have put me into a long and leaden sleep. I awakened at the first glimmer of light to the sound of roosters up on Brickyard Hill. Somehow my back was propped against a tombstone, and Skip was sound asleep with his head on my lap. I glanced around. The pickup truck was gone and there were empty beer bottles all over the place, and a quart jug with a little corn whiskey left in it.
I will tell you what else was gone too: my pup tent, blankets, pillow, water canteen, can opener, moonpies, and the rest of my pork and beans and Skip's bologna. Henjie, Pee-wee, and Muttonhead dutifully gave me the $8.50, but with all my losses that night I calculated I was down by three dollars at the least, and it eventually took me two years to finally confess to them about the grave robbers.
In this recitation of perils and misadventures and hallucinations, I have postponed the most disturbing until last because even with the passage of the years I find it difficult to write about.
About nine o'clock one evening I went out in the backyard to find Skip lying limp under our elm tree. He looked awful. Perhaps he had grown tired in our interminable jour-neyings around town, and he also must have consumed something bad, some stricken water somewhere, some rotten food maybe. His nose was dry as dust, and so were his paws. I lay on the grass with him and felt his stomach. It was hot and feverish. Also, little strands of warm saliva weredripping down his mouth, bubbling as they flowed. “Wait, boy.” I went inside and brought back a bottle of aspirin and a wet towel. He was shaking all over now. I put two aspirin under his tongue and made him swallow them, then applied the wet towel to his face.
My father had been working late at his office, and when he arrived home he came outside and looked him over. “I think he's got hold of some poison,” he said. He telephoned Dr. Jones, but he was attending a veterinarians’ convention in Memphis. Then he called the all-night animal clinic in Jackson and described the symptoms. They said to’ rush him there right away.
My father got in the driver's seat of the DeSoto; I sat in the back and held Skip in my lap. Jackson was forty miles away, much of it over the same steep hills with the creeping vine where Skip had attacked the copperhead snake. The vines were sere and gray now in the winter's cold, and the night hushed and desolate under ponderous clouds, and we raced through the bare little villages as fast as we dared. “Don't die, Skip,” I said, and he looked up at me with glazed eyes. After an eternity, it seemed to me, we reached the outskirts of Jackson; far in the distance was the state capitol, brightly lit and imposing, like a picture postcard against the frigid sky. When we arrived at the animal clinic we took him inside. A young veterinarian asked us to wait and took him in back. He returned several minutes later.
“It's poison, all right.”
“Who would want to poison a dog?” my father asked.
“Only bad folks,” the doctor replied.
“Can you cure him?” I asked.
The doctor said he was not sure. Skip was very sick. He would give him the best medicines he had. If he survived the night he would live. He advised us to drive
on
home and come back the next afternoon. My father and I made the journey home in a grim silence. Alone in my room I missed Skip asleep in the crook of my legs. As on the day the brakes had given out on the DeSoto, I prayed to the Lord. I promised Him I would behave myself forever if He would save Skip. I hardly slept that night, and the next morning I did not go to school. That afternoon we drove again to Jackson. At the clinic I held my breath as the doctor greeted us.
“I've never seen a dog come back like that from poison,” he said. “That dog wants to live.” He needed to be nursed a few days, he said, and he gave us two big bottles of pills. All during the following week I made him rest on the sheets in my bed. I brought him water and bologna cut
I will tell you what else was gone too: my pup tent, blankets, pillow, water canteen, can opener, moonpies, and the rest of my pork and beans and Skip's bologna. Henjie, Pee-wee, and Muttonhead dutifully gave me the $8.50, but with all my losses that night I calculated I was down by three dollars at the least, and it eventually took me two years to finally confess to them about the grave robbers.
In this recitation of perils and misadventures and hallucinations, I have postponed the most disturbing until last because even with the passage of the years I find it difficult to write about.
About nine o'clock one evening I went out in the backyard to find Skip lying limp under our elm tree. He looked awful. Perhaps he had grown tired in our interminable jour-neyings around town, and he also must have consumed something bad, some stricken water somewhere, some rotten food maybe. His nose was dry as dust, and so were his paws. I lay on the grass with him and felt his stomach. It was hot and feverish. Also, little strands of warm saliva weredripping down his mouth, bubbling as they flowed. “Wait, boy.” I went inside and brought back a bottle of aspirin and a wet towel. He was shaking all over now. I put two aspirin under his tongue and made him swallow them, then applied the wet towel to his face.
My father had been working late at his office, and when he arrived home he came outside and looked him over. “I think he's got hold of some poison,” he said. He telephoned Dr. Jones, but he was attending a veterinarians’ convention in Memphis. Then he called the all-night animal clinic in Jackson and described the symptoms. They said to’ rush him there right away.
My father got in the driver's seat of the DeSoto; I sat in the back and held Skip in my lap. Jackson was forty miles away, much of it over the same steep hills with the creeping vine where Skip had attacked the copperhead snake. The vines were sere and gray now in the winter's cold, and the night hushed and desolate under ponderous clouds, and we raced through the bare little villages as fast as we dared. “Don't die, Skip,” I said, and he looked up at me with glazed eyes. After an eternity, it seemed to me, we reached the outskirts of Jackson; far in the distance was the state capitol, brightly lit and imposing, like a picture postcard against the frigid sky. When we arrived at the animal clinic we took him inside. A young veterinarian asked us to wait and took him in back. He returned several minutes later.
“It's poison, all right.”
“Who would want to poison a dog?” my father asked.
“Only bad folks,” the doctor replied.
“Can you cure him?” I asked.
The doctor said he was not sure. Skip was very sick. He would give him the best medicines he had. If he survived the night he would live. He advised us to drive
on
home and come back the next afternoon. My father and I made the journey home in a grim silence. Alone in my room I missed Skip asleep in the crook of my legs. As on the day the brakes had given out on the DeSoto, I prayed to the Lord. I promised Him I would behave myself forever if He would save Skip. I hardly slept that night, and the next morning I did not go to school. That afternoon we drove again to Jackson. At the clinic I held my breath as the doctor greeted us.
“I've never seen a dog come back like that from poison,” he said. “That dog wants to live.” He needed to be nursed a few days, he said, and he gave us two big bottles of pills. All during the following week I made him rest on the sheets in my bed. I brought him water and bologna cut
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