The Hills Remember

The Complete Short Stories of James Still

James Still, Ted Olson, Ted Olson

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780813139715
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literatur Allgemein

James Still (1906–2001) remains one of the most beloved and important writers of Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy-year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still honors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including those from On Troublesome Creek (1941), Pattern of a Man and Other Stories (1976), and The Run for the Elbertas (1980), as well as twelve prose pieces originally published as short stories and later incorporated into River of Earth. Also included are several lesser-known stories and ten that were previously unpublished. Recognized as significant short fiction in his day—many of his stories initially appeared in The Atlantic and The Saturday Evening Post and were included in The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories and The Best American Short Stories collections—Still's short stories, while often overshadowed in recent years by his novels and poetry, are among his most enduring literary works. Editor Ted Olson's introduction offers a reassessment of Still's short fiction within the contexts of the author's body of work and within Appalachian and American literature. Compiling all of James Still's compelling and varied short stories in one volume, The Hills Remember is a testament to a master writer.

Chicken Roost

A horseman broke out of a cove into the road as Godey and Mal approached, declaring to the world, “I’ve been here and I’m done gone.” That this was the new jockey ground was evident from the squeals and neighs issuing from it.

“What’s the trouble, old son?” Godey inquired. “Too early to be skipping off.”

“Two hours from now there won’t be a soul hereabouts.”

“Don’t go away mad,” said Godey.

“Mad?” cried the horseman, giving his mount a cut with a switch. “I’m madder’n forty hornets.”

At the behest of Judge Solon Jones, the county agriculture agent had chosen Chicken Roost Hollow as a makeshift swapping area, the judge paying four dollars out of his pocket for a day’s rent, as well as putting up five as a prize for the log-pulling contest. The hollow was some eighteen poles in length, three at the widest, hemmed by wooded slopes. The lower reaches were mostly cleared, with a tree standing here and there. Save for the dry bed of the branch there was not a level spot in it, and a spring for watering man and beast was lacking. Drovers used it for an overnight cattle pen. Giant beeches higher up filtered the light, permitting the sun to look in only at midday.

A pair of horsemen were in parley at the entrance, wheeling and turning, barring the way, one astride a stud with fuzzy ears, whiskery muzzle, and bulging hindquarters, the mount of the other a slight blue-hued mare with little except color in the course of distinction.

“Hod dammit, I aim to swap,” blared the master of the blue.

“Offer me something,” returned the owner of the stud.

The boys drew up to listen.

“Even.”

“Give me ten.”

“I said, even.”

“Ten.”

“Even.”

“Ten. Not a chip less.”

“Five.”

“You heard me. Ten.”

“Five.”

“Ten.”

“Five, dammit, five.”

The rider of the stud broke off suddenly, mouthing, “I haven’t lost a thing in this hollow,” and deserted it at a smart pace, with the owner of the mare blatting after, “If you go, I’ll cry.”

Seizing the opportunity, Godey made a pitch. “Want to buy a gentleman mule?”

The man on the mare gave the animal a swift appraisal, pointed into the hollow and notified, “The grease buyer is up in there waiting for you sports,” and jerking rein was away in pursuit of the stud.

Hardly had the boys started than a rider bore down upon them and spun ’round with the warning, “Watch yourself, you tads, these heels can’t see,” and slapped his mount and loped up the bed of the stream shouting, “Hoo-oo-ee, look what I’ve got.” He rode a chestnut mare in tolerable flesh and coat, tail plaited, a pompom on her bridle, and on gaining at least momentary attention from an otherwise distracted crowd, made his cry:

“Round and sound and slick as a mole,

Two good eyes and heavy in foal.”

A horseman offered chase, yelling “Can she work?” and received the answer, “You dadjim right she can work, and she will work.” The run ended abruptly; a haggle ensued.

Godey and Mal stopped to get their bearings. The traders seemed numerous due to the lot of them being in view at once, not scattered, as formerly, throughout town. To Mal’s satisfaction, the only person from home they sighted was Fester Shattuck—Fester astride a peeled log, a saddle beside him, swapped out. The medicine hawker and his sidekick were not to be discovered, or the watch seller with chains dangling from his pockets, although the grease buyer representing a rendering factory downstate was present and had a couple of shikepokes tethered to a tree. Something was amiss, for trading did not appear the first order of business. Riders were drawn up in circles, twisting in saddles, jawing and spitting, and what they had to say was uttered for the entire gathering.

“If you’re hunting yellow dogs, the courthouse is packed with them, the fellers we elected.”

“Amen, brother. You’ve spoken a parable.”

“To the bull-hole with ’em, the whole shebang.”

“Except for Judge Jones. Spare him. He stayed to the bottom with us.”

“Him, too, by grabbies. Out with the danged push. If Solon Jones hasn’t the power to control the others, he’s clogging the works.”

“That’s the right talk. The old doddler has warmed the bench too long, nigh about burnt a hole in it.”

“You have the judge wrong. He went the distance for us.”

“What took place, I’ll tell you; the politicians let the storekeepers put it over on us. They’ve shoved us beyond sight and sound.”

Yet Chicken Roost was serving well in two particulars: There was no necessity to duck or hide to take up a drink of spirits, and shaded by towering beeches, the hollow was as cool as a cellar. From a variety of containers—bottles, jugs, fruit jars—whiskey was openly imbibed and shared.

“I’m wroth enough to set off dynamite,” a trader swore.

A raucous laugh followed, and an admonishment, “Go ahead and poot. The biggest noise you’ll ever make.”

“Damn your eyes,” was the reply.

The rings broke up, several horsemen departing the hollow, the rest to see what they could manage under the circumstances. A scattering of complainers remained to grumble, ire unspent.

“Next year I’ll stick my dinner in my pocket and I won’t leave a copper cent in town.”

“There won’t be another year, sky bo. Jockey Day is deader’n a nit.”

“You’ve said it. As finished as four o’clock.” “What struck me on the hairy side was the hiring of the skunk of the universe to do their dirty work.” “I’ll go along with you on that, even if you are a tight-fisted Republican.”

“And I’ll agree with a spending Democrat this final once. Next election I’ll wade manure to my knees if I have to go vote against ’em, be they Democrat, Republican, or straddle-pole.”

“Amen, rat’s nest. Keep a-talking the truth and you’ll go to Heaven directly, like Elijah done.” “I am too, pumpkin head.”

Mal, still wary lest someone who might recognize them had been overlooked, breathed to Godey, “Are you seeing anybody we know?”

“Nobody,” said Godey, “so stop sweating.” He had spotted the county agent watching the proceedings from a stump on the rise above Fester, collar buttoned, a tie at his throat, shirt pockets stuffed with pamphlets and pencils. Fester didn’t count.

Fester Shattuck sat astride a beech trunk that had been felled and barked for the log-pulling contest. The skinned tree was an act of foresight on the part of the county agent, who had the grabs, the harness, and the swingle-tree in readiness as well. Fester had swapped out within forty-five minutes of his arrival, the nag he came on, a spavined horse, and a jenny passing through his hands in quick succession. Yet he was not completely flat. In ridding himself of the jenny, which he subsequently learned favored a leg in walking, a handicap difficult to observe on uneven footing, he had come by a hand-tooled copper-trimmed saddle that should sparkle the hardest eye. Confidence supported by nips of the sugar-top stored in his saddlebags, he probed about for chances to get back into the swapping game; he had not traveled out of his way, by Shade Muldraugh’s on Dead Oak, for nothing. He had spied Godey and Mal before they did him. And Riar’s mule was no stranger.

“Hoo-oo-ee, look at this.”

The owner of the chestnut mare was making a second run up the hollow, terms offered after the first sally having proved unacceptable. He varied his cry:

“Round and sound, tough as whang,

Two good eyes, and four in the spring.”

Carping finally put aside, the remainder of the complainers joined the trafficking. The hollow was too crowded for much free movement, particularly along the bed of the branch.

A person on foot had to look alive to avoid being bowled over, trampled, a tail switched in his face, or salted. Where the mounts stalled the earth was slick. Departures were frequent. A horseman would give up and declare, “Today I ought to of stayed home. My bones told me and I didn’t heed.” But there was no lack of calls of “Hoo-oo-ee,” and “Y-u-u-p, follow me,” and “Check her, noot. Shoot her up in through there and let me see her action.” Runs were often aborted. As a consequence of the new officer, Lafoon Magoffin, putting a quietus on the town, a rabble of young men and boys had climbed the slope behind the courthouse, skirted the bench of the ridge to the upper end of Chicken Roost, and descended to spectators’ positions above the throng.

Godey and Mal had dismounted, Godey leading the mule, Mal keeping to the rear for what cover the animal afforded, when they were spotted by the grease buyer. The buyer hailed, “I’m here, you short fellers. The high dollar is over here.”

Without turning his head, Godey answered, “Hold your ’tater, brother fox. Be it I need you, I’ll pull your chain.”

Breaking from the press, a trader split for the entrance muttering, “If ever I visit this place again it will be when two Sundays come together. Plague take such a combobulation.” Two horsemen of like mind accompanied him.

A man on a jack drew rein in the boys’ path and gave Riar’s mule calculated inspection. He wore woolen army pants, a flannel shirt. His steed was fitted out in a platted cornshuck collar with buckeye hames. Folded coffee sacks served as both pad and saddle and surmounted ribs as prominent as barrel staves. He gazed and did not speak.

“How does he look to you, friend,” Godey inquired, though outwardly the man appeared not to possess a copper.

The man reached into his shirt and scratched the small of his back. “He’s a brother to Methusalem” was his slow reply. “He’s been here.”

Godey’s chin cranked. “Are you some sort of sharp tack?”

The man blinked. “Could be,” he acknowledged, and then, “Wicked, hain’t he—your plug. A wild ass. Mean as Lafoon Magoffin.”

“He’s no plug,” Godey said levelly. His questioner might be another Tight Wad Thomas with pants full of money. “Of purebred stock, and so gentle you can sit in a chair and shoe him.”

“Oh yeah?” came the scoff. “I’d bet different. A mule will play the gentleman for years just to get into a prime position to kick your brains out. I’m knowance to the fact.”

“Tell me,” snapped Godey, “are you wanting to trade, or are you talking to hear your head rattle?”

“Raised in the Devil’s barn,” the man continued. “I can read it in his eye.”

“A mule is a mule,” blurted Godey, and he urged, “Let’s talk turkey. I’ll sell him hide and ears for twenty dollars. And throw in the eyeballs.”

“Twenty is too rich for my blood.”

“All right. What about a swap? I’m asking ten to boot.”

The man furrowed his brows until they met. He clawed where the tail of his woolen shirt was eating him. “I can’t stand the pressure,” said he.

His patience ending, Godey crackled, “Then keep him, keep him. Cheap-jacks belong together.”

“You’ve branded yourself with your tongue,” the man reprimanded, clucking his mount toward the entrance, and he grumbled, “Everybody is wearing boots today.”

Cupping his hands about his mouth, the grease buyer blatted, “You youngsters, you with the gray, guide him over here.”

“You heard me, snakebrains,” Godey reminded. “I said, ‘Hold your ’tater.’ ”

The owner of the chestnut executed a deal, swapping for a filly and receiving thirty dollars in the exchange, a halving of the earlier asking price for the claimed reason “It’s worth it to fly out of th...