by Fred Gipson
That threw a big scare into Mama. I argued and fussed, trying to tell her what a bad shape Old Yeller was in and how we needed to hurry back to him. But she wouldn’t pay me any mind.
She told me: “We’re not going anywhere until we’ve cleaned up and doctored that leg. I’ve seen hog cuts before. Neglect them, and they can be as dangerous as snakebite. Now, you just hold still till I get through.”
I saw that it wasn’t any use, so I held still while she got hot water and washed out the cut. But when she poured turpentine into the place, I couldn’t hold still. I jumped and hollered and screamed. It was like she’d burnt me with a red-hot iron. It hurt worse than when the hog slashed me. I hollered with hurt till Little Arliss turned up and went to crying, too. But when the pain finally left my leg, the muscle had quit jerking.
Mama got some clean white rags and bound up the place. Then she said, “Now, you lie down on that bed and rest. I don’t want to see you take another step on that leg for a week.”
I was so stunned that I couldn’t say a word. All I could do was stare at her. Old Yeller, lying way off out there in the hills, about to die if he didn’t get help, and Mama telling me I couldn’t walk.
I got up off the stool I’d been sitting on. I said to her, “Mama, I’m going back after Old Yeller. I promised him I’d come back, and that’s what I aim to do.” Then I walked through the door and out to the lot.
By the time I got Jumper caught, Mama had her bonnet on. She was ready to go, too. She looked a little flustered, like she didn’t know what to do with me, but all she said was, “How’ll we bring him back?”
“On Jumper,” I said. “I’ll ride Jumper and hold Old Yeller in my arms.”
“You know better than that,” she said. “He’s too big and heavy. I might lift him up to you, but you can’t stand to hold him in your arms that long. You’ll give out.”
“I’ll hold him,” I said. “If I give out, I’ll rest. Then we’ll go on again.”
Mama stood tapping her foot for a minute while she gazed off across the hills. She said, like she was talking to herself, “We can’t use the cart. There aren’t any roads, and the country is too rough.”
Suddenly she turned to me and smiled. “I know what. Get that cowhide off the fence. I’ll go get some pillows.”
“Cowhide?”
“Tie it across Jumper’s back,” she said. “I’ll show you later.”
I didn’t know what she had in mind, but it didn’t much matter. She was going with me.
I got the cowhide and slung it across Jumper’s back. It rattled and spooked him so that he snorted and jumped from under it.
“You Jumper!” I shouted at him. “You hold still.”
He held still the next time. Mama brought the pillows and a long coil of rope. She had me tie the cowhide to Jumper’s back and bind the pillows down on top of it. Then she lifted Little Arliss up and set him down on top of the pillows.
“You ride behind him,” she said to me. “I’ll walk.”
We could see the buzzards gathering long before we got there. We could see them wheeling black against the blue sky and dropping lower and lower with each circling. One we saw didn’t waste time to circle. He came hurtling down at a long-slanted dive, his ugly head outstretched, his wings all but shut against his body. He shot past, right over our heads, and the whooshing sound his body made in splitting the air sent cold chills running all through me. I guessed it was all over for Old Yeller.
Mama was walking ahead of Jumper. She looked back at me. The look in her eyes told me that she figured the same thing. I got so sick that it seemed like I couldn’t stand it.
But when we moved down into the prickly-pear flats, my misery eased some. For suddenly, up out of a wash ahead rose a flurry of flapping wings. Something had disturbed those buzzards and I thought I knew what it was.
A second later, I was sure it was Old Yeller. His yelling bark sounded thin and weak, yet just to hear it made me want to holler and run and laugh. He was still alive. He was still able to fight back!
The frightened buzzards had settled back to the ground by the time we got there. When they caught sight of us, though, they got excited and went to trying to get off the ground again. For birds that can sail around in the air all day with hardly more than a movement of their wing tips, they sure were clumsy and awkward about getting started. Some had to keep hopping along the wash for fifty yards, beating the air with their huge wings, before they could finally take off. And then they were slow to rise. I could have shot a dozen of them before they got away if I’d thought to bring my gun along.
There was a sort of crazy light shining in Old Yeller’s eyes when I looked in at him. When I reached to drag the stump away, he snarled and lunged at me with bared fangs.
I jerked my hands away just in time and shouted “Yeller!” at him. Then he knew I wasn’t a buzzard. The crazy light went out of his eyes. He sank back into the hole with a loud groan like he’d just had a big load taken off his mind.
Mama helped me drag the stump away. Then we reached in and rolled his hurt body over on its back and slid him out into the light.
Without bothering to examine the blood-caked cuts that she could see all over his head and shoulders, Mama started unwinding the strips of cloth from around his body.
Then Little Arliss came crowding past me, asking in a scared voice what was the matter with Yeller.
Mama stopped. “Arliss,” she said, “do you think you could go back down this sandy wash here and catch Mama a pretty green-striped lizard? I thought I saw one down there around that first bend.”
Little Arliss was as pleased as I was surprised. Always before, Mama had just sort of put up with his lizard-catching. Now she was wanting him to catch one just for her. A delighted grin spread over his face. He turned and ran down the wash as hard as he could.
Mama smiled up at me, and suddenly I understood. She was just getting Little Arliss out of the way so he wouldn’t have to look at the terrible sight of Yeller’s slitted belly.
She said to me: “Go jerk a long hair out of Jumper’s tail, Son. But stand to one side, so he won’t kick you.”
I went and stood to one side of Jumper and jerked a long hair out of his tail. Sure enough, he snorted and kicked at me, but he missed. I took the hair back to Mama, wondering as much about it as I had about the green-striped lizard. But when Mama pulled a long sewing needle from her dress front and poked the small end of the tail hair through the eye, I knew then.
“Horse hair is always better than thread for sewing up a wound,” she said. She didn’t say why, and I never did think to ask her.
Mama asked me if any of Yeller’s entrails had been cut and I told her that I didn’t think so.
“Well, I won’t bother them then,” she said. “Anyway, if they are, I don’t think I could fix them.”
It was a long, slow job, sewing up Old Yeller’s belly. And the way his flesh would flinch and quiver when Mama poked the needle through, it must have hurt. But if it did, Old Yeller didn’t say anything about it. He just lay there and licked my hands while I held him.
We were wrapping him up in some clean rags that Mama had brought along when here came Little Arliss. He was running as hard as he’d been when he left. He was grinning and hollering at Mama. And in his right hand he carried a green-striped lizard, too.
How on earth he’d managed to catch anything as fast running as one of those green-striped lizards, I don’t know; but he sure had one.
You never saw such a proud look as he wore on his face when he handed the lizard to Mama. And I don’t guess I ever saw a more helpless look on Mama’s face as she took it. Mama had always been squeamish about lizards and snakes and bugs and things, and you could tell that it just made her flesh crawl to have to touch this one. But she took it and admired it and thanked Arliss. Then she asked him if he’d keep it for her till we got home. Which Little Arliss was glad to do.
“Now, Arliss,” she told him, “we’re going t
o play a game. We’re playing like Old Yeller is sick and you are taking care of him. We’re going to let you both ride on a cowhide, like the sick Indians do sometimes.”
It always pleased Little Arliss to play any sort of game, and this was a new one that he’d never heard about before. He was so anxious to get started that we could hardly keep him out from underfoot till Mama could get things ready.
As soon as she took the cowhide off Jumper’s back and spread it hair-side down upon the ground, I began to get the idea. She placed the soft pillows on top of the hide, then helped me to ease Old Yeller’s hurt body onto the pillows.
“Now, Arliss,” Mama said, “you sit there on the pillows with Old Yeller and help hold him on. But remember now, don’t play with him or get on top of him. We’re playing like he’s sick, and when your dog is sick, you have to be real careful with him.”
It was a fine game, and Little Arliss fell right in with it. He sat where Mama told him to. He held Old Yeller’s head in his lap, waiting for the ride to start.
It didn’t take long. I’d already tied a rope around Jumper’s neck, leaving the loop big enough that it would pull back against his shoulders. Then, on each side of Jumper, we tied another rope into the one knotted about his shoulders, and carried the ends of them back to the cowhide. I took my knife and cut two slits into the edge of the cowhide, then tied a rope into each one. We measured to get each rope the same length and made sure they were far enough back that the cowhide wouldn’t touch Jumper’s heels. Like most mules, Jumper was mighty fussy about anything touching his heels.
“Now, Travis, you ride him,” Mama said, “and I’ll lead him.”
“You better let me walk,” I argued. “Jumper’s liable to throw a fit with that hide rattling along behind him, and you might not can hold him by yourself.”
“You ride him,” Mama said. “I don’t want you walking on that leg any more. If Jumper acts up one time, I’ll take a club to him!”
We started off, with Little Arliss crowing at what a fine ride he was getting on the dragging hide. Sure enough, at the first sound of that rattling hide, old Jumper acted up. He snorted and tried to lunge to one side. But Mama yanked down on his bridle and said, “Jumper, you wretch!” I whacked him between the ears with a dead stick. With the two of us coming at him like that, it was more than Jumper wanted. He settled down and went to traveling as quiet as he generally pulled a plow, with just now and then bending his neck around to take a look at what he was dragging. You could tell he didn’t like it, but I guess he figured he’d best put up with it.
Little Arliss never had a finer time than he did on that ride home. He enjoyed every long hour of it. And a part of the time, I don’t guess it was too rough on Old Yeller. The cowhide dragged smooth and even as long as we stayed in the sandy wash. When we left the wash and took out across the flats, it still didn’t look bad. Mama led Jumper in a long roundabout way, keeping as much as she could to the openings where the tall grass grew. The grass would bend down before the hide, making a soft cushion over which the hide slipped easily. But this was a rough country, and try as hard as she could, Mama couldn’t always dodge the rocky places. The hide slid over the rocks, the same as over the grass and sand, but it couldn’t do it without jolting the riders pretty much.
Little Arliss would laugh when the hide raked along over the rocks and jolted him till his teeth rattled. He got as much fun out of that as the rest of the ride. But the jolting hurt Old Yeller till sometimes he couldn’t hold back his whinings.
When Yeller’s whimperings told us he was hurting too bad, we’d have to stop and wait for him to rest up. At other times, we stopped to give him water. Once we got water out of a little spring that trickled down through the rocks. The next time was at Birdsong Creek.
Mama’d pack water to him in my hat. He was too weak to get up and drink; so Mama would hold the water right under his nose and I’d lift him up off the pillows and hold him close enough that he could reach down and lap the water up with his tongue.
Having to travel so far and so slow and with so many halts, it looked like we’d never get him home. But we finally made it just about the time it got dark enough for the stars to show.
By then, my hurt leg was plenty stiff, stiff and numb. It was all swelled up and felt as dead as a chunk of wood. When I slid down off Jumper’s back, it wouldn’t hold me. I fell clear to the ground and lay in the dirt, too tired and hurt to get up.
Mama made a big to-do about how weak and hurt I was, but I didn’t mind. We’d gone and brought Old Yeller home, and he was still alive. There by the starlight, I could see him licking Little Arliss’s face.
Little Arliss was sound asleep.
TWELVE
For the next couple of weeks, Old Yeller and I had a rough time of it. I lay on the bed inside the cabin and Yeller lay on the cowhide in the dog run, and we both hurt so bad that we were wallowing and groaning and whimpering all the time. Sometimes I hurt so bad that I didn’t quite know what was happening. I’d hear grunts and groans and couldn’t tell if they were mine or Yeller’s. My leg had swelled up till it was about the size of a butter churn. I had such a wild hot fever that Mama nearly ran herself to death, packing fresh cold water from the spring, which she used to bathe me all over, trying to run my fever down.
When she wasn’t packing water, she was out digging prickly-pear roots and hammering them to mush in a sack, then binding the mush to my leg for a poultice.
We had lots of prickly pear growing close to the house, but they were the big tall ones and their roots were no good. The kind that make a good poultice are the smaller size. They don’t have much top, but lots of knotty roots, shaped sort of like sweet potatoes. That kind didn’t grow close to the house. Along at the last, Mama had to go clear over to the Salt Licks to locate that kind.
When Mama wasn’t waiting on me, she was taking care of Old Yeller. She waited on him just like she did me. She was getting up all hours of the night to doctor our wounds, bathe us in cold water, and feed us when she could get us to eat. On top of that, there were the cows to milk, Little Arliss to look after, clothes to wash, wood to cut, and old Jumper to worry with.
The bad drouth that Bud Searcy predicted had come. The green grass all dried up till Jumper was no longer satisfied to eat it. He took to jumping the field fence and eating the corn that I’d never yet gotten around to gathering.
Mama couldn’t let that go on; that was our bread corn. Without it, we’d have no bread for the winter. But it looked like for a while that there wasn’t any way to save it. Mama would go to the field and run Jumper out; then before she got her back turned good, he’d jump back in and go to eating corn again.
Finally, Mama figured out a way to keep Jumper from jumping. She tied a drag to him. She got a rope and tied one end of it to his right forefoot. To the other end, she tied a big heavy chunk of wood. By pulling hard, Jumper could move his drag along enough to graze and get to water; but any time he tried to rear up for a jump, the drag held him down.
The drag on Jumper’s foot saved the corn but it didn’t save Mama from a lot of work. Jumper was always getting his chunk of wood hung up behind a bush or rock, so that he couldn’t get away. Then he’d have himself a big scare and rear up, fighting the rope and falling down and pitching and bawling. If Mama didn’t hear him right away, he’d start braying, and he’d keep it up till she went and loosened the drag.
Altogether, Mama sure had her hands full, and Little Arliss wasn’t any help. He was too little to do any work. And with neither of us to play with, he got lonesome. He’d follow Mama around every step she made, getting in the way and feeling hurt because she didn’t have time to pay him any mind. When he wasn’t pestering her, he was pestering me. A dozen times a day, he’d come in to stare at me and say: “Whatcha doin’ in bed, Travis? Why doncha get up? Why doncha get up and come play with me?”
He nearly drove me crazy till the day Bud Searcy and Lisbeth came, bringing the pup.
I d
idn’t know about the pup at first. I didn’t even know that Lisbeth had come. I heard Bud Searcy’s talk to Mama when they rode up, but I was hurting too bad even to roll over and look out the door. I remember just lying there, being mad at Searcy for coming. I knew what a bother he’d be to Mama. For all his talk of looking after the women and children of Salt Licks while the men were gone, I knew he’d never turn a hand to any real work. You wouldn’t catch him offering to chop wood or gather in a corn crop. All he’d do was sit out under the dog run all day, talking and chewing tobacco and spitting juice all over the place. On top of that, he’d expect Mama to cook him up a good dinner and maybe a supper if he took a notion to stay that long. And Mama had ten times too much to do, like it was.
In a little bit, though, I heard a quiet step at the door. I looked up. It was Lisbeth. She stood with her hands behind her back, staring at me with her big solemn eyes.
“You hurting pretty bad?” she asked.
I was hurting a-plenty, but I wasn’t admitting it to a girl. “I’m doing all right,” I said.
“We didn’t know you’d got hog cut, or we’d have come sooner,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.
“Well, anyhow,” she said, “I brung you a surprise.”
I was too sick and worn out to care about a surprise right then; but there was such an eager look in her eyes that I knew I had to say “What?” or hurt her feelings, so I said “What?”
“One of Miss Prissy’s pups!” she said.
She brought her hands around from behind her back. In the right one, she held a dog pup about as big as a year-old possum. It was a dirty white in color and speckled all over with blue spots about the size of cow ticks. She held it by the slack hide at the back of its neck. It hung there, half asleep, sagging in its own loose hide like it was dead.