Speak of the Tiger

by Martha Deeringer

  “Just that one,” Justin turned his flashlight on a large ball of long hair hanging from the peak of the roof.

  “Cripes,” James said, running his hand through the red hair that constantly fell into his eyes. “What is it, a scalp?”

  “It’s a big ball of spiders. Daddy longlegs,” Justin said. “They hang together in a clump like that in dry weather. That stuff that looks like hair is their legs hanging down.”

  “Right. Forgot your dad is a game warden and has taught you all this wilderness lore,” J.R. said. “We’re not supposed to sleep with them in here, are we?”

  James found a battered broom in the corner and poked the ball with it. Instantly, it separated into hundreds of long-legged spiders scattering across the inside of the metal roof and the beams under it.

  “Awww, man,” now they’ll be crawling all over us, and we’ll be covered with spider bites,” Joel complained.

  “They don’t bite,” Justin said.

  “Well, they give me the creeps anyway. We’re not all Daniel Boone like you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Justin joked, although he had to admit that secretly the spiders gave him the creeps, too.

  The campers unrolled their sleeping bags on the beds, and tossed the pillows to one end. Joel and J.R. kept shining their flashlights on the spiders, which seemed to be leaving the cabin and dispersing into the brush outside, anxious to be away from their unwanted company. At five minutes to nine, they headed toward the lights of the pavilion, making a quick stop at the bathroom. It had a row of small showers with curtains, the usual stalls, urinals, and electric lights. Now that Justin’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, the glare made him squint.

  “I wonder what happened to the other boy in our cabin.” Joel said.

  “You mean Loser Boyd? He probably got a cabin all to himself. He hates everybody.”

  “Is he new?” Joel asked. “I don’t remember seeing him before.”

  “I think he’s been at Travis a couple of months. He’s in my history class. As far as I know, he doesn’t have any friends. Maybe he got lost in the dark already.”

  “We wouldn’t be that lucky,” Joel said.

  Box suppers were on the tables when they got back to the pavilion. Justin and Joel sat near the back and opened their boxes eagerly. They had eaten lunch at one o’clock, and the ham and cheese sandwiches and bags of chips inside looked delicious. As Justin tore through his, Casey made her way over and sat beside him. Her dark, curly hair was so thick it seemed ready to burst her pink, elastic ponytail holder.

  “Hi, Justin,” she said, opening the box in front of her and unwrapping the sandwich. “Is your cabin full of crawly things? Ours has spiders everywhere, and something ran across the floor when we opened the door. I think it was a mouse.”

  “Ours has spiders, too,” Justin said around a mouthful of potato chips. “They don’t like you any better than you like them. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

  Casey looked at her sandwich with disgust.

  “I don’t think I’ll be getting a lot of sleep tonight. That stupid Charlotte screams every time something moves,” she said.

  Justin knew Casey liked him. She was always poking and punching him in the hall at school and sometimes sat next to him in the cafeteria. She was exotic looking and graceful, with light brown skin that hinted at some unusual mix in her background. He kind of liked her, too, although she was taller than he was and could sometimes carry teasing too far. Once, she had embarrassed him by harassing an overweight girl at the next table during lunch.

  “Is that a new maternity outfit?” she had asked loudly in a voice meant to be overheard. “When’s it due?”

  Justin had wanted to tell her to shut up and was angry with himself later because he hadn’t.

  “Want the rest of this?” she asked him now, holding out her half-eaten sandwich. Justin took it gratefully and finished it off just as Dave stood up and called the group to attention.

  “Okay folks, listen up!” he said. “If you have any food in your pockets or your backpacks, put it in the trash can now. You may have noticed that the cabins are kind of open. If you keep food in your cabin at night, you are liable to wake up with a skunk for company. Nobody wants to listen to you screaming or have to smell you tomorrow if that happens. Also, you may have noticed a few little spiders with long legs in your cabin. They are completely harmless. The worst thing they can do is tickle when they run across your face in the night.” With this remark Dave laughed an evil laugh. Joel put his face in his hands.

  “The dinner bell will ring a half hour before breakfast,” Dave continued. “I’ll see you here by eight o’clock.”

  Justin stuffed his trash in the can and reluctantly threw away the peppermints he had in his pocket. When he and Joel got back to the cabin, there was a lump in the top bunk of the unoccupied bed.

  “Wondered where you were,” Justin said. “You missed dinner.”

  No sound or movement came from the lump in the top bunk.

  * * * *

  The dinner bell ripped through the misty stillness, announcing breakfast and bringing groans from the campers in Coyotes’ Den.

  “Turn that thing off!” Joel growled from his perch above Justin.

  “It’s not your alarm clock, Ding Dong, it’s the dinner bell,” Justin pointed out. “Now get your lazy butt out of bed.”

  Bleary eyes emerged from the bedrolls on the next set of bunks, but Justin noticed that the bunk against the far wall was empty. The lump that he assumed was L. Boyd had disappeared. It had been a late night, and instead of going right to sleep the boys had stayed up telling ghost stories and trying to scare the bejesus out of each other. Justin had no idea when they had finally gone to sleep, but he had a faint memory of waking in the night to the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel path outside the cabin.

  “Looks like the mysterious L. Boyd is out and about already,” J. R. said. “I sure hope he’s not a morning person.”

  “Do you really think he slept through all those jokes and ghost stories last night, or is he a complete jerk and just didn’t want to talk to us?” James asked.

  “You got me,” Justin said, pulling on his pants. “I’m heading for breakfast.”

  Piles of pancakes and sausages were mounded on a steam table, and sleepy-eyed campers were lining up to get at them. As they ate, pickups and cars arrived, and men and women wearing YO T-shirts climbed out and joined Dave and Coach Cox at the counselors’ table. Justin scraped the remains of the food on his plate into a pan labeled scraps, and tossed his fork into a dishpan full of soapy water. On the hillside next to the pavilion, a man carrying a bucket tossed out handfuls of corn. Deer emerged like ghosts from the mist-shrouded brush. Justin recognized the axis and fallow deer Mrs. Farr had pointed out from the bus the night before. Occasionally, one would gaze at the campers in the pavilion, but mostly they seemed oblivious to the crowd of students. A hushed silence fell as the campers watched in fascination.

  “The deer on the ranch are used to people, but they aren’t tame,” Dave said, taking advantage of the hush. “Please don’t try to pet them; those antlers mean business. You might also see wild turkeys in the early mornings. If you heard animals outside your cabin last night, they were probably deer. They roam the camp at night looking for snacks. That’s why it’s so important that you don’t keep food in your cabin. Waking up face to face with a ten-point buck can be an exciting experience.”

  “It doesn’t sound as bad as the skunk he was talking about last night,” Joel muttered.

  From the corner of his eye, Justin saw L. Boyd walking toward the pavilion from the brush behind the boys’ restrooms. His straight black hair stuck out in all directions, and his eyes, which had a slight Asian slant, looked puffy and tired. He wore the same clothes he had worn on the bus, with added wrinkles that made it plain he had slept in them. Helping himself to a pancake and a box of orange juice, he sat at the table in the far corner.

/>   Justin elbowed Joel and nodded in L. Boyd’s direction.

  “Look who showed up,” he said. “Wonder where he’s been?”

  “He sure doesn’t want anything to do with the rest of us,” Joel said.

  Coach Cox sat down across from L. Boyd and said something to him that made the boy’s eyes harden and the muscles in his jaw twitch.

  “Okay, campers!” Dave said loudly, standing up from his table. “In fifteen minutes I want you all back here with your canteens filled. Sit with your cabin group. We’ll combine groups for the first activity. Fifteen minutes,” he said again, looking at his watch.

  The campers scattered to their cabins and reassembled with filled canteens, anxious to get started. Two young men in YO T-shirts waved their arms and called, “Coyotes’ Den and Falcons’ Nest over here.”

  Casey and Charlotte joined them at the table with four other girls Justin knew only slightly. James and J. R. squeezed in next to Justin and Joel, and L. Boyd perched on the end of one of the benches. His hair had spiderwebs clinging to it.

  “We’re going on a wildlife safari this morning,” one of the young men announced. “I’m Josh, and this is Will. We’re seniors in the wildlife biology program at Texas A&M. The YO Ranch has a great collection of exotic animals, besides the deer you saw this morning. They also raise some exotics for sale to zoos and wildlife parks. You may have noticed the pair of baby blackbuck antelope in the pen next to the offices. They’re orphans being raised on a bottle. Our first stop this morning will be the African Savannah.”

  Josh and Will led the campers to a pair of weathered pickups with heavy boards bolted across the beds for seats.

  “We have about three miles to go,” Josh said, “so claim a seat and hang on.”

  * * * *

  Bumping along the dusty pickup trail, Justin saw herds of cattle and a horse barn with a corral full of horses waiting for the trail ride to start. A tall, mesh wire fence loomed ahead.

  “This gate has an Aggie latch,” Will said. “If you can open it in fifteen seconds, you can ride up front. Who wants to go first?”

  Arms waved, and Joel was chosen first. The latch had a complicated set of rings and sliding bars, and Joel’s fifteen seconds was up before he had made any progress. Casey went next, with no better luck. Josh and Will dished out a lot of harassment.

  “Come on, people. We’re never going to see any animals this way!” Josh said.

  L. Boyd jumped down from the truck and surveyed the latch for a moment. Then he stepped up to it and opened it in three quick steps. Justin was amazed. The gate swung open, and the truck drove through. Will got in the back, and L. Boyd took his place in the cab.

  Maybe there’s more to ole Loser than meets the eye, Justin thought.

  Will opened a toolbox in the back of the truck and pulled out some sections of white PVC pipe. Quickly, he assembled them into a long pole with a U shape at the top.

  “I’m going to keep this handy in case one of the giraffes decides your hair looks like hay and tries to eat it,” Will said. “The end with the U fits around their necks, so I can hold their heads away from us just in case,” he explained.

  The small herd of giraffe looked surreal browsing on the South Texas plains. The truck drove slowly to within a hundred yards of the animals.

  “These are reticulated giraffes,” Josh explained, passing around a plastic-covered handout with some fast facts about the animals. “The tallest one is the male. There are also four females and a two-month-old calf.”

  The sun began to burn away the morning mist as the campers read the information and stared at the small herd.

  “Get out and line up,” Josh instructed, using a soft voice. “We’ll walk up closer to them so you can really experience how tall they are. They’re used to people, but a giraffe can kick you with its front feet hard enough to shatter bones, so we don’t want to startle them. Everybody ready?”

  Josh withdrew a rifle from behind the seat of the truck.

  “I’m required to carry this by our insurance company, but I’ve never used it,” he said. “Hope this isn’t the first time.”

  Charlotte’s face looked gray, and she hugged herself with her arms. Slowly, the line walked forward with Josh leading the way. The male giraffe turned toward them and moved forward a few steps. James was the first camper in line behind Josh.

  “Awesome,” he said softly when Josh stepped out of the way so he could get a better look. “His legs are as big around as telephone poles.”

  As each camper got to the front of the line and gazed up at the magnificent giraffe, the one before went back to his seat in the truck. Justin saw a large calf with one of the females. The calf was curious and moved over for a closer look, circling around to the right of the big male. When Justin moved to the front of the line, Will stepped forward beside him.

  “You’ve got the kind of blond hair he always wants to nibble,” he said, raising the pole with the U at the top. “He probably thinks it’s hay.” The big male took a step forward, and his tongue, which looked about three feet long to Justin, reached out as Will slid the pole around his neck just behind his head.

  “Hey! What are you doing? Get back in the truck!” Josh yelled, racing across in front of Justin and Will.

  Justin jumped. So did the big giraffe. Josh dashed toward the calf. Turning toward the truck, Justin saw that L. Boyd was walking up to the calf with his arm outstretched. He held a tuft of grass in his hand, and the calf stretched out its neck to reach for it. At the same moment, a blur from the left charged toward them. A female giraffe was galloping awkwardly toward her baby, her stilt-like legs covering the ground with amazing speed. Forcing herself between the calf and L. Boyd, she drove the calf back toward the herd. L. Boyd was knocked backward by her charge. Dust boiled up and surrounded them as Josh raced toward the melee with his rifle. Justin was frozen to the spot, but saw out of the corner of his eye that the big bull giraffe was moving quickly away. The female and her calf hurried back toward the others with that odd pacing gait Justin had seen before only on television. Josh was helping L. Boyd to his feet, but keeping an eye on the giraffes as they retreated.

  “What in the hell were you thinking?” Josh snarled through clenched teeth. He had a handful of L. Boyd’s shirt and was propelling him toward the truck.

  “I was trying to make friends with him,” L. Boyd explained in a strangled voice. He limped as he walked, and a bloodstain slowly spread across the lower leg of his faded jeans.

  Chapter Three

  The Safari group was back at the campgrounds much too early for lunch. They sat in the shade of the deserted pavilion while L. Boyd was marched off to the infirmary. Josh drove off in the truck to find Dr. Johnson, a physician and parent that came along as a chaperone.

  “Why didn’t someone stop him?” Will asked as he sat with the shaky campers in the pavilion.

  “I don’t think anyone saw him until he was close to the calf,” Justin said. “He doesn’t talk to any of us. I guess we just didn’t notice what he was doing.”

  “Great!” Will said. “This is the first incident we’ve had with the giraffes since I’ve been working here. What’s the kid’s name anyway?”

  No one answered.

  “You mean you don’t even know his name?”

  “It’s L. Boyd,” Justin said. “I don’t know what the L stands for.”

  “It stands for Lee,” Charlotte said softly.

  After lunch, the hikers climbed up a steep limestone bluff to identify desert plants, as the afternoon sun blazed down on the rocks with a white-hot glare. Cactus and mesquite, with their merciless thorns, tore at the hikers’ ankles.

  “What do you think will happen to Lee Boyd?” Casey asked as she copied Justin’s sketch of a red yucca.

  “Maybe they’ll call his parents and send him home,” Justin said hopefully. “He’s already ruined the safari. I’ll bet there were lots more animals we could have seen.”

  “His parents woul
d have to drive for six hours to pick him up and six more to take him back home,” Casey said. “I bet he stays right here.”

  * * * *

  Casey’s prediction turned out to be true. Lee Boyd was waiting under the pavilion when they returned from the hike.

  “How’re you doin’?” Justin asked as the group sat down at the table.

  Lee looked surprised. “Okay,” he mumbled.

  “I thought you were going to be stomped to hamburger meat.”

  “So did I, for a minute.”

  “Why did you get out of the line?” Casey asked, contempt noticeable in her voice.

  “I just wanted to,” Lee said, reverting to his old pattern of avoiding conversation whenever possible.

  “God, that was dumb!” Casey said, shaking her head as though he was a hopeless lunatic.

  “You got that right,” Joel seconded.

  Lee glared at them with undisguised hatred, got up from the table, and limped toward the bathroom, muttering under his breath.

  “Why don’t you guys leave him alone,” Charlotte said. She looked down at the table immediately, as though she didn’t believe the words had come from her mouth.

  “Is he your new main squeeze or something?” Casey asked.

  “No,” Charlotte said. “I just feel sorry for him. He lives down the street from me, and his parents are gone all the time. Sometimes he’s there by himself for two or three days in a row.”

  “Cool. I wish my parents would do that,” Casey said.

  The snack bar opened before bed, and Justin bought a soda and peanut butter crackers.

  “There’s something about knowing that there is no refrigerator to raid that makes me hungrier than usual,” he said, wolfing down the crackers.

  Joel was too exhausted to speak and put his head down on the table.

  At the cabin, the lump in the top bunk was already there. Justin couldn’t remember whether he had seen Lee at the evening activities or not, but he was too tired to worry about it and crawled into his bunk with a grateful sigh. As sleep pulled him swiftly downward, he realized that he hadn’t watched a television program or played a video game in forty-eight hours. That had to be some kind of record.