Free Redeye by Clyde Edgerton Page B

short doors. The place had to be very, very old. We went into a room that was about six feet by six feet and less than head high. It was by itself, off from the others. Somehow it all made me want to measure everything.
    Inside was corncobs everywhere, and four tall standing pots, two broken by the fallen rocks and two whole ones, and there was some very old skins piled in a corner. The smell was some kind of ancient smell of dryness, no dampness—a smell I’d never smelt before. Not bad, just different.
    Little holes were around in the walls and in one of them I saw a little leather pouch, or something like leather, real old, tied with a string. I got it without Zack seeing me and put it in my pocket.
    We heard a rifle shot down in the valley.
    â€œThat’s Pittman shooting a coyote for Redeye,” said Zack.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œI ain’t sure. That’s just what he said he was gone do. I ain’t sure about him and that dog. It ain’t natural.” He looked out at the late sunlight. “We better start on down. If we had a little more time, we could look for stuff.”
    â€œDo you think that’s true about lost tribes of Israel being in here?” I’d heard talk about that.
    â€œNaw.”
    It was getting dark, so we filled up our canteens and herded the cows out and down the ridge. They’d smelled that water, I guess, and didn’t want to go down but we poked them and got them started and then followed them down and got the horses. Zack blocked off the ledge with dead wood so no more cattle could get back up.
    Mr. Pittman had a fire going and hot coffee and some oatmeal, cornbread, and bacon cooked up. We was all good and hungry and he’d cooked up enough. After we ate, we smoked a smoke and took a swig of whiskey.
    Mr. Pittman says, “You boys come on with me and I’ll show you something. Redeye. Stay here.
Stay
!” He lit a lighter knot and we walked in the dark a ways until he lit another pile of wood that he must have fixed up earlier. I saw what he’d rigged. There was a fairly high tree limb that had a rope over it. One end of the rope was staked to the ground—out a ways from under the limb and at a angle. The rope looped right many times around the stake. The other end of the rope was tied around the hind legs of a dead coyote so that he was hanging straight down from the limb with his nose about head high. The fire wavered light over all of this.
    I was trying to figure out what he was gone to do.
    â€œRedeye,” he hollered, and whistled.
    Redeye came a-running and as soon as he saw the coyote, he went into a crouch, and started creeping like a sheep dog.
    â€œSee him, Redeye, see him, boy. Now, whoa, whoa . . .
stay
. That a boy. Don’t move. That a boy.
Stay
.”
    Redeye froze like a bird dog pointing. He was watching that coyote.
    Mr. Pittman walked over and started unwrapping the rope from around the stake so that the coyote was lowered.
    This deep growl started in Redeye’s throat. All the hair along his back was standing up. He looked like all his muscles was about to explode.
    Mr. Pittman stopped unwrapping. The coyote was swaying. It was a pretty skinny, beat-up old coyote, shot in the shoulder, through the heart it looked like. Now it was hanging with the head about waist high and Redeye was starting to move toward it.
    â€œWhoa, Redeye.
Whoa.”
    Redeye stopped.
    â€œNow. One . . . two . . .
Sic
’em, Redeye.
Sic
’em.”
    Redeye was off, digging up dirt. He leaped and clamped on the coyote’s nose and the two were hanging like one, swinging slow, back and forth. Redeye’d hold still and sway and then growl and shake his head, swaying back and forth all hooked into the coyote.
    â€œI used to see terriers and badgers hooked in like that,” said Mr. Pittman, “and they’d go at it so long you’d have to pick the badger up by the hind legs and dip the terrier