High up on the tops of the ridges, forest became lea.

Yesterday his sister called and said his water wasn’t working.  I was kind of busy, but as I’ve become accustomed, dropped everything and went over to see what needed to be done.  I’d already put a temperature-controlled heater in his pump house, but it’s not sufficient in extreme cold due to the gaps in the walls.  You’d have to see that collapsing old pump house to appreciate what it’s like to try and work in there, but we’ve had some -10F temps this winter, and a hydrant valve must have frozen and busted.  Now that it has warmed up, the thing was spraying, and had been for who knows how long.  Anyway, I had to make a trip into town and get a new faucet and put it on, and the job went smoothly enough.  Afterwards I reconciled myself, as always, to the obligatory visit in which to hear stories and anecdotes on how clueless all the young people are nowadays and hopefully hear some of his unparalleled stories of the old days.  I always listen – I enjoy listening to those tales, even the ones I’ve heard before, which by now is most all of them.  After doing the job in that wretched pump house, it was nice to be out and sit and talk with him.  I’ve also learned over the years that when it’s time to go home, it’s not necessarily impolite to leave him talking.  He doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he doesn’t really seem to even notice.  There’s just no other way to go about it.  He doesn’t stop.  And as it’s so captivating to listen to him, if I don’t keep in mind that I have to go, I could get hooked for hours, and believe me, I have.

Old dilapidated pickup trucks and pieces of road maintenance equipment, some from the 1940s, silently sit in varying states of rust and decay, some hidden in the woods, others proudly rusting in the open sunshine of hay fields where beef cattle grazed not so long ago.  It’s almost as if they’re watching; waiting, but for what?

Many years ago, and for years, he cleared the hill tops of the hardwood forests that are prevalent in this part of the country.  Cleared timber and rocks to make hay fields and grazing pastures, and there are acres and acres of them.  Said his dad paid him ten cents a wagon load of rocks, long piles of which are still lying along the fence lines where he took them all those years ago.

There’s an old barn down the dirt road, Timberline Road, that he built with his own hands as an adult, but also many years ago.  Due to all of the cow fertilizer which accumulated there, and the fact that the cows are gone, weeds and vines are growing profusely all around it, winding up through rolls of used wove-wire fence, unidentifiable pieces and parts of farm equipment, and rusty gate sections.  Back in the days before he got into the beef cattle business, he ran dairy cows there and attended to all the labor-intensive operations of feeding, milking, delivering calves, and the numerous other duties required.  The fading and peeling white paint testifies to the many silent years gone by since the milk days.  He morphed from dairy to raising beef cattle somewhere along the line, but in the last few years, he sold off his herd – just got too old to work them anymore.  He sure has been lonesome there with all those old cows gone.  Sometimes in decent weather I go over and ride with him on his ATV, and we go over his property, just like we did when we rode around to see his cows, but now that they’re gone, he just stares wistfully across the lonely fields he spent so much of his life working. Sometimes I wonder if he still sees cows and hears them lowing out in those silent fields of yesterday.

I’ve been living here going on five years, sort of across and about a half-mile down the dirt road from his house, an ancient homemade hardwood mountain hovel with a rusty tin roof – all precariously perched on the east slope of the hollow.  I live in the bottom of the same hollow sort of on the west side.  Not long after I moved here, there was a big dead tree still standing on his side of the road and since I had already done some odd jobs for him (free of charge of course), he always wanted to pay me for helping him but I wouldn’t take any money, so I went over to his place and asked him if I could cut it – we could square up with firewood – the tree needed to be felled because eventually it would come down in a high wind and land on the road.  He okayed it and even grabbed his chain saw and showed up on his giant tractor to help.  I was impressed that a fellow his age could still get out there and sling a chain saw like he did.  Someone forgot to tell him he was too old to do that.  But alas, age has overtaken him now, and he couldn’t work firewood anymore.

In the years I’ve known him, I’ve spent many an hour listening to his stories of life here in the Ozarks – mostly stories from long ago.  A tough customer of a hardscrabble life in the Ozark hills, he’s suffered his share of accidents – once in a sawmill a piece of wood flew out of a saw and hit him in the left eye.  He had to go find a friend to take him to Springfield (about 75 miles away) to the doctor, but they couldn’t save the eye.  Years later as an old man with only one eye he can still see deer in the woods that most folks (including myself) don’t see.

He was working out in the woods cutting timber when he was younger, and felled a tree which came down in an unexpected way, and landed on his leg.  He called his friend who was working with him to help him and he got free and finished cutting wood and loading the truck.  It was only after he got back to the mill that he took off his boot and looked at his injury – his lower leg and ankle was broken in three places!  And he’d kept on working.  He tells another story of operating a tractor that flipped over backwards and trapped his foot under the steering wheel.  He said gasoline was pouring from the tank right next to him, and the engine was still running.  He had to cut his boot off to get free, and he did.  He never said whether the tractor burned up after he got away.  He was definitely a tough old codger.

He’s got a big buck cape mount covered with dust in the living room of his farm house.  It’s got a huge spread – one of the biggest racks I’ve seen in person, but he never had it scored.  I’m sure it would make book.  He relishes telling the story of how he got it.  Wasn’t even hunting.  He stepped out of the door of the farmhouse down the road where his sister now lives, and saw the giant buck about 75 yards away, and went back into the house and got his gun and stepped back out and bagged it.  There were family members in the house when he walked back in and told them he’d shot a big buck, they walked out in disbelief to see it.  Sure enough, a monster buck was on the ground out there.

There’s a lone walnut tree in the hay field south of his house, on a slope down to the road.  He tells me that’s where he wants to be buried – right under that tree.  The tree stands patiently waiting.  Maybe that’s what the old relic barns and vehicles scattered around are waiting for too.  Who knows?

He’s grown old now, and his health is failing.  Has diabetes, heart problems, arthritis or gout in his knees that hurts him so bad he can barely walk, and the good Lord only knows what else might be going on in that old carcass.  He has to use a cane to get around anymore.  His mind wanders and he has a lot of trouble remembering things.  We recently talked and he mentioned that he might be interested in a nursing home.  I encouraged him to do that, he is at a point where he can’t take care of himself.  Hopefully he will make that call, I’m sure he’d be better off, but this old neighborhood and those hay pastures will never be the same without him.