We did, and this time the next board popped off and we could wiggle through. Tony was first, and then the women and the men, followed by Jane, with me and Gasper bringing up the rear.
When I looked out at the others, they were running into the woods like deer. All that togetherness hadn’t lasted long, which is pretty much the way of things. People only come together when there’s no other choice; the rest of the time they think they’re free birds and don’t need anybody. Until next time.
The four of us started out toward the woods, and when we did, suddenly headlights hit us, and then we heard Big Bill Brady yell, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
38
I didn’t know where he came from, or why he hadn’t heard us before, unless he was sleeping sound in his truck, but when we came out from the back of the house and our group scattered to the woods, the truck lights came on, and Big Bill opened the door and stepped out.
He had a shotgun, and he jerked it to his shoulder and fired. The blast went by us and the shot rattled around in the woods back there, but it didn’t hit us.
“He ain’t playing none,” Gasper said. “Run for it!”
We broke away from where he was shooting, but that carried me and Jane and Tony and Gasper into a section of woods where there was water. Soon as we hit it, we had to slow down. It came up to our knees pretty fast. We hadn’t even known it was like that back there.
Tony and Jane were ahead of me. I looked back. Gasper had fallen behind. Big Bill stood at the edge of the water. We were moving between the trees, but were still within gunshot range.
The shotgun roared and I could hear pellets slapping trees and sprinkling in the water, and I saw Gasper twist and go down. I admit, for a moment I thought about charging onward, leaving Gasper. I admit that, because Jane and Tony were ahead of me, and I feared losing them. But it was only for a moment. Gasper was one of us, and I couldn’t leave him behind. I turned and splashed back toward him, going fast as the water would allow.
The shotgun was a double-barrel, and that had been two shots, both triggers pulled at once. I saw Big Bill snap it open and I glimpsed the empty casings popping out of it and then I saw him pull fresh shells from his pants pocket. I grabbed Gasper and got him up and we kind of stumbled together toward a tree that was twisted with moss and vines. I got us behind that, and as we went onward, I tried to stay in line with it.
Behind us, Big Bill had entered the water and was coming after us, cussing and sloshing along.
“Can you run?” I said.
“If I could run,” Gasper said, “I’d be running.”
“You got to try.”
“I’m trying. You think I don’t want to run? You think I’m not trying? I’m hit pretty good.”
I took us out into the darker part of the woods, and when I looked back, Big Bill was coming right for us. I was glad the hound wasn’t with him.
As we sloshed along, I found that though the water looked shallow, it was pretty deep. It wasn’t long before it was over our knees again. One of Gasper’s legs wasn’t working, and I was holding him up as best as I could.
There was splashing behind me. I looked back. Big Bill was gaining on us, but I kept weaving us in between trees so he couldn’t get off a good shot. I saw him raise the gun to his shoulder once, but we got behind a tree and he didn’t fire.
I looked around for Jane and Tony but didn’t see them. Good, they had gotten away.
“Let me go,” Gasper said. “Doing like this, he’s just going to get us both. You can get away.”
“I’m sticking,” I said.
We went between some trees, and then there was a large patch of moonlight on the water, and we could see the image of the moon there. It was like it was floating in the swamp. I heard a splash and saw the wet darkness ripple.
I stopped moving. Something swam right by us, mostly under the water, but not completely. It wasn’t something small. It wasn’t a fish. And it wasn’t a snake.
Turning, I saw Big Bill wading into the water, pointing the shotgun at us.
“Looks like you’re about to end your employment,” he said.
I flinched, halfclosed my eyes, waiting for the shot.
And it came.
But I didn’t fall.
I looked at Gasper. I still had my arm around his shoulder. He was still standing.
Big Bill wasn’t, however. He was being knocked backwards by something in the water. The shotgun had gone off and scattered pellets in front of him and all across the moonlit water, but not at us.
He dropped the gun and screamed. It was the kind of scream that crawled up my back and went along my neck and settled at the top of my head. He went backwards swiftly, and when he did his hat went flying. Something rose up between his legs and bit him there.
It was an alligator.
The next instant the alligator went under with him and the water churned. Once, the body of Big Bill broke the water, still in the alligator’s jaws, and then he went down again and didn’t come back up. The water was churning, and I thought in the moonlight it looked a little darker, like something was leaking up from the bottom to the top.
“Come on,” I said. “We got to move.”
We waded across the water, and it got deep. I wasn’t a swimmer, so Gasper helped me, using one leg and one arm to swim. He said, “You got to move one of your arms and both your legs.”
“I’m holding on to you,” I said.
“That’s why I said one arm. I can’t use my right leg, so you got to help. Kick, for heaven’s sake.”
We halfway argued all the way across the water, to where the trees grew thick and the water was shallow once more. After slipping down a few times, we managed to finally get up, and with my arm around Gasper, we moved deeper into the woods, where the moon didn’t shine. Finally we came to a low tree covered in moss. It had some good limbs, so I climbed up in it, held my hand down, and helped Gasper up.
There wasn’t enough light to really see. We mostly did all this by feel. We weren’t far above the water, but at least we were out of it. A bullfrog bleated and crickets sawed at their legs, and somewhere a night bird called.
“You saved my life, Jack,” Gasper said.
“You ain’t taking good notes, Gasper—that was you who helped me swim across that sinkhole. I haven’t never really swam before, just paddled.”
“Trust me, Jack, what you did, I don’t call that swimming.”
39
When morning came we were both awake. We had been too uncomfortable and scared to sleep. The sunlight slipped in through the trees and warmed us up a bit and allowed us to see, even though there was some shade from the trees and the moss. I thought about Jane and Tony but had no idea which direction they had gone, or how to even look for them.
We hadn’t gone that far from the farm, but we were hid up good in the swamp trees. We couldn’t go back the way we had come because of Big Bill’s men. I didn’t know for sure they were back there, but they could be. Going forward seemed the only choice, and it wasn’t a good one. The swamp stretched out for a great distance. And it was full of all manner of bad things, from snakes and alligators to thorns and deep water. Not to mention all the diseases you could get.
During the night, we had been bitten by mosquitoes. I had welts on the back of my neck and on my shoulders. They had bit me right through my clothes. There were still mosquitoes this morning, and Gasper claimed they were big enough to straddle a turkey flat-footed.
I also discovered that two leeches had nestled into my private parts, and I had to reach down in my pants and pull them loose and toss them away. When I did, my hands came away bloody.
Gasper had to do the same. He had one on his foot, right above his shoe top. He didn’t have socks, so it was dug in good.
When he finished tossing them, his hands were bloody too.
“I feel kind of sick,” he said.
“Not feeling too spry myself,” I said.
I looked out through the trees
, and now with the sunlight there, I could see the sinkhole, the deep part we had swam across, but I didn’t see any gators. I did see Big Bill’s hat, however. It was floating in some moss on the far side.
“What now?” Gasper said.
“How’s your leg?”
“Not so good.”
“Let me see.”
He pulled up his pants leg. His calf was red and had pocks and pimples from the shotgun pellets. I figured the blast had skimmed and skipped across the water, slowing them down.
“You’re hit, but not bad,” I said. He just caught you a little.”
“It feels like a lot on this end.”
I could see that the buckshot hadn’t done a lot of damage. But the wound was starting to be infected. It wouldn’t take long before that became a problem, especially with us being in the dirty swamp.
We climbed down out of the tree, went back into the water. I helped him along. The water stayed shallow as we went. I watched for alligators but didn’t see any. A big old water moccasin about the width of an inner tube from a bicycle tire and about as long and thick as my arm swam by, but it didn’t pay us any mind.
I don’t know how long we went along like that, but it was a good ways. The farm was no longer visible. All there was now was lots of water and trees growing up out of the swamp. I had no idea where we were. For all we knew, the swamp could go like that for miles and miles. I hated it that we had gotten separated from Jane and Tony, and I figured they was as lost as us. The idea of something happening to them was overwhelming. But there was no way to look for them right then, and I had no idea which direction they had taken. At least for the time being, it was more important to take care of Gasper, and doing that didn’t allow me a lot of room for anything else, even worrying about my friends.
After a while Gasper’s limp got worse. I tried to carry him on my back, but he and I were about the same size, and I might as well have been trying to carry a water buffalo.
Resting more often, we finally made it to where the water got thinner and the land got more solid. Eventually we were on dry land. We laid out on it and rested until the sun was almost down.
When I got up, Gasper couldn’t.
He pulled up his pants leg and I took a look. It was swollen and was still red, and now there were black streaks under his skin. There were a few pellets that had worked their way to the surface. He pinched a couple of those out.
“Your hands aren’t clean,” I said. “Don’t.”
“It hurts something awful, Jack. I don’t think I can go on. This time, you got to listen. You got to leave me.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Why the hell would you stay here with me?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“We don’t know each other that well,” he said.
“After what we been through together, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. You’re right. We’re friends. I ain’t never had a white friend before.”
“And I ain’t never had a gunshot friend, so that makes us even. You can’t go on, maybe I should look and see if I can find help. I’ll be back, though, you can count on it.”
“I believe you.”
I gave him a pat on the back. “Hold on, buddy. I’ll see what I can find.”
40
I went through the woods, making sure to stop and figure out how to find my way back to Gasper. I made a few marks with sticks, by breaking them off and poking them up in the ground, and I scooped out some dirt with my heels, mounding it up. I had me a kind of map, that way. Something I felt I could follow back.
The day was hot, and I was feeling sticky and weak, so I sat down on the ground for a rest. When I looked up, the biggest, ugliest dog I’ve ever seen was peeking out at me from between some trees. He was bigger than a wolf, and his fur was all twisted up and had briars and such in it, and he looked blue. He had a head about the size of a hog’s head, and he looked strong enough to drag me off into the woods and eat me and make me like it.
I said, “Dog, if you’re going to eat me, then get it over with. I’m hungry, thirsty, and tuckered out. I ain’t got no fight left in me.”
When I spoke, the dog stuck out his tongue and dropped his head, and came out of the trees wagging his tail.
“You just look like a bad dog, don’t you.”
He came to me. I was still too tired to stand. I reached out and patted him on the head. When I pulled my hand back, it stunk like a dead skunk.
“Whoa. You are stinky, aren’t you?”
I got up and started walking again. Stinky walked with me. I didn’t know where he had come from or if he belonged to someone, but I won’t lie, I was glad for company.
Coming to a fork in the trail, I turned right, and the dog didn’t go with me. He whined and barked. When I looked back, he was standing right where the trail forked.
“What’s with you, Nasty?” I said.
He barked at me.
I went back and gave his stinky head a pat. He started down the fork to the left, turned and looked at me, and barked.
I got it. He lived the other way. And if he lived with someone, that was the way I ought to go.
“All right,” I said, “Lead the way, Nasty.”
He turned and bolted down the trail, and I went after him.
41
I smelled fish cooking, and then the dog ran up over a rise, and when I came down on the other side, I saw a clearing in the trees, and there was a cabin there with a couple of old pickups sitting out beside it. Smoke was coming out the chimney, and there were people on the porch.
One of the people was a colored man in overalls and lace-up boots. He saw Nasty coming before he saw me, and then when he saw me, the others on the porch looked. As we got closer, I saw that the others were Jane and Tony. I was so excited and happy my heart skipped a beat.
Jane jumped up off the porch and ran out to meet me, threw her arms around me, and kissed me on the cheek.
“We was afraid you got shot, or drowned, or a snake got you.”
“Nearly got shot. Nearly drowned. Saw a snake. Alligator ate Big Bill.”
“Wow,” Jane said. “Where’s Gasper?”
“He got shot and couldn’t walk. I left him to look for help.”
The big colored man, who was even bigger close up, came out to me and said, “You say someone was shot?”
I explained what had happened.
“You should grab something to eat,” he said, “and then we can go.”
“I can’t leave him there while I eat. We got to get him now.”
The colored man, who told me his name was Junior, went to the back of his house and came back with a wheelbarrow.
“We’ll tote him in this,” Junior said.
“Thanks, Mr. Junior.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hadn’t been for your dog, I wouldn’t have found you.”
“That’s not my dog.”
“No?”
“I just let him stay around. He come up one day, been here ever since.”
I started leading the way and the others followed.
It was a long way back, and when we found Gasper, he was worse. He had a fever and was talking out of his head. I got hold of his feet and Junior got his shoulders, and we lifted him into the wheelbarrow.
The ground was soft, and that made it tough going with the wheelbarrow, but Junior didn’t seem to mind. He acted like he could do that all day.
Nasty trotted along just ahead of us, as if he was an official guide.
It was late afternoon by the time we got back to Junior’s house, and I was starved. While Junior and Jane took Gasper inside, I sat on the porch and picked at a bony fish that tasted about as good as anything I’d ever ate. When I finished up I went inside. Gasper was stretched out on the bed on his stomach, and Junior had cut his pants leg open with a knife. He was heating the knife in a candle flame when I went in. When it was clean by fire, he poured some whiskey from
a bottle over it, then poured some on Gasper’s legs. Gasper jumped and said something that didn’t make any sense. He was still out of his head.
Junior took a swig of the whiskey, said, “You two going to have to hold him.”
I got his shoulders and Jane got his left ankle, where just above it, in the calf, was the wound.
“Young’n,” Junior said to Tony, who was standing in the doorway, “you come over here and sit on his good leg.”
Tony did just that.
Junior said, “Now, he’s going to scream, but don’t let him go.”
And Junior went to work with the knife.
Gasper had good lungs. He screamed so loud and so long, when we was finished, my ears hurt.
Junior put the buckshot he dug out of Gasper’s leg into a bowl on a table beside the bed. He poured more whiskey on the leg when he finished, drank a bit for himself, then wrapped the leg.
We rolled Gasper on his back, and within a moment, he was asleep. Junior touched his forehead. “Fever done broke. Figured it would, soon as I got that lead out of him.”
We went out on the porch and let Gasper sleep. Junior gave some scraps to Nasty and had us tell all that had happened to us. Jane told him, and managed not to gussy it up with a lie.
“No one is going to miss Sheriff Big Bill Brady,” Junior said. “Unless maybe he’s got a dog. It’s good his nonsense is over with.”
“Thing is,” Jane said, looking over at the sleeping Gasper, “Gasper has no place to go. I don’t want to leave him, but we’re on a mission. And well, frankly, they ain’t gonna let a colored go where we go.”
“I know that,” Junior said. “I know that every day. That’s why I live up here in these woods, where white folks can’t tell me what to do and when to do it. Ain’t nobody can.”
“Maybe we ought to ask Gasper what he wants to do,” I said. “It ain’t right to make a decision for him.”
“It might not be right,” Junior said, “but with that leg he ain’t going nowhere for a spell, and don’t need to have a choice about it. But what did you mean about a mission, girl?”
All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky Page 14