The Hinterlands (38 page)

“Don't we want some snakeroot?” the older sister said.

“You have to make tea from it,” I said.

“Mama will boil some tea,” the younger sister said.

And it come to me, what the old-timers talked about for rattlesnake bite. It was tincture of lobelia. That's what they give people, lobelia leaves soaked in whiskey. Everybody kept a bottle. Lobelia cut the fever and the swelling.

“Run get some tincture of lobelia,” I said.

“Tincture of what?”

“Of lobelia. Just ask for lobelia.”

The younger sister run off across the meadow the way Sue had gone. She had forgot her yarrows, and run as only a kid can run, like she could reach the ends of the earth in a few minutes.

“Let's get him up,” I said. I tried to lift Sam, and seen how weak I was. It was like my muscles had been glued stiff.

“You get his other arm,” I said. With great effort we lifted him. It's always shocking just how heavy a body is.

“Can you stand up?” I said loud in Sam's ear. But he seemed groggier than ever. “You help us to walk,” I said.

With me practically carrying him on one side and the older sister on the other we started across the field a step at a time. Sam was almost asleep on his feet. “Keep walking,” I said. “You're doing good.”

I assumed we wanted to go the same way the younger sister had run, and we started off in that direction moving a few inches at a time. I left the hatchet in the grass with their piles of yarrow. I needed both my hands to hold up Sam.

“Where did he get bit?” I said.

“Right over there by the woods,” the older sister said. “Where we was pulling up yarrows. He was so scared he run out here.”

“And Sam don't hear good?” I said, gasping with the strain.

“He don't hear at all in his left ear. Ever since he had the fever, he's been half deef. He had the fever same time Pa did, except it killed Pa.”

“Who was your Pa?”

“He was Ewell Maybin, the song leader. After he died, Mama and us started gathering simples. It was something us younguns could do besides hoe corn. At first we gathered stuff that wasn't worth nothing. Then we learned the shape of leaves. We get weeds and roots and dry them and Mama sells them to a man from Asheville.”

Sam was getting heavier with each step, and the woods at the end of the field didn't seem much closer.

“Does anybody have a wagon?” I said. I couldn't carry Sam much further. He was near asleep and leaning his head on my shoulder.

“Mama don't have no wagon,” the sister said. “We don't even have a horse no more. We borrow a horse to break the ground and then we make a crop with the hoe. And we get in simples.”

We stopped to rest for a little. “Stay awake, Sam,” I said. “Sam, can you hear?” His head lolled over on my shoulder.

“How far is it to your house?” I said.

“It ain't too far, after we get to the end of the Blue Field.”

“The Blue Field?” I looked around the meadow and I seen it really was the Blue Field. I hadn't recognized the place before.
That showed how tired and dull I was. And then, I had never come at the Blue Field from the south. It looked strange in the late sun. But sure enough, it was the Blue Field, now that I noticed it. It was about a mile below Douthat's Gap. It was the last clearing before the wilderness of upper South Carolina.

They called it the Blue Field because somebody had once growed indigo there, way back in the time of the first settlements. I still remember some of the blue pots they used to boil the stuff down. They was big washpots. Along in late summer, about this time of year, they would cut the stalks and boil them in these pots. What they had left, after they took the fiber out, was this black-looking water. When they boiled the water down, it left nothing but powder hardening to bricks. All you had to carry out to market was those black bricks. Indigo was black as soot in its boiled-down form. But one of those bricks would dye hundreds of yards of material. When I was a boy I used to think the blue of the indigo come from the mountains. These was called the Blue Ridge, and I figured the roots of indigo went down into the soil and sucked up the ink that give the mountains their color.

Since I knowed now where we was, it was just a matter of going for help. But the Blue Field is on the other side of the gap from Cedar Mountain. If somebody closer didn't have no tincture of lobelia, it might take an hour to run down to the settlement and back. It was a long, uphill walk to the Maybin house.

Sam had quit walking and was dragging his feet. His head leaned all its weight on my shoulder. “Sam,” I said. “You got to stay awake.” I shook him and he opened his eyes a little.

“Want to sleep,” he said.

We stopped a minute to rest ourselves. If I had not been so tired, I would have carried him up the hill.

“Why is he so sleepy?” his sister asked.

“It's like he's had a lot of bee stings,” I said. “You've heard how somebody stung by a swarm of bees will sleep thirty hours. It's the poison I guess.” I didn't say they often go to sleep and don't wake up.

The sun was getting so low, the weeds and grass seemed lit from underneath. It was like we was walking on a field of light. I shook Sam again. “Look at the grass,” I said.

He rolled his eyes and muttered.

We got slower and slower, but finally come to the edge of the field. It was all in shadows, and I couldn't see after having the sun in my face. “Where's the trail?” I said.

“It's right up here, sir,” the sister said. They was a rut through the weeds and underbrush into the woods. I didn't see how we could walk one on each side of Sam, the trail was so narrow.

“We're liable to get bit by a copperhead,” I said. “They're crawling blind this time of year.”

I tried to think of some other way to carry him. I wondered if I could walk in front and hold his arms over my shoulders while he leaned on my back. Maybe she could hold him up from behind. “Let me get in front,” I said. “You hold him from the back.”

But he was leaning so limp I had to bend forward and pull him onto my back like he was a sack of cornmeal. I leaned over and carried him a ways, but they wasn't much the sister could do to help. I seen I couldn't go far that way. I was too sore and wore out myself, and the rheumatism in my shoulder hurt too much. I was straining my blood and marrow for strength I didn't have. I went a few more steps and stopped, off balance and about to fall.

“I have to rest,” I said. “See if you can keep him from falling.”

She caught Sam under his shoulders and we just managed to lay him down on the trail without falling ourselves. “Wake up,
Sam,” I said, and shook him. Just then we heard steps on the trail ahead and here comes the younger sister with a jar in her hand.

“All Mama's got is this liquor,” she said. “She sent to see if Old Man Stamey had any of that other stuff.”

“Give me the jar,” I said.

I unscrewed the lid and held the jar to Sam's lips. He had gone back to sleep soon as we laid him on the trail. “Wake up, wake up,” I said. “You've got to drink this.” I held his head up with my left hand and tipped the jar to his lips. It was corn liquor and had an oily look, like they was things coiling around in it. But they wasn't much of a bead on the liquid when I shook it. Somebody had sold Mrs. Maybin weak liquor.

“Take a sip of peartening juice,” I said. Some of the liquor slopped into Sam's mouth and his eyes popped open. I guess the whiskey burned his mouth and throat.

“Drink all you can,” I said. “It will make you feel better.”

“Is he drinking any?” the younger sister said. She was bent over with her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath. Sam started coughing. Maybe he got some of the liquor in his wind pipe, or maybe the liquor made his throat raw. His whole body stiffened with the effort of coughing and his face turned red.

“Don't let him get strangled,” the older sister said.

“At least the coughing will help wake him up,” I said. I looked up and the woods had got darker. The only light was in the tops of the trees. Dew was forming on the weeds and grass.

“Maybe all three of us can carry him,” I said. “You both can take his feet and I'll carry his head and shoulders.”

“You don't look able to carry nothing,” the older sister said.

When Sam stopped coughing, I give him another drink from the jar. “Do you think you can walk?” I said.

But he laughed like I had said something funny.

“He don't know what you're saying,” the older sister said.

“Give me some more of that God-blessed good medicine,” Sam said. I tipped the jar for him to take another swaller.

“That's what Mama gives for the croup,” the older sister said. “Whiskey and honey.”

“Give him some of this,” a voice said. A woman followed by an old man walked out of the shadows on the trail.

The old man had what looked like a wine bottle or a blueing bottle full of murky liquid. “Give him a swaller of this,” he said, and pulled the cork out. “This is tincture of lobelia.”

I held the bottle to Sam's lips and he drunk a little, but I could see he didn't like the taste.

“Drink it,” Mrs. Maybin said. “It'll fight the snake poison.”

“I even put a little laudanum in it,” Old Man Stamey said. “That'll make him feel better. They say more people die of fright from snakebite than die of the venom.”

They was no doubt Sam was feeling better.

“Son, can you walk?” Mrs. Maybin said.

“I want to kill that rattler,” Sam said.

“That snake is long gone,” Old Man Stamey said.

“Had sixteen rattles,” Sam said. “Sixteen and a button.”

We raised him on his feet and he swayed like a willow limb. Mrs. Maybin took him by the shoulder and pushed me aside. “You don't look in no shape to hold anybody,” she said. The two girls and his Mama held up Sam and we started up the path.

“We'll probably step on a copperhead,” Old Man Stamey said.

“I'll walk in front to scare the snakes,” I said.

“You'll rile them up so they will bite me,” he said.

The path was dark now, but they was still light in the trees above, and in the sky where stars was seeping out like grains of
salt away from the moon. I held the jar of whiskey in the hand that was sore from gripping the hatchet all day.

“I know who you are,” Old Man Stamey said behind me. “You're Solomon Richards, the feller that wants to build a road through Douthat's Gap. We seen your hog come through about an hour ago.”

“Where was she headed?” I said.

“Looked like she was hoofing it for Cedar Mountain.”

The weeds was wet with dew. My boots swished the damp leaves.

“Nobody thought you'd make it back here,” Old Man Stamey said. “You follered that sow all the way across Dark Corner?”

That was the first time it come to me we had made it back. I had been so worried looking after Sam, I had forgot about the survey. And I was so give-out, I wasn't hardly at myself. It didn't seem to matter. The project didn't seem hardly real anymore, there in the dark, for I had give up. When you give up something you ain't prepared for success.

“You seen my razorback named Sue?” I said over my shoulder.

“Like I said, she come through about an hour ago just heading lickety for Cedar Mountain,” Old Man Stamey said.

“Then she knowed her way,” I said.

“She knowed her way to Cedar Mountain. Everybody that seen her wondered what happened. They thought maybe you got lost.”

I walked slow and steady through the leaves. I figured I'd give any copperhead time to get out of my way.

“Wake up, Sam. Wake up, son,” Mrs. Maybin said behind me. They had stopped in the trail and I had to go back to them.

“Wake up, Sam,” Mrs. Maybin said. She slapped her son's cheek.

“He can't keep his eyes open,” the older sister said.

“Maybe it's the liquor,” Mrs. Maybin said.

“Is he sweating?” Old Man Stamey said.

Mrs. Maybin put her hand on his forehead. “He's a little damp,” she said. “He's beginning to sweat.”

“That's the lobelia,” Old Man Stamey said. “He's sweating out the poison.”

But Sam was so weak and sleepy, it was clear he couldn't walk no further. It was about dark and we still had almost a mile to go. “We'll have to carry him,” I said. “Me and Mrs. Maybin will get his shoulders, and the rest of you hold his waist and feet.”

It was awkward. My arms was trembly and my knees too sore to carry any burden. But we heaved him up and started. I had to grit my teeth with the effort. I shouldn't have been able to help after what I had done that day. But I guess it was the thought of making it back after everything that kept me straining. When you think you can't go no further, it turns out you can. And then you find you can go further still. Nobody knows what they can do till they have to. I could smell myself in the dark and I had a rank smell of work and exhaustion. It was a sweet smell.

We carried Sam to the little Maybin house beside the trail, and I headed on to the gap.

“You can rest the night at my house,” Old Man Stamey said.

“I'm too close to stop now,” I said.

The moon throwed some light on the trail ahead. And I could see the steep sides of the gap going up like walls to the sky. I thought of the butterflies that come through the gap on certain years. They come in so many millions of orange and black they looked like leaves flying through the narrow passageway. It would take them hours to get through. The moon made me think of the big gold coin in my pocket. It was still there, though gritty with dirt and sticky with sweat. I took it out and the gold flashed in the moonlight.