Struggles of a Country boy

by Herb Blanchard

  "Here comes your dad, maybe he has an idea."

  The Jeep was still out of sight but the boys could hear the typical Jeep drive train whine as Jim hurried it up the road.

  Brad's nervous excitement grew when he realized the dog had swapped ends and was coming straight down the ridge towards them.

  Over the engine roar and Jim's hollered orders, the boys heard the young dog's bay change. It was now an angry howl as he confronted his prey face to face for the first time in the chase. He was conveying to the humans that it was no longer just fun and games. The game had turned deadly serious for the eighteen month old pup.

  "He's running like hell straight down into Matt Wilcox's pasture, Jim. He'll come out there by those big bull white pines."

  "You boys get in there. Now! If we're lucky he'll tree the coon in one of those white pines." Jim added as he jammed the Jeep into gear.

  As Brad and Joey ran off in the dark towards the rapidly approaching hound, Brad heard Jim holler, "I'll drive around to Matt's driveway and come in from down below." and the Jeep roared off again.

  After over a hundred yards of dodging and twisting through brush and sharp needled juniper bushes, the boys stopped and listened to locate Blackie by sound. They both hoped the coon had finally treed somewhere nearby.

  "He's over towards Matt's driveway about two hundred yards or so, Joey." Brad hollered at his partner.

  Brad led off, but soon the boys became separated in the pitch black and confusing terrain where the brush and small trees grew in clumps and cow trails led all over and around the broken ground of the cow pasture.

  That's all this piece of ground is good for, cow pasture. Brad thought as he jumped over a clump of juniper.

  "Damn junipers!" Brad hollered aloud as he tripped again on some of the ground hugging juniper branches.

  Although he stopped often to listen to the hound and was sure he knew where the dog was, Brad didn't realize how close to Blackie he actually was until the hound crashed through the brush next to him. After a greeting of wet slurping tongue and some of his high pitched tree bark Blackie led Brad to a huge bull pine on the edge of the pasture.

  Before Brad could holler for Joey, he felt his partner come up quietly beside him.

  "What do you suppose is in that tree?" Joey whispered into Brad's ear.

  "Probably nothing. He might have been chasing Matt's house cats around in circles."

  Both boys laughed quietly since they both knew of Matt Wilcox's penchant for having barn cats. There were about twenty-five cats hanging around the Wilcox's barnyard on the last count. They were also aware of Jim Lorain's penchant for getting rid of excess house cats all over the area. He really hated cats and blamed them for every drop in game population from Ruffed Grouse to White-tailed deer.

  The flashing of lights in the distance caught the boys attention and as they traveled most of the time without using lights, they looked down on anyone who required a light to travel in the woods at night.

  "You stay here, Brad. I'm going to meet them and tell them to put out their lights."

  Brad looked at his partner in agreement since without a word passing between them, and regardless of their kidding about house cats and no raccoons in the tree, they were thinking the same thing. They were both convinced there was something other than either a raccoon or house cat in the huge pine tree and they didn't want it to get spooked by the hunter's lights and jump out of the tree and lead the hound on another long chase.

  "OK. Good luck, Joey." Brad spoke softly then turned and walked up under the pine beside Blackie.

  Brad had been sure Jim had his mind made up there was only a wise old coon up the tree and wasn't about to listen to his youngest's theories about anything else being in the tree so it surprised him when the old man stopped. Then Brad heard Joey talking in low tones to his father.

  "I think we have something besides a coon up there, Dad, and if we do, the lights might make him jump."

  Jim turned off his flashlight and told the other men behind him to do the same and Brad watched as the flashlights went out one at a time.

  Huh! He did it.

  Brad thought he had heard an old pickup rattle up Matt's driveway behind Jim's new Jeep, so he listened carefully for several moments.

  Yep. I'm right. That drunken damn Ray is with Jim. Shit! Joey will never be able to shut that loud mouth up. Good thing Jim is here. He at least won't let Ray have a gun. He'd be afraid the jerk would shoot the dog.

  Brad listened as the small group of men stumbled through the darkness towards him.

  You can always tell the city guys. Brad smiled to himself and listened to a fresh outbreak of cursing.

  With a boost from Matt Wilcox, Brad grabbed and swung up on the lowest of the huge bull pine's limbs. He reached above him but could barely touch the bottom of the next limb up. With a little jump he encircled the eighteen inch diameter limb with his arms and pulled himself up until he could hook his right heel on the top of the limb.

  Wonder if I should ask Matt to pass me my big light? This tree is going to be a bitch to climb, I don't think I'll take the big light with me. Here comes Joey up the other side of the tree.

  This thing is huge.

  One more limb up and the boys were on opposite sides of the tree and about twenty feet above the ground and in the pitch black of a dark-of-the-moon night were out of the sight of the hunters on the ground. Brad quickly flashed his small light across the top of the limb he stood on and on the underside of the branch above.

  These branches are as big as a whole tree. A coon could be hiding anywhere up here.

  "YOU KIDS FIND THE FUCKIN' COON YET."

  "Shut up, Ray!" Joey hollered down from his side of the tree.

  "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? YOU CHICKEN OR SUMPIN? CLIMP FUCKIN' HIGHER! GOD DAMN WIMPY KIDS!"

  "Joey. I'm going to drop my flashlight on that asshole's head if he don't shut up."

  "Save it. You'll just lose it and not hurt the drunk anyway."

  "WHO'S A FUCKIN' DRUNK? I HEARD YOU, YOU LI'L FUCKIN' PISS ANT."

  In the quiet following Ray's outrageous bellowing Jim's deep base boomed through the branches even as he tried to keep it down.

  "Here, Ray. Take this branch and go over here on this side of the tree."

  Brad heard the two men move around the tree below him and held perfectly still and quiet were he was. Experience had taught him that sometimes when someone on the ground moved it would force the coon to give himself away to anyone in the tree with it.

  "If your big mouth makes the coon jump, he will jump right here. And when he does, you hit him on the head with this branch."

  "Gimme your .22 rifle, Jim. Then I can shoot the sum-of-a bich."

  Brad held his breath and waited for Jim's slow answer.

  "No. I'll keep the gun."

  "But the fucking kids have guns. I kk-nw! Cuuuse seen lem."

  "Ray?"

  "Yeh, i-Jim?"

  "Shut-up before I turn the dog on you."

  "Yesss-ir."

  Well finally. We now all know he's terrified of dogs.

  If we're lucky he'll fall down and freeze to death some night.

  Two years of putting up with that damn drunk.

  "See anything, Brad?

  There's nothing on this side." Joey spoke to Brad in a quiet tone the boys often used when communicating in the woods. Seldom could anyone else in the hunting party hear them.

  "Not so far. Quiet a sec."

  What was that? Sounded like claws on bark. Brad listened intently but could only hear his own labored breathing and once in a while a faint rustle of pine needles and an expelling of breath drifted around the tree from Joey's side.

  There. That was the same sound. Something is going up the tree ahead of me.

  Brad flashed his small light through the limbs above him but saw only dark green pine needles and reddish-brown shaggy bark.

  "S
ee something, Brad?"

  "I heard something up above us. Sounded like it was climbing.

  "Watch yourself, Joey. It might swing under the branch when you pass it."

  Joey laughed softly. "You remember that, huh?"

  "Yeah. It was so funny who could forget?"

  Brad snickered as he recalled Joey climbing past a big coon which had swung under the branch Joey was standing on. Then when it saw Brad coming up below Joey the raccoon panicked and let go. It must have been thirty feet off the ground, but it still got up and ran away with everyone on the ground standing around and watching it go since no one could believe the animal could survived such a fall.

  Another five or six minutes and the boys were almost nose to nose since the white pine at about eighty feet above the ground was only ten inches or so around.

  "Want me to check the top, Brad?

  "I think I can see it better from my side of the tree, Joey. Hold still here and I'll go up."

  It just took Brad a couple of minutes to go as high in the tree as he could. The only thing remaining above him was the fall sky full of stars and somewhere, unseen, a new moon.

  "I can't find anything. I'm coming back down, Joey. I don't think there's a coon here, but if there is, he's below us."

  Brad hollered down from his lofty perch. "What's Blackie doing?"

  "He's sitting under the tree looking up and crying. He still thinks we have something up there, Brad." Jim answered from the ground.

  "I'm coming down. I haven't seen anything up here, Jim."

  "OK. Just take your time, Brad. It's awful dark up there. Can we help with a light from here?"

  "No. That's OK. I can see down better without any lights below me."

  Where can that damn thing be. Somehow Joey and I passed him without seeing it. This is about where I heard it climbing. Right where the branches started to get easier to climb. I'm still 50 or 60 feet off the ground.

  There.

  "Hey! There are claw marks in the bark up here." Brad hollered down to the rest of the hunting party.

  From here down the branches get pretty wide apart. Probably six feet or so down to the next one from the branch I'm standing on.

  Brad slid his butt down against the pine's trunk to sit on the limb he had been standing on. Sitting astraddle of the limb which was bigger around than his thigh, with a foot dangling on each side of it, he listened and searched the blackness for any shape out of place amongst the fine pine branches and needles.

  What's that? Almost out on the end of the limb below me.

  Brad bent down hanging his head almost under the limb in an attempt to get more light behind a dark lump which seemed to be suspended amongst the dark green pine needles.

  I'll drop down to the next branch.

  Carefully, he slid his right leg up and across the branch and twisted his body downward while he reached for the limb below him with the toes of his leather hunting boots.

  Where is the limb? Its got to be right under me.

  Barely hanging onto the big limb above him with both hands, Brad slowly lowered himself a fraction of an inch at a time.

  Well, where is it?

  Slowly he released some more of his grip on the upper limb. He felt the rough scraggly bark start to break and crumble under his finger tips and his grip start to slid down around the limb. The sweat broke out across his back and dripped under his armpits. His palms grew damper and continued to lose their grip as more of the bark crumbled under them.

  There it is. About time.

  The limb under him felt secure and big enough for him to put both feet across it sideways and lean his right shoulder on the tree's trunk. He stayed that way until his shaking stopped and he caught his breath.

  Brad studied the dark mass of branches and pine needles out on the very tip of the branch he now stood on. It took him several minutes to find the lump he had been watching from above.

  "Brad? Brad? You OK?"

  He answered barely loud enough so the men on the ground would hear him. "Yeah. Mm, OK."

  Brad continued to look towards the dark lump. Not directly at it, but next to it so his vision wouldn't lock on it and make it do things like move when it really didn't.

  "Brad!" Jim hollered with concern in his voice.

  "I'm just resting, Jim. I'll be down in a minute." He answered as quietly as he could.

  It moved. The upper, small part moved. I know it did.

  Slowly, Brad slid his left hand down around to his left rear pocket where his two-cell flashlight was. His right hand came up around to his right side and unsnapped the safety strap holding his .22 pistol in its holster. He slowly slipped the black, short barreled pistol out of the leather and brought it up in front of his face.

  Where did it go? There. In the same place.

  In one fluid motion, Brad flicked the pistol's safety release off with his thumb and brought the flashlight up next to the gun and turned the piercing beam of light on.

  The bobcat's yellow-green eyes flared in the sudden beam of light and its mouth opened in a snarling flash of white fangs.

  I can't shoot. I don't know where anybody below me is.

  The rippling of bunched muscles signaled the bobcat's next move.

  When it hit the next limb down all Brad could see was the top of its broad flat head with white spotted, black tipped ears flat against it. Through the sights of his pistol, centered on the cat's head, Brad could see the bouncing beams of the other hunter's flashlights.

  A flash of time and the short black and white tipped tail was disappearing into the darkness when the cat jumped for the ground.

  "WATCH OUT! BOBCAT COMING DOWN!" Was all the time he had before a blood curdling scream reached his ears.

  "IT'S GOT ME! HELP! I'M BEING ATTACKED!"

  Blackie's deep, angry bay tore through the night and he was only out voiced by Jim Lorain.

  "Matt. Grab the dog's leash. God damn! Hang onto him!"

  Brad heard the sharp angry snaps of Joey's .22 pistol from the bottom limb of the pine as he emptied the pistol into the night.

  "Jesus Christ, I'm bleeding! Help! I'm bleeding!" The drunk continued to scream.

  Brad jumped downward from one limb to the next until he hit the ground beside Joey who was just one jump ahead of him.

  "Fast trip down. Where was he?"

  "Hiding out on the tip of the big branch that looks like a clump of small trees about quarter way up.

  Bastard wasn't very big but he scared the shit out of me."

  The boys stood and watched as Matt Wilcox tended to the stricken Ray who was continuing to moan and carry on as Matt, the ex-navy corpsman, tried to find something wrong with him.

  "God damn you, Brad Burgess, I know you did that on purpose."

  "What are you talking about, Ray. Your the one who dumped beer all over himself and thought the cat attacked him."

  "He did attack me. He came right out of the tree on top of me and it's all your fault. You made him jump on me. Fucking kids anyway."

  "Ray, that's about enough. You go along with Matt now and don't you ever ask to come coon huntin with us again. I've had it with you, if you hadn't been laid out on your drunken ass in my way when the cat jumped, I could have shot it and made twenty bucks in bounty!"

  Wow. I have never heard Jim so hot. I'm glad it's Ray he's mad at not me.

  "Come on boys. Let's go coon huntin".

  TWENTY TWO

  The blacktop was just starting to dry off after an all day rain, but the puddles on the shoulders were still overflowing, and the sun wasn't quite history for the day when Brad saw the first hint of white vapor drifting from his mouth and nose.

  "Isn't this a little early in the year for a carnival? You know, April showers and all that shit, Rick."

  "Just don't walk under the edges of the tents when someone is shaking the rain off of them, Brad."

  "That's cute, Rick. Really cute.<
br />
  "I can't believe we had to park so far from the carnival. Half the town must be here." Brad observed as he and his classmate Rick Paro walked up the shoulder of the state highway towards the gravel parking lot at Teddy Landgell’s auction barn. The carnies had set up the first carnival of the season there for the weekend.

  Rick had been in Berube's when Brad went in to have a Coke and to see if Annie was working. Even though he and Rick weren't best friends, they had been friends since junior high. Rick had a dark complexion and was about three inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than Brad's 5' 2" and 110 pounds.

  It took Rick only as long to convince him they should go to the carnival on the west end of town, as it took Brad to finish off a small Coke.

  "OK friend; where is this fabulous horse racing booth you made so much money from since school got out today."

  "Over this way. At the far end of the midway.

  "Annie and Janice were playing it this afternoon when I left and I think they each made a couple of bucks.

  "Brad, I think you were the only kid in the good old class of '55 who wasn't here right after school got out today."

  "All twenty-seven of you, Rick?"

  "Wel-ll, maybe fifteen of us would be closer to the truth."

  "I didn't even know the carnival was open so early, but I suppose you townies have nothing better to do after school than go to carnivals." Brad teased with a smile. He knew Rick had wanted to live out of town, but both his parents worked in the local mills and could never afford to move into the country.

  The smells of hot buttered popcorn, hot dogs and damp, mildewed canvas drifted through the air as they turned off the blacktop and started to walk across the wet gravel to the closest row of tent covered game booths.

  Everywhere Brad looked there were strings of clear glass light bulbs draped across the fronts of the tents and as the sun finally disappeared behind the hills, the yellow glow they radiated increased in brilliance. Here and there in the wet, cold night air some fog would form and drift through the area producing an aura of mystery.

  "These lights are spooky in the fog, aren't they, Brad?

  "This is it. You pay 25¢ and bounce the tennis balls with this handle. Every time you put a ball through the square hole up there on top, your horse goes up the track a little further. Obviously, whichever horse reaches the end of the track first, wins."

  "But they have prizes, Rick. I thought you said every one was making money when they win?"