Where the Red Fern Grows (8 page)

    I was standing my ground quite well when visions of bears, lions, and all kinds of other animals started flashing across my mind. I jumped behind a big sycamore and was trying hard to press my body into the tree when a big coon came tearing by. Twenty-five yards behind him came my dogs, running side by side. I saw them clearly when they passed me, bawling every time their feet touched the ground.

    After seeing that there was nothing to be scared of, once again I was the fearless hunter, screaming and yelling as loud as I could, "Get him, boy, get him."

    I tore out after them. The trails I knew so well were forgotten. I took off straight through the brush. I was tearing my way through some elders when the voices of my dogs stopped.

    Holding my breath, I stood still and waited. Then it came, the long-drawn-out bawl of the tree bark. My little hounds had done it. They had treed their first coon.

    When I came to them and saw what they had done I was speechless. I groaned and closed my eyes. I didn't want to believe it. There were a lot of big sycamores in the bottoms but the one in which my dogs had treed was the giant of them all.

    While prowling the woods, I had seen the big tree many times. I had always stopped and admired it. Like a king in his own domain, it towered far above the smaller trees.

    It had taken me quite a while to find a name suitable for the big sycamore. For a while I had called it "the chicken tree." In some ways it had reminded me of a mother hen hovering over her young in a rainstorm. Its huge limbs spread out over the small birch, ash, box elder, and water oak as if it alone were their protector. ^ Next, I named it "the giant." That name didn't last long. Mama told us children a story about a big giant that lived in the mountains and ate little children that were lost. Right away I started looking for another name.

    One day, while lying in the warm sun staring at its magnificent beauty, I found the perfect name. From that day on, it was called "the big tree." I named the bottoms around it "the big tree bottoms."

    Walking around it, and using the moon as a light, I started looking for the coon. High up in the top I saw a hollow in the end of a broken limb. I figured that that was the coon's den.

    I could climb almost any tree I had ever seen but I knew I could never climb the big sycamore and it would take days to chop it down.

    There had been very little hope from the beginning, but on seeing the hollow I gave up. "Come on," I said to my dogs. "There's nothing I can do. We'll go someplace else and find another coon."

    I turned to walk away. My hounds made no move to follow. They started whining. Old Dan reared up, placed his front paws on the trunk, and started bawling. ^ "I know he's there," I said, "but there's nothing I can do. I can't climb it. Why it's sixty feet up to the first limb and it would take me a month to cut it down."

    Again I turned and started on my way.

    Little Ann came to me. She reared up and started licking my hands. Swallowing the knot in my throat, I said, "I'm sorry, little girl. I want him just as badly as you do, but there's no way I can get him."

    She ran back to the tree and started digging in the soft ground close to the roots.

    "Come on now," I said in a gruff voice. "You're both acting silly. You know I'd get the coon for you if I could but I can't."

    With a whipped-dog look on her face and with her tail between her legs, Little Ann came over. She wouldn't even look at me. Old Dan walked slowly around behind the tree and hid himself. He peeped around the big trunk and looked at me. The message I read in his friendly eyes tore at my heart. He seemed to be saying, "You told us to put one in a tree and you would do the rest."

    With tears in my eyes, I looked again at the big sycamore. A wave of anger came over me. Gritting my teeth, I said, "I don't care how big you are, I'm not going to let my dogs down. I told them if they put a coon in a tree I would do the rest and I'm going to. I'm going to cut you down. I don't care if it takes me a whole year."

    I walked over and sank my ax as deep as I could in the smooth white bark. My dogs threw a fit. Little Ann started turning in circles. I could hear her pleased whimpering cry. Old Dan bawled and started gnawing on the big tree's trunk.

    At first it was easy. My ax was sharp and the chips flew. Two hours later things were different. My arms felt like two dead grapevines, and my back felt like someone had pulled a plug out of one end of it and drained all the sap out.

    While taking a breather, I saw I was making more progress than I thought I would. The cut I had started was a foot deep, but I still had a long way to go.

    Sitting on their rears, my dogs waited and watched. I smiled at the look on their faces. Every time I stopped chopping they would come over. While Little Ann washed the sweat from my face, Old Dan would inspect my work. He seemed to be pleased with what he saw for he always wagged his tail.

    Along about daylight I got my second wind and I really did make the chips fly. This burst of energy cost me dearly. By sunup I was so stiff I could hardly move. My hands and arms were numb. My back screamed with pain. I could go no further. Sitting down, I leaned back against the big tree and fell asleep.

    Little Ann woke me up by washing my face. I groaned with the torture of getting to my feet. Every muscle in my body seemed to be tied in a knot. I was thinking of going down to the river to wash my face in the cool water when I heard a loud whoop. I recognized my father's voice. I whooped to let him know where I was.

    Papa was riding our red mule. After he rode up, he just sat there and looked me over. He glanced at my dogs and at the big sycamore. I saw the worry leave his face. He straightened his shoulders, pursed his lips, and blew out a little air. He reminded me of someone who had just dropped a heavy load.

    In a slow, calm voice, he asked, "Are you all right, Billy?"

    "Yes, Papa," I said. "Oh, I'm a little tired and sleepy, otherwise I'm fine."

    He slid from the mule's back and came over. "Your mother's worried," he said. "When you didn't come in, we didn't know what had happened. You should've come home."

    I didn't know what to say. I bowed my head and looked at the ground. I was trying hard to choke back the tears when I felt his hand on my shoulder.

    "I'm not scolding," he said. "We just thought maybe you had an accident or something."

    I looked up and saw a smile on his face.

    He turned and looked again at the tree. "Say," he said, "this is the sycamore you call 'the big tree,' isn't it?"

    I nodded my head.

    "Is there a coon in it?" he asked.

    "There sure is, Papa," I said. "He's in that hollow limb. See-that one way up there. That's why I couldn't come home. I was afraid he'd get away."

    "Maybe you just think he's there," Papa said. "I believe I'd make sure before I'd cut down a tree that big."

    "Oh, he's there all right," I said. "My dogs weren't ten feet behind him when he went up it."

    "Why are you so determined to get this coon?" Papa asked. "Couldn't you go somewhere else and tree one? Maybe the tree would be a smaller one."

    "I thought about that, Papa," I said, "but I made a bargain with my dogs. I told them that if they would put one in a tree, I'd do the rest. Well, they fulfilled their part of the bargain. Now it's up to me to do my part, and I'm going to, Papa. I'm going to cut it down. I don't care if it takes me a year."

    Papa laughed and said, "Oh, I don't think it'll take that long, but it will take a while. I tell you what I'll do. You take the mule and go get some breakfast. I'll chop on it until you get back."

    "No, Papa," I said. "I don't want any help. I want to cut it down all by myself. You see, if someone helps me, I wouldn't feel like I kept my part of the agreement."

    An astonished look came over my father's face. "Why, Billy," he said, "you can't stay down here without anything to eat and no sleep. Besides, it'll take at least two days to cut that tree down and that's hard work."

    "Please, Papa," I begged, "don't make me quit. I just have to get that coon. If I don't, my dogs won't ever believe in me again."

    Papa didn't know what to tell me. He scratched his head, looked over to my dogs and back at me. He started walking around. I waited for him to make up his mind. He finally reached a decision.

    "Well, all right," he said. "If that's the way you want it, I'm for it even if it is only an agreement between you and your dogs. If a man's word isn't any good, he's no good himself.

    "Now I have to get back and tell your mother that you're all right. It's a cinch that you can't do that kind of work on an empty stomach, so I'll send your oldest sister down with a lunch bucket."

    With tears in my eyes, I said, "Tell Mama I'm sorry for not coming home last night."

    "Don't you worry about your mother," he said, as he climbed on the mule's back. "I'll take care of her. Another thing, I have to make a trip to the store today and I'll talk this over with your grandfather. He may be able to help some way."

    After Papa left, things were a little different. The tree didn't look as big, and my ax wasn't as heavy. I even managed to sing a little as I chopped away.

    When my sister came with the lunch bucket, I could have kissed her, but I didn't. She took one look at the big tree and her blue eyes got as big as a guinea's egg.

    "You're crazy," she gasped, "absolutely crazy. Why, it'll take a month to cut that tree down, and all for an old coon."

    I was so busy with the fresh side pork, fried eggs, and hot biscuits, I didn't pay much attention to her. After all, she was a girl, and girls don't think like boys do.

    She raved on. "You can't possibly cut it down today, and what are you going to do when it gets dark?"

    "I'm going to keep right on chopping," I said. "I stayed with it last night, didn't I? Well, I'll stay till it's cut down. I don't care how long it takes."

    My sister got upset. She looked at me, threw back her small head, and looked up to the top of the big sycamore. "You're as crazy as a bedbug," she said. "Why, I never heard of such a thing."

    She stepped over in front of me and very seriously asked if she could look in my eyes.

    "Look in my eyes?" I said. "What do you want to do that for? I'm not sick."

    "Yes, you are, Billy," she said, "very sick. Mama said when Old Man Johnson went crazy, his eyes turned green. I want to see if yours have."

    This was too much. "If you don't get out of here," I shouted, "you're going to be red instead of green, and I mean that."

    I grabbed up a stick and started toward her. Of course, I wouldn't have hit her for anything.

    This scared her and she started for the house. I heard her saying something about an old coon as she disappeared in the underbrush.

    Down in the bottom of my lunch bucket I found a neat little package of scraps for my dogs. While they were eating I walked down to a spring and filled the bucket with cool water.

    The food did wonders for me. My strength came back. I spit on my hands and, whistling a coon hunter's tune, I started making the chips fly.

    The cut grew so big I could have laid down in it. I moved over to another side and started a new one. Once while I was taking a rest, Old Dan came over to inspect my work. He hopped up in the cut and sniffed around.

    "You had better get out of there," I said. "If that tree takes a notion to fall, it'll mash you flatter than a tadpole's tail."

    With a "no care" look on his friendly face, he gave me a hurry-up signal with a wag of his tail.

    Little Ann had dug a bed in a pile of dead leaves. She looked as if she were asleep but I knew she wasn't. Every time I stopped swinging the ax, she would raise her head and look at me.

IX

    BY LATE EVENING THE HAPPY TUNE I HAD BEEN WHISTLING was forgotten. My back throbbed like a stone bruise. The muscles in my legs and arms started quivering and jerking. I couldn't gulp enough air to cool the burning heat in my lungs. My strength was gone. I could go no further.

    I sat down and called my dogs to me. With tears in my eyes, I told them that I just couldn't cut the big tree down.

    I was trying hard to make them understand when I heard someone coming. It was Grandpa in his buggy.

    I'm sure no one in the world can understand a young boy like his grandfather can. He drove up with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his whiskery old face.

    "Hello! How are you gettin* along?" he boomed.

    "Not,so good, Grandpa," I said. "I don't think I can cut it down. It's just too big. I guess I'll have to give up."

    "Give up!" Grandpa barked. "Now I don't want to hear you say that. No, sir, that's the last thing I want to hear. Don't ever start anything you can't finish."

    "I don't want to give up, Grandpa," I said, "but it's just too big and my strength's gone. I'm give out."

    "Course you are," he said. "You've been going at it wrong. To do work like that a fellow needs plenty of rest and food in his stomach."

    "How am I going to get that, Grandpa?" I asked. "I can't leave the tree. If I do, the coon will get away."

    "No, he won't," Grandpa said. "That's what I came down here for. I'll show you how to keep that coon in the tree."

    He walked around the big sycamore, looking up. He whistled and said, "Boy, this is a big one all right."

    "Yes, it is, Grandpa," I said. "It's the biggest one in the river bottoms."

    Grandpa started chuckling. "That's all right," he said. "The bigger they are the harder they fall."

    "How are you going to make the coon stay in the tree, Grandpa?" I asked.

    With a proud look on his face, he said, "That's another one of my coon-hunting tricks; learned it when I was a boy. We'll keep him there all right. Oh, I don't mean we can keep him there for always, but he'll stay for four or five days. That is, until he gets so hungry he just has to come down."

    "I don't need that much time," I said. "I'm pretty sure I can have it down by tomorrow night."

    Grandpa looked at the cut. "I don't know," he said. "Even though it is halfway down, you must remember you've been cutting on it half of one night and one day. You might make it, but it's going to take a lot of chopping."

    "If I get a good night's sleep," I said, "and a couple of meals under my belt, I can do a lot of chopping."

    Grandpa laughed. "Speaking of meals," he said, "your ma is having chicken and dumplings for supper. Now we don't want to miss that, so let's get busy."

    "What do you want me to do, Grandpa?" I asked.

    "Well, let's see," he said. "First thing we'll need is some sticks about five feet long. Take your ax, go over in that canebrake, and get us six of them."

    I hurried to do what Grandpa wanted, all the time wondering what in the world he was going to do. How could he keep the coon in the tree?

    When I came back, he was taking some old clothes from the buggy, "Take this stocking cap," he said. "Fill it about half-full of grass and leaves."

    While I was doing this, Grandpa walked over and started looking up in the tree. "You're pretty sure he's in that hollow limb, are you?" he asked.

    "He's there all right, Grandpa," I said. "There's no other place he could be. I've looked all over it and there's no other hollow anywhere."

    "Well, in that case," Grandpa said, "we'd better put our man along about here."

    "What man, Grandpa?" I asked in surprise.

    "The one we're going to make," he said. "To us it'll be a scarecrow, but to that coon it'll be a man."

    Knowing too well how smart coons were, right away I began to lose confidence. "I don't see how anything like that can keep a. coon in a tree," I said.

    "It'll keep him there all right," Grandpa said. "Like I told you before, they're curious little devils. Hell poke his head out of that hole, see this man standing here, and he won't dare come down. It'll take him four or five days to figure out that it isn't a real honest-to-goodness man. By that time it'll be too late. You'll have his hide tacked on the smokehouse wall."

    The more I thought about it, the more I believed it, and then there was that serious look on Grandpa's face. That was all it took. I was firmly convinced.

    I started laughing. The more I thought about it, the funnier it got. Great big laughing tears rolled down my cheek.

    "What's so funny?" Grandpa asked. "Don't you believe it'll work?"

    "Sure it'll work, Grandpa," I said. "I know it will.

    I was just thinking-those coons aren't half as smart as they think they are, are they?"

    We both had a good laugh at this.

    With the sticks and some bailing wire, Grandpa made a frame that looked almost like a gingerbread man. On this he put an old pair of pants and a red sweater. We stuffed the loose flabby clothes with grass and leaves. He wired the stocking-cap head in place and stepped back to inspect his work.

    "Well, what do you think of it?" he asked.

    "If it had a face," I said, "you couldn't tell it from a real man."

    "We can fix that," Grandpa chuckled.

    He took a stick and dug some black grease from one of the hub caps on the buggy. I stood and watched while he applied his artistic touch. In the stocking-cap head he made two mean-looking eyes, a crooked nose, and the ugliest mouth I had ever seen.

    "Well, what do you think of that?" he asked. "Looks pretty good, huh?"

    Laughing fit to kill, and talking all at the same time, I told him that I wouldn't blame the coon if he stayed in the tree until Gabriel blew his horn.

    "He won't stay that long," Grandpa chuckled, "but he'll stay long enough for you to cut that tree down."

    "That's all I want," I said.

    "We'd better be going," Grandpa said. "It's getting late and we don't want to miss that supper."

    I was so stiff and sore he had to help me to the buggy seat.

    I called to my dogs. Little Ann came, but not willingly. Old Dan refused to leave the tree.

    "Come on, boy," I coaxed. "Let's go home and get something to eat. We'll come back tomorrow."

    He bowed his head and looked the other way.

    "Come on," I scolded, "we can't sit here all night."

    This hurt his feelings. He walked around behind the big sycamore and hid.

    "Well, I'll be darned," Grandpa said as he jumped down from the buggy. "He knows that coon's there and he doesn't want to leave it. You've got a coon hound there and I mean a good one."

    He picked Old Dan up in his arms and set him in the buggy.

    All the way home I had to hold on to his collar to keep him from jumping out and going back to the tree.

    As our buggy wound its way up through the bottoms, Grandpa started talking. "You know, Billy," he said, "about this tree-chopping of yours, I think it's all right. In fact, I think it would be a good thing if all young boys had to cut down a big tree like that once in their life. It does something for them. It gives them determination and will power. That's a good thing for a man to have. It goes a long way in his life. The American people have a lot of it. They have proved that, all down through history, but they could do with a lot more of it."

    I couldn't see this determination and will power that Grandpa was talking about very clearly. All I could see was a big sycamore tree, a lot of chopping, and the hide of a ringtail coon that I was determined to have.

    As we reached the house, Mama came out. Right away she started checking me over. "Are you all right?" she asked.

    "Sure, Mama," I said. "What makes you think something's wrong with me?"

    "Well, I didn't know," she said. "The way you acted when you got down from the buggy, I thought maybe you were hurt."

    "Aw, he's just a little sore and stiff from all that chopping," Grandpa said, "but he'll be all right. That'll soon go away."

    After Mama saw that there were no broken bones, or legs chopped off, she smiled and said, "I never know any more. I guess I'll just have to get used to it."

    Papa hollered from the porch, "Come on in. We've been waiting supper on you."

    "We're having chicken and dumplings," Mama beamed, "and I cooked them especially for you."

    During the meal I told Grandpa I didn't think that the coon in the big tree was the same one my dogs had been trailing at first.

    "What makes you think that?" he asked.

    I told how the coon had fooled us and how Little Ann had seen or heard this other coon. I figured he had just walked up on my dogs before he realized it.

    A senile spread all over Grandpa's face. Chuckling, he said, "It does look that way, but it wasn't. No, Billy, it was the same coon. They're much too smart to ever walk up on a hound like that. He pulled a trick and it was a good one. In fact, it'll fool nine out of ten dogs."

    "Well, what did he do, Grandpa?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure he didn't cross the river, so how did he work it?"

    Grandpa pushed the dishes back and, using his fork as a pencil, he drew an imaginary line on the tablecloth. "It's called the backtracking trick," he said. "Here's how he worked it. He climbed that water oak but he only went up about fifteen or twenty feet. He then turned around and came down in his same tracks. He backtracked on his original trail for a way. When he heard your dogs coming he leaped far up on the side of the nearest tree and climbed up. He was in that tree all the time your dogs were searching for the lost trail. After everything had quieted down, he figured that they had given up. That's when he came down and that's when Little Ann either heard or saw him."

    Pointing the fork at me, Grandpa said very seriously, "You mark my word, Billy, in no time at all that Little Ann will know every trick a coon can pull."

    "You know, Grandpa," I said, "she wouldn't bark treed at the water oak like Old Dan did."

    "Course she wouldn't," he said. "She knew he wasn't there."

    "Why, I never heard of such a thing," Mama said. "I'd no idea coons were that smart. Why, for all anyone knows he may not be in the big tree at all. Maybe he pulled another trick. It'd be a shame if Billy cut it down and found there was no coon in it."

    "Oh, he's there, Mama," I hastily replied. "I know he is. They were right on his tail when he went up. Besides, Little Ann was bawling her head off when I came to them."

    "Of course he's there," Grandpa said. "They were crowding him too closely. He didn't have time to pull another trick."

    Grandpa left soon after supper, saying to me, "I'll be back down in a few days and I want to see that coon hide."

    I thanked him for helping me and walked out to the buggy with him.

    "Oh, I almost forgot," he said. "I heard there was a fad back in the New England states. Seems like everyone is going crazy over coonskin coats. Now if this is true, I look for the price of coon hides to take a jump."

    I was happy to hear this and told my father what Grandpa had said. Papa laughed and said, "Well, if you can keep the coons out of those big sycamores, you might make a little money."

    Before I went to bed, Mama made me take a hot bath. Then she rubbed me all over with some liniment that burned like fire and smelled like a civet cat.

    It seemed like I had barely closed my eyes when Mama woke me up. "Breakfast is about ready, Billy," she said.

    I was so stiff and sore I had trouble putting my clothes on. Mama helped me.

    "Maybe you'd better let that coon go," she said. "I don't think he's worth all of this."

    "I can't do that, Mama," I said. "I've gone too far now."

    Papa came in from the barn. "What's the matter?" he asked. "You a little stiff?"

    "A little stiffl" Mama exclaimed. "Why he could hardly put his clothes on."

    "Aw, he'll be all right," Papa said. "If I know anything about swinging an ax, it won't be long before he's as limber as a rag."

    Mama just shook her head and started putting our breakfast on the table.

    While we were eating, Papa said, "You know I woke up several times last night and each time I was sure I heard a hound bawling. It sounded like Old Dan."

    I quit the table on the run and headed for my doghouse. I didn't have to go all the way. Little Ann met me on the porch. I asked her where Old Dan was and called his name. He was nowhere around.

    Little Ann started acting strangely. She whined and stared toward the river bottoms. She ran out to the gate, came back, and reared up on me.

    Mama and Papa came out on the porch.