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.
The old man squinted his milkblue eyes against the glare. Hiram Pulliam’s grandson. He grinned and waved them up and they came, toiling on the slope, bowlegged for a better grip in the snow, the Pulliam boy leaning on his rifle and the other one sliding and waving the skunk about in the air.
They sat around the stove with their shoes off, their socks steaming. The old man wrinkled his nose and laughed.
I believe you must of fit that there polecat hand to hand, he said.
Can you smell it? Warn said. I cain’t smell it myself.
He had to crawl back in a hole to get him out, John Wesley said.
I crawled past where he was at, Warn said. I thought he was way on back and then I come to see the wire and it went off into a little side-hole, but I was already past it then. I was all hunkered up down in there and couldn’t hardly turn around, but directly I got to where I could poke my pine knot in the side-hole there and I seen his eyes. I got my rifle turned around and aimed the best way I could and when I shot, it like to busted out my eardrums.
We could hear him shoot, John Wesley said. It sounded like a little old popgun or somethin from on the outside.
Well, when I shot he cut loose too. I mean it really steamed things up in there. I come scootin out hind-end first and we waited a while and then directly I went back and got holt of the wire and come draggin him out and he’s shot between the eyes.
The old man laughed. That puts me in mind of a coon hunt I was on one time, he said. Feller with us shot a coon in a tree and it hung in a limb. So I helt the light and he went up after him. Time he got to the limb where the coon was at it come to life and made at him. He figured purty quick he didn’t want no part of it, but stead of comin down he scooted up another limb and there he set. Ever time he made like he was comin down the coon’d go at him, growlin like a bear. Well, directly he got mad and he decided he’d come on down anyway. So here he come. He was goin to kick the coon off of the limb is what he hollered down to us. We had the lannern on him and could see purty good. He made two or three swipes at the coon and about that time the old coon latched on to his foot. I never heard the like of hollerin. He commenced swingin that coon around on the end of his toe and he got so took up with it he kindly eased up his holt on the tree. Well, wadn’t but a few minutes one of us hollered to Look out! and here they come pilin down out of the tree. He hit the ground like a sack of feed and jest laid there and the dogs piled on to the coon and they commenced walkin all in his face and fightin till we got em kicked off. We thought he’s dead, but directly he begun to breathe a little and his eyes to flitter some and we seen he wadn’t hurt, jest the wind pooched out of him and scared purty bad. We all laughed considerable and he set there and cussed us, but he was a purty good old boy and I reckon he never helt it against us. I remember he used to tell it on his own sef for years and years and laugh jest like anybody.
The old man sighed. Used to be good coon huntin hereabouts, he said.
What about painters? Warn asked. Was that a painter was hollerin around here one time?
The old man leaned back in his rocker, a wise grin settling among his sagging skinfolds. Well now, he said. Shore, I remember that right well. Been about ten year ago I’d say. There followed a moment of silence in which he seemed to be contemplating with satyric pleasure some old deed. Then he crossed one knee over the other and leaned forward. Shore, he repeated, I heard it. Many’s the time. Had folks stirred up and scared all of one summer. Yessir, stirred up a blue fog of speculatin,
What’d it sound like? the boy asked.
Oh, purty fierce …
Well, you reckon it was a painter?
Nope, the old man said.
After a minute Warn said, What was it?
The old man had begun to rock gently, a benign look upon his face, composed in wisdom, old hierophant savoring a favorite truth … He stopped and looked down at them. Well, I’ll tell ye. It was a hoot-owl.
He studied their fallen faces, the hopeful incredulity. Yep, he said, a hoot-owl. One of them big’ns, screechin and a-hollerin on this mountain of summer evenins like any painter. They’s folks said painter, folks said not. But I knowed what it was right along. So I let em do their speculatin and arguin … I recollect one evenin I was at the store gettin some things, late summer it was and nigh dark, bout eight o’clock I reckon, when it commenced hollerin. Well, I never said nothin. In a little bit it come again. Boys, I mean it got quiet in that store to where you could hear the ants in the candy jar. Stit I never let on nothin and after a while Bob Kirby — he’s there — he hollered at me and he said, Hey! Uncle Ather. You fixin to walk crost that mountain tonight?
Well, I turned to him kind of surprised-like and I said, Why shore. A feller’s got to get home sometime, and the best way he can. How come you to ast me that?
He jest looked at me for a minute, then he kind of grinned and he said, Cain’t you hear that wampus cat?
Why, I said, shore I hear it. Anybody’t wadn’t deaf could hear that, I reckon.
Well, he kind of figured he had me then so he says, Ain’t you skeered of painters, Uncle Ather?
Why shore, I says. Anybody ceptin a fool’d be skeered of one, a full-growed one leastways.
Then I never said nothin, jest went to the dope box and got me a dope and commenced drinkin it and lookin at my watch ever oncet in a while. I could see he was plenty puzzled and he tried to slip a grin to the rest of the fellers there once or twicet cept they wadn’t grinnin and I reckon was more puzzleder’n he was. So he never said nothin neither, but after a while they’s a young feller there, he piped up and ast me if that wadn’t a full-growed one that was raisin all that hell out there. Well, about that time it come again, hollerin, and I looked at him and I said, They Lord God, son, I don’t know what you’d do if a growed one was to squall. Why that ain’t nothin there. But then course they ain’t painters round like they used to be. Back fifty, sixty years ago they’d sing out back and forth crost these mountains all night of a summer till you got to where you couldn’t sleep lessen you did hear em. But it takes a big old tom painter to set up a fuss. That there ain’t nothin. I told him that and about that time shore enough that owl let out another screech couldn’t of been a hundred yards off and I could see the hackles come up on his neck and on Bob Kirby’s too.