Hill Man

by Janice Holt Giles

Rady had to sneak off to go, for his old man, being a Primitive Baptist preacher, didn’t hold with turkey shoots, and being a hard-working farmer as well, he wouldn’t of let Rady go on account of having to spare him from work. But Rady didn’t aim to let nothing keep him from going to that turkey shoot, so he got up afore day that morning, slipped out the back way and lit a shuck across the holler to Bruton Ridge. He took with him his gun. Not the rifle. He didn’t have that yet. He took the one he’d made himself and it was the one he aimed to shoot in the turkey shoot.

  There was to be horseshoe pitching and wrestling in the morning and then the barbecued pig. The shooting didn’t come off until after dinner. But it paid a body to take the whole day, for take a bunch of hill men, each and every one as prideful and as quick to hassel as a cock rooster, likker them up a mite, let them get to bragging, and the feathers is likely to commence flying. You can always count on three or four fist fights and a knifing or two. You wouldn’t want to miss none of it.

  But Rady being but a little shaver yet, just bare passed twelve year old, the morning wore out kind of long for him. He was itching for the turkey shoot to commence. Not that he never liked the wrestling and the fighting. He rooted and crowed just as loud as the rest. And not that he never eat hearty of the pig. Vittles being what they were at Old Man Cromwell’s, I reckon Rady enjoyed that barbecued pig better than most that tied onto it that day. But the turkey shoot was the big thing and he was honing for it to get started.

  It was about one o’clock when Ed Bruton stepped out in front and raised his arm up. “All right now, men,” he says, “we’re gittin’ ready to shoot. First turkey’s up. All them aimin’ on shootin’, write yer names on a piece of paper an’ drop it in the hat. You’ll shoot as yer drawed, fifty yards, rested. Ever’ man with his own piece.”

  The turkey was up. That is, it was tied down behind a log with just its head showing, gobbling like it knew already what was going to happen. A turkey’s head at fifty yards, even rested, is pretty hard to hit. It would be a pretty good shot if it was a still target. But when you think how a turkey’s head keeps weaving and moving, you can see how it takes right smart shooting to hit it. It sure takes skill.

  First man drawed stepped up, stretched his Adam’s apple, licked his thumb and wet his sight, squatted and aimed. He waited until the turkey was still, then he cut loose. Missed slicker than a whistle The crowd razzed him some and he turned red and stepped back. The next one took his place, and he missed too. Must of been ten men shoot before one of them hit the bird. He claimed it, and Ed Bruton loosed it and gave it to him. He tied the next turkey down. And the shooting went on.

  I reckon it was on the third turkey that Ed drawed Rady’s name. “Rady Cromwell!” he bellowed, and Rady stepped up. Ed looked at him like he didn’t believe what he was seeing. “Sho’, now, sonny,” he says, “this ain’t no time fer jokin’. Stand aside an’ let a man have his time.”

  “I ain’t jokin’,” Rady says, standing his ground. “You said all that aimed to shoot put their names in the hat. I aim to shoot.”

  The men commenced laughing and calling out to Ed. “He’s right, Ed! Wasn’t nary word said about kids not takin’ part. He’s got you there! He’s got you fair an’ square, Ed!”

  Ed scratched his head kind of puzzled-like. “Well, I reckon they ain’t no law agin him shootin’. What you aimin’ on shootin’ with, sonny? Ever’body’s got to shoot their own piece.”

  “I brung mine,” and Rady reached down and picked up his gun.

  Ed looked at it. “Well, I’ll be a dad-blamed, egg-suckin’ hound dog! Look at this here touch-off the kid’s got, men Jist take a look at it!”

  And the men gathered close around to look at Rady’s gun. He’d taken a reed, just a common, ordinary holler reed like grows down on the river and folks usually use for a fishing pole, and he’d wrapped it tight with sewing thread for a barrel. It must of taken him hours on end to wrap it, as neat as he’d done with no roughness or unevenness. Then he’d varnished it over good until it was smooth and pretty and stout. He’d made the stock out of walnut, cutting it all in one piece from a big chunk, then smoothing and polishing it until it was like silk. And the hammer and trigger was made of walnut too. He’d wired the barrel to the stock with real fine wire, and made it neat and stout also. He’d bored a hole for a touchhole, and for a primer he was using the head of a regular kitchen match. For a touch-off he’d driven a carpet tack into the end of the hammer. And he worked the hammer with a rubber band. It was as pretty a touch-off as any person in these parts had ever seen. The men handled it and sighted it and talked. “How fur’ll it shoot, kid?” they asked.

  “I kin hit that turkey from here,” Rady said.

  Ed Bruton looked at him. “By God, I’ll have to see that I’ve made some purty good touch-offs in my day, but nary a one that’d shoot fifty yards, nor hit a turkey’s head, neither!”

  Rady’s hands were sweating and he kept rubbing them down the sides of his pants. “Well, I don’t aim to be braggin’ nor nuthin’,” he said, “but I think I kin hit it from here.”

  “Whaddya use, buckshot?”

  “Yessir.”

  Ed handed him back his gun. “Go ahead an’ shoot, kid. An’ by God if you even touch that there bird, hit’s yore’n!”

  The men all shouted for him to go ahead, so he rammed a buckshot down the barrel and squared away. He never used a rest and there wasn’t no sight on his barrel. He just stood up there and cocked her. He looked awful little in the midst of all those men. And his red hair was kinked all over his head like copper corkscrews. His eyes were hard and unblinking when he sighted down the barrel, but his face had paled so that his freckles stood out yellow and thick across his nose. He waited as still as a tree on a windless day till the turkey quit weaving its head, then he let her fly. The gobbler squawked and ducked, giving proof he’d hit it, and the men tore out to see, Ed Bruton in the lead. “He hit it! They ain’t no doubts about it,” he yelled, and there were others shouting the same thing. “He burned it,” they said, “fair scorched it!”

  Rady himself never went to see. I don’t reckon he could of, hardly, his knees was trembling so. He just kind of leaned up against a tree and waited. Ed came back carrying the turkey. “I’d like you all to see some real shootin’, men,” he says, holding up the bird. “Take a look!”

  They crowded around. Rady hadn’t by no means killed the bird, of course. Neither had he come close to putting out its eye. But his buckshot had drilled a neat little hole right through two folds of the old gobbler’s wattles! And with a touch-off, that’s kind of good shooting!

  “Here you are, son,” Ed said, handing him the turkey. “I’m as good as my word. I said if you touched it, hit was yore’n, an’ by God, hit’s yore’n!”

  “Is it mine to do with what I want?” Rady asked.

  “Hit shore is! Hit’ll be good eating’, too, come Thanksgiving!”

  Rady shook his head. “No, sir. I ain’t aimin’ on takin’ it home. I’d like to raffle it off here amongst the men, if you wouldn’t keer.”

  “What you want to raffle it off fer?” Ed said.

  “I want to git me a real gun.”

  But he never had to raffle it off. Old Grampa Jett offered to trade him his muzzle-loader for the turkey and Rady took him up on it. Grampa said he was getting too old to shoot anyways, couldn’t even hit the side of a barn no more, and he might as well trade his gun for a good mess of turkey.

  So that’s how Rady came by his muzzle-loading rifle, and he couldn’t of been no prouder of it if it had of been brand-new. He went prancing off home with it over his shoulder feeling like Dan’l Boone must of felt when he kilt the b’ar! Of course he got a licking for sneaking off to the turkey shoot. His old man took the harness straps to him that night, but Rady had his gun and that’s what he’d gone for. He give it to me a while back and I’ve still got it. You can put a squirrel’s eye out with it to this day if you’re a mind to and a good enoug
h shot.

  He came by the hound dog some easier. It just come a stray to their house and took up. Just a common, ordinary black and tan hound, sway-backed, flop-eared, splay-footed, with a long rope of a tail that wagged all the time. Rady liked the looks of him right off, though. He took him out across the field and watched him jump a rabbit, and when the dog tongued and Rady heard his deep old mouth, and watched him lay down on the rabbit and stay with it, he knew he’d come across a real hound dog, a hunting dog.

  “We got dogs enough already,” his old man told him. “An’ this here un’s jist another wuthless hound. No good’ll ever come of him. Can’t be feedin’ no more dogs.”

  “Ain’t none of the dogs we got already has caught that big gray fox has been raidin’ the henhouse, have they?”

  Old man Cromwell peered at him. “No, nor that’n won’t neither!”

  “If he does, kin I keep him?”

  “If he does, you kin keep him!”

  So a couple of nights later me and Rady tried our hand at getting the big gray one. We commenced at the head of the holler and worked down. He had to cross that holler to get to the henhouse. Old Drum raced on ahead of us, sniffing and snuffing. We went plumb down one side the holler and back up the other without Drum one time hitting a trail. But he was sure working hard. We’d just decided the old gray one was staying home that night when off up the ridge ahead of us Drum gave tongue, a long, low bell-tone that settled right down into the steady yipping of the trail. We stopped where we were to follow the direction. The fox was keeping to the ridge-top, where it was thickety and rough, but we could tell from the way Drum was keeping steady he wasn’t having no trouble. Rady let out a big sigh. “They’s nothin’ to do now but wait an’ see,” he said, and I knew what he meant. You can’t help a dog stick to the trail. He’s got to do it for himself. Either he can or he can’t, and Rady was betting Old Drum would. If he lost the fox, then he’d just have to move on.

  We stayed still and listened. They went on up the ridge until Drum’s voice was just a whisper, and we were just thinking we’d better angle off up that way. Then he commenced to circle back. “Where you think he’ll cross?” Rady said.

  “The old field at the head of the holler?” I wondered.

  Rady said so too, so we took off. But we soon changed our minds, for we could hear Drum, still steady, circling yon side the holler. We stopped. “He’s makin’ fer the branch,” Rady said. A fox’ll try to lose a hound by crossing and recrossing water, and many a good hound can be lost that way. We slid down the ridge into the holler and waited. Now was about the worst time of all. If Drum fooled around and lost the fox in the water, he’d have time to get away from the dog. But the dog was smart too. He wasted no time crossing the water. He knew the fox as well as the fox knew dogs, and he wasn’t bothered none when the fox’s scent went into the water. He never tried to cross. He just stuck his nose down and went right on up the branch till he hit the trail again where the fox had come back out. Instead of the fox gaining, he’d lost ground! And Drum was right on him when he came out on this side. “Come on!” Rady yelled at me then, “he’ll make for the rock-slide now!”

  I’d been thinking the same thing, for that would likely be his next trick, to try to lose the hound on rock. We lit out and got there while the fox was still circling. There wasn’t much moon, but there was enough. Across that piece of bare rock we couldn’t help seeing the fox. We huddled down behind a shoulder and waited. Directly we knew Drum had headed him and they were coming this way. Rady got his gun ready and stood, and when the fox hit the rock-slide and slowed a little, he pulled the trigger. The fox yelped, flung itself into the air and twisted, then fell of a heap. And Drum was right on him, shaking him and growling deep in his throat.

  “All right, boy,” Rady was pulling him off. “All right, now. Good boy. Good dog” patting him and talking to him. He was mighty pleased with the dog, and he had reason to be. A man and his dog, hunting, are like partners working together. They’ve got to understand one another, and they’ve both got to be dependable. A man has got to know, from the way his dog works, what he’s doing and what to expect. A dog has got to know a man knows what to do. It wouldn’t do a dog no good to work his heart out if he was hunting with a damn fool.

  Rady hoisted the fox and packed it home with him, and the old man kept his word. “You kin keep the hound,” he said. “I’ve give my word on it.”

  So Rady and Drum found their partnership that night, and till the day Drum died they kept it.

  And the way he got his gittar was by digging sang and selling it. Ginseng grows wild hereabouts and the roots, dried, have always brought a good price. The same companies that buy fur pelts buy sang, and I’ve heard it’s shipped to China where there’s a heap of store set by it for medicine. Anyways, all us hill boys had always made spending money by digging it all summer and fall, drying it out and selling it.

  Rady’d always liked to sing and whistle a tune. Seemed like he had a natural ear for music. And he saw a gittar in the mailorder book one day that he took a shine to. I recollect it was priced at $10.95. His old man hit the roof. “What in tarnation you want with a gittar? Can’t play it. An’ that’s a heap of money to be a-throwin’ away on a useless instrument!”

  “I kin learn to play it.” Rady said, stubborn-like.

  “Well, you’ll not be buyin’ no gittar with none of my money” his pa told him.

  “Don’t aim to. I’ll make the money.”

  But it takes a heap of sang to weigh out ten dollars worth. When it dries and the moisture evaporates, it gets mighty light. It took him the whole season, digging every spare minute he had, and traveling many a mile up and down the hollers to find enough. But he stayed with it, and he finally had it. He made out the order himself, chewing his pencil trying to figure out the postage rates. A set of lessons come with it, and he allowed they’d help him a heap in learning.

  It was a Saturday when the gittar come, but the old man never said nothing about it till the day’s end, figuring Rady’d scant his work if he knew. But when supper was over he brung it out and gave it over to him. Everybody gathered around to see it, and Rady was so excited he could hardly open the box. There it was, brown and shiny and new-looking. “Why, hit’s not strung!” Rady said, disappointed at first.

  “Shore not,” the old man said. “The strings’d likely pop durin’ its travels. You got to string it yerself.”

  The directions were there, though, plain as day, and in no time Rady had it strung. Then he opened out the first lesson, with the drawings to show where to put his fingers. He propped it up in front of him, and he commenced learning to play the gittar. It took him all that evening to learn the chords to that first lesson, for his hands were big and awkward. He learned them, though, and when he got through he was kind of trembling all over. “I kin make music,” he said. And he run his hand down the side of the gittar like he was smoothing it. “I kin make music.”

  So Rady had the three things he wanted most. His gun … his dog … and his gittar. That tells a heap about him. But not all. The fourth thing he learned to love never came till later … but it lasted the longest.

  Chapter Two

  Rady’s folks lived down on Old Ridge … the one that was first settled. The main part of the settlement drifted over this way in time and centered here on New Ridge. Not many folks live on Old Ridge any more, and didn’t even when Rady was a boy. It’s a sharp, narrow spur that angles off south from New Ridge and it was always a scant and meager place, heavy-timbered right up to the rim of the ridge and gullied by a dozen hollers. Reckon the reason it was settled first was on account of when you came up from the river bottoms it was handy. But there wasn’t much room to lay out a field, and the fields weren’t worth much when you got them laid out. So the settlement drifted this way because of the heavy timber, the hollers and the poorness of the land. There’s always been two or three families, though, that liked it over on Old Ridge or couldn’t do any better.
Rady’s pa was one of them.

  He had around sixty acres of as poor land as the hills ever turn loose of. Wasn’t a field but what a man grew spraddle-legged trying to plow, and the house set on the side of a hill so steep you wondered what kept it from sliding off. You went down four steps to go into the front door, and the back room was so high off the ground that the old man drove his wagon under it for a shed. It was a rackety kind of house at that. Two rooms deep, with a lean-to on the back, and a kind of loft-room overhead. The boys slept in the loft-room. There was a ladder built in one corner of the fireplace room that went up to it. The old man, a miserly kind of old fellow, used to chase the boys up to bed when good dark come. Never would set up past dark on account of having to burn a lamp. “No use wastin’ oil,” he’d say. “Man ort to git his business tended to of a day. No need borrowin’ from the night.” The only time the lamps were ever lit was of a morning. The old man stirred soon, and roused the kids out by three-thirty in the summertime, and four o’clock in the winter. “Never could abide a body liked to lay,” he said. “My opinion, he’s a wuthless kind of a man.”

  Rady’s pa looked like he’d stepped right out of the Old Testament. He stood six-foot-tall barefooted, and I reckon he’d of weighed two hundred, stripped. Regular giant of a man. He had little, sharp, black eyes and a rabbity kind of nose. Twitched on the end, times. His hair was stiff, like it had been starched and stood up coarse and ropey on his head. Wasn’t white. Was gray. And what gave him the look of a prophet more than anything else was his beard. He was the only man I ever knew still wore a long beard. It was gray, too.

  And there were other ways in which he was like one of the old patriarchs. He believed in the multiplication of his seed, I reckon, for he raised up a sight of kids, not to call him blessed exactly, for they never did. But to work his gravelly, rocky fields for him as long as he could hold them to it. He worked his young’uns awful hard. And the most they ever got out of it was a place to sleep, something to eat and a few cheap clothes. Old Man Cromwell come as nigh making his kids into work animals as anybody I ever saw.