“Sounds like they’re raring to go,” I said, motioning toward the coon dogs caged on the bed of the truck.

I sat with Jesse Stocstill in his ’82 Chevy S10 parked on the edge of the woods. Since the sun set, the moon resembled a nicotine-stained fingernail paring against black velvet sky. I could hear the anxious coon dogs yipping over Merle Haggard on the radio while I finished my third can of Natural Lite. Jesse passed me the pint of Wild Turkey. I waited until he looked away before swiping my jacket sleeve across the lip and choking down a hearty sip.

“Yeah,” said Jesse. He smiled with his seven teeth all spackled the colors of forest camouflage. Tobacco slobber dribbled down his bristled chin. “You make sure you watch out for ole Rebel, though. He’s wound so goddam tight, he’s gotta fuck the coon before he kills it.”

He spat a wad of brown mash onto the floorboard, rubbed it in with his boot, withdrew a package of Red Man from his flannel, and offered me a pinch. I waved it away which only seemed to fuel his contempt.

Three weeks ago, I was a Chicagoan nestled into a concrete box apartment overlooking a single tree. Now, for reasons so convoluted I could hardly understand them except to say it involved a woman, I found myself living in rural Alabama surrounded by more trees than I could handle. My first week after the move, I hired in at a factory where I met Jesse Stocstill of the Cullman County Stocstill clan. I seemed to endear myself to the old man by answering his greeting “what about it?” with a perplexed “what about what?”

When Jesse asked if I’d ever been coon hunting, I immediately regarded him with suspicion. Earlier in the week, when he asked if I liked duck meat and I shrugged my shoulders noncommittally, he pointed at his crotch and invited me to duck down and get some of his meat. Since then, I tended to ignore all questions from anyone, but, nonetheless, I accepted his invitation, ignoring the passive aggressive way he called me a dumb Yankee whenever he could. I had no friends, no cable television. What else was there to do?

Jesse let himself out of the Chevy and walked to the rear of the truck. He opened the tail gate and the dogs went wild. He stood there beaming with pride. “Okay, Yankee Boy, I’m gonna learn you something.” He unclasped the cage doors and stood aside as the hounds bounded down. “That reddish-brown one, that’s Nathan B. Forrest. The black and brown one is Stonewall Jackson. And blackie here’s my baby. Pure breed Walker hound. Some dogs are trackers. Some dogs are best at treeing coons. Some just like to kill’em. Rebel, here, does all three better than any dog I’ve ever seen.”

Rebel grinned with pride. His teeth were spaced as far apart as Jesse’s.

“Why you need three dogs, then?” I asked.

“Cause the other two ain’t worth a tin whistle. Kinda like Yankees. I’m hoping them dogs’ll learn something from ole Rebel.”

All three dogs stood knee-high to me at their shoulders. Forrest and Jackson were husky and kempt while Rebel was scrawny and scarred across the snout. Hairless grooves crisscrossed his back as though someone lashed him long ago for some canine transgression.

Jesse hollered some southern gibberish and the dogs charged into the dark woods.

Jesse strapped a Wheat light to his John Deere cap. He handed me a ninety-nine cent Wal-Mart flashlight.

“Okay,” Jesse said. He stuck the pint of Wild Turkey in his back pocket, then grabbed his .22 and a box of shells. “Grab the beer and let’s go.”

“Where we going?”

“Boy, you got about as much sense as a baseball bat. Into the woods, man. Half a mile or so there’s a creek. Coons like to wash their food before they eats it. Rebel trees one, we’ll hear ’em howling.”

While I looked stupid, I figured I might as well ask him one more question. “Jesse, what exactly is a coon?”

“What is a—? Goddamn…Raccoon, boy. We’re hunting raccoons.”

“Oh, didn’t realize raccoons lived this far south,” I mumbled. Seemed obvious now, though I couldn’t fathom why one would want to hunt a raccoon.

“Oh yeah, we got all kinds of animals around here,” he said as we trekked deeper into the woods. The Wheat light lit the surroundings like a UFO landing. I stuffed the flashlight in the pocket of my Dockers and used both hands to carry the Styrofoam cooler.

The woods, not dense by Alabama standards, seemed like the heart of an African jungle to me. Though Jesse assured me the weather was too cold for snakes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that rattlers slithered just out of range of the Wheat light.

“You know, you can learn something watching Rebel,” Jesse said. “Daddy useta tell me, it’s better to know something ‘bout everything than everything ‘bout something. But you watch Rebel. He’ll show you it’s even better to know everything ‘bout everything.”

I soaked in the logic, dodging protruding roots as we climbed and descended several ridges until I was totally lost. W finally heard howls distorted by the uneven terrain, but being a dumb Yankee, I couldn’t tell how far away or from which direction the canine baying originated. Jesse broke into a sprint, well-lit by his Wheat light.

I took three steps and pitched forward, sprawling. The Styrofoam cooler cracked apart sending the cold beer bouncing down the ridge. I reached into my pocket for the flashlight but found it gone. Jesse and his light disappeared over the next ridge like a hillbilly sunset.

Sitting in total darkness, rattlers all around me, I considered my options. Surely, he would be back. If not for me, at least for the cold beer. But what if he didn’t return? What if he abandoned me here with two beers and the survival instincts of a two-year-old? Could I last the night?

I swept the ground again, hands pawing uselessly for the long-gone flashlight, only to find two cans of Natural Lite. One I jammed securely in my pocket. Needing the extra liquid courage, I cracked open the other and downed it in two gulps.

I vaguely recalled reading something that, when you get lost in the woods, you’re supposed to run as fast as you can in the direction where you last saw other people. So, I did just that. Running and hollering for help. However, following my third savage tumble, I decided to walk. I reached the second ridge, saw a creek bed below, and, twenty yards beyond that, made out Jesse’s Wheat light illuminating three agitated shadows circling a tree.

The first words out of Jesse’s mouth once I reached him concerned the whereabouts of the cold beer. I handed him the Natural Lite from my pocket. “The rest are back there over the ridge.”

“What the hell they doing back there?”

“I fell down.”

“So, you left the beer?”

“I lost the flashlight. And there were snakes. And I thought I was lost.”

“You dumb Yankee, I’d have come back for the cold beer. I oughta shoot you right now.” He shook his head and regarded the tree as the dogs continued to circle and growl. “Ah, well, fuck it. Thought this was a slick tree at first.”

“Slick tree?”

“Damn, boy, means there ain’t no coons in it. Raccoons. But you can just barely make ‘em out. In that branch, ‘bout twenty-five feet up.”

After an agonizing minute staring at nothing, the coon shifted enough for me to catch a glimpse of fur. “I see it.”

“Good for you.”

He aimed his .22 and fired. The bullet nicked the branch just below the coon. “Shit.” He glanced at me. “Sumbitch moved.” The second shot might have grazed the coon’s back. It squealed and flattened itself against the branch. “Sumbitch.” Jesse eyed the branch. “Think I winged it, but it ain’t falling, and it don’t look like I got a clear shot. You’re gonna hafta climb up there and knock that sumbitch outta the tree.”

“What?”

I looked up at the tree rising into the night sky. It’d been fifteen years since I last attempted to climb a tree. I didn’t recall succeeding.

“Go on and climb your narrow Yankee ass up there and knock that sumbitch off that branch. Can’t leave ‘em up there, the dogs will get pissed.”

“I can’t climb a tree—”

“Boy, I got twenty years on you, two knees busted up from college football, and I could climb that dag gum tree blindfolded if I took a notion to.”

“Alright. I’ll climb it.”

“Damn right, you will. Then, you’re going back and collecting up that cold beer.”

Jesse grabbed my legs and boosted me up to the lowest branch. I scrambled onto the branch like a drunken squirrel then hoisted myself up to the next one, careful to avoid the jutting twigs seeking to gouge my eyes out.  I steadied myself, grabbed another branch an inch above my head, got a foothold on a branch angling to the right, and pushed myself up until my eyes met the masked eyes of the largest raccoon I’d ever seen, which blazed with cold, animal fury. It hissed and lunged.

I simply let go of the branch so as not to suffer a scratched hand, but too quickly, gravity caught hold of me. As my equilibrium shifted and I waved about, frantically trying to regain my balance, my mind turned to ole Rebel and his legendary habit of violating and killing anything plunging out of a tree.

“Hold Rebel!” I screamed. “Jesse! Hold Rebel!”

I hit the ground like a professional wrestler, diffusing the impact across my entire body, though pain scissored down my spine. I wiggled my toes, taking momentary pleasure in the thought of escaping this evening without severing my spinal column. Then, Rebel was on me. His scarred head perched on my knee, growling as he humped my shin. I tried to move my leg, but the dog’s throaty snarl rose an octave and he regarded me with frenzied blue eyes.

I heard another thump as the coon landed. Nathan B. Forrest retreated, whimpering. Stonewall attacked, snapping, barking and frothing. Rebel didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder to investigate the commotion.

“Sumbitch!” shouted Jesse. “Rebel, get off that damn Yankee’s leg.”

Stonewall and the coon tangled into a ball of squealing fur. They broke away from each other, edging closer to the creek before tying up again. Jesse aimed his rifle but couldn’t get a clean shot. The animals rolled into the creek bed and the coon got the better of Stonewall. It latched onto Stonewall’s head and pushed its snout below the brackish water. The dog thrashed but couldn’t regain his feet.

“Sumbitch. That fucking coon’s killing my dog.”

“Jesse, your fucking dog’s fucking my leg.” I tried to move again, but Rebel snapped at the air in front of his face.

Jesse ignored me. He set the rifle stock against his shoulder, aimed at the coon, and fired, but accidentally shot Stonewall in the gut. Stonewall shuddered and yipped and collapsed into the creek. The coon bounded away across the creek and into the darkened woods.

Rebel finished and let off my leg and trotted off to investigate his fallen comrade.

“Goddammit,” Jesse cried. “I just shot my second-best dog.”

I dragged myself up from the ground. As I looked on, Jesse cradled Stonewall in his arms. The dog’s shallow breathing ebbed and ended.

Trudging back to the Chevy, I picked up the occasional errant can of Natural Lite. Neither one of us spoke.