The Boar (6 page)

“Well, all right. I reckon they’re in as good a place here as anywhere. It’s drier than our house.”

“There you go.”

I unbuttoned my shirt, and with only a tiny bit of reluctance about not finding out what happened to Doc tonight, I handed the magazines over to Abraham who promptly put them in a stack in the corner.

“I got to run along home now,” I said. “There’s a few chores I got to do yet, and I told Mama I’d be home by now.”

“I got things to do too,” Abraham said. “Feed the hogs and Jesse.”

“Ain’t Jesse a hog?” I asked.

“Just in the way he looks,” Abraham said.

We closed up the shutters on the windows, I got my .22, and we went down. Roger wasn’t anywhere in sight, and calls and whistles didn’t bring him out.

“Darn his hide,” I said.

“What was he supposed to do?” Abraham said. “Lay here under this tree all day waiting on us? He didn’t even have nothing to read, nor nobody to read to him.”

“Ha, ha,” I said.

“That mutt done gone home, Ricky, and there ain’t no cause to fret about it. You come to our place and get some pitch for torches. It’s darn near dead solid dark. You get along home and that old pup is going to be there waiting for you. Mark my words.”

“So’s Mama,” I said, “and probably with a switch. I think I’d better just run on from here.”

“You’re going to get a whipping anyway, so you might as well get some pitch pine. You’ll go halfway to our house on your way back anyway. Few minutes ain’t going to make no difference.”

“Reckon you’re right,” I said.

I tried to call up that fool dog again, but no luck. “All right, let’s head on out,” I said.

We started for Abraham’s house at a trot. When we got there he got me some matches and some sticks of pitch pine, and I headed out for home fast as my feet would travel and the dark would let me.

The trail was nothing new. I’d traveled it by day and by night, with and without torches. But there was no denying I was glad for having let Abraham talk me into going by his place for the pitch sticks. It was a partial moon night, and the woods were so thick not much light was squeezing in. It was, as Papa says, as dark as a banker’s heart.

Pitch pine has a lot of sap in it. A stick will flicker and blaze and put off enough smoke to choke a good-sized horse, but it’s a slow burner, and it doesn’t throw out a lot of light. It sort of kicks it out in sputtering starts, and those flare-ups make all kinds of shadows.

I guess on account of that Doc Savage story I was jumpy. Those shadows looked like all manner of things to me, even though I knew better. So when the sound came my nerves were already set off just right and I nearly jumped three feet high. Something was crashing through the brush, and behind it came a bark. It was Roger, I’d recognize his voice anywhere. But the type of bark I didn’t know. Whatever it was he was chasing was new to him. And from the sound of that brush crashing down, big.

The crashing and barking came closer and closer. It was going to break the trail any minute. Shoving the blazing pitch stick into the center of the trail, I found me a sweetgum on the other side and got behind it. If Roger had him an eating animal, I was going to drop it for the stewpot. Mama might even be in a better mood if I brought home some meat.

The crashing sound was still coming, and getting louder, but Roger had quit barking. I got down on one knee behind the gum and put my .22 around the edge of it and got it steady, ready to shoot. There was enough light there in the trail, that when the critter broke cover I’d be able to get a good look at it, decide what it was, and then, if need be, get off a shot. Provided, of course, Roger wasn’t right on its tail.

Closer it came, the more certain I was that it had to be a big old coon, in spite of the fact I hadn’t recognized Roger’s coon bark.

When I was sure it was about ready to break trail, I cocked back the hammer on the .22, and suddenly, the brush burst open.

And there, for a brief moment in the flickering pitch light, was Roger! He seemed to explode out of the brush, tongue lagging from his mouth like a wet sock, eyes wild, running so hard his front and back legs were nearly knocking together.

Roger hadn’t been chasing anything.
It was chasing him.

As he disappeared into the shadows and brush on my side of the trail, the thing that was chasing him came into view, and even before I could see it, I could smell it. It was an odor like three weeks of spoiled laundry, dead animals and angry skunks. A wall of stink so strong and thick you could darn near drive a nail in it.

Then it broke trail. I got only a glimpse before its chest hit the pitch pine and sent it spinning and smoldering into the dirt, but I knew what that huge, dark, red-eyed shape had been.

It was the boar. Old Satan.

I was so startled I forgot the gun. By the time I remembered it, Old Satan had pounded through the brush after Roger and was gone.

My heart was beating so hard I thought the buttons would pop off my shirt. I lowered the hammer on the .22 and went after the pitch stick Old Satan had trampled into the trail.

I had to light a match to find it, but when I did, and had shook the dirt off, I saw that there was a little red bead of fire on it. I whipped the stick through the air a few times until it blazed up, then I went over to where Roger and Old Satan had parted the brush like a barber’s comb.

The brambles and vines were so thick on that side, there wasn’t any going around them. If I was going to follow, I’d have to go the way they went, and be sure that my torch didn’t catch the tangle on fire. If it did, I’d be a goner, not to mention maybe half the Sabine bottoms.

There was only one way. I took a good long look down that brambly tunnel, then put the pitch torch under my foot and crunched it out. I clutched the .22 tight, began to crawl forward, the vines and brambles and brush clutching at and catching my hair and clothes till I thought I’d scream. It was like being inside a cave, it was so dark in there, and I kept thinking, What if Old Satan decides to come back this same way? I could just imagine looking up any minute to see two red eyes coming down on me like a twin lighted locomotive.

But that didn’t happen. I finally came clear of the bramble patch and out into a clearing where I could stand. There weren’t any branches touching together overhead, and there was enough moonlight for me to see pretty good, if there had been anything to see. The wind rustled through the limbs and undergrowth and churned up some leaves that flowed in a quick circle and fluttered to the floor of the clearing like singed moths.

Roger yelped.

Across the clearing from me, from behind a patch of brambles; he flew up, straight up, like a strong man had grabbed him and tossed him as high as he could.

When he came down it was at the edge of the clearing, one of his hind legs partly in the brambles. Then came a sound from the underbrush like I hoped never to hear again. An ear-ringing squeal like a wild laugh caught in a madman’s throat. And when the squeal died off it was followed by a bunch of gruntings and crashings, the sound of Old Satan moving invisibly, but loudly away.

Roger was dead. Old Satan had used those tusks like bowie knives.

I sat down beside Roger, put the .22 across my knees, and let out a scream to match the squeal Old Satan had made. Then I cried.

Finally I looked off in the direction Old Satan had gone and said aloud, “You’re mine, you old devil. All mine.”

There wasn’t anything left for me to do. I couldn’t trail Old Satan in the dark, and if I did, I wouldn’t have much chance against him with a .22. I’d have to keep my promise to that bull hog later. Only thing left to do was for me to go on home.

Roger was too heavy for me to lug back to the house, so I put him in the fork of a hickory tree so nothing could bother him. Later I’d come back and give him a proper burial here in the clearing.

I worked my way through the brambles again, and when I got to the trail, I pulled another stick of pitch pine out of my belt and lit it. My face was soaked with tears and blood from brush cuts and my shirt was spotted with Roger’s blood. I was afraid that when Mama saw me I’d frighten her to death.

I was on my last stick of pitch when I reached the end of the trail and it broke out into our bottom land. Our corn and cane rose up against the night sky like rows of feathered Indian lances.

Just as I was about to step into the clearing two things happened that made my skin prick up all over the way a cold drop of rainwater down your collar will do.

My nose filled with a sour stink and I heard a soft grunting noise.

I looked over my shoulder, down the trail.

Nothing, but I thought I heard some sticks crack. Then again, it could have been the corn rustling in the moonlight.

Stepping lightly, I started toward our field and home. There was no doubt in my mind that Old Satan was out there. That he had come back to finish the job he’d missed out on. Roger hadn’t been enough. He wanted to kill me too.

I thought about how Roger’s body had been torn up and I remembered Doc Travis saying that some thought the boar couldn’t be killed with guns, only magic. Not that it mattered much either way. The .22 would be about like trying to chop down an old oak with a dull spoon. Still, it was something. I clutched the rifle tighter and began to trot.

The moonlight wasn’t much, but out from beneath the trees it was enough. The pitch stick had gone out, but it didn’t seem wise for me to stop and light it, not if Old Satan was behind me. I needed every second I could get to make tracks. Course, if it was Old Satan back there, it might not matter how much of a lead I got. The story on hogs was that their size could fool you. They could run as fast as a deer for short distances.

I quit trotting and started to run. By the time I reached the cane and started pushing through it, I was near out of breath.

It was slower going through the crops instead of up the trail, but I figured I’d have a better chance of making it if Old Satan couldn’t see me outlined out there in the moonlight. This way he had to find me.

I was out of the cane and into the corn rows, clumsily pushing through them, when I heard the noise. Or thought I did.

Over my heavy breathing and the wind I wasn’t even sure it was there. Maybe I had imagined it. But it sounded as if something was pushing through the cane and corn behind me.

I didn’t stop to listen and make sure. I was too scared that I’d be right, and that I’d lose precious time.

The corn patch seemed to go on forever, and the long, green leaves acted as if they were trying to reach out and grab me. Like maybe they were in cahoots with Old Satan and were going to hold me until he got there.

Even though I didn’t want to think about it, all sorts of horrible thoughts about hogs kept going through my mind. When I was about five or six I’d heard this story about Old Man Simpson. About how his heart had played out on him one day while he was out slopping the pigs, and by the time they found him, the critters had eaten him down to the bones.

I could just imagine Mama or Ike looking for me and finding nothing but some clothes scraps, a .22, and a pile of well-picked bones out here in the corn patch.

Those thoughts put iron in my legs. I broke out of the corn and scrambled up the rise, falling once to my knee and tearing a hole in my overalls. But I didn’t drop the .22. My grip on it was so tight my hand was starting to hurt.

As I started loping across the clearing toward the house, I was sure I heard Old Satan bursting out of the corn behind me, grunting his way up the rise.

The lamplight oozing out of the windows of our shack had never looked so inviting.

When I was halfway across the clearing to our house, the words just seemed to leap out of my mouth without me having much to say about it. “Mama, Mama!”

The door opened. Light fell out and Mama behind it. She had Papa’s old Winchester in her hands. “Mama!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get me!”

I saw her hunch forward, looking into the blackness behind me. The next instant I was by her side, turning, my .22 pointing out at…
nothing.

There was only the night and the wind.

I started to laugh. Darn if I knew what was funny, but I started to laugh. The whole thing had been my imagination. Old Satan hadn’t followed me after killing Roger. It had just been my silly head playing tricks on me.

“Richard,” Mama said, “what’s wrong, boy?”

“Nothing,” I said, still laughing like an idiot. “Noth…”

Then, out of the dark, like a solid, rolling shadow with two glowing coals in its center, moving lickety-split across the clearing, came a shape.

“Old Satan!” I screamed.

Mama and I raised our guns and fired. The next thing I knew, Mama was pushing me inside and following quick behind me, slamming the door and throwing the bolt.

About the same time the dogs began to growl and bark. I could hear them running out from beneath the house. This was followed by a bunch of loud whelps and whines. Then silence.

I began to tremble. I knew that Old Satan had whipped, and probably killed, the dogs in less time than it took to say his name.

With a trembling hand, I dug another shell out of my pocket and managed to load the .22 without dropping it.

Ike came out of the back room then. His eyes were as big as persimmons.

He started to say something.

“Sssshhh,”
Mama warned.

Ike looked at me. I put a hand on his shoulder, mouthed the words, “It’s okay.”

We stood that way for a long time. The silence was broken by Mama levering another shell into the Winchester and going over to the door to listen.

She put her ear to the door and I looked her a question.

She shrugged and shook her head.

“Maybe he’s gone,” I finally said.

“Who?” Ike asked.

“Old Satan,” I said.

“
Sssshhh
,” Mama said.

Mama kept her ear to the door listening. She must have stayed that way for at least five minutes.

Finally, sighing, she stood up straight and turned to us, smiling. “I reckon he’s gone,” she said softly.