It was interesting for Floyd to watch how this issue, this cause about the big supposedly extinct woodpecker, the so-called “Lord God Bird” worked on Erskine. He would mention it only in passing, as a glancing thought, or as a short and wistful complaint. But Floyd took note of the scholarship Erskine was packing around, not only the books Erskine travelled with in the car, but the field guides tabbed with carefully cut strips of light gray letterhead, taped into the pages.
On the Edisto one afternoon a pileated woodpecker swooped down from a bald cypress to land near the bottom of a tupelo gum tree.
“Unmistakable my ass!” Erskine spouted at a decibel level that could scare fish.
Floyd gave him the Silent Floyd treatment, but with a raised eyebrow that was actually very expressive by Floyd’s standards and which clearly communicated to Erskine the question of “just what the heck has gotten into you?”
“The damn Jerry Kayro says the pileated is unmistakable,” Erskine shot back, referring to his most authoritative field guide for North American birds. “You and I know that this is untrue.”
Floyd gave him the “and we know this how?” look.
“Okay, I know it’s untrue and those fellas in Arkansas know its untrue, and those fellas in Florida know its untrue. The only damn way a pileated could be unmistakable is if you couldn’t mistake it for an ivory bill. And you can damn well mistake a pileated for an ivory bill. You just damn well can.”
Floyd smiled and shook his head. But he registered it. Erskine, talker though he was, could go a whole week without using a foul word, so it meant something to Floyd that he would drop a handful at the sight of a big woodpecker changing trees on the Edisto.
Floyd shared the story with Michael Lowe over breakfast in Charleston the next day. And they both chuckled. It sure sounded to them that the champion lawyer in Erskine was alive and in the gym working his way back into shape.
“Cool,” Michael said, “now we just need to find him a bird.”
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