Spring passes on into summer. Whippoorwills can be hear calling out to one another like lonesome echoes at first dark until first light. Then a new day dawns across the hills in streaks of lemony colors and dust motes dancing on rays of sunlight.
The light comes shining straight from the sun above, to peek into a tiny window and awaken a sleeping child.
Dudy sits up in bed staring at the dancing dust mites. After a bit boredom sets in, and the little cabin becomes a lonely place with no other child to torture. She slips from the bed ever so careful not to awaken her ma and pa. Poor Ernie-Lou Cottle snores in bliss unaware of Dudy going through a chest of drawers and trying on what few panties she had.
The child makes a selection, and commences to pull them on. Of course they are too big, but that does not hinder Dudy. She pulls them up beneath her stick like arms and ties a knot in the elestic waistband. And after working her mouth over with Ernie's bright lipstick, she grabs a cigarette from a pack of Lucky Strikes and slips out the door.
Dudy's cousin Nell had been awake for some time and is just getting into her pedal car to go down into the hollow and worry their poor old mam-maw to death when she sees Dudy running up the road. 'Ma, Dudy is smokin' again, she screams over her shoulder, then takes off over the loose gravel before the ugly little tobacco worm could catch up and hitch a ride.
The ghost child hides behind behind a curmbling stone and watches in admiration of the tiny mortal pedaling pass the old graveyard. It has one hand gripped around the steering wheel and the other around a store boughten peach. A sugar daddy hangs from its mouth like a cigar, and it all laid back as if it had been driving before Jesus was born! Oh how the little specter is impressed!
Dudy is running behind and throwing rocks. The ghost allows that she hadn't combed her hair in weeks. The wicked little darling's hair is standing out on one side and mashed flat on the other. It also notices that Dudy's mouth is bleeding from ear to ear and allows that Nell had hauled off and mashed it.
The sad little specter watches the wee funny mortal through hollow eyes. Its bloomers keep sliding down its skinny butt and it stops now and then to pull them up. Finally it just holds them up with a grubby paw and keeps on running.
'Gimme soma that sucker, it squalls.'
'Unt-un, Nell denies.
She speeds over the ruts just like a full grown woman, cleverly swerving to the side of the road to avoid the poop before passing the Hatton place. All five of the Hatton youngins' used the dirt road for a toilet. They hear the commotion and four of them come running from the house to stand in the yard. The two year old Hatton is squatted in the road doing its business...
When it sees Nell come speeding around a cruve, the poor little mite jumps up and hurries toward the safty of the yard on its chubby legs, but it is too late. The reckless driver swerves toward it at full speed and knocks it flat on its back, then speeds away as if it was no more than common road kill.
Dudy, having more mercy for the squalling baby carefully steps around it, and accidently steps in a pile of fresh poop!
Dudy's eyes are pools of madness and her hair sticks out about her head like hay, but the ghost child loved the ugly young mortal and its heart was broken at the sight of the pitiful little figure crying and dragging its big boney feet through the sand.
The spirit watches until the two mortals vanish through the trees, then it swirls up in vapors of wispy smoke to hover above the tree-line. It is worried that Nell will make a wreck on the dangerous steep leading down into the hollow. And very well should be- with Dudy running after and grabbing at the bumper-
Sure enough it sees the red haired imp take off down the rocky cow-path at a dangerous speed. They are passing Uncle Willie's little shot-gun shack, when the ghost-child gets a revelation of Dudy catching the tail-gate and being dragged down through the hollow on her bare stomach.
Dudy is reaching to do just that, when she gets a whiff of old freezer burn- [the smell of death]
She feels the essence of the spirit draped over her skinny shoulders, and slowly seeping int her back and through her arms in a numbing sensation. Dudy rebels against it. ''You god-damn nosey little haint, iffen you keep haintin' around, you is gonna fall in love with me, she warns.''
She grits her teeth out of sheer will power and grabs the tail-gate with a cold numb hand. Thus overcoming the frailty of mortal weakness, and over-turning the order of the soul,she holds on tight and does not make a whimper as she is dragged across the gritty sand and into Mam-maw's front yard.
''Screeck, Squalt, Kerthunk!'' Nell slams on her brakes and leaps from the car running, and though Dudy's head had been slammed against the bumper, she is right at Nell's heels and closing in.
Nell is just dashing around the hog-Pen when Dudy grabs her by a long braid and yanks her to the ground. But you might know that Dudy's over-sized bloomers would slid down... She lets loose of Nell's hair long enough to pull them up, and in that split second of time, nell leaps from the ground and jumps up in the air like a riled rooster. She carefully pulls her sucker from the side of her face and places it back between her teeth before swatting Dudy down like a common miller! [moth]
The old woman who had seen the commotion from her front poarch now hears it, and getting the bucket of water that she kept on hand for such occasions, she heads for the hog-pen.
Nell had overcome Dudy who was trying to fight with one hand and hold her bloomers up with the other, and was just about to win the battle by pulling Dudy bald-headed, when Mam-maw dashes in and throws water on them both.
''Wa-wa-wa!'' They squall in unison, running their separate ways. Dudy runs south of the beaten path. Nell runs east toward the wooded area. Now dear reader there is a revelation in these two directions if one has ears to hear and eyes to see...
''I has stopped many a dawg fight with a bucket of cold spring water, Maw-maw giggles around her pipe.''
The old woman goes back to the porch to ponder and wait... Soon the two imps come out of hiding just like she knew they would. They are both shame-faced and nervous. Nell is hiding something behind her back. The old woman guessed it to be candy.
She ignores the stingy imp and turns to Dudy. ''Whatcha doin' out runnin' the ridge in nothin' but your ma's red drawers, and your mouth all painted up like some old strumpet, and another thing, I betcha ain't combed your ratty head since school been out.''
''I combed my hair this mornin'.'' ''Dudy lies.''
''Old John the boogy-man gonna getcha for lyin' to mam-maw, Nell warns.''
Dudy is not concerned about her cousin prediction, but the ghost-child hovering above the eaves is crushed by the news, and says a silent prayer for the tiny mortal who was headed down the path for ruin and damnation.
The old woman glares at Nell's neat appearance and allows cleanliness does not cover a multitude of stinginess. ''Give Dudy soma that sucker you has hid behind your back.''
''Unt-un, Nell denies.''
The old coon hound slips up behind the greedy child to sniff the candy with interest. Mam-maw watches him, a smug glint in her eyes as he slips closer and closer.
With one swift movement of his head, he snatches the candy from her hand and runs under the floor where she can't get him.
The ghost child hears the old hound gnawing on the good sweet taffy, the pitiful screams of Nell, and the harsh cruel laughter of Dudy. It feels that the old woman is well pleased and that her grandchildren will hear a moral to this story. It spirals down through the eaves to blend with her pipe tobacco and to hang around her head like a smokey halo before drifting off into the woods to find peace and quiet.
The old woman listens to her grandchildren. One squalls in rage and grief while the other one mockingly laughs in a pitch that seems to pierce through her head like a needle. When her mouth begins to nervously twitch around the stem of her pipe, she calls out in a loud voice saying, ''You two sum-o-bitches get outa my face and go on home, go on now before I break me a switch and cut the hot piss outa both of you all!''
But it is not until she gets to her feet and walks toward a near by tree do they take their leave.
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
Spring passes on into summer. Whippoorwills can be hear calling out to one another like lonesome echoes at first dark until first light. Then a new day dawns across the hills in streaks of lemony colors and dust motes dancing on rays of sunlight.
