The Boar

  One part of me felt good about the fact that I was trying to do good and not upset her and cause problems with the baby, but another part of me felt like a dirty, low-down sneak-thief.

  Figuring it was near dinnertime, I started up to the house. Ike was at the well drawing water.

  “You done finished?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “All of it?”

  “All there is to do.”

  Ike gave me a long, sly look. “Where’d you get them stalks you sledded up this way?”

  Darn that Ike, he never missed a trick. “Listen here, Ike, Mama ain’t going to need to know about that.”

  “Whatcha do, plow some of the corn down?”

  “No,” I snapped, “I didn’t plow none of the corn down.”

  “I was just remembering that time you let Felix get away from you and you plowed up half the bean patch.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and I’m remembering that time you weren’t supposed to be messing with him, and while Papa and I were picking tomatoes Felix drug you over two rows of tomatoes, stakes and all, and we had to have Doc Travis come out and put stitches—”

  “You just don’t mention where I got my stitches. Hear?”

  “Well, you hear this, Ike Dale. Old Satan done been in our bottom. He tore up some of our land, wrecked some of the corn. I ain’t saying nothing to Mama about it on account of the baby and all.”

  Ike looked thoughtful. “I reckon that’s an all right idea,” he said. “You sure it’s Old Satan?”

  “He didn’t leave no note with his name on it or nothing,” I said, “but he left some prints too big to be any old Piney Woods Rooter.”

  “Maybe it ain’t hog tracks. Maybe it’s a cow, or something.”

  “I ain’t no blamed Daniel Boone on sign,” I said, “but I know a pig’s tracks from a dadblamed cow’s. It’s Old Satan all right.”

  Ike chewed on his bottom lip a moment. “You know what Doc Travis was saying? About Old Satan being an Indian medicine man or the devil… you reckon that’s true?”

  “Papa says it ain’t.”

  Ike eyed me slyly. “What do you say?”

  “I say the same as Papa.” Though to be honest, I wasn’t entirely expressing my true feelings. Looking at those tracks had given me the awfullest sort of stirring.

  “Did he spoil much?”

  “Not too much.”

  “Reckon he’ll be back?”

  “I don’t know how a hog thinks,” I said. “Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. You listen here, though. Not a word to Mama, all right?”

  “You sure you didn’t plow down that corn and make this here story up?”

  “If you want to run on down to the patch for a looksee,” I said, “I’ll wait right here.”

  I could see that he was considering it, but after a moment he said, “Naw, I believe you.”

  “Not a word then?”

  Ike crossed his heart. “Not a word.”

  “This’ll be our secret until Papa gets home.”

  “Indians couldn’t drag it out of me with torture.”

  “Don’t reckon we’ll have to worry about that none,” I said. “Been a long time since they’ve attacked.”

  “No need to get smart about it,” Ike said. “It’s the thought that counts.” He half-grinned at me, and I grinned back.

  “Go on and wash up,” Ike said. “I was fixing to call you to dinner anyhow. There’s fresh water poured for you.”

  I went out back of the house where the wash pan set on a basin. Fresh water was in it and a new bar of lye soap was beside it with a clean, folded towel.

  I took off my shirt, shook it free of dust, and patted it from my pants. Then I used my hand and some water to slick my hair down. After washing up and drying, I put my shirt on and checked myself in the broken piece of mirror leaning up behind the wash pan. I decided I looked clean enough to go to Mama’s table.

  Dinner was black-eyed peas, fried chicken, pan-fried cornbread, grits, and buttermilk. Pretty much the same meal we’d been having all week, but that didn’t hurt the taste any. Mama could have cooked a rotted log and made it taste good, even if she served it ten days in a row.

  About halfway through the meal, Ike looked up and said, “I wonder what Papa’s eating.”

  Mama reached over and rubbed his shaggy head. “I was wondering the same thing.”

  “I reckon Papa’s doing just fine,” I said.

  Mama smiled. “Figure you’re right, Richard. He’s doing just fine.”

  When dinner was finished, we did dishes. Mama washing, me drying, and Ike stacking. Afterwards Mama gave Ike and me a piece of peppermint and sent us on our way. There wouldn’t be any serious chores to do until evening time.

  I got my stacks of magazines and went out to the hay loft to read, and Ike got his pole and stuff and went fishing. The loft was pretty warm, but sometimes I liked that. The heat—and me cuddled down in the hay—would sometimes make me drowsy and I’d have some really good daydreams.

  Today it wasn’t working though. I couldn’t even concentrate on my magazines the way I liked to. Kept thinking about those big tracks in the corn patch, about Old Satan.

  After a bit I went to the open hay-loft door and looked out. Mama was standing way out from the house, in the middle of the road, looking down it. She stood there for a long time, like maybe if she looked hard enough she could see around the curves and through the pines, and all the way to the fair in Tyler.

  Seven

  On the day Papa was due home, Doc Travis drove up in the yard without him. We had all heard the dogs barking and heard the Ford popping and we had rushed out to meet them.

  When Doc Travis got out of the car and Papa wasn’t with him, I could hear Mama drawing in her breath. All sorts of awful things went through my mind, horrible things that could have happened to Papa.

  But when Doc Travis smiled at us I knew everything was okay.

  “Leonard?” Mama asked softly.

  “Fine, real fine. Whomped that fair fellow quicker than a duck can eat a June bug.”

  “Where is he?” Mama asked. “Ain’t hurt none, is he?”

  “Not hurt a lick,” Doc Travis said. “One of you boys get that box out of the car, will you? Something your Papa sent.”

  Ike and I nearly knocked each other down trying to get to it, and when we found out how heavy and cumbersome it was, we decided to do it together.

  “Bring it in to the kitchen table,” Mama said. “Doc, you want some coffee?”

  “Ain’t going to leave without none. Pour it up, lady.”

  They went inside and we followed, putting the big cardboard box in the center of the table.

  “You boys be careful with that,” Doc Travis said. “And don’t look inside neither. Not yet.”

  We all sat around the table and stared at the box for a moment.

  “Where’s Leonard?” Mama asked.

  “Tell you in good time, gal,” he said. “Now look here.” He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of money. He slapped it down on the table in front of Mama. “Two hundred dollars of the prize money.”

  “Two hundred!” Mama said. “That’s the most money I’ve ever seen in one place.”

  “Made more than that. Prize was about three hundred, but he spent some of it on what’s in the box and he had to keep some for living money.”

  “Living money?” Mama asked.

  “Uh huh. He not only beat that fair fellow, but he beat him so good, they fired their boy and took on Leonard.”

  “He’s traveling with the fair?” Mama asked.

  “For a few towns, if he don’t get licked,” Doc Travis said.

  “He won’t get licked. Never,” Ike said.

  “I don’t reckon he will either,” Doc Travis said. He turned back to Mama. “You see, he’s got a chance to make a thousand dollars or better.”

  “A thousand dollars!” I said.

  Doc Travis nodded.
“That’s right.”

  “Why it wouldn’t matter if our crop came in or not,” Mama said. “And if it did come in—”

  “We’d be rich,” I said.

  Mama looked over at me and smiled. “Not quite rich, but we wouldn’t have to live quite so close to the bone.” She turned back to Doc Travis. “You said he wasn’t hurt none?”

  “Course he ain’t. They ain’t going to let an injured man wrestle for them. He’d lose all their money. Why you should have seen him take that fair fellow, and that rascal being twice the size of Leonard too. Leonard snatched that old boy’s foot out from under him, twisted him over on his belly and pinned him to the mat like a big bug.”

  “Ha ha!” Ike barked suddenly and slammed his hand on the table. We all looked at him. That was the most excitement I’d seen out of him since he was eight and had accidentally set his overalls on fire playing with matches in the outhouse. He glanced around at us, sort of embarrassed. “Just couldn’t help myself,” he said.

  We all laughed.

  “When will he be home?” Mama asked.

  “Don’t rightly know,” Doc Travis said. “Maybe a month or better. Guess that’s going to put you in a rough spot for a while, with the farming and all. But Leonard stands to make a bundle, and even if he don’t, he’s sure done all right so far.”

  “We’ll be needing some things for the baby,” Mama said. She picked up the two hundred dollars, got up, and put it in the cookie jar. It had been months since it had had either cookies or money in it.

  “What’s in the box?” Ike asked when Mama sat back down.

  “I’ll do the honors there,” Doc Travis said, smiling. He pulled the box over to him and opened it. He reached in and brought out a soft, blue bundle and unfolded it. It was a long, beautiful dress. Mama’s mouth fell open.

  “He… he got that for me?” she said.

  “No,” Doc Travis said, “he sort of thought Ike might like it. Course he got it for you, cotton head. Blue is your favorite color, right?” He handed the dress to her.

  She smiled, holding the dress against her. “Blue and green,” she said.

  “Good, cause he got a green one too,” and with that Doc Travis’s hand darted into the box and whipped out a green dress.

  “I’ll swan,” Mama said, and the sunlight coming through the window caught her eye, and for a moment it glistened.

  “Course, if you’re going to wear them dresses,” Doc Travis said, “you got to have shoes to go with them, and he sent some of them too.” His hand went back to the box and came out holding a pair of black, shiny, lace-up shoes, just like Mama had swooned over so often in the Sears and Roebuck catalogue.

  She took them and held them in front of her, and finally, gently, set them on the table. “He shouldn’t have spent all that money,” she said.

  “Sure he should have,” Doc Travis said. “Now, these two squirts get a turn.”

  Out of the box came a bright, red and black flannel shirt and a crisp, dark-blue pair of overalls for Ike. They were his first store-bought clothes. Up until then he’d only had hand-me-downs and things Mama sewed up from what cloth she could get from flour sacks and such.

  “Them’s all mine?” Ike asked.

  “Unless you want Richard to wear one leg of the overalls for good luck or something,” Doc Travis said.

  Ike took the clothes and held them to him like they were a warm puppy. “Reckon I can try ‘em on?” Ike asked Mama. “Just to see how they wear, then I’ll take ‘em off.”

  “You can,” Mama said. “But let’s see what else is in the box.”

  “You’re next, Richard,” Doc Travis said. “Come on around here and get it out yourself.”

  I went around and looked in the box. There was a small, flat box inside and I lifted it out. Beneath it was a bigger bundle wrapped in cloth.

  “That’s yours too,” Doc Travis said, “but open this up first.”

  Inside the box was a stack of magazines. Dime Detective, Black Mask, Weird Tales, and Doc Savage. I was instantly in hog heaven. Beneath the magazines was a pile of clean, white paper sheets. I figured they were padding.

  “Now the other thing,” Doc Travis said.

  I reached in and took hold of the bundle. It was heavy. I set it on the table and carefully unwrapped the cloth around it. When I saw what it was my mouth fell open. I suddenly knew what that pile of paper under the magazines was for.

  They were for my new typewriter.

  Eight

  When Doc Travis finished his visit and drove away, I did the few chores that needed to be done, then went inside to look at my typewriter.

  Ike had tried on his shirt and overalls, and now they had been folded and put away. Mama had tried on her dresses and shoes, and now they had been put away. It was my turn to try out my typewriter, something I wanted to do in private. I don’t know why, but I felt I had to be alone with it, that I had to do this without even Mama watching.

  I took it in the back room where Ike and I slept and set it on the dresser and pulled up a chair and padded it with pillows. I put a sheet of paper in the machine and punched a key.

  The letter I jumped onto the page.

  I sat there and looked at it for a long time. Then, at will, I pushed key after key, and finally I quit just hitting them and started looking at what I was doing and began to make words.

  It was like magic to me. Any thought that stirred in my head I could put on paper, and it would stare back at me.

  For a while, I felt like a god with people and places at the command of my two, hard-punching fingers.

  It was about as good a feeling as I ever had.

  Nine

  Twelve sheets of paper later, filled front to back with nothing that would have meant anything to anyone but me, I put the typewriter under the bed and the typed paper in the box between the clean sheets. Ike and Mama respected what was mine enough not to meddle, but I felt better about not putting it out where someone might read my secret thoughts and maybe snicker over them.

  I went outside, tossed the chickens some cornbread crumbs, split some kindling for the stove, then asked Mama if I could go over and see Abraham. She told me she had nothing against it.

  Abraham Wilson was my best friend. He was colored. He lived on the other side of the Sabine even deeper in the woods than we did. His father Buck Wilson was an A-l field hand, and he got fifty cents a day for work same as the whites. That was real good pay for colored, as they were usually lucky to get half as much.

  Papa always thought that was a bad thing, and told me time and again that a man’s color ought not to have anything to do with his thinking or working. That had to do with the man.

  All I knew was that I’d grown up with Abraham and we’d swum the river together and had sword duels with willow limbs and fished since we were old enough to wander off from the house by ourselves. His color didn’t seem to make none of those things less fun.

  Abraham’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and a whole pack of brothers and sisters lived with him in a house about three times the size of ours, and better built to boot. Abraham’s papa was a fine carpenter, and he knew how to split logs and make lumber without having to tote them to the saw mill. He was as handy as a pocket on a shirt with that sort of thing.

  Papa had plans to trade out something with Buck Wilson and get him to do some carpenter work on our shack. Papa was all thumbs when it came to building things. He was a good hunter and fisherman, a fair farmer, but just about the lousiest builder you ever did see. And I wasn’t any better. Anytime we built a fence or a hog pen, you dang near had to tie it to a tree so it would stand up.

  I put some of the pulp magazines inside my shirt, got my .22, and called up the pup, Roger, to go with me, just in case we ran across some squirrels to pot.

  Roger bounced along beside me for a bit, then when we got deep in the woods, he darted off the trail and scared up a flock of birds that darn near fluttered into my face before flying up through the pine and oak
limbs to reach the sky.

  As I walked, I sort of half-listened for Roger’s bark. If he found a squirrel his mouth would tell me. That dog wasn’t any seasoned hunter, but he was promising and blessed with one fine mouth. He had a sound for every animal he ran across. Papa could listen to him, Old Blue, or Tiny, and tell you exactly what sort of critter they were running, and I was getting so I wasn’t any slouch at it either.

  After a while, we crossed the log bridge over the river and walked alongside the bank and deeper into the bottoms. The trees and brush got so thick along there, that at night it seemed like they were trying to push you into the water.

  Good spell later, I came up on a rise that swelled off to the right of the river, and I hiked up there for a look. You could see the Wilson house from there, and closer up I could see old Uncle Pharaoh. Course he wasn’t any uncle of mine, but everyone I knew—except his own family— called him that. He was the hunter who’d lost his legs on account of meeting up with Old Satan, and after that happened, he built himself a low-slung cart and trained him a white farm hog to pull it. He got around the place like that, and once or twice even had the hog haul him to town, which wasn’t any short trip.

  Uncle Pharaoh had a way with animals, especially hogs. He’d forgotten more about being a hog than most hogs had ever learned. Only hog that had ever outsmarted him was Old Satan.

  He was in his cart now, and his hog, Jesse, was in harness, grunting happily along toward where the river looped around and ran by the Wilson house. Jesse looked to have put on fifty pounds since I’d last seen him, and that hadn’t been more than a month ago.

  Uncle Pharaoh, black as a raisin and just as wrinkled, was lying down in the cart with his head propped up on a couple of big feather pillows. He had made a roof of willow sticks and flannel pieces to keep the sun off his head, and he had a big elephant ear leaf in his hand and was fanning himself. A fishing pole stuck up out of a slot at the rear of the cart and wagged back and forth as they rolled.

  As usual, Jesse didn’t have any lines attached to him, and was working totally to Uncle Pharaoh’s voice.