A Redbird Christmas

  No, he concluded, the best thing he could do for her was just go away and let her get on with her life. Then if he wanted to take a drink nobody would be the wiser or care. He just had to find a place he could afford on his small $600-a-month government pension.

  He went over and sat down, took the Woodbound Hotel brochure out of his coat pocket, and turned to the next page, where Horace P. Dunlap asked the reader:

  WHY GO TO FLORIDA?

  Why go to Florida with its low lands and deficiency of good water? Why go to New Mexico and be exposed to alkali dust? Why go to California, with its cold uncomfortable houses two to three thousand miles away, when Baldwin County can be reached from Chicago in twenty-six hours? On both sides of the river you will find a magnificent growth of fine timber. Among the many varieties are the magnolia, sweet bay, sweet gum, Cuban pine, ash, maple, evergreen, and white cedar, with a great variety of shrubs and Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. Satsuma trees, pecan, kumquat, pear, fig, and apple are plentiful. The winters here are like the northern spring or early autumn. In fact, you can enjoy nature walks in comfort nearly every day of the year. . . . Along the river, ducks, geese, wild turkey, dove, quail, raccoon, and squirrel abound. Here is an abundance of sparkling-clear springs, and good water is found at 20 to 30 feet. All the various fruits and vegetables by reason of the mild climate are about two weeks in advance of other sections of the country. What does this mean for the health seeker? It means relief and cure to those who suffer from bronchitis, catarrh, and rheumatism and absolute safety from pneumonia; it means an easy recovery for those few who get grippe in this county. It means a carefree romping out-of-doors for the pale or delicate boy or girl, the joy of picking beautiful flowers at Christmastime.

  RENT A LOVELY ROOM OR A DANDY

  LITTLE BUNGALOW!

  We extend a hearty welcome for you to visit our fair county. We are just as large as Chicago, only we haven’t quite so many houses. Don’t say we are giving you only exaggerations. Come visit and see for yourself the sunshine, flowers, and orange blossoms in December.

  On the back page was a song complete with words and music.

  “Dreamy Alabama”

  Words and music by Horace P. Dunlap

  Evening shadows falling

  where the southland lies,

  whip-poor-will is calling

  ’neath the starlit skies I love

  Dreamy Alabama where sweet folks are waiting,

  there my heart is ever turning, all day long.

  Dreamy Alabama, where songbirds are singing,

  waiting to greet me with their song.

  Winding river flowing

  through the whispering pines

  like a stream of silver

  when the moonlight shines above.

  Oswald put the brochure down. This had to be one of the dullest places in America, but he had to hand it to Horace P. Dunlap. He sure as hell was trying hard to get your business. He had thrown in everything but the kitchen sink. Tomorrow he would give old Horace a call and see how much it would cost to rent a lovely room or a dandy little bungalow, and find out where the nearest bar was.

  Hello, Operator

  THE NEXT MORNING after his usual thirty to forty-five minutes of coughing, Oswald lit his first cigarette, picked up the phone, and called the number on the brochure.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but that number is invalid. Are you sure you have the right number?”

  “I know it’s the right number. I’m looking at it right now.”

  “What area code are you trying to call?”

  “Well, I don’t know. It’s the Woodbound Hotel in Lost River in Baldwin County, Alabama.”

  “Let me connect you with information for that area.” In a moment another operator answered. “May I help you?”

  “I hope so. I’m trying to reach the Woodbound Hotel.”

  “Just a moment, sir, I’ll check that for you right away.” This operator had such a thick southern accent he thought she must be joking with him. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have a listing for a Woodbound Hotel anywhere in Baldwin County.”

  “Oh. Well, where are you?”

  “I’m in Mobile.”

  “Is that in Alabama?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever heard of a place called Lost River?”

  “No, sir, I haven’t.”

  “Is there a listing for anything down there?”

  “Just a moment. Let me check that for you. . . . Sir, I have a listing for the Lost River community hall and one for the post office. Would you like me to connect you to either one of those numbers?”

  “Yes, let me try the first one. They might be able to help me.”

  Not five minutes earlier, Mrs. Frances Cleverdon, an attractive, slightly plump woman with white hair as soft as spun cotton candy, and her younger sister, Mildred, had just entered the back of the community hall through the kitchen. It was 72 degrees outside and the hall was hot and stuffy, so they opened all the windows and turned on the overhead fans. It was the first Saturday of the month. Tonight was the monthly meeting and potluck dinner of the Lost River Community Association. They were there early to deliver what they had made for the potluck dinner and to get the place ready for the evening. Frances had brought two covered dishes, one a green-bean casserole, the other a macaroni and cheese, and several desserts.

  Mildred, who had prepared fried chicken and a pork roast, heard the phone ringing first but ignored it. When Frances came back in from the car, Mildred said, “Don’t answer that. It’s probably Miss Alma, and we’ll never get her off the phone.”

  After another trip to the car for two cakes and three pecan pies, the phone was still ringing.

  Frances said, “You know she’s not going to give up,” and picked up the receiver one second before Oswald was going to hang up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello!” he said.

  “Hello?” she said again.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Frances. Who’s this?” she asked, in the same southern accent as the operator.

  “This is Oswald Campbell, and I’m trying to find the phone number for a hotel.”

  “Well, Mr. Campbell, this is the community hall you’ve reached.”

  “I know. The operator gave me this number.”

  “The operator? Where are you calling from?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Oh, my!”

  “Do you happen to have the number of the Woodbound Hotel? It’s a health resort that supposed to be down there.”

  “The Woodbound Hotel?”

  “Have you ever heard of it?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it . . . but it’s not here anymore.”

  “Did it close?”

  “Well, no. It burned down.”

  “When?”

  “Just a minute, let me see if my sister knows.” Frances called out, “Mildred, when did the old hotel burn down?”

  Mildred looked at her funny. “About 1911, why?”

  “Mr. Campbell, it was in 1911.”

  “In 1911? You’re kidding!”

  “No, they say it burned right to the ground in less than an hour.”

  “Oh . . . well . . . could you give me the name of another hotel I could call?”

  “Down here?”

  “Yes.”

  “There isn’t any.”

  “Oh.”

  “There used to be a few, but not anymore. If you don’t mind me asking, how on earth did you hear about the old Woodbound all the way up there in Chicago?”

  “My doctor gave me a brochure, but obviously it was a little out-of-date. Thanks anyway.”

  “Hold on a second, Mr. Campbell,” she said, and called out, “Mildred, close that screen door, you’re letting the flies in. I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell. What kind of place were you looking for?”

  “Just somewhere to spend a couple of months this winter, get out of the cold weather for a while. I have a little lung p
roblem.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s not good.”

  “No. My doctor said I needed to get out of Chicago as soon as possible.”

  “I can understand that. I’ll bet it’s cold up there.”

  “Yes,” he said, trying not to be rude but also wanting to hang up. This call was probably expensive. But Mrs. Cleverdon continued talking. “Well, it’s hot down here. We just had to open the windows and turn all the fans on. Oh. Hold on. Mr. Campbell, I’ve got to go close that door. . . .”

  While he was waiting, he could actually hear the sounds of birds chirping in the background over long distance. It must be some of those damn whip-poor-wills, he thought, and they were costing him money.

  Frances picked up the phone again. “Here I am, Mr. Campbell. Now, would this be a place for you and your wife or just you?”

  “Just me.”

  “Have you tried anywhere else?”

  “No. I wanted to try there first, it sounded like a nice place. Oh well, thanks anyway.”

  “Mr. Campbell. Wait a minute. Give me your number. Let me see if I can come up with something for you.”

  He gave her his number just to get her to hang up. What a crazy place. Evidently they would just talk the head off of any stranger that happened to call.

  Mildred came back in the kitchen after putting flowers on the two long tables in the other room. “Who were you on the phone with so long?”

  “Some poor man from Chicago with bad lungs who needs a place for the winter. His doctor had given him a brochure for that old hotel, and he thought he might want to come here.” She walked over and pulled out the huge coffeepot. “Why did it burn down, I wonder?”

  “They say it was rats and matches.”

  “Oh, lord,” said Frances, opening a large dark-brown can of A&P Eight O’Clock coffee. “They’ll just chew on anything, won’t they?”

  Around three o’clock the next afternoon, Oswald was about to pick up the phone and make another call to Florida when it rang. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Campbell, this is Frances Cleverdon, the lady you spoke to in Alabama yesterday. Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Listen, have you found a place yet?”

  “No, not yet, not one I can afford, anyway.”

  “Yes. Well, if you still have a mind to come down here, I think I found a place for you. We have a very nice lady next door to me, and she said she would be happy to rent you a room for however long you want it.”

  “Huh,” said Oswald. “How much do you think she would charge?”

  “She told me that fifty dollars a week would suit her just fine, if that was all right with you. Of course, that would include all your meals. Is that too much?”

  Oswald added up his $600-a-month pension, plus the small military medical-discharge check from the government, and figured he could handle it. The places in Florida he called had been double and triple that amount.

  “No, that rate sounds fine to me. When would it be available?”

  “Betty said for you to just come on anytime, the sooner the better; the river is so pretty this time of year. But now, Mr. Campbell, before you decide on anything, I need to warn you. We are just a small place down here, all we have is one grocery store and a post office, but if it’s warm weather and peace and quiet you want, I can guarantee you’ll get plenty of that.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he lied. He couldn’t think of anything worse, but the price was right. He figured he should probably grab it before they changed their minds.

  “Well, all right then,” she said. “Just call me back and let me know when you’re coming, and we’ll have somebody pick you up.”

  “OK.”

  “But one more thing, Mr. Campbell, just so you know. We are very friendly and sociable down here and good neighbors when you need us, but nobody is going to bother you unless you want them to. By and large we mind our own business.”

  What Frances had told Mr. Campbell was true. The people in Lost River did mind their own business. However, after having said that, Frances, a romantic at heart, could not help being a little optimistic. With four widows and three single women living in the community, having a new man around would certainly be interesting. One of the three single women was her sister Mildred. Frances was one of the widows, but she did not put herself in the running. She had been very happily married for twenty-seven years and was perfectly content to live on memories, but as for the rest of the ladies she was willing to let fate take a hand. After all, she was a Presbyterian and believed strongly in predestination. Besides, the day Mr. Campbell called happened to be the first Saturday of the month, usually the only day someone was at the hall, and that could not have been just a coincidence. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he turned out to be someone’s knight in shining armor? The only other eligible man in Lost River was Roy Grimmitt, who ran the grocery store. But he was only thirty-eight, too young for most of the women. Besides, after what had happened to him, it looked as if Roy was a confirmed bachelor for life. Too bad, she thought, because he was a handsome man and a nice one, but she more than the others understood it. Once you’ve experienced true love, you don’t want anybody else.

  The Store

  ROY GRIMMITT, WHO ran the grocery store in Lost River, was a big friendly guy and everybody liked him. He was also one of the few people who had actually been born and raised in the area, except for the Creoles across the river, whose families had been there since the 1700s. Roy had inherited the store from his uncle, who had run it for fifty years. The tin Coca-Cola sign across the front of the brick building advertised it simply as GRIMMITT’S GROCERY, but it was much more than that. It was a landmark. If the store had not been on the corner, most people would have driven right by, never knowing there was a river or an entire community of people living there. For the sixty or seventy residents, it was the place where they did their shopping and kept up on all the news, good and bad. It was an especially favorite stopping-off spot for the many fishermen in the area, the place where they bought their tackle and live bait and swapped lies about how many fish they had caught—all except Claude Underwood, the best fisherman there, who never said how many he had caught or where he had caught them. There were two gas pumps outside the store; inside was rather plain, with wooden floors and a meat counter in the back. The only concession to decoration was the large array of mounted fish, game birds, and deer heads that lined the walls and a stuffed red fox on top of the shelf in the back. One of the Creoles, Julian LaPonde, the only taxidermist in the area, had once been a good friend and poker pal of Roy’s uncle. Most of the produce was local. Roy bought his meat from area hunters and always had plenty of fresh shrimp, crab, and oysters from the Gulf and fish from the river. He got his milk, poultry, eggs, fruits, and vegetables from nearby farms. Because his was the only store around, he stocked much more than just food and gas; he sold everything from work gloves, rakes, shovels, and pickaxes to rubber boots. Kids loved the store because of its great selection of candy, potato chips, and ice cream, and the deep box of ice-cold drinks he kept by the front door filled with every kind you could want: Orange Crush, root beer, Grapettes, Dr Pepper, and RC Cola. Name it, he had it. But Roy also had something that no other store in the world could offer.

  It had been just a few weeks after Christmas about five years ago, when Roy heard the popping of guns out in back of the store. A pair of kids that lived back up in the woods had gotten high-powered pump-action BB guns that year and were busy shooting everything in sight. Roy was a hunter and a fisherman, but those damn mean little redneck boys would shoot anything and leave it to die. He hated that, and he walked out the back door and yelled at them, “Hey, you boys, knock it off!” They immediately scattered back into the woods, but they had just shot something, and whatever it was it was still alive and on the ground flopping around. Roy walked over and picked it up. It was a baby bird.

  “Damn those little bastards.” It was a scruffy tiny gray-and-brown thing,
so young he could not tell what it was. Probably a sparrow or a mockingbird or a wren of some kind. He had picked up many dead or hurt birds that these boys had shot but this was the youngest by far. It probably had not even learned to fly. He knew he couldn’t save it, but he took the little bird back inside the store anyway, wrapped it up in an old sock, and put it in a box in a warm dark place in his office so some hawk or owl or other predator could not get it. At least he could save the baby bird from that and let the thing die in peace. Other than that, there was nothing more he could do for it.

  Most of the kids that lived around there were pretty nice and Roy had a good relationship with all of them, but these two new boys were surly. Nobody knew who they were or where they had come from. Somebody said their family lived in an old run-down trailer way back up in the woods. He had never seen the parents, but he had seen the boys throwing rocks at a dog and he had no use for them after that, even less now. Anybody that would deliberately shoot a baby bird ought to have their heads knocked together. If he could get his hands on them, he would do it himself.

  The next morning when he opened the store he had almost forgotten about the baby bird when he heard something chirping away in the sock. He walked over and touched it and up it popped with his mouth wide open, still very much alive and hungry for breakfast.

  Surprised, Roy said, “Well, I’ll be damned, you little son of a gun.”

  Now he didn’t know what to do. This was the first hurt bird he had ever picked up that had survived the night, but this little thing was definitely alive and carrying on like something crazy. He went to the phone and called his veterinarian friend who lived in Lillian, a small town ten miles away.