Chips of Red Paint

by K. Martin Beckner

  “That sounds like it’ll be fun, cooking out by the fire at night,” said Charlie, excitedly.

  “It sure does,” I said, equally as excited.

  “I’ll need some help then. You can start by going out in the woods and gathering up some firewood. Be careful, though, there’s snakes lurking around these woods. Copperheads and rattlesnakes are the meanest. If you hear a rattling sound, be very still. A rattlesnake might bite you if you make any sudden moves. They’re a very aggressive snake and have been known to chase people for miles. My pa saw a two-headed rattlesnake once, you know.”

  “A two-headed rattlesnake?” I exclaimed, amazed.

  “He said it was the meanest looking thing he’d ever seen, said it looked like the devil himself. He believed it was an omen of death.

  “My poor ma had begged him for years to quit drinking, told him the devil was going to get him one day if he didn’t straighten up. Then one morning, after a night of hard drinking with the boys, he woke up lying on the ground next to the outhouse. He’d had too much to drink and had passed out. My frustrated ma left him there to teach him a lesson. What woke him up that next morning was a rattling sound right next to his ear. He looked up to see that two-headed rattlesnake staring him right in the eyes, staring at him with all four of its evil looking eyes. I tell you, he sobered up real quick.

  “Common sense would have told him to be real still and let the snake wander off on its own. But he jumped up and took off running like a crazy jackrabbit. That two-headed rattlesnake chased him all the way to the house. To make matters worse, he went to step outside a few hours later, and that double-headed snake was still waiting at the door hissing at him. Well, that was the last time he ever drank. He said the snake was a warning that he would die if he took another drink.

  “I tell you one thing, though, stopping drinking so fast might nearly killed him. After a few days, he was a going into fits, having seizures and acting like a wild man at times. My poor ma had to call the sheriff one night because he was tearing the house apart, throwing things and breaking dishes. He was looking for his whiskey, but Ma had hid it, thrown it away is more like it. The police came and took him to the hospital. He stayed in the hospital about a week and came back home a new man. He even started going to church on occasion with Ma. They was the happiest couple you ever saw after Pa quit drinking.”

  “I guess it ended up being a good thing he saw that snake.” I said.

  “I guess it was,” said Mr. Miller. “Pa thought that snake was the Devil, but Ma always thought it must have been an angel. I kind of agree with Ma on that. Angels ain’t always pretty, you know.”

  “Wow, that was some story,” said Charlie.

  “It sure was,” I agreed.

  “It weren’t no story, either. It was the absolute truth,” said Mr. Miller, picking up a potato, examining it closely, and throwing it in the woods. “That one had too much green on it for me. Always heard green on a potato was poison. They says it contains a toxin that can paralyze you, or even kill you, if you eat it.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Charlie. “That’s scary.”

  My heart sank to my stomach as a terrifying thought occurred to me: the potato chip, the green potato chip I had eaten earlier. Mr. Miller and Charlie were still talking, but all I could think about was that green potato chip. I could feel my stomach churning, digesting the poison from the potato chip. I wondered how long it would be before I became paralyzed or died. I figured that even if the potato chip didn’t have enough green on it to kill me, it might have been enough to paralyze me. Even if it wasn’t enough poison to paralyze me completely, it might have been enough to make me loose the use of an arm or leg, causing me to be crippled for the rest of my life. My legs were already starting to feel a little numb. It seemed that everything I did anymore was a disaster.

  My future seemed bleak. I would either be dead, paralyzed, or crippled; and on top of that, I was sure by now everyone in town blamed me for Hazel’s death. My good mood for the day was gone, and I felt depressed. I guess it was what I deserved for so carelessly bringing Miss Hazel those cookies when I was told not to. Now I knew how she must have felt before she died.

  “I need y’all to go down and get some more water,” I heard Mr. Miller say. “I’ll get the rest of the ingredients for the stew ready. I’ll go check on my raccoon traps and see if we caught anything. And try to bring a little more water back this time. If you get tired carrying it just take a break every once in a while.”

  Charlie and I grabbed the buckets and made the trip back down the hill again. I filled my bucket and sat on a rock and waited while Charlie played in the water again. Since I thought my life was about over, I didn’t feel like having any fun.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Charlie asked, while putting his shoes back on. “You act like you’re in a bad mood all of a sudden.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” I said.

  “All I know is you were in a good mood earlier, but now you’re acting like you got dead lice falling off of you.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m just sick of everything being such a mess. Everything I do just turns into a big mess, and I’m sick of it.”

  “You just let everything bother you too much. You should be more like me and not worry about it.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about things so much if I didn’t have so many things to worry about,” I said, standing up and picking up the heavy bucket. “We better get on back up the hill before Mr. Miller gets mad at us for taking so long.”

  “I don’t care what he says,” said Charlie. “If he wants a full bucket of water, he can come get it himself. I’ll just tell him I spilt some of it if he ask why my buckets not full.” With that he picked up his bucket, filled it about half way, and started back up the hill. I followed but quickly fell a good distance behind Charlie, slowed by my full bucket of water.

  “I see who the real worker around here is going to be,” said Mr. Miller when we reached the top of the hill, and he saw our buckets.

  “I spilt part of mine on the way up,” said Charlie.

  “Yeah, it looks like you spilt about half of it. You must have had a nice easy walk up the hill. How are you ever going to be a big strong man if you can’t even carry a bucket of water? Brian here’s the real worker.”

  “I know how to work. I just spilt some of it,” said Charlie.

  “I’m sorry. I must have had you pegged wrong. I know what you can do, though. I’ve got some more buckets sitting over there by the back door. You take one of them and go back down the hill and fill it up, careful not to spill it this time, and me and Brian will stay here and work on the stew.”

  “Do what?” asked Charlie.

  “That is if you’re not too weak to carry a full bucket. I figured you were about as strong as Brian. Aren’t you two about the same age?”

  “No, I’m a lot older. Brian is eight, and I’m ten.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed it. You’re a hair bit taller, but Brian already seems to be a lot stronger than you are.”

  “No, he ain’t,” said Charlie, looking dejected. “I can carry two buckets up that stupid hill.” He grabbed a bucket from beside the back door and carried both buckets towards the hill path, the bucket he’d already carried up the hill still half full of water.

  “You might want to take one of the empty buckets,” said Mr. Miller, “and leave that half full one here. There’s no sense in doing work you don’t have to.”

  Saying nothing, Charlie exchanged the half-full bucket for an empty one and marched down the hill.

  I was feeling proud, my depression from earlier fading away. Besides, the green potato chip hadn’t affected me yet. It didn’t seem like my legs were numb anymore. I wouldn’t have been able to carry the heavy bucket of water all the way up that hill if I had been poisoned—would I have?

  “Now let’s go check and see if we got us a raccoon yet,” said Mr. Miller.

  With my head up, in a much
better mood, I followed him across the road in front of the house and along a narrow path in the woods. After a few minutes of walking, we came upon a raccoon that had one of its paws inside a hole in a small log on the ground. The raccoon tried to get away when it saw us but couldn’t get its hand out of the hole.

  “Why, we sure do got ourselves a raccoon, a big one,” said Mr. Miller.

  “It sure is cute,” I said. “It looks like he’s got his hand trapped. We should help him out.”

  “There’s a shiny coin inside that log. Raccoons like shiny things. When he reached for the coin, his hand went through a little noose I made with a string, trapping his hand when he tried to pull it out. If he had enough sense to let go of the coin, he’d be able to get away. Raccoons don’t have that little bank robber mask over their eyes for nothing.”

  “We should take him back home and make a pet out of him,” I said.

  Suddenly there was a loud bang, and the raccoon fell over dead. I gasped in horror. Mr. Miller had pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot the raccoon.

  “What did you do that for?” I yelled, near tears.

  “What do you mean, ‘What did I do that for?’ How you going to be a real woodsman if you’re worried about shooting a raccoon? Raccoons don’t make good pets, anyway.”

  “I just thought it was cute, is all.”

  “Well, man can’t survive on cute.” With that he cut the dead raccoon loose, grabbed it by the tail, and headed back towards the house. I trailed a few paces behind him, feeling in the dumps again.

  Soon after we returned to the cabin, Charlie arrived with two full buckets of water. He sat down on a rock, out of breath.

  “You’re stronger than I thought you were,” said Mr. Miller. “I’ll have to take back all those bad things I said about you while you were gone.”

  “I told you I could do it,” said Charlie.

  “I knew you could all along,” said Mr. Miller, “and now you’ve proven it. That’s how you accomplish things in life. You don’t sit around talking about it; you just do it. If you really want to go far in life, you do things that are hard and that you think you can’t do.”

  “Wow,” said Charlie. “You know, that’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard anyone say. You sure do know how to put things. I feel like I can do anything now.”

  “You’re a fast learner,” said Mr. Miller. “I’ll give you that.”

  “So, what did y’all do while I was gone?” asked Charlie. “I heard a gunshot. For a minute I was afraid the police might have found Brian and shot him. Just joking, Brian.”

  Mr. Miller laughed and said, “We went to the trap and got us a raccoon to eat.”

  “Oh, I wanted to go,” said Charlie.

  “Believe me, no you didn’t,” I said.

  “I’ll let you help me get it ready to cook, if you want. Then later I’ll take you over and show you how the trap works.”

  “That’ll be great,” said Charlie.

  Mr. Miller showed Charlie how to prepare the raccoon for cooking. I made myself busy gathering firewood, preferring not to learn about skinning a raccoon. Charlie seemed very excited by the whole process. When they had finished, they walked over to the trap. I stayed behind, soon regretting my decision, as everything seemed eerily silent in their absence. I had a terrible thought that maybe they would never come back, and I would be left alone to fend for myself. It would be a scary and lonely trip back down the abandoned road. And what would be waiting for me when I did finally make it back to the real world? A soft breeze rustled the trees that towered above me. I was very much relieved when I heard their voices again, faint at first, growing louder as they got closer.

  When it was nearly nine o’clock and the sky had grown dark, Mr. Miller announced that it was time to start the fire in preparation for the stew. “I’ve got matches, but we’re not going to use them,” he said. “I’m going to show you how to start a fire without them. When you’re trying to survive out in the woods, you’re not always going to have the luxury of matches.”

  “This is great,” said Charlie. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “First, you need a bow,” continued Mr. Miller. “I’ve got this nice flexible stick here to make the bow out of. I’ll just take my knife and cut some little notches on the ends of the stick. Now I’ll take this cord here and tie it to the notches, pulling the stick into a bow shape. This other stick here is going to be the drill. Your drill should be a good hard stick like this one. I’ll shave the end of it here into almost a point. And finally we need the fireboard. The fireboard should be flat like this one. Notice the round depression in the center of the edge here. And on the other side, there’s a v-shaped notch that meets the depression. If you hold it up to the light like this, you can see a little hole all the way through.” He handed the board to me, and I looked through the tiny hole, amazed. I handed the board to Charlie, and he seemed equally astounded.

  “Now to get down to business,” Mr. Miller continued, “I’m going to place my foot on the fireboard to hold it steady, putting the pointed end of the stick on the depression. Oh, I almost forgot about the rock. See this rock here? It’s hollow on one side. Wrap the bowstring around the stick, then place the rock, hollow side down, on top of the stick. Place a little tinder under the board notch, and we’re ready to go.”

  He started moving the bow rapidly back and forth, and in a short time, the tinder began to smoke. “Add some brush,” he said, intently. “Let’s keep this fire going. I added a handful of brush and was thrilled when a fire began to appear.

  “It’s working, said Charlie. He stood up and started jumping up and down. “I’ve never seen anything like it. This is the best thing ever.”

  I stood up and joined him in his excitement. “Give me five,” I said.

  “Give me ten,” he said.

  “Y’all need to settle down,” said Mr. Miller.

  The newly created fire was set inside a hearth, which Mr. Miller explained was made from stones he’d gathered in the woods that surround the cabin. An iron grill was suspended across the semicircle of stones. Mr. Miller placed the cast-iron kettle on top of it. We brought some wooden chairs out of the house and seated ourselves around the fire. Mr. Miller occasionally lifted the kettle’s lid with a potholder and stirred the stew. The fire popped and snapped as it warmed the stew.

  “I could live like this all the time,” said Charlie. “I just love sitting around a fire at night.”

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  “Sure beats cooking on an electric stove in a stuffy ole kitchen,” said Mr. Miller.

  “Yeah,” said Charlie, “I hate food cooked on a regular stove. Some of it’s good, I guess, but it’d be a lot better if you cooked it outside on a fire like this.”

  “This is definitely the best way to cook stuff,” I said. “I guess, though, when it’s cool outside, you have to cook on a regular stove.”

  “That’s what the fireplace is for,” said Mr. Miller, lifting the lid and stirring the stew. “That fireplace is cozy as hell in the winter. You ain’t never tasted better pinto beans and ham hock than what you’ll eat cooked over that old fireplace I got in there.”

  “I bet that’s the best thing ever, sitting around the fireplace in winter eating beans and ham hock,” said Charlie. “I just love winter. I wish it would snow all the time in winter. I think I’ll move to Canada one of these days and buy me a snow mobile.”

  “I bet they never have much school in winter in Canada,” I said. “I hear it snows up there all the time.”

  “That would be great,” said Charlie.

  “In Canada they get that snow off the road before it hits the ground and go on about their business,” said Mr. Miller. “It ain’t like here, where they cancel school every time it flurries.”

  “That’s the pits,” said Charlie. “What would be the use in having snow if you had to go to school anyway?”

  �
�I think the stew’s about done,” said Mr. Miller. “Hand your bowls over here, and we’ll see if this stew’s any count.”

  The stew was delicious, although I would have preferred the meat to have come from a freezer at Piggly Wiggly. We finished eating and sat watching the fire. The night creatures seemed especially loud as they sang to each other in the woods that surrounded us. The crystal clear night sky above sparkled with a million stars.

  “I guess you city kids have never seen foxfire before, have you?” asked Mr. Miller, pulling a pipe out of his pocket and lighting it with a match.

  “What’s foxfire,” I asked, intrigued.

  “We’ll, if you get lucky, if you look out in these woods at night, you might see green lights. That’s foxfire.”

  “Where does the light come from?” asked Charlie

  “Some people think the green light comes from spirits lost in the woods. I’m not so sure myself. When you first look at foxfire, it won’t move, almost like it’s afraid to or something. But if you stare long enough, the light will start to move, not afraid anymore, I guess.”

  “Wow, I’ve never heard about that before,” I said.

  “Watch these woods closely, and you might see it one night,” said Mr. Miller, smoke puffing out of his mouth.

  I stared into the woods, squinting my eyes, hoping to see the green lights, at the same time afraid I would see them. All I could see, however, was the flickering light of the fire as it illuminated the nearby trees. The woods beyond that were as dark as coal.

  “I see the big dipper,” said Charlie, pointing up in the sky.

  “And there’s the little dipper,” I added.

  “But can you see the big dog and the small dog chasing the rabbit?” asked Mr. Miller.

  “Where?” Charlie and I asked together, greatly interested.