Secret of the Satilfa. Ted Dunagan

and I both thought a lot of my Uncle Curvin. We had picked cotton for him back during the summer and he had always been mighty good to us. We also admired him because he had fought in World War One all the way over in Europe and got himself shot in the leg, which crippled him but did entitle him to a small disability check that came in the mail each month from the government.

      He looked the same as always, wearing his old brown slouch hat with sweat stains on it, a blue, long-sleeved work shirt, and a pair of overalls. Beneath his hat, his face was all caved in because he didn’t have any teeth.

      “What in the world happened up there, Uncle Curvin?” I asked.

      “I went up there to cash my check at the bank and all heck broke loose while Mrs. Vinny was counting out my money. She was telling me how she wanted to buy a bushel of sweet taters when all of a sudden she stopped talking and her eyes got big as saucers. I could tell she was looking at something behind me, so I turned around. You boys won’t never believe what I was looking at!”

      “We might, if you would just tell us. What was it?” I asked.

      “Scared me worsen I been scared since I was in the war. Came might near wetting my pants on myself. I been shaking like a leaf in a windstorm ever since.”

      “Shore sound like it wuz something real bad,” Poudlum said.

      “Yeah, maybe we’ll find out what it was one of these days,” I said with a sideways glance toward Poudlum, but my words were directed toward my uncle to let him know we were getting a bit impatient.

      Uncle Curvin sank down on the running board of his truck like he was worn down to a frazzle. Whatever had happened to him, it had just about got the best of him.

      “Y’all just keep your britches on and I’ll tell what it was I saw when I turned around.”

      We stepped closer and squatted down in front of him in anticipation.

      “When I turned around, boys, I was looking down both barrels of a sawed-off double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. And it was scary, ’cause I knew that thing could scatter me to kingdom come.”

      “Good Lord, Uncle Curvin!” I exclaimed. “Was it a bank robber?”

      “They was two of them,” he said. “The other one had a mean-looking pistol that he was waving around.”

      “What did you do, Mister Curvin?” Poudlum asked, wide-eyed as an owl at dusk dark.

      “Why, I did exactly what he told me to. I got face down on the floor and started praying.”

      “They told you to pray?” I asked.

      “Naw, I done that on my own.”

      “Then what happened?”

      “Well, the one with the scattergun held everybody at bay while the other one went behind the counter and cleaned out all the money. I peeked up and saw that my little pile of money was still laying on the counter.

      “The one with the pistol grabbed it when he came out from behind the counter with his sack of money, but the other one jerked it out of his hand and dropped it down on the floor next to me on their way out of the bank.”

      “So you didn’t lose your money?”

      “Nary a dime of it. Got it all right here in the bib pocket of my overalls. I don’t know why they done that, but I shore do appreciate them not taking my pitiful little pension. A lot of rich folks can afford to lose a lot of money more than I can afford to lose these few dollars.”

      “Did they catch ’em, Mister Curvin?”

      “Naw, they got clean away. Wouldn’t nobody to stop ’em.”

      “How about the law?” I asked.

      “Shoot, the law was all out collecting their cut from the bootleggers. Mr. Leon Stringer, he owns the bank you know, went running outside after the robbers left with his necktie and suit coat flapping in the wind and went straight over to the sheriff’s office, but couldn’t find nobody there except the jailer. That’s what he told us when he come back. That sorry excuse for a sheriff, Elroy Crowe, showed up ’bout a half hour later, just long enough for the trail to get cold.”

      “Sounds like dem bank robbers got clean away,” Poudlum said.

      “Well, somebody did see ’em leave town heading down Highway 84 toward Coffeeville. Sheriff Crowe got on his radio and had somebody put up a road block down there to stop them from taking the ferry across the Tombigbee River, ’cause he said they were probably trying to get across the Mississippi State Line.”

      “Did they get across the river?” I asked.

      “Naw. I heard everything on the sheriff’s radio. They skidded around when they come up on the road block and headed back up Highway 84. They found their abandoned vehicle ’side the bridge over the Satilfa Creek, and figured they were heading down the creek toward the river on foot. Last I heard they were talking about getting some dogs together and start tracking them.”

      “Whew, you done had yourself a day, Uncle Curvin. You saw a bank robbery, and then on top of that, had yourself a flat tire.”

      He got up off the running board and started getting in his truck when he said, “You got that right, son. I believe I’m going home and lay down for a spell. I ain’t used to bank robbers and flat tires.”

      He cranked up his truck, put it in gear, leaned out the window and said, “How long you boys plan to fish?”

      “Tonight and tomorrow night, and then we’ll probably go home Sunday morning,” I told him.

      “I might mosey over here and check on y’all sometime this weekend.”

      “We’ll be at the Cypress Hole, and we got two extra poles. Come on by.”

      “I expect I might. Good luck, boys,” he called out through the truck window as he pulled out onto the road. We watched until his dust trail disappeared around the curve.

      Poudlum scratched his head and said, “You don’t think he made all dat stuff up, do you?”

      “Naw, he wouldn’t do that. Come on, the trail to the Cypress Hole is right up yonder on the left.”

      “Well, I just hopes dem bank robbers did head down de creek towards de river and not back up de creek dis way.”

      “They probably want to get to Mississippi, like the sheriff said. They wouldn’t come back up this way,” I reassured him.

      We could see the bridge over the creek when we turned off the road onto the trail that angled through the woods to our destination. On both sides of the trail there were great red oaks and cedar trees, thick with tangled muscadine vines. The wild grapes had long ago been consumed by squirrels and raccoons. I liked those wild grapes. You could pop one in your mouth, bite down on it and it would burst in your mouth and render a sweet, tangy juice. There were seeds which you had to spit out, and the hull, after you chewed on it a little. My momma made some delicious jelly from the juice of them. She even made preserves from the hulls. They were both tasty inside a biscuit.

      The trail was like a tunnel with tree branches forming a canopy above your head. A little further into the woods and the cypress trees began to appear with long draping ribbons of Spanish moss hanging from the limbs.

      “Dis is spooky,” Poudlum uttered in almost a whisper.

      “Don’t worry,” I said. “It opens up into a big clearing just a little ways up on the creek bank.”

      We emerged from the trail and there it was, the place where Ned and Fred and I swam in the summer and the best fishing hole on the creek. You could see the sky up through a large opening of the forest.

      Poudlum turned in a complete circle, taking it all in. “Now, I likes dis place,” he said. “It’s big and open. And look over there, it looks like somebody had a fire built over by de creek bank.”