Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

It happened a long, long time ago, but I won’t ever forget my father’s face that day. It was my thirteenth birthday, and Pa and me were doing the night’s chores as always on our little scrap of land right next to the river bottom. I had slopped the hogs while Pa was milking our one skinny cow, and after bringing hay to the two old plow horses at the barn, we’d be finished.

We had an old wagon we hauled loose hay in, and it was standing about halfway between the house and our old barn. I had just finished pitching hay from the wagon and taking it to the barn when I heard the first faraway sound. By the time I was back to the wagon and leaning on the long-handled pitch-fork, I knew what the sound was. When I turned around, Pa was right beside me, and I saw he had heard it too. Away off in the distance it was, and we both looked across the dusty road in front of our place towards the woods covering the hills.

I didn’t say anything, just looked up at Pa. His steady eyes were worried, but his face didn’t show anything right then. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a shirtsleeve, and ran his big hand through the short hair on my head as he turned to the house. I followed him and wondered just what the trouble was going to be like this time. I was already shaking a little, but I didn’t want Pa to know that.

When Pa got to the house, I thought he was going inside and I started in too. But when I went up the steps, he stopped and sat down, reaching up to pull me down alongside him. I sat there shivering a little, not knowing what to expect, and not wanting Pa to know I was scared.

I looked toward the hills again, right into one of the prettiest sunsets I ever saw, and it scared me more. It wasn’t long before the sun would go down, but right now it was nesting in soft clouds piled up like white cotton just poured out of a sack. The sun was turning the clouds every color, but all I could see looked like they were filling with dark red blood and about to burst. I really shivered then, and hugged closer to Pa’s knee.

When the baying sounded again, it was much closer. Like it was just over the hill in front of us. The baying came louder, and I could feel Pa stiffen. I did too when I saw what he was looking at across the road. We both stood up as a man broke through the trees and fell in the road, the soft dust clouding up around him till he was covered with it. He raised his head out of the dust to look at the house, and crawled slowly to his feet.

We could hear his breathing from where we stood. Thin and high and ragged, like a winded horse in pain. He staggered across the road then and leaned against the big gate leading into our lot. The dust had powdered his kinky black hair, making it white. His broad black face was streaked with dust and blood from the cuts and scratches of the briars and trees he’d run through. His blue shirt and overalls were torn and splotched dark with heavy sweat. He had only one shoe on, and I could see the ground go red and dark where his one bare foot rested.

As he stood there gulping in big breaths of air, he looked straight at Pa. His thick lips were pulled back from the large white teeth in a fixed grin as if everything was a big joke. The red tongue came out trying to lick the lips, but it had a hard time getting past the teeth. There was a dried, cottony paste on his mouth and nose, and I could see that he couldn’t get his lips together again.

He stood there gazing at Pa and Pa looking at him. As I stared too, I could hear the bloodhounds coming on the other side of the hill. But the man at the gate didn’t seem to hear or care. There was fear on his face all right, a sort of little-boy fear like mine. He looked as if he wasn’t scared about what he’d done, whatever they were chasing him for, nor what they’d do when they caught him. Just that look of being afraid of something else.

I thought for a second Pa was going into the house, but he didn’t. His legs seemed to give out and he sat down again, pulling me down too and placing his arm around my shoulders hard. When Pa sat down, the man shut his eyes and turned his head away, then opened the gate.

He stumbled into the lot and fell, but crawled up again and finally reached the wagon. He hung on the wagon and turned to look at the woods. His black face fell over sideways as he listened, and I could see that he was crying. As the baying of the hounds came louder and louder, he pulled up and over the side of the wagon and burrowed down in the loose hay.

When my scared eyes came back to Pa, I could see his face was bunched and hard, and there was a muscle thumping in the side of his neck. His eyes were sad and faraway, looking through the wagon and barn and clear to the river.