What could we do but go get him down.
Preacher Dob had to favor his hurt leg, therefore the task fell to me and Mr Pacheco. The dog was wet, as the rain was falling full out, and he stank so bad I might of had to give up my lunch if I had even had one. Preacher Dob and Mr Pacheco and me took our shirts off so as not to get soaked. We shoved them under the saddles. I climbed the tree and handed Zechariah down to Mr Pacheco. It was not easy. He was wet and he stank. Sam cussed us the whole time. Zechariah looked embarrassed about the situation, but what could he do.
When we had got him out of the tree he took off down the canyon in the direction the panther had gone. He did not bawl, as the ground was now wet and what dog can pick up a scent on wet ground. However, we give him the benefit of trust and mounted up and followed him at a fast clip, me and Preacher Dob on the mare and Sam and Mr Pacheco on the pinto.
A cold, hard rain pelted us, and thunder rumbled down the canyon, which was narrow and had sloped rocky walls with trees and thick brush. Branches spread over us and give us some protection for a good half hour but then become a soggy mess and no help at all. Sam complained of the fact she had not shot the panther and said it was our fault and now where was the panther.
I said, It’s your own fault he got away. You did not take proper aim. Preacher Dob give you a loaded pistol. Mr Pacheco and me give you the first shot. You got excited and did not take aim. You nearly blew my head off from behind me.
You was in the way, she said. You got your head in the way! I could not see around it. You should of moved aside! I could of shot the panther in the head!
Mr Pacheco told her the head was not the right place to of aimed, as panthers’ brains is small.
Did you even think to ask what place to aim for, I rebuked her.
Mr Pacheco said she aught to of aimed for behind the front leg to hit near the heart.
She said, Why did none of you think to tell me!
You give none of us time, I said.
But she would not hear reason.
The canyon become steeper and the rain become torrents and commenced to flow down the sides and through the middle. Before long our horses was tramping in water that was heading down canyon. We had to dismount and lead them afoot on the edge of the flow, as the center become too deep and the slopes of the canyon too slick. We was hungry and wet and shivering and I was wore out listening to Sam complain of the size of my head. We passed no shelter but bee caves in the rock walls alongside until after a half hour or so of hard rain we spied a ledge, about twenty feet up, with a entry to a regular cave that did not appear to house bees. Preacher Dob said we aught to try to get up there and take shelter, on account of even if we was to catch up with the panther, our rifle was a gone case and our powder was soaked.
Mr Pacheco agreed. He had some bit of dry powder in his flask, but we had none for the pepperbox nor for Hanlin’s pistol.
Sam put up a fuss about that idea, as you might think she would. She would not hear of stopping. She had her head down and the rain dripping off it. Her teeth was chattering. She had on Mr Pacheco’s sopping poncho and she walked like she was a hound dog herself, looking neither left nor right, following Zechariah with a purpose we all knew, as she cared for nothing in life but to do in the cat and stomp around on his hide. I think she must of imagined a whole life of being happy just traipsing back and forth on that hide. She walked in a stanchly manner, rain or no rain, thunder nor none, quivering cold nor not. She had just as well got on four legs and stuck her nose to the canyon floor alongside Zechariah.
She said, As long as the dog’s going, I’m going along with him.
Preacher Dob said, Little girl, we are stopping here, and my dog is stopping with me whether he likes it or not.
She said, You are not so hard hearted as to stop if I keep on going.
Preacher Dob said, Matthew tells us that whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters.
She said, I do not know Matthew, I do not care what he says, I will scatter if I want to, it is my choice on account of you are not my boss.
He said, Then you move on, little girl. You keep on, in the rain, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, having nobody to care a whit about if you have got a scalp on your head, or not. I have seen enough of you.
She did not take her leave.
I said, He has called your bluff.
For once, she had nothing to say.
I volunteered I would climb up and have a look at the cave. It was not a easy climb. I had to haul myself up through cedars growing out of the wall. They was wet and I was shirtless and already scratched up and had tolerated all the fun I wanted.
The ledge when I got up there was partly dry under a overhang, and the cave looked to be big enough for us all, maybe fifteen feet wide and about that deep. I figured the overhang outside would protect the horses if we could get them up to the ledge, which we would have to do, on account of Preacher Dob could not make it up without them taking him. I hollered down to come on.
Sam come up the wall and joined me in a huff. Mr Pacheco and Preacher Dob scouted a route the horses was able to make their way up. Zechariah come with them. We tethered the horses on the ledge outside the cave. They did neither of them like it in spite of it was plenty wide and mostly dry. The mare yanked against her tether.
Zechariah would not enter the cave with us but remained out with the horses and commenced to bark at us that went in.
Bless his heart, Preacher Dob said. He favors to keep on going. He’s a dedicated panther dog all right. Wringing wet, and won’t even come in to dry off.
Sam said, How come you like the dog and you don’t like me.
He said, I like you a good bit, little girl. I would like you a good bit more if you had some sense.
I could not blame the dog for failing to enter the cave. It was not a very hospitable place, but a gloomy room with a dirt floor and spears of rock hanging down from the top. It smelled rank. You had to watch out not to knock into the spears, as some of them was long. Dark tunnels wound further back in the rock but we could not see much into them. There was remains of a old fire and we figured Indians might of holed up in the cave at one time. Preacher Dob spoke a prayer that the Indians was not still nearby nor heading our way.
We settled in, and things become tense. The storm picked up. I am not sure I ever heard thunder like that before nor after. It seemed like the spears overhead might come loose on us from shaking. The wind come tearing down the canyon, ripping at trees and slinging the rain onto the ledge and nearly into the cave. I wondered if we was having a storm as bad as I read of in The Whale. We shivered and rubbed our arms in a attempt to keep warm. I ate what was left of my pickles.
Preacher Dob become agitated about Zechariah and kept hollering at him to come in. However, the dog was worked up. He run back and forth in the rain sweeping onto the ledge before us. We seen him in blazes of light. He barked at us and troubled the horses even more than they was troubled already on their own. My mare reared a good bit and I feared she might tumble down into the cedars. The pinto pawed the ground and tossed his head, then faced the wind and bore it the best he could.
We watched the dog race past the entry going one direction then the other and moving fast. He was such a bad looking dog, soaking wet and smelly, and between you and me, I was not displeased he was outside instead of in the cave with us, except I did not like the upheaval, on account of the horses was upset, and on account of who knew who might come looking to see what all the fuss was about, if they could even hear it over the storm. Maybe the law, maybe Comanches. Both was equally undesired.
Preacher Dob said, That dog would rather get struck by lightning than give up the hunt. If Hanlin hears him we’re done for. He wants his hundred dollars.
Mr Pacheco was not bothered about that. He said Hanlin and the law was a bunch of gayeenas, which was chickens, and they was bound to be hid out from the storm. He told Preacher Dob to leave the dog be.
> Preacher Dob went out for Zechariah. The rain that was blowing onto the ledge assailed him full in the face so hard I don’t know how he could even see through his spectacles. It took some doing, but he got a rope off Mr Pacheco’s saddle and got hold of Zechariah and tied him and made a attempt to drag him in with us. However, the dog fought back in a way that made us wonder if he might strangle hisself. I thought he might bite his own owner. His eye that looked like a egg was a frightful sight in the lightning. Preacher Dob give up and come sloshing back in without him.
Mr Pacheco gone out and got our shirts from under the saddles, as we was cold and miserable. They was damp but warm when we put them on. Sam still had on her shirt, which was mine outgrown, and soaked through, so I felt sorry for her. Pretty soon I felt sorry for us too, as our shirts did not stay warm. You might as well of put them on shards of ice stuck to a roof eave in the winter. The air whistled about outside and charged in through the entry. Therefore, what was the value of a jiffy of warmth. Not much.
Sam sat in the dirt a foot or two off from me and I heard her teeth hammering together in spite of all the noise going on. She sounded like a woodpecker. I regarded her in the flashes. She looked fierce. Her face was poorly and dripping wet. I figured if Comanches was to come along and peer in and have a glimpse of her they would wonder what kind of creature they had stumbled upon.
She said, The panther is not far off and me and the dog both know that for a fact.
I said, You have no more idea than I do where the panther is. He feasted on porcupine right over your head and you did not have a inkling he was anywhere near about.
I was asleep at the time, she said. I got a inkling now.
She was a one note song, as ever.
Preacher Dob pulled his shoe off and took a look at his hurt foot and leg. They was badly bruised and swole up. He sat holding his shoe whilst gazing out at the rain gushing down. He commenced to have something to say.
He said, I have doubts about this situation. There is a rough wind out there and water rising below us. There is a dirt floor under us, and sharp rocks above us, and wind wuthering at the entry, and bolts of lightning striking the canyon beneath us. We are hemmed by danger on every side. I have deserted my family at home and led two kids after a aging dog into a hostile wilderness that I do not know how to find my way out of. I am injured, I am humbled, and I am lost. I am in the company of a horse thief. My own horse is shot dead and laying in a hard rain at the edge of a canyon I can’t name. I have got but half a gun. The law is in pursuit of us. I would prefer to part company with you, Mr Pacheco. However, you have been thoughtful to me, and without the stole horse in question I can’t return these children to safety, as the boy and the girl and me can’t all three mount up on one mare. My notion of honor and notions of pride and integrity are put to a hard test. Here I sit, a old man, half lame, liable for the lives of these kids and yet unable to take them home on account of the boy will not head back without his sister, and she will not head back without a panther that is gone off down the canyon. Therefore I find myself a accomplice to a horse thief. The Bible says blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. It says a man cannot take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned. But what other choice do I have. I am in need of you, Mr Pacheco, as much as you are in need of your stole horse. We are two humbled old sinners. I would tell you to go on and leave me here with the kids, as you have everything you need to escape the law. You might even hunt down the panther and claim the bounty yourself. You have a good horse and a good pistol and balls and dry powder. And yet you also have a considerable conscience to burden you if you was to take such a flight. And the both of us know, and these young ones among us will someday learn for theirselves, if the Lord should choose to give them such foresight, that a conscience can drag a man down, and hold a man back, more than a dead horse or a hurt leg. It is a heavy burden.
Preacher Dob finished having his say and I looked to see what Mr Pacheco might think about what he had said. Mr Pacheco was squatted on his heels. He held his hat. His hair dripped and hung straight down. He stared out at the dog dashing about in the rain, barking in flashes around the horses that was worked up.
Did you not hear what I said, Preacher Dob asked him.
Mr Pacheco answered him in a solemn voice that got my attention. Your dog knows something we do not, he said.
Preacher Dob said, What might that be.
Mr Pacheco said, When he tracks the panther he howls. When he trees the panther, he barks. At no other time does he bark. Why is he barking at this cave.
Judge, I have told you how cold we was in that cave, but there was a different coldness, a greater one, that come over me when I heard them words spoke in the proper way Mr Pacheco spoke them. It was like the north wind decided to hole up in that place with us. It blew in and settled upon us, and the hair on the back of my neck rose up. A crash of thunder come down. In a blaze of light I seen Sam lift up her face at them words and Mr Pacheco turn to Preacher Dob, and Preacher Dob turn to him. And a air of evil washed over us.
We looked to the back of the cave and cast our eyes on the tunnels.
Preacher Dob said, Little girl, stay where you are.
Sam’s ears was deaf to such orders. She rose to her feet and was off to the back of the cave and squatted down peering into the tunnels.
Outside, the dark was like evening on account of the storm. About us, inside, the dark was like night. Deep into the tunnels where Sam was looking the dark was like deep water in the dead of a night with no moon.
Then come a flicker of lightning from the entry that spread itself through the cave and into the tunnels, and by it I seen a movement in the tunnel off to the left. A shape stirred there. Sam seen it, too. It appeared like a spirit crouched in the dark at one moment, and then in our midst, in a blaze of light, at the next. It swatted Sam out of its way. It made a snarling noise and come at me with its ears laid flat back. I threw myself to the ground and felt the heat of the cat pass over. I smelled the cat more than I seen it. I lifted my face from the dirt and seen Mr Pacheco rush at Sam and lay hisself over her, and Preacher Dob crawl my direction to care for me, and the panther go flying out into the dark as if it had not been in our midst at all. I might of thought we had dreamed it up, had it not left us toppled over and laying about the floor of the cave, in the way the wind lays down the grass.
Zechariah launched hisself onto the panther as it went out. I seen them fly off in a bolt of lightning like one creature, not two. They tumbled down the side of the canyon together. We heard the fight commence over the clamoring noise of the storm.
Preacher Dob seen I was all right, and rose up to his full height. He must of forgot his hurt leg, and the lightning, and forgot Comanches, and whatever the Lord might say, and forgot his nephew that was after us and no good. I think he must of forgot he had left his daughter-in-law and the kids at home. He took off down the wall of the canyon after his dog, hollering, Zechariah! Zechariah! and carrying his half rifle and the pepperbox full of wet powder.
Chapter 12
Dear Judge,
Thank you for the spectacles. I did not even ask you for them like for the pen. The pen was the best gift anyone ever given to me but these spectacles is almost better. I am hesitant to say so, as I am fond of the pen. Mr Hildebrand said he got word from you to purchase the spectacles and you was to reimburse him. It was a handy way to do it. He did not get hold of first-hand ones, but a woman sold him a pair that was her husband’s who passed. His face was injured on passing, on account of it was a rough death that come upon him, and she did not think it a good idea to put his spectacles on it after that. She said her husband would like knowing they was being made use of by a young fellow and not laid to waste in the grave.
They are in perfect shape. I do not see quite as good through them as through Preacher Dob’s but a good bit better than on my own. I am bowled over, sir, as they now say. I do not know what I could give you in return that yo
u might want.
The testament I am now sending concludes all the facts you requested me to tell you about Clarence Hanlin. The pages appeared to mount up.
I will write you another letter another time, as I do not care for this to be the last.
Yours kindly,
Benjamin Shreve
MY TESTAMENT
It was a doubtful case we had got ourselves in. Rain poured down, lightning crashed, thunder shook things, Preacher Dob went tearing down the wall of the canyon as if neither old nor injured, and even in spite of that din I heard the fight going on below. There was fierce snarling and growling that was hard to listen to on account of agony was being inflicted. The yelping and whimpering give the notion Zechariah was getting the worst of the fight.
However, we had troubles enough in the cave that got our attention. It scared me a good bit that Sam was still laying where the panther had knocked her on the dirt floor. When I got to her I feared she was passed. Mr Pacheco and me tried to rouse her. I hollered at her to come around and sit up and tell us she was all right. Mr Pacheco attempted to coax her to open her eyes. She did not do so at once. When she done so, she was loopy and squinted a good bit in her fashion. She had scratches on her neck that was bleeding. Mr Pacheco took as close a look at the scratches as he could make out in the glimmers of light. He tore a sleeve off his shirt and got her to sit up and tied it around her neck.
She said, I smelled it when it come at me.
She seemed to get stuck on the fact of that smell, and went on about it. I guess that odor had recalled her recollections.
In haste, Mr Pacheco made his pistol ready with dry powder.
Sam said, Did Preacher Dob leave me the pepperbox.
Upon hearing her speak of the pepperbox we knew she was in her right mind again. Or rather, she was back in the mind she was born with.
Mr Pacheco took her out in the rain, untethered the horses, and put Sam on the pinto. Off we started down the route they had brought the horses up, Mr Pacheco leading the pinto with Sam atop, me leading the mare, and the rain dumping buckets on us. We heard nor seen nothing from Preacher Dob until we got down there and found him in despair at the side of the canyon. The dog was nowhere in sight.
The Which Way Tree Page 16