You ever tackle a grown bear with a club? Me and Tyrel, we done it. We chunked at him with rocks and sticks, but he paid them no mind. He was bound and determined to have Orrin, and there was Orrin up high in the small branches of that tree like a ‘possum huntin’ persimmons.
Chunking did no good, so Tyrel and me cut us each a club and we had at that bear. He was big and he was mean, but while one of us closed in on him before, the other lambasted him from behind. Time to time we’d stop lambasting that bear to advise Orrin.
Finally that old bear got disgusted and walked off and Orrin came down out of that tree and we went on to the dance at Skunk Hollow School. Orrin did his fiddling that night from a sitting stool because the bear had most of his pants.
Right now I felt like he must have felt then. Every day that Griselda girl went a-walking past my claim paying me no mind but switching her skirts until I was fair sweating on my neck.
Her pa was a hard man. One time I went over there for supper like I had when I’d been welcome, back when neither of us had anything. He would stand up there in his new boots, consulting a new gold watch every minute or two, and talking high and mighty about the virtues of hard work and the application of brains. And all the time that Arvie Wilt was a-setting over there making big eyes at Griselda.
If anything, Arvie had more gold than Popley did and he was mighty welcome at table, but for me the atmosphere was frosting over a mite, and the only reason I dug in and held on was that I’d scraped my pot empty of beans and for two days I’d eaten nothing but those skimpy little wild onions.
Now when it came right down to it, Popley knew I’d worked hard as either of them, but I was showing no color and he wanted a son-in-law who was prosperous, so needing to find fault, he taken issue with me on fighting.
We boys from the high-up hills aren’t much on bowing and scraping, but along about fighting time, you’ll find us around. Back in the Cumberland I grew up to knuckle-and-skull fighting, and what I hadn’t learned there I picked up working west on a keelboat.
Pa, he taught us boys to be honest, to give respect to womenfolk, to avoid trouble when we could, but to stand our ground when it came to a matter of principle, and a time or two I’d stood my ground.
That old six-shooter of mine was a caution. It looked old enough to have worn out three men, but it shot true and worked smooth. My hands are almighty big but I could fetch that pistol faster than you could blink. Not that I made an issue of it because Pa taught us to live peaceable.
Only there was that time down to Elk Creek when a stranger slicked an ace off the bottom, and I taken issue with him.
He had at me with a fourteen-inch blade and my toothpick was home stuck in a tree where I’d left it after skinning out a deer, so I fetched him a clout alongside the skull and took the blade from him. A friend of his hit me from behind with a chair, which I took as unfriendly, and then he fetched out his pistol, so I came up a-shooting.
Seemed like I’d won myself a name as a bad man to trouble, and it saved me some hardship. Folks spoke polite and men seeking disagreement took the other side of the road, only it gave Popley something he could lay a hand to, and he began making slighting remarks about men who got into brawls and cutting scrapes.
Words didn’t come easy to me and by the time I’d thought of the right answer I was home in bed, but when Popley talked I felt like I was disgracing Griselda by coming a-courting.
So I went back to my claim shanty and looked into the bean pot again, but it was still empty, and I went a-hunting wild onions.
Nobody could ever say any of us Sacketts fought shy of work, so I dug away at my claim until I was satisfied there was nothing there but barren gravel. Climbing out of that shaft I sat down and looked at my hole card.
There was nothing left but to load up my gear on that spavined mule I had and leave the country. I was out of grub, out of cash money, and out of luck. Only leaving the country meant leaving Griselda, and worst of all, it meant leaving her to Arvie Wilt.
Time or two I’ve heard folks say there’s always better fish in the sea, but not many girls showed me attention. Many a time I sat lonely along the wall, feared to ask a girl to dance because I knew she’d turn me down, and no girl had paid me mind for a long time until Griselda showed up.
She was little, she was pert, and she had quick blue eyes and an uptilted nose and freckles where you didn’t mind them. She’d grown into a woman and was feeling it, and there I was, edged out by the likes of Arvie Wilt.
Popley, he stopped by. There I was, a-setting hungry and discouraged, and he came down creek riding that big brown mule and he said, “Tell, I’d take it kindly if you stayed away from the house.” He cleared his throat because I had a bleak look to my eye. “Griselda is coming up to marrying time and I don’t want her confused. You’ve got nothing, and Arvie Wilt is a prosperous mining man. Meaning no offense, but you see how it is.”
He rode on down to the settlement and there was nothing for me to do but go to picking wild onions. The trouble was, if a man picked all day with both hands he couldn’t pick enough wild onions to keep him alive.
It was rough country, above the canyons, but there were scattered trees and high grass plains, with most of the ridges topped with crests of pine. Long about sundown I found some deer feeding in a parklike clearing.
They were feeding, and I was downwind of them, so I straightened up and started walking toward them, taking my time. When I saw their tails start to switch, I stopped.
A deer usually feeds into the wind so he can smell danger, and when his tail starts to wiggle he’s going to look up and around, so I stood right still. Deer don’t see all too good, so unless a body is moving they see nothing to be afraid of. They looked around and went back to feeding and I moved closer until their tails started again, and then I stopped.
Upshot of it was, I got a good big buck, butchered him, and broiled a steak right on the spot, I was that hungry. Then I loaded the best cuts of meat into the hide and started back, still munching on wild onions.
Down on the creek again the first person I saw was Griselda, and right off she began switching her skirts as she walked to meet me.
“I passed your claim,” she said, “but you were not there.”
She had little flecks of brown in her blue eyes and she stood uncomfortably close to a man. “No, ma’am, I’ve give … given … it up. Your pa is right. That claim isn’t up to much.”
“Are you coming by tonight?”
“Seems to me I wore out my welcome. No, ma’am, I’m not coming by. However, if you’re walking that way, I’ll drop off one of these here venison steaks.”
Fresh meat was scarce along that creek, and the thought occurred that I might sell what I didn’t need, so after leaving a steak with the Popleys, I peddled the rest of it, selling out for twelve dollars cash money, two quarts of beans, a pint of rice, and six pounds of flour.
Setting in my shack that night I wrassled with my problem and an idea that had come to me. Astride that spavined mule I rode down to the settlement and spent my twelve dollars on flour, a mite of sugar, and some other fixings, and back at the cabin I washed out some flour sacks for aprons, and made me one of those chef hats like I’d seen in a newspaper picture. Then I set to making bear-sign.
Least, that’s what we called them in the mountains. Most folks on the flatland called them doughnuts, and some mountain folk did, but not around our house. I made up a batch of bear-sign and that good baking smell drifted down along the creek, and it wasn’t more than a few minutes later until a wild-eyed miner came running and falling up from the creek, and a dozen more after him.