West With Giraffes(90)

As I rocked and rolled in that transport, riding those waves, I planned what I’d do the moment we docked.

I’d find them.

I’d find her.

And I’d find you.

I tracked down Mr. Big Reporter, Lionel Abraham Lowe, to a little New Jersey house with a green grass yard. When he opened the door, the way he eyed my uniform I’d have bet all my army pay he was 4-F, probably for flat feet or flat head.

So, I quickly said what I came to say. “I want to speak to Red.”

He stiffened. “Who?”

“Augusta, your . . . wife.”

Easing the door shut behind him, he looked me in the eye. “Augusta died years ago. Who’s asking?”

I staggered back like I’d taken a punch. I must have looked seventeen again, all the years and all the graves falling from my face, because he recognized me. His eyes grew wide and fierce, his face flushed, and his fist came flying.

And I let it.

I staggered back another step with the blow and just stood there, blood gushing from my nose. He stared at me bleeding all over his stoop until I crumpled down on his front step, then, fetching me a towel, he eased down beside me.

A moment passed, the two of us hunched there, waiting for the towel to staunch the blood.

“How’d she die?” I mumbled.

“Her heart, of course,” he answered. “In her sleep. About a year after our daughter was born . . . That’s how we met.”

“What?”

“Her heart,” he said, looking off. “I found her on a curb holding her heart, unable to catch her breath. I offered to take her to the hospital. She had no money, but when I offered to pay, she said no. So, I took her to the indigent clinic and waited with her, those gasps not stopping until they gave her a shot of some kind.” He paused. “She came from money, you know. Her father was one of the ones who jumped from their Wall Street windows in the crash of ’29, when she was twelve. For years she and her mother were shuffled between relatives, most scratching to get by themselves, until her mother lost her mind and went wandering. Augusta was out looking for her. I spent days helping her look, figuring I’d get a story out of it, considering the Wall Street jumper angle, whether we found her mother or not. That happened all the time during the Depression, people vanishing, never to be heard from again. But we found her, all right. Too late. By that time, though, I’d forgotten all about the story and Augie didn’t have anywhere . . .”

The front door creaked open.

There you stood. With his face. And her red curls.

“Go on back inside, sweetheart,” he ordered, “go on.” He looked at me more anxious than fierce. “Leave my daughter out of this. She’s only six,” he whispered. “She doesn’t know a thing about her mother’s wild streak . . . running after giraffes of all things . . . by herself. You and that zookeeper letting her! She was a woman, for God’s sake! With a heart condition! She could have died out there alone. She asked too much . . . she always asked too much!”

With that, he fumed and stood up. But there was more I wanted to know. Did Red get in her magazine? Did she ever see Africa? Did she get to stretch her wings?

Before I could ask, though, the door opened again.

“Lionel? Who is that?” There stood a pretty brunette wearing a print dress and smelling of lavender with a baby on her hip.

I got to my feet.

“Just a soldier looking for somebody who no longer lives here, dear,” he told her.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

“Yes, dear,” he answered for me. “He had a sudden nosebleed, but we fixed it, didn’t we, soldier? I’ve already offered him a towel. No need to worry. Now he has to be on his way.”

“Well, God bless you, sir. Augie Ann, this man won the war for us!”

Augie.

You came close, and I got to see you smile.

Herding his family back inside, he said loudly my way, “Sorry not to have been able to help you, soldier.” Then Lionel Abraham Lowe closed the door on me, his eyes telling a tale of their own. He’d loved Red. I wasn’t sure of it until that moment, and it made me feel better for you.

I found a library and went scouring through back issues of Life magazine. I’d hoped she’d made it in somehow, even without us. Of course, she wasn’t there. This Margaret Bourke-White photographer she loved was everywhere, taking pictures of the War all over the world. But no Augusta Red.

Yet as I sat there in that library, safe if not yet sound, I heard Red’s last words to me as if she were still standing in front of me: We had us an adventure, didn’t we, Woody Nickel?

“Yes,” I answered, right out loud. “Yes, we did.”

I wanted to run back and tell you. Your ma did have an adventure—a proper one that made her heart sing for a time even if it couldn’t make her heart strong. Along the way, she did see Africa—in the back of a truck, in the eyes of the giraffes, down the road going west—and she was as daring and brave as could be. I ached for you to know. The War had made me an honorable man, though, if it did nothing else. I was asked to leave you alone, so I did. You being their daughter, I had no rights in the matter, despite my deep feelings for Red. Truth is, I’m not sure what your ma was to me, even now. Nothing I come up with rings true. I didn’t know her long enough to say she was the love of my life, although it can deeply feel that way here and now as I write. But if a man leads a handful of lives inside a long life like mine, I can say she was the love of my first life. That I can surely say.