Even my right hand turned white with powder.
“That’s right!” Uncle Everett replied. He rubbed his hand across my head. “Got any good cornmeal? Need to fix me and the boy some cornbread tonight. He likes it with strawberry preserves. Isn’t that right?”
I nodded as much.
The miller filled a small cloth bag with cornmeal from a large bin. “Ten cents,” he said. He filled a second one. “This one’s free for the boy.” He turned his head sideways and spat a string of tobacco juice through a crack in the floor. I could hear the rushing creek below. “He shore looks like you,” he glanced back at Uncle Everett.
“It’s the Edmonds genes,” Uncle Everett replied. “He gets them from his great-grandfather, just as I do.” There was a curt edge in his voice. He seemed moody, withdrawn. “Let’s just say his mother’s a beautiful woman, and Hamilton won her in a way I couldn’t.”
“Sorry if I upset you. You Edmonds are a strange lot!”
Uncle Everett paid Mr. Archy, and we left.
The drive to Uncle Everett’s farmhouse required returning toward town, crossing a rocky creek at a shallow ford, and proceeding a half-mile or so on a dirt lane. The latter followed a smaller creek that fed into one at a ford. Pastured hills rose to our left. Across the creek, three-to-four hundred acres of prime bottomland stretched halfway back to the Laurel Springs. The land lay dark, damp and fallow, save for a wheatfield of young green sheathes. Corn shocks and trampled fodder littered a field beside the creek.
“That’ll all be plowed up soon,” said Uncle Everett. “We’re going to fish that creek in the morning,” he pointed. “And tomorrow afternoon, we’re going horseback riding up on the ridge, just to see what’s back there. Think that’ll keep us busy?”
“Yes, sir! Will we see any wolves?”
“Not on this trip. But you never know,” he smiled.
“Will you carry a gun? Can I shoot it?”
“Your mother would kill me if I did.”
“I won’t tell. Not even Pearl.”
“You and Pearl are great buddies, aren’t you?”
“When she’s not busy. Uncle Everett, why won’t Grandmother let me call her ‘Granny?’ I always have to call her ‘Grandmother.’ Why?”
“Tell you what I’ll do. We’ll talk about that tonight. Right now we’re almost home, and you and me, Mr. Bigshot, have chores to do.”
Uncle Everett’s house came into view. It was a two-story red brick structure, with a wooden front porch, its rails painted white and floor gray. Wide brick steps led up to it. Gray shingles hung out over the porch’s deep eaves. All the windows had screens. Two chimneys, one at each end, flanked the house, though a coal furnace provided its principal heat. Uncle Everett had been married but now lived alone.
After supper, Uncle Everett lit a fire in the living room’s fireplace. Spring nights continued to be cold, long into May around Abingdon. Uncle Everett’s house was sparsely furnished with only a few pieces in each room. Many were handmade, crafted by one of his tenant farmer’s father. The old carpenter worked out of one of Uncle Everett’s sheds. He was crippled and wore a large three-inch sole on his right foot. He hobbled from bench to bench but produced elegant furniture. I still have most of it, my favorite piece being a large cherry chest of drawers and a gun cabinet, stocked with Uncle Everett’s shotguns, rifles, and numerous pistols, along with two of Marion’s shotguns and the pistol with which he shot Olan Crawford.
I pulled up a child’s rocker and sat beside Uncle Everett. The orange flames glowed softly against the blackened back wall of the fireplace. Uncle Everett took down a dark green book and turned to a picture of Daniel Boone.
“The man was a pioneer. See his coonskin cap and deerskin clothes? He lived off the land and explored this region, and over into Kentucky. You asked about wolves. When he came through here years ago, he and his party spent several nights in caves, right on the Main Street of town. The caves ran under the whole hill, where the big monument stands today. You know the one? The one of the Confederate soldier. The wolves attacked their horses and dogs. After several nights, they had to travel on.”
“Did the wolves eat anybody?”
“Not that I know of. Boone’s men probably skinned the few they killed. In fact, the wolves lived there a long time and weren’t driven off until years later. That’s why the town was called ‘Wolf Hill.’ But I think they were gone by the time the Colonel settled in town. But that was after he built the house where you and Mama live.”
Uncle Everett closed the book and replaced it in a knotty pine bookshelf near the mantle. “Got another surprise,” he said. He opened a drawer beneath the bookcase and produced a small walnut box that sported silver hinges and a silver latch. He placed it in my lap.
“Be careful. Don’t jiggle it or let it fall off.”
I unlatched the box and raised the lid. A collection of hand-struck flint arrowheads lay stacked neatly in rows on a green pad.
“I found everyone of them, right here on the farm. They’re very old and go back a long time.”
I picked up the largest arrowhead with care. Its sharp tip almost pricked my thumb. Its serrated edges were equally sharp. Many smaller but similar ones lay beneath it.
“One day, this will be yours. The whole kit and caboodle! Let’s put it back now, OK?”
As he reopened the drawer, I saw another box: a shiny, cherry box, shoved in the back. “What’s in that?”
“Secret! Big secret! Don’t ever let me catch you in there, unless I tell you! Maybe one day I will.” He forced a smile and patted me on my shoulder.
Early the next morning, we walked through the wet grass to go fishing. All Uncle Everett carried was a short cane stick. He had tied a filament of line on the narrower end and had attached a small hook to that. Along the way, we picked up a few night crawlers and dropped them in a can. We paused in a marshy meadow several yards from the stream. “Shhh! Walk softly. The fish will feel our vibrations. They spook easily,” Uncle Everett said.
Uncle Everett held up the hook. “You put the worm on it,” he whispered. “It’s time you learned how.”
I reached in the can for one of the worms, flinched as I picked up its slimy body, and struggled to spear it on the hook. Its warm digestive track gushed out all over my fingers. I tried not to frown or show fear. I wanted Uncles Everett to be proud of me.
“Good job!” he whispered. “Now watch!” He swung the line out over a deep, but swift, narrow section of the creek. Within seconds, the cane reed wobbled and bent slightly. In a matter of an hour, he caught ten pan-size rainbow trout. To my great horror, he released each. Seeing the disappointment on my face, he simply stated: “We’ve got ham for lunch and apples. The fish can wait another time.”
My spirit sank with incredulity.
That afternoon, he saddled up one of his horses, and we rode up high into the woods that overlooked his farm. Far off in the distance, I could see the town’s spires. Acres and acres of pastureland, hills, and bottomland stretched
