Some Dark Holler

by Luke Bauserman

  Ephraim peered inside. Dry leaves and other woodland debris littered the floor, making the single room look like the cavity of a dead tree.

  “I’m gettin' old and fat,” Manson said. He leaned against a hitching post, took off his hat, and fanned himself. Beads of sweat trickled down his face; even his bushy mustache had the sheen of perspiration. He studied the abandoned cabin, his nose wrinkling. “This place gives me the all-overs. I never could figure why Ol’ Wes Sherman chose to live out here on the backside of nowhere. I bet he kept a possum for a yard dog and owls in his henhouse.”

  Ephraim shuddered. Around Sixmile Creek, Wes Sherman was a legend. After the death of his daughter, the old man had lived a hermit’s life, claiming the woods surrounding his cabin, as well as all the game in them, as his own. No one bothered the old man—until the day they found him, wild-eyed, wielding a rusty shovel over Ezekiel Birdseye’s half-buried corpse. Wes said he’d caught the boy hunting on his “property.”

  The matter was settled without recourse to law. Wes was lynched. The Birdseye family led the execution and even provided a chicken dinner for the whole town afterward.

  Some folks said the ghost of the old man still haunted Butcher Holler.

  Down the hollow, behind the cabin, the hounds began keening and barking in rapid tempo.

  Ephraim smiled. “I reckon they got him treed, Manson! We best get down there.”

  At the bottom of the hollow, they found the men and dogs gathered around the base of a large chestnut tree. Peyton had his rifle at the ready. “Clyde chased it up there, boys. This one’s mine,” he said, motioning for the other hunters to step back.

  Ephraim forced his way through the squirming pack of dogs and lifted his lantern, casting light into the bare branches. Nothing stirred. His ears rang with the baying of the hounds. He squinted up and frowned. “You sure he’s up there?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” Peyton said. “I wasn’t ten feet behind Clyde when the coon went up.”

  Most of the dogs, Clyde included, were leaping up the trunk in a frenzy, but one of them remained apart from the pack. It was Manson’s hound, Lonnie, the oldest dog in the bunch. He stood a few yards away from the tree, sniffing here and there.

  One by one, the hunters grabbed their dogs and silenced them.

  “Ephraim, you see him?” Manson asked.

  Ephraim shook his head. “Just because Peyton saw him go up don’t mean he’s still there.”

  “Oh, he’s up there all right,” Peyton said. He shot Ephraim a squint-eyed glance, then scanned the branches.

  “My money’s on Ephraim,” Manson said. “I ain’t never seen someone hunt like he can. He can out-track a hound. And you ought to see him shoot! The boy knows how to put meat on the ground.”

  “I don’t see Ephraim running around with his nose on the ground,” Peyton said, winning a few chuckles from the group. “My money’s on the dogs.” He looked at Ephraim. “In fact, why don’t we make a bet on it, hound dog Cutler?”

  Ephraim’s throat clenched. What did he have that Peyton could possibly want? Certainly not his old rifle.

  “I’ll climb this tree and look for the coon, and you look wherever you think he went,” Peyton said. “If you find it, I’ll go home with you, skin him, and tack the hide on your smokehouse wall for you. If I find him, then you have to do the same for me.”

  Ephraim grinned. This was a bet he could make. He spat on his palm and stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

  Peyton looked at Ephraim’s hand, then spat in his own. “All right then.” He gripped Ephraim’s hand and shook.

  They broke, moving in opposite directions. Peyton went to the base of the chestnut and took off his hat, his slicked-back hair shining in the lantern light. He motioned to his older brother. “Come on, Silas, give me a boost.”

  Ephraim walked around the tree in a circle, studying the trunk. Manson was exaggerating his hunting abilities—he’d never out-tracked a hound—but he paid attention to everything in the woods. He had never been able to afford a dog of his own, so he’d learned to hunt without one.

  He studied old Lonnie, who still sniffed the ground by himself. What had pulled the old dog away from the rest of the pack?

  Ephraim walked over to Lonnie. “You smell somethin’, boy?” he asked, scratching the dog’s back.

  Lonnie pushed his nose into the fallen leaves, then peered into the darkness and barked.

  Ephraim heard a faint rustle. He lifted his lantern, and for just a moment he caught the gleam of a close-set pair of eyes.

  “Good boy, Lonnie,” Ephraim said. The coon must have run up the side of the tree and jumped off, landing here, several yards away. In their excitement, the dogs, and Peyton, had been fooled.

  Ephraim moved stealthily toward where he’d seen the eyes. Lonnie followed him, snuffling along an invisible trail. A few yards from the chestnut, they came to a collection of tombstones: the Sherman family graveyard. The stones jutted from the earth at odd angles, like broken teeth.

  The back of Ephraim’s neck prickled. I wonder if this is where Wes Sherman is buried. He held up his lantern. Underbrush popped on the far side of the graveyard; he turned in that direction. Eyes gleamed orange in the lantern light, and the coon chittered.

  Ephraim set the lantern on top of a tombstone and shouldered his rifle.

  Lonnie barked, sending the coon scurrying away through the graves.

  Ephraim lowered his cheek to the stock and glanced down at Lonnie. “Get him, boy!”

  Lonnie dashed into the graveyard with a howl.

  The coon emerged from between two graves and leaped onto a tree. Ephraim saw its shape, nothing more than a dark hump, scrambling up the trunk. He took aim and squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle cracked, and the coon fell into the underbrush with a crash. In the woods behind Ephraim, Manson Owens let out a whoop.

  The Cutlers’ old sway-backed mare, Molly, poked her head out of the lean-to on the side of the smokehouse as Ephraim and Peyton entered the yard. Ephraim heard his ma’s voice floating through the open window. As they neared the cabin, he made out some of her words: “—never forsake me.”

  His stomach twisted into a knot, and the excitement of winning the bet evaporated like his breath in the night air. Through the window he saw her, sitting in her rocking chair. She held something in both hands, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. The object glinted dully in the lamplight. Ephraim’s heart froze mid-beat. She was talking to Pa’s pistol again.

  Ephraim glanced at Peyton. He had to make his friend leave before he saw Ma. Folks around Sixmile Creek were already speaking of her sanity in hushed tones.

  Peyton held the dead coon up by the back legs, admiring it. “He sure is a big one. How old you reckon he is?”

  Ephraim looked back at the open window. Could he make it over to the window and shut it before Peyton noticed?

  “You don’t have to skin it for me,” Ephraim said. He held up the possum he’d shot on the way home. “I got to skin this anyway. I’ll just take care of both.”

  Peyton laughed and thumped Ephraim on the back. “Not a chance, Cutler! A deal’s a deal. You out-tracked my dog.” His eyes flicked to the cabin, and his brow furrowed. “Your ma left the window open. It’s gettin' a little cold for that, don’t you think?”

  Ephraim’s heart hammered against his ribs. “Uh, she believes in the benefits of fresh air. You bring your knife?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Good. Come on then,” Ephraim said, leading the way to the smokehouse.

  The smokehouse smelled of old wood smoke and briny earth. Ephraim wished he could shut the door and block Ma from Peyton’s view, but they needed the moonlight to see. They set their lanterns and the dead animals on a rough-cut bench that ran along the wall.

  “You goin’ to the stir-off at Lester Ewing’s place tomorrow?” Peyton asked. He laid the coon on the bench, pulled a knife from his belt, and cut a slit running the length of its belly.
/>   “No,” Ephraim said. He slapped the possum down and started skinning it. The sooner Peyton went home, the better.

  In the cabin, Ma started singing to the pistol in a high, quavering voice. “They stood in the moonlight nearby the gate. Goodbye my darlin’, I know you’ll wait!”

  Ephraim’s knife slipped, and he nicked his thumb. Blood welled up. He hissed between his teeth and squeezed the cut finger.

  “You all right?” Peyton asked.

  Ephraim nodded. “How ’bout you? You going to the stir-off?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ma’s singing swelled. “Oh, darlin’ believe me far over the sea. Through life and death so faithful I’ll be!”

  Peyton stopped skinning the coon and craned his neck to stare out the open door of the smokehouse.

  Ephraim’s throat felt tight. “They havin’ a dance?” he asked. The last thing he needed was for everyone in town to hear about Ma serenading Pa’s gun.

  “Huh?” Peyton asked.

  “They havin’ a dance? At the stir-off.”

  “They always do,” Peyton said, still peering toward the cabin.

  Ephraim peeled the hide off his possum. He hung it on a nail protruding from a beam in the roof.

  Peyton looked at the naked possum carcass in surprise. “You done already?”

  “Yep. You ’bout done with that coon?”

  “Not yet. I just got him cut down the back legs.”

  “Give it here. I’ll finish it up so you can leave.”

  Peyton shot Ephraim an annoyed look. “You think I don’t know how to skin a coon or somethin’?”

  “Once more he seeks the old garden gate. But he arrives, alas, alas it’s too late!”

  “Give it here!” Ephraim motioned with his bloody blade.

  Peyton rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, sorry if I was movin’ too slow. I don’t mind stayin’ to finish it.” He pushed the coon to Ephraim and folded his arms.

  Ephraim slapped the already-skinned possum down on the bench in front of Peyton. “Take that and go on home,” he said. “It’s late.”

  Peyton lifted the carcass by the back legs. “Did I do somethin’ to vex you?”

  Ephraim shook his head. His face felt hot. He drew his knife through the hide over the coon’s belly.

  Ma quit singing, but she kept humming the tune.

  Peyton shrugged and left the smokehouse. From the corner of his eye, Ephraim saw Peyton pause in the yard, possum dangling from one hand. He peered through the open cabin window, his head cocked.

  Ephraim gritted his teeth. “Peyton!”

  Peyton glanced back.

  Ephraim pointed the bloody skinning knife at him. “I said go on home now! You hear?”

  Ephraim finished skinning the coon and tacked its hide to the outside of the smokehouse. The warm skin grew cold beneath his fingers as he stretched it; he’d scrape it tomorrow.

  With the bare carcass in one hand, rifle and lantern in the other, he walked toward the cabin. Ma had quieted down. The soft creaking of her rocking chair was now the only sound coming through the window.

  Josiah Cutler, Ephraim’s father, had built the gaunt, two-room shack a year before his son’s birth. He’d intended the structure to be a temporary shelter, a roof to live under while he built a nicer home. But scratching out a farm in the canted mountain landscape had required all of Josiah’s strength, and so year after year, the Cutlers put off construction of a new home. Ephraim often wondered what life would be like if Pa hadn’t died.

  Without a doubt, Ma would be a different person.

  In the doorway of the cabin, Ephraim paused and studied his mother. The madness had crept over her gradually, like one season changing to the next. It was impossible to say exactly when it had started. He watched her lift a quivering finger and run it down the length of the pistol’s barrel. She was getting worse.

  “I got a coon,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

  He frowned at the sight of the cold hearth. Ma had let the fire die. Then he saw the empty wood box and kicked himself. He’d forgotten to fill it before he went hunting. How could he have been so thoughtless?

  He set his rifle and the possum on the table, ran to the woodpile in the yard, and returned with an armload.

  Ma looked up from her lap.

  “How’re you feelin’?” he asked as he carried the wood to the fireplace.

  Ma smiled. “I’m fine. The good reverend stopped by to see me before sundown.”

  Ephraim deposited the wood, then knelt by his mother and took her hand between his own. Her fingers were cold. He warmed them for a moment before returning to the fireplace and grabbing a fistful of kindling from a basket by the hearth.

  After creating a small teepee with the kindling, he struck a long match and held it to the thin pieces of wood. “What’d Reverend Boggs have to say?”

  “He counseled me in certain matters,” Ma said, still examining the pistol. “Left me with much to think on. He wants you to stop by tomorrow—said you should take some of his corn. He’s got more than he needs. You did a fine job plantin’.”

  The kindling ignited. Ephraim deftly stacked the logs around it and rose, dusting wood chips from the front of his brown wool shirt. “Well, that’s mighty kind of him, seeing as how he already paid me to plant it.”

  Ma rocked the chair in a creaking rhythm.

  The fire popped and crackled as it grew, filling the room with flickering light and shadow. Ephraim returned to the table, pulled his knife from its sheath, and began cutting the legs off the coon. Ma was silent as he worked—she often was. She had once been a robust woman, but he could hardly remember her that way now. Her flesh had sunk into her frame, creating hollows in her cheeks and neck where shadows pooled. And ever since the war had claimed Pa’s life, she’d taken to staying indoors, especially during cold weather.

  Ephraim peeled the backstraps off the coon. He sliced the meat into chunks and prepared a roux of flour and butter into which he chopped carrots, onion, potatoes, and cabbage. He put the meat in, hung the pot on the fireplace crane, and swung it over the flames.

  The fire soon turned to coals. When the stew bubbled in the pot, Ephraim opened the lid and stirred it. The dark stew filled the air with a savory aroma.

  He pulled a chair from the table to sit by Ma. She had drifted off to sleep in her chair, the pistol still resting in her lap. When he took it from her, the walnut grip of the Colt’s Army Model felt smooth in his hand. Toward the top and bottom he could still feel checkering that hadn’t worn away. He opened the cylinder, shut it again, and gave it a spin. He tried to picture his father carrying the gun, but only managed to summon the vague image of a soldier dressed in gray.

  After a while, Ephraim tasted the stew. Satisfied, he ladled some into a clay bowl, stuck a wooden spoon in it, stooped, and cupped his mother’s shoulder in his hand. “Ma,” he said. “Dinner’s ready.”

  They ate in silence. Ma drifted back to sleep with her bowl still half full. Ephraim removed it from her grasp and covered her with a quilt.

  An assortment of carved spoons and roosters whittled from sticks lined the mantel above the fireplace. The roosters’ tails, made from curled shavings left delicately attached at their bases, cast spiraled shadows on the wall. Seeing that one of the roosters had an unfinished tail, Ephraim pulled it from the mantel. He’d work on it, then go to bed.

  He pulled his knife from its sheath and set its edge to the wood.

  3

  Barefoot Nancy

  The morning came up sunny and clear, the autumn sky an uninterrupted shade of blue. Ephraim rose, made a breakfast of cold stew, then went about his chores, chopping wood and splitting kindling for the day. When he finished, he gathered several tow sacks, saddled Molly, and set off for town.

  Ballard Road ran down the slope from the Cutlers’ home to the settlement on Sixmile Creek. Ephraim kept Molly in the middle of the road, between the ruts cut by narrow wagon wheels. The mare’s hooves
clopped in the red dirt, and Ephraim bounced in the saddle. Goldenrod and joe-pye weeds bloomed yellow and purple alongside the dry pods of milkweed in the ditches.

  The settlement was a simple affair. At one end stood Coleman’s Dry Goods, Manson Owens’s forge, and a livery. On the other end, a single-room schoolhouse neighbored a large white church crowned with a wooden cross. Reverend Boggs lived in a slope-off house behind the church. Below it, on flatter ground, his fenced-in garden filled in the space between the churchyard and the cemetery.

  Ephraim made his way around the church, tied Molly to a hitching post, climbed the stone stairs to the reverend’s cottage, and knocked on the door. After a few moments, Reverend Boggs opened it.

  “Ah, good morning, Ephraim.” The reverend slipped his white shirt sleeve through the arm of a long-tailed black suit coat. “I just finished my breakfast, and here you are, half your day’s work already finished, no doubt.” He straightened his black cravat at the stand-up collar.

  “Yessir,” Ephraim said.

  The reverend laughed and clapped a fatherly hand on Ephraim’s back. “I would expect nothing less. Come, let’s see the fruits of your labor.”

  Together they walked to the split-rail fence that surrounded Reverend Boggs’s garden.

  “Did you know the apostle Paul was a tentmaker?” the reverend asked, leaning on the top rail.

  “No,” Ephraim said.

  “He lived by the sweat of his brow. Just like the Lord commanded Adam. That’s why I never take up a collection after my sermons. To do so would be priestcraft, a grievous sin.” He pointed to the garden and smiled. “And that’s why I’m blessed to know you, Ephraim. I never could’ve produced anything like this by myself.”

  Ephraim had planted the corn in the spring when the hickory buds were the size of squirrels’ ears. Now, inside the fence, the leaves on the cornstalks were turning brown. The ears inside would be dry, perfect for shell corn. Pumpkins and winter squash lay on the ground between the corn rows, and blackberry canes stood with thinning maroon leaves along the fence rails. The fertile, black soil here was a far cry from Ephraim’s meager scrap of dry dirt on Laurel Knob. In tending the reverend’s crops and his own garden patch, Ephraim had become painfully aware of the difference in crops produced by a barren slope and rich bottomland.