A Redbird Christmas

  He was still somewhat tired and weak from the trip and went up to bed right after dinner. As he reached the top of the stairs, the mother, who had no teeth, poked her head out of her room and yelled, “Have the troops been fed yet?”

  He did not know what to say so he said, “I think so.”

  “Fine,” she said, and slammed her door.

  Oh dear, thought Oswald. And even though he suspected that Roy had been kidding around with him earlier, he did lock his door that night, just in case.

  The next morning the birds woke him up once more, but he felt rested and hungry again. While eating another big breakfast, he asked what had brought Betty and her mother all the way from Milwaukee to Lost River, Alabama.

  Betty threw four more pieces of bacon into the pan. “Well, my friend Elizabeth Shivers, who at the time worked for the Red Cross, was sent here to help out after the big hurricane, and when she got here she just fell in love with the area and moved down, and when I came to visit her, I liked it too so I moved here myself.” She flipped the bacon over and mused. “You know, it’s a funny thing, Mr. Campbell, once people find this place, they don’t seem to ever want to leave.”

  “Really? How long have you lived here?”

  Betty said, “About fourteen years now. We moved down right after Daddy died.”

  At the mention of the father, Oswald tried to sound as casual as possible. “Ah . . . I see. And what did your father die of, if I may ask?”

  “Will you eat some more eggs if I fix them?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  She went over to the icebox and removed two more eggs, cracked them and put them in the frying pan, and then said, “Well, to answer your question, we’re really not sure what Daddy died of. He was twenty-two years older than Mother at the time, which would have put him right at a hundred and three. I suppose it could have been old age, but with the Kitchens you never know. All I know is that it was a shock to us all when it happened.”

  Oswald felt better. Obviously the old man’s exit from the world had not been by violent means as Roy had suggested, but at age 103, just how much of a shock could it have been?

  The following morning when he went downstairs, Betty Kitchen looked at him and said, “That’s quite a cough you have there, Mr. Campbell. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Oswald quickly downplayed it. “Oh, yeah. . . . I think I may have caught a little cold coming down, but I feel fine.” He realized he would have to cough quieter and try not to let her hear him from now on.

  After breakfast he thought he would take another walk and asked Betty where the river was. “Right out the kitchen door,” she said.

  Oswald walked out the back of the house into a long yard filled with the tallest pine, evergreen, and cedar trees he had ever seen. He figured some must have been at least six or eight stories high. As he walked toward the river, the fresh early morning air reminded him of the smell of the places around Chicago where they sold Christmas trees each year.

  He followed a small path that had been cut through the thick underbrush, filled with pine needles and pinecones the size of pineapples, until he came to a wooden dock and the river. He was amazed at what he saw. The bottom of the river was sandy and the water was as clear as gin—and he should know. He walked out onto the dock, looked down, and could see small silver fish and a few larger ones swimming around in the river. Unlike Lake Michigan, this water was as calm as glass.

  As he stood there looking, huge pelicans flapped down the river not more than four feet away from him, flying not more than two inches off the water. What a sight! He had seen pictures of them in magazines and had always thought they were all gray. He was surprised to see that in person they were many colors, pink and blue and orange, with yellow eyes and fuzzy white feathers on their heads. A few minutes later they flew off and then came back and crashed with a loud splash and floated around with their long beaks in the water. He had to laugh. If they had been wearing glasses they would have looked just like people. The only other birds he had ever seen this close up were a few pigeons that had landed on his windowsill at the hotel.

  The river was not very wide, and he could see the wooden docks of the houses on the other side. Each one had a mailbox, including the one he was on; he looked down and saw the number 48 on it, as Frances had said. So far, everything he had been told or had read about Lost River in that old hotel brochure was true. Old Horace P. Dunlap had not been lying after all. Who would have guessed Oswald would now be living in one of those dandy little bungalows that old Horace had talked about. From that day just a month ago, when he was headed for the doctor’s office, to today, his life had taken a 180-degree turn. Everything was upside down. Even the seasons were flipped. In his wildest dreams, Oswald could never have imagined a month ago that he would wind up in this strange place, with all these strange people. As far as he was concerned, he might just as well have been shot out of a cannon and landed on another planet.

  The next day he did not know what to do with himself, so after breakfast he asked Betty what time the mail came. She said anywhere between ten and eleven, so he went down to the dock and waited. At about ten-forty-five a small boat with a motor came around the bend. As Oswald watched, the man in the boat went from mailbox to mailbox, opening the lid and skillfully throwing the mail in while the boat slid by. He was a stocky man in a jacket and a cap who looked to be about sixty-five or seventy years of age. When he saw Oswald, he pulled up and turned off his motor.

  “Hello, there. You must be Mr. Campbell. I’m Claude Underwood. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, happy to meet you,” said Oswald.

  Claude handed him a bundle of mail wrapped in a rubber band. “How long have you been here?”

  “Just a few days.”

  “Well, I’m sure the ladies are glad you’re here.”

  “Yeah, it seems they are,” Oswald said. “Uh, say, Mr. Underwood, I’m curious about this river. How big is it?”

  “About five or six miles long. This is the narrow part you’re on now. The wide part is back that way.”

  “How do you get to it?”

  “Do you want to take a ride with me sometime? I’d be happy to show it to you.”

  “Really? I sure would. When?”

  “We can go tomorrow, if you like. Just meet me at the post office around nine-thirty and bring a jacket. It gets cold out there.”

  Walking back home, Oswald thought it was pretty funny that Mr. Underwood would worry about him getting cold anywhere down here. It might say December on the calendar, but the weather felt just like a Chicago spring and the beginning of baseball season to him.

  The next morning, as Oswald walked up to the porch of the post office, a striking-looking woman wearing a lime-green pants suit came out of the other side of the house. The minute she saw Oswald she almost laughed out loud. Frances had described him perfectly. She walked over and said, “I know who you are. I’m Mildred, Frances’s sister, so be prepared. She’s already planning a dinner party, so you might as well give up and come on and get it over with.” Mildred chuckled to herself all the way down the stairs. Oswald thought she was certainly an attractive, saucy woman, very different from her sister. She had a pretty face like Frances, but he had never seen hair that color in his life.

  He went inside the post office and met Dottie Nivens, the woman who had waved to him the first morning. She shook his hand and did an odd little half curtsy and said in a deep voice, “Welcome, stranger, to our fair community.” She could not have been friendlier. Oswald noted that if she had not had a large space between her two front teeth and such straight hair she could be a dead ringer for one of Helen’s sisters.

  He walked through the door and found Claude in the back of the post office, sorting the last of the mail and putting it in bundles. As soon as Claude finished he put it on a small cart with wheels and they walked to his truck and drove a few blocks down a dirt road to an old wooden boathouse. “This is where I keep my b
oat,” he said. “I used to keep it behind the store, but those redneck boys that moved here shot it up so bad I had to bring it up here.” When they got in the boat Oswald looked around for a life jacket but did not see one. When he asked Claude where it was, Claude looked at him like he thought he was kidding. “A life jacket?”

  “Yes. I hate to admit it, but I can’t swim.”

  Claude dismissed his concern. “You don’t need a life jacket. Hell, if you do fall in, the alligators will eat you before you drown.” With that, he started the motor and they were off, headed up the river. Oswald hoped he was kidding but was careful not to put his hands in the water just in case he wasn’t. As they rounded the bend and went under the bridge and on out the length and breadth of the river was amazing. It was extremely wide in the middle, with houses up and down on both sides. As they went farther north, delivering the mail at every dock, Claude maneuvered the boat inside tiny inlets where the water in some spots could not have been more than six or seven inches deep, opening mailboxes of all sizes, tall and low, and while the boat was moving past them, he never missed a beat or a mailbox.

  Oswald was impressed. “Have you ever missed?”

  “Not yet,” Claude said, as he threw another bundle of mail in a mailbox. “But I’m sure the day will come.”

  On some of the docks people were waiting and said hello, and on some dogs ran out barking and Claude reached in his pocket and threw them a Milk-Bone.

  “Have you ever been bitten?”

  “Not yet.”

  About an hour later, they turned around and headed back the way they came. Oswald noticed that Claude did not deliver mail on the other side of the river. When he asked him about it, Claude said, “No, I don’t go over to that side anymore. I used to but that’s where the Creoles live. They have their own mailman now.”

  Oswald looked across and asked, “Is that where that Julian LaPonde lives?”

  “How do you know about Julian LaPonde?” Claude said.

  “Roy told me he mounted all those fish and animals at the store.”

  “Huh,” said Claude, lighting his pipe. “I’m surprised he even mentioned him.” But he did not say why he was surprised.

  “Well, he sure is a good taxidermist, but I got the impression that Roy doesn’t think much of him as a person.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” said Claude, and left it at that.

  They had been out on the river about two and a half hours when they returned to the boathouse. Oswald was exhausted and as he got out of the boat his legs were shaky. He needed a nap. All that fresh air was too much for one day. He asked Claude what he did after he got off from work every day.

  Claude’s eyes lit up. “Ah. Then I go fishing.”

  Dinner at Eight

  OSWALD HAD BEEN unable to avoid running into Frances Cleverdon, since she lived right next door, and finally agreed to have dinner at her house the next week. After all, he could not hurt her feelings; she had been responsible for his coming to Lost River in the first place.

  Frances’s house was a neat blue bungalow. It was very nice inside as well, with a completely pink kitchen—pink stove, icebox, and sink—right down to the pink-and-white tiles on the floor. Frances showed him her prize gravy boat collection, and Mildred, whose hair to Frances’s dismay was now the color of root beer, remarked, “I’ll never understand why anybody in their right mind would collect gravy boats.” Although Oswald had not wanted to go that night, the food was delicious, especially the macaroni and cheese, and after dinner they played a good game of gin rummy.

  However, much to her sister’s disappointment, Mildred did nothing to help things along in the romance department. All she did all night was crab and complain about everything under the sun, including how much she hated that bird Roy had up at the store, and in between her complaints about Jack she managed to tell several blue jokes that Oswald laughed at. Frances smiled, but was secretly horrified and wanted to strangle her sister. How was she ever going to get a man? A perfectly good dinner wasted, as far as she was concerned.

  The next day, true to form, Mildred was back down at the store fussing at Jack, who fluttered around her head. She said, “You’ve heard about the four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie? Well, mister, I’m going to bake one big redbird pie if you don’t quit pestering me!”

  Roy laughed. “You better watch out, boy, or she’ll have you for dinner one day.”

  Despite all her complaints Roy liked Mildred a lot. He got a kick out of her and how she was always dyeing her hair different colors. Besides, as Oswald had just found out, she sure could tell a joke.

  After just a few weeks, Oswald found that he was beginning to get into a routine. Every morning after breakfast he would go to the store, hang around awhile, and then go down to the dock to smoke cigarettes and wait for Claude Underwood to come by with the mail. He didn’t dare smoke in Betty’s house. As he sat waiting, sometimes for an hour or two, he saw that the river was full of things he had never seen before. All kinds of large birds, loons and egrets, geese and ducks of different kinds, swam up and down the river. A few swam in pairs but most were in flocks that took off together and landed in the water together.

  One day while he was waiting, Oswald noticed a black duck out in the river all by himself and he wondered about it. Why did this one lone duck not swim with a mate or with the flock? Did the duck even know he was supposed to be with the others? What had caused that duck to separate from the rest? The more he watched it out there, swimming around, the sadder it made him. He realized he was just like that duck. All his life he had been out in the world alone while the rest of the world swam by, happy in their own flock, knowing who they were and where they belonged.

  Oswald was feeling a little sad these days anyway. Christmas was just around the corner, and Betty was already playing Christmas carols on the radio. He supposed it put some people in a good mood, but all those “I’ll be home for Christmas” and “There’s no place like home for the holidays” songs just made him feel lousy. For him, Christmas had always been a season with everything set up just to break your heart. As a kid, all he had ever gotten were cheap toys handed out by a bunch of once-a-year do-gooders, toys that by the next day were either broken or stolen. Even as an adult, when he had spent the holidays with Helen’s family, it just made him feel more of an outsider than ever. Each year was the same; all her brothers and sisters would sit around, looking at home movies and reminiscing about their wonderful childhood Christmases. No, Christmas for him had always been like someone shining a great big spotlight down in that dark empty space inside him, and the only way he had been able to handle it in the past was to get drunk. A hangover was nothing compared to feeling all alone in a roomful of people. This year he would be spending what could turn out to be his very last Christmas on the river with the birds and ducks. That, he guessed, was better than nothing.

  The next time Oswald went in the store he found himself eyeing the cartons of beer stacked over in the corner and was almost headed over there but when Betty Kitchen came in, he decided to stick to his original plan and asked Roy if there was some kind of book he could get so he could try and figure out what kinds of birds and ducks he was looking at. Roy said, “Come on back in the office with me, I think I have something for you.” The office was a mess, with stacks of papers and old ledgers and Jack’s toys everywhere, but Roy rummaged through a pile on the floor and handed Oswald an old ripped paperback copy of Birds of Alabama: A Birdwatcher’s Guide.

  “May I borrow this?” asked Oswald.

  “Oh hell, you can have it. I don’t need it.”

  Oswald took the book up to his room. While he was thumbing through it, he found an old postcard from 1932 that described Lost River as

  A magical spot, invisible from the highway by reason of its location in masses of shade trees, along the winding banks of the river, where it lies in a setting of flowers and foliage and songbirds, like a dream of beauty ready for the brush and canvas of the landscap
e painter.

  That’s the damn truth, he thought. It would be a great place for a painter or a birdwatcher. Then it dawned on him that he, Oswald T. Campbell, was actually studying to become a birdwatcher. Birdwatching was certainly not one of the things he would ever have put on his THINGS TO DO list. As a matter of fact, he had never even had a THINGS TO DO list, and now it was almost too late to do anything. Oh, well, he thought, live and learn. Better late than never. And then he wondered why in the hell he was thinking in clichés.

  From that day on, after he had gone down and had a cup of coffee with Roy and shot the breeze with him for a while, he would take his birdwatcher’s guide and go down to the river and try to match the birds he was seeing with the pictures in the book. So far he had identified a great blue heron that cracked him up by the way it walked. It picked its feet up and down as if it were stepping in molasses. He had seen cranes, a snowy egret, mallards, wood ducks, and a belted kingfisher, and by December 19 he had already identified his first pileated woodpecker. He was hoping to see an osprey one of these days.

  On the morning of December 22, when Oswald walked over to the store for coffee with Roy, he saw that the huge cedar tree outside the community hall had been decorated with hundreds of Christmas ornaments and silver and gold tinsel. When he went in the store, he asked Roy who had done it. Roy shook his head.

  “We don’t know. Every Christmas it happens overnight and nobody knows who did it, but I have my theories. I think it’s that bunch of crazy women that do it.”