Read Online Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952 by Wild Dogs of Drowning Creek (v1.1) - Free Book Online Page A

tired
of reading?” he suggested.
                 “No,”
said Randy. “I’ll catch my breath and go ahead.”
                 Again
he took up the story of Krag. While he read of the brave ram’s leadership of
his mountain flock, and the half-crazy pursuit of Krag by a hunter who swore to
collect that majestically horned head, Tasman prepared another lump of clay. He
fashioned a second pitcher, and then a third, while Randy continued the story
to its end, with both Krag and his human destroyer going down to death. All
three were fascinated by the narrative, and when it was finished, Tasman set
his last pitcher to dry with the others.
                 “That’s
not the sweetest story ever told, boys,” he observed, “but that’s the way of life.
When folks tell you that nature is always kind, they’re being too short and
simple. Nature can be rough, too.”
                 “I
reckon I go along with that, Mr. Tasman,” said Jebs. “Nature raises up whole nations of animals, and nature destroys them again, too. Maybe when a
hunter kills an animal, right quick and painless, he could be saving it from a
worse death.”
                 “Yes,”
said Tasman, pushing back his chair. “Any animal—one as strong and smart and
brave as that Krag ram your friend was reading about—may live long enough to
get old. When that happens, he’s in a fix. He can die pretty miserably if he’s
old, or crippled—or blind.”
                 He
shut his mouth, with an audible snap of his teeth. Then he smiled, as though it
took an effort to do so.
                 “I
think I owe you kids an explanation,” he went on.
“That mountain-life stuff in the story carried me back in my own thoughts. I
used to live in the mountains, just like I told you.”
                 “The North
Carolina mountains ?” prompted Jebs. “Right. I reckon there’s been a Tasman in the North Carolina mountains since ’way back to the first
settlers. A Tasman fought at Kings Mountain in the Revolution. There was a Tasman in
Congress about the time of Andrew Jackson. My grandfather was in the
Thirty-second North Carolina Infantry that nearly got wiped out on the second
day at Gettysburg . And long before I was born, Tasmans made
pottery, plain and fancy. For quite a spell of years, my folks did right well
at pottery-making, because they got to selling their work in tourist towns— Asheville , Hendersonville , and so on—for the visitors to buy for
souvenirs.”
                 “Sounds
like a good job,” Jebs offered.
                 “Think
so, boy? It might be, if you liked it. But I was sort of different from the
rest of my folks. Potterymaking’s an indoor career, and I wanted to be
outdoors.”
                Pausing, Tasman shuffled to the
doorway, and sat down on the sill. His sightless eyes turned here and there, as
if striving to see the clearing and the trees.
                 “I
purely loved the mountains,” he resumed. “You feel on top of everything when
you’re a mountain man. You realize why they call that part of North Carolina the Land of the Sky.” His eyes turned
upward for a moment. “Well, I made pottery with the rest of the family while I
was a kid, but I managed to get a scholarship. I went off to college—to Davidson College , near Charlotte . I studied science and natural history. I
wanted to spend my life learning and telling about the animals and plants of
the mountains; maybe even writing books about them.”
                 “That
would be a good life, too,” said Randy.
                 “You
sound as if you might know what I mean, son. Well, when I finished college, I
went back to the mountains. My mother’s father had died, and he willed me a
little farm he’d owned, off in Jackson County . Lowlanders might laugh at a place like
that. I guess it had more acres stood up on