stop at the intersection. The pilot waved, lifted his goggles and then pulled into the gas station directly up to the twenty-four-hour, self-serve pump. He cut the engine, ran his credit card through the machine and starting pumping gas. When finished, he threw a piece of hail out of the cockpit, pointed upward and hollered, “It’s hell up there. Think I’ll take the long way home. You mind giving me some help?” I crossed the street and he said, “Just push,” so I leaned against the wing. Surprisingly, it rolled rather easily. He nodded, said, “She’s pretty light.” He pulled down his goggles and said, “Thanks much,” then took a long look at the car where Abbie lay sleeping. Then he started talking to someone I couldn’t see. He cranked the engine and, just like he was driving a Cadillac on a Sunday afternoon, rolled east down the highway. After nearly a mile, he rocketed heavenward where the two blue wing lights disappeared into the darkness.
A BBIE WANTED HER DAD to know where we were, but didn’t want to call him. A letter would tell him what he needed to know without giving him a chance to control the outcome. She licked the back, slid the letter inside, sealed it and handed it to me—it was the single sheet of yellow legal paper that had been sitting on the bedside table. I pulled into the post office, and was peeling a stamp out of the book when it hit me. We needed time. The problem with the post office is that they were efficient, which meant he’d get this letter in a day or two. I needed them to deliver it next week. Preferably, late next week. I turned to Abbie, “You mind if I buy us a few days’ time?”
She shook her head and forced a smile. “Just as long as it gets there.”
I walked around the building to the drop box and reversed the addresses. Meaning, I addressed it to us, at our house, and wrote the return address as his. Then I peeled off the stamp and dropped it in the box. Without the required forty-one cents postage, it’d spend a few days in post office wonderland while they took their sweet little time tossing it around, angry that it didn’t have a stamp and enacting justice—or rather revenge—on whoever sent it. Further delaying its inevitable return. Then they’d stamp it “Insufficient Postage” in bright red ink and finally, out of sheer mercy to the poor miscreant soul who had mistakenly sent it, return it to the address in the top left-hand corner—which is exactly what I wanted. When Abbie’s father saw this, he’d know I’d bought myself some time, because he’s not stupid. And he’d know that I knew this about him and then he’d cuss me for being too cheap to buy a stamp, but given the list of faults he kept on me, this wouldn’t make the top fifty.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled onto County Road 94 heading west to Moniac—a map-dot left off of most maps.
Moniac is called a “community” because it’d be ridiculous to call it a town. It sits due south of the Okefenokee swamp, twenty-seven miles east of Fargo and twelve miles west of St. George, which puts it smack in the middle of nowhere. It’s little more than the intersection of highways 94 and 121, Lacy’s Country Store, a bridge and a dead pecan orchard. With a little tailwind, Tiger Woods could probably hit a ball with his driver from one end to the other. Around here more people talk on CB radios than cell phones.
Most folks drive through without every knowing they’ve been here. Despite this, it’s the bridge that’s significant.
Below it flow the headwaters for the St. Marys and the first put-in outside of the Okefenokee. Most paddlers will tell you the river isn’t navigable for another thirty miles until she rounds the bend at Stokes Bridge and heads due north, but skip it and you miss something beautiful. Sort of like giving birth to a teenager. You might be glad you avoided the diaper stage and the terrible two’s but you’d miss a lot.
We crossed the bridge, swung
A BBIE WANTED HER DAD to know where we were, but didn’t want to call him. A letter would tell him what he needed to know without giving him a chance to control the outcome. She licked the back, slid the letter inside, sealed it and handed it to me—it was the single sheet of yellow legal paper that had been sitting on the bedside table. I pulled into the post office, and was peeling a stamp out of the book when it hit me. We needed time. The problem with the post office is that they were efficient, which meant he’d get this letter in a day or two. I needed them to deliver it next week. Preferably, late next week. I turned to Abbie, “You mind if I buy us a few days’ time?”
She shook her head and forced a smile. “Just as long as it gets there.”
I walked around the building to the drop box and reversed the addresses. Meaning, I addressed it to us, at our house, and wrote the return address as his. Then I peeled off the stamp and dropped it in the box. Without the required forty-one cents postage, it’d spend a few days in post office wonderland while they took their sweet little time tossing it around, angry that it didn’t have a stamp and enacting justice—or rather revenge—on whoever sent it. Further delaying its inevitable return. Then they’d stamp it “Insufficient Postage” in bright red ink and finally, out of sheer mercy to the poor miscreant soul who had mistakenly sent it, return it to the address in the top left-hand corner—which is exactly what I wanted. When Abbie’s father saw this, he’d know I’d bought myself some time, because he’s not stupid. And he’d know that I knew this about him and then he’d cuss me for being too cheap to buy a stamp, but given the list of faults he kept on me, this wouldn’t make the top fifty.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled onto County Road 94 heading west to Moniac—a map-dot left off of most maps.
Moniac is called a “community” because it’d be ridiculous to call it a town. It sits due south of the Okefenokee swamp, twenty-seven miles east of Fargo and twelve miles west of St. George, which puts it smack in the middle of nowhere. It’s little more than the intersection of highways 94 and 121, Lacy’s Country Store, a bridge and a dead pecan orchard. With a little tailwind, Tiger Woods could probably hit a ball with his driver from one end to the other. Around here more people talk on CB radios than cell phones.
Most folks drive through without every knowing they’ve been here. Despite this, it’s the bridge that’s significant.
Below it flow the headwaters for the St. Marys and the first put-in outside of the Okefenokee. Most paddlers will tell you the river isn’t navigable for another thirty miles until she rounds the bend at Stokes Bridge and heads due north, but skip it and you miss something beautiful. Sort of like giving birth to a teenager. You might be glad you avoided the diaper stage and the terrible two’s but you’d miss a lot.
We crossed the bridge, swung
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