The Floatplane Notebooks

by Clyde Edgerton

  We walked out the back door into the freezing damp darkness. There was a bright new moon. We walked across the yard and the road and into the back door of the store where Uncle Hawk was cooking breakfast. Mr. Copeland, Meredith, and Mark, dressed in their hunting clothes, sat around a small table in the kitchen.

  Uncle Hawk was singing at the stove. I sat at the table with the others. I could tell that no one had strong objections to my going along. I happily anticipated being in on this ritual of the hunt, watching the dogs “work”—I’d heard so many exclamations about their exploits—and finally, spending some time with Meredith, and Mark, Thatcher.

  “They ever tell you about Tyree and the hot coal?” Uncle Hawk asked me.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “He thought he saw a piece of chocolate on the floor one time—in front of the fireplace—picked it up and it burnt the hell out of him, but instead of hollering he handed it to his half-brother, Dink—said ‘Here, Dink, you want some chocolate candy?’ and Dink took it and it burnt the hell out of him, blistered him and left a scar, but it didn’t burn Tyree at all—leastways it didn’t leave any scar.”

  “I always thought that was Walker and one of his brothers,” said Mr. Copeland.

  “I know you did, but I told you I remembered it. I remember it happening. It must have been before you was born.”

  “Maybe so, but I always thought it was Walker.”

  We had a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, honey buns, maple syrup, and coffee—black. I didn’t ask for cream since no one else was using it.

  While we ate, Uncle Hawk and Mr. Copeland talked about progress on the floatplane. We all thought that Mr. Copeland had given it up several years ago. But he hadn’t. He’s started back on it and last summer when Uncle Hawk was up for the gravecleaning, they towed it to Lake Blanca and drove it around on the water. Meredith says next time they go, he’s going to get Rhonda’s band, The Rockets, to come and set up on a flatbed truck and do the song she’s writing about the floatplane.

  It worries me because Mr. Copeland does the flying—or should I say, the floating—and he has had only a few flying lessons. He has a student license, I think, and claims that flying off water will be easier than flying off land because the whole big lake is your runway. Thank goodness, he will not let any of the children drive it. He say’s he’s the one built it and so he’ll be the one to fly it—when he gets some bigger engines on it, and gets it balanced right. It worries Mildred to death.

  After breakfast, Uncle Hawk sent Thatcher to the dog pen to get the dogs. I went along. They were so excited, jumping around in the pen, up on each other, vapor puffing from their mouths into the cold, damp air. Thatcher opened the door and they sprinted out, packed with energy and about to burst with excitement, running around, relieving themselves, then heading across the side road toward the jeep truck.

  Bobby Simms, a little man who is Uncle Hawk’s hunting partner, arrived in his jeep, three dogs in back; and we got all packed in and were off. I sat in Thatcher’s lap for the drive, which started in darkness.

  “How come you doing this?” asked Thatcher.

  “I just want to see what you-all do.”

  “We shoot birds. We walk and shoot birds. You’ll get tired.”

  “Maybe so.”

  The drive ended in the woods as the sun peeped through the trees. I was mortified to discover that we were hunting on posted land.

  MARK

  Uncle Hawk, fixing a great big breakfast in the cafe part of the store, sends Meredith into the grocery part to get honey buns for everybody. Uncle Albert goes with him. They pack up on cans of Vienna sausage and beans and boxes of crackers and cookies and stuff for the hunt. Bliss is going with us.

  I can’t wait. I mean I really look forward to this, and I went dove hunting enough this fall that I think I might be able to outshoot Meredith today.

  Sometime before we start eating Uncle Hawk asks me, “You still got that little Fox Sterling?” I say yes.

  Meredith and I were twelve: The guns were for sale at an estate auction, twenty gauge, double barrels. A Fox Sterling and a Remington. They were leaning against a wall between two rocking chairs on the front porch. A woman played a fiddle behind a microphone on the auctioneer’s stand.

  Uncle Albert picked up the guns and handed them to us. “How do they feel? That’s a Fox, Mark. Good little gun.”

  “A fox?”

  “A Fox Sterling. Good name. A good little gun.”

  The wood was worn smooth and not scratched. It dropped in line when I brought it to my shoulder, pointing out across a field. People saw me and I felt important.

  “I won’t be able to give more than forty dollars apiece,” said Uncle Albert. “Somebody might outbid me.”

  The auctioneer auctioned chairs, swords, lamps, hall coatracks, sets of dinner plates.

  It was time for the guns. The Fox was up first.

  A man bid twenty-five dollars—before the auctioneer started. “I got a twenty-five. Five. Twenty-five. Who’ll give me thirty? I got twenty-five. A fine shotgun. Who’ll give me thirty?”

  “Thirty,” said Uncle Albert.

  “I got thirty, thirty, thirty. Who’ll give me thirty-five, thirty-five?”

  The man raised his hand.

  “I got thirty-five. Five. Thirty-five, five, five. Who’ll give me forty? I got thirty-five.”

  Uncle Albert nodded.

  I stared at the other man. He was wearing a loose brown shirt and green work pants. I wanted to run over and hold his arms down, pull him out of the crowd and away. He was standing very still. He had a cigarette in his hand. He brought his cigarette up to his mouth and took a deep draw, raised his hand with the cigarette between his fingers, and let the smoke out.

  “I got forty-five, five. I got forty-five. Fifty?” The auctioneer looked at Uncle Albert, who was now, I knew, out of the race.

  I remember thinking: the other man will walk up to the auctioneer, get the shotgun, walk out to his car, open the back door, slide the gun onto the back seat and close the door, get into the front seat, crank the car, and drive off down the road until he disappears, and I will never as long as I live see the gun again—the double-barreled Fox Sterling. The twenty-gauge, twenty-eight-inch barrel shotgun with the shining wood, well-oiled, smoothly clicking breach—the gun which will get me a place in the woods with Thatcher, Meredith, Albert, and the dogs, or with Meredith and the dogs, or walking alone way back in the woods, knowing where I am, able to head for home across broomstraw fields, up and down pinestraw covered banks, through thickets of honeysuckle and briars and poke weeds, and get back home tired, able to show Meredith whatever I killed.

  “That gun is long gone,” said Meredith.

  I looked up at Uncle Albert. He looked down at me, and then back at the auctioneer. He nodded to the auctioneer.

  “Fifty. I got fifty. Do I hear fifty-five?”

  The man raised his hand.

  My heart dropped.

  Uncle Albert nodded.

  “Sixty. I got sixty. Gimme sixty-five. Gimme sixty-five.”

  The man dropped his cigarette to the ground, twisted his foot on it, and shook his head.

  “Sold. Sixty dollars. To this gentleman over here.”

  “Go get your gun, boy,” said Uncle Albert.

  Meredith got his for forty.

  Uncle Hawk lowers the tailgate and the dogs jump up and scramble into the dog box. I slip my gun into the case Uncle Hawk gave me. It has a worn felt lining. Meredith climbs up into the cab. I follow and sit at the window. Uncle Albert, Thatcher, and Bliss are riding with Bobby Simms. I think Bliss wanted to ride with Meredith.

  About ten minutes or so beyond Burgaw we turn onto a dirt road. After about a mile, Uncle Hawk slows down to almost a stop and drives the truck across a shallow ditch and into the open woods. He stops the truck near a barbed-wire fence about twenty feet from the road, gets out, cuts a small pine branch with his hunting knife, goes back and
erases the tire tracks across the ditch. With a screwdriver and hammer he separates the barbed-wire strands from a couple of posts on either side of one standing loose in the ground. With Meredith helping, he pulls the loose post up out of the ground—with the wire still attached—and forces it to lie flat. Then he drives the truck across the wire. Bobby Simms follows. This is what we do every year, and I know Bliss can’t believe it. The women weren’t supposed to know. Uncle Hawk sticks the pole back into its hole, then we ride on into the woods and stop. The dogs are bumping around in the dog house.

  We make plans to meet at the canal crossing for lunch. Bobby Simms drives off, leaving me, Meredith, and Uncle Hawk together. Bliss says she wants to hunt with us, but Thatcher says we can switch around at lunch.

  When they are almost out of sight, Uncle Hawk opens the doghouse door. The dogs scramble out, run, stop, sniff, pee, then run again with their noses to the ground.

  “Call it, Meredith,” says Uncle Hawk. He flips a coin.

  “Heads.”

  “It’s tails. You get to ride the tractor seat, Mark.”

  I climb up onto the hood and then sit in the seat with my feet on the big wooden front bumper. It’s my job to watch for stumps and holes, and watch the dogs for a point.

  “If we run up a covey, pop you one,” says Uncle Hawk. The truck starts forward. The seat moves beneath me like an elephant head, bumping and rolling slowly, moving along through the woods in Africa. I check my gun safety switch—it’s on—and lay the gun across my lap, thumb on the safety, index finger resting against the trigger guard.

  We hit a hole, come up out of it. Meredith sticks his head out the window and says to me, “Get your head out your ass.”

  I suddenly see Joe, my dog, standing on the rim of a rise in some tall pines, pointing. Old Joe. Nick is about thirty yards behind him, backing—between us and Joe. Uncle Hawk sees them and stops the truck. I crawl down quietly. Uncle Hawk and Meredith get out of the truck. No one speaks. I check my thumb on the safety switch. We spread out, and side by side, start walking up the rise toward Joe. I look at Meredith. He looks at me and makes a face with his eyes great big. This is it. When we are near Nick, Uncle Hawk talks softly. “Easy, boy. Easy, boy.” We walk past him. Nick follows us—still on a point, moving only his legs, carefully, silently. Uncle Hawk looks around for the other dogs. I see Banjo, Uncle Hawk’s best dog, far beyond the truck, hunting. I look back at Joe up ahead, pointed. I wonder if the fur is raised along his rump. That’s Joe’s sign: rump-fur raised—birds for sure. Nick’s sign is raised fur on his neck. I don’t know about Banjo.

  I look at Joe’s rump. He is too far away to tell. Uncle Hawk, turning his head, says, “Easy, Nick.” Nick follows silently.

  The hair is raised along Joe’s rump, stiff as a hair brush. He is standing still, his tail high in the air, looking straight ahead, his rear to us. My heart is thumping against my ribs, up in my neck and ears. Old Joe is doing great. My feet make soft brushing sounds in the weeds. My eyes are watering. The hairline above my eyes prickles. I blink tears. I check my thumb on the safety.

  We are getting close to Joe. “Easy, boy,” Uncle Hawk says. “Keep walking, boys.”

  We walk very slowly. A step, then another step. I look at the white fur raised stiff on Joe’s rump. Joe is exactly between Meredith and me, frozen still. In a line are Uncle Hawk, Meredith, Joe, me. I blink tears, look for birds on the ground ahead. The birds have to be just ahead, there in a thick cover of lespedeza, white with frost. Joe remains motionless. We walk past him.

  “They’re right here, boys,” says Uncle Hawk.

  My heart pounds. The birds are about to explode up in front of our faces. I know it. There is no sign of anything there on the ground in front of me except the frost-covered lespedeza. The birds are hidden, and still. I can hardly get my breath.

  The ground suddenly rises: quail, thundering up and away. I bring the gun to my shoulder, watching a single bird among all the others, as if he’s painted there on the backdrop of trees to stay forever until I get the gun on him and pull the trigger. I am pulling the trigger. Pulling. Then squeezing. The gun will not fire. The trigger is hung. I squeeze, pull, squeeze again. The other two shotguns blast away.

  The birds are gone. Uncle Hawk is moving out ahead, talking to Joe. “Dead bird. Dead bird, Joe.”

  My safety is still on. I forgot to click the safety switch forward. Shit, shit, shit.

  “Did you get one?” Meredith asks me.

  “Don’t think so. You?”

  “I got one. Straight ahead. Uncle Hawk, did you shoot that one straight ahead?”

  “Both mine came left. He’s yours.”

  “I think I hit one, but he kept going,” I say.

  “I know I got one,” says Meredith. “One-nothing. Ha.”

  Uncle Hawk calls the dogs in and they find the three dead birds and we start back to the jeep.

  “You boys hear about Tyree on Rob Tucker’s land that was posted?” says Uncle Hawk.

  “No.”

  We always say no whether we have or not.

  “Tyree shoots a bird and old man Tucker comes over and says ‘Tyree, where’d you shoot that bird?’ and Tyree says, ‘I shot him in the ass, I reckon, Rob—he was flying from me.’” Uncle Hawk laughs. “Old Mr. Tucker was ‘the sort who painted his hair and was a mite high-strung.’ That’s what Tyree said about him.”

  At noon we stop at the canal crossing for lunch. I am very hungry. It has warmed up a good bit, but it’s still cold.

  Uncle Hawk spreads newspapers—for a tablecloth—across the truck hood and gets out the food: cans of Vienna sausage, pork and beans, sardines, loafbread, crackers, cookies, apples, oranges, and coffee. He opens a sack and gets out paper plates and plastic spoons.

  On the side of the truck, in front of the rear wheel well, is a water tank with a spigot. I hold a tin pan under the spigot. The water sounds in the pan. The dogs crowd in, tongues lapping. I push the pan toward Joe. His throat rests on the upturned underside of my wrist. I feel his throat muscles and his loose, furry skin move on my wrist.

  I hear Bobby Simms’s jeep coming.

  They’ve had good luck. Bliss is smiling. She asks Meredith how many birds he’s shot. Meredith tells her that he got eight and that I got four.

  “I shot four of his and didn’t tell him,” I say.

  We all crowd around the hood of Uncle Hawk’s jeep and eat. The dogs know to stay back. Uncle Hawk throws them slices of bread.

  “You boys going to make it down next year?” asks Bobby Simms, with a cracker in his mouth, spooning sardines onto his plate. Bobby Simms is short, older than Uncle Hawk, and chain-smokes Luckies.

  “I don’t know. I’m supposed to be in pilot training.”

  “You know what kind of airplane you’ll be flying?”

  I’m so glad he asked I don’t know what to do. “T-37’s and T-38’s mostly. T-37 for about four months and the T-38 for about six months. The T-37’s kinda small. The T-38 looks like a white Coke bottle, shaped kind of like that.” I see it in my mind; I see and feel myself in it. “It’s supersonic. The first supersonic trainer.”

  “How about you, Bud?” he says to Meredith.

  I’m thinking, Supersonic, man. Doesn’t that register?

  “I’ll be in the Marines,” says Meredith. “I’ll be doing all the work while he’s flying around in the sky, counting trees and talking on his radio.”

  “I wish they didn’t have to go,” says Bliss. Her coat is too big and she’s got on one of Uncle Hawk’s hunting caps with the earflaps down—too big. She’s eating beans from a paper plate.

  “Somebody’s got to go,” says Bobby Simms, his mouth full. Then he talks about people burning their draft cards, saying they all ought to be set on fire themselves. Thatcher says every country has to have a military arm, and I say the civilian leaders decide whether or not to have a military arm and then the military arm has to do all it can to win any war the civilian leaders believe has
to be fought. But I’m thinking that Vietnam might be over in a year. Then I can fly all training missions for five years while I’m deciding whether to stay in or get out and do something with my degree—Industrial Relations. But if I’m one of the ones who has to go to Vietnam, that’s the decision I made when I decided to be part of the military arm.

  I can see me sitting in a cockpit wearing a white helmet.

  We finish lunch and load up the dogs. Uncle Albert and I go with Bobby Simms. Meredith, Thatcher, and Bliss go with Uncle Hawk.

  That afternoon we find four or five coveys and I miss far more than I hit.

  When it’s almost dark, Sam points a single in a patch of palmetto. “Okay, you’re due,” Uncle Albert says to me, almost whispering. “Get on up there and pop him. We’ll stay back here. Walk right on past Nick and kick in those palmettos. Shoot him in the ass if he’s flying straight away. But he’ll probably turn left toward that cover. Let the gun move through him, right on in front of him, and shoot with the gun still moving. Like I showed you.”

  “Yessir.”

  I walk up behind Nick, holding my gun ready to bring to my shoulder, then beside Nick. I kick the palmetto, my eyes watering, heart pounding. Nick suddenly pounces, then freezes again. One, then another bird explodes up. They are going away fast. They fly straight away, then turn left as I click the safety, let the barrel catch up, swing through them, and in front of them, squeezing the trigger for the blast in my face as the second quail tumbles to the ground and bounces once.

  “Good shot!” says Uncle Albert.

  “Dead bird, Joe,” I say. The other dogs come running. Joe sees the bird, pounces on it, picks it up in his mouth and retrieves. It’s a hen. She holds her head up, looking around, so I grab the head and hold tight and twist until the neck pops. Her body quivers. I wait. Get it over with, I think. Hurry. The quivering continues in my hand, vibrates through my hand, arm, shoulder, chest. I want her to hurry and die, to get this over with. I twist the head again. The quivering begins to slow. I stick her, still quivering lightly, into the game pouch of my hunting coat.