It was the boar. Old Satan.
I was so startled I forgot the gun. By the time I remembered it, Old Satan had pounded through the brush after Roger and was gone.
My heart was beating so hard I thought the buttons would pop off my shirt. I lowered the hammer on the .22 and went after the pitch stick Old Satan had trampled into the trail.
I had to light a match to find it, but when I did, and had shook the dirt off, I saw that there was a little red bead of fire on it. I whipped the stick through the air a few times until it blazed up, then I went over to where Roger and Old Satan had parted the brush like a barber’s comb.
The brambles and vines were so thick on that side, there wasn’t any going around them. If I was going to follow, I’d have to go the way they went, and be sure that my torch didn’t catch the tangle on fire. If it did, I’d be a goner, not to mention maybe half the Sabine bottoms.
There was only one way. I took a good long look down that brambly tunnel, then put the pitch torch under my foot and crunched it out. I clutched the .22 tight, began to crawl forward, the vines and brambles and brush clutching at and catching my hair and clothes till I thought I’d scream. It was like being inside a cave, it was so dark in there, and I kept thinking, What if Old Satan decides to come back this same way? I could just imagine looking up any minute to see two red eyes coming down on me like a twin lighted locomotive.
But that didn’t happen. I finally came clear of the bramble patch and out into a clearing where I could stand. There weren’t any branches touching together overhead, and there was enough moonlight for me to see pretty good, if there had been anything to see. The wind rustled through the limbs and undergrowth and churned up some leaves that flowed in a quick circle and fluttered to the floor of the clearing like singed moths.
Roger yelped.
Across the clearing from me, from behind a patch of brambles; he flew up, straight up, like a strong man had grabbed him and tossed him as high as he could.
When he came down it was at the edge of the clearing, one of his hind legs partly in the brambles. Then came a sound from the underbrush like I hoped never to hear again. An ear-ringing squeal like a wild laugh caught in a madman’s throat. And when the squeal died off it was followed by a bunch of gruntings and crashings, the sound of Old Satan moving invisibly, but loudly away.
Twelve
Roger was dead. Old Satan had used those tusks like bowie knives.
I sat down beside Roger, put the .22 across my knees, and let out a scream to match the squeal Old Satan had made. Then I cried.
Finally I looked off in the direction Old Satan had gone and said aloud, “You’re mine, you old devil. All mine.”
There wasn’t anything left for me to do. I couldn’t trail Old Satan in the dark, and if I did, I wouldn’t have much chance against him with a .22. I’d have to keep my promise to that bull hog later. Only thing left to do was for me to go on home.
Roger was too heavy for me to lug back to the house, so I put him in the fork of a hickory tree so nothing could bother him. Later I’d come back and give him a proper burial here in the clearing.
I worked my way through the brambles again, and when I got to the trail, I pulled another stick of pitch pine out of my belt and lit it. My face was soaked with tears and blood from brush cuts and my shirt was spotted with Roger’s blood. I was afraid that when Mama saw me I’d frighten her to death.
I was on my last stick of pitch when I reached the end of the trail and it broke out into our bottom land. Our corn and cane rose up against the night sky like rows of feathered Indian lances.
Just as I was about to step into the clearing two things happened that made my skin prick up all over the way a cold drop of rainwater down your collar will do.
My nose filled with a sour stink and I heard a soft grunting noise.
I looked over my shoulder, down the trail.
Nothing, but I thought I heard some sticks crack. Then again, it could have been the corn rustling in the moonlight.
Stepping lightly, I started toward our field and home. There was no doubt in my mind that Old Satan was out there. That he had come back to finish the job he’d missed out on. Roger hadn’t been enough. He wanted to kill me too.
I thought about how Roger’s body had been torn up and I remembered Doc Travis saying that some thought the boar couldn’t be killed with guns, only magic. Not that it mattered much either way. The .22 would be about like trying to chop down an old oak with a dull spoon. Still, it was something. I clutched the rifle tighter and began to trot.
The moonlight wasn’t much, but out from beneath the trees it was enough. The pitch stick had gone out, but it didn’t seem wise for me to stop and light it, not if Old Satan was behind me. I needed every second I could get to make tracks. Course, if it was Old Satan back there, it might not matter how much of a lead I got. The story on hogs was that their size could fool you. They could run as fast as a deer for short distances.
I quit trotting and started to run. By the time I reached the cane and started pushing through it, I was near out of breath.
It was slower going through the crops instead of up the trail, but I figured I’d have a better chance of making it if Old Satan couldn’t see me outlined out there in the moonlight. This way he had to find me.
I was out of the cane and into the corn rows, clumsily pushing through them, when I heard the noise. Or thought I did.
Over my heavy breathing and the wind I wasn’t even sure it was there. Maybe I had imagined it. But it sounded as if something was pushing through the cane and corn behind me.
I didn’t stop to listen and make sure. I was too scared that I’d be right, and that I’d lose precious time.
The corn patch seemed to go on forever, and the long, green leaves acted as if they were trying to reach out and grab me. Like maybe they were in cahoots with Old Satan and were going to hold me until he got there.
Even though I didn’t want to think about it, all sorts of horrible thoughts about hogs kept going through my mind. When I was about five or six I’d heard this story about Old Man Simpson. About how his heart had played out on him one day while he was out slopping the pigs, and by the time they found him, the critters had eaten him down to the bones.
I could just imagine Mama or Ike looking for me and finding nothing but some clothes scraps, a .22, and a pile of well-picked bones out here in the corn patch.
Those thoughts put iron in my legs. I broke out of the corn and scrambled up the rise, falling once to my knee and tearing a hole in my overalls. But I didn’t drop the .22. My grip on it was so tight my hand was starting to hurt.
As I started loping across the clearing toward the house, I was sure I heard Old Satan bursting out of the corn behind me, grunting his way up the rise.
The lamplight oozing out of the windows of our shack had never looked so inviting.
When I was halfway across the clearing to our house, the words just seemed to leap out of my mouth without me having much to say about it. “Mama, Mama!”
The door opened. Light fell out and Mama behind it. She had Papa’s old Winchester in her hands. “Mama!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get me!”
I saw her hunch forward, looking into the blackness behind me. The next instant I was by her side, turning, my .22 pointing out at… nothing.
There was only the night and the wind.
I started to laugh. Darn if I knew what was funny, but I started to laugh. The whole thing had been my imagination. Old Satan hadn’t followed me after killing Roger. It had just been my silly head playing tricks on me.
“Richard,” Mama said, “what’s wrong, boy?”
“Nothing,” I said, still laughing like an idiot. “Noth…”
Then, out of the dark, like a solid, rolling shadow with two glowing coals in its center, moving lickety-split across the clearing, came a shape.
“Old Satan!” I screamed.
Mama and I raised our guns and fired. The next thing I kn
ew, Mama was pushing me inside and following quick behind me, slamming the door and throwing the bolt.
About the same time the dogs began to growl and bark. I could hear them running out from beneath the house. This was followed by a bunch of loud whelps and whines. Then silence.
I began to tremble. I knew that Old Satan had whipped, and probably killed, the dogs in less time than it took to say his name.
With a trembling hand, I dug another shell out of my pocket and managed to load the .22 without dropping it.
Ike came out of the back room then. His eyes were as big as persimmons.
He started to say something.
“Sssshhh,” Mama warned.
Ike looked at me. I put a hand on his shoulder, mouthed the words, “It’s okay.”
We stood that way for a long time. The silence was broken by Mama levering another shell into the Winchester and going over to the door to listen.
She put her ear to the door and I looked her a question.
She shrugged and shook her head.
“Maybe he’s gone,” I finally said.
“Who?” Ike asked.
“Old Satan,” I said.
“Sssshhh,” Mama said.
Mama kept her ear to the door listening. She must have stayed that way for at least five minutes.
Finally, sighing, she stood up straight and turned to us, smiling. “I reckon he’s gone,” she said softly.
And that’s when one of the planks on the door split wide open.
Mama screamed, whirled back away from the door.
Startled, I swung the barrel of the .22 up and hit the overhanging lamp, sent it swinging. The room seemed to weave between light and shadow.
The planking on the door cracked wider, and this time something poked through. A long, leathery, black snout that showed only an instant before Mama fired the Winchester at it.
There was a loud grunt that sounded more mad than in pain, and the snout disappeared.
Mama backed toward the table, tried to lean her hip against it. She dropped the rifle and crumpled to the floor. When we got over to her, she was holding herself up on one elbow.
“The baby,” she said, “the baby.”
She rolled over on her back and put her hand to her stomach.
“It’ll be all right, Mama,” I said. “All right. We’ll get you to Doc Travis right now.”
“Old Satan,” she said.
“Gone. You hit him good,” I said.
But the truth was, I wasn’t so sure.
Thirteen
I knew I had to get Mama to town and to Doc Travis, and to do that I had to hitch the wagon up. That meant going outside to the barn. Not something I was anxious to do. But there was no choice.
The cabin still smelled of Old Satan’s stink, and even though he’d only pushed his snout into the room, his odor clung to the place like molasses to a deep-grain board.
“Ike,” I said, “get a rag and dampen it. Put it on Mama’s forehead.”
Mama was starting to bead up with sweat, and it didn’t take a doctor to see she was in fierce pain.
I picked up the Winchester and went to the door to look out through the hole Old Satan had made.
My fear was that soon as I put my eye to that hole his snout would dart through with those big sharp tusks gleaming in the lamplight, or maybe worse, he’d put one big red eye up there to match mine.
But now that the lantern had quit swinging, I felt a bit braver. Nothing like a good, strong light to harden the nerves, Papa always said.
“Anything?” Ike said.
I looked back. He was bending over Mama, touching the damp rag to her forehead. Mama had closed her eyes and was breathing heavy.
“Nothing,” I said. “But that don’t mean he’s gone.”
“She’s hot,” Ike said. “Real hot, like she’s on fire.”
“We got to get her to the doctor. Listen here, I’m going out to the barn—”
“You can’t!”
“I gotta. Now shut up and listen, Ike. I’m going out to the barn. I’m going to take the Winchester in case I meet up with him. I’m going to go out through the window over the dish counter. That way I won’t have to open the door and give Old Satan a chance to get in. I think that window is too high for him to get his fat self through. But when I go out, you close it and throw the bolt.”
“How you going to get back in?”
“If I get the wagon, I ain’t going to need back in. I’ll pull it up to the door, and we’ll load Mama in the back. When you get her comfortable there, you get some pillows and blankets and have them ready so we can make a bed for her.”
“I can run faster than you can. I ought to go.”
“Yeah, but you can’t hitch up a wagon faster than I can, can you?”
Ike finally shook his head. “Guess not.”
“All right now, do what I told you about the window and the blankets.”
Ike nodded.
I took in a deep breath, swallowed, climbed up on the dish counter, unbolted the window, and flung back the shutters. All I could see was the night and the woods, and high up, the stars and a little piece of moon.
Outside it was quiet, except for some frogs croaking and some crickets kicking up a hoedown tune. Way off I could hear some kind of night cry, a bird probably.
The wind had slowed down, but it was still strong enough to lift my hair and rustle the corn and cane in the bottom land.
“Looks okay,” I said.
“He could be just around the corner of the house,” Ike said. “And them hogs can run fast.”
“Don’t remind me, all right? Now you do as I ask.”
I took in another gulp of air and swung myself out the window. I landed softly, the Winchester stock pushed up against my shoulder. I looked left and right, bringing the barrel of the rifle around, ready to fire should Old Satan come roaring around the corner.
He didn’t, however, but a frog hopped on my shoe and startled me. For an instant I wanted to jump back through the window.
But it was too late for that. Ike had closed the shutters, and the sound of that bolt sliding into place gave me an idea of how the Thanksgiving-turkey-to-be must feel when he hears Papa practicing with the axe and chopping block. Both sounds were pretty final.
I looked out at the barn. When I had chores to do, it always seemed too close. Now it seemed too far away.
Creeping to the edge of the house, holding the rifle at ready, I took a gander around the corner. Nothing. The coast was clear.
One more deep breath and I bolted.
Old Satan didn’t come out of the dark after me. Nor did I smell his stink on the air.
I lifted the bar on the barn doors, went inside, and closed them. I still had some matches on me, and I used one to light the lantern.
It took me longer to hitch up Clancy and Felix than I expected. My hands were shaking, and they were both cantankerous about late night work.
Finally the job was done and I went over to open the doors. I did that by holding the rifle at ready and kicking them open.
For a moment, I stood there looking at and listening to the night.
When I turned my back to go to the wagon, a cold strip of fear a foot wide ran up my spine. I climbed up on the seat, laid the rifle across my knees, took hold of the lines, and called out to the mules.
The sound of them grunting and the harness rattling seemed as loud as the old dinner bell Mama used to use. I felt sure the noise would bring Old Satan. But it didn’t.
By the time I reached the yard and pulled up close to the front door, my face was slicked over with sweat, and it felt cold, like someone had dowsed me with ice water.
The two dogs, both dead and looking every bit as torn up as Roger, lay by the door. I felt like I needed to be sick, but I didn’t have time for that.
So Ike and Mama wouldn’t have to look at the dogs, I pulled them around to the side of the house. Then I went back to the door and called out to Ike.
&nb
sp; After a moment, I saw movement through the hole Old Satan had made, and the door opened. I went inside without closing the door and bent over Mama. She looked bad, real bad.
“Mama,” I said.
“She don’t answer no more,” Ike said. “Just lays there.”
I got down on one knee and took hold of her hand. “It’s going to be all right, Mama,” I said. Her fingers trembled against the back of my hand, soft and weak as the fluttering wings of a dying butterfly.
I placed Mama’s hand on her stomach and looked at Ike. “Let’s get a move on,” I said.
Ike made Mama a pallet in the wagon bed, and I watched over him with the rifle. When he was finished, we managed a blanket under her and used that to carry her out to the wagon.
To do that, I had to put the rifle aside, and I was sure that was when Old Satan would show up. Just come melting out of the night like he had earlier when I had decided he wasn’t behind me at all, and that it was only my imagination.
But our luck held. We got her loaded in the back and Ike climbed in beside her. I crawled up on the seat, put the rifle across my lap, and took hold of the lines.
“Giddup,” I said, and we began the long, slow trip to Mud Creek.
On the way, and more than once, I heard something big crashing in the brush beside the road. But I never saw anything, and after a time the noises stopped.
Finally the clay road turned firmer where it had been packed down for automobiles. By the time we reached the Mud Creek bridge, Mama had worsened. She had gotten a chill. Ike covered her with a couple of blankets and held her hand.
“She’s got the shakes something awful, Richard,” Ike said.
“We’ll make it,” I said. But Mama wasn’t the only one in trouble. Felix’s sides were heaving and he was starting to stagger. It looked as if he might keel over and die at any moment. I had no choice but to slow down to a trot.
The last half mile seemed like the longest part of the trip. By the time I pulled up in front of Doc Travis’s place, Felix was stumbling and Mama’s teeth were chattering together like the shaking of a rattlesnake’s tail.