Ahead of us was a rock ledge, one of those that looks like the wall of a castle or some big battlement in a fairy tale. It rose way up through the trees. And they was a hollowed place at the bottom that looked like a den. The ledge reared so high I expected to see a flag flying on top. When we was almost under the wall I looked way up and seen this big cat on the rim looking down. At first I didn’t believe what I seen. It must be sweat or a drop of rain in my eye. Since I couldn’t stop, a limb interfered with my view, but the next second I could see again and that painter sure enough was up there, looking down on us.
You almost never seen a painter in the daytime, even back then. I’d heard of black painters, but every one I’d seen killed was kind of tawny yeller. The cat on that cliff looked smoky, like it was shadowy and black at the tips of tail and feet. I knowed it had been watching us since long before I seen it.
I don’t think Sue had any idea the cat was up there. She wasn’t looking that way, and the smell couldn’t have drifted down. She charged through the brush finding her way at the base of the overhang. I think the cave there had been used by wild hogs. They was hog rocks all over the mountains back then. The dirt was all stirred up. Whatever it was had been scared away or eat by the painter. I didn’t have time to look for tracks.
What’s a hog rock? Why it’s a place in the woods where hogs gather, either wild hogs or hogs that are ranging for roots and mast before killing time. Hogs like a place that has some protection from sun and cold and wolves or painters. They like to find a overhang below a cliff where they can rest out of wind and partly shielded from rain. I guess every valley from here to Georgia had a hog rock back when so many hogs run loose.
But if Sue smelled any other hogs near the den, she didn’t show no sign. Maybe she did smell the painter and just hurried on.
I looked up again and didn’t see the cat at first. And then I seen it had moved along the rim of the cliff and was follering us, walking as we walked. It was pacing us. This was even more dangerous than the bear back at the long rock, not only because painters is more dangerous than bears, but because we was tireder. With the rheumatism in my shoulder I didn’t even know if I could lift the hatchet to hit anything. I was so tired it was like my feet was running on their own. They wasn’t nothing I could do to speed them up or make them stop. For once I was glad Sue didn’t want to slow down.
It must have been two hundred yards along the bottom of the cliff. At the far end they was a slick of laurel bushes. Once we got into that I couldn’t see nothing anyhow. And they was no way we could be quiet, knocking limbs and sending showers down on our backs. If the painter attacked, I figured he would go after Sue, and I could either hit him with the hatchet or run. If I hit him on the head maybe I could knock him cold, but who could hit a painter in the head with a hatchet, especially if it was rassling around with a sow? Uncle Rufus was right: I should have brought a gun. I should have tied a rope around Sue’s foot and the other end around my waist, and carried both the hatchet and a gun. But it was too late. I could have even asked somebody to accompany me with a gun. But I was embarrassed to ask anybody to come on that crazy expedition. And besides, it seemed better to do the survey myself and then announce that it had been done.
A painter likes to stalk its prey. I’ve heard of them follering a lone hunter or stray cow for miles before attacking. Painters like to wait for the right vantage from which to jump. I guess the cliff was too high. It was going to foller us and wait for a better opportunity.
You hear all these stories about a painter follering a hunter once he’s got blood on him, stepping in his tracks, running along the ridge above, climbing trees to look down on him until it’s ready to pounce. They used to be a story I’ve heard Uncle Rufus tell, about a pretty girl that had helped her aunt with hog killing, rendering out lard and making souse meat. After she worked all day, the aunt give her a new quilt, because she was betrothed to be married, and a package of fresh ribs and tenderloin for her family. It was coming on dark, and when she got up the trail she heard this painter on the mountain. It squalled, and jumped from tree to tree on the ridge above. She knowed it smelled the meat and the scent of cooking lard on her clothes.
First she dropped the meat on the trail, a piece at a time, but after the cat eat all that it still follered her. Next she dropped a handkerchief, and she could hear the handkerchief being tore to pieces. Then she dropped a sweater, and the big cat stopped to rip that to pieces while she hurried up the trail. She dropped one thing after another, and still that painter kept coming on after it tore the fabric to shreds. She thought the cat was going to get her finally, and was going to drop the new quilt. But just then the dogs run out from the clearing and she seen she was home. She dashed to the house while the dogs fought with the painter, but realized after she was inside by the fire where her family and fiancé waited that she didn’t have a stitch of clothes left. She wrapped herself in the new quilt.
It looked like all of creation was opposed to me building the road up through Douthat’s Gap. All day I had been confronting one difficulty after another. It looked like they wasn’t no hope I would ever be able to just survey the road. It was like God hisself had decided I didn’t have enough trouble. Like the preacher said, maybe God didn’t want no road into the mountains.
I would have give up then, except the very danger made giving up impossible. With the painter stalking I had no choice but to keep moving, and to hope that cat would turn back. Probably the painter had smelled the blood on my chin and beard and shirt.
You see a painter out in daytime so rarely they must have been something wrong. I don’t think I ever heard of anyone confronting one in the middle of the day. The storm must have woke it out of its den and riled it, or lightning touched it and made it crazy. Lightning had hit near and the big cat had been addled. That’s what I thought. That painter didn’t act normal.
They was sweet shrubs all around the end of the ledge, and Sue plowed right through them. The bushes was loaded with rain and bathed me again in cold water, waking me a little from my dread. I tried to tell myself that if the painter was going to attack it would have while we was under the ledge. Now that we was out in the open, it would have to run up behind us.
I heard a growl and looked back. The painter was follering us about fifty feet behind. It growled and whipped its tail side to side. They seemed to be slobber hanging from its jaws, and for the first time I thought it might have been bit by a mad dog. You don’t think of cats going mad. You think of dogs and squirrels and coons getting bit and going rabid. But that don’t mean cats can’t get bit too. I thought of a mad dog because of the way the cat walked. They was something about its lurch, about the way it walked partly sideways that reminded me of a mad dog. It looked curved somehow, like it was tending to go in a circle but stumbling to correct itself. I wondered if it had been blinded by the lightning and couldn’t see the trees and bushes, and was follering us by smell or maybe by sound.
If we stopped and didn’t make any noise would it stop too? It would have been worth trying to find out, but they was no way I could make Sue pause. She trotted on.
We crossed a little opening in the woods about seventy feet long. When we got almost across, in the sunlight that was now bright as ever, I looked back and seen the painter gaining on us. The cat run up to within ten yards of me. I raised the hatchet to defend myself, ignoring the pain of rheumatism. I thought if I could hit it between the eyes we might get away.
But the cat stayed about ten yards away. I kept walking and it was right behind. Its eyes looked crazy, like they was fevered and not focused. I’ve seen the eyes of drunk men look like that, like they’re looking off in all directions at once. I couldn’t even tell if it seen me or not.
I’ve heard people say if you peer into the eyes of a mad dog you can see the devil looking out at you. My Mama used to say a mad dog was demon-possessed and Satan was inside it. That’s why a mad dog couldn’t cross a stream. That’s why a mad dog was afraid of
water. It was suffering the fires and fevers of hell and wasn’t allowed to quench its thirst.
If that cat scratched me, or bit me, it wouldn’t matter if I killed it or not. I would get the rabies too. They would be no way to save myself if the slobber got into my blood.
I banged into a tree looking round and seen the cat had dropped back again. Then it fell on its belly and rolled over having some kind of fit. It wallowed in the leaves and kicked out in all directions, its paws brushing leaves and twigs.
Sue and me stumbled on through the undergrowth. I hoped the painter wouldn’t be able to get up, that it would be so confused it wouldn’t remember which direction we had gone. I knowed that a mad dog couldn’t cross a branch or stream of any kind. I’ve heard that even a mud puddle will stop a mad dog and it will lay down and have fits. I don’t know if it’s the smell of water that makes the animal go crazy or the look of it. It’s dying of thirst, and yet it’s terrified of water. But I thought if we could reach some kind of branch we would be all right. Even if it was just a spring, or a standing pool after the storm, it might work.
The problem was we was way up on the ridge and it might be half a mile before we come down to any spring. Even if Sue broke out of her path and we run right down the mountain the cat might foller and fall on top of us. If we just kept going, it might lose our trail if we could get far enough ahead.
I kept glancing back, hoping not to see any head or tail above the bushes. And it really looked like we might get away, like we might gain enough distance. But then I seen the tawny head raise up and look around, like it had come to its senses and the fit was over. The cat looked like it was waking from a daze and trying to get its bearings. Just then I stepped on a twig that broke and Sue brushed a wet bush, and the head turned toward the sounds. It was follering us by sound. It lurched to its feet and started coming after us faster than before. It run into trees and bushes and halted to listen. Then it come on again.
If they was not so much water on the bushes we might have got away. But every time you touched a limb or sapling it rained a little storm on us and the leaves. If we could just get to a open place where we didn’t make any noise we could get out of hearing.
But they was nothing but heavy undergrowth ahead. Sue and me kept knocking into limbs and the painter come on again, lurching and brushing against trees, gaining on us. This time it got so close I could hear it panting. They was a rattle and seethe in its throat, like somebody with pneumony. It sounded like the painter was about to choke itself on its own congestion.
I couldn’t do more than glance back or I would bang into the brush. But I seen the spit hanging from the cat’s mouth. They was foam around the lower lip dripping down like soap suds. I thought of venom in a snake’s mouth. And I could smell the sickness on the animal.
I couldn’t tell if the painter was going to die in its tracks or leap. If only we could come to a stream, a little branch, it would stop. But I didn’t see nothing ahead but bushes.
Then I heard a dog bark up ahead. It must have been a little dog and a good way off, but I heard the bark clear. If only the dog would come closer, would run after us and bark at Sue. Never had a greeting seemed more welcome. I’d heard even a little dog could scare away a painter. I didn’t care if it was a blockader ahead guarding his still. I hoped it was a hunter in the woods. If the dog would come bounding after us maybe the hunter could shoot the painter. Cats don’t want nothing to do with dogs.
But the painter didn’t seem to hear the dog. Or if it heard the barks it just ignored them. The cat might have been too sick to care. Or maybe it was thinking of me and Sue and not of anything else. It reached out a paw and slapped at me. The claws tore my shirt but didn’t break the skin. It stumbled after the swing and paused for an instant then come running again.
This time I seen the stuff around it eyes. It was like a sugar crust on a cake, or snot around a baby’s nose. It’s eyes had run and the matter dried like bits of hominy. I couldn’t tell if the painter seen me at all, but this time it was going to jump on me. I raised the hatchet to hit just when it leaped. But the hatchet caught on a sassafras limb. The limb broke my swing and I knowed I was a goner. I felt the sick breath of that painter. The sassafras limb was loaded with water and it shook a shower of drops right into that cat’s face. You’ve never seen such a reaction out of any beast. You would have thought I throwed burning oil on its face. The drops splashed its eyes and the painter rared back like it was scalded. It jumped backward and flopped on the ground. It squalled in a hoarse way, suffering terrible. And I seen it shivering and writhing on the ground like a worm, or a cut snake. You never heard such groans and squalls. The woods sounded like they was full of sick painters.
If I had had a gun and could have turned loose of Sue I would have gone back and put that cat out of its misery. Nothing is as dangerous as a hurt animal, though. They was nothing to do but go on and let the painter die as it was, choking in its fever.
I heard the barks again, but they seemed a good way off. They was short yipes like a little dog makes, not a hunting hound and not a cur dog like so many mountain people had back then. It sounded like a squirrel dog, or some kind of terrier. If Sue heard the dog she didn’t show no sign. She kept trotting.
Sue run straight in the direction of the barking. We had got into much deeper woods while running away from the painter. We had entered a forest so thick it was dark as twilight.
Sue trotted on for several hundred yards in that near darkness. I blazed a tree here and there, and listened for the barks. Had I imagined the dog in the first place? Maybe I wanted to hear a dog so bad I just made it up, hoping the painter would hear the barks too. I was so tired I might imagine anything. Or the dog could be running away in the direction we was going. Or maybe it had been a fox barking. Things had gone so strange that day I didn’t trust my senses no longer.
The trees was bigger than any I had ever seen. It seemed like their trunks was wide as houses. And they was so many trees Sue had to weave back and forth through them. That was why they blocked out all the light. The trees was like pillars in a palace. They seemed to be supporting a dark roof up there. I couldn’t tell what kind of trees they was. They didn’t look like any oaks or hickories I had ever seen. But even in the gloom I could see the bark was all covered with moss and sooty mold. They wasn’t no undergrowth, just the big trees standing like masonry columns. If the painter had chased us into these woods he would have caught us.
They was another yip ahead, and then another. Sue and me was winding back and forth between the trees. It seemed like the barks was off to my left, and then they seemed to come from my right. I hoped we wasn’t going in circles.
It got lighter up ahead. In the woods it didn’t seem the sun could be shining nowhere. It was like we’d been inside all day, in a cellar or attic, and thought it was overcast. And then we walked out to find the sky clear and sun pouring out its warmth.
Sue busted into a little opening, and I blinked with the sudden brightness. The sun was out in spots on the ground, and blinding where it shined from wet leaves and little puddles in cupped leaves. They was a yipe from the bushes nearby. I jerked around to find the dog but seen instead a man in buckskin standing in the laurels watching us. He looked like he was growing right out of the laurel bushes. A little dog growled in the brush beside him, its hackles raised.
The man appeared never to have shaved in his life or had his hair cut. His hair might have been blond at one time, but flowed gray and white down his shoulders. Never had I seen a wilder-looking human. Hair growed out of his ears and out of his nose. He wore an old black hat that appeared to be three-cornered, the kind my Grandpappy wore in the Revolution. But it was so wrecked you couldn’t really tell. It was frayed on all the edges, but had a gold badge pinned to the side. He had leather strings over his shoulders and around his neck, and he leaned on a long musket, the kind you didn’t see much anymore even then. His eyes glittered under the wrinkles and bushy brows.
“Is this the way to Cedar Mountain?” I blurted out. I couldn’t think of nothing else to say. And it seemed like years since I had talked to a human. My voice surprised me.
“Some say it is,” the man said, and never took his eyes off me.
His dog run out in front of Sue and cut her off. Instead of wheeling to go around the little terrier, or just running right over her, Sue paused. She must have wanted a rest, to be so easy stopped. It was just a little clearing in the laurel bushes. She could have plunged into the brush. But she stood her ground. The hackles was raised on the little dog’s back.
“Will she bite?” I said. The dog was too little to do more than nip the hog, but I had to say something to break the old man’s stare.
“She might,” he said. “She might if she didn’t know a body.” The man looked steady at me, like he was asking me to explain. They was spots on his skin, a sign of real old age. But he stood so straight and alert he didn’t seem that old. I realized how I must look with the dried blood on my chin and beard and shirt, and my clothes all wet and tore. I must have looked like an escaped prisoner, or somebody who run from his sick bed or grave.
“I’m surveying a road to Cedar Mountain,” I said.
The little dog kept yiping and Sue backed up against my leg.
“Friend, you look like you been to war,” the old man said.
“I’m just trying to make a road,” I said. “And it seems nobody wants me to.”
“A road just leads faster to the grave,” the stranger said. “I want to go where no roads go.” He had a quaint but cultivated speech, like they had in the last century, like they had brought from Virginny. It seemed odd to hear a buckskin talk that way.
“I want to take the way that winds around some through the woods,” he said. “They’s roads aplenty if people can see them.”
Was the old man Tracker Thomas? They was stories he was still alive somewhere in the mountains, that he still hunted in the Indian country to the west. Tracker was supposed to have come into the mountains at the time of Daniel Boone. But instead of going north to Kentucky, he stayed in the high mountains of Carolina and Tennessee.
The Hinterlands: A Mountain Tale in Three Parts Page 25