There was a large walnut tree and a hickory tree on the side of my homestead close to the old gymnasium. Not only had most of the leaves fallen off and lay on the ground around the base of the trees, all dried up and russet around the edges but all the nuts had fallen to the ground as well. We collected them and piled them into two large mounds under the tree. Then we got a couple large flat rocks, probably pulled off the rock pile that was just outside of the range of the lawnmower at the backside of the yard. We had to remember to put them back when we were done or the lawnmower may be done as well when someone ran over these same rocks. I went into Dad’s garage knowing exactly what we needed to crack all those shells. I loved the smell of the garage, oil, hard work overlaid with gasoline; it smelled like Dad did after working on cars all day.
There was a claw hammer, a ball pein, a club hammer, and a sledge hammer which I knew would be too large and unweilding for us girls but the boys liked to use it; although when using the sledge hammer there wasn’t much left of the shattered nut to eat. We had to remember to put these hammers back where we got them from when we were done or we would catch hell from Dad, he hated anyone touching his tools and especially not being able to find a tool when he needed it. We sat in a circle around our respective rocks and started cracking the nuts, we all had different ways of eating the nuts, some would pick out the meat of the nut and put it in a pile and wait until they had a good sized handful or two before they ate some. Others would eat each nut immediately after they cracked it open.
The walnuts smelled so good all encased in the rough green covering, you had to first get the green coating off before you could get down to the business of cracking the shell. You could tell who had participated in this annual nut eating frenzy by the stains on our hands and all around our mouth from the walnuts. After a while all the nuts were eaten and we got this brilliant idea, albeit belatedly, that we should have saved some to put in some banana bread or maybe some cookies. Karla Rose and I decided that we should all walk down to the Tuscarora school less then a mile down the road, uphill both ways, and collect the hickory nuts from under the tree on the far side of the school by the parking lot. No one else felt like going with us so we set out together with a bag each to bring home our anticipated bounty.
We had no thoughts about our safety, nothing ever happened on the Rez. As we walked we talked easily about our favorite new shows Happy Days, Chico and the Man, (she thought Freddie Prinze was kinda cute), Emergency! (Randolph Mantooth, ditto), McCloud, Rhoda, Columbo; and our not so favorite shows Little House on the Prairie, Kung Fu, The Odd Couple, The Waltons. By the time we finished discussing the shows we were already at the school.
I can still remember what I was wearing that day, blue jeans that were low cut with bell bottoms and a flowery blouse that had poufy cap sleeves and buttoned down the front and tan Bastad clogs. The reason I can remember my clothing to this day is because of the impending violence that was to put an end to our gathering. As Karla Rose and I were busily picking up hickory nuts and trying to fill our sacks we were not aware of anything amiss. If this memory were one of those Halloween movies that scary music would queue up now. I noticed out of the corner of my eye a horse coming down Walmore Road, whoever was on it rode through the picnic grove, across the bridge and towards the school. It was a smallish horse, more of a pony than a horse, mostly white with circular chestnut colored markings all over it. There were two riders on the pony and as they got closer I turned my head to look to see who it was atop the pony. I also heard and then saw a motorbike coming towards up from further back still in the picnic grove. All of a sudden they were upon us and surrounding us asking “What are you two doing, what are you gonna do with all those nuts, where are your brothers?" Karla Rose’s two brothers were babies still; my brothers were older than me, so I knew they meant my brothers.
We weren’t scared, at first, because we knew them all, Markie Porter who lived three houses away from me and kitty-corner from Karla, Ellis Martin from Upper Mountain Road, a fair distance, and Fritzie Crogan who was related to us both through marriage, his grandfather was our uncle. It seems to me that there was a fourth boy who rode on the back of the motor bike, but I can’t for the life of me remember who he was. Then it quickly got terrifying, I don’t know how it happened as it all happened so fast. A kick landed on the side of my face from Ellis who was on the horse and I fell to the ground astonished. Then they were all off their respective rides and punching and kicking us, Karla Rose was as thin as a rail, and still is, but she could scrap all right. I had a little more meat on my bones and was used to tussling with my brothers so I gave them as good as I got. I took my clog off at one point to use as a weapon against them and I am pretty sure that I connected with a few heads because of the loud THAWP I heard as my arm swung around in a round house move and hit them in the back of or maybe it was a direct connection with the side of their melons. This assault, I guess it should be called, went on for what seemed like an eternity then as quick as it started it was over. They jumped back on their bike and pony and rode off into the sunset, almost.
We sat there on the ground crying, dazed, disbelief etched on our faces; the hickory nuts we had so meticulously packed into our sacks scattered and forgotten on the ground. We helped each other up and sort of staggered until we righted ourselves and walked home. I lost one clog in the melee and never did find it. We got home and our clothes were torn, some of my buttons ripped from my blouse, grass stains on our knees from being thrown and kicked around by these boys, not yet men. We asked each other on the way home, why? what had we done or said to provoke them? Nothing. We were there, alone, unprotected.
When we finally made it home hanging onto one another weaving our way up the driveway everyone gathered around us. We told them what had happened by then the shock had worn off and the tears started anew. My brothers assembled their posse and my sisters as well and they set off in the direction of the school to get some justice for us. At that point neither Karla Rose nor I was concerned with retribution, we were glad to have survived. The illusion that the world was a safe place had just been shattered for a lifetime.
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