Alabama Moon (25 page)

“Yessir.”

“Let me get dressed, and we'll be on our way.”

A half hour later we were in Mr. Wellington's truck and headed for the Talladega National Forest. After a few minutes, he leaned over the seat and rolled down my window. The morning was cool and humid, and the wind felt good on my face. He took a cigar out of the glove box and stuck it in his mouth. As he chewed it, I realized where the pleasant smell of the truck came from.

“You've got a fancy new truck.”

“I'd rather have an old one.”

“Why don't you get one? You're rich.”

“Maybe I will.”

I looked over at him. He continued to stare at the road ahead. “It's a long way in there to get that gun, you know, ” I said.

“How old do you think I am?” he asked.

“Pretty old.”

Mr. Wellington laughed. “I think we need to teach you some tact before we put you in front of a judge.”

“All I asked for was to go to jail.”

“Because you don't know any better.”

I studied his face. “Pap never did like the law.”

“I've gathered that.”

“All you do for a livin' is the law.”

“That's right. However, what I do is a lot different from what policemen and constables do. They enforce the law; I just explain it to people.”

“How about explainin' it to me? How come Pap hated it?”

“Well, the law is just the rules that most of the people in the country decide that everyone has to obey. There are people like your father who don't like being told what to do. They don't like to obey the rules.”

“How come?”

“I don't know. People have got different reasons.”

“How do you learn what the rules are? I haven't meant to do anything wrong ever since Pap died, and people are chasin' me all over.”

Mr. Wellington chuckled. “I guess that's why you're so famous, Moon. Everybody wants to hear about how a child can be raised out there in that forest with no sense of the rules.”

We pulled over and got six sausage biscuits at a drive-through restaurant. I ate two of them before I spoke another word.

“Save some for lunch,” Mr. Wellington said.

He reached over and took the biscuit wrappers from me and stuffed them into a bag. He pulled a black box from under the seat and pressed a button on it and set it on the dashboard. “I need you to tell me everything about what happened to you out there, Moon. I need you to start from the night you broke out of Pinson.”

“You wanna know how Kit got over the fence and how we got the bus?”

“Everything. This is not going to be an easy case to make.”

“What's that thing?”

“It's a tape recorder. You can talk to it and it remembers what you say.”

“Talk to it?”

“That's right.”

I started telling the tape recorder everything I could remember. Mr. Wellington kept his eyes on the highway and sometimes he'd nod and sometimes he'd smile, but he never interrupted me. One time he pulled over to the side of the road to look at a map.

“You lost?”

“No. Keep talking.”

When I finally got to the part where he found me on the leash with Sanders, I stopped. Mr. Wellington reached in front of me and pressed another button. “That's quite a story,” he said.

“It gonna remember all that?”

“It'll remember it.”

We pulled over next to where the tram road met the blacktop, and Mr. Wellington looked past me and out the window. “This it?”

“Yessir. About five miles or so up into those hills.”

Mr. Wellington got a small backpack out of the truck and put a camera, the rest of the biscuits, and two water bottles into it.

“We've got a good drinkin' creek at the shelter,” I said.

He zipped the pack and put it on. “Just in case,” he replied.

I shrugged and the two of us started up the tram road. Mr. Wellington didn't walk fast, but he didn't need to stop and
rest much, either. Sometimes I'd get too far ahead of him and have to sit down and wait. Only once did he catch up to me and lean against a tree and take a sip of water.

He screwed the top of the water bottle back on and wiped his eye with one finger and said, “I can't believe you dragged your friend Kit all this way.”

“I was scared. You get stronger and quicker when you're scared.”

“Adrenaline,” he said.

“That's what Pap called it. Said if I had enough adrenaline I could whip anybody.”

He put the water bottle back in the pack and walked past me. “I wish you'd stop relying on that advice so much,” he said. “Come on.”

It was noon by the time we made it to the shelter. I looked around and saw our fire pit, cold and rain-spattered in the center. Several strips of jerky were still hanging on my meat racks. A breeze licked at the treetops and made the place seem quiet and strange. Once again, I felt that the forest had forgotten about me. It seemed distant and untouchable.

Mr. Wellington stood for a moment, his hands at his sides and his eyes looking over what Kit and I had lived in. “Not much room in that thing,” he said.

“Stays warm that way.”

He shook his head. “How many ticks and redbugs did you bring out with you?”

“Everybody sure does hate ticks and redbugs.”

“I'm no exception.”

“They don't bother me much.”

I climbed into the shelter and found the pistol in its hiding
place under the marsh grass. I also saw the two deerskin hats we'd made, and I got those as well. When I crawled back out, I gave Mr. Wellington the pistol and put one of the hats on my head. He stared at me as I adjusted it. “They're going to convict you for sure with that thing on.”

“I made 'em.”

“I assumed you did.” He looked at the pistol. “And this is what you took from Sanders?”

“Yessir.”

He took off the backpack and unzipped it. Then he put the pistol inside and removed one of the water bottles. He straightened up and took two large gulps before handing the water over to me. “Let's eat those biscuits,” he said.

After lunch, Mr. Wellington stood and stuffed the trash into his pockets.

“Okay,” he said. “Where is the log you shot?”

We walked to where I had shot the pistol at the rotten log, and Mr. Wellington took pictures of it. After he was done, he picked it up and broke off the ends so that he was left with only the middle section that I'd shot. He put this under his arm and tucked the camera away. “Now,” he said, “take me to where you met with Sanders.”

I nodded and set out for the place on Deer Creek where Kit and I had trapped him. I had to keep stopping and waiting for Mr. Wellington to catch up as I ducked my way through the forest. Eventually, we came to the spot. The ground had aged and showed no sign of a struggle, but Mr. Wellington took pictures anyway.

“So this is where you trapped him?”

“Yessir.”

“And you hooked a log up to his feet, and it dragged him into the water down there?”

“That's right. He held on for a while, and that's when I took his pistol. Then he got pulled into the creek and floated away.”

“You're sure that's what happened?”

“Yessir.”

“I just find it hard to believe that you could pull off such a stunt. Someone as big as Sanders, and all.”

“It doesn't matter how big they are, as long as you get the right trap rigged.”

“Very well,” he said. “We'll go with what you told me.”

Mr. Wellington took more pictures and studied the surrounding forest. Finally, he put up his camera, and asked me if there was anything else I'd forgotten to tell him.

“Nossir. I told you everything.”

“Okay, then, I'll see what I can do with this.”

It was late afternoon when we made it back to the highway. Mr. Wellington said he would turn me in at the Tuscaloosa County courthouse so that we wouldn't have Sanders's father for a judge.

“You think Sanders's pap is like Sanders?”

“I don't know, and we won't take any chances. I'll drop you off and get these pictures developed and start working on the case. I imagine it won't be long before Sanders finds out where you are and all hell breaks loose.”

“What are you gonna do with those pictures?”

“I don't know yet. I'll have to see how they come out, and I'll need some time to study them. But I'll think of something.”

“What are you gonna try and do for me?”

Mr. Wellington looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “I'm going to try to clear you of attempted murder.”

I shrugged. “All right. It doesn't make a difference to me. Law's gonna be after me no matter what. One place is as good as another if you've gotta be locked away.”

“Well, maybe we can keep you from getting locked away.”

“Nowhere else for me to go.”

Mr. Wellington put the cigar back into his mouth and chewed it. “We'll just have to see about that,” he said.

We got to the courthouse right before it closed. The clerk took me from Mr. Wellington and sent me with a policeman to jail. The policeman put me on the backseat of his car without handcuffs. After we pulled out of the parking lot, he looked at me in the rearview mirror. “You been hidin' out in the forest?”

“Little bit. I've been all over.”

He looked back at the road. “What's that on your head?”

“Deerskin hat.”

“Where'd you get that?”

“Made it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I've got another one right here with the tail still on it,” and I held it up for him to see. “It's all I've got left.”

The policeman looked in the rearview mirror and studied the hat. He shook his head and turned to the road again. “You've got a fancy lawyer now, huh?”

“Mr. Wellington says he wants to help me. I don't know what he can do.”

“That constable down in Sumter County says you've been out shootin' at him and killin' his dogs. Judge Mackin won't cut you slack for that. I'd be glad that lawyer wants to help you out.”

I shrugged.

“You're not gonna bite me or nothin', are you?”

“Nossir. I'm not aimin' to try and whip up on anybody anymore. I don't aim to bust out of anywhere, either.”

“That's good.” He nodded to himself. “That's good . . . I hear you've got a mean bite.”

I was about to tell him I'd only bitten one person in my life, but I didn't. It seemed like it wouldn't do any good.

The Tuscaloosa jail was a lot bigger than the one in Livingston. There were prisoners across from me and on either side. Everybody started asking me questions right after the policeman left the room.

“Shot any people lately, kid?”

“You speak English?”

“Got any good recipe for dog?”

“What the hell's that thing on your head?”

I didn't answer them. I went to the back of my cage and lay on the cot. Before long I was asleep to it all.

That evening, the policeman who delivered me earlier brought everyone a food tray. I heard one of the other prisoners call him Officer Pete. We had pork chops and lima beans for supper. Even though it was prison food, I didn't feel like eating anything and picked through the beans with my spoon. When Officer Pete returned, I asked him if he'd heard anything from Mr. Wellington.

“Nothin', kid.”

“You think he's gonna come back?”

“I've never heard of a lawyer turnin' down a chance to make money.”

“I don't have any money.”

“Then you prob'ly won't see him again.”

Earlier, I thought I didn't care whether he helped me or not. But I was getting lonely in the jail. I wanted to see someone who didn't hate me. “How about the judge? When's he gonna talk to me?”

Officer Pete shrugged as he picked up the trays from the other prisoners. “I don't know anything about what they're gonna do to you, kid.”

“Gonna put you in a zoo!” somebody yelled.

“I'd whip your wild little ass,” said somebody else. “Screwed-up kid.”

I figured these prisoners didn't like me since I hadn't talked to them. I lay back down on my cot and stared at the ceiling. Three prisoners began playing cards down the hall from me, and another started singing. I wondered what Hal and Kit were doing. I felt like I'd never see either one of them again.

“What you doin' down there, wild boy?”

I thought about never seeing Mr. Wellington again.

“You dreamin' about dog cobbler?”

I grew queasy with loneliness, and I rolled onto my side and pulled up my knees. I lay this way long into the night, taking deep breaths and listening to the other prisoners snoring and tossing in their sleep. Somewhere at the end of the hall, a clock ticked. I heard the phone ring a couple of times in the office outside, and someone whose voice I didn't recognize
answered it. Even though I couldn't have felt any worse where I was, I knew there was no other place for me to go.

 

The next morning, I was on my back staring at the ceiling when the hall door was suddenly kicked in and slammed against the wall.

“Hey!” one of the irritated prisoners yelled.

I looked over at the doorway and saw Sanders standing there, his eyes searching each of the jail cages. His face was so swollen with oily poison ivy blisters that he squinted like the sun was in his eyes. His ears, ripped from briars, had orange medicine painted on them that made him look like he wore earmuffs. His hands trembled at his sides. I might not have recognized him had I not been expecting him.

Eventually, his eyes came around to my bed and rested on me. He didn't say a word, but walked over to the bars of my cage and stood there.

I sat up and stared at him. “You got lost out there again, didn't you?” I said.