When I went down to the creek, I saw a girl I'd never seen before swimming without her clothes on. I'd never seen such before except once when I looked at my sister. Mama always told me to look away when Elvie dropped her shift to get in the bathtub, but one time Mama was tending the fire, and I looked, but all I saw was a skinny kid who didn't have what I've got. The girl in the river was different, and I liked looking at her a lot more. I was watching her from a cane brake, and she was swimming and singing a pretty song, when there was a shuffling noise in the leaves on the other side of the river and then a horse knickered. Pretty soon four men on horses came out of the woods, and the men were laughing. I heard one of them say, "Woo-hoo, boys, look what we got here!" The girl started splashing all arms and legs to get to my side of the creek, and she picked her way over the rocks and came running up the bank. I got a real good look then, but she was scared so pale, I didn't get stiff or flushed. ("Flushed" is what Mama calls it, but on my thirteenth birthday, Pa took me out behind the privy and told me what it is to be a man, and how a man starts to think different about girls, and he told me that if my peter gets stiff to be real careful, because that's what gets a girl in the family way or gets a man sick, if he's not careful. He said, "Saint Peter stands at the gate of Heaven, but Stiff Peter stands at the gate of Hell. Mind me, boy, and be a saint not a sinner." Pa preached sometimes when nobody else was around to man the pulpit.)
The man in front was Mr. Charles, and behind him were the Starr brothers, Silver and Bright, and then there was Mr. Rex, but everybody called him "Shooter." Mr. Charles plucked the girl's dress from where she'd hung it on a branch, and he hollered, "Looka what I got here, pretty girl! You want to come get it, or do you want us to bring it to you?" The girl turned around and said, "Leave me alone. I ain't botherin' you." I was surprised that a naked girl would be so bold, especially after she scrambled out of the water like she did, but that's what happened.
Mr. Charles started laughing, and he said, "Well, I'm feeling bothered. What about you boys?" And the Starr boys and Shooter started laughing, too. "I think we're all feeling bothered. So, you can either come over and tend to us the way we need tending, or we're going to ride over there and take what we want. What's your name anyhow? We don't see many unknown girls out here."
"None of your business what my name is."
"'None-a-your business'—that's quite a name. Well, we're coming over, Miss 'None-a-your-business,' The only question is, who's gonna do you first? Maybe the boys and me'll cast lots, like the sailors did with Jonah."
With that, Mr. Charles rode into the creek with the other men behind, and when the horses nodded down to drink, the men pulled up hard on the reins because they wanted to get across the creek to the girl. Mr. Charles said, "Guess you won't be needing this," and he threw her dress in the water. "I think you look real good just how you're looking now." And the others laughed but like they had something in their throats. "You ready to make some new friends, 'Miss None-a-your-business'?" The men knew she couldn't get away because they were on horseback, and she was barefoot and in the woods.
Then something happened I can't explain. I can't hardly even tell it with the right words. Mr. Charles had just passed the middle of the creek, and his horse was starting to climb out, and the others were following, when something that looked like a orange and red ball, kind of like a balloon because you could almost see through it, just appeared between the pretty girl and the men. Silver said, "What the hell is that?" but Bright was already turning his horse around and getting out of there. Shooter pulled his shotgun out of the holster and shot at it, but the shot went right through the ball and you could hear the pellets ripping through the leaves. Mr. Charles was standing there frozen-like when all of a moment, his horse reared straight up and looked like it was about to fall backward, so Mr. Charles jumped out of the saddle and into the creek, and when that happened, the horse just went crazy and started rearing up and coming down hard on Mr. Charles, and Mr. Charles was yelling and try to stand up, but when he ever he got his legs under him, his horse would rear up and come back down on him hard with his hoofs until finally, Mr. Charles was floating face down in the creek, but the horse didn't stop, it just kept rearing up and coming down hard with his hoofs on Mr. Charles' back and his head and now blood was swirling around the water. The other men had turned tail, and their horses were clambering out the other side of the creek, and the last thing I heard, they were riding hard up the hill and getting the hell out of there. The orange-red balloon went away, which is not to say it floated away; no, it was just gone. The girl walked back down to the creek and picked her way back over the rocks and waded out to where Mr. Charles was floating. She rolled him over and looked at his face and then rolled him back over with his face down in the water. She looked around, and I drew back in the cane brake, and she didn't see me. Then she waded into the deeper water and got her dress and swam to the other side. She climbed out onto the rocks and wrung her dress out and flipped it over her shoulder. Then she walked up the same hill where the men had ridden away. I know it was foolish, but my first thought was, "Hell's bells, I can't stop now." So, I went down to the creek where there was a big sycamore tree with a rotted hollow at the base. I took off my boots and stowed them in the tree, and then I tugged off my britches and tied the legs around my neck and waded into the creek and swam across. When I got to the other side I turned and saw the sycamore was taller than the others close by and had a big fork about a third of the way up, so I determined it would be my marker for the way home. I had hunted in these woods before, but a fellow can still get turned around, and so he should always look for marker trees so he don't get lost. I put on my britches and followed where the girl went up the hill. Of course, I knew I might lose her, but I thought, "What the hell? I'm in it now."
When I got to the top of the hill, I tucked behind a big oak and looked down to see the girl at the bottom of a valley where there was a trickle stream. She looked around again, and then started following the stream up to the left. I watched her until she disappeared, and then slipped out from behind the tree and made my way down to the stream. Then I followed the same trail she took.
I walked and walked, and the trail rose up steep with the stream about ten feet down on my right until I came upon a big shelf jutting out, which the stream ran over and dribbled down in a little waterfall. I looked back under the shelf to see what might be there. Moonshiners a lot of the time put their boilers and such back in the overhangs, but there wasn't anything there, just a couple charred logs and a fire ring, but anybody could've done that. Coon hunters, maybe. Then I went on, walking as quiet as I could. When I got to the top of the hill, the girl was gone, but I heard voices, so I crouched down and looked through the trees. That's when I saw a cabin beside the mouth of a cave where the stream came out. The voices inside were women's. No men. So still crouching, I left the trail by the creek and made a big sweep around so's I could creep up to a side window or better yet, find a chink between the logs. I sidled up to the cabin and could hear through the window, "— and you are sure he was dead?" And the girl said, "Oh, he was dead all right. His horse pummeled the goddamighty shit out of him."
The first voice sounded old and tired. "Well, it's all right, Ruthie. Them others won't say nothing. They ain't gonna bandy about they was fixing to rape a fatherless girl. They'll round up a bunch to come fetch the body, though."
"Maybe not. They were scared as hell. They might let him rot in the water."
I raised up and looked through a chink and couldn't see nothing but a poke-berry purple sleeve resting on the arm of a chair and the arm was rocking back and forth.
The old voice said, "Men er funny. One minute they're scared as chipmunks, and the next they drink some liquor and think they're Stonewall Jackson. No, they'll come back but with a passel. That's why you'n'me have got to be careful." I moved a little bit, and I could see the girl, and she had put on a dry dress. Her hair was starting to dry, and it hung about her shoulders. The girl said, "Stella is an ever present help in time of need."
The old woman's voice said, "For now. She loves you like a mama bear loves her cubs, but someday's she gonna have to go home."
"Yes'm, I know. You told me that ever since . . . . Can we talk to her tonight? Please?"
"The offense is damnable."
"She saved me today. You always said we could trust in the good Lord's mercies."
"His patience wears thin, and His decrees are just."
"This'll be the last time. I swear. She saved me, Gramma. Please."
Wasn't any sound but the rocker going up and down, and I watched the pokeberry sleeve going with it. "All right. Go out and kill something and fetch it in."
"Yes'm. Thank you, Gramma. Ever so much. This'll be the last time."
"Maybe so, maybe not. But I'll let you tell Stella 'thankee.'"
I heard the girl rise, and that was all I needed to hear because I didn't know what the girl had in mind to kill, and I didn't know who or what Stella was, but something happened weird in the creek, and I didn't want to find out. So I slipped away fast and ran down the path and made my way to the big creek and floundered across to where my boots were—I didn't think about stripping off my britches, I just jumped in and swum like hell. At first, I thought, "There ain't no way I'm going back there," but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see what a summons was, specially a summons that could damn somebody's soul, so I slowed somewhat and took careful note of the trees and rock ledges and bluffs and such. As I said, even woods you know can be tricky by day, but it's way easier to get flummoxed at night. I'd saw the moon was waxing, so at least I'd have moonlight. I couldn't carry a lantern, of course, because they'd see me coming a mile off. I was still walking and thinking when I heard a rifle shot somewhere off in the woods behind me. Ruthie was getting ready for the summons. Whatever that was.