The Hills Remember

by James Still

  Oh my pap was a purty quiet sort o’ fellow. He never went along hollerin’ to folks like he was runnin’ for county judge. He bore no hard feelin’s, but he never was a speakin’-out man. He never passed a chap, or a dog, or a horse without callin’ out to ’em. But he was liable to pass a man up without a friendly word. Oh you had to know my Pap or you’d git him down wrong.

  When I heered Treble Finney’s mare had the bloats I was sort o’ tickled. I never tuk no joy in that mare sufferin’. Hit was Treble Finney sufferin’ that made me feel good sort o’ ’round the edge o’ my liver. Hit was Treble needin’ my pap to doctor his mare, and him too hard-headed to ask him to come. Hit must o’ been like pullin’ eyeteeth for him to come and git my pap after all he had said. And he was shore slow as Egypt about it.

  But he did come. I wouldn’t tuk a war pension for seein’ Ole Treble come a-sidlin’ up to our homeplace and a-callin’ out for Pap.

  Pap jist sent me out to tell him he’d be there in a minute. Pap jist set there a-readin’ in the paper, gittin’ all the good out o’ Treble bilin’ outside.

  When Pap went out to see Treble, I got down on the floor and peeped out the cat hole. I couldn’t see nothin’ but their boots, but I heered some o’ what they said. Pap says he can’t go for less than twenty-five dollars. He was askin’ Ole Treble twenty-five dollars when he never asked a fellow more’n two. And he never turned down a sufferin’ creature if he never got a red cent. Ole Treble went to stallin’. I could see his heels workin’ up and down in the dirt.

  I heered Pap say twenty-five dollars in puore cash. That must o’ burnt Ole Treble squar’ through his gizzard to pay cash and the craps not nigh out o’ the ground. I got up and sot one eye on a crack in the door. I seen Treble retch down in his pocket fur his money. I reckon he had the deepest pocket I ever seen. He went squar’ up to the elbow afore he come out with a roll o’ bills.

  Pap asked Treble what was the matter with his mare. Treble says hit was the bloats and tells him how she is blowed up. Pap says hit takes a hoss doctor to tell what’s the matter with stock. He says this knowin’ all the time it was bloats. Treble says he reckons he knowed his mare had et up a sack o’ sweet feed, and he knowed the bloats when he seen ’em. My pap says he differs. He says he’s the onliest one in this country that got the right to say what’s wrong with a mare for shore.

  That burnt Ole Treble up. I reckon he wished he hadn’t come for Pap. Hit was costin’ him money and raw pride. I reckon Ole Treble would liked to have shot Pap squar’ through. The last man he kilt was for less than Pap had said to him.

  Pap tuk his saddlebags and packed his bottles in. I asked him to let me go, knowin’ I couldn’t cause somebody had to stay home with our mare. Hit was gittin’ nigh her time. But I wanted to go purty bad. I’d had my mind sot on bein’ a hoss doctor myself and never turned down a chanct o’ pickin’ up a leetle extra larnin’.

  Pap rid off with Treble and I went out to the barn to take a look at our mare Dolly. Afore I got in the lot I heered her blowin’ through her nose. And she whinnied right loud two times. I never thought a thang. I was thankin’ she wanted to git out for a drank o’ water.

  When I opened the door it was dusty-dark inside and I didn’t see nothin’ for a minute. Then I seen Dolly standin’ in the corner with her head down, lickin’ somethang on the floor. Then I seen the colt.

  Well, I was right smart proud o’ that colt. Pap had promised it to me when it come. I got down on my hands and knees in the stall to see what kind it was. Hit was a male. I was right tickled. In a minute he got up and stood on his leetle legs, lookin’ at me and his mommy. His legs was like broomstraws. They was that thin. And his leetle head put me in mind of a deer. By that time my eyeballs was gittin’ use to the dark stable.

  When I seen everythang was all right I lit out for the house. Mommy was right tickled too, and says I can go tell Pap. So I struck out to Ole Treble Finney’s place.

  I found Pap in Treble’s barn. Treble was nowhere ’round. His mare was in a puore bad fix a-layin’ there on the ground heavin’ and wallin’ her eyes. She was blowed up nigh fit to bust. I could see by Pap’s face he’d come too late.

  I told Pap about the colt and he never said a word. I told about him bein’ promised to me, and he never said scat. He jist sot about tappin’ Treble’s mare. He sot the tapper in the right spot and drove her in. Then he screwed the middle out of the tapper and out biled the gas. Pap struck a match to it jist to show me hit would burn. Hit spewed like burnin’ tar. He was doin’ all he could for Treble’s mare but he knowed hit was too late.

  We heered Treble comin’ to the barn and Pap went outside and shet the door. I heered ’em arguin’ though I couldn’t hear right good. Pap was sayin’ hit wasn’t the bloats and Treble was swearin’ hit was. I was scairt Pap was goin’ to git hisself shot. And Ole Treble was already sore about that twenty-five dollars. I heered him tell Pap he’d better work a cuore. And he said it like he puore meant it. I knowed he meant it. I knowed that mare better not die.

  When Pap come back in the stable I seen Pap was sort o’ concerned. Then he tells me what to do. I never thought my pap would o’ done it. He told me to go home and not come back till after dark. And for me to brang the colt in the wagon.

  What Pap told me jist about broke me up inside. But I never crossed my pap in my whole life. Hit would have been the puore rawhide if I did. I jist lit out hurtin’ inside, but thankin’ hit was the only way. Givin’ my colt up after he’d been promised me tetched to the quick.

  It was nigh sundown when I got home and I went right ahead and hitched up the wagon. Ole Dolly rared powerful when I tuk the colt and laid him down in the wagon-bed. I give her a sweet turnip but she never even looked at it. She was runnin’ up and down the lot whinnyin’ a mighty heap when I left.

  As I got close to Treble’s place I throwed some sacks over the colt. Hit was plumb dark but I wasn’t takin’ a chance o’ bein’ seen.

  I driv up behind the barn and Pap come out in a hurry and helped me carry the colt in. When we got him in the stable I seed by the lantern light the mare was dead. But she wasn’t half so big with all the gas blowed out. We jist put the colt down and left him there.

  I asked Pap how long it had been since Treble was in the stable. He says Treble hasn’t been in since he come. Well, we sot thar and waited for him to come. Thar was a light burnin’ in the house and we knowed he was still up. I reckon we waited thar nigh two hours.

  When we seed Treble wasn’t comin’ out Pap told me to go fotch him. I called right big outside the house and he come a-runnin’. The way his coat stuck out I knowed he had a gun in his hip pocket. I was plumb scairt for my pap.

  Pap opened the stable door and told Treble his mare is dead. The quarest look come over Treble’s face. Hit kind o’ drawed up in a knot like a ripe ’simmon. He stepped in the stable and looked. He looked at the mare, then he looked at what was standin’ in the corner.

  Well, he jist looked. But he never turned a hair. He jist looked at that mare mighty close. I reckon he seen that hole Pap made to let the gas out. Maybe he didn’t. But he never said nothin’.

  I seen my colt was gone for good. Treble was thankin’ hit was his colt. I got to hurtin’ inside. I reckon I was ’bout to cry.

  Treble must o’ seen my face. He looked at me right hard, then all of a sudden he busts out laughin’. You could o’ heered him a mile. Hit must a shuck his insides powerful to laugh and holler like he done.

  When he got done laughin’ he tells me he ain’t in the colt-raisin’ business and I can have it if I want it.

  My pap didn’t know what to say. He jist laughed too. There wasn’t nothin’ else to do. He stuck his hands in his pockets and pulled out that twenty-five dollars Treble paid him, and he shucked out two bills. He handed the rest back to Treble. He said bein’ the mare died hit wasn’t worth more’n two dollars.

  They laughed some more. Then Treble says he’s got a jug up in the hayloft, and hi
m and my pap skinned up that ladder like a squirrel up a scaly bark.

  Bare-Bones

  It was quiet on that day, and the willows hung limp over Troublesome Creek. The waters rested about the bald stones, scarcely moving. I had walked along the sandy left bank to Jute Dawson’s homeseat, and in the soundlessness of the afternoon young Clebe had not heard me enter the yard and climb the puncheon steps.

  He sat at the end of the dogtrot with a long-gun sighted into the kitchen, his crutch leaning against one knee. His right eye was closed to a bead, and I waited until he fired. There was a metallic ring of a bullet striking pots and pans. He hopped inside on his one leg, fetching out a fox squirrel by its gray brush. As he came out he saw me and held the quivering body aloft in greeting. There was a purple dent in the furred head, red drops of blood trickling across the glassy eyes, and a twisted whiskered mouth.

  Clebe tossed the squirrel into a wooden bucket, hopped the length of the dogtrot, and brought a chair for me.

  “Fox squirrels are takin’ the place,” he said. “We had a pet creature and he drawed the rest out o’ the hills.”

  He laughed, his thin face spreading. “Nothin’ puts the lean in yore muscles like pawpaws and squirrel’s breasts. Hit’s the Lord’s truth.”

  We settled into white-oak splint chairs and looked out on the untended patch before the house, now thick-growing with purple flares of stickwood. Field sparrows were working among the slender stalks, and the dark bonnets shook in the hot, windless air.

  “Poppy and Mommy is swappin’ work this day,” Clebe said. “Baldridge holp us lay-by our crap two days ago, and they’re stirrin’-off sorghum ’lasses to pay back. And I reckon Prony will give us a fresh jug o’ fresh ’lasses.”

  Our chairs were leaned against the shriveled log framing and I rested there, thinking of the wooden leg Clebe had ordered. The word had gone up and down Troublesome that he was to get a leg. The weeks had gone by and he had not come into the county seat at horse-swapping court or the last gingerbread election.

  “I reckon Prony Baldridge is a purty good man,” he said at length, “but Poppy says he’s a straddle-pole. Poppy says he’s got one foot that’s a Democrat and t’other one’s a Republican. And he kin skip betwixt them like all git-out. He tuk a trunk full o’ gingerbread to the last election and sold it right five times over to the candidates afore he told folks to come and eat till they busted.”

  The sparrows set up a clatter in the stickweed patch. Their dull chirps were hollow and rasping, and their gray bodies blew dustily through the weeds.

  “Even a sparrow-bird’s got two wings,” Clebe said. “Hit’s a pure Lord’s pity I ain’t got two feet.” He drew the palms of his hands tight and bloodless over the post of the chair.

  “Poppy ordered me a wooden leg and it’s an eternal time a-comin’. A leg drummer come and measured me up careful. I reckon he knowed the wiggle in every toe afore he left, but I’m a mind Poppy’s done been beat out o’ that fifty dollars.

  “Oh that fifty dollars will go hard with Poppy if the leg don’t come. He’d had that money tater-holed for a spell.”

  Clebe drew out a knife and began to whittle the round of his chair.

  “Hit’s been a sight o’ trouble I’ve given my poppy,” he said. “He was agin’ me havin’ my leg tuk off when I had blood pizen.”

  He stopped suddenly and pointed the large blade at me. “I figger you never heard about the funeral occasion fur my leg. Hit was buried jist like folks is. My brother Tom fetched it from the doctor’s house in a box and tuk it by the schoolhouse afore books was called.

  “All the scholars come out to the road and looked at it. Afore Tom left they was bettin’ one another to tetch it. They wanted to know what Tom was a-goin’ to do with it, and Tom says he’s a-goin’ to have a rail funeralizin’ on the p’int.

  “The teacher run Tom off ’cause she couldn’t git the scholars in with my leg out thar to look at. When he left, a bunch o’ scholars tuk along after him. They dug a hole up on the p’int here. Ross Morris preached a soul-raisin’ sermon; then they tuk a last look and piled the dirt in.

  “Then Tom remembers about a fellow havin’ the rheumatiz all his life if his leg is buried with the toes curlin’. They dug it up agin and pulled them out straight as could be got. I thought a heap o’ my brother Tom for doin’ that for me. They buried it and piled some flat rocks on it to keep the foxes from scratchin’ thar. They kivered the grave with yellowrod.

  “Oh hit’s a quare feelin’ to git one piece of you buried afore the rest o’ you dies. I figger a fellow will have a hard time gittin’ all together on Resurrection Day.”

  When the sun-ball had turned over the point to the west, setting the gravestones and Aunt Shridy’s grave-house against the naked sky, we walked out into the apple orchard. The trees were gnarled with age, their sparse-leaved boughs hanging thinly with tight-fleshed fruit. Clebe shot an apple down for each of us.

  As we turned into the stickweed patch the sparrows fluttered up from the ground, settling ahead and rising again in sudden dwarfed flights as we neared again. Clebe thrust his crutch ahead to stir them more suddenly. They zoomed up bewildered and brushed us with their clumsy wings. He laughed shrilly at their flight.

  On the creek bank we sat down in the willow shade. Clebe shucked off his shoe and wiggled his toes in the water.

  “Hit’s the Lord’s pity I jist got one foot,” he said, “to dig crawdads with, but I’m thankin’ I had it comin’ to me. I’ve done a heap o’ meanness in my fifteen years. I’ve give my pap a big lot o’ trouble.

  “Oncet I got me a hollow log and stretched a strip o’ dried bull’s hide over it, and I got me a hickory limb and sawed on it. You could o’ heard that noise a full ten miles. Hit sounded like a passel o’ wildcats tearin’ each other’s eyeballs out. Cattle all over the country jumped the rails and tuk down the hollows. The horses and mules kicked barns down and lit out.

  “Oh I done thangs that would take a stretch to tell. Oncet Seefer Harper got to cuttin’ up in church and takin’ on unbecomin’ to the Lord. Hit was dusty dark outside, and I went backside o’ the church-house whar he had his mare hitched. I cut his saddle off. That ole mare whinnied powerful but I never got caught.

  “Oh I done meanness since I was a leetle child. I tuk boards out o’ the swingin’ bridges, thankin’ somebody would come long and drop through to the water. Oncet down Squabble Creek, me and John Bulan tuk the well-top and sot it back. One fellow fell in and come nigh drownin’ afore we pulled him out.

  “I done a big lot o’ meanness, but it cotched up with me. Now I got to tickle-toe on one foot the rest o’ my days.”

  He drew his leg out of the water and lay back on the sandy bank. Presently he spoke again.

  “I got me an idea if my leg don’t come,” he said. “I been figgerin’ I’d get Poppy to buy me a gentle nag ’bout fourteen hands high. A saddle hurts my knee and I’d ruther ride bare-bones anyway. I allus did pleasure myself ridin’ bare-bones afore I got hurt.”

  He began laughing, slowly and free.

  “I allus favored ridin’ bare-bones to eatin’ groundhog gravy,” he said. “Sometime I git to figgerin’ that I’d rather have me a nag than a wood leg squeakin’ like a wagon tongue in August. Five legs would be a sight better than a wood pole with a j’int in it to fetch along after the rail leg I got. But I shore would hate fur Poppy to lose that fifty dollars he’s tater-holed for such a spell.”

  We rested in the grass, our eyes set upon the green ridge. The hills rose up from the creek, their slopes cut with narrow-shelving plateaus of bluegrass, now seeding and knee deep. The cows rested with their legs drawn under them, and they were so still that the clappers in their bells hung soundlessly. And there, close against the ground, was the cool smell of wild mint.

  One Leg Gone to Judgment

  It was quiet on that day, and the willows hung limp over Troublesome Creek. The waters rested about the bald stones, scarcely moving. I had wal
ked along the sandy left bank to Jute Dawson’s homeseat, and in the soundlessness of afternoon young Clebe had not heard me enter the yard and climb the puncheon steps.

  He sat at the end of the dogtrot with a rifle-gun sighted into the kitchen, his crutch leaning against a knee. His eyes were closed to a bead. I watched without speaking until he had fired, and the sound of a bullet striking pots and pans rang from the room.

  Clebe hopped inside on his one leg, fetching out a fox squirrel by its gray brush. As he came out he saw me and held a quivering body aloft in greeting. There was a purple dent in the furred head, and red drops of blood trickled across the glassy eyes and twisted mouth. Clebe tossed the squirrel into a wooden bucket and hopped the length of the dogtrot for a chair.

  “Fox squirrels are taking the place,” he said. “We had a pet one and he drawed the rest out of the hills.”

  He laughed, his thin face spreading. “Nothing puts the lean in your muscles like squirrel gravy. When I spy a bowl of it on the table I have to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting.”

  We settled into white-oak splint chairs and looked out on the untended patch before the house, now thick-growing with purple bonnets of stickweeds. Field sparrows were working among the slender stalks and the dark blossoms shook in the windless air.

  “Poppy and Mommy are swapping work today,” Clebe said. “Lukas Baldridge holp us lay-by our crap, and they’re helping him stirring-off his sorghum to pay back. And I reckon they’ll fetch us back a jug full of molasses.”

  Our chairs were leaned against the log framing and I sat there thinking of the wooden leg Jute had ordered for Clebe. The word had gone up and down Troublesome and its forks that a store-bought leg was coming for him, but the weeks had gone by and he had not been seen at either the horse swapping court, or the gingerbread election.

  “I figure Lukas Baldridge is a clever man,” Clebe said, “but Poppy says he’s a straddle-pole of the worst kind. Poppy says he’s got one foot that’s a Democrat and the other one a Republican. And he can skip either direction, depending on who’s handing out the money. He tuk a sled full of gingerbread to the last election and sold it near five times over to the candidates before he told folks to come and eat till they busted. He saw to it every candidate paid in.”