The Hinterlands (29 page)

“If the Lord wanted a road he would have made it hisself,” the preacher said.

“So we shouldn't wear clothes, 'cause if the Lord wanted us to he'd have made us with pants on?” I said over my shoulder as we went past. Sue hadn't slowed down at all.

“The Devil works through sarcasm and a hard tongue.”

“You see the Devil in everything but yourself,” I hollered back. I was surprised to hear myself argue with a preacher. It was just something that come out. Must have been the state I was in, dizzy with exertion and the hurt in my lip.

“The Devil is the prince of this world,” the preacher called. He fell in behind me and follered, like he was already going that way. But I figured he needed somebody to talk to. Preachers would be out of work if they couldn't find people to shame.

“People need a road,” I hollered back at him. “I'm Solomon Richards and I'm going to make one.”

“I'm the Reverend Billy Taylor,” the man called. “And I foller the call of the spirit, not the guidance of a hog.”

I was too out of breath to want to answer, but my blood was up from all the running and straining. Things kept crowding into my head that I had to say.

“Are you looking for misery?” I hollered.

“You look like a man in misery,” he called.

“I'm making a good road for people to use,” I said.

“You look like a man that's suffering the degradations of the flesh,” he said. “I never seen a man that looked worser.”

I knowed I looked bad, but it was because I had been working. I had been trying to carry through my plan. Instead of helping he wanted to make me feel ashamed.

“All you want is misery wrapped up in shit,” I hollered.

“Profanity is a sign of a weak and troubled mind,” he said.

“Profanity is a sign of disgust,” I said.

But suddenly I didn't want to argue anymore. It don't do no good to argue. Nobody ever changed somebody's opinion with a fuss. Preachers think they've got all the wisdom. And I didn't need to argue with him. I had to argue with the hollers and steep mountain, and the thickets ahead of me. But the preacher wasn't tired of talking. He was just getting warmed up.

“It's not roads people need,” he shouted. “It's the blood of redemption they need. And the blood is the new testament.”

I didn't answer him no more.

“I can bring the word on foot or on horseback, or on my knees if I have to,” the preacher said. The preacher had got started and I seen he was going to preach to me. As long as he follered, I was his congregation. But my resentment was all gone. He could have his say and it didn't bother me no more.

“I carry the witness of song,” he said. “Music will soften the heart of the sinner. You start singing and first thing you know the sinner's whistling along, and then he's humming. And next thing you know he's singing hisself. That's why I teach singing schools. That's why I carry the sacred harp to the hinterlands and far settlements. The buckwheat notes are like seeds sown over the coves and ridges, planting the words in people's hearts.”

I was beginning to listen to the preacher's voice with interest. All us Richardses loves music, and I liked his idea that the pleasure of music could help lead people right. That seemed a better message than grief and condemnation.

Suddenly Sue turned off the path and run right up the ridge through a stand of chestnut trees. The leaves was so deep we made a racket through them. It sounded like the preacher was calling after us, but it might have been the rattling of the leaves. I was too busy dodging limbs and looking for trees to blaze to look back, and when I did get a chance, they was no sign of the preacher behind. But when we got to the top, I heard a voice singing far below. It was a slow, sad hymn, and I knowed it was the preacher going along the trail practicing his psalmody.

It seemed I could hear the preacher's voice for several minutes beyond the noise of the leaves and our panting, and the snap and shudder of limbs. The voice seemed in tune with the sounds we made, and with the breeze on top of the ridge. And it was like I could hear the voice long after we had crossed the ridge and the preacher must have been two valleys away.

Son, there is always somebody inside us saying we can't accomplish anything, that all our ambitions is nothing but vanity and pride, that our determination is just the love of vainglory, that we might as well lay down and die and get it over with. But the only real argument is hard work, to foller out our idea and plan as far as we can go.

Beyond the chestnut woods they was a rock flat in the ground so long and wide it made a clearing. It was so long it looked like a city street, except for the humps and ripples in the surface and pools of rainwater standing in pockets. Sue run right out onto the rock and across it the long way. The pools was green in places and had little snails in them.

The edge of the rock was lined with huckleberry bushes. I could smell the ripe berries in the sun. If I'd had time I would like to have picked a mouthful. Maybe I'd come back with a basket sometime. There ain't nothing in the woods smells better than ripe huckleberries in the sun mixed with scent of pine resin.

Something whirled in the bushes ahead. I couldn't see a thing but trembling limbs and swaying tops of saplings. Whatever it was made an awful fuss. If I could have stopped Sue, I would have. I didn't want to run into any more Melungeons or blockaders. The day was more than half over, and I was far from Cedar Mountain.

I seen something black in the shaking limbs, but couldn't tell if it was shadows between the bushes, or something doing the shaking. I was going to holler at Sue, but any racket I made would only attract the attention of whatever it was. “Whoa,” I said under my breath. Whoa, I whispered to myself. But the hog kept running. Her hooves clicked on the rock. Her feet had been polished in the leaves and they shined like ivory. Whoa, I whispered, but she didn't pay no attention.

The limbs of a bush parted and I seen a paw poke through. It had a lot of fingers ending in claws. It was a bear reaching through the bushes. I would have stopped if I could, but it wasn't no use. Sue hadn't seen nothing, or smelled nothing, and she kept click-click-clicking right along the rock. If the bear attacked, it would attack Sue.

I seen another paw reach up and pull down a limb. That bear was eating highbush huckleberries. It hadn't seemed to notice us. But I didn't see how we could go clicking across the rock and not disturb it. I knowed bears was real near-sighted and depended mostly on scent. It would smell us, if nothing else. No telling how bad I smelled myself, of sweat and dirt, and blood.
And I had the stink of strain and worry, and the raw smell of fear on me.

We was within twenty yards of the shaking bushes and still the bear hadn't noticed us. It was so busy eating berries, I hoped it would not sniff the air. And maybe the noise of the leaves was so loud close to its ear it wouldn't hear Sue trotting on the rock.

I found myself actually tiptoeing as I run, but Sue didn't hesitate. She just kept clopping along, happy to have open space and a level path in front of her. I hoped maybe the bear would not notice us at all, if we just kept going at a steady pace.

They was marks all over the rock where hunters had carved their initials, and they was picture-like marks that must have been made by Indians. Nobody knowed how to read such signs, but they looked like they was meant to say something. A lot of marks had been rubbed off by weather and passing feet, and lichens and moss had growed over some. Here and there hunters had built fires on the rock and they was charred logs and ashes scattered around. People coming up there to pick berries had cooked their dinner too, and left corn shucks and chicken bones on the rock.

They ain't no end to my troubles, I thought. First you run into a preacher in black, and then a black bear. It was one bad omen after another. I don't know how much I believed in luck, but I thought maybe if I had all my bad luck on the survey I'd have good luck building the road. I had forgot my buckeye. Feller carried a buckeye in his pocket back then both for luck and to keep away rheumatism. I wasn't worried about rheumatism at that age, but I could have used some luck.

I didn't believe much in luck then. But now I'm not so sure. Some things you can't explain except by good luck or bad. Everything just seems a chain of happens. Take meeting your Grandma. I never would have seen her if I hadn't gone to that funeral. I
never would have gone to the funeral if I hadn't seen Staton the day before at the mill. And I wouldn't have gone to mill that day except we give some extra meal to the Short family that was sick. And I never would have heard about using a hog to survey a road if I hadn't gone to Kuykendall's store that day before Christmas. It goes on and on, one thing leading to another. One thing happens because something else has. You can die for the merest twist of bad luck, or live to be ninety.

As we got closer to the bear, I tried to make a plan. I figured if he smelt us or seen us it would take him a minute to decide what to do. Bears don't think fast. And then if he started to come at us, he most like would attack Sue. Bears prefer not to attack people, unless it's an ill sow with cubs to protect. It's the fact that people stand upright that seems to scare them. Bears is like hogs; they'll do things the easy way if they can.

If the bear come at Sue, I'd hit it with the hatchet. A bear has such a little head and such thick fur it's hard to hurt one with something little like a hatchet. But a bear has a low forehead and a pretty soft skull, and I thought, if I hit it with the hatchet just behind the eyes, it will go down. The problem would be to land a lick there if the bear was rassling with Sue and jerking around.

The closer we got, the busier the bear seemed with the berries. It must have been a hungry bear. Them big paws was twisting and knocking around the bushes every which way. Of course a bear can't pick them little berries. It don't have nothing but claws on its hands. It pulls the limbs to its mouth and eats the berries right off the bushes, biting leaves and twigs too.

Because I was watching the brute, I didn't see the big puddle of rainwater catched on the rock with sticks and leaves floating in it. You couldn't tell how deep it was, 'cause sunlight was reflected off the skin. Sue darted to the right to surround the water, toward the
bear. I was jerked along and before I knowed it we was headed at the bushes.

I don't know exactly when Sue seen the bear or the bear seen us. We come stumbling and clicking over the rock. It all happened so fast. By the time we got to the side of the puddle we couldn't have been more than six feet from the bushes. Sue swerved again through the edge of the water. And I think it was the splash that caught the bear's attention. Water sprayed out from our feet into the bushes.

I looked right into that bear's face as it was gobbling berries, and it seen me. We often think animals are like people and make up silly things about their feelings. But I'd swear that bear was caught by surprise with its mouth full of berries. I could tell the instant it seen me, a man with hair going every which way and blood down my chin, looking him in the eye.

It was close enough to reach out and slap me with a big paw. I could have spit in his face. It had a look of panic, and confusion, trying to make up its mind whether to attack or run. I raised the hatchet, assuming it was going to jump at me.

But the bear turned loose of the bushes and dropped to its feet. I twisted to see where Sue was heading, so as not to stumble, and when I looked back the bear was still standing there, trying to make up its mind. That bear had the look of a man caught with his pants down.

I thought maybe if I hollered at the bear I could scare it. Sometimes if you surprise a wild animal, it will turn tail before it has time to get mad and think. Bears is naturally shy and will run, soon as they get wind of people coming. You'll find their warm bed and the leaves all kicked up where they run away.

Close up, that bear looked more brown or red than black. I'd noticed that before, when a bear was killed, its face and hair had
some gold and red in it. Its eyes was kind of yellow. A bear has little old eyes. You can tell it can't see nothing.

“Hie!” I hollered at the bear after we had passed. “Hie!” I figured we could be no worse off than we was. “Hie!” I said again. That bear backed like I'd hit him on the nose, tearing down some of the bushes he had been holding.

“Hie!” I hollered again. He started forward and then backed up like he had made a mistake and couldn't remember which way he wanted to go. That bear was embarrassed to be caught that way, and he was plumb rattled. But I knowed a bear that mixed-up could soon get riled, and then he would be more dangerous than ever.

For once I wouldn't have cared if Sue had speeded up. She had been surprised by the bear too and was running a little sideways, glancing back to see what the bear was doing. Hogs like to look out for theirselves. They don't want to be attacked from behind. She run sideways for several hundred yards.

I know that bear scared her worse than anything else had because it released her bowels. Suddenly I was having to look back at the bear and at the same time trying to dodge the filth Sue was dropping just under my hand.

“Hie!” I yelled at the bear again. It looked at me through the bushes for an instant, and then, pretending to be bored with the whole business, it turned around and headed back into the trees. It was like that bear made a decision to recover its dignity in the face of absurdity and insult. It turned at exactly the speed that told me it was not hurrying. It would not be rushed by no foolishness. The bear lumbered off into the shadows, swinging his big belly full of huckleberries from side to side, like it was going into the woods for a noon nap. If bears could whistle, it would have been whistling.

I was only too glad to get on down that rock myself. The stink
of the bear and the stink of the sow's mess was something to leave behind. Sue's hooves clicked and she trotted back into the middle of the long rock. The rock altogether was about half a mile long, and we was halfway across it.