The Yearling

Chapter VII

A Forrester said, “Well, neighbor, let’s have the news about that tormented bear.”

Ma Forrester said, “Yes, and you scapers git the dishes washed afore you git too deep into it, too.”

Her sons rose hurriedly, each with his own plate and some larger dish or pan. Jody stared at them. He would as soon have expected them to tie ribbons in their hair. She tweaked his ear on her way to her rocker.

“I got no girls,” she said. “If these fellers wants me to cook for ‘em, they kin jest clean up after me.”

Jody looked at his father, pleading mutely that this piece of heresy be not taken home to Baxter’s Island. The Forresters made short work of the dishes. Fodder-wing hobbled after them, gathering the scraps for all the animals. Only by feeding the pack of dogs himself could he be sure of saving tid-bits for his pets as well. He smiled to himself, that there would be so much today to take to them. There was even enough cold food left for supper. Jody gaped at the abundance. The Forresters finished their work in a clatter, and hung the iron pots and kettles on nails near the hearth. They drew up their cowhide chairs and hand-hewn benches around Penny. Some lit corn-cob pipes and others shaved parings of tobacco from dark plugs. Ma Forrester lipped a little snuff. Buck picked up Penny’s gun and a small file and began to work on the loose hammer.

“Well,” Penny began, “he taken us plumb by surprise.”

Jody shivered.

“He slipped in like a shadow and killed our brood-sow. Laid her open, end to end, and only ate a mouthful. Not hongry. Jest low-down and mean.”

Penny paused to light his own pipe. The Forresters bent to him with blazing splinters of fat pine.

“He come as quiet as a black cloud, into the wind. Made a circle to git his wind right. So quiet, the dogs never heered nor scented him. Even this un — even this un—” he leaned to stroke the feice at his feet—”was fooled.”

The Forresters exchanged glances.

“We set out after breakfast, Jody and me and all three o’ the dogs. We tracked that bear acrost the south scrub. We tracked him along the edge o’ the saw-grass ponds. We tracked him thu Juniper Bay. We tracked him thu the swamp, the trail gittin’ hotter and hotter. We come up with him—”

The Forresters gripped their knees.

“We come up with him, men, right smack at the edge o’ Juniper Creek, where the water flows swiftest and deepest.”

The story, Jody thought, was even better than the hunt. He saw it all again, the shadows and the fern, the broken palmettos and the running branch water. He was bursting with the excitement of the story. He was bursting, too, with pride in his father. Penny Baxter, no bigger than a dirt-dauber, could out-hunt the best of them. And he could sit, as he sat now, weaving a spell of mystery and magic, that held these huge hairy men eager and breathless.

He made the fight an epic thing. When his gun back-fired, and old Slewfoot crushed Julia to his breast, Gabby swallowed his tobacco and rushed to the fire-place, spitting and choking. The Forresters clenched their fists, and sat precariously at the edges of their seats, and listened with their mouths open.

“Gawd,” Buck breathed, “I’d o’ loved to o’ been there.”

“And where’s Slewfoot gone?” Gabby begged.

“No man knows,” Penny told them.

There was silence.

Lena said at last, “You ain’t never oncet mentioned that dog you got there.”

“Don’t press me,” Penny said. “I done told you he’s wuthless.”

“I notice he come outen it in mighty good shape. Not a mark on him, is there?”

“No, there’s nary mark on him.”

“Takes a mighty clever dog to fight a bear and not git ary scratch on him.”

Penny puffed on his pipe.

Lem rose and walked to him, towering over him. He cracked his knuckles. He was sweating.

“I want two things,” he said hoarsely. “I want to be in at the death o’ ol’ Slewfoot. And I want that dog there.”

“Oh my, no,” Penny said mildly. “I’d not cheat you, tradin’ him.”

“No use lyin’ to me. Name your trade.”

“I’ll trade you old Rip, instead.”

“Think you’re foxy. I got better dogs than Rip right now.”

Lem went to the wall and took down from its nails a gun. It was a London Fine Twist. The double barrels shone. The stock was walnut, warm and glowing. The twin hammers were jaunty. The fittings were chased and intricate. Lem swung it to his shoulder, sighted it. He handed it to Penny.

“Right from England. No more muzzle-loadin’. Fill your own shell-cases easy as spittin’. Stick your shells in — breech her — cock her — Bam! Bam! Two shots. Shoots as true as a eagle flies. Swap even.”

“Oh my, no,” Penny said. “This here gun is valuable.”

“There’s more where it come from. Don’t argue with me, man. When I want a dog, I want a dog. Take the gun for him or by God I’ll come and steal him.”

“Well, all right, then,” Penny said, “if that’s the way it stands. But you got to promise before witnesses not to beat the very puddin’ outen me after you’ve hunted him.”

“Shake.” A hairy paw closed over Penny’s hand. “Here, boy!”

Lem whistled to the feice. He took him by the scruff of the neck and led him outside, as though fearful even now of losing him.

Penny teetered in his chair. He balanced the gun indifferently across his knees. Jody could not take his eyes from its perfection. He was filled with awe that his father had outwitted a Forrester. He wondered if Lem would keep his promise. He had heard of the intricacies of trading, but it had never occurred to him that one man could get the best of another by the simple expedient of telling him the truth.

Talk went on into the afternoon. Buck had tightened up Penny’s old muzzle-loader so that he thought it could be counted on. The Forresters were unhurried; unoccupied. Tales were told of old Slewfoot’s smartness; of other bears before him; but none so clever as he. Chases were described in every detail. Dogs twenty years dead were called by name and by performance. Fodder-wing grew tired of them and wanted to go to the pond and fish for minnows. But Jody could not bear to leave this telling of old tales. Pa and Ma Forrester chirped and shrilled occasionally, then dozed off in between, like sleepy crickets. At last their infirmities took them over, and they slept soundly, side by side in their rockers, their dried old frames stiff even in their slumber. Penny stretched and rose.

He said, “I hate to leave good comp’ny.”

“Spend the night. We’ll have a fox-chase.”

“I thank you, but I don’t like to leave my place without no man on it.”

Fodder-wing tugged at his arm.

“Leave Jody stay with me. He ain’t half seed my things.”

Buck said, “Leave the young un stay, Penny. I got to go to Volusia tomorrow. I’ll ride him by your place.”

“His Ma’ll rare,” Penny said.

“That’s what Ma’s is good for. Eh, Jody?”

“Pa, I’d be mighty proud to stay. I ain’t played none in a long while.”

“Not since day before yestiddy. Well, stay, then, if these folks is shore you’re welcome. Lem, don’t kill the boy if you try out the feice afore Buck gits him home to me.”

They shouted with laughter. Penny shouldered the new gun with his old one and went for his horse. Jody followed. He reached out one hand and stroked the smoothness of the gun.

“If ‘twas anybody in the world but Lem,” Penny murmured, “I’d be too shamed to go home with it. I’ve owed Lem a trimmin’ since he named me.”

“You told him the truth.”

“My words was straight, but my intentions was crooked as the Ocklawaha River.”

“What’ll he do when he finds out?”

“He’ll want to tear me down. And after that, I’m hopin’ he’ll laugh. Good-by, son, ‘till tomorrer. Be good now.”

The Forresters followed to see him off. Jody waved after his father with a new sense of aloneness. He was almost tempted to call him back; to run after him and climb up in the saddle and ride home with him to the snugness of the clearing.

Fodder-wing called, “The ‘coon’s fishin’ in a puddle, Jody! Come see!”

He ran to watch the ‘coon. It was paddling about in a small pool of water, feeling with its human hands for something only instinct told it could be there. He played with Fodder-wing and the ‘coon the rest of the afternoon. He helped to clean the squirrel’s box and build a cage for a crippled red-bird. The Forresters had game chickens, as wild as themselves. The hens laid their eggs all over the adjacent woods, in brierberry tangles, under piles of brush, and the snakes ate as many as the hens hatched. He went with Fodder-wing to collect the eggs. A hen was setting. Fodder-wing gave her the eggs they had gathered. There were fifteen in all.

“This un’s a good mother,” he said. It appeared that he took charge of all such matters.

Again Jody longed for something of his own. Fodder-wing would give him the fox squirrel, even, he believed, the baby ‘coon. But past experience had taught him not to aggravate his mother with another mouth, no matter how small, to feed. Fodder-wing talked to the setting hen.

“You stay on the nest now, you hear me? You hatch all them eggs into biddies. I want yellow biddies this time. None o’ them black uns.”

They turned back toward the cabin. The ‘coon came crying to meet them. It scrambled up Fodder-wing’s crooked legs and back and snugged down, clasping his neck. It closed its small white teeth over his skin and shook its head with pretended ferocity. Fodder-wing let Jody carry it to the cabin. It looked up at him with inquiring bright eyes, aware of his strangeness; then accepted him. The Forresters had scattered over their land at chores which they took leisurely, in their stride. Buck and Arch drove the penned cows and their calves to the pond to water. Mill-wheel fed the string of horses in the corral. Pack and Lem had disappeared into the dense woods north of the cabin; perhaps, Jody speculated, to their still. There was ease and abundance here, as well as violence. There were so many of them to do things. Penny Baxter carried the work of a clearing almost as large as theirs, alone. Jody remembered guiltily the unhoed rows of corn he had left behind him. But Penny would not mind finishing them.

Pa and Ma Forrester were still asleep in their chairs. The sun was red in the west. Darkness came quickly into the cabin, for the live oaks kept out light that would have been still bright at the Baxters’ clearing. One by one the brothers trooped into the cabin. Fodder-wing started up the fire on the hearth to heat the left-over coffee. Jody saw Ma Forrester open one careful eye, then close it again. Her sons piled the cold food on the table with a clatter that would have awakened an owl in the daytime. She sat up and prodded Pa Forrester in the ribs and joined the rest at their supper. This time they cleaned every platter. There was not even food left for the dogs. Fodder-wing mixed a pan of cold cornbread with a bucket of clabber and took it outside for them. He swung crookedly from side to side, tilting the bucket, and Jody ran to help him.

After supper, the Forresters smoked and talked of horses. The cattle-men in the county, and farther to the west, were complaining of a scarcity. Wolves and bears and panthers had raised havoc with the spring’s colts. The traders who came usually from Kentucky with strings of horses had not appeared. The Forresters agreed that it would be profitable to go north and west and trade for cattle ponies. Jody and Fodder-wing lost interest in the talk and went into a corner to play mumblede-peg. Ma Baxter would never have allowed pocket knives to be flipped into her clean smooth floors. Here, a few splinters more or less could make no difference. Jody sat up erect from the game.

“I know something I bet you don’t know.”

“What?”

“The Spaniards used to cross the scrub right in front of our gate.”

“Why, I knowed that.” Fodder-wing hunched close and began to whisper excitedly. “I’ve seed ‘em.”

Jody stared at him.

“What you seed?”

“I’ve seed the Spaniards. They’re tall and dark and have shiny helmets and they ride black horses.”

“You couldn’t see ‘em. There ain’t none left. They’ve done left here, jest like the Injuns.”

Fodder-wing closed one eye wisely.

“That’s what folks tell you. You listen to me. Next time you go west o’ your sink-hole — you know that big magnolia? With dogwood all around it? You look behind that magnolia. There’s allus a Spaniard on a black horse ridin’ past that magnolia.”

The hair stiffened on Jody’s neck. This was, of course, another of Fodder-wing’s tales. This was why his father and mother said Fodder-wing was crazy. But he longed to believe it. It would do no harm at least to look behind the magnolia.

The Forresters stretched and knocked out their pipes or spat out their tobacco. They went into their bedrooms, dropping their suspenders and loosening their breeches. There was a bed for each, for no two of them could sleep together in any double bed. Fodder-wing led Jody to his own bed in a shed-like room under the kitchen eaves.

“You kin have the pillow,” he told him.

Jody wondered if his mother would ask him if he had washed his feet. How freely the Forresters lived, he thought, tumbling into bed without it. Fodder-wing began a tall tale about the end of the world. It was empty and dark, he said, with only clouds to ride on. At first Jody was interested. Then the tale became dull and rambling. He dropped off to sleep and dreamed of Spaniards, riding clouds instead of horses.

He awakened with a start late in the night. Din filled the cabin. His first thought was that the Forresters were fighting again. But the shouts held a community of purpose, and Ma Forrester called encouragement. A door was banged open and several of the dogs were halloo-ed inside. A light shone in the doorway of Fodder-wing’s room and the dogs and men poured in. The men were stark naked, and they looked thinner and less bulky, but they seemed as tall as the cabin. Ma Forrester held a lighted tallow candle. Her grasshopper frame was lost inside a long gray flannel nightgown. The dogs shot under the bed and out again. Jody and Fodder-wing scrambled to their feet. No one troubled to explain the commotion. The boys followed after the hunt. It led through every room and ended with a mad exit of the dogs through the torn mosquito netting that covered one window.

“They’ll git him outside,” Ma Forrester said, suddenly placid. “Pesky varmint.”

“Ma’s got the best ear for varmints,” Fodder-wing said proudly.

“I guess anybody’d hear him did he come scratchin’ around their bed-post,” she said.

Pa Forrester hobbled into the room on his cane.

“The night’s near about done,” he said. “I’d ruther have a snort o’ whiskey than sleep agin.”

Buck said, “Pa, you got the most sense for sich a ol’ buzzard.”

He went to a cupboard and brought out the demi-john. The old man uncorked it and tipped it back and drank.

Lem said, “Don’t take no sense to crave liquor. Give it here.”

He took a deep draught and passed the jug on. He wiped his mouth and rubbed his bare stomach. He went to the wall and felt along it for his fiddle. He twanged the strings carelessly, then sat down and began to scrape a tune.

Arch said, “You ain’t got that right,” and brought his guitar and sat on the bench beside him.

Ma Forrester set the candle on the table.

She asked, “You naked jay-birds fixin’ to set up ‘till day?”

Arch and Lem were deep in their chords and no one answered her. Buck took his mouth-organ from a shelf and began a tune of his own. Arch and Lem stopped to listen, then fell in with his melody.

Pa Forrester said, “Dog take it, that’s purty.”

The demi-john went around again. Pack brought out his Jew’s-harp and Mill-wheel his drum, Buck changed his plaintive song for a lively dance tune, and the idle music swung into full volume. Jody and Fodder-wing dropped on the floor between Lem and Arch.

Ma Forrester said, “Now you needn’t think I aim to go to bed and miss nothin’.”

She unbanked the fire on the hearth and threw on fat-wood and moved the coffee-pot close.

“You hootin’ owls ‘ll eat breakfast soon this mornin’ or I’ll know why,” she said. She winked at Jody. “Kill two birds with one stone. Have a frolic and git breakfast done with.”

He winked back at her. He felt bold and gay and tremulous. He could not understand how his mother could disapprove of such frolicksome people.

The music was out of tune and thunderous. It sounded like all the wild-cats in the scrub rounded up together, but it had a rhythm and a gusto that satisfied the ear and soul. The wild chords went through Jody as though he too were a fiddle and Lem Forrester drew long fingers across him.

Lem said to him in a low voice, “Iffen I only had my sweetheart here, to sing and dance.”

Jody asked brashly, “Who-all’s your sweetheart?”

“My leetle ol’ Twink Weatherby.”

“Why, she’s Oliver Hutto’s gal.”

Lem lifted his fiddle-bow. Jody thought for an instant he meant to strike him. Then he went on with his fiddling, but his eyes smoldered.

“You say that agin in your life, boy, and you’ll not have a tongue left to say it with. Understand?”

“Yes, Lem. Could be I was wrong,” he added eagerly.

“I’m jest tellin’ you.”

He felt depressed a while, and disloyal to Oliver. Then the music caught him up again as though a great gust of wind lifted him across the tree-tops. The Forresters went from dance-tunes to songs, and Pa and Ma Forrester joined the singing with shrill, wavering voices. Daylight came, and the mocking-birds in the live oaks sang so clear and loud the Forresters heard them, and laid down their pieces, and saw the dawn in the cabin.

Breakfast covered the table with some scantiness, for a Forrester breakfast, for Ma had been too much occupied to do much cooking. The men pulled on only their breeches, for the food was ready and smoking. After breakfast, they washed above their beards, and put on their boots and shirts, and went leisurely about their day’s business. Buck saddled his big roan stallion and swung Jody up behind him on the rump, for there was not room for a feather with him in the saddle.

Fodder-wing followed limping to the edge of the clearing, with the raccoon on his shoulder, and waved his stick in farewell until they were out of sight. Jody rode home with Buck to Baxter’s Island and waved after him as he went on. He was still in a daze. It was only as he swung open the gate under the chinaberry that he remembered he had forgotten to look behind the magnolia tree for a Spaniard riding.