One Brick Shy

By Chance Raymond

If you turn onto any one of the country roads after you pass the one named Ataway and drive until you run out of asphalt, you will motor out of this century into a backwoods garnished with long winding ribbons of red clay lanes, none wider than wagon trails. Beaten paths of mud holes where the faces of large rocks gow out of the ground, nothing more than bumps in the road to the hillbillies who live in those woods.

  There is a paradox to a place where rubber meets dirt, to a place where its avenues are stuck in their genesis and the tracks in the ground are from retreads and not horse and buggy wheels. The first mailbox is yet a country mile away and incidentally, delivered by a local who owns a station wagon.vv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troy Dyer
• Release date: Apr 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224946679

Book preview

Story 1   A Dog Story

Story 2   The Nightmare of Russell Pond

Story 3   Farther Back in the Woods

Story 4   The Death and Diary of Cyril Spragins

Story 5  Riddance

Story 6  Toot

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I feel the presence of my Mom and Dad and siblings as I walk through the hissing silence of the leaves in the yard where I played when I was a child. I imagine their shining faces and hear their happy laughter as I climb the creaking steps and walk across the rotten planks of the porch, staring into the gloom beyond where the front door used to be. And for a moment, the fire light from that ole fireplace lights up inside the cabin. And for a moment that will pass as quickly as it came, I know that I am home again.

A Dog Story

A beige colored short haired Labrador wins the love of country folks in Creeks County because he protects their school children from predators and their property from thieves and vandals. But most of them know he has an appetite for fresh chicken and anything else that flies. They compassionately don’t shoot him because he takes the fowl home to a dirt poor mother with a runaway husband, who then feeds her five little ones and stuffs the feathers into a king sized feather bed. Aloof to the neighborhood dogs, the Lab extends his territory to their backyards, using their own masters to shield him from their fury. The comedy features him as a self-effacing hero and as a crafty retriever. He solicits the help of a long-legged, blonde haired cur with a spotted bird dogs face to plot the murder of a junk yard dog. When the Labrador moves his girlfriend into his doghouse and develops a conscience, the implications are clearly human. Particularly mindful of that rogue bachelor who pursues all abandon in his youth and then attempts to settle down in his prime and develop amnesia. But the yarn remains committed to the canine kingdom and is almost old fashioned in purity.

The Dog

He was one for the books, the Labrador of Creeks County. That rambling loner with an aristocratic trot but a coat of fur soiled with the elements of the forest and groomed by the brambles therein. But there is more to his storied fame than his bold good looks and comical theatrics. Yes, that dog was held in esteem by all Creeks within a ten mile radius, that core of good people who shot at all other trespassers and mongrels on sight. The whole of the county loved him and family after family refurbished his biscuit colored coat and tried to steal or buy him from a boy named Albert, until folks agreed to just let things be. Many of the women conceded to call him Trapper, particularly after word spread from ear to ear, through open window and over the Bell wire, wherever men gather and women articulate, that that was his birth name. But most of the men called him Hoodwink when they noticed he wagged his tail and answered to that name too.

Conceived by the fireplace under a cloud of cigar smoke, inside the tranquil thoughts of a grandmother whose skilled fingers knit an infant's winter smock, sprout a sentiment the dog was more than just a creature, germinated the notion that the dog had a soul. Birthed only in a gentle whisper as she spoke to her crochet, reckon-so-ed by the lord of the cheroot, her utterance collared wings and spread through the county like the forecast of snow. For the Labrador was no stranger to those in need, whether in reality they needed his help or not, and I shall not refrain from mentioning his praiseworthy deeds, if I can but think of a few I can honestly pen without being unfair to the retriever. While none sound reasoning was lost in his exaggerated heroics, even the most rational among men enjoyed having him around, if for nothing more than his company, to be entertained by his militant arrogance.

Yes, the Labrador was given his own uncontested cot at the fire station, employed by the high sheriff to ride shotgun with his deputies on patrol, crowned mascot of the high school football team with real coon skin and tail, orated in the school auditorium by the principal in a lecture on ethics, honored on stage during a school play in which the fifth grade re-enacted his distinguished route of a mountain lion that terrorized the school playground and threatened to wipe the county clean of first and second graders. He was eulogized by the preacher from the pulpit on four separate ministrations, who always summed up his sermons by adding that if the dog had been a human it was going to hell anyway. Hoodwink was summoned to a sideline huddle by the football coach during a pep talk on grit, and twice summoned to the dug out by the Little League coach in calls to rally. The limit I am allotted for words would fail me, indeed my editor would slay me, were I to scribe all the honorary mentions he received over public address systems at events in which he did not participate or compete.

But before you are seduced into putting Hoodwink on too high of a pedestal, before you go away without the whole truth of the matter, I will say it is admitted by the one who knew him most, the dog had a dark side. The Lab was tormented by an obsession of such magnitude, even when under scrutiny and soon to be found out, he could not resist that particular bloodthirsty craving which haunted him. The Labrador of Creeks County was possessed. The Labrador of Creeks County didn’t fit the description but he was of all things, a petty chicken rustler.

In his lone strolls through the countryside to every farm and backyard within his territory, that domain where he cocked his hind leg and smugly hosed down the plank of  barn wall or rim of tractor wheel, or watered the most colorful azalea bush or prettiest dogwood tree, to the disdain of the rightful watchdogs of that perimeter who could not run fast enough to flog him and if they did catch him wound up on their backside with his jaws clamped to their throat; and that only after he let them smell his crupper first. If a farmstead boast a canine more vigorous than he, if such a begrudged animal happened to preside over the premises, lest it was on a chain, such garths were not favored with his gallant, knightly inspections, otherwise called snoops and welcomed with shotgun blast or broom handle. It was on these sojourns while examining his favorite puppy chow bowls to see if what they contained was worthy of his savory palate, after which he squirt a shot of urine on the platter whether he partook or not; it was on these excursions he would sneak a cagey glance at the pecking of the barnyard fowl. He spied and committed to memory if the chickens scratched about the yard free or if they were in a pen and if they were was it a fortress or a coop.

The farmers and most of the farmer's wives did not mind these trespasses. He never bit their children, barked at their cows, and as far as they were concerned, wasn't the evasive wild beast that had been chasing and stealing the feathered produce in Creeks County for seven straight years. And he never once squat in their yards to pollute it with stool as did the other violators. Instead they welcomed him. Not as a purebred, since good hunting dogs weren't at all hard to come by. But as the solitary Lab with the shiny coat of fur and eyes so light brown, you had to be up close to distinguish them from the rest of his head. Most of all he seemed proof that dogs are man's best friend and puzzled many a high school scholar from those parts as to why monkeys had two legs but dogs didn’t.

All a front. Part of his strategic scheme to get his next meal, steal his next duck for which some poor bobcat might get the blame, and carry a fat hen home to the McClatchy’s. If the afternoon school bus was on its rural route while Hoodwink made his rounds, he would be the first at various bus stops on various days to greet the smallest child getting off alone. Straight up and stately he walked boy or girl or pair up their driveway to their front porch step, knowing their mother was standing in awe of him behind the picture window, wiping tears from her eyes.

His fame spread through the heights and reached as high to heaven as the preacher's hat on a December Sunday when church was letting out. A four year old girl slipped from her mother's skirt tail and marched herself onto a formidable curve to collect wild flowers growing on the other side of the road. With her frightened mother running through the church lawn screaming frantically, who was far ahead of her to save the little sprat but Hoodwink, who tenderly bit the back of the toddler's suspenders and pulled her slowly out of the street. He escorted the weeping mother with daughter in arms back through the church yard to the brethren rushing to console her. Never the shy one, he discreetly positioned himself in the middle of the sidewalk, so that every believer, prodigal, and hypocrite might walk around his rump, reach down and pat his head, and say: Lo! But most of the menfolk and many of the women said: Damn ridiculous dog. He’s in the right place.

While he stood in pose, be it coincidence or be it winner's fortune, a car then screeched around the curve, launching his status to legendary. Nature itself mythologized the moment, as the sun peeked through a cavity in a massive white cloud and beamed its golden rays onto his biscuit colored coat of fur.

If a cow got out of pasture he would shepherd it back to its owner with such command and grace the cow would not have a nip on its back legs. If a farmer stalled his truck or tractor in the fields, Hoodwink lay down beside the front tire and slept with one eye open, pretending to guard it from vandals and thieves, until he saw its possessor returning with tools or parts in hand. Then he'd slowly trot away, never too soon, but before the owner had a chance to reach him and thank him. He'd quietly trot off like it was nothing more than the neighborly thing to do, but now he had to get going to tend to some urgent business that he was already almost late for.

He had a special knack for knowing where to be and when to be there. He won the hearts of almost all in the rural neighborhood and thereby gained free, sanctioned passage through the countryside and the yards. If he turned up at most anyone's back door they were all too happy to toss him a slice of ham or sausage paddy fresh off the breakfast table, which he caught and swallowed with but one lap of his long tongue. If it was dinner they might pitch him a ham bone straight out of the bean pot, which he carried to the nearest shade tree or house shadow, or if it was a chilly day, to a secluded spot in the sun. He lay down and ate it slowly with one paw atop it, flaunting it before any hound or collie who might be lying nearby, nose around a corner, pretending to be asleep, sulking because he or she had just been scolded or chained, for barking at his eminence.

If cooked food wasn't available at the hour he favored a back porch with his grandiose presence, and all the bologna in the refrigerator was gone, the householder might walk to the freezer and pick out a small, frozen parcel of meat stowed in the ice and frost, that of poultry or bovine creature, and bring it to him. Which he gently bit from the steadiest hand and walked away with in his mouth to bury for some future day of famine, or take to a reclusive stray named Loosey, from whom he fathered pups. The owners enjoyed watching him strut away with the meat clenched between his teeth, his head high, turning neither right nor left, but guarding all perimeters with his shifty eyes.

It crossed the proprietor's minds that the noble Labrador was the notorious chicken chaser of Creeks, but until this writing hadn't an eyewitness to pin him as the assailant. After all, we are talking about a missing chicken here, someone always said. Some folks just seem to enjoy the company of a nut, and in their case, they preferred to not let the verdict rest on circumstantial evidence alone. Hoodwink would hide in the wood-line, out of scent and out of sight, scanning the routine of the occupants. When the time was right and his blood boiled inside his veins, he crept through the un-mowed meadows of golden sage, slipping through the tall green weeds and wild flowers, as incognito as a slithering snake. Crouching behind whatever verdure he could find at the yard’s edge, he cocked one paw and pointed his nose in the direction of the farm feathered birds, vacillating the tip of his tail as he anticipated the moment to strike. His heartbeat pound through his chest like he was fully loaded with turbo, and in neutral, he almost looked like a professional hunter in quest of fair game. But the creamy slobbers that drooled from his mouth and the growl that gurgled in his throat betrayed his true occupation.

The sparse foliage he now hid behind was hardly enough to camouflage a green snake or garden hose, and there could have been a face behind any one of the house windows which reflected the sun's beam and farm yard outdoors. But blind to the risk, itching for the chase to begin, he'd make a dead run for the back yard or the barn yard, wherever the chickens were, and without a bark, scatter the flock and overtake a frenzied clucking hen. If it was night, he was capable of leaping as high as the first limb on some trees and snatching a chicken right off its roost, and often utilized the roofs of small sheds and the hoods of parked trucks to spring himself higher into branches, unconcerned that timber was not his turf, as every cat in Creeks County knew, he was the one dog who just did not get it. In fact, if he fell hard but had flesh and feathers clutched in his teeth and blood seeping from his gums, he was up and running as soon as he hit the ground.

If the chase included burglary, that is, if he had to break into the hen house, he was clever enough to unlatch and open doors, provided they were not securely fastened. That was unacceptable, pushing his Robin Hood tactics a lot too far. His success or failure depended on the constructor's investment in locks and chains and most people in Creeks County were stubborn as all get out, clinging to the customs of the hillbillies from whom they proudly descended. They were of the mindset that a hen house is nothing more than a coop, that chickens do not really expect to live in anything but a little tin and wire nailed to some planks, and that a coop is meant to keep chickens in, not to keep foxes and wild cats out. The way they saw it, that is what the bulldog and the shotgun were for. They opted to sit up all night or snooze in their trucks and scare off the bandit in the act. The problem was, most of them preferred a good night’s rest before the next day’s work, said a few descriptive words, and went back into the house and went to bed. Some of them smoked, others fell asleep and when they did they snored and grunted and kicked while they belched, burped, and farted all night long. But the Labrador always knew when they were there. And the guard dogs didn't help. They had been booted and whipped too many times for barking at Hoodwink in the daytime and did not want to go back to the chain. Because in all of Creeks County, if a dog raised too much fuss when the Lab paid a visit, their masters would chain them to a horseshoe stub or a clothesline post.

Of course there were close calls which fingered the culprit in the act, especially when he spent too much time trying to get inside a pen during daylight hours. A budding pubescent who was out of school ill, upon opening her bedroom window, saw Hoodwink cowering through the cow pasture with his tail between his legs. She thought it odd for such a patriot as he to slink away low to the ground like that and that perhaps he had been marking his territory on the mule's stall, and subsequently got kicked in the head. The chickens were going berserk in their cage, cackling and squawking up a storm, but at that moment, she thought the rooster was pestering them; and as correlates the fourteen year old mind in its innocence, her thoughts drifted to how handsomely obnoxious boys could be. Outraged, she turned away from the abomination unfurling in the hen house and tuned back in to the radio by her pillow and the school book in her hand. After some study, she walked outside to see how many eggs she could find in the hotbeds of hay and straw, better known as chicken nest to the impassive farm boy in overalls. When she saw none, she glanced at the rooster to see why he was such a loser, but thought it a little fishy that she had seen the Labrador on the farm earlier.

Beforehand, when she first raised the window, Hoodwink must have heard it open and felt her eyes upon him. Because his next attack occurred the very next day and as labors the rogue mind when it gets to thinking too much, he tried to blow smoke by sparing a plump gray speckled hen, delivering it soaking wet but alive to the preacher's front door. The pastor’s wife at first believed he was the chicken's savior and fought off the dreadful beast that was terrorizing the species and eluding all capture. But the woman, a gold-digger herself, a kleptomaniac, at least once an adulteress in her youth, and often under the influence of orange vodka, was fairly gifted in the art of deception too. In retrospect, after a few drinks that cleared her mind of religion and other prohibitions, she decided the dog dunked the speckled hen in the pond and then brought it to her to throw the light off him. In spite of her clout with the common man, young people, babies, and animals, most of the women could not stand the piercing sound of her voice, or the way she bobbled up the social stratum in Creeks County by marrying the preacher after his wife had passed. So at least for a while, Hoodwink slipped further investigation. But the next time he came to her door she greeted him with the hard end of a broom. It broke on the concrete floor of the back porch where his head had been, before he decided not to wait for breakfast.

But the woman, a gold-digger herself, a kleptomaniac, at least once an adulteress in her youth, and often under the influence of orange vodka, was fairly gifted in the art of deception. In retrospect, after a few drinks that cleared her mind of religion and other prohibitions, she decided the dog dunked the speckled hen in the pond and then brought it to her to throw the light off him. And though uninvited, she often un-bottled her imagination in chit chat, whether that was to the parishioners before and after church, in hair curlers at the beauty parlor, or over a cigarette filter and tea cup stained with red lip stick at PTA meetings. In spite of her