A Far Piece to Canaan (6 page)

“I've had 'nough too,” Fred said, and picked up his fishing pole.

“Let's get out of here then,” said LD, and we started walking toward the cliff path we come down. We hadn't gone very far when Fred stopped dead.

“Wha . . . what's wrong?” LD croaked. Fred just pointed, then he took the tip of his pole and pushed back some brush. There, in a little sandy clearing, was this black dog with his head all bashed in dead and swole up with flies and maggots all over him.

“Footprints,” said Fred, pointing.

There sure was, boy. Big and barefoot all around the dog, tearing up the sand.

“Baby Jesus, help us all,” LD jabbered. “Hit's th' Devil! Let's git!” and he started running and we took off after him, leaping over logs and brush, jumping and twisting and stumbling on and on and tangling our poles until we broke through onto a bare spot and stopped, gasping for air. Fred and Lonnie and me were shaking, but LD looked like a bowl of jelly.

“Ain't ever goin' near that thing again,” LD puffed. “Hit was th' Devil killed that dog!”

“Th' Devil,” said Fred, his eyes wide. “Why you think hit's th' Devil?”

“Didn't you see?” LD said, flailing his arms. “Th' right foot was turned in and cloved?”

“All I seen was footprints,” said Fred. “I was so scared I didn't see nothin' else.”

I was scared too, but I recollected something. “Fred, I think LD's right about th' footprints. Wha'd you see, Lonnie?”

Lonnie's eyes were wide and he looked scared. I had never seen him scared before and that really bothered me. “I seen th' same thing as LD,” he said. “Th' right foot was turned in and cloved halfway't th' heel. Left foot looked okay, though.”

LD dropped his fishing pole and both of his hands went to his head. “Hit's Lucifer! Pa said hit was all th' time. He's gonna come for us; I just know it. Lordy, I don't know what t' do.”

Fred started looking around. “I don't know what t'do neither, but we can't stay here on th' low bottoms 'cause if hit was a man, he'll find us. We got t' git someplace that's safe.”

Lonnie looked up at the cliff. “They's a big old cave right up above us. I been in hit. Hit's a easy climb. Whyn't we leave the fish down't th' bottom, then climb up and figure what t' do?”

Fred looked up. “That was the one Samuel wanted t' go in. Hit's a good idea. Let's go.”

T
he cliff was a lot easier to climb than I thought it would be because it had kind of a path up it. We were inside the cave in just a couple minutes. It was big, going back fifty, sixty foot before the roof and floor come together. The place stunk something awful and everywhere you looked there was feathers and fur and bones that Lonnie said come from quail and groundhog.

“Shooee. Wonder what kind of critter's been livin' here?” said Fred.

Lonnie squatted down and looked at the bones. “Hard t' say. Some new stuff since I was here before. Prob'ly brought by a bobcat from th' looks a all these bones.”

“Yeah . . . be a good place for a bobcat,” said Fred. “Hit's a easy climb from the bottom. If hit was a she, she could get a litter here and they'd stay dry and safe unless hit rained real hard.”

While everybody was talking, I was looking further back in the cave. It was hard to see because the cave faced east and the sun was already in the west. The going was easy though because the floor was smooth rock. I went as far as possible and stepped on a wet spot with my bare feet. It was so cold I yelled. “Hey, there's water back here!”

“All of 'em has a creek in hit,” said Lonnie. “Lots of times in th' spring, after a hard rain, water shoots out these old caves like a waterfall.”

I moved my foot around. “This one ain't runnin', it's just wet.”

“Hit'll run though, if we get lots of rain,” Lonnie said, coming back toward me.

While Lonnie and I were trying to see what was in the back of the cave, LD was fooling around one of the walls. “Look at this,” he said. “There's a big old stick in here.”

“Maybe it warshed in,” I said.

“Ain't likely,” said Lonnie. “Cracks th' water runs out of are too small for a big stick.”

It got quiet, then LD spoke. “Lordy, I wonder if this here's Satan's cave.”

“Naw.” Fred laughed. “Must've been somebody up here before and left hit. Hit's a easy climb. Bring it over t' th' light, LD.”

LD started for the front of the cave and we all got there together.

“Blood!” croaked LD. “Blood 'n' black dog hair! Let's git!”

We did, boy, scrambling down the cliff as hard as we could go. At the bottom, Fred grabbed the fish and we took off for the path up.

“Hit's Lucifer!” LD screamed and pointed at some tracks coming toward where the cave was, “Hit's Lucifer! Hit's Lucifer! Hit's Lucifer!” and we run harder, shooting up the cliff path we come down. When we got to the top we kept running until we couldn't go anymore.

We must've lay on the ground ten minutes sucking air. I sat up. LD, Lonnie, and Fred were on their backs, and the fish were draped across Fred's belly with one big buffalo gone.

“Lost a buffalo, Fred,” I said.

Fred pulled the stringer up straight with both hands until he could see them all. “Must of ripped out hits gill,” he mumbled.

“Wanta go back and look for it?” I said, and we all laughed.

“Hun'ney, ain't no wild horse gonna pull me back there,” said Fred.

“Gonna do my river fishin' down below th' sandbar from now on,” said Lonnie. “Man, I ain't ever been that scared.”

“Me neither,” said LD, and he was still shaking. “You see them footprints? They was twisted and cloved! I tell you we dealin' with Lucifer here,” and he shook even harder.

That scared me silly. We never talked about the Devil at home, but I had heard a lot about him at school. Fred and Lonnie didn't seem too scared though, so I calmed down.

Fred rolled over on his side, pulled a blade of grass, stuck it in his teeth, then glanced at Lonnie. I could tell Fred was thinking. Pretty soon, he pulled some more grass and looked at Lonnie again. “You gonna tell your pa, Lonnie?”

Lonnie set up. “Hadn't thought about it.”

Little time went by and Fred pulled some more grass. “Whatcha figure he'd do?”

“Don't know,” said Lonnie, and he made kind of a choking sound.

“We talk about th' cave and th' Devil 'n' all, I'll get a hidin',” said LD. “My pa will figure I been around th' Blue Hole, and he'll ask. He knows if I lie. I promised not t' go nowhere 'round that thing. He'll beat th' tar out of me for breakin' my word.”

Fred picked a little more grass. “Yeah, hit's th' same with me, only hit'll be my ma what does th' lickin' so hit won't be too bad. She'll never let me go river fishin' again, though.”

Then I remembered what Mom said about getting into something. She wouldn't let me do anything with my buddies again and it shaping up to be such a great summer.

Lonnie swallowed. “Reckon you guys can say what y' have to,” he said, and there was that choking sound again.

By this time Fred had dug a little hole where he was pulling out grass. “Ain't no fish.”

“Huh?” said Lonnie.

I could see right off what Fred was driving at. If our folks saw these big fish they were going to want to know where we caught them and we would have to lie and say we were downstream of where we were because LD, Fred, and Lonnie weren't supposed to be anywhere around the Blue Hole. Maybe some grown-up would come upriver if they wudn't catching anything below the sandbar and see our kid tracks. They might follow the tracks to the Blue Hole. Not much was going to happen to me and Fred if our folks found out, but it was going to be bad for LD and really awful for Lonnie. That had to be the reason Lonnie choked up when he talked about it. He was brave, but he was scared. Fred was right; we had to get rid of the fish.

“We don't take nothin' home,” said Fred. “We don't have fish. We can say we was just foolin'. Ma never asks me what I was doin' if I say foolin'.”

“Mine don't neither,” said Lonnie, and LD said neither did his, and I said mine did, but that I could wriggle out of it.

“We bury 'em then,” said Fred, getting up. “They's some big rocks on a pile close t' Bess Clark's place we can roll over on th' bunch after we bury 'em. That way they won't smell as much and th' rocks will keep the varmints from digging 'em up. Then we warsh our Levi's in Cuyper Creek t' get rid of th' river smell.” Fred lifted the stringer again and shook his head. “Best mess I ever helped catch and I got to throw them away.”

“Hit's a real shame,” said LD.

“Nothin' else we can do,” said Fred with a sigh. “Let's go, boys.”

“I'm gonna cut across toward home if you guys don't need me for fish buryin',” said Lonnie, and he nodded in a different direction than we were going.

“Go ahead,” said Fred, and Lonnie drifted off toward some brush and was gone almost before I could wave goodbye. That was the way it was with Lonnie. He'd come out of nowhere and disappear the same way.

We buried the fish under the rock pile, warshed our Levi's, wrung them out and let them dry some, then the three of us went to Fred's house so everybody could see we were together.

From the gap we could see Alfred out by their hog lot gate, talking to Pers Shanks. They looked funny together. Alfred was short with thick shoulders and his waist and hind end were about the same size, while Pers was tall and skinny. The thing everybody noticed about Alfred, though, was his head was kind of square and covered with thin hair, and he always had a black stubble beard. As we got closer, we could see their mouths moving, but being out of earshot, we couldn't hear. It looked funny when Pers talked because his Adam's apple jerked up and down.

“Hidey boys,” said Pers as we come up. “What you three been up to?”

“Just foolin',” said Fred, and I could feel my belly churn.

“Foolin',” said Alfred. “Thought y'all were gonna get a mess of buffaloes t'day!”

“Nope,” said Fred, “Don't have a one.”

“Well, I swan,” said Pers. “Hear tell you three can catch fish in a rock pile,” and Alfred and Pers laughed. Me and Fred and LD nigh puked.

The three of us hung around the hog lot gate with Pers and Alfred, listening to Alfred talk about breeding the sows he had and feeding the pigs out with the corn Mr. Berman was going to let him raise, and how much money he was going to make from putting out the strawberries and how he was going to buy a team of mules. He figured with a little luck, the next year he'd get farm equipment and maybe get to rent Red Bill Rogers' place because Red Bill was stove-up. We threw around a baseball until finally I said it was starting to get late and I had promised Mom I'd get home before dark.

I climbed the hog lot gate and started down the path toward home. While I walked, I thought about what had happened. It didn't make any sense that the ghost of Mr. Collins would have all those bones in his cave since ghosts didn't eat. By the time I come to the gap I was pretty sure it wudn't a ghost at the Blue Hole. Supposing it was the Devil like LD said, though. He could come right in the house at night. Wouldn't even have to open the door. LD and Lonnie and Fred would be okay if it was the Devil because they all had crosses at their house, like in the movies where they hold up a cross and keep Dracula out. We didn't have a cross at our place. A preacher had tried to give us one, but Mom told him we didn't need it because we were Jews. Now when I needed one, I didn't have it! I was going to have to make a cross real quick.

About that time, I come to where the hickory and locust thicket ended. In the distance was our barn and house and not another tree until the yard. Lucky for me, the biggest hickory in the grove was right on the edge of the thicket and had a low dead limb. The limb was dry, but it was still tough to break. I wudn't sure a hickory cross would work, but I decided it wouldn't make any difference so long as the pieces got hooked up right. My biggest problem was I didn't have any twine to do the tying with. I figured there had to be vines somewhere, and began running from tree to tree looking. Nothing! The more I run, the more scared I got. There was still about half a mile to go and it was getting twilight and I knew Dracula always comes out when it gets dark and don't go back in until morning and maybe th' Devil too. I grabbed the sticks and held them together but they kept slipping because my hands was shaking so I whipped off my belt and started lashing the pieces together but they wouldn't stay like a cross and kept slipping like an X and I took off running as hard as I could go, my legs feeling like rocks was tied to my feet and I knew it was th' Devil because I could hear night birds and rain crows calling with low sounds and swallows flitting through the air and I was starting to cry when something big came out of the side toward my eye looking like Daisy or Gabe, our horses, but could've been, probably was, the Devil in a horse shape, until he got on me and whinnied and electric shot my body and legs and I screamed and dropped the cross and went flying over the ground, belly-rolled the gates, banged through the barn door, and almost had it made until this big Devil shaped like a cow let out a bawl and I cleared the backyard fence and busted through the screen door into the house and run behind the kitchen stove.

N
ext couple days we were real scared. Didn't make it any better for me that Mom wudn't buying my story about just fooling and kept asking why my Levi's were damp and why I wouldn't say just what kind of fooling we were doing and why I was acting so strange, which I didn't think I was until maybe I started acting strange because she thought I was acting strange. I still had nightmares about the Devil. I asked LD if a cross would help and he said it didn't matter what it was, a cross was gonna help and that he'd been sleeping with his.