Blue Ridge Billy

by Lois Lenski

  The boys roared with laughter. Then, to offset suspicion, in case Jeff might have heard them, Rick let out another wailing cry. After that, they ran.

  They started off with the dogs down the slope of Ivy Mountain, and up through the woods to find the cave on Laurel. Halfway up, they stopped and greedily ate all the food they had brought with them. It was slow going. The night was dark, there was no moon, and the lantern made only a feeble light. They stumbled along through brush and thicket, trying to find a trail. Sometimes they nearly lost the old dog, Gum, who lumbered along slowly behind them, tired and sleepy.

  “There’s wild turkeys and wild hogs up here,” said Rick. “Plenty chestnuts and beechnuts for ’em to eat.”

  “Let’s shoot us a hog and take hit home and dress hit and have streaked middlin’ for breakfast,” said Jack.

  “Shucks!” said Glen. “I’d druther ketch us a bear while we’re at it.”

  “Ain’t that the Drop-Off up there?” asked Billy, pointing to a vague form outlined against the sky.

  “Hit shore looks like it,” said Jack. “I’m a-gittin’ tired. I’m ’bout ready to rest my bones a while.”

  “There’s plenty bears in them thickets near the Drop-Off …” began Glen.

  “Hush up!” whispered Rick, who was going ahead. “I heard voices. There’s somebody around here somewheres. Put out the lantern. Get your guns ready.”

  “Golly, are we gonna shoot a bear?” asked Glen.

  “Maybe hit’s the painter,” said Billy.

  “Painters don’t talk!” said Rick.

  “Let out your yell,” said Jack. “That’ll scare ’em and they’ll run.”

  “Golly, no!” whispered Billy. “I nigh forgot. Boys, there’s a still round here somewheres. Granny Trivett told me. Said hit was a mighty good place to locate a still, close to the Tennessee line.”

  Billy’s cousins crowded round him, to hear all he knew.

  “If we could ketch some moonshiners,” said Jack, “likely we’d get a big reward.”

  “How much do you reckon they’d pay?” asked Glen.

  “Huh!” snorted Rick. “Got to ketch ’em first—if they don’t shoot you. Maybe a dollar then.”

  “We got shootin’-irons, ain’t we?” said Jack.

  “Just two,” said Rick.

  “But we won’t shoot ’em, will we?” asked Billy. “Then how could we get our reward?”

  “Where is this still, Billy?” demanded Rick.

  “Aw, I don’t know,” said Billy. “Like as not Granny Trivett was just makin’ hit up to scare me. Said hit was in No Man’s Cove.”

  “Over this way then,” said Rick. “Let’s head for Bearskin Creek. I hear water drippin’ and runnin’. Come on.”

  But Billy did not move.

  “Rick!” he called in a frantic whisper. “I see somebody up there on the Drop-Off!”

  “Maybe hit’s the painter,” said Jack. “That’s where the rock cave is. Git your guns ready.”

  “I shore would like to shoot a bear,” said Glen.

  “Hit ain’t a painter nor a bear,” whispered Billy. “Hit’s a man. I seen his hat, and he’s got a gun.”

  “We’ll hide right here,” whispered Rick. “Git down, all of you.”

  They lay down on the ground, and held the dogs to keep them from barking. Soon they heard men’s voices, and footsteps close at hand in the brush, instead of up on the Drop-Off. The moon came up over the valley, and by its light they saw a group of three men pass. The boys raised themselves and stared.

  “Hit looked like Walt Moseley,” said Rick, after the men had disappeared.

  “But he lives way over on Three Top,” said Billy. “Who were the others?”

  “Pappy Weaselface,” said Jack, “shore as the hair on a hog’s hide.”

  “And Joe Farley,” said Glen. “Three of a kind—from Buckwheat Holler.”

  “Let’s foller ’em to their still,” said Rick.

  It was a rough and almost impassable trail, crossing Bearskin Creek and going for nearly a mile to No Man’s Cove. Hearing the men talking ahead, the boys stopped abruptly. They hid behind a rock to see what the men were doing. An ox-team was hitched to a wagon, and the wagon was loaded with tubs, copper boilers, copper tubing, kegs and buckets. Shadowy figures of men were loading more things on.

  “Is it the Law—cuttin’ up the still?” whispered Billy.

  “No,” answered Rick. “They’d be choppin’ hit up with axes. Hit ain’t the Law. Hit’s the owners. They’re movin’ the still. Maybe they been told on. They’re gettin’ away while gettin’s good.”

  “Hush!” warned Glen. “They’ll hear us.”

  The men climbed on the wagon and drove off.

  “Let’s foller ’em,” said Jack, “and see where they’re goin’.”

  The wagon made noise enough to cover the sound of their footsteps, so there was no longer need for caution. The valley road in No Man’s Cove led in only one direction—over Stone Mountain to Tennessee. “They’re goin’ over the state line to be safe,” said the boys. So they turned back.

  “If only we’d come a mite sooner,” said Jack, “we might could a got a reward.”

  “We’ll go up on the Drop-Off and see if that painter’s there,” said Rick.

  “I druther shoot me a bear,” persisted Glen.

  “Golly, let’s sleep somewheres,” said Jack. “I’m mighty doggone tired.”

  They lumbered back up to the ridge, climbing and scaling rocks, and pushing thick bushes aside. They entered the cave, but there was no panther waiting for them, and no bear either. They came out on the Drop-Off, a huge cliff which jutted out over steep rocks below. A cold wind blew up from the valley.

  “Let’s sleep out here,” said Rick.

  “Law, no,” said Billy. “Hit’s too cold. Hit might snow.”

  Just then he saw it. Beyond a clump of bushes at one side, Billy saw something moving. Was it the panther? He pointed, speechless.

  “Golly! I seen something move!” gasped Rick. “The painter!”

  The boys huddled together. It was darker now. The animal stayed motionless behind a big-leaved rhododendron bush. Then suddenly it moved and came toward them. They were too scared to run.

  Then they saw that it had a hat on. It was a man. Old Gum growled.

  “Howdy, boys!” the man said.

  “Gosh Almighty!” gulped Billy. “Hit’s Pap!”

  CHAPTER XII

  Big Fat Possum

  Rudolphus Honeycutt stepped out in the moonlight which now flooded the Drop-Off.

  “What you boys doin’ out here in the middle of the night?” he demanded. “Up to some o’ your gamesome tricks?”

  Billy could not speak. He could not very well tell his father about the panther which did not exist, nor about camping out all night, because they hadn’t camped at all. There was nothing left but the still, and maybe the still was Pappy’s … his old fear returned.

  “There’s a still down in No Man’s Cove,” began Rick.

  “The men are movin’ hit over into Tennessee, Pap,” Billy blurted out. “We seen ’em go in their wagon.”

  “Just what I wanted to know,” said Pappy. “You needn’t tell me who they are—I know. I gave ’em their orders—to clear out afore the moon came out tonight, or else——”

  “You told ’em to go, Pap? How’d you find out they had their still there?” asked Billy, his heart suddenly lightened.

  “Why, young un, I knowed hit all along,” said Pap. “I told ’em six months ago to get movin’ and I been keepin’ my eye on ’em ever since.”

  “But Granny Trivett ’lowed as you——”

  “She told you I was a moonshiner?” asked Pap smiling.

  “She didn’t rightly know for sure,” said Billy, “but I reckon she thought so.”

  “She knew too much about the whole thing,” said Pappy. “I was afraid she’d make trouble for Walt and Pappy and Joe, and I wanted them to have the chanc
e to move out before somebody told on ’em and brought the Law on ’em. That’s why I tried to move her somewheres else, but your Mammy put a stop to that. I was afeared Granny would go blabbin’.”

  “Law, no, Pap, the best thing she does is keep her mouth shut tight,” said Billy. “She learned Sarey Sue and me to do hit too.”

  “Can you boys all keep your mouths shut tight?” asked Pappy.

  “Shore can,” said the boys.

  “The still’s gone,” said Pappy, “and I hope that’s the last we’ll see of Walt Moseley and his gang.”

  “What about Burl?” asked Billy.

  “Gone too. Whole family’s movin’ to Tennessee,” said Pappy, “but don’t say nothin’ about hit.”

  “Shucks! No more fightin’ for me to do!” laughed Billy.

  Pappy turned to Rick, Glen and Jack. “Hit’s a fur piece back to Last Hope Holler, boys,” he said. “Hit’s cloudin’ and fixin’ to snow before mornin’. Come down home with Billy and me and we’ll find you some beds.”

  They were all dead tired and bed sounded good. Rick let out his shivering tremolo cry, for sheer delight.

  Pappy said, “You sound just like a painter, Rick!” and wondered why the boys laughed so loud.

  The next morning the ground was covered with snow, and Uncle Jamie’s boys left for home right after a late breakfast. When they were gone, Mammy spoke up:

  “The hens made a terrible squallin’ last night. Sounded like hit might be a possum. What about that new pup—ain’t he s’posed to keep possums away?”

  “Come on, Banjo, let’s go see,” called Billy.

  Billy understood many things about his father that had puzzled him before. Pappy had been trying to get rid of the still without doing harm to anybody. What a difference it made! Billy forgot how he had hated the hound pup.

  It was easy to see tracks in the new-fallen snow. The dog sniffed and became excited. He followed the tracks which led from the chicken coop down to the branch, where a large dead chestnut log lay. The bole of the tree was rotten and had a hollow in it. Billy looked closely. Something had crawled up into it.

  The dog sniffed, jumped up on the log and began to bark.

  Billy patted him on the head. “Just wait, Banjo,” he said. “Wait till I get me a stick. Down in that big wad o’ leaves, there’s the biggest ole possum you ever saw in the warmest ole bed. He’s a mean fellow to bite and I don’t want to get bit.”

  Billy stirred the leaves with his stick. Banjo kept on barking. Suddenly Billy pulled the possum out with a quick jerk of its hard, smooth tail, and dropped it. The small furry animal lay on the ground, perfectly still. Banjo stood by, waiting for it to show signs of life, so he could nab it.

  “Good dog!” There was Pappy, come out to watch. “A born possum dog, I told you so.”

  Pappy held out a meal sack and Billy rolled the possum into it. “Take hit in the house and show hit to your Mammy.”

  Billy took the sack over his shoulder and went in. Red Top and Mazie were playing William Tremble Toe on the hearth. Letty Jo was hanging pumpkin rings and gourds on a long pole to dry.

  “What you got, Billy?” asked Red Top.

  “Live possum,” said Billy.

  “What you fixin’ to do with hit?”

  “Turn hit loose by the fire to get warm,” laughed Billy. He opened the mouth of the sack and dumped the animal out. The possum rolled over on the hearth, close to the fire.

  “Hit’s dead, the possum’s dead!” shouted Red Top, dancing about.

  “Him dead! Him dead!” echoed Mazie.

  “He’s only pretending—just playin’ possum,” said Billy. “Mammy, come see how fat hit is—Banjo’s first possum.”

  “Hit’s a sight!” exclaimed Mammy. “Been feedin’ off my fat hens, no wonder. Did you find hit asleep in my chicken nestes?”

  Letty Jo reached up to hang her pole above the fireplace. “Shucks! Git out o’ here.” She gave the animal a playful kick. “Git outa here afore I step on you, you little ole varmint.”

  The smell of singed fur spread through the room.

  “Tote that varmint right out o’ this-here house!” ordered Mammy. “Hit’s burnin’ all hit’s fur off.”

  “I’ll kill it,” said Pappy, “and we’ll have roast possum for dinner.”

  “I ain’t cookin’ no possum,” said Mammy firmly.

  “Billy can skin the hide,” added Pappy, “and make hisself a warm winter cap.”

  “Don’t kill him,” said Billy. “He’s a real cute little feller.”

  “Tote that varmint out o’ this-here house, I said,” ordered Mammy.

  Billy took the possum out in the yard and turned the heavy iron washpot over it. The next day, when he went out to look, it had dug out from under the pot and was gone.

  The morning was cold and Mammy was cross. “Go git us in some wood, you young uns, afore we freeze to death,” she said. “There’s nary a stick in the yard nor on the porch.”

  “Letty Jo,” said Pappy, sitting down by the warm fire, “you and Billy take the gray mule and git up some wood. There’s an old chestnut down up in the holler and there’s a couple green hickories over in the pasture beyond them slick rocks you can chop.”

  The boy and girl started out with Old Bet, taking a logging chain with grappling hooks on it. Banjo went along. Billy chopped the trees and they fastened them together one after the other, behind Old Bet. It began to snow heavily. Billy had to keep whacking the mule to get the load down the mountainside.

  Banjo stopped and began to bark. Boney Old Bet stopped too, to rest. “Maybe hit’s another possum,” said Billy.

  The dog jumped on top of an old stump, barking. The stump had a rotten hole in it.

  “There’s a possum down in them there leaves,” said Billy, “as shore as a hound dog’s got fleas.”

  “Who cares about possums, nohow?” said Letty Jo. She ran on to the house to warm her cold hands. It had stopped snowing, but the sky looked dark and heavy.

  “You’d ought to be glad to have a sure-enough possum dog like Banjo,” said Pappy, who just came up. “He don’t need no trainin’. He’s takened it up hisself. I knew he had it in him when I seen him first as a pup. You’d ought to be glad to have a good possum dog like that, son.”

  “Is he my dog?” asked Billy, in surprise. “Banjo?”

  “Reckon so,” said Pappy. “Hit was your money paid for him.”

  Billy had grown fond of the pup in spite of himself. He had liked having the pup around. He had even learned to call him by name, without feeling a sense of loss for the banjo he never got. He hadn’t told any one, but Banjo had already formed a habit of sleeping on the foot of his bed at night. How could he go on hating a dog like that?

  He understood now, too, why Pappy liked dogs so much—better than music, which he did not understand. Pappy was a real hunter, even though he had to work at farming and logging to support his family. And Billy was a hunter too. No mountain man or boy could be anything but a hunter at heart. And to a hunter, a dog was more to be desired than anything else in the world. Hunters just had to have dogs. They’d pay good money for dogs, even when they didn’t have enough to eat.

  Billy put his arms around Banjo and hugged him tight. The dog looked up expectantly, waiting for orders from the boy. He seemed to know he belonged to Billy.

  The boy poked the possum out of his hole with a stick.

  “Hit’s playin’ dead, Banjo. Don’t touch.”

  Banjo sniffed and stood still, wagging his tail.

  “Why, hit’s the same possum we had in the house,” said Billy. “Look, Pappy, hit’s got the fur singed off on one side.”

  “Same identical varmint,” said Pap.

  “Want me to kill hit?”

  “Law, no,” said Billy. “I got an i-dee. Me and Banjo’ll go over and take hit to Uncle Pozy. He’s the craziest man over possum in the whole county. We’ll take hit to him.”

  “Good,” said Pappy. “But not til
l we get this wood drug in and cut up. Your Mammy’s fair freezin’ to death.”

  “Reckon Banjo could tree a possum, Pappy?” asked Billy.

  “Shore could,” answered his father. “He could smell a possum a mile off.”

  Billy put the possum in a meal sack and kept it there while he helped saw up the trees. Letty Jo took one end of the crosscut saw and Billy the other. As the short stove-length pieces fell, Mammy stood them on end and split them with the two-bitted axe. Mazie and Red Top carried the pieces and stacked them on the back porch outside the kitchen door. Now the family could be warm again—until the wood was used up.

  The next morning Billy threw the possum sack over Old Bet’s back and set out for Honeysuckle Hollow. He kept whistling to Banjo, who followed along behind.

  Uncle Pozy was standing just inside the door, working. With long white-oak splits, he was weaving back and forth, making a sturdy bottom for a handmade chair.

  “Hello!” called Billy, running up on the porch.

  Uncle Pozy dropped everything.

  “Great groundhogs! If hit ain’t Billy Honeycutt!” he cried, delighted. “Set down and rest yourself. Here—lemme find you a chair.”

  “See what I brung you, Uncle Pozy,” said Billy. He opened the meal sack and dumped the possum out. “My dog ketched hit,” he said proudly, “my dog, Banjo.” He patted the dog beside him, on the head.

  “You got a dog? And his name’s Banjo? and that’s him?” Uncle Pozy stared at the dog.

  Billy had a lot of explaining to do.

  “Jumpin’ grasshoppers!” exclaimed Uncle Pozy. “If that ain’t the beatin’est! You got a dog o’ your very own, and you brung me the very first possum he ever ketched. Well now, if I ain’t the tickledest man this side o’ Tennessee!” He patted the dog on the head, then examined the possum. “Fattest ole possum in the county, ain’t hit? Now, if there’s anything I relish, hit’s a bait o’ possum meat.”

  “Mammy won’t never cook hit at our house,” said Billy.

  “Women-folks has funny notions, sometimes,” said Uncle Pozy. “I’ll tell you what I always do first, son. I put the possum up in a good strong pen, where it can’t get out or burrow out, and I fatten hit up on good, clean feed for about ten days … and then I cook hit just right to make hit tasty. Looky here, son, all the fur’s gone off one side.”