Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp (2 page)

I drove into the bare yard and turned
off the engine. The porch door opened and two girls arranged
themselves on the unpainted steps. The taller girl was clearly a
teenager. She came down a step, while the younger girl stayed at
the top. This put their faces at about the same level, and I
realized they looked very much alike, and were almost certainly
sisters. I wondered about their relationship to Corliss Leonard.
The girls seemed neither friendly nor hostile, they just stood
there, grasping the railing and staring at me. They wore t-shirts
with sparkly decoration—one in pink, the other in green—and short
cut-off denim shorts. Their young café-au-lait skin was smooth and
clear, and their thin limbs were set off attractively by the skimpy
clothes. The one difference, other than size, was their hairstyles.
The younger girl’s hair was braided and beaded into multiple
cornrows, while the older girl had a wild, medium-length, cap of
loose kinky ringlets.

I suddenly felt insecure. I wondered
how it was that one group of people thought they had a right to
claim the ability to “help” another group. On the other hand,
Corliss Leonard had called requesting a tutor, and invited this
visit. I definitely wanted to find out who these girls were and,
strangely enough, looked forward to entangling myself even further
in the mysteries of life in Forest County.

Chapter 3

The girls weren’t exactly staring at
me. They were fixated on Paddy, who was now bow-wowing with
excitement and trying to climb out of the four-inch window opening.
I pulled him toward me with the leash. I really needed to get more
control of this animal. Here I was facing two girls I didn’t know,
with an irrepressible puppy who was almost as big as the younger
child. I opened my door just enough to be able to stand beside the
car and still keep Paddy inside.

“Hi, girls,” I began. “My name is Ana
Raven, and I’m here to see Corliss Leonard. Is he here?”

The older girl answered, “He’s our
grandpa. He’s inside. What kind of dog is that?”

You can count on teens to be concise,
at least when responding to an adult. “He’s an Irish Setter. He
likes to play, but he’s just a puppy. He might jump on you if I let
him out.”

“Let him out, we want to play!” the
younger girl suddenly chimed in, clapping her hands.

A man’s voice came from the porch, and
I assumed it was their grandfather. It carried authority, but did
not sound unkind. “Sunny, you come in here and change your clothes
first. He might scratch you by accident.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Do you
have long pants you could put on? I’d feel bad if he hurt you, even
if he didn’t mean it. He’s really large, and he has to learn to be
careful yet. Your name is Sunny?”

“Yes. I’m Sunny and this is Star.” She
pointed to the older girl, then turned and ran into the
trailer.

The teen who had been identified as
Star said, “I’ll change too, and we can teach the dog some tricks.
What’s his name?”

“Paddy, it’s short for Patrick. Just
remember that he’s only a puppy, so you need to be firm with him.
Don’t let him get away with being naughty.”

Star flashed a sudden smile, and
rolled her eyes toward the direction Sunny had gone. “I know how to
do that, no problem,” she said.

I laughed and nodded. “You’ll do fine,
I’m sure. Thanks for being willing to help him burn off some
energy.”

Star also slipped back into the
trailer, and the man whose voice I had heard now appeared at the
door of the plywood porch. “I’m Corliss Leonard. We’ll just get the
girls and the dog acquainted, and then we can visit. I guess you’re
here from the church?”

“That’s right. Is this a good time to
talk?”

“Any time’s fine by me. My only job is
to herd those girls,” he said with a chuckle.

He worked his way down the steps
somewhat painfully. Here was a man to whom nature had not been
kind. One couldn’t help but notice his large and round hips, which
made him look very much as if an oversized beach ball had been
stuffed inside his pants. Judging from the way his suspendered
jeans flapped, the heavy hips were supported on skinny legs. His
back was bent from the waist at about a forty-five-degree angle; he
apparently couldn’t straighten up, and he balanced himself with a
cane. His arms were skinny too, protruding from the short sleeves
of a brown work shirt. His face was long and thin, but he had a
full head of straight salt-and-pepper hair and a short grizzled
beard. His skin was ruddy and mottled, not an attractive
complexion. Forest County is not very diverse, and I couldn’t help
but wonder if he was the girls’ biological grandfather, or if they
had been adopted by one of his children.

The girls, now clad in jeans, burst
out of the house together and ran toward the car, setting Paddy to
barking once again. “Slow down,” I admonished, easing the dog out
of the car. “Let him get used to you first.”

It took some organization, but soon
the dog had sniffed the four extended hands and decided the girls
were good people. No surprise, I hadn’t known him to dislike anyone
yet. Within minutes, Star was stroking his silky head, and Sunny
was giggling, with her arms around his neck, while Paddy licked her
face.

“You take him over the hill to the
creek, away from the road,” Mr. Leonard said to the
girls.

“That sounds great,” I added, and
handed the leash to Star. I’m 5’5” and she was nearly the same
height, but toothpick-like compared to my average forty-something
build. The three youngsters sped up the slope and disappeared over
the crest of the hill in just a few seconds.

“They’ll do fine with your dog. We
used to have a Golden, but the poor old thing died last year. The
loss was hard on them. It’s nice outside, shall we sit out
here?”

He motioned me to some mis-matched
chairs scattered around a dented patio table sitting in the sand
with no patio under it. He walked unevenly in that direction,
leaning on the cane. I followed, brushing red dog hair from my pale
yellow summer pant suit. I was glad I’d worn cotton; the hairs
clung to polyester as if held by an electromagnet. We seated
ourselves across from each other. I was thinking we’d had a rather
unprofessional beginning.

“Mr. Leonard, I’m not sure I
introduced myself to you properly. I’m Anastasia Raven, and I’ll be
your liaison with the Crossroads Fellowship Family Friends
services. People call me Ana.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Anna. I’d
appreciate it if you’d call me Len.”

“’
Ana,’ please, as in ‘I
wanna be your friend.’” I smiled, but I really like people to get
my name right. The man held out his hand, and I shook it. His grip
wasn’t strong, but it wasn’t limp either. He seemed physically
weak, but genuine. My interest was personal, but it was also
official. Most of the assignment for my first meeting was to make
observations, and to assess any particular needs.

“What I hope to do today is get
acquainted. Do you mind explaining to me about your
family?”

“Not at all, ma’am. It’s kind of a sad
story. I’m glad enough the girls aren’t here to have to listen to
it all again. Bringing that pup was a real good idea.”

“I’m sure Paddy is delighted with the
attention,” I said, smiling. I didn’t admit that bringing the dog
was simply expedient, rather than planned.

“Mostly I want to join the literacy
program. The short answer to why I want to read, now, is that my
wife, the girls’ grandma, died this past winter. My Becky was good
to me. She never cared that I couldn’t read. I used to have a good
job driving forklift over at Forest Tech Products, but then I got
hurt, and then I had to go on disability. She did our paperwork,
and kept track of things. Star tried to take over, but she’s not
quite old enough to be able to handle it all.”

“I’m so sorry about your wife. When
did she die?”

“In March. It was cancer. We thought
she had it beat, but then it came back and there was nothing anyone
could do. It was terrible for Star and Sunny. First they lost their
mama, then the dog, and finally their grandma.”

“Is their mother dead too?” I asked
softly.

“We don’t rightly know,” Len said,
moving his head from side to side and frowning.

Chapter 4

Len was shaking his head in the
negative, but he lifted the tone of the sentence into a beginning,
opening a door rather than closing it.

“What do you mean?” I urged, my
curiosity aroused.

“Star was eight and Sunny was just a
toddler. They lived with Angie, her full name’s Angelica—our
daughter, and her boyfriend, DuWayne Jefferson. He’s the girls’
father. Becky and I were worried some. They weren’t the best
example of a stable family, but they were pretty good parents, and
we tried to help out when we could. They lived in the last trailer,
that tan and brown one down there.” He pointed vaguely to the
east.

“I’ll never forget that day; it was
Monday, June 14, in ‘04, Angie was out by herself. DuWayne was
hauling sand with a friend, and the girls were here with us.
Angie—we always called her that, but when she grew up she wanted to
use Angelica—she went over to Paula’s Place to apply for a job.
That’s a diner in Waabishki, east of here on the edge of Emily
City. It’s in Sturgeon county, but that’s closer for us than Cherry
Hill. Paula said later that there was an interview scheduled with
Angie for that morning but she never showed up. Paula didn’t think
much about it till later; people do that to her all the time—not
show up, you know.”

I nodded. “Those kinds of jobs have a
high turnover rate, that’s for sure.”

“Angie could’ve had a better job, but
she didn’t have much self confidence, and with two little girls she
needed something flexible.

“Anyway, we thought she’d been hired
and started right away, so didn’t worry at all till much later. She
often forgot to let us know how long the girls would need to stay
here, but we didn’t mind. DuWayne came by about nine o’clock that
night and picked them up. The next morning, the three of them came
back here asking if we’d seen Angie. Of course, we
hadn’t.

“We called the Sheriff, it was Stan
Portman back then, and he said we couldn’t even file a missing
person’s report until she’d been gone twenty-four hours. The next
day, she still hadn’t come home. I picked up DuWayne and the kids
and we all went to the Sheriff’s Office, but they kept putting us
off.

“
We tried to tell him that
she wouldn’t leave the girls, but folks from this part of the
county don’t get much respect anyway, and Portman wasn’t known for
feeling gracious toward people like DuWayne, if you get my
drift.”

“I do,” I said. My stomach was tight.
Even though Forest County wasn’t very diverse, I hated to hear that
outright prejudice still existed.

“Finally, after two days, on
Wednesday, the police started making inquiries.” I could hear the
agitation in the man’s voice, and he began to shake from the
emotional strain of retelling the story, even seven years after the
fact.

“They couldn’t find her?”

“Not a trace. DuWayne said she’d felt
real peppy, and wanted to walk to Paula’s; it’s not even three
miles. Since it was technically illegal for all four of them to
ride in the truck cab, he let her walk. Apparently, no one saw her
after she left home that morning. DuWayne dropped the girls off
here at about nine. Of course, DuWayne was the prime suspect to
have done something to her, but Star insisted that her mother had
been there to feed them breakfast and dress Sunny before she left,
and then her daddy had put them right in the truck to come here.
Even though she was only eight, she told so many details, matched
by Sunny, as much as a three-year-old can say, and they kept her in
another room so she wasn’t copying Star, that there was no way
DuWayne would have had time to do anything to Angelica that
morning. After he left here, he went to Larry’s house, and they
hauled sand together all day. Earned $50.00 each, and that was
verified too. He just couldn’t have fit in anything
else.”

Len sighed, and he seemed to lean into
the table even more than his bent back required.

“Where is DuWayne now?” I
asked.

“Gone too.” Len sighed again. “He said
he couldn’t live in a place that treated him so bad, and he went to
Chicago. He shows up every few months with a bit of money, and
presents for Star and Sunny. But he gave up all rights. We... I, am
their full legal guardian. The girls are happy to see their daddy
when he comes, but they don’t understand why he won’t
stay.”

It was a difficult story to listen to.
I could see how poignant it all was to this man whose life had
become pretty much a classic tragedy. And yet, he wanted to learn
to read, to try to make things better, even yet.

“How do the girls get along at
school?” I asked. I was a bit afraid to hear the answer.

“In their work, or how they are
treated?”

“Both.”

Len brightened and sat up a bit.
“Better than you probably think. I have to say that most people in
the county don’t give a rat’s elbow about the color of people’s
skin. The girls both have friends, but we live so far out here that
it’s hard for them to get together much. The school bus is their
only transportation into town unless I drive them, but that’s
getting really hard for me to do. Star is itching for her learner’s
permit, but she can’t get into Driver’s Ed until this
fall.”