Free A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli Page B

stick.”
    He had no shirt on and his body seemed carved of brass. The muscles rippled on his heavy arms and massive chest as he slowly raised the cigarette and puffed deeply. A broken-backed bull gator thrashed in the bog, squirming and rolling, dying. In its jaws was a human leg.
    It was the man’s. He had used his shirt to try to stanch the flow of blood pouring from the stump, but it hadn’t made an effective bandage. He’d knotted the sleeves together but they were wet and loosening. He calmly continued smoking, apparently in no particular hurry to move, even though he was bleeding out.
    “I need your belt and a stick so I can make a tourniquet. You do know what a tourniquet is, don’t you, boy?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “That’s good, I had a gut feelin’ you was a smart kid. My name is Herbie Ordell Jonstone, come here from Tupelo, Mississippi. Don’t be scairt none, you could do me a righteous turn, you could.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    I stared down at the boy and kept stroking his hair.
    “That there is my son, Johnny Jonstone. This bull gator here got to him first. A tragedy it is, a man losing his firstborn and his leg like this all on the same afternoon. But you can help to make it right.”
    “I can?”
    “Good Lawd above, yes. We need more heroes like you in this here world, boy, trust me on that. Someone of distinguished valor and admirable exploits, that’s what you got a chance to be. Willing to help a man down on his luck and in pressing adversity. I bet this here story receives some national coverage on the TV, and folks from all around our great nation will hail your name.”
    “You really think so?”
    “For certain. And tell me now, just what is your name?”
    “Thomas.”
    “You gonna make your mama proud today, Thomas. You’re my savior is what you are.”
    “I know it,” I told him, taking my belt off. I stepped over to a loblolly pine and endeavored to break a thick piece of branch off. It took a while of twisting and bending it over with all my weight on top before it finally came free.
    “That’s it, Thomas. Now bring it on over here to me. The water ain’t but waist high on you. And don’t be scairt of that there bull, he’s done in for, that’s a fact. He sure did try to even the score though. Hurry it up some, I’m startin’ to feel a might dizzy here.”
    “I’ll tell you what, Herbie,” I said.
    “What’s ’at? You’ll . . . ?”
    I dropped my belt and the loblolly branch on the dead boy’s chest. “We’ll leave it up to Johnny Jonstone.”
    He gave a quizzical head ratchet. “The hell you say?”
    “If he brings it out to you, then you’ll be fine and me and Johnny’ll both be men of admirable exploits. He’ll make his daddy proud today.”
    “Hold on now,” Herbie said, beginning to seethe. I liked the look on his face. He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the bayou and it bounced off the flailing tail of the dying gator. “I don’t believe you quite understand the situation we got goin’ on here, boy.”
    “And I believe I do.”
    “Thomas, you come on out here now, ’fore I—”
    “If Johnny doesn’t get up, then I guess you run out of blood right there where you are and them other gators will come take you away. You hear ’em calling now, don’t ya?”
    They were roaring in the distance. Herbie turned in the slime to listen. The shock was wearing off and some of the pain and fear had started seeping in.
    “Sound fair?”
    “You little bastard!” he shrieked.
    “That any way to talk to your savior?”
    “You come on out here right now, young’n! You—”
    “No.”
    “—come this way so I can
squeeze on you some, too
!”
    I sat and waited while Herbie shouted and tried to crawl toward me, but killing the boy and the gator and having his leg torn off had taken something out of him. He couldn’t do much more than flail in place. I half expected the child to get up and clamber away crying for his mother.
    Occasionally I prodded