by Davis Bunn
“Pick me out a winner, Poppa Joe,” the boy said.
Duke explained to Nathan, “Never did meet a man who could spot a prize hunting dog like Poppa Joe.”
“A winner ain’t just in the picking, boy,” the old man said. “You got to put in lotsa hard hours training him.”
“I will, Poppa Joe.” Hank’s voice was solemn as his eyes. “I promise.”
“All right, let’s see now.” He moved the puppies about like he was stirring a pot, pushing them, watching them move, stroking a gentle finger down their backs.
One of the puppies began following the finger as it moved, batting it with one timid paw. Poppa Joe picked him up, cradled him for a minute. “Need to let the fellow know your scent. No dog is raised up good with lessons alone. You got to give him love, and lots of it. Like little boys in that way, ain’t they.”
“I’ll give him love every day, I promise, Poppa Joe.”
“Fine, son. That’s just fine.” He stroked the puppy’s muz- zle, then set it down. Again the dog tried to hunt the hand, giving a high-pitched bark when it moved. “Feisty little fellow. Now let’s see if he knows how to mind.”
Poppa Joe stiffened his fingers and moved with lightning speed, popping a hand down on the hind quarters. The little dog squeaked its protest, but sat down. Poppa Joe moved his hand out in front of the dog’s eyes, keeping it there. Nathan observed the heavy tremor which the old man could not control. The puppy sat where he was, head cocked to one side, and gave a tiny whine.
Poppa Joe rose slowly. “That there looks like a good’un to me.”
Hank scooped up the puppy and held it close to his chest. “I’m gonna call him Duke. Like my uncle, ’cause he’s my very best friend and he’s promised to teach me hunting.”
The tall young man said gently, “What do you say, now?”
“Thank you, Poppa Joe. Thank you, Uncle Duke. This is the bestest present I’ve ever got in my whole life.”
“That’s good, son. That’s good. Now pick up those other puppies and put them back in the tub.” Poppa Joe straightened with the stiff motions of the very old. He dusted off his trousers and said to Duke, “You got a good hand with the young’uns, son. When’re you getting around to starting a family of your own?”
Nathan watched Duke cast a nervous glance over to where Connie was kicking another pebble. “Been thinking about that very thing.”
Poppa Joe gave a single nod of approval. He then turned to Nathan and said, “I ain’t heard talk of any family, Mr. Nathan.”
“I’m not married, sir.” It seemed incorrect to call such a stately man Poppa anything. “Never had the time.”
“Ought to make yourself time for that.” The strange mix of gentle strength robbed the words of any sting. “World can be a hard and lonely place without family.”
Connie spoke up for the first time since receiving news of the truck. “This from a man who’s been alone more years than I’d care to count.”
“God granted me the perfect wife,” the old man replied, clearly untouched by his niece’s ire. “He gave us nigh on forty perfect years together. I don’t know why He chose to take her from me, but He did. Mavis in memory is a finer thing than ever a second wife could be in body.”
Hank used his free hand to pluck at Duke’s sleeve. “Would you ask him, Uncle Duke?”
“You got yourself a voice, boy. Ask him yourself.”
He cast Poppa Joe a shy look. “But he might say no.”
“Never know until you try. Go ahead, now.”
The boy swallowed. Nathan found himself staring at something he had not seen in years—a child struck by hero worship. “Poppa Joe,” the boy stammered.
“Yes, son.”
“Sir, will—will you show me your shootin’?”
The old man was about to say no. Nathan could see it in his face. But then he looked not at the boy, but at Nathan himself. A single piercing glance, before he said, “Don’t see why not.”
The boy gave a little jump of delight, causing the puppy in his arms to squeal in alarm.
“Careful, now. Hand your dog to Duke. Connie, honey, think maybe you could find a soda pop bottle and my gun up in the house?”
She said nothing, just turned and walked up the steps. When she was inside, Poppa Joe asked more quietly, “Is her quarrel with the doctor or with you, Duke?”
“Me,” Nathan said. “I’m sorry that—”
“No sir, Doc, you got that one wrong.” Duke inspected his hunting boots. “I was gonna ask you about that too, Poppa Joe, but what with her showing up like this . . .”
He let his voice trail off as Connie reappeared carrying a glass bottle, a long-barreled rifle, and a box of shells. She handed them to her uncle, shot Duke a fiery look, and strode back a ways. Duke offered the ground at his feet a weary sigh.
Poppa Joe looked from one to the other, then turned to the boy and said, “Son, run this here bottle out and set it on the corner post back there by the woods.”
The boy took the bottle, started away, then realized what he had just heard. He pointed and said, “That post out yonder, Poppa Joe?”
“Looks like a good one to me.”
The boy turned and looked at his uncle. His eyes were round moons. Duke said mildly, “Let me have the puppy. All right, run on, now.”
“But, Uncle Duke, that’s—”
“Go and do what Poppa Joe said.”
“Yessir.” Hank scampered off.
Only when the boy was halfway across the broad meadow did Nathan understand. The boy ran down the length of a ramshackle split-rail fence, headed for the last post. It was so far away that by the time Hank got there, all Nathan could see was the dark head bounding through the tall grass. Carefully the boy reached up and steadied the bottle, then turned and waved and sped back. Poppa Joe did not look in the boy’s direction. Not once.
His eyes on the sky and the sunlit horizon, Poppa Joe said, “Mr. Nathan, think maybe you might like to stay up here with me a night? Evenings can be right pleasant up here in the hills.”
Nathan already had the polite decline formed and in his mouth. Then he caught sight of Duke’s expression. The young man was looking at him with something akin to awe.
Once more he felt caught up in things he had no understanding of. Yet there was something else now, a whisper as gentle as the afternoon breeze, a sense of being offered something priceless. Nathan found himself thinking of the old man’s gaze, and almost in spite of himself, he said, “I’d be honored.”
“That’s good. That’s real good. Duke, why don’t you bring yourself back up tomorrow morning, give the doc here a ride back down to town.”
“Sure, Poppa Joe. Glad to do it.”
He pitched his voice slightly higher. “You hear that, daughter?”
“I’m hearing. But I’m sure not understanding.” Connie put her hands back on her hips. “Why on earth would you have a stranger up here, when you won’t even see friends you’ve known all your life?”
“Just offering the doc here a little homespun hospitality. Ain’t nothing the matter with that.”
Connie shook her head, allowing her shoulders to droop. Nathan found himself sensing her confusion and defeat, which was very strange, for he had not felt anything except his own distress for a lifetime and more. Yet he did, and found a rightness there as well. What else could possibly be his first shared feeling other than the same confusion and defeat which had so scarred his own past few years.
Nathan found himself wishing there were some way to cross the gap between them, to step over to her and say something of comfort. But the act was beyond him. The moment and the sense of sharing was just too new. So he stood and watched as Connie walked to the car and opened her door.
Connie halted with one foot on the doorsill and called back over, “I’ve got to go to Richmond tonight. Something’s come up.”
“You have yourself a good trip, daughter.” Poppa Joe rammed back the bolt-action lever. Then he had trouble
picking a bullet from the box and fitting it into the barrel. His hands shook so that Nathan could hear the bullet rattle and scratch across the metal. “Don’t work yourself too hard, mind.”
Connie did not respond. She just stood there, leaning against the door. Watching.
Poppa Joe waited until the boy had returned and caught his breath. “All right, son. Now tell me what kinda wind we got ourselves here.”
“Yessir, Poppa Joe.” Hank dropped to his knees. His brow furrowed with concentration, he lifted a bit of earth and crumbled it, watching carefully as it drifted down. “Ain’t hardly any at all, Poppa Joe. Just a little from the north.”
“Yep, ain’t much now. But you watch. Gonna be a blow tonight, and tomorrow we’re gonna wake up to winter. North wind, he always starts quiet like. Moves like a big old hawk, riding the currents, silent and crafty and carrying death in his claws.”
Nathan squinted and looked back at the bottle. It seemed impossibly far away, a tiny shard glimmering jewel-like on the distant post. He glanced back at the old man. As far as Nathan could tell, the old man had not glanced once at the distant post.
“You want to hunt these hills, son, you got to learn more than just how to track.” Poppa Joe took a step towards the awe-struck boy, his walk as palsied as his hands. “You got to learn the mountain’s ways. You got to have respect for God’s creation, and learn the lessons He done wrote in the earth. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Yessir, Poppa Joe, I’m a’hearing.”
The sense of timelessness Nathan had been feeling ever since his arrival gathered and grew in force, focusing down upon the moment. Nathan felt caught in an amber of immortal power. He was able to sense everything, capture it in sensations he knew would take ages to digest.
“God is all around us. He walks these hills Himself, and you can walk with Him, if you only learn the way. You got to be quiet, not with your mouth, but quiet with your mind. You got to be reverent in these hills, ’cause they’re God’s home. He gave them to us for a time, but make no mistake, they’re His and His alone.”
Everything seemed full of silent import. The way the tips of the grass breathed in unison, the slight chill spicing the afternoon sunlight, the way the young man and the boy hung on every word Poppa Joe spoke.
Poppa Joe looked down at the gun in his trembling hands. “We hunt and we eat what we take from God’s bounty. But it ain’t the hunting that’s important. It’s what we bring with us when we come, and take back with us when we leave. You remember that. God calls us to give our lives meaning. We do that by living with respect and love, for creation and for our neighbor. And whenever you’re blessed with time up here, you treat these hills like you would a church. ’Cause God lives here. Make no mistake about that.”
Then it happened. One moment the hands were shaking and holding the gun down at his waist, almost in offering. The next moment and the shot had already rung out in the still air. Nathan had not even seen the rifle move.
He felt himself jump with the shock of how swift it had happened. Glass shattered in the distance like faint chimes.
The mountains applauded the feat, great booming echoes back and forth from hillside to hillside for an impossibly long time.
Poppa Joe lowered the rifle, opened the bolt, blew out the plume of smoke from the barrel.
“Doggone!” The boy cried and jumped and pulled at Duke’s sleeve. “Did you see that, Uncle Duke? Did you see that?”
Poppa Joe waited until the boy’s shining eyes had returned to his ancient features, then he said, “You remember what I told you, son. These hills is God’s home. You be sure and give His gift a worthy meaning in your young life.”
Ten
By the time Connie came down the mountain, the Saturday afternoon was gradually giving way to a goldenhued evening. Connie spent the entire drive to Hattie’s house mentally haranguing the doctor. And her uncle. Which even she had to admit was a little bizarre, since there were far more pressing problems awaiting her in Richmond. Not to mention the reason she was going by the Campbells’ house this particular evening.
But her mind remained fixed on those men and their clannish gathering. She had felt utterly isolated, just some outsider good only to step and fetch.
What was far worse was how she had lost yet another argument with Nathan Reynolds. Connie gave an irritated shake to her head, forcing her hair back behind her shoulders. Well, it was the last time he’d ever have a chance to get the better of her. She would never go back to that clinic. Not even if she were bleeding from a dozen holes, she would not see him again. Nossir. Not even if her life depended on it.
She came over the rise and pulled into the Campbells’ drive and turned off the engine. And she sat there. Because she realized then she had no idea what on earth she was going to say.
Like a lot of the older hillside homes, the Campbells had added on to what once had been a log-and-slat cabin. Theirs had been done with taste and concern, each subsequent generation adding modern features and a bit more room. The original cabin was now the living room, a jutting front section whose forward-facing wall now held a grand plate-glass window. The walk leading from the drive to the front door was paved with the same Hillsboro stone that supported the two brick arms stretching out from the cabin.
More stone formed the corner joists and chimney. The result was a house of character, one that drew stares and slowed cars. Connie had often stared herself, especially on evenings when the front curtains were flung back and she could see figures moving about inside. And she would wonder how it might have been, had she argued less and listened more, both to Chad Campbell and to her own heart.
Back when Connie was young, she had thought the whole world waited and beckoned from just beyond the reach of the next valley. After her parents had died in a pile-up with a logging truck, her love of Chad Campbell had been just about the only thing that had tied Connie to the town.
They had dated all through Connie’s final two years of high school, and the closer she came to graduation, the more Chad had mentioned marriage. Connie had fought against it tooth and nail, frightened for reasons she only half understood. But the worst of their fights had not been about getting married. The truly cataclysmic battles had been over Chad Campbell’s dream.
Since childhood Chad had dreamed of opening a grocery store in the heart of Hillsboro. Back when Chad was young, his family had suffered every winter after snows had closed the road and Hillsboro’s only grocery had raised its prices. Even though Connie had known the reasons and agreed with them in principle, she still did not see how an intelligent man like Chad Campbell could hold to selling vegetables to cranky hillfolk as the dream of a lifetime.
They had spent at least part of every evening arguing over the future. Connie had been born with a restless spirit, turned raw and chafing by the events of her teenage years. Chad’s quietly stubborn mountain ways had driven her straight up the wall.
Perhaps even then she had known that to have taken the man from his home would have killed him, for Chad’s roots ran deep in the valley’s hardscrabble soil. Perhaps if she had truly loved him enough she would have heard all the messages this quiet man had never put into words. It was one of those questions which continued to attack her in the weak moments of many sleepless nights.
Double page spread of Campbell’s Grocery
Double page spread of Campbell’s Grocery
She had finally made it out of Hillsboro, winning a scholarship to study business administration at the prestigious regional college, William and Mary. But the longer she had been away, the more Connie had pined for the hills and the tiny valley town which before had left her feeling as though she could not breathe.
But just as she was working up the nerve to write Chad and tell him he had been right all along, she had received a wedding invitation. Chad had decided to marry Hattie, Connie’s oldest friend.
Hattie had always admired Connie and her spirit, yet had also realized that the valley was to be
the place where she lived and died. Hillsboro remained the only home she ever wanted, needed, yearned for. Connie had attended the wedding and listened to all the folks say they had never seen such a perfect match. The words had scarred her heart like a branding iron.
The day after his marriage to Hattie, Chad had taken every cent he could save, beg, or borrow and bought the old livery stable at the far end of Main Street. Over the double glass doors, up above where the striped awning kept the summer sun off the racks of fresh produce, the finely etched wording for Smith’s Livery and Horse Trading was still legible. That half-moon of wood was the only part of the entire place which had not been stripped down, repainted, polished, and spruced up until it was beyond all recognition.
A figure appeared in the Campbells’ doorway, one whose golden hair formed a halo around her shadowy form. Dawn left the comfort of her house and started toward the car. Connie’s heart ached at the sight of Dawn’s hesitant step. Ever since she had been old enough to walk, Dawn’s every hello for Connie had been enthusiastic, a sharing of the joy that welled up from within that bright-eyed little girl.
She was a child no longer. The young woman peered through the passenger door, studying Connie with an adult’s gaze. Finally she opened the car door and slipped inside.
Dawn sat there a moment in silence, and then said, “You were taking so long, I decided to come on out and make it easier for you.”
Connie swallowed down the sudden welling of longing for all that had been, and all that had never been granted a becoming. Her arguments were dust in the wind, scattered and gone. The only thing she could manage was a shaky, “Don’t do this, honey. Please.”