Richard and I
found another cave—one far more practical—that summer by accident. In fact, we found it because of one of our
interminable fights.
It was a very hot
summer afternoon. Richard and I had been
assigned the chore of hoeing weeds in the kitchen garden—the “truck
patch.” We each had a hoe and were
chopping away at the endless chore. I
never did figure out why weeds grow so much better than things like tomatoes,
onions, watermelons, cantaloupes, and other good stuff—even eggplant—but they
sure do.
The sun was
beating down and I was wishing that I had been smart enough to put on my
clodhopper shoes even if it was summer.
The dry dirt and sand rocks were hot enough to almost burn my feet
through the calluses. Richard had put on
his shoes. Each of us were wearing just
overalls with no shirts and we had on our battered straw hats.
With a totally
monotonous job like hoeing weeds, you had plenty of time to think about
things. I always went off into a fantasy
world daydreaming about things I would like to be. I was an avid reader of dime pulp magazines
about the west, WWI flying aces, and the like so I always had plenty of things
to dream up.
Old Richard, on
the other hand, seemed to spend a lot of time thinking up ways to get my
goat. It always delighted him to make me
mad. Along with my reddish hair, I had
inherited a quick trigger temper and could really fly off the handle at times.
This particular
day, just as I was getting on the tail of a red German triplane with the Hisso
engine of my Spad roaring and my machine guns chattering, Richard jerked me
back to that dusty Ozark garden, “Hey numb nut, you tried getting into ol’ Mary
Catherine’s pants lately?”
I could feel my
face and ears turning red under the straw hat.
Unfortunately, he knew about one time some years before when I had got
caught “playing house” with our cousin.
The fact was that, even though I had thought about it from time to time,
I had not had the chance to try anything with her recently.
“You just shut up
about Mary Catherine! Ain’t done nothin’
with her!”
“Maybe not
lately,” he went on relentlessly, and obviously enjoying my discomfort, “but I
know you have tried more than once. Got
caught, too, didn’t you?!”
He leaped back
nimbly when I took a swing at him with my hoe and jeered, “Well, wouldn’t make
no difference even if you did get into her pants. Your little old dinkus is so small that she
would even feel it!”
My temper
exploded—just as he intended. “You shut
up!”
I took a wild
swing at hime with my hoe. He simply
ducked, chuckling gleefully. My hands
were sweaty and I lost my grip on the hoe.
It went flying across the garden and twanged against the hogwire fence.
I scooped up a
large clod of the dry hard red earth. My
arm and my aim were good and the clod took Richard right in the pit of the
stomach. He let out an “OOF!” and fell down.
My anger
evaporated as quickly as it had come and I thought I might have really hurt
him. I stepped toward his recumbent and
silent form.
“Jeeze,” I said
contritely, “I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
Of course I had
simply knocked the wind out of Richard.
He made a sudden lunge for my ankles.
“You little sonamabitch,” he gasped, “I’ll get you for that!”
I dance away from
him, feeling a sudden flush of fear.
Richard was still a bit bigger than me, and he sometimes got the better
of me in combat. He came up off the
ground, his blue eyes slitted with anger.
His hoe was still in his left hand.
I knew the time
had come to bail out so I turned tail and ran.
I lost my straw hat as I sailed over the hog-wire fence and shot across
the county road toward a patch of brush on Bertha Beck’s farm. As I dived for cover, I could hear his shoes
hit the road and knew he was right behind me.
We were both
familiar with that brush patch form trapping rabbits and I knew it would not
conceal me for long. I weaved my way
through and out into a wheat field beyond, running for my very life.
Maze Creek was
about a half mile away and I headed in that direction, my bare feet scattering
grasshoppers as I fled across fields and pastures, vaulting barbed wire fences
as I went. I could hear Richard’s
clodhoppers pounding in pursuit. I was
glad of that because, barefoot, I could outrun him and I knew I was gaining on
him.
Richard was nearly
a hundred yards behind when I reached the trees and brush along the creek, but
he was coming on strong. I cut to my
left past our favorite swimming hole that we called the “Big Rock Hole” because
there was a large boulder at the edge of a deep pool where we could dive. Unfortunately, there were sharp flintrocks
along the base of the low sheer cliff that bordered the bend in the creek. I hit one that was sharp as an Indian
arrowhead and cut the instep of one foot.
Now I was in
trouble. I knew Richard could catch me
easily if I was hobbling on a sore foot.
I could not see even a brush pile that would offer cover for me to go to
ground. Just up the creek a way I saw a
mat of wild grapevine growing up the face of the sheer cliff. I hobbled to it and desperately squeezed my
way between the vines and the rock.
Just as I heard
Richard’s footsteps pounding along the creek bank, there was suddenly no rock
against my shoulder and I fell sideways into empty space. Richard went on past heading upstream.
I rolled over and
looked around. I was in a dimly-lit
cavern about three feet high and four feet wide, the walls of damp
limestone. It led back into the cliff.
As usual, I had a
few kitchen matches in the bib of my overalls.
Cautiously, I inched forward, alert for any possible snake. After a slight bend, the cave opened
out. I struck a match and found myself
in a “room” about ten feet across and high enough that I could stand up. I saw only two small openings down low before
the match went out.
I lit another
match and crawled across to one of the openings down against the dirt floor of
the cave and, lying on my belly, peered into the hole. Panic set in—the light of the match was
reflected by two beady amber eyes!
Both the case and
my sore foot momentarily forgotten, I rolled over then shot headfirst out of
the cave, plunging straight through the mat of vines and rolled toward the
creek on the rocky ground. Richard was
sauntering back down the creek bank—apparently having given up the chase. He halted in amazement when I came flying out
of apparently a solid rock cliff and exclaimed, “Where in the world did you
come from?”
My words came out
in a machine gun sputter, “You win. I
hurt my foot and I can’t run anymore and I found a real cave in there only
there is an animal in there, too!”
His anger and the
chase forgotten, Richard parted the vines and peered into the low dark
opening. “Hey,” he said, “there really
is a cave in there! Got any matches on
you?”
I fumbled at my
pockets. “No—used the only ones I had.”
“What did you see
in there?”
“Well, there is a
room in there not far back but there is a little hole down low and I saw two
yellow eyes looking back at me. There is
an animal denned in there!”
“Shoot,” he said
scornfully, “probably only a possum or a coon—maybe just a rabbit. Wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Well, you go see
if you want. I ain’t goin’ back in there
without a proper light and the twenty-two.”
Richard squatted there,
a calculating look in his blue eyes and chewing reflectively on his lower lip. “Never heard anyone say anything about a cave
along here—bet not many know about it.
We’ll keep it a secret so don’t you tell anyone about it.”
He carefully
re-arranged the vines to conceal the opening.
“We can come back later and chase out or kill whatever is in there. It will make a dandy hideout.”
He got to his feet. “Come on now, bird brain. We got to bet back to hoeing them weeds.”
