All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

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.