“You saying you ain’t gonna help us?” I asked.
“I’m saying you be talking mighty big now, but when that Old Satan come out of the woods on you, him running fast as an old buck deer and mad as a bull, it’s a lot different than shooting some old lamp-blinded coon out of a tree.” He paused. “You boys bound and determined?”
“Yes sir,” I said.
He nodded his old head, and it looked to me that it might just fall off his neck. “Let’s go out to the smokehouse so we can talk. You boys gonna have to be learned something about wild hog hunting.”
Three
Uncle Pharaoh lit a lamp, closed the door of the smokehouse, and settled himself down on a bag of sweet taters. Abraham and I squatted on the ground. Big, netted, sweet-smelling hams hung over our heads and their aroma was so thick it almost made me dizzy. It sure made me hungry.
“Thing you got to remember,” Uncle Pharaoh started, “is this. You ain’t dealing with no farm hog. This ain’t even no everyday wild hog. This here is a devil hog. Smartest critter I ever seen. Hogs is smarter than dogs, and this hog is smarter than other hogs. This hog is also crazy. He’s got the devil in him, like some folks gets. The way Old Man Turner got it that time.”
Old Man Turner was one of the big river bottom stories. He’d always been a good fellow, a family man. One day he got up to go kill chickens, came back in the house with the axe and killed everyone in his family, then went down to the river and drowned himself. No one ever knew what set him off like that.
“This hog,” Uncle Pharaoh went on, “is like that only he ain’t gonna drown hisself. He just gonna keep on hurting and killing till someone or something kills him.”
“That something is going to be us,” Abraham said.
“You just listen, boy, I ain’t through talking. Now here’s how that Old Satan will do. He lives upriver, back there where the woods is the thickest and so’s the food. He eat anything. Other animals, bark off trees, you if he can.
“You boys take all the hounds we got and you hit up his trail. It gonna be kind of cold from last night, but not so much they ain’t gonna follow. Them dogs, they gonna act crazy cause they ain’t never chased no wild hog before. That trail they’re following gonna seem nutty, but it ain’t. All over the place, that’s the way that hog gonna run cause he ain’t right in the head. But he’s gonna go back into the deeps of them woods, back in there so deep you gonna need a cane knife to chop your way through.
“Now them dogs, they gonna get to that hog first and they gonna close in on him, and he’s gonna let them. But they ain’t gonna turn him back toward your guns. Old Satan, he’s too smart for that. He’s gonna keep leading them dogs deeper into the bottoms, and then, when them dogs ain’t expecting it, he’s gonna turn and raise a ruckus. They ain’t gonna be able to move him another inch in any direction if he don’t want to go. He’s gonna pull up tight somewhere, and then he’s gonna whup them dogs like a stepchild. That’s all gonna happen so fast those dogs ain’t gonna have time to raise much sand. It’ll be over before you can say Cooter Brown.
“You hear what I’m telling you boys? He’s gonna kill every one of them dogs if you don’t get there. When you hear them throw up their ruckus, you better haul your little butts and get in there on him, and even then, you may be too late. They gonna be dogs flying every kinda way. So you gonna have to stay right on them dogs’ tails, and they gonna run you down. The closer they get, harder they gonna be to call up. Ain’t even the horn will bring them in. They ain’t having but one thing on their minds then, and that’s get that old boar. Only when they found him they gonna wish they’d wandered off squirrel hunting.”
“We’ll stay on them, Grandpa,” Abraham said.
“Well, if you gonna get the old hog, you got to, but on the other hand, when you catch up with him, things gonna be worse for you than the dogs. You see, them old boars they got powers. They can smell better a coon dog and they can see the wind and all its colors. They make an Indian tracker look like a joker. He’s gonna know you’re coming long before you get there and he’s gonna plan on it. Lay a trap just like a man. That’s why you got to get there while he’s busy with them dogs.
“Now, if you do get there, he’s gonna see you, and he’s gonna toss them dogs off like a duck tosses water. Ain’t gonna mean nothing to him. He’s gonna pick you out, and he’s coming straight for you. You not gonna believe how fast he is.”
“I would, Uncle Pharaoh. I seen him in action,” and I told him all about being chased and such.
“That wasn’t nothing, little white boy. He be playing with you then. But you come up on him after them dogs done took him on, he’s gonna be madder than a slapped Cajun and there’s gonna be the blood-lust in his eye. Ain’t nothing this old hog enjoy better than tearing folks apart, and he can do it like’n you was an old rotted Sears and Roebuck catalogue. Them tusks is like the sharpest knives ever been made.
“So now you’ll come up on him and them dogs’ll be tossed all around like cornshucks, and he’ll come for you boys, you hear?”
We nodded.
“He’ll tear a path through anything they is in his way, and if you don’t get him in that instant you got, he gonna toss you around till they ain’t nothing left but the bloody rags on your back.”
He was trying to scare us out of it, I could tell, but I could also tell he wasn’t lying. And truth was, the idea of hunting Old Satan was sounding less appealing by the moment. But when I thought of the dogs and of Mama, my determination came back.
“What you boys do is spread out. That way he ain’t gonna be able to get to both of you so easy. You come at him from different sides, but don’t get yourself in no position where you shoot one another’s brains out. You hearing?”
We nodded.
“He’ll pick one of you and he’ll come. Won’t be nothing but a black blur, and if you take him on at night, God help you but you better have plenty of lantern light and a good night eye. That’s his time, the night. He can come out of the dark before you know there’s anything there.
“Old boar will duck his head when he gets after you, and that head gonna be the first thing you want to shoot cause it’s the easiest to hit with him running like that. But don’t you do it. That hog’s hide tougher than this here wall.” And with that Uncle Pharaoh doubled up his gnarled fist and swung it back against the smokehouse wall with a solid thunk. When he put his hand back in his lap it was bleeding, but he didn’t take notice and we didn’t say a word. “No, that old wall ain’t tough enough. You could shoot a bullet through that. You can’t hardly shoot one through old boar’s head. His hide all over is so tough a .22 would just bounce off and a bigger rifle might do the same. And this hog, he’s old and tougher even than others.”
“That why Papa’s shotgun didn’t stop him?” Abraham said.
“That shot was birdshot, baby man,” Uncle Pharaoh answered, “and with that hide of Old Satan’s, it was like tossing a handful of gravel at him.”
“If you can’t aim for the head,” I said, “what do you aim for, the chest?”
“His chest gonna be covered by that long old snout of his, and his shoulders sticking out ain’t nothing but bone hard as a middle-buster. You got one good way to go. Aim at that snout about halfway and shoot. That puts the shot about even with old boar’s heart, and it’ll go through that soft snout and hit him in the heart, if you’re a good shot and lucky. Other one of you might get a chance to shoot too, and if the hog is sideways to you, aim for the eye.”
“What then, Grandpa?”
“Then? Then it’s all over, baby man. One of you is through. They ain’t gonna be a time for a second shot unless the other one of you gets a round off. And if it ain’t that heart shot, chances are even if it’s a good’n, one that hurts him or is gonna cause him to die later, it ain’t gonna kill him before he starts tearing ya’ll up. So the best you can do is toss that gun down and make like an ole possum up the nearest tree. And if they ain’t no tree, y
ou just throw yourself down on the ground and pull your legs together and put your hands over your head and try to act like a grub worm by burying up in that earth. If you lucky, you might live. That’s what I did, though I didn’t come home with my legs working.”
“Did you hit him good when you shot?” I asked.
Uncle Pharaoh smiled that toothless smile. “Now what you think, little white boy? If I hit him good I wouldn’t have to have these here crutches.” The smile went away and he leaned forward. The lamplight jumped around on his shiny black face. “Tell you true, boys, when I got that shot off—and I’m a good shot, or was when my eyes wasn’t milked over—I thought I got him sure enough on the button, but he must’ve tossed hisself some and I had to gone and hit him on the shoulder. But by the time I saw he wasn’t going to drop, he was darn near in my pants pocket. So you boys see what I’m telling you? You shoot and you scramble. Don’t stand there seeing if you got him, cause if you done put one through his heart, he can keep coming and tear you up in pieces before he falls, and your mamas don’t want no little boys in pieces. Shoot and scramble, hear me?”
“Yes sir,” we said together.
“Still want to hunt that Old Satan?” he asked.
It was a little slower in coming, but it was almost together when we said,“Yes sir.”
Uncle Pharaoh shook his head. “You that bound and determined, then you gonna do it, or I’m gonna lock you in this here smokehouse till you get over the notion.”
I wasn’t sure he was joking then. I said, “You can lock me in here till I have to eat every ham on the place, and when you open that door I’m still going after Old Satan.”
Uncle Pharaoh stared at me for a full minute before his mouth broke into a grin that looked like a slit in old leather. “I declare, you boys more stubborn than I was at your age. Almost.”
About then the dinner bell rang and I heard Mrs. Wilson’s voice calling, “Ya’ll come eat.”
Four
I full expected Uncle Pharaoh to tell Mrs. Wilson what we had in mind and try and put a damper on things, but he didn’t say a word. He just sat at the table and ate and passed the black-eyed peas and cornbread and never even looked up.
When we were finished eating, he said, “You boys come on outside, I got some things to talk to you about.”
First thing we did was go back out to the smokehouse, but this time Uncle Pharaoh said, “Wait right here.” When he came back out on his crutches he had a long burlap-wrapped thing under his arm. It was a Winchester, a better one than the one I had and it was so well taken care of it looked brand new except for a long gash near the end of the stock. He pointed that out and said, “That there was put in it by Old Satan day he crippled me up. His tusks almost went clean through it. But that don’t hurt the way this shoots none. He handed it to Abraham. “And what about you?” he said, tossing the empty burlap bag down.
“I got an old Winchester,” I said. “It’s hid out.”
“All right. Now lets get you boys some possibles thrown together, then you better take the dogs and get on out before it gets too late.”
“Or Papa gets home,” Abraham said.
“Or that.”
“What you going to tell Papa?” Abraham asked.
“Why the truth of course—I don’t know where you are or why the dogs is gone.”
We both smiled at him.
“Little boys, you get that Old Satan. For yourselfs, for me, and for Jesse. But you bring yourselfs back in one piece. And if you get scared, get to figuring you ain’t ready to meet up with Old Satan, you come on back here and not a person gonna say a word about that. Ain’t no one gonna know besides me. You can just tell the folks you went off coon hunting.”
“You don’t need to worry about us,” I said.
“Yes I do,” Uncle Pharaoh said, “but I know when a person has gotten bound and willing on something, and you boys ain’t gonna be men with me making decisions. Ya’ll nearly growed. When I was your age I done was.”
Uncle Pharaoh helped us put together what he called possibles, or a bag of food and camping supplies. We wrapped the stuff up in a couple of blankets and strapped them on our backs. Then we went out to the dog pens. When Uncle Pharaoh was sure no one was looking, he set them loose. They hit up Old Satan’s smell right off, headed off toward the river and the woods.
“You boys done remember all I told you. The dogs gonna run foolish for a while till Old Satan takes up a straight trail, then as they get closer they’re gonna start to bark, and when they find him, you gonna know it. You got the hunting horn?”
Abraham had it over his shoulder on a strap. He took hold and lifted it up. “Right here.”
“Get on then, and mind yourself. Don’t let the dogs get too big a lead on you. Smell of that hog gonna be the strongest thing in the woods and they’re gonna stay on it, moving up river until they find him. When they do, hell gonna break loose and you boys best be there and shoot true if you want to bring any of them dogs back alive.”
We started trotting after the dogs. When I glanced back at Uncle Pharaoh, he looked like a scarecrow held up by two sticks again. He looked old, very, very old.
When we got near the tree house, Abraham called up the dogs with the horn. All five of them came except Bounder. He was the oldest and the lead dog, and from what Abraham said, didn’t feel he had to mind the horn anymore.
I climbed up and brought down the Winchester and what Abraham had asked for. His spear and near-finished shield. We took a water break, rested our legs a minute, and yelled the dogs back to the hunt. It didn’t take much persuading. I’d never seen a bunch of dogs so excited. They ran way out ahead of us barking, moving up river the way Uncle Pharaoh said they would.
I glanced over at Abraham. He had the spear behind his shield and was holding them both with his left hand. In his right he carried the Winchester. The hunting horn was bouncing against his hip and the blanket tied to his back was flapping.
A rush of excitement pumped through me. By golly, we weren’t just reading about Doc Savage and his adventures, we were having an adventure of our own. We were hunting the most dangerous animal that had ever run loose in the Sabine River Bottoms. Old Satan.
Five
Every now and then we could hear Bounder call out. He was ahead of all the others, but he had a good mouth on him and he could be heard above the others when he ran, even when he was farther away.
About an hour later we were so shagged down we had to stop and lean against a tree and rest. Abraham was even too winded to blow on the horn and call the dogs off, and by the time he did get to it, only two of the dogs came up. They looked almost as bad winded as we were, and we could see that they had been in the river because they were wet and covered to the chest in mud.
“Old Satan’s crossed the river and the dogs have followed,” Abraham said.
“Looks that way,” I said. “Come on,” and we were off again, the two dogs moving out ahead and losing us in minutes.
We came to a place in the Sabine where the water was knee deep, and that’s where we caught up with the dogs. They ran along the edge for a moment, sniffing the ground before they jumped in and swam across. On the other side they darted along the bank until they picked up the trail again, then disappeared into the woods barking.
Abraham and I took off our shoes, rolled up our pants legs and waded across. On the other side, while I was putting on my shoes, I saw Old Satan’s tracks. I reckoned them to be a day old, but they were still firmly formed there in the soft ground along the bank. I pointed them out to Abraham.
“Big,” Abraham said. “Real big.”
We started after the sound of the dogs barking. For a while they had seemed to move left to right in a wide pattern, but now they were pretty near straight ahead and had been for some time. Old Satan had given up his zigzagging and was laying a straight trail.
Finally we came up on one of the dogs, the youngest of the bunch. He was lying on his side all tuckered out. His
side rose and fell quickly.
“Just bushed good,” Abraham said.
“Me too.” I sat down on the ground by the dog and laid the Winchester across my lap.
“Notice something different?” Abraham asked.
“What?”
“Listen.”
I understood then. The dogs had been barking in the distance, but now their bark had changed. “They’ve found Old Satan?”
“Maybe,” Abraham said.
We got to our feet and stumbled after. The sound of the barking did not move away from us. We were closing in on the dogs.
When we finally caught up with them they were running in circles, across the trail into the woods and back across the trail. As we watched, the dog we had left behind finally caught up with us. He just sat down between us and thumped his tail every now and then.
“They gone crazy?” I said.
“No, that Old Satan has made a booger trail. He’s crossed and crossed over his path here. Maybe day old stuff with a new trail. They’ll figure it eventually.”
After a few minutes Bounder barked out in the woods and the other dogs followed. “There,” Abraham said. “They’ve picked up the clear trail.”
“Old Satan knows we’re following him?”
“I reckon we’re about on to him,” Abraham said. “Grandpa said he was smart as, or smarter than, a man. He’s laying him a trail like a convict being chased by hounds, but I reckon we’re closing. He can’t outsmart Old Bounder.”
And we were off and running through the blamed woods again.
Old Satan hadn’t been as close as Abraham had thought, and we finally had to stop about sundown. Abraham called up the dogs with his horn, and they all came, except Bounder. We couldn’t hear him barking anymore either. He was long gone. We got some of the cracklings Uncle Pharaoh had given us out of our possibles and fed the dogs, then we had some strips of smoked ham. It tasted better than any ham I’d ever eaten.