What I Did Last Summer

For your entertainment

The morning air slapped me in the face, spring still trying to bust through fall. I slid out of bed and ran as fast as I could to the pot-belly stove, our only source of heat this early. Dancing up and down, I heered grease popping in the skillet and smelled honeysuckle comin’ through the window where it was taking over the whole outdoors.

“Ma’s voice come marchin out from the kitchen, hard as granite, and sounding like chalk on a blackboard: 'That door ain’t gettin fixed by itself’, she screeched.

I pushed on through anyhow, the screen door flapping behind me, hanging on by just the one old leather hinge, moaning like it seemed willing to give up and fall right there at my feet. Besides her complaint was leveled at Pa, not me.

Davey come up the road, slow, dust rising behind his boots, on his way to meet up with Pa and that new hound Pa had been bragging on, Hank, and me tagging along behind. First coon hunt of the season, the air abrupt and upliftin’ and the woods waitin’.

We’d lost more than one dog to a coon, them things mean as a snake and twice as stubborn. I hadn’t had but one season under my belt, but I’d learned quick enough, seeing as how last fall we lost Jasper, his side split open like a feed sack left out in the rain.

Pa always said a boy best not get too fond of a dog, not if he aimed to keep his heart in one piece. But the first time Jasper licked my face, I reckoned I’d take my chances. Sometimes a boy knows better, or thinks he does, till the reckoning comes. I painted Jasper’s name on a scrap of oak and nailed it up over my bed, saying his name every morning so he wouldn’t be gone for good. Folks round here know a name spoke is a soul remembered.

I hurried out to where Gracie stood to hitch her to the old potato digger. Before the day was through, her flanks will be damp and her head hanging low but my day will be just beginning. I set about hooking her up, the leather creaking in my hands.

Come midnight, we were on our way. We entered them woods on the east side, away from the main road, although the main road being 3 miles away wasn’t much a concern in my thinkin. But Pa was not taking any chances. He held the barbed wire apart and I stepped through careful as a sloth. After we’d gone a bit, Pa lit the latern so’s we could see our way. We gone about two miles when Pa suddenly called out to us to stop as though we had arrived at our destination.

A man stepped out from so deep a darkness, he seemed to trail it behind him. He was mean-looking enough to make me near mess my britches. Pa didn’t flinch, though. He acted like he’d been expectin’ him.

There was laws in those days that made it near impossible for a man to scrape by honest, so folks turn to what they must. Pa, for one, took to keeping dogs, not just for huntin’ but for guardin’. That’s right, guard dogs. Truth is, treeing coons was just the story we told even though we treed a couple of coons for the look of it. There was better money to be made elsewhere.

I heard the jangle of bridles and saw three mules led out into the lantern glow. Mules’ll take you places a horse won’t, and they’ll clear a fence like a deer. We needed something the law couldn’t chase down easy. Mules are strong and steady, made for hills and hollers. We were headed deep into the backwoods, not for coons, (and I bet you wondered why we was being so careful over coon huntin) but all this tiptoeing through the woods was for something green and worth the risk. We were there to harvest marijuana. And that’s why we needed the guard dogs.

When Hank, our new hound, let out a howl, pitched high and wild as he went sailing through the air, Pa put out his hand and caught me by the shoulder. He turned his head slow, first one way then ta-other, listenin’ with that look he got when something in the air ain’t right. I could feel my heart thumping against his arm, his grip holding me back like all the things of this world that would ever try to stop me in life. But I wasn’t made for holdin’, not then, now, or in between. I broke loose, same as a calf busting through a rotten fence, and there wasn’t a thing could stop me. Branches snapped, leaves shattered, vines gave way as I tore after Hank. Not even one of Pa’s feelins’ could stop me.

Speakin’ of his feelins’, Pa had no business knowin’, but he does, and he did, so we gave thanks all the same to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and every last one of the disciples and their buddies, the saints, too, that he did know enough not to set out for town that Monday. He couldn’t have told you what it was, only that something was coming, something big, and it was bound for town.

Come to find out, a tornado near about took the place off the map. Mr. Ramy down at the Texaco said it was a mile wide if it was an inch. Sammy Twosteps just looked at him and asked if he was sure, and what kind of measuring tape did he reckon he used for that, anyway?” And as usual, Mr. Ramy ignored Sammy.  Looked right past him.

Folks could see plain as day Sammy had the upper hand in this little war of wits, and you could nearabout slice the anger built up under Mr. Ramy’s old Texaco cap with a kitchen knife. Mr. Ramy took his cap off and wiped sweat off his bald head and I’d have sworn, if you looked close, you might catch the shimmer of heat waves risin’ off his scalp like it was a runway at the airport in August.

Anyhow, Mr. Ramy had the right of it. That tornado laid a path near a mile wide through short grass country, and from up above it would have looked nothing but brown, for there was nothing left but the bare earth. Not a blade of grass, not a brick, not even a car tire was left behind. We was lucky it didn’t take the dirt too, all the way down to hell.

The wind had come through rippin’ up everything like it was making room for a brand-new start. That raw, bald streak right down the middle was plain as a scar and a reminder of the fickle nature of winds so fierce they no longer act according to any wind laws known to man.

Folks kept close to home for a spell after that storm, not much willin’ to test the sky again. But in time, you saw the Mennonites rolling out in their buggies along the road, same as before, banking on the world turning back to normal.

Something about seeing those Mennonites triggered a call to the wild in Pa and made him decide it was time. Time to get back out there. Pa figured if the Mennonites were now getting back out, it must be safe. They had a feel for these things. And cause they best be safe, they weren’t going anywhere fast in a buggy.

Funny thing about feelings. I think they used to guide people more before we became experts in all things technological. Don’t get me wrong. I’m bent for the future all the way. And I ain’t sure how long man been on this earth, but from the looks of it, he’s been solving problems all along. And I don’t see that’s going to change much.

I could be wrong but just short of robots takin’ over the world, I believe we’ll solve those problems too. But I feel like Merlin the Magician when he says in that talkie, “Now is the time for men and their ways”, meaning tests replace magical knowledge.

Our vet was replaced by his children, and we went from $30 per visit to $70, from intuitive knowledge to tests. And that’s just for ta visit. Tests gone up to $200. Gracie never had an ailment what Dr. West didn’t know what it was and he came to our farm to see her. We didn’t have no way of cartin’ her around and that was so for most folks back then.

Yep, back then, folks went on feelins’ a lot more. And Pa had a feelin’ about that tornado. He thought it was an omen. He said something about it knocked the world off its path of intention and it needed to be put right again. This had nothing to do with stars and planets and such. It had to do with the world soul. Pa said these strange-type happenings always come in twos. That’s to let the world be put right iffn it get knocked off it’s delicate balance. “What gonna sneak up on us now?”, Pa near ducked his head looking right and left, as he, one of the few times I ever heered, voiced his fears.

In all my life, I never knowed a tornado what could do what that black whirling dervish of death did—pull up every blade of grass, short as they was. Wasn’t a thing left, not so much as a patch, nowhere you looked. Reckon it’s the first time in history a twister come through, tore up the world, then took the trouble to tidy up after itself.

They keep on coming, wanting to make sense of it. I keep telling them, they won’t get the truth from me, not the way they want it.

There’s mornings when I hear them knocking, but I just sit quiet and let the sound pass on by, same as a rain shower on a tin roof. Folks come asking after the grass, like I’d know where it’s gone off to, as if grass was a thing you could keep track of. I reckon they ought to be glad they don’t have to mow for a while, though I doubt that’s crossed their minds.

When Hank went sailin’ through those trees, I just knowed he was a goner. When I broke out into the clearin’, I saw Hank up a tree like he’d been throw’d there, and he was bawlin’ like a new-born calf.

And pretty soon, I was yellin’ myself. Hank tweren’t hurt just terrified. Up another tree were a big ole bear. It was a big ole bear hunched over. That what it look like. A big ole bear hunched over that suddenly stood up and tweren’t a big ole bear no more.

Then I heard Davey holler out, 'What in the Sam Hill?' just as them three mules come busting into the clearing all wild like, running every which way, probably actin’ initially to the stink of the creature.

Pa, hisself, was snarled up behind one of them mules like he’d been tied to a runaway wagon. That dumb mule run at that creature like he had just declared war, draggin’ Pa behind. I ain’t really sure what happened next, but that creature chucked that mule into the woods and Pa was left in the dust, safe and sound, right there in front of the creature. I ain’t never heered Pa squeal like a girl until that night. Squealin’ like a stuck pig, he scrambled away fast as lightening.

“And I swear; and I knows I’m the onliest one left alive that was there, so there ain’t no way to prove it. But what stood up in that moonlight, with that latern lit as all git out, weren’t anything I’d ever seen before. It picked up a mule and chucked it into the woods, for Christ’s sake. I couldn’t think of a single natural thing on this earth what could do that. The only category left --  unnatural. That’s a fun word. Unnatural. Spook, ghost, monsters, words what don’t sound scary to me at all. But unnatural? That slides over you like a slow sink into quicksand.  

All of us, to a one, mesmerized, every soul and beast in their place, and it seemed like the world itself was holding its breath, waiting, watching something none of us had ever thought to see.

He was a good seven feet tall, and obviously power be his game. I was hopin’ this was actually a man covered in fur, but the terror that flooded my bloodstream said otherwise. Yep—that’s a feelin too.

We stood there, not rightly believing our own eyes, each of us wondering if maybe we was dreaming or if the moonlight was playing tricks.

Then I saw that great head turn, slow as judgment, and for a second I felt like the Lord Himself had set His sights on me, and there was nowhere left to hide.

I reckon I was caught, same as a rabbit in a snare, too taken by what I saw to even think about turning away. Those eyes, they swept over the dogs and the mules and the men, and then over me. I saw recognition in them. Those eyes didn’t just carry smarts, they carried a kind of old sorrow and wisdom, the sort you only get from livin through things most folks wouldn’t believe.

The others must have caught wind of it too, the way I was picked out, because sudden as a thunderclap they set to hollering and charging at that thing, as if racket and wild arms could bring it down better than any gun or knife. As he stood there, watching us with them eyes that didn’t blink, quicker than a snake strike, it was off and running, and by the time I realized, it was already on me, snatching me up like I weighed nothing at all. I heard Pa’s shotgun going off behind us, the sound tearing through the trees as we crashed on through the underbrush.

It struck me as peculiar, right in the thick of it, that I could wonder where Pa’s shots was headed, or how I might faint dead away from the stench of whatever had me.        

We was running, or it was carrying me, and I heard a sound like the world splitting open. You would think being carried off by an other-worldly creature was enough to trigger every bit of fear in the tank. But nope, I reached down and found some more when I heered that sound.

There was a roar that drowned out all other sounds, including the sqealing of a little girl. It was not like any beast I ever heard, but something deeper, like the earth itself had had enough and triggered a world-wide earthquake. Maybe hell had finally clawed its way up through all that dirt and come howling out for us.

Pa managed to get clear, still trying to reach me, but if he’d been a heartbeat slower, there wouldn’t have been nothing left but a smear where he stood, them boulders grinding up everything in their path.

Davey, though, he didn’t make it. The river come down in a fury, rolling stones big as barns, and Davey got swept under before anybody could even holler his name. He never stood a chance.

Some nights, I half expect to see him comin’ up the road, kickin’ up dust like always. Those same nights, my chest tightens up thinking of him down in that black water. There was no findin’ anything in that flood of boulders. It pulverized and chewed up and smashed any and everythin’, so even if you did find something that perished, you wouldn’t recognize it nor would you want to see it.

By the time Pa reached me, I was already sprawled out in the dust, the stink of my smelly companion still hanging in the air, though he’d lit out for parts unknown.

Sometimes, sitting out on the porch with the dusk coming on, I wonder if it happened at all, or if maybe that fellow ever truly meant to pull me out of harm’s way. But the more I turn it over in my mind, the more I reckon there wasn’t much else could explain what he done.

We just scraped by, the two of us, though he could’ve left me to fend for myself and been safe enough on his own. Instead, he come running back for me. I can’t see it any other way, no matter how I try. Maybe cause I was a child, or maybe because I was a child, I was small and had the least chance of dodging a 275-ton boulder. That’s what the paper said the next day. Boulders that massive bein’ tossed around like toy ships.

I’ve looked back over the years, but I ain’t laid eyes on him since, at least no ways for the tellin’. Every so often I hang a sack of food up in the trees, and sure enough, it’s always gone come morning. Not scattered or chewed up like some coon or possum got at it, but taken neat, like somebody with sense and two good hands come along and fetched it away. I put antibiotics in the pack also, in case he figures out how to use them, because for one dang thang, I am most dead sure of – that is not some dumb beast.

And who’s to say? Maybe twas him took all that grass. Don’t big feets eat grass? I had to chuckle at myself. Where would I go to find out—to the Bigfoot Science Building? Or maybe I should start one myself, for I stood here, probably, the foremost expert on Bigfoot in America.

And What I know, I reckon, is the very reason I’ll never say where they are, what they are, or where they come from. They’re gentle as a spring morning, and I aim to keep it that way, best I can.

Folks go looking for them out yonder, but they’re right here, hiding plain as day. It ain’t some far-off thicket you got to tramp through to catch a glimpse. The real wild land is tangled up inside a man and woman. You got to clear your own brush before you’ll ever see them. You’ve got to be willing to lose more than you want and find more than you expect. That’s why most folks never see them. The far-off country is inside a person and Bigfoot is just one of the magical wonders that runs that land. Its treasures await the gritty traveler who, by hook or crook or simply by accident fall, with the world, off its path of intention and discover something that can’t possibly exist.

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