Therefore, on that night, Sam and me had our portion of things to fret over. We was not German, but we was not Sesesh neither. Sam prowled about in our house peering from chinks in the daubing so as to see if trouble was on the way.
You can’t see nothing but dark, I told her. And what good would it do anyhow. If mischief is coming, we’re done for. I ain’t got enough powder for a pea shooter, and it’s bat shat.
You ain’t got enough on account of how you shoot ten times and by then everything’s run off, said she. You squander it, that’s what.
She was in a foul mood and we was both spooked by the wind. It hooted around the corners and shoved at the bolt on the door.
On account of my father was passed, I had taken to sleeping in his bed. Samantha had the other bed to herself now. After some time, when no mischief come, we retired into those beds. But the whooping sound of the wind was like Comanches moving in, and I had it in my mind that they was out there in the dark about to break out hollering in their bloodthirsty way of it. Or else stuff the chimney and smoke us out.
Sam said, The panther is coming around, I can feel it.
I said, He ain’t been here in years, and why would he come now. If we hear something, it’s Comanches.
She said, He’s out there. I know it. I feel it.
All at once there begun a snuffling and scratching at the door and the latch shook fiercely.
Samantha sat up in her bed. It’s him, she said. It’s the panther. He’s here.
It ain’t him, I told her. It’s the sow.
But I was not so sure. The sow was in a habit of walking in at her leisure when the door was left open, but it was not her custom to demand entry when it was shut.
The scratching and snuffling and shoving went on for a stretch of time that I figured unnatural, and I begun to think that indeed, it was not the sow at the door. The fire was no more than a scant bit of red from the embers, but it shed enough light to show me how troubled Samantha looked. She commenced to blink and squint her eyes like she has a habit of.
Can she bust the latch, she asked me.
It’s a good latch, I said. However, she’s a big sow, she could maybe bust the door.
My heart thrashed about in a painful manner. By way of action I hollered out, Who’s there. Who’s at the door.
The scratching come to a halt, as if whatever caused it attended to what I asked. However, then it took up again. I thought, Hell or high water I am going to see what’s out there. I got up and loaded my pistol with what powder I had, bat shat or not, and went down on my hands and knees to look out of a chink low to one side of the door.
What I seen out there was the shape of the big fat sow. Indeed it was her. She must of spied me looking out, as she stuck her nose to mine in the hole and huffed a bit of slime at me before I could pull back.
It’s her, I told Sam.
Let her in and give her corn, Sam said.
She shats when she has corn, I said.
If she’s chomping on corn we ain’t going to hear the wind or nothing else, Sam said. We’ll have us a little piece of quiet. Let her in.
So I done so. Hardly had I cracked open the door when the sow shoved her fat self inside and snorted at me and demanded corn. I latched the door back, laid my pistol aside, stoked up the fire, and shook a few fistfuls of kernels around on the boards of the floor. She went about chomping and snorting long enough for Sam to think of other things and get to sleep, whilst I lay there watching them both in the light of the fire and wondering what my life was ever going to amount to. Here I was, trapped in a house with a girl and a big pig, nothing between me and all the world, with whatever it might hold of liberty and undertaking, but a shoddy door and one good latch. But whether I wanted out, or preferred to be in, was hard to say at that moment.
And that was when the screaming commenced.
I cannot hardly describe it except to say it was not plain to me at the start exactly where it come from, or what it might be. It was the goats in the pen, for one thing, and the loud wind for another. But it was also the mare. I heard her loud and clear in the shed. And it was another thing that was like a woman yelling about something. I almost thought—and this was wrongheaded—I almost thought Juda had somehow come back. However, very quickly I surmised that what I heard was the same sounds as I heard the night Juda was killed, and it was not the sound of Juda screaming like she done. It was the caterwaul of the panther.
Samantha and me sat up in our beds in haste and alarm. For a instant we stuck to our beds and stared at what we could see of each other in the feeble light of the embers. If the wind had not been so fierce and steady I think I could of heard my heart. It pounded away at a gallop. I think I could of heard Samantha’s too. She was the first of us to open her mouth, but it was only to whisper.
It’s come around, she said. It’s come back. I told you.
Before I could move a finger, she was out of her bed and had grabbed my pistol from off the table.
You can’t go out there, I told her, and got out of bed to argue with her about it. There ain’t enough powder in that. It ain’t good powder.
Come out there with me, she said. I’m scared to go by myself.
I ain’t coming, I told her, and made a effort to wrestle the pistol from her. However, I could not fight her in earnest, as she bent over the pistol and was so determined of keeping her grasp of it I feared she would pull the trigger by accident and shoot herself in the belly, or fire the ball through herself and into me. I thought, This is not a struggle worth doing, and I turned her loose.
Bring a knife and come on, she hollered, or you’re a coward!
Juda had her a hatchet and we seen what the panther done to her, I said. I ain’t taking it on with a knife.
In all this time, the uproar outside went on. We had one goat in particular that could yell like he was a grown man, and he was doing so without ceasing and louder than I ever thought a goat could yell. The wind was nothing compared to that noise. The other eight goats was chiming in. Two of them was kids less than a year old and I figured it was one of them little ones that the panther had got hold of, as there was some high-pitched bleating. The mare was screaming and knocking her hooves against the shed walls. The chickens was squawking.
Without one other word between us, Sam went for the door.
You asked me to be frank, Judge. I did not care to follow her out. I was barefoot and had nothing to see by, much less shoot with. But what choice did I have. I lit the lantern as quick as I could. Out I went behind Sam into the dark and followed her to the goat pen.
When I got there, she was climbed half up the fence, shrieking her head off. It was a six foot picket fence and she was standing on the crossboards, screaming over the top. I got up beside her with the lantern and seen the panther there in the pen with the goats all making a ruckus and churning around pretty fast. It was hard to make out what was what, as the lantern did not light much.
The panther was bigger than I can tell you, sir. It looked about three times my size, although I know that could not be the case. It had a kid by the throat and was dragging it the way it drug Juda. The kid was still kicking—or so it appeared to me. Its little brother stood there watching it get hauled off and screaming about it.
Sam yelled at the panther to let it go. She aimed the pistol at it. Let it go! she hollered, let it go! As if it would do so.
Some of the goats was bunched under a roof that my father and me had nailed over a part of the pen for shelter. Others of them was banging theirselves against the fence to get out. I thought they might knock their brains out. One got out by climbing up on another one’s back and then up on the shelter, and from there it taken the leap. The big male was yelling. It was a terrible commotion in the dark, and the wind was harsh in our faces and kicking up dust.
Get it from him! Samantha screeched at me about the kid being dragged off. Get it back!
I hollered that she was crazy and to quit acting that way and get down fro
m the fence and back in our house or she would be done for like Juda. Half of me was trying to figure out how the panther was going to get that kid out of the pen, as it is one thing to leap into a pen over a six foot picket fence, and another thing to leap back out of it with a kid in your mouth. The other half of me was trying to figure what Sam had got in her head to do, as she was not doing what I told her.
And then she done the most heedless thing. She climbed the rest of the way over the top and dropped down into the pen. There she stood, barefoot, in her nightshift, holding the pistol. The panther was not more than fifteen feet away. The dust flew around it. The kid sagged out of its mouth, either dead or alive, I did not know which. It was the least of my questions.
Sam did have the good sense to stop squawking at that time. The goats become quieter too, I guess thinking she might of come to their rescue. It seemed to me even the wind laid up a bit, as I was able to speak to Sam in a careful, quiet way and she heard me.
I said, You’re done for if you move.
She seemed to of just figured that out, as she looked froze in fear.
I thought, Lord, Sam, how am I to help you. The inside of the fence had no crossboards nailed to it, it was only the bare pickets, so there was no easy way for her to climb back out. And if I tried to pull her out she would have to turn her back on the panther and scramble and kick around for a foothold, and the panther would get excited. It could drop the kid and drag Sam down in one big leap. She would get slaughtered right then and there in front of my eyes. Also how was I to hold on to the lantern and the fence and her too. But what else could I do except try.
Back up slow, then turn around and take my hand, I told her.
She did not heed me. The panther’s eyes was alight from the lantern and fixed on her in a severe manner and it was like she lost the say-so to draw herself away. Its face and head was scarred and one of its ears partly gone, like it was tore off in a fight a while back. It must of known a good number of hard years and asserted itself on a good many creatures, large and small.
Sam aimed the pistol at it and taken a step closer.
I said, Don’t.
She said, I can kill it.
I said, It’s bat shat powder.
She had enough sense to be frightened, but too little to heed me. I guess she figured if she got close enough, then the bat shat would do.
The panther flicked its tail, and laid its ears flat, and dropped the kid in the dirt like it was no more than a dish rag. It crouched so low its belly was nearly against the ground. It drawn its mouth back, and I seen its fangs, and it let out a terrible hiss.
Sam taken another step closer toward it.
My heart commenced to pound so hard it nearly knocked me off the fence. I thought, If you go one more step I ain’t going to help you.
She had the pistol in both hands and they was shaking so harshly I figured she was just as likely to shoot me who was behind her, as the panther out before her. The panther’s snarling got louder and rose up to a fierce yowl. I recalled that awful sound well.
I got down off the fence and run around to the gate. It was a picket gate and I did not have a notion of what the panther might do when I opened it. I stayed to the side, hoping the panther might run out and take off without paying me notice. But when I pulled the gate open, the panther did not come out. So I held the lantern up and taken a few steps in. I seen the panther before me, but not facing me, as it was looking at Sam. It twitched its tail. The kid laid dead before it. The other goats was bunched up in the dark on the far side of the pen. The panther then turned its face to me. Its yellow eyes in the light of my lantern was like two holes showing a fire burning inside the creature’s skull.
I had to either go further inside the pen, or out, and you might guess which way I preferred. But I had charge of Samantha and I was all there was of a man on the place. She was my sister, if only half. I could not let her get drug away like her mother. How would I live with myself then.
Sideways was how I made my way over to Sam whilst keeping a eye on the panther and holding the lantern high. I got so scared I almost thought it would be a relief if I laid down and give myself up. I thought I should maybe do that, and allow Samantha to live. Then I thought maybe not. If I was to die she might as well pass on with me, as she was bound to be in a heap of trouble throughout her whole life without me.
The wind was again blowing hard. It tossed the light about and I thought it might put it out. It was a long, long journey across that small pen, I will tell you what. I recall the feel of the goat shat under my bare feet, the wind blowing dust in my eyes, the fickle light of the lantern, and the way the panther kept up a ominous growl.
When I got close to Samantha she had the shakes all over, but she was still aiming the pistol. I figured if she was to pull the trigger the ball would drop like a stream of piss. I thought, If you bet your whole life on bat shat I ain’t going to hardly cry for you. I feared talking, except under the wind. I said, Come with me.
She said, I can kill it.
I said, If you try and the powder’s bad, it’ll pick the puniest of us.
She give that a moment of thought. Her eyes was squinted in the way she was in a habit of doing when she felt scared. She said, Can we get away.
I stepped closer and got hold of her arm and walked her sideways in the direction of the gate, moving as slow as I’d come. We did not take our eyes off the panther. It twitched its tail and hissed and snarled at us. It kept on showing its fangs, as if we might forget what they looked like. I believe it would of jumped on us except it was guarding the dead kid on the ground before it. The nearer we got to the gate, the harder it was not to turn and run.
We was almost out of the pen when the goats started up yelling again. The big male must of seen us taking our leave. He hollered, and the rest chimed in and jumped on each other and shoved each other about. One gone wild and got herself up on top of the shelter, and the boards give in and crashed, and the goat come down on top of the others beneath it.
I did not stay around to watch. Out the gate we went and I latched it shut behind us and taken off with Sam for the house. I could swear we had wings. I am not sure my feet even lighted upon the ground. I expected any moment the panther might jump the fence and be on us from behind and knock us to the ground and be done with us. My only comfort was to keep moving fast.
When we got inside the house I thought my heart might give out. God all mighty, I told Samantha, you are a idiot and a fool.
She said, I could of killed it! What did you go and stop me for!
There she stood, hardly able to catch her breath and shouting at me like she was in the right. I could of smacked her and nearly did.
I ain’t talking to you, I told her. I ain’t saying nothing to you.
You done me wrong! she said. I could of shot it in the face and killed it once for all! You stole away my chance!
For some time she went on about that, but I declined to listen. Even the sow declined to listen, and laid about. She would not leave and I did not make her. I was busy trying to hear what was going on out in the pens. The goats had got quiet by now.
It’s gone now, I said. I believe it to be gone.
It ain’t never going to be gone, Samantha answered me.
She sat on her bed and sulked even whilst she was shaking, and I sat on mine, and neither of us said nothing. The wind was still loud but other things had got quiet. I got up and stirred up the fire.
Go on to bed, I told her.
Then all of a sudden the noise commenced all over again—the goats hollering, the chickens squawking, and the horse trying to get out of the shed.
Samantha went for the pistol but I snatched it up first. I backed myself to the door and said, I’ll shoot you if you come closer.
She said, You won’t neither.
I will, I assured her. I’d rather you die that way than get tore up by a panther. And I ain’t going out there again.
She demanded, Give me that pis
tol and stand aside and let me out the door.
I refused. She sat back on her bed, and I stood at the door, and we listened to all the fearful noises.
She put her hands up over her ears so not to hear the goats yelling. She said, It’s killing another. I think it might kill them all.
Then so be it, said I.
I might of loaded the rifle if we had powder, but we did not have it. When things was quiet again, Sam laid down and pulled her blanket up over her head.
I stayed against the door all night in case she might try to take the pistol and get out.
When daylight come, we shoved the sow out and went to figure the damage. The goats was all badly spooked and quite badly bloodied. The one that had leapt the fence was trying to get back in. The panther had carried both wee kids into the night. The mare was all right in the shed, just nicked up and skittish. The coop was worked over but none of the chickens was missing.
The tracks was sure enough those of the panther that done in Juda. The hind right pad lacked the very two toes Juda had hacked off.
What I learned that day looking at them big tracks made by the panther taking our two kids off, was we was small things to such as that cat, and had no say in the matter, nor in much of many matters at all. We was only two kids ourselves, in a shoddy house in the midst of a war, at risk of Comanches and whatnot, short of all things on account of a Yankee blockade, and with nothing but a pea-sized bit of bat shat to shoot with.
However, Sam was not likewise a quick study about such matters as that. She figured the whole thing to be learned was the panther had to be tracked down and done in.
Chapter 6
Dear Judge,
Mr Hildebrand give me the letter from you. It is the first I ever got. He had read it on account of the seal come loose and he didn’t much think you would mind. He said to let you know if you ever need more statements against Clarence Hanlin he will line folks up with no trouble, as it is a well-known fact that Hanlin was oftentimes seen with the hangerbande, although he was not strictly part of them. Mr Hildebrand said there is a woman in Kerrsville who knows Hanlin’s mother over in Bastrop County and says even she would not claim him when he was a boy, he was that rotten, a bad seed from the first, he would torment creatures of all sorts, so it is no wonder he grew up like he did.
The Which Way Tree Page 5