Dan Cable, Cable Branch, Proctor, Swain County, North Carolina
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Dan Cable, 73 years old when recorded in 1939, was from Cable Branch in the community of Proctor, in Swain County, North Carolina. He had little formal education and gave his occupation as a farmer and hunter.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[C = Dan Cable; I = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
C: I was supposed to run up that trail, you know, and thought I’d make the dogs catch it, I, I got right under the bush it was in before it jumped out, this laurel fell out from the road right before me and every one of them dogs just a-run back behind him making a holler, holler, was just like they was catching it, hit didn’t, hit didn’t run, hit just trotted off looked like that, trotted off, well I, I turned around then, I had no business up there, no gun, you know, and hit a-looking thataway, had a head as big as a dinner kettle, its ears stuck up thataway, I just run and went back down to the cabin, so he says “why didn’t you kill it?” I said “what did I have to kill it with?”
I: When did that happen?
C: That’s been, that’s been thirty years ago, I guess.
I: About the last, last of this quarter of the xx.
C: About the last, no, it’d be since xx.
I: Do you know anything about uh Tom Sparks?
C: I guess you, you’d know, why he was out salting his cattle, him and Fonze was herding up there, you know, at the Spence Place, and Tom, he was out and he heared somebody holler, it’s getting dark, he said he just knowed it was Fonze come, come in from the cattle, he said he answered him and said he sat down there and stayed a long time and said he got up and hollered and says to him, told him to “come into, come on, I’m a-going to the cabin” said he got up and started, said something just grabbed him by the arm there and scratched his arm, hurt, hurt, he took his butcher knife then, they killed it on Deep Creek there afterwards, he thought it was Fonze, you know, come in from the cattle to where he was at.
I: Well, I wonder about how many years ago.
C: I don’t know just how long it’s been, but I guess it’s been ten or fifteen years maybe, that, yeah, I guess it’s been about fifteen I expect.
I: xx.
C: All right now, let's begin, going to start that again, missed the first of it, why we started from here a-coon hunting up there, I thought we’d go up and stay two or three nights, you know, got up above the old Hall Place up on Bone Valley, and the old dog we had with us, an old hound, he struck something's track, and he trailed on up that creek, I guess trailed two mile, every bit of it, and we stopped to build us a little cabin, a camp, we just cut down a little linn tree and split puncheons, you know, and laid them down and tossed them up there as shelter, it quit raining, after dark awhile I says to Van, that’s my brother, I says, “we might go up the creek here a piece and catch a coon,” and he says, “where will we go?” we just had, we didn’t have no lantern, we just had some pine to carry a light, we just took a little of that pine, and we went up the creek a piece, and that old dog, he went back to where he quit and he went to trailing on again just hisself, we had a bench-legged feist with us, that old feist, and then we had some young pups that's getting about big enough to run, you know, to train them, took them on up there and that feist there, he was just a-yelping like he was looking at it, I says to Van, I says “he’s a-going to catch it directly” well, about that time just in a breath or two why that feist went to hollering, you know, just like he was a-dying, we hollered to him and that old dog wasn’t a-running much, just trailing along, viewing along, that feist, he got loose on him, he come back to us, all the blood was just a-dripping off of his ears, you know, and all over his face and just scratched his head all over nearly, that old hound then, he'd went to trailing on again and he stopped and went to barking, I says, “he’s got it treed,” I says “let’s get the light up there,” we went in there and that old dog was just a-standing on a big root where it had come out thataway, a big spruce, he was standing there just looking down the hill, "dou, bou," and we hissed him, there’s great holes in that Killpecker Ridge, that's where it was, I says, “what, we, could we put the light in there I, w-," I says, “what would shine a bear’s eyes at night,” went on, that old hound then, he just followed us on, then it went to raining again, we go down to Desolation and went to cross that, and all the dogs was right with us, they just stove right out at it, and there it was up on a hill about fifty yard and went to barking, we went down there, treed up a little old water birch not nary wasn’t as big as a man’s body, I says to Van, I says “let’s shine its eyes and shoot it,” we had an old hog rifle, we didn’t have no cartridge gun then, “aye,” he says, “no,” he says, “just hack it down,” he says “it’ll fall just in a minute, just hack it,” he says, well, we, I struck a few licks on it, it’d just go forwards, you know, just a little birch, my dogs, they wouldn’t, wouldn’t run into it, the lap of it, I says “I never seed these dogs act thataway on an old coon tree,” I says “hell, when you cut one down, they was right into the lap of that” and they wouldn’t go at all, I run into it, cut a lap off and hissed the dogs and that little old feist, he got after it and run just about far as to that house out, about a hundred yards, I reckon, went to barking up a big spruce, looked like a spruce from where we was at, it turned into kind of sleeting, and we just had a little pine, we come, we was going to start to him, we come across a little old dead birch that fell and lodged up in the spruce tree, I says to Van, I says “we’d better, we’d better cut this here right here and build us a fire,” I says, “it’s fixing to turn cold and us no lights, we can freeze to death,” we just went to cutting that old stob, you know, start us a fire with, we just stood up there all night, hit rained all night, we just stood up there all night and this big old coon come down about fifteen steps from where we was at, we just stood there till it went to breaking daylight and it went to snowing, I told Van that the old dog, he come up from the starter gate, he come down, scents that breeze, scents and "awwoo, awwoo," I says, “there’s been a coon come right here to us,” and I says "he's trailed on up on Killpecker and went to barking, well I says to Van, I says, “you, you take that old gun,” I, we just throwed it down in the rain, I knowed it wouldn’t shoot, I says “I’ll take the axe and I’ll mark the tree and we’ll go and get our breakfast, when we come back we’ll cut it down,” I just thought it was a coon, I went up there and that, the old dog's setting in one of them big bear trails, ju-, just looking back yonder, I hissed at it, I was as close as the Bryant there, close, when I hissed him why he was up there big eyes a-shading.
I: Okay.
C: Drove all day that day and hadn’t got nary race and was coming on back going to the cabin and the dogs, they winded one, and down under the hill they went in one of them slicks and jumped him, you know, and they put him up a tree, John and Cope, they ...
I2: They started down there.
C: What?
I2: They started down there.
C: Yeah, they went on to him.
I2: And they went, fell over hollows to go down, and he went over that cliff, he went over ...
C: John, he went over that cliff, it was a big cliff high as that barn there, and he just slid down, you know, and catched to a laurel, and slid down till his feet about hit the ground, and Cope, he, he was a little scary, he says, “I’m a-coming,” he says, John says, “hit’s all the way to the ground here,” and he just jumped right in there and fell right at their feet, the dogs, they just rared out there, and he, Cope says “hell,” he says, “It’s that old panther” he said, John says, “no, it’s a bear," I says, "well I can't see it” he says, "setting up there," he says, “I can see the bulk of it,” says “I, I can kill it.”
I2: Thought he was a-making a light.
C: Yeah, yeah, made him a light, and he didn’t have nothing to make it with, and ...
I2: Dead laurels wouldn’t have worked.
C: Yeah, but that was after they had it down on the ground, and they, John, he shot it and shot it through back there, Cope, he shot at it and never touched it, it fell out in front of them dogs, they just cussed it, you know, and they couldn’t get into it till dark, John says, “hell,” he says, “make us a light” he says, “and we, we’d shoot the thing’s brains out,” Cope says “I hain’t got nothing to make a light out of,” John says, “strike a match,” he struck a match and the dogs, they just grabbed it, you know, hit was a-down out of that tree then, it fell down, and Cope, he just run backwards over John, you know, and fell, he says, “here it is,” and hit had died right there, they stayed right there, they come in to hunt them, these stood, you know, they come to hunt for the drivers, shot up pretty close, shot till they could hear them, shot, answered them back, and they come on in down there then and skinned out and packed him out the cabin that night.
I: What cabin was that?
C: That was the Hall cabin.
I: You, how long, how many nights would you stay there usually?
C: I don’t know how, how long we did stay there.
I2: Well, you’d stay five or six some ...
C: Some-, sometimes we’d stay a week, wouldn’t we? yeah, when we’d go.
I2: Stay out five, six ...
C: Yeah.
I: Would you eat much of the bear up there?
C: Yeah, we’d eat bear meat till you couldn’t dress for it.
I: You ever know nur- uh Nate Burchfield?
C: Yeah, I’ve knowed old Nate.
I: Could you tell us a little bit about Nate Burchfield?
C: Now I, I d- don’t, n- never, never was out with him a-hunting nor nothing, I saw him several times, but I don’t know much about him.
I: Tell us uh what you know about Horace Kephart.
C: Well I, I uh, he, he appeared like a mighty nice man, he’d come up there where we was a-hunting and fooled around with us but he, he never went out on no hunts with us that I know of, he’d have his book, you know, on along with him and ...
I2: Take pictures?
C: Take pictures, you know, and make films, that’s about his occupation he had up there, and look over the country, you know, he’d go out on them high knobs and look all about over them rough slicks, you know, we call them slicks but it's just rough, just laurel beds and ivy, you know, a-growed up, nothing in it hardly, just a tree once in a while, and then we went up there then again, one of my boys, they was the two of them, they treed a big bear, the dogs did, and they went in there and killed hit, we had to tie it on a pole, it wasn’t but a little piece from the cabin, we tied it on a pole and, and it was me and Jake and Dan, Little Dan, we packed that bear in to cabin, before we got there the dogs all come to us about where we was tying that old pole, we got right back in about a half a mile of the cabin and the dogs, they just stove off a little, a little old, into a little laurel patch and there they jumped another big’un, they run it down to Eagle Creek and back up and, me and, me and, let's see, me and Franz, yeah, we grabbed us some rocks to keep it scared back on the, on this side, on the North Carolina side, didn’t want it to go across into Tennessee, well hit, hit never, we never seed it then, and hit run back down there again and just coming back in and they catched it before it got back to us, we just, we were standing there with rocks, we never had ...
-----
C: On top of the mountain, and we’d tie our dogs and go till we found to where they’d been a-feeding, you know, found the track, and then we turned them dogs loose and run them through the stands if they went, they got there, if they didn’t why they went up a tree, so run in and kill them, as close as we get to them and soon could kill the bear.
I: Now just tell us who went on that hunt now.
C: They was Jess Cable and Doc Jones and Joe Cable, that was my brother, and Little John Cable, that’s all, and me, Dan Cable, that was all there was right there.
I: Yeah, uh tell us, tell us a little about another hunt now you went on.
C: Well, we ...
I: Uh, tell all you want about it.
C: We went, come in home, fetched them in home and went back, and next day after we got out there that evening, why we went a-hunting and turned our dogs loose and they jumped trees, and they'd parted and the dogs had treed one, and they went down and killed hit, Jess Cable killed it and come back and they was just ready to catch another'un, I think, and the dog got in a bear trap where they had it set for the bear.
I: Yeah.
C: And the bear jumped over the trap and the dog got in it, and we had to go and hit was getting late and we just tied him, had to tie him to get him to follow us, he wanted to run on after the bear after he was catched in the trap and we turned him out, and we killed, let’s see, we killed three that, that trip, but generally most of them we, they put them up a tree and we had to kill them in the tree, the dogs did it, then the next, Jess Cable, I d-, I wasn’t with them that time, Jess Cable and Little John ...
I: And Mister Cable.
C: And Allen Crisp.
I: Uh-huh.
C: They’d went up there a-hunting and it was just them three, and they killed, killed four that day, Jess Cable killed three and Little John said he pulled out his watch when they went to cross the mountain, and he thought they’s going to go acrost the mountain on the Tennessee side, and he was standing on top, and he said "in just a minute by his watch killing them three bear," they had, then the dogs got after another'un and they killed hit to make four, killed four that day.
I: Hmm, could you tell us a little how you organize a party for a hunt?
C: Yeah, we’d all just fix us up a s- sack of rations, you know, and every fellow would take his rations up there, had to pack them on our back, there wasn’t no roads nor nothing, they's just trails, and we’d just have to pack them on our back, and we’d just go there and stay like we was staying at home, you know, we had beds up there and cooking vessels and have to cook in a oven, we didn’t have no stove, we just cooked in a, a baker like, and we’d rake out next morning after them bear.
I: Now how do you divide the party?
C: How di-, divide the ...
I: Yeah, uh how would you form a party of uh standers, there’d be ...
C: Yeah, some, yeah, there's some go to the stands, you know, and the, generally two of us drove all the time, just took two to lead the dogs, you know [I: Right], two of us would drive, whenever we found where a bear had been that night, why we’d turn our dogs loose after it, we’d notice what, whichaway it’d been a-going, you know, and, and turn the dogs loose and in just a little while we’d have a bear up, and then the fun’s, when fun commenced then, us trying to get to it.
I: What’s the best place for the stands?
C: Which?
I: What’s the best place for the standers, what kind of a place?
C: Oh, a, a rough pine sort of, a little like that out there, where it, the laurel and everything comes up in a little knob, they generally cross over a, the highest knob they is in reach of it, they don’t go through a gap like a deer, they, they go over that high part.
I: Uh-huh, and where do the drivers begin?
C: Uh they just commence, whenever we start we’d go till we get to them, them roughs, you know, or a cove where they feed, we’d go to their feeding ground and that, there’s where we'd get our start on the bear.
I: Uh, how do you begin looking for the bear?
C: Uh we'd just go and look where they been a-feeding, they rake just like turkeys.