or night, and steal a winter’s worth of cobs and kernels. The Ownbys always farmed the steep side of the Smokies, which was the only side they had.
Lem Ownby found that sometimes he could depend on the mule, and sometimes he couldn’t, and sometimes it wasn’t even worth the effort. “Mules have a bad habit of sitting down when they want to and taking themselves a rest,” Lem said, “and you wind up grabbing the blister end of an old hoe and working for yourself.”
The mountains gave him little mercy, when they offered him mercy at all, but they gave him a chance to survive. So Lem Ownby took his broad axe and with a pair of callused hands he almost scalped them bald. The loggers saw dollar signs growing tall and thick on the slopes of the Smokies. They hired men like Lem Ownby, tossed them an axe and crosscut saw, kept them in the timber and working for eleven hours a day, and paid them a dollar fifty every time the sun went down.
“How many trees did you cut?” I asked Lem.
“About a hundred and seventy-five a day,” he said in a quiet voice. “A good timber cutter could do a little better.”
“How selective were you about the trees you cut?”
“If they were on the mountain, we took them down.”
“Were they hardwoods?
“Durn right they was hard.”
So down came the maple, red cherry, buckeye, yellow poplar, and hemlock. “We cut one poplar that was nine feet in diameter,” Lem said proudly. “It was so durn big the flatcar couldn’t hold but one log.”
At first, a team of horses hauled out the timber along an old, dirt skid road. Then came the railroad, and it pushed the loggers higher and into rugged, treacherous terrain where even angels, provided they had good sense, feared to tread. The track finally ended within half a mile from the crest of Clingman’s Dome, playing out at 6,606 feet. The axe and crosscut saw, lethal weapons in lethal hands, left stumps and splintered scars across three hundred and thirty-nine thousand acres.
The Tennessee highlands were almost naked before anyone cried out in 1923 to save them. The government sought to buy the land, but lumber and paper companies did not want to lose their holdings. Those who lived within the hollows did not want to walk away from their homes, such as they were.
The Great Depression changed their minds. They saw the opportunity to pocket quick cash for their farms, and most had never even gotten a glimpse of opportunity before. Didn’t know what it looked like. Only knew it was there staring them in the face.
Some sold. Some went to court, lost, and had to take their money anyway. And a few – because of hardships and old age – were granted a reprieve and given lifetime leases on their homesteads even though the acreage lay deep within a new national park.
One was Lem Ownby.
The old-timers were handed a strict set of regulations. You can’t hunt, they were told. You can’t cut any green trees. And the law says you have to pay a dollar per acre per year. Violate the contract, and you forfeit your land.
A bear raided Uncle Jim Carr’s springhouse. Uncle Jim Carr shot the bear. Uncle Jim Carr was kicked out of the Smokies. Another old-timer cut down a tree in his yard. It had two forks, one dead and one green. He, too, was ushered out of the mountains like a common criminal. Age crept up on the rest.
Lem Ownby lost his neighbors.
He lost most of his land.
Finally he lost his sight. He missed most the voice of man.
Lem Ownby, leaning heavily on his cane, stepped off the front porch and shuffled back toward his fifty beehives. They swarmed his face and covered his hands. It was as though they did not exist at all. Lem Ownby did not rob the hives of their honey. The bees merely left it behind for him to find. He had taken care of them for years, and now they took care of him.
His was a tranquil place, at peace with itself, with the calm wind swinging through the trees and the white water creek singing to the rocks as it rushed out of the mountains.
“Have you ever thought about leaving this valley?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
Lem Ownby stopped for a moment and leaned against a hive. He shrugged and grinned. “One of these days,” the old man said softly, “I’m gonna go up to where the mountains are higher and prettier, and you don’t get bee stung.”
For him it would be a long wait, a lonesome wait.
Five years later, he lay down one night, closed his eyes, and by morning, the mountains had changed their shape. Higher, perhaps. Maybe even prettier. The constant hum of the bees faded into silence.
Lem Ownby had left home and gone home.
Forever and ever.
Amen.
Lem Ownby, blind and alone, sits beside his mountain cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains.
(Photo: J Gerald Crawford)
High Country Secrets
Somewhere on the outskirts of
Johnson City, Tennessee
Pop: 61,990
The Scene: Only the strong and hardy found a wilderness refuge back among the ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains. Settlers had sought a new way of life. What they found was solitude in a place – old timers swore – where you had to climb up one steep slope and plant your garden seeds by blasting them with a shotgun across the valley and into the side of another mountain
The Sights: The Great Smokies are still a haven for those who want to get out and become acquainted with the length and breadth of a sprawling landscape. Within the National Park are more than a thousand developed campsites at six key areas. They provide tent and trailer parking spaces, water, picnic tables, fireplaces, and comfort stations. If, however, you are looking for a rugged way to commune with the highlands, you can choose between a number of primitive campsites. Of course, if you are really serious about leaving any traces of civilization far behind, try backpacking.
The Story: The summer Tennessee sun had baked the ground beneath Bob Duke’s feet as he ambled out of the Great Smoky Mountains, following a dirt road that led him out of the high country and on toward Johnson City.
The dust on his face had turned to grime, and sweat cloaked his forehead. His throat was dry, his spittle tasted like dust, and the cardboard suitcase in his right hand felt as heavy as it had been all week. But then, it was always heavy when Bob Duke hadn’t sold much, and the last seven days had been a total waste. He was a drummer. He was a peddler. Nobody was buying.
Nobody in Lick Skillet or Loafer’s Glory had any money to speak
