A BLODDIED TOM GUNN • JENKINS & LUMPKIN • “THEY’RE IN THE WOODS”
THEY WERE out hunting one day when they were startled by the sound of a large animal crashing through the undergrowth. Junebug heard it first, but Beatrice and Mr. Hawkins must have then seen it, because they both immediately broke from the group in pursuit.
Lionel, Corn Poe, and Junebug tried to follow, but soon lost Beatrice and Mr. Hawkins somewhere among the trees. They paused to catch their breath, and Junebug crouched, turning his head in owl-like fashion with every creak and groan from the big trees that surrounded them.
“What in God’s creation was that?” Corn Poe gasped.
Junebug ignored him, continuing instead to rotate his head, eventually facing north, then abruptly standing and looking at Lionel. Lionel understood, and followed when Junebug suddenly broke away without making a sound.
“What—ya hear something?” Lionel heard Corn Poe call.
Lionel ran at Junebug’s heels, easily weaving between the massive tree trunks that descended from the great canopy above, and jumping over the crumbling decay of logs that lay in their path.
“Come on, what did ya hear?” Corn Poe yelled from behind, struggling to catch them. “What is it?”
They ran for a long time, but did not tire. Lionel noted that with every step, the distance between them and Corn Poe’s fading cries became more evident.
They ran as fast as they could until they reached a slight ridge that hung over a low depression. They paused at the lip, and below them they saw Beatrice closing in on what now appeared to be some sort of man, a thin man. The thin man ran recklessly, bouncing off trees and falling over their broken limbs. Mr. Hawkins, carrying his rifle, was right behind Beatrice.
Junebug and Lionel slid down the embankment on a heavy blanket of leaves and scrambled to their feet in time to see Beatrice tackle the runner and disappear behind the base of a large tree. They followed as fast as they could, and in no time, rounded the tree to find Beatrice sitting on Tom Gunn, holding him facedown on the forest floor. Mr. Hawkins stood over them, collecting his breath.
“You’ve got to let me go, you’ve got to, or they’re gonna catch me!” Tom Gunn spat dirt and wet rotting leaves from his mouth. “It won’t take long for them to figure I’m gone!”
Beatrice stood, allowing Tom to roll over; and that’s when they all saw his bruised and battered face. Tom’s right eye was swollen shut, and there was a cut on his upper lip. He also wore a two-inch gash smack dab in the middle of his forehead, and his tattered turkey feathers were missing.
“I’m tellin’ ya, you’re best to let me go!” Tom yelled.
“Son, just take a minute to catch your breath,” Mr. Hawkins said, frantically scanning the low depression where they stood.
“I just don’t want ’em to catch me,” Tom said, his words turning into low and heavy sobs. “I just wanna go back to school. I just wanna go home.”
Lionel looked at Beatrice, who watched Tom without emotion.
“Hey, where are y’all?” suddenly boomed across the wash. “I can hear ya, but I sure the hell can’t see ya.”
Mr. Hawkins’s head snapped in the direction of Corn Poe’s voice. “That boy is just about a hair away from bein’ a full-blown idiot, ain’t he?”
“Come on, y’all,” Corn Poe’s cries continued, “where are ya?”
Mr. Hawkins shot a look at Junebug, and in a silent flash the boy was gone, running back in the direction of Corn Poe’s pleading cries. Mr. Hawkins kneeled down next to Tom and helped him to sit.
“Son, you’re all right now.”
Lionel noticed that there was something different in Mr. Hawkins’s voice and that his face had wrinkled into a concerned frown.
“Now, listen. I ain’t gonna hurt ya, but I do need you to answer me this right away. How far back are these folks that did this to ya?”
Tom looked up at Mr. Hawkins with a curious expression. “They’re a ways back. I’ve been running through the night, but they’ll catch me. I know they will.” Tom looked wildly around, resting his gaze on Beatrice and Lionel. “They’re looking for you!”
“Me?” Corn Poe retorted, appearing from behind the big tree with Junebug at his side. “Go figure.”
“Corn Poe, make yourself useful and get this boy something to drink,” Mr. Hawkins instructed. Tom, although battered, bruised, and bleeding, looked to have calmed down a bit. “Now, who’s after who, son? who ya running from?” Hawkins persisted.
“The men, the government men from the outpost. They’re here. They’re here somewhere in the woods.”
Mr. Hawkins’s face tightened. Lionel watched, but Beatrice’s expression remained unchanged.
“Barney decided he’d try to collect the hundred dollars for the return of the horse, but these men…Lumpkin and Jenkins…they’ve gone crazy. went to hittin’ me and Barney after we left the captain.”
“The captain?”
“Yeah, when he heard that his horse was up in the mountains, he formed his own party to set out to retrieve ’im. Jenkins convinced the captain to let him and Lumpkin go ahead to scout. Made me and Barney go with ’em.”
Corn Poe reappeared with a small flask of water and handed it to Tom, who drank it all in a single gulp.
“We were supposed to go back to where the captain is camped to report, but Jenkins, the one with the scar, he said that we’re close enough and that he don’t need the captain to apprehend renegade children, so he made us keep going.”
“How many men’s he got?” Hawkins shot, in a tone that Lionel wouldn’t have recognized as his voice before today.
“Well, back at the captain’s camp, they got about ten, maybe twelve, but Jenkins got about five with him, five not including Mr. Lumpkin. I left in the night ’cause Jenkins hit the bottle and went to beatin’ on me and Barney, claiming we knew more than we let on and that we was leading him on what he called ‘a wild goose chase.’”
Tom paused and tilted the empty flask back toward the sky, draining it of its few remaining drops.
“Barney got the worst of it. I don’t think he cares for the one hundred dollars no more.”
Mr. Hawkins sat back on his haunches and looked up at Junebug, who stood at the base of the tree next to Corn Poe.
“What?” Corn Poe asked.
But Mr. Hawkins stayed quiet.