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TALES FROM THE DEEPER SOUTH BY: Memphis Annie
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THE WITCH It was during the War Between the States
that two Confederate soldiers were making their way back toward their camp after going out on patrol one cold rainy night. They were hungry and tired and were crossing
the edge of a big, open field when they saw the lights of a cabin back in the trees at the bottom of a ridge. As they drew closer, they could smell the
distinct aroma of ham and beans and they decided to go and knock on the door and beg some food. It
had been so long since they’d had anything but hardtack and potatoes they just couldn’t help themselves. They stepped up to the door and knocked and
heard a shuffling inside and then the door opened and a beautiful woman stood staring at them from inside. “Mam,”
one of the soldiers said, “Could you spare us some of your food?” and the woman nodded and stepped aside for them
enter. She served them bowls of ham and beans and
poured them strong cups of coffee from the pot that hung over the fire and had them hang their socks on the mantle to dry. “Is
your husband off fighting?” One of them asked and she shook her head and said she was widowed. The soldier asked if
he could come back to visit sometime and she said he could. The two soldiers began to feel sleepy and
thought that it was the warm fire and the good food and the woman kept talking in her smooth soft voice until they were asleep
in their chairs. When they awoke the next morning they were
startled to find themselves in the one bed of the cabin beneath warm quilts with the woman making coffee and cooking hot grits
over the fire and they had a good hot meal before leaving. “You boys come back any time.” The woman said. A few days later, the soldiers set off toward
the cabin for a return visit. They stepped up on the porch and knocked on the
door and when it opened, an old woman answered and the two asked where the young woman was. “Is she your daughter?”
One of them asked and the old woman began to laugh. “I’m the only one here, boys…ain’t been no one
else here but me…” she laughed. “But I’d be glad to have you again” THE YANKEES My sister and me lived off in the old house
my Papa had built after he come to this valley from Scotland and married my Mama right over there in that little Church. Now,
neither one of us girls had ever married nor courted very much but we were happy there together, tendin’ our little
garden, sewing beside the fire most evenings and quilting our quilts that we sold for a living. It was the Winter of 1865 when we got word
from Old John Scout who’d come all the way down the mountain to tell us that the Union Army was a’comin’
and why, that just set us into a panic. “They’ll
rape and pillage and steal your chickens and take your gold and steal your mule!”
He cried as he waved his hands about in the air and limped around the yard on his cane. Janie baked some bread and hid the beans
and I began to gather what eggs the hens had laid and set about hiding our little store of meal in the bottom of the wood
bin and wrapped our side of bacon in an old calico skirt of mine and hid it under my mattress. We tucked Mama’s Cameo in an old stocking
with the two pieces of gold we owned and hung it among the herbs and plants that hung drying in the rafters of the kitchen
and out behind the barn, we dug a hole and buried the silver ‘cept for two spoons we kept out for ourselves to eat with
and I churned up the butter and put it into a crock and hid it in the back of my closet. It was cold that morning and we had us a
good fire going when we heard them coming. There were six of them dressed in
their blue uniforms on fine horses and they jingled and rattled into the yard. We
watched through the window as one of them dismounted and strode up onto the porch with heavy footfalls. Janie stood behind me with the broom as he
knocked on the door. I unbolted the latch and opened the door
and stared at the General with the grey beard as clean and spiffy as I’d ever seen and damn if he wasn’t right
handsome too… “Mam…
I’m General Grant…of the Janie stepped out from behind me then with
the broom and aimed it square at the chest of the man. He stepped back in surprise
and raised his hands. “We don’t want any trouble mam…” “You just git!” She shouted loud enough to even startle him and me. “You ain’t takin’ nothing
we have nor rapin’ nor pilliagin’!” She cried as he raised his hands above his head when she took a swing
at him with the broom. “No mam! He said. “We was just
lettin’ you know that no harm would come to you and yours. We will just
pass across the field and be gone.” Janie seemed confused and put the broom down.
“Now, you ladies have a good day…” He said as he turned to go. He bowed politely and set the cap back on
his head and turned on his heels. We watched him mount the horse again and together, they turned and left the yard. We watched them pass across the field and
disappear into the woods beyond. There must have been a hundred of them… Janie turned to me and said…”Well,
I’ll be damned…” was all she said as we closed the door. RUNAWAY MINE TRAIN The boys who worked the mines watched the
little coal train as the Cap’n pulled away from the shuttle after the cars had been filled with ore. He blew the whistle and rung the bell as the boys ran to catch hold of the back car for the trip down the
ridge off Lookout Mountain to the valley and the long Southern Crest that waited below on the tracks of the Great Southern
RR. The boy’s faces were black and sooty
and their dirty fingers latched onto the hand rail as the little train picked up speed and rounded the bend. Down below the lights from the houses in the valley were just beginning to twinkle in the twilight and
steam belched from the stack on the engine. The train screeched its brakes as it headed
for the sharpest curve in the descent and one by one, the boys noticed that the train was picking up too much speed. Their faces peered at one another as the trees flew by and the wind took their voices
from their throats. Faster-Faster with screeches from the failing brakes until
the valley loomed and one boy cried: “JUMP!!” and they bailed off into the sage and brambles along the track,
rolling to a halt on back and knee as the Cap’n frantically waved the lantern and blew the whistle three sharp times
in warning to those below. Down on the tracks, the Southern Crescent
engineer could see the impending danger and began pulling the train forward but not soon enough as the coal train crashed
into the side of an empty boxcar and flew off into the air as the boiler exploded sending ore and metal shards raining from
the sky. As the boys came racing off the hill and the fire raged, it was clear
that the Cap’n had been lost. Late evenings in the valley if the wind is
right can be heard the whistle and the screech of brakes and as twilight falls you can see him still, waving his lantern in
warning to those beside the tracks in the valley.. THE FISHIN’ TRIP Down there in the canyon there’s quite
a few good fishin’ holes and one in particular with trout as long as your arm that me and old Jim used to visit but
it was hard to get to…was a mighty hard walk down the rim along one of them old Cherokee trails. Nobody had traveled some of them in years and you had to wind your way through thick brambles sometimes the goin’ was even harder comin’ up. But one morning in the fall, we made up our
minds over a pot of coffee that we were going to pack us a lunch and go down there that day.
The air was so crisp and the leaves all red and gold, it was a good day
for trout. So, at the head of the trail we set off with a bottle of corn whisky, our fly rods
and lunch and didn’t see another living soul the whole way. Now, it’s
not often a man will see another down on Little River lessen’ he’s fishin’ too or raftin’ the river
when it’s high enough but that day, we didn’t see no one else. Little see
further west with the exception of the Now
most folk don’t think of Foot on.
And sometimes, you’ll hear sounds down in that place that’ll make the hair on the back of your neck stand
up! That day, there was the sound of the river,
the wind and a lone red tailed hawk circled above us as Jim tied his first fly and cast out from the shallows into the current and I did the same and no sooner
than he could say “lickety split” did a big ol’ speckled trout snatch it and put up a fight! And that’s the way the day went on
up until about mid afternoon just after we finished our lunch and stored the remains back in the pail. I had just cast and was waiting for a fish when I noticed that the birds had stopped chirping and singing
and it seemed even Little River had quieted down. Jim noticed it too and looked up past me
toward a sandbar a few hundred feet away and stood stock still, line frozen in hand.
I slowly turned my head to see the She Bear, digging in the warm sand and eyeing us with a little suspicion. “Don’t
move” I whispered and Jim winked that he understood and we stood stock
still in the water. Then, the bear froze in her digging and turned
her head up toward the canyon wall and sniffed the air and stood then on her haunches as stock still as we were. It
was then that I became afraid. I could smell the smell she was smelling, a rank
musky odor that made you hold your breath! I could see that Jim smelled it too and he gave me a look of pure fear. The She Bear was back on all fours now but
had turned as if to back away from whatever she was watching. I had no doubt
what was hiding just beyond our view. If the bear was afraid, we damn sure should
be and a million thoughts raced through my head as I watched her. That
odor. I had smelled it once before in this canyon…I had felt his eyes upon
me and felt as helpless as a baby in it’s presence. And that smell took me back to a day when
I was a boy with my friends and we were down here in the canyon to swim and I had stepped off into the bushes to do my business
when I smelled that smell and the hair on the back of my neck and arms stood up like there was lightening in the air and slowly,
when I turned my head, and there behind the trunk of a Shag Bark Hickory he stood… I
found myself gazing into the animal’s eyes…almost human eyes surrounded by a thick matt of reddish fur that covered
it’s face, chest, arms and hands…yes hands… and my brain tried to register what I was seein’…like
a gorilla I’d seen once at the Circus in Fort Payne but different…. I didn’t remember passing out, but
when I came to, He was gone and my friends were trying to wake me up and I didn’t tell them what I had seen. I just
told them I felt bad and I wanted to go home. Up toward a rock outcrop a sprig of bush
moved independent of the wind that was blowing and I could see that the bear was watching that very spot. “Jim…you see that?” I whispered. “uhhuh…” he managed to reply as the
bear suddenly charged away past us and across the river while we stood frozen.
He was moving up the canyon now. We could
follow his progress by the movement of the bushes and soon, the odor relented and he was gone. Jim and I grabbed up our things and quickly
moved back out of the river and up the trail. In
the hour it took us to reach the top, I thought I was going to die with every snap of a twig above or below us and once during
our ascent, a rock came crashing out of nowhere toward us and I could see that Jim was just as afraid as me. Finally we made it to the top and raced back
toward the road and the safety of our cabin. Once inside, we bolted the door
and lit the fire. We were both silent for most of the night. Neither one wanted to talk about it. Jim just put the fish on to fry in silence. We never did go back to the Canyon after
that day. We found other, more populated places to fish and until the day Jim
died, we never did talk about that afternoon in Little CAKES AND SHINE My Grandma baked the best chocolate cakes
in the world. They had big, thick layers of Devil’s Food cake made from
scratch with a homemade icing this thick and that cake would melt in your mouth like butter! Now it was a given. If somebody passed, there’d be her Devil’s Food cake right there with all the other food folks
had brought. And no Church social, Anniversary or Decoration Day was complete without her coconut cake. Politicians…well …of course she’d bake a Patriotic sheet cake with little stars and stripes
for her favorite candidate…no Fire Department Cakewalk, fundraiser or Halloween
Carnival at the school could hold forth without her three layer Butter cake with
that light chocolate icing. To receive one of those cakes
as a gift was a treasure. Why, at Christmas time she had a list of folks who’d
get one…the Preacher and his wife, the Mayor, Church Deacons, her hairdresser and…the Sheriff …especially
the Sheriff. See, my Grandma made the cakes
but her boys made somethin’ else that was real good. Corn whisky. Why,
it rivaled anything that came from a proper distillery and was better than most! The still was way off up the
ridge on Bruton Gap. It set off under a real nice arbor the boys had built and
it was a clean runnin’ operation. There was a big copper pot sittin’
over an old stone pit and all these shiny copper tubes runnin’ up and ot of it every which way. Those boys would make up a run of it every spring and fall and pour it into Mason fruit jars that their
ma had washed so clean you could keep a baby’s milk in them and when they filled those jars, she’d seal them off
with ball lids just like she was cannin’ vegetables and that good, clear shine was sought by more folks around there
than any one could guess. Now, just below the spring
was a natural cave that run, as luck would have it right down to the old house and well, her pa had dug out a tunnel off of
it and had made an entrance from it right into the house. The trap door came
right up into her room, hidden neatly underneath one of her braided rugs. That’s
how they brought the whisky in from the still.
Every few years, the Sheriff
and his boys would come tearin’ through those ridges and hollers blowin’ up stills and arrestin’ folk to
cut down on the flow, if you will. Every time they come to her house why she’d
meet the Sheriff at the door with a boxed up triple layered Devil’s Food cake and say… “Why Sheriff…you know we ain’t made no whisky since John passed!” And every time, the Sheriff
would make his apologies and take his boys and be on his way. He’d arrive home and set the box on the table. “Look
what Miss Ada made for us, Honey!” He’d say to his wife and she’d lift that cake out of the box by the little
cardboard doiley and underneath would always be a crisp new one hundred dollar bill. CHIEF AWL They blew his cave to smithereenes
when they started buildin' that interstate. Why, Chief Awl had lived up there
on He had built himself a new
cabin and it was cozy and warm inside. He'd built all the furniture in it except
for the lookin' glass on the wall and it had a front porch where you could sit and look out over the valley. He had some beautiful pieces
of pottery...old pieces that his Grandmama and her's had made and used and bone knives and spearpoints. When we were boys,
why, he taught us all how to hunt and fish and track. He never did take to the white
man's ways. No Sir. Why, when the
first cars came rollin' down US 11, he'd sit up on them rocks and take pot shots at 'em with his old Stephen’s rifle. He said "cars would ruin the air" and he was right I recon... He said that interstate they were
buildin' was an evil plot by the Government to herd us all up like cattle and take us away too just like they did his people. He said he and his Papa used
to hunt all the hollers' around here, and could catch all the fish they needed out of Little Wills Creek. He had him a plot of potatoes and greens growin' down by the creek and the only times he'd come down off
the mountain was to buy tobacco and coveralls a couple times a year at Amos Store.. Now I met him when I was 10
and I remember it like it was yesterday. He was checkin' beaver traps along the
creek in the sugarcanes and I was playin' in the water out back of our place when I saw him move out of the shade. So I hunkered down and watched. He was dressed in coveralls...had
his long black hair braided and tied back. I watched him take two beaver by their tails and move off back up the mountain. Now, everybody said he was
a loner...that he didn't take to noone too well. I had seen him at the store
one time and he only spoke to Mr. Amos. I was a little scared but I wanted to
see where he lived and what he was about. I followed the way he had gone but
I lost him in the shade of the rocks. When I smelled smoke, I followed
the scent and found his cabin set off at the foot of a rock stand. There was
a big cave behind it and I crept up as quite as I could and hid behind a big Oak just watching him. He was on the porch of
his cabin with a big skinnin' knife in one hand and a dead beaver in the other. I didn't think he knew I was
there but then, he raised his gaze right at me and said. "Well, are you
gonna just stand there or come on up? I eased out from behind the tree and walked on up the steps to him. I helped him skin
those beavers and from that day on, we were friends. Why, i'd bring him food...bacon and beans and such and many was the time we go huntin' for squirrel and
cook up a mighty good stew. Now, he was about ten years
older than me I guess and my Pa had died when I was just a baby and I didn't have no one to teach me things. Oh, I knew a lot about the Civil War cause my Pa, he was one of the Veterans of it but it was Awl who showed
me how to spear a fish and skin beaver and be a man. When they started buildin'
that interstate it was in the early 1950's. A bunch of construction companies
brought in bulldozers and graters and such and commenced to tearin' through the bottom of The company had trouble gettin'
men to work that stretch of road between Attalla and Things were always happenin'
to the equipment down there...gas lines were disconnected...tires got flats for no reason and one of those graters just blew
up one day while it sat idle during the lunch break. They brought in some deputies
but the deputies swore someone was watching them from the woods and would follow them around and didn’t take to their
duties very kindly. Oh, Awl held them off for a
good while but sooner or later it was bound to happen. When I heard they were
going to dynamite the side of the mountain I went off to warn him. I searched everywhere for him but he was nowhere to be found. I looked in all the caves but come up lonesome so I did somethin' maybe I shouldn't have. I took an old kroker sack and filled it full of his things and I took it on home. I had the feeling he
was gone for good. Next day at 9 am, they set
the charges. Damn near knocked out every window for 20 miles in this valley and
shook the ground. The blast changed the course of Little Wills Creek and covered
up Awl's cave. There was nothin' left of the cabin at all...just a few broken
dishes and the old rock chimney. Now the trucks and the cars
come and go on the interstate "ruinin'” the air in the valley and makin’ a constant roar. I never found out what
happened to Chief Awl but I seem to think he's still up there on GANGSTERS FOR SUNDAY DINNER Miss Elizabeth laid a
good table every Sunday after church let out. She made last minute preparations
in the big kitchen, scooping mounds of mashed potatoes into a big serving bowl, laying piece after piece of fried chicken
on her best china platter and poured the gravy out of the pot into the boat and ran a finger along the side of the chocolate
cake to taste the icing. The table in the dining room was set for the meal with
a couple of extra places because she never knew who might show up...people tended to drop by on Sundays unexpectedly. All her boys and several of
their friends were home for the weekend from college and the big old house was abuzz with life. There were the sounds of footsteps upstairs as they made preparations to leave and the sounds of music
wafted from the radio in the living room. Outside on the porch, her youngest
boy, Pelham and her husband Walter, with a big cigar between his teeth stood looking out at the sleet that had begun to fall
when a fine black touring car came into view heading south on US 11. When it cleared the first driveway
leading to the house, it slowed, moving past the stone wall and turned into the
second entrance, pulling around the circular drive and stopping. The car was
spewing smoke and the engine was making a
rattling sound as one well dressed man emerged from the drivers side and pulled on an expensive overcoat. He looked toward the house with a little suspicion but met
Walter's gaze with a smile as he opened the hood of the car and stood back as the steam escaped. Walter pulled his hat down
and stepped down off the porch toward the car just as a second, smaller man emerged from the passenger side and nodded to
him. "What seems to be the problem?"
Walter asked as his son looked on. "She's overheated..." The taller man said. "Where'd you come from?" Walter asked. "Up "I'd shut her off and let her cool down...there's a mechanic I can call...if I can reach
him on Sunday..." Walter told them. "Meanwhile...we
were about to sit down to Sunday Dinner and you are both welcome...got plenty..." The taller man smiled and gave
a look to the second one. "Al? What
do you think?" Al shrugged. "We
won't be leaving any time soon....if you're sure the Misses won't mind..." Walter
nodded. "She won't mind" He assured
them and invited the two inside. At the dinner table, all the introductions were
made. Alphonz Calone and Lorenzo Shatz...two bankers from The two politely commented
on the delicious food and the lovely house and everyone chatted like old friends at the table and afterward, Walter called
the mechanic who came and replaced a belt that had broken and the two men graciously offered to pay Elizabeth for the meal
and hospitality but she wouldn't hear of it and they gave Walter two fine Cuban
Cigars to enjoy for his troubles and drove off south, on their way again. The boys all departed for school
and Walter retired to his big chair beside the radio with one of the Cigars while Elizabeth and Gertie cleared the table. When They'd been right nice for
Northerners...must have been bankers or investors by the way they were dressed, he thought and with a puff on the fine cigar,
he resumed reading the paper. Then an article caught his
eye. "Two of Walter nearly dropped his cigar
but recovered it and hurriedly crumpled up the newspaper and shoved it into the fireplace , glancing over his shoulder. He
did not want A few weeks later, a package
arrived for Elizabeth and Walter and inside was a Fox Fur Stole and a bottle of fine Whisky and a note that read. “thank you for your hospitality and the wonderful Sunday Dinner… Sincerely, Al Capone”. A MONSTER IN BLUEWATER The boys knew they shouldn’t
go near that hole with it’s deep swirling water, blue as an October sky
but the velvety moss and the soft, lush grass in the deep shade drew boy and
farmer alike on hot, summer days. For as beautiful as it was there was much danger
down beneath the calm depths of Blue Water. Like the swirling down a drain it
carried anything caught up in it down into the depths of the aquifer and into the cold waters of Little Wills Creek. It was a game to the boys to
throw objects into Blue Water: an old wagon wheel, a wooden crate or a chair.
But on this July day, the hot, tired farmer led his mule down to the shade to drink and rest a spell beside Blue Water. The mule trotted to the water’s edge and nuzzled the surface with her soft muzzle
as the farmer lay with his eyes closed on the soft, cool moss beneath the trees. She stepped gingerly
into the soft mud and drank deeply, moving further in as the farmer urged her back when suddenly she began to slip and fell
floundering and bellowing as the farmer jumped to his feet and raced to the water’s edge reaching for her lead lines
and tugging with all his might but it was too late! Helpless to reach her, he
could only turn his head as the snout of poor Nell sank beneath the water with a baleful moan.
The farmer stood in the deep shade, horrified at the sight he had just seen and mourning the loss of the old girl. How would he get in his crops now? Who
would believe what he had just seen? He raced for home. The following summer on a warm
August day, boys came to the creek with paper ships to sail as they splashed and played in the water when suddenly from the
depths came a dark shape rising up with bulging eyes and yawing mouth. It startled the boys
causing them to run away in terror from the terrible thing they had seen and word soon spread.
A monster now lived in Little Wills! People came to see, cautiously
peering down from the bank into the water from a safe distance. One of them who
came to see was the farmer from the previous summer. He immediately recognized
the monster as his own poor mule. But he kept quiet as he watched the faces of
those around him. He wouldn’t say a thing… (VERSION 1) HOW THE UNION SOLDIER GOT TIED TO THAT TREE When I stepped into the
general store on that chill morning, the heat from the wood stove felt good and I hung up my coat on the rack and said good
morning to them all… the founding fathers and pillars of the community.
There was Mr. Percy, The mayor a short balding man who wore a railroad jacket every day of his life except on Sunday’s
when he wore his one good suit. And Preacher Hall, a tall rail of a man with a voice that boomed hellfire and brimstone from
behind the pulpit on Sunday mornings to his congregation at the church and Old George Wills,
a ragged veteran of the Indian wars and one, who in his late 60’s attempted to volunteer for the Confederate
army when I was a boy. There was Sheriff Hill, always dressed in his brown uniform
and wide brim hat and Mr. Amos, the Store keep/ Fire Chief and me, the school teacher for the children living in Little Wills
Valley, a skinny balding man of 35 with a handlebar moustache and a slight limp. “Mornin’
Teacher” George said as I strode in. “You keepin’ them kids straight?”
He asked with a sly grin as I smiled and poured myself a cup of coffee. “As
best I can…” I replied. Then the Mayor asked me “You heard
the news?” I said I hadn’t but I knew I was about to. “Yesterday mornin’, Jeb Hawkins come runnin’ in here all upset…he was up on the
mountain squirrel huntin’ and found him a dead body up there!” He
said as I paused mid-sip. “A dead body!" He exclaimed and I said. “Well,
who was it?” “Don’t
know.” The Mayor replied. “It was the strangest thing. Jeb said he
didn’t go pokin’ around or nothin’ but he said the old boy looked like he’d been there for years…
still had some rags of his clothes clingin’ to them ol’ bones… He was a damn Union Soldier! Can you imagine
that? Up there all these years like that?”
“I think we should give
him a proper burial” The Mayor continued but old George spat a wad of tobacco halfway across the room and cursed. “Ain’t no goddamned Yankee gon’ be buried next to my Mama…!” “We could ship him home…” Mr. Amos suggested “ But there wasn’t
nothin’ with him to tell where home is…or who he is…” “Just
ship him north…get him the hell out of here!” George continued as
he began to pace around the wood stove. The Mayor continued. “And listen to this…he’d been tied up to a tree with a long old stretch of rope…musta
struggled against all kinds of wild animals and such before he give up the ghost. I
say was a mighty cruel thing for even a Reb to do to a Yank…yessiree” He concluded. Then the Sheriff spoke up “We’re
goin’ up there today to bring him down. What do you think, Teach? Bury
him or ship’em?” He asked but I didn’t hear another word. My mind was racing back
to that summer day when the Battle of Chattanooga was going on and the three of us were up on Lookout playing soldier, following
a good distance behind the Yanks as they marched north…Jake with his shock of blonde hair and a coil of rope with his
overalls undone and Aaron, all freckle faced and redheaded with and moccasins on his feet and me in a pair of my old dungarees
barefoot and shirtless. “William…are you listening?” Preacher asked me and I snapped to but
I was shaking now and dropped my cup of coffee and felt it burning my legs and watched the cup roll to the floor. “Will!” Preacher shouted and motioned for Amos to get me a chair. He shoved me down onto it and someone laid a cold wet rag across my legs and I gasped. My legs felt icy hot beneath it and I could feel my heart pounding so loud that I was sure they could hear
it too. “You’re as
pale as a ghost, boy…” The mayor said. “I-m ok…just think
I need to go get out of these clothes and rest a spell…” I managed
to say and someone offered to walk me home but I said I could make it and I got up and took my coat and limped off out the
door. “What in the hell come over him?” George asked. The mayor shrugged as he watched me go. “That coffee really had to burn…”
He said, shaking his head. I stumbled into the door of my house and I pulled off the pants right there in the sitting
room and examined the blisters on my legs and got me some salve from the pantry and rubbed it on good until the burning eased
up a bit. I flopped down on my bed and laid there with no pants on, arms above my head.
My mind drifted off back to the mountain as the sound of the marching soldiers died away and for a moment I saw him
there, tied to that tree. “I thought you got free…I thought you got
free! I’d a’ never left you tied up like that if I’d a’ thought…” He was in his teens, that Yankee
soldier named Hank…he’d been posted as a rear lookout and had fallen asleep at his station, propped up against
that tree in the afternoon sun. We watched him a good long while before Jake
got up the courage to suggest it…to take the rope we’d brought along for climbin’ and tie him up good. So, we followed him, crawling on our bellies across the pine needles until we surrounded
the guy and then…Wham! We had that rope around him five or six good times
before he even opened his eyes and cried out. He woke up with a start
and slung himself forward to grab his gun but the rope kept him back and Aaron picked the thing up and pointed it at him. “Whoaa boy…that thing’s got a full charge there!” He cried
out as Aaron played with the gun and The soldier said. “Yall best let me go cause there’ll be more Yanks along soon…” And he started wigglin’ and rollin’ around tryin’ to free himself. “We ain’t lettin’
you go…we gon’ go get a Reb and tell him to come git you!” I
said as I grabbed up his pack and dumped it on the ground. “Hey, them’s my things, boy… you put them back!” But I just kept diggin on through them. “You
got a name, soldier?” I asked him.
“Hank Hill…35th Just then we heard more soldiers
coming off across the ridge and he heard them too and started to yell but ‘Aaron pointed the loaded gun at him and he
got real quiet. We all stood stock still and listened as the small group of men
passed just below us, hidden by the trees. When they were long gone, I finally
breathed again. “Now, them was my boys…and they’ll be more. Now
I’ll let ya’ll go if you’ll just untie me…I just wanna get this damn war over and go home to my girl! Now let me loost!” We pulled off to the side and
talked amongst ourselves of what should be done. “There really could be
others coming and then…we’d get got!” Jake said. “We could just let him go” I said. But the way
he was carryin’ on we all agreed he could be dangerous if we let him loose about now.
“We’ll just leave him here and when his other boys come by, he’ll yell and they’ll untie him!” Aaron told us and this sounded right and fair.
“Yea, they’ll let him go…” “Don’t
you leave me here like this!!” He cried as we proceeded to run off with his gun and his pack and his cap and high tailed
it back to the valley late afternoon and raced into our barn with our booty and hid it all away up in the loft wrapped in
an old burlap sack. Indeed
other soldiers marched along the trail on the mountain for the next couple of days until we heard they were all heading to
the sea and then the crops came in and we all were busy just before school started back and somehow, Hank from The season’s changed
and Hank passed into our memory, especially mine as a thing I would never do again and the bundle of his belongings lay forgotten
in the loft of the barn in the burlap sack and winter came. Then a story spread around the valley about the Jacks family lived off up the holler by the mountain and old
Miss Jacks swore that one night they heard screaming from up behind their place and how one of their dogs brought home what
looked like a human arm bone to chew on and she sent word to the Sheriff who
came and took the thing away. |