Old Yeller (8 page)

F
or the next couple of weeks, Old Yeller and I had a rough time of it. I lay on the bed inside the cabin and Yeller lay on the cowhide in the dog run, and we both hurt so bad that we were wallowing and groaning and whimpering all the time. Sometimes I hurt so bad that I didn’t quite know what was happening. I’d hear grunts and groans and couldn’t tell if they were mine or Yeller’s. My leg had swelled up till it was about the size of a butter churn. I had such a wild hot fever that Mama nearly ran herself to death, packing fresh cold water from the spring, which
she used to bathe me all over, trying to run my fever down.

When she wasn’t packing water, she was out digging prickly-pear roots and hammering them to mush in a sack, then binding the mush to my leg for a poultice.

We had lots of prickly pear growing close to the house, but they were the big tall ones and their roots were no good. The kind that make a good poultice are the smaller size. They don’t have much top, but lots of knotty roots, shaped sort of like sweet potatoes. That kind didn’t grow close to the house. Along at the last, Mama had to go clear over to the Salt Licks to locate that kind.

When Mama wasn’t waiting on me, she was taking care of Old Yeller. She waited on him just like she did me. She was getting up all hours of the night to doctor our wounds, bathe us in cold water, and feed us when she could get us to eat. On top of that, there were the cows to milk, Little Arliss to look after, clothes to wash, wood to cut, and old Jumper to worry with.

The bad drouth that Bud Searcy predicted had come. The green grass all dried up till
Jumper was no longer satisfied to eat it. He took to jumping the field fence and eating the corn that I’d never yet gotten around to gathering.

Mama couldn’t let that go on; that was our bread corn. Without it, we’d have no bread for the winter. But it looked like for a while that there wasn’t any way to save it. Mama would go to the field and run Jumper out; then before she got her back turned good, he’d jump back in and go to eating corn again.

Finally, Mama figured out a way to keep Jumper from jumping. She tied a drag to him. She got a rope and tied one end of it to his right forefoot. To the other end, she tied a big heavy chunk of wood. By pulling hard, Jumper could move his drag along enough to graze and get to water; but any time he tried to rear up for a jump, the drag held him down.

The drag on Jumper’s foot saved the corn but it didn’t save Mama from a lot of work. Jumper was always getting his chunk of wood hung up behind a bush or rock, so that he couldn’t get away. Then he’d have himself a big scare and rear up, fighting the rope and falling down and pitching and bawling. If Mama didn’t hear him
right away, he’d start braying, and he’d keep it up till she went and loosened the drag.

Altogether, Mama sure had her hands full, and Little Arliss wasn’t any help. He was too little to do any work. And with neither of us to play with, he got lonesome. He’d follow Mama around every step she made, getting in the way and feeling hurt because she didn’t have time to pay him any mind. When he wasn’t pestering her, he was pestering me. A dozen times a day, he’d come in to stare at me and say: “Whatcha doin’ in bed, Travis? Why doncha get up? Why doncha get up and come play with me?”

He nearly drove me crazy till the day Bud Searcy and Lisbeth came, bringing the pup.

I didn’t know about the pup at first. I didn’t even know that Lisbeth had come. I heard Bud Searcy’s talk to Mama when they rode up, but I was hurting too bad even to roll over and look out the door. I remember just lying there, being mad at Searcy for coming. I knew what a bother he’d be to Mama. For all his talk of looking after the women and children of Salt Licks while the men were gone, I knew he’d never turn a hand to any real work. You wouldn’t catch him offering
to chop wood or gather in a corn crop. All he’d do was sit out under the dog run all day, talking and chewing tobacco and spitting juice all over the place. On top of that, he’d expect Mama to cook him up a good dinner and maybe a supper if he took a notion to stay that long. And Mama had ten times too much to do, like it was.

In a little bit, though, I heard a quiet step at the door. I looked up. It was Lisbeth. She stood with her hands behind her back, staring at me with her big solemn eyes.

“You hurting pretty bad?” she asked.

I was hurting a-plenty, but I wasn’t admitting it to a girl. “I’m doing all right,” I said.

“We didn’t know you’d got hog cut, or we’d have come sooner,” she said.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.

“Well, anyhow,” she said, “I brung you a surprise.”

I was too sick and worn out to care about a surprise right then; but there was such an eager look in her eyes that I knew I had to say “What?” or hurt her feelings, so I said “What?”

“One of Miss Prissy’s pups!” she said.

She brought her hands around from behind her back. In the right one, she held a dog pup about as big as a year-old possum. It was a dirty white in color and speckled all over with blue spots about the size of cow ticks. She held it by the slack hide at the back of its neck. It hung there, half asleep, sagging in its own loose hide like it was dead.

“Born in a badger hole,” she said. “Seven of them. I brung you the best one!”

I thought: If that puny-looking thing is the best one, Miss Prissy must have had a sorry litter of pups. But I didn’t say so. I said: “He sure looks like a dandy.”

“He is,” Lisbeth said. “See how I’ve been holding him, all this time, and he hasn’t said a word.”

I’d heard that one all my life—that if a pup didn’t holler when you held him up by the slack hide of his neck, he was sure to turn out to be a gritty one. I didn’t think much of that sign. Papa always put more stock in what color was inside a pup’s mouth. If the pup’s mouth was black inside, Papa said that was the one to choose. And that’s the way I felt about it.

But right now I didn’t care if the pup’s mouth was pea-green on the inside. All I wanted was just to quit hurting.

I said, “I guess Little Arliss will like it,” then knew I’d said the wrong thing. I could tell by the look in her eyes that I’d hurt her feelings, after all.

She didn’t say anything. She just got real still and quiet and kept staring at me till I couldn’t stand it and had to look away. Then she turned and went out of the cabin and gave the pup to Little Arliss.

It made me mad, her looking at me like that. What did she expect, anyhow? Here I was laid up with a bad hog cut, hurting so bad I could hardly get my breath, and her expecting me to make a big to-do over a little old puny speckled pup.

I had me a dog. Old Yeller was all cut up, worse than I was, but he was getting well. Mama had told me that. So what use did I have for a pup? Be all right for Little Arliss to play with. Keep him occupied and out from underfoot. But when Old Yeller and I got well and took to the woods again, we wouldn’t have time to wait around on a fool pup, too little to follow.

I lay there in bed, mad and fretful all day, thinking how silly it was for Lisbeth to expect me to want a pup when I already had me a full-grown dog. I lay there, just waiting for a chance to tell her so, too; only she never did come back to give me a chance. She stayed outside and played with Little Arliss and the pup till her grandpa finally wound up his talking and tobacco spitting and got ready to leave. Then I saw her and Little Arliss come past the door, heading for where I could hear her grandpa saddling his horse. She looked in at me, then looked away, and suddenly I wasn’t mad at her any more. I felt sort of mean. I wished now I could think of the right thing to say about the pup, so I could call her back and tell her. I didn’t want her to go off home with her feelings still hurt.

But before I could think of anything, I heard her grandpa say to Mama: “Now Mrs. Coates, you all are in a sort of bind here, with your man gone and that boy crippled up. I been setting out here all evening, worrying about it. That’s my responsibility, you know, seeing that everybody’s taken care of while the men are gone, and I think now I’ve got a way figured. I’ll just leave our girl
Lisbeth here to help you all out.”

Mama said in a surprised voice: “Why, Mr. Searcy, there’s no need for that. It’s mighty kind of you and all, but we’ll make out all right.”

“No, now, Mrs. Coates; you got too big a load to carry, all by yourself. My Lisbeth, she’ll be proud to help out.”

“But,” Mama argued, “she’s such a little girl, Mr. Searcy. She’s probably never stayed away from home of a night.”

“She’s little,” Bud Searcy said, “but she’s stout and willing. She’s like me; when folks are in trouble, she’ll pitch right in and do her part. You just keep her here now. You’ll see what a big help she’ll be.”

Mama tried to argue some more, but Bud Searcy wouldn’t listen. He just told Lisbeth to be a good girl and help Mama out, like she was used to helping out at home. Then he mounted and rode on off.

I
was like Mama. I didn’t think Lisbeth Searcy would be any help around the place. She was too little and too skinny. I figured she’d just be an extra bother for Mama.

But we were wrong. Just like Bud Searcy said, she was a big help. She could tote water from the spring. She could feed the chickens, pack in wood, cook cornbread, wash dishes, wash Little Arliss, and sometimes even change the prickly-pear poultice on my leg.

She didn’t have to be told, either. She was right there on hand all the time, just looking for something to do. She was a lot better about that than I
ever was. She wasn’t as big and she couldn’t do as much as I could, but she was more willing.

She didn’t even back off when Mama hooked Jumper to the cart and headed for the field to gather in the corn. That was a job I always hated. It was hot work, and the corn shucks made my skin itch and sting till sometimes I’d wake up at night scratching like I’d stumbled into a patch of bull nettles.

But it didn’t seem to bother Lisbeth. In fact, it looked like she and Mama and Little Arliss had a real good time gathering corn. I’d see them drive past the cabin, all three of them sitting on top of a cartload of corn. They would be laughing and talking and having such a romping big time, playing with the speckled pup, that before long I half wished I was able to gather corn too.

In a way, it sort of hurt my pride for a little old girl like Lisbeth to come in and take over my jobs. Papa had left me to look after things. But now I was laid up, and here was a girl handling my work about as good as I could. Still, she couldn’t get out and mark hogs or kill meat or swing a chopping axe….

Before they were finished gathering corn,
however, we were faced with a trouble a whole lot too big for any of us to handle.

The first hint of it came when the Spot heifer failed to show up one evening at milking time. Mama had come in too late from the corn gathering to go look for her before dark, and the next morning she didn’t need to. Spot came up, by herself; or rather, she came past the house.

I heard her first. The swelling in my leg was about gone down. I was weak as a rain-chilled chicken, but most of the hurting had stopped. I was able to sit up in bed a lot and take notice of things.

I heard a cow coming toward the house. She was bawling like cows do when they’ve lost a calf or when their bags are stretched too tight with milk. I recognized Spot’s voice.

Spot’s calf recognized it, too. It had stood hungry in the pen all night and now it was nearly crazy for a bait of milk. I could hear it blatting and racing around in the cowpen, so starved it could hardly wait.

I called to Mama. “Mama,” I said, “you better go let old Spot in to her calf. I hear her coming.”

“That pesky Spot,” I heard her say impatiently.
“I don’t know what’s got into her, staying out all night like that and letting her calf go hungry.”

I heard Mama calling to Spot as she went out to the cowpen. A little later, I heard Spot beller like a fighting bull, then Mama’s voice rising high and sharp. Then here came Mama, running into the cabin, calling for Lisbeth to hurry and bring in Little Arliss. There was scare in Mama’s voice. I sat up in bed as Lisbeth came running in, dragging Little Arliss after her.

Mama slammed the door shut, then turned to me. “Spot made fight at me,” she said. “I can’t understand it. It was like I was some varmint that she’d never seen before.”

Mama turned and opened the door a crack. She looked out, then threw the door wide open and stood staring toward the cowpen.

“Why, look at her now,” she said. “She’s not paying one bit of attention to her calf. She’s just going on past the cowpen like her calf wasn’t there. She’s acting as crazy as if she’d got hold of a bait of pea vine.”

There was a little pea vine that grew wild all over the hills during wet winters and bloomed pale lavender in the spring. Cattle and horses
could eat it, mixed with grass, and get fat on it. But sometimes when they got too big a bait of it alone, it poisoned them. Generally, they’d stumble around with the blind staggers for a while, then gradually get well. Sometimes, though, the pea vine killed them.

I sat there for a moment, listening to Spot. She was bawling again, like when I first heard her. But now she was heading off into the brush again, leaving her calf to starve. I wondered where she’d gotten enough pea vine to hurt her.

“But Mama,” I said, “she couldn’t have eaten pea vine. The pea vine is all dead and gone this time of year.”

Mama turned and looked at me, then looked away. “I know,” she said. “That’s what’s got me so worried.”

I thought of what Burn Sanderson had told me about animals that didn’t act right. I said, “Cows don’t ever get hydrophobia, do they?”

I saw Lisbeth start at the word. She stared at me with big solemn eyes.

“I don’t know,” Mama said. “I’ve seen dogs with it, but I’ve never heard of a cow brute having it. I just don’t know.”

In the next few days, while Old Yeller and I healed fast, we all worried and watched.

All day and all night, Spot kept right on doing what she did from the start: she walked and she bawled. She walked mostly in a wide circle that brought her pretty close to the house about twice a day and then carried her so far out into the hills that we could just barely hear her. She walked with her head down. She walked slower and her bawling got weaker as she got weaker; but she never stopped walking and bawling.

When the bull came, he was worse, and a lot more dangerous. He came two or three days later. I was sitting out under the dog run at the time. I’d hobbled out to sit in a chair beside Old Yeller, where I could scratch him under his chewed-off ear. That’s where he liked to be scratched best. Mama was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Lisbeth and Little Arliss had gone off to the creek below the spring to play with the pup and to fish for catfish. I could see them running and laughing along the bank, chasing after grasshoppers for bait.

Then I heard this moaning sound and turned to watch a bull come out of the brush. He was the
roan bull, the one that the droopy-horned chongo had dumped into the Mexican cart the day of the fight. But he didn’t walk like any bull I’d ever seen before. He walked with his head hung low and wobbling. He reeled and staggered like he couldn’t see where he was going. He walked head on into a mesquite tree like it wasn’t there, and fell to his knees when he hit it. He scrambled to his feet and came on, grunting and staggering and moaning, heading toward the spring.

Right then, for the first time since we’d brought him home, Old Yeller came up off his cowhide bed. He’d been lying there beside me, paying no attention to sight or sound of the bull. Then, I guess the wind must have shifted and brought him the bull’s scent; and evidently that scent told him for certain what I was only beginning to suspect.

He rose, with a savage growl. He moved out toward the bull, so trembly weak that he could hardly stand. His loose lips were lifted in an ugly snarl, baring his white fangs. His hackles stood up in a ragged ridge along the back of his neck and shoulders.

Watching him, I felt a prickling at the back of
my own neck. I’d seen him act like that before, but only when there was the greatest danger. Never while just facing a bull.

Suddenly, I knew that Mama and I had been fooling ourselves. Up till now, we’d been putting off facing up to facts. We’d kept hoping that the heifer Spot would get over whatever was wrong with her. Mama and Lisbeth had kept Spot’s calf from starving by letting it suck another cow. They’d had to tie the cow’s hind legs together to keep her from kicking the calf off; but they’d kept it alive, hoping Spot would get well and come back to it.

Now, I knew that Spot wouldn’t get well, and this bull wouldn’t, either. I knew they were both deathly sick with hydrophobia. Old Yeller had scented that sickness in this bull and somehow sensed how fearfully dangerous it was.

I thought of Lisbeth and Little Arliss down past the spring. I came up out of my chair, calling for Mama. “Mama!” I said. “Bring me my gun, Mama!”

Mama came hurrying to the door. “What is it, Travis?” she wanted to know.

“That bull!” I said, pointing. “He’s mad with
hydrophobia and he’s heading straight for Lisbeth and Little Arliss.”

Mama took one look, said “Oh, my Lord!” in almost a whisper. She didn’t wait to get me my gun or anything else. She just tore out for the creek, hollering for Lisbeth and Little Arliss to run, to climb a tree, to do anything to get away from the bull.

I called after her, telling her to wait, to give me a chance to shoot the bull. I don’t guess she ever heard me. But the bull heard her. He tried to turn on her, stumbled and went to his knees. Then he was back on his feet again as Mama went flying past. He charged straight for her. He’d have gotten her, too, only the sickness had his legs too wobbly. This time, when he fell, he rooted his nose into the ground and just lay there, moaning, too weak even to try to get up again.

By this time, Old Yeller was there, baying the bull, keeping out of his reach, but ready to eat him alive if he ever came to his feet again.

I didn’t wait to see more. I went and got my gun. I hobbled down to where I couldn’t miss and shot the roan bull between the eyes.