Authors: Robert Ashcom
“I’m up here!” hollered Charlie.
“We see! We see!” said his father.
“Shake him out, Charlie!” yelled Luke. “Shake the branch. Is he dead?”
“He’s dead. He ain’t moving.”
“Not ain’t, isn’t,” said his father automatically as he returned the rifle to Luke.
“Okay, isn’t,” replied Charlie.
The possum fell then, crashing through the branches and hitting the ground with a thud. The hounds focused on him, just to be positive he was dead, which he wasn’t. When the possum moved, Luke brought up the rifle in a smooth motion and fired. The head jerked, and that was all.
Just as Charlie reached the ground, a sudden closed look came on his face. He jumped to Matthew’s side.
“Why did we have to shoot him?”
“So Luke and Jessie can have roast possum, Charlie. Pork’s about gone and it’s still a long time to hog killing,” said Matthew. “Anyway, that’s the way we do it. We all like to hear the hounds run. The hounds like it. We like it. And Luke and Jessie get dinner.”
The look passed from Charlie’s face as quickly as it had come.
“I know,” he said.
The next day, as soon as Sunday dinner was over, Charlie asked if he could ride over to Owens Mountain to see Luke. Gretchen wasn’t sure.
“What if the Henrys haven’t finished their dinner, Charlie?”
“They’ll be finished by the time I get there. It takes forty-five minutes on the pony, Gretchen,” said Charlie.
Charlie, like everyone else in the community, called her Gretchen. She was the pale, fair, grown-up female version of Charlie. She had never lived in the country before, and so she was often frightened for him. But she trusted Matthew. And even though his daddy was gone during the week, she was sure that in spite of his various adventures, Charlie would probably survive to adulthood as long as Matthew and, to a lesser extent, Professor James, were watching over the situation.
“All right then. Go on. But mind your manners and be back before dark.”
The rector of the church was at the Lewises’ for Sunday lunch. He knew Charlie, too. “What’s he doing? Getting ready to go wild over Luke’s possum hounds?” he asked.
“I guess so,” replied Charlie’s father. “He seems to go from one thing to the other. And those hounds
seem to be the next thing. Considering some of his other ‘things,’ this one seems pretty safe. Although you can’t tell.” He smiled.
Just as Charlie knew they’d be, Luke and Jessie were on the porch in their rockers. Luke had changed into his khaki work clothes, but Jessie was still dressed for church fanning herself with a split-cane fan. The kind found in all the churches, black and white.
“Jessie … Luke, good afternoon.” Charlie made his manners.
The boy and the man stepped over to the hound pens. Jessie, whose granddaddy was said to have been an Indian and whose cheekbones, as a result, looked as if they had been chiseled from solid rock, looked on from the porch, fanning and thinking,
When it comes to dogs and hunting, men ain’t got good sense. At least my man don’t. He’d rather spend the whole night hunting for one possum, which ain’t that good to eat nohow, spend all night long just to hear the dogs run—and then traipsing up and down the country looking for lost ones … And look at that Charlie Lewis. He’ll catch it sure enough. And next thing you know he’ll …
Suddenly, she said aloud, “Charlie Lewis, where is your hat? You’ll take a heat stroke sure enough out there with no hat on, and you fair as you is …” She tramped into the house and emerged with a battered old felt hat with a band of ribbon and a little quail feather in the band and said, “Now Charlie, you put this hat on, and I hope you turn out to have more sense than the
man it belongs to.” Smiling.
And Luke smiled back. “Old lady, what you talking about sense. You know I got more sense than mighty near anyone you ever knowed. This boy wants to learn. So I’ll teach him.”
Into the sultry afternoon the man talked and the boy listened, his eyes moving from hound to man and back as he took in the lore of the black and tans: their names and their sires’ and dams’ names, and the great hunts—Luke sometimes called them races—they’d been on. Like the time the hounds—there were ten that night—jumped a fox over next to Quail Hill. The men didn’t mean to run a fox because there was no telling how the hunt would end up. Sometimes a fox would carry them all the way to Greenwood—or the other way, to the town. Once the hounds got running, they usually couldn’t be stopped, what with them going kind of crazy and the men, too, for that matter, it was so exciting. On that night, him and William Critzer and Sammy Jones were at the foot of the mountain, downwind, as the fox come over, heading straight at them. And old Belle …
And here the narrative came to a pause. “That’s her granddaughter there—that gyp with the split ear—do you see, Charlie? Do you see her?
“Yes sir, I see her—right there. What’s her name?”
“Why, Sarah, Charlie. Name Sarah. Ain’t she lovely? Small—but look at her beautiful feet. And legs. And her so smooth and silkylike. She ain’t but a second-year
bitch, but, oh Lord, she done got good already. She can strike a cold track while the rest just standing around. And go on with it, too. Ain’t no dwelling with her. No sir … Call her, Charlie. She’ll come to you. She’s gentle as can be.”
Jessie saw it happen from the porch. Saw the boy look at the little black and tan bitch, and call her name and her come to him, saw him look at her eyes and then, as she came to him, draw back slightly as if startled, as if he were connecting to a creature completely new to him. She saw him reach out to touch her, with his palm down. And saw her lower her head a little. And then she heard Luke’s voice—“No, Charlie, not like that. Put your palm up. Let her smell of your palm. If you go at her the other way, she’ll think you threatening her. See how gentle she is?” Jessie watched Charlie put his hand under her jaw and still looking at her, sit on a stump, and Sarah lay her head on his leg.
The scene froze. Jessie gently rocking, was wrapped, a little sadly, in all the accumulated scenes of men and hounds, over all the years. Luke was lost in the tale itself, not even speaking it now. The skinny white boy sat on the stump, the head of the beautiful little black-and-tan bitch in his lap, taking up the story as if to give color to his pale skin.
“But then what happened, Luke?”
“Why, Charlie, they come off the mountain just flying. Covered that half mile in nothing flat. And us standing there holding our breath—standing in the
little clearing next to the branch.” Luke was talking faster in the urgency of the tale. “And there he was—a big red, but real dark, almost black, and strong looking, with no white hairs on his tail. I recollect him still. What he looked like … He saw us and slammed on the brakes. He just stopped and sat down, his tongue hanging out. He looked back over his shoulder at where he come from. Then gone and them ten hounds come into the clearing running wide open. Not one of ’em looked up, throwing their tongues like great God Almighty, and straight on after that fox, down the branch and skirting the lake and into the swamp. Then I knowed we was for it.”
“Why, Luke? What’s wrong with the swamp?”
“Hush, Charlie! I’m telling you! Well, anyway, William—even back then William wasn’t getting around too good, he was so fat—William said, ‘Luke, I reckon we’d better get the trucks. Cause the way I am, I won’t be able to get to the lake by daybreak, walking.’ So William and Sammy jump into William’s truck, and followed me down to the village and then back through Silver Hill, and down to the lake.
“And not a sound. Not one peep out of a hound and us standing on the dam looking out at the swamp in the moonlight, and lightning bugs shining and every tree frog in creation yelling at once. But not a sound from a hound.
“And Sammy Jones—him and his brother run their daddy’s dairy over to the reservoir—You know them, don’t you, Charlie?”
“Yes sir, I know them.”
“Well, anyway, Sammy says, ‘Luke, The way them dogs’—Sammy always used to call ’em ‘dogs’—‘was pouring it to him coming off the mountain at Quail Hill, I bet they run that fox right through the whole swamp, out the other side past Mill Creek Farm, maybe clean to Locust Hill.’ You see, Charlie, Sammy was always one of them fellers what expected the worst on a hunt. Either we’d loose the hounds clear across the Ragged Mountains, or they’d get hit on Route 280—always something. Sammy was like William—too fat. But Sammy had a great ear for a race: when they were in hearing, Sammy could tell you just who was doing what in the hunt. Even when the hounds weren’t his. Yes, Sammy has about the best ear of any white man I ever knowed.
“Well, just as we figured Sammy was right and we were heading for the trucks, here they come back again. On the far side of the swamp. And you didn’t need to be no expert to hear old Belle’s high chop carrying that hunt. She was throwing everything she had to that fox’s trail, and the rest coming along right behind her.
“It sure was grand to hear. We figured the fox would settle down and stay in the swamp and go round and round—what with the hounds having to wallow along in the mud and water—with the fox just jumping from hummock to hummock. So we sat down on the dam to listen, and William pulled out a pint of store-bought
white man’s whiskey and everybody took a pull. Not that I got anything against store-bought whiskey, but the Smith boys up the hollow—”
Jessie had been listening with half an ear, and jumped in. “Luke, don’t you be talking to that boy about no whiskey, store-bought or otherwise. You hear?”
Before Luke could reply, Charlie asked, “Where did the swamp come from, Luke? Matthew said something about another lake, but …”
“That’s what it started out. Way back. Old man Brighten built the first lake, the one still there. Right where the rock ledge would be a spillway. It worked fine. So he thought he’d build him another one, below the first one. But that dam was long and there weren’t no rock spillway. So come the hurricane in ’26, and water poured over the rock spillway into the second lake and water ran over top that dirt dam and the whole thing washed away. Washed down to two foot high. And the trees and grass just growed right up in there, till it was a swamp. Sometimes in drought it about dries up—just the creek in the middle keeps running, and everthing else dries up. The old cow path is still beside the creek, what was always there, even when the rest is swamp. So you can get through straight along the creek. Actually, you can look along it the whole way from the upper end. Ain’t you ever been in there, Charlie?”—But he only stopped long enough to draw breath and went on—“And that was the only
time I ever seen foxfire. Right along that path.”
And then Charlie said, “But what happened next on the hunt? What did the fox do, Luke? Did you see him again?” Charlie knew what foxfire was. But he didn’t know how the hunt would end.
“Well, they crossed the Mill Creek road coming right at us, coming up the path next to the creek. And then we seen it. A glowing trail—patches of it—like drawing a line on a paper, only this line glowing like fire, coming right at us. And straight up the dam it come. And there was the fox again. Leaving a trail of light with his feet where he’d stepped into the foxfire mushrooms and carried the pieces along with him. But no stopping this time. No sir! Rolling on up the hill on the other side of the dam, straight back to Quail Hill. Leaving the foxfire trail behind. And then here come the ten hounds up the cow path and all of a sudden the whole path lit up again with foxfire where the hounds run into what the fox left behind.
“And us speechless! Never in my life did I see William Critzer without something to say—”
Here Jessie jumped in again. “Or you either, old man. And I still ain’t heard you without something to say about a hunt.” As she rocked, smiling, on the porch. But not even Jessie could stop Luke now.
“So we set on the dam and took another pull as the foxfire give out, and the hounds run on behind that fox. Back to Quail Hill like we thought, and then turned to come back again. And William said we’d
sure as hell better stop them hounds if they come back through, cause he didn’t want to see that glowing trail down through the swamp again.”
“Was William scared, Luke? Did the foxfire scare him? Did it scare you?”
“No, I reckon not. Weren’t none of us scared, really. We’d all heard of it. But it seemed like such a old-timey thing. Something long out of memory. Something the old people saw. Not us. But we did see it, for a fact … for a fact.” And here he paused. Stopped. His eyes got distance in them. And Charlie’s, too, as if he somehow was remembering the story, as if he had been there that night and seen the foxfire, or dreamed it.
A crow called in the dreamy heat. Sarah raised her head from Charlie’s knee and yawned. The spell was broken.
“Well, that fox run right on to Quail Hill, doubled, and come straight back on his first track. Laying one trail on top of the other. But the hounds knowed they wont backtracking. So they rolled right on towards us. And then come the fox, again. But we didn’t say nothing. Once he passed, all of us got out the couplings and stood across the fox’s track, spread out and ready. So when Belle come out of the woods, I grabbed her and hooked on the coupling and then little Star and hooked her on the other end. Hook two hounds together like that and they’re easier to handle. William and Sammy got two apiece, so we had the lead hounds. The four puppies stopped to be friendly. They
weren’t a hundred percent sure what was going on, anyway. So we caught ‘em all. And glad we had. Cause that was enough for one night. We stood still for a minute. The hounds panting, and us, too, for that matter. Clouds come up. Fixing to rain. Time to go.”
“But Luke, did the fox leave the foxfire trail that time through the swamp?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t none of us look over his shoulder.”
“But why not, Luke? Didn’t you want to know?”
“I reckon we was too busy getting ready to catch the hounds … We just didn’t look … that’s all …” Luke’s words trailed off.
Suddenly, in the tension of the moment, Charlie burst out in his high, urgent voice, “But I want to know, Luke. I want to. I want to see the foxfire trail when the fox comes through and hear Sarah’s high voice carrying the hunt, and when they come back the second time, I’ll watch to see if the trail glows again, and I’ll let the hounds run on all night long, and I’ll go into the swamp, too … to see what happens. I’m going to do that, Luke. I know I will, won’t I?”