Covered with Darkness

By Donald J. Richardson

I do not know how Covered with Darkness came about. The process of creativity is still a mystery to me, even as I try to teach it, and this is especially true for everything that I write. There is some indefinable, inexpressible something that operates in the brain that I cannot analyze, which I simply try to appreciate and use. When it works, I give thanks to the powers that be, and when it doesnt, cest la vie.

I believe there may be some hidden message in this work, which I hesitate to try to discover, let alone articulate. Probably there is a moral or allegory of some sort, but if you can find it, gentle reader, I wish you the best. I will not echo Mark Twains admonition, Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. Try to enjoy it is all I can offer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504900874

Donald J. Richardson

Although he has long been eligible to retire, Donald J. Richardson continues to (try to) teach English Composition at Phoenix College in Arizona. He defines his life through his teaching, his singing, his volunteering, and his grandchildren.

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Friend Interview #1

I guess I been knowin’ him for several years. Ever since I moved in here. See I don’t come from around her. My people they’re from a way off yonder. ’Course that’s no never mind, I mean one place’s as good as another, ain’t it?

Oh, we were friends, rightly enough. He borrowed from me, and I borrowed from him—that’s what friends are for, ain’t it? Oh, sure, my disc broke down, so he let me us his’n. And his harrow wasn’t pullin’ right, so I let him use mine.

But you know even with friends, there’s a line in the dirt that you better not cross, know what I mean? A man’s gotta have something of his own that ain’t on display or open to everybody. So that line kinda reminds a person that there’s a limit to how far anybody’ll go. Now you take a team of horses or mules. I ain’t never asked to borrow his team, and he ain’t never asked to borrow mine. I ’spect if he was to ask, I probably would loan ’em to him, specially if he was in bad hurt for a team, but you know his team’s as good as anybody’s, so why would he be borrowin’ mine? And my team of mules, they plow ’bout as good as any round about, so I ain’t got no need to borrow his. Ifn’ I was to ask, I imagine he’d let me use ’em, you know, but we ain’t never got that far. A man’s team works for him, you know, and drivin’ somebody else’s team wouldn’t feel exactly right. Oh, I ’spect I could do it all right, but it wouldn’t feel right. Kinda like takin’ a chaw in the meetin’ house; nobody’d say anything, but it still wouldn’t be right. I mean, where you gonna spit if you gotta spit? A man’s gotta think ahead of things like that. No, we never shared our teams with each other.

Now, you take coon huntin’, that’s a different matter. We’d go out just after it got dark, you know when you couldn’t see nothing at all, less’n there was a moon of sorts. Oh, if it was clear, why the stars give you some little light, but somehow we never paid the dark much attention. When you’re out trailin’ dogs of a night, you’re bound to run into such things along the way—you know bushes, or trees, or even a hole in the ground once in a while. Never seemed to stop either one of us. If we could see, why that was all right, but it wasn’t really necessary. What was important was we could hear them dogs; that’s what we went out for.

And many’s the time we brought home us a fat coon that was just right for eatin’. People that never et coon don’t know what real food can be. We run into other critters along the way, too, once in a while. Once we jumped a black bear; wasn’t so big as all that, but I still didn’t want to mix it up with him. I’s carryin’ my gun that time—I don’t always, but I guess I should. Anyway I shot him, and down he went. I figure he weighed some two or three hundred pounds. We had to skin him right there. Had a devil of a time gettin’ him home.

He ate fine, though. Not as good as coon, leastways to me as I’m partial to coon, but we cured the skin, and now we use it for another cover for the bed on cold nights.

He and I’d go out in the woods and sometimes we’d just listen to the dogs. He had better dogs than I did, maybe you knew that already, and his dogs always led mine. Mine weren’t no slouches, I’ll tell you, but for trackin’ and trailin’ his was the best. We’d listen and purty soon here’d come the sound of his Blackie, just as high and clear at first, and then it’d change tone, and we could tell he was running. See that first was when he got the scent, and then after he took out after whatever he was after, it changed. Oh, those were good times. Sometimes we’d stop right there and just listen, not even chewing. And maybe a skeeter’d be humming around, you know, irritatin’ like, but it didn’t bother him or me neither one. We was just glad to be there where we were, listenin’ to that pack of dogs chasing whatever they was after.

So then we’d take out after them dogs, tryin’ to catch up with them before they scared the coon or whatever it was too much. And we’d get there and the dog’d have him treed and if we could see him, we could shoot him out of the tree. Then we had to run to get him before the dogs did. Some of the dogs knew they was in it only for the chase, but others didn’t have the smarts to know that; they’d try to tear him to pieces. That happened a time or two, you know. Anyway, how we could see him was his eyes would reflect any light back at us, like if the moon was out or if we carried a lantern.

Then we’d take him home and skin him out, and cure the skin. Made quite a few coonskin caps that way. I imagine a man could make him a coonskin coat if he wanted to sew the skins together. I never did that. Guess maybe I should have.

Oh, we had other times, too, when we shared our work. Like when it first got cold weather—you know November or December—why we’d butcher. The kids’ sometimes try to help, but they weren’t of an age to be of much use, so we just had to make them stay back out of the way.

I never wanted the kids around when we first killed the hogs. There was something in the air—smell or something—and the hogs knew they was about to die. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. And they’d squeal something’ awful. Maybe I shouldn’t tell anybody this, but there were times I’d wake up in the night hearin’ them hogs squealin’. That was bad. I don’t know how they knew, but they always seemed to know. Well, you know if you walk into the woods without a gun, all the critter’s come running and jumping around and it’s like they know you don’t have a gun. But the next time you go huntin’ and you carry your gun, they stay right out of your way. Somehow they know. And those hogs know, too. It’s kind of pitiful, I guess, that they have to die like that, but we always tried to get it over fast so they didn’t suffer too much. And we gotta eat, too, don’t we?

Anyway, we shared in the butcherin’, and the kids’d help a bit after we got the hog strung up. I let mine grind the sausage, you know, turn the crank as I added what spices I wanted to, you know salt, pepper, sage, and so on. And they loved the crackling’s afterwards. Oh, they loved those.

Well, for a neighbor, I guess he was all right. I mean we never really had any fracas or anything happen between us. Oh, the women one time got kinda hot about something; I don’t rightly recollect just what it was, but you know they got over it. And then there come that big windstorm that blew over one of his sheds and two of mine, so we all got together to build them back up again. The women cooked and I guess whatever it was they patched up.

And the kids always played together. Seems like it wouldn’t be the same without a bunch of kids running around and chasing the chickens and such. ’Course I give ’em chores to do, you know, kind of learning them what life’s all about. They gotta start young, you know, else they grow up like city kids, expectin for everything to be given to them. Can’t have that.

He was right good with his kids, too, I noticed. Had this little tow-headed girl, maybe four or five who liked to foller him around, and he always kinda watched out for her. Cutest little dickens. He’d watch if maybe she was havin’ trouble following or maybe getting over a log or something like that. I think he was a good father, you know if you can judge by something like that.

Never knew him to lose his temper with people. Oh, he got mad at one of his horses once; can’t remember why. Took a two by four and broke it right over that horse’s head. Didn’t seem to hurt the horse any, but maybe he did walk a little slower after that. Oh, there was that little set-to I heard about down at the Inn—can’t recollect that I ever knew what it was about. Travelin’ salesman, wasn’t it? Anyway, I guess that passed.

I think he got along pretty well with just about everybody, even down at the mill there where they sometimes hire some—well, some that like to drink a little more than they should. Oh, he and I’d take a sip of home brew once in a while, you know kind of merry up Christmas or any old holiday, but some of those down at the mill, they didn’t know when to stop. Leastways that’s what I’ve heard. I never worked down at the mill. My ground’s a little bit better than his, so I managed with the hogs and chickens and cows to get by without working for wages. Not that we have anything extra. Lord, the last time we had any extra was so long ago I can’t even remember it. But we do manage to get along.

Christmas is kinds sparce in our family, but you know, the kids realize it, and they’re real careful what they ask for. Me and the missus we try to give them a little something, and she’s real good about fixing a special meal. So I guess we have to give our thanks. I always tell the kids what my Maw used to say, The Lord helps those that helps themselves. They know they aren’t gonna be given much in this world; they’ll have to work for everything just the same we do. But we do manage to get along.

Co-Worker Interview #1

I never cared for him. Oh, I suppose he was all right, if you like his kind, but we just didn’t get along. He always seemed to be trying to boss everyone around as if he was the manager instead of one of the workers. And he wasn’t the one who had been here the longest; I’ve worked her for over twelve years. That’s quite a bit longer than he did. In my twelve years I’ve learned how to run this place, and I don’t need somebody who has just started telling me how to do my job.

Sure, some of the suggestions he made were good, but I still don’t see why they had to come from him. It’s up the manager to tell the workers what to do. I don’t think it’s a good policy to let just anybody come up with new procedures or new rules; that seems to imply that the company isn’t being run properly. Now you take his trying to organize the way the lumber is laid out in the yard. I’ll grant you that the way we used to do it was a bit messy with every kind of wood lying here and there and you having to hunt for oak or maple, for example. But that’s the way we’ve always done it, and once a person gets used to doing a job a certain way, it’s hard to change. Maybe he did save some time for the company by organizing the layout, and maybe it was a bit easier for the workers to find what they were looking for, but I still don’t like that it came from him. Who is he, anyway, to tell everybody how to