by Jack Tunney
Eventually, they gave up and turned back. No doubt they would be waiting for me tomorrow when I walked to school. I should have probably kept on running, but I didn’t. Running off on mama would have killed her. I was all she had left since my old dad left us. I was the man of the house and couldn’t abandon her.
Since they weren’t after me any longer, I started for home.
That’s when I realized I had been in such a rush to get away I wasn’t sure exactly where I was or which direction home lay. I didn’t panic – much. I’d spent many a day traipsing through these woods. Going uphill was the wrong direction, so I headed for flatter ground.
I’d walked about ten minutes when I came across a small farm with a small ramshackle house. I wasn’t sure if anyone was at home, but I was thirsty and wanted a drink of water. Mama always told me good manners should always be used so, instead of heading to the water pump and helping myself to a drink, I thought it best to ask permission first.
I stepped up on the porch, the boards creaking under my weight, which made the lazy old hound sleeping on the porch raise his head, but not enough to actually move from his spot.
I was about to call out when a shadow fell across me. It nearly scared me out of my skin. I looked up and there stood the biggest man I’d ever met in my life. He towered over me like a giant.
That was the day I met Old Man Winters.
Old Man Winters – most people, including me, didn’t know his first name, so they called him old man, but only behind his back or from a safe distance.
He was easily over six feet tall despite the slight hunch in his back. His muscles bulged against the sun-faded, too small, shirt he wore. He couldn’t even button it up all the way. He was a black man – the only one I’d ever met by that time – with white hair curled up so tight it didn’t sway in a breeze. He walked with a limp and always carried a walking stick he had carved out of the knottiest piece of old pine you’d ever seen.
His left eye was a blind chalky white and a fearsome scar ran from his scalp down across the damaged eye socket to his cheek. The injury didn’t seem to slow him down any far as I could tell.
Aside from the scar, what was really scary about Old Man Winters was his voice, a deep husky growl that could instill fear in even the bravest bully. I bet he didn’t have to worry about guys like Bobby Jackson pushing him around. No, sir. Old Man Winters never had to worry about being bullied about.
At least that’s what I thought at the time.
Little did I know.
Old Man Winters lived alone in a small shack of a place a short ways up the mountain. I would later learn he had built it himself after he returned from the war. Back then I wondered if this was the same war my mama had said my dad had run off to fight.
I’d heard Old Man Winters wife and child had died in a fire while he had been overseas fighting for his country. Mama said he came home to an empty life and set off on his own. He grew his own food, raised a few animals, and pretty much kept to himself.
“What’chu doin’ up here all by yo’self, boy?” he said, his backwoods accent thick. Thankfully, I was fluent in backwoods speak.
I told him my name.
“Oh,” he said, recognizing the name. “You Dottie Mason’s boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your mama’s good people,” he said, smiling.
“You know my mama?” It’s not that I thought he would lie, but I’d never seen him around before.
I’d heard the stories about the wild man who lived up in the hills. Everyone had. He was the bogeyman parents used to frighten their children into doing what they were told:
“You’d better come straight home or the old wild man will get you.”
“If you don’t get in bed, the wild man will have time to crawl up under your covers.”
Thankfully, my mama didn’t go in for those kinds of threats. I knew to be more scared of Mama’s anger than any ol’ made up monster.
Only now I knew he wasn’t quite so made up.
It didn’t take me long to realize Old Man Winters was nothing like the monster the townsfolk made him out to be.
“My name’s Gabriel Winters,” he said, and offered a hand. I shook it, of course. Mama had taught me manners. A good southern gentleman never refused to shake another man’s hand when it was offered. It was the polite thing to do.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Winters,” I said, parroting the words my mama taught me.
“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Mason,” he said in return. He pointed toward the bruise growing on my cheek. “Who did that to you?”
“Just some boys.”
“Them boys got names?”
“Ya–yes, sir. I’m sure they do.” I didn’t want to tell him who I had been fighting with. The only thing worse than being labeled a crybaby was being called a tattletale. The last thing I wanted to do was make a bad situation worse.
“I hope you gave as good as ya got,” he said. It was the last thing I expected an adult to tell me.
I nodded.
“Good boy,” he said. “Somebody hits you, you hits them right back, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He must have noticed how scared I really was because his dark eyes seemed to bore right into me. His brow creased, showing deep lines. “You afraid they gonna be waiting for you in the morning, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“It don’t matter how many of them there are, boy,” he said. “All that matters is strategy. If you’re smarter than your enemy, you can beat him.”
“They’re older than me.”
“Older don’t always equal smarter,” he said. “Except in my case. You just remember I’ll always be smarter than you.” He winked as he said it, so I assume he was kidding.
I’ll take your word for it, I thought, but what I said was, “Yes, sir.”
“Well, we’ll see what we can do about them boys, okay?”
“Okay.” I really didn’t know what else to say. How was this old man, who could barely walk without his gnarled walking stick, going to help me? Bobby Jackson and his boys would laugh at the old man and then I’d get an even worse beating for being a tattletale.
“Come on,” he said, pointing toward his house. “Let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll walk you back to your mother’s house.
“Thank you,” I said and followed.
***
By the time I got home the sun was starting to set.
Mama was waiting just outside the front door. She sent me to wash up for supper while she thanked Mr. Winters for bringing me home. Not wanting to get on her bad side, I shouted my good-byes to my new friend and ran off to do as instructed.
Mama hadn’t invited him inside, which wasn’t unusual. I’d heard her say it wasn’t proper for a woman to have a man inside her house who she did not know. She closed the door once I was inside so I couldn’t hear what they talked about, but I hoped she would invite him to stay for supper. I really liked listening to Mr. Winters talk. His voice was deep and strong. He made me laugh.
My new friend didn’t stay for supper. Mama called me back out to tell him goodbye before he hobbled back up into the hills he called home. That night, we ate without talking, which was my first hint something wasn’t right.
Usually, Mama being that quiet meant I was in some kind of trouble. I tried several times to talk to her, but she wasn’t having it. After we ate, I swept the kitchen while she washed the dishes, a ritual we performed every night.
When she finished we sat down and stared at one another. I was so relieved when she finally started talking. “You were in another fight,” she said. It wasn’t a question and I knew better than to lie to her.
“Yes, ma’am. But it wasn’t my…” I started, but she stopped me.
“I know,” she said. It took me a minute to realize just what she’d said.
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s that Bobby Jackson boy, isn’t it?”
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“It’s okay, Mama. The boys are just playing.”
A tear ran down her cheek. “No. They aren’t.”
“Mama…”
“Starting tomorrow, after school, you’ll head straight to Mr. Winters’ house.”
“Why?” I knew better than to back talk, but I couldn’t help but ask. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was more convinced than ever that I was in trouble.
“Mr. Winters has offered you a job,” she said. “He wants you to help him around his place and his farm.”
I couldn’t hide the smile that popped up on my face. “A job? Really?” We were poor. I understood that and had asked Mama many times to let me join some of the boys from school who worked as farmhands at some of the many farms in the area. She had always refused, saying I was too young to worry about such things, even though she managed to keep me pretty busy at home.
“He doesn’t have much money,” she said. “However, Mr. Winters has offered to share his crops with us and meats when he takes the animals to slaughter.”
That was the best news I’d heard all day. I loved a good steak, but it had been far too long since Mama and I had shared one. They were, as Mama said, “too expensive.”
That night, I was too excited to sleep. By the time I finally dozed off I had managed to forget all about Bobby Jackson and the horrible things he was probably planning for me the next morning.
ROUND TWO
The walk to school felt longer than ever.
I’d tried to convince Mama I was feeling sick and should stay home, but she wouldn’t hear it. She always had a knack for seeing through people’s crap and straight into the heart of the matter. I never could put anything past her.
Perhaps, if I’d told her about Bobby Jackson and how he was probably waiting to pound me into the dirt she might have reconsidered, although I doubt it. Knowing her, she would have escorted me to school and gave Bobby, and anyone else who happened to get in her way, a piece of her mind. I couldn’t afford to be labeled a mama’s boy on top of everything else, so I kept quiet and went to school, resigned to take my beating like a man.
Since we lived a short ways up the mountain, walking to school was much more fun than walking back up the mountain road after sitting in a hard wooden chair all day. That morning I was in no hurry to get to school, but I knew better than to ditch. I’d rather take a beating from the local bully than get a whipping from my mama any day of the week.
I replayed the previous day’s fight in my head as I walked the dusty dirt road into town. By the time I reached the schoolyard, I had found my nerve. No way was I going to let Bobby Jackson scare me off. If he wanted a fight then I would give him one.
Sure enough, Bobby and his buddies were outside the schoolhouse, kicking around an old ball before the teacher rang the bell. As soon as I saw them the knot in my stomach tightened and my resolve wavered. Nobody likes the idea of getting beat up, especially when the odds are six to one.
Bobby Jackson was a big boy who could easily whoop me by himself, but he was still smarting from my lucky punch the day before. He would sic his dogs on me for sure, I knew.
He would want to teach me a lesson.
You can imagine my surprise when I walked onto the schoolyard and not a single boy even so much as glanced in my direction. For a second I began to wonder if somehow my prayers had been answered – Mama always told me the Lord answered the prayers of good little boys – and He had made me invisible to those who wished me harm.
Of course, that was silly, but at the time it was the only explanation that made sense. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d been given a reprieve and I was happy to take it. I made a straight line for the classroom. It was probably the first time I had ever been inside before Miss Ellison rang her giant shiny bell. She seemed mighty surprised to see me in early as well, especially when I went straight to my seat and sat down.
I would spend the rest of the day in that spot, not moving. Something magical had happened. I couldn’t explain it, but I also didn’t want to jinx it. Maybe The Lord had answered my prayers after all. Mama would be so happy to hear that. It meant I was really the good boy she wanted me to be because, as she’d said many times, God didn’t answer the prayers of naughty little boys.
What I didn’t know, was my prayers really had been answered. Only, not in the way I imagined. I found out later, Old Man Winters, had walked into town early in the morning and found Bobby Jackson and his friends waiting for me. To this day, I do not know what he said to them, but it must have been pretty convincing.
Unfortunately, such lessons never last.
***
In the weeks that followed my life changed.
After returning from school one afternoon, I discovered Old Man Winters and my mama talking at the kitchen table. Unlike the last time I had seen him there, she had invited him inside. It would not be the last time he shared our table.
Sometimes he traded food with us, even though we rarely had much worth trading in return. I mentioned that to him once and his answer surprised me.
“Bones,” he said, when he said it the name didn’t feel like a taunt. “You and your mama give me more than a few slices of beef or any bag o’ potatoes ever could. Ya’ll give me companionship. When you reach my age, son, you’ll know how precious that can be.”
I nodded even though I really didn’t understand.
Sometimes Old Man Winters brought bags of food and Mama paid for it by cooking a meal for him, including a covered plate to take home with him. Other times, I would do chores for the man to help pay off the debt.
Based on our talk about companionship, I always assumed the old man was lonely and enjoyed having someone to talk to, which suited me just fine. I liked talking with him. I could sit for hours and listen to him tell these amazing stories about life, history, and the war. The man was a gifted storyteller and his voice mesmerizing.
So, it was no surprise to come home one day and find him and Mama laughing and talking. He sat at the table, peeling potatoes while she snapped green beans. She never admitted it, but I think she also liked having someone around to talk with. That particular day, she told me that Mr. Winters – she never called him Old Man like everyone else did – had offered me a job. Once school let out for the summer, I would help him full time, but until then I could work a couple hours after school. Bobby Jackson still took every opportunity to remind me we were poor, so I knew we needed the money.
I was thrilled. I loved working at his farm and it wasn’t all work. One day, after Bobby Jackson and his friends had decided I was once again fair game, I showed up at his place with a fat, bloody lip and a bruise growing under my left eye.
“Get on over here and sit down,” Old Man Winters told me. I plopped down on the edge of the front porch next to Roscoe, an old blue tick hound. My bare feet dangling over the side, I scratched Roscoe behind his ears, waking him from his afternoon nap, which he promptly returned to as soon as I stopped. Old Man Winters went inside only to return a few minutes later with a towel and a couple of pieces of ice wrapped inside. “Put this on your lip,” he said.
It stung, but I did as I was told.
“You run afoul of that Jackson boy again?” he asked.
I’d learned better than to try and lie to him. Like my mama, he had an odd habit of knowing the answer to every question before he asked it. “Yes, sir,” I said after staring at my bare feet for what felt like forever. “He an’ his pals jumped me after school.”
“I see.”
“I clocked ol’ Tommy Franks right in the teeth though. I think I knocked one of them clean out of his mouth.” I perked up a little while relaying the tale of my minor victory.
“That didn’t stop the rest of them, did it?”
“No, sir.”
“This ain’t no good, boy,” he said. He always called me boy when it was just the two of us. Around Mama he called me Master James, although I don’t know why. “We need to teach you how to better defend yourself.”
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“I fought back,” I demanded. “I did!”
“Never said otherwise.” He pulled up a cut piece of wood from the pile to be split and sat on it so he and I could look one another in the eye. “You’ve got a lot of fight in you, boy. What you don’t have is strength or strategy.”
I had no clue what strategy was, but I was so entranced by the old man’s words I dared not ask what it meant.
“You ask Tommy Franks how strong I am!” I said instead. I don’t know why I was mad. What he said was the truth. I was a skinny little kid. A strong wind could have probably knocked me over.
“And why did you hit that Franks boy anyway? What did he done gone off and do to you?”
“He was mean to me. Pushed me around,” I said, my voice getting quieter with each word. “He called me names.”
“Name calling?” he said, but didn’t laugh. “Then he got what was coming to him, yes, sir. I believe that.”
I nodded.
“What did he call you?”
Of all the things I would have expected my friend to say, that wasn’t it. I must have had a funny look on my face because he asked the question again. “He…” I started, embarrassed. “He called me Bones.”
“Bones?”
“Barefoot Bones,” I said softly.
“Why did that bother you?”
“I didn’t like it is all,” I said. Why couldn’t he understand why I was so mad about this?
“An’ why do you think they call you that, huh?”
“Because I’m scrawny and weak,” I told him, waving my skinny arms about to illustrate my point. Then, I pointed at my bare feet. “And they know I’m poor and can’t afford summer shoes.”
The old man snorted. “Look here, I know the Franks’ boy’s parents. They’re hard workers, but they ain’t rich, boy. An’ are you going to try and tell me you aren’t scrawny? Just look at those twigs you call arms.”
“Are you going to make fun of me too?” I asked, fighting back the urge to cry.
“No, sir,” he said. “I would never do that to a friend. Just because they were right doesn’t make them right about the rest. You might be a skinny little runt, but you aren’t weak, young sir. No. You are anything but weak. They called you Bones, right? Ain’t that what you said?”
