(I promised you a post on The Fairy Queen, but the Fairy Queen was shy)

North of Macon, in the Oconee National Forest, the road to Sue’s cabin is a long drive, with towns and turns that fill a page of directions.  At four o’clock one spring morning I loaded Oyster and Chilidog into the back of my Honda wagon and headed up the interstate.  Driving in the dark with no landmarks but the exit signs, no traffic but the trucks, the time and distance passed quickly, and the sunrise on my right was soft and clear.  We drove up I-75 and I-16 and over many country roads to Sue’s cabin.

OYSTER AND I; CHILIDOG

The wiggling and whining began when we reached the old bridge over Murder Creek, rusting iron and old wooden planks that made the Honda rattle.  As soon as I parked at the end of Sue’s drive and opened the tailgate, the dogs burst out of the car, and Putnam tore up the hill, barking, to meet them.  Then there was ass-sniffing and nose-touching, circling and chasing until they were all satisfied they knew each other.

SUE AND PUTNAM

The cabin is well below the road, and the unpaved driveway descends steeply, then rises to a clearing.  Fog or rain turns the Georgia clay to slick mud, trapping the cars, so we always walk in.  We trudged up and down the hill, mercifully dry on a cool sunny day, lugging water jugs and food.  

Every trip to the cabin is a new adventure.  It began as a pine box with a loft, beautifully crafted by Emery, an old man who works alone.  The boards run diagonally up to the high ceiling, the wood gleaming yellow.  In the twenty years since he built the basic box and dug the hole for the outhouse, he has added a screened front porch, and an open deck on the back and side.  At each visit there are new souvenirs on the pine walls and wooden shelves: a tile with a hand-painted picture of the cabin, a turtle shell, a deer skull. 

Sue has ten acres, and watches with dread as other tracts of land are cleared and sold off in large lots.  But it’s almost twenty years since she built the cabin, and in that time she has only acquired two new neighbors and one new hunt camp. 

Her one close neighbor, Gloria, was there first, up the creek from Sue’s land.  She is a tall, scrawny, rural woman, missing some teeth.  The man who knocked them out left a dozen years ago, with some legal persuasion from Sue, and now Gloria lives happily with her old dog, her garden, and her chickens, who run free through the woods.  Free-range chickens, I suppose they are, but Gloria wouldn’t think of calling them anything so fancy. They’re just chickens.

Sue and I finished unloading the car, and I sat on the porch in the old Adirondack chair while she puttered: sweeping up a dead spider, pulling down a sleeping bag for my cot in the corner, bringing in wood for the stove.  For Sue, housekeeping at the cabin is play, not work.  After the long drive, I prefer to sit and gaze, breathing the cool piney air, listening to a cardinal sing three notes over and over. 

There will be plenty of time for talk, as we bush-whack through the woods, or huddle in front of the wood stove with our wine.  We have known each other since our twenties, when we were young lawyers fighting for the poor, young women struggling to be heard.  We have grown up together.

JACKSONVILLE AREA LEGAL AID, 1975. SUE AND I AT LEFT.

The dogs had worn themselves out chasing up and down the hill.  Putnam was helping Sue putter, while Chili and Oyster lay at my feet.  Oyster was regal, her head high, her tongue out, panting.  Chili was half-asleep, her head on her paws, ears relaxed, eyes closing, her tail wagging whenever I threw a remark her way.

Sue brewed coffee on the camp stove, in a nasty old aluminum percolator.  I heard a rustling in the leaves.  One of Chili’s long ears twitched higher; Oyster turned her head.  Around the bend in the creek trail came three large hens in procession, pecking and chuckling and heading for  the clearing. 

Chili was up and out the door, down the cinder block steps in one wiry leap.  Two chickens flapped and squawked into the safety of the woods, but the lead chicken was flat on the ground, Chili standing over her.  I screamed, “Chili, NO!” and was at her side, holding her back by the collar.  Oyster and Putnam and Sue were with us now, dogs barking, chicken lying flat.  Sue dragged Putnam into the porch and threw me two leashes, and I hauled Chili and Oyster inside. We came back out and stood over the chicken.  It was injured, but still twitching, and we knew we had to kill it quickly. We’d explain to Gloria later.

Chili was my dog; it was my problem. But I had no  experience with killing chickens.  We had no gun.  Sue has No Hunting notices posted all around the perimeter, and a couple of Wildlife Refuge signs for good measure.  I would have to smash it with a shovel.  Sue went to fetch it, and I breathed deep to find strength.  I raised the big shovel up and over my head with both hands.  As I swung it down, the chicken leapt to her feet and raced into the woods.