The Underneath

by Kathi Appelt

  But when he finally stopped, he realized that he had run in the wrong direction, away from Ranger’s howl. He had to turn around. He had to go back to where the tree had fallen. He shook from top to tail. From a distant part of the forest, he heard another crack of lightning sizzle through the air. His fur, as wet as it was, stood straight up. The air felt charged; it hummed in his ears.

  Slowly he turned and walked back toward the old tree, toward the spot on the bank where he had finally heard Ranger’s bay. He could feel the sky stepping back in favor of the lofty branches of the towering trees. And as he walked, he saw the creek beside him, rising ever higher. He would never get across it now. Never.

  Suddenly he was overwhelmed by it all. Such a deep and utter Missing. Missing his twin, his match. Missing his Ranger, with his large silky ears, and his furry belly that he used to climb, his lullaby, missing that lullaby. Missing his mama, her calico coat, her rough tongue on his head. Missing.

  Now he knew where Ranger and Sabine were, but they might as well be on a different planet. The creek was still in between them. He hung his head and walked. Next to him, the creek tumbled by, frothy with its extra water, excited by the joining of so much rain in its thirsty bed. Even the air was filled with water. Puck felt almost as though he were drowning.

  He was so full of Missing that he almost missed the tree.

  This tree. This beautiful and sturdy tree.

  A tree that has finally crashed to earth twenty-five years after that stray bolt of lightning, twenty-five years after a father in Houston hit a boy in the face, twenty-five years of dying. Here, here in this piney woods is a tree that has spun and spun and spun in the rain-soaked clay that has held it for so long, spun in its last moments, rocked from side to side, and leaned, leaned just so, in just the right direction, at just the right angle, so that it has fallen across the salty creek, the creek this tree has stood beside its whole life long.

  Puck looked at the fallen tree. Here at last, right in front of him, was a bridge.

  108

  IT FINALLY HAPPENED. Grandmother was free. Immediately she slid into the salty creek, but she did not stay there for long. After a thousand years of hearing only her own voice, her own beating heart, her own thoughts, she needed to hear the voice of someone familiar.

  She quickly slithered across the ground on the opposite side of the creek, reveled in the cool rain pouring onto her new skin, delighted in her ability to stretch to her full length.

  Soon she slipped across the old quicksand pit. Another creature might get sucked into it, but not Grandmother. She passed over it so fast that the shivering sands didn’t have time to grab her.

  At last she arrived at the edge of the large bayou, where she wrapped her sinewy body around an old cypress tree and pulled herself out onto a huge limb that hung over the water. Below, she saw the familiar bubbles rising to the surface.

  “Sister!” The alligator rose to the top. She could see that he had grown in both girth and length, and she was impressed.

  “I’ve returned,” she said.

  “I’ve been waiting,” he replied.

  And so he had, waited and waited, all these many years. He had wondered where she had gone, where she had hidden all this time, but he had also known that she would return. “You’ve been gone a long time,” he said.

  “Where is she?” hissed the snake. “The daughter!”

  But just as he started to give her the news, all thousand years of it, he smelled someone approaching. Ahh, the man! And with that, the Alligator King flipped his tail and sank into the water. Grandmother could wait. What is a day, he shrugged, in the eye of a thousand years?

  Unhappy, Grandmother slithered up the old cypress, as far up as she could go, into the uppermost branches, wrapped herself around a limb, and hissed. Ssssstttttt!!! From her sky-high vantage point, she watched.

  109

  BACK ON THE other side of the creek, Puck moved a little closer to the tree bridge. He could smell the water. He could feel the spray of it in his nose. He took a few more steps. He walked out onto the broad back of the tree. Whoosh, the water tumbled beneath him, carrying small branches with it, churning as it went. This was not the same quiet creek he had splashed in with the turtles only days earlier. That had been bad enough. This was much, much worse. The tree swayed from the water’s impact against its side. Water splashed in front of him and behind him. He could tell it was rising quickly. If he did not get across soon, the tree would be underwater, and he would be swept along with it.

  He looked down and saw an eddy, swirling in a large and rapid circle. The smell overwhelmed him. Water in his nose. In his ears.

  Go back. Go back. Go back.

  Puck shook his head. He took another step. His legs wobbled underneath him. He looked down. The water was coursing by. He felt queasy. He felt dizzy. He felt his stomach churn. He took another deep breath.

  Go back. Promise. Go back.

  Then he ran. Ran to the other side. He did not wait. He ran. And the old tree, a thousand years old, free at last from standing in one place for such a long time, buckled in half and fell into the tumbling creek.

  110

  FINALLY ON THE other side, Puck felt disoriented. The rain had diminished, becoming first a drizzle and then a fine mist. He stopped for a moment to readjust his radar and aim his body in the direction of Ranger’s howl. He pointed his ears toward the north and a little to the west.

  He listened. He waited.

  But there was no sound other than the creek behind him and the growing chorus of birds stepping out of their nests before the rains returned. Puck looked up. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray. It would return. He had to hurry. He knew he was not far now from his sister, from his Ranger, from the dark Underneath where he was born.

  There are stories of cats who have traveled thousands of miles to return to the places of their birth. Puck did not have to travel that far. As the crow flies, it was probably less than two miles between the tilting house where he was born and his pine tree den. On the ground, it was probably a little farther. But Puck’s line was fairly straight, so maybe no more than a quarter mile could be added to the journey.

  As soon as Puck walked up to the tilting house, saw the littered yard, the rusted pickup truck with its dark puddle of oil beneath it, that truck that had carried him and his mother away, as soon as he breathed in the rancid air, full of rotten fish and flesh and the decrepit outhouse that sat on the far edge of the property, as soon as he saw the rickety steps and the old bottles and cans that littered the place, his stomach surged. He could taste the bile in his mouth.

  Go back! Go back! Go back!

  Those two words! They repeated themselves over and over.

  But then he looked at the scene in front of him and realized, this was back. He had promised. He had nodded his head. He had told his mother he would go back, go back for Sabine and Ranger.

  Sabine and Ranger.

  He crept low and walked toward the porch. He was forced to use his mouth in order to breathe, so noxious was the air around him. His fur stood on end. He got as low to the ground as possible and crawled toward the porch. From where he was, on the edge of the yard, he could see the space underneath, see the deep and holy dark. His whiskers twitched.

  Here was an open space between his spot in the woods and the edge of the porch. It was only twenty feet or so, but to Puck it seemed like a mile. There was no cover between here and there. He would have to take extreme caution.

  He crouched even closer to the muddy ground, could feel it on his belly as he moved forward. Every muscle tensed. His tail twitched. Closer, closer, closer.

  Finally he whispered, “Sabine!” Closer. “Sabine!” Another step. “Sabine!” There was no answer. Another step. Perhaps she couldn’t hear him. He was only a few feet away now. He took a deep breath and . . . spring! He darted into the Underneath.

  “Sabine!” he called in his loudest whisper.

  It took him a mome
nt for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He sat down. Nothing had changed. It was exactly the same as he remembered, except that the ceiling seemed a little lower and the old boot that he had hidden when he was a baby seemed a little smaller. He sat down. Standing here, in this place where he was born, he could almost hear Ranger’s song, barely detect the words. . . .

  No need to cry, no need to fear . . .

  When those ol’ sunbeams break the day

  I will keep you while you play.

  The song rolled around in his head, settled in his memory.

  He stood in the middle of the dark Underneath, this place he had missed all these days, all this time. Now here he was, all alone with only the memory of the song beside him. The tender words settled in his fur.

  No need to cry, no need to fear

  I will always be right here.

  Puck realized. It was that last line he had clung to. All this time, he had relied on Ranger to be right here. And now he wasn’t. Where was the hound? Where was Sabine? Surely they couldn’t be far away. Hadn’t he just heard Ranger’s howl only a short time ago?

  Puck peered out into the yard, and there, where it had always been, was Ranger’s food dish. He quickly crept out and ran to the dish. But he was not met with a bowlful of food. Instead, he was met with a puddle of blood. Even the hard rain had not been able to wash away the unmistakable stains of blood all around. Puck lifted his paw. It was soaked in blood. He looked around. Blood. It was all around him, on the ground, in the bowl, sitting in pools mixed with rain. He shook his paw, shook it hard. Blood sprayed off of it.

  The answer came flying at him once more: Something awful must have happened. A sob welled up in his throat. This was his fault. Here was a cat who had broken the rules and now something terrible had happened.

  A knot formed in his stomach.

  A knot of revulsion.

  A knot of fear.

  A knot of anger.

  Puck started to pant. He could hardly breathe from the impact of the terrible knot. He put his nose to the ground. The blood was clearly Ranger’s. But there were two different scents. Someone else was bleeding too. He looked up. The trail was thick, the trail of blood, the same blood that soaked into his fur. He shook his drenched paw again. He would find the one who did this. He began to walk due east, following the scent of Ranger’s blood, and some other blood he didn’t recognize, east toward the Bayou Tartine and the swamp that rested between its wide banks and the smaller ones of the Petite Tartine.

  111

  GAR FACE TUGGED at the old hound. The dog coughed, and every few feet he stumbled. No matter. The man pulled at the chain. He would drag him if he had to. He looked at the pathetic animal. He had done a number on him, all right. Gar Face smiled. The Alligator King would not be able to resist.

  But every few steps, he had to stop and rest his own damaged leg. The hound had taken more out of him than he cared to admit. He looked down at the dirty dish towel. The blood was seeping through. He would tighten it when they got to the spot where the Petite Tartine split off from the main bayou. It wasn’t far, perhaps another half mile.

  Gar Face grimaced. Stupid hound. He had been bitten by other animals. He held out his hand. There were scars from the many alligators that had clamped down on him while he wrestled them to their deaths. He had been bitten by the sharp teeth of a squirrel and a rat, and more than once he had gotten his fingers caught by the razor teeth of the gar for which he was named. He had even been bitten by a copperhead, a bite that made him sick for over a week, so sick he could not get out of his ratty cot. He was surprised several days later when he woke up to find himself still alive.

  But this bite, this bite to his leg by his very own dog, ached in a different way from all those other bites. If Gar Face had been smarter, if he had been at all tuned in to the ways of animals, he might have understood that all those other bites were made in self-defense. Ranger’s bite was made out of anger, out of fury, out of protecting someone he loved. There was a difference. But Gar Face was not smarter. Instead he limped, pulled the old dog on the chain, and muttered, “Stupid dog.”

  In the meantime, Ranger put all his concentration on his steps. One paw, then another. Step. Step. Step. Each one was painful. Each step burned his chest as he gasped for air. He kept his nose to the ground. All he smelled now was the blood from Gar Face’s wound. His own blood dripped onto the ground, leaving a trail, yes, leaving a trail for Puck.

  112

  SABINE, SMALL SABINE, she followed her old dog Ranger, stayed as close as she dared without the awful man noticing her. Every few steps he stopped and looked over his shoulder or down at his leg. She knew he might see her, might scoop her up again in his rough hands. She slipped back and forth across the trail, well enough behind, but close enough to keep up. She was the panther, she was the cougar, she was the lioness.

  Sabine, small Sabine.

  • • •

  From her nest in the cypress tree, Grandmother Moccasin coiled her huge body around the highest limb and waited. For a thousand years she had waited. She could wait a little longer. She knew that soon enough the Alligator would emerge from the bayou and answer her question: Where was the daughter?

  Yessssssss!!! she hissed. I’ll take her for my own.

  113

  BY THE TIME Gar Face reached the spot on the banks where the Bayou Tartine spit off its little sister, the Petite Tartine, the bite wound on his leg throbbed. He reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a flask, tilted back his head, and took a long draught of the rum that he drank for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If he drank enough of it, it would numb the pain from the hound’s bite. He wiped his mouth with his arm and took another pull. He had not slept since the day before, and the long walk from the tilting house to this spot on the bayous had left him worn.

  There was an old cypress tree along the banks. Many times he had sat right there, under that tree. His pirogue was tied to one of its many knees poking up through the water. But the trunk of the tree itself was ten feet up on the marshy bank. Here was where he’d wait for the Alligator King. The rain was still sliding out of the sky, and he was tired of being wet. The tree offered some small amount of shelter. He pulled the ragged dog to the edge of the bank.

  “Sit, you stupid dog,” and Ranger, without a single ounce of energy left, sat down. Then Gar Face walked away, holding the end of the chain.

  A man like Gar Face does not go into the swamp without a gun. The rifle was the only thing of value that he owned, the only symbol of a human connection. He lifted the strap over his head and took the rifle off his back. Then he leaned against the trunk of the tree and sank down, setting the rifle on the ground. It was hard to tell the time of day without the sun, but Gar Face knew that it might be hours before the enormous alligator rose up out of the water to feed. Normally alligators feed at night.

  He would wait. He hooked the chain around the tree and looked at Ranger, now on his side by the water. “Perfect bait,” he said. Then he congratulated himself on his perfect plan. He looked at the wasted dog. “Perfect,” he said again. Then he took another deep draught of the rum and slumped down the trunk of the tree. “Perfect,” he mumbled once more as he closed his eyes.

  Ranger didn’t hear him. Every inch of his body was wreathed in a halo of pain. He sucked in air, sucked it past his swollen tongue. His nose was now completely shut. He knew that the gator would come sooner or later. He had been on hunts for gators. Had seen Gar Face stake out an animal, just as he was now staked out. He knew that the blood dripping from his mouth would lure the beast eventually. He only hoped it would be fast. And like the man slumped against the tree, the old dog closed his eyes.

  A dog who has been beaten with a board, who has walked over a mile on legs that trembled with pain, who has gasped for air with every step, deserves something kind, doesn’t he? A dog who has been true to those he loved, and even the one he didn’t, who did his job without complaint, should have some comfort in the midst of so m
uch misery. Such a dog is worthy of this much. Of something sweet. When Sabine saw that Gar Face was sound asleep, she slipped out from her hiding place and curled up under one of Ranger’s long silky ears. She purred to him as hard as she could. She licked the side of his soft face, licked the blood off his nose, she put her nose next to his nose. She loved him as hard as she could. With all her might, she loved Ranger.

  He tried to lift his head, to lick her with his long tongue, but the effort was too great. He needed to tell her to go, to leave right away, that she should not be here. To stay would be too dangerous. That’s what he needed to tell her, but he could not. Instead he listened to her soft purrs and forgot about how hard it was to breathe.

  And then he heard something else, something besides Sabine’s gentle purrs. It was a whirring sound, like a bee but softer. He cracked open a swollen eye. A hummingbird! In the late afternoon rain, the little bird glimmered, a tiny rainbow in his battered vision.

  Ranger sighed. He could feel Sabine purring under his ear.

  • • •

  From her perch in the tree, Grandmother looked down. A man! While in her jar, she had vowed to stay away from humans, vowed to have no more truck with humankind. Now here was one just below her. Her stomach growled. She was hungry, but the man was too big even for her massive jaws. She would wait for something smaller, something that did not smell so bad. She was good at waiting.

  114

  AS PUCK REACHED the confluence of the two bayous, he saw a hummingbird just in front of him. Up up up it went. Zigging and zagging, brilliant in the rainy sky. He had seen one before, often. A hummingbird. But this time it was so close, he could hear the frantic whirring of its wings.