“That’s awfully big for any wild hog.” Papa said.
“Yeah,” Doc Travis agreed, “but you know Herman.”
Doc Travis didn’t need to explain that. Herman Hall was one of the best hunters in the country. He knew the woods and he knew animals. He wasn’t known to exaggerate, not even a little. He was as sober honest as a hangman’s noose. If he said something was so, you could pretty well count on it being that way. Mr. Hall could be wrong, but not on purpose.
“Some are saying it’s the same boar that was here before. The one you were talking about five or six years ago. They say he’s come back.”
“Old Satan?”
“I’ve heard him called The Devil Boar too, but that’s the one.”
“Memory serves me,” Papa said, “they claimed the time before that it was the same hog come back. This would make three times, and that would make Old Satan darn near fifteen to twenty years old.”
“I’ve heard tell of hogs living that long,” Doc Travis said.
“In the wild?”
“Who knows how long some of them have lived. Ain’t nobody throwing birthday parties for them.”
Papa laughed. “Maybe we ought to bake Old Satan a cake, buy him a few presents. Maybe then he’d go away.”
“Ain’t you the funny one.” Mama said, giving Papa a playful slap on the shoulder.
“Well, if it is the same boar, things could get pretty nasty around here. Last time that hog rooted up a lot of farm land, killed chickens and small livestock, and even cut down old Jack Jeffer’s mule with them tusks, cut him right off at the legs like a tree. Then there was that old colored man that got all tore up.”
“Pharaoh,” Papa said. “Lives across the river from us. He was the best hunter in these parts until then. Wasn’t nothing he hadn’t hunted. Bear, wild cats, you name it. Hunted all over the United States, but that boar got the best of him.”
“He’s lucky to be alive. I’m the one worked on him. Wasn’t nothing I could do for his legs but sew them up. They were torn to ribbons, the muscles and nerves ruined.”
“He was sure some hunter,” Papa said wistfully.
“Ain’t he supposed to be a hundred and fifty years old?” Doc asked.
“What they say,” Papa said.
“One thing’s certain,” Mama said, “he knew my papa when he was a little boy and my papa’s papa when he was a boy. He’s old alright. He has at least one boy in his eighties.”
“Well, if you believe Pharaoh is a hundred and fifty years old, then maybe you’ll believe the story going around about Old Satan. About him being an Indian demon or the devil in disguise.”
“That old wives’ tale?” Papa said.
“There’s them that say he’s an old Caddo Indian medicine man that’s getting back at the whites by changing himself into a wild boar, a boar that can’t be killed by guns, but only with magic. Then there’s those partial to the devil story. Some of the backwoods preachers are especially fond of that one. Say the devil’s been let loose here on account of the way folks been living. Not getting to church regular enough and all.”
“Even preachers—especially preachers—get some danged fool ideas sometime,” Papa said.
After that their talk turned to other things, the weather, the bad times. I put up my magazines and Ike and I went out to finish the chores.
Four
Hour or so later Doc Travis left, and Papa came out to the woodpile where we were finishing up. He sent Ike back to the house to help Mama, then we went out to the barn to hitch Clancy up for the day’s work at running the weedy middles out of the corn and cane.
When we had Clancy hitched, Papa held the lines, laid the Georgia Stock on its side and let the mule pull it down to the bottoms. On the way, Papa began to talk.
“What you reckon you’re going to do when you get older, son?”
I was taken aback. It had always struck me that it was understood what I was going to do. Keep right on working the farm. Growing what I could and getting by as best I could, same as Papa did. Now it occurred to me that I might have a choice, and with the question put before me, I realized I also had an answer.
“I’d like to write stories,” I said. The words seemed to leap out of my mouth unbound. The thought had probably been growing inside me for some time, but with Doc Travis bringing those magazines, and Papa asking me outright like that, the time was ripe for a decision.
Papa called “whoa” to Clancy, turned and looked at me. I had an awful sinking feeling that I had just given the wrong answer to his question.
“Say what?” he said.
For a moment I considered changing my answer, but I was afraid he’d actually heard me right, and was just checking to make sure. “I’d like to write stories,” I said again. “Like in the magazines Doc Travis brought me.”
“Stories?” Papa said.
“Yes sir.”
“Make up and write stories?”
“Yes sir.”
Papa was quiet for a moment, considering. I was beginning to feel pretty uncomfortable with my newfound career, and I could tell from the tone of Papa’s voice that he had considered me doing many a thing, but writing stories for magazines wasn’t one of them. After a moment, he said, “They pay folks for that? Making up stories?”
Now I hadn’t given this part of my career any thought. What if they didn’t pay you for writing stories? What if they were written for fun by rich folks who didn’t have nothing to do but lay around writing stories and reading books? I mean, who paid you for having fun? Only kind of work I’d ever known about wasn’t any fun at all. And there wasn’t much pay in it either, except that you got to go on eating.
But I said bravely, “I reckon they do, Papa.”
Papa nodded. “Why you want to do that son? Write stories?”
“I just want to,” I said. “I feel like I just got to do it.” And that was true. The more I thought and talked about it, the more determined I was to be a writer. The idea was comfortable, like drinking a big cup of hot coffee on a cold morning and having it spread around inside your stomach.
I expected Papa to give me a talk on practicality, but he surprised me. “Well, son, if that’s what you want to do, I think you ought to start learning how it’s done. Guess you need more schooling than you’re getting, seeing how you’ve missed a heap.”
He wasn’t just jawing there. I had missed a lot of school. Living where we did, not having a car, and Papa needing me to help at home, there just wasn’t much chance for me to get into town for schooling. Sometimes, when cropping was done, or things were slow, I’d take the mule and ride in to get as many hours as I could. By the end of the year, though, it didn’t amount to much.
“I don’t know how we can manage that, Papa. You and Mama need me here.”
He didn’t answer me. “And don’t you need one of them writing machines that puts the words on paper?”
This hadn’t occurred to me. “Yes sir. I reckon I do.”
“You’d need to learn how to use it, providing you had one, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Course you got to have paper and stuff for the writing machine.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“You’ll need to know where to try and sell what you write.”
“Yes sir, I reckon I will.” I was beginning to think Papa was pointing out the potholes in my plan, trying to bring me down to earth, but what he said next made me realize he wasn’t.
“Now that I think about it, bet you could get the addresses of where to send stories off the magazines you read. Course, you got to keep in mind they may not buy stories from folks down here in Texas. Maybe all that stuff is written by Yankees, heaven forbid.”
“Like in New York?” I asked.
“Reckon so.”
We both just sort of stood there in dumb fascination for a moment. Thinking about New York, I guess. I knew that if I had to be a Yankee to write stories I was in trouble. New York might as wel
l have been Egypt. I had about as much chance of going to either. Farthest I’d been from home was town, and that was only five miles away.
“Naw,” Papa said, “I don’t reckon they’d buy just from Yankees. That would be un-American.”
I could see the wisdom in that, and I nodded.
“Now, if you want to do that… write them stories, then it’s going to be up to you to do it. But I’m going to give you your chance, somehow. You hear?”
“Yes sir.”
Pausing, he moved his lips from side to side and looked off toward the bottoms. When he looked back at me there was a slight smile on his face. “Tell you what I’m thinking now, but this is just between us, hear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Not a word to anyone. Not Mama. Not Ike.”
“Not a word,” I promised.
“Well, son, I’m thinking that if the crop comes in good this year, or if I do real good at that wrestling match, I’m going to buy a car. We get that car and you can get into school quicker and easier, get on back to the house in time to help me and Ike with the rest of the chores.”
The idea of me driving a car to and from town really appealed to me, and the idea of schooling appealed to me even more. “That sounds like a real good idea, Papa.”
“Yes it does,” Papa had to admit, and he sort of nodded agreement with himself.
After a moment of looking out toward the bottoms again, he spoke, but didn’t quite look at me. “I don’t want you to end up scraping a living like I’ve done. Ain’t nothing wrong with farming if that’s what you want to be. But I didn’t never want to be no farmer. Make something out of yourself, son. I don’t care what, but something. If this writer thing is what you want, I’m going to help you get there. Hear me, now?”
“Yes sir.”
“Ike’s going to get his chance too, but there’s some time before he has to start worrying about that kind of thing. It’s more than high time you put a mind to it. I don’t know nothing but hard work, but you boys are going to have your chance if I have to put a hammerlock on Old Scratch himself.”
Finally he looked at me. His face was relaxed and he was wearing a smile. “Come on, let’s go run them middles before it gets too hot.”
Papa made a clicking sound with his tongue and Clancy began to move on out. On the way down to the bottoms I asked Papa if he thought Uncle Pharaoh was really a hundred and fifty years old.
“Suspect he might be,” Papa said. “Ain’t no way of telling for sure, but he’s been around longer than anyone else in these parts. Goes all the way back to slave days.”
“Was Uncle Pharaoh a slave?”
“Hear tell he was.”
“Ain’t he mad about it?”
“Don’t seem to be, but I’m sure he don’t recollect them times with great longing, if you know what I’m getting at.”
“Yes sir, I think I do.”
“Ain’t no man, black, white, brown, or polka-dotted wants another man deciding his bidding for him. A fellow likes to chose what he wants to do and where he wants to go–”
“Was Uncle Pharaoh really as good a hunter as they say?
“He was.”
“Better than Mr. Hall?’
“Can’t take nothing from Herman, he’s a mighty good hunter. Darn sight better than me, that’s for sure. But I reckon old Pharaoh was even better.”
Then I asked him the question that was really on my mind. “Papa, do you reckon that hog Doc Travis was telling about could be the same one they call Old Satan… or that he could be an Indian medicine man or the devil?”
Papa’s laugh made both me and Clancy jump. “Might be the same hog, son. That’s possible. But I can guarantee you that it ain’t no demon or devil. A hog is a hog, boy, and that’s all there is to it.”
Well, in one way Papa was right, but in another he was wrong.
Five
First sign of the devil I saw was the morning Papa left.
Just before daylight, Doc Travis showed up and had breakfast with us. Afterwards, Papa kissed Mama, shook hands with me and Ike, picked up his carpetbag, and went outside.
It was barely daylight, and already it was sticky hot. By noon the day would be a scorcher. The sort where the heat laid down on you like a wool blanket. I was already starting to look forward to fall.
When Papa was getting in the car, he called back to Mama, “See the boys do their chores, but see they get to be boys too.”
Mama smiled.
We stood in the yard and waved the Ford, Doc Travis, and Papa out of sight. The dogs barked until the sound of the Model B melted away.
Ike went to help Mama with the wash, and I went out to the barn to hitch up Clancy for a half-day’s work. That’s about all that was needed to finish running out the middles of the corn. After that, things would be pretty well laid by for a few days. We had two mules, but Clancy was the one that did all the heavy work. Felix had gotten too old. About the only time we used him was to hitch up to the wagon with Clancy. And since the only time we really needed the wagon was when we were going to town, that wasn’t often.
In his time Felix had been quite a worker, but Papa felt that he had earned a right to spend most of his time in the cool shade of the barn, or out in the lot under one of the big oak trees. It could hardly be said that Felix was a mule with a mission.
I gave both mules some grain and harnessed Clancy and hooked the trace chains to the singletree on the Georgia Stock. Then, laying the plow on its side, I picked up the lines and clucked Clancy out of the barn and through the lot. By the time we’d passed through the lot gate and I had locked it back, it was pretty solid daylight and as sticky hot as fresh-boiled sugar syrup.
A mule is a cantankerous critter, and unlike a horse, won’t work itself to death. And Clancy was all mule. On the way out to the field he was as lazy as government help. He’d plod along like he was going to his own hanging. But when he was presented with the rows of corn, he became a high stepper, ready to get in there and get it done so he could go back to the barn and attend to genuine mule business, which looked to me to be pretty simple. Lot of standing around and grain eating, mostly.
Papa liked Clancy to high step like that, because, like the mule, he hated the work and wanted to get it over with. I wasn’t overly fond of it either, but Papa’s legs were longer than mine and he could stand that quick walking better than I could. By the end of the day I’d be nearly at a dog trot and my legs would feel like a couple of amputated stumps.
But today, with the chance of wrapping up the work by or just before noon, I was more than willing. In fact, I was in high spirits and was singing me a song about Old Dan Tucker.
When I got to the last rows of corn, though, the words just turned to dust in my throat.
There wasn’t much left to plow. It looked like a square dance had been held there. Corn was ripped up by the roots and shredded and some of it had been knocked over and mashed as if out of sheer meanness.
Dropping the plow lines, I left Clancy standing in harness and walked out for a close look. I could see deep wallows and rooted-up places, and peppered all around in the soft dirt were tracks.
A cold chill went up my back like a wet finger and lifted the hair at the base of my scalp.
Those prints were near large as a big man’s hand and they were hog tracks. I didn’t have to do much figuring to know I was looking at the handiwork of Old Satan, The Devil Boar.
Six
It crossed my mind to tell Mama about the corn—and any other time I would have—but there was the problem with the baby. More than likely, I figured this wouldn’t be too hard on her to know, but I didn’t want to take a chance and find out. It wasn’t a total disaster to the corn crop, but it was a pretty good loss. Papa could have picked up quite a few dollars off those six rows of corn, or it would have made quite a few meals for us. Instead, some hog I didn’t even know, who might be a Caddo medicine man or the devil himself, had come out in the middle of the night and snacked o
n it. Those sorry dogs of ours that barked at everything hadn’t even whimpered this time.
I couldn’t figure that. Those dogs weren’t exactly bloodthirsty when it came to people, but they didn’t cotton to other critters being on our land, other than those owned by us. They wouldn’t even let a possum shortcut across our yard without barking him deaf or chasing him up a tree so Papa could shoot him and Mama could stew pot him.
The oldest of the dogs—Blue—wasn’t going to be hung for no picture, as he was the ugliest dog in creation, what with his ripped up ears and nose from all those coon hunts, but he could smell a drop of sweat on a gopher in the next county. So why hadn’t he smelled Old Satan?
Papa would probably have said the wind was blowing so that it carried Old Satan’s scent away from the house and the dogs. Or maybe he’d have said the hog smelled too much of the river mud from wallowing in the shallows.
And all those sounded right possible. Even likely. But there was an old saying that kept hopping around in my head like fresh frog legs in a skillet—”the luck of the devil.”
Disgusted and mad, I piled up all the wrecked corn stalks at the edge of the field so I could haul it up to the barn later on and feed it to the stock. Least that way it wouldn’t be totally wasted. This job took me about half as long as it would have taken me to plow out the rows, so I was through quite some time before midday.
I had Clancy drag the plow back to the barn and I hitched him up with a sled. We went back to the corn patch, and I loaded the stalks on the sled and hauled them out back of the barn and stacked them so they’d dry out good.
When that was done, I put the sled away, unharnessed Clancy, and groomed him. I groomed Felix too, just like he’d been working.
While I groomed, I thought again on telling Mama about what Old Satan had done to the corn, but I came right back to my first decision. It was best she didn’t know.