A Death On The Wolf (4 page)

“
Yes, now come on. We can get a little more done before lunch.”

Frankie and I followed my father back around the house. Frankie said, “I wonder what that was?”

“
Daddy, do you know what kind of bike that was?” I said to my father.

He turned back and said over his shoulder, “I didn’t get a good look at it. Get one of my hats like I told you, Nelson, and get back to work.”

I stopped with Frankie at his bicycle, which was parked behind our car under the carport in the backyard. Bear was lying under the back of the car, panting. Normally he’d be up and jumping all over Frankie, but the day’s heat had taken its toll on him.

“
You sure you can’t go?” Frankie asked.

I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head toward my father who was still walking toward the barn and the unfinished fence. “I can go tomorrow late if I get it painted,” I offered.

Frankie was on his bike now and kicking up the stand. He looked up at me with a frown. “If we go tomorrow I’ll have to bring Mark.”

“
So?” I said. Mark was Frankie’s little brother. He was eleven and relished every minute he could spend with his brother and me.

“
It’s more fun when it’s just me and you,” Frankie said. “Why do you always want him to go with us?” he added.

“
You’re the one who just said Mark would have to go, not me,” I said. I didn’t know why Frankie thought I always wanted Mark to go with us. I couldn’t think of a single time I’d ever suggested it.

“
Mama and Daddy are going down to The Pass tomorrow after church to have dinner with some friends. They don’t like me to leave him at the house alone for very long when they’re gone.”

“
Well, I don’t care if he goes with us. It’s up to you.”

With a wave and a “See ya,” Frankie turned and pedaled off. I ran inside to get one of Daddy’s caps.

Chapter 4

Frankie

It was Sunday, just after noon, and we were riding home from church. It wasn’t quite as hot today as it had been yesterday, and the Batmobile’s air conditioning was doing its job. It was just Daddy, Sachet, and me. Normally, Aunt Charity rode with us to Bells Ferry Presbyterian Church, but she drove her Cadillac today because it was the Sunday she and the other ladies in her Circle went to visit the orphans in the Masonic Home for Children over in Poplarville.

“
Daddy, I’m cold,” Sachet said from the back seat.

He looked at her in the rear view mirror. “Here, baby girl,” he said, and tossed his suit coat back to her. “Cover up.”

I could not help but smile. It was freezing in the car, and Daddy loved it. He worked in the sweltering heat down at the creosote plant five days a week. Our house was not air conditioned. His pickup truck was not air conditioned. But this car that he loved was, and as far as Daddy was concerned, its air conditioner had two settings: Off and Wide Open.

“
What did you think of the sermon this morning?” Daddy asked.

“
It was okay,” I said.

Our pastor, the Reverend Douglas J. McMillan, D.D., had retired back in the spring and in June the church had begun in earnest the search for his replacement. The Pulpit Committee (the chairman of which was my father, who was also an elder and Clerk of the Session) had interviewed three candidates thus far. I would miss Rev. Doug. He was the only minister I’d ever known. He baptized me, taught me the Shorter Catechism, and served me my first Communion. He was Southern Presbyterian to the core and could make the most untenable tenets of Calvinism understandable, showing how each one flowed naturally from the Word of God. The young minister who preached this morning was competent, but we could all tell he was nervous. He had a pretty wife who sat in one of the front pews with their two rambunctious children. Daddy had offered to take them to children’s church with Sachet after the offering, but the mother refused. Thus, the sermon was continually interrupted by their outbursts, which did not bode well for extending a call to this man.

“
Dad?” I said, looking over at him.

He glanced over at me, careful to keep one eye on the road. “Yes?”

“
What are we going to have for lunch?”

“
Leftovers from last night, I guess.” He looked over at me. “Why? What are you thinking?” I could tell from the expression on his face he was thinking the same thing I was.

“
Aunt Charity is halfway to Poplarville by now,” I said.

Daddy put his tongue in his cheek and let out a little laugh. He looked in the mirror at Sachet. “Baby girl, you want a hamburger for lunch?”

Suddenly Sachet appeared in the gap between the front bucket seats. I turned to look at her and started laughing. She had put on Daddy’s suit coat and looked like a hobo’s child.

“
Don’t laugh at me!” she demanded.

“
Oh, will you relax, Sash,” I said. “I swear, you get more like Grandma Gody every day.”

Sachet stuck her tongue out at me and Daddy was giving me a frown. “So how about it?” he said, returning his attention to Sachet. “You want to eat at the Colonel Dixie?”

“
Won’t Aunt Charity be mad?” she asked.

“
Yes,” Daddy said, “but she’ll get over it.”

“
Okay,” Sachet said.

We were almost back home and Daddy was starting to slow down, looking for a place to turn around so we could drive the three miles back to town. I had a thought. “Dad, Frankie’s house is just up the road. Can we go by there and see if he wants to come with us?”

Daddy looked at the Bulova watch on his wrist that Sachet and I had given him for Christmas. “Don’t you think they’re probably already sitting down to Sunday dinner, sport?”

“
Frankie told me yesterday his mom and dad were going down to Pass Christian to eat with some friends.”

“
All right, we’ll see if he wants to go. But, Nelson, we got the fence done yesterday and I want it painted today, son. It shouldn’t take you more than three or four hours and then you can have the rest of the day until dark to go and do whatever with Frankie. No play until the work is done.”

“
I know,” I said.

We rounded the next curve and there was the entrance to the Thompson’s farm a hundred yards up the road. Daddy reached over and punched the MAX button on the air conditioner to close off the outside air coming in because he knew we were about to be assaulted by the stench of the hundred or so cows that would be congregating near the barn.

“
Look coming there,” Daddy said, and pointed.

“
That’s the bike that went by the house yesterday,” I said. It was headed straight for us. Daddy reached over and hit the electric switch to lower his window so we could hear the bike as it roared by. I sat up in the seat and watched it flash by us.

Daddy was watching it in the outside rear view mirror. “That’s a Vincent,” he said. “How about that. Don’t see one of those everyday.”

“
What’s a Vincent?” I asked.

“
It’s a British bike. Expensive. Fast. They don’t make them anymore. Rollie Free hit a hundred and fifty miles an hour on a Vincent at Bonneville back in ’48.”

“
Who around here would have a bike like that?”

“
Probably one of the flyboys from down at Keesler just up here riding the back roads.”

Suddenly, Daddy was hitting the brakes hard. Watching the motorcycle, he’d almost overshot the entrance to the Thompson farm. The “Fresh Eggs” and “Fresh Milk” signs were rapidly approaching and I wasn’t sure if Daddy was going to be able to stop in time to make the turn. But with a deft flick of the wrist, he wheeled the Batmobile into the Thompson’s drive, sending gravel and sand flying, and Sachet sliding across the backseat.

When we pulled up in front of Frankie’s house, Daddy blew the horn just as I was opening my door to get out. Frankie came to the screen door that opened onto their front porch. Their house wasn’t air conditioned, either.

“
Hey, man,” I said, walking up to the porch. Frankie still had on his church clothes: a white button-down shirt and navy dress slacks; we were dressed exactly alike.

“
Hey,” Frankie said. “What are you doing here?” He opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch in his sock feet.

“
We’re going to eat lunch at the Colonel Dixie. You want to come with us?”

Just then, Frankie’s little brother, Mark, came to the door. He was dressed just like Frankie and me, except he had on a tie. Frankie turned to him and said, “Go fix you a sandwich for lunch like Mama said. I’m going with them to eat in town.”

Mark pushed the screen door open and looked at me. “Hey, Nels,” he said.

I could see the disappointment in his face at the prospect of having to stay here alone and eat a sandwich. “Hey,” I said. “You want to come, too?”

Mark’s countenance immediately brightened and Frankie just glared at me. The moment was awkward, or at least as awkward as a moment like this could be between two boys who had been best friends since they could walk. I could hear the Batmobile idling twenty yards behind me and I knew Daddy was waiting.

“
I don’t want to go,” Frankie finally said. He turned, pushed his brother out of the way, and went back in the house, the slamming of the screen door punctuating his retreat.

I bounded up the steps and went to the door. I peered through the screen, but couldn’t see anything. “Frankie!” I hollered. “Don’t be a jerk, man. Come on and go with us.” I waited for an answer. Nothing.

Daddy gave a quick beep on the horn. I turned and looked down at Mark standing beside me. “Come on,” I said and headed off the porch.

“
You mean I can still go?” Mark asked.

“
Yeah, come on,” I said, waving for him to follow me.

Mark ran up beside me, and he was grinning from ear to ear. I was taking long strides to get back to the car quickly and Mark was having to near jog to keep up. “Frankie’s going to be mad,” he said, his voice bouncing in time with his every step.

“
I don’t care,” I said.

I opened the door to the car and leaned the back of the front seat up so Mark could get in the backseat with Sachet. Daddy looked over at me as I slammed the seat back down and got in. “Where’s Frankie?” he asked.

“
He’s not coming,” I said, sounding more angry than I really was.

“
Okay,” Daddy said, raising his eyebrows. He turned to Mark in the back seat. “How are you, young fella?”

“
Fine, Mr. Lem. Thanks for letting me go with y’all.”

Daddy punched the D button on the dash to put the Batmobile in gear, did a wide U-turn in the Thompson’s front yard, and we were headed back down their drive.

As we rode along, Mark said something about how good it felt in Daddy’s air conditioned car, and the two of them were talking now, but I wasn’t really listening I was thinking about Frankie. We had had disagreements and falling-outs before, as best friends are wont to do when they grow tired of each other and need some space. But this was different, this simmering animosity over his brother and me that had been on a slow boil for weeks now. It began one Saturday over a month ago when Mark went with us down to the river to swim.

Frankie and I would typically ride down to the river on our bikes, or both of us on “my” Honda, wearing nothing but our cut-offs and tee shirts. Once there, we’d shuck them off, along with our underwear, and hit the water. That Saturday, Mark wore his swimming trunks and, having the inherent modesty of a preteen boy on the cusp of puberty, would not strip down in front of us on the beach. He waited until he was in the river, where the dark water of the Wolf would ensure his privacy. He pulled off his trunks and then let them float along in the water with him until he got to playing around with us, not paying attention, and the current carried them away. None of us realized they were gone until we were ready to head back home nearly two hours later. Mark’s trunks were probably halfway to Bay St. Louis by then.

Frankie thought this predicament was hilarious, and he could not stop laughing at his little brother, who was standing in waist-deep water, watching us on the sandy beach putting our clothes back on. I didn’t laugh. I could see just how embarrassed Mark was as he looked at me with pleading eyes and said, “How am I going to get home?” That sent Frankie into another fit of laughter and I told him to shut up. I didn’t fully understand Mark’s embarrassment, but I wasn’t going to make fun of it. Even if he rode his bike buck-naked the two miles back to his house, the chances of anyone seeing him were slim to none. I was about to pull my tee shirt over my head when I had a thought. “Mark,” I called to him, “you can wrap my shirt around you and I’ll take you home on the Honda.”

Mark walked out of the river with his hands over his privates, his pale hips and butt a stark contrast to the rest of his tanned body—especially since he had the same dark olive skin that Frankie had: skin that soaked up the Mississippi sun and returned a tan any woman down on the beach at Biloxi would die for—and many probably did. Frankie had told me there was Choctaw blood in the Thompson boys from their mama’s side of the family, and their dark eyes, dark hair, and complexion showed it.