Down South

  ~~~~

  One July afternoon, when the Mack Bayou gators slithered to the shade of the swamp reeds and heat rose like a heavy curtain from the forest floor and even the kudzu refused to crawl an inch, on such a sultry afternoon two-year-old Julia Louise Goodspeed disappeared. . . and it was my fault.

  My pop was church pastor at the time. He crusaded against sinners, and the Goodspeeds were the sinners who rebelled the most. Everyone in Beulah County knew them. They were grist for Pop's Sunday sermons.

  "Dirt farmers," he called them. "So lazy they barely eke out a living, and they let their kids run wild. Not our kind of folks at all."

  He'd get riled up then and commence to write a good two hours' worth of preaching on the sins of drinking, fornicating, and sloth. I knew the Goodspeeds as a sinful bunch, but I can't rightly say I saw any of this sinning for myself. Didn't seem to matter, though, to Pop.

  "See that you steer clear of them and their nits, Arly," he said to me.

  He didn't bother to say or else, but I heard him just as clear, and I knew what he meant. . . or else I was going straight to hell.

  Sally Goodspeed was in my class at school, when she came to school, but I didn't pay much attention to her, except to notice she wore frumpy hand-me-downs and kept to herself. She showed up one morning with Julia slung on her hip, a cute little kid with a mop of red curls, even if she was thin and hardly bigger than her name; and when the principal objected, Sally said she had to look after her little sister. They didn't let her stay.

  That was the last I seen or heard of Julia, until I watched the sheriff's car kiss Hank Goodspeed's beat-up Chevy past the peanut field and the new cut hay, all the way up to the horse barn where me and Injun Joe was working. I'd given Injun three afternoons a week after school and every Saturday for two summers in exchange for the filly we foaled that morning, and I never imagined anything else would mean as much to me.

  Mr. Hank's face was ruddy, his veined cheeks shiny with more than sweat, and he had a wild look to his eyes, like Pop did the time a rattler sunk fangs into his best hound. I gazed at the man and shivered. Eleven rattles and a button, and that dog died before he knew he'd been bit. Mack Bayou was full of them.

  I should've been about my chores, that was my deal with Injun, and not lazing around sticking my nose in other folks' business. But Injun never seemed to mind me hanging around or taking a moment for myself. He tolerated my questions and foolishness and kept me out of trouble while Pop tended to his flock.

  Pop always said kids should be seen and not heard, so I figured that's why no one said nothing to me as I was quiet and edged to the tailgate of the truck to stand listening. I'd never been this close to a real sinner, and my curiosity was bubbling up inside.

  Then Mr. hank quit talking to Injun and swung his piercing gaze to me. I felt the weight of all eyes on me, and like the dead frog in school, I was pinned to my spot, and I wasn't sure why.

  "You the preacher's boy," he said, "ain't you?"

  There was an undertone I didn't fully catch, as if he knew me already, but I couldn't figure how. I'd never laid eyes on him before.

  "Name's Arly Thomas," I said, nodding, then squared my shoulders and tried not to stare at my boot tops.

  "What's your mama's name?"

  I blinked. "Ain't got no mama. She's gone. It's just the two of us."

  "But you had one," Mr. Hank said. "What was her name?"

  He kept staring at me, and my feet got itchy. I reckon it seemed natural for folks to always figure to know a body through their kin, but there wasn't much to tell. The one time I asked after her, Pop slapped me down the back steps, so I knew he must've loved her a lot and missed her so much it still pained. She left me and Pop, and that's all I knew. I never asked again.

  "Sarah, I think," I said. "Sarah Thomas, but I don't remember hearing tell if she was from around here."

  Mr. Hank grunted, and his expression changed. He looked at me then through eyes that were worn and world-weary.

  "Your Black Jack is the best trail dog in the county," he said. "We need him to find my baby."

  I could picture Julia, big blue eyes, liked to suck her thumb, and was as quiet as his question that hung in the air.

  Injun's silence prodded at me. Pop would tan me a good one. I felt more helpless than I'd ever felt in my life.

  Injun shoved his hands in his overall pockets then and shook his head. "We know how you must feel, Hank. Leave the boy be. His Black Jack's never trailed a person, never even tried. I dunno if Brother Thomas. . .."

  Mr. Hank was a lean man with a hard face, not easy to like, and with ten younguns to feed, I reckon he had call to be. His oldest girl was Julia's mama. She'd got herself in the family way, then dumped Julia on her mama and daddy's doorstep and run off with a married man twice her age. I wasn't supposed to know that, but we got thin walls and screen doors and, sometimes, I can't help but hear Pop when he's out on the porch whispering, with someone in his congregation, I guess. Nope, not our kind of folks at all.

  As if Mr. Hank could read my thoughts, he bowed his head, then looked up at me with moist eyes, and I felt something shrivel inside.

  Julia had been gone four hours, with the other Goodspeed younguns and their kin searching for her. It seemed she was last seen toddling after a litter of puppies in the back yard. The older younguns were supposed to be watching the little ones, but as happens, Julia got overlooked in the shuffle.

  "We ain't found a trace of her along the road," Mr. Hank said. "Ain't no footprints to be seen in the red clay. The sheriff figures more'n likely she wandered somewhere toward the creek."

  I knew the area well. A cold water creek ran beyond the tangle of pines and underbrush that backed up to the three acres where the Goodspeed trailer sat.

  I poked the loose dirt with my boot tip. Going in those woods was iffy for a grown man with a good spotlight and a pair of snake chaps, but with dark coming on, I didn't see that a lost baby girl wearing nothing but a diaper and a smile stood much of a chance.

  And as daylight ticked by, her grandpa wanted something I couldn't give. I could feel Injun's disapproval at my silence.

  He stayed as stone-faced as his wooden carvings that gave him his nickname. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from blurting out that Black Jack had seen his best seasons already, that he was so gray and bent with arthritis now the only thing he'd trailed in the last year was his supper dish. Mr. Hank's eyes beseeched until it hurt me to look at him, and gauging by Injun's expectant gaze, I reckon he felt the same heaviness in his chest.

  "I ain't promising nothing," I heard myself say, before I could snatch the words back, "except we'll do our best."

  "That's all I can ask." Mr. Hank loosened his shoulders and swiped his hand across his nose, then sniffed. "All a body can ask."

  Injun leaned down and whispered to me, "It weren't an easy decision, son. But I'm mighty proud of you."

  I watched Mr. Hank head back to his truck, and I took a shaky breath.

  "Don't reckon there's anything else I can do," I said, then flinched when my voice did a singsong squeak, though Injun didn't seem to notice. "I done told him we'd come. No help for it, now."

  No point in lying and saying the thought of hellfire didn't cross my mind. It did. I wondered if Pop would ever understand.

  "Let me get Black Jack," I said, "and put him in the dog box."

  Injun put his hand to my shoulder and squeezed. "It's Saturday, isn't it, son?"

  "Yes, sir. All day."

  "Then, I say we've got a job to do."

  "You don't have to do that," I said, then told the biggest lie of my life. "I'll be all right."

  "Just the same," Injun said, "if your daddy takes a notion to hold services, he can hold them with me. Remember that."

  Black Jack wasn't far. He'd eyed us all from a cool spot under a sawtooth oak, and when I hollered his name, he lifted his hind leg and rolled over on his back.


  He was the spit of his daddy, who was a black and tan, and like his daddy, accepted the run of Injun's place as his due. Pop said dogs belonged locked in the dog pen, but Injun thought people could learn a lot from animals and never seemed to mind Black Jack under foot.

  When I hollered again, Black Jack grudgingly got up to see what I wanted. He couldn't jump into the dog box when I ordered, "C'mon, up!", though I know he wanted to. I could see the plea in his cloudy eyes for a boost, at least as far as the truck's tailgate.

  Injun threw some gear in his truck box and seemed distracted as we tore out after the sheriff's car. I wouldn't have heard him if he'd said anything anyway, what with my heart drumming in my ears. With luck, we'd find Julia in a half hour and Pop wouldn't be any the wiser until I could explain.

  Heat devils danced in the road, and we spit red dust all the way to the Goodspeed place. I wasn't much surprised to see there wasn't but three or four cars in the yard.

  One was parked on Miz Goodspeed's day lily bed. She didn't notice though. I could see that by the way she stood staring out at Mack Bayou, clutching her faded apron to her face, as if nothing else existed except for them trees. Sally was on the back porch, staying out the way like she does in school, and riding herd on two of her littlest brothers who were wrestling on the ground.

  I felt her blue eyes bore into me as I slid out of the truck, and when she called my name, the soft sound held me prisoner. My head swirled with the sweet scent of honeysuckle that traveled across the yard.

  A couple of the sheriff's boys were talking into their radios, and Injun and the sheriff had their heads together, but I couldn't make out what was said. Squirrels were chattering in the oak tree overhead.

  Black Jack smelled something different in the air, too. When I opened the dog box, he padded forward and raised his nose, winding. I untied the red bandana from his neck and replaced it with the worn leather collar that had Injun's name engraved in a brass plate should the hound ever get lost. Then I clipped on the thin leather lead.

  He stood still, real solemn, and let me dress him for the business at hand. If clothes make the man, I figured the collar makes the dog. I'd watched the same kind of change come over Pop when he put on his Sunday clothes to step into the high pulpit. With his starched collar rising just above his black robe, Pop would stare out on the congregation as if he knew he could ferret out every sin and crawl into every dark place. There were no secrets that could hide from his penetrating eyes.

  Black Jack wore that same determined set, except his pulpit was a tailgate and his congregation was Mack Bayou.

  One glance at the men, then at the tailgate, and Black Jack decided. Down he jumped in a fluid leap and shook himself, like a runner ready for the starting gun. I offered the lead to Injun, but he just winked at me and turned to the sheriff.

  "Can her grandma hand me something the baby's worn?" Injun said. "A lot of scents would confuse the dog. A shirt. . .no, something she's peed on would be best."

  Even the bees seemed to quiet as Miz Goodspeed brought out a tiny white nightgown, obviously seconds from the local Carter's mill. I knew because me and every other kid in Mack Bayou wore Carter clothes, and the strawberries on this one were blue instead of red. My throat was dry and I swallowed.

  Injun nodded and took the nightgown in his hand. He squatted down, called Black Jack's name, and the dog buried his nose up to his ears in the cotton fabric, huffing and snuffling as he drank in the scent.

  Then Injun hollered, "Hunt 'em up."

  Quick as a snap, Black Jack planted his nose to the dirt, and it was all I could do to keep up with him as he twisted and turned this way and that, with me hanging onto the end of the lead. He picked up a trail a moment later, opened, and took off like a shot. Thirty yards out, he jumped a downed poplar and headed into the swamp.

  That should've been my first clue, but I was too busy dodging briars and saplings to imagine the trail we wanted and the trail the dog was on might not be the same thing.

  "Hold up," Injun shouted, and I dug my heels in the mud, pulling on the lead for all I was worth until Black Jack and I were both straining for breath.

  Steam rose from my shirt and baked my face when I glanced back across my shoulder. Injun was keeled over, blowing hard, his hands braced on his knees, sweat dripping off his nose. A cloud of noseeums swarmed around his head.

  "He's trailing a deer," Injun said. "She didn't come this way."

  "How can you tell?"

  He made a sweep with his arm. "The line he's following. She's not big enough to climb over that tree and make straight for cover." Injun jerked off his hat, swiped his shirtsleeve across his sweaty forehead, and shook his head. "I was afraid of this. I warned old man Goodspeed this might happen. C'mon. Let's start again."

  By the fifth time we'd trudged back to the Goodspeed yard, my shirt was plastered to my back and my dungarees were damp and tight inside my boots. My mouth tasted like fur, and I could swear on a stack of Bibles the dog flies had teeth.

  The sun was slipping down behind the trees, which didn't so much ease up the heat as it set the night bugs to gnawing early. Pop would be wondering where I'd got to.

  "Here, have a drink," Sally said, and handed me a tumbler of well water.

  The glass was cold and sweating. I wiped my stinging face with my sleeve and smelled my own stink, and it occurred to me I ought to move downwind of her. When I did, though, she touched my arm and held on. Somewhere a quail called bobwhite. . .bobwhite. Sally had freckles on her nose I hadn't ever noticed before.

  "You're giving up," she said. "Ain't you?"

  Yes.

  I was thinking of it before she spoke. Her voice, though, burned into my heart with a strange emotion. It was tired and soft and hinted at the sadness that comes from not having much and expecting even less.

  "Oh, I don't hold it against you, Arly. We're obliged you and your dog come and done what you could."

  "It's getting late," I said. "Pop doesn't know I'm here, and he won't like it if he has to hold supper for me."

  "I'll call him," she said. "Miz Parker down the road won't mind me borrowing her phone."

  No!

  "I'd be obliged if you would," I heard myself say.

  She hoofed it up to the house, and I could've bitten my tongue off. I didn't want to stay and I didn't want to go home, so instead, I let Black Jack slurp the rest of the water.

  Mud and green slime caked his legs and under belly, and sandspurs clung to his coat. His tongue lolled to the side as he drooled ropes of slobber, and he was panting double time. Injun wasn't looking much better.

  "You as wilted as I am, Arly?"

  "Black Jack's give out in this heat," I said. "Maybe we ought to stop?"

  Injun hesitated, then said, "It's your call, son. You've got his lead."

  I hated him then. Nothing sounded better than to quit, drink a gallon of ice cold lemonade and eat my weight in egg salad, but when I ruffled Black Jack's head, his eyes sparkled. He knew something, something I hadn't yet figured out.

  "He'll stiffen up if we stop now," I said, "won't he?"

  "He'll be stove up," Injun said and shrugged. "A few days rest and he'll be set to go again."

  "But Julia doesn't have a few days, does she?"

  "No, son. I don't reckon she does."

  "Think Black Jack knows that?"

  Injun squatted beside the panting dog, cupped both hands on his dirty muzzle, and stroked from wet nose to shoulder.

  "It wouldn't surprise me one bit," he said. "Dogs have more sense than people do. It's up to you, Arly. Do we quit or keep looking?"

  Black Jack stared at me then, talking to me with his soft eyes, and I got the nagging feeling I'd know what he was saying if only I listened better. I considered the oak tree's cool shade, then thought of Julia Louise Goodspeed, hot and tired and wanting her grandma.

  "We've still got light left," I said. "Maybe we
can do something with it."

  So we did the perimeter of the yard, over and over, starting Black Jack in a different spot each time, and each time with the same result——no more than thirty yards out and we knew from the tracks he was on the wrong trail. He picked up rabbits, more deer, armadillos, coyotes, you name a critter and it seemed at one time or another, it had moseyed across Goodspeed land, but no baby girl.

  That's when I noticed we had company.

  I can't say where the folks come from or when. I'd been too busy hoofing it through the woods to pay much attention to anything else, but when I looked toward the trailer, there were cars and trucks everywhere, with more pulling up.

  The sheriff was busy organizing men to comb different sections of the woods, while some of the neighbor women had set up torches in the yard and set tables with sandwiches under the sprawling oak trees. Even Pop was toting water jugs.

  I caught him staring at me, and it was hard to figure out what he was thinking. Then he nodded. Whatever indecision held him, I knew then he'd come to terms with it, and we'd talk later about what I'd done.

  It was twilight, that time of day when you can almost see the air. Black Jack opened, and this time his bell took on a different pitch, no longer gleeful but almost frantic.

  I didn't dare hope.

  We followed a path cut by nightly trips to water, through sparse pines and toward the sandy creek bank. The cloying smell hit me when we entered the thick brush, canopied by towering pines. I checked up, Black Jack jerking on the other end of the lead, snuffling, and glanced over at Injun. He seemed to have aged, his shoulders slumping, his face haggard.

  Without a word, he moved forward, until the bank came into view and we could see gator tracks——a big gator——and what caused the awful stink. . . or what little was left of it anyway.

  The sight of a toddling baby girl in a nightgown with blue strawberries rushed into my mind, and my horror must've shown on my face because Injun shook his head and said, "It's not her. That's too ripe to be today. Looks like a gator got a fawn or a 'coon, probably a day or so ago, and got around to his meal this evening. No help for it now. Come, Black Jack!"

  Injun shoved the nightgown into the dog's nose again to get him back on track. Black Jack snuffled the ground, retraced his steps a yard or two, then took off toward the oak bottom opposite the creek.

  He was on her trail. . .I knew he was.

  I couldn't see the other men, but I could hear them shouting Julia's name through the trees. Black Jack had stopped drooling and was panting as loud as he was baying.

  He must've stepped wrong in a hole because he was favoring his right foreleg as he ran down the incline. My steps against the pine needles and dried leaves sounded like cannon fire.

  Maybe that's why I didn't notice the gun blast behind me and didn't turn around until I heard Injun scream my name. He was crumpled on the ground, waving me on with the smoking gun.

  "Rattler!" he said. "Watch your step!"

  "I'll get help," I shouted back.

  "They heard me. They'll come. Keep going!"

  Black Jack had dug in his paws, his veins bulging, muscles straining, and was dragging me down to the oak bottom, sucking and huffing dirt and gasping for breath against the tightening collar. There was no fighting him.

  I slipped and slid through dead leaves and vines, the air so close and thick, I could barely grab a breath. The sound of crickets and tree frogs thundered in my ears.

  Sweat stung my eyes and my hands were so wet my fingers lost their grip on the lead. Black Jack felt the slack and tore off down the bottom without me.

  I don't know how long after that I noticed the silence. . .maybe a few seconds. . .maybe a couple of minutes. Dusk was falling, night was closing in, and Black Jack had quit baying.

  I kept following where I thought he'd gone, hearing nothing except my own wheezing and my own pounding heart.

  Then I found him.

  He was laying just around an overgrown clump of dogwoods ——his side heaving, his mouth foamy red, eyes glassy, and his nose pointed ahead. One look and I knew Black Jack had gone as far as he was ever going.

  I felt the fear and the pain rush up at me, and I dropped to my knees beside him. If I had tried harder. . .hadn't wasted time. . .hadn't doubted. . .

  Julia was gone forever. It was an instinctive knowledge that came to me as sure as the smell of death and pine resin.

  "Good boy," I said, stroking Black Jack's mottled head. "You done your best."

  Once the sheriff got Injun to the hospital and saw he was doing okay, he radioed the national guard for their search team. Pop had taken up a collection among his congregation to help the Goodspeeds put up a fence.

  Someone had draped an old plaid blanket smelling sweet of honeysuckle over Black Jack, so I buried him in that blanket, in the woods that he loved; and it wasn't too many yards from him that, in winter, two years later, hunters came across the abandoned well.

  For a long time after that July evening, I couldn't understand why Black Jack would run himself to death for a little girl he never knew.

  Then it came to me. I remembered what Injun had said that day.

  Black Jack had known Julia all along. His nose had told him she was little and helpless and lost, and for him, that's all that ever mattered.

  * * * * *

  ~~~~

  Story 4

  Remove Smigma With Cat Butter

  short fiction