A light blinked through the trees to their right, went out, appeared again, bobbing, unattached and eerie in the blackness. They could hear the dry frosted crack of sticks and brush, muted voices. The light darted out, peered again suddenly down upon them, sweeping an arc along the edge of the creek.
Howdy, a voice said.
Cas?
Yeah … that you, Marion?
Bring that light; they’re in the creek.
They came down the slope, four dismembered legs hobbling in the swatch of light as they descended.
Thow your light, Sylder said.
They came alongside, dispensing an aura of pipesmoke and doghair. The shorter one was working the beam slowly over the creek. Whereabouts? he said.
Down some. Howdy, Bill.
Howdy, the other said. In the glare emanating from the flashlight their breath was smoke-white, curling, clinging about their heads in a vaporous canopy. The oval of the flashbeam scudded down the glides against the far bank, passed, backed, came to rest on the combatants clinching in the icy water, the coon’s eyes glowing red, pin points, his fur wetly bedraggled and his tail swaying in crestfallen buoyancy on the current. The big dog was circling him warily, trudging the water with wearying paws and failing enthusiasm. They could see Lady’s ear sticking out from under the coon’s front leg, and then her hindquarters bobbed up, surging through the face of the creek with a wild flash of tail and sinking back in a soundless swirl.
Cas swung the beam to shore, scrabbled up a handful of rock and handed the light to the other man. Hold it on him, he said. He scaled a rock at the coon. It cut a slow arc in the beam and pitched from sight with a muffled slurp. The big hound started for shore and Lady’s tail had made another desperate appearance when the second rock, a flitting shadow, curving, flashed water under the coon’s face.
He turned loose and struck out downstream, stroking with the current. The big dog, on the other bank now, had set up a pitiful moaning sound, pacing, the man with the light calling to him in a hoarse and urgent voice, Hunt im up, boy, hunt im up. He turned to the men. He’s skeered of rocks, he explained.
Hush a minute, Sylder said, taking the light from him. She was already some thirty yards below them. When the light hit her she turned her head back and her eyes came pale orange, ears fanned out and floating, treading the water down before her with a tired and grim determination. She had her mouth turned up at the corners in a macabre and ludicrous grin as if to keep out the water.
Ho, gal, Sylder called. Ho, gal. They were moving down the creek too, raking through the brush. She’s fixin to drownd herself, someone said.
Ho, gal, Ho …
He never even felt the water. He couldn’t hear them any more, hadn’t heard them call since he left them somewhere back up the creek when he hit the bullbriers full tilt, not feeling them either, aware only of them pulling at his coat and legs like small hands trying to hold him. Then he was over the bank, feet reaching for something and finally skewing on the slick mud, catapulting him in a stifflegged parabola down and out into the water, arms flailing, but not falling yet, not until he had already stopped, teetering thigh-deep, and took a first step out into the current where he collapsed forward like a shot heron.
But he didn’t even feel it. When he came up again he was in water past his waist, the soft creek floor squirming away beneath his feet as if he were walking the bodies of a colony of underwater creatures clustered there. He could see a little better now. There was no light on the bank and he thought: I come down too far. And no voices, only the sounds of the creek chattering and rocking past all around him. Then he went in again, over his head this time, and came up treading water and with something heavy pushing against his chest. He got his arms under it and lifted. Lady’s head came up and her eyes rolled at him dumbly. He reached and got hold of her collar, the creek bottom coming up and sliding off under his feet, falling backwards now with the dog rolling over him and beginning to struggle, until his leg hit a rock and he reached for it and steadied himself and rose again and began to flounder shoreward with the dog in tow.
They came with the light and Sylder looked at him huddled in the willows, still holding the dog. He didn’t say anything, just disappeared into the woods, returning in a few minutes with a pile of brush and dead limbs.
One of the men was kneeling with him and stroking the dog, examining her. She looks all right, he said, don’t she, son?
He couldn’t get his mouth open so he just nodded. He was beyond cold now, paralyzed.
The other man said: Son, you goin to take your death. We better get you home fore you freeze settin right there.
He nodded again. He wanted to get up but he couldn’t bear the rub of his clothes where he moved.
Sylder had the fire going by then, a great crackling sound as the dry brush took, orange light leaping among the trees. He could see him in silhouette moving about, feeding the blaze. Then he came back. He gathered the quivering hound up in one arm and motioned for the boy to follow. You come over here, he said. And get them clothes off.
He got up then and labored stiffly after them.
Sylder put the hound by the fire and turned to the boy. Lemme have that coat, he said.
The boy peeled off the leaden mackinaw and handed it over to him. He passed it around the trunk of a sapling, gathered the ends up in his hands and twisted what looked to be a gallon of water out of the loose wool. Then he hung it over a bush. When he looked back the boy was still standing there.
Get em off, he said.
He started pulling his clothes off, the man taking from him in turn shirt and trousers, socks and drawers, wringing them out and hanging them over a pole propped on forks before the fire. When he was finished he stood naked, white as a slug in the cup of firelight. Sylder took off his coat and threw it to him.
Put it on, he said. And get your ass over here in front of the fire.
The two men were behind him in the woods; he could hear them crashing about, see the wink of their light. One of them came back toting a huge log and dropped it on the fire. A flurry of sparks ascended, flared, lost in the smoke pulling at the bare limbs overhead, returned tracing their slow fall redly through the dark trees downwind.
He sat in a trampled matting of vines, the long coat just covering his buttocks. Sylder made a final adjustment to the pole and came over. He lit a cigarette and stood regarding him.
Kind of cool, ain’t it? he said.
The boy looked up at him. Cool enough, he said.
The clothes had begun to steam, looking like some esoteric game quartered and smoking on the spit. Then he said, What’d you do with the coon?
Coon?
Yeah. The coon.
Goddamn, the boy said, I never saw the coon.
Oh, Sylder said. But his voice was giving him away. Hell, I figured you’d of got the coon too.
Shoo, the boy said. Over his teeth the firelight rippled and danced.
The two men were warming their hands at the fire, the shorter one grinning goodnaturedly at the boy. The other hound had appeared, hovering suddenly at the rim of light and snuffling at the steaming wool and then slouching past them with nervous indifference, the slack hound grace, to where Lady lay quietly peering across her paws into the fire. He nosed at her and she raised her head to look at him with her sad red eyes. He stood so for a minute, looking past her, then stepped neatly over her and melted silently into the black wickerwork of the brush. The other man moved over to her and reached down to pat her head. One ear was mangled and crusting with blood.