The Tobacco Cutters and Other Stories of Northeastern Kentucky

“The fine October late afternoon was the perfect period to a day of autumn’s best mellow. All around the hills shouted with the gold of sugar maples and hickories, the scarlet and copper of oaks, and the burgundy of ashes. The sky was of that blue only fall can brush across the firmament and the air had tht bracing texture that rejuvenates one’s energy and spirit. The bite of the gentle westerly breeze that coursed the little valley and brought scattered leaves wafting to earth foretold that the next morning would awaken to another frost. But Peck could not feel nor see the seasonal charms, which as a hill man who lived close to the land, his habit was to observe and appreciate instinctively. His mission had clouded all sensitivity to such things. The image of Brute’s lifeless body lightly filmed with the coming morning’s frost suddenly flashed in Peck’s mind and brought an involuntary shudder.”— From “His Brother’s Dog”. “The sound that came from Charlie wasn’t anything we’d ever heard before from a human. Call it a howl, a shriek, a scream; it was an awful animal noise, wild and primal, something scary and dangerous. It had in it the wail of a mother who has just lost her child and the anguish of a man when he’s found out that the person he loved most has betrayed him. You could hear all the accumulated anger, grief, and general misery in human history in that cry….”—from “The Tobacco Cutters.” “So, Reverend, I went out onto the porch. The moon was full and you could see all around in detail. And, as the Lord God is my witness, preacher, right there—between where we are sitting and the porch steps—was old Bart James. It was sight that no one should ever see, or could see without losing his mind. He was a mix of bloody, mangled, and rotten flesh, with big patches of bone gleaming in that moonlight. I could see where Cliff’s shot had blasted away his skull-bone and the brains were dripping out and maggots crawling inside his head….”—from “Young Reverend Hughes Hears a Confession”.