Mungus: Book 1 (20 page)

             
Next, we went to Burl’s garden and we helped him pick out ripe vegetables.  His garden was huge, spanning several acres with carefully marked wooden signs indicating what everything was.  Carrots, potatoes, onions.  In the middle was a great tree that looked just like the one that Saul and I had slept in after we left the farm.  For the next hour we walked around filling baskets to the top with fruits and vegetables to be either eaten or canned for the winter.  When we were done it was the middle of the day and the sun was high and hot.

             
“Ready to fish?” Burl asked.

             
We followed him as he limped throughout his grassy land to a huge lake in the middle of the woods.  “Wow,” said Saul.

             
“It’s pretty, aren’t it?”

             
The water gleamed blue and white with gentle waves chopping up and down across the surface.  Burl coughed and then limped off on his cane to a wooden shed fifty yards off of the water.  He undid the top latch and opened it.  “This is where I keep my poles.”  He pushed the door open and we entered.

             
The shed smelled of must and sawdust.  Dim light leaked in through a crooked window yellow from dirt and spider webs.  The place was full of stuff.  Bags of dirt, canned fruits and vegetables, hoes, shovels, fishing poles, a metal tackle box and…

             
Saul gasped and pointed.  “Are those baseball bats?”

             
“Sure are,” said Burl.  “I love the game.  I’ve got some balls too.”

             
I hadn’t ever seen Saul so happy.  The rest of the day was full of laughter and relaxation.  Burl sat fishing and Saul and I went off and pitched baseballs to each other.  The fish were biting well and Burl didn’t really need our help.  The bats were made of smoothed wood that Burl had carved out of tree branches and he had stitched the balls with yarn and cow hide.  We found a wide rock out in the woods and made that home plate.  Saul then counted off the steps to the pitcher’s mound and turned and pitched me balls.  I had never swung a bat before and the first hour or so was filled with hard swings where we struck nothing but air.  Saul and I alternated between pitcher and batter, the pitcher almost always winning the battle.  Then we began to make contact, nothing solid but a few grounders and pop ups here and there.  Burl laughed and seemed to enjoy watching us.  “Choke up!” he called.  “Keep your eye on it.”  “Stop turning yer’ darned foot!”

             
We played long until after the sun went down with the baseballs.  Burl occasionally called us over to help him reel in a fish and by the time the sun was going down we had seven big fish on a line, their gills moving up and down in the summer air.  Burl skinned the fish and got them ready to cook while I pitched the last few balls of the evening.

             
I had five white baseballs resting at my feet and one in my hand ready to pitch.  The sun was beginning to go down and Saul and I had already decided that after I had pitched those balls to him we would go inside.  Saul struck his batter’s stance out in front of me and I went into a clumsy wind up; trying to mimic what I had seen on the screen.  I released the ball with all of the speed I could muster and it flew towards Saul.  The ball hit the dirt and bounced out over the plate.

             
“C’mon, Walt, give me one that I can hit!”

             
Saul looked determined.  I took a step back and eyed him.  The bat swung gently back and forth behind his head.  I balanced myself on the mound, then cocked my left knee above my hip, stepped forward, and threw the ball.  It was a perfect pitch.  The laces spun around the baseball as it sped right down the middle of the plate.  Saul’s weight shifted, he twisted his bat forward and caught the ball perfectly with a crack that echoed through the still evening.

             
“Home run!” Burl called.  It was the best hit ball all day.  The ball sailed at an amazing length out over the trees.

             
Saul put his hands high over his head and began to trot the bases.

             
“Yankees win!  Yankees win!  Dimaggio has done it!  Yankees win!”

14

Phlegm

              The days following were filled with hard work and laughter.  We would wake up early every morning to eat our breakfasts and go help Burl with odd jobs around the farm.  We helped him mend fences, milk cows, gather eggs, and many other things.  Most days, though, after a few hours of work Saul and I would get distracted and play catch or pirates or some other game with each other.  Burl never stopped working and even though he valued our work when we volunteered, he never scolded us or whipped us when we got distracted and went off to play.

             
We all grew healthier in that time.  Saul and I grew strong; we ate and drank full meals, and had a good amount of physical activity each day.  Our spirits were lifted and the life that was drained from the blistering sun and the fear of the whips at the farm was returned.  We became children again.  Burl grew better in a different way.  His eyes didn’t move around as much when he talked.  His body language became more natural and he smiled more.  He was happy to have us.

             
Burl always woke up before the sun, and so whenever I awoke in bed one morning and saw that it was nearly noon and Burl hadn’t woke us up, I was confused.  I sat up in my bed, slowly, careful to not disturb Saul snoring beside me.  I pushed the blankets down to my feet and slipped out off and onto the floor.

             
When I entered the kitchen there was still no sign of life.  The room was warm and sunlight gathered on the floor under the windows.  The clock ticked sleepily against the wall and dust swirled in the morning air.  I stood in the kitchen looking around for any clues as to what was going on.  Burl’s bedroom door was shut.  I had never been in there and was a bit uneasy about the idea of just opening up and walking in to see if he was okay, but I was worried about him.  In the end, thinking of him sick in there, or thinking of him falling down without a way to get back up made me more uneasy than the thought of invading his privacy.

             
The wooden floor creaked with my steps as I walked over to his door.  I turned the knob and pushed the door open.  Burl was wide awake and sitting up.  Something was wrong with him.  He was propped up on his pillows against the head board of his bed.  He was shirtless and his blankets came up to his belly button.  His body was gleaming with sweat and his face was a bright red.  Burl was humming a tune and moving his hands through the air, pinching his fingers together and then pulling back as if he were picking invisible cotton.

             
“Burl?” I said.

             
The man’s eyes looked at me.  They were wild.  His beard was a mess of tangles under his mouth.  His lip raised revealing his top teeth and he let out a feral growl.

             
“Burl?” I asked again.

             
The man continued to growl and lean forward threatening me from his bed.

             
I walked backwards on my heels and then shut his door.  I ran and woke Saul to tell him what was happening.

             
“He’s growling?” asked Saul.

             
“Yes!  He was sitting up in his bed and when I entered he seemed to not even notice me.  He was doing something with the air; he was miming something.  And then I said his name and he began to growl like a dog.”

             
“Are you sure?” Saul asked.

             
“Yes, I’m sure.  How could I be wrong about something like that?  Come with me, we’ll go look at him.”

             
A few moments later Saul and I were standing beside Burl’s bed.  The man’s demeanor had changed greatly.  His face was pale and his eyes drooped in a tired expression.  His voice was coarse and his throat was filled with phlegm.  His nose ran a green color that he kept on wiping off on his bare arm.  Besides that though, he was acting normal, just sick.  I asked him if he were okay and told him what had happened.

             
“And I was growling?”

             
“Yes.  You looked mean.”

             
“Do I look sick?  No, don’t answer that.  Of course I do.  My skin is clammy, there’s mucus in my beard, and my bed is wet from sweat.  I am sick.”

             
The ceiling in the bedroom was low and slanted with the roof above.  Saul’s head was just a few inches from the top.  “What do you have?” he asked.

             
“Mungus fever.  Have you boys heard of it?”

             
Saul shook his head.

             
“A little,” I said.

             
“Okay, I don’t have much time them.  Soon, I’ll have another episode and you never know when those will stop.  Listen to me.  Walt, I need medicine soon.  If I don’t get it, I will die.  I don’t want to die, Walt.”

I nodded and he looked at me with honest eyes.

“I need for you to go to town, go to the pharmacy and say that you need some medicine for Mungus fever.  And you will ha…”

             
I gave a nervous laugh and interrupted him, “I can’t go to town!  Don’t you remember, I’m wanted.  They’ll..”

             
“Shut up,” Burl yelled.  I froze at his anger.  “Listen to me.  I know.  I don’t have much time.  I know that you’re wanted.  Under my bed there is a suitcase.  Inside of it is a set of clothes that a little Salyer boy would wear.  Put them on.  In that dresser across from me is a shaving kit.  I haven’t used it in a while, but the razor is probably still sharp.  Walt, shave your head, put on the clothes, and go into town.”

             
“Bud I don’t know how to get…”

             
“Shhhh, I know, I know.  Time frame, remember.  The gray horse out in the pasture, the only one with a saddle on, get one him.  I’ve been takin’ him to town for years.  He knows the way there and back.  Just get on him and he’ll take ye’.”

             
“What do I do?” Saul asked.

             
“Just stay here with me.”

             
I stood looking at Burl for some time.  His face was getting red again and his fever was returning.  He shooed me away.  “Don’t stare at me, go!  Hurry!”

             
Saul and I found the shaving kit under some clothes in the dresser and under the bed was the suitcase that Burl had talked about.  Burl fell asleep soon after he had talked to us and we left the room.  We went outside and got the razor out of the kit.  It was a straight razor with orange rust gathering around it.  An old canister of shaving cream was packed in and when we shook it we found that it still had something in it.

             
“Do you know how to shave?” I asked Saul.

             
He shook his head.  “I can try.”

             
I took off my shirt and Saul poured some water over my head to make my hair wet.  Then he used a pair of scissors and cut as close to my head as possible to make it easier to shave.  My turtle necklace hung off of my neck and I never took it off.  When most of my hair was cut off he doused my head in old shaving cream and began to run the razor over my scalp.  He was careful and worked slow.  He was much taller than me, so when we both stood up my head was at a height that was easy for him to work with.

             
“Do you think that this will work?  Do you think that they won’t notice me in town?”

             
“We won’t know until we’re done,” Saul said back.

             
I was already nervous, even so far away from town.  People had said that I looked like a Salyer, but enough to go in and buy medicine unnoticed with my picture all over the place?  I did not know.

             
When my head was shaved clean Saul took off my eyebrows.  The clothes that were under Burl’s bed did look like ones that I had seen Salyer children wear.  They resembled what the guards at the Theatre wore, except they were obviously smaller.  The shirt was red with golden buttons going down the center.  The sleeves were slightly too small for me, coming just above my wrists when I held my hands down to my side, but I thought that it looked natural.  The pants were a deep red and made out of a heavy material.  Black swirls and designs ran down the side.  Inside were also black leather shoes.  They fit and I even found them to be comfortable.

             
When I was dressed and the hair on my head was all gone I stood outside of Burl’s house looking at my reflection in the window.  I couldn’t believe it; they were right.  If I saw a boy who looked exactly like me in town I would not give him a second glance.  My cheekbones were high, my face was lean, and my lips were thin like a Salyers.

             
“You look convincing to me,” Saul said.