River Rocks: A West Virginia Adventure Novel

by Steve Kittner

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  Josh grinned nervously from one side of his mouth and shook his head.

  They stepped out into the clearing a little more to get some distance from the cat and, once again, looked around to see who it was that had saved them from an early grave.

  Eddie looked around and then looked at Josh and turned both palms up in disbelief, shaking his head.

  “Where would they have gone?” He asked.

  There was a pause.

  “Over here,” a big, deep voice boomed.

  Josh and Eddie’s heads whipped around to an area one hundred and eighty degrees from where the gun had been fired. They gasped in unison.

  “Just makin’ sure I don’t need a second shot!” the big man said in a low, growling tone.

  About twenty yards from them stood a huge, burly, bearded man with a muzzleloader that must have been seven feet long. Josh glanced back at the cat and then quickly back to the big mountain man that now stood near them. It puzzled the boys how the big guy had moved a hundred feet without them hearing one stick break from beneath his heavy feet.

  The shooter took on the presence of a bear. He was a large man with slightly bulging eyes and a large round head and face. He was barrel-shaped and must have gone three hundred pounds. His hair was long and black with silver, and his beard was the same. His eyebrows were thick and nearly uni-brow and his skin was olive in color.

  He wore a huge, long duster that fell to his knees and dark work pants and shirt underneath. Eddie thought this unusual for the summertime, but of course, didn’t say anything.

  “They’ll fool ya, ya know. Lay there ‘til you turn your back and then make a last jump at ya.”

  Josh and Eddie looked back at the big cat that lay motionless and quickly stepped well away from it.

  “Oh, he’s dead. I got a good clean shot.” He paused. “Didn’t want to do it but I didn’t want to haul two dead boys off the mountain either.”

  The boys’ breathing was just beginning to relax and their minds were taking in all that had just happened to them as the big man stepped out of the weeds and into the clearing.

  “We…really appreciate the good aim…sir,” Eddie said.

  “Otis. Burl Otis is the name.”

  Josh and Eddie looked at each other in disbelief.

  Burl Otis walked over to where the boys were standing. He towered over them. The boy’s eyes widened as he stuck out a hand that looked like a bear paw. Each boy shook his hand.

  They couldn’t believe it. All the research and all the deciphering and all the hunting and they just run right into him in the middle of the woods. Not only that, he saved their lives!

  “What are you boys doing up here anyway? It’s not the best camping hill around,” he said, with a look of inquiry.

  “Well…we thought…uugh…we like to rustic camp!”

  Burl Otis gave them the look of a man who won’t be fooled. He paused and looked around and then looked back at the boys.

  “Ya know boys, this ain’t the only cougar in these hills. And Tater Holler is pretty famous for its bear, too. Has a lot to do with the rough terrain, ya know. Steep hills, lots of caves and places for these big guys to hide.” He looked at the boys. “You shouldn’t be up in here in a tent at night.”

  The boys looked around at the darkening sky and shrugged.

  “We don’t have time to get off the mountain, now,” Josh said. “We gotta stay up here.”

  “Hmmm,” Otis grunted. “Well then, you’re just gonna have to stay at my place. You can sleep in the old bunkhouse.”

  Josh and Eddie looked at each other and, with a nod of approval, Josh decided to go ahead and spill the beans.

  “Mr. Otis, uugh …we actually… umm…came up here… to find you and…talk to you about something.” Josh smiled nervously.

  The big cat gave another jerk behind them. All three looked over at it. The big man walked over to the cat that now lay dead, grabbed him under his front legs and threw him over his left shoulder. Both boys gasped in amazement.

  Burl Otis gave them a wry smile as if he already knew why they were up there and turned to step towards the path that would lead them to his house. The original Tater Holler Homestead.

  “Follow me, boys.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Brad Radcliffe heard a rustling in the brush behind him as he reeled in his line to re-cast and reposition his bait. He smiled when he saw Tiny Brooks emerge from the brush, pulling sticky burs off his pants as he stepped onto the small, sandy area, where Brad had dropped the boys off just a couple of hours ago.

  “Ya doin’ any good?”

  Brad reached down and lifted up a stringer that was tied to his raft with three nice catfish on it, each about three pounds.

  “Yeah…nice. I knew there were some nice ones down here below the shoals. I hear there are even trout in here,” Tiny said. He continued looking at the fish with a wide grin, white teeth contrasting against his dark brown face. “Got enough for dinner,” he laughed.

  Tiny walked on down to the water’s edge.

  “I ain’t never seen a trout come out of here, Tiny.”

  Tiny winked at Brad and said, “We’ll get some salmon eggs and give it a try sometime.” They shook hands.

  Brad knew that Tiny would take him to school on trout fishing and he would look forward to it very much. Freshly caught trout cooked on a riverbank fire with butter and lime and maybe a little fresh dill weed. It was a West Virginia delicacy. It was a delicacy anywhere, really.

  “I decided to take a walk down here and help ya get this thing back up through the shoals.” He paused for a moment looking out at the river. “Let’s get back upstream before evening falls and the wind dies,” Tiny said.

  “Man I appreciate it. We have a nice breeze…let’s do it!”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Brad once again reeled in his line and placed his fishing rod and tackle box back on the raft.

  “I was thinkin’ about rod holders and a permanent mounted box for over here to hold my stuff,” Brad said. Brad was still very proud of his vessel and was full of ideas of how to fix it up even better.

  “You could troll off the back of it if you had rod holders back there,” Tiny suggested.

  “Hmm.” Brad liked it.

  Tiny stepped on board as Brad untied the line and prepared to set sail. Brad took the long pole in both hands and moved toward the middle of the boat to shove off. With one good push Brad had the two of them off the sand and floating back out into the river. Brad gave Tiny the full tour of the boat and the quick rundown on how to hoist and set the sail. As they drifted out past where the trees hung over the water they felt the breeze on their faces and Brad said, “OK Tiny, hoist sail!”

  Tiny Brooks pulled on the line that stretched the colorful sail all the way to the top of the sturdy mast. He then tied off the taught line to a homemade cleat secured to the edge of the raft. The sail still hung limp.

  “Now, while I hold the tiller, spin that lower boom around to where the sail faces right over there, right where the wind is coming from.” Brad pointed. “Then tie off that line when I tell you.”

  Tiny did what the Captain said and, as he turned the boom, the sail filled and Tiny could feel the raft begin to accelerate ever so slightly. The boom line he was holding started to slip through his hand and he squeezed it a little tighter.

  ‘OK. Tie it off!” Brad said.

  Once again Tiny followed orders and Brad pulled hard over on the tiller to begin their upstream sail. Brad locked the tiller in a straight ahead position and picked up the pole to help the raft along. It only took gentle poling to help propel them upstream at a respectable pace. Tiny, standing on the bow of the raft, turned his head around and once again flashed his great smile, giving Brad his endorsement on a job well done. The summer breeze pulled hard on the sail and Tiny was quite impressed. Brad was smiling, too.

  As they approached the shoals, Brad pointed t
o the gap and explained the strategy for crossing the shoals. Tiny would be on his knees, just as Josh had done, directing and calling out depths and dangerous rock sightings, and Brad would steer and pole when needed. A certain amount of steering could be done by using the pole as well as the tiller.

  The crossing went flawlessly as they popped out of the upstream side of the shoals without a single milk jug dragging bottom.

  “Ya know Bradley, If you are going to plan on traversing these shoals very often, it might be worth our while to spend a day down here moving rocks and rigging up a couple of homemade buoys to mark the channel. Make it about a foot deeper.”

  Brads eyebrows flew up. “That’s a great idea, Tiny. Did you say it might be worth our while?”

  “I’ll help ya out with it. Sure.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  Tiny smiled and nodded his approval.

  “Did you call me Bradley?”

  Tiny Brooks grinned and looked toward the shore where a turtle was sunning himself. He thought about what a nice perspective it was to be out on the water looking back at the riverbank. Everything looks different from out here. He had lived along these banks all his life and sure, he had been out on a boat many times, but it was almost like being on stage, people watching you drift by until you got out of sight, especially when you were on a milk jug raft! He was enjoying himself very much on this big, roomy vessel. Tiny thought about how it would be if Brad had a motor on the raft but no, this was better. This was peace and quiet. No artificial noise could be heard down here on the river. Just the wind in the sail, that’s all. Who’s in a hurry anyway?

  Of course the speed was a little slower going back upstream but not much. Brad wondered what kind of speed he could get going downriver with the sail up and the wind at his back. Might be fun to try sometime. Downstream and downwind at the same time! Fun!

  Tiny and Brad carried on a lot of conversation on the trip and Brad soaked up a lot of wisdom from the old river man. They talked about fishing, trapping, baseball, girls, and they talked about Brad’s father, who Tiny knew of and knew of his problems. Brad opened up to Tiny, who by now seemed like an old friend, and Tiny listened when he needed to and gave advice when it was appropriate. It’s amazing what a drift on the river will do for a bad attitude or a bad problem.

  As they floated along, both river men heard the thunder of a gunshot somewhere behind them and way up in the hills. A fairly common sound in these parts. Just one shot, a clean shot most likely from a hunter with good aim.

  Brad’s landing was in sight and both of them repositioned themselves to begin their approach to shore and to start readying the lines to drop the sail at just the right time. Tiny’s eyes caught something moving at the top of the bank at about the same time he heard the unmistakable hum of a golf cart. He then heard the click of the locking brake.

  Sheriff Collins sometimes liked to cruise the neighborhoods of his jurisdiction on his city-owned golf cart to try to spot infractions of the law that may be a little harder to spot if he were in his cruiser. Boat licenses, or garbage violations or maybe truancy. ( Boys around here liked to ditch school and go to the swimming hole late in the school year.) There weren’t too many hard crimes going on in this area, so occasionally city officials had to assign each other “busy work” when there was no other work to do.

  Collins looked down at Tiny and Brad with his hands on his hips but said nothing while his cart sat parked on Riverview Drive. He studied the craft without moving for a couple of minutes and Brad was worried that there might be a question about the legality of such a vessel. Like I don’t see a DOT sticker anywhere…ya got a license for that contraption?

  But Collins said nothing as he stood there staring from behind his Fossil sunglasses. As quickly as he appeared, he left. Brad and Tiny just looked at each other and shrugged.

  Collins didn’t realize it at the time, but he had just learned and seen with his own eyes how Josh Baker and Eddie Debord had made the trip downriver to a point where they could hike up the mountain, meet up with a man named Burl Otis, whose name they got from Collins’ very office, and gain loads of knowledge on the very subject that was his own obsession, a huge pile of gold that was, according to legend, somewhere under his feet in his very own town.

  Brad and Tiny secured the raft for overnight and the two had a brief parting conversation about what time to meet tomorrow for a day of dredging the Elk River by hand to clear a path for frequent raft traffic through the shoals below the bridge and into trout country. They shook hands and departed, both smiling from the positive mental effects of a beautiful river cruise on a beautiful day on a beautiful milk jug raft! Brad was carrying what he hoped would be tonight’s dinner on a stringer over his shoulder as Tiny took one more glance up the bank where Sheriff Collins had been just a few minutes ago.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The path led the three along the ridgeline and snaked its way around briar patches and thick underbrush. It was a pretty well-worn path that apparently Mr. Otis knew well, having shared it with the deer, bear and mountain lions over the years.

  Otis paused for a second, looking up into a hickory tree at one of the biggest red squirrels he had ever seen. He thought about his gun but he only had a slug bullet in it. If he hit the squirrel with it there would be nothing left to eat! Without putting the cat down, he then looked down at the ground and picked up a stone about the size of a tennis ball. Josh and Eddie looked at each other, a bit puzzled. Otis took the rock, reared back and flung it with the steam of a major league pitcher at the big red squirrel on the limb of the hickory. The rock missed by only about three inches and then powered on through the trees and way, way over the hill before coming to a landing down in the holler. Otis turned and looked at the boys and shrugged one shoulder.

  Josh and Eddie looked at each other and new that it was Burl Otis who threw the rock down at the river’s edge, most likely to try to dislodge another huge squirrel from its perch on a limb high up in a hickory tree. The two friends also figured that Otis had spotted them and watched them as they traversed up the hill and, luckily, had been there to take care of Mr. Cougar for them. He saved their lives but they would need to get to know this man very carefully. Maybe he could be mean and nasty like Collins had said. But what an arm! And what a great shot!

  They walked about a mile along the top of the hills, the boys enjoying beautiful vistas and perspectives of where they lived that they had never known before. The path then began a gradual slope down over the right side of the ridge that led them down to a bench or shelf on the side of the hill, an area where the hillside flattened out to create a perfect piece of land for a home site.

  Josh and Eddie could see the cabin from the top of the slope before they even dropped down over the side of the hill. It was a remarkably crafted log home structure. Not huge, but big enough to raise a family in. The wood was grayed with age and the three inches of mortar between each log looked beautiful in contrast. As they got closer to the home, Josh noticed that each end of every log was dovetailed to interlock with the next one on top of it. It was a well-built home, built by someone who knew how, many years ago.

  As they stepped off of the path and into the naturally wooded yard, the two boys looked around to try to take it all in.

  The Tater Holler Homestead looked like a pioneer village. It could have been a stage set with period actors walking across the yard making apple butter in a huge black pot on an open fire outside, or a blacksmith demonstrating how to prepare a horseshoe for mounting.

  But there was none of that. This was a real, old-fashioned settlement house that hadn’t changed much in a hundred and fifty years with no real road that came to it. If you wanted to get here, you had to do it the hard way! Hike. There were paths off the yard in all directions.

  Burl had a large barn about thirty yards from the house that was also constructed of log, as well as a couple of sheds used for storing farm-type equipment for clearing land and being self-suff
icient. Josh spotted what must be the bunkhouse, a wood structure that stood to the side of the house built up on stilts about five feet high, with strong wooden steps leading up to the entry door.

  On the other side of the house Eddie noticed a well, complete with stone work and a little roof structure built over it. Hanging from the roof structure was a bucket for hauling up water. Josh pointed out to his friend about fifteen raccoon hides tacked to the side of one of the sheds, stretching and drying in the warm air.

  All the things that one would expect to see at a frontier settlement could be seen here; a horse drawn plow, a small blacksmith shop, a burn pile, and a house with a big shady front porch. As rustic and old fashioned as it was, the boys loved it. The whole, entire place was nicely surrounded with huge oak and maple trees that gave the house and yard shade and protection from the wind.

  “Well, this is it. Nothin’ fancy, but I call it home,” Otis said, laying down the 140-pound cat for the first time since he threw it over his shoulder.

  “It’s awesome,” Josh replied, looking around.

  Otis grinned at the boys.

  “You can throw your stuff on the porch if ya like. I’m gonna carry in a little wood for a fire.”

  “OK”

  Eddie said, sort of whispering, “This guy seems cool. Everybody said he was grouchy and mean but he seems OK to me.”

  “He was nice enough to let us spend the night. I think he’s ok.”

  “Glad of that!”