toward the bobcat, hidden in the darkness now that the carbide beams on the men’s hats had dropped to head level.
“Don’t shoot no arrows into none of my dogs, niggers,” said Uncle Putt, directing his beam into the thicket across the creek again.
“We ain’t niggers,” a voice from a different location announced. “We are a war party of the Alabama-Coushatta, and this is your personal Little Big Horn, palefaces.”
“Right,” said the first one who had spoken. “You have done fucked with our totem, our brother the bobcat. Now you’re going to have your famous last stand.”
The high cackling laugh broke out again from behind the sweetgum and kept on for a full half minute this time.
“I wasn’t going to shoot him,” said Norman to the darkness, facing one direction and then shifting to the other. “Look, my rifle’s empty. It’s not even loaded.” He held the weapon so that the beam of light from his carbide lamp shone on it and then jerked his hands away and let it fall to the ground in front of him.
“Here,” he said, “you can have these shells.” He fumbled in his pocket for his box of cartridges, found it and threw it toward the creek. It made a splash and a tinkle. “We was going to let the preacher shoot the bobcat, me and my buddy was. I mean that sincerely.”
“Wait just a minute,” B. J. spoke up. “I’m not here to kill anything. I just come out into the woods to study nature and praise God.”
“A preacher,” said one of the war party. “That means they got to have some whiskey with them.”
“Hey,” called another voice from a new point of the compass. “We want your firewater, palefaces.”
“Here it is,” Mr. Hall volunteered, pulling out what was left of the pint of Old Granddad and taking the new unopened one from Norman. “Here’s all the whiskey we got.”
“Put it over there on that sycamore trunk,” somebody said, and Mr. Hall moved to obey, his carbide light jiggling as though he had fever. “Don’t throw it in the creek like the other dumb fuck did to the shells.”
“A bunch of damn reservation Indians,” Uncle Putt said. Elvis whined deep in his throat and barked once at the sweetgum. Two of the other dogs had flopped down to pant in the dead leaves and pine needles, and the other one, Johnny Ray, was lapping water out of the creek.
“Naw, old man,” said the first voice that had spoken, “we just come in off a buffalo hunt, and our medicine’s been bad.”
“Shit,” said Uncle Putt and spit a stream of tobacco juice.
“Hush, Uncle Putt,” said B. J. “Don’t get them mad at us.”
“That’s right. Listen to the preacher.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” said the Indian who had been doing all the laughing and then he laughed again.
Encouraged, B. J. spoke up. “Now what that young man just said shows you all have gone to Sunday school. Now, is this right? I ask you.”
“Shut up, preacher,” said somebody across the creek, making snapping noises as he moved through the brush. “We been to Sunday school and we also have seen that video, what’s it called, He Who Watches Films?”
“Deliverance,” said He Who Watches Films and sniggered.
“That’s right. It’s all about what you rednecks do to one another when you get off in the woods together.”
“Palefaces are a nasty bunch,” somebody else said.
“Disgusting,” came an answer in what sounded to B. J. like a put-on English accent.
“Brave, though.”
“You got it,” said the first voice. “Tell you soldiers what. We as the Alabama-Coushatta war party want all y’all to take off all your clothes. All them camouflage jackets and boots and them suspenders and Fruit-of-the-Loom jockey shorts and all the rest of it.
“Oh, no,” said Norman and began to sob, having seen the video and read the book, too. “What? What?”
“Don’t worry, corporal,” said the voice across the creek. “We ain’t going to cornhole you. We ain’t rednecks.”
The laugher cackled again and called out: “But our necks are red.”
“That sounds like a song. Our necks are red, but we ain’t rednecks.”
The war party began to guffaw and shake bushes, and up in the sweetgum the bobcat moved down to the next lower limb. Elvis stirred in the dead leaves and whined.
“But back to business,” called the voice from across the creek. “After you palefaces get naked, call your dogs off our brother bobcat and haul ass out of here.”
Mr. Hall and Norman were already pulling at their clothes, unzipping and unbuttoning as fast as they could in the wavery light from the carbide lamps, scattering garments as each piece came free. In a second B. J. joined them, bending over to untie his boots and almost tripping over the rifle he had dropped when he heard the first voice coming out of the thicket.
“You too, old man,” the leader said. “What are you? Some kind of a guide to these fuckers? Get your overalls off, and all of you put your stuff in a big pile. And preacher . . .” the voice paused. “You the biggest man of the bunch, looking at your light. The war party wants you to carry everybody’s stuff out of these woods. I mean all of it. We don’t want you to leave a single damn paleface thing in these woods.”
“Except for the firewater,” said somebody, and the rest of them laughed.
“What about their little headlights, chief?” said the voice behind the sweetgum.
“Y’all can wear them on out of here. You look like a bunch of one-eyed men from Mars with them things on anyway.”
By this time Uncle Putt’s pack of hounds had noticed the bobcat’s progress back down the tree and had surged forward to bay at the base of the sweetgum again, only Elvis lagging back a little.
“Shut up them dogs, old man,” said the main speaker. “We got arrows trained on them just aching for their blood.”
Uncle Putt kicked the last leg of his overalls loose from a foot and began tying lengths of cotton rope around the neck of each dog. “Come on, dogs,” he said to the cat pack. “Let him go. Let’s get the goddamn hell out of this thicket.”
“You tell them, Davy Crockett,” said one of the war party and let out a series of high-pitched yips.
Stripped to his carbide light and boots, B. J. leaned over to scoop up his and the other’s clothes and rifles, and found it difficult to get everything balanced on one arm while he loaded with the other. A jacket fell off one side as he was feeling around in the dry leaves for a shirt, and somebody’s rifle slipped loose when he began to straighten up.
“One of you men help me,” he said in the direction of a carbide beam, and the person behind it backed off.
“They
