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"Yeah, that's a pretty good idea, Dave," she said, as though both of us had just thought our way through a problem. She continued to look at me, her dark eyes full of light. "What about Tripod?"
"I think Tripod probably needs some ice cream, too."
Her face beamed. She set Tripod on top of the hutches, then slid down off her horse into a mud puddle. I watched her hook Tripod to his chain and lead Tex back to the lot. She was eleven years old now. Her body was round and hard and full of energy, her Indian-black hair as shiny as a raven's wing; when she smiled, her eyes squinted almost completely shut. Six years ago I had pulled her from a wobbling envelope of air inside the submerged wreckage of a twin-engine plane out on the salt.
She hooked Tripod's chain on the back porch and went into her bedroom to change clothes. I put a small amount of ice cream in two bowls and set them on the table. Above the counter a telephone number was written on the small blackboard we used for messages. Alafair came back into the kitchen, rubbing her head with a towel. She wore her slippers, her elastic-waisted blue jeans, and an oversized University of Southwestern Louisiana T-shirt. She kept blowing her bangs out of her eyes.
"You promise you're going to eat your supper?" I said.
"Of course. What difference does it make if you eat ice cream before supper instead of after? You're silly sometimes, Dave."
"Oh, I see."
"You have funny ideas sometimes."
"You're growing up on me."
"What?"
"Never mind."
She brought Tripod's pan in from the porch and put a scoop of ice cream in it. The rain had slackened, and I could see the late sun breaking through the mist, like a pink wafer, above the sugarcane at the back of my property.
"Oh, I forgot, a man called," she said. "That's his number."
"Who was it?"
"He said he was a friend of yours. I couldn't hear because it was real noisy."
"Next time have the person spell his name and write it on the blackboard with his number, Alf."
"He said he wanted to talk with you about some man with one arm and one leg."
"What?"
"He said a soldier. He was mixing up his words. I couldn't understand him."
"What kind of soldier? That doesn't make too much sense, Alf."
"He kept burping while he talked. He said his grandfather was a Texas ranger. What's a Texas ranger?"
Oh, boy, I thought.
"How about Elrod T. Sykes?" I said.
"Yeah, that's it."
Time for an unlisted number, I thought.
"What was he talking about, Dave?"
"He was probably drunk. Don't pay attention to what drunk people say. If he calls again like that when Bootsie and I aren't here, tell him I'll call him and then hang up."
"Don't you like him?"
"When a person is drunk, he's sick, Alafair. If you talk to that person while he's drunk, in a funny way you become like him. Don't worry, I'll have a talk with him later."
"He didn't say anything bad, Dave."
