Hill Man Read online

  What I always liked about Rady was his good-natured ways. He could take a joke as easy as he could give one, and he had a hearty and a ready laugh. He had a hell of a temper when he was crossed, but he never let go of it much. He like to of killed that Orson kid for telling on us that time, and I’ve seen him beat a mule down to its knees for being stubborn. But most times he went along pretty even-tempered. He’d stop and pass the time of day with anybody, tell his share of tall tales, talk you out of your ready cash, laugh over a dirty joke, and pass on, nobody the worse for it. The menfolks made room for him on the long bench down at the store, and the womenfolks … well, some of them made room for him too when he wanted. In more private places.

  Rady was no stallion, but then neither was he any gelding. He learned early like the rest of us, took what come his way, bragged a little over his doings, and kept it where it belonged. Something to enjoy when there was opportunity and maybe to make the opportunity if encouraged. But not a thing to get all hot and bothered about. A healthy man knows what to do about his wants. Satisfy them if he can, and if he can’t, he knows he can sweat them out behind a plow. A full day’s plowing will take care of most anything!

  Rady was a little different from the rest of us though. Most of us talked to one girl, got stuck on her and thought we was in love. Over and over it happened. Myself, I had ten girls in ten months one year. But Rady never singled out one girl to talk to. And he never appeared to care which one he was with. Made no fuss over none of them. And if she went in the bushes with him, he never seemed to have no personal feeling about it. Quick to heat, quick to satisfy, quick to forget. I’ve seen him walk away from a girl when he was through and never give her a backward look. I asked him once if he didn’t ever care anything about the girl herself.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Well, I alius feel different about some girls,” I said.

  “I don’t,” he said. “What’s one got that the other’n ain’t?”

  But he got mad as a hornet just the same the first time he was with Susie Bratton. “Goddammit!” he said, telling us, “you know what she done? Right in the middle she reached up an’ picked a ripe blackberry an’ eat it!”

  “She don’t eat no blackberries with me” Duke Simmons bragged.

  “You think you’re better’n I am, is that it?”

  Duke kind of snickered. “Must be. But Susie Bratton shore as hell don’t pick no blackberries when I’m with her!”

  Rady hit him before the words had hardly got out of his mouth. Hit him square in the mouth and mashed his teeth into his lips. He fell and rolled over a time or two, but he got up fighting. The trouble with Duke was he liked a knife too good, and when he got up his knife was out. Before Rady could grapple him he’d slashed quick and the knife sliced Rady’s neck. Not deep, but it took the hide. He’s got the scar from it to this day. But Duke got only that one slash in, for Rady got his wrist in them big hands of his and broke it clean in two. It cracked like a chestnut log in a hot fire Duke crumpled and groaned. “You’ve broke it,” he said.

  “I aimed to. Don’t never draw no knife on me agin, Duke. You kin save that fer the Bruton boys.”

  Then he went with Duke to the doctor to have the wrist set.

  The doctor eyed them while he was working on Duke. “You boys been fighting?”

  “No sir,” Duke said. “We was wrastlin’ an’ we kind of fell over a rough place. Rady here, skint his neck, an’ I landed on my wrist.”

  The doctor kind of humphed, knowing better I reckon, but he set Duke’s wrist and painted Rady’s neck with some kind of medicine.

  We figured Duke and Rady needed some kind of relief from the pain of a knife slash and a broken wrist, so we picked up a jug of moonshine on the way home. Rady was riding double with me and he was nursing the jug. Must of sampled it right frequent too, for when we got to the holler he was bellering for his gittar. “I want my gittar!” he kept yelling. “Duke, go git my gittar!”

  “I got a broke wrist,” Duke said, “I ain’t goin’ to climb that ridge. Go git it yerself!”

  I was building a little fire to keep the night chill off. “You go git it,” Rady says, turning to me.

  “What’s the matter with you goin’?” I says.

  “All right, I’ll go git it,” he says, and he stumbled off a few steps. “But if I don’t come back,” he says, kind of tragic, “hit’ll be on account the old man has smelt this here likker on me an’ has done kilt me!”

  So I went and got it for him. Had to slip in, but the folks had done laid down, so all I had to do was sneak in the fireplace room and pick it up. While I was gone Rady and Duke’d raided a cornfield and had a dozen ears roasting in the ashes. They smelled powerful good. I handed Rady his gittar. “Now you got to sing for yer supper,” I told him.

  “That suits me,” he says, and he rared back and commenced.

  He sung “Barby Allen” and “On Top of Old Smokey.” And he sung “The Blackest Crow” and “Turtle Dove.” The tunes were sad and sweet and Rady’s gittar was soft underneath the words, smoothing and holding them up. I’ve always liked those old song-ballats. I’d heard my grandma sing them time and time again. And I said so, when Rady stopped singing.

  Rady nodded his head. “All them song-ballats goes way back. I ordered me some song books awhile back, but don’t none of em have ary song-ballats in ’em. Reckon folks must of jist alius sung ’em. But I like ’em a heap.”

  “They’re too sad an’ mournful fer me,” Duke says, throwing a chunk of wood on the fire. “They’s alius somebody a-dyin!’ You take that there one you sing about Lord Thomas an’ Fair Elinore! That un’s plumb tearful! One girl a-killin’ another’n, an’ Lord Thomas a-killin’ the one that’s left, an’ then a-killin’ hisself! Jist a mess of killin’s! That un jist don’t make sense!”

  Rady swung the jug up and took a big swaller. Then he picked up his gittar again. “I like it though,” he says.

  Lord Thomas rose early one day in May

  An’ dressed hisself in blue;

  Says, “Mother I’m goin’ to git married today,

  An’ I want advice from you.”

  “Now, that’s what I mean,” Duke says. “Ary man’s a man ain’t goin’ to git advice from his ma to git married! He’d jist go git married!”

  The brown girl, she has house an’ land,

  Fair Elinore, she has none.

  “Therefore, I charge you with my blessin’s

  Go bring the brown girl home.”

  “An’ the old bag tellin’ him to git the brown girl, shore. On account of her havin’ a house an’ land!”

  Rady’s shoulders shook as he laughed. “Twan’t sich bad advice, Duke. Mebbe the old girl knowed what was best fer her boy.”

  He rode ’til he come to fair Elinore’s gate,

  An’ he rattled at the ring;

  There was no one more ready than she

  To rise up an’ let him in.

  Rady kept picking as he talked. “I’ve alius wondered what that meant. ’Rattlin’ at the ring.’”

  “Reckon he could of had a ring in his pocket he rattled,” Duke said. “Don’t make no sense anyways!”

  “Oh, what’s the matter, Lord Thomas,” she cried,

  “Oh, what’s the matter with you?”

  “I’ve come to invite you to my weddin’,

  Ain’t that good news to you?”

  “Oh, mother, shall I go to Lord Thomas’ weddin’,

  Or shall I tarry at home?”

  “Therefore, I charge you with my blessin’s,

  You’d better tarry at home.”

  “An’ she shore had better of,” Duke said. “Jist look what happened to her!”

  She dressed herself in her best,

  An’ most of her dressin’ was green.

  An’ ever’ village that she rode through

  They took her to be some queen.

  She rode ’til she come to Lord Thomas’ gate,

  An’ rat
tled at the ring;

  There was none more ready than he

  To rise up and let her in.

  “What I can’t understand,” said Rady, feathering the gittar, “is why, if they loved one another so good he ever takened her home. Both of ’em ready to rise up an’ let one another in Both of ’em rattlin’ at the ring! Looks like he’d of jist swung fair Elinore up behindst him on his mule an’ rode off with her.”

  “He hadn’t no backbone was why,” Duke says. “He was skeered of his ma.”

  “I reckon hit was the house an’ land looked too good to him,” Rady says.

  He took her by the lily-white hand

  An’ led her in the hall;

  An’ seated her there at the head of the table

  Amongst the gentlemen all.

  “Is this yore bride, sits here at yer side?

  I’m shore she’s wonderful brown!

  You might have married as fine a young lady

  As ever the sun shone on.”

  “Now this here’s the crazy part,” Duke muttered. “This is the part I wouldn’t give ten cents fer.”

  The brown girl, she had a knife,

  It was both long and sharp.

  She pierced it into fair Elinore’s side,

  An’ it entered into her heart.

  “’Oh, what’s the matter, fair Elinore?’” he cried,

  “Oh, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Oh, don’t you see my own heart’s blood

  A-trinklin’ down my side?”

  “’oh, what’s the matter, fair Elinore?’” Duke mocked, “An’ pierced through the heart like she was, she had the breath to say her blood was trinklin’ down her side!”

  “Shut up” I said, “an’ let Rady git it over with.”

  He took the brown girl by the hand

  An’ led her by the wall;

  An’ there with a sword, he cut off her head

  An’ dashed it agin the wall.

  Sayin’, “Here’s the death of three true loves,

  God send their souls to rest;

  Bury the brown girl at my feet,

  An’ fair Elinore at my breast.”

  “See” Duke says, “see how crazy hit goes!”

  “Hit’s jist a song,” Rady said. “But hit tells a right good story, an’ the music’s slow an’ sweet. I like it.”

  “Well, I don’t!”

  “The corn’s ready,” I told them. And between the roasting ears and the jug of moonshine we had no more time for song-ballats that night.

  Oh, we were wild all right. There’s no doubts about it. Wild and pranky and a heap of trouble sometimes. But we were wild the way young animals are wild. Wild by instinct and by necessity. Just full of our own bigness, busting out the seams with it, healthy and feeling fine and having to boil over, times. There wasn’t nothing mean in our wildness. Not never. We were hearty and whole, loving to eat and drink and make love. We worked hard, we drank hard, and I reckon we fornicated hard. Me, I could never see anything wrong with it. Adds up pretty good in my catalogue. Take a young feller, green and full of his own juices, and make him healthy and untwisted and unsoured, and you got about as fine a being as the Lord ever created … perfect, that is, for his own uses and his own purposes, in his own time and place. We were like that. And it was all fun and fine. Looking back on it now, and remembering, I’d say, even, it was the best.

  Chapter Three

  He was seventeen the year he tended Annie Abbott’s tobacco for her. Seventeen, and quite a buckaroo. He was like a hickory sapling, tough and apt to bend in the wind without breaking. Sweet, the way anything young and tender is sweet, and stout and whole and sound.

  Annie was Harm Abbott’s woman, but he’d been dead going on a year then. I reckon she must of been around thirty-five, although I don’t know as anybody would think of how old she was one way or the other. Far back as I could remember she’d been Harm Abbott’s woman, and she was just Harm Abbott’s widow now that he was gone. She was a right comely woman, as women of that age go. Not burden-bent nor ill, like is common to most ridge women. They never raised any young’uns, so when Harm died she was left by herself.

  A woman left alone like that has got to do one of two things. She’s either got to get married again, so’s to have a man to work her place, or else she’s got to get somebody to rent and tend it for her. Lige Sherman was already courting Annie, but she was taking her time about making up her mind. And properly so, for she had a right smart farm to bring a man, and it would pay her to think more than once.

  She lived across the holler from Old Man Cromwell. Her land laid a mite more level than most, and Harm had been a smart farmer. Kept his fields up good and never overworked them. He’d always raised good tobacco and corn, and had more in pastures than is common. Spent money on good seed and good fertilizer. The place showed it.

  Rady was piling brush and burning his pa’s tobacco bed when the idea come to him to tend Annie’s patch for her. It had been a hard winter, lot of snow and ice, but it was fairing up considerably for March, and the ground was thawed down a right smart. Rady’d been at it since good day and he had a good, slow fire going on the bed and had stopped to make him a cigarette. He eased his flanks up against an old stump and was just setting there, letting his back muscles go slack and feeling the sun on his neck. He looked off across the holler and saw Annie come out the kitchen door, and then he heard her calling her little chickens. “Diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle,” her voice come high and clear across the holler. She had on a pink dress and he could see her arm moving as she threw the chicken feed out. “Diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle,” and there was a flock of white around her feet.

  Rady was thinking she must of got her hens off early. For Marty hadn’t taken off a single setting yet. But then Marty was slack in more ways than one. She was nearly always late with her chickens and late with her garden, too. Whereas Annie had the name of being awful smart that way.

  Rady got to thinking who was going to tend Annie’s tobacco that year. Lige, likely, he thought. It stood to reason he’d have the inside on it, him courting her and all. Rady was thinking it would sure be a good deal, all right. Lige’d make out good on it. “I’d like to tend it myself,” he thought. “Even on the halves, it’d bring in considerable cash money.”

  He got up and raked some limbs towards the center of the fire, and spread them around some, and then it come to him maybe she hadn’t give Lige the promise of it yet. If she hadn’t cold out give Lige her word yet, maybe he could talk her into letting him tend it! And as quick as the idea come to him, he acted on it. He dropped his rake and pulled out and went loping across the holler to see her while the notion was still strong.

  She was still out in the back yard when he got there, kind of out of breath from hauling up the hill. “Miz Abbott,” he said, coming up behind her, “Miz Abbott, you got anybody promised to tend yer tobaccer this year yit?”

  She jumped like she was shot and spilled the chicken feed all over out of her apron. “Land sakes, Rady! You give me the worst start! Comin’ up on a body sudden like that an’ from behindst! Now see what you’ve made me do! Spill all my ground corn!”

  Rady looked down but the chickens were already hard at it so there was nothing to be done but leave them have it. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ll grind you some more.”

  She dusted her hands off. “No mind. Hit don’t matter. They was jist about through, anyways. Jist leave it go.”

  “I never aimed to skeer you,” Rady said. “But I had it on my mind so strong to ast you about yer tobaccer. You got somebody to tend it yit?”

  “Well, I have an’ I haven’t… you might say.” And then she sniffed the air a couple of times. “Now my dinner’s burnin’ Come on in the house if you want to talk to me!”

  Rady followed her inside and set down just within the door. It was her potatoes that had stuck and were burning. She put them in another pan and poured water over them and set them back on the stove. Th
en she started to get a stick of wood to build up the fire. The wood box was empty. “Ever’thing I turn my hand to this mornin’ has went wrong,” she fumed. “Some days jist don’t seem like nothin’ goes right!”

  “I’ll git you some wood,” Rady said, and he ducked outside to bring in an armful.

  She chucked up the fire and then she set down in a little, low-backed rocker over by the window and commenced fanning herself with her apron.

  “Have you, Miz Abbott?” Rady asked again.

  “Have I what? Oh … you was talkin’ about the tobaccer. Lige has studied some on tendin’ it, but I’ve not rightly made up my mind yit. He’s got a big crop hisself, an’ I dislike to resk it ’thout I know hit’s goin’ to be tended good. Harm alius done good with that patch an’ I’d hate to see it fail. Mind, I don’t say Lige wouldn’t tend it good. I’ve no doubts he’d do the best he could, but like I say, he’s got a awful big crop hisself, an’ when I study on it, don’t seem like he could do justice to mine an’ his’n too, an’ hit stands to reason he’d take keer of his’n first. Hit’s been a fret to me, to know what to do.”

  “Let me tend it, Miz Abbott. I’ll tend it good an’ make you a fine crop. Jist as good as Harm ever made, I swear it!”

  “You!” she said, her mouth flying open. “Why, yore pa keeps you kids so everlastin’ hard at work you couldn’t tend nothin’ when he gits through with you. Lige’d have more time than you would!”

  “Yes, ma’am, I could” Rady said, and he was so anxious by that time his hands were shaking. “I could tend it all right. After I git through at Pa’s ever’day. I’m awful stout, an’ I don’t git tard very easy. I’d make you a good crop, shore!”

  Annie looked at him. He’d eased off his chair and was standing in the middle of the floor, his hands sweating and him rubbing the sweat off against his pants legs. He had on overhalls, slicked with dirt and sooted with fire. They were a mite too little for him, and they stretched tight across his chest and down across his short, stocky legs. Like always he stood a little spraddled, and the scissors of his legs went up and joined in the tight-spread crotch. His denim shirt was open at the neck, and the short, coarse hairs on his chest grew up into the opening and made a cushion that a woman’s hand would maybe want to feel. Not just there but running on down, to see how far the cushion went. Exploring, feeling, and maybe tangling and pulling, finally. He had a smell of hickory smoke on him, and a smell of sweat, and a smell of man. He ran his hands through his hair and it kinked up in little corkscrews, rusty like old wire. Annie looked at him. “I dunno, Rady,” she said, slow-like. “I dunno. You’re built stout like you say, but a body kin do jist so much an’ no more. Hit’d be takin’ a awful chancet. More, hit looks to me, than I’d be takin’ with Lige.”