Dancin’ the Chicken
by Gary Clifton
Missouri Ozarks, 1937: the Great Depression was in full sway. Money was as scarce as an honest preacher. Grandpa had traded a lame mule for an old Hansen wagon with rubber tires and was hauling Georgie on a trip down the main highway to Benton’s store.
“When we gonna get there, Grandpa?” Georgie had asked the same question repeatedly.
“Lord ’a mercy, boy, you gonna fidget off the wagon box. Try lookin’ and not yammerin’, you’d be a-seein’ the sign just a piece up ahead there.”
The August sun and mountain humidity were sweltering. “Never had no whole big orange afore, Grandpa. Cain’t wait.” Tow-headed Georgie, seven, lived in a dusty little cabin in Hog Hollar up at the high end of Scoot’s Trail with his mama and paternal grandfather, Davis McCoy. He didn’t know his daddy. Rural school was closed for the summer; no bath for Georgie until mid-September.
Mama had worked for the past year or so for Doctor Jensen as day help with his invalid wife. Doc picked Mama up every morning at six a.m. in his brand-new Ford convertible, leaving Grandpa and Georgie to batch it. Her job was a godsend in hard times.
Georgie was too young to speculate if Mama’s duties might expand beyond the needs of Doc’s wife.
“Why the hell cain’t old Barney pull no faster?” Georgie tossed a pebble at the sturdy animal. The trip to Benton’s was about a half-mile down rutted Scoot’s Trail to the main highway, then a couple of miles along the new road. Descending the trail, Grandpa had to lay hard on the brake to keep the rig from rolling over the mule.
The highway was asphalt with a slight narrow shoulder. Traffic was light, and Grandpa managed to squeeze over for passing traffic while calming Barney with a tug on the reins when some drivers crowded close by, blaring their horns.
“Be a-watchin’ that language, boy,” Grandpa admonished just as he finished a masterpiece of profanity at a horn-heavy driver.
Grandpa had been a jailer for the local County Sheriff until he cut off the thumb of his pistol hand sawing firewood with a bucksaw. When a new sheriff was elected, Grandpa was terminated, even though he said he didn’t need no damn thumb to wrestle prisoners. Since then, he’d stepped up his production of moonshine whiskey. Bootlegging paid about the same, and the hours were more tolerable. So Grandpa’s offer to haul Georgie to Benton’s that morning also included delivering two gallons of sixty proof to old man Benton.
“We there, Grandpa!” Georgie squealed as Barney crunched across the gravel. Old man Benton sold groceries, animal seed, hardware, sandwiches and other general merchandise, but the meat of the old man’s business was selling ’shine to anyone fortunate enough to have two bits for a two-swallow shot. The place was half full before lunchtime. Customers ranged from half in the bag to staggering drunk.
Carrying his two gallons of temporary happiness in a gunnysack, Grandpa stepped inside, he and Georgie scarcely noticed by the comfortably tipsy patrons. Then, above the din, a rough voice said angrily, “I gets me ’ands on that bigfooted bastard Davis McCoy, I’m makin’ him dance the chicken.”
“We goin’ a-dancin’, Grandpa?” Georgie asked, eyes wide. Georgie recognized the man, a livestock trader who had visited their cabin in Hog Hollar.
The big man went on: ““He’s by God farmed out the woman he loves to that snotty doctor. I know he’s a-gettin’ his palm greased outa the sordid affair.”
But Grandpa didn’t hear Georgie, only the loudmouth’s diatribe. Benton’s bar was a low affair, about as high as a kitchen table. Fifty, but husky and strong, Grandpa plopped his gunny sack on the bar and tapped the man on the shoulder. “Muldoon, I’m here. Feel free to lay on them hands.” His thumbless overhand right literally lifted Muldoon off his feet and over the low bar.
Georgie stood, frozen in astonishment. His last sight of the man was his broad backside doing a backward somersault, disappearing behind the bar.
A second man, a cohort of Muldoon, growled, “Damn you, McCoy,” and advanced with a Barlow knife in hand and a face frozen in murderous intent.
Grandpa parried the blow and, with a second right hand, sent the man over the low bar to join Muldoon. Turning to the crowd, he asked, “Next?”
Old man Benton appeared from a back room with a large revolver, sending a round through the ceiling. The roar of the revolver in the closed room was a deafening conclusion to any further violence. “Okay, gents, everyone step outside for a minute or so. I appreciate your patronage, and we’ll be back in bidness shortly.”
As the crowd clustered near the door, Muldoon crawled around the end of the bar on his knees, blood flooding his mouth and chin. His eyes were glazed in the stupor of the recently injured and, when he tried to speak, several teeth clattered to the floor.
Grandpa motioned for Benton to lower the pistol, then said, “Well, Muldoon, I’m still ready to learn how to dance the chicken. Get the hell up and let’s get on with it.”
Benton lowered the pistol. “McCoy, I believe he’s outa fight. I’ll see both men to the doc. Won’t call no laws.”
“Be a-paying me and we outa here,” Grandpa gestured at the gunny sack.
* * *
Barney, refreshed with water and a spot of grain, pulled the wagon back toward Hog Hollar.
Georgie vigorously worked on a big orange soda and a MoonPie.
“Uh, Georgie, maybe best not to tell your mama ’bout this.”
Georgie, confused, but far more knowledgeable of barroom brawling than dancing, blinked in the sun’s glare and took a pull on his big orange. “Okay, Grandpa. Don’t tell Mama.” Nobody in the hills would snitch on Grandpa anyway, he thought.
Copyright © 2023 by Gary Clifton
