Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains

by Walt Larimore, MD

  But today I was looking forward to leaving the hassles of work behind to drive the forty miles of winding road along the south shore of Fontana Lake out to Fontana Resort. My friend and fishing partner John Carswell was the director of security at the resort, and I was looking forward to having a predawn breakfast at his house before heading out on the lake to do some fishing with him. His wife, Priscilla, and their two kids had shown me the best in country hospitality more than once.

  The combination of smells that swirled around me in the Car-swell kitchen was both wonderful and overwhelming — and distinctly different from the moderately malodorous medical politics I had left behind in Bryson City. My nose, like that of a bloodhound’s, fixed on a particular smell I initially couldn’t place. Try as I might to listen to John sharing all of the local gossip in a flurry of paragraphs, my mind was racing as I tried to identify this particular smell — one that was arousing decades-old memories.

  Before I could consciously identify the aroma that was piquing my intrigue, something about the backside of Mrs. Carswell, the kitchen, and the smells transported me to a buried childhood memory. Out of my subconscious arose a memory that I could simultaneously feel and smell — intensely warm and welcome.

  I was instantly transported back in time to Springfield, Illinois, on a family vacation to my maternal grandmother’s home. I couldn’t have been more than five years old. I was sitting in another small kitchen at another kitchen table — this one with a red-and-white- checked tablecloth — drinking a tiny cup of chocolate milk. I remember feeling loved and welcome and somewhat manly, for some reason. Maybe grandmothers do that to little boys.

  Bernice, as she was called, was facing the stove. She was not just a large woman; she was huge — in fact, monstrous to a five-year- old.

  “Phil and Mac, Jack and Marty, Billy [referring to my mom and dad, uncle and aunt, and younger brother], you all better get in here! Breakfast is ready, now!” she had bellowed.

  She then giggled to herself, as she was wont to do. I can still see her turning toward me. I was able to feel her smile before I saw it — a radiant, heartfelt, ear-to-ear smile. She had lumbered over to the table with a plateful of fried eggs. “Walter Lee — ” (I hated to be called by my middle name, and if anyone else did it, I felt belittled and small, but she did it all the time and somehow made me feel good when she did. If there had been a grandmother’s school, she would have graduated summa cum laude!).

  “Walter Lee,” she repeated, “I sure hope you’re hungry. I’ve been cooking since dawn, and just for you.”

  She bent over and pinched my cheek, and she did it in a way that didn’t provoke my usual five-year-old ire to such shenanigans — she could do it in love and get away with it every time. As she shuffled back to the oven, I looked down and saw the source of the shuffling sound. Immense feet housed in equally enormous pink bedroom slippers plodded across the kitchen.

  It was then that I smelled it. That smell — warm and wonderful, sweet and powerful. Grandma approached the oven, and then she opened the oven door. The aroma exploded across the room, nearly knocking me off my chair. Homemade bread! Not just any homemade bread, but that yeasty, old-fashioned homemade bread that, as far as I was concerned, only a grandmother could make.

  As Grandma pulled out the bread pans, she smiled as she held a pan up and breathed in the magnificent, glorious aroma.

  “Walter Lee,” she had nearly whispered, as she looked over the top of the loaf and down at me, “this is heaven distilled into a pan. And son, I’ve made it just for you. Because you, my young man, have what it takes. I can only imagine how proud your dad must be of you. You’re a mighty fine youngin’.” She was more uplifting and heartening than she could have ever imagined — at least to a small boy who savored words of affirmation.

  As she turned to put the pan on the kitchen counter, she laughed and laughed, with the laughter literally rolling in waves down her body. I’ve never forgotten her laugh. I still smile as I think about it — and her. She was my first model of overflowing goodness — not in any sort of religious or theological sense — but just in the overflow of her joy into my life. She never complained or argued. She was blameless and pure, and she always looked out for the good in me and my brothers. As the Good Book teaches so very clearly, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.” To me, as a little boy, she became my first model of righteousness.

  The aroma in my deepest memories of her is much sweeter than the aroma left there by many others. That aroma, a fragrance and a heady scent that still inhabits the deepest recesses of my soul, wasn’t just the bread she baked but the bread of life itself.

  Laughter woke me from my trance — only this time the laughter was from Priscilla Carswell, not my grandmother, as she bent over to open the oven door. She and John were laughing about something, and I smiled as though I had actually heard what it was.

  John laughed as he asked, “You weren’t listening, were you?”

  I felt my cheeks begin to burn. “Sorry, John,” I admitted.

  Priscilla brought over a steaming panful of homemade biscuits. I could feel my mouth begin to water.

  We all bowed our heads as John returned thanks for the food, and then the serving began. Poached and fried eggs, home fries, grits, smoked ham and bacon, biscuits, butter, and homemade jam and jelly were handed all around in gigantic portions by Mrs. Carswell, while John poured piping hot coffee for three. Over breakfast, we continued to share stories and laughter. The kitchen in the Carswell’s home was warm and toasty from the fireplace and the cook stove, but the friendliness and hospitality of the Car-swells was for me one the truest forms of warmth and welcome these mountains could dispense — and the memories they had unleashed of another time and another place were most special gifts indeed.

  I suspect most people are just like me — with memories from childhood that run the gamut from splendid to sordid. It is natural, I have discovered, for those memories that are not picked up and examined and shared with others to slowly become dusty and even forgotten — at least consciously. But in a moment, a mere instant — completely unexpected, triggered by some unrecognized event or smell or thought, either glorious as was this particular case or horrible as would be the case with Kate in slightly less than two decades — they can be reborn. In either case, they are an integral and intimate part of who we are and what we’ve come to be, and they must be recognized and dealt with.

  Of course, the pleasant remembrances, like a boyhood memory of a wonderful grandmother, are remarkably healthy and joyful. But the awakening of a nightmare is much more painful — even potentially dangerous. To try to bury it or ignore it — to make it a deeply hidden and almost forgotten secret — is equivalent to choosing to allow a boil to fester in the hope that it will go away. But alas, for healing to occur the developing and potentially dangerous infection must be recognized for what it is and then drained. Lancing the wound can be painful, but healing cannot occur without releasing the poison. In fact, to fail to do so is to choose to poison one’s system and one’s future.

  chapter six

  A HEALING POTION

  After breakfast and before sunup, John and I left the house and headed to the Fontana boat dock. Although I didn’t often get out on Fontana Lake with John, I treasured the times we did.

  As we were preparing the boat and gear, I heard a familiar deep, resonate baritone voice coming from behind me. “Doc, you still running with bad company?”

  I turned around to face a bear of a man with long, silky-black hair and a beaming smile.

  “Carl Walkingstick — as I live and breathe. How are you doing?”

  His monstrous hand enveloped mine as we shook hands. I was always thankful he withheld his strength when shaking my hand, as I was certain he could crush mine with minimal effort.

  “I’m alive, Doc — because of you.”

  Carl, as a full-blooded Cherokee, qualified to be admitted at Cherokee Indian Hospit
al — which was located in the town of Cherokee, only a fifteen-minute drive up the Tuckaseigee River from Bryson City. However, Dr. Mitchell had cared for Carl and his family for years, so more times than not he ended up in our hospital. William E. “Mitch” Mitchell, M.D., a Swain County native, was a general practitioner and surgeon who had run the county medical establishment with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century.

  The year before, we’d almost lost Carl to an overwhelming onslaught of what is now called flesh-eating bacteria.

  “Actually, Carl,” I explained, “I think it was the Lord who got you through that infection. Dr. Cunningham and I were just helping him out.”

  E. Ray Cunningham, M.D., was the youngest doctor in town prior to our arrival. Ray had been born and raised in Bryson City and had begun his medical career in his hometown only two years before my arrival. He was in practice with Dr. Mitchell in the county’s first and only “group practice,” Swain Surgical Associates — located in a small office at the foot of Hospital Hill. Mitch and Ray had graciously allowed Rick and me to practice in their office until ours was built.

  Carl smiled, “Well, Doc, if you and Dr. Cunningham hadn’t opened up my back to drain the infection, I wouldn’t be here today. The recovery was powerful painful, but I still appreciate all you and he did, I’ll tell ya that.”

  As he released my hand and looked across the misty cove that led to the main channel of the lake, he smiled. “However, the fish of Fontana Lake don’t appreciate it. The fish hunter is back, and I’m catchin’ all the big ones John Carswell only wishes he could catch.”

  John guffawed at his old friend.

  “You boys visit a bit!” John yelled as he cranked the boat motor. “I’m gonna get some gas, and then I’ll come back and get ya, Walt.”

  I gave John thumbs up as he chugged off to the gas dock.

  “Where are your buddies this morning?” I asked Carl. Walkingstick was usually with several of his close friends, enjoying high doses of what I call the “humor quotient.” I’m convinced that his and his buddies’ sense of humor not only increased their quality of life but actually extended Carl’s. Despite his severe diabetes and hypertension — diseases that would have put others in the grave at a much younger age — Carl held on. He was a patient who taught me much about the healing power of laughter.

  “Aw, Doc. The guys’ll be down in a bit. You and John are just a bit early. By the way, did John tell you about the unfortunate shootin’ that happened over in Tennessee this week?”

  “Shooting?” I asked. “I didn’t hear anything about a shooting.”

  “Well, the way I hear it, the park rangers and the national forest officers are always having trouble with the poachers.”

  “Ranger Mattox was telling me about that,” I said. “So is poaching happening more than usual?”

  “Well, there are stories most every day of folks in the park trappin’ and huntin’ the bear, deer, turkey, and hogs. But recently the story is that there’s been a bunch of deer poaching by spot-lighters just south of the Fontana Dam. I despise them spotlighters. I call spotlighting the sport of cowards and the spineless. It’s not the way of a true hunter.”

  “Do the officers down here have any more luck catching them than the park rangers up near Cherokee?”

  “Nope. Seems the poachers know where the officers are at and what they’re doing.”

  “Do you think someone on the inside is tipping them off, Carl?”

  “I doubt it. I suspect they just keep an eye out for the officers, who, if they ain’t in uniforms, are in government vehicles. When they’re seen on the move, I bet they radio each other. And recently me and the boys have been hearing about some locals spotlightin’ along the river valley below the dam, not far from the Tennessee border. They say that’s a first in that area. But they caught ’em last night.”

  “Caught who?”

  “Well, let me tell you the story I heard. It’s hilarious. There were some national forest folks that talked to the park rangers and borrowed some of the new deer decoys that the park recently purchased. Their old ones apparently didn’t work too well. They didn’t move or blink, and so the locals learned not to shoot at them decoys. And there’s no law against spotlightin’ — just against shootin’ the animal you’ve spotlighted.”

  “So what did they do?”

  “Well, the new decoys are radio controlled. The head of one of the deer decoys goes from a grazin’ position to a heads-up position. The other deer decoy’s head can move from side to side. Both of them can blink, turn their ears, and chew. One of my buddies saw them and says they look awfully real. Well, at least they did!”

  I smiled. “Did?”

  “Don’t make me get too far ahead in the story!” he cautioned. “Anyway, they borrowed those decoys and practiced runnin’ them in one of them government buildings not too far from here. It was supposed to be a secret that they were even here. But me and my buddies know most of the goings-on. Just before dusk, the officers took a back road, and placed the decoys in a field about sixty yards from the main road along the river below the dam. Then they went to the edge of the forest and set up their remote radio-control units. They had two patrol cars hidden off the road — one upstream and the other downstream.”

  “How’d the decoys look?”

  “I heard that one of the officers said they looked real to him — and he knew they were fake! Walt, he said he would swear their tails and ears were flickin’ off real flies. Supposedly, it was amazing.”

  Carl paused for a moment to take a sip of his coffee, and I found myself wondering if his story was totally thirdhand or not.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “the story is the officers kept playin’ with the remote controls right up to dusk. If fact, they were so mesmerized by the dummies that they didn’t see ’em drive up.”

  “Who?”

  “The police.”

  “The police? Are you kidding me?”

  “No sir, I’m not. A police car from a small Tennessee town just across the border pulled up by the side of the field, and two uniformed officers got out and started looking at the deer. One of them had a pair of binoculars. I hear our boys were feelin’ pretty proud of themselves to have fooled these police officers, but then they got the shock of their lives.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the fella with the binoculars began looking up and down the river. Then they turned to the car, and before anyone knew what was happening, they had gotten their rifles out and were taking aim at the decoys. Next thing you know, they were blasting at those dummies.” Carl began to laugh.

  “Are you pulling my leg, Carl?” I asked.

  “Nope. The story is that the officers mannin’ the remote controls called in the storm troopers, and before you know it, cars with their sirens a blazin’ came swoopin’ in from the east and the west. One of the boys dropped his rifle, and his hands shot to the sky. The other fella hopped the split-rail fence and started runnin’. I don’t have a clue where he thought he’d get away to, but after a few steps the fellas with the remote controls stood up with their sidearms drawn, and when that policeman saw ’em, his hands went straight up in the air.”

  I laughed out loud. “Carl, that’s quite a story. Are you sure it’s true?”

  “Well, I hear the boys went to jail and have been charged — but unfortunately the Park Service’s decoys are dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yep, those police just shot the tar and dickens out of ’em. None of the robotic movements work anymore. The Park Service rangers came to pick ’em up and take ’em to the shop over in Cherokee. I heard one of the fellas has pinned a fake Purple Heart on each of the deer.”

  We laughed together. I couldn’t always tell if Carl’s stories were tall tales or not. But I was glad to have this time with him. Carl wasn’t the best at keeping his appointments, so our “doctor visits” at the boat dock allowed me to catch up on his self-care — or lack thereof.


  During today’s visit, I was to uncover some particularly bad news — a festering infection that Carl had chosen to ignore.

  “How are you doing with your medications, Carl? I don’t see you in the office very often these days.”

  Carl looked down and shuffled his feet on the boat dock. “It’s hard to get all the way over there to your office, Doc. But I’m takin’ my medicine — most of the time. I’m just not checkin’ my sugar very often. But while you’re here, there is one thing I’d like you to look at.”

  “What’s that?”

  Carl sat down on the bench and took off his boot and sock. My spirits fell when I saw the pus and drainage on the sock. As he pulled off the sock, I could see that the ball of his foot, just at the base of the great toe, harbored a deep ulcer replete with foul odor and drainage.

  “Aw, Carl. How long’s that thing been there?”

  “Well, Doc, I don’t rightly know. You know I can’t feel very well down there on my feet.”

  I looked up into my friend’s eyes. “Carl, if we don’t jump on this pretty quickly, you could lose your foot — or even your leg. This is a real serious problem.”

  Carl nodded. “What will it take to fix it?”

  “Well, since you live so far from the office, and since I think this may take some professional cleaning by our physical therapists two or three times a day, it might be best for you to be in the hospital for a few days. Can you handle it?”

  Carl smiled. “Swain County Hospital has some of the best vittles in the county. Guess I could stay a bit. But only if you think it’s really necessary.”

  John was pulling his boat up to the dock next to us, and Carl and I stood. I tried to be stern with this gentle giant of a man. “Carl, this type of sore has killed some diabetics. How ’bout you come to the hospital tomorrow, and I’ll get you admitted.”