One fine afternoon papa and Cholly, his black sidekick, drove imprudently deep into the Skull Creek bottom in the search of a missing bull before the low-lying, poorly drained bottomlands had adequately dried from the spring rains. As they drove ever deeper into the creek bottom, Cholly grew more anxious and implored Papa to turn around. “What we gonna do if we get stuck and it turn dark?” he said, “and the bell boys be out?” ‘Bell boys’ was his term for the timber rattlers who were common in the bottom and often grew to enormous dimensions, some over seven feet in length. But Papa was dead set to find a missing bull and didn’t take heed of his concern. Sure enough, they had not gone very far when the truck became hopelessly mired between two enormous ash trees in a particularly treacherous mud hole in a sharp turn in the rutted path we called a road. It was late in the day and they were miles from a public road. With the little bit of daylight left they attempted to jack the truck up and place sticks in the ruts under the wheels, but to no avail. As the moonless dark descended over them, intensified by the overarching canopy of enormous hardwood trees, which formed an effective shield to the firmament above, Cholly announced, “I ain’t gonna walk outta here, bellboys ‘ll get me.” Papa replied, “Suit yourself, but I’m leaving, “ and with that he lit off. He hadn’t gone four steps when Cholly fell in behind him, step for step, “I ain’t stayin’ here by myself; the haints [spooks] be out!” The two stumbled along like this for miles, it seemed, trying to retrace in the dark the muddy path they had driven over in the truck. But it did not take them long to get lost and disoriented in the pitch-black night. They strained to pick up the sounds of the trains at the switchyard in Glidden four miles to the north. The whistling and clanking of the steam engines and cars would float effortlessly for miles through the night air, giving a sure bearing when the North Star remained hidden. And sure enough, though hopelessly lost, they picked up the sound of the trains and struck a path toward them in the expectation that they would have to eventually strike the public road that would lead them to a farmhouse and a phone where they could call for help. In this hope they crossed a fence and stayed out into a field that appeared to be largely free of underbrush and trees, which lifted their spirits since it hastened their progress. Suddenly something struck my father at the knees, who was still in the lead. He felt a sharp sting, followed by another and another. He fell to the ground flailing with his hands and arms and crying out in surprised horror at the unknown assailant(s). Hearing this, Cholly turned tail and lit off at an angle as fast as his clubfoot would allow to escape the mysterious fiend, but to no avail. He too felt the fiery sting hit both his legs beneath the knee at the same time, and he fell to the ground yelling, “Oh Lawdy help me, the bellboys done got me!” And for what seemed like an eternity both men indeed believed they had stumbled into a den of vipers, a Dante’s inferno of unimaginable horror. But their flailing soon led to the discovery that it was wire, electrified wire that was the source of their pain, rather than snakes, and as both men regained their composure somewhat, it suddenly dawned on them what had happened. They had strayed into the field of a neighbor who had put up, unbeknownst to them, an electric fence. Eventually, after disentangling themselves from the electrical monster, they made it to the road and a farmhouse and around midnight were able to call my anxious mother who had no clue where they were, but who was not unaccustomed to such events.The story became legendary, a mainstay of hunting camp lore from that day on.
jamesckearney.com 