“One day he found himself in the darkest part of the forest, a place he had never been before. So dark it was hard to see where one tree ended and another tree or the night between them took up. Great trees leaned crazily over him, curtains of moss bending the boughs almost to the ground. Exposed roots lay everywhere like amputated knees and elbows, and he had to walk carefully so as not to fall flat on his face.
“He was hungry now, hungrier than he could remember ever being before. That’s when he found the root. It looked so juicy and tender, but when he stooped down to examine it, he saw that it looked like somebody’s big toe.”
Joe Manors chuckled softly, but Ben Taylor detected a strain in the laugh. This was a part of the story Ben recognized, and it made him think about the fun of the rest of the tale. But everything else about the story was so strange and disturbing, he was having a hard time enjoying it. This wasn’t like one of Charlie’s stories. This wasn’t like Charlie at all.
“He hesitated picking up the root, or the toe—it was really hard to tell for sure which it was, it was caked with so much dirt. But he was so hungry. He popped the toe in his mouth and began to chew, thinking it mighty delicious.”
Ben smiled.
“He started to walk away then, and he heard this faint voice that he’d heard before whispering, ‘Where is my to-o-o-o-e?’
“He turned around quick when he heard that, but there was no one around to be seen. Then he looked down at the ground. The dirt was stirring around the hole where he’d pulled up that root, and suddenly this voice came, a groanin’ and a creakin’ up out of that hole, saying ‘Where is my to-o-o-o-e?’
“So he took off running.”
Joe Manors poked Ben in the ribs with his elbow.
“That old man ran as fast as he could, leaping over logs and dodging branches, trying his damnedest to get away from that voice, but he kept hearing it, ‘Where is my to-o-o-o-e?’ over and over again. Sometimes he’d look back over his shoulder and never see anything coming, but he’d always hear that voice, and sometimes the sound of crashing footsteps, and sometimes branches being snapped in two, and sometimes water splashing.”
Staring into Charlie’s burning eyes through the campfire, Ben was sure Charlie didn’t even know where he was. The hounds were wailing their excitement, getting closer now.
“Finally he stumbled into where he’d been staying that season, a cave hollowed out by hand in the riverbank, brush piled here and there to hide it from the other animals.”
“Other animals, Charlie?” Joe Manors said. Ben grabbed his arm and Joe shook it off. “But Ben… he said other animals. But it’s a man he’s talking about, ain’t it?” Ben gestured at the woods around them. The hounds were nearby, baying as if half-crazed.
Charlie’s voice was getting louder, even louder than the hounds. The two men stopped tussling and listened.
“But he kept hearing it. ‘Who’s got my to-o-o-o-e? Who’s got my to-o-o-o-e?’ getting closer and closer, the branches crashing all down the riverbank, the mud slapping and the grass groaning as the thing approached.
“Finally it was right outside. The old man shook and cried. The brush in front of the opening was swept away. He smelled stinking breath.
“He saw a face, wild, bleeding, full of sores, hair matted with mud. ‘YOU HAVE!’ the face shouted, and the breath was like a dozen corpses set out to rot a month in the summertime.
“Then the thing stepped in. There was a bloody stump where the big toe should’ve been. It was then the old man realized what he was looking at, what it was like looking at this horrible, stinking thing that had just come up out of the ground, come up like some crop grown from rocks and roots and garbage.”
Charlie looked across the campfire at the two men with dull, heat-seeking eyes. “It was like looking in the mirror.”
He stopped, looking up at the two men in surprise. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember just how he had told that story, but somehow he knew he had told it wrong. What was the matter with him? Was he getting old or what?
Two hounds burst into the center of the campsite; one of them, a black-and-tan, stumbled over the flames, yowling when its hair was singed. The rest of the pack exploded then out of the night and fog, mouths gaping, teeth gnashing, circling the fire as if panic-stricken, searching, searching…
“Where’s the damn bear!” Amos shouted, coming into the light. “We tracked him right here!”
“Ain’t no bear here, Mr. Nickles,” Joe said.
“Hell, them dogs know better!” Jake was suddenly behind them, shouting, tossing his gun around dangerously. “Bear’s gotta be here somewhere! They got his smell! Just look at ‘em!”
The dogs did seem to be hot on the trail, but a trail that ended right in the middle of their campfire. Ben and Joe looked around in confusion. Jake and Amos were angry, shouting, cursing the dogs and the fog. Charlie Simpson just sat there, still staring into the flames, all life gone from his face.
Then they heard it. A sound like a wild man howling from deep down inside his belly. Turning into a growl. Bear.
The hounds raced around the fire and off into the darkness, Amos and Jake running and shouting behind them. Ben Taylor found himself crazily trying to figure out where all the hounds had come from instead of looking for the bear—he’d never realized Amos Nickles had so many. Blueticks and Walkers were most prevalent, but there were black-and-tans, Plotts, and redbones, too. Just about every kind of dog you could work on a bear. The last few almost knocked poor Charlie into the fire, and Joe and Ben ran to help him to his feet.
Incredibly, the dogs had the bear treed halfway up an oak only thirty feet or so away from the campfire. As if he’d been spying on the hunting party.
“That’s it, Flap! That’s it, boy!” Amos was shouting at his lead pull dog, a handsome Walker almost mad with the chase. All the dogs looked mad, Ben thought, that glassy look, the scarred and flattened muzzle, grasshopper legs shaking like a spastic, thin tail whipping, nose snorting and popping like some machine run far past its limits. And no wonder—dogs like these were kept penned up all year waiting for such rare chances at action. They couldn’t even forage their own food when lost in the woods.
Amos ran to the tree and began thumping the trunk with a stick. The bear howled above him, trying not to look straight down. The hounds swirled around the tree flashing wet hide; the men circled with lanterns in hand.
Charlie walked tentatively to the outer edge of the maelstrom of men and hounds. He strained for a look at the bear.
He could smell it all the way from where he was standing. Suffocating. The bear’s head lifted, the muzzle bloody, drooling sputum, crawling with insects. Eating carrion, Charlie thought, and wondered briefly whose carrion it might be. A disgusting wall of smell. He’d never encountered anything like it.
Then, amazingly, the bear dropped to the ground, into the center of the maelstrom. The pull dogs screamed and leaped at the standing black form. “Pulling fur,” they called it. But it was something much uglier than that. The dogs wanted to rip this manlike creature’s heart out, render his flesh. Charlie thought, sickened, this bear was just a stand-in for man; it was a man these dogs were ripping apart, avenging themselves for having been chained so long.
The bear charged in jackhammer assaults. Yiiiiiiii as one dog was clipped. A scream as another was held and chewed. Another scream. Then another. Charlie couldn’t believe it. With that many dogs a bear would never focus on one individual’s damage. But this one, doing it again and again—he had to be crazy. Or vengeful. Something wrong here…