The Run for the Elbertas Read online

“The baby!” I choked. “She’s been tuck!”

  “Baby?” Father asked, puzzled. “Why, thar she kicks on the bed, a-blowing bubbles and growing bigger’n the government.”

  I turned, running away in shame and joy. I ran out to the mulberry tree. The fruit had fallen and the ground was like a great pie. I drew the medicine bottle from my pocket; I swallowed the last dose. I ate a bellyful of mulberries.

  Journey to the Forks

  “HIT’S a far piece,” Lark said. “I’m afraid we won’t make it afore dusty dark.” We squatted down in the road and rested on the edge of a clay rut. Lark set his poke on the crust of a nag’s track, and I lifted the saddle-bags off my shoulder. The leather was damp underneath.

  “We ought ne’er thought to be scholars,” Lark said.

  The sun-ball had turned over the hill above Riddle Hargin’s farm and it was hot in the valley. Grackles walked the top rail of a fence, breathing with open beaks. They halted and looked at us, their legs wide apart and rusty backs arched.

  “I knowed you’d get dolesome ere we reached Troublesome Creek,” I said. “I knowed it was a-coming.”

  Lark drew his thin legs together and rested his chin on his knees. “If’n I was growed up to twelve like you,” he said, “I’d go along peart. I’d not mind my hand.”

  “Writing hain’t done with your left hand,” I said. “It won’t be ag’in’ you larning.”

  “I oughtn’t to tried busting that dinnymite cap,” Lark said. “Hit’s a hurting sight to see my left hand with two fingers gone.”

  “Before long it’ll seem plumb natural,” I said. “In a little spell they’ll never give a thought to it.”

  The grackles called harshly from the rail fence.

  “We’d better eat the apples while we’re setting,” I said. Lark opened the poke holding a Wilburn and a Henry Back. “You take the Wilburn,” I told him, for it was the largest. “I choose the Henry Back because it pops when I bite it.”

  Lark wrapped the damp seeds in a bit of paper torn from the poke. I got up, raising the saddle-bag. The grackles flew lazily off the rails, settling into a linn beside the road, their dark wings brushing the leaves like shadows.

  “It’s nigh on to six miles to the forks,” I said.

  Lark asked to carry the saddle-bag a ways, so I might rest. I told him, “This load would break your bones down.” I let him carry my brogans though. He tied the strings into a bow and hung them about his neck.

  We walked on, stepping among hardened clumps of mud and wheel-brightened rocks. Cow bells clanked in a redbud thicket on the hills, and a calf bellowed. A bird hissed in a persimmon tree. I couldn’t see it, but Lark glimpsed its flicking tail feathers.

  “A cherrybird’s nigh tame as a pet crow,” Lark said. “Once I found one setting her some eggs and she never flew away. She was that trusting.”

  Lark was tiring now. He stumped his sore big toe twice, crying a mite.

  “You’ll have to stop dragging yore feet or put on shoes,” I said.

  “My feet would get raw as a beef if’n I wore shoes all the way till dark,” Lark complained. “My brogans is full o’ pinchers. If’n I had me a drap o’ water on my toe, hit would feel a sight better.”

  Farther on we found a spring drip. Lark held his foot under the cool stream. He wanted to scramble up the bank to find where the water seeped from the ground. “Thar might be a spring lizard sticking hits head out o’ the mud,” he said. I wouldn’t give in to it, so we went on, the sun-ball in our faces, and the road curving beyond sight.

  “I’ve heared tell they do quare things at the fork school,” Lark said, “yit I’ve forgot what it was they done.”

  “They’ve got a big bell hung square up on some poles,” I said, “and they ring it before they get up o’ mornings and when they eat. They got a little sheep bell to ring in the schoolhouse before and betwixt books. Dee Finley tuck a month’s schooling there, and he told me a passel. Dee says it’s a sight on earth the washing and scrubbing and sweeping they do. Says they might’ nigh take the hide off o’ floors a-washing them so much.”

  “I bet hit’s the truth,” Lark said.

  “I’ve heard Mommy say it’s not healthy keeping dust breshed in the air, and a-damping floors every day,” I said. “And Dee says they’ve got a passel o’ cows in a barn. They take and wet a broom and scrub every cow before they milk. Dee reckons they’ll soon be breshing them cows’ teeth.”

  “I bet hit’s the truth,” Lark said.

  “All that messing around don’t hurt them cows none. They get so much milk everybody has a God’s plenty.”

  The sun-ball dropped behind the beech woods on the ridge. It grew cooler. We rested again in a horsemint patch, Lark spitting on his big toe, easing the pain. Lark said, “I ought ne’er thought to be a scholar.”

  “They never was a puore scholar amongst all our folks,” I recalled. “Never a one went all the way through the books and come out yon side. I’ve got a notion doing it.”

  “Hit’d take a right smart spell,” Lark said.

  We were ready to go on when a sound of hoofs came up the valley. They were far off and dull. We waited, resting this bit longer. A bright-faced nag rounded the creek curve, lifting hoofs carefully along the wheel tracks. Cain Griggs was in the saddle, riding with his feet out of the stirrups, for his legs were too long to fit. He halted beside us, looking down where we sat. We stood up, shifting our feet.

  “I reckon yore pappy’s sending his young ’uns down to the forks school,” Cain guessed. “Going down to stay awhile and git a mess o’ fool notions.”

  “Poppy never sent us,” I said. “We made our own minds.”

  Cain lifted his hat and scratched his head. “I never put much store by all them fotched-on teachings, a-larning quare onnatural things, not a grain o’ good on the Lord’s creation.”

  “Hain’t nothing wrong with laming to cipher and read writing,” I said. “None I ever heard tell of.”

  “I’ve heared they teach the earth is round,” Cain said, “and that goes ag’in’ Scripture. The Book says plime-blank hit’s got four corners. Whoever seed a ball have a corner?”

  Cain patted his nag and scowled. His voice rose. “They’s a powerful mess o’ fancy foolishness they teach a chap these days, a-pouring in till they got no more jedgment than a granny hatchet, a-grinding their brains away with book reading. I allus said, a little larning’s a good thing, sharpening the mind like a sawblade, but too much knocks the edge off o’ the p’ints, and darks a feller’s reckoning.”

  Lark’s mouth opened. He shook his head, agreeing.

  “Hain’t everybody knows what to swallow, and what to spit out,” Cain warned. “Now, if I was you, young and tenderminded, I’d play hardhead down at the forks, and let nothing but truth git through my skull. Hit takes a heap o’ knocking to git a thing proper anyhow, and the harder hit’s beat in, the longer hit’s liable to stay. I figure the Lord put our brains in a bone box to sort o’ keep the devilment strained out.”

  Cain clucked his nag. She started off, lifting her long chin as the bits tightened in her mouth. Cain called back to us, but his words were lost under the rattle of hoofs.

  “I bet what that feller says is the plime-blank gospel,” Lark said, looking after the disappearing nag. “I’m scared I can’t tell what is truth and what hain’t. If’n I was growed up to twelve like you, I’d know. I’m afeared I’ll swallow a lie-tale.”

  “Cain Griggs don’t know square to the end o’ everything,” I said.

  We went on. The sun-ball reddened, mellowing the sky. Lark trudged beside me, holding to a strap of the saddle-bag, barely lifting his feet above the ruts. His teeth were set against his lower lip, his eyes downcast.

  “I knowed you’d get dolesome,” I said.

  Martins flew the valley after the sun was gone, fluttering sharp wings, slicing the air. A whip-poor-will called. Shadows thickened in the laurel patches.

  We came upon the forks in early e
vening and looked down upon the school from the ridge. Lights were bright in the windows, though shapes of houses were lost against the hills. We rested, listening. No sound came out of all the strange place where the lights were, unblinking and cold.

  I stood up, lifting the saddle-bag once more. Lark arose too, hesitating, dreading the last steps.

  “I ought ne’er thought to be a scholar,” Lark said. His voice was small and tight, and the words trembled on his tongue. He caught hold of my hand, and I felt the blunt edge of his palm where the fingers were gone. We started down the ridge, picking our way through stony dark.

  On Quicksand Creek

  AARON Splicer drove a bunch of yearlings into our yard on a March evening. Heifers bawled and young bullies made raw cries. We hurried out into the cold dark of the porch. Aaron rode up to the doorsteps, and Father called to him, not knowing at first who he was. “Hello?” Father spoke, and when he knew it was Aaron, called heartily, “’Light and shake the weather.”

  Aaron opened his fleeced collar, rustling new leather. His breath curled a fog. “If this Shoal Creek mud gets any deeper,” he called, “it’ll be beyond traveling. A horse bogs to the knees.” He slid to the ground, limbering his legs.

  Father led Aaron’s horse into the mare’s stall. He brought a brass-trimmed saddle onto the porch. Aaron shook his boots, loosening mud balls, letting them fall on the steps. His tracks smudged the floors. Mother prepared a meal for him, our supper having long been eaten; and Lark and Zard and Fern pried at Aaron with their eyes. I studied his leather clothes: ox-yellow coat, belt wide as a grist mill’s, fancy boots. I’d never seen boots matching the ones he wore. Father had a costly pair, a pair worth eighteen dollars, yet they weren’t lengthy, or pin-pointed, or hid-stitched like Aaron Splicer’s.

  Aaron shucked off his coat. A foam of sheep’s wool lined the underside. “Thar’s not a cent in yearlings,” he said. “Hit’s jist swapping copper for brass. Beef steers are what puts sugar in the gourd, and nary a one I’ve found betwixt here and the head of Left Hand Fork.”

  “Crate Thompson cleaned the steers out o’ all the creeks forking Troublesome,” Father said. “I’ve heard a sketch about him being on Quicksand now. I reckon they’s a sight o’ beef in the neighborhood o’ Decoy and Handshoe.”

  Mother brought a plate of creaseback beans, buttered cushaw, and a sour-sweet nubbin of pickled corn. Fern raked coals upon the hearth for the coffeepot. While Aaron ate, Father had me and Lark brighten Aaron’s boots. We scraped the caked mud away, rubbed on tallow, and spat on the leather. We polished them with linsey rags until they shone.

  “I never saw boots have such sharpening toes,” Father said. “You could nigh pick a splinter out o’ yore finger with them.” He thrust his own boots forth to show the bluntness of the shoecaps. “But cattlemen allus crave leather with trimmings.”

  Our cats leapt upon my knees. They watched Aaron, twitching their whiskers, tensing their spines; they held crafty oblong eyes upon him. I thought, “I’m liable to be a cattleman when I’m grown up, and go traveling far. Yet it’d take a spell to get used to thorny boots. I’d be ashamed to wear ’em.”

  Aaron finished eating, wiped his chin with the hairy back of a hand, and walked his chair nearer the fire. Father offered him a twist of home-raised tobacco. He bit a chew, stretching the poles of his legs to the hearth, saying, “I’d take a short cut to Quicksand if I didn’t have these yearlings on my neck. Maybe I’d get thar before Crate Thompson buys every last steer.” He rubbed his chin stubble; he frowned till his face wadded to wrinkles. “Reckon your eldest boy could round them calves to Mayho town for me? A whole day would be saved.”

  I raised off my chair, hoping. I was nine years old, old enough to go traipsing, to look abroad upon the world.

  “Ho, ho,” Father chuckled, big to tease, “you wouldn’t call that turkey track of a forked road a town. Now, Hazard or Jackson—” he hesitated, seeing Mother’s eyes upon him. The posts of his chair sunk level with the floor. “That’s a good-sized piece for a boy to walk alone. Thirteen miles, roundy ’bout.”

  “I’ll pay a dollar,” Aaron said. “A whole silver dollar. Silas McJunkins’s boy will be at my house with the money when they’re penned. Silas’s boy is driving two cows down from Augland in the morning.”

  “I saw Mayho on a post-office map once,” Father said. “Hit looked to me like a place where three roads butt heads. But if this town soaks hits elbows in Troublesome Creek, hit’s bound to be a good ’un.”

  Mother sent Fern, Zard, and Lark to bed. Before going herself she brought in a washpan and a ball of soap. Father poured hot water from the kettle, and Aaron washed his face and hands, then pulled off his boots and soaked his feet. His feet were blue veined and white, and his heels bore no sign of rust.

  “You’ve got townfolks’ feet, all right,” Father said. He picked up Aaron’s boots, matching them with his own. “They’re the difference betwixt a razor and a froe.” He grunted in awe. “Man! These boots are bound to make a pinch-knot out o’ the frog o’ yore foot.”

  Aaron champed his tobacco cud. “They’re right good wearing,” he said.

  “When I thresh my oats,” Father spoke, grinning, “I’m a-liable to buy me a pair.”

  I set off behind the yearlings with daylight breaking, and before the sun-ball rose I had reached the mouth of Shoal Creek and turned down Troublesome. The yearlings pitted the mud banks with their hoofs, and I sank to the tongues of my brogans. My coffee-sack leggings were splattered; my feet got stone cold. A wintry draft blew, smelling of sap.

  The sun-ball rolled up a hill, warming the air, loosening the mud. The yearlings nearly ran my leg bones off. I cut switches keen to whistling; I hollered and hollered, and I stung their behinds. I herded the day long, knowing then how it was to be a cattleman.

  Chimney sweeps were funneling the sky when I rounded the yearlings into Aaron Splicer’s barn lot. Dark crept into Mayho by three roads, coming to sit among the sixteen homeseats crowding the creek or hanging off the hillsides. I saw Ark, Silas McJunkins’s boy, atop a fence post, eating a straw. Though a boy, he was man-tall. His hair shagged over his collar and hid his ears. And he was as muddy as I.

  Ark helped pen the calves, and I got a whole look at Mayho town before night blacked everything. A clever place I found it, with Easter flowers blooming on leafless stems in yards, and bare trees growing in rows. One house stood yellow as capping corn, and new-painted. “If I lived in a town,” I told Ark, “I’d choose here.”

  “Mayho’s a wart on a hog’s nose,” Ark said.

  “Trees yonder lined up a-purpose. Easter flowers a-blooming the winter.”

  “I choose woods God planted,” Ark said. He raised his arm. “Hit’s growing spring. Thar’s chimley sweeps raising spit to glue their nests.”

  We beat on Splicer’s kitchen door. Aaron’s woman opened it a crack, but we didn’t cross the sill, for she saw our muddy clothes and told us to sleep in the barn. She handed us a plate of cold hand-pies, and a rag bag of a quilt. We ate the pies in the barn-loft; we burrowed into the hay, leaving only our heads sticking out.

  “A mouse wouldn’t raise young ’uns in that trampy quilt,” Ark said.

  I wondered about my silver dollar. Before going to sleep I asked Ark for it.

  Ark swore, “Aaron Splicer never give me a bit o’ money. He aims for us to drive steers on Quicksand, and said we’re to catch a wagon going that way tomorrow. Claimed he’d pay then, and pay double. Two dollars apiece.”

  “My poppy’d be scared, me not coming straight home,” I complained. “I hain’t never been on Quicksand. I oughtn’t to go.” I felt a grain hurt. “Aaron said he’d send me a dollar. A silver dollar.”

  “He’s not paid me neither,” Ark said. “He’s got us in a bull hole. I’ve heared he’d shuck a flea for hits hide and tallow, but he’ll bile owl grease ere he pinches a nickel off me.”

  “I ought to be lighting a rag home,” I said.

&nb
sp; We came on Aaron Splicer a quarter-mile up Quicksand at Tom Zeek Duffey’s place. He was waiting for us, and had already rounded four prime steers into Tom Zeek’s lot.

  “I hain’t located Crate Thompson,” Aaron said, “but I’ve diskivered thar’s big beef on this creek, head to the mouth. I’m aiming to get it bought and driv to the railroad siding at Jackson in four days. A four-day round up.” And Aaron lifted a foot, pointing at his steers. He kicked the board fence, trying the lot’s tightness. “I figure I’ve put the cat on Crate. These brutes guarantee grease in my skillet.” He walked the lot, admiring his cattle.

  We looked at Aaron’s boots. Tom Zeek and Ark laughed a little. Ark said, “Was he to fall down, he’s a-liable to stick one o’ them toe p’ints in himself. I’d a’soon wear pitchforks.”

  “I allow they’re tighter than a doorjamb,” Tom Zeek chuckled.

  “Hain’t tighter’n the drawstrings on his money bag,” Ark said. “I know that for a fact.”

  “Dude’s his nickname,” Tom Zeek told us, “and hit’s earnt.”

  Tom Zeek’s woman called us to supper. Not a bite we’d had since the day before, except for a robbing of chestnuts from a squirrel’s nest. The table held fourteen kinds of victuals, and Ark and I ate a sight. We drank buttermilk a duck couldn’t have paddled, so thick and good it was. We stayed the night, sleeping deep in a feather tick.

  The next morning Aaron rousted us before daylight. Tom Zeek Duffey’s woman fed us slabs of ham, scrambled guinea eggs, and flour biscuits the size of saucers. We set off, with Aaron ahead. Though willows were reddening and sugar trees swollen with sap, a frozen skim lay on Quicksand Creek and rock ledges were bearded with ice. The sun-ball lifted its great yellow eye, warming and thawing, and by midday a living look had come upon the hills where neither bud nor leaf grew. Icicles plunged from the cliffs. Redbirds whistled for mates.

  Aaron bargained and bought the day long. We slept on the puncheon floor of a sawmill near Handshoe that night. For supper and breakfast we ate little fishes out of flat cans Aaron got at a storehouse. We started down-creek again, and where it had taken one day to go up, we spent two gathering the cattle and herding them to Tom Zeek’s place. We ran hollering and whooping in the spring air.