The Weirdo (23 page)

They took seats in the front row on the right-hand side, along with Lew Petracca, Binkie's father. Binkie wasn't there, luckily for her. Sam looked at Mr. Petracca and wondered if he had been the one on the phone with her father that Sunday morning, if he was the man who'd shot at the Clewts and then slashed their tires. She'd never really liked him.

Other friends of the bo'sun were clustered near the front, men who'd had beers on the front porch after a hunting trip. They'd talked and laughed about game and guns and fun in the fields.

Sam could feel the anger in the hall even before her father got up to speak. She'd never been in a position like this, feeling divided from her parents. She looked over at Chip. He seemed to be studying notes. She wondered where his father was and turned to see if Dunnegan was there. Was it possible Chip was alone?

The meeting had been called for seven-thirty. Sam checked her watch. Ten minutes to go. She'd heard the bo'sun say the night before that the district congressman was sending a representative, and she knew Chip had called the
Pilot.
A photographer was sitting on the opposite row, and she guessed the woman beside him was a reporter. Everyone was waiting, waiting.

As promptly as a ship's clock strikes seven bells, Stu Sanders rose up and mounted the stage, saying who he was. "Some of you I know, some I don't, but we're all here tonight because a group of Washington, D.C., do-gooders want to take our rights away."

There was nothing remotely shy about her father. She'd always known that, but this was the first time she'd seen or heard him speak in public. He was doing it the way he did everything else, with confidence, and for an admiring moment she wished she was more like the bo'sun.
There I go, wishing again,
she thought. Rotten, useless habit!

"The last time this happened, I stayed in the background. A lot of us did, and we lost the fight. We're
not going to do it again. Mores involved than shooting a few bears. Sitting in the audience is a spokesboy for the Washington do-gooders, that National Conservancy group. He's from somewhere in Ohio, seventeen, not yet dry behind the ears..."

There was raucous laughter, and Sam winced, glancing over to Chip. Poor Chip, in the baseball cap that hid his unwanted Mohawk.

"... but if he wants to say anything, he can be our guest, after we speak our piece."

Stu Sanders introduced the congressional staffer, then started his speech advising that letters and phone calls to the House of Representatives were always a quick way of getting attention.

Sam kept looking at Chip, so alone over there, and she drew in a deep breath, hearing her father begin to say what he'd already said at the breakfast table, the lunch table, the dinner table. "Us hunters keep a balance in nature, we keep animals from starvin'...."

She rose up, leaving her mother, and quickly walked across to the other side, hearing the bo'sun falter, knowing he'd seen her. She'd made the walk under his nose. Sitting down again, she took Chip's good right hand in hers. He squeezed back and smiled.

Her papa continued. "We are the best argument for managing wildlife. We try not to shoot females so there can be bumper crops of deer and bear and other
species," the bo'sun was saying. "We never kill fawns or cubs...."

Chip whispered, "I'll be all right. I ever tell you I was the champion high school debater in Columbus?"

Sam shook her head.

"I wasn't. I've never debated anything in my life. It's time I learned. The weirdo's coming out of hiding tonight...."

"You're not a weirdo," Sam whispered fiercely.

"Yes, I am...."

"Where is your father?"

"He and Dunnegan went to the AA meeting. They'll be along."

"We eat what we kill," the bo'sun was saying.

Sam could feel her papa's eyes boring into her and refused to look up at him until they went away.

"... and by picking off individual animals we ensure the health of the whole species...."

She couldn't help but be impressed by the ease with which he was making points. She'd never known this side of her father. He sounded convincing.

"Because of careful hunting, there are more an' healthier animals now than ten years ago."

"B.S.," Chip murmured.

Oh, boy,
Sam thought.
Stand by for a ram, dear Papa.

Soon Dunnegan and Chip's father slid in beside them, having come down the left-hand aisle.

Dunnegan leaned toward them, whispering, "I got to be out of my mind. None of 'em will probably ever spend another dime with me."

Clewt whispered back, "They buy from you or drive fourteen miles. Don't worry."

Bo'sun Sanders went on: "We're now takin' the role of the predator, keepin' nature in balance. If that bear population in the swamp isn't thinned, you can bet they'll be comin' out o' there in droves, destroyin' hives, tearing up orchards, ruinin' corn crops, raidin' every garbage dump within twenty miles...."

There were "yeahs" from the audience, and hand-clapping. The photographer was busy.

"On top o' that, there's always the danger to our children. Who knows when a rogue bear will attack a kid playin' in the yard? So I say, open that swamp to huntin' next year, as Fish and Game promised us four years ago. We'll pass the hat and get organized. Thank you."

More applause.

Sam felt his eyes on her again as he came down off the stage. She knew he was fuming, knew she'd get it on the way home. And tomorrow, and the next day. Defiance did not rest well with the bo'sun.

There were three more speakers, including Lew
Petracca, who said it was time to "get tough" with these knee-jerk environmentalists.

Sam only half listened. Last week, Chip had asked her to help. Did she now have guts enough to get up and say something? Just the thought of getting up in front of three hundred people made her knees weak. She might make a puddle on the floor or just faint dead away.

The final hunter, having said almost exactly what the others had said, sat down, and Bo'sun Sanders went back to the microphone. "Anyone else?"

Do it now, Sam said to herself.
Now!

She stood up, turned toward the audience and said, "I'm the daughter of a hunter, and what you're trying to do is wrong...."

Sanders ordered, "Sit down, Sam!"

She remained standing, glaring at him.

He said to the audience: "In case you didn't know, that's my daughter. Her wires have been crossed all week."

Sam repeated loudly, "It's wrong—"

"Sit down, Sam," he ordered again.

Eyes locked with his, she remained standing defiantly.

A tense hush fell over the audience and seconds stretched into minutes.

Finally, the bo'sun decided to ignore his daughter
and shaded his eyes to look around the auditorium; then he zeroed in on Chip as if he'd just discovered his presence. "Okay, boy, come on up an' tell us we're a bunch o' killers..."

Sam could have clubbed her father. She murmured to Chip as she sat down, "Go get 'em..."

***

CHIP took off his faded baseball cap, exposing that half head of hair, the bald left side—he wasn't hiding anything this night—and limped up to the stage. He gazed at the hushed audience a moment, letting them take a long look at the marred face, the one gloved hand. Then he took the glove off. He was doing it for effect.

"My name is Charles Clewt. C-l-e-w-t! Most people call me Chip. Some call me something else. I live with my father in the Powhatan, and for the past year I've been working with a biologist named Tom Telford, studying and counting bears. You've read about him. I wish he was here tonight, but he seems to be missing and may have been murdered. Maybe the murderer is sitting right here in this room...." He didn't seem afraid or even uneasy.

"Last Sunday night someone shot at our house by the spillway, then slashed our tires. Maybe he's here
tonight, too. If he is, I've got a message for him and all of you. My father won a Bronze Star Medal for combat as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and Monday we bought a shotgun and deer slugs. Anyone who comes up the ditch and starts playing games again is going to get his head blown off...."

Sam wanted to cheer, even though he'd just started. He was talking their language.
That
they didn't expect.

He paused, then said, changing tone as if he was debating in Columbus, "Between seven and ten million Americans kill wild animals for pleasure each year, according to
Field & Stream.
Just for pleasure. Few do it out of necessity. It's for thrills, for kicks. It's the destruction of species for pure pleasure, and it's also a billion-dollar business...."

"Oh, come on!" someone yelled from the rear. There was a chorus of boos.

Chip ignored the taunts. "Working with the bears, I've seen them as living creatures, not targets. Individuals, not just species. Not just dumb animals. You may think they can't feel pain or enjoy life. But they do."

There were more catcalls.

"Sometime try watching them without a gunsight."

"Go back to Ohio, you jerk," someone yelled.

"Tom Telford believed hunting is necessary if there are too many animals and too little food. But before a shot is fired that case should be proven, he said. His
work remains to be finished. But so far all indications are that it will take another five years, or even ten, before there is any sign of food shortage in the Powhatan or that bears are damaging the plant life of the swamp...."

More boos cascaded.

"Fish and Wildlife will make a decision in January to open or not open the swamp for bear hunting next fall. Telford had planned to recommend the ban for another five years...."

There was outrage from the floor.

Chip shouted, "Give it a chance to work!"—but his words were drowned out.

Dunnegan said, "I wish we had an army tank to go home in."

Chip shouted again, "Give it a chance to work!" Then he came down off the stage, ignoring the angry voices.

Sam rose up and met him, kissing his scarred cheek, hugging him, surprising herself in front of all those people.

"You did good," said Dunnegan.

"Very good," his father said.

Sam said, "Super good."

Then she looked away. "I've got to go back over there," she said, nodding toward her parents.

"Hang in there! Call me, huh?"

They hugged tightly.

As she crossed toward her mother and the bo'sun, Sam was aware she'd changed this last week. She'd stood up to her father, with a gun in his hand; she'd stood up for Chip tonight. Whatever flak was coming, she hoped she could handle it.

***

THE NEXT day, Sam met Chip at Dunnegan's about ten. She'd bicycled there, and he'd come down the Feeder Ditch. Soon they were sitting on the green bench, Sam commenting on how great it was that the
Pilot
had printed almost every word of Chip's speech and had run his picture, cheek by jowl with the bo'sun's.

"I hope someday I'll look better than that," Chip said. "I look goofy."

"Not to me," Sam said.

"That's a lie, but a nice one."

"I don't think Papa exactly appreciated that story. He'll get over it, I hope. He wouldn't speak to me this morning. Didn't say a word on the ride home except to Mama."

"He'll come around," Chip predicted.

"What's going to happen now?" Sam asked.

"The university is probably going to send someone
else to finish the study. Hopefully I'll work for whoever they send, do the same thing I did for Telford."

"But you're not going away?"

Chip shook his head. "I'll go back to Columbus in the summer to see if they can't make my ear look less like a scorched biscuit. And Dad keeps talking about taking a month's trip in Europe."

Would I like to go along?
Sam asked herself.
Yes, I would. If wishes were horses...

"What about the rest of the winter? And spring?"

Chip smiled over. "I'm available."

"For movies?"

"Better than that. There's a Puerto Rican dance called the merengue.' You drag one foot. I should be good at it."

Sam laughed softly.

"Or we could just talk a lot," said Chip. "Like we're doing now."

"That would be okay, too," Sam said.

They talked for almost an hour, mainly about the night before, but also about Tom Telford and Buddy Bailey. Chip said he couldn't understand why Bailey hadn't been arrested. Then they got up from the bench. They held hands for a moment, and Chip said he'd drop by the Dairy Queen that night. Sam kissed him on the lips and rode back to Chapanoke as if her tires were filled with helium.

She was still floating around Sunday morning while setting the table for. breakfast. Finally, she couldn't hold it any longer and said, "Mama, I think I've got a steady."

Dell smiled secretively. "I couldn't have guessed in a hundred years...."

"He'll be here all winter and spring...." Her voice trailed off as the bo'sun entered the kitchen.

"Who'll be here all winter and spring?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Chip Clewt."

The bo'sun stared at his daughter a moment, then said, "I finally gotta tell you, Sam, I'm proud o' you for standin' up to me when I was about to shoot that bear, proud o' you for speakin' out at the Community Center. You likely gotta lot o' me in you. Yes, you do."

Sam went quickly into his sinewy arms, hearing him say, "... he's sure a funny-lookin' boy, isn't he?"

After a moment, he held her away from him and looked into her eyes. "But that don't mean we're not gonna fight for the right to shoot in that swamp..."

"I know, Papa."

Sam glanced over at her mother. Dell Sanders had done a lot of talking in that bed upstairs the last two nights.

An hour later, having met him at the head of Trail Seven, Sam watched as Chip waved the hand-held antenna around, listening for Number 43-89. She'd
been assigned the job of logging the coordinates. They were in the black gum forest not too far from the lake.

A few minutes before, Chip had stopped to point at a dead cypress. High up in a fork was a clutch of heavy sticks. "Telford told me that years ago, a bald eagle nested there. They're all gone."