Lincoln Raw

by DL Fowler

  In the afternoon when we gather as usual for the sermon, Rev. Gentry doesn’t show.

  Folks speculate he got a calling out of the blue to carry the gospel to a more needy flock.

  I turn to Austin and say in a low voice, “Seems to me it’s called stealing a perfectly good cap. No God who allows dogs to be kicked or a boy’s hat to be stolen is of much use.”

  Austin whispers, “Those words would kill yer ma.”

  “She shan’t hear them,” I vow.

  Chapter Two

  Austin hollers as soon as he rounds the bend in the trail. His mother waves as he takes off, sprinting up the hill to our cabin.

  “Haloo, Austin,” I call out, leaping off my perch atop the split rail fence and race down to meet him.

  Within minutes our mothers are giving us their usual cautions before we take off into the woods.

  Austin leads.

  Every day should be like this.

  Down near the creek branch, I recall spotting some partridges the previous day. Hunting doesn’t appeal to me much, but Austin fancies it a lot.

  I point to the knoll across the branch. “That’s where the birds were yesterday.”

  He pulls out his sling shot then studies the current. “Crick’s too wide to cross here.”

  He’s right. Even though my legs are longer than his, it’s still too far to leap across.

  I spot a foot log upstream and sprint to it. “Let’s try this.”

  “No, Abe. Log’s too small.”

  I glare at him. “Don’t call me that. Call me Abraham just like my grandpa. He was a hero in the Revolution.”

  “Don’t see what’s wrong with Abe.”

  “Abe sounds dumb.”

  “Everyone calls you Abe.”

  “Sally doesn’t. Father and Mother don’t.”

  He shrugs. “You can’t make everyone stop calling you that.”

  My shoulders sag. “S’pose you’re right.”

  He saunters up to the log, scratching the back of his neck. “Nah. Won’t do.”

  I puff out my chest. “It’ll do just fine. Come on. Don’t be a chicken.”

  He squints. “The bark’s slippery.”

  I nudge it with my bare foot. “It ain’t slippery.”

  He checks the fast flowing stream again and shakes his head. “Ah … dunno.”

  “Dare you.”

  He jerks around and glares at me, then plants one foot on the log, testing it. After a moment, he spreads both arms like wings and eases across, bending his knees a bit and keeping his body centered over the log.

  Now it’s my turn. The water’s seven, maybe eight, feet deep. The current’s so fast it’ll suck me under and drag me away.

  Austin laughs. “Coon it.”

  No way I’m going to take the coward’s way—straddling the log and scooting across it on my tail.

  My first step is just like Austin’s, half squatting, except I teeter. After getting my balance, I slide one foot forward then drag the other right up behind it, repeating the same until I’m about halfway out.

  Austin laughs. “Come on slow-poke.”

  I glare at him and swing my back foot around to plant it in front of my forward foot. My front knee wobbles, and back foot shoots out one way while the rest of me tilts the other.

  Austin hollers, “Don’t look down. Look at me.”

  I glance down. During dry-spells a person can jump across in most places. But when the weather turns stormy, the creek tests its banks, and the water rushes downstream like a gale pounding us from the east. The tallest, strongest men can’t stand against it. My arms flail in the air, but there’s nothing to grasp onto.

  “Coon it,” Austin shouts again.

  But before I can blink, I’m in the creek, limbs thrashing. I call out to Austin. Water pours into my mouth. The current coils around me and drags me into its cavernous throat. A chill penetrates me, drawing every muscle taut as its icy sting riddles my bones. I kick and stretch my arms upward, grasping for the surface. My breath rushes out of me, bubbles erupting from my nostrils and swirling past my ears, sounding like the devil’s laughter. I want to scream, but my lungs are empty, burning. My heart aches as if struggling against a vise.

  An eternity later, a bough slaps the water in front of me. My senses fade away. No sight, nor sound, nor touch, nor taste, nor smell, only the sensation of floating in darkness, as if in a deep sleep.

  Next, Austin is yelling, “Abe, Abe, stay with me.” He’s yanking on my arms and shaking me.

  I jerk about, gasping and coughing up water.

  He laughs. “Lord, thought you was dead.”

  “Me too,” I rasp, shivering. A host of prickly hairs sprout all over me.

  “Better let our things dry. Our mothers gonna switch us if they find out you fell in that crick.”

  “Spank me she will, but she’s never laid a switch to me.” I undress and hang my clothes on a bush.

  Naked, I tiptoe to a sunny patch of ground and sit, drawing my knees up to my chest. The sun filters through the October chill, warming my bare skin, yet my mood remains shrouded. My mind wanders to my infant brother Tommy who died a few years back. Will this raging creek sweep him out of his grave and swallow him up? Folks around here tell of corpses being washed up out of the ground and floating off during storms. Even without melting ice or snow, and without a drop of rain here in the lowlands, the runoff from storms in the hills can fill our streams and swamp our fields. It’s like the great flood that Mother’s Bible speaks of; a flood that once destroyed all mankind, except for a chosen few.

  I look over at Austin, wanting him to rescue me from my melancholy.

  He meets my gaze and says, “Remember that game of hide ’n seek? When you hid up in the big sycamore tree.”

  We laugh together.

  My dark mood has lightened. “Remember that prank I tried to pull on you?”

  His eyes get big. “Sure do. I wander up the tree and sit down right under ya, pretending you’ve stumped me. I say out loud, ‘Think this is a good spot to rest ‘til ol’ Abe shows his face.’”

  “I barely keep myself from splitting a gut and falling off that limb.”

  He bounces to his knees. “You don’t see your hat’s tucked in the waist of my britches. You’d dropped it on the trail.”

  I shake my head. “When you start to nod off, I undo my pants and aim right fer yer head. But jest as my load drops, ya prop my hat upside down and catch the whole stinkin’ mess.”

  Austin slaps his knee and lets out a whoop. “You was so surprised ya almost fell down outta that tree. That look on yer face when I jumps up and hollers, ‘It’s not every day someone gets the best of you, Abraham Linkhorn.’”

  I laugh, forgetting I’m naked as a jaybird. Austin is rolling on the ground, jerking about like he’s been touched by the Holy Ghost—except he’s not convulsing from Satan’s legions fleeing the name of Jesus. No hollering, spitting, kerchief-waving itinerant preacher has brought him to this state. He’s contorted from giggling.

  By the time I’m dressed and we return to the cabin, the memories of the dark hollow of death that nearly consumed me down at the creek are gone. Instead, I’m relieved at finding our mothers so deep in conversation that we slip past them unnoticed. This time, we escape our just punishment.

  Early the next day, Mother again dons her Sunday best. When she calls for Sally and me, my melancholy spell has returned. Again, visions of Knob Creek’s chilly throat close in on me, and storm clouds darken the sky over our little valley.

  Mother looks at Sally. “You keeps an eye on Abraham whilst I be gone a bit.”

  Sally gives me an evil eye. Then she glares at Mother who shushes her. Mother may not look it, but she’s as rough-and-tumble as most men in these parts. People laugh about her mixing it up with men.

  Each of us nods.

  As Mother disappears beyond the trees, I take off.

 
Sally calls after me. “Abraham Linkhorn, where do you s’pose you’re goin’?”

  I stop and look down, poking at the muddy ground with my bare foot. “Nowhere particular.”

  She shakes her head and groans.

  I turn and start for the woods.

  She hollers at me, “Stay away from that crick.”

  Hackles go up on the back of my neck. I spin around. “I’m seven. Nearly a man. Stop babyin’ me.”

  “You’re far from a man, Abraham, and you should know to mind your elders.”

  “Jest ‘cause you’re nine, that don’t make you my elder. Elders are smarter, not jest older.”

  “If that’s so, why do ya mind Pa?” She grins.

  I look off into the trees. “’Cause he’s bigger and stronger, for now.”

  She turns and marches into the cabin.

  “Know-it-all,” I mumble.

  Even when Sally gets uppity with me, I love her. She used to carry me through mud and rain to the one-room log school—half the size of our little cabin, but with the same dirt floor. I only came up to her shoulders, then, and she kept watch over me so the bigger boys wouldn’t bully me.

  On our first day at the Riney school, Mother made me wear a sunbonnet and tow-linen shirt that hung below my knees. As usual I wore no pants. When we stepped through the rough hewn doorway, a curly-haired girl blabbed, “Don’t he look jist like one of ‘em darkies out on the big road?” One of the older boys blurted, “Yeah, some ol’ mammie gittin’ herded off to her new massa down Cumberland way mus’ve left him behind.” Other children joined their teasing.

  A girl with blonde hair sneered at me. “Lookie how dark his face and legs are,” she said. “He mus’ be a little Negro boy.”

  Sally made them stop, and when we returned home, she convinced Mother to braid me a manly new hat out of straw. Mother said not much can be done about my slave-boy, tow-linen shirt, due to our poverty.

  Until yesterday, the roiling water of Knob Creek never sparked fear in me, but these woods always make me shiver. I keep watch as I creep along. My heart beats faster, haunted by visions of Indians stalking me, lurking behind every tree. They’d be ghosts of the ones who slaughtered Grandpa Abraham and would’ve killed Father, as well. He was just a tyke at the time.

  That Indian, his tomahawk poised, hovering over Father—just a boy—is more than a dream to me. Grandpa dying at his side. Uncle Mordecai firing the flintlock, cutting the savage down before he can wreak more terror. Folks say the Indians are long gone from these parts, but thinking about them chills me.

  The big sycamore tree Austin and I laughed about just yesterday makes me laugh again. The knots in my back begin to unravel. This old tree chases away the pall that hangs over me—its branches reaching down like the arms of a gentle father.

  Weeks later, Father returns from his excursion across the Ohio River and says we have to leave our home. My playtimes with Austin end, and my boyhood dies.

  I catch a whiff of the approaching winter storm. Darkness settles over the woods even though it is barely noon. Knob Creek thrashes against its banks, already filled with icy runoff from the deluge that blankets the nearby hills. I envy the freedom with which these waters flow, even though their abandon makes me fret, not only over Tommy. A few days ago Mrs. Gollaher and Austin carried Mother and me in their wagon to Tommy’s grave where we bid him our final goodbyes. Mother wants to be laid next to him when she dies, but her wishing is in vain now that Father says we must remove to Indian Anner. That’s what I called it before Missus Sarah corrected me.

  Father’s voice breaks through the roar of rushing water. “Abraham, git yeself up here. There’s work to be done if we’re gonna make Indiana ‘fore winter.”

  He’s wrong. Our cow is already haltered, and all that’s left is packing the horses that’ll carry our sparse provisions over a hundred miles to our new home. Father will return in the spring for our pigs; in the meantime, Mr. Gollaher will keep an eye on them.

  On the other side of the Ohio, the bulk of our personal belongings wait for us, as do the barrels of whiskey Father will use to pay for a new farm. He must’ve bought the whiskey from Mr. Boone at the distillery down where Knob Creek spills into the Rolling Fork. “Uncle Boonie” treats us well. Likely, he sold Father the whiskey at a favorable price, or gave it to him for missed wages he never got paid for making barrels.

  When it’s time to leave, Austin and his family come to say farewell. As we clutch each other, my tears dampen Austin’s shirt, and his soak mine. I promise to remember him every day for the remainder of my life.

  Father, Mother, Sally, and I say nothing to one another until the Ohio River comes into view. While storm clouds cast their shadows on the river’s cold gray waters, Father tells us the Linkhorn name will stay behind in Knob Creek. We will call ourselves Lincoln in our new home. One more part of my childhood is wrenched away.

  Chapter Three

  As the year-long winter resumes its assault, we arrive at our new homestead near Little Pigeon Creek in the Indiana wilderness. Without unloading our belongings, Father races against an impending storm to make a scant shelter, tucked up against a thicket of bare-limbed trees. It’s called a half-faced camp—fourteen foot sides, framed with stout poles, and covered on three sides with smaller poles and brush. At the open end, we build a fire for cooking. The embers provide warmth, and the fire’s glow keeps hungry animals at bay.

  A lull in the storm gives Father time to hunt, but fierce winds and snow trap us in our shabby lean-to before he can cure enough game to last until spring. A few days later, our fire dies out from want of kindling, and we hang animal skins across the open face—our only defense against the elements.

  Sally and I huddle under animal pelts on a mattress of dried leaves and twigs piled at the foot of our parents’ crude bed. Our teeth clatter, and our tears are dried up from a bone-aching cold that has sucked moisture out of everything. A hungry panther’s scream keeps us awake late into the night. If it doesn’t get us first, we’re sure to become supper for a bear or pack of ravenous wolves.

  Sally drapes her arm over me and whispers, “Snug up closer. We’ll be warmer.”

  I burrow against her. “Should’ve drowned in that stupid crick. Would’ve been over an’ done with.”

  “Shh ….” Her voice is nearly lost in the howling storm. “Try dreamin’ ‘bout Kentucky.”

  “If we see morning, Father will insist God’s Mercy has saved us from our own foolishness.”

  Sally giggles. “Mother will argue we’re in the hands of Providence.”

  Near my eighth birthday in early February, tiny patches of bare ground checker the snow in front of the half-faced camp. I peer between the animal pelts hanging over our entry and spot a small flock of turkeys mingling among the trees, scratching about for acorns or frozen bugs. Father is out setting traps. He left his muzzleloader behind, propped just inside the opening. He’s been teaching me to shoot and keeps hounding me about becoming a man. Tells me it’s time to put aside childish ways, just as Mother’s Bible says.

  A voice inside my head telling me it’s wrong to kill. “Mother, would Father be angry if I shot a turkey?”

  She nods and says in a low voice, “He’d be proud.”

  My hands tremble as I fumble with the ramrod, trying to pack powder, waddling, and shot down the gun’s barrel. I draw a deep breath and raise the stock to my shoulder, taking aim. Tiny beads of sweat line my brow, and the muzzleloader weighs heavy in my clammy hands. My conscience twinges again, but I quell it once more and whisper, “… put aside childish ways.”

  The charge explodes, pummeling my ears, and my eyes slam shut. When I open them, the turkey is flailing and making an ungodly noise. “I’ve murdered it,” I whimper.

  I collapse to my knees, sobbing.

  Mother tries to console me.

  Tears roll down my cheeks. “Father can be proud of me if he wants, but I hate myself for what I’ve
done. Never again will I pull a trigger on anything as large as a turkey.”

  Spring’s arrival finds Father building a permanent shelter from logs he harvests out of the dense forest. He says it’s going to be at least two times bigger than the half-faced camp. I do my best to help, but never enough to please him. He no longer teaches me to shoot, instead he puts an axe in my hands and gives me long hours of practice felling trees. To help Mother and Sally, I keep the fire going and trek a mile each way down to the creek whenever the water pails are empty.

  If Father’s in a good mood, or if he’s out tromping through the woods, Mother recites stories to Sally and me from the Bible and Aesop’s Fables, books we spirited away from Kentucky without Father’s knowledge. The passages are ones that were read to her as a child, which she committed to memory. As Mother recites, Sally and I follow along in the books. In this way we build on the meager skills we gained at the ABC schools back home. Mother encourages me to practice writing as well.

  Warmer temperatures allow us to plant corn and vegetables among the tree stumps left from cutting timber for logs. By late summer the new cabin is up, and our first crop is ready for harvest. I begin regular trips on horseback to the grist mill a couple miles away. Often, waiting for my turn to grind our corn into flour takes hours. My idle time is filled reading books I’ve borrowed from neighbors.

  One afternoon, I return from the mill to find Father back home from gathering the pigs we’d left behind at the Gollahers’ in Kentucky. That was one of Father’s few sound choices. The unruly animals would have slowed us down, preventing our arrival in time to build even the sparsest winter shelter. Survival would have been impossible. Of course, if storms had set upon us along the way, we all might have died before reaching our destination, anyway.

  I grin broadly and bring the old mare to a halt. The Sparrows, relatives of ours who lived near Knob Creek, are unpacking their belongings and moving into the half-faced camp we’ve recently abandoned.

  Dennis Hanks, a cousin, is ten years my elder, lean, and only a scant taller. He calls out, “Haloo, Abraham.”