“Achaaaak! Oh, ahaaaaa! Dang! Dang!”
Listen, and I’m not kidding one bit; it was just like my nose, throat, and stomach was on fire. I ran around in a circle yelling and screaming for about two minutes and then finally my eyes stopped watering enough so I could see again. I gasped: “Here, John Clayton, take a big swig.”
“Ha, I ain’t that dumb.”
Well, I guess, after seeing his friend nearly die, he wasn’t stupid enough to give the moonshine a try. I couldn’t blame him. Well, one taste was all I could stand, and after checking out everything one more time, we slipped back in the woods and headed for home.
We talked nonstop all the way home.
“Richard, this is a big-time operation. Heck, this ain’t some old river rat that’s just makin’ a quart or two. Them guys are makin’ hundreds of gallons a week.”
“Yeah, and I heard that guy by the name of Swampy talk, and he sounded like he is from up North, you know, like a Yankee.”
“Well, whata you think? Are these guys a bunch of crooks that have come down here and set up a moonshine operation in Flat Creek Swamp? Do you think they’re dangerous?”
“Heck if I know, but I do know one thing; what they’re doin’ is sure enough against the law, and that sorry guard shot at us three times.”
“Well, you’re right, but what are we gonna do ’bout it?”
I guess the answer to that question should have been real easy because they durn sure were breaking the law.
Well, we talked about the bootleggers all that week, and by the time we got back from the picture show on Saturday, we’d decided that next week we were gonna turn in that sorry bunch.
CHAPTER NINE
An Unauthorized Camping Trip
Saturday finally rolled around and Daddy took us to the Ritz Theater to see a picture show. On the way home we sat in the back seat whispering about the moonshiners down in Flat Creek Swamp. Heck, we knew we had to do something. When we pulled up in our front yard, Momma was standing on the front porch waiting for us.
“Jack, Richard, and John Clayton, come here quick. Walter Winchell is about to come on with a special broadcast. Something must have happened in the War.”
Wow, me, John Clayton, and Daddy just ran across the yard and into the house as Momma turned the radio up, and I heard Walter Winchell start talking: “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ship at sea. Let’s go to press: This bulletin just in―the Russian Red Army has entered Berlin! The surrender of all Nazi forces is expected at any time.”
Momma and Daddy jumped up from the kitchen table and hugged each other, and me and John Clayton hollered and yelled our heads off. Shoot, that danged War had seemed to go on forever, and my Uncle Spencer had his knee shot off by them sorry Germans. Well, everybody celebrated for a few minutes, and then me and John Clayton went out on the front porch and started re-reading some old funny books. ’Course, we couldn’t pick up a funny book without talking about trading Ears out of the upside-down funny book. Heck, I knew we needed some help. Our last count had us just under five hundred, and trying to get those last three hundred was gonna be really hard. Well, I could tell John Clayton was thinking about letting Rosalie be a partner, but he just couldn’t quite agree. Heck, I figured he’d say okay in a few days, so I just let it slide.
“Dang it, Richard, why don’t you get some new funny books? I’m bored to death readin’ these old things.”
“Yeah, I am, too. What could we do this afternoon that wouldn’t be so borin’?”
“Heck, I can’t think of a durn thing.”
“Hey, wait a minute. I just thought of something. You know we’ve been campin’ out in each other’s backyards for a couple of weeks. Why don’t we go down in the woods by the spring where Uncle Hugh gets his water and camp out there?”
“Well, you moron, I’ll tell you why—’cause our folks won’t let us.”
“I know, but I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout it and they might let us, if we ask just right.”
“Just right? What the heck is ‘just right?’”
“Come on, stupid, and I’ll show you how to ask.”
“You’re wastin’ your time, Richard. There ain’t any way on god’s green earth your momma is gonna let us camp out by ourselves deep in the woods.”
“Just you wait and see; come on.” Momma was hanging out laundry in the back yard when me and John Clayton walked around the house.
“Momma, me and John Clayton are fixin’ to camp out in his backyard tonight. Is that okay?”
“Richard!”
Oh, dang, I thought, a grammar lesson.
“Well, John Clayton and I are going to camp out in his backyard tonight. Is that okay?”
“Well, go ahead, but this is the last time this week.”
“Thanks, Momma.”
When were out of earshot, John Clayton looked at me and said, “Richard, I can’t believe you told your momma you’re campin’ out in my backyard. You were just plain out lyin’.”
“No, it’s not really lyin’. We’ll sit around your backyard awhile, and then we’ll sit around my backyard awhile, and then we’ll go down in the woods to the spring. We didn’t say we’d stay the whole night in my backyard or your backyard. It’s a perfect plan, and they’ll never know and we ain’t lyin’.”
“I don’t know, Richard; if they find out, we’ll be in trouble again. Shoot, you’ve got me switched so many times I’ve lost count.”
“Well, listen, Mr. Chicken. They’ll never find out, and if you’re scared, I’ll just get Ears to go campin’ with me.” Well, as usual, John Clayton whined a bunch more about getting caught, but he finally agreed.
“Okay, Richard, but if we get in trouble, it’s all your fault.”
We headed to John Clayton’s house to ask his momma with John Clayton kinda whining about lying.
John Clayton walked into the kitchen where his momma was getting ready to fix supper.
“Momma, I’m fixin’ to go over to Richard’s house and camp out in his backyard.”
“Well, you mind Mrs. Mason. And listen to me, John Clayton; don’t you leave that yard. Do you hear me?”
John Clayton had this ‘lyin’ like a dog’ look when his momma said that, but he finally muttered, “Yes, ma’am, I promise.”
As we were walking back to my house, John Clayton started feeling guilty about what his momma said to him.
“Dang, Richard; what if Momma finds out we’re campin’ out in the woods and not in your backyard? You heard her tell me “Don’t you leave that yard.”
“Listen to me, John Clayton. I’ve thought this whole thing out, and there’s no way on earth they’ll find out we didn’t sleep in my or your backyard, and anyway, you’re really not lyin’.”
That satisfied John Clayton, and after sneaking in the house and getting a little food for supper, we picked up our blankets and crossed the road, heading for the spring with Sniffer leading the way. A few more minutes of walking put us at the spring, where we set up our camp and got ready to have our supper. We’d managed to get some fried chicken from my house and a can of pork and beans from John Clayton’s.
“Hey, let’s walk up to Uncle Hugh’s cabin and get him to come down here and have supper with us. Heck, I think we’ve got enough chicken for three.”
“That’s a good idea, Richard. Shoot, I’ll bet we can get him to tell us a story. Boy, way down here in the wood around a campfire is a perfect place for Uncle Hugh to tell one of his wild ghost stories.”
In a couple of minutes we were standing in Uncle Hugh’s front yard, calling for him, “Uncle Hugh! Uncle Hugh! It’s Richard and John Clayton!”
The door opened, and Uncle Hugh waved us in. “Boys, I’m so glad to see y’all. Sit down and we’ll talk.”
“Heck, Uncle Hugh, we can talk later. We’ve come to invite you to have supper with us down at the spring,” I said.
“Sho ’nough?”
“Yeah, Uncle Hugh,” said John
Clayton, “we got a bunch of fried chicken and some pork and beans.”
“I don’t know, boys. It’s gettin’ late. Ain’t y’all gonna need to be gettin’ home ’fore dark?”
“Naw, Uncle Hugh, we’re gonna camp out tonight down at the spring,” I said.
Uncle Hugh had that look that adults get when they know what you’re doing ain’t been okayed by nobody, and you’re just making up a story.
“Y’all sure ’bout that, John Clayton?”
“Oh, you bet, Uncle Hugh. Shoot, we’ll just sleep there by the spring and get up early and head back home. We asked both of our mommas, and they said it was okay.”
’Course, when John Clayton said that, I felt a little uneasy, but heck, we’d lied so much already I figured one more little lie wasn’t gonna hurt us.
I know Uncle Hugh didn’t believe a word we said, but finally he agreed to go down at the spring for supper. Before he left the cabin, he put some hot water bread he’d cooked the day before in a little sack and said he’d add that to our supper.
Soon it was dark, and even though we had a small fire, camping out for the first time deep in the woods was scary. A limb broke, a big owl hooted in a tree right over the spring, and Sniffer howled and looked out in the dark.
“What in the world was that, and what’s out there?” I asked.
“Get some more wood for the fire and hurry,” yelled John Clayton.
“Boys, y’all just settle down, ’cause them sounds is just some little old animals rustling round in the leaves.”
Well, the fire was really blazing up now, and we calmed down.
“Hey, Richard, I’m hungry. Let’s have supper,” said John Clayton.
There was a big board that Uncle Hugh used to kneel down on when he dipped water from the spring, and we pulled it over to the log where we were sitting to use as a table. We had enough chicken for everybody to have two pieces, and the pork and beans were really good after we warmed them up by sitting the can on some hot coals. Uncle Hugh’s hot-water bread just made that supper perfect. Heck, even Sniffer had supper, chomping on those chicken bones and what was left of them pork and beans. We finished supper, leaned back, and had a cup of good cold spring water and started talking.
“Uncle Hugh tell us another one of your ghost stories, and we wanna hear a real one. You know, one ’bout you actually hearin’ a ghost,” said John Clayton.
Uncle Hugh smiled and looked over to where me and John Clayton were leaning back against the log, warming up in front of the fire.
“Okay, boys, but this story is shore ’nough the truth, and I ain’t gonna make up a thing. Are you sure y’all wants to hear it?”
“Yes sir,” we both said as we stretched out in front of the fire.
“Now, boys, let me tell y’all something. Y’all laughs ’bout them ghosts, but they’s out there. I know’s it for sure, and if you don’t believe me, maybe when you hears this story, you will. I ain’t never told nobody ’bout this, ever.”
Well, that sure got us wondering because all of Uncle Hugh ghost stories that he’d ever told us were just so wild that you knew they were made up.
“Come on, Uncle Hugh, tell us! You ain’t gonna scare us,” said John Clayton.
“All right, but, boys, I’m a-warnin’ you. Every time I start tellin’ ’bout this ghost something strange happens. It’s like that old ghost gets mad when I starts talkin’ ’bout ’em.”
Uncle Hugh kinda slid down off the log where he could prop up his back, lit his corncob pipe, and started the story.
“Anyhow, this is how it goes, boys, and it’s the honest to god’s truth. I ain’t makin’ up a word of it. ’Bout forty years ago, I was workin’ in a lumber mill down in Urbana. Y’all knows where Urbana is don’t ya? It’s ’bout fifteen miles kinda east of El Dorado. Well, I was shor glad to get that job ’cause it took me outta them woods where I was cuttin’ pulpwood. I’ll tell y’all something, boys; cuttin’ pulpwood is one hard job.
Well, I got to know that old mill real good, but it was built way back in the slave days, and they was always somebody getting hurt ’cause it was so old that things was just wired together. After I worked there for a few years, the head saw man, he up and quit and ran off with some woman, and I was put up as head saw man.
We had an old white foreman who was mean as a snake and treated us terrible. His name was Homer Tate, and he toted a big old hickory stick, ’bout three feet long and two inches thick. He used that stick as a cane to steady hisself, and he’d hit and poke us if he thought we wasn’t working hard enough.”
“Gosh, Uncle Hugh, do you mean he’d really hit you?”
“That’s right, John Clayton, and it weren’t no little tap neither.”
“Shoot, I’d just up and quit if he hit me,” I said. “Why didn’t you quit, Uncle Hugh?”
“Richard, jobs was terribly hard to find back then, and I knowed if I quit, I’d havta go back to cutting pulpwood. I sure didn’t want no more of that pulpwood job; so I just put up with all that meanness from Old Man Tate. You know, boys, I believe that mean people like that will someday get what’s a-comin’ to ’em, and if it’s not in this life, it’s gonna be when the Devil gets ’em on the end of a pitchfork.”
Shoot, me and John Clayton just laughed out loud. This was getting to be a real good ghost story.
Uncle Hugh just smiled, nodded his head, and continued.
“Well, things went on round that old mill just ’bout like they’d been until one cold winter day a terrible accident happened. I remembers it real well. It was early January, and it was so cold you could hardly stand to be outside. Old Man Tate, he stomped up to the mill just like always, and you could hear him yellin’ at us hands from way off.” ‘Get back up on the floor and get to work!”’
“That’s what he was yelling as he walked up. Old Man Tate, he was in a terrible mood, ’cause the cold weather had made his arthritis flare up, and he was havin’ trouble moving round. I’d just been cuttin’ up a big log we’d brought in durin’ the summer, and, boys, I don’t think I hafta tell y’all, I was a hard worker. I’d been on the floor all mornin’, cuttin’ them big logs onto cross-ties and my hands were freezin’. I’d just gone down to warm them round a burnin’ barrel when old Man Tate came a hobblin’ up, and when he saw the saw wasn’t goin’, he begin to yell at me ’cause I was supposed to be runnin’ the saw. “‘Hugh! Get yourself back up on the floor, or I’m gonna take this stick to you!’”
“My gosh, Uncle Hugh, he shouldn’t have expected you to work in cold weather without ever warmin’ up.”
“Naw, Richard, but times was real hard back then, and I shor couldn’t quit. I’ll tell you this, Old Man Tate was the worst boss I ever had.
“Well, I ran back up to the floor with Old Man Tate right behind me just a-wavin’ that stick, and I kicked on the saw just as he was ’bout to poke me in the ribs. The saw bit into that big log and jerked as it started, and I moved back to let that log come by. Well, Old Man Tate, who was right behind me, was kinda wobbly on his feet, and he started to poke me again with that stick, but he missed me, and he fell right off the edge of the standin’ place. “Look out, Mr. Tate!” I yelled, and I tried to grab him, but he fell out onto the saw.”
Help me, Hugh! Ahaaaaaaa!
“I stopped the saw, but before I could grab Old Man Tate, that big saw, it cut one of Old Man Tate’s arms clean off.”
“Oh, my gosh, is that the truth, Uncle Hugh? Did blood just go everywhere?” John Clayton asked.
“That’s the honest to God’s truth if I’ve ever told it, boys, and y’all ain’t never seen blood fly like it did when that blade cut into Old Man Tate’s arm.”
“Yuck! I don’t think I could stand that.”
“Richard, they was so much yellin’, and Old Man Tate was screamin’ so loud that I didn’t think nothin’ ’bout it. I grabbed up Old Man Tate and carried him down where we laid him on a lumber rack and wrapped up the end of his cutoff arm to try and sto
p the bleedin’. We put him in an old truck and headed for the hospital in El Dorado. When they drove off, I knowed, just lookin’ at him that he was in real bad shape, and shor ’nough we heard later that day that he died from losin’ all that blood before they could get him to the hospital.
“Now, let me tell y’all something, boys: All them mill hands was real upset ’cause they figured the owner of the mill was gonna blame us for the accident. Well, I looked round, and I seen them hands just a-skatterin’ and before you knowed it, they’d all run off. When everyone had gone, I went back up to the floor where Old Man Tate had been cut by the saw, and I looked down at the floor, and there was Old Man Tate’s arm, just layin’ there covered in blood. It was right under the saw blade, and that saw had splattered blood everywhere. I stood there a minute and wondered what in the world was I gonna do with Old Man Tate’s arm. I shor didn’t have no idea, so I picked up the bloody arm and wrapped it up in a newspaper.”
Shoot, about the time Uncle Hugh said something about Old Man Tate’s arm, I heard something out in the woods.
“Wait a minute, Uncle Hugh! Did you hear that?” About that time I heard someone cough out in the woods just right behind us, and me and John Clayton jumped straight up.
“What was that?” I yelled.
“Uncle Hugh, somebody’s out there!” John Clayton said.
“Now, boys, I done told you this was a true story and every time I tells it that old ghost makes hisself known. Y’all just sit back down and don’t pay no ’tention to him. He ain’t gonna hurt ya.”
“You mean Old Man Tate’s ghost is right out there in the woods?”
“He shor is, Richard. It never fails that when I tell that story, he shows up.”
Well, John Clayton threw so much wood on the fire that we had to back up, but things got real quiet, and I figured that it could’ve been a coon or maybe some old possum. We settled back down, but, shoot, I was ready to end that ghost story, ’cause it was just plain scary with all them sounds coming from the woods, but John Clayton just begged Uncle Hugh to tell the rest of it. Heck, he was acting like he wasn’t scared, but I knew he was lyin’ like a dog.
Lyin' Like a Dog, The Yankee Doctor, The Danged Swamp! 3-Volume set Page 7