Kentucky Straight: Stories

by Chris Offutt

  My great-great-aunt Dorothy had a baby girl. Its name was Rose. Dorothy went up Flatgap Ridge, packing little Rose on her back, rigged in a baby board. Dorothy was a full-blood Shawnee Indian and that made Rose half. The spring sun was warm as biscuits. Only Judas tree was in blossom, white and pink, set low against the hardwoods. At the hilltop three ridges joined together, then split off and each followed its own creek. There’s a wind up there, always was. If a man built a windmill to run a generator, he’d have light to burn all night.

  Well, that wind blew Dorothy’s smell through the woods, and that smell drew a bear. They sleep hard in the winter and wake up hungry, ready to eat an anvil. The bear tracked her a quarter-mile and Dorothy never heard it. Maybe she was singing loud, I don’t know. It’s as natural for a woman to sing to her baby as a bear to eat meat. You can’t fault the hills for what happens in them. Some people blame God, but I don’t think he is too bad off worried over what goes on here.

  That bear, he came busting out of the woods quick as double triggers, running straight for Dorothy. Brush was flying behind it. Dorothy made a half-turn and its front paw swiped at her. She ducked. Its claws grazed her and tore out a little twist of hair. She took off running down the hill but the bear didn’t follow.

  At Lick Fork Creek, Dorothy untied the goat-hide harness, let the straps off her shoulders, and swung Rose around in front of her. I reckon Dorothy fainted. Next thing she was laying on the creek bank and claimed not to remember much after. Dogs at her sister’s house raised a ruckus when she came up the holler. Her clothes were brier-tore. She was all over in blood, and her sister thought she fell off a cliff. She calmed Dorothy down and asked what was the matter and Dorothy opened her arms to show her baby. Rose’s head was gone. The bear had tore the head clean off that baby.

  Dorothy’s sister had some hen in her, and she took charge right swift. Sent a kid for her husband, Wayne, who was planting taters way top a hillside. Now Wayne was a good man and a hard worker. They say he never had the sense God gave a goose, but I’d say his smart was different, that’s all.

  He come off the hill and his wife told him to ride and get his brother and then Dorothy’s husband. Said go up the hillside and fetch that baby’s head. It had to be buried with the baby or there’d be a spirit walking the ridge. Some people claim the new preachers drove the spirits off, but I’d say not. What got run off is the knowing about them. Spirits are like electric wires, they can run a heater or they can kill a man, and they ain’t to be fooled with unless you got a gob of luck to risk.

  Wayne tied a bag to his waist, took his pistol, and rode upcreek, reining the workhorse back and forth on firm ground. Lower Lick fed into Clay Creek, and Wayne’s brother lived on the fork. Clabe was scrawny-legged with a big belly. He liked to eat and he liked to fish, and his whole life he wasn’t more than three or four miles from that creek. Said he took a headache if he strayed too far.

  Clabe and Wayne rode double with Clabe’s dog following behind. They found Jim clearing land. He laughed at his brothers-in-law weighing the horse down, the sweat-foam sticking to their pants. Jim propped a double-bit ax across his shoulder and came down the slope. Clabe’s muzzle-loader and Wayne’s pistol took the smile square away from him.

  “Dorothy,” Jim said.

  “She’s all right,” said Clabe.

  They slid off the horse and rubbed the inside of the pants legs. The dog jumped on Clabe’s boot, pink tongue hanging sideways. He pushed it down and moved away.

  “It’s the baby, then,” Jim said.

  “Up on Flatgap,” said Clabe.

  “Bad?”

  “Don’t get no worser.”

  “How?”

  “Bear.”

  Jim swung at the dog, and sank the ax in the ground to the handle. The dog squalled across the clay dirt yard, spraying blood. Its yellow tail lay beside the buried ax head. Jim went in the house for his flintlock rifle and Wayne squatted beside the dog tail.

  “Never did see one off a dog,” he said.

  “Get your eyes full,” Clabe said.

  “Might mean something.”

  “By God, you’re getting bad off as an old cure-witch, trying to read a dog’s hind end.”

  “Ought not to make fun,” Wayne said. “Might come back on you.”

  Wayne spat between his legs, took off his belt, and ran it through the loops the opposite way. Clabe watched and didn’t laugh. Used to, everybody went by sign and peculiar weather. I’ve carpentered that way myself. Fresh-cut green wood’ll bow, cup, or warp all depending on where the moon’s at. You take and build by the moon and your rafters will bend with the earth. I got that off my grandpaw and a keener man never hammered lumber. One time a board wouldn’t fit and he told me to trim it, and I asked him how much to cut.

  “A frog over,” he said.

  “What size frog?”

  “Regular.”

  “Facing in or away?”

  “Crossways.”

  “Stretched out or humped up?”

  “It’s ready to jump, boy. You’re slow as Christmas.”

  He built three houses that way and they’re still yet lived in, the standingest houses you ever did see. They’ll outlast these hills.

  Well, them boys set off for Flatgap Ridge. They left the horse at the house and took Clabe’s dog and a bluetick Jim owned. The spring woods were greening slow, only the oaks holding back. Clabe whispered to Wayne.

  “Don’t tell Jim about the baby’s head. We’ll get it when he ain’t looking close. You seen the way he done that dog.”

  “About like Peter, ain’t he.”

  “What?” Clabe said. “Who?”

  “When the man told Peter about Jesus getting caught, Peter cut his ear off.”

  “His own?”

  “No. The man who said it.”

  “I ain’t got time to argue the Book with you. Just don’t let on to Jim, hear.”

  On top of the ridge, Jim found bear tracks and the place it ran out of the woods at. Leaves were kicked up and branches broke. He knelt in the path beside a patch of sticky red dirt. “My little girl,” he said. “My baby Rose.”

  Clabe and Wayne looked in hollow logs, down a groundhog hole, and under berry thickets but couldn’t find the head. Jim put both hands in the blood and rubbed it on his gun barrel. His voice came cruel. “Don’t a one of you take a shot when we find that bear. It’s mine to kill.” He raised the rifle and tipped his head back, screaming a terrible sound. “Whistle up them dogs,” he said. “And lay back from me.”

  To be much count, a hunting dog has got to be raised careful. One of my uncles treated dogs better than his own children, loving on his pups like a bird does eggs. When he was to hunt, these dogs ate better than family. His kids got scraps. Now this same uncle was a hard one in the woods. If a dog lost trail and circled back to him, my uncle didn’t think nothing of killing that dog. He’d just shoot it and go on, leave it lay for the buzzards. His kids all growed up fine.

  Jim’s bluetick trailed the bear off the ridge, straight down the hill to a gully. Fresh prints held groundwater under a black willow. Wayne and Clabe were right smart back of Jim, and the late-day sun cut low along the hill. They followed the creek to a fork where another holler carried spring rain through the woods. Jim started climbing at an angle to the slope. The land rose steep to a rocky knob, and loose shale showered down from his boots. He waited on a ledge for Wayne and Clabe.

  “Bad place to come on a bear,” Clabe said.

  “It’s tracking panther,” Jim said. “They favor cliff holes to live in.”

  Wayne spat and watched it fall sixty yards to the soft earth. “Cat ain’t fit to eat,” he said.

  “It’s not cat we’re here for.” Jim’s voice was cold as a creek rock. “You two go that way. I’ll sneak up on his other side. Clabe, you keep that rifle still. I want the first shot.”

  What happened after, there’s no way to tell it nice. Many a man’s got a hunting story and some make kil
ling out to be fun. It ain’t. It’s easy and hard both at once, but one thing it’s not is fun. It’s just killing.

  Jim climbed to the top and circled through brush. The dogs growled ahead of him. That bear was standing on its hind legs with its back against a big chunk of limestone. Its mouth hung wide and snarling, bloody fur matted below the chin, its front paws spread to hug or hit. The bear batted the bluetick so hard, it flew into a shagbark hickory and broke its back. Other dog jumped for the bear’s throat but latched onto its shoulder instead. The bear fought fierce, trying to sling the dog off. Jim came in close. Straight across the knob from him, Clabe leaned against a tree to steady his aim. He was hid by shadows, and waiting on Jim to shoot first.

  Jim aimed real careful but the bear dropped to all fours. Jim’s shot went over the bear and hit Clabe, who went down like a stuck hog. Wayne fired his pistol six times. Shot the dog. Shot the tip of the bear’s nose off. Other four bullets rattled tree leaves back through the woods. Bear reared again, mad.

  Jim got his rifle loaded and this time he hit that bear square in the heart. It lit down and moved towards Jim, who stood there, reloading. Bear was going slow and bleeding mean. Jim laid the gun barrel right against the bear’s eyeball. He shot and the woods got real quiet. For a long spell there wasn’t a blown leaf to be heard. Jim started in laughing and pretty soon it turned into tears and he was crying. He laid smack on that bear’s humped-up back and cried worse than a child pushed off tit by a new baby.

  The top of the rock was a mess with dogs, bear, and men laying thick in the dirt. Clabe was shot through the back of his arm and into his side. Arm muscle had slowed the bullet down some. He told Wayne to make sure and get the baby’s head. Wayne nodded, holding his brother’s hand.

  Jim slit the bear’s throat. He went to the broke-back dog whimpering in the brush and cut its throat. Then he moved to Wayne and Clabe.

  “Stay away from him,” Wayne said. “It ain’t that bad.”

  “Bear get him, too?”

  “You shot him.”

  “I never.”

  “We done what we come for,” Clabe said. “Patch this hole in me and let’s get to the house.”

  The ball had hooked around a rib and wasn’t too hard for Jim to pry out. He stuck a pinch of gunpowder in the wound. He took the flint from his gun and sparked it, and the powder burnt the bullet hole shut. Black smoke rose from Clabe’s shirt. He passed out cold.

  It was close to dark and they had to get off the cliff while they could still yet see. Wayne went to the bear and gutted it like a deer. A stink blew out. He wiped his palms in dirt so the knife wouldn’t slide from his grip. He found the belly-bag, pulled it out, and sliced it open. Inside was a dark lump the size of a squash. Wayne tucked it in the gunnysack tied to his waist.

  “If you’re hunting fresh liver,” Jim said, “save me the heart.”

  Wayne gagged and turned away.

  Clabe’s arm was tied to his chest and he’d woke up. Jim helped him sit, then looked at Wayne. “Skin that bear and we’ll use its hide to keep Clabe warm. He takes a fever, he’s done.”

  “You,” Wayne said.

  Jim shrugged and squatted over the bear, knife drawn. He skinned fast, ripping the hide in three or four places. He didn’t worry with the legs, but ripped out a big patch from neck to rump, and covered it with leaves to soak the blood. A caterwauling echoed up the rock and into the woods. It was a wailing moan, like a person hurt bad. As one scream died, another began. Night was coming fast.

  “Dog me blind,” Jim said. “Panthers.”

  Those boys were in a fix and the panther screams rang like a dinner bell. Evening star hung bright as metal. It was the old of the moon and there wasn’t much light to see by. Good time to plant crop, but not walk panther cliffs at night. In an hour it’d be full dark. Jim loaded his flintlock. He had enough powder for one long shot or a couple of short ones. Clabe breathed hard, wrapped in bear hide. His muzzle-loader lay beside him.

  Jim started dragging the bear and Wayne helped him push it off the cliff into the gray dusk. Then they tossed the two dead dogs. The panther noise quieted. Wayne and Jim got Clabe on his feet and they went down the west side of the cliff. There wasn’t no easy to it. That side was steeper but it put the hill between them and the panthers. Jim led. He moved crossways along the slope, using scrub pines to hold his weight. They were on a skinny ledge above a cliff, the worst part of the hillside. After that, the land sloped out gentle. The last of the sun lit the rock.

  Shale crumbled beneath Clabe’s foot, and the arm tied to his body ruined his balance. Wayne grabbed for him and a tuft of bear fur came away in his hand. Clabe fell halfway down the cliff, his gun clattering. He grabbed hold of a scraggly bush on a narrow outcrop. The bear hide flapped and a panther stepped from the woods, tail longer than its body. Clabe looked up.

  “Lost my gun,” he yelled.

  “You’re all right,” Jim called.

  Wayne spoke quietly. “I’ll climb down to him.”

  “Panther’ll beat you,” Jim said.

  “Kill it then.”

  Jim squatted awkwardly and propped the flintlock over a knee. He sighted on the panther. Its belly was pressed down, the head sunk low, and the end of its tail twitched. Wind blew the bear hide and the panther froze. Jim aimed at the flat top of its head. He fired and that panther thrashed backwards and didn’t move.

  “What are you shooting at?” Clabe yelled.

  “Hush up,” Jim said. “Talking’ll sap you.”

  Jim braced the gun across his legs and fished out a scrap of wad and another lead ball. He tamped it in the barrel with a ramrod. Wayne stretched one leg down the cliff.

  “Don’t try it,” Jim said. “You’ll fall, too. Only way to get him is from below. You’d have to climb up to him, and lower him down with a grapevine. Then both of us pack him on home.”

  “I’ll do it,” Wayne said.

  “Take too long.”

  “I got time.”

  “He don’t,” Jim said. “Yonder comes the mate.”

  Another panther walked from the tree line, thin shoulders bunched around a stretched neck. It moved to the base of the cliff, watching the bear hide. Three half-grown cubs followed it close. Right there was a good time for a praying man to pray, and a man today would have set to it. Those boys then knew God better. He’d made panther same as he made us. People now want animals to have the same rights as a man, but back then it was the other way around.

  “They ain’t had no meat all winter,” Jim said. “About like you and me.”

  “Shoot it,” Wayne said. “Shoot them all.”

  “I only got one shot worth of powder left.”

  Wayne stared at his brother hunched against the rock, holding tight to the shrub. Clabe couldn’t see the panthers, didn’t know the one was coming along the slope. The bush shook and dust sifted down.

  “Clabe,” yelled Wayne. “What’re you doing?”

  “This bush has got the sweetest gooseberries I ever did taste. I’ll save you some.”

  “Eat all you want.”

  “Wayne,” said Jim. “It’ll be too dark to see in a minute.”

  “Let him finish.”

  Jim used the last of his powder to load the gun. It wasn’t up to him. He’d done what he came for and Wayne had helped him. Now he’d stick by Wayne. After a few minutes, the shrub stopped shaking. Fifty feet away, the panther climbed to higher ground and stopped, watching Clabe.

  “Wayne,” said Jim. “It’s on you to say. I’m just married in, but he’s your brother. You got to tell me.”

  The big cat was still climbing. When it got above Clabe, it would wait till dark and jump. The cubs were near behind. Their winter-thick hides were leaking hair, snagged by rock and brush.

  “He sure did love to fish,” Wayne said. “Finest brother I ever had.”

  Jim wiped sweat from his hands and bent his face over the rear sight. “Best not look,” he said.

  “I
got to.”

  “Don’t.”

  Wayne shut his eyes and turned his face to the cool rock. He squeezed the piece of bear hide tight. A breeze moved along the cliff and when it stopped blowing, the gunshot came. The sound bounced against the rock and echoed down the holler, then returned, and faded away. Wayne looked down. The big panther was in a crouch, staring up the cliff where sparks had flashed from the gun barrel. Clabe lay very still. He’d never move again.

  “It’s done,” Jim said. “Come on.”

  Well, they made it off that rock without more fuss. It was full black dark and they were lost, bad lost. Wayne set off leading. Hit a little creek, followed it to a fork, and climbed the hill. He walked that ridge to a holler, went down into it and four hours later they were out. Wayne brought them home and he’d never been in those woods before. He couldn’t say how he done it. People said the baby’s head told him where to go, whispered to him all night long.

  The whole creek showed up for the double funeral. They never found enough of Clabe to bother with digging a hole. Rose’s grave was the littlest you ever did see.

  That place got to be called Shawnee Rock and people stayed away. Wouldn’t hunt, fish, or log over in there. My grandpaw said there were two spirits to it. Said one was an old bear looking for its hide. Other was a fat man hunting his gun.

  About forty years ago I set off walking out Flatgap Ridge. I aimed to go where the bear killed the baby, then sleep on Shawnee’s top. Back then I was plumb bold. Hit the ridge at midday and it was full of roses. I mean roses. You could haul off bushel baskets full and not see no less. Every one of them roses was cocked like a dog’s ear, looking at me. I left out of there and never did go back.