“Well, could it be Cullen Witter?” I said, pointing to myself.
“Nah, Gabriel’s more responsible than you. But I’m sure he’ll let you help,” Lucas said, throwing the ball.
I stood there silent. With such confidence and no awkwardness at all, Lucas had mentioned my brother as if he were merely inside the house listening to music or watching TV or writing down song lyrics. I sat down on the ground. I rested myself back on both hands, looking up toward the sky. And even though there were no visible stars, I smiled. I smiled and I pictured my brother holding some baby in his arms. Singing some childish song. Dancing some silly dance.
The next morning, feeling slightly guilty about having kicked Lucas out of our house and thereby causing him to assault an ornithologist to prove his allegiance to my family, I suggested that we go down to the White River and take one of Merle’s Famous Lazarus Boat Tours.
“You’re kidding?” Lucas asked, looking up from his cereal.
“I’m not. Come on, it’ll be fun,” I said, leaning over to slip on my shoes.
“Is this some sort of trick? Are you going to dump my body into the river, Cullen?” he joked.
“Yes. But not today. Today we join expert tour guide Merle Hodge on a lavish journey through the Arkansas bayous to seek out the elusive Lazarus woodpecker.” I raised my hands dramatically into the air as I spoke.
“Well, it will be interesting to see what a fisherman suddenly knows about a woodpecker that no one’s even seen in sixty years,” Lucas replied.
“Won’t it?” I jumped up from my seat and headed for the door.
Here’s why Merle Hodge was now the proprietor and sole employee of Merle’s Famous Lazarus Boat Tours: He was the previous proprietor and sole employee of Merle’s Famous Fisherman Tours. That is, until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the entire area around Lily to be part of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. By doing this, hunters and fishermen all around had lost the land and water they’d stalked and camped on and thrown bait into for most of their lifetimes. This caused perhaps the most publicized dissent against the Lazarus woodpecker, with op-ed pieces running weekly in the paper to disparage John Barling and his mob of birdwatcher friends. There were even rumors of secret meetings of a group called Bird Haters United. I had thought seriously of attending one of their meetings.
It turns out that a deluxe, all-inclusive tour through the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge costs twenty-five dollars per person and lasts roughly three hours. Each in our own kayaks, complete with camouflage life vests and double-ended paddles, we headed out.
When one is an hour and fifteen minutes into a three-hour boat tour and realizes that he knows just as much about the area as his tour guide, if not more, he begins to stare down into the clear, cold water and focuses his attention on the way the midday sun is reflecting off the river bottom. Then, as he overhears Merle Hodge say some nonsense about the Lazarus woodpecker and make four or five grammatical mistakes, he imagines Gabriel Witter floating casually up beside him, tapping his paddle against his older brother’s kayak, and giving him a don’t-make-fun-of-this-poor-guy look. Then, just as he reaches over to pull his younger brother closer to him, to see if he’s real, he pictures a dark shadow covering them entirely. He looks up to see, there in the sky and blocking out the sun completely, the long-lost Lazarus woodpecker, with its wings out-spread and its beak pointing upward, nearly piercing the blue of the sky. He looks back down to find that his brother is no longer there. He is no longer there to stop him from ridiculing Merle Hodge or making some smart-ass remark about woodpeckers. He doesn’t stop him when he thinks about asking the tour guide an unanswerable question or when he considers pretending to see a large bird off in the distance. He isn’t there anymore to supply Cullen Witter with endless chances to do better.
“Do you think they’ll ever find him?” I asked Lucas as we drove home that evening.
“I know they will,” Lucas said confidently.
“And you’re serious when you say that? I mean, you actually believe that, don’t you?”
“I really do, Cullen,” Lucas said bluntly, his gaze on the road ahead.
Book Title #88: Some Childish Song.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Boy Who Caused Silence
Some two weeks after being stuffed into a trunk, Gabriel Witter sat on the edge of a mostly comfortable bed with a brown and orange quilt draped over his shoulders. He hummed some songs he’d heard before being abducted and thought briefly about whether or not he really was the reincarnation of the archangel Gabriel, which is exactly what Cabot Searcy had told him was the truth. He was amused at the thought of being anything but an overly curious teenager. As the door across the empty room opened, he stood up with a look of excitement.
“Sit back down,” Cabot Searcy told him, blocking the doorway.
About once a day since they’d arrived wherever they were, Cabot would come into Gabriel’s small, windowless room, sit in a wooden chair across from him, look at him with anxiety and hesitation in his eyes, and ask him strange questions like, “What’s heaven like?” and “Am I doing everything right?” Gabriel would rarely give answers to these questions, usually staring blankly back at his captor or asking politely to be freed. Cabot Searcy never got close enough to touch Gabriel. He never brought anything into the room like a flashlight or a gun. He only came in quietly, sat down, and began sharing his wild ideas.
Three weeks into his stay, Gabriel asked Cabot Searcy where they were. Cabot stood up, pushed the chair back against the wall where he’d gotten it, turned around to walk out, and said plainly, “We’re in a room.” Gabriel was not the type of boy to assume that he had to merely yell or bang on walls or jump up and down against the floor to get someone’s attention from the outside. He was not so dumb as to believe that rescue was an easy task. Instead he sat there quietly. He thought about his friends. Libby Truett, the girl he loved. Lucas Cader, the only person who could beat him at Monopoly. He pictured his mom crying at the hair salon, slowly wrapping an old woman’s hair around curlers. He saw his dad putting up posters with some dorky school picture of himself on the front and a meager reward offered underneath. And when he thought about Cullen, he began to get upset for the first time since he’d been there. He knew how his brother was. Always thinking about every little thing. Always taking one sentence that someone had said and dissecting it until it meant nothing. He knew his brother would be in his room, not going through his things, but studying them. He knew he would feel hopeless. Alone. He knew Cullen Witter would blame himself without even really knowing what had happened.
“It’s been five weeks,” Gabriel said as Cabot Searcy handed him a paper plate with a ham and cheese sandwich on it.
“And one day,” Cabot said back, sitting down in the chair.
“So,” Gabriel began, taking a bite of the sandwich, “if I am an angel, what’s stopping me from just flying out of here?”
“It doesn’t work like that, I guess,” Cabot said.
“Well, that doesn’t make sense. I mean, if I had all these powers, I’m sure I’d be using them for something. At least to get a TV in here.”
The next day Cabot Searcy toted in a small black and silver television, set it down on the floor in the far corner of the room, plugged it in, and said, “There,” before walking back out and locking the door from the outside. Gabriel nearly threw himself onto the floor and, scooting across the room to the TV, thought he might start crying. He pushed the power button and was met with a screen full of white and black squiggly lines. He tried turning a channel. Nothing happened. He looked around to the back of the TV to find that it was merely plugged into the wall. No cable. No channels. He left it on, though, turning the volume up as loud as it would go, and he sat there, in the middle of the floor, letting the sound of a million bugs flying around him, of planes taking off, of cars colliding, of paper being balled up, of driving through a tunnel, fill the room. He held one ear closed with o
ne hand and, letting it go, held the other. He did this for a while, making different noises out of the cacophony surrounding him. Cabot Searcy walked into the room, turned the TV off, and looked down at Gabriel on the floor.
“What the hell?” he said.
“There’s no cable,” Gabriel said, never getting up.
“I’m working on it, okay?” Cabot said, storming back out and slamming the door.
“He’s working on it,” Gabriel whispered to himself, lying all the way down on his back and staring at the ceiling to see the all-too-familiar rough whiteness sprinkled with the tiniest flecks of gold sparkle.
Six weeks and four days after being mistaken for his brother, Gabriel lay in bed, flipping through the channels of the television. Cabot Searcy had, in all his brilliance, run a long black cable under the door from whatever room was outside and hooked it to the back of the TV. After doing this, he had taken a towel or something and shoved it under the crack in the door. Gabriel Witter, unable to sleep in complete darkness, had finally started to get rest since the television arrived. He stopped on a news station and waited for himself to be mentioned. Just as he’d noticed the week before, he was nowhere to be found. He did, however, figure out that he was somewhere in Georgia, having accidentally stumbled onto a local Atlanta news station. He knew that he couldn’t be sure whether he was in the city or somewhere outside of it. He had thought for hours about ways to escape, from pretending to be violently ill to hiding behind the door with the television and throwing it onto Cabot’s head. He knew, though, that nothing would work out the way it did in movies. He wouldn’t make it across the street or to a neighbor’s house. He wouldn’t have the heart to hurt Cabot enough to get that far. And he knew that Cabot would come back, and the next time, it might be for Cullen instead.
Cabot Searcy walked into the room on the day that marked week ten and took his regular seat. He smiled at Gabriel, who was just waking up, and stared at him as if waiting to hear something important.
“What?” Gabriel said, wiping his eyes.
“You’d tell me if this was all a test, right?” Cabot asked him.
“If what was all a test?”
“If me taking you and keeping you here and finding all the books and stuff. If it’s all some test from God. Well, you’d tell me. Wouldn’t you?”
“Okay. I’m gonna say this one last time. I am just a kid,” he said slowly, as if talking to an elderly person or a small child.
“Rii-ii-ight.” Cabot nodded.
“Fine. I’m Gabriel. I’m God’s right-hand man,” Gabriel said.
“Left hand, you mean,” Cabot corrected.
“Whatever. Sure. What happens now?” Gabriel asked.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Cabot said.
“And?”
“And it seems to me that in order to get things back the way they’re supposed to be, you have to go,” Cabot said with some hesitation.
“Go home, you mean?” Gabriel asked.
“Not exactly. Home as in heaven. To be with God. Do you get my drift?” Cabot asked.
“Okay,” Gabriel said, staring at the floor, “let’s recap, if that’s all right.”
“Sure.”
“You went to college and your roommate killed himself on Christmas Day.”
“Right.”
“And you found a verse in his journal that led you to an ancient Bible in the school’s library.”
“Enoch, right.”
“And from there you read this guy’s notes, read the book, and determined that had Gabriel—”
“You!” Cabot butted in.
“Had I not followed God’s orders to stop these fallen angels from living with the humans, then people, us, everyone, would have been taught to be as smart and powerful as God himself?”
“Bingo,” Cabot said.
“So, you really think that these angels were that smart?”
“Smart, but misunderstood. They wanted to help us down here. And you stopped them from doing that.”
“But it’s what God told me to do,” Gabriel said, playing along.
“But God has now told me to do this. He has led me to all these things. He led me to that school and to Benton Sage and to finding the books. He led me to Savannah to marry Alma, and then he led me to Lily where I accidentally took you. Only, it wasn’t an accident. That’s the way it was all supposed to happen. It’s amazing how it all fits, isn’t it?”
Gabriel looked at Cabot Searcy and, for a moment, thought of the many things he could say to him to shatter his delusions. He thought of quoting from the Bible, but changed his mind. He thought of once again denying his heavenliness, but didn’t. He wanted to call Cabot crazy. Misinformed. Confused. He wanted to scream to him that God would never lead a man to take a boy from his family. But he didn’t. Instead Gabriel Witter stood up, raised both hands into the air, and began to shout as sincerely and convincingly as he could manage.
“Oh God. Do with me what you will!”
And with that Cabot Searcy got up, walked through the door, and shut it behind him. Gabriel heard banging from the other room. He heard two quick yells, as if two people were arguing or one person was arguing with himself. He leaned his ear against the door, his breathing heavy and deep, his eyes closed. He heard words like “shit” and “damn” and “help me.” He heard the slamming of cabinet doors, the tapping of shoes on hard tile, the whir of a ceiling fan. Gabriel listened as Cabot Searcy yelled the following:
“I have sinned. I have sinned. Help me, oh Lord. I have sinned.”
Hearing footsteps coming quickly his way, Gabriel threw himself onto the bed and didn’t take his eyes off the door. It swung open, slammed into the wall, bounced back only slightly, and Cabot approached the bed. He looked down. He was breathing hard. His face was wet with what Gabriel assumed were tears. Cabot kneeled down. He took one hand and placed it on Gabriel’s shoulder. Closing his eyes, he began to speak.
“Gabriel, I need you to tell me the truth. I trust that God will tell me the truth through your voice. So, tell me. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“I don’t know what you’re supposed to do,” Gabriel said as calmly as possible. “Don’t you see that?”
“You have to!” Cabot shot up, beginning to yell. “I can’t breathe. I can’t think. This should be easier. Alma and Cullen and back in Savannah. It’s all connected. It has to be. It has to make sense. Benton killed himself for this! He just left! Just like that! He just gave up! It was too hard! But I figured it out, right? I did it, right? I’m the one! I’m the one to finish the job. I’m the one to make things right!”
“Where’s your family?” Gabriel said, sitting up on the bed.
“What?” Cabot had tears streaming down his face.
“Your family. Where are they? Do they know who you are? Do they know how important you are?” Gabriel asked, now beginning to stand.
“Shut up! Quit distracting me!”
Cabot grabbed at the sides of his own angry face. He appeared to be trying to knock the thoughts out of his head. Gabriel stood up and, though he thought about running for the door, he fell to his knees, clasped his hands, and began to pray.
“Lord, help this man find his way without hurting himself or anyone else. Help him find his heart, Lord, the same heart that has provided me food and warmth. Help him, please. Please help him to stop and think.”
“Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!” Cabot took both hands and knocked Gabriel onto his side. He kicked at Gabriel’s back and legs. He sniffled, cried, and reached down to pick Gabriel up and flung him across the room. Gabriel’s head smashed into the side of the television and he fell motionless and sprawled out on the hard floor.
“You should’ve just told me the truth,” Cabot said, slowly approaching the boy.
Though his face was pressed coldly against the floor, Gabriel whispered quietly and with certainty in his voice. Cabot yelled, “What? Speak up!”
“You’re not the one,
” Gabriel said more clearly, pain in his voice.
With that, Cabot Searcy sat down on the edge of the bed, looked down at Gabriel Witter and his bleeding scalp, and said nothing. He looked over to the television to see a shot of a news program being broadcast from Lily, Arkansas. A small caption appeared under an image of a reporter standing before a patch of swampy woods. The caption read no SECOND CHANCES IN LILY, ARKANSAS.
Cabot began to laugh. He got louder and louder and finally stopped, abruptly, as he looked back down at the motionless figure on his floor.
“It’s time to say good-bye, Gabriel,” Cabot muttered, standing up and switching off the television.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Meaning of This Is Not to Save You
When I saw John Barling tossing a large brown duffel bag into the back of his truck, I remained on my porch and tried my best to read his lips as he mumbled under his breath. I couldn’t make out any words, but I imagined them to be things that one wouldn’t hear in church. He slammed the back door shut and, looking up at me, gave me the quickest of salutes with his right hand before hopping into the driver’s seat, starting the loud engine up, and driving off. I saw Fulton Dumas run around from the side of his house, yelling “HELL YES!” and “ALL RIGHT!” while throwing a handful of rocks toward the road. He caught a glimpse of me, waved one hand uncomfortably my way, and walked back into his house.
The Lazarus woodpecker weighs approximately twenty-six ounces, is twenty-four inches tall, and has a wing span of just around thirty-two inches. This would make it, as I mentioned once before, the largest woodpecker in existence. This would all be true if the bird existed, which it didn’t. It did in the 1940s, but not in Lily, Arkansas. Not the summer my brother went missing. Not in the woods near the White River. Not in John Barling’s poorly shot photograph. Not in the sightings on the highway. Not in the DNA tests done by the National Audubon Society of a feather found by a young girl and her dog.
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