One of the favorite tricks of a smart old ringtail is the treebarking trick. This he accomplished by running far up on the side of a tree and using his stout legs for leverage, springing twenty or thirty feet away before touching the ground. Dumb hounds trail up to the tree and start bawling treed. I taught my dogs to circle for a good hundred yards to be sure he was still in the tree before bawling.
In order to learn more about coon hunting, I’d hang around my grandfather’s store and listen to the stories told by the coon hunters. Some of the tales I heard were long and tall, but I believed them all.
I could always tell when Grandpa was kidding me by the twinkle in his eyes. He told me how a coon could climb right up the fog and disappear in the stars, and how he could leap on a horse’s back and run him over your dogs. I didn’t care, for I loved to hear the tall tales. Anything that had a coon hair in it I believed completely.
All through that summer and into the late fall the training went on. Although I was worn down to a frazzle, I was a happy boy. I figured I was ready for the ringtails.
Late one evening, tired and exhausted, I sat down by a big sycamore and called my dogs to me. “It’s all over,” I said. “There’ll be no more lessons. I’ve worked hard and I’ve done my best. From now on it’s all up to you. Hunting season is just a few days away and I’m going to let you rest for I want you to be in good shape the night it opens.”
It was wonderful indeed how I could have heart-to-heart talks with my dogs and they always seemed to understand. Each question I asked was answered in their own doggish way.
Although they couldn’t talk in my terms, they had a language of their own that was easy to understand. Sometimes I would see the answer in their eyes, and again it would be in the friendly wagging of their tails. Other times I could hear the answer in a low whine or feel it in the soft caress of a warm flicking tongue. In some way, they would always answer.
VIII
THE DAY HUNTING SEASON OPENED, I WAS AS NERVOUS AS Samie, our house cat. Part of that seemingly endless day was spent getting things ready for the coming night.
I cleaned my lantern and filled it full of oil. With hog lard I greased my boots until they were as soft as a hummingbird’s nest. I was grinding my ax when Papa came around.
He smiled as he said, “This is the big night, isn’t it?”
“It sure is, Papa,” I said, “and I’ve waited a long time for it.”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking—there’s not too much to do around here during the hunting season. I’m pretty sure I can take care of things, so you just go ahead and hunt all you want to.”
“Thanks, Papa,” I said. “I guess I’ll be out pretty late at night, and I’ll probably have to do a lot of sleeping in the daytime.”
Papa started frowning. “You know,” he said, “your mother doesn’t like this hunting of yours very much. She’s worried about you being out all by yourself.”
“I can’t see why Mama has to worry,” I said. “Haven’t I been roaming the woods ever since I was big enough to walk, and I’m almost fourteen now.”
“I know,” said Papa. “It’s all right with me, but women are a little different than men. They worry more.
“Now just to be on the safe side, I think it would be a good idea for you to tell us where you’ll be hunting. Then if anything happens, we’ll know where to look.”
I told him I would, but I didn’t think anything was going to happen.
After Papa had left, I started thinking. “He doesn’t even talk to me like I was a boy any more. He talks to me like I was a man.” These wonderful thoughts made me feel just about as big as our old red mule.
I had a good talk with my dogs. “I’ve waited almost three years for this night,” I said, “and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve taught you everything I know and I want you to do your best.”
Little Ann acted like she understood. She whined and saved me a wash job on my face. Old Dan may have, but he didn’t act like it. He just lay there in the sunshine, all stretched out and limber as a rag.
During supper Mama asked me where I was going to hunt.
“I’m not going far,” I said, “just down on the river.”
I could tell Mama was worried and it didn’t make me feel too good.
“Billy,” she said, “I don’t approve of this hunting, but it looks like I can’t say no; not after all you’ve been through, getting your dogs, and all that training.”
“Aw, he’ll be all right,” Papa said. “Besides, he’s getting to be a good-size man now.”
“Man!” Mama exclaimed. “Why, he’s still just a little boy.”
“You can’t keep him a little boy always,” Papa said. “He’s got to grow up some day.”
“I know,” Mama said, “but I don’t like it, not at all, and I can’t help worrying.”
“Mama, please don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ll be all right. Why, I’ve been all over these hills, you know that.”
“I know,” she said, “but that was in the daytime. I never worried too much when it was daylight, but at night, that’s different. It’ll be dark and anything could happen.”
“There won’t be anything happen,” I said. “I promise I’ll be careful.”
Mama got up from the table saying, “Well, it’s like I said, I can’t say no and I can’t help worrying. I’ll pray every night you’re out.”
The way Mama had me feeling, I didn’t know whether to go hunting or not. Papa must have sensed how I felt. “It’s dark now,” he said, “and I understand those coons start stirring pretty early. You had better be going, hadn’t you?”
While Mama was bundling me up, Papa lit my lantern. He handed it to me, saying, “I’d like to see a big coonskin on the smokehouse wall in the morning.”
The whole family followed me out on the porch. There we all got a surprise. My dogs were sitting on the steps, waiting for me.
I heard Papa laugh. “Why, they know you’re going hunting,” he said, “know it as well as anything.”
“Well, I never,” said Mama. “Do you really think they do? It does look like they do. Why, just look at them.”
Little Ann started wiggling and twisting. Old Dan trotted out to the gate, stopped, turned around, and looked at me.
“Sure they know Billy’s going hunting,” piped the little one, “and I know why.”
“How do you know so much, silly?” asked the oldest one.
“Because I told Little Ann, that’s why,” she said, “and she told Old Dan. That’s how they know.”
We all had to laugh at her.
The last thing I heard as I left the house was the voice of my mother. “Be careful, Billy,” she said, “and don’t stay out late.”
It was a beautiful night, still and frosty. A big grinning Ozark moon had the countryside bathed in a soft yellow glow. The starlit heaven reminded me of a large blue umbrella, outspread and with the handle broken off.
Just before I reached the timber, I called my dogs to me. “Now the trail will be a little different tonight,” I whispered. “It won’t be a hide dragged on the ground. It’ll be the real thing, so remember everything I taught you and I’m depending on you. Just put one up a tree and I’ll do the rest.”
I turned them loose, saying, “Go get ’em.”
They streaked for the timber.
By the time I had reached the river, every nerve in my body was drawn up as tight as a fiddlestring. Big-eyed and with ears open, I walked on, stopping now and then to listen. The way I was slipping along anyone would have thought I was trying to slip up on a coon myself.
I had never seen a night so peaceful and still. All around me tall sycamores gleamed like white streamers in the moonlight. A prowling skunk came wobbling up the riverbank. He stopped when he saw me. I smiled at the fox-fire glow of his small, beady, red eyes. He turned and disappeared in the underbrush. I heard a sharp snap and a feathery rustle in some brush close by. A small rodent started squealing i
n agony. A night hawk had found his supper.
Across the river and from far back in the rugged mountains I heard the baying of a hound. I wondered if it was the same one I had heard from my window on those nights so long ago.
Although my eyes were seeing the wonders of the night, my ears were ever alert, listening for the sound of my hounds telling me they had found a trail.
I was expecting one of them to bawl, but when it came it startled me. The deep tones of Old Dan’s voice jarred the silence around me. I dropped my ax and almost dropped my lantern. A strange feeling came over me. I took a deep breath and threw back my head to give the call of the hunter, but something went wrong. My throat felt like it had been tied in a knot. I swallowed a couple of times and the knot disappeared.
As loud as I could, I whooped, “Who-e-e-e. Get him, Dan. Get him.”
Little Ann came in. The bell-like tones of her voice made shivers run up and down my spine. I whooped to her. “Who-e-e-e. Tell it to him, little girl. Tell it to him.”
This was what I had prayed for, worked and sweated for, my own little hounds bawling on the trail of a river coon. I don’t know why I cried, but I did. While the tears rolled, I whooped again and again.
They straightened the trail out and headed down river. I took off after them as fast as I could run.
A mile downstream the coon pulled his first trick. I could tell by my dogs’ voices that they had lost the trail. When I came to them they were out on an old drift, sniffing around.
The coon had pulled a simple trick. He had run out on the drift, leaped into the water, and crossed the river. To an experienced coon hound, the crude trick would have been nothing at all, but my dogs were just big, awkward pups, trailing their first live coon.
I stood and watched, wondering if they would remember the training I had given them. Now and then I would whoop, urging them on.
Old Dan was having a fit. He whined and he bawled. He whimpered and cried. He came to me and reared up, begging for help.
“I’m not going to help you,” I scolded, “and you’re not going to find him out on that drift. If you would just remember some of the training I gave you, you could find the trail. Now go find that coon.”
He ran back out on the drift and started searching.
Little Ann came to me. I could see the pleading in her warm gray eyes. “I’m ashamed of you, little girl,” I said. “I thought you had more sense than this. If you let him fool you this easily, you’ll never be a coon dog.”
She whined, turned, and trotted downstream to search again for the lost trail.
I couldn’t understand. Had all the training I had given them been useless? I knew if I waded the river they would follow me. Once on the other side, it would be easy for them to find the trail. I didn’t want it that way. I wanted them to figure it out by themselves. The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I became. I sat down and buried my face in my arms.
Out on the drift, Old Dan started whining. It made me angry and I got up to scold him again.
I couldn’t understand his actions. He was running along the edge of the drift, whimpering and staring downriver. I looked that way. I could see something swimming for the opposite shore. At first I thought it was a muskrat. In the middle of the stream, where the moonlight was the brightest, I got a good look. It was Little Ann.
With a loud whoop, I told her how proud I was. My little girl had remembered her training.
She came out on a gravel bar, shook the water from her body, and disappeared in the thick timber. Minutes later, she let me know she had found the trail. Before the tones of her voice had died away, Old Dan plowed into the water. He was so eager to join her I could hear him whining as he swam.
As soon as his feet touched bottom in the shallows, he started bawling and lunging. White sheets of water, knocked high in the moonlight by his churning feet, gleamed like thousands of tiny white stars.
He came out of the river onto a sand bar. In his eagerness, his feet slipped in the loose sand and down he went. He came out of his roll, running and bawling. Ahead of him was a log jam. He sailed over it and disappeared down the riverbank. Seconds later I heard his deep voice blend with the sharp cries of Little Ann.
At that moment no boy in the world could have been more proud of his dogs than I was. Never again would I doubt them.
I was hurrying along, looking for a shallow riffle so I could wade across, when the voices of my dogs stopped. I waited and listened. They opened again on my side of the stream. The coon had crossed back over.
I couldn’t help smiling. I knew that never again would a ringtail fool them by swimming the river.
The next trick the old fellow pulled was dandy. He climbed a large water oak standing about ten feet from the river and simply disappeared.
I got there in time to see my dogs swimming for the opposite shore. For half an hour they worked that bank. Not finding the trail, they swam back. I stood and watched them. They practically tore the riverbank to pieces looking for the trail.
Old Dan knew the coon had climbed the water oak. He went back, reared up on it, and bawled a few times.
“There’s no use in doing that, boy,” I said. “I know he climbed it, but he’s not there now. Maybe it’s like Grandpa said, he just climbed right on out through the top and disappeared in the stars.”
My dogs didn’t know it, but I was pretty well convinced that that was what the coon had done.
They wouldn’t give up. Once again they crossed over to the other shore. It was no use. The coon hadn’t touched that bank. They came back. Old Dan went up the river and Little Ann worked downstream.
An hour and a half later they gave up and came to me begging for help. I knelt down between their wet bodies. While I scratched and petted them, I let them know that I still loved them.
“I’m not mad,” I said. “I know you did your best. If that coon can fool both of us, then we’re just beat. We’ll go someplace else to hunt. He’s not the only coon in these bottoms.”
Just as I picked up my ax and lantern, Little Ann let out a bawl and tore out down the riverbank. Old Dan, with a bewildered look on his face, stood for a moment looking after her. Then, raising his head high in the air, he made my eardrums ring with his deep voice. I could hear the underbrush popping as he ran to join her.
I couldn’t figure out what had taken place. Surely Little Ann had heard or seen something. I could tell by their voices that whatever it was they were after, they were close enough to see it and were probably running by sight.
The animal left the bottoms and headed for the mountains. Whatever it was, it must have realized my dogs were crowding it too closely. At the edge of the foothills it turned and came back toward the river.
I was still trying to figure out what was going on, when I realized that on striking the river the animal had again turned and was coming straight toward me. I set my lantern down and tightened my grip on the ax.
I was standing my ground quite well when visions of bears, lions, and all kinds of other animals started flashing across my mind. I jumped behind a big sycamore and was trying hard to press my body into the tree when a big coon came tearing by. Twenty-five yards behind him came my dogs, running side by side. I saw them clearly when they passed me, bawling every time their feet touched the ground.
After seeing that there was nothing to be scared of, once again I was the fearless hunter, screaming and yelling as loud as I could, “Get him, boy, get him.”
I tore out after them. The trails I knew so well were forgotten. I took off straight through the brush. I was tearing my way through some elders when the voices of my dogs stopped.
Holding my breath, I stood still and waited. Then it came, the long-drawn-out bawl of the tree bark. My little hounds had done it. They had treed their first coon.
When I came to them and saw what they had done I was speechless. I groaned and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to believe it. There were a lot of big sycamores in the bottoms but the one
in which my dogs had treed was the giant of them all.
While prowling the woods, I had seen the big tree many times. I had always stopped and admired it. Like a king in his own domain, it towered far above the smaller trees.
It had taken me quite a while to find a name suitable for the big sycamore. For a while I had called it “the chicken tree.” In some ways it had reminded me of a mother hen hovering over her young in a rainstorm. Its huge limbs spread out over the small birch, ash, box elder, and water oak as if it alone were their protector.
Next, I named it “the giant.” That name didn’t last long. Mama told us children a story about a big giant that lived in the mountains and ate little children that were lost. Right away I started looking for another name.
One day, while lying in the warm sun staring at its magnificent beauty, I found the perfect name. From that day on, it was called “the big tree.” I named the bottoms around it “the big tree bottoms.”
Walking around it, and using the moon as a light, I started looking for the coon. High up in the top I saw a hollow in the end of a broken limb. I figured that that was the coon’s den.
I could climb almost any tree I had ever seen but I knew I could never climb the big sycamore and it would take days to chop it down.
There had been very little hope from the beginning, but on seeing the hollow I gave up. “Come on,” I said to my dogs. “There’s nothing I can do. We’ll go someplace else and find another coon.”
I turned to walk away. My hounds made no move to follow. They started whining. Old Dan reared up, placed his front paws on the trunk, and started bawling.
“I know he’s there,” I said, “but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t climb it. Why it’s sixty feet up to the first limb and it would take me a month to cut it down.”
Again I turned and started on my way.
Little Ann came to me. She reared up and started licking my hands. Swallowing the knot in my throat, I said, “I’m sorry, little girl. I want him just as badly as you do, but there’s no way I can get him.”