The Floatplane Notebooks Read Free Page A

the room looking at everybody, and as I walked into the bedroom, Miss Esther called out to Mark to go on out and get ready to go to bed. “Now,” she said.
    I then prepared for bed, hoping I would sleep well in strange circumstances.
    I felt it would be appropriate to say something because Miss Esther seemed a little… I suppose
flustered
is the best word. So I said, “Your family is very interesting.”
    â€œThey are. They are,” she replied. “Hawk’s always been as good as he could be. Giving people things. Taking on Dan like he did, as a business partner, and then Dan turning out like he did.” As she turned back her sheet I noticed her hand was shaking.
    I turned back the sheet on my rollaway bed. “Your husband was named Thomas?”
    â€œYes. Thomas Carl… Thomas Carl Oakley.”
    Next morning was Silver Springs—and it was all I had dreamed and more.
    The glass-bottom boats were exquisite. What a sight looking down into those underwater caverns! What exquisite underwater scenery! And just as was promised, the guide, upon encountering a school of catfish, threw a ball of white bread over the side, and as we watched through that glass boat-bottom, the catfish chased the bread all over the place, one and then the other running with it and all of this in this exquisite underwater world where the water was so very clear—as if it were all happening in the very sky. It was as if the very sky were below you, open and naked.
    And to top it all off, there was a man at Silver Springs named Ross Allen who
milked
rattlesnakes, putting the rim of a glass into a rattlesnake’s mouth and causing venom to squirt into the glass, a few drops, enough to kill a human being.
    What a good, good time!
    After the men came in from hunting on each of the next three afternoons, Thatcher and I would have a little time to talk alone at a table in the cafe section. He’d tell me all about the hunt. He was very excited on all three days, and would have that safari look which I adore in a man, especially Thatcher who stands so tall and looks so handsome in anything he wears, and Meredith of course would be trying totell me all these things that happened on the hunt, and Thatcher, bless his heart, would want to be alone with me at the table—as I did want to be alone with him, while at the same time I found Meredith a joy. So finally Meredith and Mark would go out under the shed in the back of the store where Uncle Hawk and Mr. Copeland were cleaning birds.
    The spectacle of a bird cleaning is something to behold: feathers and birds’ insides all over the place, with the cats, Ford and Plymouth, sitting nearby—watching and waiting intently—waiting for the spoils of battle to come flinging their way.
    Thatcher explained how, in the early morning before the hunt, Uncle Hawk comes to the foot of their bed before light and holds their feet until they wake up. Then he comes on over to the store while they get dressed. Then they walk across the road in the dark and in through the back door of the store where Uncle Hawk is cooking breakfast, pretending he’s Old Ross, his granddaddy, and singing while he cooks breakfast like Old Ross used to. Old Ross was Thatcher’s great-granddaddy and died back before Thatcher was born. Thatcher’s granddaddy, Tyree, used to do the same thing at breakfast—sing like his daddy. Now Uncle Hawk pretends
he’s
Old Ross and
he
sings.
    Thatcher also told me on the second day that they’d killed a rattlesnake. Horrors!
    We said our warm goodbyes and left without incident on the fifth morning at about six a.m. We drove through some pretty country in Florida, with the trees far apart. I like it with space between the trees. And on up through Georgia and South Carolina.
    At some point when we stopped to let the dogs out, and Thatcher and I were relatively alone, I asked him what Dan Braddock meant when he made the comment