Running on Red Dog Road Read online

  There was nothing much in the house to eat, so Grandma put a big pot of the pinto beans she’d brought from home on the fire, seasoning them with wild ramps and a chunk of salt pork and adding a handful of mustard greens from the garden. When the beans were done, she took a cup of the savory broth out to the porch where Uncle Teel was resting.

  Five inches past six feet tall, his rawboned frame had muscled over from working outdoors as a lumberman from the time he was an overgrown thirteen-year-old. His hands, knobbed at the knuckles and wrists from hard work, were still big and rough as bark, but the rest of him had shriveled down so only the essence remained. Grandma made dandelion tea for him, stirring in a spoonful of molasses to fortify his blood.

  Comforted, Uncle Teel napped in the warmth of the sun. When the lavender dusk darkened into purple, Aunt Annie and Grandma came out and sat with Uncle Teel, now awake. They promised him he could stay on the porch as long as he wanted the next day. Finally, he let them help him to his bed. I heard Grandma praying to God to give His child Teel the peace that passeth all understanding.

  “Amen,” Aunt Annie said.

  9

  Mistook for a Haint

  I woke up to Grandma clattering around the kitchen, then her footsteps headed toward the bedroom Vonnie and I shared.

  “You two get your britches on and let’s get moving; the day’s wasting away.”

  Together the three of us walked to where Pinch Gut creek rushed down the mountain, dropping into cascades every time it came to a place it was too hurried to find a way around. The creek water, filtered through the ancient mountain, was used for everything. Vonnie and I helped fill buckets and carry them back to the fire site, holding the heavy load between us.

  Grandma emptied the cotton from the blue-and-white striped mattress tickings and washed them in a kettle of water heated in the back yard, feeding the fire with the old batting and deadwood pine. We threw the pinecones on the fire, watching the flames crackle and snap from orange to blue to green. We wrung the ticks out, Vonnie twisting the sturdy mattress covers in one direction and me in the other, then spreading them over a zigzag wood fence that divided the yard from the rise of the mountain.

  There wasn’t enough new cotton batting at hand, so while the sun dried the mattress and pillow coverings, we gathered pine needles from the forest floor to fill the pillows, first holding them over the fire to smoke out any bugs. New batting would replace the pine the next time anybody went to the general store in town.

  Because we helped some and didn’t aggravate her too much with our usual squabbling, Grandma agreed to let us sleep on a pallet of quilts on one of the picnic tables overlooking the valley, pillows of smoky pine scenting our dreams.

  Vonnie elbowed me in the side to wake me up, at the same time shushing me to be quiet. She pointed to the path near the outhouse. Headless in the dark, the long white garb floated silently up the path. Too scared to breathe, we huddled deeper under the quilt. Somebody’s dog started howling down in the flats. Hairs on my arms prickled up. The ghostly figure approached slowly, leaning hard on a walking stick, then fell to the ground and began moaning and calling out, but we couldn’t make out the words.

  While the ghost was down, we ran inside to get Grandma. She grabbed her robe and the iron poker leaning against the fireplace, waking Aunt Annie on the way out. Aunt Annie lit a pine-knot torch from the damped-down embers in the fireplace and came running after Grandma.

  The man or ghost, whatever it was, collapsed in a heap on the path.

  “Land’s sakes, that’s Teel!” Grandma said, as Aunt Annie rushed past her.

  Aunt Annie fell to her knees next to Uncle Teel, holding her ear against his chest to see if his heart was beating.

  She trembled when he started to speak.

  “Don’t take on so, Annie girl, I’m not dead yet.” Uncle Teel managed a weak smile. “Right foolish of me, but I got to thinking I wouldn’t have no trouble going down to the privy and back without nary a one of you catching me at it. Pretty near did it. Didn’t figure on being mistook for no haint though.”

  It took some doing, but Aunt Annie and Grandma got Uncle Teel on his feet and back into bed without having to wake Uncle Ed. Aunt Annie tended to him while Grandma made cocoa to help everybody settle down and get back to sleep.

  The morning sun hopscotched across the porch and woke us up. Or maybe Grandma did. She was sweeping under the table we were sleeping on. I sat up and rubbed the grit from my eyes.

  “Time to start the day,” she said. “Remember, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

  “Are we wealthy?” I asked, as I splashed water on my face.

  “I swan, you beat all with the questions you come up with.”

  “Well, you and Grandpa get up real early, and you’re always saying that.”

  “Let me figure on that a minute,” she replied. “We have our family and our health, that’s the most important. We own our home and land and a good automobile too. There’s plenty of food for us and extra to share. We don’t owe a dime to a solitary soul unless you count the tithes we owe to God, but we pay those faithful every week. By that way of looking at it, I reckon there’s some would say we’re wealthy. Now that doesn’t mean to say we have idle money, because we don’t. Despite that, we live a life of abundance. But don’t you be getting yourself uppity about it. The Bible says, ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’ ”

  I started to say, “Yes ma’am,” but she wasn’t quite finished.

  “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required,” she continued, “so we’re expected to help people who aren’t as well off. I like to think we have a gracious plenty. Enough to be thankful, but not prideful. Enough to share with those who are in need. Here’s something I hope you’ll remember all your life—the gift comes with the giving and not the getting.”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said.

  10

  Most Call Me Tolly

  We had only been at Uncle Teel’s for a few days when Grandma spotted a hive low in a hollow tree near the house, a few bees hovering near the opening. She covered herself in Uncle Teel’s canvas hunting pants, put her dress on over them, and added boots, jacket, and long leather work gloves. She cut a square six-inch hole in a pillowcase and stitched in a piece of screening she’d cut from an old door, making a pretty good bee mask. A hunting cap, the kind with ear flaps, went on her head. She looked a fright, but she was ready.

  First she piled dead brush around the trunk of the tree, setting it on fire to smoke the bees out. As the smoke died down, she raided the deserted hive, breaking out dripping pieces of the comb and dropping them into a bucket, still leaving some for the bees. Vonnie and I watched from a safe distance.

  On the way home Grandma picked up a piece of the comb and sniffed it. “That should be real good honey. It’s from purple clover from the smell of it. We’ll try it out for breakfast.”

  I took Uncle Teel a soft scrambled egg and a glass of milk with a generous amount of the honey in it. He had taken to spending much of his day sitting on the porch with Uncle Ed, talking about old times and occasionally chuckling about some tomfoolery or other he and Uncle Teel had been into as boys, but mainly just looking out over the valley, taking solace from the land they both loved.

  Grandma sent me and Vonnie to scavenge the untended garden for whatever we could find. There were new potatoes big enough for creaming and plenty of wild onions. Half a dozen rhubarb plants looked healthy, and a ragged row of leaf lettuce promised greens for as long as we needed them. Uncle Ed asked for fried ham and creamed potatoes and wilted lettuce salad for supper. He had things at home to tend to, so he was leaving out at daybreak the next day.

  Grandma was to drop him a note and let him know when he was to come for us.

  The next morning she made up a sack of leftover ham and biscuits and a jug of water to tide him over on the trip home. After saying his goodbyes to
the rest of us, Uncle Ed kissed Uncle Teel on the forehead, got in the car, and drove away, waving an arm out the window until he disappeared around the curve of the mountain.

  The man walking up the path was round as a jack-o’-lantern, his faded orange hair streaked with silver. He walked with a limp that caused a lopsided bounce. I was of a mind to split him open right there to see if pumpkin flesh and seeds spilled out.

  “Good mornin’ to you,” he called out, a snaggletooth smile on his face. “Let me interduce myself proper-like. I’m Tolerable Thigpen from down near the flats. Most call me Tolly. I seen Teel had company and wanted to see if I can help you folks. I’m a widderer myself since my missus, Virgie, God rest her, was bit by a serpent and the good Lord took her on to Glory. Still I praise His name. I been plannin’ to go to town on Saturday, but ain’t no reason I can’t go d’rectly if they’s anything you’re in need of.” He was studying Grandma real close.

  She handed him some money and a list of what she needed, including the rolls of batting for the mattresses.

  “I’ll have your tucker and other goods back before suppertime if that would do.”

  “Thank you kindly, Mr. Thigpen. I’m beholden to you.” She watched him hitch-hobble down the road.

  “Do you think he’s tolerable? How come you didn’t call him Tolly?”

  I’d doubled up on questions, but she just answered one.

  “Oh, I expect he’s nice enough, least he seems to be. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about that man just don’t set quite right. But nice or not, I wouldn’t be too quick to make fun if I was you. We’ve got our own peculiar names. Your great-great-grandpa was called Reckless, although I believe his real name was Rickles or something close to that. He was my grandpa on my mother’s side. Died on this very mountain. One day we’ll go tend the graves and you’ll see where he’s buried. Now, you run on and see if you and your sister can fill that egg basket.”

  The chickens had escaped the henhouse and were scratching a pretty good living from mealybugs and grub worms they pecked from underneath dead leaves and bark. One chicken, blue-black in color, laid blue eggs. Aunt Annie said it was called an Easter egg chicken. Vonnie and I played a game to see who could find the most eggs, and the blue eggs counted double. She won, but not by enough to brag about, although she made a big whoop-de-do about it. We found twenty-three eggs that first day.

  Grandma put the eggs in a pan of cold water to test for freshness. Three floated to the top and had to be thrown away. With eggs to spare, she made egg butter, drizzling beaten eggs into hot molasses and stirring like the dickens until the mixture was thick and creamy. Aunt Annie wasn’t much of a cook, but she thought she’d give egg butter a try herself when Uncle Teel got to feeling better.

  True to his word, Tolerable Thigpen showed up just as we were finishing up our supper of chicken and dumplings, a mess of turnip greens, and custard pie. He’d brought all our supplies, plus a bag of penny candy for me and Vonnie, which we divided, picking the horehound out for Grandma because it was her favorite. Of course, she felt obliged to ask him to eat with us.

  “I surely would like to break bread with you good folks, but I’ve got to git to the house for the milkin’. But you wouldn’t have to twist on my arm none to git me to carry home some of whatever you got on the fire that smells so good.”

  Grandma covered a plate full of warm leftovers with waxed paper, taking it out to him on the porch.

  He turned back as he was leaving. “Ma’am, if I ain’t being too forward, I’d be right privileged to take you and the little gals to Sunday meetin’. That is, of course, if you’d be of a mind to go.”

  He said he belonged to a church called the Full Gospel Church of True Believers. Grandma thanked him for the offer, but said she couldn’t leave Uncle Teel. He said maybe she’d change her mind when Uncle Teel felt a mite better. She told him she and her husband, Preacher Cales, did missionary work starting churches in the mining towns all around Beckley. Tolerable Thigpen looked disheartened to hear there was a Preacher Cales in Grandma’s life.

  Truth was, Grandma wasn’t about to go off anywhere with Tolerable Thigpen, even if it was to church. No telling what people might think.

  Uncle Teel’s dog, Pony, came loping out of the woods, the polecat stink on him so strong it scalded my nose. His long fur, matted as the sheep he was born to tend, was camouflaged with leaves and twigs and burrs that attached to his coat as he ran through the brush chasing anything that moved.

  After a closer look, Grandma decided she’d best use the sheep shears on him. She left the fur on his legs and head, but the rest got shorn almost bald. Once he’d had a couple of lye soap baths in Pinch Gut Creek, his smell improved considerably.

  But I still tried to keep upwind of him.

  Grandma and I were putting the sheep shears back in a storage shed near the house when an ear-splitting scream pierced the quiet. I took off to see what Vonnie was hollering about now. She was always pitching a fit about something. I busted out laughing when I saw that Wishbone, the big Rhode Island Red rooster, had her trapped in the outhouse at the end of the path below the house. She’d already thrown the Sears, Roebuck Catalog Aunt Annie kept in the outhouse at him and missed.

  Grandma gave me a look.

  I couldn’t help it, I’d already got to laughing too hard to quit.

  The rooster, cinnamon and black and turquoise feathers all ruffed up, strutted back and forth in front of the door, so pleased with himself he was almost grinning. Every time Vonnie peeked out he charged, launching himself sideways, talons set to strike, all the while letting out a squawk that rivaled the squeals she let out every time he started at her. Now that I’d stopped laughing, the two of them were giving me a headache. If Grandma hadn’t been there, I might have left Vonnie to stew for a while.

  Howling and whooping, I grabbed the broom off the porch and chased the rooster away while Grandma and Pony herded Vonnie back into the house. Although she was not harmed one bit, Vonnie was still yowling at the sky like there was a new moon. I told her to stop acting like a big bawl-baby. And I will own up to that not helping the situation.

  Grandma told me to say I was sorry, and I did, but really I wasn’t.

  I knew a bawl-baby when I saw one.

  11

  Survivors Will Be Shot

  We were settling in to the third week at Uncle Teel’s house. It was kind of like a vacation, except for him being so sick and all. When Vonnie and I were getting along good, we played jacks on the porch. When we got bored with jacks, we gathered wild teaberries. The little berries, similar to blueberries in size, were reddish pink and grew in clusters on an evergreen plant close to the ground. Teaberries are good to eat, but other than teaberry gum, I didn’t know much else they were good for until I saw Grandma pound the leaves with a glass jar and steep them in hot water to make tea. She said the leaves, called wintergreen by some, were known to relieve pains and aches and she thought that would soothe Uncle Teel.

  I’d try to remember that the next time Vonnie and old Wishbone gave me a headache.

  Vonnie and I discovered a trail that disappeared into the thick of the woods and looped back to join the road, and we’d started walking around the circle every afternoon before supper. Grandma said she felt like getting out of the house a little, so she came with us, and besides, she wanted to see where we were traipsing off to every day.

  We didn’t see any signs of people most of the way, but there were a couple of houses that looked as if they had grown right up from the dirt, got tired of the struggle, and leaned against the mountain for support. The first house had pink flowers planted in lard cans lined up along the porch railing. Glass bottles hung from every branch of one tree, turning the whole thing into chimes when the breeze came through. Grandma said some thought the bottles caught evil spirits and trapped them inside, but she didn’t believe that foolishness. Gourds made into birdhouses were suspended from branches of another tree. The other house was squ
alid, the air around it heavy with the disappointments of life. A rusted car was propped up on cinder blocks and an old tricycle lay turned over in the dirt. I saw a dingy curtain move as we passed. We heard a dog bark a few times, but we never saw it. Grandma reached down and picked up a good-sized stick just in case.

  We heard singing before we could tell where it was coming from. The hymn was “ ’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” Grandma thought it might be from a church we could go to while we were there, so we followed the music down an overgrown path to a small building that was not quite a house and not quite a church. The door was closed and no one was around. A sign on a tree nearby warned KEEP AWAY—SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT, but the door to the building had ALL TRUE BELIEVERS WELCOME painted on it in the same writing.

  Grandma decided to believe the sign on the door.

  I hoped she was right.

  We walked around to the side and peered into a window. Several narrow slats missing from the closed shutters allowed us to view what was going on inside without being seen. A man stood swaying in front of a few rows of benches lining the back wall, an open Bible in one hand and a snake coiled around the other.

  The man was Tolerable Thigpen.

  I was on the edge of saying something when Grandma pressed her finger to her mouth, motioning me to be quiet.

  There were probably ten or twelve people in the room. They came forward one by one as the spirit moved them, reaching deep into the box and bringing forth a snake. Several of the worshipers began to move, shuffling their feet and turning in circles as they let the snakes crawl over their bodies. I looked for fear in their eyes and found none.