Tag: Snowbird

The Scar

Pop, Dave, and I were standing on the porch of the cabin at Snowbird, in the mountains of North Carolina close to the Tennessee border, when two fellows in their early 20’s came out of the woods into a clearing below the cabin. They were carrying rifles, they had pistols and knives strapped to their belts, and they had dogs. They were hunting.

Pop, L, Pat and Dave Stith, at Snowbird.
Pop, L, Pat and Dave Stith, at Snowbird.

They stopped, we greeted each other, and then my brothers and I walk down there to talk. Or rather, Pop talked. Dave and I mostly kept our mouths shut and listened.  Pop had a way about him that mountain men liked. I think they knew he was one of them, just from a different neck of the woods.

“How often do you boys hunt?” Pop asked.
And one of them said, “Every day during boar and bear season,” which runs about three months.

Pop was surprised because he could see one of them was wearing a wedding band and he said, “You’re married.”

“Not but nine months a year,” the man replied.

Black bear
Black bear

They got to talking about bears that get tired of running and turn on dogs tracking them, killing one sometimes.   That’s when one of the hunters pulled his shirt half way up so we could see his side and said, “That’s what a bear done to me.”

The scar across the side of his belly was awful, a terrible, jagged looking thing.

And then the other hunter spoke up.

“He’s lying to you,” the other man said.  “That won’t no bear, that was a chain saw.”

*  *  *

Like I said, Pop liked them, and they liked him.

We were up in Robbinsville one time, taking care of  some things before we went to the mountain, gassing up, buying food, getting a tire on an ATV fixed.  John Sullivan, a newspaperman who worked with me in Raleigh, said he’d take care of tire. He didn’t know any more about where to get it fix than I did, but he was in the game, ready to do his part.

I said, “Pop, why don’t you get the tire fixed and John, why don’t you go with him.”

And then I pulled John aside told him, words to this effect, “Don’t say anything. Just listen and learn.”

Pop and John went off somewhere and got the tire fixed. And when they got back I asked John, “Well?”

And he said, “If Pop had had another 15 minutes that guy would have fixed it for free.”

Coming Monday: Hiding In A Privy

Attacked By A Dead Tree

I was chain sawing junk trees at my place at Snowbird, in far western North Carolina.  Live trees. I usually leave the dead ones alone because they’re a lot more dangerous. Besides, some birds like them and they’ll fall down one of these days without my help. No point in taking a chance.

But this particular dead Hemlock stuck its tongue out at me, so to speak, so I had no choice. I had to cut it.

This is a widow-maker.
These dead trees are widow-makers.

What makes dead trees so much more dangerous is that when they fall they sometimes break apart and fall every which way.

I was standing on the side of a hill, knee deep in debris, when I cut this one and as it began to fall, I looked up. It was tall and I saw that it had broken into two pieces, neither of which threatened me.

And then, in a flash, a question entered my mind, from where I don’t know.  My subconscious? Some corner of my mind that wanted desperately to live?

The question: “Where’s the rest of it?”

I craned my head back a little further and I saw the rest of it, a third section falling straight toward me.

I couldn’t run. Like I said, I was knee deep in debris. Instead I wheel around and held my Huskie — my chain saw — out behind me, causing me to fall backward into the brush. The third section fell where I had been standing.

The debris saved my legs and feet. I was saved by a question: “Where’s the rest of it?”

Coming Monday: Location, Location, Location