The Night Flyers

by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

  Pam’s dread vanished with Mama’s joke. She laughed. “But what does the stranger have to do with me?”

  “I’m getting to that. The man found his way to the drugstore ’long about midmorning. And it was queer, very queer, because I don’t know how he knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “About your pigeons.”

  “My pigeons?”

  Mama nodded. “He wanted to buy your pigeons. All of’em. The whole loft.”

  Pam was horrified. “You didn’t sell my birds, did you?”

  “They’re not mine to sell. Papa gave the loft to you when he was called up to service. I told the man he’d have to talk to you.”

  Pam thought about that. A mysterious stranger come to town, a man who had the whole town buzzing, and he wanted to buy her pigeons. It did make her feel important.

  “Come on, honey,” Mama said. “Mr. Bagley’s waiting on us to close up.” She beckoned for Pam to follow her into the drugstore. “Oh, by the way, Iva Suggs is down with another spell. Buell come in this morning looking for Doc Weston. The stranger ended up toting Buell off in his motor truck to find the doctor. ’Course, when Miz Gracie found out, she said it’d be the last we’d see of Buell.” Mama shook her head. “Such foolishness.”

  Mr. Bagley was washing glasses at the soda fountain and stacking them on the counter. “I sent Henry out to your place earlier to cut you some stove wood,” he said, beaming. “Should be a stack waiting on your porch.”

  Pam cringed. Why did Mr. Bagley insist on having Henry do their chores? Pam knew he was trying to be nice, but his constant charity embarrassed her, and she hated feeling beholden to Henry.

  If Mama felt the same way, she never hinted at it. “We’re obliged,” she told him. “That’ll give us leave to get right down to cooking supper. Won’t it, Pam?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pam said, hurrying out the door before Mama or Mr. Bagley could see the insincerity in her face. She’d rather eat straw than burn wood chopped by Henry Bagley, and that was the truth. Why did she have to pretend she felt one way when she really felt the opposite? Grownups expected you to be honest, except when being honest was rude. Then it was all right to be dishonest—but only a little. She shook her head. She would never understand grown-ups.

  Mama was lingering inside, talking to Mr. Bagley. Pam couldn’t help overhearing. Mr. Bagley fairly boomed. He was saying something about a Red Cross meeting tomorrow, about packing Currituck preserves to send to the starving Belgians. “Imagine the Germans starving little children,” Pam heard him say. “It’s inhuman, just inhuman.”

  “Pa’s talking Germans again, ain’t he?” It was Alice, though Pam hadn’t noticed her approach. “I think he wishes he was a soldier.” She chuckled at her father.

  Pam didn’t laugh. “You should be glad he’s not over there.”

  Alice’s smile vanished. “I’m sorry, Pam. I forgot about your pa for a minute. Listen, I tried to tell you earlier”—she emphasized the word earlier—“that I didn’t think Henry’s little joke this afternoon was funny at all. I hope you noticed I wasn’t laughing.”

  “No, I didn’t really notice,” said Pam. She wished Alice hadn’t brought it up again. She wanted to forget the whole thing.

  “Well, if you need help in spelling, just ask me. I’ll be glad to tutor you anytime.”

  Alice’s offer, meant kindly, sliced deep into Pam’s pride. So Alice thinks I’m a dolt too. It wasn’t worth trying to explain that she would’ve known how to spell the word if she’d known which word the teacher called out. “Thanks,” Pam choked out, “but I doubt Mama can spare me from the farm right now.”

  The awkward moment was cut short—thankfully—when Mama finally came out of the store. Pam couldn’t have been more glad to say good-bye to Alice and leave with Mama.

  They walked the mile to Scuppernong Creek where their small, flat-bottomed boat, called a skiff, was moored. The Scuppernong was one of the many small creeks that fed the Currituck River, which in turn flowed into Currituck Sound. The Scuppernong was named for the vines that twined among the trees on the creek’s edge and bore luscious fat grapes in early fall. A few miles upcreek they passed Buell Suggs and his little brothers Marvin and Rupert seining for bass. Buell and Marvin hauled the net, or seine, into their boat while Rupert rowed forward just enough to keep the net from tangling. Their catch was poor, fewer than seventy pounds, Pam guessed.

  “How’s your ma doing, Buell?” Mama asked.

  Buell pulled the net inside out, releasing the thrashing fish into the bottom of the boat. Though he was only fourteen, his back and arms were knotted with muscles from working hard ever since he was old enough to walk behind a plow. Now that his mother was sick and his father away at war, Buell had to man the farm and feed the family with only his brothers’ help.

  “She’s tolerable,” Buell said. “Doc says she’ll be down at least a couple weeks. Nursing the twins has pure sapped her strength. She needs to drink lots of milk, he says.”

  Pam and Mama exchanged glances. They both knew the puny Suggs cow gave barely enough milk for all the Suggs youngsters. There would be none left over for Iva. Pam noticed Buell’s fingers twitching nervously on the net. He was asking for their help. Pam thought it must be an awful burden to have that much responsibility at Buell’s age.

  “You’re welcome to half what Daisy gives every day,” Mama offered. Daisy was one of their cows. The other, Lula, was ready to drop a calf any day.

  Tension drained from Buell’s face. “I thank ya, Miz Lowder. Ma figured that. She done sent Mattie over to your place to borrow some milk. Mattie’s probably waiting on you now.”

  Dusk was falling fast when Pam and Mama reached home. Without speaking, they trudged from the creek up the wooded slope to the backyard. As they neared the house, they could hear the porch swing creaking around front and Mattie singing the refrain of “Amazing Grace.” Pam climbed the back stairs and splashed water from the washbasin on her sweaty face. Soon Mattie appeared. “Henry Bagley was here,” she said by way of greeting. “Cut y’all a stack of wood, but he hightailed it right off. That boy ain’t friendly, is he?”

  “Why? What did he say?” Pam asked. She dried her hands and face with the salt sack hung on a nail above the washbasin.

  “That’s just it. Wouldn’t say nothing. Acted like he was too good to talk to me.” Mattie dearly loved to talk. She would have taken that as a high insult. She could talk for hours solid if she had a listener. But how could you fault her? She went all day long with nothing but noses to wipe and chores to do, and Iva Suggs wasn’t one to waste time in idle chatter.

  “Consider yourself lucky,” said Pam. “I’m glad he’s gone. He’s the last person I want to talk to.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Pam. “I’ll tell you while we’re milking Daisy. I need to change clothes first.”

  Mattie followed Pam into her bedroom. Pam dumped her book sack on her bed. While she changed into her overalls and hung up her school dress, Mattie studied the giant map of Europe Pam had tacked to her wall. The map was dotted in red to show the movement of American troops across England and France. Big blue stars showed places in France where Pam thought Papa might have been: Château-Thierry on the Marne River, Soissons, Cantigny on the Somme River, Belleau Wood. Mattie touched the stars gingerly with her fingertips. Her father was in the same regiment as Papa. Mattie probably figured he had been in those places too.

  “No new stars since the last time I was here,” Mattie said sadly.

  Pam was lacing up an old pair of Papa’s boots that she wore to do her chores. The toes were stuffed with newspaper to keep the boots from flopping. “Nope. Ain’t had no more letters.” She tried to sound unconcerned, but it was hard to keep her voice from cracking.

  “Oh.” Mattie’s voice hung heavy with disappointment. “I was hoping you’d have a new one to read me.” Since Mattie’s father couldn’t read or write, the family rar
ely heard from him. “I like to pretend your letters are mine, from Pa. It’s easy if I take out your name and put mine in. Except for the pigeon parts.” She made a face, which Pam ignored. Mattie didn’t like pigeons, even though Buell had a loft of his own.

  “I’ll get the map up-to-date next week after we get a copy of Sunday’s Gazette. You can help if you want,” Pam offered.

  Mattie accepted eagerly. She chattered behind Pam through the kitchen and out to the barn, and continued to chatter while Pam settled against Daisy’s side and began milking. Pam was used to Mattie’s constant talking. After all, they’d known each other all their lives. Most of the time it didn’t bother her, but tonight she could barely tolerate it. For once, Pam wanted to do the talking. The incident with Henry at school lay in her chest like a millstone. Maybe Mattie would understand how awkward she felt at school, like a gangly colt trying to walk. She broke in to Mattie’s chatter and told her what had happened.

  Instead of sympathizing, Mattie started to scold. “What do you expect, Pam? I don’t see why you even bother with school. You ain’t never going to catch up with them town kids. They got nothing to do but stick their noses in books all the time, not like you and me. What you going to do with all that book learning anyway? It’s a waste of time for a girl. Like you always messin’ with critters. That stuff’s for boys.”

  Angry words flew to Pam’s lips, but she bit them back. Mattie was only echoing what she heard at home. Instead, Pam changed the subject. “Come up and see my new squeakers, Mattie. The one’s just a little ball of fluff, but he tries to act so fierce.” She tried to swallow the hurt sticking in her throat from Mattie’s retort.

  “You still got that wild dog hanging ’round your bird shed?” Mattie was scared of Bosporus, the wild dog Pam had been taming.

  “He won’t mess with you,” said Pam. “He’s getting tamer every day.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll go on up to the house and see your ma. I best be getting home soon anyway.”

  Pam poured half of Daisy’s milk into another pail and gave it to Mattie. Then she headed to the pigeon loft to care for her pigeons. The barn and most of the outbuildings—the toolshed, the smokehouse, the corncrib, the privy—sat at the bottom of the slope near the woods, but Papa had built the pigeon loft near the house, by a thicket of myrtle bushes. A true pigeoneer, Papa said, wants to be close to his birds. Pam felt the same way. With her pigeons she felt none of the awkwardness she suffered at school. She felt confident and in control. Caring for them had become second nature to her. Papa had raised her around the birds; he called her his “right-hand Pam.”

  Animals were so much easier than school, Pam thought. With animals, there was no need to wonder if you were right or wrong. They let you know right off if you had done the right thing by the way they responded. And you could feel your way to correct a mistake, not like in school where you might struggle on and on with an arithmetic problem and find out in the end you had done it all wrong. With animals, gentleness and confidence always worked; there was no guesswork involved. That was her gift with animals, she thought. That’s all it was.

  Then Pam heard the ierh ierh of distressed pigeons, and her senses were instantly alert. She rushed to the loft. Some of the young pigeons were flapping about outside in the screened fly-pen, crying loudly. Inside the loft, the older birds were a little more noisy than usual, but not visibly upset. A few flapped about in the bath pan on the floor, and some were perched in the roosting boxes that lined the rear wall, preening their feathers. Her best birds, the flock leaders, were sitting calmly in their nesting boxes, tending their squeakers. Her favorite cock, copper-colored Caspian, blinked knowingly at her as he sat brooding on the nest pan. Male and female pigeons shared equally in family responsibilities; Caspian was giving his mate Odessa a chance to bathe.

  Caspian was Pam’s most even-tempered bird. He tapped her lightly with his beak and cooed, as if to reassure her that he had everything under control. Papa had called Caspian “Billy Boy”, but when the war broke out four years ago, he let Pam rename the birds for European landmarks. She liked the strange but beautiful sounds of the names, and they seemed to fit all her animals.

  She was a little puzzled at the behavior of the pigeons in the fly-pen, but she shrugged it off. Young pigeons were easily spooked; any unusual noise could have set them off.

  Then something crashed outside. The loft erupted in pigeon scolding. Pam’s eyes snapped to the window, and she grinned. Bosporus, still a clumsy youngster, had knocked over feeding troughs stacked in the lean-to that adjoined the loft on the opposite side from the fly-pen. Pam had been training him to watch over her birds, and he took the job seriously. He looked out for the pigeons as if they were his own pups.

  Pam talked gently to the birds to quiet them. One of the squeakers, who had not yet learned to fly, hopped on her shoulder as she cleaned his nest compartment.

  “You need a name, little feller,” she said. “I’ll call you Belleau, after that battle I read about in the newspaper a while back.” She didn’t know for sure, but Pam thought Papa had probably fought in the Battle of Belleau Wood. It was the first major battle Pam knew about where American troops had driven back the Germans.

  Thoughts of Papa set her heart to aching. What fun she and Papa had taking care of the birds together! He would have been so pleased to know their pigeons had drawn the attention of the stranger in town.

  “I’ll write Papa tonight and tell him,” she told Belleau. Belleau squeaked his approval.

  Pam flipped the trapdoor in the ceiling of the loft. The birds poured through the opening and whirred into the air. Homing pigeons needed plenty of exercise to stay strong and sleek; all pigeoneers knew that. But Papa had learned that more exercise also made his birds better breeders, so Lowder pigeons were in great demand among local keepers as breeding stock.

  Little Belleau maintained his perch on Pam’s shoulder as she went to the lean-to to get barley and peas for the pigeons’ feeding trough. Bosporus trotted over and nudged Pam for attention.

  “Always into something, ain’t ya, boy?” she asked affectionately. She scratched the sensitive spot under his muzzle.

  Suddenly he cocked his head and barked sharply. Little Belleau squeaked pitifully and flapped his wings.

  “Bos!” Pam scolded. “How many times do I have to tell you not to bark around the birds!”

  Then a voice rang from the darkness. “I would think such conduct was natural.” A man stepped into the ring of light cast by Pam’s lantern. “For a dog.”

  He spoke with a foreign accent.

  CHAPTER 3

  A SURPRISING OFFER

  The image of the Hun on the poster flashed into Pam’s head, and fear clutched at her throat. “Who are you?” she choked out.

  “Arminger,” said the man, casually, as if he wasn’t the least bit interested in his own name. He was staring at Bosporus. “Beautiful animal, though I don’t recognize the breed. What is he?” He reached a hand toward the dog. Bosporus growled.

  Pam’s answer was guarded. “Part setter. Part wolf.” She emphasized the word wolf. “Why are you here?” She was careful to keep Bos between them.

  “Yah, I can see the setter in him, and the wolf, now that you mention it. The strong haunches, the thick shoulders … yah.” Arminger nodded and took the cigarette he was smoking from his mouth. “Gorgeous animal.” He paused a moment, then went on. “But I came to see your birds. Your mother gave consent. I’m new in Currituck, you see, and I’m thinking of raising some pigeons.”

  So Mama had given him leave to come see her, which meant she wasn’t worried about Arminger. Maybe I’m fretting over nothing, thought Pam. She glanced at Mama’s figure passing in front of the lighted kitchen window. What should she do if the man did offer to buy her birds? Did Mama want her to sell them? They needed the money badly. Cross that bridge when you come to it, she thought.

  The least she could do was show this Arminger around. Besides, it would giv
e her a chance to “talk pigeons,” which she hadn’t been able to do since Papa left. Pam willed herself to relax. “Come on in the loft. You’ll see it’s big for the number of birds I got. Maybe it looks like an ordinary shed on the outside, but inside I think it’s real special.” She held the loft door open and waved Arminger in. “My papa says giving pigeons breathing space makes ’em healthier. So does fresh air and sunlight. That’s why he put in windows on one wall and attached the fly-pen to one side of the loft. An opening between lets the birds go in and out of the fly-pen whenever they want. Except when the weather’s bad. Then I close the opening off.”

  Arminger started into the loft eagerly, but nearly tripped when Bosporus squeezed ahead of him. “You let your dog in with your pigeons?”

  “I’m training him as my guard dog. I taught him not to act like a dog around the birds. Barking and pigeons don’t mix.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Arminger. “A dog learning not to be a dog.”

  The words of praise sent a tingle of warmth through Pam’s body. Here was someone who appreciated her skill with animals. So he sounded a little peculiar, the way he talked in his throat and dropped his r’s. That didn’t make him a German. Mama had said so. He was nothing like the Hun on the poster. And he knows animals, Pam told herself emphatically. He can’t be too bad.

  Her wariness began to evaporate, and “pigeon talk” simply slipped out of her mouth. “There’s swamps all around here, and the weather’s wet and windy, not the best climate for pigeons. See how the loft is open only on the side that has the fly-pen, and that side’s sheltered by myrtle bushes? Protects the pigeons from drafts, and the sloping roof and overhang keeps even the fly-pen dry as a bone.” She felt like Mattie, prattling on, but Arminger hung on every word. He would be a good pigeoneer, thought Pam. He noticed things most people wouldn’t, like the condition of a bird’s feathers, the keenness of its eye, or just the fact that every bird was different—in coloring, in build, in personality.