Grandpa burst into my cabin room before dawn. I’m not kidding when I say burst, because the force of his entrance made the door hit the wall and left a dent.
“What? What time is it?”
“Get dressed. We’re burning daylight.”
“But there’s no daylight yet!”
Outside the cabin, it smelled green. The sky was edged with light. Grandpa checked his compass.
“Good day! I can feel it,” he said. “I’ve packed our provisions and water. Grab that orange backpack and binoculars.” His voice was powerful. I wondered if this was the voice his soldiers got to hear all those years ago.
Our cabin was situated in the midst of other cabins, each maybe two hundred feet from the other. We headed away from the cabins and down a path marked with stumps and etched numbers. Mile 1.5. The ground was thick with leaves and rocks. Grandpa found a sturdy branch and used it as a walking stick.
“Always protect your feet. If your feet are fine, you are fine.”
The first knowledge pelt of the day.
I found a branch of my own. It was handy to have a stick to feel out the path ahead. And we continued, walking through twisted and craggy cypress trees and brush. A sweet smell hung in the air, and morning light awakened everything. Birds sang. Leaves rustled. We marched. I got lost in the unfamiliar, beautiful woods and the steady step-crunch-step-crunch of my feet. But no signs of red or blue in the trees. Just thick drapes of olive-green Spanish moss.
“See anything?” Grandpa asked.
“Nope.”
“Did you know that in 1861, during the Civil War, Captain William Driver sewed his twenty-four-star Union flag into his bedcovers so that Confederate forces descending upon Nashville couldn’t take it from him? Flags can be hidden in unusual places, Wayne.”
Knowledge pelt number two.
I gazed up at the trees just as a plane emerged from the branches. My hand automatically went up into the air and carried it, and I told the passenger in seat 14A hello.
“Did you happen to see that guy who delivered and installed your mother’s new dishwasher? His truck was spotless. Never do business with a man who has a dirty truck. The way a man keeps his ride tells you a lot about how he keeps his books.”
Pelt.
“Grandpa?”
“Yeah?”
“I wish things were different.”
And that made the air around us awkward.
And silent.
“Think we’ll find the flag?” I asked finally.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Just then, a park ranger drove past. His truck was scuffed and muddy and blended into the woods.
“I also wanted to tell you that there’s a correct way to edge the grass. Straight, deep cuts an inch from the sidewalk.”
“That’s random.”
“Isn’t everything?” He was smiling when he said that.
“I guess.”
“Your great-grandfather, RB Dalton, taught me all these things, you know. A great student of history, that man. Always said a young boy needed to fill himself with knowledge and passion. Empty vessels get filled with the wrong things.”
Pelt. Pelt. Pelt.
“What does RB stand for?” I asked. “You never told me.”
“His name was a problem. His mother named him RB from birth, God knows why. But the United States Army requires a full name, no abbreviations. So he had to fill out all his forms R-only B-only. He went through the service called Ronly Bonly Dalton.” Grandpa laughed. “When he got out of the service, he was so sick of it that he decided to call himself Howard.”
“Howard?”
“That’s where you get your middle name.”
I’d never been a fan of my name. And now to know I was partially named after Ronly Bonly Dalton? Well, let’s just say I would’ve changed my name, too.
“Glad I’m not totally named after him.”
We stood at the edge of the water. A little sunlight shone on its surface. It was so quiet and beautiful. We walked out onto a dock and scanned the trees for uncommon colors. Once again, they gave back greens and grays. Nothing red, white, or blue.
I lost track of time. I just followed him. By the time we made it back to the cabin, we were tired and silent and flagless.
The next morning, we headed out in the opposite direction from the previous day, winding through the tall cypress and pine trees.
“Tired?” I asked Grandpa.
“Not too much.”
But he was.
“Just wishing Reed was with us. That boy could find a whisper in a whirlwind.”
We walked alongside the banks of the lake. The water was a pea-green color and dotted with lily pads and dead cypress stumps. I turned my focus upward, adjusted the binoculars, and searched the treetops again.
I guess we’d walked for a while, looking skyward. I pressed my walking stick into the ground and kept moving. At one point, I almost lost sight of Grandpa. I turned around to find him about fifty yards behind me, perched on a rock. His whole body appeared heavy. It might have been time to quit the search for the day, if not forever.
I scanned the lake as if it might give up an answer. Where should we go?
The waters glimmered and sounded cool and reassuring, as if to say, Come on in!
“You gents need a ride?” A man not far from us was working on his boat next to a wooden dock. Along the dock, there was a sign: JOHNBOAT RENTALS. “Going fishing?” he asked.
“Yeah, but not for fish,” I told him. “Can you give us a tour up Big Cypress Bayou and back? We’re scanning the banks and trees.”
“For what?”
For everything.
For all the missing treasures in the world.
For a needle in a haystack, otherwise known as an impossible adventure.
“Be right back,” I said.
Soon enough, we were on the water, guided by the man who called himself Cap.
There were three bench seats inside the johnboat, and we sat behind Cap as he took off down Caddo Lake. In the center of the water, I scanned from the left and Grandpa searched to the right. The flag might have been deep in the woods, near the banks waiting for us, or nowhere.
There was only so much green I could look at. I wondered if anything could be found in this much thick spring green. Maybe if we’d come in another season when the trees were bare. That thought had tugged at me all morning. The only thing that gave me hope was that 14A’s tree skirt had been found in this same season. I clung to that piece of data.
And the steady hum of the boat and the cool breeze off the river made us press on. It gave Grandpa a chance to rest. I worried that all his energy was used up. The liver causing its trouble again.
After a half hour of Cap telling us about alligators and waterfowl and a little history of the lake, he turned the johnboat backward and headed around a bend.
“Wait! There!” I said, pointing to a dock up ahead. All I could see was a patch of red. It stood out from the ten shades of green all around. And it sent a quickening through me. A flash of hope.
“Head over there, Cap,” Grandpa said.
It was a perfect dock hanging over the murky water. Spanish moss draped from one side. There were two sets of steps descending into the bayou. A tin-roofed, fresh-painted double-wide a hundred yards beyond the water’s edge. And smack-dab in the center of the dock was a pole flying Old Glory. An American flag. A flag picking up a little of the breeze.
Cap slowed the johnboat and then idled in front of the dock. “You spot a gator?”
The flag was the standard-issue, gray-poled, eagle-topped kind you could find anyplace. Anywhere. Common. But seeing the red, white, and blue colors against the relentless green landscape refreshed my eyes the same way a cold glass of water refreshes the body.
“You gents all right? You look downright transfixed!” Cap said.
“We’re fine,” I said.
“It’s just a flag. Retired army man named Broman lives up in that place. Meaner than a gator, that one. Got a pristine old car up in his shed he won’t let you even whistle at to save your life.”
Grandpa and I shared a look. “I knew a Broman in the army. Wouldn’t be Eldon Broman?”
“Well, yes,” Cap answered.
Before you could wink, Grandpa, Cap, and I were climbing onto the dock. Knocking on Eldon Broman’s door and shaking hands.
“Sergeant Truman Dalton, the man who trained me,” Broman said. “Do you know how brilliant this man is? Man, they are still talking about you! What brings you to Caddo Lake?” Broman was a younger version of Grandpa. He didn’t seem meaner than a gator to me.
Grandpa rattled off the short but sad history of Uncle Reed’s flag, including his “grandson’s wild but intelligent theory” that the flag might be hiding among the cypress trees.
“Yeah, I heard about that crash,” Broman said. “Really incredible.”
“Well, we thought we’d come and have a look,” Grandpa said.
“Seen anything?”
“Nope,” I said.
“Well, I bet anything could hide in these woods in the spring,” Broman offered. “Maybe in the fall, the flag would reveal itself. You could come back then. I’ll help.”
“Yes, maybe the fall would be a good season,” Grandpa said. “We’d sure appreciate it if you could keep a lookout for it in the meantime.”
“Sounds like my kind of mission,” Broman said. “Hey, before you leave, come have a look at this.”
Broman took us to his garage, lifted the gate, and unveiled—what else—a perfect car. It could have been a cousin of the Car. A shiny blue Dodge Charger.
Grandpa’s eyes sparkled. “Would you look at that? It’s the most beautiful Charger I’ve ever seen.”
“What’s the big deal about these old cars, anyway?” I asked.
Grandpa and Broman simultaneously shot me daggered looks. “Son, these are the cars we dreamed of in our youth. So when we got the chance to finally get them, we did,” Broman explained.
“Speak for yourself, Broman. I got mine to impress a girl,” Grandpa said, winking at me.
We said good-bye to Broman, and Cap took us back to his dock.
More than anything, I wanted to see Mom’s face when I put the flag in her hands. More than anything. I hated that I didn’t have it. That I didn’t get it.
“I wanted to see your mom’s face with that flag,” Grandpa said. I don’t know how he kept doing that. “Know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think it will be found in another season. Just like Broman said.”
I swallowed hard. In another season, things might be different.
“And if it isn’t found, well—” Grandpa broke off and stared up at the trees.
We walked silently back to the cabin, showered, and decided to drive into town for something to eat. And nobody said it out loud, but we were going to see the crash site, too.
“Are you up for doing all this in one day?” I asked him.
“I’m hot, is all. Hot as a stolen tamale.”
So we got back to the truck, cranked up the air-conditioning, and drove out to Route 69 and all the way to the crash site. To see it was like seeing some famous place. The field was charred and black. The tops of the pine trees were sheared off at different, exact points. It was like a perfect tree graph against the sky. And there wasn’t a single house or barn for a mile in all directions. I wondered if the pilot had steered the plane to clear land to avoid crashing into anything but ground and trees. Or if by some unexplainable luck, the plane went down in an uninhabited place. It was a mystery for sure.
How Mom and I survived in the rush of the crash was a mystery, too. Standing there on the field, I just remember being stuck in the mud and seeing red emergency lights through the smoke.
The thought of all of it made me feel sad and lucky.
“You’ll see things like this when you go into the army, Wayne,” Grandpa said. “Things you can’t explain.”
“When I go into the army?”
“I wish people would stop saying that.” I said it louder, angrier than I meant to. But I was annoyed. If you’ve ever gotten a bruise on your arm one day and then someone hits you on the exact same spot the next day, you will have an idea of what I felt like.
“Calm down.”
I got out of the truck and leaned against the door. Grandpa got out, too, and came around the side of the truck. The sun was starting to go down.
Going into the army? Did you know that, to me, the idea of enlisting always felt like someone telling me to go hike a rocky mountain without any shoes on my feet? The idea seemed impossible. It looked painful. Failure likely. I wanted to scream, Don’t you see? I’m not prepared. I have no shoes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Grandpa asked.
“Not really.”
“I think we should talk about it.”
I waited. I wanted to talk. And I didn’t want to talk.
“It’s like everyone I know has this expectation of me. Wayne, you should be a runner. Be a swimmer. Be a soldier! When do I get a vote? What about letting me decide? What if I want to be a rock star?”
“You can sing?” he asked.
“Okay, what’s the point?”
“The point is I should get a vote. I mean, the Flee tells me I’m dumb if I’m not in a sport. That I need to be in track. And you and Mom. You assume I’ll go join the army. What if I’m not cut out for it? What if it’s just not me, you know? What if I want to decide myself?”
Grandpa squared his shoulders, fixed me with a look, and smiled.
“What? You think I’m funny?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. You’re always laughing at me.”
“I don’t always laugh about anything.”
“Never mind.”
“But I am happy. Happy you found your voice. You’re finding out how to take a stand for yourself. And I’m smiling because I’m glad I was here to see it.”
“Whatever.”
“You’re going to be all right, Kovok. You know, even if you do rat-trap birds in your backyard.”
It was the way he looked at me. With a genuine smile on his face.
“It was an accident,” I said, trying to swallow a laugh. But it was no use. We were both about to crack up.
“Old fart.”
I took a deep breath.
I couldn’t help but hug him. I couldn’t help it.
“I wish things were different.” My voice cracked.
“So do I.” His voice cracked, too. He hugged me back.
Then we leaned against the truck and stared at the field where the plane had crashed. When the sun set, it looked peaceful.
“Know what I want?” Grandpa asked.
“A cheeseburger, sir.” I might have wiped a tear from my face.
“Affirmative, Kovok.”
“But you can’t have a cheeseburger.”
“I can watch someone enjoy a cheeseburger. Next best thing to eating one. My research tells me there is a restaurant in town called the Hamburger Store.”
Grandpa ordered for me. He told me that ordering the burger and the anticipation of the burger was the next-best thing. Because I’d been forbidden to eat delicious food for a few months, I had to disagree with him. But what could I say?
He punched my arm and told me to describe the cheeseburger. Leave no detail unreported. I described the toasted, buttered bun in a way that would earn applause. I described the crunch of cold pickles and noted their contrast with the salty, juicy meat. I began a short poem on my love of the tomato but was interrupted by a scream.
More of a shout. A female shout.
“Oh. My. Gosh!”
Liz Delaney of KTSB-3 News was loud and bouncy and bright-lipsticked, even in person.
“You! I know you. Who are you?”
Liz Delaney? Asking me a question? I couldn’t believe my ears.
“I’m the person who sent you more than ten e-mails. Wayne Kovok.”
“What?”
“I sent you e-mails about plane debris from Flight Fifty-Six. You never responded.”
“Did you spell my name with two z’s? If not, I bet your e-mail bounced. Happens to a lot of people who don’t spell my name correctly.”
I checked my e-mail from my phone, scanning my spam folder, and sure enough, it was clogged with bounced e-mails.
“But Liz with two z’s?”
“I know, right,” she said. “Ask my mother. You have a lot of choices in life, but you can’t choose the name you’re born with.”
“I guess you could have changed it by now,” I said.
“Yeah, but now I’m original and I like it.”
Lizz Delaney dragged a chair from another table and plopped herself down with us. “And who is this handsome guy?”
“Sergeant Truman Dalton, US Army, retired,” Grandpa said.
“Lizz Delaney, sir.” She pulled out her phone and began scrolling. “Okay, I know I’ve got it somewhere.”
She put her phone in front of my face and shouted, “That’s you, right? It’s you! I’ve been looking for you.”
I studied the picture.
It was the field on the day of the crash.
A downed plane. Everything wet. A fireball and smoke in the upper left corner. The hazy outline of people. Emergency workers.
And me.
Wayne Howard Kovok, running away from a giant airplane fireball, Mom in my arms.
Grandpa took the phone and studied it.
“I’ll be darned, son,” Grandpa said. “You must have run faster than double-struck lightning. You remember any of that?”
I wished I had a clear memory, but I could only remember being scared and stuck and unable to speak and Mom needing help.
“No, sir. Not really.”
“We’ll be needing a copy of that photo, Ms. Delaney,” Grandpa said. “Say, let’s shoot out the lights and get you a cheeseburger!”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“My grandfather is asking if you’d like to celebrate,” I offered. “He has a way with words.”
“Of course, then! Now, Wayne, please, please let me interview you. Can you come back next week?”
I looked at Grandpa. “I have to get back to school.”
“Okay then, wait a few minutes.” She dashed away.
Before you knew it, there were bright, hot lights set up outside the Hamburger Store and Lizz Delaney was holding a microphone, making a short speech about the facts of the crash, summing it all up in about two minutes before turning to me and asking questions.
“You said you didn’t remember getting to safety?”
“That’s right. It was all so fast.”
“And now we know you carried your mother to safety. That’s pretty brave.”
“I don’t know. I reacted. I ran away from danger. Isn’t that what anyone would do?”
I was getting nervous with her questions and wanted it to be over. The fact-spitting part of me was pushing its way up.
Don’t say Frankenbuckettia! Don’t say Frankenbuckettia!
“It’s been months since the accident. How are you doing now? Are you okay, Wayne?”
I would like to tell you that I was the best interviewee that ever existed. That my first and only TV interview somehow rose to the top of the YouTube charts and made me famous and renowned.
I would like to tell you that I didn’t freeze when Lizz Delaney asked that question. Her eyes and the bright camera lights, asking me to tell them everything was okay.
That question that I didn’t know how to answer.
I guess I wanted to say that okay had nothing to do with it. I was different. Was different the same as okay?
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said finally.
“We’re so happy to hear that, Wayne, and we wish you and your family all the best.”
“Oh, one more thing,” I said.
“Of course,” Lizz Delaney replied.
I waved into the camera. “Hi, Denny!”
That last night in the cabin, we got to bed early. The trip hadn’t been anything like what I’d imagined. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have the flag. No, that’s a lie. It did matter. I wanted to be the one to find it. Part of me still wanted to walk every inch of East Texas until it was found. And maybe someday I’d do that. The mystery would always make me think about what it was like BEFORE and then AFTER.