Note to subscribers: If you have already read this story, nothing is changed in substance. I reformatted it to correct indentations. WHB 11/12/23
When I was a high school senior, a doctor named Bristol owned three-thousand acres out on the river, including a few abandoned farms. Overgrown pea patches, vegetable gardens, and cornfields remained, and Lespedeza thrived in the meadows. Wild quail ate like royalty, and there were so many I should have killed my limit every time, but they darted and dodged at warp speed and most of them flew away laughing.
I built a dog box for my pickup, but Old Speck was heartbroken every time he had to ride in it. When it was just the two of us, he sat beside me in the cab. We usually started from a homesite called the “Croy place,” as we did that day. There was at least one covey that lived and dined there, and we often found them, but after a thorough search, I was about to move on when Speck struck a hot trail and forgot all about me. Rushing to catch up, I was ripped and bloodied in a tall briar patch that I would have circumvented had I been allowed to choose the route, but I caught up to him on the other side.
Near the wood line he slowed, then crept, then pointed like a marble statue. He was a long-haired English Setter, a speckled blend of black, brown, and white, and he was a sight to behold on the point. I walked past him at a snail’s pace, and a huge covey exploded from the brush about eight feet from his nose. There must have been two dozen birds, but three shots netted me a single bobwhite, and Speck happily retrieved him.
The birds split up and scattered across the woods, and he was right on them. He found one hiding in a tangle of dead leaves and limbs, but I never had a shot through the trees. He looked at me like he was disgusted and led me deeper into the forest. We crossed a branch, topped a little rise, and came upon a fallen hickory. I thought nothing of it, but Speck stopped, looked straight at it, and trembled as he haltingly approached. I had seen him do that only once, in a field of thick sorghum, and it turned out the quail were being chased on foot by a hawk. This time, though, he shook harder, and he wouldn’t go a step closer than ten feet from the tree. Gun ready, I clicked off the safety and eased around to the other side.
Jammed against the rough bark and almost covered with leaves was a dead man. I turned a full, slow circle and thoroughly scanned the woods, then clicked my safety on and squatted to examine the body. The man was shot in the back with a rifle and was still warm, and according to the forest floor, he had dragged himself a dozen feet to the tree. I had never seen a corpse that wasn’t embalmed, and I still remember his wide, frightened eyes and slack mouth. I attached my orange cap to a limb to mark the spot and we started back for the truck.
We crossed a gully, and when my head peeked above the bank, a shot rang out and a bullet ripped a groove in my scalp. I ducked, wiped blood from my eyes, and looked around for Speck, but he had fled, the traitor. I skittered along the trough of the gully even after it became a brook, blood dripping off my nose and running down my neck, but when the brook merged into a deep creek, I climbed out and ran downstream along the bank. My truck was in the opposite direction.
As I crossed a small clearing he fired again, and the bullet knocked my gun to the ground and numbed my hand. I scooped it up, dashed for the nearest tree, and examined it. Half the stock was gone but it still worked, not that it mattered. The shooter would have to be insane to come within shotgun range. If I moved from my position behind the tree I would be shot, and if I stayed I would be shot, so I ran like hell. When a bullet whizzed by my ear, I turned for the creek, jumped in, and body surfed toward the river in the fast, freezing water. I must have gone a hundred yards when I started trying to get out, and that much again before I succeeded. The swift current and the heavy shotgun worked against me, but I finally grabbed the limb of a fallen oak and dragged myself onto the bank. Once I caught my breath, I shucked my water-laden coat, tossed it in the creek, and put a hand to my head. The cold water had staunched the bleeding and washed away the blood. I lit out at a trot, shivering cold, and about a mile later Speck came bouncing along from the opposite direction, his long hair full of cockleburs. I took that as a good sign. Somewhere up ahead was an overgrown field, which might mean a home site and a road.
I said, “Where the hell have you been?” He did not reply and refused to look guilty.
The cocklebur patch was a big one, but Speck loped through it like a puppy and disappeared again. I emerged covered in prickly burrs and plunged through a thick grove of young pines, then stopped in my tracks. A naked mimosa tree stood before me, and a crepe myrtle bush beyond that. I was in somebody’s former yard, but which way was the road?
Through the trees I spotted the blackened boards of a structure and headed that way. It turned out to be the remains of a cabin, and there were two others, spaced out and lined up in a pattern I had seen before. They were slave quarters. The roofs had collapsed long ago, the plank walls had lost half their planks, and the chimneys were engulfed in vines. I paused just long enough to pick a few burs from my clothes and turned for the third cabin, and that’s when I saw the fourth. The smoke drifting from the chimney caught my attention. In sharp contrast to the dilapidated ruins of its neighbors, the roof and walls were intact, and even the yard was cleared and swept. The door stood open, and, once I was close, I caught the scent of stew.
I was debating whether to run or go in with my gun blazing when I heard Speck. He was inside the cabin, and the tone of his voice told me he was begging for food. I inched along with my back against the front wall and stopped right beside the door. Someone inside mumbled, and Speck whined again. I led with my shotgun and peeked inside, half expecting to have my head blown off.
Speck sat erect on a rough wooden floor, watching an ancient, white-haired Black man stir a pot over a fire. He speared a piece of dripping meat and blew it awhile, then touched it with his tongue and said, “Now, here’s you a good one, old boy.” The dog took it gently from his hand, something I had never seen before. Speck didn’t pussyfoot around with meat; he snatched and scarfed it.
Without looking at me, the man spoke up and said, “Come on in, boy.” His voice was deep, soft, and melodic. I stepped inside and glanced around the single room. Clean and barren, the only stick of furniture was a homemade rocker occupied by the old man. He was long and thin, and his hair was the color of fresh snow. He said, “Would you have some stew? It’s mighty good.”
I looked at Speck. Grease dripped from his chin and puddled on the floor. All I could see in the pot was a thick, bubbling layer of fat. I said, “What is it?”
“Possum. Caught him this mornin’.”
“Look, I have to find help. There’s a man back there hunting me like an animal. He shot this groove in my head and blew the stock off my shotgun. Which way is the road?”
“Well,” he said lazily, spearing another bite, “they used to be a road, but it growed over a long time ago.”
“How do you get in and
“It’s a secret way. Old Speck here is a mighty fine dog.”
Speck didn’t wear tags. They rattled and spooked the birds. I said, “How do you know his name?”
“He told me. He come by here a little bit earlier and we had a good talk.”
“Please, just point me in the direction of a road. I have to hitch a ride and find the sheriff. This guy has already killed once. There’s a dead body back there in the woods.”
“They’s dead bodies everywhere. Your clothes are wet, boy. Come over here and dry by the fire.” Despite myself, I went to the fire and rotated slowly while my pants steamed. The warmth was heavenly. I could have stood turning in that spot for an hour, but I remembered my fear.
I said, “Do you have any guns?”
“What you see is what I got.”
“You should probably hide until I get back, then.” I clucked my tongue and said, “Come on, Speck.” He didn’t budge.
The man said, “He don’t want to go. He can stay here with me.”
I knew it would be easier to catch a ride without a dog, so I turned for the door. The killer was crossing the yard.
I dashed for a dark corner and waited. He entered cautiously, pausing with each step and sweeping the room with a scoped rifle. About six feet tall and fit, he was dressed in camouflage from hat to boots. Even his face was painted. The old man didn’t look at him, nor did Speck, and he acted like they weren’t even there. When he turned in my direction, I shot him dead center with a sixteen gauge round that nearly cut him in half, but I kept my shotgun trained on him until he bled out. Finally satisfied he was dead, I lowered the gun and looked at the old man. He and Speck were still eating stew.
I tasted copper and thought I might be sick, but I bit it back. When I could speak, I said, “What’s your name?”
“I don’t remember, but they call me Lo.”
“I have to find a road and get to the sheriff, Lo. I have to report all this, and the buzzards and cayotes will eat that man in the woods if we don’t get to him before dark. Can you point me to the main house?”
He did, and just beyond it I found an overgrown roadbed that eventually led to a highway. Figuring the shotgun would not inspire charity, I tossed it in a ditch and stuck out my thumb. Five cars later, a woman picked me up, and I learned that I had crossed the county line somewhere in flight. The county seat was twelve miles out of her way, but she was kind enough to take me. She dropped me off at the jail, where I waited half an hour and fretted about sunset.
Finally, I was taken back to see an investigator. He slumped drinking black coffee behind a government issue desk, sleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned above a cheap tie. He said, “So, I hear you found a dead man in the woods.”
“Well, there’s more to it.” I sat uninvited and leaned forward, gesticulating. “When I found the body, somebody started shooting at me. He shot this groove in my head,” I said, pointing. I was talking too fast and felt a little breathless, but I couldn’t help it. “And he shot the stock off my shotgun. I had to swim down a creek and run through the woods until I came to an old plantation. I found an old Black man living in a slave cabin, and when the killer came in, I shot him. I can show you where both bodies are.”
The cop appraised me and said, “Are you on drugs?”
“No, I don’t use drugs.”
“Maybe you need to. There’s no groove in your head, your clothes are dry, and there’s sure as hell nobody living in those old slave quarters. Where is this shot-up shotgun of yours?”
“I tossed it so I could catch a ride.”
He shook his head, reached for the phone, and called the sheriff. They reluctantly decided they had to investigate my story even though I was clearly deranged, but they didn’t have to do it at night. I was told to meet them at the Croy place the next morning. A deputy took me back to my truck, and I drove home, ate, and went to my room. Dad was away on business, and Mom would have gone into hysterics had I told her what happened.
The sheriff himself showed up the next morning, and the game warden came along to play scout. I led them to the fallen hickory, but there was no orange cap and no body. They shared a knowing look but carried on, and I showed them the gully where my head was shot and the clearing where my gun was shot. I took them to the spot where I climbed out of the creek, but there was no sign I had been there. My coat was probably halfway to the ocean. When we reached the cocklebur patch, they balked, and the game warden circumvented it and led us to the remains of the big house.
He pointed in the direction of the cabins and said, “So, you’re trying to tell us somebody is staying in those old slave quarters back there?”
“Yes, an old man named Lo. My dog is with him.”
They gave each other that look again, and the game warden said, “This is a waste of time. There’s hardly anything left of those cabins.”
The sheriff said, “No, I’m bound to see this. Lead the way, son. Take us to Lo.”
When I reached the cabin, my stomach dropped. The yard was grown up, the roof caved in, and the chimney toppled. The floor was covered in rubble. There was no Lo, no Speck, and no dead killer.
They turned to leave, and after a moment I did too. The sheriff radioed for a car to pick them up at the highway. He looked at me and said, “Are you coming?”
“No, I’ll walk back. I have to find my dog.”
“Right. The dog that ate Lo’s possum stew in front of the fireplace back there. Don’t come back up here again, keep your nonsense down there in your own county.”
I searched the plantation and every nook and cranny on my way back, but there was no sign of Speck. When I gave up and went to the truck, there he sat, grinning. We rode home without a word.
After school the next day, I went to the county library and found the local history section. There was an entire volume on the old Sumner plantation. I perused it and turned to the photographs.
Black, white, and sepia, they depicted the place in various stages of productivity and decay. Tin types went back to the Civil War. The Sumner family had all gone forth, multiplied, and had their images preserved for posterity. I flipped through page after page of portraits, scanned pictures of posing farmers, farm hands, and harnessed livestock, then turned a page and stopped with a jolt. A dozen slaves posed in front of a cabin, men in the back row, and the tall one in the center was Lo. White-haired and leather faced, he was no older and no younger than the man I had met.
Speck was never fit to hunt on the Bristol tract again. As soon as the truck door opened, he bolted for the plantation and didn’t come back until he was good and ready. We finished out the season “spot hunting,” driving from one small tract to another, and by the next season, I was in college. I think we hunted twice after that, but whenever I visited home, he looked great. That’s why I was surprised when Dad called one December night and said he had passed away. He didn’t suffer, just died in his sleep with a grin on his face.
I rose before daylight and passed through Atlanta ahead of rush hour. When I got home Mom insisted on feeding me, then I changed and went to the basement. I found my old Boy Scout stuff close to the water heater. We used big, canvass backpacks mounted on aluminum frames back in the day, and I retrieved my pack and folding shovel.
Speck was in the garage, rolled up in a blanket next to a mattock. I unrolled him, stuffed him in the backpack, and put him in the cab next to me. The closest way to the plantation was along the old roadbed, so I crossed the county line and took the highway out to the “intersection.” We hiked in from there, and I buried him in front of the cabin door. I’ll confess to shedding tear. Maybe two.
That was 1963, the year John Kennedy was shot, and now, twenty-five years later, I’m on my final journey to the cabin. A developer bought the property, and the ground will soon be leveled for a subdivision. Speck’s bones will be scattered, but I think that’s okay. People have their ashes scattered wherever they want, and Speck wouldn’t want his bones anywhere else.
As I stand by the grave site, I see Lo spear a piece of meat and cool it with his own breath. I see Speck take it gently, and I hear Lo’s soothing voice assuring him he’s a good boy. Somewhere, maybe right in front of me, they are doing it yet.
I hope Old Speck says good things about me.
copyright Walker Bramblett 2023
Excellent. A perfect Halloween tale, well told. Glad to know ol' Speck wasn't gunshy like another dog we know.
Nicely done! Very Rod Serling....