The Jessie

4 young brothers, a creek race with bottles and the love and memory of a pet

The Jessie

I

          Splashing sounds came, three bottles, contrasting in shape, brown in color, had been thrown into a creek, thrown by three different hands. A fourth bottle, green in hue, went after them, cast by a fourth hand.

           The launching of the bottles was accompanied by four high-pitched voices. They spoke one after the other, they were announcing their bottles to the trees, the unseen animals, the hidden reptiles, the creek below, and to themselves.

          "The Swift Bird!"

          "The Lightning!"

          "The Bullet!"

          "The Jessie!"

          The three voices which had shouted out before the fourth, responded together now. "Jessie, that's a girl's name!"

          "I like it!" The fourth voice hurled defiantly back to the other three on the creek bank. "You wait and watch me win the race!"

          "You wait and see!" crowed the other three.

          They were brothers, all of them somewhere near the age of twelve, and having a "boat race" in the creek that flowed near their rural home. The "boats", the capped bottles, had been found in a dump. The bottles were now starting to drift down the creek, moved by the languid current. The boys ran along the lip of the bank, shouting encouragement at their "boats".

          "Go, Bullet, go!"

          "Ha, Jeff, your Bullet won't get any place. See, my Lightning is in the lead already."

          "I'll catch you, Will. Hey, Ted, your Swift Bird is almost as slow as the Jessie."

          "Slow? The Jessie's stuck! Hey, Eddie, the Jessie's stuck!"

          "Oh no." The boy called Eddie ran into the trees to the Jessie and lifted a heavy, fallen branch. He staggered with it to the creek bank, and dropped it. A splash came, and Eddie was a recipient of the spray. When the water settled, the branch was moving forward, and the Jessie was still lodged in some overhanging, drooping grass. The other boys, Jeff, Ted, and Will, had already gone around the first bend, running with their "boats". Eddie could easily hear his brothers but the closely cluttered trunks hid them.

          "Oh dear." Eddie thought about breaking one of the rules. You weren't supposed to go down a bank, but it would be rescuing the Jessie. His brothers wouldn't see him, and he was behind. But, still a rule was a rule, and he was sure the Jessie would win no matter what.

          Eddie took off his shoe and threw it at the blades frustrating the Jessie. After a few anxious seconds, the Jessie emerged from the grasses and started drifting again. Eddie broad-jumped the creek, and rescued his shoe by dangling his arm over the bank, swooping up the wet footpiece with his hand.

          He jiggled his foot down into the leather, and looked up to see the Jessie stopped again. This time it was wedged beneath a small overhang of earth. Eddie stamped his foot and ran forward.

          For the next several minutes, the incident kept repeating itself. Eddie would free the Jessie, the Jessie would float several seconds, then be halted again. Meanwhile, his brother's voices faded behind the trees and weeds.

          Then, just as the Jessie again was caught by some grass, Eddie realized he could no longer hear Jeff, Ted, and Will. He stopped, feeling ice on his shoulders. He wished for a heavier shirt, momentarily forgetting the green-colored Jessie.

          He looked around. The wild roses, which had torn at his clothes, were clustered more thickly than ever. Animals and reptiles were hidden. He couldn't hear any birds, nor were there any buzzing grasshoppers.

          "Guys!" he screamed, and his burr-covered shoes moved forward. "Guys!"

          Eddie sat on the ground. No, he wasn't going to be a "chicken". He wished for a sweater this time.

          Eddie looked down at the creek, and saw the Jessie still held by some grass. He wished for his thick, plaid winter coat.

          "Jessie."  A thin, curving wet line was on his left cheek. "Jessie! JESSIE!" Eddie was wishing he was in his bed.

II

          Jeff, Ted, and Will had reached the place called Three Forks, where the creek was joined by two empty gullies. The boys were all sitting on a fallen log, giving each other perplexed looks.

          "Well," Jeff said, "What are we going to do?"

          "I don't know . What do you think, Ted?"

          "We've gotta keep ahead. We can't let Eddie catch up with us. He's been last every race."

          "But, we can't cheat."

          "But if we don't do something, Eddie will catch up and he'll be stuck too, and then the race'll be a tie."

          The three brothers looked at the creek. The whites of their eyes showed as they cast their eyes upwards again in despair. The Swift Bird, Lightning, and Bullet were bobbing in the creek behind another fallen log. A slight crack between the log and the creek's bed was allowing water to pass, but not the boats.

          "Try again." Ted said. All three boys jumped to their feet and each dragged a branch to the creek. They flung them in. The sticks floated up to the bottles, making a shelter.

          "Hey, over there!" Ted pointed.

          "That?" It was in response to the long log they had been sitting on that Ted had directed his finger towards.

          "Do you want the Bullet to be tied by the Jessie?"

          "No!"

          The boys' legs were quivering from exertion when the log started rolling forward. It reached the embankment and plunged down. It hit the creek and a great, watery upheaval swept the bottles along with the trapping branches over the barring log. The Swift Bird, Lightning, and Bullet were on their way again.

III

          A hand dug into Eddie's shoulder. A voice spoke. "Who's Jessie?"

          Eddie jerked from the hand, his thoughts of bed scattered. The ice was clutching at his shoulders with a renewed grip as Eddie turned. He saw a tall man in a long coat. Somehow Eddie would have preferred a snake.

          "Jessie!" he shrieked, feeling as if he were in an icebox. He jumped over the edge, and slid down the earthy bank, gathering soil in his clothes. He was breaking a rule. But the man ---

          "Hey-" The harsh sounding command descended down on Eddie.

          The boy cast a glance over his shoulder. He saw the man looming above the lip of the yawning bank. The man wanted to be obeyed. And he, Eddie, was breaking the rules. But the race, but the Jessie, but Jeff, Ted, Will --

          Eddie was in the creek. He sprawled out in the water at first, then sloshed towards the grass holding the Jessie. His lunging swayed the Jessie's captors forward. The Jessie was released. It started drifting.

          "Hey you!" The man's voice called again. Eddie again looked at the man. The man was stooping down, getting ready to come down the escarpment. His long coat was dragging in the grass.

          "Go Jessie!" Eddie whispered, then clawed his way up the opposite bank. Eddie took a third hurried look at the man, as he pulled himself up on the other side. The man had stopped in his descent.

          "Hey, now wait," the man wasn't so excited. "Wait, please."

          For the first time, Eddie noticed the rifle the man had laid down on the other bank. He scooped up a stone at his feet, and flung it at the man. Eddie turned and ran, heading for the Leaning Tree, the finish point for the race.

IV

          "Go Bullet, go Bullet!"

          "Move Swift Bird, get going!"

          "Rah, Lightning!"

          "Hey, we're near the Leaning Tree! We're near it. Bullet's in the lead! Bullet's in the lead! Go, Bullet!"

          "Hey, wait, where's Eddie?"

          "Oh, behind. He'll catch up. Bullet's in the lead. Go Bullet!"

          Ted leaped backwards. Jeff and Will bumped into him.

          "Hey, Ted, get going. Bullet's in the lead."

          "There's - a - snake. He's long."

          "The race! The race!"

          "The snake's sticking out his tongue!"

V

          Eddie was sitting in an opening in the forest. His leg was propped up, and he had pulled back a trouser leg. He was hurriedly tying a handkerchief around his leg, binding a cut. In his haste, he had tripped over a vine, and had fallen on an old piece of iron.

          He finished the knot and pulled the trouser leg down. He stood, and rapidly walked into the woods. Perhaps he ought to go back and get the iron. He could add it to the pile of rusty pieces he and his brothers kept behind the old barn. But, there was the Jessie. It had to be rescued. If only the man had left, it would be safe. He wouldn't have to go for his brothers.

          Eddie headed for the creek. What if there should be a snake in the way? Or some animal with rabies? And the trees were so thick. Eddie slowed down. He sat on a fallen tree. The ice was back. His shoulders were cold. He started thinking of shirts, sweaters, and thick winter coats again. Oh, Jessie, Jessie.

          A faint sound -- the report of a rifle -- came. Eddie suddenly forgot how thick the trees were. He forgot about snakes, about animals, about birds, about grasshoppers. He only thought of the rifle, and of the man, and he ran towards the place he had fled from. Eddie was frightened, but he had to find out about what the shot had done.

VI

          "Hey, Eddie! We killed a snake. A long snake."

          "It was near the Leaning Tree. Why didn't you come? What are you sitting here for?

          "We waited and waited. We had to come back, looking for you. Why are you sitting here?"

          "We rolled a big log in the creek. It swamped a sunken log that was a dam, and our boats were swept over and saved. What are you doing here, Eddie? Why didn't you come?"

          Eddie turned from his position. He gazed at his brothers.

         "Eddie! What will Mother say?"

          "Say what?" Eddie's voice was cracked, as if he had a sore throat.

          "You've got mud and dirt all over you. And your shoe is muddy. And your clothes are torn. And - there's blood - on you."

          "I'm okay."

          "Oh, Eddie, why didn't you stay with us? Mother'll have it in for us now. We're supposed to watch out for you."

          "You tell Mother it was my own fault. I can take care of myself."

          Jeff's chest swelled. "We killed a snake. A real long one."

          "Who won the race?"

          "Oh." Eddie's three brothers looked at each other and colored. "Nobody. We got busy attacking the snake. When we got back to the bottles, they'd all gone past the Leaning Tree, and none of them were ahead of each other."

          "Did you save your boats, or did you just let them go on?"

          "We just let them go on. What did you do with the Jessie?

          "Oh, I sailed it."

          Eddie's brothers looked at each other. One said, "Why did you name it Jessie, anyway?"

          An owl hooted. A woodpecker drilled at a dead branch.

          "I wanted to win the race." Eddie answered. "I thought I could win if I named the bottle Jessie. I thought Jessie's ghost would come and help me. Jessie had green eyes, you know. The same green the Jessie was."

          Jeff, Ted, and Will felt uncomfortable. Eddie had understood green-eyed Jessie better than any of them. The man who had been driving the car with the fresh blood-streaked bumper had offered to get them another pet. Eddie had said no, you couldn't find another Jessie.

          "Eddie, we're sorry, we'll try to help you."

          Eddie didn't say anything. Again, Jeff said, "We killed a snake, a long one."

          "I saw a man."

          "A man? Who was he?"

          "I don't know. I ran away from him. Then -- I heard a shot."

          "He was hunting, huh?"

          "I thought so. I thought he was shooting quails. I don't like anyone to shoot quails. I came back here."

          "Did you see the man again?"

          "No -- I saw -- that." Eddie directed his face towards the creek.

          Jeff, Ted, and Will looked. "Oh." They colored again. This time it was from another feeling. What they had seen were the sunken, shattered fragments of what had once been a green bottle.

          "We're sorry, Eddie. We didn't know."

         "Go away, you fellows. Tell Mother I'll be home soon."

          He watched his brothers leave. Oh, Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, Jessie.

          His brothers were gone. Eddie didn't have any ice on his shoulders. Jessie.

-end-