The Ruby. Leland Nichols
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at the foot of the bed. Even though the device was not working at the moment, it gave him comfort to know it would be safe. He deactivated it and put it into an old cigar box, placing the box with its precious cargo in the top drawer of the dresser.
Adjusting the suspenders holding up his pants, Dorian stepped outside the smokehouse. Off in the distance, he saw the yellow, flickering light of a kerosene lamp glowing inside a tatty lean-to, a sloping roof off the side of the barn with no walls. Clyde, Sonny and Andy were under it making final preparations for the hunt. Three coon hounds danced around impatiently, knowing the hunt was on.
Good dogs were very important for a successful hunt. They were a prize for the folks that lived in the back woods and hills of the Ozarks. Clyde and Sonny were proud of the dog they raised from a pup. They had named him Buck and trained him only to run coons at night. The lack of success on a night of coon hunting with Buck on the trails was blamed on the increasing rareness of the game.
The coon hides could be sold for five dollars each in the city, a tidy sum of money in those days. In other words, a good coon hide was equivalent to a week’s pay and hard work at the lumber mill, which was the best paying job in the area. A successful two or three hour hunt in one night could bring in a month’s wages. The peak fur season was during the colder months of the year (November to February) when the animals had their thick winter fur.
Sonny unchained one of the dogs from the barn post, while Clyde prepared other gear for the hunt. A few feet way, Andy untied Buck, the black ’n tan coon dog they had talked about at the supper table. Andy felt a cold nose press against his out flung hand. He patted him on the back playfully, then knelt down, rubbing the dog’s fur and long ears. “Good boy, Buck,” he said to the dog.
Clyde looked over with disgust. “Don’t be ’fectionate with them dogs. How many times I gotta tell ya, he ain’t no pet.” Andy backed away from the dog, rubbing at his pants leg. Nothing he did seemed to be right.
Clyde turned his cap backward and strapped a carbide lamp, the kind coal-miners use, around his head, adjusting the lens. He turned to Sonny. “Ya got yer knife sharpened? We’re gonna have some coons to skin directly.”
Andy stayed behind, watching the trio leave for the woods behind the house.
Dorian, Sonny, and Clyde left the clearing of the meadow and stepped into the dark under-brush of the vast forest. Sonny had Buck on a leash, and Dorian was pulled along by another dog. They stopped near the bank of a shallow creek lined with willows and cottonwoods.
Clyde held out a lantern to see a wider area. “Looks like a good spot to turn ’em loose,” he said.
Dorian and Sonny unleashed the dogs, and in the yellow hue of the lantern, the dogs began circling and sniffing the ground. Buck was standing with his right front paw raised, sniffing and whining, his long ears fanned open. Then, along with the other dogs, he darted into the blackness of the woods, disappearing in the thick timber.
Stretching his arms, Clyde sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree. Dorian looked at Clyde then at the area of the woods the dogs disappeared into and asked, “Aren’t we going to follow them?”
Clyde laughed quietly and said, “You can, effen ya think you can keep up. As for me, I’m gonna sit a-spell under this ol’ sycamore tree.”
“How do you know when they’ve found a raccoon?”
“They’ll tell ya,” Clyde said matter-of-factly.
Sonny laughed as he knelt to a squatting position. “The dogs don’t bark, ’cept when they’re on a scent.”
Clyde pulled a plug of tobacco from his bib overalls, extending his hand to offer it to Dorian. Dorian shook his head. Sonny sat down in a cushion of grass and drew his knees up to his chest with his left arm. He had snapped off a twig from a wild grapevine about the length and diameter of a cigarette and was smoking it. The grapevine was not green but dry and porous. A substitute for tobacco, it burned the tongue but was otherwise a delightful smoke.
The silence was broken with the sound of a dog barking in the distance. Clyde did not seem too excited at that moment. “That dog’s separated from Buck, prob’ly chasin’ a bobcat again.”
A minute or two later came the sound of a dog barking from another section of the woods.
Sonny stood from his crouched position. “Y’hear that? Ol’ Buck’s on to somethin’.”
Clyde turned an ear to listen. “They’re over by the green swamp. Them dogs is runnin’ in circles.”
“No, they ain’t. Not Buck,” Sonny replied.
“An old coon can fool a dog by walkin’ the rail fence,” Clyde said knowingly.
Soon, the barking in the distance became more aggressive. Clyde became excited, and he jumped to his feet, turning an ear to the far off yapping of the dogs. “Come on! Ol’ Buck’s got one treed.”
Dorian, Clyde and Sonny ran through stands of wild cane, then waded through a shallow creek, coming to a group of trees where the dogs were howling and sniffing the ground. The stream was ankle-deep, but a large slough had formed at the bend of the creek, making a waist-deep wash. Buck was on his hind legs, his front paws extended up a tree, signaling this as the tree the raccoon was in. Clyde turned on the carbide lamp strapped to his head, aiming the light high into the tree. The beam flickered along the tree limbs then, finally, onto a raccoon, perched in a fork of the branches. The raccoon looked down at them. Blinded by the light, its eyes shone like headlights, making it an easy target. Clyde shouldered the rifle, taking aim. A shot rang through the quiet forest.
“I think ya got ’im, Pa,” Sonny called.
The raccoon descended half way down the tree and then leapt to the ground. The dogs attacked, growling and snarling, as fur and dust engulfed the air around them. After a brief scuffle, the raccoon managed to break free from the dogs, running to the creek. The dogs gave chase, splashing through water, paddling toward it. Buck caught up to the raccoon and sank his teeth into the animal’s hide. The raccoon rolled in the water and broke free of Buck’s jaws, climbing onto the dog’s head.
Clyde ran to the edge of a wide gravel bar covered with a foot of water and yelled, “Damn it, Sonny, git them dogs outta there!”
Sonny plunged into the knee-deep water and waded to the dogs. Buck struggled under the weight of the raccoon on his head. At times, Buck’s head was submerged out of sight. Clyde became frantic, yelling from the creek bank to Sonny, “Git a-hold of ’im. That coon’s gonna drown that dog.”
Sonny stumbled through the water, finally reaching the dog’s neck, pulling his head out of the water. Dorian grabbed a branch and quickly waded through the water to help Sonny. Sonny extended his hand to push the raccoon away, but their prey jumped up on Sonny’s back. He fell to his knees, reaching back to grab the raccoon’s fur behind its neck to pull it off. The raccoon hugged Sonny’s arm tenaciously, biting him several times along the forearm. Dorian raised the branch, trying to find a moment to strike the animal. With a howl, Sonny slung his hand, and the raccoon was flung loose, landing in the water. As Sonny grabbed Buck, the raccoon crossed the creek, scampered up the creek bank and vanished into the foliage. The other dog chased after the raccoon, disappearing in the blackness of the night.
Steadied by Dorian, Sonny lumbered out of the water, holding Buck by the collar. Clyde was waiting at the creek bank.
He looked at Sonny’s bloody arm. “The sum-bitch got ya, didn’t he? Least we got the dogs out.” Clyde removed his jacket, spreading it out on the ground. The three trekked back through the woods to the house.
Clyde had left the jacket on the ground so the dogs could come back to it during the night. Usually the next morning, the dogs would be laying on it, waiting for someone to pick them up.