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crazy too.”
    He gave the motionless animal a wide berth till he stood at the head. In one motion, he shouldered the rifle and fired again. “That do him.”
    The man walked over and looked at my leg. “Gotta carry you to a doctor.” He pulled a key from his pocket and opened a padlock linking two ends of the chain.
    “Get my leg out,” I cried.
    “That leg bleed more when I free the trap. I want to have you where I can tie it off.” He slipped the chain free of the trap. “I’ll try not to hurt you, but you gonna have to go up on my shoulder.” He squatted down and looked me in the eye. “What’s your name, boy?”
    “Henderson. Henderson Youngblood.”
    “The buryin’ man’s son?”
    “Yes.”
    He grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me up, careful to keep my weight off the leg. Even as careful as he was, the pain forced me to cry out.
    “That’s all right,” he said. “You holler all you want. Don’t have to prove nothing to me. That bear has a hole in his eye and it didn’t come from my gun.”
    “But your shot knocked him over,” I said. “Stopped him from giving me rabies.”
    “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll talk about that later.”
    He stood with me slung over his back like a sack of feed.
    My head started spinning. “What’s your name?” I mumbled.
    “Elijah.”
    He took a first step. I don’t remember the second one.
    The next thing I heard was the gurgle of water. A cold wetness soaked my pants and I opened my eyes to see blue sky and the face of Elijah above me.
    The intensity of the pain in my right leg made breathing difficult and I gasped for air.
    “Lay easy,” Elijah said. “The water will clean the wound and the chill numbs the pain.”
    I propped myself up on an elbow and looked around. We were on a flat mossy rock by a bold stream. Both of my feet dangled in the swift white water. “Where are we?”
    “Never you mind. It’s a place you ain’t supposed to be, like where you were when that bear lit after you.”
    “Biltmore. But you ain’t supposed to be here either.”
    He shook his head. “I work the grounds and I’ve been tracking that bear ever since he started killing the livestock.”
    The bear almost killed me, I thought. My twenty-two might have blinded one eye, but if the bear hadn’t mauled me to death, his rabies would have got me for sure. Elijah had saved my life. The vision of the charging bear swept over me like a black cloud. Again I fainted.
    When I came to, I heard my father’s voice calling me. I found myself propped against Elijah on a mule. Then I saw my father and Mr. Galloway running across the timber clear cut at the Biltmore boundary.
    Elijah dismounted and let my father take his place. Then he led the mule behind Mr. Galloway and told them the story. I buried my face in my father’s shoulder and sobbed.
    Sunday, April 27th: I woke up in the hospital. Mother and Father were beside the bed. Mother held my hand in both of hers. I could see tears on her cheeks. I couldn’t feel my foot. I wrestled my hand free and lifted the starched sheet. My right leg ended in a ball of gauze and cotton. My foot and ankle were gone.
    “May I get you anything else?” The waitress looked anxious and I realized she wanted us to leave. The restaurant was closing. I looked down at my full coffee cup and across the table at the empty pie plate in front of Nakayla. I had touched neither while reading the boy’s journal. Nakayla hadn’t interrupted me.
    “No, we’re finished,” I said. “We’ll be going.”
    When the waitress had retreated, Nakayla asked, “Did you find something?”
    I slid the book back to her. “Yes. Tikima wanted me to have this journal because the boy writing it loses his foot. I guess she thought I’d find it inspirational.” As I said the words, I felt disappointed that Tikima had given me some warm and fuzzy story for motivation. I’d expected more from her.
    Nakayla bit down on her lower lip and then wiped her eyes.