The Stone of Blood (34 page)

“You see uh, Aunt Nellie and Aunt Mertle, and Aunt Clairie, and all them; they married guys you know from down here.” Grandpa said.

“Who’d Aunt Nellie marry?” Mama asked.

“She married Will. You never did see him.” Grandpa answered. “He got killed when CL was about I don’t know, about six months old. He was cutting.”

“Who was uh, who was Raymond?” Mama asked.

“Yea, Raymond. CL’s Raymond’s brother.” Grandpa replied. “You see uh, Aunt Nellie had two girls and two boys. Margie and Ethel, they’ve been gone from here for hell …thirty years or longer.”

“You see Margie and Ethel well she never married till hell …she was, hell I don’t know …I reckon she up she was thirty years old and everything before she was married.” Grandpa said. “But Margie, she married uh …Earnest. I don’t know she was about seventeen or somethin’ like that.”

“You know Matt?” Grandpa asked my mom. “You ever see him us talkin much about Matt’s boy that Aunt Nellie raised. Yea, anyhow that’s Margie’s son. And then, yeah Matt, that’s Margie’s, that’s her daughter’s boy. He stayed down to Aunt Nellie’s.”

“What, what did that uncle of yours do?”
I asked my grandpa the first moment I had the chance. “What, what did that uncle of yours do? You know that uncle you know that died? And that cat?” I continued.

“Uncle Wes?” Grandpa questioned me.

“What did he do, to make her mad?” I asked more clearly.

“She wanted him to work one Saturday evenin’, and he wanted to go to town and he wouldn’t do it.” Grandpa answered me back.

“And she killed him?” I questioned.

“You know people back there in them times well they was mean as hell, because time and things was hard!” My grandpa stated. “And goddamned boy you had to! If they wanted you to work you pert near had to work or if you didn’t you didn’t have no job! They sure wasn’t gonna let ya work the next day, or next week or somethin’. And it made her mad because he wouldn’t work. And when he left …when he started out of the yard she run out there to the gate and commenced to doin’ that way at him.” he said as he flung his arms with his pointer finger out. “At least that’s what Dad and them said.” Grandpa stated further.

“And she said, “
by god.
” she said, “
You’ll be sorry of this!
” she said, “
I’ll guarantee you that’!
” “And according to Dad and all of them, because I don’t remember.” they said, “
By god, he got sick before he got home
!” And he never did get well.” Grandpa stated.

“But then she sent that cat down there?” I asked.

“Well they claimed she had sent him I reckon. They heard down there at Parker’s.” Grandpa said. Parker’s was a little eating place and bar where they all gathered on weekends and after a hard day’s work.

“They said afterwards that she had thought she had punished him enough.” Grandpa continued. “Well I know that uh …Uncle Willie and Daddy and Uncle Les, Jerry and Raymond’s dad and …ole’ goddamn it …Uncle Martin and they all told the same thing.” They said, “
Uncle Wes was layin’ there in bed.
” and they said, “
It was on a Sunday.
” Of course back at that time they didn’t have screen doors and things like they got now. Hell! I never even had seen a screen door until I was twelve years old!” Grandpa stated. “And that cat come up there at that house; and he come in the house and went to goin’ around underneath of his bed. Walkin’ around you know and slippin’ underneath there? And they said he’d
go “Meow
” You know how those cats go? They said, “
He’d do that five or six times!
” And they said that “
Right down below the house there underneath the bank there. There was a stream down there.
” And they said, “
The stream would come out here and they had a hole dug out there for the cows and things to drink out of; a little place by the spring.
”

“They said, “
That cat would go down there and jump backwards and forth across that there hole and holler!
” Grandpa continued. “And they said, “
That every once in a while he’d jump up in there and just roll over then jump out!”
And I believe they said that “
That cat started doing that on a Friday evening. And he did that all Friday evening, and on Saturday.”

“But anyhow when that cat started doin’ that, that Uncle Wes he had done got so weak that dang you know …he couldn’t even feed himself.” My grandpa said. “He couldn’t rise up or nothin’! They had to feed him. They had to prop him up in bed and feed him, you know so he could eat? And the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him!” Grandpa continued. And they said, “
Uncle Will and Uncle Martin, and Uncle Willie, and well they didn’t know.”

“I tell you the truth that they didn’t know what that damned cat was doin’.” My grandpa went on to say. “And that damned cat was makin’ that racket and things! And by god he said, “
I’m gonna kill that goddamned thing. We’ll stop it!
They’d get after it ya know and run it out of the house you know and it’d come right back.” My grandpa said. “So they come in there and it started out down there over the hill down there to that spring and …Willie, he always carried a .38 pistol. And he went down there and said by god he’d kill it!”

“And daddy and all of them and Uncle Willie told me himself, said he pulled that .38 down on him and he said he pulled the trigger and it snapped.” Grandpa said. “
He snapped it six times, and it wouldn’t go off!
”

“But Uncle Willie was about eighteen or nineteen, I don’t know or somethin’ like that. And that cat was jumpin’ back and forth across there, and there was a club layin’ there, you know a stick?” Grandpa said. “Uncle Willie picked that stick up and when that cat jumped over there he hit him across the head and knocked its brains out! And Daddy and Mama and all of them, they was up there at the house.” said, “
When he hit that cat,”
said,
“Uncle Wes sat back like that and hollered!
” And he said, “
Just like somebody by god had hit him!”
And they said, “
He was dead in less than five minutes!
”

“And then they went back down there to where that cat was supposed to be a layin’ at and that cat was gone!” Grandpa continued. “They never did find out where that cat went to or what had happened to it. But Daddy and all of them said, “
They realized then you know what it was.
”

“If they had left that cat alone Uncle Wes would’ve gotten well.” Grandpa concluded. Because he said, “
A Friday when that cat came up there he was so weak that he couldn’t even drink water. You would have to hold the cup and things for him. And on Sunday when they killed that cat he done got enough strength that he was sittin’ up in the bed by his self.
”

“If they’d let that cat alone a couple more days he’d have been alright.” Grandpa stated.

“Back in them days that’s when they believed in witchcraft too!” My dad said.

“Back in them days there was Witchcraft!” My Grandpa stated matter of factly.

Some of my younger cousins burst into the room just then and causing me to miss a bit of my grandpa’s storytelling! But once they had been ushered back outside by their mama’s, I turned my attention and focus back to what my grandpa was saying.

“Along about
ten o’clock
at night that damned board would come loose.” Grandpa stated leading into a story I had only caught the tale end of. “You could drive it all the way down, spiked nails and everything in it anything; you could find in it. Along about
ten o’clock
that damned board would go to squeaking and the nails and boards would come up!”

“It was in that house that you lived in?” My dad asked.

“Yes sir! And it’s been doin’ that for’ …twenty years I reckon.” My grandpa said. “They never could figure out why it won’t nail down there. I know how it really is, by god I sat there and I watched that summbitch board!”

“Did somebody die in that house?” Mama asked.

“I don’t know whatever happened to it. I don’t whether that was it or whether a damned witch put a spell on it or what it was!” Grandpa answered.

“Is that that house that you were tellin’ me about? About that woman …where those cats come up there and he chopped that…?” Mama asked.

“No …that was a different house.” Grandpa replied.

“Now I think about that sometimes.” My mama went on to say. “When I see a cat and its dark, I think about that woman.”

“No …they’ve got too smart now. They’ve broke that stuff all up!” Grandpa said. “But there really used to be witches!”

“There used to be witches?” My dad questioned him.

“Yes sir! Because Grandpa, he had a little Mare that he worked with a buggy all the time.” Grandpa said. “Well, he’d work her anywhere’s. And they moved down here on Snake Crick. You know Dad followed the Sawmills up you know?”

“Who are they, your daddy and your mama?” Mama asked.

“Well …Grandpa too! Well ya see …well Dad did too up until Jasper died. Cause he sawed for him all the time.” Grandpa answered.

“They kinda went around together? They just all kinda went around the Sawmills together?” Mama asked.

“Yeah.” Grandpa answered.

“I just wanna keep track of who they are.” Mama replied.

“And anyhow they were supposed to live in a house up from there, when they moved there; just an old man and woman. And every Sunday that woman was gonna borrow Grandpa’s horse and buggy.” Grandpa said. “Well …he’d lent it to em’ a dozen times!”

“That was Jasper?” Mama asked.

“Yeah …Jasper, Grandpa …that’s the only Grandpa I know. I never did know my Grandpa.”

“Okay.”
Mama stated.

“So, one week there they’d been hauling logs and things all week, and he’d been using that Mare to the grocery and buggy and things. You know for a ‘snatch team’? So …on a Sunday morning Grandpa and all of them went out here to
Cedar
Creek
Church
…the Church in
Louisville
. He went home and turned the Mare out in the field. And they hadn’t been home but half an hour and there come that woman and man up there and she wanted to borrow his horse and buggy. And he told her he wasn’t gonna let her have it.” Grandpa said as his words painted the pictures.

“He said, “
I let you have her...
” he said, “…
every Sunday now
” he said, “…
for a month or more.
” And oh, it made her mad! And she kept groanin’! And he told her “
No!
” he said, “
No you aint gonna get her!
” he said. “
She’s gonna rest! She’s gonna rest the rest of the day!
” he said. “
She’s gotta go back to work tomorrow.
” he said. “
That old man and that old woman got mad. And she went to goin’ back out the walk.
”

“Then everybody had a yard fence ya know. And she was walkin’ backwards! And man she was a mumblin’ somethin’ to herself you know and shakin’ her finger at Grandpa and things!” Grandpa continued. “And she told him she said, “
I’ll tell you one thing…
” said, “…
that horse’ll never do you no more good!
”

“Well it made Grandpa about half mad. He never thought you know, about her being a witch nor nothin’. Cause he said, “
By god she won’t!
” he said, “
She belongs to me!
” And Dad said that, Dad and all of them said that “
she went on home...
” said, “…
the horse run out there in the barn lot and things all that evening.”
And he said, “
That night when he put em’ in the barn to feed em…’,
And by god Dad said, “
You could walk up to that horse, that Mare you know and catch her any place.”
said, “
Hell a half a dozen could ride or anything!
” he said. “
It was one of the damndest things you ever saw!
” Grandpa said. “And he said, “
When he went over there in that field where she was at that evening to put her in the barn.”
he said. “
You never saw a wild stallion by god like she was!
” And then Dad said, “
She never had a bridle or nothin’ on. But from the time that woman left there until Grandpa traded her off...”
he said. “…
you couldn’t do it!
” he said. “
That Mare will kill ya!
” And he said, “
You never knew of her jumpin’ the fence or anything until after that Sunday.
” And then when they’d take them other horses and hook em’ up to a wagon and leave the barn locked and shut the gate, said she’d hop that there fence just like a deer! She’d follow them every damned place they went! But you couldn’t put your hands on her!” And Dad said, “She done that for two months or longer.” And he said, “One day they were coming up the road with a load of lumber on the wagon. She was runnin’ along up there beside em’; run up a piece you know and stop to eat until they’d catch up and then she’d run again.”