"Flintlock" (in, Memories of Old Josh)

Flintlock (in, Memories of Old Josh)

(Forth Series, Episode: # 42)(Part one of two))


(1871) Old Josh is playing with his flintlock pistol ( a 1774, revolutionary pistol, smoothbore, iron, 69 Caliber, nine inch barrel, with some weathering to it, and one can tell it has some combat use on it), he is oiling it with axle grease, looking down its barrel, testing its spring, pulling the hammer back and forth, and then to its semi locked potion, semi lock, because there is really no locked position, thus, it is cocked.
He and Silas are down at the creek, Old Josh took the old flintlock out of the closest, where it’s been for ages upon ages, Old Man Hightower gave it to him as a gift one year, a gift Old Josh says, was because he had no more use for it.
Silas shakes his head, nods it back and forth, knows something is going to happen if Josh doesn’t take better care with that pistol, meaning, if he doesn’t stop playing around with it carefree like.
“Pa, be careful you is goin’ to kill me or yourself with dat dere gun!” says Silas in a hesitant voice.
“I is you pa, dont tell me wuh to do, son!” responds Josh, twirling the gun as if he was a shooter, or gunslinger.
“Her Silas, you carry da gun back for me!” Says Josh in a demanding voice…

(It’s a chilly morning in Ozark, Alabama, and Silas has just woken up from a dream, one of those awakening dreams, sits upright on his cot, Jordon, his younger brother has gone down to Ozark, to work in the Grocery store, it is 1907, Josh has been dead going on two years, Silas is remembering the time at the creek with the flintlock, he is starting to laugh out loud, as he puts the pictures of the event back together in his mind.)

Says Silas to Josh, facing the creek, Josh thinking, contemplating if they should head on back, they got a few bullheads in the creek, “Pa, why cant you carry your on gun, it ant mine?”
“Son, you done git lazy like dat dere fish, if he was looking wuh he was a doin’ he’d not be my dinner tonight.” Said Josh is a rustic deep voice, one that he had to dig low to bring up, to show his son he was not happy about totting that heavy gun back to the shanty, looking for a little pity.
Old Josh put his pistol between his wide belt and his stomach, snug as bug, as they say, then all of a sudden Silas got a fanatical face on him, Josh looked, “Wuh you look so strange…?” asked Josh (with a low hum ‘humm’to it).
“A small, moccasin just crawl under your pants legs pa!” ((A deadly snake from the waters of the south.)(See notes: Cottonmouth Water Moccasin))
“You done seen its yell belly son?” asked Josh, not standing still, pulling out his flintlock.
“Sho did pa,” responds Silas.
Then Josh started shaking his leg like crazy and looking for the snake, and his yellow belly, and aiming the pistol ready to shoot, and he fell backwards, caught off balance, and the flintlock went off, and it blew his hat right off his head five feet in the air, and back another ten-feet, and he fell on his butt.
“Pa, dat dere moccasin got so scared he done hightailed into da creek.” Said Silas.

Josh was so happy he scared the moccasin, he talked about it for twenty-fiveg-years, thereafter, the only problem was, and it wasn’t a real problem, but now Silas sitting on his cot, is feeling guilty, a little bit, he never got to tell his pa it was a trick, there was no snake. But his pa bragged his heroism up so much, he couldn’t swallow, or bear to undo it, and tell the truth.


Note: There is only one North American poisonous water snake - the Cottonmouth Water Moccasin! Not to be confused at all with its many nonpoisonous neighbors, this snake is a pit viper in the same general family as the Copperhead and the Rattler. I saw them once in the waters of Alabama, in a group form; written while having coffee at El Parquetto’s Café in Miraflores, 2-23-2008.