Easter Sunday (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 7) Page 5

  Hank stabbed with his shovel. “See there’s some more of the dark lines in the soil.”

  Pete studied the marks. “Yep.”

  “I remember when Bobby held up a certain toy to show my father.” Hank stopped. “It was a simple plastic toy, a little submarine. It was, of course, painted in military colors. When Bobby pressed it on the sides, the top of the conning tower would pop up and a little smiling man would come out.”

  “My father said to me, ‘I should have thrown that away before Bobby found it.’

  “‘He just wants it for his bath,’ I said, smiling.

  “‘I should have thrown it away,’ he repeated, and walked away.”

  Pete said, “I don’t think he was being mean. Your father loved the kid. What about the letter he left him?”

  “Yeah, the letter,” said Hank.

  The tractor approached on its scooping run. They stepped back as the machine went into the trench to load.

  Cathy had come up behind them, her large windbreaker rustling in the wind. “Will he be free soon?”

  “Soon, honey,” said Hank.

  “It’s so sad, both of them being out here in the Wilderness,” said Cathy.

  “You’re talking about your great aunt being with Bobby,” said Pete.

  Cathy nodded, “She was like me.”

  “She wasn’t a figure skater like you,” said Hank.

  “That’s not really something I want to do. Daddy wants me to,” she answered.

  Hank shook his head, not speaking, but unable to understand why Will did the things he did.

  Pete pulled another shovelful. “I can remember when Zinnie had a little plane here in River Sunday. She kept it at the same airport although the place wasn’t much more than an unplanted field.”

  “You told me she’d take up passengers for rides on Heritage Day,” said Cathy.

  Pete rested his shovel, “She flew over in that plane. She called it an Aeronca. She’d buzz in from the direction of the Wilderness, in the afternoon, the late sun on her wings so bright you couldn’t hold your eyes on her. You just heard the engine. Sometimes, depending on how she flew over, we’d see the shadow over the house as she passed, making up a cold breeze. Me and the wife, we’d wait for her flying over, like it was a blessing or something. That shadow, it always meant good luck to me.”

  “Did you ever go up flying with her?” asked Cathy.

  “I did one time,” he said. “Like you say it was on Heritage Day only a long time ago. The town wasn’t as decorated as it is today, no floats in parades, that kind of thing.”

  “No fire trucks.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Pete, pushing in his shovel again, “We had two fire trucks but they weren’t as powerful as the ones we have today, the ones your father helped buy, Hank.”

  Cathy moved closer as she listened.

  “Zinnia was just as pretty as you are, child. She had long hair, the same as you, only she was all grown up when I flew with her. She had a leather cap that fitted over the top of her head and goggles that she kept pulled back on the leather.

  “They’d cleared a part of the highway outside of town for her to take off and land; cars that came along had to wait until she landed or took off.

  “I stood out there with the others waiting my turn. The ride cost me fifty cents which was a good amount of money but it was something I had been anticipating.”

  “Were you scared?” asked Hank.

  “I wasn’t scared so much as I was wondering what I’d do if the bottom fell out of the plane. I had thoughts of holding on to the wheels underneath. That whole night before, I made up a plan to save myself, you see.” He chuckled.

  “The plane resembled a bathtub with little wheels under the engine. I climbed into my seat and Zinnie said, “You all set?” Before I could answer her, we were heading into the wind and first thing we were up in the air.

  “The flight was pretty standard although I didn’t realize that at the time. She flew up to about two or three hundred feet and began a slow circle around the town. Below I saw all the people on the highway and then I spied the courthouse and all the trees around it. She dipped the wing to a friend below in the courthouse square where the politicians were making speeches. I couldn’t see who it was but she had a lot of friends. Then we came around over the slave monument. In those days it didn’t have all the markers of the names of slaves living in River Sunday before the Civil War. It was just a pile of rocks. I recognized a friend fishing by the rocks and waved to him.

  “Zinnie had the aircraft window open and the air blew in my face. It was cool up in the air. On the ground the day had been very hot like it always is in August. The air smelled fresh and the plane smelled of canvas and leather.

  “When she came around to the highway again, we started down for a landing. I watched the instruments change as we descended. She had a little rosary in front of her, hanging from the dash. It was made of ivory, I remember. It swung back and forth.

  “The front of the plane went up and the tail went down. We hit the road with a slight bump. All I could see in front was the propeller. Zinnie was observing around her as she moved the plane forward to the line of ticket holders.

  “You had to clamber to get out of the machine. When I was standing beside the plane again, she asked, ‘Pete, you like the flight?’

  “‘Yes, Ma’am,’ I replied.

  “‘Being up there makes it all equal, you remember that,’ she said. Then she reached in her pocket and gave me back my fifty cents. ‘This one’s on me,’ she said.”

  Pete pushed his shovel harder into the mud. “That’s how I recognized she was luck for me, that lady. I think she’s always been lucky for this town, too, and the people in it.”

  “Kind of like an angel,” Cathy said.

  “Yes, an angel,” said Pete.

  Cathy said, “Like that song Bette Midler sang about the wind.”

  Chapter Six

  Captain Steele, his flashlight waving, plodded through the marsh grass towards Hank and the others. He was an older man, the manager of the airport, but he still had energy in his eyes and retained the sharp chin of his youth.

  Hank would never forget the wartime photograph displayed in the River Sunday drugstore window. Steele, silk scarf around his neck, and hat set back, stood with his crew beside his P47 fighter. Its metal side was covered with tiny neatly spaced swastikas, painted records of his aerial kills. Beside him stood his aircraft mechanic, with a massive bandolier of fifty caliber cartridges for the wing guns slung around his neck. All these men were young, grinning for the camera, and full of fight. “56th Wolf Pack” captioned the picture. Hank remembered these were the same words used by the Nazi submarine patrols.

  Steele did not like Will Allingham and made this evident at every chance. The Captain refused to come to see or help design the parade model of the other P47 of town history, the plane belonging to Will’s heroic aunt Zinnie.

  This night, Steele still wore a cap in his cocky fashion even though it did not protect his face against the drizzling rain. He stood next to Hank and inspected the sandbag wall.

  “That stake up there show where Bobby got trapped?”

  Pete put down his shovel. “Yes.”

  The Captain pulled on some branches of bushes growing from the edge of the mound. They started to come loose in the soft earth spraying water and black soil over his hands. He quickly let go and rubbed his hands together to shake off the dirt.

  “Any sign of life?” he asked.

  “Plenty of muskrats,” said Pete. “Charlie thought he might have heard something but that was awhile back.”

  The Captain turned to Hank. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’ll make it,” said Hank.

  “We’ve got high tide too with this storm getting stronger,” said the Captain.

  “What’s the latest weather from the airport?”

  “Main winds going to hit us hard,” answered the Captain. “It’s coming in alm
ost the same track as the Easter Storm of 1944. Baltimore airport’s closed up tight.”

  The Captain saw Sammy on the tractor and waved. Sammy stopped the machine and climbed down. He reached into his trousers pocket and handed Cathy’s small piece of metal to the Captain.

  “Here’s why I called your cell,” said Sammy. “Ever see anything like that before?”

  The Captain examined it by the light for a few minutes, turning it from one side to the other and holding it up. Then he nodded to Sammy.

  “You said you didn’t think it was a Native American religious object. Jimmy might not agree but I think you’re right about that, Sammy. I could swear that I’ve seen something else just like this. Let me get back to my office. I can figure it out.”

  Pete’s brow creased. “Remember, we haven’t got a lot of time.”

  “I’ll be quick as I can.” He nodded at Hank. “Sorry about all this.”

  Sammy said, “Say, Captain, that piece of metal you got there. Don’t get too excited about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Since I called you, I have been thinking. Might be a fishing lure. Raccoon or muskrat might have found it out in the marsh and dragged it up here.”

  Captain Steele studied the metal again, flipped it in his hand, and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind, Sammy.”

  Pete spoke up. “What about those black marks you spotted in the mud, Hank? Show him.”

  The Captain turned his head. “What lines, Hank?”

  Hank pointed to one of the wavy seams. “They keep coming up and then disappear. They aren’t made of much. Just like a little bit of color and then they are gone.”

  “What do you think, Pete?” asked the Captain as he tapped the seam with his finger.

  “I told him I thought it was rust,” answered Pete.

  The Captain scraped out a sample, wrapped it carefully into a handkerchief, and put it into his pocket. “Pete, you might have something here.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.” He walked back to the boats.

  Mrs. Pond had run her boat near the shoreline as she gathered wild creatures.

  “I wonder what she thinks Bobby’s chances are,” said Hank as he watched her.

  Pete said, “Mrs. Pond would be the last one to give up on anything. Folks start giving up on Bobby and you’ll see her come in for the last try. She’s that way. Helps the hopeless.”

  “I guess I never saw that side of her,” said Hank.

  “Hope you don’t have to.”

  “Stop the tractor,” Bob Johnny yelled. “You hit one of them.”

  Sammy slowed the machine and began to lift the bucket up. At the top, on the sharp edge, half of the body of a muskrat bled on the steel, and then slithered off into the mire below.

  Sammy called out, the engine quieter, “What you say?”

  Bob Johnny reached under the bucket and held up the dead muskrat. Sammy nodded and pushed forward the throttle.

  “Try to be more careful,” said Bob Johnny.

  Sammy nodded again. As he did, Bob Johnny tenderly put the dead animal by the side of the trench. This was the first real emotion Hank had seen on Bob Johnny’s face since Hank had arrived at the mound.

  Cathy and Richard walked carefully across the soft top of the mound on small pieces of plywood strapped to their shoes.

  She explained, “Richard said we could use the wood like snowshoes. He was right.”

  Richard nodded.

  Tawny, Duke, and the photographer began photographing the two children. Cathy sat and took off her boards to clean the muck from them. “I can tell you the Nanticoke legend of a giant muskrat that lives in this mound,” she said to Tawny.

  Her father, Will, was stuffing sandbags nearby. “Don’t tell her what Jimmy Swift told you, Cathy.”

  Tawny waved to Will. “I want to hear.”

  “Cathy, I said no,” her father shouted.

  Cathy spoke up. “Jimmy told me the big muskrat’s name was Sachem. It means big chief in the Nanticoke language.”

  “Sachem,” repeated Tawny. “Has anyone ever seen this giant Sachem?”

  Cathy stared defiantly at her father as she spoke. “Only one person. At least the story goes that he must have seen him. Anyway he was killed by the creature.”

  “Killed?”

  “There were these French settlers who were sent to River Sunday by the British. They were Acadians from Nova Scotia. One of them, a man named Francois D ‘Argent was a trapper and he decided to hunt the Wilderness for muskrat. The Nanticoke tribal members, who were few even by that time, advised him he could hunt in most of the swamp. However, he should leave alone this area where the burial mound was because Sachem, the giant white muskrat, lived there.

  “This man was brave and he had hunted in the far north in Canada for beaver. He asked the Nanticokes if anyone had ever seen Sachem and no one could say that they or anyone they knew had seen the big muskrat. Francois declared that he was not afraid of any muskrat much less one that was a legend. He set out his traps in this section of the swamp.

  “In the morning when he left River Sunday to check his traps, he promised that he would be back by evening with many muskrats. When evening came he was not back. Several days went by and he still did not return. Pretty soon his friends, some of the other Acadians, got together a search party and went out to the Wilderness.

  “When they got near to the edge of the swamp, they came across a solitary Nanticoke man, who was old and feeble, his skin dry and taut to his bones as if he were already dead. He was dressed only in a breechclout and moccasins and smoked a long pipe. His body was covered with fresh bright red clay. He asked them where they were going. They explained that they were looking for their friend and asked him if he had seen the trapper. The old man replied that he had seen a trapper who was going into the marsh to check his traps. He warned him not to go but the man went anyway.

  “‘Which way did he go?’ the searchers asked.

  “The old man pointed toward the section of the swamp where the mound was located.

  “They took several canoes and went out to the island. There they found a stack of broken muskrat traps. Beside them was the straw hat that Francois had been wearing. All around were the footprints of a big animal, and from what they could see, the marks matched those of muskrats. However they were large.”

  She paused and whispered, “Blood was everywhere.”

  Then Cathy went on, louder. “They searched all over the mound and paddled for several miles around the small islands nearby in the Wilderness. They couldn’t find him.”

  Tawny stared at the young girl.

  Cathy continued, “About a year later, a rusty hatchet was found on the road to the swamp. It turned out to have belonged to the trapper.”

  “So he was killed by the monster?” asked Tawny.

  “Yes,” she said. “Maybe others saw Sachem, too, but were eaten by him before they could talk.”

  “Did anyone ever see the old man again?”

  “No,” she said, “Jimmy says he was the spirit of Chief Nanticoke who came up from his grave in kindness to warn the Frenchman to leave Sachem alone.”

  “No one has ever trapped muskrats in this area?”

  “Not near the mound. My family in their fur business only trapped at the other end of the swamp. My Dad has his hunting places there now.”

  Tawny put down her pad. Cathy’s face was still serious. The reporter’s mouth was frozen in a twisted expression between belief and disbelief at the tale.

  Will said, “They get these stories from Swift. I want the school children to study real history. I’m sorry, Tawny.”

  “I’d like to meet this Jimmy,” Tawny said.

  Bob Johnny said, “He’ll be here when he wants to be.”

  Cathy’s face was solemn. “Just because you don’t see Sachem doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe he lives here. Jimmy says lots of things are true that we don’t see.
I think Sachem’s taking care of Bobby right now. ”

  Chapter Seven

  The firemen who had been on the job since the beginning were covered with filth. They were battle-worn and exhausted like soldiers after an attack. They sat on the sandbag walls for brief respites for coffee or a smoke.

  Meanwhile the wall of sandbags around the mound grew higher. Yet the bags did not stop all the water. Trickles of water broke through in spots and shot out into the walkway in small streams.

  Hank did not stop for long when he rested. He would get back up and work even faster, his back not rested, always aching, his arms sore from lifting the full shovels.

  Sammy had given the tractor to one of the other men. He was standing near Hank and put down his cell phone.

  “Melissa’s on her way,” he said.

  “Where was she anyway?” asked Hank, caring more because she was Bobby’s mother than any remaining personal interest he had in his former wife.

  “She was driving to town coming out that lane from her house. Her car slid into a ditch. Her farmer just got her out and she called to say she’s coming soon.”

  “I forgot,” said Hank. “They had her Easter Party today. The Easter punch is strong stuff.”

  Sammy turned to Will. “That right, Will?”

  Will said, “I wasn’t there.”

  The others exchanged glances at Will’s comment. They had thought he went everywhere with Melissa.

  “Melissa sounded all right to me,” Sammy said.

  Melissa arrived about ten minutes later. It was a dark afternoon in the rain. As she was getting off the boat, Hank could only see her raincoat, which was her father’s old yachting windbreaker, the yellow hooded canvas that had always been too big for her. He knew why she was wearing it. She took it along as an icon whenever she was worried. She liked to say wearing the jacket made her feel her father was near. Hank thought it was another of her fantasies, because her father had visited her only a few times in her life. The General had told Hank that the last person who had worn that jacket was one of his son’s London girlfriends. It came addressed to Melissa in an international packet stuffed with some of her father’s other belongings. That was several years ago, the year he drowned in his last sailboat race, off the coast of England.