Raven's Peak: Cold Hard Bitch

by Cole Savage

  “Were sorry, T.D. We couldn’t sleep.”

  “Don’t be sorry, it’s my fault for invitin’ these boys so late.”

  “Can we stay up, T.D. Just for a little while?”

  “You boys are welcome to stay up, but don’t be tellin’ me tomorrow how tired you are when we’re doing chores.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fetch the boys some whiskey, Tyler, then sit next to Hooch and me.”

  “Skeet, please finish. I’m wonderin’ why Slack Jaw’s still here and not in the marble orchard,” said T.D.

  “Slack Jaw, you want to finish this story, I don’t think I can.”

  “No’, Skeet.” Covering his face, Slack Jaw gave him the finger.

  “Shit, boys. Where was I?” Cole moved to the bear rug, laid on his stomach, legs crossed, and listened starry-eyed as Skeeter continued.

  “So Slack Jaw was bleedin’ from his crotch?” T.D asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Slack was screaming help me, help me, sweatin’ like a whore sittin’ at church. But dammit, T.D— he don’t sound like Slack anymore. He sounds like a Bull with his testicles tied.” Cole and Tyler can’t stop laughing.

  “So Slack pulls his coveralls down to stop the bleedin’, me and Hooch are standin’ by him, he looks at us and says, Help me, Hooch. Help me, Skeet. We was lookin’ at him, and shit T.D, we didn’t know what to do. Slack was jumpin’ up and down like Mexican jumpin’ beans, holdin’ General Lee in one hand, one of the kernels in the other. But the kernel was hangin’ like a loose tooth. Shit, T.D. I looked at Hooch; he looked at me, and Hooch did that Catholic thing on his chest and said a prayer for Slack Jaw, cause there ain’t no way we’re touchin’ Slacks tally Wacker to stop the bleedin’.”

  Sitting next to him, T.D looked at Tyler who was laughing, then to Cole, rolling on the bear rug, laughing. T.D is smiling, Hooch is off the couch, on his knees, banging his hands on the couch when Skeeter comes off the hearth, drops to his knees and tries to finish the story. Everyone was looking at Slack Jaw, arms on his knees, face buried in his hands, laughing.

  Skeeter gathered his composure, took a swig of whiskey, wiped his lips with the back of his arm and sat back on the hearth.

  “So, Slack. What happened then?”

  “Fuck you, T.D. Fuck you all.”

  Skeeter stood and gestured for Slack Jaw to stand.

  “Slack— drop your drawers. Show the boys your pork sword.” Skeeter could hardly finish the sentence, he doubled over in a fit of laughter, everyone on the ground laughing.

  “Here, assholes,” Slack Jaw says, “Tyler, Cole, step outside.”

  Tyler and Cole stepped outside, into the darkness and closed the door.

  Standing in the middle of the room, Slack Jaw said, “you want to see my Alabama Blacksnake.” He dropped his coveralls, his bloomers, he leaned back and brought General Lee to the forefront with both hands, then he said, “You happy, Polecats?”

  But no one was looking at him. They were still rolling on the rug— T.D on his knees facing the couch, coughing through gales of laughter. Hooch was laughing so hard he was gagging on his own spit. T.D leaned over and slapped him on the back, Slack Jaw still holding General Lee. Looking at it, it was obvious that the General had taken serious damage from the Bear. Skeeter stood, pointed at Slack Jaw’s penis with one hand, the other on his chest, trying to say something.

  “Hey… Slack…. Looks… like… General Lee is missing one of his Colonels. Was he killed in action or just hiding in the bear’s snout?”

  Skeeter doubled over and fell to his knees laughing after seeing Slack Jaw with just one testicle. T.D was on his back, hands on his chest, laughing.

  “Hey, Slack. Looks like somebody put your tonsil tickler through a meat grinder,” said Hooch.

  Slack Jaw, fed up with the bellicose chastisement of his mangled genitalia, pulled his coveralls up. He walked outside to smoke Kentucky blue and told Tyler and Cole, who had been watching from the window, to go back in— everyone still laughing, Hooch stood, went to the window, pulled back the faded plaid curtain and saw Slack Jaw smoking Reefer. He turned to the others, the laughter fading and said, “That ain’t the best part, boys.”

  “Shit, Hooch. There’s more?” T.D said in broken words. Hooch looked out again, saw Slack Jaw still smoking, closed the curtain and said, “For ten months Slack couldn’t get the General up in the saddle. Even now the General’s paralyzed from nerve damage.”

  The gale of laughter resumed, and T.D accidentally knocked over the bottle of Jack Daniels that was sitting on the hearth. Slack Jaw busted through the door holding a roach and pointed at Hooch.

  “You dun told them, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t tell them.” T.D went over and put his arm around Slack Jaw.

  “It’s okay, Slack. There’s more important things in life than a rock hard chubby.”

  “Like what, T.D?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” Hooch threw himself on the couch laughing, Skeeter walked over, gave T.D a hand slap and winked at Tyler and Cole, who didn’t seem to get the joke.

  After the laughter faded, T.D realized it was getting late so he told the boys to get upstairs.

  “T.D, can we stay while Slack Jaw plays the guitar? We promise we won’t be tired tomorrow.” With a raised brow, T.D looked at the boys. “I reckon you can stay a while longer. It’s not every day these boys come up to serenade us.” Tyler and Cole jumped up and down clapping their hands, and Hooch went outside with Skeeter to smoke. Meanwhile, Slack Jaw, relieved that the mudslinging was over, sat on the hearth with his guitar and fiddled with the tuning keys. T.D fixed the boys Kool-Aid and sat on the couch with Tyler and Cole as bookends. A few moments later, Skeeter and Hooch came in and took a seat on the hearth next to Slack Jaw— Hooch with the tambourine, Skeeter with the mandolin.

  “T.D. It’s been a while since you heard old Slack on vocals, and I don’t mean to poke fun at him, but since the incident with Yogi, Slack’s pipes can really blow a tune.” Slack Jaw responded with the middle finger.

  “I could always hum a tune, huh, T.D? You remember, don’t you?”

  “Well, Slack. From what I remember. I would say you were fair to middlin’.”

  Hooch looked at T.D. “Shit, T. D, we wuz over at the Tilton’s stead couple years back, and the three of us wuz playin’ for this nigger family that was stayin’ with the Tilton’s, cause the little nigger boy got hit by a bus, and the doctor had to cut his legs clean off.” Hooch paused, shifted his gaze to Slack Jaw and said, “T.D, when Slack started hummin’, granny Tilton closed the windows and pulled the drapes shut. And it was hotter that day than a Billy goat with a blow torch that day. She brought her hounds in the house cause they was singin’ like they were shitin’ hammers.” Skeeter chuckled. He looked at T.D and said,

  “Boy, that ain’t no joke, T.D. Slack Jaws voice was chippin’ the paint off granny Tilton’s House.”

  The makeshift band of misfits played into the wee hours of the night, pausing to drink whiskey and chew pine nuts. Cole retired to the couch, where he and Tyler fell asleep leaning on T. D, while Slack Jaw’s band performed classics by the Oak Ridge Boys, Alabama and Earl Thomas Conley. After a marathon of drinking whiskey and good old country tunes, the men surrendered to exhaustion. T.D laid the boys on the couch and the rest of them slept upstairs, on the bedrolls they had brought; Hooch slept on the mattress.

  CHAPTER 27

  T.D woke everyone at sun up. They ate a breakfast consisting of oatmeal, jerky, instant lemonade, and powdered milk. After, Tyler and Cole helped T.D put a lunch pack together. They packed swimwear, an iceless cooler to store quail, while Skeeter transferred shotguns wrapped in Indian blankets, from Hooch’s truck to T. D’s. Tyler made sure the house was straightened while Cole stacked wood on the porch.

  With the sun just coming over the jagged teeth of the mountains, all of them drove off in T. D’s Ford with T.D at the wheel, next to
Skeeter and Hooch. Tyler, Cole and Slack Jaw, sat on a bench seat in the bed of the truck, that Toby had bolted there, repurposed from a Subaru.

  Tyler and Cole seemed excited as they headed to Raven’s peak. The ride took about twenty minutes, through a double track dirt road that crested over several false peaks, over a high mountain pass to the basin of Raven’s Peak. The boys flooded Slack Jaw with a barrage of questions, oblivious of the landscape.

  “Why is Raven’s Peak so important to T. D, Slack?” Tyler asked, the truck bouncing up and down on the deeply rutted areas of the fire trail.

  “Boys, that’s where T.D proposed to his wife, and before they were hitched, Toby used to court her up there, if you boys understand what I’m sayin’.”

  “T.D is married?” said Cole.

  “No, Slack, we don’t know what you mean,” said Tyler.

  “Not no more, boys. Been a long time since Toby’s been tied down with a woman, and Tyler, when a boy courts a woman it means he’s taking her out on dates.”

  “Dates? What’s there to do with girls in the mountains, Slack?”

  “I think it best Toby answer that for you, Tyler, but that ain’t the only reason Toby loves this place…It’s kinda hard to explain. These mountains just seem to be in his blood…He’d do a better job of expressin’ his feeling about this particular place. Were goin’ there today, so I reckon you boys can make your own judgements.”

  “We were there on Sunday, Slack, and the only recollection me and Cole have of the place is those creepy Bats.”

  “Don’t feel bad, boys. Toby did the same thing to me and Hooch many moons ago. I felt the same way you boys did. I ain’t never wanted to go back there, but today, you boys are in for a real surprise.”

  Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the base of Raven’s Peak. T.D laid out the blanket on the bed of the truck that concealed the guns, and handed one each to Skeeter and Hooch— still wearing the same garments from yesterday. T.D had a clean plaid shirt on, and Tyler and Cole were wearing cargo shorts and fleece shirts that Toby had bought them at a thrift store in Seneca Rocks. Toby gave Tyler the same 18-gauge shotgun he had practiced with regularly, but Cole, being too young, would be observing today. Hooch, Toby, and Skeeter took twelve-gauge Remington’s from the bed of the truck, along with multiple rounds of bird shot, and Toby handed Slack Jaw a pellet gun.

  “What the hell is this, T.D?” said Slack Jaw.

  “What’s wrong, Slack?”

  “You expect me to shoot quail with a pellet gun?”

  “No, Slack. I don’t expect you’ll be hittin’ too many quail with that pea shooter.” Skeeter and Hooch were standing behind the truck laughing, putting backpacks on, and Slack Jaw was across from them, holding the pellet gun out in front of him. Tyler and Cole were standing off to the side wearing small backpacks, watching, wondering where T.D was going with this.

  “Give me a shotgun, Toby.” Slack Jaw threw the pellet gun in the back of the pickup and crossed his arm like a discontent little boy.

  “Now, Slack. Don’t get your tits in a wringer. You remember last time I was here and I gave you a grown-up gun?”

  “Are you kiddin’ me, Toby. That was years ago.”

  “Might have been years ago but I still got bird shot in my ass.” The boys busted out laughing, Slack Jaw put his hands in his pocket and said, “Shit, Toby. If you ain’t gonna give me a gun you boys can go all by yourself.”

  “All right, Slack. We’ll get you on the wayside.” Toby motioned to the trailhead, and they started hiking toward a bluff, while Slack Jaw sat on the back of the pickup yelling obscenities, middle fingers in the air. When they got around the first bend, Slack Jaw jumped to his feet and ran after them. Tyler, with a shotgun suspended over his left shoulder, traipsed in front, next to Cole, while Toby explained the basics of quail hunting; Reaffirming continually, the dangers of handling a real gun.

  They spent the afternoon at Raven’s Peak hunting for quail, and after bagging enough for supper, they made their way down a single-track trail that wound around the side of a mountain and ended in a closed canyon. The chilly air reeked of Sulphur, and the algid air rose in a white mist above the pools of the hot springs that sat in the corner of the bluff. Three different pools at three different elevations, separated by a narrow single-track trail through the deadpan. Tyler and Cole had never seen anything like this, and their faces reflected their excitement. Beyond a meadow, there was a layer of fertile soil covered in grass and wildflowers that sloped from the base of the cliff down to a creek, where steam rose from three other pools.

  “T.D, are we going in?”

  “Yeah, but don't get your shorts wet. Strip down to your bloomers.” Tyler and Cole dropped their backpacks, stripped to their underwear and ran over to the biggest of the three hot springs.

  “Tyler check the water it’s probably real hot. We can divert water from the creek to cool it, if it’s too hot.”

  At the end of the bluff, a thirty-foot waterfall dropped from the spine of the ridge and created a small stream that snaked down, all the way to Raven’s Peak, that was still three-quarters of a mile away. On either side of the creek, three hot springs held crystal clear scalding water that bubbled up from the deadpan, up on the bluff, and gravity allowed the water to channel down into the natural pools. White Sulphur trails permeated and stained the deadpan in white calcified striations, and the water was parching, evidenced by the caul of steam that drifted up from each pool. T.D diverted water from the cold creek, and into the hot springs by building a small dam with rocks. The boys, Slack Jaw, Skeeter, and Hooch went in for a relaxing soak while T.D prepared sardine sandwiches on beer bread, which they devoured, along with jerky and pine nuts. T.D also brought redneck ale and water to wash down their supper, and after their bellies were full, the boys took turns standing under the waterfall, allowing themselves to cool down. Then, they jumped back into the hot springs, that were no deeper than three feet, to warm up.

  An hour in, tired from the day’s events, they found a spot next to Slack Jaw in the smaller of the three pools, where the water temperature seemed perfect. Hooch had fallen asleep in the pool, his bucket hat covering his face, blocking the late afternoon sun’s rays. Slack Jaw, with his legs under water, was sitting on the edge of the pool, on the hardpan, ale in hand. He looked at the boys and said, “You boys having fun?”

  “Gee, Slack. I don’t think we’ve ever had this much fun. We only wish our mom was here.”

  “You never know, boys. Maybe one day if Toby takes a likin’ to you, he’ll let you go see her.”

  “I’m not stupid, Slack. We know if T.D ever lets us see our mom they’ll put him in jail.”

  “Yeah, I reckon you boys are right.”

  “You know, Tyler. Make the best of this. T.D ain’t a bad person, he’s just a bit lonely.”

  Hooch pulled the hat from his face and squinted into the late afternoon sun, waking from his slumber.

  “Where did Toby go, Slack?” asked Cole.

  “Whenever Toby comes up here he likes to go to his special place.”

  “What place?”

  “Over at Raven’s Peak there’s a lookout where you could see all the way to Virginia.”

  “Why is it special?” asked Tyler.

  “I think it best he explain’ it to you, Tyler.”

  “Slack, when we were hiking, Skeeter told me about a fight you had in Virginia.”

  “Skeeter said that, Cole?” Slack Jaw turned his head and looked at Skeeter apoplectically.

  “Can you tell us about the fight, Slack?”

  “Maybe Skeet ought to declare it to you since his recollection seems to be so clear.”

  “I’ll be happy to spin that yarn for you boys,” said Skeeter.

  Hooch repositioned himself on the edge, Tyler and Cole slid close to Skeeter, and Skeeter said, “We was down in Garrison Ville selling Kentucky blue.”

  “What’s Kentucky blue?” Tyler interrupted.

  “Hoo
ch looked at Skeeter wincingly and said, “Its tobacco used for headaches and stuff like that, Tyler.”

  “You mean, Pot?”

  “Okay, Tyler. Pot.”

  “Anyway, there’s this bar in Garrison Ville called Bugsy’s.” Skeeter paused as T.D appeared over a grass laden hogback, from his three-hour excursion. They all watched as T.D slipped out of his garments and joined the boys in the spring, wearing only plaid boxers, exposing a sinewy six-pack, huge arms, and ropey muscle on his calves.

  “Hey, T.D. Slack Jaw’s telling us about the time he walloped some guys in a bar,” said Tyler, but T. D’s thoughts were far away. Aloof, he stared into nothing. Hooch laughed and said, “Did you say Slack Jaw walloped some guys in a bar, Tyler?”

  “Yeah, Hooch. That’s what Slack Jaw said.”

  “I want to hear this tall tale.”

  “I never said that. I said, I got into a scrap at a honky-tonk.” Those words suddenly roused T. D’s interest and he shifted his gaze to Slack Jaw.

  “Do I know this one, boys?”

  “No, Toby. You were in the willows,” said Skeeter.

  “Hold on, let me get an ale,” Toby said, and left the pool to grab a beer.

  “You boys need one?” he said standing by the cooler and pointing at his posse.

  “We’re good, T.D,” Hooch said, and T.D huffed it back. He slipped in the pool and settled in, his back against the side of the pool.

  “Shoot, Skeet. Can’t wait to hear this,” said T.D.

  “Anyway, we was down at Bugsy’s, in Garrison Ville hawking our product. Me and Hooch stayed in the truck while Slack went inside.” Skeeter paused to shoo a giant horsefly.

  “Slack wasn’t gone more than four or five minutes, and next thing you know four Jaspers are carryin’ Slack out. Two behind, two in front. They got him cradled, and Slack’s jawing them. I don’t reckon I heard what he was saying, but-”

  “Let me tell the story Skeet, your gummin’ it up.”

  “What were you saying to the Jaspers, Slack?”

  “I can’t remember exactly, it only matters what the Yanks said. When I walked in I seen these Angelicas dressed for prom, and Jaspers dressed like thoroughbreds. I’m wearin’ what I always wear, so I ain’t lookin’ like a fixture there, you know what I’m sayin’? I figure these Yanks hit the giggle weed pretty hard, and they look like they got more than a few Lincolns in their pockets”, he mused. “So I reckon I can get more juice from these polecats— you know, cuz they're dressed like their goin’ to a funeral and all.” He chuckled. “Now, I ain’t even spoke to no one yet, and these four Yanks walk over and tell me I ain’t welcome there, so I pull out my Arkansas toothpick, and hold it out in front of this pritsy Nigger that’s standing next to three blue legs. I ask the Yanks if they're havin’ a jackoff contest, and I tell um’ to take a flying fuck into a rolling Donut cuz I figure their yellow, like most Yanks.” Slack Jaw stops to chuckle and swats a giant horsefly.