Chapter Two: Rebecca
Rebecca slid the eight-foot aluminum boat from the bank of the creek, hopped in with a bucket of live perch she had caught that morning, and paddled up the creek toward her drop lines.
She couldn’t believe Daddy was going to send her to Hartridge after all. She didn’t want to go away to boarding school. She wanted to stay here where she could run her lines every day and play with Sandra and Nancy up in her tree house when they came to visit their grandparents in the spring.
The hot summer sun had yielded to a cool evening breeze, and Rebecca now wished she had worn long sleeves. The small pool of water that had leaked into the bottom of the boat soaked into her shoes and socks and chilled her.
Daddy had said she needed to learn how to become a smart and proper young lady. Hadn’t she become one already?
I know more than most ten-year-olds.
She eyed the first drop line—a bit of twine tied to a willow near the bank of the creek. At the end of the twine was a shad stripped on a straight hook and probably a nice catfish by the way the twine was moving in circles. She paddled toward the willow.
What’s more useful, playing piano and doing embroidery or catching dinner?
Her father used to set and run the lines with her, but a year ago he had broken his hip in a skiing accident, and though he had undergone a hip replacement, he wasn’t comfortable paddling in their little boat. He’d fish with her from the bank with rod and reels when they wanted perch, but she now set and ran the drop lines herself.
She heard a rustling in the nearby brush and looked up as she approached the willow. She didn’t see anything.
That sounded bigger than a squirrel. Could it be a deer? A raccoon?
She grabbed the willow and flung the rope that was tied to her boat around a branch to keep the boat from drifting while she checked her line. She heard the rustling again and looked up.
When the rustling stopped and she still didn’t see anything moving along the brush, she pulled the catfish into the boat.
“Far-out! That’s a four-pounder for sure!” she cried.
She waited for the flapping fish to settle down. Then she pinched the shaft of the straight hook with needle-nose pliers and grabbed the catfish beneath its poisonous fins with her other hand, leaning her weight on the fish to keep it still. Then she broke the tip of each of the three fins, removed the hook from its mouth, laid the fish in the bottom of the boat, and baited the hook with one of the perch from her bucket.
“You’re the biggest I’ve caught in a while,” Rebecca said to the catfish, tossing the line with its wiggling perch back into the water.
The fish lay at her feet, worn out and gasping.
As she paddled up the creek toward her next line, she heard rustling along the bank again. She paddled so she wouldn’t drift back, but she kept her eyes on the bank.
She found nothing on her second and third lines, so she quickly baited and moved up the creek to her fourth, which she could see had something pulling on the end of it.
As she flung her rope around the branch of a tree and tied on, she heard the rustling again, and this time, when she looked up toward the bank, a strange painted face stared down at her. Half of the face was red and the other black. Bearskin draped around the figure’s shoulders.
She screamed and toppled back, nearly falling from the boat.
Quickly, she untied the rope from her boat and tossed it overboard. She snatched her paddle and used it to push from the tree, allowing herself to drift downstream. Then she paddled away, catching glances of what she now realized was just a man, but a scary man nonetheless, running along the bank, following her.
When she reached the place where she had docked, at the rock by the leaning tree, she heard Zugi barking on the bank at the painted man.
“Good girl!” Rebecca yelled. “Get him, girl!”
Although Zugi’s red, hot-dog-shaped body was not all that threatening, the barking accomplished what Rebecca had hoped: Daddy was bearing down the hill from the back porch, calling to her.
“Rebecca? Everything okay down here? Zugi? What’s the matter, girl?”
The painted man disappeared.
“You look adorable,” Rebecca’s mother told her as they stood together before the mirror in Rebecca’s dressing room.
Rebecca didn’t like the stiff material of her plaid school uniform. She rather liked the knee-high socks and new shoes, but the dress smelled funny and felt itchy.
“Now let’s pin back your hair, so we can see your pretty face.”
Rebecca flinched from her mother. “No. I don’t want barrettes.”
“But you won’t be able to see.” The mop of golden curls fell into Rebecca’s eyes.
“I can see.”
Her mother put her hands on her hips and sighed.
Rebecca didn’t mean to make her mother angry. She wanted to hug her and tell her how much she would miss her and please, please don’t make her go away to school!
“I’m asking you to wear these barrettes for your own good. Now please do as I say. You exasperate me.”
Tears streamed down Rebecca’s cheeks. “Yes, Mama.”
“Quit crying like a baby over these silly barrettes.”
Rebecca pushed her mother’s hands away from her hair. “I’m not a baby!”
“I didn’t say you were a baby. I said to quit acting like one.”
“I’m not a baby! I’m not even going to miss you when I’m gone! The only one who loves me in this whole wide world is Zugi!” Rebecca ran from the room calling for her dog.
“Zugi? Where are you, girl?”
“Rebecca! Come back here!”
Rebecca ran from the house.
“Zugi?”
She followed the steppingstones down to the creek where she heard Zugi barking.
“What’s the matter, girl?” Rebecca stayed back, afraid she would find the painted man she had seen a few days ago. She had told Daddy about him, and he had said not to go to the creek without him. “Zugi!” she called from the side of the hill. “Come here!”
Then Rebecca heard music coming from the creek. A single instrument, maybe a flute, sounded from the trees.
Zugi stopped barking.
“Zugi?”
She crept a little further down the hill toward the creek and the melody lifting up from the trees and into the wind and sky.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
The music stopped, and a teenage boy jumped from the oak tree in front of her with a flute of wood in his hand and said, “Me. Attie.”
Rebecca thought he must be at least sixteen, much too old a boy to be talking to her, but she asked, “Are you the painted man?”
“Misink? You saw Misink?” and with that, he ran up the hill and into the woods.
Rebecca had seen the Indians many times, but never had she seen them so close to her house. And never before this week had she seen the painted man whom even the Indians apparently feared.
Moments later, Rebecca’s mother hastened down the hill. “You come to me when I call you, young lady!”
Instead of running away, Rebecca charged up the hill and flung herself against her mother, wrapping her arms around her waist and sobbing uncontrollably.
“Don’t let Daddy make me go. I want to stay here!”
“Now, now.” Her mother plopped onto the grass in her soft, flared pants and pulled Rebecca onto her lap. “That’s enough crying.” She smoothed the curls away from her daughter’s face and kissed her cheeks several times. “You know Mama and Daddy love you, don’t you?”
Rebecca nodded, clutching Zugi as the dachshund added herself to their bundle on the grass.
“Daddy and I want you to go to Hartridge so you’ll be able to get in to the best universities. We want you to have all the best chances for success. We want you to have choices when you’re older, so you can be happy doing what you want to do.”
“But I’m happy here.”
Her mother kissed her again and gave her another hug. “We’ll visit weekends, and you’ll come home for Christmas and summers. Just give it a chance, will you?”
Rebecca shrugged. “What choice do I have?”
Her mother pulled them up to their feet, patted her daughter and Zugi, and said, “Now let’s go take that photograph, shall we? I want to remember the day my little girl started becoming a young woman.”
Rebecca held her mother’s hand as they walked up the hill.
“Will you wear the barrettes for me?” her mother asked.
Rebecca groaned. “Okay, Mama.”