Part 4 (1/2)
On spying Granddaddy, he drew himself to attention and saluted smartly, saying, ”Cap'n Tate.”
”Good afternoon, Mr. Fleming. No need to salute. We are both old men. The War is long over.”
Mr. Fleming stood at ease and said, ”The War of Northern Aggression will never be over, Captain. The Cause is not lost! The South shall rise again!”
”Mr. Fleming, let us not live mired in the past. Let us be forward-thinking men.”
I had heard similar exchanges before. Mr. Fleming was easily riled up and could spew pure vitriol on the subject of Yankees. Under normal circ.u.mstances, it could be quite entertaining, but today was not a normal day.
Granddaddy continued, ”We must hurry. I need to send three telegrams immediately.”
”Certainly, sir. If you'll pencil your message in this blank here, I'll get them out as soon as I can. Who are they going to?”
”The mayors of Galveston, Houston, and Corpus Christi. But I'm afraid I don't know their names.”
”That's not a problem. We'll address them to His Honor the Mayor, and that should do it. I know all the head telegraphers. We'll make sure they get delivered.”
Granddaddy wrote his message and handed it to Mr. Fleming, who peered at it through his half-moon spectacles and read aloud: ”'Seagull sighted two hundred miles from coast, stop. Evidence of major storm coming, stop. Evacuation may be necessary, stop.'” He lifted his gla.s.ses to his forehead and frowned. ”That it, Cap'n?”
”That's correct, thank you. Galveston Island lacks a seawall and is the most vulnerable, so please send that one first.”
”This is mighty serious business. You really think they should get out because of a bird?”
”Mr. Fleming, have you ever seen a laughing gull in Caldwell County?”
”Well, no, I guess not. But it still strikes me as a pretty drastic measure. I'll bet they're used to big winds down there.”
”Not like this, Mr. Fleming. I fear a calamity of the worst magnitude.”
”You really saw a seagull?”
”My granddaughter saw one earlier this morning.”
Mr. Fleming cut his eyes sideways at me, and I flinched. I could read his thoughts, something along the lines of, Evacuate Texas's largest cities on the word of a child? What madness is this?
Granddaddy continued, ”There is evidence that the animals have some senses that we do not, which may warn them of natural disasters. There are many anecdotal accounts of such things. The elephants of Batavia are said to foretell tidal waves; the bats of Mandalay are said to predict earthquakes.”
Mr. Fleming spoke slowly. ”Well ... the lines are all jammed up right now. The price of cotton is swinging pretty good today, so there's lots of commercial traffic. I've got a bunch of buy and sell orders stacked up ahead of you. I'd say there's a couple of hours' wait.”
I had never heard Granddaddy raise his voice, and he did not do so now, but ice entered his gaze, and steel, his tone. He leaned over the counter and fixed Mr. Fleming with a piercing blue stare from beneath his bushy dragon eyebrows. ”This, Mr. Fleming, is a matter of grave importance, possibly of life and death. Mere commercial transactions will have to wait.”
Mr. Fleming squirmed and said, ”Well, Cap'n, since it's you, I'll move you up to the head of the line. Be another ten minutes, though.”
”Good man, Mr. Fleming. Your service in this time of need shall not be forgotten.”
Granddaddy took a chair and stared into s.p.a.ce. I felt too jittery to sit still on a bet. Since nothing was going to happen for a spell, I ran across the street to the gin, where Father was conducting business in his gla.s.sed-in office. He waved at me briefly through the gla.s.s. The place was a hive of activity as usual, engaged in the never-ending business of separating the cotton from its seeds and packing the fiber into huge bales for s.h.i.+pment downstream. The thrumming of the great leather machinery belts, the deafening noise from the floor, the shouting of orders back and forth, all of it served only to increase my tension. I wandered into the relative quiet of the a.s.sistant manager's office to study the resident bird, Polly the Parrot, from a safe distance.
Polly (it seemed that all parrots were named Polly, regardless of gender) was a three-foot-tall Amazon parrot that Granddaddy had bought for my twelfth birthday, the most gorgeous bird anyone had ever seen, with a golden chest, azure wings, and crimson tail. He was also touchy and irritable, unfortunate personality traits in a bird possessed of such an alarming beak and tremendous claws. He had proved so disturbing a presence in our house that, to everyone's relief (including mine), he'd been donated to the gin's a.s.sistant manager, Mr. O'Flanagan, an old salt who dearly loved a parrot. They were known to sing rude sea chanteys together behind closed doors.
I compared the gull with the parrot, both so far from home, one displaced by Nature, one displaced by Man. Did Polly dream of tropical climes? Did he dream of lush jungles filled with sticky ripe fruits and tasty white grubs? Yet here he lived chained to a perch in a cotton gin in Fentress, Texas, and I was technically part of the reason. For the first time, I felt sorry for him.
I took a cracker from a bowl on the desk and gingerly approached him. He fixed me with his fierce yellow eye and yelled, ”Braawwkk!” I gulped and slowly extended my peace offering to him, pincered between the very tips of my fingers. Fingertips that might not be mine for long. I whispered, ”Polly want a cracker?”
He extended a terrifying claw, and I suddenly questioned my own sanity. Was I completely mad? Retreat now with all digits intact! But he plucked the cracker from my trembling hand with surprising gentleness, then said in his nasal otherworldly voice, ”'Ank you.”
I blinked at him. He blinked at me. Then he delicately nibbled his treat, as precise and genteel as any fancy lady at a society luncheon. So. We had a truce of sorts.
Mr. O'Flanagan came in and greeted us. ”I see you're talking to Polly. Polly's a good bird, aren't you, my lad?” He ruffled the feathers on the back of the bird's neck, a move I thought would surely irritate him, but he only leaned into Mr. O'Flanagan's hand, muttering liquid sounds of pleasure. I marveled at this side of Polly and figured that maybe we could be friends too. But far more pressing matters awaited, and it occurred to me that Mr. O'Flanagan could help.
”Sir? Mr. O'Flanagan? You've sailed around the world, haven't you?”
”I have that, my girl. I've seen the sun rise over Bora-Bora; I've seen the beacon fires at Tierra del Fuego.”
”Is it true...” I hesitated, torn about questioning Granddaddy's judgment. But so much was at stake, including my own peace of mind.
”Yes, darlin'?”
I plunged ahead. ”Is it true that the animals can predict a coming disaster?”
”I believe they can, my dear. Why, once when I was in New Guinea, I saw the snakes fleeing their homes in great numbers only an hour before an earthquake struck.”
Relief washed over me. I dashed from the room, crying ”Thank you!” over my shoulder, and was gone.
I got back to the telegraph office in time to catch Mr. Fleming enter his call sign on the ”bug” and begin rattling off the first message. I craned over the counter to watch, fascinated by this miraculous ability to instantaneously ”talk” to someone hundreds of miles away. His fingers bounced on the bug, clicking out the shorter dots and longer dashes, sending actual language sparking along an electrical wire at the amazing speed of forty words per minute. It was a wonderful tool, and I coveted one of my own. Perhaps one day in the future we would each have our own personal telegraphs and shoot messages back and forth to our friends along an electrical wire. Far-fetched, but still a girl could dream.
Three minutes later, Mr. Fleming said, ”Well, that's done. Here's your receipt, Cap'n.”
”Mr. Fleming, I thank you for your commendable service.”
Mr. Fleming leaped to attention and saluted again. ”Thankee, Cap'n.”
We walked to the gin, Granddaddy again lost in silence. He conferred with Father behind the gla.s.s; Father at first looked puzzled, then concerned. Granddaddy emerged a few minutes later, and we headed back to the house.
With trepidation, I asked, ”Will we be safe here? Should we evacuate too?”
”What was that? Oh no. We may have some high winds and heavy rain, but I don't expect any loss of life. Not this far inland.”
”Are you sure? How can you tell?”
”The gull could have flown farther inland into the Hill Country, and yet it stopped here. Did it appear to be hurt in any way?”
”No, sir.”
”Then it stopped here not because of injury but because it deemed Fentress a safe place. Hurricanes quickly lose their force as they begin to travel overland. I trust the gull. Don't you?”
Despite Mr. O'Flanagan's confirmation, I could not answer, due to my worry about what I had set in motion. Three great cities might be thrown into panic, all based on Calpurnia Virginia Tate's brief sighting of an unknown bird. Me. A n.o.body from Nowhere. What had I done? Nervous hives erupted on my neck.