“The scrap yard,” said Harrogate.
“I suppose you think this belongs to you?”
Harrogate wiped his brow. “Well, my uncle always said possession was nine tenths of the law, and he didn’t give a hoot for the other tenth. I reckon you’re about to figure it different?”
Jim sat a little higher in the saddle. “Bud, think about it. This belongs to the American people. Horace Wakefield’s planning a museum.”
Silas blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Jim Hawkins, how long’s it been since he talked about that? For that matter, how long since he’s even been over here? They don’t think enough of us to build an outhouse, much less a museum. And, for God’s sake, nothing here’s quality enough for a museum. It ain’t but a bunch of rusty old plunder. Kind of like me.”
Jim looked around and laughed softly. “I’m surprised you didn’t roll up the fence wire.”
Silas and Harrogate looked at each other like they were a pair of motley fools. “Well, we did try the chicken wire, but it was so bad rusted it fell apart,” said Harrogate, lighting a Camel.
Jim smiled. “Listen, boys, I’ll look the other way, like I do a lot with you two. I could, after all, have been over Sterling and seen nothing. But if I see another load, I’ll cite you. Evans won’t grant a permit to scrounge scrap metal.”
“We appreciate it, Jim Hawkins,” said Silas. “We could cut you a share.”
“Sounds like a bribe to me. You boys be careful.”
Harrogate clicked his heels and saluted. “Yes, sir. I just need some help getting this up in the wagon.”
“If that’s what I think it is, I’ll help you walk it to the schoolhouse. Where’d you get that?”
Harrogate pointed over his shoulder. “It was half-buried over yonder.”
“Well, it’s going to school. You aren’t selling that.” Jim dismounted and handed Silas his horse’s reins. He and Harrogate humped it inside the door and stood it against the wall.
Silas and Harrogate walked the mule home, leaving their wagon beside the school. Late that night Harrogate snuck out and headed down the road in the moonlight. Silas watched him from the upstairs bedroom, wondering how they’d explain how that piece of a desk had hopped back onto that wagon.
CHAPTER 17
The Beginning of Leaving
Before the park, bracing for a Cataloochee winter began with a longstanding ritual—in two summer weeks men cut trees and distributed them to all households. In 1928 they had decided this might be their final harvest, so they felled every hardwood on the upper slopes except the huge old poplars. Levi Marion’s wood stack promised to keep them warm six winters.
His woodlot ran on gravity. From the pile of logs—“firewood on the hoof,” he called it—to the three-bay woodshed was eighty downhill feet. He and his sons sawed logs into eight-inch lengths for the cookstove, ten inches longer for fireplaces. They tossed those rounds to a pile beside a chopping block. Levi Marion enjoyed splitting most of them himself.
He worked with a deliberate pace. Smaller billets, first stroke; halves, second whack; fourths, done. Larger rounds split into eighths or sixteenths. When he was one with his job, passersby admired both rhythm and results. Steady, unhurried, prayer-like work.
His woodshed had bulged to begin the winter, which had not been particularly cold or wet. But on a cold morning in March 1931, he woke at four and stared at the ceiling, above which his brood slept. Coals settled at the bedroom hearth, a southwesterly wind made him think of snow, and his right big toe hurt.
It wasn’t much of a toe. In his twenties—“when you’re young, you ain’t got no sense,” his grandfather Levi had been fond of saying—he had hacked most of it off while working firewood barefooted. Some folks preserved amputated limbs or digits, to be buried with the amputee. They reasoned if folks weren’t whole at the last trumpet, when Jesus took to separating sheep from goats, they’d be thrown into the left-hand pile. Levi Marion, however, figured to stand proudly Judgment Day. If toes were so important, Jesus would give him a new one.
With enough light to distinguish ceiling joints, he dressed, stood, and scratched everything reachable without bending over. The house smelled of warm iron and yesterday’s fried pork. He quietly rekindled fireplaces.
Outside, gray clouds threatened to grace the ground. He headed to the barn, collar raised against a southwestern breeze. Hugh and Rass’s pair of young hounds, Mutt and Jeff, nosed the air from under the porch.
When he returned, the kitchen range fairly sang as Valerie cooked. Hearthstones radiated enough heat to rouse the children. Levi Marion laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “If it snows,” he said, “me and Rass will hunt rabbits.”
“I never figured you for playing in the snow.”
“Hunting ain’t playing. We ain’t got a pot to piss in anymore. Land ain’t ours. Lost our money. We need the food.”
Three weeks before, his oldest son, Hugh, had moved to Waynesville to work at Boyd’s filling station. His next boy, Rass, would turn fifteen that coming summer. Rass boarded in Waynesville while he finished high school but was home because school had closed while a furnace was being replaced. He trudged from the loft, clothes mostly in his hands. Over his long johns went a denim shirt and overalls.
“Son,” said Levi Marion, “hurry every chance you get. You and me need to clean out the barn stalls.”
“Okay, Papa. But do we have to do them all?”
“Depends. If it snows shoe-mouth deep, we’ll hunt rabbits.”
The rest of the tribe popped from the loft looking like they had haunted back corners of Noah’s ark. Ada’s snaky hair shot every which way. George, going on eleven, coughed as croupy as a barn cat hocking a hair ball. Ruth Elizabeth, nearly nine, carried a rooster-shaped rag doll half-hidden in her clothes. Mary, six, dragging a tattered blanket and a stuffed bear, tromped to the chimney corner to check on little brother Ned’s crib.
Rass followed his father to the porch. “What do you think, Papa?”
“After breakfast, we’ll see.” He went out back for some quiet. Emerging from the outhouse, he spied one substantial snowflake settling slowly downward.
After the meal Rass started to work, but burst back inside. “Papa, it’s snowing, hard!”
“It’s dry in the barn.”
“Papa, the ground’s white.”
“All right,” he grumbled, “I’ll see about it.” But his eyes smiled.
Flakes as big as milkweed seeds clung to flat surfaces. The hemlock beside the springhouse looked like a Christmas tree awaiting candles.
“Rass, fetch a day’s stove wood for your mama and stack splits by the hearth. These young’uns won’t go to school this day. Me and you are going hunting.”
They dressed against the weather, sweaters and britches under overalls, leggings over boots. Rass found his double-barreled .410 and a box of shells, kissed his mother, and gave his siblings the razz. Levi Marion hugged Valerie, took his shotgun from over the door, and went outside.
Across the road, weed heads bowed under snowy hats. Sound was muffled, even the flittering peeps of a solitary cardinal. They could see no farther than the middle of the big field and barely made out the edge of the orchard.
They meant to hunt to the schoolhouse, then up Indian Creek. Rass called his dogs and started ahead of his father. When Levi Marion stopped to retie his homemade leggings, a shot sounded like a fist hitting a feather pillow. He met Rass, who held a good-size rabbit by its hind feet. “Good work, Son. Head toward the schoolhouse. I’ll watch for anything backtracking.” Rass started westward as the dogs sniffed creek-edge briars and weeds.
Underfoot the ground was as slick as—Levi Marion would have said in some quarters—owl shit. Snowbirds pulled orange berries off bittersweet snaking into a patch of scrub oaks. If the shots he heard were dead on, the family would not starve.
At the schoolhouse Rass carried a blood-mottled tow sack heavy with rabbits. Breath pluming, he and his father ducked into the structure,
stamping snow. The dogs shook and ran under the front stoop.
Two rooms, two dozen desks, one unfired heater. Levi Marion lifted its eye and examined cold charcoal. “Son, I bet you’ve backed your butt to this stove many a time.” Levi Marion chuckled. “I went to the old school, the one that burned down.”
“That’s a good story,” said Rass.
Levi Marion returned the lifter. “Back then a man could get away with things. Good old days. Hell, it snowed oftener, deeper, days on end. We had woods in the valley. Standing half a field off you could count every limb. You’d think them all straight until a big snow told you otherwise.” He shook his head. “Tell you what. Let’s go see your uncle Will.”
At the stoop the dogs had disappeared. Snowing, more powdery now, three inches deep. Two sets of paw prints headed home. “Them dogs ain’t worth shooting,” Levi Marion said. Next to their tracks orange and scarlet stains radiated from bittersweet hulls. “Everywhere them birds shit, a seed’s tailor-made ready come spring.”
“Papa, Aunt Lizzie’s girls used to make baskets and wreaths from the vines.”
“That’s all the bastards are good for. If you’d spent half the time I have grubbing this infernal stuff, you’d hate it, too.” Levi Marion checked his pocket watch. “I’m getting hungry. How about you?”
Rass nodded as they walked beside Indian Creek, heavy sack banging against his leg.
Nearly ninety years before, Levi Marion’s great-uncle Fate had built a mill. A hundred yards upcreek he’d diverted water into a wooden race, which in the fall he’d closed for a day so he could clean out leaves—and scoop left-behind trout into bushel baskets for a community fish fry. The race emptied into a forebay, a wooden tank twelve feet square at the top, tapered like a funnel to shoot water onto a wheel that turned the millstones.
Will Carter, Fate’s nephew and successor, a wiry man uphill from seventy with a wild beard covering layers of denim, flannel, and wool, opened the door and cocked his head at his nephew and grand-nephew. “You’re in a heap of need if you want corn ground this day.”
Levi Marion knocked snotty ice from his mustache. “Howdy, Uncle Will. We’ve been hunting.”
Rass showed him the game.
“I’ll not start the mill, then,” Will said, and laughed. “Rabbit meal’s too furry. Anyhow, I just wanted to build a fire and check on things.” He shuffled toward the back, returning with a jar. “Here’s one of them things. Have a snort, Levi Marion.”
“Been so long, my heart might give way.”
“Don’t say I didn’t offer. Quite an occasion, you hunting on a workday. So I’ll drink one for you, too. Remember that time we all went possum hunting?”
“Sure do. I was about thirteen. Did we ever tell you that story?” Levi Marion asked Rass.
Rass, nodding, grinned. “Tell it again.”
“Son, it was some night. I drunk enough popskull for us all put together,” said Will.
“Liquor saved your uncle that evening,” said Levi Marion. “Dogs treed the biggest old possum you ever seen, hissing in the second fork of a wild cherry toward the Sutton place. Nothing would suit Uncle Will except to climb after her. He squirreled up and stood on the first fork, reached back smooth as your mama’s Sunday dress, grabbed that possum by the nape of her neck. He fell backasswards, cradling that critter like a sack of gold. Hadn’t been liquored up, he’d broke his neck. We thought he was dead until she got tired of laying there and bit his arm.”
“Eye God,” said Will, “she latched on and wouldn’t let go. Three shirts and a wool coat was all that kept her from taking my arm off. You boys played hell prying her loose.”
“Silas worried most of an hour with them rusty old pliers.”
“What did you do with her?” asked Rass.
“Beat her to death on a tree trunk. Made her tenderish. Wasn’t bad eating.”
Snow had nearly stopped. Levi Marion eyed the sky. “Uncle Will, you hungry? We got dinner.”
“I can always eat. Then I bet you boys’ll get in a half day’s work?”
Levi Marion shook his head. “I haven’t prowled in snowy woods since I was Rass’s age.”
Will looked at him hard. “Levi Marion, I never knowed you to leave a job until tomorrow.”
Levi Marion studied his hands. “Uncle Will, next winter the park mightn’t let us walk in snow without a pea soup.”
“Go on, then, if you can slog up that slick grade. Don’t drag the rabbits, though. I’ll dress them for you.”
“Then you’ll keep some for your trouble.”
They shared Valerie’s fried pies and ham biscuits, then Levi Marion and his son walked into a white silence. In a snowbank a stain feathering from purple to pink spoke of pokeweed. “You never used to see this damn mess grow past salad stage,” said Levi Marion. “You’re in a different world, boy.”
They shouldered guns and trudged toward the bend where Davidson Branch ended its switchback crawl down the mountain. Beside it a mule-width trail began a twisted rise of a thousand feet.
Doghobble and hearts-a-busting lined the roadside. No sound save branch, breath, and slow and scrunching steps. Water and trail intersected in a watery mush at every switchback. After an hour they reached the woods edge, where Rass spied fox prints. “Look, Papa.”
Levi Marion bent and grabbed his overalls legs. “Yep.” He gasped, coughed, and spat in the snow. “Bet it started snowing up here before it did in the valley. You usually don’t see a fox in daylight.” He coughed again. “Damn, that’s a mean climb.” Red-faced, he sat, hard, on a chestnut log. “We’re close to that cherry tree we was talking about.” He wiped his brow. “Go on. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
“Papa, are you sure?”
He waved Rass away. “I’m just winded.”
“You don’t look too well.” Rass started to touch his father’s shoulder but pulled back.
“Believe me, I’ve looked a lot worse than this,” said Levi Marion.
“Tell you what. If you need help, shoot twice and I’ll come running,” said Rass.
“You bet.”
The grade soon banished worry from Rass’s thoughts. He negotiated the three hundred yards, falling twice. George Sutton’s deserted farmyard sported a broken-down wagon with a snow-laden bed. Clusters of bayonet grass made him think of old men bent under white counterpanes.
Rass couldn’t remember if Sutton had moved, but no dogs barked and no smoke rose from his chimney. Rass started to knock, when a noise intruded. Rass craned his neck, ears straining through cold and humidity. After a tense half minute, another shot.
Rass banged the door. “Mr. Sutton,” he shouted, “Papa’s in trouble.” The door swung to reveal a wadded towel in the far corner and a moth-eaten blanket over the north window. Rass grabbed the blanket and yelled, “Hold on, I’m coming!”
He tumbled off the porch, skittered downhill, slid on his behind, scrabbled up, and found the path to the vacant log, uphill from which Levi Marion’s tracks ended at a lumpy pile of clothes.
“Papa, Papa!” Rass shouted, clambering up the slope. Snow grooved away from the shotgun’s barrel. Rass knelt beside his father’s body, tears streaming. “Oh, God,” Rass said. “Please, God.” He shook his father’s shoulder. It seemed a week before Levi Marion moved his head like he never wanted to wake.
“Rass, what in tarnation?”
Rass helped him to his feet and brushed snow from his coat. He draped the blanket over Levi Marion’s back and wiped the gun with a corner of it. “Can you get to Sutton’s house?”
“I reckon.”
“Lean on me.”
They bounced off each other until a slippery rhythm took over. At the porch Levi Marion flapped a hand at his son. “I’m okay now.”
The frigid house seemed vacated just ahead of a hostile assault. Levi Marion, shivering, leaned on the door frame between front room and kitchen, looking over the deserted structure. “I used to visit old man Sutton,” he said. “His wife died
with the Spanish flu, when you was a baby. He’d talk your ear off, but he always had a fire going and coffee on.”
“Hey, why don’t I build a fire?”
“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit in the world.”
Rass hefted a piece of a stool leg. It felt sound enough to knock out pantry shelves, so he went to work, blows echoing off the hard walls. In the fireplace Rass tee-peed splinters over a mouse nest and lit it with a kitchen match fished from his coat pocket. The chimney drew, so he dragged boards to the fireplace, scattering mouse turds and silverfish. Shelves popped like guns as they caught.
The fire improved Levi Marion considerably.
“Papa, what happened?”
“Rass, when you left, it got quiet. I was resting my eyes. Praying a little. After a time I heard a bull elk bugle. Boy, every hair on my body stood in ranks. I opened eyes on the biggest elk that ever walked these hills, not thirty yards off. I didn’t have but a rabbit load—I didn’t even think about it, shut my eyes and fired. When I looked again, there wasn’t nothing—no track, no sign, no nothing. I ran up the hill lickety-split, tripped, knocked the wind out of me. Had enough sense to shoot. Then I passed out. When you woke me, I was thinking about Jesus.”
“Papa, elk live out West, don’t they?”
“Son, I know it don’t make sense.”
Rass shoved more shelves into the fire. “Maybe you were dreaming.”
Levi Marion stared at the hearth. “Glad you built a fire. When I was a boy, it was peachy to come into a warm room on a king-hell cold day—your cheeks tingled. Mama fixed a cup of cocoa, if we had some. If we didn’t, warm milk was mighty fine. Those were good times, Rass. We didn’t have nothing, not like now. But we had each other, and thought we was rich as King Solomon.” Levi Marion seemed embarrassed at such a speech, and stared into the fire, which Rass kept feeding, listening to its pop and hiss. They studied the hearth until both stopped shivering.
Levi Marion smiled. “Son, I could stay here all day, but we need to get going. Your mama will worry.”
“You up to moving?”
“It’s all downhill.”
Requiem by Fire Page 16
