An Owl's Whisper (41 page)

The mayor stepped forward. “On behalf of the people of Mullen, I declare our Mrs. Chandler a heroine.” A number of the county folk hollered affirmations.

Still in Stan’s arms, Eva glanced over her shoulder at the crowd. She eyed them as if they were fearsome. Dangerous. Clutching Stan, she whispered, “Take me home.”

On the ride home, little Françie asked, “Mommy, how come the man who talks funny said you were a hero and you said you weren’t? Who’s lying?”

“Oh,
Mon Bijou
, no one lied,” Eva said. “It’s only hard, sometimes, to say if someone really is a hero.”

Cat said, “Dad was a hero in the war, wasn’t he? He told me he rode in on a white stallion, firing six-shooters into the air, and rescued you from the bad men.”

Eva laughed. “Catherine, your father will always be my hero.” She put her hand on Stan’s shoulder and stroked his neck. “But sometimes it is hard to say about people. Shall I tell you a story about how hard it can be?”

Françie clapped her hands. “A story about the wrens and Mother Swan?”

“That you shall soon see,” replied Eva. “There was once a goose named Franka who was so tiny and brown that she looked like a forest wren.”

Cat crossed her arms. “Mommy, Franka’s a boy’s name. Tell the story right!”

Stan slowed the car and shot a stern look at Cat. “Any more sassin’, young lady, and your mother’ll stop right now.”

Cat shrunk down quiet.

Eva raised her eyebrows. “
Frank
is a boy’s name.
Franka
, like Françoise, is a proper
girl’s
name.” She smiled at Cat. “So, let me see, we have the little goose, Franka, who looks like a wren. Now, no one suspects she is a goose, for geese are generally large and loud and cruel to other animals, and she was none of these.”

Françie asked, “Is this like the
Ugly Duckling
story?”

“Yes, perhaps a bit. But different, too. See what you think. Now, all this happened in the time when geese ruled the forest. Franka had at first secretly helped the geese, since she was, after all, one of them. She would tell them where the corn was ripest and the berries the sweetest. But when she saw their evil doings, she turned against the geese. She played tricks on them and even foiled their plans, going so far as to tell the wolf when and where geese would be strolling, so he became fat, gobbling them up. That wolf came to so like Franka that to this day he spends his nights singing about her to the moon.”

Cat asked, “Mommy, when she helped the geese, she was naughty, wasn’t she?”

“If you’re a goose, you grow up seeing things as geese do, so maybe Franka thought helping them was right. You see, don’t you, that it’s hard to say whether she was nice or naughty. Maybe she was both. Perhaps we’re all both. Now please let me finish.…Since the other animals saw only Franka’s efforts against the geese, they called her an angel. And they were confused when she said, ‘Don’t call me that.’ All Franka knew was that, in each time of her life, she did what she thought was right.” Eva seemed glad to be finishing her story. “So I ask you girls, was Franka an angel or a devil?”

Cat looked at her sister. “Sometimes she was an angel like me and sometimes a devil like Françie.”

Françie wailed, “Stop, Cat! I’m not a devil, am I, Mommy?”

“None of us is all one or the other. It is only what’s better known of us that decides what people will call us. Angel or devil? Heroine or monster? Think about it.”

The girls were quiet, so maybe they did just that.

Stan was quiet, too.

Snake

The morning after the award presentation, Lord Smithwycke and his cohort boarded an eastbound train and made back for genteel civilization. Jess waited until they were gone to release Harry Scurfman.

That noontime, Jess and Carrie had lunch at Sudsy’s Diner in Mullen. Carrie had the special, corned beef and swiss on rye, with sauerkraut on the side. Jess had his usual sandwich—baked beans and bacon on white toast.

“So, Jessie, what do you suppose Lord Smithwycke made of Hooker County?”

“He seemed pleased enough to be here, but who knows for sure?” Jess poured cream into his coffee. “What
is
for sure is that folks here got a big lift.”

Carrie unfolded the day’s edition of the local newspaper, the
Tribune.
“That’s what the paper says.” Big, black headlines screamed,
War Heroine Eva Honored
and
Royal’s Visit Puts Mullen on Map
.

Jess looked over his shoulder at the glass-covered display behind the cash register. “Already got them clippings posted next to the yellowed V-J Day edition and the ’43 story of Buster Grant dyin’ on Tarawa Atoll. S’all folks been talkin’ about in here this mornin’.”

Carrie blew on her tea. “How did it go with Harry?” She took a sip.

Jess put down his sandwich and leaned forward. “He was madder than smoked-out hornets.” He smiled broadly. “About bein’ taken down a notch in front of everyone, I reckon. Wasn’t much he could do, other than cuss me. That and swear he’d get even.” He stirred his coffee. “Ain’t worried. Harry’s sworn that before. Only shootin’ he’s likely to do is with his big yap. He’s like a springtime snake—got no steel in his spine.”

“That’s Harry all right—a lazy, yellow prairie diamondback. Still, you be careful.”

Jess put his hand on Carrie’s. “Don’t you worry, dearie. That’s the thing about snakes. They’re predictable, dependable. Just like Harry’s mean streak. If ya count on it, he ain’t much of a problem.” Jess ate the last bite of his sandwich and sipped his coffee. “Last night a couple of us were talkin’ about Harry.” He chuckled. “Lem Hickok had it about as right as onions with liver. He goes, ‘Yep, Old Harry. Well, well.’ Then he pauses to spit his tobacco chaw. ‘Old son of a bitch. Ain’t many folk in these parts what that warn’t like to piss on Old Harry. Less he was on fire, that is.’”

Carrie shook her head. “Lem’s sure got a way with words.” She pulled a napkin from the dispenser and fidgeted with it. “What do you make of Eva having such a dickens getting through yesterday, Jesse? I’m worried.”

“Aw, I reckon it was just facin’ hard memories. I wouldn’t sweat it.”

Carrie frowned. “Hard for me to believe it’s not more than that.”

“And maybe not wanting to be the big cheese. What else could it be?”

Carrie shook her head. “Maybe.” She looked at her watch and sighed. “Listen, sweetie, gotta run. Eva’s coming by this afternoon. Maybe she’ll want to talk—” She picked up her purse. “—but knowing her, I doubt it. Besides, she’ll have the girls.”

Jess beamed. “Baking cookies?”

“Oatmeal with chocolate chips.” Carrie kissed Jess’ cheek and left.

Jess stirred his coffee and looked absently out the window. The sound of the spoon’s clink on the cup faded as his thoughts turned back to Harry. In appearance, the snake image wasn’t anything like right. Harry was built more like a soup can than a snake. Short and squat. Jess muttered, “Not just short, but damn short.” He couldn’t remember when Harry’s hair wasn’t white. The white of powdery snow. And clipped short. Same with his beard. Made him look like an old prospector. Jess snickered at the image. Then he pictured Harry’s mouth—those liver lips, with a dribble of tobacco-browned spittle at each corner, draping choppers stained the color of earwax. A mouth just right for the kind of talk it spewed. “Harry.” Jess shook his head and climbed from the booth.

He paid the bill and left an extra quarter for Liz Brady, the waitress. As he walked back to his office, he thought how Harry’d shown his true character when he married Liz’s sister, Lottie, back in the Thirties. How when he brought Lottie home, he put his own widowed mother out of the house. Stuck her in town with her cousin. How it killed the old gal. And how Harry treated Lottie after they’d lost most of their land in the hard times. That’s when he started hanging around with John Barleycorn. That’s when he became vicious. To Lottie’s face, he’d pledged to dance on her grave. And sure enough when she died, he taunted her family, dancing an Irish jig around her casket right in front of them at the funeral parlor. “Just couldn’t hold me horses till Lottie’s in the ground,” he’d sneered.

“Snake.” Jess hissed it through clenched teeth.

Ghost From the Past

Pictures of Lord Smithwycke’s pilgrimage west appeared in the December 1950 issue of
Life Magazine
, two months after the ceremony. The story was titled,
Brits Don’t Forget. English
Lord Travels West to Thank ‘a Heroine Surely.’
There were four pictures from Lord Smithwycke’s trip, three of them with Eva. Most folks’ favorite was the one of his chivalrous kiss on the back of her hand. There were more copies of that
Life
sold in Hooker County than any other before, except maybe for the V-J Day special. Maybe.

That issue of
Life
ran with Eva Peron on the cover—the official portrait everyone knows, the one with her blond hair done up in a chignon and her diamond earrings looking like waterfalls. It came out just before an Argentine election and the copy under the cover picture read,
Evita: Peron’s Tiger and Dove…And His Argentine Salvation?

Doc Fletcher brought in a copy of the magazine to Jess’s office and tossed it, opened to the Smithwycke/Eva story, on his desk. “Seen this, Pardner?”

“Well, I’ll be dang-nabbed.” Jess paged through the story. He shook his head. “The day Hooker County had its own royalty.”

“Take a gander at the cover,” said Doc. “Don’t our Eva look like Mrs. Peron? Either of them’ll flat stop you in your tracks. ’Course, Eva don’t like the spotlight near so well, as we found out. And with her, ain’t nobody whisperin’ about ties to fascists, thank God.”

It seemed that almost everyone in the County wanted a copy of that magazine as a keepsake. Everyone except Eva. She was funny about it, as if her notoriety scared her.

A few days later, Jess bumped into Stan and asked him how things were going. “Aw, yesterday Eva got two long distance telephone calls from an old friend, a woman livin’ in Chicago,” Stan said. “Some girlfriend of hers in Belgium. Turns out she come over as a war bride, too. Saw the
Life Magazine
article and recognized Eva. Small world, huh?”

“Yep. Sounds swell, but
you
don’t sound too pleased.”

“Oh, it’s OK by me. It’s Eva’s upset. Especially after the second call. This lady—met her over there and her husband, Max, too—her name’s Crickette. Like the bug. She’s all right, I s’pose. Max was a GI. Can’t say we hit it off right away, but ya get to know him and he’s OK. So, anyways, this Crickette calls to say she saw Eva’s picture and they yack a bit. Then she calls back and wants to come on the train for a visit. Wasn’t much Eva could say.”

Crickette Conroy arrived in mid-January. The Garritys met her one evening at their place. Carrie made supper that night for Eva, Stan and their visitor. After the guests left, Jess told his wife, “Crickette’s a livewire all right. Charmin’, like Eva in some ways. Got that same purrin’ accent and a knack for pickin’ words a step or so away from them I’d use. Like a little girl wearin’ her mama’s high heels and hat, it’s powerful sweet.”

“But Crickette works at it,” Carrie said. “With Eva it’s natural.”

“One thing that sure works is her pink britches, tight and thin as the skin on a frog’s nose.” When Carrie made a show of crossing her arms, Jess kissed her cheek. “Aw, don’t blame me. That perky little pepperpot’s just good at twistin’ men around her finger. In two minutes she had me thinkin’ I’d suddenly gone thirty years younger and a sight and a half better looking. ’Course, you’ve been doin’ that to me for years.” He raised his eyebrows,
à la
Groucho.

Carrie thrust her hands on her hips. “Ya get the feeling that Crickette’s a gal who doesn’t really know what she wants but sure knows how to get it.”

Crickette stayed a week. After she left, Stan told Jess, “I believe Eva’s glad to see Crickette go, Jessie. Sometimes they’d be yackin’ away in French and I’d figure, oh that’s good. Then a minute later it’d turned to shoutin’. One time I saw them in the next room and Crickette was talkin’ hard at Eva. Lecturing her, finger waggin’ and all. Then Eva slapped Crickette—loud, like in the movies. Time I could walk in there to break it up, they were in each others’ arms, bawlin’. When I asked Eva about it that night, she told me that Crickette is part of her old life—a life she wants to wall off from us today. Bury it deep.”