we went. I watched for alligators but didn’t see any. A big old water moccasin about the width of an inner tube from a bicycle tire and about as long and thick as my arm swam by, but it didn’t pay us any mind.
I don’t know how long we went along like that, but it was a good ways. The farm was no longer visible. All there was now was lots of water and trees growing up out of the swamp. I had no idea where we were. For all we knew, the swamp could go like that for miles and miles. I hated it that we had gotten separated from Jane and Tony, and I figured they was as lost as us. The idea of something happening to them was overwhelming. But there was no way to look for them right then, and I had no idea which direction they had taken. At least for the time being, it was more important to take care of Gasper, and doing that didn’t allow me a lot of room for anything else, even worrying about my friends.
After a while Gasper’s limp got worse. I tried to carry him on my back, but he and I were about the same size, and I might as well have been trying to carry a water buffalo.
Resting more often, we finally made it to where the water got thinner and the land got more solid. Eventually we were on dry land. We laid out on it and rested until the sun was almost down.
When I got up, Gasper couldn’t.
He pulled up his pants leg and I took a look. It was swollen and was still red, and now there were black streaks under his skin. There were a few pellets that had worked their way to the surface. He pinched a couple of those out.
“Your hands aren’t clean,” I said. “Don’t.”
“It hurts something awful, Jack. I don’t think I can go on. This time, you got to listen. You got to leave me.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Why the hell would you stay here with me?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“We don’t know each other that well,” he said.
“After what we been through together, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. You’re right. We’re friends. I ain’t never had a white friend before.”
“And I ain’t never had a gunshot friend, so that makes us even. You can’t go on, maybe I should look and see if I can find help. I’ll be back, though, you can count on it.”
“I believe you.”
I gave him a pat on the back. “Hold on, buddy. I’ll see what I can find.”
40
I went through the woods, making sure to stop and figure out how to find my way back to Gasper. I made a few marks with sticks, by breaking them off and poking them up in the ground, and I scooped out some dirt with my heels, mounding it up. I had me a kind of map, that way. Something I felt I could follow back.
The day was hot, and I was feeling sticky and weak, so I sat down on the ground for a rest. When I looked up, the biggest, ugliest dog I’ve ever seen was peeking out at me from between some trees. He was bigger than a wolf, and his fur was all twisted up and had briars and such in it, and he looked blue. He had a head about the size of a hog’s head, and he looked strong enough to drag me off into the woods and eat me and make me like it.
I said, “Dog, if you’re going to eat me, then get it over with. I’m hungry, thirsty, and tuckered out. I ain’t got no fight left in me.”
When I spoke, the dog stuck out his tongue and dropped his head, and came out of the trees wagging his tail.
“You just look like a bad dog, don’t you.”
He came to me. I was still too tired to stand. I reached out and patted him on the head. When I pulled my hand back, it stunk like a dead skunk.
“Whoa. You are stinky, aren’t you?”
I got up and started walking again. Stinky walked with me. I didn’t know where he had come from or if he belonged to someone, but I won’t lie, I was glad for company.
Coming to a fork in the trail, I turned right, and the dog didn’t go with me. He whined and barked. When I looked back, he was standing right where the trail forked.
“What’s with you, Nasty?” I said.
He barked at me.
I went back and gave his stinky head a pat. He started down the fork to the left, turned and looked at me, and barked.
I got it. He lived the other way. And if he lived with someone, that was the way I ought to go.
“All right,” I said, “Lead the way, Nasty.”
He turned and bolted down the trail, and I went after him.
41
I smelled fish cooking, and then the dog ran up over a rise, and when I came down on the other side, I saw a clearing in the trees, and there was a cabin there with a couple of old pickups sitting out beside it. Smoke was coming out the chimney, and there were people on the porch.
One of the people was a colored man in overalls and lace-up boots. He saw Nasty coming before he saw me, and then when he saw me, the others on the porch looked. As we got closer, I saw that the others were Jane and Tony. I was so excited and happy my heart skipped a beat.
Jane jumped up off the porch and ran out to meet me, threw her arms around me, and kissed me on the cheek.
“We was afraid you got shot, or drowned, or a snake got you.”
“Nearly got shot. Nearly drowned. Saw a snake. Alligator ate Big Bill.”
“Wow,” Jane said. “Where’s Gasper?”
“He got shot and couldn’t walk. I left him to look for help.”
The big colored man, who was even bigger close up, came out to me and said, “You say someone was shot?”
I explained what had happened.
“You should grab something to eat,” he said, “and then we can go.”
“I can’t leave him there while I eat. We got to get him now.”
The colored man, who told me his name was Junior, went to the back of his house and came back with a wheelbarrow.
“We’ll tote him in this,” Junior said.
“Thanks, Mr. Junior.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hadn’t been for your dog, I wouldn’t have found you.”
“That’s not my dog.”
“No?”
“I just let him stay around. He come up one day, been here ever since.”
I started leading the way and the others followed.
It was a long way back, and when we found Gasper, he was worse. He had a fever and was talking out of his head. I got hold of his feet and Junior got his shoulders, and we lifted him into the wheelbarrow.
The ground was soft, and that made it tough going with the wheelbarrow, but Junior didn’t seem to mind. He acted like he could do that all day.
Nasty trotted along just ahead of us, as if he was an official guide.
It was late afternoon by the time we got back to Junior’s house, and I was starved. While Junior and Jane took Gasper inside, I sat on the porch and picked at a bony fish that tasted about as good as anything I’d ever ate. When I finished up I went inside. Gasper was stretched out on the bed on his stomach, and Junior had cut his pants leg open with a knife. He was heating the knife in a candle flame when I went in. When it was clean by fire, he poured some whiskey from a bottle over it, then poured some on Gasper’s legs. Gasper jumped and said something
