Alabama Moon (3 page)

Winter had been on us for two months, and the forest creatures were fat and fluffy in their new coats. It had started to snow once, but the ground didn't hold it, which always disappointed me. I only remembered a few times when there was enough snow to make tracks in. One of those times Pap and I made pine-bark sleds and had races down the riverbank. I'd always wanted to do it again.

On the morning Pap broke his leg, the north wind was tossing the tops of the trees and gray clouds raced over our heads. Pap was always alert when the wind stirred the forest floor and cartwheeled the leaves. It was hard to tell which sounds were natural and which weren't.

We were checking traps along a beaver dam only a mile from the lodge. With the wind blowing like it was and us being so close to Mr. Wellington's place, Pap must have been extra nervous. I think he was too busy looking around for signs of people to pay attention to where he was going. He
slipped on the dam and got his shin caught between two branches. He had just enough time to turn and look at me before he fell into the beaver pond on his back. The water was so clear I saw his face staring up at me and wincing in pain. I jumped down after him and jerked at the branches until his leg came loose. The rest of Pap splashed into the water, and then he dragged himself out of the pond. After he was propped against a cypress knee, I went and found some sticks to use for a splint, and we bound his leg with the leather shoelaces from my moccasins.

That afternoon, I got Pap back to the shelter in the wheelbarrow. He pulled himself inside, and I saw how much his leg hurt by the sweat that soaked his face and clothes. I helped him up on the hide pile and stayed next to him to give him water as he needed it. Pap didn't like doctors, and he didn't like medicine that you couldn't find in the forest, so there wasn't much else for me to do.

Sometime that night Pap told me to take his boot off. I watched his hands white-knuckle the roots above his head while I pulled slowly on the heel. He didn't make any noise because it was nighttime.

When I got the boot off, bloody water and sand poured out of it. I cut the sock away with my knife and placed it to the side. We saved everything. Even a bloody sock could make a rag to patch clothes.

In the dim light of the grease lamp, I saw parts of Pap's bone coming through his shin. Seeing bone and blood and wounds was nothing to me. I dealt with them almost every day killing, skinning, and butchering animals. I only hesitated so that Pap would tell me what to do.

“Get a rag and wipe it off,” he said. “Boil some water and put the rag in the water before you do.”

“So the wound won't get infected?”

“That's right.”

I went to the wood stove and did as he said. When I returned and began to gently wipe his leg, I watched his face. I saw his expression change when the rag went over the jagged portion of bone.

“Does it hurt?”

“Just keep wipin'.”

“You want me to go get Mr. Abroscotto?”

“Nothin' he can do you can't do yourself, boy.”

I nodded and kept wiping. I stayed up with him that night after the wound was cleaned. After a while, Pap didn't seem to be concerned that we stay quiet anymore. He lay there and talked to me and told me most of what he was thinking.

“Tell me again why we live out here,” he asked me.

“Because we never asked for anything and nobody ever gave us anything. Because of that, we don't owe anything to anybody.”

“Who is it that thinks we owe them somethin'?”

“The government.”

“That's right.”

After a moment: “And what's gonna happen to everybody that relies on the government?”

“When the war comes, they're not gonna be able to take care of themselves,” I said.

“They'll have forgotten how to grow food and trap game, how to make their own clothes and shelter,” he said.

“How to find their own medicine in the forest,” I said.

“That's right.”

“How to shoot rifles.”

“That's right,” Pap said. “All of those things.”

“And I know how to do it all.”

He nodded. I stood, walked over to the stove, and put some more wood into it. Even when Pap let us burn it all night, the heat was rarely enough to keep our breath from streaming in front of our faces.

I returned to the hide pile. “I'm not gonna get better,” he said.

“What?”

“I'm not gonna get better.”

“You're gonna die?”

He nodded.

I felt my stomach twist. “Tonight?”

“No, but soon. Somethin' like this leg won't heal.”

“How soon?”

“I don't know.”

“But I don't understand.”

“Think about it. Think about a deer that breaks its leg. What happens?”

“But you're not a deer!” I yelled.

“There's no difference. We're all animals.”

I felt like I would get sick on the floor. “What will I do?”

“That's what I'm gonna tell you.”

Pap said that it might not be long before Mr. Wellington ran me off the property. I would have to find someone else to live with. Pap said there were many other people like us all over the country. He said there were more now than ever. Most of them were out west, in Montana, Colorado, Utah,
and Wyoming. Alaska was even better. A man could still homestead in Alaska. He could get to places where no one would find him. People could still make a living off trapping up there. Hides were worth something in Alaska. I'd have to find my way there.

“But how?”

“You'll figure it out. You can't rely on me anymore. Just remember the things I taught you. Take cover durin' the day and move at night. Use the stars. Don't trust anybody. Write me smoke letters if you get lonely.”

“Do you talk to Momma with smoke letters?”

“Sometimes I do,” he said.

“Does she say anything back?”

“She does, but not in the way you'd think.”

“How will I get answers from the smoke?”

Pap didn't say anything for a few seconds. “You just do what I tell you,” he finally said.

For the first couple of days I tried to keep our regular routine each morning while Pap was sick. I rose before daylight and checked the traps. I brought back what I caught, skinned it, butchered it, and prepped the hide. I hauled water from the creek and cut needles for tea. In the late afternoon, I did my reading lessons.

But it was hard to keep my mind on these things with Pap lying in the shelter getting worse. Suddenly it seemed like there wasn't a reason for doing anything. Mr. Abroscotto hadn't bought our hides in years. We had plenty of water stored up already, and if Pap was going to die soon, why did
we need more? And how would I find a place like Alaska on my own?

I couldn't clean Pap's wound without him twisting about in pain. Finally, he told me to stop worrying over it and leave it alone. “It won't do it any good,” he said. “It's too far gone to trouble over.”

“It's not too much trouble, Pap. I don't mind.”

“Leave it be. Put that rag away.”

“What if we cut it off?”

“Too late. Infection's up my whole leg.”

I started crying. “I can't live by myself, Pap!”

He shook his head. “Shut up, boy. You don't cry, you hear me?”

I wiped my eyes and nodded at the floor. I put my arms around his neck. “I can't do it, Pap. I can't make it to Alaska. I can't fight the government. I like it here. I don't see why I can't get Mr. Abroscotto to come help you.”

“He'll just get the law down on you.”

“I can run from the law. I can get away.”

Pap didn't answer me. He was quiet for a long time. “You'll be all right,” he finally said. “I don't wanna hear any more about it.”

 

I wrote Pap a letter that first night after I buried him.

Dear Pap,

I'm going to see Mr. Abroscotto in the morning and ask him if he knows anything about getting to Alaska. Seeing as how I'll be leaving soon, I'll pull up the traps tomorrow and pack them in the boxes. I am going to take your watch and sell it to Mr. Abroscotto. I thought about keeping it for myself, but I don't need it and you were never much on things a person didn't need. I'm scared, Pap, but I know I can lick most anything three times my size. I know I can survive on my own and keep away from the government. I'm lonely, too, but you said that will go away after a while. It doesn't seem like a feeling that goes away easy. But you always knew about things, so I'm not worried.

Love, Moon

I burned the letter in the woodstove and then walked to the back corner of the shelter where Pap kept his personal
storage. It was a metal ammunition box containing his watch and a few other things he called his “valuables” and never let me see. The first time he brought out the box was when Momma died. He showed me the watch and said she gave it to him when they were married. It had “Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Blake—1968” etched into the back. On my eighth birthday I asked about the watch again. I think it made him remember Momma, and he let me study it. He told me that one day it would be mine.

When I got the box out that night, I realized that Pap hadn't told me where the key was that opened it. I didn't want to bust it in case I damaged the watch and anything else in there that I might be able to sell. I searched under Pap's bed and up in the roots of the ceiling. I felt around the hole that led to the stage-two area. After a while, I gave up and sat with the box between my legs on the hide pile.

The fire in the stove went out, and I didn't feel like starting it again. The shelter grew cold and damp and dark. I thought I would have nightmares if I slept, so I tried to stay awake and imagine what it would be like in Alaska. But I got so lonely that I decided nightmares were worth it. I closed my eyes and slept.

The next morning I woke before daylight and went to pick up the traps and release or throw away anything that was caught in them. There were two dead coons with stiff, matted hides. I pulled them from the steel jaws and tossed them into the brush because the meat was spoiled. When I returned, I packed the traps in the two wood boxes we used to store them and stacked them beside the shelter.

After watching Pap die, I found that his finally being gone
had made things easier on me. I still felt a deep, lonely hole, but as much as I missed him, I could now concentrate on what he'd told me to do and get started to Alaska.

 

I put my box on the floor of Mr. Abroscotto's store and sat on it. I was tired and breathing hard.

“You all right, Moon?” Mr. Abroscotto asked me.

I nodded at the floor.

“You carry that box all the way from your place by yourself?”

I nodded again. Finally catching my breath, I looked up at him. “I was hopin' you might wanna buy the stuff in it.”

“Where's your father at?”

“He's dead.”

Mr. Abroscotto put his hands on the counter and leaned towards me. “Dead!”

“Yessir.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How?”

“He broke his leg and it got infected.”

Mr. Abroscotto frowned and shook his head. “I guess he didn't want you comin' after a doctor.”

“Nossir. He always said when it—”

“I know what he always said. You wait here while I call the constable.”

“You don't need to worry about that, Mr. Abroscotto. I already buried him up in the cedar grove near Momma.”

“Moon, you can't just go off buryin' somebody without lettin' the law know about it.”

“Pap wanted it that way.”

“Well, your pap wanted lots of things that don't make sense. I don't mind tellin' you that.” Mr. Abroscotto walked over to the wall and lifted the telephone receiver.

I stood and grabbed my box off the floor. “If you call the law, they'll take me away. I don't aim to go with 'em.”

He watched me for a moment and then put the receiver back on the hook. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Put your box down,” he said. “Get that chair behind you, and pull it up here.”

I did as he said.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked me.

“I don't have money for extras. I gotta save it.”

“That's all right. It's free.”

“Bologna and cheese.”

“Mustard?”

“No thanks. That's all.”

Mr. Abroscotto began to fix me a sandwich. My mouth watered at the bologna, cheese, and bread that I only saw when I came to his store.

“I'm sorry about your father, Moon. I didn't mean to sound like I wasn't.”

“That's okay. He said I'd feel better after a while.”

“Where you headed when you leave here?”

“Alaska.”

“How you plan on gettin' to Alaska?”

“Sell the watch and things in this box. And I've got the money left over from last time we were here.”

“I see. What are you gonna do when you get there?”

“Pap said there's other people like us there. He said you can get away from the government up there. Said you can homestead.”

“That's what he said?”

“Yessir. So that's where I figure I'll go.”

Mr. Abroscotto handed me the sandwich and leaned on the counter watching me eat.

“You know how cold it is in Alaska?”

I chewed and shrugged my shoulders.

“You're not worried about freezin' up there?”

“Pap said there's a lot of people like us in Alaska that I can stay with. He said there's more than ever these days.”

“You ever thought about school, Moon?”

“I study my books almost every day.”

Mr. Abroscotto shook his head. “That's not what I mean. With other children?”

“Pap said he could teach me better than any school.”