“You can’t see where you’re going with all the leaves on the trees,” Uncle Rufus said. “It was me, I’d wait till fall.”
“Can’t wait till fall,” I said. “We’ve got to do our clearing and digging in the fall before it gets too cold. I’ve got to blaze a route now, before fodder-pulling time.”
“You’ll get mighty hot climbing that far,” Aunt Willa said. “It must be twenty miles straight to Cedar Mountain, not counting the hollers and go-rounds. You take some biscuits and a canteen.”
“I can’t carry nothing but my hatchet,” I said. “I’ll be running too fast and trying to hold onto old Sue.”
The truth was I didn’t know how I was going to hold onto Sue except by her tail. I didn’t even know if I could run bending down like that. But it was the only way I had thought of to foller and let her have her lead. Wouldn’t do no good if I held her back, or if I lost her. It was going to be an experiment. I had no certainty my plan would work. The whole thing was based on what I’d heard at Kuykendall’s store on Christmas Eve.
I made sure my suspenders was buttoned, and I got my hatchet from beside the door. “Much obliged,” I said to Aunt Willa.
“Don’t gouge out your eye on no locust limb,” Aunt Willa said.
When I got to the pen, the sow was squealing with excitement and hope. She expected to be fed. But Sue was also like a good dog: she was always ready for adventure, ready to go someplace.
I had the sense a great event was about to happen. You know, son, how we all grandify things, imagine that on any given day we will do some little thing that will become history, that we are acting out a grand role even going to the outhouse or draining a puddle. I told myself I was in the hands of the future and what I did that day would be writ large across the mountains for decades if not centuries. Vanity is the weakness of all of us, and the downfall of many. But I don’t reckon anybody ever pushed hisself beyond the usual ruts without a certain amount of vanity. I was acting for my own memory, and I don’t think I would have worked so hard if I hadn’t been. I was working for love of your Grandma too, but they was some vanity bound up in that, and it wouldn’t be too far wrong to say they was all part of the same bundle.
As soon as I pushed the palings aside, Sue shot through fast as only a pig can be fast. I just had time to grab her tail and foller, half stumbling and half running.
“You come back and see us,” Uncle Rufus called. But I didn’t have time to answer because it was all I could do to hold onto the sow with my left hand and grip the hatchet in my right as Sue trotted past the woodshed and outhouse. Chickens scattered out of our way and a guinea set up its racket. We run right over Aunt Willa’s flowerbeds, and I felt my boots crush stems and petals. I’d have to apologize later, for they was no way I could stop.
Running half bent over, everything seemed a blur. They’s a menace and glory to late summer weeds, and they just seemed to be swirling and swishing around me, getting taller as we left the yard. Ironweed reached higher with its purple than the hogweeds, and thistle and Spanish needle reached higher than ironweed. Above them all was queen-of-the-meadow, just beginning to bloom. We swung through the tall weeds, knocking down stems big as cornstalks. I felt like I was being dragged through riots and explosions of green. Even the early light seemed green as it flew by me, tangled in leaves and stalks. I knowed the weed hell was full of snakes, and hoped Sue was scaring them away ahead of me.
Sue busted out at the edge of the cornfield and swerved in and out of the first row, knocking down a few half-grown stalks. For an instant I thought she was going to head back the way we had come the day before. After all, that was the way she knowed to go. And I couldn’t turn her away, if she did start toward Gap Creek and Chestnut Springs. My project would be ruined and I’d have to think of another way to survey my road. But at the end of the field, at the last moment, she plunged into the woods going north in the direction I assumed was Cedar Mountain.
“Whoa,” I said, hoping to slow her down a little. But she didn’t respond. She hadn’t been trained like no horse. I seen the trouble I was in. She could slide under the poplar limbs without slowing, and slip under brush that slapped me in the face. I ducked low as I could, still holding onto the tail. Limbs smacked me across the cheeks and ears. I was glad I had not wore a hat, for it would have been lost in the first hundred yards.
“Whoa,” I said, trying to shield my face with the hatchet in my right hand. Limbs rushed at me and I closed my eyes. A briar raked my knee, but I didn’t have time to look down to see if it tore my pants.
Them first few hundred yards was part of Uncle Rufus’s growed-up field. You know how bastard pines and blackberry briars will take over a patch when you turn it out. The stiff needles on the pines stung my neck and face. I was starting to get mad. It was like Sue was punishing me for driving her so far the day before. I thought she was like a woman that waited till she had you just the right place to get even with you, pay you back for a slight. She had me bent over and holding on. I was so mad I forgot and didn’t blaze a single tree until we reached the deeper, older woods where they was less undergrowth.
My plan was to mark the trees with the hatchet every few yards. Later I would come back and stake out the right-of-way. Even if I blazed one tree out of a hundred, I figured I could find the path we had follered. It was the general route I wanted to mark, not the foot by foot and step by step way Sue had gone.
Leaning over to keep my grasp on the sow’s tail, I couldn’t reach high on the trees to make my marks. All I needed was to make some noticeable cut. But it dizzied me to run bent over, and to reach up to hack the bark. I seen it was going to be harder than I had guessed.
“Whoa,” I said to Sue. “We’ve got all day.” But she didn’t pay no attention. She seemed to trot even faster to punish me. I had starved her and driv her near thirty miles, and now I was holding onto her tail. She lunged ahead like a horse in harness. With every step she grunted and broke wind, and I had no choice but to hold on and smell her. I hoped she would empty herself out.
The hog lunged even faster into the brush. They was a clump of laurel bushes ahead and I wanted her to go around it. But she dove right through the limbs. It was all I could do to hold on and keep the branches from stabbing me in the eye. I didn’t have time to make no slashes on the laurels, but I didn’t need to, for we broke enough limbs just getting through to mark our passage.
They was an Old Field ahead. At least that’s what everybody called it. It was just a clearing of wore-out clay that had been there since anybody could remember. The Old Fields was here when the first settlers arrived. We used to say they had been farmed by the Indians and then washed away. Maybe they was places that had been struck by lightning too many times, or had poor soil to begin with. Or maybe they had been burned over in firehunting and washed away. The Indians hunted deer with fire. The dirt was just red clay covered with pebbles on stems of dirt and patches of broomsedge. They was a grave in the corner with rocks piled on top that was thought to be an Indian grave.
As we run through the brambles, the sow suddenly jerked to one side and flung me after her. I almost fell in the briars. Then I seen the head of a rattler, raising through the vines and broomsedge. It was a big old head, the shape of a tomahawk. I seen them eyes just gleaming. Without even thinking, I swung the hatchet and the snake’s head flew off into the weeds squirting blood and venom.
But we was running too fast to stop, and as we passed the coiled body the stub of the neck struck my leg hard as a man’s kick. I guess it was already aimed and the length of the body just continued the strike. It was like the body acted on its own.
The coiled snake would have filled a half-bushel hamper. Its middle was thick as the calf of my leg.
What’s that? No, I don’t think the Indians worshipped no rattlesnake or left the snake there to guard the field. No, sir. People talk all kinds of rot such as that. I’ve heard Indians respected rattlers because they give you warning. They had a story
explaining it was an agreement made with the king of the rattlers, that they never would bite an Indian without giving fair warning. Not like the sneaky copperheads. The rattlers, they said, had a noble nature.
Where my leg was hit by that snake it was sore, and I wanted even more to slow down. “Whoa,” I called to Sue, but she didn’t pay no attention. I wondered how much longer I could foller her. The sun was just coming up over the Gap Creek mountains.
I seen that even if I was to last the first hour, I’d have to do something different. I couldn’t keep going all bent over and jerked around, and flailing out to blaze the trees. I was already getting swim-head from the slinging around with my head down.
It wasn’t no good to pull back on that sow’s tail. It must have hurt her a little bit but she didn’t seem to care. She could jerk me along fast as she wanted. I run to one side, and I pulled back, and then I run to the other side. And I found out the hog run slower when I didn’t pull back. If I quit pulling, she stopped running so hard. By running faster, I encouraged her to go slower.
Son, you’ll find a lot of things works that way. The more you want something, the less the world wants to give it to you. By striving, you seem to turn the tide against you. It’s just human nature, and maybe a pig’s nature, to resist. People and hogs are a lot alike. I pulled and pulled back on that sow, and the instant I relaxed my hold she slowed. Otherwise I couldn’t have gone on another mile. The heat was starting to build and my neck and face itched from cobwebs and the rasp of limbs.
I tried to remind myself of the project I was undertaking, of the way we would level out a road on the route we was going. But it was hard to remember what I was up to in the heat of running and dodging limbs, that in the future wagons and carriages would be rolling by where we stumbled.
I heard dogs barking to my left, but I couldn’t see a thing when I turned that way. Dogs was one of the things I was most afraid of. Now a hog will defend itself against a dog. A wild hog, especially, will turn on a dog and cut almost any hound with its tushes. A hog has thick skin on its neck and shoulders a dog can’t hardly bite through, and a hog is so rounded a dog can’t hardly get a bite on it anyway.
Dogs can run a hog to bay. Though it wasn’t dogs hurting Sue that worried me most. After all, I had the hatchet and a man’s presence will make a difference. But if dogs started harassing her, she would be distracted from her path. My project would go all to pieces if she veered away, or turned to fight and forgot our purpose.
The dogs was getting closer and I wondered if they was on our trail. They sounded still off to the left, like they was coming to meet us. They was yips and rattling complaints, more like beagles than hounds.
When that pack of dogs come out of the trees, the first thing I seen was the dapple color of a beagle rushing in the undergrowth. The dog run right to Sue’s side and yelped.
Sue swerved and slung me after her.
“Get away from here!” I hollered. “Be gone.”
Two more beagles appeared out of the bushes. They ignored me and run right up to the sow yipping and bellering at her side. She turned and lunged at them and sent one of the dogs spinning with her shoulder. The others drawed back too.
“Get away, get away!” I yelled.
Three more dogs arrived and they was all under my feet as I run. I was afraid I was going to trip over them. I kicked out at the one nearest and caught him in the ribs. The beagles yelped and hollered like a gaggle of geese. They seemed to have forgot about whatever rabbit or fox they had been running. I wondered if they was a hunter with them. I didn’t relish being seen kicking somebody’s dogs, even if they was bothering me.
“Hie, hie!” I hollered. “Get away from here, get away.” But the dogs didn’t pay no more attention to me than if I was a gnat. I swung my hatchet but tried not to hit the dogs.
Sue was already veering off course. She was bearing right, away from the dogs. She would swing back to snap at a beagle and then bear further to the right. I wished I had a stick to beat the dogs away. If I hit one with the hatchet, it might kill it.
I had to think quick what to do. If we got too far off course, I’d have to give up the survey and try later. It would be a week before I could rest the sow for another attempt. And I was running the risk of ridicule anyway. I would be the laughing stock of the community if me and the sow got lost and had to wander out of the woods with no path blazed. No one would invest in a road if I was known as the “sow man” or the “hog follower.”
How could I face Mary and her Papa if my plan was ruined by a few beagles? How foolish it would sound to people, that a man had tried to let a hog show him the path of a highway. I swung my hatchet and hit a beagle on the back with the blunt side. It squealed and run off into the brush, but the others continued to harry Sue. I thought if we stopped, the dogs might back away. It was the fact that we was running away that made them chase Sue.
But I couldn’t stop Sue just by pulling her tail. I couldn’t even make her slow down. And she never responded to my voice. With the dogs at her heels she was running faster than ever. I was streaming with sweat and out of breath.
“Get away, get away!” I hollered at the beagles. I thought of killing them one at a time with the hatchet. But I couldn’t reach most of them without letting loose of Sue. Once I turned loose she would be gone. She would head off into the thickets and I would never catch up. And I wouldn’t know what route she took back to Cedar Mountain. She might not return. She might head out into the wilderness and go wild on the chestnuts and acorns.
All my plans seemed to be collapsing around those infernal beagles.
Suddenly Sue wheeled around, flinging me against a poplar. I hadn’t marked a tree in a quarter mile. She bared her tushes and faced the beagles. They was took by surprise and pulled back. They circled and barked as Sue lunged at one and knocked it yelping away. She wheeled and leaped at another. The others pulled out of range.
The beagles acted utterly shocked. They hadn’t expected to fight. They had been running for the thrill of chasing an animal that seemed to be fleeing.
Sue lunged again, then stood back to face her attackers. The beagles yelped and crossed in front of each other at a safe distance. Gradually the dogs quieted as we stood and watched them. Now we seemed entirely different. They couldn’t bear to look at us with their wet, sad eyes. After a few awkward minutes they shivered nervously, sniffing the air, and slipped away one by one into the trees.
Sue watched in triumph as the beagles retreated and vanished. She looked at the bushes to see if the dogs would come back. We was still in pretty level country and you could hear things moving in the undergrowth. She raised her ears and listened, still panting. Now everybody knows a hog sweats through its nose. Her nose was covered with drops big as dew on a fall morning. I never knowed how the drops on a hog’s nose could be so big and still hold together. They stood out round as marbles. Sue snorted and sweat flung off in all directions.
She had to make up her mind to keep going. They was no way I could prod her. I was tired already, and I figured she was tired. They was a little whisper in my ear that said to call it off and try again another day. Wait until the leaves has fell off and you can see further. Wait until the weather is cooler and the climb up the ridge will be easy. They hasn’t been a road up the Blue Ridge all these thousands of years, it said. It wouldn’t hurt to wait a couple more months. They’s no shame in turning back if you know you’ll try again in a few weeks.
If I turned back, I could be at Uncle Rufus’s in time for dinner. We’d set down to some new corn and new potatoes. It would feel good just to sit down. I felt like I’d spent a hard morning in the field, bent over to pull weeds or thin out hills of corn.
Sue looked from side to side of the little clearing we stood in. Things scratched in the leaves and rustled in the brush. It could be ground squirrels or birds, or the beagles still circling around us. Sue could smell what was out there if the air was moving. I was soaked with sweat, and sweat dri
pped in my eyes. When you stop running you always feel hotter than when you’re moving. It’s like the heat builds and catches up with you once you stop. It’s like the heat raises through your guts and bones into your head. I was boiling inside.
Sue looked to the left, and to the right. Then it was like she remembered in a flash what she had been doing. She wheeled around, jerking me behind her. I almost lost my hold. Maybe she satisfied herself the dogs was finally gone. Or maybe she remembered her pen on Cedar Mountain and the trough of cornmeal and slop.
She swung around and it looked like she had forgot the direction up the mountain. I couldn’t remember which way we was supposed to go without looking at the sun and looking through the trees for landmarks. The woods seemed the same on all sides. But after a couple of turns Sue straightened out and kept going. It was like it all come back to her, where she had been heading when the beagles appeared. She picked up speed and I followed, slashing a poplar with the hatchet as I run past. My tiredness and sweatiness seemed to fall away. It was like a headache had disappeared in a cool breeze. The woods stretched out toward home, and Sue seemed to know exactly where she was going.
The Bible says man was give dominion over the things of the earth, and I reckon that includes the soil itself. Even red clay can be carved and shifted around. Since I was a boy I had loved to make terraces in the field, to level out a band around the hill by cutting into the steepness and piling the dirt on the down side. We plowed a deep furrow and then plowed it again. And you had something level and regular in the uneven spill of the terrain. I love that look of something flat where everything else is rough and changing with the lay of the land.
A road is just a terrace across a slope, or across a swamp. It has to be wide enough and level enough for wagon wheels, and the grade has to be gentle enough for horses to pull big loads up, and hold back going down. A road is a kind of lever for moving a mountain, I used to say to myself. With the right grade the tallest mountain can be conquered. By swinging around and back the heaviest load can be pulled right to the sky itself and brought down on the other side.
The Hinterlands: A Mountain Tale in Three Parts Page 18