The Hinterlands: A Mountain Tale in Three Parts

by Robert Morgan

  Once me and Sue broke out of that circle, we run like the Devil hisself was after us. Lightning lit up the yard, and we leaped across chickens and piles of trash, filth from the kitchen, and guineas screeching like fiends. People like that never have horses or outhouses, and their yards are like sewers. I don’t think we touched ground more than twice as we aimed toward the woods.

  They was a garden of pole beans at the end of the yard. The sticks was thin and crooked and bent every which way. It looked like a brushpile the vines was crawling over. I don’t know how they got in there to pick them. But the biggest poles had vines going all the way to the top, ten or twelve feet high. The patch looked like a hanging jungle. I was glad Sue picked her way around the edge and didn’t try tearing through the vines. I don’t think we could have got through. Them people would have caught us in that mess and killed us for ruining their garden.

  The shareholders I had got had agreed to pay small fees for the right-of-way through cleared property. We was going to try to get free use to open woods. Where possible, we would go around any clearings. But even the small fees couldn’t be paid until the road was open and tolls was coming in. I didn’t know how we would deal with this family.

  Sue surrounded the beanfield and entered the woods just as they was another blast of thunder straight overhead. You would have thought it was a war and shells was bursting. They have the awfullest lightning storms in South Carolina on a hot day. It’s like the whole sky turns to fire and explosions. If you reached out a finger lightning would hit it.

  If they was a path out of the clearing, we had missed it. You know how the woods will put up a solid front against a clearing, plugging each chink to claim every inch to reach the light. The undergrowth will fill up the gaps, and they seems no way into the woods. I guess every bush is trying to crowd out the others.

  Sue plunged right through the wall of bushes and, though my face got slapped and scratched, it felt good to be in woods again. It was dark, except for lightning flashes. The people was hollering and the guineas screeched behind, but nobody follered into the woods. It was like we had gone from day to night.

  Then everything lit up, and the woods was all flickering in shadows, like blue dust had been throwed on the air. Hogs are afraid of thunderstorms, but Sue seemed to ignore the crashes. The next clap echoed off the mountains ahead and behind. They was a roar back there, but I couldn’t tell if it was wind or heavy rain. If you stop in woods before a storm, you can hear the rain advancing like an army. But we couldn’t stop, and I was out of breath and mostly heard the blood in my ears and my own panting.

  In the humid air gnats stuck to my neck and forehead. I tried to rub them away with my wrist. I thought of turning loose of Sue’s tail and letting her go on her own as the storm descended. We was so far off the way, it probably didn’t make no difference. At least I could sit down and rest and maybe crawl into a laurel thicket out of the storm.

  A shadow shot over me and they was a crack in the air like a whip had been popped, and a second later the ground and air shook. The torment of the heat was unleashing its power. I had heard that hogs draw lightning like dogs, because of their hair. Sue trotted straight ahead through the dark woods.

  The first cold drops hit limbs above and dripped on my neck and arms like little feet walking. My shirt was already wet with sweat. I shivered and kept running. The big drops tapped my hair and ears, and I wondered if they was hail in the storm. Something stung my neck like fine birdshot. The woods sounded like somebody was shaking rock salt down through the leaves.

  They was a lick, like a dry stick had snapped in the air ahead. I saw a trough of lightning jerk down the sky and swarm through an oak tree a hundred feet in front. With a hiss the tree busted into steam and smoke, and you could hear the sap seethe and foam in the terrible heat. Pieces of wood and bark flew around me. A sliver pricked my cheek and a long splinter of the tree landed in the sapling beside me. The sound was so loud I didn’t hear it. It was like the air shoved me so I lost my breath. Sue turned in confusion. My ears rung and I smelled this funny smell like something had been singed and froze at once. Where the oak had been was just a shred of shining stump.

  I pushed the sow toward the shelter of a sourwood tree. Just as we dropped to the ground the rain come in curtains and fine hail pecked the leaves under the flimsy protection of the sourwood. Sue crowded up against me, grunting with fear, and laid her head in my lap. She was tired out as I was, and just as scared too, I reckon. The ground shook, and lightning popped in the trees on all sides. She trembled and squealed.

  They is nothing like the sense of privacy you get in the middle of a storm. You are exposed to the elements so you make a cave, a shelter of yourself, and close yourself off to the wind and water. You hunker down into a little nut of warmth and life against the threat of the storm. Nothing feels as precious as your own flesh under the lash and shiver of rain. But even as you resist the wetness, the dry places on your belly and under your arms are shrinking, and eventually you are cold and wet all over.

  I got to thinking then about how much trouble I had gone to that day. It was a joke against me that I had labored so and been hurt and threatened and had strained too much. And so far I didn’t know if we had even follered the right path.

  But then I thought, that’s what work really is, something difficult, something to fill up the time. Every day is a long day if you don’t have work to do. Every hour is long unless you have something that has to be done. The best thing’s to feel work’s a must, and they’s no way around it.

  Of course, we think all the time we want to rest, that we just want to finish the job at hand so we can sit down and do nothing. But loafering is better to think about than actually do. What people call leisure is mostly a bore. Nothing is as dreary as a holiday. You’ve got to watch out for the long Sunday afternoons when they’s no meeting and you can’t do no work. We all talk about how much we’d like to go fishing and how much we’d like to sit around and daydream. But that seems wonderful because you’re busy, because you have work that must be done.

  You say have ever I laid back and give up the struggle? I reckon not. I reckon I never will. We’ll sure enough get rest in time. My guess is what we’re all working for, what we want most, is the rest and surrender at the end of life. They is no pleasure like that final laying back and giving up the struggle. All our lives we’re at a strain to get this and that. You know how it is when sleep throws its dust in your veins and you feel the sweetness spreading through you. I bet that’s the way death feels, like something seeping through us that scratches the itch we’ve always felt, like soothing cool air on the fever of our blood. I bet the pain of our wanting is salved and soothed away.

  You hear preachers talk about people like they’re either good or bad. But there ain’t nobody but what’s some of both. It depends on who’s doing the judging, and how they want to look at it. Anybody might do most anything, if the circumstances was right. They is no one way somebody is and just has to be. We can all be different people at different times.

  Look at the ways people seen me that day Sue and me made the survey. To Aunt Willa and Uncle Rufus I was just a hopeful boy that had grand ambitions and no practical experience. I must have seemed foolish but harmless. Uncle Rufus had an expression for people whose ambition was too big for their means. He said they “liked to bore with a big auger.” I think he even admired that kind of hope and ambition, but thought it bound to fail, as most things is bound to fail.

  To the blockaders I must have seemed like the craziest man they ever met up with in the woods. I come running out of the laurels holding a sow by the tail and crashed right through their camp without saying so much as “kiss my ass.” Even when they shot after me, I didn’t stop, and they didn’t try to foller me because even blockaders don’t hurt lunatics.

  To the Indian I must have appeared as just another strange white man on his hunting ground. Cherokees by then didn’t have no hope of keeping us out. They just ap
peared here and there like ghosties of theirselves, and watched the wilderness disappear before the ax. One more white man with a sow probably didn’t seem that much different from all the others.

  I can only guess what them Melungeon girls thought I was. They acted like I was a spy, or a degenerate devil. The old woman sure seen me as the enemy of whatever she was trying to do. They was camping there by the pond, but I don’t know to this day where they come from or where they was going.

  That family in the clearing that didn’t have hardly no clothes must have seen me as somebody to rob. They was hungry and looking to steal anything that come along. Their house wasn’t more than a sty. I reckon they didn’t care much who I was.

  I’ve heard people talk about how you should live so that when you come to die you’ll be proud of what you’ve done, take satisfaction in the things accomplished. That sounds good, but when you think about it, it don’t make sense. When you come to die, you might be in such pain you’re not thinking about nothing, or you’re just confused. If you don’t get satisfaction all along you probably won’t get none at the end. It would be silly to think of struggling all that time for just some moment of rightness at the last.

  Me and Sue set there in the middle of the storm and it felt like an ocean had dropped on top of us. I ain’t never seen such rain before or since. You couldn’t see more than fifty feet. It was like in a snowstorm where all the air is filled with flakes. Trees was bending every which way, and I don’t think it was just a high wind. It was the force of the water hitting the trees, like you throwed a bucket of water on a weed. Trees was breaking and limbs flying. A big limb hit the ground not more than six feet away. The sourwood wasn’t no protection, but I didn’t see any reason to move, for every other place was just as exposed.

  Thunder banged around like somebody was hitting a roof with hammers. Every time they was a crack, Sue jerked and squealed. I never seen an animal so scared. She pushed up against me like a girl in love. We stuck together and made a little tent of warmth inside the rain. I scratched her back and belly, and rubbed behind her ears which she liked best. Me and Sue had come a long way that day.

  How will we ever know which way to go now? I thought. We will be so washed out and tired after the storm passes we won’t never be able to get back on track. And if the sun don’t come out we won’t know which way is north.

  Right then the rain slacked and the wind quieted. I felt all the strength had drained out of me. I didn’t feel like standing up and going on. I figured I’d just wait a few minutes, and then rouse the sow. Why not rest for a spell, maybe half an hour to regain my get up and go? Why not collect my wits and rest my back? Sue didn’t make any move. She just laid there with her head in my lap and grunted. The woods got quiet so you could hear the trees dripping and thunder in the distance. A bluejay squawked, and flew overhead. Maybe that’s why they are called raincrows, I thought. I wondered then, and still wonder, where birds go in heavy rain and high wind. You would think they’d get washed away and drowned. After a storm you see dead birds that got bashed on a tree or smothered in the downpour. But most of the birds come out chirping and flying soon as the storm is over.

  I told myself to stand up and get started. But I put it off a few more seconds. The woods was full of trees knocked over and broke limbs all around. It would be even harder to find our way through that hurricane of twisted up roots and wind-throw-downs. Green leaves had been knocked down like it was already fall.

  Then a roar come suddenly from behind us, and I wondered if the storm was coming back. I’ve heard bad storms do that, will circle back and hit you again.

  The roar we heard turned into wind and rain in just a few seconds. You never saw nothing come so fast. It was like the rain was waiting behind a wall to jump over and surprise us. Both rain and hail hit from behind and Sue jerked awake. Something stung the air like a razor strop on your face and balls of fire run all over the woods. I’d always heard about ball lightning but never seen any. Instead of a bolt, it was balls the size of melons shooting among the trees. It was like sparks the size of tubs flying from all points. One went by within ten feet and I could hear the hiss. It was all these little suns bouncing and shooting all over, and when the crash of thunder come they disappeared.

  The rain this time seemed even harder than before. Drops mixed with hail lashed across my face. Sue pushed closer and I hunkered down out of the attack, turning away. You wouldn’t have thought the air could hold so much water. Trees rassled around and above us, turned white and cracked.

  I noticed something I’d never seen before or since. I guess you have to be in the middle of a storm to witness it. After a lightning flash, it was like the air was sucked away, like it was burnt up, and my ears would hurt from inside. Then with the thunder air come pounding back. It was like lightning just took away the air, took away breath, and thunder sent some back to fill its place. My ears hurt both ways, from inside and outside.

  Something else that happened during the second part of the storm was I seen this light all over the trees above us. It was like lightning got stuck on the limbs and glowed there, shining around the limbs and leaves in haloes and wreaths. I’ve heard of things like that happening at sea, where the mast and rigging of a ship glowed in a storm. But here we was in the mountains and the trees was shining in this yellow and pink light. I felt like the place was spooked, or blessed, and I couldn’t tell which. Everything gleamed and the rain was still heavy. I wasn’t sure but what I seen ghosts and witches, or maybe angels, flying through the sky. But it was probably an effect of the lightning.

  “Are we ever going to get out of this?” I said to Sue, just like she was another person. She grunted and broke wind. “We still got a long way to go,” I said. “A long way.”

  Out in that storm I felt I was just an impulse, a desire to make a road, and to marry your Grandma. I was just an idea with a little fat stuck to it. Compared to the storm, and the rotting strength of time, I was nothing but my desire. The storm would cover me in leaves and nobody would ever find me, wasn’t for my will to go on, and my memory of who I was.

  When the rain begun to slack a little I seen things moving in the leaves and puddles. Something crawled up against me and jumped and I seen it was a little toad frog. The leaves was full of toad frogs. They was the same color as the leaves and crawling and hopping every which way. They was everywhere you looked. That last heavy rain had been a frog rain. Now don’t laugh at me. I know people will dispute my word. But back then it come frog rains and sometimes worm rains. Where else could all them toad frogs come from except the sky? People will say they’s nothing to it, but I’ve seen them myself. I’ve seen frog rains and I’ve seen snail rains. You go out after a rain and the ground is covered with frogs, where else did they come from? Answer me that. I’ve heard of fish rains, but I never seen one myself. But people say they’ve gone out after a heavy storm and the ground was covered with fish. A storm just sucks things up one place and drops them another. And this time they was toad frogs crawling among the hailstones and puddles. Where else did they come from? I ask you that.

  When the rain finally stopped, I felt all the strength had been scrubbed out of me. I was stiff and weak, and sore like I had been beat. The woods was dripping and the ground was covered with pools and little gullies where the leaves had washed away. Hailstones smoked a little where they was piled up and melting. And then I smelled the sour of the scorched oak’s sap.

  Sue opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet. The hog seemed to remember she was far from home and from her slop trough. I just had time to grab her tail and pick up my wet hatchet. She must have been stiff as I was, for she stepped awkward and slow among the splinters and limbs of the blasted oak. The lightning had even run out the roots of the tree, exploding them and leaving trenches in the dirt.

  The hatchet had little coins of rust on the blade, in outlines of red on the steel. Rain water must rust things faster than regular water, I thought. The rust was bright as go
ld dust, growing there on the blade like some kind of mold.

  That was when I felt the tiredest, because I didn’t know how far I was from home. And I felt drowned in my clothes. Every bush and sapling we touched showered me with more water. The hailstones winked and hissed as they melted in the leaves when the sun come back out. I had to blink the drops out of my eyes, as my face got sprayed with the aftershowers.

  The sow begun to pick up speed once we got around the blasted tree. You take one step and then just one more, and another, and another, and first thing you know the kinks are loosening in your legs and back. I don’t know who loosed up first, Sue or me, but we kept going with our lurch and stumble around the fallen limbs and wind-throw trees, picking our way among bird nests and saplings bent over and half-broke by the wind.

  I had to remind myself to blaze the trees. Among all the splinters and hurricane of oaks and maples it would be hard to spot the marks. But they was nothing else to do. At least some of the trees would already be down when we cut the right-of-way.

  When I raised my arm to slash the bush, I found my shoulder was even stiffer than my legs. Something stung in the socket and I couldn’t raise my arm no higher than my chest. It was like my arm was paralyzed with pain if I tried to reach higher. I thought I must have dislocated it, or been hurt worse than I had noticed. The shoulder hurt with a stabbing heat. That was my introduction to rheumatism. I was young and I’d never dreamed of such a thing. It was the exposure to cold rain and wind on the hot tired shoulder that done it. Any time you expose a shoulder like that it can give you rheumatism. I reckon it’s some kind of fever that gets in the joint. And unlike the stiffness it didn’t work itself out as we went along. I had to blaze the trees lower down, and it was hard to swing the hatchet at all. Rheumatism will go away in a day or two fast as it comes, but it won’t go away just because you are exercising your arm, like a muscle cramp will.