Thing With Feathers (9781616634704)

by Sweazy-kulju, Anne

  “I think I know something that will spark up anything the preacher has to say over the airwaves.”

  Will was relieved to see his brother smile and to have the tension empty out of the room. “I recognize that grin. What have you got up your sleeve?”

  “I think it’d be much more fun for you if it were a surprise, Will. I’m gonna go give Ozzie a call. ”

  Chapter 49

  Cindy celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday on September 1, 1939, with an abundance of champagne, provided by her date, and dinner with friends at the Table D’hôtel. The milestone was punctuated by Germany’s invasion of Poland and an ultimatum that would set off the beginning of the Second World War. But Cindy’s spirit for celebrating had been dampened first by the news that Tillamook forests in Oregon were again gripped by a fire holocaust. Much the same as the fire of six years earlier, this one raged between the Wilson and Trask Rivers, blackening more than 200,000 acres.

  From pictures in the papers reaching as far as Chicago, one would think there was little left for a fire to eat. But flames found food among the deadfalls, debris, young seedlings that never had a chance to grow, and thousands of bleached snags jutting for steep miles across the area of the huge Burn of ‘33. Cindy looked in horror and disbelief at the destruction evident in the photos. Much of the region of her childhood was unrecognizable, and she could find none of the familiar landmarks. They were all gone.

  She had been surprised by the intensity of her own grief over the news. Her life in the county of Tillamook had certainly not resembled any fairy tale, save perhaps the wicked fiend who was the preacher. But the forests had been her asylum whenever her existence reached the pitiful lows that it had time and again, and in many ways, Sean Marshall had been her prince. Now those forests were dead, maybe forever.

  Cindy knew that she’d been blessed with those short years living in the Marshall home and being the recipient of their love and kinship. She also knew that she would not be grieving over people she did not feel a genuine love for in return. So, perhaps grief is the price that must be paid for the privilege of that love and kinship, and the deeper the love, the deeper the grief.

  She had been immensely saddened six years earlier by the report of Elrod Tjaden’s death. The papers had lauded him and his seriously wounded friend, Sean Marshall, heroes for risking their lives in order to set up radio communications for the firefighters. Cindy worried who she might lose this time. The loggers were calling the area jinxed, apparently in the Biblical sense. They were predicting the fire plague would continue every six years, three times in a row.

  To the surprise and amusement of her date, she silently prayed before her plate of cherry-roasted game hen. She prayed to God that she lose no more of her friends to Satan’s little games. Her date, Chester Lasley, completely mistook Cindy’s prayerful concern as being about the day’s events in Europe. He thought it funny that a high-class whore should fret about world crisis, and he patted her hand patronizingly as he refilled her champagne glass.

  “Don’t put another wrinkle in that pretty forehead of yours, Cindy. Britain and France will march over the very faces of those Nazi brown-shirts if they have to. You’ll see. Anyway, it’s not our fight, and it’s never going to be, so let’s drink to that.” He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it lightly, promising, “But if Nazis ever do invade us, I will protect you, my dear.”

  Eyes around the table rolled in unison.

  Cindy pulled her hand away angrily. “I have family in Tillamook. I am worried about them, fool.” A few at the table snickered—Lasley wasn’t one of them.

  The longer she’d known Lasley, the more she grew to despise the man. She could hardly disguise it any longer. Cindy had told herself years ago that when she was secure, financially, she would retract from dating men like Lasley. She was secure, and yet here she was on another date with the man. It was the birthday. She had gone from needing to acquire security for herself in later years, to worrying about her earning potential in those later years. How long does a prostitute have before age threatens her career? Cindy was almost thirty. You’re drinking too much.

  He raised his brows at the others in the group. “You mean to say you’re Oregon grown? Well, Miss Cindy Marshall, we’re finally learning something about you. And I must say that they certainly grow them pretty in Oregon country. Say, doll, your family isn’t a bunch of firefighters, is it?”

  “Not hardly. No. My father was not cut from heroes’ cloth.” Stop talking, an urgent voice intruded upon her thoughts. But the warning went unheeded as Cindy took another drink, then reflexively, habitually, massaged the Lady Racine timepiece she wore around her neck. “But I did lose someone, a friend, in the last fire,” she admitted. “And someone else, someone who was dear to me, was harmed. I’m not anxious to see anyone else hurt is all.” She had never talked to anyone about her personal sorrow over the Great Burn, not even Wendell, her best friend. But that didn’t mean she was not emotionally invested. On the contrary, her hurt and heartbreak over the obliteration of Tillamook County ran too deep to discuss the subject.

  Cindy’s date made a mental note to check into the facts that his date gave up so carelessly. One never knew when leverage over someone might be useful, and somehow, he felt like knowing Cindy Marshall’s past could be very serviceable indeed. She might be just another whore, but she had money and important friends. He folded his napkin into his lap and reached to pour his lovely date some more champagne.

  Cindy got up slowly, keeping the ice pack pressed to her forehead, and looked over the contents of her cupboard. She finally settled on some corned beef hash, a brown egg, and a thick slab of French bread slathered in butter. Even though she was queasy at the thought of food, she knew she would feel better after eating something. She needed to soak up the champagne that she could almost hear swishing around in her stomach. She asked herself for the hundredth time how she could have been so insipid as to drink nearly an entire bottle of French champagne.

  She knew why she did it. She had several reasons, the first being that she’d celebrated another birthday, her twenty-eighth. That was hard for a woman who made her fortune with her looks. Then there was Chester Lasley, her date from last night, who kept refilling her champagne glass for her. He frightened her. There seemed some barely checked savagery brewing in the man, which reminded her of the preacher. But he consistently shelled out two hundred dollars for Cindy to spend the entire night with him, and he had always remained a gentleman in spite of Cindy’s fear. And then there was the Burn, and this one dredged up all the unsettling emotions she’d experienced six years before upon hearing of Sean’s injury.

  He had almost died, the papers had said. She wondered how he was faring. It was none of her business really. She had abandoned him, after all, and had no right to concern herself with the Marshalls. But she had done him a favor by leaving, hadn’t she? She’d wanted to spare him any more suffering. She should never have saddled such a good man with a mentally ill wife; a bastard, incestually conceived son; and the wrath of her evil, abusive father, who’d murdered Wyatt Marshall, Cindy knew. No, Sean was better off without her. Of that she was certain. But she still wondered.

  She ate greedily, was immediately sorry, and lay back down on her chaise with a fresh ice pack, that time placing it under her neck. She fleetingly considered whether she had said or done anything while under the influence of all that champagne, anything that would have called attention to her “problem.” She was relatively sure that Blair would not have come out while Cindy was on a date. Still, something nagged at the back of her mind, something she’d said, something she’d done wrong, something that flashed a danger warning, but what? A few minutes later, Cindy was beyond wondering what all she had done during her birthday celebration the night before. She was fast asleep.

  Chapter 50

  September, 1939

  Cloverdale, Oregon


  “You have to hold this button firmly in when you talk, and then you must always say, ‘Over,’ when you’re done sayin’ anything. And don’t forget to give your call sign every single time you go on.”

  “I know, I know. Can I go first?”

  “Now, Victor, I have waited a long time for someone to build me a radio. I do believe it is only right if I go first.”

  The boy kicked at a huge carpenter ant scurrying across the floorboards. Like any almost-twelve-year old with a new game, he was disappointed not to be able to play with it immediately. That was the only thing even close to a toy that his grandfather had ever brought home, except for a stupid bag of marbles, and he’d bought it for himself. Figures, Victor thought. He felt cheated, though he dared not say so and chance incurring the preacher’s wrath. Not that it was easy these days for grandpa to catch me, let alone deliver any sound blows, Victor thought. Victor had grown up. His grandfather had grown old. And the swill the preacher had been drinking for as long as Victor had known him, made him unsteady.

  Victor had spent every birthday (which happened to fall on Christmas Eve) and Christmas he could remember in the crappy little cabin, and there had never been anything resembling a gift or a holiday feast. When others were dining on roasted duck and turkeys and hams, Victor and his grandfather ate boiled wheat and boiled peas. At least they had electricity and an indoor toilet in the cabin, and a phone for the cabin was in the works—Tiny’s camp didn’t have phone service or indoor toilet. The church in Tillamook had Federal money that was provided those within the burn disaster area, so they paid for the cabin’s renovations and a repainting of the church.

  On the one occasion when Victor had made the mistake of crying about a toy he didn’t receive, he got himself mottled black and blue for his tears. His grandfather used to joke that the cabin doubled as a boys’ town for wayward young men. He’d kept a peeled alder wood stick in every corner and stripped new ones when the old ones became too brittle for whipping properly.

  Sean Marshall, who claimed to be Victor’s father, came to the door each year with an expensive gift, given for both Victor’s birthday and Christmas. Thanks to Sean, Victor owned a fishing pole, a Swiss Army knife, a hunting knife, and a camera. Victor remembered back to his birthday last December, when he’d turned eleven years old. As Mr. Marshall had done every year for as long as Victor could remember, he’d arrived on Christmas Eve with a beautifully wrapped box. That year, there was a shiny new Winchester 30-30 inside. The preacher had not bothered to get Victor any gift at all, as usual. It prompted Victor to ask his grandfather why he wanted him to live in the cabin so badly when all he ever did was yell at him and bestow on him unmerciful beatings. To that, the preacher just laughed at the boy and told him, “The verse of the Bible I pin my faith on is the one that says if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. You are my one and only son, so no one will argue I do my full duty in that respect, boy.”

  It was not an answer to Victor’s question, but since he didn’t have the gumption to approach the question again, he would never understand why his grandfather insisted on being his parent. Was it simply that he wanted to cheat Sean Marshall of his desire to be my father? Victor had a hunch that was probably it, but it didn’t matter anyhow. Marshall never came for me…he never fought for me. He left me in this God-awful place. All the gifts in the world could not make up for that.

  Victor sighed loudly as he watched his grandfather fiddle with the radio. The old man was sucking all the fun out of it by repeating over and over how every single thing is done.

  Heck, it ain’t no buzz saw. It’s a radio. How hard can it be?

  The preacher made a flourish of pressing the button on the arm and clearing his throat. He smiled benignly at his grandson as he repeated the call sign he was assigned, according to the letter received in the afternoon mail from Osborne at the Department of Labor and Commerce, in Salem.

  “Breaker, breaker. This is ADV8 coming on. Anyone out there? Over.” He released the button.

  The static buzzed and hiccupped, and some broken words were coming back. Bowman fiddled with the frequency knobs a bit. Then they heard the words plainly, and the smile vanished from the preacher’s face.

  “I say. This is D4WL in Tillamook. I’m a bit of a deviate too, but I don’t advertise it! Over.”

  “Damnation!” Bowman yelled.

  Uh-oh. His grandfather was seriously mad. His face was contorting and turning all purple and red.

  “That Sean Marshall is behind this! I know it sure as I know he ran your mother off, Victor! Damnation!”

  “Grandpa.” The boy was trying really hard not to laugh. If Mr. Marshall did arrange that call sign, he had to hand it to him, that was a really good joke, a down-n-dirty all the way. “Maybe it’s just an accident.”

  “Helsinki no, it’s not an accident! Ain’t you got nothin’ but straw between your ears, boy? This is a deliberate attempt to slander me!”

  Victor shrank back some. Grandpa took things too serious, Victor thought. “Well, I don’t mind using that call sign. Can I, Grandpa?”

  As if throwing a tantrum, the old man tried to heave the handle across the room, but the cord brought it bouncing back. Victor bent to retrieve it, and when he stood back up, he was just in time to see the front door slam closed. Then he heard the old car start up, and he knew that the old man would not be back until late, if at all. Once again, the youngster would be left to mind himself for the long evening ahead, alone in the shabby cabin. He picked up the handle and looked it over. It did not appear to have suffered the preacher’s fit of rage. He pushed the button and put his lips to the mic.

  “This is ADV8 coming back. Pretty funny, whoever gave us that call sign. Mr. Marshall. Are you out there listening?” He released the button and waited, and then he remembered and pushed the button again, saying quickly, “Over.”

  Will and Sean were rolling on the floor in tears from laughing so hard. “I’m gonna split my gut!” Will howled.

  “I can see him now…”—Sean gasped for air, holding his side that ached from laughing—“his face turning red as a beet!”

  “You were right, Sean. Good surprise! Golly, I hope Rebecca was listening tonight!”

  He slapped his thigh and tried to make it sting so he could stop laughing for a minute. But every time they stopped, one of them pictured the preacher when he realized what his call sign had sounded like on the air, and they started laughing all over again. The sound of Victor’s voice over the radio cut right through their levity like a blade. The laughing stopped, and the two men looked at each other.

  Finally, Sean jumped up and grabbed for the handle. He hesitated, not knowing what to say. He pushed the button. “I’m here, son. Over.”

  “Boy, is grandpa peed off at you. Over.”

  “Why is he mad at me? Over.”

  “You did it, didn’t you? You got his call sign for him, right? Over.”

  Sean looked over at Will and shrugged. “Okay. You got me there. I did it. Over.”

  “That was funny. Over.”

  Sean’s other hand covered his right. He gripped the handle like it was a part of Victor and brought his mouth close to it. He drew in a deep breath and pushed the button. “Victor, I…I want you to know that I didn’t do anything to make your ma leave town. She was happy here. I swear it to you. No one knows exactly what come about on that day when you and I went to the valley for your birthday present—a red tricycle—you remember that, don’t you? I…I still can’t figure what happened to Blair. To this very day, I still wonder. Only thing worse than losing her was losing you. I love you, Victor. No matter what your grandfather told you, we were a close family. This house was a happy one when we were all together. I loved you, Victor. I still do. Over.”

  The radio was dead. Nothing but air buzzed on the frequency. They waited for the silence
to be interrupted. Will laid his hand on Sean’s shoulder. A wound that had been healing for years, in a matter of seconds was fresh again. Will could do nothing but squeeze his brother’s shoulder as he bowed his head.

  Mr. Abelbaum was not well-liked by children. It was by design. The Abelbaums were not fond of children, so they were cranky around them, and that kept the neighborhood kids away. What the Abelbaums were fond of was their garden. They raised twenty-two different colors of iris, and the hydrangea went as high as the house eaves. There were several varieties of lily; numerous shades of tulip; and, of course, the clowns of the garden, daffodils. They sprayed children who got too close with their garden hose and sprinkled the vegetable side of the garden liberally with slug killer, which Tiny Welby swore killed his dog. The rumors about the Abelbaums’ many evil deeds grew with atomic proportion. So it was inevitable that two lonely, rowdy boys who happened to have little supervision, would choose the Abelbaums as targets for their hostilities that night. It was really Tiny’s idea, but Victor went along with it.

  “They killed my dog, man. C’mon, Victor. They deserve it.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  And they climbed to the top of the garage, over the peak, and onto the eastern side of the roof overlooking the garden. Systematically, the boys ripped the shingles off one by one and threw them into the garden. They kept mental score of how many plants they each wiped out with direct hits, giving bonus points if a ruined plant was one of Mr. Abelbaum’s prized irises. Before they knew it, they were out of shingles.

  “We better get out’a here before someone sees us. Geez, Tiny. Look at the mess we made of old prune face’s garden.”

  “Who’s there?”