Post by fiona on Oct 17, 2011 15:03:54 GMT -5
"Death comes soon to the high livin man", the Sherriff said to me, as he gave Daddy's coffin a slap with his palm. " Shut tight", he chuckled. " Seed time an harvest time an ol Zack Dordy never could stand still."
It was late October an a cold dark was comin on. Daddy had gone down the mountain about three days ago and was shot dead in a fight over some cheap whiskey. Word came and Momma sent me, the eldest, to fetch his mortal remains on home. "Bring him back here, but don't let me see him no how", she told me, "or I just might have t kill him again. I knowed he was nuthin but a Son o Satan first I laid eyes on him."
Together we hoisted the box onto the back of the wagon. " Best be gettin on", I said. "it's early evenin and I got a ways to travel. Ten miles mights well be ten hundred with this old mule" I flicked Sissy's behind with the switch and we lurched forwards onto the Red Road towards home. Ten long miles from Big Bald to Picked Clean Holler an I could feel the fear rising in me. I knowed my way around the mountain and was good at it, but had always hated the Red Road. It snaked on through tall stands of slash pine and brushy woods an no body knew just where it came out. We had never been that far from home before.
A stinging rain began to fall as we moved along past hard scrapple farms and bug a boo haunts where a growed man could go in and never be heard from again. I could feel the cold rising up from the ground and pulled my jacket tighter to shut in some warmth. After about five miles the rain slacked off and a full moon, it's light sharp as the edge of a new honed razor, came up over the Big Piney Woods. Sissy was tired. We stopped at a clearing near a small farm and I got down to stretch my legs. That was when I heard it - a scream from way back in the woods - like Old Satan himself come to call.- and my hair stood right up on end. I swung myself up onto the wagon seat, but Sissy balked and bristled. She saw it afore I did: A bug eyed, slack jawed man, bout 8 feet tall, standin right next to her. Filthy rags for clothes and blood drippeng from from those yeller hawg tuskers he had fer teeth! I knew right then he meant to kill me. "Lemme go, Mister! lemmee go.!" I tried to say, but it was too late. A knock to my head sent me falling into the darkness.
I awoke with the sun. My coat was gone and dry blood caked up on my face and hair. Sissy and the wagon was still there, but Daddy's box lay open and empty. I just stood there addle headed, too tired to be scared and too scared to be tired. All I wanted to do was get home. I went at them pine trees with a fury, till I had that box filled with branches, then I took a stone an hammered the top down as best I could. When we finally got back to the cabin, I called out to Momma and she come running, wiping her hands on her apron. I know the looks of me like to scare her half to death, but she was middlin' quiet as she looked at the box. "Shut tight", she said, with a sigh of relief.
After we got the proper hole dug and the box down into the ground my brother Zeke allowed as to how light Daddy was. "Mustsa shrunk up some." he said. "Ol' Devils do that when they die." I just nodded like my head was on a spring. I couldn't say a word.
It was late October an a cold dark was comin on. Daddy had gone down the mountain about three days ago and was shot dead in a fight over some cheap whiskey. Word came and Momma sent me, the eldest, to fetch his mortal remains on home. "Bring him back here, but don't let me see him no how", she told me, "or I just might have t kill him again. I knowed he was nuthin but a Son o Satan first I laid eyes on him."
Together we hoisted the box onto the back of the wagon. " Best be gettin on", I said. "it's early evenin and I got a ways to travel. Ten miles mights well be ten hundred with this old mule" I flicked Sissy's behind with the switch and we lurched forwards onto the Red Road towards home. Ten long miles from Big Bald to Picked Clean Holler an I could feel the fear rising in me. I knowed my way around the mountain and was good at it, but had always hated the Red Road. It snaked on through tall stands of slash pine and brushy woods an no body knew just where it came out. We had never been that far from home before.
A stinging rain began to fall as we moved along past hard scrapple farms and bug a boo haunts where a growed man could go in and never be heard from again. I could feel the cold rising up from the ground and pulled my jacket tighter to shut in some warmth. After about five miles the rain slacked off and a full moon, it's light sharp as the edge of a new honed razor, came up over the Big Piney Woods. Sissy was tired. We stopped at a clearing near a small farm and I got down to stretch my legs. That was when I heard it - a scream from way back in the woods - like Old Satan himself come to call.- and my hair stood right up on end. I swung myself up onto the wagon seat, but Sissy balked and bristled. She saw it afore I did: A bug eyed, slack jawed man, bout 8 feet tall, standin right next to her. Filthy rags for clothes and blood drippeng from from those yeller hawg tuskers he had fer teeth! I knew right then he meant to kill me. "Lemme go, Mister! lemmee go.!" I tried to say, but it was too late. A knock to my head sent me falling into the darkness.
I awoke with the sun. My coat was gone and dry blood caked up on my face and hair. Sissy and the wagon was still there, but Daddy's box lay open and empty. I just stood there addle headed, too tired to be scared and too scared to be tired. All I wanted to do was get home. I went at them pine trees with a fury, till I had that box filled with branches, then I took a stone an hammered the top down as best I could. When we finally got back to the cabin, I called out to Momma and she come running, wiping her hands on her apron. I know the looks of me like to scare her half to death, but she was middlin' quiet as she looked at the box. "Shut tight", she said, with a sigh of relief.
After we got the proper hole dug and the box down into the ground my brother Zeke allowed as to how light Daddy was. "Mustsa shrunk up some." he said. "Ol' Devils do that when they die." I just nodded like my head was on a spring. I couldn't say a word.
