The Weirdo Page 8

  "He did what was legal. Don't get emotionally involved," Telford replied, looking straight ahead.

  "He could have just chased him away."

  "And he'd've come back tomorrow."

  Chip fell into silence, unable to accept what he'd just seen.

  "If that bothers you, wait until they lift the hunting and fishing moratorium. They'll come in with multiple packs of dogs...."

  "You have to be kidding," said Chip, eyes wide.

  "I wish I was."

  "Can't you do anything about it?"

  "Me? No! It's a political thing. My job is to get an estímate on the population, track the feeding areas. The same people who are providing the money for this study may decide to open it for limited hunting next fall."

  "Can't you protest?"

  Telford drove awhile without answering, then finally said, suddenly annoyed, "I'm trying very hard to get my doctorate. Chip, I can't get involved. I need the grant money."

  "So they'll just come in and kill off bears."

  "Unless this study indicates they haven't increased that much in the last four years."

  "If they've increased a lot, can't you just cheat? For their sake?"

  Telford's head swung around. "No! Look, there's a big problem all over the country. The habitats are shrinking. Too many bison in Yellowstone, too many white-tailed deer in Gettysburg; too many mountain goats in Olympic National in Washington. Not enough food. If you shoot them, the animal rights people scream. Even the biologists argue about this. There's no one, easy answer."

  Chip struggled with his thoughts. There had to be ways. "Can't they just move the excess animals?"

  "They often die off when you change their environment."

  "There has to be a way."

  "Figure one for us. You'd win the animal Nobel Prize."

  Chip descended into silence, waiting for Telford to speak again. He did, in a moment, annoyance gone from his voice.

  "There are checks and balances in nature that used to work. Mountain lions and wolves killed deer. But people have killed off mountain lions and wolves. So you have excess deer. Bears usually aren't quick enough to catch them. Sooner or later, if you find there have been too many births and not enough deaths, you have to examine the food supply. No, I can't cheat. I personally want to know. Hunting may be necessary...."

  "I never thought I'd hear you say that."

  "You just did! You wouldn't want them to starve, would you?"

  "No," Chip said, sighing dismally. He lapsed into thoughtful silence again, then asked, "Okay, how do they hunt them?"

  "The new way is high tech, with radio-collars on the dogs and hand-held receivers to plot the positions...."

  "Like we do it?"

  "Exactly. Some of the very wealthy hunters out west use small aircraft. In the past, hunters went in with two or three dogs and waited for the hounds to tree the bears or at least surround them. There was always a sporting chance to escape."

  "Can't the new way of hunting be outlawed?"

  "Sure it can, if the state legislators'll do it. I doubt they will. They'd lose votes...."

  The Toyota hummed along.

  "The hunters even have a new name for themselves: houndsmen. How does that grab you?"

  Tom said the trucks they used were called "rigs" and their method of hunting was "rigging." The dog with the best nose was leashed to the hood of the truck, standing on a piece of carpet. As the rig moved slowly over the trails or backcountry roads, the hound sniffed the air for a bear's heavy scent. When the hood-hound started to bay, the dogs in the back of the rig were released and the chase began.

  "Makes you sick," Chip muttered.

  "Uh-huh," Tom said.

  "And you won't he about how many are back here?"

  Telford met his gaze. "No."

  Chip became silent for the rest of the ride to Dunnegan's, disappointed in Tom Telford for the first time.

  ***

  "SEEING poor Roger huddled there dead, flies after him, I wanted to throw up."

  Chip and his father were down by the spillway, opening valves to allow water from the lake to flow down into the George Washington. The electronic canal gauge had signaled the need to up the level just a few minutes after Chip came home.

  The day's heat still pressed down on the Powhatan, though a late-afternoon breeze caused tree leaves to dance and scalloped the surface of the Nansemond.

  Chip said, "I just can't believe that the government will allow killing to start back here again."

  "What did Telford say about it?" John Clewt asked, batting at the yellowflies that droned around his head.

  "He said hunting is sometimes necessary and that he wouldn't cheat on the count."

  Clewt knew the ban depended on the estimated number of bears in the swamp. "Can you blame him for that?"

  Chip worked another rusty valve wheel around with his right hand. Dark water started to rush down the flume beneath his feet. "All he needs to do is tell them there are fewer bears than before."

  Clewt looked over at his son. "Are there?"

  "We don't know yet. But why do they need to hunt, anyway? They only do it for the thrill of it."

  "Well, I guess people have the right to entertainment. Don't get me wrong. I've never hunted in my life."

  Two more flumes needed to be opened. Chip and Clewt moved to the right of the spillway.

  "How can they shoot a deer, even a rabbit?" Chip asked loudly, his rage lingering.

  "Chip, I agree."

  "Big, brave hunters come in trucks with electronic search-and-kill equipment, damn them. What chances will the bears have?"

  Clewt shook his head and checked his watch. Six hours to bring the level back to normal. Close the spill at midnight.

  "So they spot a bear. How do they know it's not a female with cubs in her belly? Will they even care?" Chip was still talking as they entered the house.

  Later, before dinner, he took a walk along the lake-shore, thinking about it. Howling dogs all around, frightened bear up a tree, hunters coming in, aiming rifles with sophisticated sights, firing. Bang, it's all over.

  Tom Telford might not be able to do anything about it, but Chip promised himself he would.

  ***

  IN THE morning, Chip met up with the Telford at a rendezvous spot near the footbridge on Trail Seven, and the first thing he asked was, "Do you think an outfit like Greenpeace would go after Fish and Wildlife?"

  "About the ban?"

  Chip nodded.

  "National Wildlife Conservancy might be better."

  Off they went for more triangulation, seeking beeps in the southern feeding area.

  "How do I get in touch with them?"

  "They may already know. They try to keep track of who's hunting what, and where."

  "Suppose they don't know."

  "Then I guess you'll tell 'em."

  "If they know, I'll remind them. I did a lot of thinking last night."

  "So did I. Timing is the big thing when you get involved in politics. At least, that's what I've heard. If you start too early, you run out of gas early. And you give the other side time to rally the troops. So I'd wait until next fall. By that time, we'll know just about how many bears live here."

  "Will you get involved?"

  "Behind the scenes. I'll give you the ammunition to stop the hunters, if the figures work out. X number of bears, you should have X sources of food. But as I said yesterday, too many of them, and the rifles will fire. And I'll agree to that. I will, no matter what you think."

  "So we don't do anything until next year?" Chip asked.

  "Well, we can think about it."

  ***

  THE NEXT two weeks, they spent most of each day aloft in a small Cessna for aerial telemetry, tracking the bears at five or six hundred feet, antenna under each wing; then they resumed the normal ground tracking. Chip did not want to see the summer end, though eastern Carolina still steamed miserably. Despite forecasts of coolness, late September wa
s offering little relief from high humidity. Telford said fall and winter would bring a natural slowdown of their activity. He was even looking forward to doing paperwork.

  ***

  MONITORING Number 11-88's signal with the handheld antenna early one afternoon, Telford and Chip heard barking dogs. Telford looked off in their direction with alarm. They seemed to be stationary.

  "Bear?" Chip asked.

  "Maybe," Telford replied.

  They'd been on foot the last half mile, trying to intersect the position, having parked the Toyota on the other side of Mattanock Ditch, Trail Six.

  "Let's go," Telford said, starting to run toward the sound of the dogs.

  Chip kept up as best he could.

  Over his shoulder, Telford said, "Keep behind me. Could be a poacher up there."

  Farm dogs without their masters sometimes penetrated the edges of the swamp to chase fawns or other game, even bear. It didn't happen often. Usually dogs meant a man with a gun.

  Telford had been warned by the wardens to be careful around anyone caught poaching. Eight years earlier, a warden had been murdered in the Powhatan. So far, the killer hadn't been apprehended.

  A few minutes later the sound of a single shot echoed.

  Ethel, Number 11-88, fell out of the tree but hit the ground running. Plowing into the ditch—a mistake—with the three dogs right behind her, Ethel decided to make a stand in the shallow water. She rose up on her hind legs, blood trailing out of her belly.

  The dogs came up to her. She cuffed the first collie, knocking him back with a sideswipe, stunning him; then she took the setter into her jaws and went under to drown him. But then the dog broke loose and bobbed up, going back after the weakening bear, joined by the second collie.

  Soon, she was floating in the ditch, head underwater, all three dogs tugging at her flanks.

  Telford got within a hundred feet of the poacher, who was busily tearing off low-hanging branches, when the dogs caught human scent down-trail and let out warning yelps.

  The man in the red-and-black mackinaw looked up, dropped the brush, and grabbed his rifle. He fired a quick shot toward Telford and Chip, who dropped to their knees. Then he began running up-trail, dogs going with him.

  The deer slug went over their heads.

  Breathless, Chip asked, "You want to chase him?"

  Telford sat at the trail edge. His face was drained, tense. "No, but I got a good look at him. I think I'd know him if I saw him again."

  After a while they walked up to where Number 11-88 lay lifeless by the Mattanock. Chip swallowed back grief, feeling tears well up for the second time in six weeks. "You think she has cubs inside?"

  "She might," Telford said. He kept looking down at the soaked and bloody black, slowly shaking his head.

  Finally, with a deep, sad sigh, he said, "Let's go get the truck. We'll take her to the warden's."

  A HALF hour later, the dead bear unloaded in the parking lot of the warden's bungalow, Telford and Chip were answering questions. "He looked like he was about fifty, a big man, broad-shouldered," Telford said.

  "What was he wearing?"

  "A red-and-black mackinaw and a floppy hat."

  "What kind of hat?"

  "One of those brown canvas or cotton kinds, with a brim all the way around. Army type."

  The young warden was busily writing down the details. "You think you'd recognize him if you saw him again?"

  "I'm sure I would," Telford said.

  "What about you, son?" the warden asked Chip.

  "I was behind Tom the whole time, but I got up before he'd disappeared all the way. I saw his mackinaw coat and that floppy hat."

  The warden then reached over into a file cabinet behind him and pulled out an envelope, extracting photos. "Here are twenty-two convictions we've made the last ten years. Take a look."

  Telford and Chip looked at the photos but none looked like the man they'd seen.

  Out in the parking lot, Chip said to Telford, "You told me once that the Indians always apologized after killing a bear."

  Telford muttered, "Yep."

  Chip looked up into the sky. "I apologize to Ethel on behalf of all humans."

  ***

  I remember my first gloomy, cold, wet December in the Powhatan. The roly-poly bears, with up to three inches of solid fat on their backs, food to be drawn off during their sleeping period, were either denned or preparing to do so.

  The males, young and old, were still awake, topping off their bellies with last-minute meals they could strip off the trees or gallberry bushes.

  Earlier the females had busily gathered leaves and other debris to line their winter houses. Some had raked in red bay and fetterbush; others had gathered green-briar and switch cane, loblolly pine needles, and various twigs. Bungs plugged up—they'd already taken to their ground or tree cavities; some awaited birth a few weeks hence.

  Aside from the songs of the wrens, the winter swamp was mostly silent. Now and then a red-tailed hawk would let out a piercing scream as it winged over the trees and tangles. It was the time of recharging the ditches, sloughs, and Lake Nansemond, water flowing quietly in from the western creeks and rivers or surging up from beneath.

  Powhatan Swamp

  English I

  Charles Clewt

  Ohio State University

  ***

  TELFORD and Chip talked in low tones as they went about monitoring the denned females in whatever places of hiding they'd sought out. Telford wanted to mark where they'd located their dens and how they'd constructed them—one bear had put hers in the rotting stump of a bald cypress, sitting out in two feet of water. The beeping led straight to her nest.

  "Why is this important?" Chip asked, puzzled at all the efforts to record the exact den conditions.

  "So that no idiot will say, 'Hey, let's get rid of that rotten old stump.' All these hollow trees or stumps are home to some animal or bird."

  Telford went to Raleigh to spend Christmas with Sara, his girlfriend, and Chip kept monitoring dens, careful not to disturb the sleepers.

  One January morning, after a night of sleet, ice sparkled on the floor of the swamp and glistened on the trees in the early sun. The Powhatan lit up and shimmered.

  Chip set out to find Henry, wondering how he was faring, and worked his frequency once he crossed the lake, going to an area on Trail Seven where Number 1-88 seemed to hang out.

  Just before noon, when the melting ice started to pop and crackle all over the swamp, Chip found Henry under a fallen tree trunk, sleeping soundly, his fur coat laced with rime.

  Chip watched him, feeling a personal attachment now close to affection. Not until his hands and feet began to ache from the cold did he return home.

  ***

  AS IT had done for what the scientists said was eleven thousand years, the Powhatan went from sleepy, quiet winter to bursting spring, then to humid summer. Tom Telford and Chip Clewt began snaring and collaring the bears again once they emerged in March and April. They listened to the beeps, plotted them, and continued to count them. Now it was nearing autumn again.

  By early October, they'd even recaptured, recollared, and retagged Henry, whose collar had come off sometime in July. He was now Number 56-89—as hardy as ever, as comical as ever, as lovable as ever.

  "Just keep doing what we've been doing," said Telford late one afternoon. Light was fading; shadows were long.

  He was about to leave for Raleigh and NC State to work on his dissertation, that high-sounding word that meant summarizing original research, hopefully leading to someday being called "Doctor Thomas Telford." He'd had his master's degree in biology for three years.

  Chip nodded.

  They were out on Trail Eight, northwest of the lake, having monitored four bears in the morning and early afternoon.

  "Take the bearings and make the usual notes, then we'll do the computer work when I get back."

  That would likely be in mid-January. Chip was pleased that Tom trusted him to contin
ue the monitoring and plotting, though he wasn't particularly surprised. He'd learned much in the many months they'd been together. From setting the snares to mixing the tranquilizing drugs, Chip could do whatever Telford did, though the capturing remained a two-man job.

  By now, Telford was almost another father to Chip, though quite different from the quiet one who lived and painted in the spillway house. Tom talked easily, and a lot. Each new day with him was still an adventure.

  "I'll call you every week to see what's going on."

  Except for the radio receiver they were using, Tom had dropped off all the equipment at the spillway house the day before, worried that it might be stolen from the rental trailer while he was gone.

  "I guess that about covers everything," he said, shaking Chip's hand, giving him a hug. "Have a happy Thanksgiving and a merry Christmas. That goes for your dad, too."

  The elder Clewt was in New York.

  Chip wished Tom the same, then said, "Tom, can I tell you something?"

  Telford laughed. "You always do. What now?"

  "You're someone special." There, he'd said it.

  The laugh faded, and Telford wrapped his arms around Chip again, saying, "So are you." Standing back, he added another laugh, softer. "But let's not ruin a good thing."

  Chip laughed, too, and took charge of the receiver. "See you in January."

  Then the white all-terrain Toyota bumped southward along Trail Eight, which flanked the sluggish waters of Dinwiddie Slough.

  ***

  A MILE and a half from East 159, where Trail Eight took a sharp bend to the west around overhangs of heavy brush, Telford almost collided with an old brown pickup truck parked at the edge of the slough. A ladder rack was perched over the chassis. The pickup blocked the trail, and Telford had to slam on his brakes to keep from rear ending it.

  At the same instant, his heart slammed. Bending over the opened tailgate, just as surprised, was a big man in a red-and-black mackinaw wearing a floppy brown canvas hat. He was in the midst of loading a black bear into the truck.

  There was little doubt that the bear was dead—little doubt that this was the same poacher he'd seen on Trail Six when Number 11-88 had been shot. Less than ten feet away, Telford clearly recognized the hulking, blocky-faced bear-killer. His whisker-stubbled features were coarse, his eyes small.