A Death On The Wolf (31 page)

SMALL CRAFT FROM PENSACOLA TO CEDAR KEY SHOULD SEEK HARBOR…AND SMALL CRAFT ON THE ALABAMA…MISSISSIPPI AND SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA COASTS SHOULD NOT VENTURE FAR FROM SHORE.

REPEATING THE 11 PM POSITION…25.8 NORTH…87.4 WEST.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NEW ORLEANS WEATHER BUREAU AT 5 AM AND BULLETINS AT 1 AND 3 AM CDT.

SLOAN

— — —

At eleven o’clock that night, Frankie and I were lying on my fully opened sleeping bag on the floor of our new cabin. It was hot and muggy, so we’d both stripped down to just our underwear, and I was beginning to wonder if this had been such a good idea. At least we hadn’t been plagued by mosquitoes—yet. The gas-fired camping lantern was hissing over in the corner filling the single room with its brilliant white light. The smell of the fresh brown paint on the outside had been overwhelming on the inside at first, but we’d gotten used to it. Frankie had brought his transistor radio, and we were listening to that and talking. We stopped talking when the bulletin about Hurricane Camille broke into the middle of “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies.

“
One hundred sixty mile an hour winds,” Frankie said, echoing the voice coming from the tiny speaker of his radio.

“
Yeah, but it’s gonna hit Florida,” I offered.

“
Then why is there a hurricane watch all the way to Biloxi?”

“
I don’t know, but he said it was gonna hit around Ft. Walton.”

“
Do you remember Betsy, when we were little?” Frankie asked.

“
It was four years ago, Frankie. We were twelve. We weren’t little.”

“
Whatever. I don’t think Betsy had winds that high.”

“
Betsy hit Louisiana,” I said. “We just got a lot of rain and a little wind here. If this hurricane hits all the way over in Florida, it’ll be the same thing this time.”

“
They don’t know where it’s gonna hit. They’re just guessing.”

I didn’t want to keep talking about this hurricane. “Guess what Mary Alice and I have talked about doing,” I said.

Frankie leaned up on his elbow and looked at me. “Having sex,” he said with a lascivious grin.

“
Oh, good grief, Frankie. Is that all you think about?”

“
Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about doing it with her. I bet you beat your meat every night thinking about it.”

Frankie had me there, but discussing my intimate thoughts and actions regarding Mary Alice with him seemed to violate some unspoken commitment that lay inside me somewhere. “We talked about getting married,” I said.

“
Married?” Frankie scoffed. “You just turned sixteen. And how old is she? Fourteen? Fifteen? Y’all can’t get married.”

“
I’m not talking about getting married tomorrow, idiot.” I looked over at Frankie. He had a strange look on his face. “What is it?” I asked.

“
Did you hear something?”

“
Don’t even try that,” I said. I hadn’t heard a thing and I wasn’t going to fall for Frankie’s attempt to bait me into getting scared.

“
I’m not kidding. I heard—” He stopped because we both heard the noise from outside. Frankie reached over and switched off the radio. There was no breeze blowing. The insects were noisy, but this sounded like something crunching the undergrowth as it moved around outside the cabin. I looked up at the Plexiglas windows, but because the camping lantern was so bright, the windows just looked black; I couldn’t see anything outside. Frankie pointed over to my old knapsack. “You didn’t bring a gun, did you?” he whispered.

“
No,” I whispered back.

The door knob rattling made us both jump and I felt a surge in my chest as my breathing increased. The door was locked, but it wouldn’t take much to just kick it open. I knew Frankie was thinking the same thing I was: Peter Bong. We waited, hoping that whoever was out there would just go away, but the door knob rattled again. I reached over for my khaki shorts to get my pocket knife. It was the only weapon I had. Just as my hand went into the pocket, we heard the voice from the other side of the door: “Nelson, let me in.”

It was Daddy. Frankie and I both fell on our backs and started breathing again. After a couple of seconds I leaned up and twisted the lock on the door knob and opened the door. I hadn’t realized just how hot and stuffy it had gotten in the small cabin until the rush of night air swept in around us. Daddy was standing there with a flashlight in his hand—and his Smith & Wesson revolver tucked inside the waistband of his trousers.

“
You boys get dressed,” he ordered.

I started slipping my shorts on as Frankie reached for his tee shirt. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“
Just get dressed. I’ll tell you on the way back to the house.”

Chapter 19

Something Wicked This Way Comes

What my father had to tell us was Uncle Rick had called him at ten o’clock that night to say that one of the NASA meteorologists at MTF was convinced the northerly turn the National Hurricane Center had been expecting for Camille was not going to happen, and the hurricane was going to hit much further west than they were predicting. Not Florida at all. Probably not even Alabama. He thought it was going to hit Mississippi. And with 160 mile per hour winds and an expected 15 foot storm surge, the destruction along the coast was going to be extensive.

The people at MTF were taking this man’s predictions seriously enough that they had told everyone to report in at 6 A.M. to secure the facility for the incoming hurricane. Uncle Rick said all the main buildings on the site had been constructed to withstand 200 mile per hour winds. After he got my grandmother squared away at her house in Picayune, he intended to ride out the storm at his office. His recommendation to Daddy was we should start preparing for the worst, come first light.

When Daddy woke Frankie and me a little before six Sunday morning, we found out just how good a forecaster the guy at NASA really was. The 5 A.M. advisory on Camille had stated the storm had shifted “a little westward,” and the hurricane warnings had been extended all the way to Biloxi and watches all the way to New Orleans. It was a little before seven now. Frankie was over at the stove scrambling eggs, I was sitting at the table, and Daddy was on the phone with Aunt Charity. He told her we would not be going to church today and for her to stay at her house and fix breakfast for herself, Mary Alice, and my sister. He filled her in on what Uncle Rick had to say about Camille and told her she should start getting her potted plants off the porch and the patio. He said we would take care of the big things like her patio furniture and lawn chairs. After he hung up with my aunt, Daddy called Dale Pitts, the guy that ran the lumber yard, and persuaded him to open up on a Sunday morning. “Trust me,” Daddy said, “you will sell every piece of plywood you’ve got today and I’ll be your first customer.” Next, Daddy called the Chairman of the Board of Deacons at church and told him to get the other deacons together with pickups and trailers and be at the lumber yard by eight to get plywood to board up all the windows at the church, especially the stained glass ones in the sanctuary. As the Clerk of the Session, and the senior elder, he also told Mr. Jake he was canceling services today, and the deacons should call all the families on their respective diaconate lists and let them know.

After breakfast, we headed to the lumber yard. Frankie and I were now sitting beside Daddy in the cab of his pickup as we bounced down the road. Daddy’s truck really needed new shocks. I looked out the window at the gray morning sky. It wasn’t very ominous looking and there was hardly any wind at all—certainly nothing to portend the storm of the century bearing down on us. We had the trailer in tow too because Daddy was intent on getting enough plywood to board up every window in our house as well as Aunt Charity’s.

“
What about nails?” I asked. “Is the hardware store gonna be open today?”

“
I don’t know,” Daddy said. “But I checked before we left and we’ve got plenty of nails.”

“
Why do we need to board up the windows?” Frankie asked. “We’re a long way from the coast.”

“
We’re not as far as you think,” Daddy said. “As the crow flies, we’re no more than fifteen miles inland. If that thing hits the coast with 160 mile an hour winds, we could see 130 here.”

“
I want to go down to the cabin when we get back and get my radio,” Frankie said. In our rush to get dressed and leave the cabin last night with Daddy, Frankie had left his new transistor radio behind and I had left my sleeping bag.

“
You can worry about getting that later,” Daddy said. “Right now, I need you helping us get ready for this storm.”

“
Yes, sir,” Frankie said, a little dejected.

Main Street in Bells Ferry was deserted, as was to be expected at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. Mr. Pitts had just opened up the gate at the lumber yard outside of town when we got there. We loaded up the bed of the pickup and the trailer with plywood and headed back to the house. Once there, Daddy set me to work with a tape measure, pencil, and pad. My job was to measure every window in our house and my aunt’s house. Daddy set the saw horses up by the barn and was cutting the plywood to my measurements. He told me to measure twice before writing anything down because we didn’t have any wood to spare. He had Frankie over at Aunt Charity’s carrying her patio furniture, and the chairs on the front porch, into her garage.

— — —

NEW ORLEANS

ADVISORY NO. 14 9 AM CDT SUNDAY AUGUST 17, 1969

…CAMILLE…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS…CONTINUES TO MOVE TOWARD THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER…WARNINGS EXTENDED TO NEW ORLEANS AND GRAND ISLE…

HURRICANE WARNINGS HAVE BEEN EXTENDED WESTWARD TO INCLUDE ALL OF THE MISSISSIPPI COAST AND SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA AS FAR WEST AS NEW ORLEANS AND GRAND ISLE.

GALE WARNINGS HAVE BEEN EXTENDED WESTWARD TO MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA. HURRICANE WARNINGS ARE NOW IN EFFECT FROM NEW ORLEANS AND GRAND ISLE LOUISIANA EASTWARD ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI…ALABAMA…AND…NORTHWEST FLORIDA COAST TO ST. MARKS. GALE WARNINGS ARE NOW IN EFFECT ELSEWHERE FROM MORGAN CITY TO CEDAR KEYS FLORIDA. PREPARATIONS AGAINST THIS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE SHOULD BE COMPLETED WITHIN THE NEXT FEW HOURS.

WINDS ARE INCREASING AND TIDES ARE RISING ALONG THE NORTHERN GULF COAST FROM GRAND ISLE EASTWARD. GALES HAVE BEGUN A SHORT DISTANCE OFF SHORE AND WILL BE SPREADING INLAND OVER THE WARNING AREA TODAY AND WILL REACH HURRICANE FORCE FROM SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA ACROSS COASTAL MISSISSIPPI…ALABAMA…AND EXTREME NORTHWEST FLORIDA BY LATE THIS AFTERNOON OR EARLY TONIGHT. TIDES UP TO 15 FEET ARE EXPECTED IN THE AREA WHERE THE CENTER CROSSES THE COAST AND TIDES OF 5 TO 12 FEET ELSEWHERE IN THE HURRICANE WARNING AREA. EVACUATION OF THE LOW LYING AREA THAT WOULD BE AFFECTED BY THESE TIDES SHOULD BE DONE AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE TODAY BEFORE ESCAPE ROUTES ARE CLOSED. PRESENT INDICATIONS ARE THAT THE CENTER OF CAMILLE WILL PASS CLOSE TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND MOVE INLAND ON THE MISSISSIPPI COAST TONIGHT.

ALL INTERESTS ALONG THE NORTHEASTERN GULF COAST ARE URGED TO LISTEN FOR LATER RELEASES AND TAKE ALL NECESSARY HURRICANE PRECAUTIONS IMMEDIATELY.

AT 9 AM CDT…HURRICANE CAMILLE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 27.4 NORTH…LONGITUDE 88.4 WEST…OR ABOUT 200 MILES SOUTHEAST OF NEW ORLEANS. CAMILLE WAS MOVING ON NORTH NORTHWEST COURSE AT ABOUT 12 MPH. A CHANGE TO A SLIGHTLY MORE NORTHERLY COURSE IS LIKELY AS THE CENTER APPROACHES THE COAST.

HIGHEST WINDS ARE ESTIMATED 160 MPH NEAR THE CENTER. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD 50 MILES AND GALES EXTEND OUTWARD 150 MILES FROM THE CENTER. CAMILLE IS EXPECTED TO CHANGE LITTLE IN INTENSITY DURING THE NEXT 12 HOURS.

SMALL CRAFT ON THE LOUISIANA…MISSISSIPPI…ALABAMA…FLORIDA COAST NORTH OF CEDAR KEYS SHOULD REMAIN IN PORT.

THE THREAT TO THE FLORIDA COAST IS DECREASING AND WARNINGS WILL PROBABLY BE DISCONTINUED FOR PART OF THAT AREA LATER TODAY.

CAMILLE IS NOW UNDER THE SURVEILLANCE OF RADARS AT NEW ORLEANS…PENSACOLA AND APALACHICOLA.

REPEATING THE 9 AM POSITION…27.4 NORTH…88.4 WEST.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NEW ORLEANS WEATHER BUREAU AT 11 AM AND BULLETINS AT 1 AND 3 PM CDT.

HILL

— — —

By 10:30 we had finished boarding up all the windows on our house and were working on the front windows at Aunt Charity’s when she came out on the front porch and brought us all glasses of iced tea. She also brought the news from the nine o’clock advisory from the weather bureau: Hurricane Camille was just 200 miles from New Orleans and hurricane warnings had been extended all the way to that city. They were now calling for the storm to come ashore on the Mississippi coast.