The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Across the bridge, the squatty, ugly cement, block beer joints were the first buildings we saw. Grandpa Ned noticed my interest when we passed Sonny’s.

  I was looking for Cody’s El Camino, but he thought I was interested in the joints themselves. “You know why those honkytonks have sawdust on the floors?”

  “They don’t have regular floors?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why do they use sawdust?”

  “Because sawdust soaks up the blood.”

  I studied on that for a minute. “Why do people bleed in there?”

  “Because men get to drinking and fighting. I don’t want to ever catch you over here.”

  “Yessir.”

  “You know, you don’t get into trouble if you’re not where trouble starts.”

  ***

  The Hugo feed store was right outside of town. I liked it when we went all the way to Main Street because I always saw Indians. Caught between two different times, half the population was white, and the other half mostly Choctaw. Indian women in long skirts still walked the streets.

  Dark Indian men dressed in overalls and flat brimmed felt hats holding down shoulder-length black hair looked like our kinfolk in the faded black and white photographs Miss Becky kept in the cedar chest. I knew we had folks over there, especially in Grant, but we never had anything to do with them.

  The store faced the highway and leaned tiredly on an ancient horse apple tree. It’s really spelled bois d’arc, but up on the river we pronounce things differently and we called it a boardark. In the winter, big green fruit we called horse apples rotted on the ground around the trees.

  Grandpa backed the truck against the feed store’s splintered wooden loading dock. Several loafers held down the rough benches built against the wall, trying to stay in the shade. Two others leaned back against the unpainted wall in straight-backed cane-bottomed chairs.

  Most people knew Grandpa, no matter where we went. He stopped to visit and I slipped through the wide double doors where the stacked bags of feed reached almost to the open rafters.

  I climbed the sacks to the top level, carefully picking my way to one little spot where I liked to sit and look through the loft door at the whiteface cattle grazing nearby. The trucks and men were a long way down.

  The only trouble was an Indian kid about my age was already in my spot. I’d never seen such long hair on a boy. Even the Beatles’ hair was shorter. Stepping carefully, I settled onto a sack beside him to dangle my legs over the void.

  “How.” I held up my right palm.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “How, again.”

  “How…about I push your ass off of here?”

  We grinned at each other. He pointed toward the rafters about ten feet away. “Be careful. There’s a big ol’ yellow jacket nest over there.”

  “It was there last year, too. One of them stung the piss out of me before I could get down. Some feller down there put some chewing tobacco on it and it quit hurting pretty quick.”

  “That’ll do it. My name’s Mark.” He must have noticed my puzzled look. “We’re not all named Tonto. My last name is Indian, though. It’s Lightfoot.”

  “I’m Top.”

  “That’s a strange name.”

  “So is Lightfoot.” We kicked our feet for a moment. “What are they talking about down there?”

  “Cows, mostly. I was about ready to get down when you showed up.”

  “That’s my grandpa there with the gun on his belt.”

  “I know him. He’s a sheriff or something over in Texas.”

  “He’s a constable. He’s looking for a dog killer.”

  Mark pulled his hair off his collar to cool his neck. “I didn’t know it was against the law to kill dogs.”

  “It is if they’re tortured first.”

  “I didn’t know the law worked dog killin’s. Don’t y’all have regular people killin’s or cuttin’s in Texas?”

  “Yep, but it’s mostly drunks who drive back from the beer joints over here that keep him busy. Those joints have sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood.”

  “I’ve been in enough of them to know that.”

  I was surprised someone my age had been inside a honky-tonk, but I didn’t let on.

  I heard Grandpa say he was going inside. He disappeared across the loading dock and the wooden screen door slammed behind him. A minute later two shirtless high school boys trooped into the storeroom and began loading our truck, lifting fifty-pound bags onto their shoulders as if they could do it all day without stopping.

  Grandpa walked around the corner and stood there watching them for a moment, then he tilted his head up to see us. “You ’bout ready?”

  “Yessir.” I didn’t think he knew where I was.

  He squinted upwards. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Mark Lightfoot.”

  “Howdy, Mark Lightfoot.”

  “Hidy.”

  “You Frank Lightfoot’s boy?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Ya’ll favor. How’s your daddy?”

  “He’s fine, but he’s going back to the pen again.”

  Grandpa raised his eyebrows at the news. “What fer, cuttin’ up Doak Looney?”

  “He got in a scrap at the Ranchhouse the other day and cut on a feller from Dallas for a little while. Sheriff Post from Hugo caught him coming out from where he was hiding in the Rawhide Cane breaks and revoked his parole, so he’s going back in the pen.”

  “I’m sorry. It must be hard on you and your mama, being by yourself.”

  “Naw. He ain’t much ’count anyway. We’ve always taken care of ourselves. Only trouble is, every time he comes back to the house for a little while we have another mouth to feed a few months later.”

  “Well, you don’t follow him none. Let’s go, boy.”

  “See ya.” I grabbed a rafter and picked my way across the sacks.

  “Yeah.”

  When I met Grandpa at the truck, everyone’s attention was on two brightly painted Carson and Barnes pickups. It was unusual to see circus people in the summertime, but I overhead some men later saying they kept a year-round camp outside of Hugo and so the trucks were around all the time.

  It was exciting to know wild African animals weren’t too far away. The young guys loaded enough feed to sag the springs of the fairly new trucks. The circus people didn’t have anything to do with the men on the dock, which surprised me, because I figured they’d want to talk about lions and such.

  Before we left, Grandpa turned toward the loafers. “Y’all haven’t heard about anyone killin’ animals around here, have you?”

  One wrinkled old toothless farmer spat a stream of brown tobacco juice off to the side. “What kind of killin’ are you talking about? Killin’ to eat, or killin’ just for killin’?”

  “Why, there ain’t nothing wrong with killin’ to eat, so I guess I mean for meanness.” The man stared long and hard at the departing Carson and Barnes trucks as they left the lot. Then he gestured toward a wormy-looking farmer with skin so tanned it looked dirty. His hair stood on end as if someone hacked at it with a dull butcher knife. “Brady there was telling us last week about one of his calves.”

  Grandpa turned to Brady who sulled up and stared without saying anything. I could tell Grandpa had no patience for that kind of thing. “Well, what about your calf?”

  “Sommun’ cut hits tail plumb off.”

  “Probably a wolf or coyote chewed it off. I’ve heard bears will do that too, down in the Big Bend country.”

  “We ain’t got no bears here no more and wolfs don’t carry knives and they don’t tie calves to fenceposts. That there tail was cut off, but that weren’t the worst. He was gutted from his aisshole to his chest and lef’ to stan’ ‘ere and die. He wusn’t dead yet when I got there neither, and his guts wus strung out all underneath him. I shot him with m’pistol.”

  “Where’d it happen?”

  “Out by my house.”


  “Where do you live, then?”

  “’Bout ten mile of here.”

  Grandpa’s frustration with getting the story piecemeal and backwards to boot was making his ears red. I noticed and before I could help it, I stepped into the conversation. “Any idea who done it?”

  Kids weren’t supposed to butt into adult conversations. “Be seen but not heard” was Adult Law and my blunder was huge. Every man on the dock looked at me like I’d grown an extra head while we stood there. It scared me and I wanted to disappear between the floorboards of the porch.

  “If I knew who it wus, I’da already tak’n care a’it.” The skinny farmer scratched his forearm. “Hit ain’t none of yore business anyhow, boy.”

  I swallowed hard and backed up an involuntary step.

  Grandpa’s blue eyes flashed. He held me steady with one hand on my shoulder. “Well, I reckon it’s my business.” I’d never heard him use that tone before.

  The porch got real quiet.

  “Confound it, I ain’t igner’t. You’re Texas law and ’at don’t cut no ice with me. I don’t have to tell you nuthin’.”

  “That’s right. But if I think you know something you’re not telling me, I’ll have the Oklahoma Law here before you can say calf rope. I’m trying to get to the bottom of something is all.”

  “Now don’t get mad, Ned,” one of the men said from behind us.

  “Why ’on’t you jist go on back across the river?” Brady wanted to be tough, but everyone knew it wouldn’t take much more to get Grandpa fighting mad.

  Grandpa Ned looked a hole through the man for a moment. “I ain’t mad…yet. Now, you men give me a call if anything else happens. There’s some meanness going on and I intend to get to the bottom of it.” He motioned at me. “Get in the truck, son.”

  Without a word I climbed in on my side. He stomped off the loading dock, jerked the door open, and got in. Before the engine caught good we went bouncing across the rough dirt lot while he talked to himself some more. “I god, now somebody’s guttin’ live calves.”

  The truck struggled with the load of sacks stacked solidly in the back. I waited for Grandpa to ream me out for getting into his business, but instead, he turned north.

  “There’s a café here. Let’s get you a hamburger.”

  I knew then we weren’t in town just for feed. Grandpa wouldn’t waste time hanging around Hugo to buy me a hamburger, and he was mad to boot. Miss Becky always had dinner ready at noon, so I figured he was Lawing some more.

  With no argument from me, we turned onto the highway and drove the rest of the way into the dusty little town where a shoe store, drugstore and the newspaper office on the main drag sat across from the hamburger joint and a notions store. The rest of the buildings on the street were empty.

  I was already looking for Indians when Grandpa pulled the truck into a space in front of the café’s screen door, but before I could get out, he put his hand on my chest. Then he jammed the shifter into reverse, grinding the gears for the first time I could remember and shot out of the parking place.

  “I’ve changed my mind. We’re going back to the house.” He shifted roughly into first gear.

  I didn’t ask questions, but as we shot away, I caught a glimpse of a sign on the door.

  No dogs or Indians allowed.

  I turned and faced forward. Dogs were listed first.

  Miss Becky was Choctaw.

  Chapter Eight

  Grandpa was in a better humor when I rolled out of bed on Saturday morning. “C’mon boy, we’ve got things to do.”

  A fresh breeze pushed through the screen. I stretched under the light weight of a thin sheet. Miss Becky’s colorful quilt lay wadded at my feet. She always made the bed with the pillows at the foot, so we slept with our heads in the center of the room to catch even the smallest breeze through the open windows.

  “Where we going?” I pulled on a tee shirt.

  “Down to the river to dump the trash and then I need to go to the store and hire some hands. The cotton is ready and I want to start pickin’ Monday morning.”

  Miss Becky sang a gospel song as she fried sausage in a cast iron skillet. She used the back of one hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead when I sat down at the table. “You’re acting no ’count this morning. I thought you weren’t ever gonna get up.” She smiled to let me know she was kidding. “Grandpa has already fed and I’ve milked, gone to the garden, and gathered the eggs.”

  “I didn’t hear y’all.”

  “You were sleeping too hard. I guess being ten is rough on a little feller.”

  I finished tying the laces on my P.F. Flyers and poured some blackstrap syrup on the hot scratch biscuits. A glass of milk waited beside my plate.

  Cheesecloth covered two crocks of fresh milk on the countertop. One was bound for the icebox after she skimmed the cream from the top. She left the other out all day to separate so she could churn it for butter.

  Miss Becky cracked an egg into the bacon grease. “I dreamed all night.”

  “I dreamed, too.”

  “What about?”

  “Drowning in the Rock Hole.”

  She threw me a sharp look over her shoulder.

  Protected by rough country, tall trees and thorny vines, the Rock Hole was a deep pool in Sanders Creek. One side was a rocky cliff about fifteen feet high, the opposite bank was a long, low sandbar. When kids weren’t splashing the surface to a froth, fat bream and crappie made the water snap as they sucked bugs from the surface. Grandpa’s little brother drowned in there when they were little fellers and he never got over his fear of water.

  “I dreamed me and Pepper were jumping off the high side and I went under and was drowning in red muddy water.”

  “I heard you wheezing last night. That probably made you dream of drowning. But I don’t want you down there without an adult. Make Cody go if y’all intend to swim.”

  Uncle Cody had been a sore point since Norma’s appearance at the rodeo.

  I had barely finished breakfast when Grandpa came into the kitchen. “Get the shovel out of the smokehouse. I’ll pull the truck around by the barrels.”

  Out in the country there wasn’t any trash pick up. After a couple of months of burning household garbage in a 55-gallon steel barrel, we had to dump the ashes and everything else that didn’t burn.

  I followed him outside and while he drove through the pipe gate to the burn barrel on the other side of the barbed wire fence, I opened the wooden smokehouse door. Grandpa kept his tools along the north wall, within easy reach. Trunks and boxes took up the south end.

  The rough wooden shelves were almost bare, but November was hog killing time and I knew they would be full once again soon enough. I was mostly interested in more than two dozen dusty quart size mason jars full of clear white-lightning on the top shelf. Each one wore a piece of yellowed masking tape bearing a name, date and location of the still Grandpa had busted. I never knew if he kept them as trophies, or if Judge O.C. Rains asked him to hold them in case they needed them in court.

  A clean jar with a piece of fresh masking tape shone like a diamond at one end, the new ring bright and shiny. I climbed the dusty shelves and took down the jar. Grandpa once showed me how to tell if homemade whiskey was pure by shaking the jar. Large bubbles formed and quickly burst in high-proof whiskey. Bad or dangerous moonshine made small bubbles that foamed and lasted.

  Doak’s whiskey made large bubbles and they quickly burst. For some reason I was proud of both Doak and Grandpa.

  “Hurry up, boy!”

  Replacing the whiskey jar, I grabbed the shovel and a hoe and hurried back outside. The truck was already backed up to the barrels. I went through the small gate in the fence, securing it with a twist of soft bailing wire so the cows couldn’t nudge it open and get out.

  He was waiting beside the tailgate, looking at his back tires. “I’m gonna need some new caissons pretty soon, but they’ll get us to the bottom and back. Grab aholt and we’ll histe this barre
l first.”

  I threw the tools in the bed and together we lifted the barrel into the back. The second followed and in no time we were headed for the river.

  Grandpa liked to look at the fields as we drove. Some were already picked clean. Cotton lint from the open-top wagons littered the ditches and looked like a light snow in the grass.

  We didn’t live but a mile from the river, so two more turns, a rumble across a plank bridge, and I saw the ribbon of water off to my right and the Oklahoma shore beyond.

  Grandpa backed up to the river bank and killed the engine. I stepped out of the truck not five feet from the steep edge of the river flowing past, twenty feet below. From my tennis shoes down to the current, a sea of garbage nearly a hundred yards wide slowly gave in to gravity and an eroding bank People dumped everything from household trash to worn-out iceboxs and washing machines over the edge. Heavy rains cleaned the bank when the river swelled and washed it all downstream for others to deal with.

  It didn’t take long to tip the barrels over the open tailgate and pour out the burned cans and ashes in a rattling cloud of dust and breaking glass. We finished by raking out the loose hay and empty feed sacks from the truck bed, then kicked a stray can or two off the road, and the job was done.

  While Grandpa talked to himself and looked across the river, I threw dirt clods at bottles and cans for a while. Then I shot at them with my BB gun. Grandpa watched from under his straw hat.

  “You’re getting pretty good.”

  I grew an inch with the praise. “I can hit what I aim at.”

  He pointed at a Mrs. Stewart’s bluing bottle below us. “All right then. Can you hit that?”

  I did, and he grinned when the blue glass shattered. “Now, shoot that snake.”

  I hadn’t seen the water moccasin sunning itself on the rusty door of an overturned icebox not far away. Excitement got in the way of my aim. I missed the snake three times.

  Grandpa laughed and reached into the pocket of his overalls. He pulled out the Colt 32.20. “They call that buck fever. Let me try.”

  The snake was a good twenty yards away, and I didn’t have much hope that he’d hit it. He thumb-cocked the pistol and shot. The snake parted about six inches behind its head, falling on both sides of the icebox.