Hill Man

by Janice Holt Giles

  I was standing next him and to save my life I couldn’t help looking up at him and grinning. He winked. “Was you the son of a gun put that cowbell under the bed?”

  “How’d you happen to find it?”

  “Looked fer it, of course. Have you fergot I tied one under yore’s an’ Junie’s bed?”

  I had. Plumb forgot it was Rady. No wonder he’d thought of it. Me, I hadn’t. And Junie never did get over that. Like it was my fault But I must admit it was right startling.

  When all the shooting and shouting was over we poured into the house and ate the rest of the wedding dinner. Rady had fixed for the shivaree by getting in two or three jugs of moonshine and Uncle Jett had brought his fiddle. We had us a time Annie never held with dancing regular, it being against her religion, but a shivaree is kind of special, so she gave in and danced the first set with Rady. Wasn’t much room for nobody to dance, though, so mostly we just milled around. Rady was leaning up against the wall alongside of me at the last, and if the room was spinning as fast for him as it was for me he had good reason to stand propped up He was watching the folks and he had a kind of easy, good-natured grin on his face.

  “Ever’thing goin’ to suit you?” I asked him.

  “Ever’thing,” he said, straightening up. “Today I got me a woman, an’ I’m eighteen year old. Hit suits me jist fine!”

  “Is Valentine’s Day yore birthday?”

  He nodded. “One reason we picked it.”

  I was just hazy enough to say a thing was on my mind. “You taken the brown girl, didn’t you, Rady?”

  He puckered his brow.

  “You know,” I said, “in the song … the brown girl had the house an’ land.”

  He grinned then. “Yeah. But they ain’t no fair Elinore!”

  The duties of a host claimed him then and he left me to the problem of my own propping. One more drink out of the jug, though, and it wasn’t a problem any more. That wall just folded up behind me and I laid my head against it like it was a pillow and went to sleep. That was some shivaree!

  Chapter Five

  So Rady and old Drum and his gittar moved over to Annie’s. And he lost no time going over his new farm. It must of felt good to him to have his own place. There’s nothing like reaching down and picking up a handful of the earth, crumbling it between your fingers, smelling it and even tasting it and knowing it’s your own. This little patch of dirt, weedy, scrubby, even rocky, is what’s yours of the whole wide world. You can stand strong on it because it belongs to you. You can plant yourself and take root, and grow bigger and stouter because of it. No matter what you ever own in the way of property and things, it’s the ownership of land that is the final and best ownership. For there’s a kinship between a man and his land that don’t hold true with other things. Maybe it’s the knowing that in the end you go back to it… maybe it’s the knowing that somehow, some place, you come from it … maybe it’s the power you’ve got over it to make it birth something you need … maybe it’s just the knowing that with all your power over it, it has the last power over you, for without land there’s nothing.

  Whatever it is, if a man’s been raised on the land, if he’s worked it and cursed it and blessed it, he belongs to it and it to him and there’s no parting the two. Even when he curses it, he’ll walk across it prouder for owning it, and when he blesses it, it’s like something fine and giving had been poured into him. It’s a wondrous thing to own a piece of land. And Rady was learning now what it was like. He had come now to the fourth thing he loved … land, and a man’s power over it. For Annie had told him that night it was all his. Of her own free will, without him asking, she’d offered it. “I want it should be that way,” she’d said. Lawfully it would of come to him anyways, I reckon, but it made it a heap better for her to be trusting of him. “I’ve got no misdoubts about it, Rady,” she’d said. “You’ll take keer of the land, an’you’ll take keer of us.” A woman can find no prouder words than that to say to the man she’s picked.

  “You kin put yer dependence on it,” Rady promised her, “I’ll do good with it.”

  The place set on a little knoll that was grown over with tall grass and fine trees, big, high-standing beech and walnut trees, and the front rolled down the pasture to a sweet spring in the beginnings of the holler. An old rail fence followed the curve of the knoll and hemmed in the house, which was weathered and gray, but build solid in its time. It was built like most ridge houses, in the shape of a “T”. Two rooms and a hall in front, with two rooms in the ell behind. It had a big, roomy porch clean across the front, and a nice, screened work porch in the back. Big enough, stout enough and good enough for Rady and Annie.

  Annie bloomed like a full grown rose those first days after they were married. Happiness and the knowing she’s loved does a heap for a woman. For any woman. But it was like a tonic for Annie, at her age. She sung as she worked and she swept up and kept her house shining, and she cooked like Rady was a dozen hungry men. Nothing was too good for him. I was there at suppertime one evening. “Jist come eat with us,” Rady said, when she called him in.

  “No, I better be gittin’ on back home.”

  “They ain’t no use of that. Come taste Annie’s vittles. You don’t know what good eatin’ is till you’ve eat Annie’s cookin’. Come on.

  I let myself be talked into it and set down to table with them. I recollect there was ham and hot biscuits and baked sweet potatoes and tomato preserves and cucumber pickles. And beans cooked tender and soupy. There was pie, too. Like a Sunday dinner it was. “My God, Annie,” I said, “you’ll git Rady so fat he can’t stoop over to do a lick of work You feed him like this all the time?”

  “All the time!” Rady said, proud-like.

  “A man works as hard as Rady needs plenty of good, strengthenin’ food,” Annie said. “I aim to see he gits it.”

  We eat and then Rady and me went in the fireplace room to set whilst Annie did up the dishes. The talk went one way and another, like it does when two men come together. Rady had big plans. “With the money the two of us has got,” he said, “I kin easy seed that new field an’ buy me ten or twelve calves. I ain’t aimin’ to put my dependence in tobaccer by itself. They’s money to be made in beef stock, an’ I’ve been wantin’ to try my hand at it. An’ I mean to git Annie another cow or two so’s she kin sell the cream. A man had ort to have out several strings, seems to me.”

  It sounded mighty fine and I was pleased for him. I had a notion he’d do just about what he said he would. Most of us on the ridge farm our thirty or forty acres kind of easy come, easy go. I, for one, like the feel of a fishing pole in my hands on a hot July day better than a hoe and I’ve never noticed but what the tobacco grew just about as fast as the weeds, or a little faster. I’ve not never been one to frash myself when it come to hard work, not being beset by any noticeable ambitions along that line. But Rady was cut of a different stripe, and I knew in reason he’d set himself a goal and would hump right along until he got where he’d aimed to go.

  So I wasn’t surprised but precious little when fall come around that year and he had him a fine pasture seeded, with around a dozen head of calves fattening on it. He’d got Annie a couple more milk cows and she was getting a right smart cream check every week. He had some fine-looking pigs on the side, too. He put a new roof on the barn and built a shed room on both sides so’s it’d house his new cows, cleared a woods tract Harm’d never got around to and put it in corn, and he had fine tobacco and corn both that year. Him and Annie were in a good way to better themselves. Annie worked right alongside of him and made the most of everything he did. She was a good woman to help. Stout and able to keep up.

  And him and Annie made out all right with one another too. Had Annie been a bearing woman Fve no doubts a young’un would of commenced showing right off. The womenfolks kept their eye on her anyways, not knowing but what it had been Harm at fault the first time. But they kind of relaxed their watch when time went by and Annie’s dress
es never showed no signs of hiking up in front. They clucked their tongues and shook their heads and said what a pity, but most would of give a year’s tobacco money to pass two years hand-going without another young’un dragging at them. Most nursed their latest one a sight longer than was needed, to keep their health from coming back on them to get them in the family way again. It was just one more thing that Annie was lucky in, had they owned up to their rightful feelings.

  Junie didn’t make no bones about wishing she had it easy like Annie. But I don’t know. Believe I’d rather have too many as none at all. Of course four kids in four years is kind of hard on a woman. I know, but I can’t rightly see as what’s to be done about it if she’s quick to take.

  Outside of working pretty hard Rady was about the same as always. Went coon hunting and fox hunting with the rest of us, and he still tilted the jug when he was a mind to. Still took a turn in the bushes with Susie Bratton or whoever was handy when he wanted. Never was a ridge man yet felt a wedding ceremony put an end to his natural pleasures. Just made him have to take a little more care. No man wants to have trouble with his woman, but he’d feel a fool if he passed up a good chance for a roll in the hay. And Rady was no exception.

  Come September of the second year they were married and I went by one evening to get him to go squirrel hunting. He’d been cutting tobacco. Little later than most, but he had a big crop out and was just winding it up. He was cleaning the tobacco gum off his hands with turpentine when I went around the corner of the house. “Git yer gun,” I told him. “Let’s git us some squirrels. I’m aimin’ on sinkin’ my teeth in a mess of fried squirrels fer breakfast in the mornin’.”

  He looked up, his eyes squinted against the turpentine fumes. “Now, I take right kindly to that idee,” he said. “Wait’ll I get my hands clean.”

  “You been?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “Nary a time. Too busy in the tobaccer.”

  I leaned my gun up against the wall and rolled me a cigarette. “You’ve heared,” I said, “what all work an’ no play does to man!”

  He scoured soap on his hands and laughed. “I’ve heared. An’ I believe it. Be right nice to draw a bead on a squirrel fer a change.”

  Annie had come to the door. She’d heard us talking. “You want to eat before you go?”

  “A snack,” he says. “Don’t want to waste the daylight.”

  She fixed us a little something to eat and we pulled out. Went down the holler and across the draw and circled around through his woods. Had good luck, too. First thing we found several hickory trees where the squirrels had been and we just set down and waited. It was a still evening, no wind through the leaves, the light fading but still good. Directly a fox squirrel came peeping around a high limb. Rady nudged me, but I nodded for him to take it. Facts is, he was a little too far for me and I’d of missed him. Rady drew a bead on it, waited a minute and cut loose. The squirrel toppled fifty foot to the ground. Right through the eye Man, that guy could shoot! I’m pretty good, but I couldn’t of hit that one, and I’ve been known to put a slug in the back a time or two. But if Rady ever did he never told it, and I sure never saw him do it!

  We moseyed on and I got me one, and then for about an hour while the light held we found several all the way down the holler. Got us five or six apiece. “That’s aplenty,” Rady said, finally. “Gittin’ too dark to see.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “jist a waste of shell to keep on. This’ll make a good mess, anyways.”

  We angled through the woods towards the road and climbed over the rail fence at the place where Rady’s farm joined onto the Del Hall place. Rady looked at the fence as we climbed over and shook his head. “I got to put a new fence in here,” he said. “This’n has been here since time begun an’ it’s jist about to rot down.”

  “Them woods’d be a good place to run yer hogs” I said, “if you’d git you a good fence here.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I been thinkin’.”

  We went on down the road past the Hall place. The Del Hall place was probably the best property in these parts. Old Man Hall had come to New Ridge from some place in Indiana, back twenty, thirty years ago. He’d bought this place and improved it a heap. Added to it until he had around a couple of hundred acres. Had good buildings, a nice house, and a fine farm. Was the only place in our parts had lights and water. He’d put in one of those Delco systems. It was sure enough a place to make a man’s mouth water.

  It was just getting first dark as we went past, but we could make out Old Man Hall himself leaning on the gate. We spoke.

  “Howdy, boys,” he said. “Any luck?”

  Rady held up his bag of squirrels and I held up mine. Old Man Hall eyed them. “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad. Right nice little mess.”

  “Never went till late,” Rady told him, “an’ the light got bad right away. They’s plenty this year.”

  “That’s what I been hearin’. Got to git me a mess ’fore I leave.”

  “You goin’ somewheres?” I asked.

  The old man propped his foot against the cross bar of the gate. “I’ve sold the place,” he said, running his hand down the top rail that was smooth as satin from the years. “Mama an’ me’s goin’ back to Indianny.”

  Well, that took both Rady and me all of a heap Sell a fine place like this one! We couldn’t understand it, but the old man went on to explain. “The boys is all married an’ gone, an’ me an’ Mama are gittin’ too old to work as hard as we been. We thought we’d jist sell out an’ take it easy fer a time.”

  “Who bought the place?” Rady asked.

  “Feller by the name of Rowe. City feller. Lives somewheres in the east. From the looks of him I don’t figger he’s much of a farmer, but that ain’t none of my put-in. Claimed he wanted to live in the country.”

  “He shore picked the country!” I said.

  The old man laughed. “He did that!”

  “When you leavin’?” Rady said.

  “I got to give possession in thirty days. Reckon we’ll git gone next week or two. He’ll need a little time to git hisself moved in.”

  “Buy ever’thing?” Rady said.

  “Lock, stock an’ barrel.”

  “Well, I shore hate to see you go,” I says. “New Ridge won’t seem the same without you folks.”

  He was rubbing at the top rail yet, and he said right slow-like, “Hit’ll go quare to me to give it up,” and then he kind of squared his shoulders up. “But hit’s best, I reckon. Mama is set on it, leastways.”

  Rady hitched his gun around. “Well, we’d best be gittin’ on. Jist go up with us, Mister Hall.”

  “Guess I’d better stay here,” the old man said, turning back towards the house. “You boys be good neighbors with Mister Rowe.”

  “We’ll do that,” we promised, and we took off up the road.

  Rady turned around at the bend in the road and looked back. He looked a long time. You could just make out the house and the buildings in the dusky light, and they set white and sweet against the sky, the trees banked back of them. “God, that’s a pretty place,” Rady said. “Pretty as a picture! I’d shore love to have it.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I snorted. And then, for what reason I don’t know, I said. “Annie can’t help you git that place, Rady.”

  He looked at me and grinned. “No. I don’t reckon she kin at that.” He looked once more at the house and barns and then turned up the road again. “But I’d love to have it jist the same.”

  “You got a nice place,” I told him. “An’ all you kin tend.”

  “A man don’t never have mor’n he kin tend,” he said. He stopped and made water in the road and I remember the dust raised in little puffs and settled back down, heavy and cloudy. And I laughed. “Rady, you got too big a appetite.”

  “Mebbe,” he said, buttoning up. “But they ain’t nothin’ wrong with my digestion.”

  The Halls left the ridge in a couple of weeks and the next thing we knew the Rowes h
ad moved in. It was a seven days’ wonder the stuff they brought. Had everybody on the ridge marveling. A piano, fancy furniture, barrels and barrels of dishes, big fine rugs and pictures and things. Was four moving vans brought the stuff, and while the Hall place was a big old house, it must of crowded it some to get it all inside. The Rowes never came with their stuff. The moving men said they were coming down later. And for several days the house just set there, furniture and boxes every which way, and the shades pulled down plumb to the sill.

  We never knew exactly when they came. One day the house was setting there, nobody around, and the next the shades were up and folks were stirring. They had a woman and man to do for them until they got settled in. It went queer, but we all reckoned they had money and must be used to being waited on.

  For a week I’d say there were curtains and things on the clotheslines in the yard, blowing in the wind, and rugs on the fences airing, and a big to-do generally. And then one of the womenfolks said they saw her riding hell-for-leather down the road one evening just at good dark, like something was chasing her. Said they knew it was her on account of her black hair. The way news leaks around the ridge it hadn’t taken folks long to know it was Miz Rowe had the long, black hair. So when they saw this woman riding a big chestnut horse, running him like the wind, and her hair streaming out behind her, they knew it was her. It gave everybody kind of a shiver, for the ridge women don’t ride like that. Don’t ride at all if there’s any help. And at best it’s usually an old work mule with a sidesaddle, or just a blanket thrown over.

  “Well, a woman’s got a right to ride her own horse if she wants to,” I told Junie. “They ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

  “No,” she sniffed, her nose up in the air, “they ain’t nothin’ wrong with it. But you mark my words! They’s somethin’ quare up at that big house. Somethin’ almighty strange an ’quare. They ain’t nothin’ wrong with a woman ridin’ her own horse, like you say. But she wasn’t ridin’ accordin’ to what they say. She was runnin’ that horse like they was a devil after her, a-layin’ all bent over its neck, that black hair of her’n streamin’ out behind her, like a devil herself. They ain’t our kind of folks, an’ you kin jist put it down I’ve said so!”