by Ron Rash
“Perhaps not,” Serena said.
Five
WINTER CAME EARLY. ONE SATURDAY MORNING men awoke in their stringhouses to find a half-foot of snow on the ground. Wool union suits and quilts were pulled from beneath beds, the makeshift windows boarded up with oilcloths, scraps of wood and tin, the splayed hides of bear and deer, other pelts including the tattered remains of a wolverine. Smaller gaps were bunged with rags and newspaper, daubs of tobacco and mud. Before stepping outside, the workers donned coats and jackets that had sagged on nails for six months. They walked down to the dining hall tugging at sleeves and re-forming collars. Most wore mackinaws, though others wore wide-pocketed hunting jackets, black frocks or leather jerkins. Some donned what they’d once worn in more prosperous or martial times—lined submarine coats and Chesterfields, moleskin suit tops, coats from the Great War. Some wore what had been passed down from their forbearers, frayed work coats of pre-twentieth-century vintage, including ones made of raccoon and buckskin, even older cloaks whose butternut and blue colors bespoke long-ago divisions in the county.
Snipes’ crew worked the crest of Noland Mountain where snow lay deepest and the wind surged across the ridge, bending the upper halves of the biggest hardwoods. Dunbar lost his stetson when a gust sent it sailing off the mountain toward Tennessee, the hat spinning and turning, falling then rising like a wounded bird.
“I should have tied it to my head,” Dunbar said glumly. “That hat cost me two dollars.”
“Best that you didn’t,” Ross said. “You might have gone sailing off with it and not touched ground till Knoxville.”
The crews ate lunch around a brush pile they’d cleared snow off and set fire to. The men huddled close, not just for warmth but to protect the flames from gusts of snowdrift that stung their faces like sand. They shed their gloves and held their numbed hands toward the fire as if surrendering to it.
“Listen to that wind howl,” Dunbar said. “For the sound of it you’d think it could lift this whole mountain.”
“Barely October and snow already on the ground,” Ross said. “A hard winter’s coming.”
“My daddy said the wooly worms was wearing a thicker coat all summer and we’re sure enough seeing the truth of it,” Stewart said. “Daddy allowed that wasn’t the only sign. He said the hornets was building their nests close to the ground.”
“Them’s pagan believings, Stewart,” McIntyre said to his congregant, “and you best stay clear of them.”
“There’s some science in it,” Snipes said. “Those wooly worms was growing thicker hair for to stand a hard winter. There ain’t no pagan in that. Wooly worms is just using the knowledge God give them. The hornets the same.”
“The only signs you need to follow is in the Bible,” McIntyre said.
“What about that sign that says No Smoking on the dynamite shed,” Ross noted. “You saying we don’t need to follow that one?”
“You can make sport of it,” McIntyre said to Ross, “but this unnatural weather is a certain sign we’re in the last days. The sun will be darkened and the moon shall not give her light.”
McIntyre looked up at the gray-slate sky as if it were some Gnostic text only he was capable of deciphering. He tipped his black preacher’s hat heavenward, seemingly satisfied at what he’d seen.
“There will be famines and pestilences coming after that,” McIntyre proclaimed. “There’ll be nary a plant sprout out of the ground but thorns and you’ll have grasshoppers big as rabbits eating everything else, even the wood on your house, and snakes and scorpions and all such terrible things falling out of the sky.”
“And you think all this is going to happen any day now?” Ross asked.
“Yes, I do,” McIntyre replied. “I’m certain of it as old Noah himself was when he built that boat.”
“Then I reckon we better start bringing umbrellas with us to work,” Ross said.
“Ain’t no we to it,” McIntyre said. “I’ll be raptured up the day before it starts. It’ll be you and the other infidels has to deal with it.”
The men watched the fire for a few moments, then Dunbar looked down the south slope at the valley. Snow hid the stumps, but slash piles raised white humps across the landscape like burial mounds.
“Ain’t as many critter tracks as you’d think.”
“They’ve hightailed on over to Tennessee,” Ross said. “That’s the direction we’re herding them and they’ve give up fighting it.”
“Maybe they got word of the new park over that way,” Snipes said, “figured they’d be left alone there since all the two-legged critters have near been run out.”
“They run my uncle off his place last week,” Dunbar said. “Said it was eminent domain.”
“What does eminent domain mean?” Stewart asked.
“It means you’re shit out of luck,” Ross said.
“What’s the name of the hermit fellow down in Deep Creek,” Dunbar asked, “the one who writes the books?”
“Kephart,” Ross said.
“Yeah,” Dunbar said, “him and that newspaperman in Asheville is hep on this land for the park too. Got some big bugs up in Washington on their side.”
“They’ll need them,” Ross said. “You can count on Harris and the Pembertons fattening every wallet from the county courthouse up to the governor’s mansion.”
“Not Sheriff McDowell’s pocket,” Dunbar argued. “He never kowtowed to them from the very start. I helped lay the track, so I was here the morning Sheriff McDowell come and arrested Pemberton for driving too fast through town.”
“I never knew you to have witnessed that,” Stewart said. “He really threatened to handcuff him?”
“You’re damn right he did,” Dunbar said. “He was going to haul Pemberton off in his police car too but for Buchanan saying he’d drive him.”
“I heard he kept Pemberton in that cell overnight,” Snipes said.
“Not overnight,” Dunbar replied. “No more than a hour before the magistrate got him out. But he put him in there, and there’s not another in this county would of done that.”
The flames began to wither, so Ross and Snipes got up and found more wood. They shook free the snow and gently placed the limbs crosswise on what lingered. The fire slowly revived, climbing the wood webbing like a plant ascending a trellis, flames coiling, coming forth then retreating, finally holding fast on one limb, then one more. The men watched the orange blossoming, not moving or speaking until all the branches had caught. McIntyre stared especially intently, as though awaiting another prophecy.
The snow came in thicker flakes, whitening Dunbar’s bare head. He raked his fingers through his hair, held out to the others what flakes clung to his hand.
“It’d be a good day to see that panther’s tracks with snow thick and soft as this,” Dunbar said.
“If there’s really a panther left up here,” Ross said. “Nobody’s killed one in nine year.”
“But folks claims to see it right regular,” Stewart noted.
“Revelations says they’ll be lions here when the judgment day comes,” McIntyre said, still staring into the flames. “Leastways their heads will be. The yonder half of them will have legs no different than human people like us.”
“Will they be wearing pants?” Ross asked. “Or is that just the whore of Babylon?”
Stewart stepped away from the fire, making sure the wind was at his back before freeing the copper buttons on his overalls.
“Be careful there, Stewart,” Snipes said, “or you’ll piss on Dunbar’s hat.”
Stewart shifted his stream slightly eastward. He buttoned his overalls and sat back down.
“What about you, Snipes?” Dunbar asked. “You think there to be mountain lions up here or is it just folks’ imaginings?”
Snipes pondered the question a few moments before speaking.
“They’s many a man of science would claim there ain’t because you got no irredeemable evidence like panther scat or fur or tooth or tail. I
n other words, some part of the animal in question. Or better yet having the actual critter itself, the whole thing kit and caboodle head to tail, which all your men of science argue is the best proof of all a thing exists, whether it be a panther, or a bird, or even a dinosaur.”
Snipes paused to gauge the level of comprehension among his audience and decided further explanation was necessary.
“To put it another way, if you was to stub your toe and tell the man of science what happened he’d not believe a word of it less he could see how it’d stoved up or was bleeding. But your philosophers and theologians and such say there’s things in the world that’s every bit as real even though you can’t see them.”
“Like what?” Dunbar asked.
“Well,” Snipes said. “They’s love, that’s one. And courage. You can’t see neither of them, but they’re real. And air, of course. That’s one of your most important examples. You wouldn’t be alive a minute if there wasn’t air, but nobody’s ever seen a single speck of it.”
“And chiggers,” Stewart said helpfully. “You’ll never see one but you get into a mess of them and you’ll be itching for a week.”
“So you’re saying you believe there’s still a panther around,” Dunbar said.
“I’m not certain of such a thing,” Snipes said. “All I’m saying is there is a lot more to this old world than meets the eye.”
The crew foreman paused and stretched his open palms closer to the fire.
“And darkness. You can’t see it no more than you can see air, but when it’s all around you sure enough know it.”
Six
BY LATE SUNDAY MORNING THE SNOW HAD stopped, and Buchanan and the Pembertons decided to go hunting a mile southwest of camp, a five-acre meadow Galloway had baited for a month. Wilkie, whose sporting life consisted of nothing more than an occasional poker game, stayed in Waynesville. Young Vaughn packed the Studebaker farm wagon with provisions, the gray wool golf cap pulled down over his red hair. Galloway had procured a farmer’s pack of Plotts and Redbones considered the finest in the county. Galloway sat on the wagon’s springboard seat with Vaughn, between them Shakes, the farmer’s prize Plott hound, the rest of the dogs piled in back with the provisions. The Pembertons and Buchanan followed on horseback, crossing Balsam Mountain before veering east to enter a V-shaped gorge the mountaineers called a shut-in.
“Galloway’s baited the meadow with corn and apples,” Pemberton said. “That’ll bring deer, maybe a bear.”
“Perhaps even your panther,” Serena said, “following the deer.”
“The deer carcass the men found on Noland last week,” Buchanan asked Galloway. “How did you know a mountain lion didn’t kill it?”
Galloway turned, his left eye narrowing. His lips veered rightward, as though trying to slide the smile off his face.
“Because its chest wasn’t tore open. There’s cats will eat the tongue and ears before anything else, but not a panther. It eats the heart first.”
They followed the wagon as it swayed and bumped into the gorge, rock cliffs pressing closer on both sides as they descended. They went single file now, the horses’ pastern joints deftly negotiating the narrowing slantland. Halfway down, Galloway stopped the wagon and examined an oak tree whose lower branches were broken off.
“At least one bear in this shut-in,” Galloway said, “and goodly-sized to skin up a tree like this one done.”
They soon passed directly under a cliff, spears of ice hanging from the rocks. At the tightest point, Vaughn and Galloway stopped and lifted the iron-rimmed left wheels one at a time over a rock jut, in the process spilling out three hounds and a larder filled with sandwiches. Pemberton paused to tighten his saddle’s girth. After he finished, he looked up the trail and saw Serena thirty yards ahead, the Arabian blending so well with the snow that for a moment she appeared to ride the air itself. Pemberton smiled and wished a crew of loggers could have seen the illusion. Since her initial triumph over Bilded, the men ascribed all sorts of powers to Serena, some bordering on the otherworldly.
Finally the shut-in widened again, and they came to a bald where the trail ended. Galloway jumped into the back of the wagon and leashed the dogs.
“The brindled ones,” Serena said. “What breed are they?”
“They’re called Plotts, a local variety,” Pemberton explained. “They’re bred specifically for boar and bear.”
“The broad chest is impressive. Is their courage?”
“Equally impressive,” Pemberton said.
They took what was needed from the wagon and moved into the thickening woods, Galloway and Vaughn and the dogs well behind. The Pembertons and Buchanan progressed on foot now, the horses’ reins in one hand, rifles in the other.
“Quite a few poplars and oaks,” Serena noted, nodding at the surrounding trees.
“Some of our best acreage,” Pemberton said. “Campbell’s found a stand of tulip poplars where the smallest is eighty feet high.”
Buchanan walked beside Pemberton now.
“This stock market collapse, Pemberton. I wonder about its long-term effects for us.”
“We’ll be better off than most businesses,” Pemberton replied. “The worst for us is less building being done.”
“Perhaps the need for coffins will offset that,” Serena said. “There’s evidently quite a demand for them on Wall Street.”
Buchanan paused, grasped Pemberton’s coat by the elbow and leaned closer. Pemberton smelled Bay Rum aftershave and Woodbury hair tonic, which bespoke coifed hair and smooth cheeks as part of Buchanan’s hunt preparation.
“So the Secretary of the Interior’s interest in this land. You still say we shouldn’t consider it?”
Serena was a few steps farther ahead and turned to speak, but Buchanan raised his palm.
“I’m asking your husband’s opinion, Mrs. Pemberton, not yours.”
Serena stared at Buchanan a few moments. The gold flecks in her irises seemed to absorb more light even as the pupils receded into some deeper part of her. Then she turned and walked on.
“My opinion is the same as my wife’s,” Pemberton said. “We don’t sell unless we make a good profit.”
They walked another furlong before the land briefly rose, then began falling at a sharper grade. Soon the meadow’s white leveling emerged through the trees. Galloway had brought a tote sack of corn the previous day, and a dozen deer placidly ate the last of it. Fresh snow muffled the hunters’ footsteps, and no deer raised its head as the Pembertons and Buchanan tethered their horses, walked on through the remaining woods and took positions at the meadow’s edge.
They each picked out a deer and raised their rifles. Pemberton said now and they fired. Two deer fell to the ground and did not move, but Buchanan’s ran crashing into the brush and trees on the other side. It fell, got up, then disappeared into the deeper woods.
Galloway soon joined the Pembertons and Buchanan, the Plotts and Redbones gusting Galloway in different directions as if the leashes were attached to low-flying kites. Once in the meadow, Galloway freed the strike dog and then the others. The hounds ran in a yelping rush toward the far woods where the wounded deer had gone. Galloway listened to the pack for a few moments before turning to Buchanan and the Pembertons.
“This shut-in ain’t got but one way out. If you flank this meadow and put one of you in the center, there ain’t nothing on four legs getting by.”
Galloway crouched on one knee and listened, his left hand touching the snow as if he might feel the vibration of the dogs running in the woods below. The hounds’ cries grew dim, then began steadily rising.
“You best get them fancy guns of yours ready,” Galloway said. “They’re coming this way.”
BY late afternoon the Pembertons and Buchanan had killed a dozen deer. Galloway made a mound of the carcasses in the meadow’s center, and blood streaked the snow red. Buchanan had wearied of the shooting after his third deer and sat down with his rifle propped against a tree, content to let t
he Pembertons make the last kills. Midday there had been the sound of ice unshackling from limbs, the woods popping and crackling as if arthritic, but now the temperature had dropped, the woods silent but for the clamor of the hounds.
What sun the day’s gray sky had allowed was settling atop Balsam Mountain when the hollow cries of the Plotts and Redbones quickened into rapid barks. Galloway and Vaughn stood at the woods’ edge, not far from where Pemberton waited, rifle in hand. The barks grew more resonant, urgent, almost a sobbing.
“Struck them a bear, a damn big one from the fuss they’re allowing it,” Galloway said, his breath whitened by the cold. “Mama told me we’d have some good hunting today.”
As the hounds’ barks lengthened and deepened into bays, Pemberton thought of Galloway’s mother, how her eyes were the color of pockets of morning fog the workers called bluejon, like mist filling two inward-probing cavities. Pemberton remembered how those eyes had turned in his direction and lingered. A way to stupefy the credulous, he knew, but done damn well.
“You best be ready, for that bear’s coming and once he hits this meadow he won’t be dawdling,” Galloway said, and turned to Serena and winked. “He won’t care if you’re man nor woman neither.”
Buchanan picked up his rifle and positioned himself on the clearing’s left, Serena in the center, Pemberton on the right. Galloway moved behind Serena, his eyes closed as he listened. The hounds were frantically baying now, yelping as well when the bear turned and swatted at its pursuers. Then Pemberton heard the bear itself, crashing through the woods with the torrent of dogs in pursuit.
It came into the meadow between Serena and Pemberton. The bear paused a moment and swatted the largest Plott off its hind leg, the bear’s claws raking the dog’s flank. The big Plott lay on the snow a moment before rising and attacking again. The bear’s paw caught the dog on the same flank, only lower this time, the Plott sent tumbling into the air. It landed yards away, the hide on the dog’s right side shred thin as shoestrings.