Granny & Old Sarge

GRANNY & OLD SARGE
         When I was 8 years old I went to live with my sister Mabel, and her husband Jake. Mom thought Mabel needed some help since she had a new baby and a crazy husband. Jake was disabled from the war, and "could only play the guitar and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes," according to mama. That is all he ever did.
         He had spent the last year in a Naval Mental Hospital trying to get over being a prisoner of war. He was pretty crazy, and you never knew what he might be thinking. He had bad nightmares that would make him wake up and shoot all the windows out of the house at night, screaming at those Japs to leave him alone.
         Mamma would not let Mabel and Jake live with her and Dad because she said "she couldn't afford to buy new windows all the time." She didn't buy any new windows that I ever saw, anyway. Dad just put wood over the windows Jake had shot out and said he "would buy new ones later."
         Mabel had the baby, Jimmy, while Jake was in that prisoner of war camp, and Mamma delivered that baby. My sister Leona and Granny helped her, but she didn't need any help since she knew all about that stuff of having babies anyway.
         When Mamma told Jake and Mabel they would have to move out, Jake found an old log cabin up by the lake on top of the mountain, in a place called Fern Lake. That's where we moved to, and it was really isolated. I loved it!
         Mabel gave Jake's shotgun away so he wouldn't kill us thinking we were Japs, because he was always saying "you and David look like Japs." Mabel told him that was foolish since she had red hair and blue eyes, and didn't the news reels show all those Japs with black hair and slanted eyes?
         That would sometimes calm him down for a while, and he would get his guitar and pick songs and drink coffee.  He was real good with that guitar. He could play by ear and pick out any song you wanted him to play. He could drink a lot of coffee.
         He was a bad, bad singer, though, and couldn't sing or carry a tune worth a hoot. That's what Mabel said, anyway. The cabin we moved into was built of logs with a dirt floor and no glass in any windows, just tarpaulins you could open to the breeze.
         Jake said "I like a wide open house, with some breezes blowing through it." He sure as heck had one, now. The door was tarpaulin too. You had to tie it shut at night with a rope to keep the chill out. And the possums and raccoons and skunks!
That cabin had a big stone fireplace that had hooks hanging down to cook on, but you had to set the coffee pot in the bottom of the fireplace, on the burning wood, to make coffee. It made good coffee, though. It was a real great house, in every way.
         Jake and my Dad spread pine needles on the floor to make it smell good and clean, and promised to put in a wood floor in the spring.
         Jake would set in front of the house at night and play his guitar. He played the "Wabash Cannonball" and the "Wildwood Flower" and "My Filipino baby" until it got dark and he had to come in. I liked that song about the Filipino Baby.
         He could play that guitar all he wanted to because there was nobody to disturb, since the nearest neighbors were 4 miles away. They were Jake's sister and her husband Mike and Mike's grandma, who was a witch.
She cured people with herbs and killed people with curses, Mamma said.
         We carried water from the spring, which was about 300 yards away from the cabin, and came right out of the mountainside. That water was always cold, too. It was my chore to carry water from the spring for cooking and bathing, and I also brought in wood for the fireplace.
         We had coal oil lamps for lighting, and sometimes candles, when Jake could afford them. Jake said he "had no money for something that just burned up and was gone" We had a creek down below the cabin where we took baths in the summer, and we took them in a big tub inside the cabin in the winter.
         The one thing I hated about that place was that the toilet was down behind the cabin, on the downward side of the creek about 100 yards away. That toilet also had a tarpaulin door that was always blowing open and freezing you to death in the winter.
         I learned to hold myself in cold weather for a long time to keep from going to that cold toilet. That outhouse was better, as Jake said, "than going in the woods and cleaning yourself with grass, or straw."  Jake knew all about rough living, I guess.
         Jake was always drinking coffee and smoking, and I guess I learned those habits from him. When he was playing music he always had a cigarette in his hand, or stuck in the strings behind the frets of the guitar, and a cup of coffee right next to him. I kept his coffee cup filled up, and Mabel kept the pot on making more coffee.
         I bet we had tons of coffee grounds behind that cabin, where Mabel dumped them. Jake said those "coffee grounds would keep mosquitoes away in the summer," and he was probably right. We ate pretty good when we lived there, too. At least we ate regularly. In Fonde, where the mines were, eating regularly was never for sure.
         Mabel picked poke salad, wild cress and lettuce, and wild onions, and Jake and me carried apples and pears from an old orchard that was on the old abandoned Turner farm about 2 miles away. That farm hadn't been lived on for about a hundred years, but fruit and vegetables kept coming up in the spring and summer, and we ate them.
         We also picked and ate many blackberries, dewberries and huckleberries. Wild huckleberries grew on a tree at the old farm, and Mabel made pies with them that Jake loved. We wanted to hunt some kind of game but there was nothing to hunt, and no gun to hunt with. Hunting anything besides squirrels or rabbits was out of the question.
         Jake and me made bows and arrows and fletched those arrows with chicken tail feathers, but we never saw any animals to kill so we gave up on the idea. I think those old-time Turners who had lived at the old farm had killed all the deer and bears when they lived there, and there was nothing left for us to kill and eat.
         That is surely why they had to leave their farm a hundred years ago, because they had nothing left to eat. I asked Mabel if those Turners were kin to our aunt Grace and Uncle Bob Turner, but she said she "didn't know and didn't care, and would I please shut up about those Turners killing all the deer."
SHEESH! Mabel could get gripey sometimes, but I think that is what sisters are for. At least, most of my five sisters were always gripey.
         Mabel would only get gripey when she felt bad, and I think she felt bad a lot. Mabel got really mean and ornery one day, and Jake said that he and I were going to go visit his sister Ruth and her husband Mike, who probably needed some company. Mabel said; "you better not bring back any old mangy dogs."
         She still remembered me bringing Mike's dog, Old Sarge, home with me from the last trip, to get Mabel to cure his mange. She sent me right back with the dog, and said "don't bring that filthy dog back here, or I will cut off his head." She probably would have, too.
I took that mangy dog, Old Sarge,  back to his house and left him.
         "We ain't bringing no dogs back, honey," Jake assured her. As we walked up into the woods, he said "maybe we can bring a sick cat to her this time, what do you think?"
I kept my mouth shut on that one. Granny had too many cats for me to think about, and I sure didn't want one.
         Old Granny was a Witch who practiced black magic. All the people knew that, and used to go to her for all kinds of advice and cures. She could cure you with a root, but I don't know how she did that, and nobody ever told me.
         She was very old and had to be tied in her rocking chair with a rope so she wouldn't fall out. They also said she would wander off into the woods and dig roots and pick bark and other magic stuff like that. What she would do with all those magic things is anybody's guess. Something wicked, I bet!
         Probably put spells on kids, and grownups, too. She sat in her chair and drooled spit down her chin, while she chewed tobacco or dipped snuff. She also smoked a pipe, which was pretty normal, since my Grandma smoked a pipe too. Heck, just about everybody but Mamma smoked something.
         The old woman talked to herself all the time. I would listen to see if I could learn some spells to cast on someone, maybe my sister, Mabel. I never could make any sense of what she was saying, and if I got too close she would try to grab me.
         "I know you, you are Nancy's boy. You come here to me so I can hug you, boy," she would say, or "let me anoint you with my power, boy, and you will be the strongest Warlock in these hills."
I always ran from her, because I didn't want to be a Warlock, which is a man Witch, and have to cast spells on people and cure them with roots and stuff.
         Besides, the old woman smelled like two dead Billy goats! She really stank to high heaven. She had stringy, dirty hair, and her clothes were dirty, too.
         My mother had told me to never talk to a witch, because they were always looking for some little boy to use to help them do magic spells and stuff. I don't know what those magic spells would need a little boy for, but I would take no chances on finding out. I stayed away from witches and all other old ladies.
         As Jake and I walked into the yard of Mike's cabin, we saw he was digging a hole out toward the back, some ways off. Picking our way through the scattered tin cans and broken bottles and chickens and dogs, we made our way to him just as he was climbing out of the hole.
"Howdy, fellers, how about helping me dig this here hole for a new outhouse? Mike said as we came up to him.          
         "Don't believe we can, Mike, since I ain't supposed to do any work. It might mess up my pension somehow, you know, and David here ain't got enough ass to dig with anyhow,” Jake said to his cousin.
         They both laughed, but I took that comment about me having "no ass" real poorly. Heck, I was ready to dig all day just to prove how strong I was. Jake and Mike were walking toward a log to sit down and talk, so I followed.
         I didn't want to miss anything they said, since they talked about some interesting stuff sometimes, like women and girls and how to get them.
I surely wanted to know how to get women and girls. I also wanted to know what I was going to do with them, after I got them, which had to be something good because they always lowered their voices so I couldn't hear.
         Heck, I was 8 years old. I needed to know stuff, any kind of stuff that would help me know more about women and girls than my cousin, Will Ed Howard, or Carl Worth, my friend, knew.
         We all knew they had "things" between their legs that you were not supposed to see, so we wanted to see those "things" as soon as we could. Carl had already seen his sister's thing, and had promised to get her to let me, and Will Ed see it, but she didn't.
Mike pulled a bottle out of his overhauls and offered it to Jake, who took a drink.
         Jake looked at me and said "do you want to try this, David?" Heck, does a dog want to scratch? I took the bottle and took a drink from it. It did not taste good!
         "HOLY COW, What is that stuff?" I was choking to death. It felt like I had poured fire down my throat. I tried to look nonchalant as I kept myself from crying and choking, and Jake was screaming with laughter.
Mike was rolling on the ground like a fool laughing and hollering like a crazy Indian. He looked like he was having a fit.
         "I just like my moonshine with RC Cola, is all. I don't like it without a chaser," I said, repeating something I had heard my older brother Tom say to somebody once. My brother knew all about drinking, I believe.
         I wandered off and threw rocks at tin cans and dogs until the two men had calmed down from their joke. I came back as they were talking about Old Sarge, one of Mike's hunting dogs. He was a blue tick hound dog and had the mange bad, like he always had. That dog never got well.
         I hoped we weren't going to doctor that old dog again, since the last time we had dumped him in a big barrel of old motor oil to cure him and I had gotten oil all over me. Mabel fussed and fussed, as she scrubbed me with a stiff brush and lye soap to get that oil off me, and out of my hair and from behind my ears. I don’t know how all that oil got in my hair, and tried to tell Mabel that. She wouldn’t listen to me, though.
The water she made me get in to bathe was cold, too. I did not need any more baths with a stiff brush and lye soap over that old hound dog.
         "That dog ain't  never going to get well", Mike said to Jake. "I am going to shoot him and get him out of his misery" he said as he took another sip of moonshine.
         "You could beat him to death with that shovel," I offered, since he had a big shovel in his hand. Suddenly Mike sat up straight and said, "Hey, let’s blow that rascal up with dynamite. I have six sticks of dynamite and two blasting caps, and since I stole them from the mining company's magazine, it wont even cost me the price of shotgun shells." Now blowing that dog up with dynamite was some good thinking, to me!          
I thought that was the best idea I had ever heard. I was really excited that something out of the ordinary was going to happen to liven things up. Mike jumped up and ran to his house. In a few minutes he came back with a handful of dynamite sticks and the blasting caps and some fuse.                    
"Careful with them things, Mike, they look sort of old and ragged to me, and they might go off from being shook up, that stuff is probably unstable" Jake said.
"Here Sarge, here Sarge," Mike called to the old ragged looking dog.
         Old Sarge slithered up to Mike on his belly, with his ears laid back. By now he was leery of Mike, after being doctored with hot oil, coal oil, liniment and vinegar and pepper and who knows what else for his mange.
         "Come on, Sarge, Come on. Good Boy, come on." When old Sarge got within reach, Mike grabbed him.
         "We better tie him to a tree if we are going to keep him still long enough to tie that dynamite to him," Jake said.
Mike agreed. Jake picked up a piece of old wire from the many piles of trash in the yard and looped it around old Sarge's neck. He tied the other end to a small tree.
         Mike tied the wire around old Sarge's body, up under his belly to his back, and wrapped the sticks of dynamite in a sort of semi-circle around the body of old Sarge.
         Once the dynamite was secured to Mike's satisfaction he carefully inserted the two blasting caps and placed about two feet of quick burning fuse in the caps.
         "Jake, you and David get behind that big Oak tree. I'll light the fuse and jump in the hole before it goes up."
"That Mike is one smart man when it comes to dynamiting dogs to death," I thought to myself. That might become a regular way of curing mangy dogs.
         Jake and me got behind the tree, and watched around the side as Mike lit the fuse and ran for the freshly dug hole that was intended to be the outhouse pit.
         I saw that old Sarge was shaking like a leaf and pulling at the wire that held him.
"He probably knows it ain't normal to be tied to a tree with a hot thing tied around his back, burning and hissing like a snake," I said to Jake.
"Shut up and watch," Jake said.
         Now that dynamite was really shooting off sparks and old Sarge started jerking even more. Suddenly the fuse had touched his hairless back and burned it, and old Sarge had taken all he could stand.
         He gave a mighty YELP. A half growl and half moan, and he was FREE! Old Sarge broke that wire.
         "Hey, Mike, Jake yelled, that damned dog is getting loose. Holy Cow, if he comes over here he will probably blow us all up and kill us."
         Jake picked up a rock and threw it at the dog, who was now running around and around in circles biting at his backside. I threw a rock at him and missed, but Mike threw a clump of fresh dirt and hit old Sarge in the butt, which made him howl.
         The dog was running in larger and larger circles as the fuse burned shorter and shorter. Suddenly old Sarge turned and made a beeline for the house, to get under the porch, where he always slept.
         "He's going to the house, he's going to get under the porch. Good Lord almighty, Granny is on the porch by herself. Good God.  Granny, Granny, get away." Mike screamed as loud as he could holler.
Granny, of course, couldn't hear anything, and especially from so far away. Plus, she was tied up. Granny just kept rocking and talking to herself.
         Mike's wife, Ruth, had tied Granny to her rocker before going to visit her own mother on the other side of the hill. Mike’s wife would be gone all day.
Granny was alone, and still rocking happily as old Sarge went under the porch. She was talking to herself, or to some spirit only she could see. I couldn’t see them.
Mike and Jake were going crazy hollering at Granny, but it did no good. Granny couldn't hear anything.
         I wondered why she didn't cast a spell on old Sarge and make him run into the woods to blow up? Granny rocked away contentedly as she chewed her tobacco and talked. Those spirits had Granny completely absorbed in what they were saying.
I imagine she may have been dreaming about casting a spell on someone right then, or dreaming about roots and stuff to kill folks with, or to cure them with.
         I believe she would prefer killing folks with spells, since she was, after all, a Witch. Witches do that, you know. I know they do, anyway.
         Old Sarge was now under the porch. And laying directly under Granny. Jake and Mike were running toward the house, still screaming for old Sarge, who was ignoring them, when the house blew up.
         "WHOMP" It sounded like an atom bomb to me. The front porch and roof went flying toward the woods. The living room and bedroom just sort of raised up about 20 feet in the air and fell back down with a THUD!
Jake and Mike were knocked flat by the blast, but it didn't bother anything about me but my ears, which were ringing like a bell.
"Wow, I said to myself, this is wonderful. This is like a war, or something in the movies.” I would have hearing problems for weeks, but I didn’t mind a bit.
         I watched the house go flying through the air with fascination from behind the tree. I saw old Sarge run into the woods "like a bat out of hell," as my mother would say. That dog wasn't hurt at all, but Granny had gone straight up through the roof.
         "This is just like being in the War," I thought, as wood rained down around me. "That is probably what it looked like when we bombed them Japs." I had never felt or seen anything better in my whole 8 years.
         The sound suddenly died away, and all was still. I could barely hear Jake crying and hiccupping. He walked over to where Mike had been knocked to the ground and knelt down by him.
"Mike, Mike, are you dead? Get up Mike, damn it all to hell, don't be dead. My sister will never forgive me if you are dead." Jake was crying and talking at the same time to Mike, who looked dead to me.
Mike groaned and sat up slowly, before getting to his knees. He looked sort of dazed, and was covered with dirt.
"Lord in heaven, Jake, Old Sarge has killed Granny. What am I going to do?"
"She might not be dead, Mike. We need to go find her, maybe she is just banged up real bad and bloody, or something," Jake answered as he helped Mike up.
         "David, where's David? Oh shit. If he is dead his Mom will kill me and you both, Mike." Jake was probably right about that, since mama expected him to take care of me.
"I ain't hurt, Jake, I hid behind the tree," I hollered to them.
By now Mike was on his feet checking to see if he was hurt.
         He didn't have even a scratch, just dirt, but Jake had a big bruise where he fell and hit his head when the house blew up. It seemed like a waste of dynamite, to me, if no one was dead or seriously hurt.
         They made me sit on a log while they searched for Granny among the wreckage of the house. They found her, or what was left of her, which Jake told me and my Dad wasn't too much. She was sure as the world dead!
         I wasn't allowed to see her body, which really, really disappointed me, because I had never seen a dead body, and I wanted to. Especially a dead witch.
         My Dad built her coffin out of pine boards, and I was able to help him by handing him nails and stuff. They used the hole Mike had dug for the toilet to bury her in.
         At Granny’s funeral, we sang “shall we gather at the river” and other such songs, and prayed for the old woman to go to heaven. I don’t believe she did go to heaven, though, being a witch and all. God don’t like no witches, so she went to Hell.
         I always thought that Mike was real lucky to have had that outhouse hole ready and waiting for his Granny. It saved him a lot of work because he didn't have to dig a new grave to bury her in.
         I saw old Sarge about three days later when he came down to our house. He still had the mange, but I fed him some old pinto beans and Mabel gave him a bath in Kerosene to try to cure his mange. Sarge ran off soon as Mabel turned him loose.
He never came back after that, and I guess getting that last bath in oil was just too much for him. I never liked that damn dog anyway, and he didn't like me.
I asked Jake if he ever thought about Granny, and he said he "thought more about Old Sarge, and how in the hell had old Sarge survived that dynamite blast, anyway?"
         I don't know, but I guess maybe Granny had dropped a spell on that dog, or something magical, like a root, to protect him from dog mange, or ticks, that protected him from dynamite instead. That charm worked for Old Sarge.
Too bad she didn't put a charm on herself, huh? Don't tell my Mamma or my Sister Mabel that I said that, please.

This is a work of fiction. All characters are imaginary.
David S. Rains