Alligator Bayou by Donna Jo Napoli

there. But logs poke up into a cone shape from a pit near one end of the little pond. The wood is charred. I walk toward it.
    “Hana!” Something whizzes past my nose.
    I stumble. My leaf hood goes flying. Granni whinnies and takes off.
    Joseph comes into the open, holding a bow with a fresh arrow at the ready, eyes squinted. Then he lowers it. “My friend. I am sorry, friend.”
    I sink to my knees in relief.
    Joseph pulls me up by the arm. “You disguised your head. You disguised your horse. You look like someone up to no good. You are stupid.”
    And I’m laughing like a drunk man. “You could have killed me.”
    “It was a warning. Did it come too close? My eyes grow poor. Lucky for you I do not carry my gun today.”
    “Your gun!” I slap my hand on my forehead. “Your gun, your gun.” Tears roll down my cheeks, but I’m still laughing. I fall to my knees, this time with my hands in prayer. “Thank you, San Cristofero,” I say in Sicilian.
    Joseph pulls me up again. “Do you have weak knees?”
    I laugh again and shake my head. “I thanked a saint for making you not carry your gun today. He protects travelers.”
    “Does your saint steal bullets?”
    “No.”
    “Then you can thank him if you want. It is good to give thanks. But he does not deserve it. I do not carry my gun because I am out of bullets. Bullets cost money. I can make arrows for free. Come catch your horse.”
    We find Granni and calm him down.
    “You came at the right time,” Joseph says after I explain why I’m here. “I fire pottery when the moon is full. Last week the moon was full.”
    I want to ask where my pot is, but it feels rude to rush.
    Joseph offers me berries and some kind of mash. “Rest from the heat.” He sits under a tree and weaves pine needles.
    “What are you making?”
    “An alligator basket.”
    I shiver.
    Joseph blinks at me. “You do not like alligator?”
    “Who does?”
    “He can be ugly. He can be dangerous. But he is honest. He is who he is. You treat him with respect if you want a free life.”
    What’s he talking about? I’m getting the jitters. I watch him weave. A basket could be a birthday present for Rocco. I gather an armload of needles and sit beside him. “Will you teach me?”
    “Children and women weave baskets,” says Joseph. “Not you.”
    “You’re a man, and you’re weaving a basket.”
    “I am the Tunica tribe. The Tunica tribe weaves baskets.”
    “I am Sicilian,” I say. “There are six of us in Tallulah. My uncles and a cousin. And two in Milliken’s Bend. No women or children. I am not the whole tribe. But Sicilians weave baskets.”
    Joseph looks at me with new interest. “You are an orphan?”
    I’m taken aback. “No.” Then I falter. “I don’t know. My mother died last summer, and my father came to America years ago. We never heard from him again.”
    “You are alone in the world.”
    “No. I have a brother in Sicily. As soon as he’s old enough, I’m sending the money for him to come over, too.”
    Joseph scratches his chest. “You cannot weave. But since you are an orphan, you can listen. The Tunica tribe is good to orphans.”
    I don’t want him calling me that. But if he’s decided I’m an orphan, it doesn’t matter what I say. I scootch across the ground and rest my back against the base of the tree. And Joseph tells me a story.
    The Tunica people lived in a mountain with two alligators outside the entrance. They wanted to come out into the world because they’d been in that mountain since the beginning of time. But the alligators wouldn’t move, and they were afraid. So they fasted and said prayers to all nine gods. To the sun, the thunder, and fire—the three most powerful ones. And to the gods of the north, west, south, east, the earth below, and the heaven above. It worked; the alligators slunk aside. One was red and the other was blue. When the red one turned over, the world got hot. When the blue one turned over, the world got