The Orchard Keeper(41)
Warn Pulliam caught a skunk in a hole, Boog said. That right? How’s he smell? He don’t smell too purty.
The men laughed. He’s a fat’n, one said, nodding toward the rabbit. How’s them pups run? Purty good?
Purty good little old rabbit dogs, Johnny said. They jumped two more but I never got a clear shot.
Them’s beagles, said Boog.
The old man came out on the pike road at the gap where the Green Fly Inn had stood. There was no trace of the inn now but the black and limbless pine trunk that stood in the hollow. Snow had started again, dropping like a veil over the valley or riding the wind through the gap, stinging his face a little. He walked down until he came to the Twin Fork road and took it into the Hopper and homeward. From a lightwire overhead, dangling head downward and hollowed to the weight of ashened feathers and fluted bones, a small owl hung in an attitude of forlorn exhortation, its wizened talons locked about the single strand of wire. It stared down from dark and empty sockets, penduluming softly in the bitter wind.
At the head of the hollow there was a springhouse and they stopped to drink, the water green and pulsing up from the rocks where a scalloped fringe of ice jutted just above the waterline.
I figured to set here, Warn said, but they’s too many people come by and you’d get your traps stole. Come on I’ll show you where I got my culvert-set. He dipped up another mouthful of the numbing water, took the rifle and trap and handed the skunk to the younger boy. He don’t smell so bad out in the air, he said. The old lady’ll pitch a hissy when she gets a whiff of me though.
They came out on the road and crossed to the other side where the creek ran. Warn got down on one knee and peered back through the culvert under the road where the spring run trickled through.
It don’t never freeze in here, he said. I done caught me one muskrat here but what I’m lookin for is a mink. See? I got the trap jest back inside where nobody won’t notice it.
The boy peered into the dark tunnel, the water loping slowly down the corrugated metal and flaring where it passed over the trap.
I seen mink sign here back in the fall and some lately, Warn said. They’s mink on Stock Creek too. Used to be some on Red Branch but they ain’t any more is how come I don’t trap it no more. You ready to go?
See, they ain’t been no cars in here yet, Warn said. Ain’t but jest a few people live over here in the holler and mostly they ain’t got cars. You see that house up yander?
He looked where Warn pointed. Set back off the road was a squat saddle-roofed structure with a thin wisp of smoke swirling and circling about the top of the chimney.
That’s where Garland Hobie lives, he told him. You mess around there you get your ass shot off.
How come?
On account of he makes whiskey, Warn said. Him and his old lady. Here. I’ll show you somethin directly.
Beyond the curve of the road there was an old frame church and Warn pointed it out. See that church? Well, that was a nigger church. They used to be a bunch of niggers lived in the holler and they built this here church and commenced singin and hollerin of a night till old man Hobie, he’s dead now, he run em ever one off. He’s been dead since afore you and me was born and they ain’t none of em come back yet. That’s how strong he was on niggers. They say Ef was even meaner’n the old man. He died right at the store back a few year ago. Jest got out of Brushy Mountain. Garland, he’s meaner’n hell too. They raided em one time here back and he give em the old lady to take off to jail. His own mama. That’s how bad he is. Then they’s Uncle Ather lives up here—nodding ahead of them—he’s a purty good old feller.
Is he your uncle?
Naw. Him and Grandaddy Pulliam worked together cuttin sleepers for the K S & E. So the old man always called him Uncle. He’s purty old. Got a dog pret-near old as you and me both.
That’s purty old, the boy said. How old is he, Uncle …
Uncle Ather? He must be ninety or better. He’s older’n Grandaddy Pulliam and Grandaddy Pulliam’s daddy fought in the Civil War. He owned a lot of land in Knox County and when the war was over they took it away from him on account of him bein a Confederate. Grandaddy Pulliam says they wouldn’t even let nobody vote ceptin niggers and yankees.
Why was that?
On account of back then this was the North I reckon.
Late in the afternoon the old man was sweeping the snow from his front porch when he saw them coming up the road, two small figures dark against the unbroken fall of snow, laboring through the drifts. One of them was carrying a dead skunk. They came abreast of his mailbox and the taller one raised his hand. Heyo, Uncle Ather, he called.