by Phil Bowie
Sam nodded at the gun and said, “What’s that for?”
Hank said in a lowered voice, “You talk in your sleep, son. I know you’ve got some men after you. I never did tell Hattie but that rut along your hip looked like a bullet track whenever I first saw it, and then it matched up with the hole in your jeans. Took a chunk out of your belt, too. I don’t know what your trouble is, son, but I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“I have to go back to Ocracoke, Hank. A woman and her son are over there. They’re my good friends and they don’t know where I am. They’ll be worried sick. But nobody else should know I’m here. It could be bad for them.”
“You ought not to go anywhere for a while,” Hank said, not looking him in the eyes. “Hattie and I done all we can for you. I don’t believe there’s a hospital could do much more except charge you about a thousand a day. You’re healin’ just fine, Hattie says, and she knows. Hattie, she’s dropped ten years off. Smiles in her sleep again. It’s good to see. Yessir, the best thing you can do is stay right there and rest.”
“Hank, you don’t understand. I…”
“No, son. Now that’s the last I’ll hear of it today. We’ll give it a week or so and then we’ll talk.” The old man’s expression was determined.
Sam studied him for a moment. He said, “That’s an Army forty-five you have there, isn’t it?”
“Colt model nineteen and eleven. Still one of the best side arms there ever was, I expect.” He looked down at it. The bluing was worn off in several places but it looked clean and oiled. The old man’s voice took on a faraway tone. “This one saved my life. It was all I had left when a Jap carryin’ a rifle with a bayonet on it caught me in a flooded ditch-bank. This gun was coated in mud but it fired when I needed it to. It saved my life.”
“What was it like for you? That war.”
“Something you don’t ever forget, hard as you might try. Bunch of us was in Guadalcanal. They wanted volunteers so I signed on. We got secret orders and went to Bombay. Mountbatten himself inspected us there. We was led by General Frank G. Merrill. Not what you’d expect in a general. He wasn’t a big man, wore glasses, didn’t speak loud, but he damned sure had sand. He took three thousand of us into Burma from Ledo, India. We had American Japanese with us. And Gurkhas. You don’t ever want to square off against no Gurkha, son. Some of the best fighters I ever saw. We used mules for pack animals and it’s sure right what they say about how stubborn those damned animals can be.
“It was supposed to be for three months but it dragged on to twice that. They needed to clear out Burma enough to get supplies through to the Chinese. I didn’t know a man could be so scared for so long. Or so wet and dirty. It was the worst at night. They called us Merrill’s Marauders. Besides all the Japs there was cholera, malaria, scrub typhus, beriberi, dysentery. Eight out of ten of us got bad dysentery, but we still fought like the devil. Had a fight at Shaduzup and by then a lot of us had took bad sick or been killed or wounded. We were tuckered out for sure, but we took the air strip at Myitkyina, and by then there was only a hundred of us left on our feet, and I was so bad off I could hardly pick up my carbine. Merrill had his second heart attack and they disbanded us in August of forty-three. Merrill went on back to New England and did alright after the war. Some said later we was one of the most heroic units in World War Two. I don’t know about that. I just know when you’re so scared you go all hollow inside and you watch a buddy not twenty-one yet in a stinking dirty red puddle twitch like a rabbit and try to hold his guts in and holler for his momma you don’t feel like no hero. You just feel sick to your soul. But we always had our pride, no matter what. We might not be no saints, we said, but we damned sure was the Marauders. That was all a long, long time ago, son. Nobody cares now.”
“What happened to Roy, Hank?”
In a subdued, barely audible voice he said, “He was a hand on a big trawler. One of the toughest, most dangerous jobs a man can have, I guess. I was worried for him, but proud, you know? He was makin’ good money and savin’ it up toward his own boat. Not pissin’ it away like a lot of them. Got caught in a bad storm way out over the Grand Banks. Waves to fifty feet and more they said, enough to make even a good-sized boat pitch-pole or roll right over on her beam. All they ever found was some extra diesel barrels that’d been lashed to the deck. Hattie never gave up hope. It wasn’t like Roy died. He just disappeared. And even when you know better you always kind of hope there’ll be a letter or a phone call some day and it will be him. Hattie, she just never was the same after it. Until now.”
“How did you two meet?”
He brightened. “Not a fancy story. It was after the war. I come to Pendleton down in South Carolina to visit my uncle.”
They heard Hattie come in the front door, shuffling toward the bedroom. Hank quickly got the gun out of sight, jamming it behind his belt at his back, and raised his voice. “My aunt introduced Hattie to me in October of fifty-one. We went to a country fair. Stayed until it closed. She just couldn’t resist my charms, I guess. I got a job helpin’ build houses for GIs around Wilmington, and we ain’t never looked back. But I know you heard all this before, Roy.”
“What lies is he telling you, Roy?” Hattie said with a smile as she entered the room. She came over and rested a palm against Sam’s forehead, nodding with satisfaction. “The fact is, I felt sorry for the man. I knew there was no other girl anywhere in this world who was likely to have him.”
“Wasn’t no other girl in this world I wanted, anyway,” Hank said, grinning.
“First we’ll see about getting a good breakfast into you, Roy. Then we’ll change those bandages. I’m going to clean and mend your clothes today. Hank, you’ll give him a sponge bath. Fresh sheets and pillowcases. Roy, I’ll have to cut your blue jeans so they’ll fit over that leg splint but I can sew them back up later. You’ll need a warm jacket so I’ll fit one of Hank’s for you and maybe a sweater, too. Hank, you might as well set about making some crutches for him today so he’ll be able to get around. Soon as possible there’s no reason you can’t be up and moving a little, Roy. You don’t want your muscles to weaken any more.”
Both men said, “Yes, ma’am.”
By the afternoon of the next day the weather had turned cold, windy, and cloudy. Hank brought in a pair of crutches made from forked tree saplings. They had been crafted with care, the ends of the wood cut cleanly, chamfered, and sanded or scraped so there were no splinters, and the forks padded evenly with wrapped-on rags. Hank helped him dress in his clean salt-stiff clothes and a warm jacket that Hattie had let out for him. Hank tied on his sneakers for him and then Sam, aching all over, managed to get himself up off of the bed and onto the crutches unsteadily. His head felt light and airy but after a moment that passed.
Hank said, “You gonna be okay there, son?”
Sam smiled and nodded, taking an experimental step. The crutches worked well, sized to fit him perfectly. After a minute he made it out into what had once been the living room of the house and saw the sleeping bags rolled out near the far wall.
He said, “Dammit, Hank, I’ve been using your bed, haven’t I? You just have these two rooms fixed up, don’t you. The rest is closed off.” Two doors leading off of the room were closed. Along one wall there was an old walnut wardrobe beside three stacks of shelving that the old man had obviously put up to store all their belongings and provisions neatly. There was a stack of wood—mostly pieces of driftwood and broken-up old gray boards—for the stove. There was a small table. The floor had been swept clean.
“Not a problem, son. Hattie and I like it out here by the stove, anyway, and them bags that we already borrowed in case it gets real cold are comfortable. You can even zip ‘em together, you want to, make one big bag. Been tryin’ to convince Hattie that’d be the thing to do. Conserve on body heat, I figure.”
Hattie came in the front door, a sweater and a light jacket over her dress, a scarf tied around her head, and her nose pink from the cold. Hank had
the stove crackling well and the room was pleasantly warm.
Sam sat down heavily in a mended straight chair. He said, “Okay, you two. Listen to me. Tonight I will take one of those sleeping bags and you will take your bed back. That’s the way it’s going to be.”
Hattie said, “But, Roy, how will you get up and down with your crutches?”
“I’ll manage. I can use this chair to help me, and I need the exercise, anyway. No arguments about it. Flutter, is that a pot of your famous magic tea on that old stove?”
She smiled and scurried to get him a cup.
He took a short walk outside that day, until Hattie sent Hank to retrieve him so she could inspect his bandages and make sure he still had no fever. While Hattie herself was outside later, Hank gave Sam his wallet back. “I dried everything in it,” he said. “Hung it all on a wire where Hattie wouldn’t see it.”
Sam checked it over. His pilot’s and driver’s licenses were laminated and had suffered no real damage but they would be no good to him any more, anyway. There were fifty-seven dollars in water-damaged bills. He made Hank take the money. “Use it to get some of the things on Hattie’s list,” he said.
That night Hattie fixed them a big supper starting with sliced carrots and lettuce followed by corn pancakes with honey and maple syrup, and canned pears, with skillet gingerbread for dessert, and they all sat together at the table. Then Hank got out his fiddle and they sang some ballads, two or three Christmas carols, and two old hymns that Sam thought he had long forgotten. Sam drifted off in one of the sleeping bags as Hank was stoking the stove up for the night.
Over the next two days Sam spent longer periods hobbling around outside on the crutches. The long cuts on his head had crusted over and no longer hurt. His ribs, hip, and leg were painful but healing well, he knew, and he could feel some of his old strength returning as Hattie fed him her simple hearty meals. He spent some time doing curls with a full water jug and squeezing a short length of two-by-two in each of his fists. He found he could use one crutch and bring in small armloads of wood to replenish the stack, and he helped Hank better secure the rain tarp, rigging it so it would capture a little more water from the low-eaved roof. He washed the windows that they were using in the house.
On the morning of the twelfth day he’d been on Portsmouth he walked slowly on the crutches beside Hank along what had once been the main sandy lane of the town, now mostly overgrown with brush and grasses, Hank pointing out the tiny boarded-up post office, the ruin of the single store, and a cottage where he and Hattie had found several useful and repairable items, such as Hattie’s rocker.
Later he asked Hank if there was a pencil and paper he could use and Hank got a ballpoint and a spiral pad for him. While Hank and Hattie were out on the sound in a chilly breeze tending the crab pots, Sam sat at the table and wrote them a long letter, trying to thank them, albeit grossly inadequately he felt, for saving his life, for all they had done, telling them he would send the skiff back to them within a day, that their secret was safe with him, and that he would come back to see them when he could.
He had changed his mind about going right back to Ocracoke. If word got out he was still alive it could endanger the people over there again and he couldn’t stand the thought of that. He would get in touch with Valerie discreetly, meet her somewhere, and tell her all of it. When he got to the mainland he would call Bo Brinson and ask him to tow the skiff back to Portsmouth, swearing him to secrecy about him and about the Gaskills. When the letter was done he read it over, signed it Roy, folded it, and put it in his shirt pocket.
He went to sleep early that night and awoke well before dawn. He dressed quietly, left the letter on the table, and eased out the door. A gibbous moon was making a high thin layer of cloud glow like old lace, and the light breeze was clean and cold. He struck out through the shadows for the Coast Guard dock, placing the crutch tips carefully.
He was standing by the dock propped on his crutches figuring how best to untie the skiff and get into it when behind him in the darkness Hank said, “I got somethin’ better than that right here, son.”
He turned around. Hank moved closer, holding something out in his hand. It was a cell phone. “The man over in Sealevel loaned this to us,” Hank said. “Wanted us to have it if there’s an emergency. I got extra batteries for it. He swaps batteries for fresh-charged ones whenever we get over there.”
Sam found himself hoping he could meet the old couple’s benefactor over in Sealevel one day and shake that man’s hand.
“Got a flashlight here, too. Why don’t you sit on the dock there and call who you like. I’ll take a walk.”
“No, Hank. You stay here.” He used the phone to call the number Bo had given him. Lucinda Brinson answered with sleep in her voice.
He said in a gruff tone, “Is Bo there?”
“A minute. Hey, Beaufort,” she said loudly, “it’s somebody for you don’t give a damn what time it is. Get your butt up, boy.”
In about thirty seconds Bo said, “Yeah.”
“Listen, Bo. Don’t let on who this is. It’s important that only you know about this.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bo said, then lowering his voice, “You just disappeared, man. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m on Portsmouth Island. I need a couple of big favors.”
“You say ‘em, I’ll do what I can.”
“Do you know where the old Coast Guard dock is?”
“Sure do.”
“Can you pick me up in your boat, then drive me to Raleigh? And Bo, you can’t tell a soul about it. This time it’s life or death.”
“Give me three hours from now. I got to cancel what Spud and me had planned, and gas up. I’ll be in the skimmer. How are you dressed?”
“Jeans and a jacket.”
“It’ll be cold as a witch’s left tit out on the sound today, and choppy. I’ll bring an extra slicker. You sit tight there, hear?”
Sam handed the phone back to Hank. “A man will pick me up here in three hours. I’ll talk to him about you and Hattie, tell him to keep quiet. I won’t tell anybody else.”
“I know that, son. While we’re at it I want you to take this.” He brought out the old Colt forty-five auto. “Only reason I been keepin’ it is if Hattie should go first. What I’d do, I figured, is put her there in a place out back of the church. She likes it out here so much. Then I been figurin’ I’d use the gun for me. Except I know she really wouldn’t want me to do that. So I’m askin’ you to take it. Safety’s right there. That’s the slide latch. This is the magazine release. You got to pull the slide back to chamber the first round and cock it. Seven rounds. There’s only the one magazine and the ammo’s old so you’ll want to get fresh, but the gun is right as ever. Hits like a mule kick. It saved me. Maybe it will help save you.”
Sam hesitated, looking the old man in the eyes, and said, “Thanks, Hank.” He took the gun and put it behind his belt at his back, hidden under the jacket.
“Now, let’s go back,” Hank said. “Along the way we got to cook up what to tell Hattie. She’ll want to get a good breakfast in you. Then you can tell her a proper goodbye. I know she’ll want to walk back out here with us to see you off.”
The day was cold and clear, the sky decorated with ranks of low, fast-moving fair-weather cumuli. As the three of them walked back to the Coast Guard dock, with Sam in the middle on his crutches, a line of pelicans rode the breeze northward overhead, their wings almost motionless. Hattie was trying to smile. Trying not to cry. Sam had told her he had a job to do in Raleigh, helping to design a new kind of trawler that would be safer for the crews. He and Hank had made up the lie to give her some peace, and it seemed to be working.
She said, “Now, when you get back on the mainland, Roy, you have somebody take a good look at those cuts and change those bandages. I wish I’d packed you a lunch. You stop and get a good meal in you at noon, do you hear? Don’t be working too hard for a while. Are you going to be warm enough?”
“I’ll be fine, Flutter. You’ve just about healed me and you’ve fed me like a prince and filled me up with good music and good memories. I’ll be back to see you both as soon as I can, and that’s a promise. You take care of this old man while I’m away.”
They stood together not far from the dock and watched the skimmer bounding in from way off, sending spray flying out to both sides, Bo big and bright in his yellow slicker. Sam asked Hank and Hattie to stay back a way while he had a talk with Bo, and he went down through the grass close to the water’s edge. The skimmer floated easily in over the shoals, only slowing a little, and Bo chopped the throttle at exactly the right time so the big squarish boat rode in on its own swell and slid to a stop parallel to the dock and only a few feet from it. Bo deftly threw two lines around dock pilings and jumped out into the shallow water, wearing knee-high rubber boots. He waded up and shook Sam’s hand, unsmiling. “Damn, man what happened to you?”
“My plane crashed,” he said in a low voice. “Those two there saved me. They’re Hank and Hattie Gaskill. It’s a long story but she thinks I’m her son Roy, who was lost in a storm over the Grand Banks fifteen years ago. They ran away from a rest home in Morehead City a couple of months ago and they’ve set up a pretty good life for themselves out here. I’ve told them we’d keep their secret. I was wondering if you could look in on them once in a while until I can get back this way. See what they need, make sure they’re okay, you know? I’ll send you some money as soon as I can. There are things I’ll have to do. There’s a woman and her boy over on Ocracoke I need to get in touch with, but first I have to see people in Raleigh. I can’t explain it all. It’s just going to take some time, so I don’t really know when I’ll be back.”
Bo was not smiling, not wanting to look Sam in the eyes, nervously rubbing his hands together. “No problem about that. Their story on a son, that’s an old one hereabouts, sad to say. Lost a good friend that way myself. No need for any money. I’ll look after these two. We know how to take care of our own around here. But you know this is all National Seashore out here. Pretty soon a ranger will find them, or somebody else will, then the bureaucrats and the lawyers will take over.”
