by Watt Key
“Out of animal skins, right?” Kit said.
“That’s right.”
“That’s when I get my hat?” Kit asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“How much farther?” Hal asked.
I was about to tell Hal I didn’t know, when I thought I heard something. I told them to get quiet while I stood up and turned my ear back down our trail. I held my breath and listened. After a second, I heard it again. “Dogs are after us already,” I said.
Kit’s eyes grew wide. Both of them jumped up from where they were sitting. “Dogs!” Kit said.
I was still listening. I nodded. “Just one, but he’s comin’ fast up our trail. He’s still a mile or so back.”
“What the hell we gonna do about that?” Hal said.
“I don’t know yet.”
Hal started to say something but didn’t. A worried look spread across Kit’s face. “What’s it going to do when it gets to us, Moon?”
“You two don’t worry about it. Gimme that knife, Kit. If its tail’s not waggin’, then I’ll fight it.”
“That’s crap,” Hal said. “You can’t fight a dog off with a crappy old knife. Especially that one.”
“We’ll see,” I replied.
“Perfect,” Hal mumbled.
Kit gave me the knife and I started walking ahead. After a few seconds they ran to catch up with me. Pap had always told me that if you get in a fight with an animal, you have to get meaner than you ever thought you could. He said that if you have a knife, it’s like a big tooth, and if your tooth is bigger than the animal’s, you might have a chance. But I knew that chance was slim and I was scared.
For the next thirty minutes, we sloshed our way through a cane thicket where water came up over our ankles. All the while, the barking of the dog grew closer.
“This water will wash away our scent, won’t it?” Kit asked me.
I shook my head. “It’s still all over this cane we’re brushin’ against.”
Kit moaned.
We broke out of the cane thicket and started up a long hill. When we topped the hill, we faced a steep ravine that was covered in kudzu. I looked back at my friends and they stared down the trail in the direction of the barking.
“We might as well wait here,” I said. “We’ll be tangled up down there by the time that dog reaches us.”
“I’m gettin’ up a tree,” Hal said. “Gonna watch your butts get chewed up.”
He dropped his blanket and walked over to a black oak that grew over the ravine. In a few seconds, he was climbing up the branches. Kit looked at me like I should tell him what to do. I swallowed nervously and nodded at him. “Go ahead and find one, too, Kit.”
“Are you going to fight him?”
“I guess so.”
“Have you ever fought a dog?”
“No, but I don’t aim for us to be sent back to Pinson.”
The barking grew louder. I imagined the dog loping throught the thicket and our scent from the cane stems flowing into its nose. I told Kit to get going, and he dropped his things and began to climb the black oak after Hal. I pulled out the knife and turned and faced the trail. I got into my fighting stance and concentrated on where I thought the dog would leap out.
20
The bloodhound burst from the cane thicket and leaped into my chest before I had time to study his tail. I landed on my back with him on top of me. My arms were tangled somewhere beneath me and my legs were pinned down by the dog’s weight. Kit and Hal yelled at me from up in the tree. All I thought about was what it would feel like when the bloodhound took his first bite of me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited, but the bite never came. The bloodhound licked me until I brought my hands up to shield my face. The tongue slapped me with slobber on my cheeks and forehead and I turned over on my stomach. “Stop!” I yelled at the ground, but I felt my hair getting wet and cowlicked. Eventually, I managed to draw my knees up and stand. The bloodhound looked at me like I should tell him what to do. When I began to wipe my face with the sleeve of the uniform, he put his nose into the air and woofed.
“He’s nice,” Kit yelled from the tree.
I studied the dog’s tail as it whipped left and right. I breathed deeply and lowered the knife. “Yeah. Come on down.”
In a moment, they were with me on the ground and Kit began to pet the bloodhound on the back. I finished wiping my face and leaned over to read the dog’s tag.
Snapper
Davy Sanders
34 Big Pine Road
Gainesville, Alabama
“It’s Sanders’s dog,” I said. “Named Snapper.”
“Who’s Sanders?” Hal asked.
“He’s the law. He’s the constable that made me go to Pinson. I figure he’s about hornet-mad I busted out of there.”
“He doesn’t train much of a dog,” Hal said.
“I imagine this dog’s about as happy to get away from Sanders as everybody else is.”
Hal shook his head. “I think you’re crazy, Moon.”
“You haven’t seen crazy until you’ve seen Sanders.”
Kit hugged Snapper around the neck. The dog was so large that he didn’t have to bend over far to do this. “Let’s bring him with us.”
“I don’t care who comes,” I said. “Dogs or people.”
“I think it’s almost lunch,” Hal said.
“We’ve gotta make some more time. As soon as Sanders figures out we have his dog, he’s gonna think of somethin’ else. He’s prob’ly been followin’ Snapper and he’s not too far away.” I looked at Kit and he nodded at me.
“All right,” Hal said, sighing. “Let’s go.”
We fought our way down the side of the ravine until we were at the bottom, where a creek ran through white sand. Snapper came after us, drooling lines of foamy spit from his mouth and slapping us with his tongue when we weren’t paying attention. He seemed to prefer Hal, who wanted to have the least to do with him.
“Stop it, Snapper,” Hal kept repeating. I’d look over and Hal would be sidestepping away from the dog and the long lines of slobber that hung from its jowls.
“I hate this dog!” he said.
The sun was almost over our heads and the day had turned warm. High above us, the wind brushed the treetops, but the forest was still and quiet in the ravine. We trudged through the white sand, which squeaked under our shoes, and didn’t say much to each other.
After we’d been walking awhile, I felt myself getting hungry, and I started making plans to get food for all of us. I hadn’t been thinking long when we came up on a hickory tree that had covered the bottom of the ravine with its nuts. As soon as I explained to Hal and Kit what we’d found, we sat in the sand and began breaking the nuts open between rocks. We filled up on them and leftover cattail roots and afterwards even Hal agreed that he was feeling a little better. We eventually leaned back against the wall of kudzu, feeling full and listening to the rustle of hickory leaves.
“Well, that’s nothin’,” I said. “We’re gonna have fresh deer meat soon.”
Kit bent over and drank from the creek. He looked up at me after he took a swallow. “We can drink from here, right?”
“Wherever the water’s runnin’,” I said.
“Just not where it’s sitting still?”
“That’s right.”
Kit smiled and seemed proud of himself. I lay back on the sand and put a magnolia leaf over my eyes.
“You nappin’?” Hal asked.
I nodded. “I figure we’ve got time to rest a little more. Sanders can’t track us easy without his dog. Not this far. He prob’ly already turned back.”
“Good. It’s about time you slowed down.”
Hal and Snapper and Kit lay on the sand next to me, and Snapper put his head across Hal’s chest. “Stupid dog,” Hal said. But he didn’t make him move.
The creek trickling past and the breeze swishing the treetops far overhead and our full stomachs helped us drift off to sleep. Whe
n I woke, I could feel that the wind had shifted and the air had a touch of dampness to it. I pulled the leaf from over my eyes and wondered what it was that woke me. Then I heard a gunshot in the direction we’d come from, followed by a faint yell. “Snapper! C’mere, you sorry sum-bitch!”
Snapper had his head up, looking in the direction of the yell. I could tell by the sound that the gunshot had been aimed into the air.
Kit and Hal woke after the second shot and sat up and looked at me.
“He ain’t turned back yet!” Hal said.
“I guess we’d better get on,” I said. “He sounds mad.”
I had just gotten the words out when Sanders yelled again. “I know you’re out there, boys! You’re mine, you militia bastard. You hear me! I got another dog back at the house.”
“Great,” Hal said.
“I’m gonna whip him good,” I said.
“No you’re not,” Hal snapped. “We’re gonna get out of here.”
“I think maybe you shouldn’t try to whip him, Moon,” Kit said.
“All right,” I said. “Come on.”
We gathered our blankets and hurried down the ravine. Snapper trotted beside Hal and kept getting in his way. Hal continually tripped over him and told him to move, but Snapper walked against his leg.
“I think that hound likes you, Hal.”
Hal gave me a sour look and spit. “Well, there’s some crazy fellow back there shootin’ at us that don’t.”
21
Late in the afternoon the air became chilly again and we put our jackets on. I could tell that Hal and Kit were getting tired of walking, so I slowed and did a better job of clearing a trail for them.
They seemed to find new energy when we came to a creek that poured over a small waterfall into a pond. They followed me to the bottom of the waterfall and walked around the edge of the pond.
“You two can rest now, if you want. Sanders won’t come back today.”
Hal looked at me like he was about to say something, but didn’t. Kit and Hal spread their blankets in the grass and lay down to rest. After taking a long drink, Snapper plopped down beside Hal and shut his eyes. I looked at the sun and judged there to be a little more than two hours before it would get too dark to see. The forest grew quiet as it usually does late in the day, and a few clouds moved over us and cast shadows on the trees.
The sides of the ravine sloped up to small embankments that edged a hardwood bottom. I took the knife and went in search of a hickory tree. I didn’t have to travel far before I found hickory nuts on the ground and looked up into the trees until I saw hickory leaves. Wrapping my legs and arms around the tree, I ratcheted myself up until I could grab the lowest limb. I swung myself into the tree and balanced with one arm against the trunk. I cut a straight branch that was about as big around as my wrist and dropped it to the ground.
Back at the pond, I shaved the smaller growth from the hickory branch until I had a pole about six feet long. As I was whittling a barbed point on the end, Kit woke and watched me.
“Go find a piece of dry, dead wood, Kit.”
Kit nodded and stood up. He began walking and then turned back. “How will I know the right kind?”
“Find a piece on the ground that’s about as big around as your leg and two feet long. If you can break it against the tree, it’s dead. Be quick. It’s gonna get dark soon.”
Kit nodded and hurried away. I set the hickory pole down and grabbed one of the small branches I’d shaved from it. Using a shoelace, I made a tiny bow. By the time I finished, Kit had returned with the dead wood.
“What are you making?”
“Fish spear.”
Kit sat across from me and watched as I took another of the small branches and shaved a straight stick as long as my arm and as big around as my thumb. Wrapping the bowstring around my small stick, I made a drill to use against the dead wood Kit found. After I drilled a small dish into the wood, I told Kit to go pull some bark from a dead cedar tree I had seen up the hill. He stood once more and took a few steps in the direction I pointed. He turned and looked back at me.
“It’s a furry-lookin’ tree,” I said.
“How can you not even know what a cedar tree looks like?” Hal said, disgusted. Kit and I watched him stand from where he’d been sleeping. “Come on,” he said, sighing, “I’ll show it to you.”
I used the cedar bark they brought me to kindle the fire from the heat made at the tip of the bow drill. Kit and Hal watched quietly while I hardened the pointed tip of the spear in the flame.
“What about the smoke?” Kit asked. “Won’t someone see it?”
“Look up there,” I said, pointing at a place several feet over the fire where the smoke dissolved. “You don’t get much smoke with dry wood.”
Kit looked at Hal. “Bet you didn’t know that.”
Hal squinted his eyes at Kit. “You better watch your mouth,” he said.
We both knew he didn’t mean it, and smiled.
We rolled up our pants legs and thrashed through the shallow pond until all of the fish were corralled at one end. I speared six bass that together were enough to feed the three of us and have some left over for later. As I tried for the last fish, Hal tripped over something in the muddied water and fell. He went completely under and exploded back up yelling. He thought he’d been tripped, and I saw Kit’s eyes grow wide when Hal charged towards him.
“No, Hal!” Kit yelled.
I hurried out of the way as both of them crashed beneath the surface. Snapper got excited, sprung to his feet, and launched himself into the water with them. Before long, the two of them stood and fell, tripped and laughed their way to the bank with Snapper leaping up at their faces.
As the forest grew dark the four of us watched the fish cooking on a spit I rigged from more of the green hickory branches. A breeze slipped through the trees at the top of the ravine. Kit and Hal sat wrapped in their blankets and stared at the food, their uniforms and jackets draped over a rack I made near the fire to dry them out. Snapper lay between them with his chin on the ground and jowls flayed out. He moved only his eyeballs to watch my hands tend the fish.
“How did fish that big get in that pond?” Kit asked.
“They swam, stupid,” grumbled Hal.
“Come in when it floods,” I said.
“Shut up, Hal.”
Hal raised his hand from beneath the blanket and held it above Kit’s head like he was going to hit him. But he didn’t, and put his hand back down. Kit looked at me and his eyes burned with mischief.
“You like this, Kit?”
He nodded.
“How about you, Hal?”
Hal shrugged. “Better than goin’ to Hellenweiler.”
When the fish were done, I stabbed three fillets with sticks and gave one to each of them. The other fillets I wrapped in one of my socks for later.
Kit and Hal ate quickly. I could tell they were hungry and that the fish tasted good to them.
“Tomorrow we can boil water and make pine-needle or sassafras tea.”
“Is it good?” Kit asked.
I nodded. “Real good. We can get some mint weed and make it taste even better.”
We lay on our sides and watched the fire dying. A bobcat screamed in the distance. Snapper’s ears twitched and a low moan came from his throat.
“What in hell . . .” Hal said.
“Bobcat,” I replied. “Pap said it sounds like a screamin’ woman.”
Hal and Kit looked behind themselves into the shadows. “Hope you can whip that thing,” Hal said.
“Won’t mess with you,” I said. “Nothin’ out here will mess with you if you don’t mess with it.”
“How long until we go to Alaska?” Kit asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess we’ll go when y’all learn about livin’ in the forest.”
“Alaska’s a long way,” Hal said.
“Yeah,” Kit replied, “but there’s more people like Moon up there. It’s a place w
here they won’t chase him. Isn’t that right, Moon?”
“What Pap says.”
“What you think they’re gonna do to us if they catch us, Moon?” Hal asked.
“They’re not gonna catch us.”
“That Sanders fellow seems pretty mad at you. I ain’t never seen somebody act like that over a couple of people runnin’ away.”
“He might be mad about me whippin’ up on him.”
“Well, he’s plenty pissed for some reason.”
“Anybody that doesn’t know you can’t just set a bloodhound loose to run after his nose can’t be too smart.”
“Why’s that?”
“Bloodhounds aren’t mean by nature like some other dogs. You’ve got to keep ’em on a leash and let ’em take you to whatever they’re trackin’, or else they run off.”
“How you know about bloodhounds?”
“I know about all kinds of animals. I’ve got animal books back in the shelter. I’ve got tree books and plant books and trap books. Pap’s got about a hundred wrapped in a garbage bag under the spice shelf.”
“My daddy never did learn to read good,” Hal said. “He was so drunk most of the time, he could barely see.”
“Is that why they sent you to Pinson?” Kit asked.
Hal shook his head. “Naw, I lived with my momma. She ran off and took me with her when I was eleven. We lived in a place called Elrod for a while. I got in a lot of trouble, stealin’ and stuff, so they took me away from her. Said she couldn’t control me, but I never did like livin’ with her. I didn’t want anything else but to be back with Daddy.”
“I thought you said he was drunk all the time?” Kit said.
“It didn’t matter none to me. He was still the best daddy you could have. We lived outside a little town called Union, and we’d hunt and fish and work on the truck together. Just hang around the clay pit. It wasn’t his clay pit, but he looked after it for the owner and took the money from people comin’ in to get truckloads of dirt. We had a trailer parked up on the edge of it, and when it rained for a couple of days, that pit got a little water in the bottom. Come dark, Daddy’d take me outside to where we had some chairs set up. He’d tell me how lucky we were to have waterfront property. It looked like a lake in the moonlight. After a while, he’d finish whatever he was drinkin’ and throw it out there in the lake. It’d stab into the mud and seem like it was floatin’.”