He laughed. “Mrs. Underwood, I don’t know if you can call it art, but yes, I’m going to try and do a few sketches.”
Sybil poured him another cup of coffee. “I think it’s very exciting,” she said. “Claude tells me you are a wonderful artist. Who knows, Mr. Campbell, one day you may be hanging in a museum and make us all famous.”
Claude came through the front door. “Good morning,” he said. “We can take off anytime you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” said Oswald, picking up his sketch pad. Sybil handed each of them a small paper bag.
Mr. Campbell looked at his sack. “What’s this?”
“Your lunch,” she said. “You don’t think I’d send you boys off with nothing to eat, do you?”
It had been years since anyone had called Oswald a boy, and he liked it. As they walked to the river, he said, “Your wife is really nice. How long have you been married?”
“Forty-one years this July.”
Then Claude, who was usually a man of few words, said something surprising. “And I don’t mind telling you that there has not been a day in all those years that I haven’t thanked the Good Lord for her.”
The river was still covered with early morning mist as they headed out. After about an hour, the mist lifted and the sun came up over the salty marshes that now lay before them. Claude pointed to some tall gray trees that had great nests on the tops of them. “There they are.” As they approached the bank of the river, a big hawklike bird rose up and gently flapped to another tree, and perched there, looking at them. “If you’re lucky you’ll see all kinds of owls and hawks and cranes, they live up in these marshes.” Claude pulled up alongside a dock with a wooden bench and let him out. “I’ll be back to get you in a few hours.”
As Claude pulled away and disappeared around the bend and the sound of his motor faded away Oswald realized that he was truly out in the middle of nowhere. After a while back up in the marshes with only the sound of occasional wings flapping and a hoot owl way off in the distance to break the silence, Oswald began to lose all sense of time and place. All the years of catechism, and years of drinking, had not done it, but now, sitting in the silence, away from “the whirl of society and the noise of city life,” he felt himself becoming one with nature. For the first time in his life he was at peace. He had finally caught a glimpse of what they had been talking about.
Around ten o’clock he started to get hungry, so he opened the sack and looked in. Sybil had packed him a typical fisherman’s lunch: a box of saltine crackers and small tins of potted meat, tiny Vienna sausages, and sardines. She had included a white plastic knife and several packets of mustard and he ate the whole thing and it was delicious. An hour later, Claude came to pick him up, and when he got in the boat Claude said, “Any luck?”
“Oh, yes, I must have seen a hundred birds,” he said. “What about you?”
“A little,” Claude said, as they headed home. Oswald found out later that for Claude a little luck meant he had caught more fish and bigger fish than anyone on the river, not just that day but also that week. There was no question that he had a talent for fishing. He knew the currents and how to read them, how the wind affected the fish, how deep they were at what time of the year. Some who had been with him said he could hear them. But he was modest, and when he was asked how he did it he just said, “I do a lot of it and stick with it longer, I guess.” The only time he did not fish was on Saturday afternoon when everybody in Lost River had the Saturday opera on the radio and you could hear it up and down the river. Claude said there was no point to try because all those Italians screaming like that scared the fish so bad they wouldn’t bite anyway.
When Oswald had first been told that Claude Underwood went fishing every day of his life he could not comprehend how anybody could be so obsessed with one thing. But since he had started painting he understood completely. Still, he had a different reason to paint every day for as long as he possibly could. He wanted to be good enough to paint that one picture he had in mind and he hoped to finish it by Christmas. So while Claude fished, Oswald painted, and the river just kept quiet and let them do it.
At the next Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society meeting, the annual election of officers was held. As usual, Frances was voted back in as president, Sybil Underwood as vice president, Mildred as treasurer, and Dottie Nivens as secretary. Betty Kitchen never stood for election. Because of her height and her military background, she had been named sergeant at arms, in perpetuity.
When the election was over, Mildred complained. “I don’t know why we even bother to have the dumb thing anyway; we always elect the same old people.” And after another show of hands, a vote was taken to change the election to every other year. At the same meeting, before they concluded their business, they also voted to reciprocate and invite the members of the Mystic Order of the Royal Dotted Swiss secret society over for a luncheon. Although they were a sister organization and often did projects together, there was also a small friendly rivalry between the two, and so elaborate plans were made. When they had been the Dotted Swiss’s luncheon guests over at Lillian, they were served Pineapple Chicken Salad with date-nut bread and cream cheese. The Polka Dots decided that they would serve tomato aspic, three different breads, and a floating island for dessert. Nobody could top Sybil’s floating island. Plus they would make table favors of polka-dotted pot holders to be at each plate. “That ought to impress them,” declared Betty Kitchen.
A Sighting
A FEW WEEKS later, after Claude had dropped him off way up in the marshes again, Oswald had quite a start. He had been lost in his work and had not heard it coming, but when he looked up there was a boat sitting not more than five feet in front of him. The dark-skinned man in the boat was staring at him with a look that made his blood run cold. After a long moment he slowly began to paddle away, never saying a word. When Claude came back, Oswald described the man with blue-green eyes and silver hair to him and asked if he knew who he was.
Claude asked if he had a net in the back of his boat.
Oswald said he did.
Claude nodded. “I have a pretty good idea who it was, all right.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I think you might have just had yourself an up-close look at Julian LaPonde.”
“The Creole?”
“Sounds like him.”
“He didn’t look too friendly, I can tell you that.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“It’s best that you didn’t. You never know which way he’s liable to jump.”
“What should I do if he comes back?”
“He won’t . . . believe me. He doesn’t want a thing to do with any of us. If he could pick up his side of the river and move it to Louisiana, he would.”
Claude was right. Oswald did not see him again.
As the days got warmer, Patsy would sometimes go out with Claude and Oswald to the marshes and sit with Oswald for hours while he painted. One day he looked over and said, “Hey, Patsy, what are you going to be when you grow up, do you know yet?”
She thought about it. “Hmmm . . . maybe a . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, is there anything you like to do?”
“I like to play with Jack. I like birds.”
“Ah,” he said. “Maybe you can be a veterinarian one day. Do you know what a veterinarian is?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s a doctor who takes care of animals and birds. Would you like that?”
“Yes, I would. Could I be a real doctor?”
“Sure. If you want to bad enough you can.”
“Really? Could Jack come and see me?”
“Absolutely.”
Her eyes suddenly lit up. “If I was a doctor, maybe I could fix his wing so he could fly so good that the hawks and owls couldn’t catch him and eat him.”
“Maybe you could.” Then Oswald handed Patsy a small
picture he had drawn for her of a large white crane, wearing glasses, tap shoes, and a top hat and carrying a walking stick under his wing. Underneath was written: For Patsy, Mr. Ichabod Crane, Putting on the Ritz.
That night when she came back home, Frances was at the sewing machine busy making borders for the pot holders and Patsy said, “Mrs. Cleverdon, guess what I’m going to be when I grow up?”
“Oh, I just wouldn’t have any idea.”
“Guess.”
“Let’s see. A teacher?” said Frances.
“No.”
“A cowboy?”
“No.” She laughed. “Do you want me to tell you?”
“Yes.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “A bird doctor!”
“A bird doctor? Oh, my, where did you come up with that?”
“Mr. Campbell. He said if I wanted to bad enough I could. He said all you have to do is want something really, really bad, and if it’s supposed to it will happen.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he said he always wanted to paint and he wished and wished really really hard, and now he’s doing it!”
Patsy showed her the picture Oswald had done for her that day. “Oh, this is very good,” Frances said. “He’s just getting better and better, isn’t he? Your aunt Mildred should see this.” She gave her back the picture. “You like Mr. Campbell, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, he’s funny.”
After Patsy went to bed, Frances thought about what Mr. Campbell had told Patsy and realized he might be right. She must have wanted a child really badly because she got one. Now she found herself actually praying that Patsy’s father would never come back and take her away. She knew it was wrong to pray for something like that, but she couldn’t help it.
The Stranger
IT WAS A warm humid afternoon in late May when a black car drove up in front of the store and parked. Roy was behind the counter by the cash register, laughing and telling Oswald that when he had come in that morning Jack had had his foot stuck in a flyswatter. Betty Kitchen was over in the produce department, examining the potatoes. When the man in the white shirt and dark shiny pants walked in and stood looking around the store, Roy looked up. “Can I help you find something?”
The man wiped his brow and the back of his neck with a handkerchief and said, “Yeah, I’ll take something cold to drink if you have it. It’s a hot one out there.”
Roy pointed to the drink box. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” the man said.
Roy didn’t know why, but he had a strange feeling about the guy, so he looked out the window and saw that his car was from Montgomery, the state capital, and it had an official state seal on the door. This guy was not lost or just stopping in for a drink. He was here on some sort of official business. While the man was looking in the box with his back turned, Roy slowly walked around and stood in front of the photograph taped against the side of the cash register.
The man came over with his drink. “I wonder if you could help me out. I’m trying to locate a Mrs. Tammie Suggs. I understand that she and her family used to live around here.” When Betty Kitchen heard the name Suggs, she started throwing potatoes in her bag a mile a minute.
Roy leaned back up against the cash register, crossed his arms, and thought out loud. “Hmm, Suggs . . . Suggs. . . . Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”
In the meantime, Oswald had slowly floated away from the cash register back into the store and was pretending to be looking for something on the shelf.
Roy took a toothpick out of his pocket, looked at it, then put it in the corner of his mouth and calmly asked, “Why are you trying to locate this Suggs woman. Any special reason?”
The man said, “I’m really looking for the little girl we were told she has in her possession.” All of a sudden Jack started running around his plastic wheel and ringing his bells like crazy, as if he too understood the danger of the moment. The man continued, “I’m looking on behalf of the father”—he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read, “A James Douglas Casey who left her in custody of the Suggs family. We have this area on file as their last known location.”
“Huh,” said Roy and turned around. “Miss Kitchen, does the name Suggs ring a bell with you?”
“Never heard of them,” Betty said, as she moved on to the squash.
Roy called out to the back of the store. “Hey, Mr. Campbell, do you know of any Suggs family that used to live around here? Had a little girl with them?”
Oswald, who had been standing frozen in one spot, staring at a can of pork and beans said, “Suggs? No, the only family that might have been them moved to Mexico. I think they said they were going to Juárez or was it Cuernavaca? One of those places down there.”
“Mexico?” the man asked. “Are you sure they said Mexico?”
“Yeah,” said Oswald, picking up a can of butter beans and pretending to read the label. “They told me they weren’t coming back, either, some trouble with the law or something.”
“Huh,” said the man.
About that time Claude came in the door carrying a bucket of fish and Roy immediately said, “Oh, hello, Mr. Underwood, how are you today?” and cleared his throat. “Maybe you can help us out. This gentleman here is looking for a girl that lived back up in the woods with a family named Suggs. Mr. Campbell remembers there was a family back there with a little girl that took off and went to Mexico, Juárez or Cuernavaca. Isn’t that right, Mr. Campbell?”
“That’s right,” said Oswald, who was now in the breakfast cereal section.
Claude had figured out something was wrong the minute Roy called him Mr. Underwood. He put the bucket of fish up on the counter and said, “I hate to disagree with you, Oswald, but I heard those folks you are talking about say they were headed out to Canada.”
The man looked at him. “Canada?”
Claude took his cap off and scratched his head. “Yeah, as I recall it they said they were going up to Quebec.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Oswald, picking up a box of Blue Diamond stove matches. “I knew it was somewhere that began with a Q.”
Claude said, “No, wait a minute. . . . Now that I think about it, it could have been Mexico. I know it was one of those places but if I were you I’d try looking in Mexico first.”
“Oh, brother.” The man sighed. “By the time I go through all the red tape down there, the kid will be grown.”
“So,” said Roy, as casually as he could, even managing a yawn, “the father wants the girl back?”
The man took a swig of his Coke and shook his head. “No, not really. The father’s dead. Fell off the back of a truck a couple of months ago. The grandmother claims she’s too old to take care of the little girl so she signed her over to us, and now all I have to do is find her.”
“Who is us?” asked Roy.
“The State of Alabama. She’s an official ward of the state now.”
At that moment, Betty Kitchen glanced out the window and saw Patsy coming down the street, headed straight for the front door. Betty immediately grabbed her sack of groceries and swept her way past the men at the cash register. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” she said, and was out the door. With her sack in one arm, she snatched Patsy up off the ground with the other and had her headed back home to Frances in less than five seconds. Betty had not been an emergency room nurse for nothing. She could move fast when she had to. The man in the store, who had missed the entire episode, continued to complain about his job. “I waste half my life running up and down the roads trying to track these people down and—” He stopped in mid-sentence. “What are those bells I’m hearing?”
Roy said, “It’s just a bird I’ve got back there.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Say,” said Roy. “Just out of curiosity. What will happen to her when you do find her?”
“Well,” he said, looking around at all the mounted fish and animals on the wall, “being she has no other living relatives, she’ll most l
ikely be sent to a state home until she’s eighteen.”
Oswald flinched when he heard that. Just the thought of Patsy being raised in a state home almost made him sick to his stomach. The man walked over, looked into the bucket, and said, “Nice fish.” Then he put his empty bottle on the counter and sighed again. “Well, thanks for your help, but from what you fellows tell me it doesn’t look likely that I will find that little girl anytime soon. You try tracking somebody down in Mexico or in Canada.” He then asked Roy what he owed for the Coke.
“Nothing,” said Roy. “I’m always happy to accommodate a government man.”
“Much obliged,” he said, and handed Roy his card. “My name is Brent Boone: that’s my numbers on the bottom. Call me if you hear anything.”
Roy said, “Yeah, we sure will, Mr. Boone.”
Boone went to the door muttering to himself. “Mexico, of all the damn places.” Then he turned around at the door and said, “Well, wish me luck, fellows. God knows I’ll need it.”