Me and Jinx both looked at Mama.
“I’ve said it now,” Mama said, “and though it makes me feel better, I prefer not to say it again, and would like to ask you to not remember I said it the first time.”
The rain had started to slacken, and we could see the sun real good from that window, rising up in a thin gold line, dragging more blood-red light behind it. I closed the shutters and locked them.
I said, “There ain’t no pattern to him. He’s on deck all the time. Any other body would sleep sometime. But night or day, rain or dry, it don’t affect him. How are we to deal with someone like that?”
I was starting to get a little crazy, and I had to make myself quit chattering like a squirrel.
Jinx went over and sat down cross-legged on the floor, laying the pistol across her lap. “There ain’t but a couple ways for us to do, Sue Ellen,” she said. “Someone has to go on into Gladewater and get help, or we all need to go. Or maybe there’s a third idea, and that one is we split up and strike out in different directions, but that idea only works if Terry can go along, and he can’t.”
“So that brings us back to the first two,” I said.
“It does,” Jinx said.
“But if someone stays here with Terry,” Mama said, “Skunk will eventually get in the house. One person can’t watch both rooms and go without sleeping.”
“Or the house will dry up and he’ll set fire to it, burn it down,” Jinx said.
“I believe I have a say in this,” Terry called from the bedroom, throwing back the covers with his good hand. He was wearing only his shorts, trying to put his feet on the floor.
He started to walk toward us, but didn’t get too far. He had to go back and sit on the bed. Jinx went in there and laid the pistol on the bed, helped him swing his feet back up, and covered him. We all went in there and sat on the bed by him.
“You couldn’t whip a kitten if we tied one of its paws behind its back and put out one of its eyes,” I said. “Lay down and rest some.”
“All I do is rest,” Terry said.
“All you’re up for just right now,” Jinx said.
I thought for a moment, said, “That log down there by the river. That could be a way.”
“Log?” Mama said.
“It was there when we found the fish,” I said. “We could use it to sail down the river. Me and Terry did a similar thing.”
“I had two arms then,” Terry said.
“That’s true. But I think someone walking out-that’s not so good, provided they’re trying to get to Gladewater. I don’t think it’s real far by river, but on foot it might be a distance. All of you could stay here, and I could take the pistol and make a break for it, get to that log, push off and make it downriver to Gladewater, get some help. One person can make it easier than a bunch.”
“That doesn’t sound like that good a plan,” Jinx said.
“I have to agree,” Terry said.
“Me, too,” Mama said.
“I’m a fast runner, and if I can get down to the river and push the log off, and if Skunk ain’t right on top of me, and the water is running swift, I can get away.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Mama said.
“If we stay here, we’re all dead,” I said. “I’ll take the hatchet. I’m more likely to hit something with that, since I ain’t a good shot. And the hatchet ain’t so heavy.”
I went over and grabbed up the hatchet by the fireplace. Mama said, “Now? You’re going now?”
“Time ain’t going to get no better,” I said. “I figure Skunk ain’t going to expect me running for the river when I got a perfectly good cabin to hole up in. That gives me an edge.”
“That’s not much of an edge,” Terry said.
I hugged Mama and Jinx, and went into the bedroom and hugged Terry.
“You don’t have to do this,” Mama said as I came back into the main room.
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
I went to the door and Jinx and Mama followed.
“Be alert,” Terry called out from the bedroom.
I took a deep breath, told Jinx, “You open it, and I’m going to take off running.”
She opened it, and I broke like a wild mustang, heading straight for the river, carrying that hatchet. It looked like good free running. I didn’t see any sign of Skunk. All I saw was the slope of the hill that led down to the water. The grass was green and the wind was cool on account of last night’s rain. I was almost enjoying myself. I was beginning to think things was going to be hunky-dory. That I was going to make that river and that log without so much as a grasshopper smacking into me, but right about then, coming out of the woods on my right, I seen him.
Now, it generally figures that things are scarier in the dark, which is how I had seen him before, at night, running along the bank, carrying a hatchet, same as I was now. But in the daylight, I got to tell you, he looked even scarier.
He was big and stout and was carrying the cane knife. He had on that derby and his hair was all coiled out from under it, twisted up and full of pine needles and leaves and dirt and such; that bird was there, too, dangling. There was a wink of light on his hat, which I seen now had a string fastened to it and was tied under his chin. That wink of light was Constable Sy’s badge pinned to the front of the hat. He had a necklace made out of the hands he had recently chopped off, them that was Constable Sy’s and Gene’s, and the old woman’s, and the blackened hand that had belonged to Terry; all of them had a strand of leather run through them, and they flapped against his chest as he run, like they was birds attacking him. He didn’t have his pack on his back, having laid it aside somewhere, and there wasn’t nothing to slow him down. His mouth was open and he had surprisingly good white teeth, and plenty of them. He was making a sound like someone trying to gargle with a turnip; that made the whole story about him having his tongue pulled out make sense. But that wasn’t my concern then. My concern was the path in front of me and the river beyond that and that damn log. I could tell right away I wasn’t going to make it.
I knew, too, if I turned around and tried to run back to the house I wouldn’t make it there, either. He’d be on me with that cane knife.
I veered off toward the briar patch. It wasn’t a good idea, but when I seen Skunk coming fast, I didn’t have no more thought than that. I had to dive in or take that cane knife twixt the ears.
Just before I got to the briar patch, I looked back and seen Skunk with his cane knife raised, and glory hallelujah, he was right on me. And then there came a crack, and all of a sudden Skunk stiffened and then went down. I hesitated, looked toward where the sound had come from. I could see shutters thrown back on the house, Jinx’s shiny black face at the window, that big revolver propped on the windowsill. That was a far and good and unlikely shot, considering she hadn’t been able to hit him on the roof or at the window. It wasn’t no more than blind luck, and it just as easily might have hit me.
Still, it wasn’t a finisher. It was a flesh wound. Skunk got up and started after me again, walking like he had one foot hung up in a bucket of mud. I heard another shot crack, but this one didn’t hit Skunk. It whined off toward the river.
I dove into them briars, swinging the ax, trying to chop a way through. All that was doing was slowing me down. I ducked and went through that shallow spot in the briars I had seen before, thinking that might get me away from him, but I could hear him coming, breathing heavy, making a sound that was godawful. I thought at first it was from pain, but it come to me that it was from anger. He was trying to yell at me with no tongue.
The briars and vines and bushes got thick, and I had to duck more than before to go through, and soon as I ducked, I heard a whistling sound pass over where my head had been. I knew by just sheer luck I had missed getting my head chopped off.
I hustled on through that low place on my hands and knees. Skunk grabbed one of my feet, tried to pull me to him. I kicked back, and my old shoe come loose of me, and I escaped.
The tunnel of briars was real narrow now, but that darn Skunk was getting through, coming close, smelling like an open grave. I kept scuttling, and finally the briars widened and there was room to move around, but I felt like one of those fish that had got in a trap and couldn’t go back.
Getting to my feet, I tried to run, but there was just enough vines to tangle and trip me up. I almost dropped
