The men in the boat had to go slow because if they hit a stump and sheared the motor’s pin, they would lose time and maybe everything that mattered. The boy would lose hope and lose more blood.
He was running out of both.
They cut the water quietly. The only sounds that registered were the low purr of the motor and something in unison from the men and the boy. Strange … they were counting.
“121, 122, 123, 124 … ”
In the ugly minutes since the sound of the shotgun had exploded in the duck blind and echoed through the Arkansas reservoir, the 8-year-old boy, his father and two other men had become bonded for eternity. An accident plunged the four into a situation as real as life gets. As real as death gets.
Lying on his back in the two-slow boat in the January cold, the boy, bleeding from wounds to his chest and his partially severed hand, looked up, looked into the face of his father.
“Daddy, am I going to die?”
The boat was slow. Stumps everywhere. Cold. The boy feeling hot in his chest. Eighteen miles from a country hospital, much more than that to a medical center.
To son looked to the father for an answer. His head was in his father’s lap. His father held the boy’s right arm toward heaven to slow the bleeding.
“No, you’re not going to die.” Half command, half compassion. “Not today. Not anytime soon.”
And that’s when he told his son to start counting. And to keep counting. And they did.
“One, two, three, four … ”
Around the stumps, toward the truck, in the peaceful and painful mid-morning, the men and the boy counted. Kept going.
They’d been planning the trip for a while, the dad and the son and their duck-hunting friends. The guys. And now it was the last hunt of the trip, the last shots of the morning. It would be over in a few minutes. Time to head in.
Time to go home.
But when the ducks came, the boy reached for the gun and in the cold it slipped. The butt hit hard against the blind’s bench.
And then the explosion. Suddenly everything was wrong.
Two feet separated father and son. The scene was unthinkable. It was reflex after that. Into the boat.
A tourniquet. Quick whispers and lengthy prayers said in half-seconds.
“83, 84, 85, 86 … ”
They made it to the truck, to the hospital, and from there the boy was airlifted to Little Rock. The father had to stay behind. Still numb. Still reflex. Still counting.
Before one of the men drove him to Little Rock, the dad went to the hotel to gather their things. It hit him when he opened the door. His son’s clothes laid out for the trip home. A book on baseball. A toothbrush.
“1,006, 1,007, 1,008, 1,009 … ”
Nearly four months have passed. Few knew how remarkable it was last week when a young left-hander took the mound at the Shreveport Little League Complex, a baseball in his left hand, a glove covering his injured right. Nine pellets remain in his hand, 15 in his shoulder. Physical therapy will continue for at least a year.
Maybe he’ll be able to make a fist with his right hand again. Maybe he’ll be able to spread his fingers apart again.
Maybe, he told his father on the bench between innings last Saturday, the umpire will open his eyes and call a few more strikes.
The joy of little-boy frustration.
The days continue to go by, one by one, and the father and son keep counting. It worked that day when their world turned dark, when the sun went out and time seemed to have run out.
And it’s worked since, as the miracles mount. The father and son keep counting. Counting the days. Counting the moments. Counting their blessings.
—
(Writer’s note: Wrote this 30 years ago this month. The boy in the story, Gentry, is now 39, older than his dad and I were back then. Gentry was a lefty starter on a state championship high school team in Ohio in 2005. Today, his two boys are playing T-ball and coach pitch in the Dallas area. Grandad’s usually at the games; you can count on that.)
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu