Woof Page 14

  But Grammy, cooler in both hands, was already aboard, moving like I hadn’t seen her before, like a much younger person. She shoved the cooler under the rear seat, cranked up the small outboard, which throbbed away with a low and steady rhythm.

  “Free the lines, Birdie, and cast off. And that dog better …” Grammy gazed at me, sending some message. Whatever it was, I missed it, but I got what came next, namely a soft tap on my back and Birdie’s quiet voice. “In the bow. Nice and easy.”

  What could be easier? I hopped into the bow, sat up straight and tall, a total boating pro, facing front. Birdie untied the lines and climbed in, sitting beside me. Grammy throttled up and then we were off.

  First time in a boat, meaning a moving boat on the water, not a boat hanging from the ceiling in some stupid emporium. And … and it was just as good as swimming! Or even better! “Looks like Bowser’s a natural-born sailor,” Birdie said, coiling a line and pushing the coil into the little wedge-shaped space at the very front of the boat.

  Birdie: right again. I loved this! The gliding motion, fresh breeze, the bubbling of the water passing by, the smells, so many, that rose up from the bayou. Who had it better than ol’ Bowser? Grammy swung us around in a tight turn and headed up the bayou in the direction I hadn’t yet been, away from the bridge. Her way of steering the boat felt just plain right. Not the kind of thing I can explain: You’ll have to take the word of a natural-born sailor.

  We rode along in silence, the buildings of St. Roch growing sparser and then disappearing completely, the bayou narrowing, tall mossy trees, their trunks growing right out of the water, closing in on both sides.

  “Very … very nice and peaceful,” Donny said after a while.

  “Peaceful, huh?” said Grammy.

  Then came more silence, one of those uncomfortable human silences where you’d have thought chitchat would be going on, except it wasn’t. Birdie twisted around to look back, so I did, too. Grammy sat in the stern, her eyes—not so washed out and watery now—gazing straight ahead. Donny was feeling around in the pockets of a many-pocketed vest he wore. He took binoculars and slung them around his neck, meaning he had to take his hat off. Hey! The shaved-head type. I’d forgotten that. Too bad: It was a look I didn’t like, reminded me of a bad man name of Manuel I didn’t want to think about. Donny put his hat back on. That was better.

  “Ever been in the swamp, sir?” Birdie said.

  “Donny,” Donny said, maybe a little irritated.

  “Donny,” said Birdie.

  “Nope. This is a first. Looking forward to it.”

  “No one knows the swamp better than Grammy,” Birdie said. “You can ask her anything.”

  “Yeah?” Donny said.

  “Hrrmf,” said Grammy.

  “So,” said Donny, “been here long?”

  “Excuse me?” Grammy said.

  “Meaning in these parts.”

  Grammy had sunglasses hanging on a lanyard around her neck. She put them on, said nothing. I have a big problem with sunglasses. They make humans look a bit like insects. A great big insect is not a good idea. Take those shades off, Grammy! Take ’em off! But she did not.

  “Um,” Birdie said. “We’re from these parts, going way back.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it’s my lucky day. I’ll be learning all the deep dark secrets of the swamps.”

  Grammy grunted a not-very-friendly-sounding grunt and swung us into a narrow side passage off the bayou. The tall mossy trees closed in some more. Grammy throttled back and we glided along.

  “Grammy?” Birdie said. “Should we say something about the trees?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “That one over there at two o’clock—” Birdie began.

  “There?” said Donny, pointing to a real tall tree.

  “Uh, yeah,” Birdie said, “except we don’t, um, point out here in the swamp, on account of it alerts all the creatures.”

  “Really?” said Donny, giving her the big smile again, the upper half of his face still in the hat brim’s shadow. “Don’t see any creatures at the moment.”

  “No?” said Grammy, her voice not friendly for sure.

  I got a bit confused. Wasn’t Donny a paying customer? Weren’t you supposed to make paying customers happy? But maybe I was missing something. That happens in life, no big deal.

  “No?” Grammy said again. “How about that blue heron at one o’clock, left of Birdie’s tree? And the bald eagle up at the top, same darn tree. Trio of turtles on the log floatin’ by on the other side—two box turtles, one snapper.”

  “Bald eagle?” said Donny. “I don’t see—you mean up there?” He pointed. “That’s a bald eagle?”

  High above, a big dark bird with a white head flapped its powerful wings, lifted off the tree, spiraled way up in the sky—like … like it owned the place!—and flew off.

  “Was,” said Grammy.

  We came out from under the shade of the tree and the sun glared off the water. In that glare I caught a glimpse of the upper part of Donny’s face, where the smile didn’t reach. Those eyes were not just super-watchful now, but also annoyed. One more thing about Donny: He still gave off the scent—although hardly there at all now—of Loco, my big red-and-white pal. I tried to fit things together and got nowhere, maybe even went backward.

  “No problem, Donny,” Birdie said. “Not pointing takes getting used to. Right, Grammy?”

  “Rat snake at three o’clock,” Grammy said.

  Donny swung quickly around to the other side. Have I mentioned he was a pretty big dude? Not the muscleman kind of big dude from the gym, more like the pear-shaped kind of big dude from the all-you-can-eat buffet. Nothing against all-you-can-eat buffets personally, although I’d never been to one, only heard them talked about by Manuel and his nasty pals back in the city. But forget all that. The point I’m making is about Donny being a big dude, and it turned out when big dudes moved suddenly in a small boat like ours, the small boat got tippy.

  “WHOA!” cried Donny, clutching the sides of the boat.

  But with a little movement of her gnarled, veiny hand on the stick, Grammy got everything settled down right away. Off to the side, a long yellow-and-black snake dipped its head underwater and swam down out of sight. I went into high alert. Was diving in after that snake and giving it a piece of my mind the way to go? Before I could really get started on that thought, I felt Birdie’s hand on my collar, not heavy, but there.

  “Is it poisonous?” said Donny, his voice much higher all of a sudden.

  “Nah,” Grammy said. She turned her shaded eyes on Donny. “Where you from?”

  Donny took a deep breath, got his voice back down to normal. “Biloxi.”

  “But originally. Some big city, I’m guessing.”

  “Dallas.”

  “Yup,” said Grammy. “First time in Louisiana?”

  “First time up here but not in the state,” Donny said. “Went to college in New Orleans.”

  “Tulane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good school,” said Grammy. “You were about to say something about the trees, Birdie?”

  “Uh, yeah, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “ ’Course it matters. Take them cypresses out of the swamp and what would be left?”

  “I don’t know, Grammy.”

  “Zip. Hurricanes would take the whole swamp, we didn’t have the cypresses. This is a forest—that’s what people don’t get. Tell Donny here what those stick-out things at the bottom of the cypresses are called.”

  “Knees,” said Birdie.

  “Trees with knees, Donny,” Grammy said. “Easy to remember.”

  “I’ll remember,” Donny said. “I’ve got a good memory.” He flashed that big mouth-only smile. “A real good memory.” The sun glared off the water again and I got another look at Donny’s eyes: watchful, yes, still annoyed, yes, and also real smart. I had the craziest thought: Come back, snake! But it
did not.

  GRAMMY STEERED US ALONG THIS NARROW passage, which got narrower and kind of winding, deep-green shadows falling over us. There were lily pads, yellow and green, and the water was so shallow I could see the bottom, soft-looking, brown, with lots of logs lying on it. Some bubbles rose up from one of those logs, bubbles smelling distinctly froggy to my way of thinking. Grammy cut the engine and then came silence, except for the soft shh-shh of the water sliding by. What an amazing moment, the very first time in my life that I heard no human sounds at all! None! None of their talking, laughing, crying, shouting. None of their machines—TVs, phones, cars, jackhammers, planes. Not even a hum from overhead wires, no wires being anywhere in sight. Then, from very far away, just about at the limit of what I can hear, came the faint bark-bark of one of my kind. Even out here we were still in the picture, me and my kind! I felt good.

  Donny shifted on his seat, got more comfortable. And just like that, humans were back up front. “Think we’ll see any gators?” he said.

  “Could be,” Grammy said.

  “I heard some of the swamp tours guarantee gator sightings,” Donny said.

  “Which swamp tours would that be?” said Grammy.

  “No names, specifically,” said Donny. “It’s just the word out there.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Grammy.

  “Makes me wonder if there’s some special gator treat in that cooler of yours.”

  “Gator treat?”

  “A little tidbit gators like,” Donny said. “Something to make them come running.”

  What was this? Donny wanted gators to come running? I shifted a little closer to the bow, getting as far away from him as possible.

  “Others, mentioning no names specifically, might do that.” Grammy gave Donny a direct look. Two tiny Donnies appeared on the lenses of her sunglasses. “We do not.”

  “Why? Seems like it would be good business.”

  “Maybe, for folks who want to see gators acting unnatural. Our customers prefer nature how it is.”

  “Nature how it is can be pretty messy,” Donny said.

  “Messy,” said Grammy.

  Sometimes Grammy had a way of saying things that stopped you and made you think. I stopped and thought, got nowhere. Meanwhile, the narrow waterway we were on began to open up, and soon we were gliding across a small lake with tall, mossy cypresses all around and out in the middle a strange little reedy island with what looked like a shack sitting on it.

  “A duck blind?” Donny said.

  “Correct,” said Grammy. “That one we call the Hilton. I can take you inside.”

  We rode toward the duck blind, whatever a duck blind might be. I knew ducks, of course, roundish birds that could fly and swim. And lots of ducks were sitting on the water in front of the duck blind, but when we got closer the only smell coming off those ducks was of wood and maybe some paint, no longer fresh. They didn’t smell like ducks at all! They didn’t even smell of life. I lost interest in the ducks.

  “Are you a hunter, Donny?” Birdie said.

  “Nah,” said Donny. “Don’t even own a gun, myself. I’m just a city boy.”

  “What do you do?” Birdie said.

  “Birdie!” said Grammy. “That’s rude.”

  “No problem,” said Donny. “I’m in real estate.”

  Grammy took us in a circle around the island. At the back was a narrow channel hardly wider than the boat. Grammy cut the engine again and we drifted into it. On one side was the back of the front wall of the shack, if that makes any sense. A strange shack since it had no other walls. Halfway up was a kind of shelf, mostly closed in except for an entrance hole. In a beam of light shining onto the shelf from above I caught a sight I hadn’t seen since my city days, namely a couple of empty shotgun shells, the fronts blown off.

  “You hunker down in there,” Grammy said, “and when a duck comes flying in you stand up and let fly.”

  “Done much hunting yourself?” Donny said.

  “Done pretty much all you can do in here, one time or another.” Grammy pushed off on a pole sticking up from the water, and we backed out of the duck blind, drifted into open water. “How about you give the talk, Birdie?”

  “Me?” said Birdie.

  “No reason why not.”

  Donny twisted around to look our way. Did Birdie get nervous all of a sudden? Human nervousness is one of those can’t-miss smells. I edged closer to her, got as close as possible.

  “Well,” she said. “Um. The levee. Over straight ahead is the levee. Folks have picnics up there. Crawfish boils, things like that.” Birdie’s face started going pinkish, maybe because of the sun, which was pretty hot even out here on the water.

  “Basin,” Grammy said.

  “Right,” said Birdie. “Basin. We’re in this really big basin now, the biggest wetland in the whole world—isn’t that right, Grammy?”

  “Biggest in the U. S. of A., anyhow,” said Grammy. “Which is good enough for me. Go on. Part river.”

  “Yeah,” Birdie said. “It’s part river, part bottomland forest, part backswamp, and the water goes from fresh to … to …”

  “Brackish.”

  “… brackish to just about salty down by the Gulf. So there’s all kinds of fish to catch. Plus the birds, of course. Blue herons like you saw already, and egrets, and that kingfisher with the white neck, and those horrible cormorants that catch snakes sometimes, and eagles, which you also already … um. But not to catch. Not the birds.” She went even pinker. “And we’ve even got black bears!”

  “Yeah?” Donny said. “Ever seen one?”

  “Not me myself,” Birdie said. “But Grammy has, haven’t you, Grammy?”

  “On the endangered list, but yeah, I’ve seen ’em. Actually kind of peaceable, you treat them right. Like any other creature,” she went on. “With the exception of one.”

  After that came a silence. Then Birdie said, “Should I do the stuff about the Mississippi changing courses?”

  “Another time,” Grammy said. She cranked the engine and we headed away from the duck blind. Now we had bears in the picture? Snakes, gators, bears? Plus ducks made out of wood? What else was coming? I sat up tall, on highest alert.

  We crept along the side of the lake, reached the far end. Back down at the end we’d come from, a new boat had appeared, much bigger than ours and full of people.

  “Rival tour boat?” Donny said.

  “Could be,” said Grammy, not even glancing that way.

  A rival? I took a more careful look. Bigger boat, more people, but there were none of my kind aboard. Therefore, we were doing better. Best tour boat in the whole swamp! It’s great to be on top of the heap!

  Meanwhile, Donny was gazing through his binoculars. I’m not a big fan of humans with binoculars for eyes; it makes them even more machinelike than they already are, which is plenty, in my opinion.

  “Looks like they’re throwing something in the water. Something … kind of bloody, maybe. Wonder if … Hey! Did you see that gator? And there’s another! And one more! Wow! It snapped up that whole piece!”

  Grammy said nothing, but we sped up, increasing the distance between us and the other boat. It was soon quite far away, although not so far I couldn’t hear excited human voices carrying across the water.

  “Can’t tame a gator, can you, Grammy?” Birdie said after a while.

  “Nope,” said Grammy. “Means he’s just messin’ with them. And why mess with gators? Why mess with any creatures?”

  “Who’s he?” said Donny.

  Grammy didn’t answer. Another one of those heavy silences started up, and just when I couldn’t take it anymore and was getting ready to bark that silence away but good, Birdie spoke up.

  “Old man Straker. He owns the other place.”

  Donny laughed.

  “What’s funny?” Grammy said, speaking up real quick.

  “Nothing,” said Donny. “How old is this old guy?”

  Grammy shrugged her bony shoulders.


  “Um, I don’t actually know,” Birdie said. “Hey—maybe you know him.”

  “Excuse me?” said Donny, his voice going softer.

  “From Tulane. Didn’t you say you went to Tulane? All the Strakers go to Tulane.”

  “Huh?” said Grammy, suddenly raising up her sunglasses and eyeing Birdie. “How’d you know a thing like that?”

  “Um,” said Birdie. “Uh, I’m not really …”

  “Strayhorn, did you say?” Donny said.

  “Straker,” said Birdie.

  Donny shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. And Tulane’s a pretty big school.”

  “But not as big as LSU,” Birdie said.

  Donny gazed at her. “No, not as big as LSU.” He smiled. “But maybe this old guy—Straker, was it?—is even older than me, meaning we wouldn’t have been there at the same time.”

  Birdie nodded.

  “Owl,” said Grammy, sunglasses back in place. “Third tree, coming up.”

  Third was what again? Something way beyond me. I watched the trees going by on one side, saw no owl, no birds of any kind, just branches, leaves, tree bark—the usual tree sights. But just as Birdie said, “Hey, it’s Night Train!” I sniffed a birdish scent, and there on a branch practically right above our heads stood a chubby brown bird with enormous dark eyes.

  “Night Train?” said Donny.

  “Shh,” said Birdie. “He doesn’t like a lot of noise.”

  “I don’t see—” Donny began, lowering his voice. “Oh, there.”

  “Night Train,” said Birdie. “My owl.”

  “Your owl?”

  “My good luck owl. Of course, he belongs to nobody.”

  Whew! I did not like the idea of Birdie having an owl, not one little bit. Me and Birdie: a team. Wasn’t that obvious? And there was no room for more. My mind was absolutely made up on that question, case closed.

  “You can tell one owl from another?” Donny said.

  “Sure she can,” said Grammy. “Good grief.”

  Night Train, the name of this chubby owl gazing down at us, if I was following things right—no money-back guarantee on that, my friends—now turned those enormous dark eyes on Birdie’s upturned face, and very quietly went hoo-hoo. The fur on the back of my neck stood straight up, no telling why.