We stood on the ridge and looked down the shade side on Shetland Holler. The shadows under goldenseal and pawpaw trees was blue-green, and red ginseng berries sat on top of the stumpy five-leaf plants.
To get to the seng was steep, so I sat on my fanny and grabbed holt of saplings to ease down the north slope through the seng. On the way down, we dug roots with our sticks and planted the red berries in the holes so they come back. The ground was damp and soaked clear through my three skirts.
Tattler and me was quiet while we worked and listened out for trouble. It don’t take long for our sacks to get full of roots, some as big as my hand. We won’t greedy, just grateful, and when we got enough for medicine and some to sell for hard times, I gave a short whistle and Tattler come my way. We worked our way up the hill, and it was a struggle I can’t hardly manage, and couldn’t if it won’t for Tattler.
Back at the top, we outta breath, sweaty and muddy from the pull, and we fell back on the ground breathing hard, and Samuel let go my head and flew up to a branch. We was gonna tie them sacks of seng under my skirts for travel, but that got sidetracked.
We heard the cock of a rifle.
We sit up slow and looked behind us. Two men, skinny as hickory sticks, pointed their rifles at us, ready to do us wrong. I won’t the cleanest woman, but they was the dirtiest men I seen all year. Up to their elbows was black from digging in the dirt, and their overalls patched twice over. The tall one’s bib was tied up with vine.
One said, “I told you, Jed, they was senging, and look it. Ain’t we lucky buggers!” That one laughed like a jackass, and there won’t a tooth in his nasty mouth.
“Pull me to stand, Tattler,” I said, not wanting to sit helpless in front of these ne’er-do-wells.
“Ya’ll stay put,” Jed ordered, but we stood anyway and he don’t shoot.
Tattler was behind me breathing fast and smelling of fear. Off to the side, I saw a scrap of a girl sitting beside bags of their seng they mighta stole from the hardworking. She got remnants of Sadie Blue to her white skin and brown hair, but I think this girl would slit my throat in the dark for a dime.
We in a pickle.
The serious one called Jed pointed at our seng with his rifle. “Grab them pokes, Dooley.”
When Dooley reached for my bag, I said, “You don’t wanna do that, boy.”
He stopped, scrunched up his forehead, and looked back at Jed, then mustered some gumption. “Why not, old woman?”
Samuel flew back and settled on my head for support. “See this bird on top a my head?”
Dooley looked, but he won’t scared.
“What’s a scrawny bird gonna do?” he asked, sassy. “Peck me on my hand?” He snorted a laugh. “I’d slap him to the ground is what I’d do and shoot his fool head off. And yours, too, for the hell of it.”
He done a little dance cause he was crazy on hooch.
“Look over yonder,” I said and pointed with my stick to a dozen crows sitting on a low limb close by. Dooley and the girl done like I said, but not Jed. He stared at me and don’t blink. He got dead eyes that seen too much. I needed to move his dead eyes off me.
Just in time to help the situation, Samuel stood up, spread his wings, and called out, sharp: Caw! Jed cut his eyes up, and I raised my pistol in my skirt pocket and shot.
The bullet hit Jed smack in the knee, and he dropped his rifle and fell screaming and clutching his busted kneecap. Blood run through his dirty fingers. His leg cocked out funny.
I aimed for his foot.
Quick as my stiff body can turn, I pointed the smoking hole in my dress to Dooley, who peed his pants like the chicken he was and raised his hands without being told.
I said, “Get on your knees, and put your hands on your head,” and he done it cause he saw Jed was brought down by a old woman with a pistol in her pocket.
I told Tattler, “Get them guns,” and he snapped to it, brave, like I hoped.
I added, “Check them pockets, too.” He got two rifles and a pistol he fished outta Dooley’s stinky pocket, and a knife outta Jed’s.
“We don’t mean ya’ll harm,” I said, “but you ain’t getting our seng. You getting tied up.”
I looked at Dooley on his knees, and add, “Or I can shoot you like I done Jed. Which one you want?”
“Tie me up. Tie me up.” Dooley babbled and begged, and Tattler calmed him down and obliged him by cutting some honeysuckle vine close by to use as rope. My boy knowed his knots, and he tied them men’s hands behind em and their ankles tight, too.
I already seen up the hillside the girl and their seng’s gone, so they got trouble they don’t even know bout yet. Don’t think she’ll come after us now she saw I got a pistol and know how to use it. We picked up our things that day and the outlaws’ guns, and hightailed it outta there.
I got new energy, and Tattler and me moved away from Shetland Holler, me hauling one bag of seng and him the rifles and the other bag. I was in front cause I knowed the way, and my long skirts swished back and forth, and my digging stick thumped like a third leg. Samuel clamped down on my head to keep from sliding. Tattler kept up, but I heard him huffing. We don’t waste breath on words. I don’t think those outlaws was getting out of them vines anytime soon, but I aimed for us to be far away when they do.
Yep. That be the last time I hunt seng—less it decided to grow by my door.
? ? ?
Walking past my door every day be that teacher Kate Shaw. I watch her going and coming, and I study her these weeks she settles in. She got a strong walk. Purpose to her day. She don’t rattle easy. Now that we know each other, when she sees my door open, she knocks and calls out, “Birdie, got time for a visit?”
I always do for her.
I put on tea, and Kate picks up another one of my Books of Truths. That’s her favorite thing to do when she visits—read my words, cause she’s the curious kind. She turns them pages careful, bends over my words, and sounds some of em out loud cause they’re different from her spellings. Some of em are Injun words she don’t know. Some of em are made-up words I need for my story. Her finger slides along from side to side.
“Birdie, your stories are treasures,” she says, sips her tea, and goes back to studying.
I never let nobody read my words before Kate Shaw. Nobody before would understand or care like she does.
“You capture this community of people beautifully, and their pioneering independence. Your message is raw and powerful. Where did you learn to write like this?”
Kate gets flowery with her words, and she’s got surprise in her voice. I light my pipe and blow lavender smoke. “You think you the only teacher to come?”
Kate takes it like the part tease it is.
“Of course not. However, I think your writing is more than words on a page. You spin them into living history. What you’re recording is different from what others write about this place. Outsiders see Appalachian poverty as something to be cut out. The good with the bad. They send volunteers to save you from yourselves.”
Kate don’t say she’s one of them volunteers.