19

Wild hogs are damaging fields and wooded areas, according to state official Tim Robinson, and should be approached with caution. "They are being seen in high numbers and can be quite aggressive. A Bouef Parish hunter sent me a game-camera shot of a dozen feeding near his deer stand, and a driver reported three crossing the road near the Route Two crossroads. Hunting of the hogs is regulated, so we've got us," and I quote, "a Catch-29 situation."

—The Green News-Item

Tammy sashayed into the paper glowing after her honeymoon.She gushed about the white sand on the beach and "watermelons carved into baskets and huge ice sculptures shaped like dolphins."

"Did you know on a cruise they fold your towels in the shapes of animals? And you can get pizza until two in the morning? We had dinner with people we didn't know, and I fit in good except when I snorted a bean sprout up my nose."

Her souvenir gift to us was a wooden plaque to hang outside our travel trailer, "like all the campers in Florida have.""The Craig's" was burned into it, along with a figure of a dog.

"I know that apostrophe doesn't belong there," she said, "but I didn't have the heart to get them to change it."

I couldn't get over how happy I was to see her.

"We stopped in Georgia and saw Katy," she said. "Her dorm room is so cute. She's got it all done in Georgia colors—red, black, and gray—almost like our wedding! Alex texted her three times while we were having lunch. I think they're getting serious."

"They're way too young to be serious," I said.

"Spoken like a woman who got married when she was thirty-eight."

"I'm afraid to ask, but is her dorm room bigger than our camper?"

"I haven't seen the notorious meth lab yet, but I'd say they're roughly the same size. It's a twenty-four-footer, right?"

"Something like that. Why don't you come for a visit, and I'll give you a tour. It'll take about two minutes, tops."

"Walt has a golf tournament this weekend for his law firm.Maybe I'll come Saturday."

"Perfect," I said, relieved. With Katy at college, Iris and Stan working on their building project, Chris consumed with football, and Kevin overwhelmed by patients, I felt a tad lonely.When I went into the paper on Saturdays, I kept expecting to see Tom sitting at his desk, listening to the police radio and working a crossword puzzle.

On Friday night after the Rabbits narrowly lost to a team from West Monroe, Chris flopped onto the bed, bumping his head on the fake wood headboard. Aggravated, he grabbed a throw pillow and, well, threw it, causing Holly Beth to jump down and run over to where I sat on a bench that doubled as a dining room chair.

"I must be a bad influence on you," I said, picking up the dog and moving into what might loosely be called a bedroom."The old Chris Craig would have never thrown something.What's wrong?"

With both hands behind his head, he stretched out on the bed, his feet almost hanging off.

"Number one, the Rabbits lost tonight because Anthony Cox acted like he had never seen a football before. Number two, Asa has toys bigger than this camper. Number three, I don't know how in the heck I'm going to keep the food delivery program going for the rest of the school year."

I snuggled up next to him. Holly made a few circles and settled down right between us. I could have sworn she gave a sigh of pleasure as she drifted off to sleep.

"That's quite a list. What can I do?"

"You already do too much. You're running the paper with a skeleton crew and eking out a profit. You've jumped back in to Kids' Camp on Wednesdays, and you're on the building committee at church."

"That's only because I'm bossy. When they said metal building, I stuck my nose in. The brick front's going to help, though, and the steeple."

"I need to start a building committee for me and you," he said. "This camper is better than a motel room, but it's getting old in a hurry."

"What if I take over your food deliveries for a while? And why don't we postpone house talk until after football season? I'm happy to be back out on Route Two, to have the dogs back."I stroked Holly. "Every morning I sit out in the swing and am thankful we're alive, and that I have you. It could be much worse."

Chris was silent, and I turned my head to look at him. He was sound asleep.

Saturday, after breakfast with his parents, I hatched a plan and presented it to him as though it were a fait accompli.

"I'll do the food delivery program today while you meet with the other coaches," I said. "Go out for a hamburger with your buddies afterwards. Relax a little."

"It's not safe for you to be alone out there. A few of the places are isolated, and Doug says those meth dealers aren't to be taken lightly."

"Tammy's coming over later. I'll get her to go with me."

"That's a comforting thought."

"She can be downright scary, and you know it." I struck a Tammy pose, both hands on my hips, pretending to chew gum, which she did ninety percent of the time. "I'd as soon kick a meth dealer in the teeth as look at him," I said, doing my best imitation.

"Is that supposed to be me?" Tammy asked, peering in the top of the aluminum door.

"Busted," I said as she walked in. "How'd I do?"

"You've got to work on what Walt calls the Tammy Twang.He says it's the cutest thing he's ever heard."

"How was the honeymoon?" Chris asked.

"Like living in a movie. You should try one of your own sometime."

A worm of regret crawled through me. For a second, I could see Chris and me sitting on our private deck in Montana, but I pushed the picture down.

"Thanks for the sign," Chris said.

"I noticed you fixed it," Tammy said, twirling her ponytail, her dark hair streaked with blonde highlights. "Pretty clever to turn the apostrophe into a daisy."

"Daddy did that," Chris said. "He was happy to have an excuse to use his Dremel tool."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I couldn't in good conscience have a display of bad grammar at the entrance to my home."

"Nice home," she said. "You've done wonders with the place.When are you moving?"

Chris and I exchanged the look that I now thought of as our married look.

"We're thinking of clearing this lot and building a house or getting one of those package deals. What do you think?" I said.

"I told Iris Jo you'd never leave Route Two," Tammy said."This piece of land was made for you. I'm sorry you don't have your old house back. I suppose certain wounds from the tornado will never heal."

One of the things that intrigued me about Tammy was that she could seem as breezy as a coed at a sorority party one minute and as deep as Pastor Jean at others.

"Speaking of tornado wounds," I said, "how about giving me a hand with food delivery today? Chris has too much on his plate, no pun intended, and I told him we could run his route."

"That sounds fun."

"I wouldn't exactly call it fun," Chris said, "but it's interesting.Just be careful. Don't take any silly chances."

Tammy volunteered to drive the big SUV that Walt had bought her after they got engaged "to keep me safe on the highway," and we headed to downtown to load up on boxes of staples.

"Today we have frozen turkeys, too," Pastor Mali said, as he checked our list of recipients and loaded the food into the back of the vehicle.

Driving into the country, we visited with sweet little old ladies who practically wept over the food, and grouchy old men who tried to act as if they were taking it as a favor. I read Chris's map and mostly got us to the right roads, occasionally leading us into a dead end.

We approached Maria's trailer, now parked on an acre of land across the road from one of Chris's catfish farms. Big trees shaded it, and it had been spared the plopped-down look that many mobile homes in rural Bouef Parish had.

"What the tornado couldn't accomplish, the government did," I said. "Moved, lock, stock, and barrel in less than a week. It's surprising how fast officials can work when they want something."

"Where'd that porch come from?" Tammy asked.

No wonder the trailer looked so settled.

"I don't know. It wasn't there a few days ago. Neither were those flower beds."

"I think she has company." Tammy pulled into the long rutted drive, "Unless she got a fancy black pickup while I was on that cruise."

"Maybe we should come back later," I said.

"Chicken. You're just saying that because you know that's Dub McCuller's truck. You can't keep running from him forever."

"Who says I'm running from him?"

"I saw you at the town meeting, Lois. I even saw you cross the street downtown the other day to avoid him as he came out of Eva's store."

"I can't make a move in this town . . ." I muttered. "OK, let's get the box unloaded and get out of here."

Maria answered the door with a big smile and invited us in.Dub and Mr. Sepulvado stood as we entered, and Joe insisted on taking the box.

"I've got it," I said. "I'm sure you shouldn't be lifting yet."

"I'm all healed," he said, looking younger than I remembered."I'm ready to plant my fall garden. Maria's going to let me use part of her land."

The question must have shown on my face.

"We met at the Spanish service at Grace Chapel," the young mother said. "Joe and Mr. Dub have been a godsend in helping me and the boys settle here. Doesn't their porch look fantastic?" Her Spanish intonation gave the word "fantastic" a poetic sound.

"You built that?" I turned to Dub, astonished.

"Joe was the brains behind the operation," Dub said. "I was the hired hand." He looked every bit the carpenter in a pair of worn jeans and a chambray shirt that looked like it had been through the washer a hundred times.

Mr. Sepulvado looked as though he didn't understand, and Dub spoke to him in Spanish. Both men chuckled.

"Loco," Joe said, pointing to Dub.

We all laughed, although I wasn't quite sure why.

"We'd better get going." I all but shoved Tammy out the door.

"First see what the boys have," Maria said, proudly pointing out the back window to a nice-sized above-ground pool.

"That was Eva's idea," Dub said. "She said a sprinkler's fun, but those boys need a pool."

"That seems like a storybook," Tammy said as we pulled out. "You and Chris not only saved her life, you changed it forever."

"It's all Chris. He understands that 'love your neighbor' stuff much better than I do."

"You seem to be a fast learner. Where to next?"

For two more hours we wound through dusty roads, each stop seeming more desperate than the last. While the town of Green had plenty of poverty, the rural areas were something else altogether. The most overt signs of tornado damage had been fixed, but under-the-surface hurt ran deep, and many of the places we visited today had been a wreck before the storm blew through.

"So much for fairy tales," I said.

"It's hard to believe people live like this," Tammy said."These places are worse than the countries we stopped at on our cruise. I thought the U.S. was supposed to be better than everybody else."

"Wait till you see our next stop. It's close to where we found Joe Sepulvado. Anthony, the football player that Molly hangs out with, lives here."

"The one who blew the game last night?"

I looked at her, taken aback.

"I was taking pictures. I wanted to get them online before the Monroe paper did."

"That's the guy. Chris said his head wasn't in the game last night." I motioned at the house. "This is it."

"Look at that pump and outhouse," Tammy said. "This place doesn't even have running water."

"Chris tried to get them a government trailer, but he couldn't convince the man who lives with Anthony's mother."

"Why wouldn't he rather live in a nice trailer than this dump?"

"Meth. The sheriff's department thinks he may be one of those with a meth lab or two in the woods. They couldn't find it before the storm and they haven't had time to fool with it since."

"Some children don't get a break." Her tone told me she had been one of those children. No wonder she seldom talked about her childhood.

When we drove up, Anthony sauntered out, while the little girl rushed at the truck. The baby was not with them.

"The applesauce was good," the little girl said, peering into the truck. "It's been a long time since we've had applesauce."

"We're not supposed to take any more food," the teen said."Mama's boyfriend said it isn't right, you coming down here like we're a charity case."

The little girl's bottom lip trembled, and my heart felt as though it were ripping in two.

"Is your mother home?" I asked, earning a quick look from Tammy, who hopped out of the SUV ahead of me.

By the time we reached the sagging front porch, a young African American woman stood in the door, the baby on her hip.

"Ma'am, we're from Grace Chapel, down the road," I said."The church is delivering food all over the area. I don't know if you've met Pastor Jean, but she'll have our hide if we don't leave this food here."

"Carry it in the house," the woman said to Anthony, and walked away without another word.

Tammy and I got in the truck, and I waved to the little girl who held a teddy bear I had slipped her.

"Have our hide?" Tammy said to me. "That didn't sound like you at all."

"My mother-in-law. Estelle is going to have Hugh's hide over one thing or another all the time."

"Good job," Tammy said, the SUV jarring my teeth as we headed to the main road.

Before we got to the end of the deserted road, the biggest man I had ever seen stepped out of the edge of the woods and stood in front of the vehicle.

Tammy slammed on the brakes, the boxes in the back sliding forward with the force of cinder blocks.

"Go around him," I said.

"I can't make it through there." She nodded at the trees. "I'm not going to scratch the only new car I've ever had over a jerk with too much testosterone."

As the man approached, she reached behind the seat. "Don't tell me you have a gun," I said. "Lord, don't tell me she's about to pull a gun."

"Better than a gun." She let her window down about half way and glanced at me. "Lois Barker Craig, I know you don't like taking orders, but listen to me. Don't move. Don't say anything."

The man leaned on the window with a sneer. "I said we don't want you down here anymore," he said in a Spanish accent. "We don't want your food, and we don't want you poking your nose in our business."

I sat in silence. Tammy smiled as though they were visiting at the grocery store.

"Now get out of this fancy car, and start walking back to town, or I'm going to make you wish you had."

He came closer. "But before you go, give me that purse." He reached in the window, over Tammy, who continued to lean into the back seat.

"Give him the purse, Tammy," I said through clinched teeth.I figured the statute of limitations had run out on my sitting still and being quiet.

Right then, Tammy, new bride of one of the region's most successful lawyers, slammed a baseball bat down on his hands and peeled out, a rock flying up and denting her new hood.

"I can see why Anthony's mind wasn't on football last night," she said.

I didn't say anything.

Two sheriff's cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, flew past us on our way back to our camper.

Molly stopped by our place within an hour.

"That awful man's in jail," she said, "although I don't know how long they'll keep him. Anthony's mother hopes Coach will get them one of those tornado trailers. Do you think it's too late?"

"It's never too late, Molly."

Chris and Walt were not far behind her, Walt still wearing his golf shoes. To say they were upset with us would have been like saying World War II was a fistfight.

"If you ever do anything like that again," Chris said, holding me at arm's length as though to reassure himself that I was OK, "I'm going to . . . I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Have her hide?" Tammy said, throwing me a wink.

"Don't do anything like that again," Chris said.

"I wish I had gotten a picture of the look on Lois's face when I pulled out that baseball bat," Tammy said.

"I'm trying to figure out how you got the leverage to use the bat like that," I said.

Tammy's brand-new husband looked at Chris and threw up his hands. "Are all wives this much trouble?" Walt asked.

"I feel certain the answer to that is no," my husband said."Let me show you what we're thinking about out here."

He headed down the steps, let the dogs out, and came back to the door to kiss me.

"You took more years off my life today than that tornado did," he said.

Tammy and I sat in the swing and watched the two men walk around the property, Chris gesturing and measuring with his long stride.

Walt nodded and smiled, took a tiny notebook out of his shirt pocket and wrote a few things, and counted off steps in another direction.

"Do you ever think about what could have been instead of what is?" Tammy asked.

My mind spun from the sight of her with that baseball bat, and I shook my head.

"I could be living in poverty out in the middle of nowhere or be married to a caveman like that guy on the road. Instead, I have plenty of food, a beautiful home, and that wonderful man."

"I could be living in a sterile little condo in Ohio, dreading another winter alone. Or I could have blown away in that house." I nodded at the lot.

"Aren't we lucky?" she asked.

"I'd say it goes well beyond luck."