Bow Wow
Page 15
Birdie gazed up at Mr. Longstreet, a very steady gaze that made me proud of her. Yes, he was old, but a grown man, and Birdie was just a kid. “Did you do something to Snoozy?” she said.
His face reddened, but in patches, not all over. “Does your grandmother know what an impertinent child you are?”
“She knows me,” Birdie said. “And another thing—Snoozy means a lot to her. Did you do something to him?”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“You said you wanted to strangle the bounty hunters with your bare hands. And Snoozy went off on the bounty hunt. You had his sunglasses.”
“I explained all that. What I said was just an expression.”
“‘Strangling with your bare hands’ was just an expression?”
“I don’t like your tone, not one little bit.” He started wagging his finger at her. Why is finger wagging such an unpleasant sight and tail wagging such a delight? I didn’t know. I tried to imagine Mr. Longstreet wagging his tail, but could not. “Where do you get off, thinking you can interrogate me like I’m some crimin—” Mr. Longstreet started coughing—deep, painful-sounding coughs that doubled him over. He staggered, felt around for a handhold, found none, and sagged against the side of the boat.
“Mr. Longstreet? What’s wrong?”
He kept coughing but at the same time waved Birdie away angrily. Birdie turned out to not get waved away so easily. She stepped forward, put her hand on his back, and guided him over to one of the bench seats. Around then was when I noticed that the water bottle had fallen on the deck. I picked it up, went over, and waited for Birdie to notice. At first she didn’t, so I pressed against her, which is our go-to method in situations like that.
“Good boy,” she said, holding the bottle up to Mr. Longstreet’s mouth. Meaning the good boy was me, not Mr. Longstreet. I don’t want any confusion about that.
Mr. Longstreet, his face gray and waxy, took the bottle and sipped some water. A trickle ran down his chin.
“Are you all right?” Birdie said.
“Just … just …” With his free hand, he tried to reach inside his shirt pocket, but couldn’t quite do it, his fingers trembling the way they were. Birdie reached in for him, withdrew a small white pill. She held it out. He tried to take it, but his hand was too unsteady.
“You’ll have to … to do it for me,” Mr. Longstreet said.
“Do what?”
“Stick it under my tongue.”
I could see on Birdie’s face that she didn’t like that idea, not one little bit. Mr. Longstreet opened his mouth and raised his tongue. Birdie placed the small white pill under it. Mr. Longstreet closed his mouth, which was fine with me. He had one of those mouths that looked much better closed than open.
“Should we go to the hospital?” Birdie said.
Mr. Longstreet shook his head. He sat very still, like he was concentrating on something. Maybe the pill under his tongue? That was my only thought. Meanwhile, his face was looking less gray and waxy. He took a deep breath.
“That’s better,” he said. “No hospital. I’m fine now. And …” He gave Birdie a little smile. “And thank you.”
Birdie did not smile back. “You can say thanks by telling me what happened on Little Flamingo Island.”
Mr. Longstreet’s smile faded fast. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Something happened to Snoozy out there and I think you know.”
“If something happened I know nothing about it,” Mr. Longstreet said.
Birdie stepped away from him, looked out to sea. “Why do you have Bayou Girl?”
“I already explained. Your grandmother—”
“But where were you going? Is this a fishing trip?”
“The reverse,” Mr. Longstreet said.
“I don’t understand.”
Mr. Longstreet rose. “I can show you.” He approached the console, a bit unsteady.
“Better sit down,” Birdie said. “I’ll drive.”
“You’re old enough to drive this boat?”
“Yes.”
“I mean according to the regulations.”
“I have a license.”
“A license for a boat this size?”
“A license,” Birdie said.
Mr. Longstreet seemed to be thinking. “When I was a boy here we kids operated boats all the time and no one thought anything of it. But I would have expected things were different now.”
Birdie nodded like that made sense, at the same time saying nothing. Then she went to the other side of the boat and hauled in Miz Gaux’s Invention, stowed it away. After that, she stuck the key in the ignition, fired up the inboards, walked to the bow, raised the anchor, coiled the anchor line, returned to the console, and hit the throttles. Bayou Girl got under way, moving in a slow, easy curve. Birdie turned to Mr. Longstreet, who’d been watching her the whole time. “Where to?” she said.
Mr. Longstreet gazed over the water and pointed. “Eleven o’clock.” He sat back down on the bench.
Ah! The open sea! There’s really nothing like the open sea, and we don’t get out on it nearly enough, most of our work, mine and Birdie’s, being on the swamp tours or fishing charters on the lakes and bayous. I love the swamps, the lakes, and the bayous, but there’s no denying their smell, which is all about rot. Out on the open sea, the air is like nowhere else, fresh and salty and … alive! Yes, alive! I gave myself a wonderful shake, so tremendous I actually felt things rattling around in my head. Birdie maxed out the throttles and the bow rose up as Bayou Girl felt the power of those engines. Mr. Longstreet practically slid off the bench seat, held on with what I believe they call a death grip. You can’t have more fun than this.
The waves picked up the farther we got from shore. That meant we started bouncing around a little. Round about now was when a customer or two might start feeling pukey. Not me and Birdie, of course: We were natural-born sailors. Was Mr. Longstreet feeling pukey? I wasn’t sure. He sat on the bench, eyes out to sea where some boats clustered together, black against the horizon. Was he even a customer? I wasn’t sure about that, either.
As we got closer to the boats, Mr. Longstreet rose and made his way, hunched over and with careful short steps, over to Birdie. Birdie at the wheel: What a lovely sight! Somehow her body absorbed all the bumps handed out by the waves in a nice, easy rhythm, almost like she herself was part of the sea. Mr. Longstreet was not part of the sea. He held tight to the console and came close to losing his balance once or twice.
“Slow down,” he said. “Please.”
Birdie backed off the throttles, and Bayou Girl rose—Birdie rising, too, on her tiptoes, to see over the bow—and settled down.
“Was it too bumpy for you, Mr. Longstreet?”
He shook his head. “I want to go in slow, that’s all.”
“Go in where?” Birdie said.
Mr. Longstreet pointed toward the boats, much closer now, all of them around Bayou Girl’s size, or bigger. I spotted people on the decks now, and up on the tuna tower of the nearest boat, a man with a rifle.
“Do you see what they’re doing?” Mr. Longstreet said.
“No.”
He stabbed his finger at one of the charts clipped to the console. “Those boats are sitting right there, on the deep side of Sawtooth Reef. Know why?”
Birdie shook her head.
“Because sharks hang out in these waters, especially this time of year. Might be on account of the water temperature, maybe a seasonal change of the currents.”
On one of the boats, a man dumped a bucket over the side.
“Oh, those, those—” Mr. Longstreet cried out. “Do you see what they’re doing?”
“Chumming?”
“Savages!”
“But isn’t it legal?”
“So? Does that mean it should be? Throwing blood and guts into the natural habitat to lure harmless predators living out their lives as nature intended?”
“Harmless predators?” Birdie said.<
br />
Mr. Longstreet gave her a sidelong look. “Children used to respect their elders.”
He waited for Birdie to reply, and when she did not, he said, “Slow down a bit more and then head right through them.”
“Right through those boats?”
“Not hitting them,” Mr. Longstreet said. “Just making a statement.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Grammy always says to be extra careful around other boats.”
Mr. Longstreet’s mouth opened and I got the feeling angry words were on the way, but instead he paused. “She—she’s correct, of course. A very smart person, then and now. But there are special cases in life and—”
The nearest boat was close enough now for me to make out the gold chain glistening around the neck of the man in the tuna tower. He went still, aimed his rifle at something that thrashed just under the water, and then came the crack of a gunshot.
Another man on board reached over the side with a gaff, its barb flashing in the sunshine, and hauled in a shark, about his own size and no longer moving, just hanging limp on the hook.
Mr. Longstreet shouted in fury and shook his fist in the air. No one on the boats seemed to notice him. He screamed at them, “You’re going to pay!” Then he reached past Birdie and shoved the throttles down to the max.
I WENT SKIDDING BACKWARD ON THE DECK. Birdie might have, too, except she was hanging on to the wheel. Her feet slid out from under her, and for an instant or two she was stretched straight out in the air, like she was flying. Up ahead, the circle of boats seemed to be racing our way with amazing speed, even though we were the ones on the move. Birdie got her feet back down on the deck, turned the wheel hard with one hand, and reached for the throttles with the other.
“Don’t you dare!” Mr. Longstreet shouted. And then he did something terrible: Mr. Longstreet laid both his hands on Birdie’s shoulder and gave her a push. Not just a little push, but a real strong one, especially for someone so old and sick. Oh, yes, he was sick—I’m good at smelling sickness in people. But that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was what he had done to Birdie, now sitting on the deck and rubbing her arm, a stunned look on her face. Mr. Longstreet grabbed the wheel and steered us straight for the nearest boat, the one with the rifleman in the tuna tower. The rifleman was shouting something that I couldn’t make out over the roar of Bayou Girl’s engines. And the men on other boats were shouting, too, and waving their arms and hurrying this way and that. Meanwhile, Mr. Longstreet was hunched over the wheel, gripping it so tight I could see his knucklebones through the skin.
No one pushes Birdie around. That was basic. Rule number one. A ferocious growling started up on the deck of Bayou Girl, the kind of growling that means big-time action is on the way, and pronto. I charged, charged at full speed, holding nothing back. Holding things back is not my strong point in general, but it’s extra true for when I’m on the attack.
Here’s another thing about me on the attack: My memories of what actually happens are always kind of confused. For example, I’m pretty sure that I barreled into the backs of Mr. Longstreet’s legs and right away came an “Oof!” that was part grunt and part a cry of pain, totally satisfying to my ear. But after that, did he lose his grip on the wheel? That would be my guess. I have sort of an image of him in my head, stumbling away from the console. Did he also lose his balance and start to fall over the side? Was Birdie back on her feet and somehow there at the very last second, just in time to grab his sleeve and pull him back on the boat? And were we meanwhile almost right on top of the boat with the rifleman in the tuna tower? Was there lots of bellowing and screaming mixed in with the roar of engines, and not only Bayou Girl’s? In short, were we headed for disaster? I can’t help you with any of that.
But here’s one clear memory: Birdie! Specifically, Birdie racing to the console, yanking back the throttles, jerking the wheel hard to one side. I saw that for sure! The look on her face? Calm! I’ll never forget it. Bayou Girl tilted way over and we carved a very sharp turn in the water, driving a big curling wave toward that nearest boat. It rose up high on the wave, almost right above us. The rifleman’s eyes and mouth were wide open. He grabbed a rail, at the same time losing hold of the rifle, which spun down into the sea and vanished. I have a very strong memory of that part, too, meaning the disappearance of the rifle: an interesting sight, even strangely beautiful.
We sped away from the bounty-hunting boats, headed back toward land. Was the excitement over? I missed it already, but maybe that’s just me. I trotted over to Birdie, at the wheel. Without taking her eyes off the sea, she gave me a pat.
“You’re the best,” she said.
Tell me something I don’t know! But it was nice to hear it from Birdie. I was about to lick her feet, just letting her know I was thinking of her, when thumping sounds came from behind me. I twisted around and saw that my tail was thumping against the console with every second wag, if that makes any sense. Probably not. I also noticed Mr. Longstreet slumped half on and half off the padded bench seat. He had a cut on his forehead, not bleeding much, and his face was waxy again. Our eyes met. His were not friendly. My choices were to bite him good and hard or look away. I opted for looking away, but it was close.
By then we were close to land. Birdie pointed out a familiar building on shore, shaped like a gigantic milk shake.
“Shakey’s Shakes,” she said. “The mouth of the bayou’s just beyond the next point. We’ll be home in—”
Sirens! Sirens so high pitched my ears could hardly stand it. Out from behind the point that led to the bayou zoomed a black speedboat with gold trim, four big outboards mounted in the stern, blue light flashing in the bow.
“Oh, no, water patrol,” Birdie said, throttling back. “Maybe it’s not us.”
But it was us. A huge man stood up in the bow of the speedboat and spoke through a bullhorn. “Heave to!”
Birdie throttled back all the way. The sirens died down. We bobbed gently on the water. The patrol boat drew alongside. I didn’t know the driver, but the huge man with the bullhorn was familiar: Officer Perkins, my favorite of all Sheriff Cannon’s people, on account of biscuits he carried in his back pocket, day and night. I considered him a pal, and I knew he thought the same about me.
“Is that you, Birdie?” said Officer Perkins in his rumbly voice, the bullhorn now at his side.
“Yes, sir.”
He looked into our boat, saw Mr. Longstreet slumped on the bench seat.
“What’s going on, Birdie? What are you doing here?”
“Um,” said Birdie, “it’s a sort of charter.”
“With you driving?” said Officer Perkins. “You know you’re too young to operate a vessel of this size. And I can’t believe your grandmother would ever allow it, certainly not without her beside you. Is she on board?”
“No, sir.”
“But she approved this charter anyway?”
“I think so.”
“You think so?” said Officer Perkins. “Not tryin’ to be funny with me now, are you, Birdie?”
“No, sir.”
“Because we got some very unfunny calls from vessels out off Sawtooth Reef concerning dangerous operation of this here boat.”
“I know,” Birdie said.
“You know about the calls?”
“No, sir. I meant the dangerous operation.”
“You don’t deny it?”
Birdie shook her head.
Officer Perkins’s gaze moved on from Birdie to Mr. Longstreet on the bench seat, the bleeding from his forehead pretty much stopped, and back to Birdie.
“Who was at the wheel?” said Officer Perkins.
“When you pulled us over?” Birdie said. “Me.”
“You know I don’t mean that,” said Officer Perkins. “Why take the blame for something you didn’t do? Can’t hardly think of a circumstance where that makes sense, and this one sure don’t. I’m asking who was at the wheel when the dangerous part was going down.”
She nodded her head, just a tiny nod that meant things were all straightened out in there. “It was Mr. Longstreet.”
Mr. Longstreet looked up. “And I don’t regret it—not one single bit.”
Officer Perkins took out a notebook and wrote in it. He spoke as he wrote, the way humans sometimes do. “‘Don’t regret it—not one single bit.’” He stuck the notebook back in his pocket, then motioned to the officer at the helm of the patrol boat, who steered closer to Bayou Girl, almost touching. “Law says I can board in these type situations, Birdie.” He stepped across the narrow opening between the boats and onto the deck of Bayou Girl. The patrol boat driver tossed him a line.
“What are you doing?” Birdie said.
“Towing you into the dock in Baie LaRouche.”
“Towing?” Poor Birdie: She looked so unhappy at that moment.
“Towing. You’re too young and this old gentleman is too dangerous. I could impound the boat, Birdie. Understand?”
“Oh, Officer Perkins, please don’t do that. I—”
He held up his hand. “But I ain’t gonna,” he said. “Instead, I’m calling your grandmother, have her come down and collect the vessel.”
“Uh, is there maybe some other way?”
“Yeah—towing, like I said.”
“I meant some other way that leaves Grammy—that doesn’t involve her.”
Officer Perkins gave her a close look. “Birdie? Did your grandmother know you were on the boat?”
Birdie shook her head.
“Does that mean you didn’t board her up in St. Roch?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then where did you get on?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“Tow job like this is slow going,” Officer Perkins said. “Gives us plenty of time to hear even real long stories on the way in.”
He tied the patrol boat line to Bayou Girl’s bow cleat, and soon we were on our way—Bayou Girl not under her own power, just sort of wallowing along in the wake of the patrol boat. Officer Perkins took Mr. Longstreet into the cabin and had him lie down. Coming back on deck, he said, “Okay—I’m all ears.”