by James Still
We rounded eighteen steers and seven heifers into Tom Zeek Duffey’s lot. Tom Zeek told us Crate Thompson had come into Quicksand country and was putting up at John Adair’s, a mile over the ridge. “Hit might’ nigh cankered his liver when he heard Aaron had beat him to the taw,” Tom Zeek said. “Oh, I reckon he started soon enough, but he hain’t got a pair o’ seven-mile boots like Aaron’s.” He winked dryly at me and Ark.
Tom Zeek Duffey’s lot was packed with steers and heifers, being littler than most folks’ lots. Aaron drove extra nails in the board fence; he stretched a barbed wire along the posttops; and he sent for Tom Zeek’s son-in-law to come and help him drive the herd into Jackson the next morning. “I wouldn’t trust this pen more’n one night,” Aaron said. “Hit’s too small and rimwrecked.”
“Why’n’t you take these boys on to Jackson?” Tom Zeek asked. “They’ll want to spend the money they’ve earnt.”
I said, “They’s something I’m half a-mind to buy.” Yet I knew two dollars wouldn’t be enough; and I knew I ought to be heading home.
“The Devil, no,” Aaron grumbled. “I don’t trust fences nor chaps. These boys’d scare worse’n muleycows at the sight o’ a train engine. Why, if Ark walked the Jackson streets with that shaggy head, they’d muzzle him for a shep dog.”
“I jist like to see boys right-treated,” Tom Zeek said.
Ark said, “My hair hain’t so long yit you kin step on it with them finicky boots. Anyhow, I reckon hit’s pay-time. You promised two dollars apiece.”
“I’m a bit short on change,” Aaron said, embarrassed for having to speak his stinginess before Tom Zeek. “Cash on the line had to be paid for them cattle.”
“I’m a-drawing me a line. Lay them two dollars down.”
“I’m broke tee-total,” Aaron said. “Won’t have money for settling till them steers are sold. Why, boys, I figgered you’d be tickled and satisfied with a small heifer for pay. I’ll pick you one—one betwixt the two of you.”
“You’d pick a runt. Anyhow, a heifer wouldn’t rattle in my pocket.”
“Hit’s yearlings or nary a thing.”
“God-dog!” Ark swore angrily. “I hope yore whole gang dies o’ the holler tail.”
Tom Zeek said, “I allus like to see boys right-treated.”
Ark walked sullenly behind the barn, and I tagged along. We sat among dead jimson weeds. Ark chewed a tobacco leaf and spat black on the dry stalks. “I’m one feller Aaron Splicer hain’t going to skin. I’m a hicker-nut hard to crack. Some witties he might fleece, but not Old Silas McJunkins’s boy Arkles.”
“He put the cat on Crate Thompson,” I said. “He’ll brag now he’s sicked one on us.”
Ark brightened, opening his mouth. The tobacco wad lay dark on his tongue. “Now, I’m a-mind to go talk to Crate. I bet he could trap Aaron. Hit’s said Crate Thompson’s a sharp ’un.” He grinned, blowing the wad against the barn wall hard enough to make it stick; he strode into the barn and fetched out a pair of mule shears.
I cut Ark’s hair. I cut the hairs bunched on his neck, the thick brush hiding his ears, the nest of growth on top of his head; I clipped and gaped and banged his head over.
“I feel most nigh naked,” Ark said when I’d finished. “Wisht I had me a looking-glass to see.”
We went to the spring behind Tom Zeek’s house. Ark stared at himself in the water between the butter jars and churns. “Looks to me my fodder’s been gethered,” he said. He lifted a demijohn of buttermilk and drank it down. I raked a tad of butter from a bowl with my thumb and ate it.
After night fell we climbed the ridge to John Adair’s homeplace. John and his woman were gone, late-feeding their stock. Crate Thompson sat before a shovel of fire, driving sprigs into a shoe sole. The shoe was a common old anybody’s shoe, and not a cattleman’s boot. And Crate was hefty as any of Aaron’s steers.
“Draw up a chair and squat,” Crate said, speaking with tight lips so as not to swallow the sprigs in his mouth. His eyes were intent on Ark’s cropped head. Ark sat down, but I remained standing, awkward and restive.
Ark told Crate our trouble. Crate dropped the shoe, listening with a stub finger sunk into the bag of his chin.
“Where’s Dude Aaron got them cattle penned?” Crate asked, his words whistling between the sprigs.
“In Tom Zeek Duffey’s lot.”
Crate spat the sprigs into his hand. Through his gray eyes a body could almost see ideas working in his head. “Well, now,” he said slowly, “I can’t think o’ nothing but a dumb-bull to cuore Dude Aaron.”
“Dumb-bull!” Ark cried in awe.
Crate’s great chin quivered merrily. “Strip o’ cowhide and a holler log and a rosined string’s all it takes. But I’ll have no hand in it.”
“I’ll play my own bull-fiddle,” Ark bragged happily. “I know how they’re made.”
“Hit’s ag’in’ the law,” Crate warned.
“Boodle zack!”
“They’s fellers roosting in jailhouses for less.”
“I’m not aiming to be skint.”
“Ah!” Crate sighed, eying Ark’s head. “A rare scalping you’ve had already.”
Ark grinned.
“Ah, well,” Crate said, breathing satisfaction, “John ought to have an old hide strip hereabouts.” He shuffled away to find one.
“I’m scared to do it,” I told Ark. “Pm scared to tick-tack.”
“We’ll have Dude Aaron calling on his Maker,” Ark promised.
“I ought to be a-going home,” I said.
We searched the pitch dark on the ridge above Tom Zeek Duffey’s barn. Ark tapped fallen trees with a stick until he found a hollow log, a log empty as an old goods box, and with a narrow crack in its upper side. A winged thing fluttered out, beating the cold air, lifting. It complained overhead, asking, “Ou? Ou?”
“Scritch owl,” Ark named.
Ark set to work on the dumb-bull. He drove twentypenny nails at the ends of the crack in the log; he cut notch-holes in the tips of the hide string and stretched it taut over the nailheads. He worked by feel, dark being mighty thick under the roof of tree limbs. Ark had me resin the hide string while he fashioned a bow of a hickory sprout and a twine cord. The dumb-bull was finished.
We perched on the log, waiting for the cattle to settle. We could hear them moving restlessly in the packed lot, though all were swallowed in blackness. We only knew the direction of the house and barn by the noise of the steers.
Ark said, “Aaron’s dropped his boots ere now, and I bet the toes stuck up in the floor like jackknives.”
A bird chirped sleepily near us.
“I’m getting chilly,” I said. Anxiety burnt cold inside me, cold as foxfire. “We ought to light a smudge.”
“No,” Ark said. “They’d spot a blaze. Pm jist waiting till them brutes halt their tromp. Hit’s best to catch ’em in a nap.”
I made talk, hungry for speech. I asked, “What are them towns o’ Jackson and Hazard like?” My teeth chattered.
Ark chewed a pinch of bark. “Folks thar a-wearing Sunday breeches on weeky days,” he explained. “Folks living so close together they kin shake hands out o’ windows if they’re of a mind. Humans a-running up and down like anty mars.”
“I aim to see them towns some day,” I said. “I aim to. Now, I’ve lived in Houndshell mine camp, yit it wasn’t a town for sartin, just houses pitched in a holler.”
“I’ve traveled a sight,” Ark bragged. “I reckon I’ve been nigh to the earth’s end. I been to Whitesburg and Campton and Pikeville. I been to Wheelwright and Hyden. Once I went to Glamorgan, in Old Virginia. Hain’t that going some’ere?”
I nodded in the dark, thinking of Mayho, thinking of chimney sweeps riding the sky. I thought, “I’ve already seen Mayho, and I’ve been on Quicksand Creek. That’s far-away traveling.” Then we were quiet a long time. I dozed.
A rooster crowed midnight. Ark jumped to his feet. “Hit’s time to witch them steers,” he said,
awaking me. I trembled with dread and cold. I longed to be at home. Ark dragged the hickory bow lightly across the dumb-bull’s string, and the sound jumped me full awake. It was like a wildcat’s scream, long and blood-clotting and deafening. But that wasn’t a circumstance to when Ark bore down. Then it wasn’t one lonesome critter; it was a woodsful, tearing each others’ eyeballs out. I reckon that squall hustled three miles.
Ark paused. The timber was alive with varmints. A squirrel tore through the trees squacking. Wings flapped and paws rattled brush heaps. Below, in the lot, the steers bellowed. We could hear them charging the board fence, crazy with fear. They butted their heads in anguish, and the ground rang with the thud of hoofs. Yearlings bawled like lost chaps.
“We’re not right-treating Tom Zeek Duffey,” I said. “We oughtn’t to destroy his fence. Now, his woman fed us good.”
“A favor we’re doing Tom Zeek,” Ark said. “He’s needed that old rotten-posted lot cleared. He needs a new ’un.” And he sawed the hide string again, cutting it rusty. Goose bumps raised on me. A scream came from that log like something fleeing Torment. We heard the fence give way, the boards trampled, posts broken off. The steers lit out, bellowing and running, up-creek and down, awaking the country.
Lamplight sprang into the windows of Tom Zeek Duffey’s house, and a door swung wide and the shape of a man bearing a rifle-gun printed the light. The gun was lifted, steadied, and a spurt of flame leapt thundering. Birdshot rattled winter leaves far below us, spent with distance.
“Aaron Splicer’ll shoot a lead mine ere he hits me,” Ark said, and he dropped the bow and ran. He melted into the dark.
I ran too, trying to follow; I ran plumb into a tree, and fell stunned upon the ground. My head rang, and sparks leapt before my eyes like lightning bugs. When I got up at last, Ark was out of hearing, and there was no sound anywhere. I crept on my hands and knees for a spell. I walked to the ridgetop, skirting around Tom Zeek Duffey’s place, coming down to the creek on the lower side. I crept and walked for hours.
Daylight broke as I reached the creek road. Spring birds were cutting up jack, and the hills were the color of greenback money. And there in the road I found a fat heifer. She made a glad moo and trotted after me. I let her get ahead; I drove her Shoal Creek way. She looked to be sugar in my gourd, and a pair of thorn-toed boots on my feet, just like Aaron’s.
The Stir-Off
“COME Friday for the sorghum making,” Jimp Buckheart sent word to me by Father. “Come to the stir-off party, and take a night.”
Father chuckled as he told, knowing I had never stayed away from home. Father said, “Hit’s time you larnt other folks’ ways. Now, Old Gid Buckheart’s family lives fat as horse traders. He’s got five boys, tough as whang leather, though nary a one’s a match to Gid himself; and he’s the pappy o’ four girls who’re picture-pieces.” He teased as he whittled a molassy spoon for me. “Mind you’re not captured by one o’ Gid’s daughters. They’re all pretty, short or tall, every rung o’ the ladder.” He teased enough to rag his tongue. I grunted scornfully, but I was tickled to go. I’d heard Jimp had a flying-jinny, and kept a ferret.
Jimp met me before noon at their land boundary. Since last I’d seen him he had grown; and he jerked his knees walking and cocked his head birdwise, imping his father. He was Old Gid Buckheart over again. He didn’t stand stranger. “Kin you keep secrets?” he asked. “Hold things and not let out?” I nodded. Jimp said, “My pap’s going to die death hearing Plumey’s marrying Rant Branders tonight at the stir-off. Pap’ll never give up to her picking such a weaky looking feller.” His face brightened with pride. “I’m the only one knows. Rant aims to hammer me a pair o’ brass knuckles if I play hushmouth, a pair my size. He swore to it.”
“Hit’s not honest to fight with knucks unless a feller’s bigger’n you,” I said.
“I’m laying for my brother Bailus,” Jimp explained. “He’s older’n me, and allus tricking, and trying to borrow or steal my ferret. I’d give my beastie to git him ducked in the sorghum hole.”
“I long to see your ferret,” I said. “I’m bound to ride the fly-jinny.”
“Bailus wants to sick my ferret into rabbit nests,” Jimp complained. “Hit’s a ferret’s nature to skin alive. Ere I’d let Bailus borrow, I’d crack its neck. Ruther to see it dead.”
We walked a spell. Roosters crowed midday. We topped a knob and afar in a hollow stood the Buckhearts’ great log house, and beyond under gilly trees was the sorghum gin.
Jimp pointed. “Peep Eye’s minding hornets off the juice barrel, and I reckon everybody else’s eating. We’ve made two runs o’ sirup already, dipped enough green skims to nigh fill the sorghum hole, and cane’s milled for the last.”
Hounds raced to meet us. We halted a moment by the beegums. On bowed heads of sunflowers redbirds were cracking seeds. Jimp gazed curiously at me, cocking his chin. “You and me’s never fit,” he said. “Fellers don’t make good buddies till they prove which can out-do.”
We waded the hounds to the kitchen, spying through the door. Jimp’s father and brothers were eating and his mother and three of his sisters passed serving dishes; and in the company chair sat Squire Letcher, making balls of his bread, and cutting eyes at the girls. Jimp told me their names. The squire I knew already; I knew he was the Law, and a widowman. “Hardhead at the end o’ the bench is Bailus,” Jimp said. “Plumey’s standing behind Pap—the one’s got a beauty spot.” Plumey was fairest of the three girls, fair as a queeny blossom. Her cheek bore a mole speck, like a spider with tucked legs; and a born mole it was, not one stuck on for pretty’s sake. Jimp told me all of the names, then said, “I wonder what that law-square’s a-doing here?”
We clumped inside. Old Gid spoke a loud howdy-do, asking after my folks, and Mrs. Buckheart tipped the cowlick on my head. A chair was drawn for me, and victuals brought to heap my plate. Bailus leaned to block Jimp’s way to his seat on the bench, so Jimp had to crawl under the table. He stuck his head up, mad-faced, gritting his teeth. “Ho, Big Ears,” Bailus said. The older brothers sat with eyes cold upon Squire Letcher. The squire was a magistrate and bound to put a damper on the stir-off party.
Gid pushed back his chair and spiked his elbows, watching the foxy glances of Squire Letcher. “We’re old-timey people,” he told the squire, his words querulous. “We may live rough, but we’re lacking nothing. For them with muscle and backbone, Troublesome Creek country is the land o’ plenty.” He swept an arm toward gourds of lard, strings of lazy wife beans, and shelves of preserves; he snapped his fingers at cushaws hanging by vine tails. “We raise our own living, and once the house and barns are full we make friends with the earth. We swear not to hit it another lick till spring.”
Squire Letcher popped three bread balls into his mouth, swallowed, and was done with his meal. He crossed his knife and fork in a mannerly fashion. “Don’t skip the main harvest,” he sighed in his fullness. “Nine in this family, and none married yet.” He smirked, looking sideways at the girls. “But you can’t hide blushy daughters in the head of a hollow for long. Single men will be wearing your doorsteps down.”
Gid’s voice lifted peevishly. “A beanstalk of a feller has made tracks here already, a shikepoke I’ve never met, a stranger tee-total.”
Plumey’s cheeks burnt. The mole on her cheek seemed to inch a grain.
Gid went on, “Why a girl o’ mine would choose a man so puny is beyond reckoning. I’d vow he’s not got the strength to raise a proper living.”
Mrs. Buckheart spoke up, taking Plumey’s part. “An old hornbeam’s muscles show through the bark, but ne’er a growing oak’s. And I say you’ll ne’er meet a feller with your head allus turned.”
The squire flushed merrily. “Gideon, thar’s few longing to shake your hand. You’d put a man to his knees or break bones. Recollect I’ve yet to clap your paw? Oh, you’re the fistiest old man running free.”
The shag of Gid’s brows raised, uncovering eyes blue as mill-pond w
ater. “One thing I do recollect,” Gid said, “a thing going years past when we were young scrappers.” He cocked his head. “I recall we battled like rams once. We wore the ground out, tuggety-pull. But it was a draw.”
The squire caught the Buckheart boys’ hard gaze. He sobered, shifting uneasily, ready to leave the table. Law papers rustled in his pockets. “Gid,” he insisted, rising, “you’re of an older set. We never ran together, never wrestled as I remember. I’d swear before a Grand Jury.”
“I hain’t so old I whistle when I talk,” Gid crowed. “Hain’t so old but what I’d crack skulls with anybody. Jist any sweet time I kin grab a churn dasher and make butter o’ airy one o’ my sons.” A grin twisted his mouth as he got up. “Now, Square, we shore fit. We did.” And Squire Letcher and Gid went off arguing into the midst of the house.
“Who invited that walking courthouse?” Cirius blurted.
“Old jury hawk,” U Z said.
“He might have come for a good purpose.” Mrs. Buckheart chided. “Eat your victuals.”
Before we left the table Gid came back. “I’ve voted the square into going bird-hunting,” he said. “Atter his dinner settles one o’ you boys hustle him o’er the hills and bring him back so dogtired he’ll start home afore dark.”
“I’ll go,” Bailus volunteered, puffing his jaws, mocking the squire. “I’ll wade thorns and walk cliff faces. I’ll wear his soles off.”
“Travel the starch out o’ him,” Gid said. “I’ve a notion he oughten to stay on.”
“Who asked that magistrate here anyhow?” John asked, his face sour as whey. “They’s more warrants in his pockets than a buzzard’s got feathers.”
Leander said, “He’ll plague the stir-off. Fellers will think he’s come a-summonsing. And I’ve heard a mighty crowd’s coming across the ridge tonight.”
