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My mouth goes dry looking at Boss Man who won’t my daddy but could be. The big man raises his voice over the stirred-up water and the racket the dogs make.
“What’s your name, boy?”
I raise my voice, too. “Tattler Swann, sir.” Mama taught me to be mindful of my elders.
“You from round here?”
“Over a couple of ridges thataway, sir.” I point.
“What’s your folks’ names?”
“Dottie Swann’s my mama. Got no daddy to speak of.”
“You been here long?”
“All my life.”
At my sass, Boss Man’s lips draw a stingy line cross his pocked face. “Don’t get smart-assed with me, boy. I ask if you been here at the river long.” His black eyes hold a puny soul.
“Long enough, sir.”
He cocks his head to the dangerous side. “You itching for a whipping? What kind of answer’s that?”
“Long enough to get tired of fishing. Ain’t caught nary a one.”
Boss Man stares at me hard. Tries to make me squirm.
I stay put. I can wait out the best of em when I aim to.
Finally the man says, “Did you see a odd-looking man come this way?”
“What kinda odd?”
“Bald head. Straggly beard. Carrying a poke.”
I size up the posse and know they ain’t in no talking mood. They shoot Jerome Biddle in the back and never think to ask questions till too late. I vex em for spite.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What day you mean.”
“What day? What day?”
The veins on Boss Man’s neck bulge like fat night crawlers I want to stick a fishhook through, but don’t think a fish would even take the bait.
“Today, you little snot-nosed bastard! Now! We know we’re on his trail. I’m trying to pinpoint his lead time on us. Have you seen him or not?”
I don’t know most of these men. They ain’t from round here. One feller I know from Roy’s moonshine business I come up on in the woods awhile back. I hightailed it outta there before they see me cause I don’t borrow trouble if I can help it.
Before I answer, my belly squirms. Lying does that to me. So I say, “I don’t see no odd-looking man. Maybe he come to the river in a different place than here,” and my belly calms down cause it’s true; Jerome Biddle won’t odd looking to me no more. When I look at the little man, I see goodness and a tender soul.
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The first time Jerome Biddle saved me, I was seven and fell down a old well shaft, mostly dry. Landed in soft mud and scattered bones of critters who fell in and can’t get out. The scariest was finding a human skull bashed in. I thought I was a goner for sure. I twisted my ankle and don’t have a prayer for climbing up the slick walls. Still, I yelled and cried and screamed till my voice quit on me, thinking this might be my bones’ final resting place, too. Then I prayed real hard for a real live miracle, and Jerome Biddle’s head leaned over the well.
He say, “Tattler Swann, hang on to hope, gonna tie me a knot and throw you my rope.”
And he did.
Jerome Biddle looped his end of the rope round a tree trunk and pulled till I popped out the top of that well, muddy and wore out. I fainted is what I done. My friend carried me home to Mama.
The next time he saved me I was ten and broke my leg when I fell through a rotten tree stand, hunting on Scooter’s Ridge. The end of my broken shin shot clear through my britches. The sight of it made me want to faint and got me to bawling like a sissy girl. It was shameful is what I remember most.
Along come Jerome Biddle like my savior-in-waiting again. He don’t pay no mind to my crying. Just went to work tying my broke leg to a straight branch, made me a crutch from another branch, and then hobbled with me all the way back home cause I was already too heavy for him to carry.
When Mama saw us, she said, “Jerome Biddle, you done it again. My boy used up one more of his nine lives, and you the one to bring him back to safety. You a angel and that’s a fact.”
Mama got a soft spot for Jerome Biddle, and when he shows up at mealtime, he’s got a place. The next day or two she finds rabbit or possum or a mess of pigeons hanging from the nail on the porch post, and she knows Jerome looks after us. He’s the best kind of friend.
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The three men turn to leave and head to the riverbank when I think to ask, “What he do?”
Boss Man spit a sharp stream of tobacky juice toward my shoe. He misses by a foot. “You not worth the breath I waste on you.” He shakes his head sorrowful-like. “Come on, boys. Let’s catch us a baby killer.”
They head on downriver where the dogs lead, determined, and I drop to my haunches and watch em go.
Baby killer? Jerome Biddle don’t have a baby. He don’t even have a hunting dog. He’s got friends like me, Birdie, and Miss Sadie, and that teacher lady…and the Stoner boys who keep him in moonshine. The only thing he can call his own is a trailer that leans to the left, and a leg too short for normal.
The pack of hounds get to where Jerome Biddle waded in, and they beat up on top of one another when the scent runs out at water’s edge. I can tell none of the posse wants to enter the rolling river from the way they back away from the water. They point fingers and flap arms that go on for a minute or two with nary a foot put in the water. I glance at the heartless rock that holds Jerome Biddle and his bloody sack, and wonder how much air is left for him to breathe. I look back at the men who don’t know how close they are to Jerome Biddle. God must feel like this all the time—to know more than regular folks do and keep it to his self.
The men are in a fix. Boss Man grabs two dog leashes from one of the fellas’ hands and pushes him into the water. He must be the one who can swim. He holds his hands high—to keep em dry, I guess—and makes it to the middle before he gets bowled over by the current and floats downstream with his head dancing like a bobber.
Boss Man don’t look happy. He spits tobacky and walks on down the riverbank and looks for a easy place to cross. Him and the other men go, dragging the yelping dogs. They don’t look happy neither. Their ruckus echoes off the stone walls of the mountainsides. A heap of frustration is pulled down that riverbank. They take their sweet time. I watch, hunkered down on my heels. I lean on my fishing pole to keep from tumbling downhill.
Soon, the sun falls behind the ridge and cold crawls out the ground, and the three layers of cardboard in my shoes go damp clean through. The posse’s still in sight when my knees cramp and make me stand and lean on a poplar tree. Even when the hoot owl calls out close and a slice of moon climbs overhead and throws down stingy light, I wait for the men to go home.
They do when night comes.
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