Deep in the Forest

I have often talked about the mysterious Ouachita Mountains where I did my geology thesis. I am sure most everyone remembers the movie Deliverance that stared Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds and the frightening hillbillies encountered. On one of our field trips to the Ouachitas, my ex-wife Gail and I met our own pair of scary hillbillies. It was late fall, the days dull and weather dreary.

Gail and I had visited a mine so deep in the forest that we had to follow an azimuth with a Brunton compass (those were the days before GPS). The mine was not large, at least not as those in the western United States. Still, it formed an imposing edifice, a bald knob amid a sea of forest green.

The Davis Mine had not operated since the Civil War. Confederate soldiers mined lead there, employing Federal prisoners. The few old publications we could find about the mine hinted at torture and atrocities. I don't know if there were ghosts, but the place imparted a definite chill down my spine. It was late when Gail and I finally left the difficult to reach lead mine.

We had parked our old 62' Ford pickup on the side of a narrow dirt road. Before we reached it, we heard the rumble of an even older pickup truck moving in our direction. When we rounded a corner, we encountered it directly in our path. The bed of the truck was loaded with groceries and other supplies, and two unkempt men occupied the cab.

Gail and I both noticed the gun rack in the window behind the two men, rifles or shotguns behind them.

"You two lost?" the one-eyed driver asked, spitting a wad of chew out the window before either of us had a chance to answer. "We got a mine up by our place no one even knows about," he told us when we explained what we were doing in the middle of nowhere. "We'll take you there and show it to you," he offered.

We declined, then thanked them and began walking away at a rapid clip. "Don't look back," I told Gail.

Finally, we heard the pickup's engine fire and then rumble away in the opposite direction. I am a large man and I'm sure the two hillbillies noticed the pick hammer in my hand. Were they being friendly? No! I was freshly home from Vietnam and I still had a well-honed sense of danger. These two men were dangerous and I have no doubt that they had little regard for human life.

My memory of these two appear, almost verbatim, in my novel A Gathering of Diamonds. Now, years later, I still feel the dread when I recall this story.

Fiction South