Before I left I asked where there was a good spring in the woods, not too far from the river.
“Ain’t they one near the old Coggins place?” one of the women said.
“No, that’s all kiver with mud from the big freshet,” the other woman said.
“They one down the river on the other side,” Trammel said, “about three, four miles I reckon.”
As I walked away with the bucket of water I could feel them watching me, the old man and the two women, all the children. But I didn’t turn to look back, and I didn’t stop until I crossed the cornfield and reached a row of trees. And when I did turn to look back the house was out of sight.
The next day I spent the day whacking through thickets and swamps looking for a camping spot near a spring. The springs I did find was in such marshy places I couldn’t set up a camp, or so near a cow pasture I was afraid to drink the water. The springs was full of rotten leaves and mud and needed to be dug out and cleaned in any case. When I looked at the muck and scum on the water I thought of typhoid. Typhoid fever killed my daddy. Springs in the mountains was bold, with cold clear water throbbing out of the ridge or hillside. Here a spring was sluggish, just a seepage, a swamping up through trash. In places puddles was covered with rusty mucus and metallic-looking purple-and-blue slime, and a jelly coating. Gnats fizzed up around rotten logs.
My boots got scratched and muddy, and my pants picked by briars. I didn’t know where I was going to wash clothes. I had parted brush and looked for solid dry ground. Everyplace I walked along the river I looked for muskrat sign but didn’t see any. Was I on the wrong side of the river, or along the wrong stretch of the river? According to the salesman, I should have been right in the middle of muskrat country.
Late that afternoon I hiked several miles downstream to a bridge and crossed over to explore the northern bank. It was getting up toward dark, but in some yellow pines I found a pretty bold spring, and some dry ground within a hundred yards of the spring. It was almost directly across the river from where I left my things in the morning. I’d have to wait until the boat was finished to carry my gear across, rather than lug the stuff down to the bridge and back up the other side. I’d seen only a few muskrat tracks, and no mink tracks at all. Once I glimpsed a coon track on a side branch, and I let a polecat pass far down the trail in front of me.
FOR THE NEXT four days I was busy looking for muskrat sign. I was beginning to wonder where the fur was. I slept in the thicket near the road, and every morning I walked down to the Trammel house to fill my canvas bucket. The old man didn’t get the planks from the sawmill until Monday. He completed the frame of the boat Wednesday. Maybe it was his rheumatism that slowed him down, but he sure didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
I was getting wore out by waiting for the boat. And I still hadn’t found enough muskrat sign to spit at. The next day I walked all the way into town for new supplies. In the store there was men setting around the stove, just like they would be at U. G.’s store. There was two old fellows playing checkers. They didn’t appear to even notice me.
With my sack full of cans and loaves of bread I walked back along the dusty road and across the fields to the camp in the thicket. If I was home Mama would be talking over the news with me and Fay, and with Aunt Florrie. And Moody would be making fun of somebody. We’d be setting by the fire talking about what was in the newspaper. Mama liked to read the paper and keep up with the news. If there was a bad story she would point out that such ruin is foretold in the Bible, in Revelation.
As I walked through the tobacco fields and cotton fields and pine woods, and along the wide muddy river, nothing out there seemed to notice my problems. Leaves blowed off some of the oaks and poplars along the river and scattered out into the fields. Ducks flew creaking and squawking far out over the river. A single cloud high above me was lit by the late sun. I hoped my money didn’t run out before I started catching and selling pelts.
I’d planned to live by my gun and fishing. But I’d spent almost a week looking for a camp and carrying water from Trammel’s well, and looking for muskrat sign. I hadn’t seen much game, but I’d killed several squirrels and fired once at a quail and missed. I was going to have to start supplying myself with meat, now that I’d spent so much money on flour and coffee, sardines and pork and beans, and the candy bars I couldn’t seem to resist when I went to the store.
THE NEXT DAY it took me an hour to find and kill a rabbit that made only one meal. There was so many dogs in the area the rabbits was kept thinned out. But there was squirrels in the oaks and hickories, back away from the river, and while I waited for the boat to be finished I lived more and more on squirrels stewed with taters or fried in flour. A few I shot had wolves in their skin, big fat grubs squirming in the fur, and I throwed those away. The sight of so many fat grubs near the tender flesh begun to kill my appetite and taste for squirrels.
The fishing I tried in the muddy river was mostly useless. In the mountains I growed up casting for trout in Green River and the clear feeder creeks, or using worms in the deeper pools after a rain. But in that dirty bigger stream I found it hard to find the holes. The water was so murky it was hard to judge the depth. I figured maybe the still places was deeper. I cut a willow pole and tied my line to it, and I caught nothing but hog suckers and one ten-inch bass. The brown smelly river turned my stomach against eating anything caught there.
I’d heard the Tar River got its name from the tar kilns on the banks farther down toward the coast. But somebody else said the river was called that because of the dark stains that seeped into the current from swamps. Wherever they got the name, it appeared to be the right one, for the thick black mud and silt looked like tar even if it did smell like rotten eggs and rancid grease. The mud stuck to everything the current touched, and pushed up fat cushions of slime in eddies.
FINALLY FRIDAY AFTERNOON old man Trammel had the boat ready and brought it up to my camp in his mule-drawn wagon. The craft looked a little rough to me. Not all the joints was even. The lumber hadn’t been sanded, and only the tar in some of the cracks would keep the water out.
“Is this wood green?” I said. The planks didn’t look seasoned.
“Gots to swell closed,” Trammel said. “All new boats leak a little.”
We carried the little boat down to the river and set it in the mud. I paid Trammel the nine dollars, and I didn’t have but fifteen left. I’d have to start catching fur soon. But even if I caught muskrats the next day it would be another month before the hides would be cured enough to sell.
I took the two freshly carved oars and launched my new craft into the muddy current. I had to row up to the camp in the thicket and carry my gear across the river to the higher ground in the pine woods. But once I got out into the current and pointed the boat upstream, I seen I had a lot to learn about rowing. I’d paddled a canoe on the river and on the lake below the cotton mill. But I’d never really rowed a boat before. It looked so simple. But I found myself going around in a circle while the river carried me quick downstream. When I finally straightened out and headed back upriver I seen how much ground I’d lost. Trammel stood on the bank beside his mule watching me.
By the time I’d been carried down the river two or three hundred yards I seen the complications of the job at hand. Not only was I going to have to balance the pull of one oar against the pull of the other, matching the depth of stroke and speed, while at the same time offsetting the push of the current, but there was something about the shape of the boat that was wrong. The boat was slightly lopsided and tended toward the left, unless I pulled harder on the left oar. By the time I’d drifted another hundred yards I begun to work with the combination of current and spin and stopped turning in circles. I got the boat under control and slowly started making headway against the river.
Rowing steady and hard, I finally made it back to the launching place, but old man Trammel was gone. There was an inch of water on the floor of the boat. By the time I pulled up in the mud near the c
amp, even more water was washing across the bottom, into my shoes. Not only was I rowing a lopsided boat, but I’d have to row and bail at the same time. My only hope was that the wet planks would swell together overnight.
I did carry all my belongings to the new camp across the river that afternoon. But even as I set up the little tent, I seen that if I had much of a trapline I’d be moving up and down the river and camping wherever I happened to be at nightfall. If I carried everything with me and the boat turned over I’d lose all my gear. I’d have to leave some supplies at the camp in the pines so I wouldn’t be wiped out.
That evening, just as I finished another fried squirrel and started to wash the pan in springwater, it begun to rain. I moved everything under the piece of canvas stretched between two saplings. The rain continued in a steady downpour. The rain was quiet but never seemed to let up. The air got so cold and damp I was shivering in my blankets.
THE NEXT MORNING everything I had was soaked, in spite of the tent. I laid in the damp blankets in the early light, wishing I didn’t have to get up. I was nearly out of money and three hundred miles from home, and so far I hadn’t caught a single muskrat.
I wasn’t sure I could start a fire, because everything was soaked and dripping and I hadn’t thought to put any kindling under the canvas. Lord, show me what to do, I prayed. Show me what is your will and your plan. If I’ve been vain, punish me. Let me go farther down the river and look for muskrat sign below Tarboro. Let me see if I can find some fur. Don’t let me be a complete failure. Give me something to respect in myself.
In the gray drizzle I folded my wet blanket and started to pack my gear. If it was going to rain all day there was no use to set and wait for better weather, feeling sorry for myself and thinking about a hot meal. My matches was dry, but there was nothing else in the woods dry enough to start a fire with.
A hound bellered not more than fifty feet away. I looked through the drip from my hat brim and seen a big yellow-and-tan dog standing between two pine trees. The dog shook the tags on its collar and bellered again. The howl was magnified by the damp air.
“Here, boy,” I said and held out my hand, rubbing my thumb on my fingers. It was always a good idea to make a friendly sign to a strange dog. “Here, boy,” I said again. The dog looked at me and bellered again and didn’t show no interest in being friendly.
Just then I seen two men approaching through the trees. They carried rifles pointed out in front of them. I reckon I seen them before they spotted me. I thought of ducking and trying to hide in the brush. But it was too late, for the dog had already found me.
“There he is,” one of the men said and pointed at me.
“Hold it right there, mister,” the other one hollered. I seen the badge pinned to his raincoat. The men come up to me with caution, and the dog bellered again, then whined and whimpered. “Shut up, Digger,” one of the men said.
“What are you doing here, boy?” the man with the badge said.
“Camping out,” I said. My mouth was dry and jerked a little from the cold.
The sheriff poked with his foot among my gear. He looked at the traps and the shotgun. Rain splashed on everything. “What else are you doing here?” the sheriff said.
“Trapping for muskrats,” I said.
The sheriff turned over a pot and looked in my water bucket. “You got a trapping license?” he said.
“I’ve got one,” I said, and reached into my shirt pocket for the slip of paper.
“That’s OK,” the sheriff said. He poked with the tip of his rifle through the sack of supplies and cooking utensils.
“I ain’t caught any muskrats yet,” I said. “I was waiting for my boat to get built. I’ve shot a few squirrels.”
The sheriff stepped closer and looked me hard in the face. “We heard you was making liquor with Trammel,” he said.
“What?” I said.
“We heard you was helping Trammel make moonshine,” he said.
“That sounds crazy,” I said.
“That’s what people say,” the sheriff said. I didn’t like the way the deputy held his rifle pointed at me.
“Who told you such stuff?” I said.
“Never you mind who told us,” the sheriff said. He kicked over my bag of provisions and the sack of traps. The deputy cut the lines of my tent, and the wet canvas settled to the ground.
“Now, you get away from here,” the sheriff said. “We don’t want any bootleggers in this county.”
“I ain’t made nothing,” I said.
“Now get,” the sheriff said and pointed his rifle at me. I seen I didn’t have no choice but to do like he said. He had the badge and he had the rifle on me. The sheriff and his deputy watched as I gathered up my scattered things in the rain. My mackinaw coat was soaked and the canvas was muddy and stuck with trash and pine needles. I carried everything to the boat and seen that the bottom of the boat was covered with more than an inch of water. The boat would have to be bailed out. Suddenly, in a jolt of rage, I turned and faced the sheriff. “You got no right to run me off!” I hollered.
“This is my right,” the sheriff said and patted the rifle. “You wouldn’t want to fall into the river, would you?” I knowed he must be in the liquor business hisself and was afraid of somebody new horning in.
I took an empty bean can and started to dip out the boat.
“Never mind about that,” the sheriff said. “Now get going.”
When I shoved off and climbed into the boat and started rowing, the sheriff and his deputy come down to the water’s edge and watched me. The hound bellered again, and the deputy raised his rifle and fired into the water beside me, making an ugly thunk. I stared hard at them as I pulled on the oars and the boat rocked in the current. I bent over low till I thought I was out of rifle range.
RAIN DIMPLED THE water behind me as I rowed. The river was rolling and chopping in flood. It must have rained a lot upstream in the night. Everything, water, sky, trees, shore, all was the same dull gray as the mud on my boots and the water in the boat. The mud was on everything, blankets, pants, hands, shotgun. Everything smelled sour, like the river itself was spoiled and rotten. The river looked infected, as if thousands of outhouses and barns had emptied their runoff into it. And there was no rocks or white water to thrash and clear the flow. The silt on the bottom and the muddy banks melted into everything.
I stared hard at the sheriff and deputy, expecting them to shoot at me, until I swept around the bend of the river. Then I looked down at the mess of my belongings at my feet. Everything had been throwed in piecemeal, and water sloshed over my boots and the bags of pots and pans. The meal bag had broke and spilled cornmeal in the dirty water. The blankets was as wet as wicks. I shivered with cold and with anger.
But the boat was not leaking as bad as I’d feared. The swelling overnight must have partly sealed the joints. I rowed far out into the river, into the fastest current, and then I tried to row downstream ahead of the current. I looked over my shoulder for snags, but the water seemed to have swept away all planters and sawyers. I thought about stopping somewhere ahead and looking for muskrat sign, but I wasn’t sure exactly where the county line was. Would the sheriff of this county tell the sheriff of the next county to watch out for a stranger in a boat? He knowed I was going downstream in the high water. I thought maybe once I got to Tarboro I’d be in Edgecombe County, but wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know where my maps was. The river was now so high that most of the places I could have set traps was underwater anyway.
After I rowed several miles in the rain, some ducks flew off the river. I reached for the gun, thinking a roast duck might taste pretty good. But just then the boat swung around in the fast current and I lost my chance. I rested for a minute on the oars and floated past thick pine woods. I passed more tobacco fields. Nobody seemed to be out because of the rain. The river was pricked by the steady downpour, and I was soaked to my armpits. The hunger pains in my belly was getting worse. With the woods and brush dripping
on either shore, it would be near impossible to start a fire even if I did put in.
Finally I seen a village maybe half a mile off from the river. At least there was a cluster of houses beyond the river brush and fields, and a church steeple stuck up into the gray sky. Just seeing the church made me feel better. I rowed in close as I could and run the boat up into the mud and tied it to a root. I was so stiff I couldn’t hardly stand up when I got out of the boat, and knowed I must look like a wet dog, unshaved and soaked. But at least there was still money in my pocket that could buy something to eat, if there was a store. I tried to wipe the mud off my boots as I walked closer to the first building.
The biggest building in the village had gas pumps in front and a sign that said HEARTSEASE GROCERY. I remembered the village of Heartsease from the map. It was between Rocky Mount and Tarboro.
The men inside looked like the men gathered in any country store. They eyed me as I bought cheese and crackers, sardines, and three candy bars. They looked exactly like U. G. and Hicks and Lon and Charlie setting there by the stove.
“Reckon you’re a ways from home?” the man behind the counter said.
“A little ways,” I said, knowing I looked wet and miserable.
“When the state of North Carolina goes bust, maybe we won’t have to pay taxes,” one of the men by the stove said.
“They’ll make us pay more taxes,” another man said, “to get the government out of the hole.”
The heat of the stove felt good, but I knowed I’d better get away before they started asking questions. I crumpled the top of the bag in my fist and slipped out the door. Rain hit my face as I headed to the river. On the boat I eat the sardines and cheese and crackers and tried to decide what to do. I spread the mackinaw coat over my head in a kind of tent and eat the candy bars.
The river was getting higher. It had rose two or three inches since I’d pushed the boat up in the mud. There was no choice but to go on downstream, to Tarboro, or the county east of there. Maybe I could camp in the pine barrens down near Greenville until the rain stopped and the river went down. Surely that was in another county. Maybe if I put my tent deep in the woods I could wait out the wet spell and start looking for muskrat sign again. Maybe things would look different when the rain stopped.
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