by Greg Hunt
Then one summer Pook never came strolling out of the woods in late May or early June, as Mel had grown accustomed to him doing every year. On inquiry, Mel’s daddy had learned that the Quapah had not returned to the grassy meadow on the Little Bold where they traditionally set up camp in the summer months. It wasn’t until sometime later that Mel learned that the Quapah were forced to leave their tribal lands in northern Arkansas, and had been relocated someplace out west. The news devastated him. Forlornly he still made his annual pilgrimage into the wilderness that year, but came home early and fell to work beside Daddy splitting cedar shakes for a shed roof. It wasn’t the same.
The terrain he was following started to take on a steeper downhill slope. The creek began to tumble down from one rocky slab to another, making it impossible to wade along in its shallow waters. Mel’s only choice was to scramble along through the heavy brush and tangled blackberry thickets that grew along the slanted banks. There were no game trails, and Mel figured that any deer or fox with half a brain avoided this place. Progress was slow and tiring.
When he reached a spot where part of the hillside had fallen away, leaving a flat ten-by-ten clearing beside the creek, he stopped and shrugged out of the heavy pack. The remainder of the deer shank in the pack was starting to put off a sour, unpleasant smell. It wouldn’t be long before it became rancid and inedible.
He gathered a pile of leaves, sticks and deadfall and built a fire. He surrounded it with flat slabs of loose rock, then went to work on the deer meat as the rocks heated. He cut away the layers of spoiled and graying meat on the outside, then began to slice the fresher red meat inside into thin flat strips. Without salt and seasoning it wouldn’t be the tastiest jerky he had ever produced, but it would do to fill the belly of a truly hungry man.
It took upwards of a couple of hours to dry all the deer meat worth saving. In the process he ate his fill, washing it down with water from the tumbling creek.
This was a nice spot, Mel thought. Under other circumstances it wouldn’t be a bad place to spend the night. There was deadfall nearby for a fire, and plenty of fresh water an arm’s length away. Few wild animals were likely to wander the steep hills nearby, and if any threat did arise, he had an arsenal to deal with it.
Then the realization came to Mel that he had spent the night here already, he and Pook, years before. They had been working their way up the valley, not down, and had been glad to find this level place to camp as darkness settled in. They had built their fire almost where his was now, and used it to cook beans in a blackened coffee can, along with a squirrel Mel had killed with his slingshot. Later a heavy rain began, and they spent the rest of the night huddled against the stone wall, as wet as minks, waiting miserably for daylight.
Slowly the whole night returned clearly to him, and with it came an oppressive loneliness and sense of loss. Not only were those carefree, adventurous boyhood days gone forever, but so was everything else that had shaped his world back then— Mother, Daddy, the house, the barn, the crops, the stock, the entire farm. If he died out here today—if he stumbled and drowned in the creek or if nature chose today to peel off another layer of granite from the sheer rock face above him—who would ever know, and who would mourn him? For the first time since all this madness started, he began to realize the completeness of his loss. It had taken Daddy many long years of hard labor to build that place up to the modest farm it had been, but only a handful of days were needed to turn it into little more than a cemetery. Could he ever rebuild it all? And even if he had the strength for the task, did he have the heart for the job?
In the midst of those moments of forlorn loneliness, another realization unexpectedly invaded his thoughts.
To reach this place, he and Pook had climbed up a steep rocky wall alongside a tumbling waterfall. And before they began the climb they had been working their way upstream along a river. He hadn’t known the name of the river then, or really cared, but now he realized that it must have been the Little Bold. If his instincts were right, once he reached the river below, he would be back on track for the final leg of his journey to the Adderly farm.
His mood brightened like a lamp just lit, and the morose thoughts dissolved away. The past was past, and there wasn’t time to grieve over losses right now.
He hurriedly gathered the last of the jerky into a cloth bag, then checked the loads of his rifle and pistols out of habit. He continued his descent of the steep hillside, climbing down hand-over-hand in some places as the creek spilled down the rock face beside him. When he reached the bottom, the creek became a creek again, flowing more slowly to the west. Somewhere up ahead, through the trees and brush on the valley floor, he heard the welcome sound of tumbling, rushing water.
The Little Bold, as Mel remembered it, was shallow and wide enough to ford in some places, but narrow, deep, and swift enough in other spots to sweep a man off his feet and carry him away. The water was clear and cold, and occasionally cascaded into rapids that tumbled over sheer rock shelves and funneled recklessly between jumbles of boulders. The banks were mostly forested right up to the water’s edge, and there was a multitude of narrow, sandy, brush-infested islands that arose and then washed away at the whim of the river’s currents.
When the heavy rains fell, usually in the spring, a river like this, flanked by steep hillsides, could become a raging, irresistible death trap. Sometimes the runoff from heavy rains could cause the water level to rise ten or twenty feet in a remarkably short time. The currents were strong enough to roll boulders over and uproot hundred-year-old trees. Caught up in waters like that, man and beast alike had to have God’s own grace working for them to come out alive.
Mel half walked, half slid down a stretch of loose, gravelly dirt, and sat down on a log at the water’s edge. He pulled off his shoes and put his feet in the river. The water was cold and soothing, and he reached down to splash refreshing handfuls up onto his head and chest.
Off to the left, a small rapid churned and tumbled down into a dark still pool directly out from where Mel sat. From time to time a bream or smallmouth would rise up with a splash to gobble some unlucky insect from the surface. Some other time one of them might end up as his supper, but not today.
After his short break he started downstream, wading across to the other bank when he came to a spot that was shallow enough. Once on the other side, he was surprised to discover what must have been an old logging road, now overgrown with weeds and shoulder-high seedlings. It was a welcome discovery because the remnants of the road would make for easier walking. If he was lucky, the road might even lead him close to the Adderly place.
Over the next hour he made encouraging progress, moving steadily toward his destination. When his stomach began to talk to him, he paused to eat a piece of the dried venison and take a long drink of river water. A chattery barking high up in an oak nearby caught his attention. He investigated the treetops for a few moments, and spotted a young squirrel crouched low on a limb, scolding a blue jay nearby.
Moving very slowly, trying not to call attention to himself, Mel retrieved his rifle and eased it up to his shoulder. The squirrel skittered off the limb and back out of sight on the opposite side of the thick trunk. Then it reappeared a few seconds later, ten feet lower on the trunk, and resumed its harassment of the jaybird. It was an easy shot and Mel’s eyes followed the descent of the dead squirrel as it toppled down to the ground.
The fusillade of gunfire that answered his single shot could not have been more unexpected. It came from behind him, a dozen or more rifle shots back up the logging road in the direction he had come from. The shooters weren’t close, and Mel figured they were firing blindly in his direction. But the mere fact that there were armed men, undoubtedly soldiers, out here in these deep woods, which had only a moment before seemed so vacant and still, sent a thrill of panic through him.
Where did they come from, and where were they going? They must be following the logging road. Maybe they had come across its starting point som
ewhere across the Gately Post Road and decided that it might be a shortcut to wherever they wanted to go.
Grabbing his pack and rifle, Mel waded out into the river, staying close to the bank and trying to be as quiet as possible. Within a hundred feet, he was in water up to his chest, struggling to keep the rifle and pack high and dry as he fought the power of the river current. Soon, near exhaustion, he lay his burdens up on the riverbank and clung to the low-hanging branch of a tree that leaned precariously out over the water.
The steep riverbank above him was overgrown with an impenetrable thatch of weeds, brambles and small willows. He thought he might be safe here unless they decided to search for him. In that case, he wouldn’t be hard to find, and wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight in this predicament.
He heard them coming easily enough as they approached along the logging road somewhere on the other side of the brush and trees on the riverbank. There were a few horses, but no wagons. Most of the men seemed to be on foot, and they took no pains to be quiet as they tromped along. The men talked and grumbled in conversational tones, and occasionally a whiff of tobacco smoke reached Mel in his watery hideout.
It took a long time for all of them to move past. Mel had no way to guess how many there might be, or even what side they were on. Hundreds at least, probably more. As the last of them tromped by and the noise they made faded in the distance, the woods grew still again. He struggled up onto the bank, his feet and legs numb from the cold water. They were nearly useless for a while, but he rubbed some life back into them until he was able to struggle to his feet.
Mel backtracked down the logging road and easily located the squirrel he had killed. He settled on the ground with his back against the big oak to clean his kill and try to sort things out.
Wasn’t there a single place in all this wild mountain country where he could avoid these soldiers and their damned nuisance of a war? he wondered.
He took off his clothes and wrung the river water out of them, then lay back naked in the sun to let it warm and dry his body. The inevitable happened, and he drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
“Is he dead?”
“Don’t appear to be. His color’s good, and he don’t look shot up enough.”
Mel jolted awake. In an instant he had his rifle up and was looking around.
A few yards back down the road the two men he’d heard talking leaped into the trees on either side of the road. He heard one of them fall heavily and curse in pain.
“Damn it all, that shore didn’t do my ankle no favor.”
“Hey feller, don’t be so jittery,” a second voice called out. “We’re stragglers, just like you.”
Mel wasn’t sure what to do. If he shot at them they were bound to shoot back, and the ruckus could alert the army that had passed not long ago. He could run off, but he’d have to take off naked because his clothes were scattered all about. And where could he run to anyway?
There didn’t seem to be any threat in the voices he had heard.
A face peeked around a tree trunk. “Gave you a start, I s’pose,” the man suggested. “But we’re harmless enough. Oscar over there throwed his musket away some time back, and I ain’t got more than a thimble full of powder left for mine.”
“I think I’ll need some help getting up over here, Bill,” the second man called from somewhere off in the trees.
“A’right, I’ll be there in a jiffy, Oscar. If this feller here don’t mind.”
Mel laid his rifle aside. It wasn’t a time for fighting. “It ain’t my affair,” he said. “I don’t own this road.”
As the man behind the tree crossed over to help his friend up, Mel rose and quickly put his clothes back on. There was something about being naked that made a man feel downright vulnerable, even when he held a loaded rifle in his hand.
A minute later the three of them met up in the middle of the road.
“Oscar here twisted his ankle on a root,” the one named Bill explained. “He couldn’t keep up on the march, and I slipped back to watch out over him. He’s my brother-in-law, and my sister back home would hold it against me if I lost him out here in these woods.”
“We’re sick of fighting anyway,” Oscar added. “Five days now, and nothin’ but one fight after another. If we show up late for the next one, I don’t mind.”
They were dressed in pieces and scraps of uniforms, and neither one looked like he’d had his fill to eat in weeks. Their beards were scraggly, and they both stank. The musket Bill carried was old and dirty, and Mel thought he’d hate to put it to his shoulder and try to shoot somebody.
“So what’s your story?” Bill asked. “A man layin’ bareassed naked out in the wilderness is bound to have a tale to tell.” He had a vague crooked grin on his face, and struck Mel as the type that could find some scrap of humor in about any circumstance.
“I was filling my water bottle and fell in the river,” Mel said. “I was going to dry out and catch up with the outfit, but I fell asleep under that tree.” If he stayed around soldiers long enough, he thought he might become a passable liar.
“Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t shilly-shally here too long,” Bill counseled. “We figger the enemy ain’t too far behind. Naked or dressed, it probably wouldn’t go well for a man if they got their hands on him.”
The two men started to move again. The one named Oscar hobbled along, suffering considerably each time he put his weight on his badly swollen ankle. He had a forked stick that he used as a crutch, and his brother-in-law helped some. With no better plan in mind, Mel fell in with them.
“We figure if we have the time we’ll try to hide when we hear them comin’ up behind us. And if we don’t . . .” Oscar’s voice trailed off without finishing.
“What I can’t figure out is what we’re doing out here in the deep woods anyway,” Mel said. If they thought he was one of them, it wouldn’t hurt to pretend he was, at least for now.
“I heard the blue bellies was waitin’ for us up the post road someplace,” Oscar said, “and had us bad outnumbered. So we took to the woods on this track. If we’re lucky, we’ll join up with General Willard and the main army up ahead.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” Mel asked.
“Then we try to make do for a spell on acorns and muscadines,” Bill said.
The two men were well acquainted, and though they spent a lot of the time bickering over one unimportant thing or other, they were clearly fond of one another. Bill was very solicitous about Oscar’s ankle, and insisted on frequent stops so Oscar could rest.
For his part, Mel considered ways that he might separate from this pair without causing suspicion. They might be eager to catch up with the army ahead, assuming it was their own, but Mel had no desire to fall in with either the one ahead or the one behind. The cliffs and hillsides on both sides of them were steep and forbidding, but he figured another hard climb was far better than finding himself in the middle of another battle.
“So what outfit you with?” Bill asked him.
“Fourth Arkansas, Major Elliot’s bunch,” Mel said, citing the only unit and officer that came to mind. He hoped that they didn’t know Elliott, or at least didn’t know he had been captured during the rout back at the farm.
“We’re in the Fourth, too,” Bill said. “Or at least what’s left of it. We was under a little jackass named Turnipseed, but he ain’t around no more. With all the fighting and moving around, I couldn’t tell you who’s in charge of the regiment no more.”
“Don’t s’pose it matters,” Oscar mumbled.
Mel’s thoughts went back to the moment he lined up his sights up on the middle of Turnipseed’s shoulder blades and he began to squeeze the trigger. It was his belief that a man shouldn’t take pride in a back-shooting, but that shot sure seemed right.
“I heard of Turnipseed,” Mel said. “What happened to him?”
“Some think kilt, others say captured. But I got my own idea. I figure he skee-daddled back to
Mama’s teat when the air filled up with lead.”
“Whatever happened,” Oscar said, “good riddance to him, I say. I don’t know what lamebrain came up with the notion that just ’cause a man’s daddy has land and money, that makes him fit to lead fighting men. It’s like you said, Bill. He wasn’t nothin’ but a jackass.”
Mel would have liked to tell them that they had him to thank for putting a ball of lead into that particular jackass, and why, but he knew it wouldn’t be a wise thing to do. There were bound to be rules against shooting officers, even the bad ones.
During their next stop Mel shared his jerky with the two men, and the one named Bill changed the dressing on Mel’s wounds. It was a good thing because the nick on his shoulder was starting to turn red and oozy again. Infected and unattended, lesser wounds had cost men arms, legs, and even their lives.
They came across another group of stragglers in the middle of the afternoon, men of a different ilk entirely. After one look at this bunch, Mel lowered his right hand and rested it on the hilt of his sidearm.
There were five of them, and the smallest man among them seemed to be calling the shots. There was immediate tension between them and the men Mel was traveling with when the little man explained that they’d had enough and were taking to the hills.
“Mama Hardisty didn’t raise no cowards,” he said. “But there was no fools in the litter, neither.” That would be the excuse he’d live by in the years ahead, Mel suspected. Or maybe he’d turn himself into a war hero sometime down the road, and eventually start believing it himself.
He struck Mel as the kind of man who had spent his whole life getting by with big talk and bullshit, desperate to prove to himself and everyone else what a big man dwelled within his thin, undernourished frame.
“We done our own share of fighting, but this army is fallin’ apart, and we don’t see no use sticking around only to leave our bones to rot in these damn Missouri hollers. By dark we plan to be on top of that ridge up yonder,” the man said, pointing up the steep hill beside them. “And tomorrow we point our peckers south.”