The creeks all seemed friendly in summer. When he was dressed in a thin ragged shirt and as ragged breeches, a spill meant only a quick cool swim to either shore. The heavy wool jeans and jackets would be poor friends in the freezing water. The canoe was sluggish and unmanageable with its weight of water. Penny made the far bank just as it settled obstinately to the creek bottom. The water sloshed over their boot tops and numbed their feet. But they were on land, on the same side of the run as old Slewfoot, and they had saved hours of heavy going. The dogs shivered with the cold and looked to Penny for orders. He gave none, but set out immediately southwest along the creek bank. In places it was so low and marshy that they were forced to cut back into the swamp or even higher into the woods. The area lay between an arm of Lake George and the continued northward reach of the St. John’s River. It was boggy and treacherous going.
Penny halted to take his bearings. He could depend on old Julia to pick up the trail when they crossed it, but he dared not push her too rapidly. He had an uncanny feeling for distance. He identified a dead cypress across the run as one they had passed shortly after losing the bear. He slowed his pace to a walk and went cautiously, studying the frozen earth. He pretended to find a track.
He said to Julia, “Here he goes. Git him. Here he goes——”
She stirred from her cold lethargy, swayed her long tail and began to snuff noisily. After a few yards she gave a small thin cry.
“There ’tis. She’s got it.”
The great tracks were imprinted solidly in the muck. They could be followed easily with the eye. Bushes were broken in the thicket where Slewfoot had crashed through. Penny was close behind the dogs. The bear had bedded as soon as he was certain he was no longer followed. A scant four hundred yards beyond the creek bank, Julia jumped him. He was invisible in the thicket. His ponderous leap sounded. Penny could not shoot without a sight, for the dogs were close on the leathery heels. Jody expected his father to break into as much of a run as was possible in the dense swamp growth.
Penny said, “We cain’t ketch him ourselves, no-way. Leave him to the dogs. I got a idee slow time’ll prove the fastest.”
They pushed through steadily.
Penny said, “We got this much satisfaction, he’s wore out, too.”
He underestimated his enemy. The chase continued.
Penny said, “Looks like he’s got a ticket to Jacksonville.”
Bear and dogs were out of sight and hearing. The trail was still plain to Penny’s eyes. A broken bough, a bent clump of grasses, unrolled a map before him even where the ground was hard and showed no foot-prints. In late morning they were winded and had to stop to rest. Penny cupped his ear into the light icy wind that had risen.
“Now I think I hear old Julia,” he said. “At the bay.”
The impetus sent them forward again. At high noon they came up with the quarry. He had decided, at long last, to stop and fight it out. The dogs had him at bay. He swayed sideways on his thick short legs, growling and baring his teeth. His ears were laid flat in his fury. When he turned his back for further retreat, Julia nipped at his flanks and Rip rounded him to spring for his shaggy throat. He slashed at them with great curved claws. He backed away. Rip swung behind him and sunk his teeth in a leg. Slewfoot squealed shrilly. He wheeled with the swiftness of a hawk and raked the bulldog to him. He caught him up in his fore-paws. Rip yelped in pain, then fought gamely to keep the jaws above him from closing on his backbone. The two heads tossed back and forth, snarling and snapping, each trying for the other’s throat while protecting his own. Penny lifted his gun. He took steady aim and fired. With Rip hugged to his breast, old Slewfoot dropped. His killing days were done.
It seemed so easy now that it was over. They had followed him. Penny had shot him. There he lay——
They looked wonderingly at each other. They approached the prone carcass. Jody was weak in the knees. Penny’s walk was unsteady. Jody felt a clear lightness fill him, as though he were a balloon.
Penny said, “I declare, I believe I’m surprised.”
He slapped Jody on the back and cut a buck-and-wing.
He screeched, “Yippee!”
The sound echoed through the swamp. A jay-bird screeched after him and flew away. Jody took up his excitement and shrilled “Yippee!” Old Julia crouched and barked with them. Rip, licking his wounds, wagged his stumpy tail.
Penny shouted tunelessly,
“My name is Sam.
I don’t give a damn.
I’d ruther be a nigger
Than a pore white man.”
He pounded Jody again.
“Who’s a poor white man?”
Jody shouted, “We ain’t pore. We got ol’ Slewfoot.”
They capered together and shouted and yippeed until their throats were hoarse and the squirrels were chattering all about them. They were at last relieved. Penny laughed breathlessly.
“I ain’t whooped and hollered that-a-way, I don’t know when. I’ll swear, it done me good.”
Jody’s exuberance was still on him and he whooped again. Penny sobered and leaned to examine the bear. He would weigh five hundred pounds. His hide was magnificent. Penny lifted up the huge front paw with its missing toe.
He said, “Well, old fellow, you was a mighty mean enemy, but you got my respect.”
He sat down victoriously on the stout ribs. Jody touched the thick fur.
Penny said, “Now we got to do a piece o’ studyin’. Here we be in the middle o’ nowhere, with a thing bigger’n you and me and your Ma put together, and the cow throwed in.”
He took out his pipe and filled and lighted it leisurely.
“Jest as good to study comfortable,” he said.
He was in such high spirits that the problem, which seemed insoluble to Jody, was no more to him than a pleasant challenge. He began to figure, half to himself.
“Let’s see, now. We’d ought to be jest about between Bear Spring and the river. The Fort Gates road to the west—the river to the east. Now kin we git the black gentleman here to Horse Landin’—there’s boats passin’ all the time—Well, we’ll git him gutted and figger some more.”
It was like turning a wagon-load of sacks of meal all at once, to turn him over on his back. The thick layers of fat under the hide made him roly-ploy and flabby. He would not stay firmly when held.
“Jest as ornery dead as alive,” Penny said.
He disemboweled the carcass neatly. Old Slewfoot was as trim and harmless as a whole beef hanging in a butcher shop. Jody tingled, holding out the heavy legs so that Penny could get at his work. He had never thought to see the day when he would hold the huge paws in his small ones. He had had no share in the hunt except to follow his father’s small inexorable back, but now he felt strong and mighty.
Penny said, “Now we’ll see be we men enough to budge him.”
Each took a fore-paw and strained ahead. The effort needed to move the dead weight was prodigious. By heaving and jerking it was possible to pull it a foot at a time.
“We’ll not git to the river by spring, this-a-way,” Penny said, “and starve to death on the way to boot.”
The inability to keep a firm grip on the smooth-haired paws was the greatest bar to their progress. Penny sat on his heels and pondered.
He said at last, “We kin walk on to Fort Gates and git he’p. That’ll cost us a good share o’ the meat but hit’ll spare our own gizzards. Or else we kin rig up a kind of a pullin’ harness and fight it out to the river. And mebbe tear our very hearts out. Or we kin make it on in home and git the wagon.”
“But the wagon’ll not be there, Pa. Ma’ll be done gone to the doin’s.”
“Now you know I plumb forgot ’twas Christmas Eve day.”
Penny pushed back his cap and scratched his head.
“Well, come on, boy.”
“Where we goin’?”
“Fort Gates.”
The road leading to the small settlement on the river was a scant two mil
es to the west, as Penny had been certain. It was good to turn from the swamp and the scrub to the open sandy road. A cold wind blew down it but the sun was beneficent. Penny found a patch of cancer-weed by the road-side and broke the stems and let the healing sap drip on Rip’s wounds. He was talkative, and as they walked on he brought out from his half-forgotten lore tales of other bear hunts, long ago.
Penny said, “When I were about your size, my uncle Miles come visitin’ from Georgia. And a cold day about like this he takened me in the very swamp we come through today. We was moseyin’ along, not lookin’ for nothin’ in pertickler, and on beyond us we seed what looked like a buzzard settin’ on a stump, peckin’ at somethin’. Well, we got there and what do you suppose ’twas?”
“’Twasn’t no buzzard?”
“’Twasn’t no buzzard a-tall. ’Twas a bear cub cuffin’ playful-like at his twin on the ground below him.
“My uncle Miles said, ’Now we’ll jest ketch us a bear cub.’ They was right gentle and he goes up to the one on the stump and ketched it. Well, when he’d ketched it, he didn’t have nary thing to tote in it. And them scaper’s’ll gnaw on you if they ain’t in a sack. Well, them up-country folks wears underwear in the winter. He takened off his breeches and he takened off his long drawers and he tied knots in the legs of ’em and he made him a sack. He puttened the cub in it and about the time he reached for his breeches to put ’em back on agin, here come a crashin’ and a woofin’ and a stompin’ in the bresh, and the old she-bear come outen the thick right at him. Well, he takened out through the swamp and dropped the cub and the mammy gathered it up, drawers and all. But she were so clost behind him she stepped on a vine and it tripped him and throwed him flat amongst the thorns and brambles. And aunt Moll was a muddle-minded kind o’ woman and she couldn’t never make it out how he come home without his drawers on a cold day, and his bottom scratched. But uncle Miles allus said that wasn’t nothin’ to the puzzlin’ the mammy bear must o’ done over them drawers on her young un.”
Jody laughed until he could laugh no more.
He complained, “Pa, you got all them tales in your mind and you don’t tell ’em.”
“Well, it takes a thing like bein’ in the swamp where it happened, to call it back to me. Now in that same swamp, one very cold March, I remember comin’ on another pair o’ bear cubs. They was whimperin’ with the cold. Newborned cubs is no bigger’n rats and plumb naked, and these uns hadn’t yit growed much fur. They was huddled up in a red bay thicket and cryin’ like human babies. Listen!”
The sound of hoof beats was unmistakable along the road behind them.
“Now wouldn’t it be fine not to have to go clare to Fort Gates for he’p?”
The sounds came closer. They stepped to the side of the road. The riders were the Forresters.
Penny said, “Looks like I mis-called myself.”
Buck led the cavalcade. They streamed down the road. They were drunk as lords. They reined in.
“Now look at this! Ol’ Penny Baxter and his he-cub! Hey, Penny! What the devil you doin’ up here?”
Penny said, “I been on a hunt. And this un was deliberate. Me and Jody takened out after ol’ Slewfoot.”
“Whoops! On foot? Listen to that, boys! That’s better’n a pair o’ biddies rompin’ on a hawk.”
“And we got him,” Penny said.
Buck shook himself. The whole array seemed to sober.
“Don’t tell me none o’ them tales. Where’s he at?”
“’Bout two mile to the east, between Bear Spring and the river.”
“Reckon he is. He fools around there a good bit.”
“He’s dead. How I know he’s dead, I gutted him. Me and Jody’s walkin’ to Fort Gates for he’p in totin’ him outen the swamp.”
Buck stiffened in a drunken dignity.
“You goin’ to Fort Gates for he’p gittin’ out ol’ Slewfoot? And the best slew-footers in the county right here beside you?”
Lem called, “What’ll you give us, do we go tote him out?”
“Half the meat. I figgered on givin’ it to you anyways, account of him tormentin’ you so, and Buck comin’ to warn me.”
Buck said, “You and me’s friends, Penny Baxter. I warn you and you warn me. Git up here behind me and point the way.”
Mill-wheel said, “I don’t know as I crave goin’ into no swamp today, and clare back to Baxter’s Island. I got my mind set on a frolic.”
Buck said, “You ain’t got no mind. Penny Baxter!”
“What you want?”
“You still figgerin’ on goin’ to them doin’s at Volusia?”
“Could we git the bear out in time to make it, we figgered on it. We’re runnin’ mighty late.”
“Git up here behind me and point the way. Boys, we’ll git out the bear and we’ll go to the doin’s at Volusia. If they don’t want us, they kin throw us out—if they kin.”
Penny hesitated. Help of any sort from Fort Gates, especially Christmas Eve day, would be hard to obtain. But the Forresters at the respectable gathering would scarcely be welcome. He decided to let them help him with the big carcass and then trust to luck to send them on their way again. He swung up behind Buck. Mill-wheel held down a hand for Jody to clamber up behind him.
Penny said, “Who’s big-hearted enough to tote my bulldog? He’s not bad hurt, but he’s done a heap o’ runnin’ and fightin’.”
Gabby picked up Rip and carried him in the saddle in front of him.
Penny said, “Likely the way we come out is as good as any. You kin about see where we come.”
The walk that had seemed so long was as nothing on the Forresters’ horses. The Baxters remembered that they had not eaten since breakfast. They fished in their knapsacks and munched on Nellie Ginright’s bread and meat. Penny in his light-heartedness fell into the spirit of the Forresters’ drunkenness.
He shouted back, “Spent the night with an old gal o’ mine.”
They whooped noisily in applause.
“Only she wasn’t there!”
They whooped again.
Jody, at leisure, remembered the jovial air of Nellie Ginright.
He said to Mill-wheel’s back, “Mill-wheel, if my Ma had been somebody else, would I be me, or would I be somebody else, too?”
Mill-wheel shouted ahead, “Hey! Jody wants a new Ma!”
He thumped on Mill-wheel’s back.
“I do not either. I jest want to know.”
The question was beyond Mill-wheel, sober. It was only a source of ribald comment, drunk.
Penny said, “Now jest past that stretch o’ low hammock, there’s our bear.”
They dismounted. Lem spat in disgust.
“You lucky son of a preacher——”
“Ary man could of come up with him that was willin’ to stay with him,’ Penny said. “Or got mad enough, the way I done, to foller.”
There was disagreement as to how to cut up the meat. Buck wanted to take it in whole for effect. Penny struggled to convince him of the impossibility. They talked him at last into agreeing to quarter it as was usually done with a bear of so great a size. Each dressed quarter would weigh a hundred pounds. They skinned and quartered it. The hide was left intact, with the great head and clawed feet.
Buck said, “I got to have it that-a-way. I got a idee for some fun.”
They had a round of drinks from their bottles. They set back for the road with a bear quarter over each of four horses and the hide over a fifth. It needed a family as big as the Forresters’ to provide transportation for old Slewfoot and both Baxters too. The procession was boisterous. They shouted back and forth to one another.
They reached Baxter’s Island after dark. The house was barred and shuttered. There was no light, no curl of smoke from the chimney. Ma Baxter had gone on to the river with the horse and wagon. Flag was not about. The Forresters dismounted and drank again and called for water. Penny suggested cooking supper, but their minds were fixed on Volusia. They hung the
bear-meat in the smoke-house. Buck clung stubbornly to the hide.
Jody found it strange to go around his own closed house in the dark, as though other people lived there and not the Baxters. He went to the back and called, “Flag! Here, feller!” There was no answering thump of small sharp hooves. He called again, fearfully. He turned back to the road. Flag came galloping to him from the forest. Jody clutched him so hard that he broke loose in impatience. The Forresters were shouting to him to hurry. He longed to have Flag follow along with them, but he could not endure it if he should run away again. He led him into the shed and tied him safely and barred the door against marauders. He ran back and opened it and spread out the meal he had been carrying for him in his knapsack. The Forresters thundered at him. He barred the door again and ran and climbed up behind Mill-wheel with a full heart. He could depend on Flag to come home to him.
When the Forresters burst into harsh-voiced song, like a flock of crows strung out along a fence-row, he sang with them.
Buck sang:
“I went to see my Susan.
She met me at the door.
She told me that I needn’t to come
To see her any more.”
Mill-wheel called, “Whoopee! How ’bout it, Lem?” Buck went on:
“She’d fallen in love with Rufus
Of Andrew Jackson fame.
I looked her in the face and said,
’Good-bye, Miss Susan Jane!’”
“Whoopee!”
Gabby sang a plaintive lament of matrimony, each stanza ending with the refrain:
“I married another,
The devil’s grandmother.
I wish I was single again.”
The scrub echoed with their shouting.
They reached the river at nine o’clock and bellowed for the ferry. Across the river, they rode on to the church. It was lighted. Horses and wagons and oxen and carts were tethered to the trees in the yard.
Penny said, “Now we’re all right rough-lookin’ for church doin’s. How about Jody goin’ in and fetchin’ us out rations?”
The Yearling Page 33