“Shot Grandpa plumb through?” I asked, hungry to hear more.

“Shot so his life’s blood flowed a river. Yonder, up Lean Neck where the road comes off the hill and crosses the creek, years ago. The spot is marked, I hear. Marked peculiar. A locust post was driv on the spot, and I hear it tuck root. I’ve never been thar to see. Never.”

“Fired his rifle-gun for no reason a-tall?”

“Boone sold Aus Coggins a nag and it died with bloats the night after. Et cribfeed till her belly smothered her heart. Aus went crazy mad, saying the nag was sick a’ready when bought, saying she’d been doctored to die. He was allus one to scatter blame. Aus bushwhacked the road, waylaying Boone as he came home from Whitesburg. Boone had been yon side Rockhouse Creek to sell my weave work. They had hard words, I reckon, and Aus up and shot. Up and shot out of his hurt pride, and for no reason earthy.”

“Died sudden, or strung out?”

“His coming to death I never inquired. I never asked, child.”

I remembered Oates Brannon’s accusing. His words grew loud in my ears. “Aus Coggins killed yore grand-pap . . . living free as wind . . . yellow-dog cowards . . . Middletons . . . Baldridges”

Grandma’s eyes were damp. Her chin quivered as she ran hands swiftly amongst the packed-away things. Questions hung on my lips, but she turned from them, thrusting them back with a fury of searching, of seeming forgetfulness. The hair trunk was peopled with keepsakes and recollections. She held up things for me to see, naming, giving them meaning.

“An applewood button box your grandpa whittled. Kept all my babies’ latch-pins in it. This puore silver thimble, it was fotched across the waters by my gran’. Fotched o’er from England in ol’ times.

“A turkey caller Boone made, but now they hain’t a wild one these hills over. A few pheasants, but nary a gobbler.

“You’ve never seed a pretty like this, child. A Tennessee pearl. Growed in a river mussel shell. A beau gave it to me, when I was twelve and marrying age. I was forever thinking to put it on a ring band to wear. The fairest pretty I’ve got.”

Grandma lifted a coat, holding it by the shoulder-tips. It was red, and beautiful, and near my size. I could not believe such a fine garment would be wasted on my back. I spoke, looking meanwhile at the coat, thinking back. “Had they been a horse doctor to tend that nag, they’d been no dying, man or beast.” I drank in the redness of the coat, wondering why it lay in the hair trunk. “They’re doctors for folks when they’re ailing, and they ought to be one for beasts.” I looked away and there were red specks before my eyes from long looking at the bright cloth. The icy rime on the win-dowpane seemed to redden. I longed to stick my arms through the warm sleeves of the coat and go running into the cold: I would stand where the wind bittered the stiff fields, caring not a whit for all its blowing. “I’m a-mind to be a horse doctor when I grow to a man. I am, now. I been a-figgering.”