Old Piney Woodsman had a really bad habit and this habit drove everyone who knew him just a little bit crazy. He had the habit of stretching the truth just a little and some folks thought that he stretched the truth more than just a little, if the truth be told.
But, in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, folks, when seeing old Piney shuffling down the street, did either one of two things. They immediately headed in a different direction to avoid direct interaction with him or stayed where they were and put up with him and all his tall tales.
On Saturdays, most of the male population of Ashland usually headed for Philbert's Barber Shop which was the only barber shop for miles around. Old Philbert opened his doors promptly at seven am and if you were one minute late, you had to wait and this was the time that the men liked the most. It wasn't the waitin that they particularly liked, it was the telling of tall tales while they waited, that they enjoyed.
In Aroostook County, which is the largest county in the State of Maine and the largest county east of the Mississippi, there are plenty of things to do especially if you are the hunting, fishing and outdoors kind of person. The county is home to so many different kinds of wild animals to hunt, trap, fish and stalk that there are always an endless variety of stories or tall tales being told about these creatures and each person always tries to best his neighbor.
Piney had been born in the small settlement of Squapan around the turn of the century, to a large French family that had migrated across the vast border that separated the State of Maine and Canada. His mother often told the neighbors that no sooner was the crib vacated by one kid learnin to walk when another little "christer" arrived to take its place. Piney had been christened Pinotte Arthur Woodsman but his name soon got shortened to "Piney" and he liked it that way.
Even as a little boy, he was always runnin around with one tall tale after another. If an older brother told of how, on his way home from school, he'd seen a large, bull moose crossing the road, Piney would sit and listen carefully to the story and after digesting the information for a couple of minutes, he'd jump up and begin telling of the huge moose that he'd just seen down by the river on the same day. No matter what anyone else professed to havin seen, Piney could and did, always go them one better.
As the years went by, Piney acquired the reputation around town and the better part of Aroostook County as being a pest, a bore, ah pain in tha ass, a liar, a fool and every other epithet that anyone could think of. Town folks, upon being accosted by folks from away, soon got into the habit of sicing them on Piney. Then they'd slip into Philbert's Barber Shop or Chasse's Department Store, peek out the window and laugh their asses off as they watched Piney fill the vacationer's heads full of lies and tall tales.
Now, local folks being who they are, they couldn't come right out and call old Piney an outright liar but most folks agreed amongst themselves that he was. But, like all small towns everywhere, folks recognize that everyone has a differing view of things and pretty much accept people as they are, especially if they've known you all their lives and they jist might be related to you in one obscure way or another. So, when Piney started with one of his long, tall tales, local folks just rolled their eyes, nudged each other in tha ribs and slid off to finish their shopping or find someone else who had a more credible story.
By the time Piney had reached his middle sixties, he had told uncountable stories over the years about every conceivable creature that was known to exist in the county and several that didn't. If his wife saw a mouse in the kitchen, it immediately got changed to a rat when Piney retold it around town later on that day. He just seemed to have to embellish, enlarge and fabricate each and every story he told.
But the story to end all stories never got told by old Piney. It was the final story so to speak and it was all about Piney. Years afterwards, when folks sat around their stoves in the dead of winter and the temperature outside hovered around thirty clapboards below zero, Piney's story was the one that folks often remembered first and it usually put a clutch of fear in their hearts as they retold it.
It was fall and the leaves were in varying degrees of changing color. Frost had slid into "tha county" overnight and some trees were totally bare while others were hanging on to their leaves for their last hurrah. Others were every color that Mother Nature could make. The area of Aroostook County where Piney lived was on the 45th parallel and the seasons changed swiftly there, sometimes over night.
Like most Saturdays, Piney's wife was on a roll. She'd nudged his ample union suit clad body out of bed at the crack of dawn and before he knew it, she'd swiftly remade the bed before he could even think of slidin back into it warm interior. She'd been naggin him for the better part of the month of October that he needed to put up the storm windows and do the bankin around the house before tha first snow flew, but after forty years of marriage, Piney had perfected the art of turnin a deaf ear to her many wants and needs. It's not that he wanted to ignore her or anything like that but he had other priorities and those priorities jist weren't the same as hers.
On this particular day, Olene had had about all she could take of her lazy, lying husband and she chased him out the kitchen door as soon as she could. She had things to do and didn't need him at home to git in her way. Piney was still tucking his shirttail into his shabby, wool pants when the kitchen door opened and she heaved a heavy sack of trash out onto the frost-covered grass behind him. He turned in the path and seeing Olene looking at him out the kitchen window, he gave her his middle "fickle finger of fate" salute, turned and headed for the shed.
Saturday had a ritual all its own at the Woodsman's house. If it was Saturday, Olene expected him to take the trash that had been accumulatin all week in the bed of his pick-up, to the town dump and after having disposed of the trash, he was to pick up the groceries that she'd written on a list and then come straight home. Piney heaved the heavy sack of trash onto the top of the pile in the bed of his old truck, opened the door and pulled himself up into the sagging front seat. He slid his knarled, right hand down into the back of the seat cushion beside him and felt for the cold bottle of Narragansett beer that he had stashed there. He smiled to himself as he thought about drinkin the cool brew and how refreshin it always felt as it slid down his parched throat.
He slid his dirt encrusted work boots along the floor until he found the starter and he stomped on it. The old engine rolled over a couple of times, coughed, spit out a cloud of heavy, black smoke and died. Piney swore out loud, pressed the accelerator to the floor and stomped on the starter again. The smell of gas permeated the cab and Piney coughed as the fumes crawled into his nose and down his throat. Finally, the engine caught and settled into a rough idle. Piney slammed the gear into first and the old pickup crawled past his dilapidated house and out into the gravel road in a cloud of blue exhaust. He turned the heavy steering wheel a sharp left and headed down the Masardis Road towards town with the trash bags rolling around in the bed of his truck and loose bits of trash and paper flying out into the road behind him.
He slowed to a crawl as he neared Jimmo's Market and continued on up Main Street towards the next intersection. He slid his old, blood-shot eyes towards Sealey's Diner as his protruding stomach grumbled beneath his worn out leather belt. Olene used to make him wonderful breakfasts when they'd first gotten married but as the years passed she'd somehow forgotten that a man still needed to eat. "I'll stop there and git myself a good, big breakfast on my way back," he promised himself as he drove on by the empty diner.
When he reached the intersection of Main and School Streets, he paused for a couple of seconds, looked right and left and then he drove through the empty intersection down over the hill towards the dump that was located outside of Sheridan just before the Catholic Cemetery.
Upon nearin the dump, he wrenched the steering wheel a hard left and turned the truck onto the dirt road that led to the dump and it wasn't too long before he was starin at a huge pile of trash. He followed the pot hole filled road around to the back of the pile and jerked to a stop. He looked around him and all he saw was ripped, plastic bags of trash, broken furniture and other people's junk. He always parked in the same spot every time he came because the huge trash pile shielded him from view when he wanted to drink his beer and smoke a cigarette.
Piney shoved his stubby fingers down into the back of the seat cushion, grabbed the neck of the beer bottle, pulled it out and got out of the truck. He walked slowly around to the back of the pickup, wrenched open the tailgate and laid it down. Then he hefted himself up onto the rusting, green metal and sat down. He pried the cap off the bottle, took a long pull of the cold beer and set it down next to him on the tailgate. Feelin warm, he unbuttoned his red and black wool jacket and fished around inside until he'd located his crumpled pack of Camel cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He shook one out, stuck it in his mouth and lit it. He sucked the strong, yellow smoke deep into his lungs until they protested and he coughed as the smoke curled out of his mouth and up past his nose. His eyes watered and he wiped his scratchy, woolen cuff across them. "Jist like coffee," he thought to himself. "Tha first cigarette of the day is always tha best!"
He sat there in the wintery sunshine nursin his beer and smokin for the longest while. He usually spent his Saturdays this way because he didn't have any place else to go and Olene sure didn't want him at home. He'd sit there on his tailgate and watch the wispy clouds as they drifted silently across the clear blue northern sky or he'd count the crows as they flew from branch to branch on the many trees that ringed the dump. Sometimes, he'd see small creatures as they scuttled from one mound of trash to another, lookin for food or a place to hide.
He lifted the beer bottle, drained the last bit of amber liquid into his mouth, took the empty bottle and heaved it towards the vast pile of trash. Then he stubbed out his cigarette butt on the tailgate and slid off the end of the truck. He turned, reached into the bed of the truck and grabbed the first bag of trash and grunting, heaved it towards the large mound in front of him. His bag hit about halfway up the side of the pile and slid down until it rested on the ground. He drug out the remaining trash bags from the bed of his pick-up and heaved them in the same general direction until his truck bed was empty. He picked up his cigarette stub, dropped it to the ground and jist to be sure it was out, ground it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. Then he turned and started past the rear fender as he headed for the cab.
Suddenly, he heard the clinking of bottles in the pile of trash and the sound of the mound of debris being moved behind him. The hair on the nape of his neck stood up and he turned just in time to see the large mountain of trash slide in his direction. He couldn't believe his eyes! Something was underneath the pile of trash and it was movin slowly towards him!
He stumbled towards the cab and scrabbled for the rusted door handle. The door screeched open and just as he was about to lift his foot onto the running board, he saw something appear behind him in the small side view mirror. When the large black image that he'd just seen reflected in the mirror slid onto his brain, the wind was sucked out of his congested lungs. "That couldn't be what I think I saw," he said to himself as he looked into the mirror again. But there it was! Standing on its two hind feet was the biggest, blackest bear that he'd ever seen. It stood where it was, surrounded by trash, not movin, just sniffin the air to get his scent and direction.
Piney didn't move an inch as he slid his watery brown eyes to the small mirror again and took another look. His old heart did all kinds of things that it had never done before and he was breathin in short, quick gasps. His addled mind was tryin to grasp the situation. The bear was only about twenty feet away and Piney knew that it could cover that distance to him in a very quick manner. The seconds ticked away and Piney ran through his mind all the terrible things that could happen to him. He couldn't outrun a bear and there wasn't another living soul around to hear him even if he yelled for help.
"I'll jist slide into the truck, slam the door and take tha hell off!" he thought to himself. He slowly lifted his right boot up onto the running board and just as he started to pull his heavy bulk up into the cab, he heard the bear movin quickly through the debris behind him.
He gasped and tried to pull himself up into the seat but his body wouldn't cooperate. His legs had turned to jelly and his foot fell back to the ground and he began to tremble. He shot a look at the side view mirror again and what he saw caused him to lose control of his bowels. Hot, sticky matter slid out of his underwear, down his legs into his boots. The bear was moving towards him and it was nearly at the end of the tailgate. Suddenly, Piney remembered the old gun that was tucked out of sight behind the front seat. He couldn't remember when he'd last used it and he couldn't even remember if it was loaded.
The bear stopped about four feet away from Piney and again lifted itself up on its hind legs and stood there casting a long, dark shadow over him. He slowly turned and saw that it was lookin at him with eyes the same color as his. Somehow this thought caused him to laugh and the dry, hacking sound filled the air as Piney tried to gain control of himself. Sweat ran down his face and the bear turned its head back and forth as it smelled his fear.
Piney slowly slid his right hand behind the seat until he felt the stock of the gun fill his hand. He carefully pulled the gun out, cocked it and turned around. At the sound of the click, the bear turned its head and looked directly at him. Piney quickly brought the gun up to chest level; he didn't bother to aim because he knew that he couldn't miss at such close range. He didn't think that he could kill it but maybe he could wound it just enough to give him time to get into the truck and get away.
The bear, sensing the danger, dropped down and started towards him. Piney pulled the trigger and he saw the path of the bullet as it split the skin on the top of the bear's skull. The bear screamed in pain, shook its massive head as though it had been stung by a bee, growled low in its throat and hurled itself across the short distance that separated it from Piney.
Piney held the empty gun out in front of him for protection and gasped as he felt the long, claws tear into his legs and suddenly he smelled the bear's putrid breath as it reared up on its hind legs directly in front of him. The bear cuffed the useless gun out of Piney's hands like it was a toy and knocked him to the ground. It drew back it large paw and hit Piney on the side of his head. Piney felt the burning pain as the yellow claws dug into his head and the skin on the side of his head was ripped from his scull!
The bear grabbed the back of Piney's wrinkled, scrawny neck in it huge jaws and sank its long, yellow carnivore teeth into him. He screamed as the bear raked it claws down through the back of his woolen jacket and into the skin on his back. His last living memory was of searing pain as the bear swiftly disemboweled him.
The bear stayed a long time beside Piney's lifeless form, sniffing him, giving him a slap every now and then and nudging him with its head. When the bear was convinced that its enemy was no longer a threat, it wiped a bloody paw across its eyes just the way that Piney had done earlier in the day.
As the sun began its slow descent into the tree line on the Garfield side of the western horizon, the bear gave Piney a last, long sniff, reared up on its hind legs, looked all around, dropped back down on all four feet and ambled slowly off towards the trees, the Aroostook River and the coming darkness.
As night began to fall, Olene, agitated, pissed off and angry because Piney hadn't returned with her groceries, finally called around town to see if she could find him. It wasn't until later the next morning, when someone else taking their trash to the dump, that Piney was found, half buried under a mound of trash. The finder, screamed when he saw the terrible sight, scuttled out of the dump and went running up the Sheridan Road towards Ashland as though the devil himself was after him.
What was left of poor old Piney was gathered up, given a Christian ceremony and buried in the Catholic Cemetery next to the dump. Folks thought it was an ironic ending that after bragging and lying about all the huge bears that he's seen, shot at, or professed to having killed in his lifetime, he never got to tell the story of his real encounter with the biggest bear he'd ever seen. "Sometimes," folks said, "life's like that."
Copyright (1st Rights) retained by the author, Martha Stevens-David, who can be reached at lmdmsd@megalink.net.
