cooterlice

[cooterlice]

Cooter Lice

           The flare of first sunlight broke the treetops. Tolbert shielded his eyes and took in the view from atop the towering sycamore, a good eighty feet in the air. A high gust of October wind rippled the turning leaves. When Tolbert squinted, the blazing colors made the holler look like it was on fire.

           Thin wisps of blue smoke quiled out of the cabin below. Tolbert got a whiff of chicory.

           No denying, the near finished cabin would have been a fine one. Three rooms, maybe. White oak. Pitched roof, full-scribed notching, and chinked tight. Plumb and flush. A handsome stone chimney rising off the side like a Pinnacle Rock postcard. Excepting the pile of timber for the half-built springhouse off to the side, it was something to see. A real beaut. And they'd never have known it was there if Floyd hadn't crossed the river for some new boots and heered talk of the fancy cabin being raised by some boys near the banks of the Tug Fork.

           Tolbert regretted not getting an earlier start. They was already up.

           Something whistled and ripped through the leaves at his feet. The steady chew of his brothers' crosscut saw down below was interrupted by the report of a firearm echoing through the holler. He'd been spotted.

           Tolbert gave the knot a final tug to make it fast, undid his climber belt and monkeyed down the rope. Another pop and splinter exploded off the trunk halfway down. He caught the smell of burnt gunpowder as he dropped from the lowest branch and rolled up into a run, calling back over his shoulder.

           "Keep your heads down, boys. They spied me."

           He knew his brothers were safe for the time being. The old tree sat back on a patch where the slope leveled out, back enough so as to provide a natural cover. Floyd and Jim, already working themselves into a lather, alternated grunts as they pushed and pulled the saw, its teeth half-sunk into the green bark of the barrel-thick trunk.

           Tolbert pulled some snagged rope free from the sycamore's branches and ran with it toward the stack of cut lumber next to the springhouse along the south side of the cabin. He could hear commotion inside. The scurrying of boots, clatter of metal, scrape of moving wood. A whispered shout to "get up you whisky sot." What sounded like a mewling cat. Peeking over the woodpile a-mite for a better look, he saw the long muzzle of a single-shot pokestock edging onto the sill of the far window.

           He coiled a bundle of rope slack and threw it up and over the new cedar shingling to the north side of the cabin, then ran to retrieve it and took off toward the outcropping of rock forty paces back, where Alifair was hiding with the mules. Tolbert chucked the rope over the rock and ducked behind it.

           Alifair was sitting on her haunches feeding a tater to Gabby, her favorite.

           "They shooting this way?”

           She scratched herself and spat. “Nothing yet.”  

           Alifair was almost seventeen, a momma now, with a new baby boy. Tolbert was less than a year older, but to him she'd always be his baby sister. Chip-toothed grin, too many freckles. He’d been soft on her since she was a turnip, and to be truthful, a titch afeared. She was headstrong and easily riled. He'd heard it many a time. Alifair was sumptin' else.

            The sawing had stopped. Over the soft rush of the Tug Fork now echoed the thock of swinging axes, Floyd and Jim making fast work of it. Whoever had been shooting weren’t now, likely because they couldn’t see who to shoot.

           Tolbert began to haul in the rope. The quicker he could get it pulled taut over the cabin, the better their chance of staying hid.

           When he got the rope running tight from the top of the giant tree, he hitched it to the wooden yoke fitted on Gabby and Gwinever. If his brothers kept up the pace, there were no sudden gusts of wind, and the mules put their backs into it and drug as they were told, they’d have this show-off of a home bust to flinders in no time. It was Floyd who’d thought the whole thing up, fellin’ the tree and all. Said he figured it would be more fun than just burning the place down.

           Tolbert left the rope and picked up the rifle he’d stashed earlier. “I’m gonna cover ‘em in case somebody decides to come out shooting.”

           He'd just reached the springhouse when the sight of a white shirt tied to the bald end of a broom came waving out a window.

           “McCoy!” A voice like gravel in a tin can.

           Tolbert heard Jim answer with his signature hoot. Part hog call, part rebel yell. “Sue-wheeee-hawwww!”

           “Which one is you? Ole Ran’l’s eldest?” the white flag asked.  

           “Don’t matter. McCoy is a McCoy!” Floyd this time.  

           There came no answer. A distant bobwhite filled the silence. And then the same mewling he’d heard earlier. Only it weren’t no kitty, it was a crying baby.

           The man with the white flag stepped out onto the porch. Wispy gray mutton chops, stovepipe boots. Woolen trousers suspendered over a coffee-stained undershirt.  

           “We can see your intent. We got a newborn in here. Her momma broke her water early and died giving birth two nights back. Her daddy’s left yesterday to fetch a wet nurse."

           “That ain’t our affair,” Floyd called back. “Consider this payback for leading revenuers to our mash."

            “Ain’t no Hatfield co-operating with the guv’mint!” Mutton Chops fired back.

           “Hell you ain’t. The tree blazes that showed the way to Daddy’s still are the same color as your door.”  

           Mutton Chops took a step forward. “We is calling a truce on account of personal tragedy. You boys best honor it. Let the child be. Give us time to get her strong enough to get somewhere safe, and then we can kill each other dead.”  

           “This tree’s coming down.” Floyd yelled. “If you got any sense you boys’ll make a run for it. You’ve been forewarned. I won’t be accountable for the little ‘un if’n you stay."

            “Show some mercy, McCoy. This baby won't survive going nowhere.”

           Tolbert’s brothers answered with another whack to the sycamore. Tolbert hid behind the springhouse, keeping his sights on Mutton Chops. Odds were good if there was gonna be a skirmish, it would be busting out right about now.

           The high-pitched caterwaul of the screaming baby wailed from inside the cabin. Something touched his arm, and Tolbert jumped. Alifair had snuck up from behind.

           "That baby ain’t et, Tolbert,” she said. “You can hear it.”

           “John Brown it, Alifair," he whispered. "Get back to them jennies!”  

           “They’re tied up. You heard him. That mama died two days ago. Those boys ain’t got no milk, and that early-born's got to eat or she’s gonna die."

           “That ain’t our business.”

           “The hell it ain’t. My boy at home can’t come close to drinking up his mama’s titties. I been walking around with more milk than a prize Holstein.” She hefted her breast. “These jugs are fixin’ to bust wide open.”  

           “Alifair, do as I say and get back behind them rocks."

           His sister stepped forward to where Mutton Chops could see her. “That baby’s starving, plain as day. You boys hain’t got nothing in there to feed her but chaw, shine, chicory, fishing worms and possum. If’n you try and feed that girl any of your own slop you’ll kill it.”

           Floyd bellowed from up the incline. “Goddangit, Alifair, get back!”

           Mutton Chops addressed Alifair, low, cold and somber. “Go away, girl, before one of you’ins gets hurt.”  

           Alifair took another step toward the porch. “I’m full of milk. Take me to her.”

           Floyd took a fit. “Grab hold of her, Tolbert!”

           Tolbert hesitated, not wanting to put down the rifle or reveal himself.  

           “Leave me be!” she yelled back, pushing past Mutton Chops, who turned and followed her into the cabin without another word.

           Tolbert joined his brothers underneath the half-cut tree. Floyd put in a chaw. Jim kicked dirt.

           “Why didn’t you stop her, Tolbert? She is disgracing our name.”

           “You know damn well there ain’t no way to stop that girl without a bullet."

           “Daddy would be sick.”

           The three sat watching the front door.

           The baby shrieked, and then fell quiet. The bobwhite whistled in the distance, a breeze shushed through holler, a spinning whirligig seed landed gentle on Tolbert’s shoulder. Not far off, the Tug Fork gurgled and rolled along.      

           A good part of an hour later, Alifair appeared on the porch, and clomped up the hill to her stewing brothers.

           “Hells bells, Alifair, what on God’s green earth has got into you?"  

           “That baby don’t know a McCoy from turtle soup. And I won’t have no part letting an innocent die on my conscience.”  

           “Alifair. Your conscience best be concerned with avenging Uncle Asa."

           Jim leaned in close to Alifair’s outstuck chin. “And don’t forget that bastard Johanse Hatfield what left your beloved sister Rosanna with a busted up heart and his own baby girl to die."

           Alifair wasn’t having it. “That baby died from the measles. One baby dying don’t justify killing another. They’s babies.

           "I’ll tell you something. Sitting in there rocking with that little purple face girl sucking on my chest, I realized it was time for this foolishness to stop."  

           Floyd spoke softly towards the ground. “Blast it, Alifair, these are the same folk who broke into Mary Elliott’s house and switched her with a cow tail.”  

           “Listen to me. That baby in there, or mine neither, is innocents. Neither one of them stole that damn pig, or fired no shots. By the time she’s of age to do any harm, ole Devil Anse will be sleeping cold in the ground. And if we put an end to all this, she won’t have to reason to.  

           "We both sides killed, and been killed. Why pass this on to progeny who had no part in it.” Alifair scratched and spit. “Let this end with us.”

           “I’m just glad Daddy ain’t here, Alifair,” Jim said. “You’re talking out of your head.”

           “I’ll tell him to his face what I tell you. I come today and left my boy on the other side of the river because you needed a fourth hand for the mules. Ain’t been fed all morning. Bawling by now. ‘Cause of what? Knocking down a tree on a little baby girl."

           “Alifair, our lot is to avenge our family and our dead.”

           Alifair kicked Tolbert to his feet. “I’s a proud McCoy until I’m pushing daisies. I'd just rather us live long lives, that’s all. We got the best of these boys today, now it's time to pack up and go home."

           Jim reluctantly hoisted his axe and the crosscut. Floyd spat. “How’s that I’d like to know? We done backed down."

           Alifair gave a lopsided grin, showing her broken tooth. “We did no such thing. With no woman there, them boys are having to fend for themselves, and from what I can tell they don’t know how to do much but swallow and fart.”

           “Yeah, what of it?” Jim said.

           "There was a basket of clean clothes in there. There weren’t no flies on it so that’s how I figure it’s fresh off the line. I'm guessing that woman must've done some laundry before she died. Thinkin' quick, I slipped out of my knickers, sly fox like, and when no one was looking, I buried ‘em deep under all them britches and skivvies."

           Alifair reached under the hem of her worn cotton dress, exposing a quick flash of yellow pubic hair and gave it a scratch.

           “I may have fed a Hatfield young-un, but before the sun goes down tomorrow, the rest of them boys are gonna be ate up to their sacks in cooter lice.”  

           Tolbert shouldered his rifle and went back for the mules. His baby sister was sumptin' else.