Chapter 20
The second day after the storm, Buck and Mill-wheel Forrester came riding to the island to see whether all was well with the Baxters. They had come straight from their own work of caring for the stranded stock. Along the main trail the sights, they said, were new in their generation. The flood had played havoc with the small animals. It was agreed that the four of them, Buck and Mill-wheel and Penny and Jody, should make a tour of exploration for some miles around, so that they might know what to expect, in the immediate future, of the movements not only of the game, but of the predatory creatures. The Forresters had brought two dogs, and an extra horse, and asked to have Rip and Julia join them. Jody was excited that he was to be taken.
He asked, "Kin Flag foller along, too?"
Penny turned on him sharply.
"This here is serious," he said. "I'm carryin' you with us to learn you. If you figger on frolickin', you kin stay home, too."
Jody hung his head. He slipped away and shut Flag in the shed. The sand floor was still soaked and the shed smelled musty, but he made a bed of crocus sacks where the fawn might keep dry. He put out water and feed for it in case he should be long away.
"You stay quiet," he said to it, "and I'll tell you all I see when I come home agin."
The Forresters were well stocked, as always, with ammunition. Penny had spent two evenings during the storm in making low-mould shot and in loading his own shells. He had a month's supply filled and capped and ready for use. He filled his shot-bag and polished the barrels of his gun.
He said to the Forresters, "Now I worked a rabbit's-foot on you fellers about that wuthless dog I traded you. Ary time you crave to use this gun, you say so."
Buck said, "Ain't none of us but Lem mean enough to take it back, Penny. I'll swear, he got so mean, cooped up in the storm, I had to dress him down myself."
"Where's he now?"
Buck spat.
"Gone off to the river, fretted about harm comin' to that tormented gal Twink. Figgerin' on makin' it up with her, and layin' for Oliver. He kin fight it out by hisself this time."
It was decided to make a wide circle that would take in both Baxter's and Forresters' Islands, Juniper Springs, Hopkins Prairie, and the good deer territory where the live oak islands that lifted from the marshy saw-grass would certainly have provided refuge for the animals. With the exception of a rolling ridge to the west, toward the Ocklawaha River, the Baxter's Island terrain was the highest in the scrub. But it dropped down all around to low land, and the circle they had mapped out would tell the story. They would try to return to Forresters' Island to sleep, but if that was not practicable they would camp wherever night found them. Penny filled a knapsack carefully. He put in a frying pan, salt, meal, a side of bacon and a twist of tobacco. In a crocus sack he put a handful of lighter'd splinters, a bottle of thin lard, and a bottle of panther oil which he treasured for his rheumatism. The exposure during the days of storm had brought his aches on him with vicious force. He had no meat for the dogs.
Buck said, "We kin shoot somethin' for 'em."
They were ready at last. They swung into the saddles and set off briskly south-east down the road in the direction of Silver Glen and Lake George.
Penny said, "Long as we're this clost, we best go see how ol' Doc Wilson come out. That place o' his is like to be half under water."
Buck said, "And him mebbe too drunk to know it."
The road dipped sharply between Baxter's Island and Silver Glen. The flood had washed down it with such volume and such force that the flat sand road was now a narrow ravine. Rubbish of all sorts was caught in the lower branches of the close-growing scrub pines. Farther down the road the toll of small animal life began to show. Skunks and 'possums seemed the heaviest sufferers. Their bodies lay by dozens on the ground, where the waters, receding, had deposited them, or hung with the trash in the limbs of trees. To the south and east there was a great silence. The scrub was always silent, yet Jody realized now that there had always been an undertone of cry and movement, where the creatures called and stirred, no more discernible than the wind. To the north, where high scrub land was dense with thin pines, there was an unusual rustling and distant chattering. The squirrels had evidently taken up residence here in droves, driven, if not by water, at least by hunger and fear, from the swamps and hammocks below them.
Penny said, "I'll bet that scrub there is purely alive with creeturs."
They hesitated, tempted to go in to the denseness. They agreed that it was best, as first planned, to skirt the low regions and determine the damage, and then to check on the still living creature population. Toward Silver Glen they reined in the horses.
"You see what I see?"
"If you didn't see it, too, I'd not believe it."
Silver Glen had overflowed and backed up, and the flood waters had rushed down to join it and make a greater havoc. Dead animals drifted about in the backwash.
Penny said, "I didn't know there was that many snakes in the world."
The bodies of highland reptiles were as thick as cane-stalks. There were dead rattlesnakes, king snakes, black snakes, coach whips, chicken snakes, garter snakes and coral snakes. At the thin edge of the receding water, cottonmouth moccasins and other water snakes swam about thickly.
Buck said, "I don't understand that. Ary snake kin swim. I've met a rattler in the middle o' the river."
Penny said, "Yes, but the land snakes likely got ketched in their holes."
The flood had reached everywhere, like the searching fingers of a 'coon, and had torn out all the things for whom the solid earth was their only refuge. A fawn lay dead with swelling belly. Jody's heart jumped. Flag might have perished in just this fashion, if he had not become, in time, a Baxter. As they gaped, two rattlers slithered across the ground in front of them. The rattlers ignored them, as though in the face of greater dangers man was of no concern.
Penny said, "Hit'll be all a man's life is wuth, for a while, to cross high land."
Buck said, "I mean."
They could go no farther east and turned north, skirting the low waters. Where there had been swamp, there were ponds. Where there had been hammock, there was swamp. Only the high infertile scrub had turned aside the devastation. Even here, pines were up-rooted, and those that had stood, all leaned to the west, bowed down by the week-long weight of wind and rain.
Penny said, "Hit'll be a long day before them trees stands straight agin."
They became uneasy as they approached the Branch. The water was still high here, well above the level of Lake George. Three and four days ago it must have been much higher. They stopped and stared down at the doctor's land, sloping to the lake. The thick hammock might have been a cypress slough. The giant live oaks, the hickories, the sweet gums, the magnolias, the orange trees, stood deep in a turgid wetness.
Penny said, "Let's try the road."
The road, like the one leading southeast from Baxter's Island, had formed a sluiceway for the waters. It was now a gully, and dry. They rode down it. Doc Wilson's house appeared ahead, dark and shadowy under the great trees.
Buck said, "I'll be blest if I see why ary man would choose a place this dark to live in, even to stay drunk."
Penny said, "If ever'body loved the same places, we'd be right over-crowded."
Water stood ankle-deep around the house. The blocks on which it rested showed that the water had at one time been over the floor. The boards of the broad veranda were warping. They waded to the front steps, eyes open warily for coiled moccasins. A white pillow-slip was tacked across the front door. A message was printed on it with ink. The ink had run but the letters were plain.
Buck said, "Us Forresters cain't read good. Read it, Penny."
Penny spelled out the liquid words.
"I have gone toward the ocean where this much water ain't so peculiar. I mean to stay drunk until the storm is over. I will be somewhere between here and the ocean. Please don't come after me unless it's a broke neck or a baby. Doc.
P.S. If it's a broke neck no use anyway."
Buck and Mill-wheel and Penny shouted, and Jody laughed because they did.
Buck said, "That Doc, he'd crack him a joke right in the Lord's face."
Penny said, "That's why he's a good doctor."
"How come?"
"Well, he gits to fool the Lord now and agin."
They laughed until they were weak. It was good to be light-hearted, when the world had been gray and heavy so long. They went inside the house and found a tin of crackers and a bottle of whiskey on the table and added them to their stores. They turned back up the road and went north for a mile or so, then west again.
Penny said, "No use goin' to Hopkins Parairie. We kin figger hit's a pure lake."
Buck and Mill-wheel agreed. South of Hopkins Prairie they found the same story. The weaker animals and the ground creatures had been washed down to destruction. At the edge of a bay-head, a bear lumbered across in plain sight.
Penny said, "No use shootin' him. We may need his meat a month from now. Hit's too fur to tote him and we'll git many a shot before night-fall."
The Forresters agreed reluctantly. A shot to them was a shot, whether or no they could use the game. Penny would shoot nothing for which he could not see a use. He preferred even to kill the enemy bears at a time when their flesh was welcome and usable. They continued west. Here was a long stretch of gallberry flats that in good weather was the favorite haunt of bear and wolf and panther. The ground was always boggy, the vegetation low, and bay-heads to the north and east gave both food and a hiding place. Now the section was a swamp. Water drained off quickly from a sand soil, but where the earth was heavy, it remained as on clay. Islands of scrub oak and live oak, and a few high palm hammocks, lay between the flats and the broad stretch of the scrub itself. They skirted the new-made swamp and made for these.
At first Jody could see nothing. Then when Penny pointed to this tree and that, he was able to make out the forms of animals. They rode close. The creatures seemed unafraid. A fine buck stared at them. The shot was irresistible. Buck brought it down. They rode closer. Wild-cats and lynxes peered visibly from the branches of trees. The Forresters urged their killing.
Penny said, "Hit's a pity we should add to their troubles. Seems like there'd ought to be room enough in the world for folks and creeturs, both."
Mill-wheel said, "Trouble with you, Penny, you was raised by a preacher. You look for the lion and the lamb to be layin' down together."
Penny pointed to the high earth ahead of them.
"Well," he said, "the deer and the bob-cat—there you be."
But he was forced to agree that every wild-cat on the loose, every bear, lynx, wolf or panther, meant depredations on hogs, chickens and cattle, and on the milder game, the deer, the 'coons, the squirrels and the 'possums. It seemed to make an endless circle of "Eat or be eaten. Kill or go hungry."
He joined in the attack on the great cats and six fell killed or wounded. Jody brought down a lynx. The recoil of the old muzzle-loader all but knocked him from Cæsar's rump. He dismounted to reload. The Forresters patted him on the back. The men dressed the buck. The meat was lean, showing the week of privation. They flung the carcass over the rump of Buck's horse. They went forward on foot to the oak island. Dim forms scurried at the far side. It was eery, hearing the rustling of creatures, seeing the skulking.
The hides of the wild-cats were poor and not worth saving. Penny said, "Now them carcasses'd make a fine dinner for the dogs, and easy carried."
The dogs were already chewing on the haunches of the cats. They too had been underfed through the storm. The cat-meat was dressed out and slung over the horses. Mid-afternoon found the exploring party due north and a little west of Forresters' Island. They decided that it was best to continue, and camp out for the night. For an hour or two the sun was strong. A putrid odor began to rise from the wet earth and from the waters. Jody felt a little ill.
Buck said, "I'm proud Fodder-wing ain't here right now. He'd hate it, all these creeturs dead."
Bears began to be seen again. The wolves were not in evidence, nor the panthers. They rode through several miles of scrub. Deer and squirrels were plentiful here. Probably they had never left, feeling secure. They were all bold and plainly hungry. The Forresters, greedy, and anxious as well that both families should surely have meat, shot another buck and slung it over Mill-wheel's horse.
Toward sunset, the scrub dissolved again into live oak islands. Farther south was Juniper Prairie. That would now be flooded. A little to the east lay a stretch of land that was neither scrub nor prairie, neither island nor swamp nor hammock. It was as open as a clearing. It was agreed to camp here for the night, even though an hour or two of daylight remained. No one was of a mind to be caught in the low places, malodorous and crawling with reptiles. They made camp under two giant long-leaf pines. There was not much protection overhead, but the night would be clear, and it was better under such unnatural circumstances to be in the open.
Mill-wheel said, "When I bed with a panther, I crave for that panther to be dead."
They turned the horses loose with dropped reins to graze before tethering them for the night. Mill-wheel had disappeared into a patch of scrub oak south of the camp site. The others heard him shout. The dogs had followed him on one of the endless trails that had enchanted them all day. They were moving slowly, tired out from the abundance of scent and track. Old Julia lifted her voice.
Penny said, "That's cat."
Wild-cats had lost their zest. All four dogs were baying, their voices ranging from a high keening to the bass rumble of Rip. Mill-wheel shouted again.
Penny said, "Don't you Forresters ever git a bait o' wildcats?"
Buck said, "Now he'd not holler that-a-way over no wildcat."
The dogs' voices lifted into a frenzy. Penny and Jody and Buck became infected with the sound and ran into the thick growth. A scrub oak had grown to considerable size. Halfway up its gray twisted trunk they saw the quarry. It was a female panther with two cubs. She was lean and gaunt but of immense length. The cubs still wore the blue and white spots of panther infancy across their hides. Jody thought they were prettier than any kittens he had ever seen. They were the size of grown house-cats. They lifted back their delicate whiskers in imitation of their mother's snarl. Her appearance was formidable. Her teeth were bared, her long tail switched back and forth, her claws worked on the oak limb. She seemed about to drop on the first creature, man or dog, to move closer. The dogs were wild.
Jody called out, "I want the cubs! I want the cubs!"
Mill-wheel said, "Let's knock her out and leave the dogs have a go-round."
Penny said, "We'll have four tore-up dogs if you do."
Buck said, "You mighty right. We best drop her and be done with it." He shot.
The dogs were on her the instant she hit the ground. If there was a spark of life, it was at once snuffed out. Buck climbed up the low tree and shook the limb.
Jody called again, "I want the cubs."
He planned, when they dropped, to run to them and pick them up. He was sure they would be gentle. They fell finally under Buck's vigorous shaking. Jody darted in but the dogs were ahead of him. The cubs were dead, and shaken and tossed, before he could approach them. Yet in their dying, he saw that they slashed at the dogs and bit and clawed. He would have had ragged flesh, he realized, to show for his seizing of them. Yet he wished they were still alive.
Penny said, "Sorry, boy. But you'd not have had nothin' you'd of keered to keep. Them scapers learns meanness early."
Jody eyed the small fierce teeth.
"Kin I have the hides for another knapsack?"
"Why, sho'. Here, Buck, he'p me git 'em away from the dogs before they're tore up."
Jody took the limp bodies and cradled them.
"I hate things dyin'," he said.
The men were silent.
Penny said slowly, "Nothin's spared, son, if that be ary comfort to you."
"'Tain't."
"Well, hit's a stone wall nobody's yit clumb over. You kin kick it and crack your head agin it and holler, but nobody'll listen and nobody'll answer."
Buck said, "Well, when it come my time, I shore aim to git my money's wuth hollerin'."
They called the dogs away from the dead panther. She measured nine feet from tip of nose to the end of long curled tail. She was too lean, however, to dress out for her oil.
Penny said, "I got to either ketch me a fat panther or quit havin' rheumatism."
The hide too was in poor condition. They cut away the heart and liver to roast for the dogs.
Penny said, "No use nussin' them cubs no longer, Jody. Give 'em here and go fetch wood. I'll skin 'em out for you."
He went away. The evening was clear and rosy. The sun was drawing water. Shadowy fingers reached through the luminous sky to the sodden earth. The wet leaves of the scrub oaks, the thin needles of the pines, glittered, and he forgot his distress. There was much to be done to make camp. All wood was wet, but, prowling about, he found a fallen pine whose core was rich with resin. He called, and Buck and Mill-wheel came and dragged it bodily to the camp site. It would make a burning base to dry out the other wood. They chopped it in half and laid the two long pieces side by side. Jody struggled with flint and steel from the tinder horn until Penny took it away from him and kindled a fire between the logs with fat-wood splinters. He piled on small brush that caught fire quickly. Larger limbs and logs were added. They smoked and smoldered but ended by bursting into flame. Now there was a glowing bed on which the wettest logs might dry, and then burn slowly. Jody dragged in all available wood that was not too heavy to handle alone. He had a high pile ready for the night's long burning. Buck and Mill-wheel dragged in logs as big as themselves.
Penny cut out the backstraps from the fattest buck and sliced them for frying for supper. Mill-wheel appeared from a prowl with palmetto fronds to be used as plates, for laying out the food, and other camp means of tidiness. He had as well the hearts of two palms. He pulled away layer after layer of the white cores and came at last to the hearts, crisp and sweet.
He said, "Now I want that fryin' pan, Mr. Penny, please, for my swamp cabbage. Then I'll leave you fry that backstrap when I'm done with the pan."
He sliced the palm-hearts thinly.
"Where's the grease, Penny?"
"In a bottle in the crocus sack."
Jody ambled about, watching the others. His job was to feed the fire with twigs to keep the flame from dying too low. The logs blazed brightly. There were already embers suitable for roasting. Buck whittled forked sticks on which each could roast his meat. Mill-wheel dipped water from a nearby pond for his pan of swamp cabbage, covered it with a section of palm-frond and set it over the coals to cook.
Penny said, "Now I forgot coffee."
Buck said, "Well, with ol' Doc Wilson's whiskey, I'll not miss it."
He brought out the bottle and passed it. Penny was ready for the frying pan for his venison, but the swamp cabbage was not done. He improvised spits on which he hung the wild-cat carcasses. He sliced the wild-cat and panther hearts and livers and stuck them on sticks and propped them over the coals to roast. The smell was enticing. Jody sniffed the air and sniffed again and patted his flat stomach. Penny sliced the deer livers and placed them more carefully on Buck's forked sticks and gave each man his own toasting fork to hold, to cook his meat to his own taste. The flames licked around the dog-meat and the odor brought in the dogs. They came close and lay flat and slapped their tails back and forth and whined. Raw cat-meat was not too much to their fancy. They had gnawed a bit on it by way of proving their victory. The roasted flesh was another thing. They licked their chops.
Jody said, "I'll bet that's good."
"Well, try it." Penny withdrew a portion from the fire and held it out to him. "Look out. It's hotter'n stewed apples."
He hesitated over the strangeness, then touched his finger to the hot savory meat and put his finger in his mouth.
He said, "'Tis good."
The men laughed, but he ate two slices.
Penny said, "Now some folks'd say hit'd make you fearless, eatin' wild-cat liver. We'll jest see."
Buck said, "Dogged if it don't smell fine. Give a mite here."
He sampled it and agreed that it was as good as any other liver. Mill-wheel ate a portion then but Penny refused.
"If I was to git any braver," he said, "I'd be rompin' on you Forresters and gittin' Hell beat out o' me agin."
They passed the bottle once more. The fire blazed, the meat dripped its juices into the flames, the fragrance eddied up with the smoke. The sun set behind the scrub oaks and Mill-wheel's swamp cabbage was done. Penny emptied it on a clean palm frond and put it over a smoldering log to keep warm. He wiped out the frying pan with a handful of moss and set it back over the coals to heat. He sliced bacon into it. When the bacon was brown and the fat sizzling hot, he fried the thin slices of backstrap crisp and tender. Buck cut scoops from the palm stems and every one dipped, share and share alike, into the swamp cabbage. Penny made hush-puppies of meal and salt and water and fried them in the fat the venison had cooked in.
Buck said, "Now if I knowed they'd feed you this good in Heaven, I'd not holler when I die."
Mill-wheel said, "Rations tastes a heap better in the woods. I'd ruther eat cold bread in the woods than hot puddin' in the house."
"Now you know," Penny said, "the same dog bit me."
The cat-meat was done. They cooled it a little and threw it to the dogs. The dogs bolted it greedily, then went to the pond to drink. They prowled about for a time, excited by the varying scents, then returned to lie by the blazing camp-fire in the increasing chill of the evening. Buck and Mill-wheel and Jody had stuffed. They dropped flat on their backs and stared up into the sky.
Penny said, "Flood or no flood, this is fine. I want you fellers to promise me one thing. When I'm an old man, set me on a stump and leave me listen to the hunt. Don't go off and leave me in the bay."
Stars twinkled, the first in nine days. Penny stirred at last to clean up the debris. He tossed the dogs the left-over corn-meal patties. He put the corncob stopper back in the bottle of fat. He held it up to the firelight. He shook it.
He said, "I'll be blasted. We've et my rubbin' medicine."
He pawed in the crocus sack and brought out the other bottle and opened it. It held unmistakably the lard-oil.
"Mill-wheel, you jay-bird. You opened the panther oil for the swamp cabbage."
There was silence. Jody felt his stomach turn over.
Mill-wheel said, "How'd I know 'twas panther oil?"
Buck swore under his breath. Then he burst into a thunderous laughter.
"I ain't goin' to let my imagination quarrel with what goes in my belly," he said. "I never et better swamp cabbage."
"Nor me," Penny said. "But when my bones gits to achin', I'll wish 'twas back where it come from."
Buck said, "Anyways, we know what to use for grease when we git ketched in the woods."
Jody's stomach quieted. After two slices of wild-cat liver, it would be poor business to be squeamish. But the panther oil did seem different, after having seen Penny rub it on his knees on winter evenings.
Mill-wheel said, "Well, I'll cut ever'body boughs for beds, long as I'm the one's in disgrace."
Penny said, "I'll come with you. If I was to go to sleep and raise up and see you in the bushes, I'd figger 'twas a bear, shore. I'll swear, I don't see how some o' you fellers growed so big."
Mill-wheel said, "Why, hell, we was raised on panther oil."
Every one went in high humor to cut his own bed. Jody broke small pine boughs with the needles on them and gathered moss for a mattress. They laid the pallets close to the fire. The Forresters lay down on their boughs with a crashing sound.
Penny said, "Now I'll bet ol' Slewfoot don't make that much fuss when he lays down."
Buck said, "And I'll bet you kin hear a June bird goin' to bed a heap further'n one o' you Baxters."
Mill-wheel said, "I wisht I had me a sack o' corn shucks now for a mattress."
Penny said, "The best bed I ever had was one made o' the fluff from cat-tail rushes. Hit were like lyin' on a cloud. But it takened a time to gather enough cat-tails."
Buck said, "The best bed in all the world is a feather bed."
Penny said, "Ary one ever tell you fellers about the time your daddy raised pure hell with a feather bed?"
"Tell it."
"Hit were before you were borned. Mebbe two-three of you was back in the house some'eres in cradles. I were jest a leetle ol' young un myself. I come over to your island with my own daddy. Reckon mebbe he come to try to give your Pa salvation. When he was young, your Pa was wilder'n you-all. He could tip a jug o' corn liquor back and drink it down like water. And he done so, in them days, right frequent. Well, we rode up to your door and here was broke dishes and rations all strowed down the walk, and chairs pitched over the gate. And all over the yard, and all along the fence row, was feathers. Looked as if chicken Heaven had done blowed up. Layin' on the stoop was the tickin' o' the feather bed where it had been split open with a knife.
"Your daddy come to the gate. Now I won't say he was drunk, but he shore had done been drunk. He'd tore up ever'thing had takened his eye. And the last thing he noticed was the feather bed. Now he wa'n't mad nor quarrelin'. He was jest havin' him a big time crackin' things open. He'd got all over it, and was peaceful and happy as could be. Now what your Ma was doin' and sayin' whilst he was at it, you'd know better'n me. But right now she was still, and cold as ice. She was settin' rockin' with her hands folded and her mouth like a steel trap. My daddy had sense, if he was a preacher, and I reckon he figgered another time'd be best for whatever 'twas he'd come to say. So he jest passed the time o' day and set out to ride on agin.
"Well, your Ma come to and remembered her manners and called out to him. 'Stay eat with us, Mr. Baxter,' she said. 'I got nothin' left to offer you but corn-pone and honey. If I kin find a whole plate for you to eat on.'
"Your Pa turned and looked at her, surprised.
"'Honey,' he said, 'honey, is there any honey in the honey-jug?'"
The Forresters shouted and slapped each other.
Buck said, "Wait 'til I walk in and ask Ma, 'Honey, is there any honey in the honey-jug?' Oh, wait!"
Jody laughed to himself long after the Forresters were quiet. His father made a story so real, he could see the feathers still, blown against the split-rail fence. The dogs, roused by the laugher, stirred and changed their positions. They had edged close for the warmth of the humans and of the fire. Old Julia lay at his father's feet. He wished Flag were with him, to snuggle close with his smooth warm coat. Buck rose and pulled another log on the fire. The men began to talk of the probable movements of the scrub and swamp animals. The wolves were evidently moving in another direction from the rest of the animals. They disliked wet sections even more than the big cats and were no doubt in the heart of the high scrub. Bear had not been as plentiful as expected.
Buck said, "You know where the bears be? South in the scrub around Sellers Bear Hole and Squaw Pond Bear Hole."
Mill-wheel said, "Tollie's Hammock, I'll bet you, toward the river."
Penny said, "They'll not be south. The wind and rain the last days all come from the southeast. They'd put it behind 'em, not go into it."
Jody put his arms under his head and looked up into the sky. It was as thick with stars as a pool of silver minnows. Between the two tall pines over him, the sky was milky, as though Trixie had kicked a great bucket of milk foaming across the heavens. The pines swayed back and forth in a light cool breeze. Their needles were washed with the silver of the starlight. Smoke from the camp-fire eddied up and joined the stars. He watched it drift through the pine tops. His eyelids fluttered. He did not want to go to sleep. He wanted to listen. The hunting talk of men was the finest talk in the world. Chills went along his spine to hear it. The smoke against the stars was a veil drawn back and forth across his eyes. He closed them. For a moment the talk of the men was a deep droning against the snapping of the wet wood. Then it faded into the sound of the breeze in the pines, and was no longer sound, but the voiceless murmur of a dream.
He was awakened in the night by his father, sitting bolt upright. Buck and Mill-wheel were snoring heavily. The fire had died low. The wet wood was sizzling slowly. He sat up beside Penny.
Penny whispered, "Listen."
Far in the night an owl hooted and a panther screamed. There was a closer sound. It sounded like the air dying from a bellows.
"Whoo—oo—. Whoo—oo—oo. Whoo—oo—oo."
It seemed almost at their feet. Jody's flesh crept. It might be Fodder-wing's Spaniard. Were ha'nts susceptible, like mortals, he wondered, to flood and rain? Did they yearn to warm their thin transparent hands at a hunter's camp-fire? Penny eased himself to his feet and fumbled for a pine knot for a torch. He lit it at the fire and started forward cautiously. The sighing sound had ceased. Jody followed close behind him. There was a rustling. Penny swung the torch. A pair of eyes, red as a bull-bat's, caught the light. He shifted the light. He laughed. The visitor was an alligator from the pond.
He said, "He smelt the fresh meat. Now wouldn't I love to drop him on top o' them Forresters."
Jody said, "Was it him, makin' that sighin'?"
"It were him, breathin' and blowin' and raisin' hisself up and down."
"Let's torment Buck and Mill-wheel with him."
Penny hesitated.
"He's a mite big for funnin'. He'll go six feet. If he was to take a chunk outen one of 'em, hit'd be a sorry joke."
"Will we kill him?"
"No use. We'll be gittin' meat for the dogs and to spare. 'Gators is harmless things."
"You goin' to leave him blow around all night?"
"No, for he'd quit blowin' and go to huntin' that meat he smells."
Penny made a rush at the alligator. It lifted its body on its short legs and turned back toward the pond. Penny ran after it, stopping to pick up sand or whatever came under his hand to throw after it. It ran with amazing speed. Penny followed, and Jody behind him, until a splash sounded at some distance.
"There. He's back with his kin folks. Now do he be polite enough to stay there, we'll not bother him."
They turned back to the camp-fire. It glowed comfortingly in the darkness. The midnight was still. The stars were so bright that when they looked away from the fire, they could see the water shining in the ponds. The air was cool. Jody wished that he could camp always like this, with his father. All that he lacked was Flag beside him. Penny moved the torch across the Forresters. Buck threw his arm across his face, but slept on. Mill-wheel was flat on his back. His black beard lifted and fell with his heavy breathing.
"He blows near about as deep as a 'gator," Penny said.
They piled more wood on the fire and returned to their pallets. They did not seem as comfortable as when they had first lain down on them. They shook up the moss and tried to flatten the pine boughs. Jody made a nest for himself in the middle and curled up kitten-wise. He lay a few luxurious moments watching the fresh blaze, then fell into a sleep as deep as the first.
The dogs were the first to awaken at daybreak. A fox had crossed under their noses, leaving its rank taint fresh on the air. Penny jumped up and caught them and tied them. "We got bigger business today than fox," he told them.
From where he lay, Jody could look straight across into the sunrise. It was strange to see it on a level with his face. At home the thick scrub growth beyond the cleared fields obscured it. Now there was only a morning fog between. The sun did not seem to rise, but to sweep forward through a gray curtain. The curtain began to part its folds for the passing. The light was the thin pale gold of his mother's wedding ring. It grew brighter and brighter until he found himself blinking into the very face of the sun. The light September fog clung tenaciously a little while to the tops of the trees, as though resisting the tearing and destructive fingers of the sun. Then it too was gone and the whole east was the color of ripe guavas.
Penny called, "I need somebody to he'p find the panther oil so I kin cook breakfast."
Buck and Mill-wheel sat up. They were stiff from their heavy sleep.
Penny said, "The 'gators and the foxes has been runnin' right acrost you fellers."
He told of the night's encounter.
Buck said, "You shore 'twasn't one o' them swamp skeeters you seed, after Doc Wilson's liquor?"
"A foot less, and I'd say mebbe. But not scarcely six feet."
"Oh, yes. Why, I went to sleep on a camp like this oncet, and I dreamed I heered a skeeter buzzin', and when I waked up, here was me and my bed both, hangin' up on a snag in a cypress swamp."
Penny called Jody to wash his face and hands at the pond's edge. When they reached the water, the stench turned them back.
Penny said comfortably, "Well, our dirt is nothin' but wood-smoke. Even your Ma wouldn't make you wash in that kind o' water."
Breakfast was the same as supper, except that there was no more swamp cabbage with panther oil. Again the Forresters substituted a draught of whiskey for the missing coffee. Penny refused it. The pond water was not fit to drink and Jody was thirsty. In a world so full of water, it had occurred to no one to carry it.
Penny said, "You watch for a holler log is well off the ground, and has rain water in it. Rain water's allus fitten."
The fried and roasted venison and the hush-puppies did not taste as good as the night before. Penny cleaned up after breakfast. Grazing for the horses had been poor because the grasses were beaten flat. Jody gathered armfuls of moss for them and they ate it with relish. Breaking camp, mounting, turning the heads of the horses south, was the beginning of a fresh journey. Jody looked over his shoulder. The camp site was desolate. The charred logs, the gray ashes, were forlorn. The magic had died out with the flames of the camp-fire. The morning had been cool but the climbing sun began to heat the day. The earth steamed. The stench of the polluted waters was often overpowering.
Penny, in the lead, called back, "I wonder, kin the creeturs' bellies stand this rotten water?"
Buck and Mill-wheel shook their heads. The flood was unprecedented in the scrub. No man could tell what would come of it. The cavalcade continued steadily south.
Penny called to Jody, "Remember where we seed the whoopin' cranes dancin' so purty?"
Jody would not have recognized the prairie. It was a flat body of water, where even a crane might hesitate to wade and wander. Farther south was scrub again, then gallberry flats and bay-heads. But where marsh should be, was a lake. They reined in the horses. It was as though they had camped overnight on some strange borderland and had now come into another country. Fish were leaping in the air from water that a week ago had been land. And here, after all the miles, were the bears—They were fishing with an abandon that made them unaware of, or indifferent to, the approach of horses and riders. Two or three dozen black forms moved through the waters, belly-deep. Fish jumped ahead of them.
Penny called, "Hit's mullet!"
But mullet, Jody thought, lived in the ocean. They lived in Lake George, with its touch of salt, its faint surge of tide. They lived in the tidal rivers, and in a few fresh-water rivers where flowing springs and swift currents pleased them as well as the ocean, and from which they might leap, as they were doing now, in tensile silver arcs.
Penny said, "Hit's plain as day. Lake George backed up Juniper Creek, and the creek backed up, and the spring overflowed onto the parairie. And here's mullet."
Buck said, "We got a new parairie then. Mullet Parairie. And look at them bears—"
Mill-wheel said, "Hit's bear Heaven. Well, men, how many do we want?"
He sighted his rifle experimentally. Jody blinked his eyes. He had never seen so many bears at once in his life, except in dreams.
Penny said, "Don't let's be hogs about it, even if 'tis bears."
Buck said, "Four'll do us for a while."
"One'll do the Baxters. Jody, you want to kill a bear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well—Now men, if it's agreeable, we'll pick our shots here and spread out a leetle. Somebody'll be obliged to git a second shot. Mebbe three, do Jody miss."
He assigned Jody the closest shot. It was a large fellow, probably a male.
Penny said, "Now Jody, you ride to the left a mite, 'til you git a bead on his cheek. When I give the word, ever'body'll fire. If he's moved by that time, take the best head shot you kin git. And if his head's down, and hid from you, aim for his middle and one of us'll finish him after."
Buck and Mill-wheel indicated their choices and the group spread cautiously in both directions. Penny lifted his hand. They halted. Jody was trembling so violently that when he lifted his gun he could see nothing in front of him but a blur of water. He forced himself to steady his aim. His bear was quartering from him, but he was able to draw a bead on the left cheek from the rear. Penny dropped his hand. Guns barked. There was a second bombardment from Buck and Mill-wheel. The horses reared a little. Jody could not remember having pulled the trigger. But fifty yards in front of him a black body, that had been upright, lay half-sunk in the water.
Penny shouted, "Nice shootin', boy!" and rode forward.
The remaining bears were scrambling across the swamp like paddle boats, churning the water behind them. It would take a long shot now to bring one down. Again Jody was amazed at the speed of the bulky bodies. The first shot of each man had been accurate and deadly. Buck and Mill-wheel had only wounded on their second shots. The dogs, kept at heel, broke into bedlam. They barked in a frenzy and dashed into the water. It was too deep for wading and too thick with growth for swimming. They were forced to retreat, shrill with frustration. The men rode in close on the two wounded animals. They fired again and the game lay still. The unharmed bears were vanishing before their eyes. No game was quicker or cleverer.
Buck said, "Now we never figgered on gittin' these scapers outen the water."
Jody had eyes only for his own kill. He could not believe that he had done it. Here lay food for the Baxter table for a fortnight, and it was of his providing.
Mill-wheel said, "We best go back home and git a yoke o' oxen."
Penny said, "Tell you. You got five to haul and we ain't got but the one. Now I'm satisfied with the hunt, and I'm satisfied we all know for a while where to look for the game. Do it suit you, you he'p me and Jody with this un o' his, and leave me keep this horse a day-two, and we'll jest go on our way and you go yours."
"Suits us."
Penny said, "You'd think men our age would of thought to of throwed in a rope."
"Who'd of guessed the hull blasted scrub was under water?"
Buck called, "Our legs is longer'n you Baxters'. You stay in the saddle."
Penny was already on his feet. The water was over his knees. Jody was ashamed to stay on his horse as though he were a child. He too slid off into the water. The bottom was firm. He helped drag his bear to high ground. The Forresters seemed unaware that it was important that he had shot it, for it was his first. Penny touched his shoulder, and that was praise enough. The bear would weigh better than three hundred pounds. They agreed that it was best to halve it lengthwise so that the portions might easily be thrown over the rumps of the two horses. They skinned it and were surprised at its fatness, when deer and panther were so lean. The bears must have fed here through the latter days of the storm.
Old Cæsar jumped and shied when the half of the long frame was thrown across him. The taint of the hide was not to his liking. He had smelled the rank odor too often through alarmed nights at the clearing. Once a bear had climbed into the lot and was in the stall with him before Penny, awakened by his whinnying, had come to him. The Forrester horse was better able to carry the extra load in any case and the bear hide was added to Penny's portion. Buck and Mill-wheel turned their horses' heads toward home.
Penny called, "Turn your hames backward and the oxen kin haul all the load to oncet. Come see us."
"You come."
They lifted their hands and were gone. Penny and Jody jogged after them. They would all use the same trail for some miles, but the Forresters, unburdened, on their fast horses, were already far ahead. To the east, they came out on the trail toward home. The going was slow and troublesome. Old Cæsar would not follow behind the bear hide. But when Penny had Jody ride ahead, the Forrester horse insisted on taking the lead. There was a constant struggle. At last, through Juniper Prairie, Penny touched his heels to the horse and took a long lead. With the bear hide out of sight and smelling, old Cæsar was content to trot along reasonably. At first Jody was uneasy, alone in the new wilderness of water. Then, with his bear meat behind him, he felt bold again, and mature.
He had thought that he wanted to hunt forever. But when the tall trees of Baxter's Island drew in sight, and he passed the path to the sink-hole and came to the split-rail fences of his father's fields, he was glad to be coming home. The fields were desolate from the waste of waters. The yard was swept barren. But he was coming in with meat that he had killed for the family, and Flag was waiting.
