We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called "yeller" in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark.
"What you're needing worse than a horse is a good dog."
"Yessir," I said, "but a horse is what I'm wanting the worst."
"All right," he said. "You act a man's part while I'm gone, and I'll see that you get a man's horse to ride when I sell the cattle. I think we can shake on that deal."
He reached out his hand, and we shook. It was the first time I'd ever shaken hands like a man. It made me feel big and solemn and important in a way I'd never felt before. I knew then that I could handle whatever needed to be done while Papa was gone.
A big diamond-back rattler struck at Papa and Papa chopped his head off with one quick lick of his scythe. The head dropped to the ground three or four feet away from the writhing body. It lay there, with the ugly mouth opening and shutting, still trying to bite something.
As smart as Bell was, you'd have thought he'd have better sense than to go up and nuzzle that rattler's head. But he didn't, and a second later, he was falling back, howling and slinging his own head till his ears popped. But it was too late then. […] He died that night, and I cried for a week.
I'd hit her but hadn't made a killing shot.
I didn't like that. I never minded killing for meat. Like Papa had told me, every creature has to kill to live. But to wound an animal was something else. Especially one as pretty and harmless as a deer. It made me sick to think of the doe's escaping, maybe to hurt for days before she finally died.
We sat and ate and listened to [the bulls]. We could tell by their rumblings and bawlings that they were gradually working their way down through the brush toward each other and getting madder by the minute.
I always liked to see a fight between bulls or bears or wild boars or almost any wild animals. Now, I got so excited that I jumped up from the table and went to the door and stood listening. I'd made up my mind that if the bulls met and started a fight, I was going to see it.
But I was too excited about the fight. I didn't see the danger in time. I was still aside the top rail when the struggling bulls crashed through the fence, splintering the posts and rails, and toppling me to the ground almost under them. […] The roaring of the bulls was right in my ears. The hot, reeking scent of their blood was in my nose. The bone-crashing weight of their hoofs was stomping all around and over me, churning up such a fog of dust that I couldn't see a thing.
Every night before Mama let him go to bed, she'd make Arliss empty his pockets of whatever he'd captured during the day. Generally, it would be a tangled-up mess of grasshoppers and worms and praying bugs and little rusty tree lizards. […] Sometimes it was stuff like a young bird that had fallen out of its nest before it could fly, or a green-speckled spring frog or a striped water snake. And once he turned out of his pocket a wadded-up baby copperhead that nearly threw Mama into spasms.
That day when I saw [Little Arliss] in the spring, so helpless against the angry she bear, I learned different. I knew then that I loved him as much as I did Mama and Papa, maybe in some ways even a little bit more.
So it was only natural for me to come to love the dog that saved him.
After that, I couldn't do enough for Old Yeller. What if he was a big ugly meat-stealing rascal? […] None of that made a lick of difference now. He’d pitched in and saved Little Arliss when I couldn’t possibly have done it, and that was enough for me.
This sure looked like a case of hydrophobia to [Bud] Searcy, as anybody knew that no fox in his right mind was going to jump on a hunter.
Which reminded him of an uncle of his that got mad-dog bit down in the piney woods of East Texas. This was way back when Searcy was a little boy. As soon as the dog bit him, the man knew he was bound to die; so he went and got a big log chain and tied one end around the bottom of a tree and the other one to one of his legs. And right there he stayed till the sickness got him and he lost his mind.
It made me mad. "You thievin' rascal," I said. "I ought to get a club and break your back—in fourteen different places."
But I didn't really mean it, and I didn't say it loud and ugly. I knew that if I did, he'd fall over and start yelling like he was dying. And there I'd be-in a fight with Little Arliss again.
"When they shoot you, I'm going to laugh," I told him.
But I knew that I wouldn't.
I didn't wait to hear any more. I ran off. I was so full of relief that I was about to pop. I knew that if I didn't get out of sight in a hurry, this Burn Sanderson was going to catch me crying.
"You're not scared, are you, boy? I'm only telling you because I know your papa left you in charge of things. I know you can handle whatever comes up. I'm just telling you to watch close and not let anything—anything—get to you or your folks with hydrophobia. Think you can do that?"
I swallowed. "I can do it," I told him. "I'm not scared."
The sternness left Burn Sanderson's face. He put a hand on my shoulder, just as Papa had the day he left.
"Good boy," he said. "That's the way a man talks."
A boy, before he really grows up, is pretty much like a wild animal.
Papa had told me right from the start that fear was a right and natural feeling for anybody, and nothing to be ashamed of.
"It's a thing of your mind," he said, "and you can train your mind to handle it just like you can train your arm to throw a rock."
Put that way, it made sense to be afraid; so I hadn't bothered about that.
A big lump came up into my throat. Tears stung my eyes, blinding me. Here he was, trying to lick my wound, when he was bleeding from a dozen worse ones.
For the next couple of weeks, Old Yeller and I had a rough time of it. I lay on the bed inside the cabin and Yeller lay on the cowhide in the dog run, and we both hurt so bad that we were wallowing and groaning and whimpering all the time. Sometimes I hurt so bad that I didn't quite know what was happening. I'd hear grunts and groans and couldn't tell if they were mine or Yeller's.
In a way, it sort of hurt my pride for a little old girl like Lisbeth to come in and take over my jobs. Papa had left me to look after things. But now I was laid up, and here was a girl handling my work about as good as I could. Still, she couldn't get out and mark hogs or kill meat or swing a chopping axe. . .
Now, I knew that Spot wouldn't get well, and this bull wouldn't, either. I knew they were both deathly sick with hydrophobia. Old Yeller had scented that sickness in this bull and somehow sensed how fearfully dangerous it was.
I thought of Lisbeth and Little Arliss down past the spring. I came up out of my chair, calling for Mama. "Mama!" I said. "Bring me my gun, Mama!"
We couldn't leave the dead bull to lie there that close to the cabin. In a few days, the scent of rotting flesh would drive us out. Also, the carcass lay too close to the spring. Mama was afraid it would foul up our drinking water.
"We'll have to try to drag it further from the cabin and burn it," she said.
"Burn it?" I said in surprise. "Why can't we just leave it for the buzzards and varmints to clean up?"
"Because that might spread the sickness," Mama said. "If the varmints eat it, they might get the sickness, too."
I went off to the spring after a bucket of fresh water and wondered when Papa would come back. Mama had said a couple of days ago that it was about that time, and I hoped so. […] This hydrophobia plague had me scared. I'd handled things pretty well until that came along. Of course, I'd gotten a pretty bad hog cut, but that could have happened to anybody, even a grown man. And I was about to get well of that. But if the sickness got more of our cattle, I wouldn't know what to do.
"But Mama," I said. "We don't know for certain. We could wait and see. We could tie him or shut him up in the corncrib or some place till we know for sure!"
Mama broke down and went to crying then. She put her head on my shoulder and held me so tight that she nearly choked off my breath.
"We can't take a chance, Son,” she sobbed. "It would be you or me or Little Arliss or Lisbeth next. I'll shoot him if you can't, but either way, we've got to do it. We just can't take the chance!"
It was going to kill something inside me to do it, but I knew then that I had to shoot my big yeller dog.
Once I knew for sure I had it to do, I don't think I really felt anything. I was just numb all over, like a dead man walking.
Quickly, I left Mama and went to stand in the light of the burning bear grass. I reloaded my gun and called Old Yeller back from the house. I stuck the muzzle of the gun against his head and pulled the trigger.
Days went by, and I couldn’t seem to get over it. I couldn’t eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't cry. I was all empty inside, but hurting. Hurting worse than I'd ever hurt in my life.
"Now the thing to do," he went on, "is to try to forget it and go on being a man."
"How?” I asked. "How can you forget a thing like that?"
He studied me for a moment, then shook his head. "I guess I don't quite mean that," he said. "It's not a thing you can forget. “
I started to holler at them. I started to say: "Arliss! You get that nasty pup out of our drinking water."
Then I didn't. Instead, I went to laughing. I sat there and laughed till I cried. When all the time I knew that I ought to go beat them to a frazzle for messing up our drinking water.
