Hillbilly Hymn

Comes a time when a man’s got to start tendin’ his own and say to hisself “enuff is enuff” and that breakin’ of the camel’s back come to me that sorry old winter when my chickens started gettin’ picked off one by one, stupid buggers that they are. Mindy, she blamed it on a lil old bobcat, and I said: “Bobcat! Woman I been tendin’ those chickens for twenty years and ain’t seen no cowardly bobcat take my critters. You’ve seen my fencin.’ This’n gots to be somethin’ bigger.” “Mebbe they just ain’t been around until now,” she said, layin’ out the fixings for supper, and I peered out the window to see dusk bleedin’ through and shinin’ its tones upon the chicken coop. Just a couple of hens pecked like a couple sad widders in the yard, well within the fence, and I said “bah!” and brewed some coffee whilst my dear Mindy called for the chillun to come on down and et. Little Bobby is ten year old and ets like steer takes hay, and our sweet sixteen-year-old Sammy eats like a lady and can’t hardly stand the fellow gobblin’ up the table as he does. But she’s got that old virtue of temperance, as the schoolteachers do say, ‘cording to Plato and somebody I hear they call ‘Totle or somethin’ or other, so she forebears him and then helps me go out and feed the pups. After we did so, Sammy and I trudged on over to the chicken coop and I gave the chicken wire a heavy rundown from top to bottom and couldn’t detect nary a hole nor tunnel nor any other creaturely device. “Shoot Daddy, I wonder what it could be, takin’ ‘em all,” said Sammy. “Ma thinks it’s a bobcat, and God bless her but I must declare I believe that to be hog hoof,” I said. “What do you think it ‘tis?” “Well, Sammy, you might think your old Pa has lost his alfalfa, but shoot, it looks like the work of Bigfoot. Lookit here. Tree over here bent plumb over. The feller done clumb up and snatched ‘em up from above like a devil on hallerween.” “Ol’ Mister Tate yonder the ridge said he saw Bigfoot t’other day. Shem was tellin’ me about it.” “Tate! He’s got eagle eyes even if the bugger is as old as Methusaleh, God love him. And Shem you say….who’s this Shem I hear tell?” “Just a boy from school.” “So Bigfoot and boyfriends both comin’ to haunt my home. ‘Tis the reckoning, or rapture, I’ll be…” Sammy blushed so I didn’t say nothing more; she’s a beauty of a young woman, and surely this Shem I hear about ain’t so bad, it’s just that I heard his name talked about in the same sentence as Bigfoot, so the name now comes across with some sour to it. You understand. “What else did Tate say?” “His goats are missin.’ He ain’t lost a goat in forty year. ‘Cept to natural causes, ‘course.” “Man’s old ‘nuff, that’s no bluff. Old as Timbuktu if I could put a wager on ‘im. Anyhow, is that right? “Yessir. ‘Parently it’s a real community dilemma.” “Well, I’ll be barbequed.” I kicked at some mushrooms which looked to be poisonous by the smell they wuffed up and turned to take a look at my house. “Mebbe I’ll phone ol’ Tate and we’ll just make a stakeout of it,” I declared. “Pretty soon this here Bigfoot might be stealin’ our families too, or worse, all that moonshine in Hogback Crik we got hid.” “Yessir. Bobby will wanna come ‘long.” “Tain’t an option. He’ll have his chance here one o’ these days. Tate and me will take care of it this time ‘round.” I done told my plan to Mindy that night as we winded down from an evenin’ of card games with the kiddos and I even struck a cigarette in the window to show her how serious I was. “Bigfoot? C’mon, Arnie. Ya rilly think so?” “Tate saw ‘im with his own eyes, and don’t remember that when I’s just a pup of a boy--” “--that you saw a big hairy man catch a bass with its bare hands over at Shady Ridge Crik and you said to yerself that day: ‘well, that warn’t no man a ‘tall but some sorta ape we done learned about in archyology today at schoo.’” “Ah, you know the yarn, Mindy. But that don’t mean it ain’t true.” “You know how I feel ‘bout you goin’ out alone at night. You ‘member what happened last time.” “Last time I WAS alone, Mindy, but I phoned Tate ten minutes ago and he’s all fired up to shoot down this here Bigfoot, swears he seen ‘im with his own eyes.” “Don’t do it, Arnie. Don’t worry me so ‘bout where your butt’s gon’ be in the morning.” “My butt’s yours truly, always, darlin,’ but the farm’s in danger ya see and it ain’t just us. Got more calls tonight ‘bout farm animals gettin’ plucked.” Mindy was talkin’ ‘bout the time I got cut up by a bunch of hogs after goin’ out at night to see if I couldn’t shoot the whole herd down, but those were in my stupid years, which ya see the dear Lord above allows us to show us we’re stupid; I ain’t ever goin’ out alone in the wilderness again and that’s a promise I gave Mindy the day I limped on home from the Dr. Bernie’s clinic, which is his barn would ye believe it. This is different, ya see. I don’t tangle with Bigfoot lightly. I tangle with ‘im arm in arm with a trusted brother and veteran of the woods. That’s Tate. He’s the sage of us all and prays s’much you’d reckon the Spirit drips off his breath like honey to sweeten the very ground ‘neath his feet. So you see I do believe the man when I hear him. And the man can shoot the ever-lovin' daylights out of the critters which come stirrin’ trouble in his cornfield. There are some Bigfeet out there who we’ll call tame. They belong up in Oregon and Washington with all them radical liberal leftists but are soft as butter, see. A Bigfoot always reflects the country he comes from. That’s the belief I take. So it follows the Bigfoot ‘round here’s got to be one tough bugger, clever and no doubt has a knack for kickin’ back with all his critter brethren and playin’ “flinch” and remembering the good old primordial days when we human beings warn’t ‘round yet. ‘Merica used to be Bigfoot country, see, and they’d all roam free, but that all ended with Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency when he made a decree that hunting the Sasquatch was legal and all. I can fetch a copy of the documentation but my readin’ eyes ain’t toleratin’ much speculation at the moment, so I won’t. So they all went into hiding. So did the werewolves and a few witches and probly a few o’ them spirits which the good Lord won’t permit me to mention in detail. But them’s all out there spookin’ the world up. Jest you go look out one starry night in November and see if you don’t get a chill go down your spine, a chill which surely ain’t due to the temperature. World’s haunted, not jest sinful….but you know we all walk ‘round like it’s purely a material place that’s ours to tend. ‘Tain’t. Not if I got anything to say bouts it. Bigfoot ‘round here is a coagulation of all the memories stored up in these parts of the world. But that’s just my personal reckonin.’ Mindy went and sat down on the chest by the window as she does when she’s sad and pensive (I always do say she shoulda murried a poet ‘stead of a poor ol’chicken farmer like me, but it swells my soul to hear her say “I choose ye, Arnie, over all the dead poets in the world). She looked out into the crisp night as she does when she talks to God. “Big, strange world, ain’t it,” she whispered, looking back at me. A funny thing, murriage. If ya truly love the woman ye murry, you’ll think she gits all the more beautiful as time performs its parade, not less. I go into town at times and see these Coca Cola ads with women drinkin’ on the covers and they ain’t got nary more than two stitchens of clothin’ on ‘em and I tend to say to myself, “Doggone, she don’t even look like a real person hardly. She’s propped up like a statue like they got at the Partheenon over in the ancient country, ‘cept all she’s there for is to get some guys buyin’ a Coca Cola so they’ll attract the womenfolk.” But Mindy, I see her on that there windowsill and I perceive a real person there, soul breathin’ beauty into body, and that’s all I need to know to swoon. We’ll be lovers ‘til we kick the can for that very reason. But my apologies. Tangentry is second nature to me. I love her, so I gots to listen to her pints and pre-frogatives. “Well, Arnie, I love you somethin’ awful and I know ol’ Tate’s on his last leg. So mebbe y’all should go. Make it a well way out for ‘im.” “Thank ye, Mindy. Ye know I’ll blow my whistle if we git in a fix.” “I know it.” And that was that. I done picked her up in my arms and carried her over to our corncob mattress by which a woodstove eternally crackles its vestiges upon our bodily abodes and we kept each other company and comfort the whole night through as some coyotes yipped at the moon down yonder in the thickets. Next mornin’ I trudged on over to Tate’s through a seven-inch fall of snow which had started somethin’ fierce in the middle of the night. The day was overcast and bitterly cold so I blew into my mitts and down the throat of my coat. Some doe scattered in downy quiet before me, frighted no doubt by my four gauge shotgun which I had slung ‘cross my back. I reached in a pocket and tore off some jerky with my teeth and ground on it. Tate’s farm seeped into sight, the smell of goat crap loftin’ up to meet my heavin’ nostrils, but ‘tis a right honorable smell so I couldn’t think nothin’ but ‘preciation for it. Tate himself I spotted hunched like a first-century appendage over the hood of his tractor and cursing the radiator cuz I presume he’d got it frozen up durin’ the night. Tate lives alone up here on the hill. He’s lived alone up here for some thirty years, and though a strappin’ feller ain’t ever wooed no other farm gals for him to murry, but stuck to solitude and became a right spiritual man because of it, claimin’ he missed the companionship of a woman somethin’ terrible but come to hearken on the Presence of the Lord in some profound way, he said. “Good Lord made these woods and everythin’ in it,” he tol’ me. “Even the Bigfoots among ‘em. But we cain’t have ‘em stealin’ our livelihood.” “Holler on the hill!” said I, and the old man spun ‘round in vigilance and muttered, “Curse and travail ye, Arnie Tuck! You done scurred the livin’ corn pone out of me.” “Holler on the hill, haha,” I said again, softer, and he snatched my hand and brought me into a b’ar hug so I remembered somethin’ o’ my pappy durin’ moment it lasted. “So, ye’ve taken up the grand call,” he said, noddin’ and tuggin’ at a beard the shape of a cat’s ear. Cats and dogs roamed the snow shodden grounds of the farm like curious wraiths, heads popped up over robes of white. He grunted and told me to get my butt indoors where coffee and corn pone was waitin.’ “So it’s a stealin’ all your goats, I hear tell,” I said, takin’ a mug of coffee from ‘im and as always when I visited admired his spread o’ taxidermy on the walls o’ the parlor. The only critter missin’ is a bigfoot, I notice every time, but we aim to remedy that o’ course. “That’s what I ascertain,” the old geezer proclaimed, takin’ out his pipe and smokin’ long trails of blue smoke into the air so the ceiling attracted a swirly haze like the house had a mind and was ponderin’ the nature of our conversation. “But there ain’t no tellin’ for sure. Today’s a good day to hunt. Snow’ll bring out the tracks sure as shootfire.” Tate himself poured some whisky but didn’t take much; he watched hisself when it came to that sort o’ thing and joined me at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, peering with his single green eye out into the wilder-capped world. He sniffed. “Went to the city a few days ‘go,” he said. “Told my doctor Bigfoot was afoot and he got real concerned….had me get one of them confounded X-rays and looked inside my head usin’ some sonar deevice. He thought I was plumb crazy, Arnie. Told a nurse o’ his that these sorts o’ things tend to happen to we lonely hillbilly oldies. Bah! I got ears sharp as a fox cub’s, they think I’m deafer n’ the dead.” “Shoot, that’s a shame, Tate. But I reckon it’s good ye got yer checkup.” “I reckon so. They give me a week ta live, so I’ll take it or leave it at that.” He said it so casual-like that I nearly carried on the talk like it was nothin,’ but I stopped short and said, “One week, ye say?” “That’s right, son. But I s’pose they don’t know what the hell they’re talkin’ ‘bout. Always was spicious of them folks Lord love ‘em.” “Shoot, Tate. I do wish I could help in some way.” “But ye are helpin’ me, ya loaf. We’re goin’ on this here hunt and it’s gonna lead me right to the pearly gates.” He sipped and stared hard at the table. “Pearly gates,” he repeated at a whisper. “Why they call ‘em pearly I wonder? Don’t say that in the Bible, I don’t believe. Mebbe it does. I don’t know. Wonder why it cain’t be woody gates, or gates with my old criks flowin’ through ‘em, gold and pearl enough when sun and moon shine on ‘em.” “Yer talkin’ ‘bout home,” I said. “Yer very backyard.” “Home it is,” he nodded, smiling. “Ye care fer a plot a land for sixty years and it becomes heaven enough. I don’t believe I want to die after all, young buck.” His hands o’ leather were tremblin’ as they do because he’s so doggone old, and for the time being we forgot all about Bigfoot. It was like we was just settin’ there with nary a plan at all. Just settin.’ And an hour went on by but we kept on talkin’ about the upcomin’ spring and how crops were spected to do come harvest. “Lord’ll provide for ye,” Tate said. “Jest do yer part and bust yer butt for yer family.” “I know it. Ain’t a Bigfoot around which c’n stop the Providence.” “Gospel truth.” “You think it’s gonna snow all the week along?” “I reckon. Felt a pang in my shinbone this very mornin,’ and ye know that implies. Snow enough to hide a Yeti belongin’ to them big ol’ himerlayas.” Snow kept fiddlin’ on down sure enough like sweets on a sour surface, transfixin’ the woods in drapery and causin’ the figures o’ birds to bleed against the white. Tate does love watchin’ them birds. He always says he could watch ‘em for days on end think o’ that verse in Matthew where the good Lord speaks o’ speculatin’ the birds and takin’ stock of their full bellies and happy chirpin,’ how good it would be human beings too would put on their downright nature and chirp away all the troubles o’ life like chaff at the mill. Not to deny cold days like these, but to toss snow for joy in ‘em nonetheless. Tate whistled and wagged his head, mutterin,’ “Could see the movement of a mouse in that kinda stillness. I think we’d have seen Bigfoot by now if he was clompin’ around here like we think he is.” “He may’ve moved North to meet up with ‘is brethren,” I hypothesized. “They do that from time ta time. Have to reunite with thar kind, ya see.” “Truly that, son. It’s gettin’ on evenin’ tonight. Ye’d better call yer woman and tell ‘er the snow’s pilin’ up somethin’ dangerous with the dark.” Tate don’t boss nobody ‘round but when he commands he does it like it’s just got to be so, no contestation invited, no goin’ against. So I went on over the phone on the wall, which gots to be harvested from Graham Bell’s closet of first drafts, let me tell you, and called my sweet honey as the snow turned torrential and we couldn’t see the birds no more. “Arnie, I’m sorry ‘bout Tate. Stay with ‘im. Keep ‘im company. I love you, darlin’ leipsheing.” “My love’s all yours.” “Careful on yer way home tomorruh.” We clicked our separate ways and I saw Tate had already mashed up some beddin’ for me on his leather couch which he done drug all the way from town from when one of them consumptive city folk threw it out on the street. It’s one o’ them in which you sink in deeper and deeper the longer the night lasts and you just stare into the coals of the fire until it’s like Jesus Himself soothes your sorry soul to sleeps. “This’ll keep ye toasted,” he said. We sat in the parlor and smoked, lettin’ the silence get us real relaxed, and Tate’s back porch light blared white so we saw the snow tumble and elevate against the glass of the door. Tate sipped a bit more whisky. “Let’s go on and look for the squatch tomorrow mornin,’ Arn,” he said at long last. “Yessir.” “Your kids all right?” “They’re fine. Say, who’s this Shem I hear tell about?” “Hehe, he’s got quite the throbs for your Sammy.” “Well doggone, somebody’s gots to tell me ‘bout it.” “He’s been helpin’ me ‘round the farm. Doin’ chores and sech.” “Well.” “Don’t you warry, son. Shem’s a good’n. World ain’t gone totally to pot yet.” Just before sunup we rose and entered a wood so cold that I looked behind my shoulder and spotted our vapored breath still curling ‘round tree branches and goin’ up like a priestly offerin’ into the sky. The air had a blueness clingin’ to it, an undecided light askin’ for its entrance, still crusted behind new clouds of snow. Trees hung around like shadows in that God-haunted dawn, refractions of a night of heavy stardom; nothin’ crunched ‘neath us and I remembered Tate sayin’ “it’s heaven enough.” We clutched our rifles and peered through foliage, mystery burdenin’ our backs with broken lightness, and nothin’ surprised me when we looked on up and saw Bigfoot himself hurry up a hill and pause in place in pure view as if knowin’ he was bein’ watched. Tate clamped his fingers on my shoulders and suspended his breath. This particlar squatch was somethin’ huge, all gristled with brown-red fur, paws like clubs at his sides, and when he turned ‘round, eyes gleamin’ quite a lovely blue and green down at us. Tate had his buffalo gun, which Lord love ‘im is longer’n he is, his wild green eye fixed, body not breathin.’ I raised up my gun as well, our fingers settled on triggers. How I’d kill the brute with a shotgun I didn’t know, and I felt purty stupid pointin’ it as if to kill, but we didn’t end up shootin’ nothin.’ The simmerin’ delight and speechless mercies which possessed ol’ Tate’s frozen face tol’ me he’d been transfixed by the brute expression which did indeed come across as an angel’s in apelike repose. Bigfoot jest peered at us, a little curiously, and doggone it all he smiled at us, and then without a word bounded up the rest of the hill, usin’ his handpaw to up and swing over the edge and gone. It was like we’d seen an angel o’ God, and then the light swarmed the woods and hushed the blue like spring and gave fire to the tear stinging Tate’s bewildered eye. Surely it warn’t it that was stealin’ our chicks and goats and all the rest; the quiet meanderings of those woods prodded a mystery cold and lost and starry into the barrels o’ our weaponry and we lowered the guns and breathed it all in like heaven-heavy pipe smoke. “Well I’ll be tuck jimmied,” he whispered. “What a magnificent critter it is. Pardon my soul Lord for wantin’ to barrel down one o’ your sweet Bigfeet. Big ol’ smilin’ goon that he is! Big ol’ smilin’ goon that I am!” So ye see there come’s a time when a man’s got say “enuff is enuff” but such a cognishun don’t mean you’ll wind up doin’ what ye thought ye would. How could we a shot Bigfoot? All we really warnted ta do was take a hike together and get a glimpse of him, and glimpse ‘im we did and had a downright spiritual experience of it along the way. We whooped up the morn as it broke, snow shimmering in sun as we hiked our way forth, studyin’ the tracks and punchin’ each other’s shoulders at the sight and breathin’ in all the cold glories which belong to our neck of the woods. Sweet winter light o’ mine! Tate and I trekked on back to my homestead and I’ll be darned if I dint see a bobcat slink by the trough and take a gulp and then carry on ‘is merry way into the woods. A stakeout was in order. Heck, mebbe there’d be hordes of ‘em come nightfall, an apocoliptick avalanche of cats like the world ain’t ever seen, off to steal our chickens whiskey and women, and I muttered the thought to Tate and he said, “”Tis perfectly possibly, sonny. Perfectly possible.” Mindy called to us, “C’mon ye lost mutton! Steak and eggs on the skillet!”