by Jim Guhl
Well, I gave it a run and started out in the conventional way by thanking God for the good food we were about to receive. Then I tried to imagine how to embellish the prayer to meet the expectations of a family from Alabama. I went on to give thanks for warm weather, our homes and families, the warm furnaces in our homes, our clothing (especially coats and gloves, since winter was coming soon), our cars (so we don’t have to walk outside in the cold), our . . .
I glanced at Opal and her eyes were as big as the bottle caps off an old-fashioned milk bottle. She gave me the cut it off signal, and I brought the prayer in for landing.
“ . . . In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” said the others. Mr. Parsons gave me a worried look.
Everything on the table was hot and steaming. Mrs. Parsons had served the chicken in a big dish surrounded by chunks of something that looked like yellow squash. There was a dish of cooked spinach with chunks of tomatoes mixed in. Mrs. Parsons had another name for it, but I knew cooked spinach when I saw it. She had a bowl of corn and a bowl of some sort of pale beans.
I ate some of everything and it tasted very good—mostly. I went light on the spinach with the tomato chunks but made up for it with corn.
All the while we ate, Mr. and Mrs. Parsons peppered me with questions about Neenah and the region. Since they were new to the area and interested in learning, I gave them the whole pitch, or at least as much as could fit into the time it takes to eat supper.
I told them about how the Winnebago Indian tribe lived in the area for centuries and how a French explorer named Jean Nicolet came through the Great Lakes all the way to Green Bay and made friends with the Winnebago people. I talked about how Nicolet was actually looking for China and how he wore fancy silk clothing and liked to fire off his pistols to impress everybody. And it worked too, because the Winnebago Indians prepared feasts of beaver meat to share with him and his men. I talked about how they guided Nicolet and his men right up the Fox River and had another beaver feast on Doty Island, where our families now lived. I paused and then cleared my throat to let everyone know that something important was coming up in the story telling.
“Did you know that your home could possibly stand on the very place where the beaver meat feast took place?”
Mrs. Parsons spoke for the whole family. “We had no idea.”
“Well, it’s possible,” I said. “And did you know that there was a raging whitewater rapids on both sides of this island that we live on?”
“We didn’t know dat one either, Delmah,” said Mr. Parsons. “You certainly know yo local history.”
I paused and swallowed a scoop of corn. I looked quick at Opal to see if I was going to get the cut-it-off signal again. She just smiled. I could have stopped there. The Fox Wars were next on the timeline but I wasn’t sure it was a good dinner topic.
Mr. Parsons solved the puzzle for me. “Tell us more,” he said.
So I did. I told the Parsons family that the Fox Indians were a fierce group who had built fortified villages on Little Lake Butte des Morts. The Fox tribe wanted control of the fur trade, and for a few decades they achieved it by controlling the river. Well, of course, the French didn’t like it, so they teamed up with other tribes and set out on a plan to knock the Fox tribe down a notch or two. Guess what. They did more than that. When it all came to a head in the 1730s, the French and their allies killed off almost the whole entire Fox tribe.
“Do you know that Little Lake Butte des Morts got its name from that massacre?” I asked.
Nobody said anything.
“Do you know what Butte des Morts means in French?” I asked again.
“What does it mean, Del?” asked Opal.
“It means Hill of the Dead,” I said.
They all stopped chewing their food, and Mrs. Parsons even set down her fork.
“I had no idea,” said Opal.
“That’s right,” I said. “There was already a hill that the tribes used to bury their dead over the years. After the massacre, another hill had to be started up.”
“What happened to the other Indian tribes?” asked Mrs. Parsons.
“It doesn’t get much better,” I said.
“Go on,” she said. Her eyes were wide with interest.
I told them about the old council tree on the point near the lighthouse and how that was where the Winnebago Chief Four Legs was lied to by the government and bullied by General Leavenworth. I told them about the Black Hawk wars and how, in the end, the Winnebago, Fox, Sauk, Ottawa, Miami, and Potawatomi all got pushed right out of Wisconsin.
Only the Menominee tribe held on to part of their territorial land, thanks to their leader, Chief Oshkosh. The chief was stubborn as a boulder and would not be moved. In the end they still lost most of their land, but Menominee County, Wisconsin, was eventually named and that land reserved for their home.
Mrs. Parsons leaned in toward me. “Are the Indians still there?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, just an hour north of Neenah. It’s one of the prettiest counties in the state.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“Do you want me to go on about the logging boom?” I asked.
“We better work on our report,” said Opal.
“But I would like to hear ’bout it,” said Mr. Parsons. “One way or another, I’m sure it had somepin to do with all the paper mills that have sprouted up round this town, and that’s how I make my living.”
“Do you work in one of the mills?” I said.
“I work in most of ’em,” said Mr. Parsons. “I’m a machine technician for Pearson & Greene. We make some of the huge papermaking machines dat you may have seen. You ever toured a mill, Delmah?”
“More than one,” I said.
I wanted to learn more, but Opal kicked me in the foot, so I excused myself and followed her to a card table in the living room. The paper and pencils were already laid out along with her copy of The Scarlet Letter.
13
I wasn’t very optimistic about Steve’s volcano idea. For starters, I figured it wouldn’t work. How could it? We were combining Steve’s plans made on a Red Owl bag with Grandpa Asa’s collection of used junk. To me it was about as likely to work as flying to the moon in a garbage can. The other problem, of course, was that we might get caught. But like I told Steve, I signed up to be part of it and wasn’t about to back out, no matter what.
For two weeks we had been collecting baking soda and vinegar. Every couple of days, each of us stopped in at Red Owl or Food Queen and picked up a few boxes and bottles. It put a pretty good dent in my money supply, and we didn’t have anywhere near the amount we needed for the big volcano eruption on Saturday afternoon. Grandpa Asa caught wind of this and got pretty concerned.
“You mean to tell me after all my scrounging to get tanks and such, you boys couldn’t come up with the groceries?”
“We’re running out of money, Grandpa,” I said.
On Friday, after school, Steve, Mark, and I all met in the parking lot behind Emerald Gardens. I was amazed to see about a hundred yellow boxes of baking soda and a couple dozen jugs of vinegar under a canvas tarp in the back of Grandpa Asa’s pickup truck.
“Where did you get them, Grandpa?”
“Never mind. Let’s just say that there are some ladies out in Winneconne who won’t be canning pickles or baking bread for a few days. I also picked up thirty little bottles of red food coloring to mix with the vinegar. You want this thing to blow off in Rocket red, don’t you?”
Mark gave my grandpa a gentle punch in the shoulder. “Good work, sir.”
Grandpa nodded like an army sergeant who had just completed a dangerous mission. He had a serious look on his face, and I got the feeling that he was in on this volcano prank even deeper than I was.
Steve was more excited than anyone—all jumpy and squirrelly to the point that I thought he might pee his pants. “We’re finally ready,” he said.
“Not exactly,” said Grandpa Asa. “That
business with the pumps and batteries is too complicated. You’re going to have to use a gravity feed system to mix everything together.”
“What?” Steve’s attitude went from supercharged to hopeless in two seconds. His shoulders sagged.
At the same time Mark perked up. “That’s actually good. Gravity is simpler.”
“Two problems.” Grandpa scowled.
We all moved in closer to listen.
“The first problem is that you guys need to make a deeper hole. Those two tanks will have to sit on top of each other now.”
“You mean we need to dig a hole six feet deep?” Steve was pulling at his hair. “Holy mackerel.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Mark. “What’s the other problem, mister?”
“The trigger,” said Asa. “We need a trigger to open the valve. It’s going to take a lot of extra work, but I think you boys will just have to cut a trench in the field and lay a pipe in there with a length of rope inside to some hiding place. You’ll need to rig it such that a pull on the rope opens the valve on the vinegar tank.”
Steve spun around like he was having a nervous breakdown or something. “We don’t have time to do all that!”
“Don’t sweat it, Steve,” said Mark. “What else, mister?”
“You’re going to have to get rid of the dirt,” said Asa. “Once you fill in around those tanks, you will still have a lot of extra dirt and it has to go somewhere. You guys are going to have to figure out all this stuff on your own.”
Mark and I nodded. Steve looked like he might throw up.
“Okay,” said Grandpa. “Let’s get those tanks loaded with baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring. We’ve got one hour to put this thing together, then we’ll cover it all up in the back of the truck. I’m going to leave the key right on top of the front tire. Then I’m going to bed. I don’t even want to know what happens after that.”
We all nodded.
“One more thing,” said Grandpa Asa.
“What’s that?” asked Mark.
“Anyone gets caught, he takes the heat on his own. Nobody rats out the team. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” We all said it together.
Steve, Mark, and I met at one o’clock Saturday morning back in the parking lot of Emerald Gardens, just like we had planned. It was easier than I thought to sneak out of the house. Mom and Sally were both sleeping. I had propped the screen door open the night before so it couldn’t make any noise, and I avoided the creaky third step going down the stairs.
Riding Eisenhower over the bridge and across town in the middle of a cold night was pretty weird. Water poured over the dam and threw a mist up over the river. The paper mills churned out steam just like always. Not a single fisherman stood against the fence and the railroad bridge looked like a black prison fence that separated the mills from the rest of the world. A big, almost full, moon hung up in the sky like it was watching me. A planet right alongside the moon glowed brighter than any star. Jupiter, I figured.
We all arrived behind Emerald Gardens at about the same time. Steve came on a bike and Mark on foot.
Mark took a quick peek under the tarp to make sure everything was still there. “You okay driving, Delmar?”
“I guess so.”
“Do you even know how to drive?” asked Steve.
“I’ve driven it before,” I said. “Plenty of times.”
Steve and Mark didn’t need to know about my troubles working the clutch. Steve sat in the middle and Mark on the other side. I jumped behind the wheel, stretched my legs, and shifted my butt to reach the clutch and accelerator pedals. It started right up with a loud roar.
“Cripes, you want us to get caught right here in the parking lot?” said Steve.
“Relax,” said Mark. “A little less gas Delmar. You know how to drive a stick, right?”
“Yes.”
I clunked it into first gear and took off the parking brake. Then the moment of truth. I released the clutch pedal slowly with my left foot just as I gave it some more gas with my right. The truck barely inched forward at first, then came up to speed. I shifted into second and we were off.
“Lights,” said Mark.
I pulled the chrome knob on the dashboard and turned on the radio. Buddy Holly sang “Oh Boy” as we chugged past the taverns, around the bend by the red-brick paper mill, through downtown Neenah on Wisconsin Avenue. The light turned yellow at Commercial Street and I didn’t want to downshift so I squealed the tires on the left turn.
Steve grabbed the dashboard. “You trying to kill us?!”
I held the steering wheel in a death grip.
“You’re doing fine, Delmar,” said Mark.
Crossing the island was a snap. I had to slow down for a few mill rats coming out of the bars as they dragged the soles of their work boots on the pavement. Other than that, I just kept it in third gear. I hit all the lights. The Tayco Street drawbridge came next.
“If the bridge goes up I’m jumping it,” I said.
“Five bucks says you’ll chicken out,” said Mark, and we both waited for Steve’s reaction.
“Can we just get there without dying, please?”
Mark socked him in the thigh and Steve socked him back.
We rolled up and over the bridge and hung a right. Zigging and zagging through Menasha’s streets, we spotted the football field just ahead with their stupid GO BLUE JAYS signs plastered all over the fences. We parked the truck away from the street lights and got to work.
It was weird being down in the bottom of the hole. Mark and Steve had dug the first three feet but, as the skinny kid, the deep parts belonged to me. The only sounds were my own breathing and the shovel scraping the dirt. I felt like one of those African diamond miners in National Geographic as I lifted another bucket of dirt over my head. My only light was Grandpa Asa’s railroad lantern, hanging from a spike hammered into the inside wall of the hole. It burned kerosene with a flaming yellow wick inside a glass bubble that had a wire cage around it. It was pretty cool, except that it stunk up the hole and burned my arm a couple times.
“That’s deep enough,” said Mark.
I pushed the shovel up and out, followed by the lantern. Then Steve and Mark reached down for my upstretched arms and together pulled me straight up the shaft. Even in the dim light, I could tell I was a mess—covered nose to toes in sticky, brown clay. I flopped on the grass, filled my lungs with clean, cool air, and looked at the sky full of stars.
Steve and Mark let me rest and took over from there. They dropped the tank assemblies in the hole. Everything fit perfectly, with the volcano tube just below the height of the surrounding grass of the field. Somehow, Mark had rigged up the trigger with a metal rod that lined up alongside the tube. Then they filled in the sides with dirt and packed it all down. Mark gave it one final stomp and placed the circle of grass turf back over the top. Other than a small opening from the sunken pipe and a mound of extra dirt, the Menasha High School football field looked exactly like before. Even the white stripe marking the fifty-yard line went right over the top of our hole once the turf was back on top. The volcano was loaded and ready to blow in less than ten hours. Other than a stray cat and a couple of cars, we hadn’t seen a single living creature the whole time. If I hadn’t been so worn out I might have even smiled.
“We’re out of time to rig up a trigger rope,” said Mark.
“But, we have to,” said Steve. “It’s the only way to set it off without getting caught. Holy moley!”
“I’ll figure something out tomorrow,” said Mark. “Right now, we’ve got to get rid of this dirt and get out of here.”
That was good enough for me. I trusted Mark and knew he wouldn’t chicken out. One way or another, he would come up with an idea to set off the trigger. Together, we dragged the tarp with the extra dirt and just dumped it next to the bleachers, hoping nobody would notice. The return trip to Emerald Gardens went smooth. I worked the clutch on the first try and didn’t even have to squeal the tir
es.
It was past four in the morning when I slipped through the door and snuck up the stairs, avoiding the third step. I shoved my muddy cloths in the corner of my closet behind my box of fossils and camping junk and then crawled into bed. My alarm clock was set for seven-thirty, just three hours away.
The next morning was a blur, and I felt like going back to sleep right there under the kitchen table. My head bobbed up and down so much that I thought I might drown in my Froot Loops. Then I saw Mom’s pot of coffee steaming on the stove. I poured some in a cup, tasted it, and nearly puked.
How can she drink this crud?
I mixed in a scoop of sugar and gulped it down like dirt-flavored Kool-Aid. In ten minutes I was wide awake and hammering toward Menasha. I hid Eisenhower behind some bushes about a block from the football field, since the bike had a Neenah license plate on it. No sense tempting fate with Menasha’s version of dirtballs. Steve was easy to find in the bleachers, staring straight down the fifty-yard line.
“Hi, Steve.”
He said nothing. His face looked pale, like he was under a voodoo spell or something. I punched him in the arm.
“Oh . . . hi, Minnow.” He didn’t even look at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s going to fail.”
“Why?”
“We have no way to pull the trigger.”
“Mark said he would come up with something.”
“He’s not even here.”
I looked around as the bleachers filled up. The band was playing and the gray-haired soldiers from the VFW were marching slowly onto the field with their white rifles and the American flag.
“He’s usually pretty reliable about this sort of thing,” I said. “I’m not worried.”
“We should have done the thing with the pipe and the rope,” said Steve.
“Mark will come up with something,” I looked all around but couldn’t find him.
When the Blue Jays band played the national anthem and referees did the coin toss, even I started to get nervous. I kept looking and looking, but Mark was nowhere in sight.
