Secret of the Satilfa. Ted Dunagan

varmints get to ’em.”

      We washed our greasy hands in the swift water and stood by the fire with our palms spread wide to dry them.

      Darkness had set in and the forest, along with the creek, had turned to blackness. Even though it was only a few feet away, the sound of the water was the only thing that indicated the creek existed.

      “I’m gon stoke up dis fire some so we got some light, and den does you wants to play some mumblety-peg?”

      “Yeah, I would, but it’ll dull our knife blades and we need to keep them sharp to clean fish with.”

      “I brought along a little whet rock,” Poudlum said. “I can sharpen ’em up again.”

      “All right,” I agreed as I smoothed out a place on the ground next to the fire with my hands. “Whoever gets twelve points first wins.”

      Mumblety-peg is a game in which the players flip a knife, the object being to stick the blade or blades firmly in the ground so it doesn’t fall over. The big blade is opened fully and the small blade is opened halfway forming an “L” shape by the blades. The player flips the knife, and if it sticks into the ground by the small blade only, it counts as three points, or two points if it sticks by the big blade, and one point if it sticks by both blades. No points are scored if neither sticks, and the flip passes to the next player.

      But before either of us scored twelve points, we got drowsy. We gave up on the game and got our quilts and rolled up in them by the fire.

      “Hey, Poudlum.”

      “Uh-huh,” he answered sleepily.

      “Anytime you wake up during the night, throw a little more wood on the fire and I’ll do the same.”

      The moon kept appearing and reappearing as it butted clouds around in the sky like a billy goat. A million stars were twinkling away in the heavens above just before I closed my eyes and succumbed to the warmth of our fire and my momma’s quilt.

      I don’t know how long I had been asleep when I began to feel something hard jabbing me through the quilt. I woke up to see a hot bed of coals glowing in the fire and thought I was just dreaming. Then I felt the jabbing again. It was rough and hard this time and I knew it was real.

      I turned over, sat up, and in the dim light looked up and saw what I knew had to be the same sight that had frightened my uncle earlier in the day.

      It was the black, glaring bore holes of a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

      “Wake up, boy,” a gruff voice said.

      There were two of them. The other one was stoking up the fire and adding wood to it. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, but my attention was focused on the two black holes above my head, which I knew could belch out fire and death.

      After I raised up on my elbow, he said, “Go on, sit up now. We just want to talk to you.”

      Fresh flames were licking up from the hot coals around the firewood the other one had added, and a flickering, shadowy light was beginning to illuminate our campsite.

      I sat up, drawing my quilt around me like some kind of cloak of protection, but it didn’t help. The man reached down, grabbed it off me and tossed it aside.

      His shoes and pants legs were sopping wet halfway up to his knees. The other one’s were too. I knew then that they had waded across the creek from the other side, and that my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me earlier.

      I was on my knees now. He had on a long-sleeved denim jacket and looked like he hadn’t shaved in about a week. His eyes were beady as a squirrel’s as they darted around from under the brim of a felt hat from which long hair spilled out and hung down to his shoulders.

      I knew who they were. They were the bank robbers, but I was awake enough to realize they probably didn’t know I knew that.

      “What y’all want, mister?” I managed to say.

      “We just want to warm ourselves by y’all’s fire and dry our wet shoes. You don’t mind if we do that, do you?”

      “No, sir. Don’t mind at all.”

      “What’s your name, boy?” the one with the scattergun asked.

      “My name’s Ted.”

      “What’s your little nigger friend’s name?”

      I didn’t like them calling him that, but I went ahead and told them Poudlum’s name. He was just now waking up and his eyes were wide and white, like two hen eggs in a pool of soot.

      There was a bond of friendship and loyalty between Poudlum and me. We had encountered dangerous situations before, and we could communicate with just our eyes. I gave him a look, and I could tell he understood we shouldn’t let on that we knew who our visitors were.