The Weirdo (19 page)

Glancing over at him, she nodded.

He subscribed to
Field & Stream, Outdoor Life,
and several other hunting and fishing magazines. She had no intention of reading any of his articles.
Peace, Papa!

As soon as dinner was over, he'd depart for the base. He slept aboard the cutter when he was on duty.

"Sometime you may begin to understand just how ignorant they are. I saw a story in
Field & Stream
about red fox eating bird eggs out on the West Coast, wiping out a species. Yet when the government tries to let us hunters kill off some fox you can hear the screams all the way to Georgia. Sooner or later these animal rights people'll get on the side o' house rats...."

Sam decided to be brave. "But there aren't that many bears in the Powhatan, Papa. Telford found that out."

"Oh, he did? There's only so many berries an' acorns. Hunting keeps a balance, whether you know it or not. So many animals to so many acres. But try to tell that
to these people. They see a guy with a gun and a deer carcass stretched over a hood an they scream...."

"The Powhatan's a big place, with plenty of food for the game," Sam insisted. "Over a hundred thousand acres."

Her father thundered. "I was huntin' it before you were born...."

Dell sighed. "You both are lettin' your broth get cold."

The bo'sun grumped, "Jus' read the articles, Sam. I'll put 'em on your bed."

Soon he pushed away from the table and headed for Craney Island.

***

TWO HOURS later and five and a half miles due south, the Clewts were having a late dinner, cozy inside the spillway house, logs burning in the rock fireplace. Rain slanted against the steamed-up plate-glass window, water running down in rivulets. A night to stay warmly indoors, downpour ever increasing.

As usual, the old house was walled off by swamp darkness, a black the texture of ebony, the nearest lights being Dunnegan's, three and a half miles away.

Sibelius's Symphony Number Four was playing on CD, background for talk about what was happening all
over Europe, Clewt saying he'd like to take Chip for a month of just the two of them bumming around come summer, before he went back to Columbus. Go to France, Italy, and Spain, do the museums, rent a car. Chip was saying that would be fine, but he was thinking about the bears, the Conservancy campaign, Tom Telford, and the possibility of seeing Samantha Sanders regularly.

At eight-forty, John Clewt caught a flash of red out of the corner of his right eye, and then a hole about three feet in diameter was blown into the huge window, a load of buckshot hitting it, fragments of glass flying across the room like shrapnel.

Clewt screamed at Chip, "Get down!" and dove under the table, jerking Chip by his legs. Seconds and minutes and hours of 'Nam returned in an instant of terror.

There was another flash and a second boom, another hole chunked out of the plate glass, shards hitting like tacks over the table and floor.

"Go toward the window," Clewt yelled at his son. The safest place was directly beneath it.

Meanwhile, Clewt crawled toward the only light in the living room, a floor lamp. Yanking the plug out, he joined Chip, who was huddled against the wall, heart thudding.

In the blue-red light from the fireplace, Chip noticed that blood streamed down from his father's
forehead, dripping over his nose. Clewt had faced the window.

"You're bleeding," Chip said, and his father reached up to his forehead.

"Thought I felt something," he said, wiping his face with his shirtsleeve.

They waited for a third boom. They heard only the rain, the whistle of wind through the two holes, the muted barking of the dogs on the other side of the house, the last movement of Symphony Number Four.

Clewt said, "We'll just stay here awhile." He had no gun, and it would be ridiculous to call the sheriff's and say they were being shot at. Deputies would have to come up the ditch. Whoever it was would be long gone.

Chip remained silent, heart still thudding from the suddenness of the attack. "I guess somebody's trying to tell us something," he said.

His father didn't answer, head cocked to hear any movement outside.

The light cast from the fireplace made their faces surreal. They were drawn faces, frightened faces, the blood on Clewt's forehead looking black instead of red.

"How did he get up here without us hearing him, without the dogs hearing him?" Chip whispered, as if the gunman could hear.

"Probably used an electric trolling motor. He didn't walk," Clewt answered, still breathing hard.

"He did it because of that story in the
Pilot,
didn't he?" Chip said.

"I assume so. I think he meant to scare us, not kill us."

"What do we do?" Chip asked.

"I've already said what we do now. Stay put. I'm not sure what we do tomorrow."

Chip noticed how calm his father was, his voice so steady and reassuring. He'd reacted instantly when the glass was shattered, sending them to safety, turning out the light. Chip had never seen his father in an emergency and was impressed.

But Chip's heart was still pounding, not yet retreating from the plateau of fear; his temples still thudded; his breath was still coming in short bursts, as if he'd just flopped down from a long run.

Who would come out in a heavy rainstorm to shoot at them? Dunnegan had warned them that feelings would run high; so had Samantha.

Yet he couldn't believe that the hunters would strike so quickly and with such violence. The
Pilot
story had run on Sunday; this was only Wednesday. They stayed huddled by the wall beneath the window for almost an hour, John Clewt talking quietly about Europe and plans, for the future.

Only half listening to his father, Chip wondered if the attack was connected to the disappearance of Tom Telford. Was the man out in the yard the same one who was wearing the red-and-black mackinaw last year? Had he seen the boy crouching behind Telford?

***

AFTER doing the dishes, Sam watched "Wheel of Fortune," her mother's favorite, then "Jeopardy," before going upstairs to do a history assignment. She noticed a
Field & Stream
planted on the bed turned back to "National Parks Dilemma: Too Little Food, Too Many Mouths." Yellowstone. Gettysburg.

She looked down at it in frustration. None of this was her personal problem; it wasn't her fight. And she wasn't at all sure she wanted to get caught between someone she scarcely knew and the strong-minded man who was her father. Instead of dropping the magazine to the floor, she pushed it to the far side of the bed, thinking she might read a little of it in case he questioned her. He intimidated her without knowing he was doing it.

Still staring at the open page, she blew out a breath and sighed deeply. It truly wasn't her fight, yet there was that haunting presence of Chip Clewt that wouldn't go away. He kept fading back into her thoughts, coming visually, gray eyes searching her face. Even the droopy one was penetrating.
If only Buck hadn't run into the swamp...

Finally, crossing the room, she turned on the desk light and sat down to do, or try to do, the history paper. Though she always got an A in history, she hated it. She looked up, wondering what Chip Clewt was doing at this moment.

Outside, the rain rattled against the windows and dinned on the tin roof of the barn.

Note-taking pencil in her mouth, she glanced at the magazine on the bed, slowly shaking her head. Sooner or later she'd have to answer when the bo'sun asked, "Did you read it?" She'd lie! Yes, she'd lie!

Sam didn't think that Steve, being male, was as intimidated as she was. Steve and her papa belonged to the same macho world and did things together—or had while Steve was still around. She always sensed a difference when Steve called from Seattle, her papa answering, "Hey, pal, how ya' doin'?" And Steve going into the Coast Guard formed another bond.

Listening to those conversations, she wondered how it would be when she went away and called home. Would the bo'sun talk to her in that same tone?

Maybe she should try to do things with him? Offer to go to the duck blinds, shiver in the dawn cold, and have her ears hurt when the shotgun blasted? He'd know she was miserable.

She shook her head again and forced her mind back to her paper.

Thunder rumbled, shaking the old house, and lightning slanted into the room, turning it blue-white.

***

IN THE damp, overcast morning, heavy easterly Cape Hatteras clouds still threatening, the Clewts stood in Dunnegan's parking lot looking at the Volvo. All four tires had been slashed; the windshield was punched out. At first, there was stunned disbelief, a carryover from the shotgun attack; now there was rage as well.

Staring at the battered car, Chip knew it was another warning, a vicious follow-up to the blown win dow.

His father's fists were clenched. He was holding his rage inside, too.

Finally, Dunnegan asked Clewt, "You call the sheriff's last night?"

Clewt shook his head. "What good would it have done? I called before breakfast this morning. The woman on the desk took down the time and place, then asked if I had any idea who did it and why. I couldn't answer the first question but told her what I thought was the why. I had the feeling she couldn't care less. Maybe she's the wife of a hunter?"

"Not unlikely," said Dunnegan.

"You're going to report this, Dad?" Chip asked, nodding toward the car.

"In about two minutes."

Dunnegan hadn't even known it had happened until a customer came in asking who had trashed that Volvo outside. After seeing it, he'd called the Clewts.

They followed Dunnegan back into the store, and John got on the phone to Currituck to add the car to last night's assault, then called the insurance agency in Norfolk. A claims agent was in the vicinity; would Mr. Clewt wait an hour? Clewt said he would.

Father, calming down with a cup of coffee, and son, with a small bottle of orange juice, went on out to the green wooden bench in front of Dunnegan's to wait for the agent.

After a while, Clewt said, "Chip, I'm inclined to walk away from this. I don't appreciate the idea of either of us getting hurt. I'm not sure it's worth it."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I didn't sleep much last night. I sat up every time there was a creak or rattle. That's no way to live."

"I didn't sleep much, either," Chip admitted.

"I had some time to think," Clewt said.

They'd taped plastic over the holes in the window and had finally gone to bed after midnight, finishing a reheated meal in the dark.

"You know that bird sanctuary down on Pea Island?"

They'd driven by there last year. Pea Island wasn't an island any longer; it was part of the nearly continuous Hatteras Outer Banks but was still called an "island." Snow geese and other northern birds wintered there.

"I've always had in mind doing some painting down there. We could rent a house close to it, spend the winter there, then do the Europe trip before you go off to Ohio State next fall. How does that sound?"

"Sounds like we're running," Chip replied, looking over at his father with disappointment.

"That's exactly what we'd be doing," Clewt quickly said. "I've had all the fighting and tragedy I ever want to have."

Chip stared down at the wet pavement a moment. "What will happen to the bears? And Tom. I don't want to leave here until we find out what happened to Tom."

"Chip, your life and mine are of more concern to me than the bears or Tom. I'm frightened, if you want to know the truth. Telford is missing, then some guy shoots at us, beats up on the car..."

Chip kept staring at the pavement.

"Something terrible could happen, even by accident. We both could have been blinded last night, maybe even killed. I've been shot at before...."

Chip maintained his silence.

"It's an indication of what mentality we're dealing with...."

Chip finally spoke up. "Maybe he won't come back?"

"Think about it. He shoots at us, then works the car over. That's a pretty strong message. At least, to me."

"Suppose we tell the newspaper and television people what happened to us, and that we think it is because of the Powhatan campaign. Talk to Truesdale..."

Clewt was quiet a moment, then said, "Chip, that's wishful thinking. The whole thing just gets wider, meaner. Suppose we simply go away to Pea Island, quietly, sensibly, safely...."

"Just walk away?"

"The National Wildlife Conservancy is not comprised totally of Chip Clewt."

"But I'm here, and they're in Washington."

"So let them carry on the fight from there. Chip, you're a front man, a figurehead. I'm sure their publicity director said, 'Hey, we can get some mileage out of that kid. Let's grab him.'"

Chip sat staring across toward the George Washington Canal and the overwhelming misty gloom of the swamp. A big white cabin cruiser rumbled along the canal. On its way to Florida, likely.

"Dad, if it's all right with you, I'll just stay here. You go on to Pea Island. Maybe Dunnegan will let me live with him or I can rent a trailer in Tom's park. I have to finish things here."

Clewt's head swerved around angrily. "Chip, for God's sake, don't be so stubborn. I didn't know you had that streak in you."

Chip gravely held his father with his eyes, then said, velvet-soft, "You don't know much about me, do you?" The words were not meant to hurt, just remind.

Clewt examined the ground for a moment, then looked back at his son. "I guess I had that coming."

"Yes, you did. You also owe me, I think." Again, softly.

After a moment of reflection, Clewt nodded. "Yes, I do owe you. I do." He took a deep, reluctant breath. "Okay, we'll stay and dig in."

Chip heard the misgivings in his father's voice, saw them written in his eyes.

"Thank you."

Standing, gazing up the road as if he didn't know where it went, Clewt stud, "Okay, that decision is made. Now I'll make another one. We're not going to be naked back there. I'm buying a gun and some shells. I'll shoot back, and from now on the dogs'll be loose twenty-four hours a day. Early warning system, Chip."