Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Edward Hunt

  February 10, 1864

  Laurel County, Kentucky

  I Samuel Babb, being of sound mind, state this be my last will and testament, I do request all my debts be settled and request Ma and me be buried up behind the house in the grove of Dogwood trees, if possible, if not, we feel our Heavenly Father will find our remains on that great judgment day. Further, I do hereby give all my worldly goods to Luke Scarburg. My farm and all the livestock will be his too. I request that my daughter Catherine and son Samuel, Jr., both under the age of consent will remain under his care until the age of twenty-one, then upon his discretion, all my worldly goods will be returned to them.

  Samuel Babb

  “Sir, I beg you, I cannot accept your terms. Nate and I are bound for Alabama. We are not able to carry Catherine and Sam, Jr. with us. It is too dangerous. Sir, you must have relatives or even neighbors that can be of assistance?”

  “Master Scarburg, I have none! My oldest son Charles was killed at Gettysburg too.”

  Luke muttered, “I’m sorry sir, but after I was captured I knew none of the Yankee’s by name.”

  “He had volunteered as a hospital orderly. Albeit for the North he felt it his Christian duty to assist in any way he could help the wounded. I have no close relations in South Carolina. I had one close friend Riley Walker, but he must be plumb nigh on eighty or ninety years old now, if he be still alive, and sir, as ye probably surmised during your trek across these beautiful Cumberland Mountains, I have no neighbors. I’m sorry to put thee in this dire situation, but sir, I have no one else to rely on. Thee, I’m sure was surely Heaven sent. I plead thee accept my request and care for my children. Stay here with us until spring and when the snow melts ye can continue thou journey. This will give thee time to consider my request.”

  Luke tries to explain again that he and Jake are in no position to assume the duties he requests. He points out the simple fact that Mr. Babb is not dying and as far as he can tell, is not apt to do so anytime in the near future. Obviously, Mr. Babb is not going to take ‘no’ for an answer – after a couple of back and forth arguments Luke relents and accepts his fate as the benefactor of Mr. Babb’s farm and children.

  If sometime in the future word is sent to him in Alabama that Mr. and Mrs. Babb have passed away, he agrees to return, settle the estate and make arrangements for the care of his children. Mr. Babb heaves a sigh of relief, settles back on his pillow as though a tremendous burden has been removed from his shoulders.

  Back downstairs sitting around the fireplace Luke calls to Catherine in the kitchen asking her if she would bring him a Bible. She takes her father’s bible to Luke. Luke opens it and is surprised at all the notes and notations up and down various pages. She tells Luke their big Bible serves as a record of the Babb family, going back a number of generations. Certainly the notations go back to their time in South Carolina.

  He sees nothing that gives him a hint to the meaning of the Biblical passage over the Meetinghouse door. Placing the bible down he walks to the front floor, the blizzard is subsiding. He and Nate can be moving on in a couple of days.

  Sam, Jr. bursts through the front door nearly knocking Luke down. Sam dusts snow from his coat and slaps his hat against his leg, “Darn, this is a mean’un. Worst I’ve ever seen, but gentlemen I got your horses and the burro stabled, rubbed down, watered and fed. Sorry, ‘bout the door.”

  Following Sam is the finest hound that Luke or Nate has ever seen. It trots across the floor and plops down in front of the fire. Luke and Jake both stare at the hound. This obviously is a coonhound with powerful, mobile shoulders; the ears are large compared to the head; his upper lip is hanging well below the lower jaw; the forelegs are long, straight and lean; it is a medium to large hound, weighing somewhere between 45 to 50 pounds they guess; its tricolor coat is white with black and brown swatches. What a magnificent dog thinks Luke.

  No one speaks; Luke walks to the fireplace, and begins to rub the hound’s head. “Catherine, could you please fetch me a rag, I need to dry this hounds coat. He was covered in snow and is lying here soaking wet.”

  As Luke rubs the dog dry Catherine asks, “I see you admire Kentucky Lead, Sam’s coonhound?”

  “Kentucky Lead? That’s an unusual name, but you say ‘admire’? Catherine, I more than ‘admire’ this dog - this IS a coonhound. I have never seen one better in fact I do not believe I can even identify this breed. Have you ever seen such a fine hound, Nate?”

  Nate shakes his head. Catherine continues telling them about the hound. “When Father lived in Carolina his nearest neighbor was old Riley Walker. Mr. Walker had an English Foxhound and Father had a hound he called ‘Carolina Lead’, anyway, as the story goes Father and Mr. Walker crossed their two breeds which resulted in the breed you see lying here in front of the fireplace. Father has always just called them Walker Coonhounds. He’s been raising them for years now. We have eight or ten more out in the barn. They are good hunting hounds at least that’s what coon hunters say about them. The only thing I can tell you about them is their bark – every one of them seems to be different – when Father lets them run over the mountains hunting I can recognize which hound has treed a ‘coon by the sound of their baying. We just narrowed Kentucky Lead’s name to ‘Kentuck’.”

  “Walker coonhounds huh? Well, I never!”

  Leaving the Walker hound sleeping snuggly beside the fire Catherine invites Luke and Nate into the dining room for a good home-cooked meal. Nate provides coffee for some honest to goodness real coffee – it has been a long time since the Babb’s have enjoyed coffee with their meals. As they sit at the table sipping the coffee suddenly, the tranquil evening is shattered by the startling sound of a pistol being fired.

  From upstairs, two gunshots ring out. It seems to come from the bedroom...Luke ascends the steps two at a time, Catherine, Luke, Nate and Sam, Jr. burst into the room to find Mrs. Babb covered in blood, she is dead.

  “Mother...mother! Luke she is gone.” Luke moves over to the bed and checking her pulse confirms Catherine’s outburst. Her mother is indeed dead. She turns to her father, “Father! Oh Father!”

  Luke’s pistol Mr. Barr used to shoot his wife and himself is lying next to him on the bed. Luke turns and tries to comfort Catherine. She sobs hysterically, “Why? Why...why would he do this?” Luke does not answer he hands the will her father had written earlier to Catherine. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she reads the piece of paper.

  “Catherine, your father was a proud but stubborn, strong- willed man. He did not want to burden you and Sam, Jr with the responsibility of caring for the two of them constantly for the rest of your lives. He told me he and your mother would consume you and your brother of your own lives and rob you of your future. He did not want that. He said you both deserved to grow up, have your own families and be happy. He also told me to tell you not to be sad, but be happy for now both of them were once again young, dancing and holding hands again.”

  “Did he not realize they were no burden, they were my mother and father – he had no right, no right!” She said staring at her dead father. “Luke you had no right either – you shouldn’t have kept this from me!”

  “Catherine this will was your father’s decision – I was merely carrying out his wishes. I had no idea this was going to happen tonight. I expected their passing would be years from now. If I had any idea, I would not have left my .44 hanging on the bedpost. When your father requested I remove my gun, he must have already had this is mind. I was just a means to his end.”

  “What are Sam, Jr. and I to do now? I’m scared Luke – what are we to do?”

  “Do not worry, as I promised your father, you and Sam, Jr. will be taken care of.”

  Nate turns to Luke, “Take these two young folks back downstairs and lets me take care of this...I’ll come get y’all whens I’s got this straighten up.” Whispering to Luke he adds, “You knows I’s taken care of dead folks fer a long time now, they’s ain’t soldiers, but I’ll lay’em ou
t real nice.”

  A little while later Nate comes down and announces to Catherine and Sam, Jr. they can come back upstairs. Nate had cleaned both bodies, changed the bed linens, dressed Mr. and Mrs. Babb in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and had them lying on their beds in a very presentable manner. He had positioned candles around the room and made the death of the children’s parents as bearable as possible.

  Luke and Nate seat themselves in the corner of the bedroom and allow Catherine and Sam to grief in silence for the rest of the night. At daybreak, Luke walks over to Catherine, places his hand on her shoulder, “It’s time to say good-bye – I’ll give you a few minutes then you and Sam, Jr. go downstairs and Nate and I will take care of your parents.”

  After a few minutes Catherine and Sam began to leave, Luke reaches out and stops Sam, Jr. “Sam, tell me, I know farmers clear new-ground in the fall getting ready for spring planting. Did you and your father have such a piece of ground?”

  “Yes sir, upon the hill we had begun to clear a spot when the winter snows set in. Its up there next to that dogwood grove.”

  “Have the trees that were cut been burnt?”

  Sam, Jr. explains that he and his father had cleared a couple acres of trees, piled them up and they were going to burn them this winter, but they had not gotten around to burning them yet. That is exactly the answer Luke is seeking.

  Luke and Nate wrap the two bodies in quilts carry them outside into the freezing cold. For the next two days Luke and Nate burn the logs – once the logs are burned and the ashes cool, with shovels and picks they dig two graves into the thawed earth the fire created. Nate makes a cross for Mr. Babb and one for Mrs. Babb.

  Once Mr. and Mrs. Babb are buried, Catherine and Sam, Jr. are led through the deep snow to the burial plot. Luke takes the Bible turned to the Fourth Chapter of I Thessalonians and reads:

  ‘Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

  The funeral is over it is beginning to snow once again. Sitting at the kitchen table with everyone, Luke looks out the window onto the sea of white. “You know Nate our plans have just taken a turn.”

  “What’s you reckon Luke?”

  Luke began explaining how he thought just a few days ago the blizzard was subsiding and within a week or so they should be back on the trail heading to Knoxville. Now it is snowing again, but snow was not the reason for their postponement of their journey. Luke and Nate now have two other lives for which they are responsible.

  Catherine is the first to speak saying in a harsh tone, “Luke and Nate Scarburg you do not have to stay here with Sam and me, we can take care of ourselves. You don’t have to feel sorry for us, you two just get on your way to Alabama and leave us be, we will make out fine. I can see after Sam so don’t you worry!” She said sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry Catherine, I did not mean to sound so begrudgingly I am truly glad Nate and I found your house. Your father said it while he and I talked – he said it was God’s intent that we stumbled upon your farm during the blizzard. Your father’s exact words were ‘Heaven sent’. You know, I now believe he was correct God surely intervened in all our lives.

  “Say as you will Catherine, Nate and I will not leave you here alone – in fact, we will not leave you both at all. It has been a long time since the both of us have been home. I enlisted in the spring of ’62, it is now almost the spring of ’64, that has been two years. In all this time, I have never received a letter from home. I don’t even know if my family is still alive. If they are, perhaps the letters never reached me. Nate and I both are deserters – I escaped from a Yankee prison, but never tried to rejoin a Southern unit and Nate was actually impressed into the Union Army. He since has learned that the Yankees have killed his wife and son in North Carolina. His father, mother and brother live with my mother in Alabama, so what I am saying is you both are not hindering Nate and me. A few more months more or less are not going to make a big difference.”

  Luke suggested they wait out the winter, when spring thaw arrives they will prepare enough land to plant vegetables, corn and enough hay for horse feed. They will raise chickens, a hog and tend to the cow. After harvest, they will load the wagon with provisions and they all, and he emphasized all, would proceed on to Alabama. Once Sam and Catherine reach the age of accountability they can return to this farm and live if they so desire.

  “Luke Scarburg I’m telling you right here and now, if you make me and Sam leave our farm I will hate you forever!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  SPRINGTIME IN THE MOUNTAINS

  Luke stands at the window looking out across the vast expanse of white. It is almost the end of March and the snows never seem to stop. One storm after another blows through apparently on a weekly timescale. He walks to the back door and notices Sam, Jr. entering the barn. Luke leaves the house and with some difficulty stomps through the eighteen-inch snow to join him.

  Once he has conquered the long walk from the house to the barn he asks, “Sam, tell me something, how do you people get around in this deep snow when you need to get far away from the house?”

  “We each have a pair of snowshoes,” Sam replies, never raising his head from his work. He has been mad at Luke too ever since he found out he was leaving the farm and going to Alabama.

  Luke is startled, snowshoes? He has never heard of such an item. He begins to question Sam for details. At first Sam seems withdrawn and is hesitant to speak with Luke. After further prodding, “Sure we use them all the time, especially if Father and me go hunting...” Stopping for a second, “I-I-I meant when we used to go...”

  “Hunting huh, just you and your father? I wager y’all had a good time.”

  Sam stops pitching hay into the horse stall as he fondly remembers the days he enjoyed with his father out on the mountainside.

  “Tell me Sam, you have my curiosity up, what did you hunt?”

  Sam leans the pitchfork against the stall, sits down on a bale of hay and begins to talk.

  Since the death of his father and mother Sam has withdrawn within himself – now speaking of hunting with Luke, and the fun he had with his father has somehow opened him up again. He spoke of the mountains, the streams he and his father had crossed. He told of the game they hunted, especially deer. Deer he said was the object of most of their hunting expeditions. He talked on and on about various trips he and his father had taken into the forests of the Cumberlands. He seems to relive those happy times as he talked to Luke.

  Luke did not interrupt; he sat attentively listening, venturing an occasional ‘hmm’, ‘I see’ or ‘that sounds great’, finally Sam stops talking. He sits staring out at nothing, tears begin to form and he begins to sob. It was a good thing, he was finally letting out the pain of his pent up feelings of his parent’s deaths. Luke let him sit and get it out of his system, then asks, “Sam, I know I’m not a very good hunter, but what about the two of us venturing into the woods on a good hunt? That is if you’ll teach me how to walk in those snowshoe things of yours. What do you say?”

  This suggestion brought a smile to Sam’s face. “When? When do we go?”

  “Give me a lesson or two on those snowshoes this afternoon and we’ll leave out at first light in the morning. How does that sound? If we could bag us a couple of deer, we can have enough meat to last us all summer. We might even make some jerky to carry with us to Alabama.”

  “Sounds great Luke, I’ll run get the snowshoes right now!”

  “Hold on for just a second Sam. There is something else I need to talk to you about.” Luke tells Sam the whole story of Old Bill, how they met at the foot of the mountain on the western side, came up the trail, spent the weeks together in a cave and finally how Old Bill was killed with a stick of dynamite. “Before Old Bill was killed he gave me a treasure map, saying if anything happened to him the mine was mine.”

  This immediately draws Sam’s attentio
n, “A treasure map? A treasure map of what?”

  “A gold strike! Old Bill had found the mother lode of gold here in your mountains. He never got a chance to put in an official claim for it nor did he ever get to dig any more gold out, but it’s still there. And by the map, I’m figuring it is on your land.”

  “Aw Luke, your jest pullin’ my leg to make me feel better, right?”

  Seeing Sam was not convinced Luke pulled from his pocket the large gold nugget and handed it to Sam. Sam’s eyes were as big as saucers, “Dadburn, you are telling the truth.”

  “Another thing Sam – I have the map also,” sliding it out of his hat he handed it to Sam, “Catherine has already said she hates me for taking her to Alabama, and you do too. Someday, especially when y’all are really homesick to come back here, show her the nugget and the map. Tell her when you both come back you will come back rich! That should liven you both up. Until then, let’s just keep this between you and me. Nate already knows that I am giving you the map.”

  Sam slipped the nugget into his pocket and hid the map inside his hat. Luke was leaving the barn to return to the house when he faintly heard Sam yell, “Hot diggety!”

  It is still dark the next morning. Luke stands on the front porch sipping a steaming cup of coffee looking toward the east. He figures the sun will be up in another hour or so. The hot mug in his hand feels good. The temperature must be close to 10 degrees.