into his sheath andpicked up the arrow that had pierced Endicottâs eye. Geronimo picked up another arrow that was lashed to the bow and took those two arrows and made a cross with them. He raised that cross up in his left hand; in his right hand was Endicottâs scalp. Geronimo walked to the river slowly, dancing to his own wild animal sounds. He waded in up to his knees, letting the blood drip into the river. Geronimo told his story to the river too. Then he turned and told it to the east, then to the south, to the west, and finally to the north. Heya, heya, heya , he sang, heya, heya, Sugar Babe , he sang, heya, heya, Sugar Babe .
I WENT BACK around to the front door like Geronimo told me and got the hellhoundsâ attention by opening the door an inch, then closing it again. I did it over and over, while Geronimo took Endicottâs clothes off his body like he told me he was going to do. Geronimo dragged Endicott into the house through the back door and laid him down there on the front-room floor in front of the fireplace. He put Endicottâs clothes in a pile next to him, shorts stuffed in the Leviâs, socks stuffed in the boots, just the way Endicott had done it. Geronimo smiled to me and said, you know, just like usual . When I got the signal that said the coast was clear, I closed the door for good, wiping the fingerprints off the knob just in case.
Then I took Old Glory down like Geronimo told me to do and folded it up like I had for flag duty at the St. Josephâs School. I brought that flag to him like he said.
Geronimo looked at Old Glory all folded up proper like that and laughed. He took it from me and shook it out the way my mother shakes out the tablecloth. He laid that American flag down next to my father. Together we rolled my father into it. My father wasnât dead, just dead drunk. Geronimo could tell the difference.
I cleaned the stone chips off the ground from when my fatherâd shot the wall. Geronimo picked up his bow and arrows. I got the .25-20, and my fatherâs suit jacket. Geronimo foundthe three empty bullet shells. He got the blood up from the grass where Endicott had been. I donât know how Geronimo took away that stain, but he did. I looked around a final time; there was no trace of what had happened.
Geronimo said it was important to get out of there before the rain stopped. It was about ready to let up, he said. We were about to pick my father up on the red-white-and-blue stretcherâget out of there for goodâwhen Geronimo walked back up to the house. I wish I hadnât followed him back there, but I did.
We looked in the window.
Those five hellhounds were sitting around Endicott in their assigned positions, licking away like I saw them do before. The dog at Endicottâs head was licking at his scalped place. He was biting at it too.
I helped Geronimo carry my father down the road a piece, but then I felt like I was going to puke and then I did start puking. I began to see only the outlines of things again; everything was traced like the things back in my fatherâs saddle room. I started shaking all over, the fear that was always in me finally coming out. I tried to stop shaking, but couldnât. I looked around. Everything seemed like the sound of the screen door when you were far away from it. I went down fast, flat as a pancake on the flat cookie sheet of earth. It was all I could do to keep from falling off the planet. I looked above me; all I could see was sky.
I remember thinking that the rain hadnât stopped, and I was glad it hadnât. The last thing I remember before I finally did fall into infinity, before I woke up in that room in the St. Anthonyâs Hospital, was Geronimo carrying me and singing. But this time his song wasnât a howl or a cry. His song was the kind that made you want to sleep, maybe forever. Maybe forevermore.
THE NURSE SAID over a week now, and then she said fever and then she said vivid
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