USAF veteran Tony Wayne Brown USAF veteran Tony Wayne Brown, a graduate of East Carolina University’s Communications program, is a former journalist whose fiction has been published more than fifty-five times, including Huffington Post, Main Street Rag, Vestal Review, cahoodaloodaling, Foliate Oak, Birmingham Arts Journal, MoonMagazine, Black Mirror, Infective Ink, Gemini, The Story Teller, Short-Story Me, Long & Short Review, Long Story Short, Whortleberry Books, Sleeping Cat Books, The Write Place at the Write Time, and Every Writers Resource. Brown, who writes out of Greenville, N.C., is currently working on the psychological thriller, “A Love Story For Sharon.”
The Last Time Jess Fredrick Went Hunting
Tony Wayne Brown
May/June 2016
A brisk November wind further chilled the hills of West Virginia on a day most people would call "cold." Cold to young boys hunting for desperately needed game is not the same as it is for most people, however. To the five friends heading to Hawk Hollow, where they usually ran their dogs, it was a fine day, a fine day indeed. They all awoke automatically with the shrill blast of the Plymouth Coal six o'clock whistle, each gathering their beagles for a carefree day of hunting like always on Saturdays that time of year.
Jess Fredrick, his dog Molly, and the others got picked up along the way by Zeb Vance, oldest of the group, and the only one of the five who owned a vehicle, though it was fourteen years old due to the scarcity of cars produced during World War II. None of the others were older than sixteen--and not even their parents had cars in that hardscrabble coal mining camp.
Excitement was in the air to them, not frost, certainly not danger. The immortality of youth allowed no room for such a possibility. The game they sought were rabbits, not men. Rabbits that would mean food on the tables in their cheaply-built Plymouth Coal houses, squatting on the high bank overlooking the Kanawha River. "Jenny Linds," folks called them, nestled in the company shantytown. One room structures mostly they were, little more than barns with rusty tin roofs--no electricity, no running water, with decrepit outhouses out back.
The only view was down the river to its next curve; the occasional tugboat pushing barges laden mostly with coal or timber. Toward tiny dots on the map with grandiose names like Confidence, Paradise, and Romance, the hills rose steeply from the river basin--almost suffocated each spring by sun-hiding fog that filled the Kanawha Valley like an impenetrable cloud.
To the northwest the once blue-green Kanawha flowed, until it disappeared into the Ohio at Point Pleasant. The river, the railroad, the seams of coal, and logging were the lifeblood, along with the explosives factory at Nitro--all in high demand once again with the Korean War heating up. The veins of black gold near Plymouth Coal’s original headquarters had been mined out back in 1944, so it had moved operations down the valley.
Times were hard, as it still is now. Hunting to most folks was a necessity of life. Other than logging and the extremely dubious task of making nitro, only two basic legal ways of eking out a living were available--digging coal or transporting it by rail or water.
The latter occupation happened to be the calling of Jess Fredrick's father, which is why the Fredricks clung to their home of many years even as the Plymouth Coal camp continued to shrink. Mr. Fredrick was away from home most of each year, so it fell to skinny Jess to help supplement the household.
None of Jess’ buddies had an ounce of fat either. Wiry was a term that fit most everybody in town. Sixteen-year-old Jerry McCrary--with matching red hair and eyebrows--rode up front with Zeb. Jess and his cousins, Robert and Paul, enjoyed the fresh air from the back of the rusty war surplus '38 Dodge pickup, sitting on the pen holding the dogs, which walked in anxious circles. Jess had his father's ancient rifle; the others toted various models of Winchesters, all loaded with number four shot.
A great day for hunting it was, autumn leaves scattering behind the truck. A robin glided from a pine tree to the roadside.
"Bam! Got him," Paul said, blowing imaginary smoke from his fingers. The robin fluttered away.
"Looks like you missed him, Pauly," Jess said.
"It just don't know it's dead yet," he replied, wagging his eyebrows.
They kept swapping lies about their hunting prowess and their dogs.
"I can shoot the tail off a rabbit at a hunnerd yards with this here rifle," Jess bragged, though he knew it wasn’t true.
"I believe you can," Robert said, "if'n that rabbit's twice the size of the elephant I seen down to the picture show at the Bancroft last week...you know...one of them Bomba the Jungle Boy movies."
"Wouldn't talk like that, Robert, if I was you," Paul chimed in. "You couldn't hit the broad side of the Kanawha with a hand grenade if you was drownin' in it."
"Oh, yeah?"
"YEAH, and come to think of it, you sorta look like Bomba's pet monkey."
Robert glared at Paul, pausing to think up a response. "Well, my dog Red can out-smell that old mutt of yours by a mile."
"That's cause I washes Lula Mae least twice a year,” Paul said. “Anybody can smell Red from a mile away." He pinched his nostrils shut to emphasize his point. Paul burst out heehawing at his own joke, joined by Jess. Even Robert couldn't hold back a chortle.
“Speakin’ of smell,” Jess said, “you fellas see that purple and yellow swirl over there on the river?”
“Nuthin’ but carp and catfish left in that stinkin’ water,” Paul said, “and everybody knows better than eatin’ them ‘cause you’d turn all sorts of colors and they’d hang you on the wall like a painting!”
Another burst of laughter from them caused Jerry and Zeb to turn their heads from inside the cab for a moment at the sound, but being older, had only girls and cars on their minds.
"Ramona Reed let me put my arm around her yesterd'y when I walked her home from school," Jerry claimed. "Near 'bout got a kiss from her too. Prob'ly woulda, but her momma come to the door right then."
"Aw, shoot, that ain't nothin'," Zeb said as he swerved around a mule-drawn wagon loaded with firewood. "I took Pam Turnage over to Jenkins' Knob Fri'dy night to watch the submarine races and we didn't see nare-a-one, if you know what I mean. He wiggled his eyebrows and poked Jerry in the ribs.
"What you talkin' about? There ain't no submarines in the Kanaw…" Jerry said before he caught Zeb's drift. "Oh, yeah. That's right! Those subs never do seem to surface on Friday nights, huh?" He wished just once it could be him parked at Jenkins' Knob. He'd never even kissed a girl.
It was still early when they arrived at their favorite hunting spot. With their ears a-floppin', the beagles took up the scent. The boys ran behind them, pushing their way through the dense thickets in search of the rabbits the dogs were soon baying after.
Jerry McCrary was the lucky one that morning. By noon he bagged three, while Zeb had shot two. Paul and Robert had one each, Jess none. Jess didn't mind so much, though. It was nearly impossible for him to hit a moving rabbit with a rifle--and he never really had much heart for hunting anyway. It always made his mother nervous, and he loved his mother very much.
The vigorous exercise brought on vigorous appetites and the five started returning to the truck for a midday meal, skimpy as it was. In his haste, Jerry tripped over a thick briar low to the ground and cart-wheeled into a mucky bog, soaking his left foot. His shotgun twirled also, landing butt-first, then clattering against a granite rock.
"This ain't the time for a mud bath," Paul joked, making a goofy face as he wiped splotches of mud off his chest.
"They prob'ly woulda charged me ten bucks for that in New York City," Jerry said. "Ain't that right, Zeb?"
"Damn right. Maybe even a twenty. You know how them big city folk likes to spend money on foolish nonsense."
Jerry picked his shotgun up and brushed it off before examining it. "Just bent the trigger guard a hair," he said, looking down the bore to make sure no mud was inside the barrel. "You all hear about the fella what got mud in his gun and blew the dang thing up last year near little Buffalo?"
"Yeah, I heard that," Robert said. "The fella nearly put his eyes out, from what I been told."
"I heard that, too," Jerry said, brushing dirt off his coveralls as he walked. "That's why I don't take no chances. I always check to make sure that bore is clear before I pull the trigger."
As they arrived back at the Dodge, puffs of clouds were being gently pushed across the sky by the lazy winds that sprang to life now and then. All the boys chugged RC Colas because you got two more ounces for the same five cents. Jess cherished every morsel of an apple-and-biscuit sandwich he ate while sitting next to Paul, who was eating square Lance nabs and a Moon Pie. Jerry ate his peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich as he sat on the wide running board on the driver's side. His shotgun was sticking up between his legs, the stock resting on his muddy boot. He twisted to the side as Zeb reached over him to turn on the truck's radio.
"Are you tired and run down, friends?" a voice sounding like a preacher said. "Well, I'm here to tellin’ ya to just plop two aspirin in a glass of BC Powder and you'll perk on up, yes indeedy. Try it one time, friends, and you'll feel mighty fine."
"I could use some of that right now," Zeb said.
"Now let's get back to the man who makes tuning in worthwhile," the radio announcer said.
"Thank you kindly, Grant. It's hymn time, friends, and here's one I wrote a few years ago. The title of it is, 'I Saw the Light'."
As the music faded, the radio crackled, "This is your old friend Hank Williams sayin' if the good Lord's a-willin' and the creeks don't rise, we'll be seein' you again soon. Take us away, boys with a little bit of 'Sally Goodin.'"
The rousing strains of a blue-grass fiddle poured out of the radio. Paul jumped off the dog box and started kicking his heels back and forth. He grabbed Robert's arm and they began cavorting, doing a two-man twirl and yelling, "Yee-haw!" while the others clapped along until the music faded away.
"That was a good'un," Paul said as he returned to his perch.
Robert straddled a rock next to him, munching on sweet pickle-and-cracker sandwiches along with Zeb.
"Where ya think we oughta try next?" Robert asked Jerry. “We prob'ly scairt off ev'ry doggone rabbit up that-away." He pointed up the draw.
Jerry shifted his feet a bit, pondering his response. Suddenly the loudest "BOOM!" anyone of them would ever hear echoed down the hollow. Jess, Zeb, Robert, and Paul's heads swiveled towards Jerry, who just stared ahead blankly.
Zeb rushed to his side, only to see a river of blood spurting out of Jerry's right arm.
"What'll we do! What’ll we do!" Robert yelled, his hands hiding his face.
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Paul said. "WHAT HAPPENED, Zeb?"
"Damn gun went off, you fool! Can't you see that? Trigger must of broke when he tripped back yonder." His harsh glare had its desired effect. Paul fell silent.
Calmly, Jerry began repeating, "My arm...my arm...my arm..."
By the time the others rushed over, blood had saturated his side. Zeb whipped off his belt and tightened it above the wound to stop the flow of blood. They all knew the damage was serious.
Bright red was all Jess could see. He held it together as long as he could, then bent over and lost his apple-and-biscuit sandwich. It had surely tasted better on the way down.
The attempt to staunch the flow of blood from Jerry's wound was successful. Zeb used his CB radio to contact Gatlin Funeral Home because in those parts in those days, there were no ambulances or rescue squads. It was the responsibility of funeral homes to respond to emergencies. Zeb followed the hearse on its twenty-five mile journey to Charleston General.
"They took Jerry's arm off," was all Zeb said when he stopped by the Fredrick's on his way home from the hospital. A vein on his forehead looked like it might burst any second.
“Jerry was right-handed, too,” Jess replied. “Guess he ain’t right-handed, now, huh? Zeb nodded grimly as he backed out the torn screen door.
Running her hands over the silvery bun atop her head, Mrs. Fredrick folded her arms across her chest as she made a clucking sound. "It always has made me real nervous when you went hunting, Jess boy. To think, that coulda been you a-layin' there. My, my...his poor mother! What must she be thinking? I need to lay down...I feel a bad headache comin' on." She eased onto the simple wood-frame bed behind the curtain that veiled it from the rest of the room.
Jess sprawled down next to the fireplace, grasping his elbow, imagining how it would feel if his arm wasn't there. He poked at the coals with a stick, he thought about how close he'd been to Jerry when the shotgun went off and grasped his elbow, imagining how it would feel if his arm wasn't there. He felt his face, wondering how it would have felt if the gun blast had hit his head. Wondered if he would have felt anything at all.
"That could'a been you," his mother had said. His younger brother Luke was lying nearby, snoring so loudly that Molly was barking outside. The youthful innocence etched upon Luke's face had departed forever from Jess, and he knew it. The simple joy he'd felt traipsing through the woods, despite the poverty that held the people hostage, was gone.
Rubbing the gunstock, he felt the carved inscription, Oct 20, 1950--the first day he'd killed an animal. He thought of his father, somewhere down the Mississippi, and how proud he'd been, showing off his son's six-point buck. Jess remembered how the animal's eyes taunted him with their stillness.
The fire projected enough heat to keep the rickety shack warm, but still Jess shook. He wouldn't be able to sleep that night, so he picked up the rifle and walked outside, where Molly was still barking.
"Hush, now, Molly! T'ain't nothin' but Lukie boy a-snorin." Molly hushed as ordered, and Jess sat on a rock outcrop that hung over the misty river. In one motion he flung the rifle as far as he could toward the Kanawha. As he returned to the house, the beagle began howling again.
"Quieten down, Molly," Jess whispered. "I done told you that's just Lukie boy a-snorin'!”