Considering I was already scared, that bit of advice really lit a shuck under me. Next thing I knew Pa was taking out his old cheap pocket watch and giving me that, as if telling time under the circumstances was important, and then he hugged me. I shoved that watch deep in my pocket, dropped the Colt into a feed sack, and within minutes I was running out of the house, across the field toward that deep draw that was at the back of our place.

As I ran I heard Pa yell at me, “Run, Willie, run.”

I made right smart of my run, and it wasn’t long before I come to that draw, which was bordered by trees. I slipped down the side of it, stumbling, near losing that big cannon of a gun as I went. I got my feet under me, then took to running through the shallow water that crawled along the draw like a thin, wet snake. I figured if I was in the water I might put off any dogs they brought, and my tracks could get lost if there were enough rocks at the bottom of the stream. That plan went to hell quick when I realized I was just bogging in mud and leaving a path that a blind man with no more than a walking stick to feel around with could have followed. It also come to me that a dog didn’t need to smell my feet, just me. Anyway, I continued on, and it didn’t seem any time at all that I come to the spot I was hunting for: the big gathering of pines.

Scrambling up the side of the draw, I made it into the trees, and at the same time I heard horses splashing through the water. They had come on me quicker than I could have imagined. I paused a moment for a peek, and coming over the lip of the draw I saw a horse, and on it was Ruggert, shirted now and wearing an old black flat hat. There was a holstered revolver on his hip.

Ruggert had no more made the top of the draw than another man on horseback followed up. I didn’t wait to see how many there was, cause I knew for certain there was more of them than me.

They broke apart, fanning out through the pines, and I started hoofing it. I decided it might be smart to go wide and backtrack on them and get behind them and into the creek. They didn’t have dogs with them, but they had reckoned correctly that I would head to Pa’s place, and it occurred to me then that was why they was on me so fast, having found my footprints out in the plowed field and then followed them down into the draw.

I went wide and cut back through the pines, back to the water, but well up ahead of where I had been. When I got to the draw it wasn’t just a little run of water no more. It was wide in the spot I come to, and was in fact no longer a draw at all but a marsh. There was reeds and old dried wood and some trees growing up in it. I couldn’t figure no other thing to do than to wade in and try and heel it to dry land, which was a considerable distance away.

Me and my feed sack full of pistol got into the water, and it wasn’t deep, but it was mucky. I headed to where the trees was thickest in the beyond, and hadn’t gone no distance at all when I heard a horse splashing along in the water. I turned to see that it wasn’t none other than Ruggert riding down on me, though his horse was having considerable problems in the mud.

He yelled out to the others he had me cornered, and that’s when the water got deep and I was suddenly up to my neck, still clinging to my bag of pistol but knowing I had most likely wetted it up to the point of not firing.

It was then that I took a step and found the water got really deep. I was under it before I could say, “Oh, shit.”

I don’t know how far I went down, but it seemed some distance. All I know for sure was it was wet and I come up out of it snorting. At that same time a shot was fired, and I felt the side of my head, high up over my ear, burn like a lightning strike, and then everything was black.

I couldn’t have been out long, cause when I come to Ruggert and his horse was right over me. Still in his saddle, Ruggert swung out and down, trying to grab me by the collar, pull me up, trap me against the side of his horse, and ride me out of the water, where he could lay solid hands on me.

I was pretty light and thin compared to him. He was strong and was trying to back his horse out of the water, dragging me with it. It was then that I swung out with the bag of pistol, which I had clung to even during my time of unconsciousness. I swung it high, and damned if I didn’t catch Ruggert a good lick—nailed him about the same place he grazed me with his shot.

He let out a sound like a cow that was dropping her calf, and next thing he was in the water, facedown and cold out. I ain’t sure why I done it, but I rolled him over so he wouldn’t drown. I looked down into his face, which seemed to be older than I knew he was, and took a quick study of it. There was creases on his forehead, along with a red knot swelling up where I had whacked him. His whiskers was wet and clearly shot through with gray. It was then, too, that I realized that though he was stout, he wasn’t no big man, really, but was short and muscled with a big belly. I don’t know why I noticed all this, but I did, and then I let him go a’floating and got to hustling out of there, thinking any minute the rest of them fellas would come up on me. An alligator couldn’t have hastened through that marsh any faster than I did, though I was concerned I might come upon a real one in my progress, it being bottomland and close to where the Sabine run its course.

I didn’t have no idea how far I went or how long it was before they found Ruggert, who at that point in time I thought was dead. I just kept going.

The swamp got thicker with trees, and the land got firmer, and after a long time I was on solid ground, moving along nicely through a stand of hardwoods and scattered pines. The day began to creep away, and I stopped a few times to rest, listening for horses, but didn’t hear nothing. Being in such thick woods, I couldn’t really see the sun and tell which way it was sinking, so I was firmly confused on directions.

When the trees broke there was a clearing. I looked out and seen I had made a loop all the way back to our property, only now where our house used to be standing, there was a pile of blackened ash and charred wood.

My first impulse was to charge out of there over to the house and see if I could find Pa, but I didn’t. It was a tough decision, but I had been dragging and staggering through the swamp and the woods all day, and the sun was setting like a busted apple off to my right, finally showing me which way was west. I sat down among the trees and put the bag of Colt in my lap and waited until it was solid dark.

There was just a piece of moon that night, but it was good enough I could make my way across the field and over to our burned house. I looked around as best I could in the moonlight, fearing I’d find Pa’s body, and that’s exactly what I did. He was blacker than his natural black and was smoking like a heap of burning tobacco, his ribs and skull revealed, the fire having charred the flesh off of them.

They had throwed our hog up in there with him, probably shot it or beaned it in the head. It had burned up too, except I could see its legs poking up, its hog hooves puffing off strips of smoke like rips of cotton. The air smelled like frying pork, or at least I liked to think it was pork, cause it made my stomach hungry and sick at the same time.

I felt so weak I almost couldn’t walk. It was too hot to go right in there and drag Pa out, and by that point it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to cure up and be well between now and things cooling off. He was dead as dead could be, and they had either killed him there or done it and put him and the hog in the cabin and set fire to it just because they could. I wasn’t sure what their problem with the hog was. Probably just wanted to kill something else, and without me being around the porker had taken my place.