that boy. Might even be your papa, Samantha. Why, every hunter for two hundred miles is chompin' at the bit to get back in there next fall. We heard someone was pushin' for an extension but didn't know it was the Clewts. Ol' Jack Slade spread the word last year."

  "Maybe it's a good thing," Sam said. Might stir up some excitement in the yawning county.

  "Maybe for the game, but not for the humans. All hell broke loose around here when they put it off-limits, if you'll remember."

  Sam had been twelve then, but she did vaguely remember all the commotion. Meetings, phone calls. A lot of anger.

  "If your papa hadn't been in the service, he would have led it. Fish and Wildlife set a thousand-dollar fine for anyone caught with a gun or rod back there. Now they've upped it to two thousand. Besides, you lose your license for five years."

  Who needed shooters, anyway? "Chip said the bear population has grown by more than a hundred since the ban."

  "I don't doubt that, but there'll come a time when there are too many." Dell kept looking at the fields.

  "Maybe if they extended it just two years," Sam proposed. The hunters could wait.

  Dell looked over again. "The men are already talkin' 'bout deer and bear season next fall, an' if you want to see purple smoke come out of your papa's ears, just tell him it won't be open. He'll hear 'bout Chip Clewt soon enough, but don't let it be you he hears it from. Jus' tell him how nice that boy was, how helpful, an' let it go at that. All right, Samantha?"

  Maybe that was best after all, Sam thought.

  "That's good advice, believe me. He doesn't talk to you 'bout huntin' because he knows you're not interested. But he does to me, abed at night. He heard that State Game might run a lottery to issue a hundred permits to go after Powhatan blacks next fall. Three-week trial hunt, one bear limit to each hunter. He'll be in that lottery an' may get lucky."

  Sam looked off toward home, where the bo'sun was waiting. For four years he'd been going elsewhere for quail and deer with the Powhatan chock-full of game, sitting right under his thin nostrils. He hadn't shot a bear since 1984, she knew. There was a family album photo of him squatting proudly, grinning widely beside his kill, rifle in his hand.

  Dell added, "And I don't think he'll exactly appreciate a seventeen-year-old boy stickin' his outta-state nose in."

  Sam acknowledged that to herself. Chief Warrant Boatswain Stuart Sanders could be a handful once he got going. That much was well known in both the U.S. Coast Guard and the old house on Chapanoke Road. Though he'd never once harmed her physically or even threatened it, she'd always been aware of his flashing temper. She truly loved him, but he often intimidated her.

  They sat there a while longer, then Dell started the Bronco again. "An' knowin' what is comin' up, I'd stay far away from the Clewts if I was you," she added, shifting gears.

  "I have to return his slippers."

  "Call him an' say you'll drop 'em off at Dunnegan's."

  Sam didn't commit herself.

  In less than a minute, the Bronco was in the front yard, Sam's papa sitting out on the porch, waiting for them. He got up and walked over, looking in at Sam as he opened the door. He was smiling. "You are sure mussed up."

  No denying that, Sam thought as he pushed his bony face to her cheek and kissed her. "One thing you got to learn, daughter, is never risk your neck for a dog. They got to take the risks. They're made for it."

  "Buck didn't know what he was doing. He'd probably never seen a bear."

  "Well, I've had it with that particular bruin. I'll bet it's the same one that got us last year. Robbin' the cornfield, tearin' down the apple trees. He's a gone bear. I'm gonna get a permit to kill him, that's for sure. I'll make a trap, get him by a paw, then blow his brains out...." Bo'sun Sanders was always direct.

  "He's one of those NC State 'study bears,' wearing a radio-collar, I was told...."

  "That Telford fella again? I don't care if the Pope has blessed it, he's a gone bear, that's for sure."

  Dell interrupted. "Her feet are in bad shape, Stu. Dunnegan lifted her for me."

  He laughed and reached in. "You weigh a teensy bit more than the last time I carried you, whenever that was."

  "Long time ago, Papa."

  "Where'd you get the fancy slippers?"

  "John Clewt's son."

  "The weirdo? I've heard of him but don't think I've ever seen him. Deformed, isn't he?" Bo'sun Sanders said, carrying her easily across the yard.

  "He's not a weirdo, and he's not deformed," Sam replied defensively, surprised to find herself eager to talk about Chip Clewt. "He was seriously burned in a plane crash."

  "Jus' take her on up to the bathroom, an' I'll tend her," Dell said. "Sit her down on the John. That boy soaked her feet in Epsom salts, but she may need Doc Cross."

  Stu Sanders frowned. "How old's that boy?"

  Somehow "that boy" didn't sound right to Sam. He was too mature. "Seventeen."

  "I'll call out there an' thank him."

  "I'll do it, Stu," said Dell, quickly opening the front door.

  As he was going up the stairs, he asked, "You spend the night at the Clewts'?"

  "No, in a hollow stump. I remembered Grandpa did it when he got lost."

  "That's my girl," her father said with pride, turning into the hallway and finally depositing her on the toilet seat.

  Then he stood in the doorway. "Where was John Clewt in all this? I've heard he's also a strange one."

  "He wasn't there," Sam answered.

  Dell said, "Get lost, Stu. I'm going to undress her, put her in the tub."

  Sam complained, "Mama, I can undress myself. It's only my feet that are..."

  Dell overrode the protest. "Let's get the jacket off, then the jeans, what's left of 'em...."

  Sam felt like a child again.

  ***

  AN HOUR later, Dell called the doctor, saying she'd never seen such blistered feet, and because of the dog nip, Doc Cr
oss wanted to know if Sam had had a tetanus shot recently. She'd had one last spring, Dell remembered. Doc Cross prescribed an antibiotic plus a painkiller, and he highly recommended a shoeless few days to let the swelling go down and the healing begin. Watch the dog wound.

  Changing into his casual uniform, always crisply laundered, Bo'sun Sanders went on back to duty at Craney Island, Dell taking the Bronco to Currituck for the prescription.

  Alone, Sam looked up the Clewts' number and dialed it, thinking she should call him personally. It was only the second time in her life she'd ever called a boy.

  Chip answered after a few rings.

  Sam said, "I wanted to call and thank you again for everything"

  "Your mother phoned a little while ago."

  "I know. But I wanted to add my own thanks. You didn't need to take such good care of me." She was finding she could talk to him. The few times she'd gone out with boys, she hadn't known what to say. A new Sam?

  "You'd do the same for me, I know. By the way, I looked at the tracking data, and that was definitely Henry who paid you a visit."

  "You know that much about his movements?"

  "Pretty simple. I'll show you next time you come out, but I wouldn't try that swamp again for a while. Come up the ditch."

  "Don't worry. I won't be using my feet for a few days. But I'll bring your slippers back as soon as I can."

  "No hurry. I've got another pair."

  "Thanks again. I really mean it, Chip."

  "I'm glad we met. See you."

  On hanging up, Sam wondered if she was just feeling sorry for disfigured Chip Clewt or if she was somehow attracted to him.

  Hobbling to the window a little later, she looked down at Baron von Buckner. Her papa had put him in the hunt pens, like it or not. Even from the second story, he was a sorry sight. There were red streaks along his sleek neck, sides, and flank, welts where the thorns had ripped him. Good thing Uncle Jack and Aunt Peaches aren't coming home anytime soon, she thought. She shook her head at Buck's wounds, which had been treated with hydrogen peroxide, and went back to bed to nurse her own.

  There'd be no school for her until Thursday, unless they expected her to walk on air. No grief about that. Albemarle Unified had started a month ago, almost to the day, and not much had changed over the summer.

  Next-to-the-last year, she hoped, hallelujah! She thought of AHS as a large, uninspiring pile of crumbling red bricks, slowly dying between soybean and peanut fields, growing more sleepy with each day the hall buzzers sounded.

  The building itself had smelled mustier than ever from being mostly locked up while the coastal plain baked. There was no air conditioning. The sweaty football players came off the dusty practice field looking like they'd been taking mud baths.

  Sam had felt lifeless herself, envying the kids in cities who sat in cool classrooms and listened to laid-back teachers in designer jeans, went from cool classrooms to cool stores to cool movies to cool homes. Same old Sam, she told herself, bitching at the heat and everything else.

  School was especially deadly following summer's everlasting diet of dull. Aside from going to Nag's Head a half-dozen times to spend the day on the beach, going to Portsmouth for movies and Norfolk for malls, she'd filled cones at Dairy Queen five days a week. Oh, yes, and she'd bowled with Binkie once a week at the Lizzie City alley.

  So now the rest of fall and winter were ahead and the only thing different in her life, for six weeks, anyway, was being mistress to a swamp-cut dog while an aunt and uncle went gallivanting halfway across the world. Maybe this Chip Clewt would add a dimension.

  It was now one-twenty. Binkie and Darlene wouldn't be home until three. Then she'd spend two hours telling them about the night in the swamp and Chip Clewt.

  ***

  MIDMORNING of the next day, Sam was in the den, watching a "Matlock" rerun, when the phone rang. She got out of her papa's recliner to hobble into the kitchen, still feeling as though she was walking on hot coals.

  "How're you doing?"

  She thought she recognized the voice. Chip Clewt? Of all people, she hadn't expected him. "Chip?"

  "Yeah. How are you?"

  "I won't be running any ten K's this week, that's for sure."

  "Your feet any better?"

  "A little."

  "How about your ankle?" He sounded genuinely concerned.

  "It's sore."

  "I forgot to tell you yesterday that both dogs had rabies shots in June. So you shouldn't froth at the mouth."

  "Very funny."

  He paused. "I really just wanted to call and check up on you," he said soberly.

  "I'm doing fine. I think I can go back to school tomorrow or Friday."

  "You need a ride?"

  "No, Mama'll take me."

  "Okay. But if you need one, let me know. We've got a car parked at Dunnegan's."

  "Thanks," Sam said. She had the feeling he wanted to talk and was waiting for her to open up. Except to her mama and Binkie and Darlene, occasionally to her brother, she'd never opened up to anyone.

  "Well, just wanted to check in," he said. "See you around. Take care...."

  "Thanks for calling," Sam said, hearing a click on the other end.

  She sat staring at the phone. There must have been something she could have said. "How are the bears? How are the birds? How ya doin'?" But not Sam, tongue-tied Wanting Sister. Not her.

  Finally she hobbled back to the den. Andy Griffith, pride of North Carolina, was still emoting.

  ***

  AT DINNER, Stu Sanders wore a look of amazement. "He's actually foolin' with bears? Kid's crazy, Sam. Blacks can be as dangerous as grizzlies or polars. Either way, you can't really predict what they'll do. How old you say he was?"

  "Seventeen. He's helping with that NC State study. Right now, he's keeping radio track of the bears that have collars. He knows the one that raided our apples, even has a name for it—Henry."

  "Knows the bear? Hah!" the bo'sun scoffed. "People who don't know better have some dumb ideas about bears. They see those nature movies and think, How cute. Papa Bear, Momma Bear, Goldilocks. Well, there's a helluva lot of difference between a storybook bear an' a live one, believe me. Henry, for God's sake."

  "He knows the difference, Papa. He said they're timid. He's been working with that biologist for more than a year. Blacks run from humans. There's only a few cases on record of a black ever attacking anyone."

  "At seventeen, he doesn't know his butt from his Adam's apple. One attacked your grandpa. And who says that college fella is an expert? What is he? A ripe old twenty-two?"

  Bo'sun Sanders always had a way of putting down anyone less than thirty years old. Sam sometimes felt sorry for his Coast Guard crews.

  "The only time I'm comfortable around a bear is when I have a good gun in my hands. If it charges, I've got somethin' to stop it. Squeeze the trigger, an goodbye bear. By the way, I started makin' that trap last night."

  Her papa was good with tools and used the base machine shop on occasion. Sam began to wish she hadn't brought the subject up.

  "Papa, early the other morning when I was in that stump a man came close enough for me to almost touch him. He was carrying something over his shoulder wrapped in a blanket or a dropcloth. I swear I saw a foot sticking out of it."

  The bo'sun laughed. "Sam, I've been on the bridges o' ships an' have seen all kinds of things at dawn that turned out to be something else at full light. I've done the same thing in duck blinds. Eyes play tricks on you. Crazy tricks."

  "I know I saw him, Papa. What would he be carryin'?"

  "Well, if you did see him, he could've been carryin' a bag o' trash. Plain ol' trash."

  "You know what I think?"

  "No, I don't know what you think."

  "I think he was carrying a dead body to go dump it into the Sand Suck. I'd heard two shots at sundown."

  He laughed again, swabbing up gravy with a biscuit. "Sam, you ought to be writin' one of those mysteries that actress has on
Sunday nights. She plays a writer, an' someone always gets murdered."

  "'Murder, She Wrote,'" Dell offered.

  "Yeah, that's it. You should send her that idea."

  "I did see him, Papa."

  "People have been goin' back in there for thousands o' years for all kinds of reasons, an' I hope we'll be goin' again next year."

  Dell said, "Talkin 'bout people, you see where that Methodist preacher up in Currituck got caught for drivin' drunk?" Dell could change subjects in half an eyeblink.

  Bo'sun Sanders said, "Wonder what his sermon'll be Sunday mornin'?"

  ***

  SAM JERKED out of an Alvin Howell nightmare with a dry mouth, breathing hard and fast, not knowing if she'd screamed only within her dream or out loud.

  Lying still, staring into the darkness of the room, waiting for her heart to slow down, she wondered what had triggered Alvin Howell this time. Maybe what had just happened in the swamp? Maybe her aching feet? She never knew what would send him her way.

  The first nightmare had occurred a few days after she'd found him in the brush by Chapanoke; the second, a few days later—so frightening that her mother had to hold her and rock her, even at the age of nine.

  The bo'sun had been at sea, and Dell had taken Sam to a psychologist at the Public Health Hospital in Norfolk. The psychologist talked to Sam with soothing words but told Dell that only time would rid Samantha of Alvin Howell.

  Time hadn't done that entirely. Mr. Howell didn't visit as much as he had the first two or three years, but he returned when least expected. He wasn't always dead, and he wasn't always on his back in the tangle. At least twice, looking at Sam with those fright-swollen eyes, he'd said, "Help me! Help me!"

  But no matter whether he was dead or alive in the dreams, he always had that red splotch on his chest.

  Another strange thing that occurred in the dreams now and then was a pickup truck. She'd always see it before she saw Mr. Howell. Yet it remained distant. She could not see the driver, and she wasn't sure what color it was.