A Yuletide Yarn: The Last Will and Testament of Ugly Joe the Hermit
David Templeton
Whenever winter fell upon the little town of Frozen Corners, it always fell hard, like an old angry bear tripping over a basket of eggs. In those parts, up near the summit of Big Muskrat Mountain, when the weather turned, it turned mean, pounding the rooftops and treetops with a mighty downpour of ice, hail, snow and the occasional flash-frozen duck. Everything freezable froze. The place became so inhospitable and unfriendly, so cold and vile and non-conducive to even the most basic of human activities, that the entire population of Frozen Corners, about 350 men, women, horses and children, annually evacuated the entire town, packing up their wagons and buckboards in mid-November, and ceremoniously following the long, winding Upchuck River down the mountain to the somewhat less murderous environs of Butcher’s Foot, a sprawling mining town built down around the rocky bottom of Big Muskrat. For two or three months out of every year, sometimes longer, the little homes and businesses of Frozen Corners—the cabins, the hotel, the saloon, the meeting hall and the other saloon—were all left unoccupied, abandoned to the elements for the duration of the winter.
The miraculous thing—or the closest thing to a miracle that any of Frozen Corners’ residents ever experienced—was that each year when the cold weather passed and the people all returned to their homes, the town was no worse for wear. Loose wall boards that might have blown down were securely nailed in place, roofs that might have collapsed from the weight of snow were expertly shored up. Despite evidence that the winters had been hard as ever on the mountain, the town itself was never that bad off. After the winter of 1892, the cupboards in Miss Martin Von Martin’s place appeared to have been given new doors and hinges, and in ’93, the twin card tables in the Tin Brick Tavern seemed to have been sanded and polished. Mysteriously, the town infrastructure had managed to improve while the townsfolk were away.
A number of Frozen Corners’ residents thought this to be the work of mountain spirits. The children believed it was Santa Claus, a theory that was further augmented by the fact that a random assortment of little gifts—whittled wooden animals, folded paper flowers, tinkling gimcracks twisted from the metal of old shoe-paste cans—were frequently discovered tucked away under various beds or hidden behind boxes in the back of closets. The majority of the townsfolk, however, simply assumed that such handyman mischief was the work of Ugly Joe, the town’s nearest full-time hermit. Rarely ever seen but rumored to live in Angry Widow Cave up near the east bend of Drowned Husband Creek, Ugly Joe was not particularly famous for being possessed of a philanthropic nature—the exact opposite being truer to the case, but there seemed to be no other explanation for what always awaited the townsfolk when they finally returned home to Frozen Corners.
Had they known the truth, the townsfolk might have made some effort to put an end to it. It certainly was Ugly Joe who occupied the town each winter, but he was not alone when he did so. Joe was, in fact, only one of several dozen hermits who quietly descended upon Frozen Corners every year for the annual North Eastern Regional Hermit Gathering—a kind of convention for the socially disinclined. Since none of the regular townsfolk knew for certain what went on in the abandoned town each year, and with no one volunteering to stick around to see for themselves, the hermits were free to go on assembling undisturbed. The care the hermits always took with the buildings they occupied, and their habit of leaving small tidbits and toys behind for the regular townsfolk to discover, was partly due to an agreed-upon code of hermit conduct and partly due to the grudging sense of gratitude they all felt at having a dependable alternative to the musty caves and wind-battered trees and moist underground dwellings they all called home the rest of the year. The soft-bellied residents of Frozen Corners may have believed their town was too harsh a place to winter, but to the hermits, the place was a paradise, especially when compared to their usual living conditions. The existence of Frozen Corners, and its annual availability to the hermits, is no doubt the reason that Big Muskrat Mountain and its surrounding counties boasted a higher number of hermits per capita than any other place in the country, except New York City.
The winter that Ugly Joe died was less fierce than some, but still fierce enough to kill a man who was thought, by his professional associates, to be essentially unkillable.
There was no way to determine the exact moment of Ugly Joe’s death. By the time his body was finally discovered, the man had apparently been dead for quite a while. The discoverer was a stout, weasel-furred lady hermit known as Ethical Fred, and when she found Joe, he was frozen solid, bluer than bottle flies and hard as a wedge of ice, stretched out in a drift of snow a dozen feet from his cave. He had apparently been murdered by a frozen Canada goose, its icy corpse plummeting from the angry sky to strike Joe in the head. The goose, every bit as hard as the old hermit, was found lying there, sweet-as-you-please, right in the snow—a five-foot bounce from where Ugly Joe lay.
By the time Ethical Fred made this sad discovery, it was late in December, Frozen Corners had been evacuated for weeks, and a small number of hermits—Scandalous Sam, Pond Scum Polly, Sacrilegious Jim, Not-Popular Pete, Inconsiderate Sue and Malodorous Mike—had already arrived for the Gathering.
With the unexplained absence of Ugly Joe, however, and with none of the standard preparations having been made—such preparations consisting mainly of Ugly Joe digging a path to the two saloons and the meeting hall and chasing all the marmots and ferrets out of the hotel bedrooms—the assembled hermit brethren and sistren were irritated and alarmed. They quickly located Ethical Fred, so named because of her one-time position as a Sunday school teacher over in Twenty Pines, long before she’d lost faith in civilization and in organized religion and moved into a remote beaver dam in the Timber Tree Woods. Once the hermits explained their concerns about Joe’s absence to Ethical Fred, she pulled on her fur coat, her fur hat and her fur mittens, and headed out to discover what was keeping Ugly Joe.
“He’s dead,” pronounced Ethical Fred, upon returning to the town. She spoke with a phlegmy rasp that rumbled through her towering, weather-hardened frame as she stood in the ice-caked doorway of the Corners Hotel and Meeting House. A few recent arrivals had just joined the hermits—Two-Eyed Tom from north of Broken Furnace, Nameless Bob who lived in a high oak over near Fort Badger, and Miserable Richard, formerly known as Gangrenous Dick. “Ugly Joe is just as dead as a rock,” Ethical Fred was saying. “Ugly Joe is froze solid, and stiff as a iron stick. If there was ever a speck a’ warmth in old Joe, it’s all gone now. He’s dead!”
To prove it, Fred stepped aside and pointed. There behind her, out in the snow, flat as a board, lay the stiff blue cadaver of Ugly Joe. Ethical Fred had gathered the dead man’s belongings into two burlap sacks, found a couple of thick leather straps, and using Ugly Joe as a sled, piled the bags on top and towed the whole shebang down to Frozen Corners. It was quite a sight. Strangest of all was the goose, the very goose whose destiny had been so awkwardly joined to that of old Joe, now nestled right there between the corpse’s frozen knees.
“Ah shoot, Ethical Fred! Why in hail di’nt you leave him up in his cave?” Two-Eyed Tom wanted to know, squinting and staring out the door at the body of the deceased hermit.
“What’re we goin’ do with his old ugly hide?” demanded Inconsiderate Sue.
“Well, I figure we’re goin’ to store him out in the woodshed, first of all,” Ethical Fred replied, evenly. “And then,” she added, producing a leather sack, and pulling from it a folded hunk of paper, “And then, when ever’one’s here, we’re goin’ to read Ugly Joe’s will.”
A gathering of hermits is a very strange thing.
The style and substance of your average Gathering changes from region to region, but in general, there is an opening-night meeting announcing the sure-to-be sparsely attended workshops and lectures—which generally involve new uses for old bear fat and techniques for lighting caves using phosphorescent plants—after which most of the hermits go off to their individual rooms and stay there for the duration of the Gathering.
This year would be different.
With Ugly Joe’s body right out there in the woodshed, and with the news that the curmudgeonly hermit had left a document containing his final words and wishes, the opening night meeting would be sure to go down as one of the better-attended opening nights in Gathering history.
The meeting, according to custom, was held in the main room of the Tin Brick, where three fireplaces kept most of the nighttime freeze from intruding indoors. By the time the meeting began, all expected participants had arrived, the last being Bald Harry, Spitless Jeff and a large, wispy-haired gent named Knife-Blade Nick. After a characteristically quarrelsome group dinner consisting mainly of flapjacks and whisky, the hermits turned their chairs to face Ethical Fred, and all grew silent. Without ceremony, Fred began reading from the paper, which from the character of its contents, appeared to have been written quite recently.
“This here paper is the last will and testumint of Joseph Agamemnon Oldhammer, better known to all you ignerunt skunks and sons a’ badgers as Ugly Joe,” Ethical Fred boomed out, as the hermits murmured their approval. From the insults imbedded in the opening paragraph, it was clear that these were indeed the words of Ugly Joe.
Fred continued reading.
“I am figuring that if you bossloppers are reading this, then I am dead, and if I am dead—well then damn. All I can say is, I hope I was rubbed out in a humorous manner so as to give you all something to jaw about for a nice long while. And if I am a gone beaver, then I do not need my gear, or my knives and things and can-openers, or any of my possessions, so you sorry bone-pickers can all take what you want and the hell with the rest. Burn me or bury me anyway you ken think of. For all I care, you can dump me in the Upchuck and send me on down to Butcher’s Foot.
“That should skeer the devil out of them soft-bellies for sure.”
That latter suggestion was met with a roar of guffaws and knee-slaps, signaling the universal merriment of all those assembled. This was, indeed, turning out to be a fine meeting.
“Now I have a last request,” Fred went on reading, and everyone grew instantly silent again. Hermits generally frown upon requests, especially those of dead folks, for they often contain hidden moral traps and frequently smack of obligation.
“Lately, I have been of a morose and sorrowful nature,” the letter continued. “With winter getting set to come down upon the mountain, I find I can’t stop thinking of my childhood in the city, and danged if I know why, I am thinking of Christmas. Now, I have not given a banker’s hoot about Christmas since I left my home and kin and all the toomult of modern life. But I do remember Christmas, and now I am sad, wishing I could have one more such holiday. This year at Christmas, which in case you forgot is the twenty-fifth of December, I will find a way to make a Christmas for all you obstunate mountain wolves, so’s we can have such a time as I remember.
“But if, like I said, I have been rubbed out, and cannot give you bull cheeses a hermit’s holiday, then I think it would be only fittin’ you did fer me what I would have done fer you. I want you to take whatever is left of my ugly old carcass, and I want you to give it a old-fashunned Christmas. There should be presents. I want a tree with foo-fa-raw on it, and a big dinner of some kind, anything other than jerky, and I want you to sing songs and all that other Christmas stuff. That should make me laugh real hard, wherever my sorry soul has gone, just to think of you lizard-eaters all singin’ fer me. Since you are the nearest thing to a family I have got, dang you, it is you I am asking to do this last thing fer old Ugly Joe.
“I think you will, but if you don’t, then to hell with you.”
The document was signed, “J. A. Oldhammer — Ugly Joe.”
Well, Christ on a cracker,” whistled Sacrilegious Jim, after a long silence. To the dismay of many, the merry mood of the room had now sharply changed. Against all odds, Ugly Joe’s letter, with its melancholic temper and sweet, unexpected wistfulness, had infected the hermits with a deep nostalgic longing, a sharp sense of lack and of loss. For each man and woman present, there were families left behind, and dreams gone off course. Through this bubbling soup of unasked-for feeling swam a whole swarm of long-forgotten holiday memories, each one thick with the bittersweet crust of failure, abandon and regret. This feeling was overwhelming.
The hermits were enraged.
“Ugly Joe was a miserable old dog when he was alive,” barked Bald Harry, pulling his wool cap further down over his scalp, “and he always had a mean streak wide as a herd of buffalo, but this is the worst, nastiest, dirtiest trick he ever played.”
Variations on this viewpoint were exclaimed all around the room.
“Oh, put your muzzle on, I think it’s sorta sweet,” pronounced Not-Popular Pete, as everyone turned to glare at him. “Who’d a’ thought old Ugly Joe would ever think of makin’ us a Christmas dinner! That’s really mighty nice o’ him.”
“Pete’s right,” Ethical Fred finally chimed in. “Ugly Joe mighta been a particular skunk, but he was a good hermit, and if he wasn’t dead and froze right now, I guess he would of tried to do all that Christmas stuff for all of us ungrateful grease-eaters. He was our host for these twenty-something years, and I think at least we owe him enough to honor his crazy-brained last request.
“That said,” she added, “can’t say I know any Christmas songs.”
Had a small, screechy voiced intruder not burst in upon them at that very moment, the hermits might have debated, thrashed out and fist-fought the issue all night long, out of sheer love of arguing.
But there he was, a young boy no more than 12 years of age, stomping into the middle of the room like Napoleon at a tea party. He had long, unruly hair, a pink face flushed with excitement, and a voice that ripped holes in the air.
“Which one of you?” he shrieked, pointing a smudgy finger at each hermit in turn. “Which one of you is Santy Claus?”
The boy—who was named Henry Hay but was commonly known as “Lucky”—was evidently not lucky enough to have avoided pulling the short straw back in November, just before the annual evacuation, when the children of Frozen Corners held a secret meeting to decide which one of them would stay behind. To find out once and for all what went on in that town when all the people were gone, the children drew straws, and Lucky was duly elected. He had no parents, having lost them to a mudslide when he was four, and he’d been raised up, more or less, by a long and weary succession of Frozen Corner residents. Though a hard enough worker, and reasonably quick at learning, Lucky was a handful—bossy as an English Lord, and not one to ever shut up. From sun-up to lights out, Lucky talked, and talked and talked, quieting down only while chewing his food, and then only occasionally.
Then there was that voice.
It was a voice like metal being shredded into ribbons, a voice that was part scream and part avalanche. No one could stand to be around it for longer than a little while; therefore, ever since the wooshing away of his parents, Lucky had been shuffled from house to house on a nightly basis. Because he never slept in the same home twice in a row, it was highly possible that down in Butcher’s Foot, only the children were aware that Lucky was no longer among them. After pulling the straw, the boy hid himself in the pot pantry until the townsfolk were all gone. He had been camping out in Frozen Corners, alone, bundled up in the hotel kitchen, for over 40 days, waiting for Christmas and the answer to the mystery.
It took Lucky two minutes to explain all this and it was the longest two minutes in any of the hermits’ long and arduous lives. None of them doubted for a minute that the boy’s short straw had been rigged.
“Ever’body says Santy Claus comes to Frozen Corners while ever’body is down in Butcher’s Foot, ‘cause I guess Santy ain’t smart enough to figger we’re down the river a ways, or maybe Santy just don’t like Butcher’s Foot enough to go there, or maybe he’s just crazy a little,” Lucky rattled off, loudly. “So I want to know, then—which one of you fellers is Santy Claus?”
Perhaps if they hadn’t been so entirely mired in that discomfiting fog of sentiment, the hermits might have said something harsh and according to custom. Perhaps they might have suggested that the boy go look for Santa Claus out in the woodshed. Instead, after a long moment of stunned silence, or rather, a long moment in which the baffled hermits could think of nothing to say, as Lucky went on accosting and bossing them with his terrible voice and disrespectful manners, Spitless Jeff improvised, standing up to croak, as civilly as possible, “Uh, Santy ain’t showed up yet. Whyn’t you run along now?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, mister, till I seen Santy Claus,” Lucky shrilled out at the gaping assembly. “The other kids’ll wail the tar outa’ me if I don’t show ‘em some proof of some kind or t’other. I need proof!” To punctuate his steadfastness, Lucky leaped on Spitless Jeff, biting him four times in the leg before the other hermits were able to pull the boy away.
Under normal conditions, such behavior would have been enough for them to send the young noisemaker packing, but the fact that it was growing dangerously cold outside, and that Butcher’s Foot was a four-day journey down the mountain, forced the hermits into a difficult position. They had to let the boy stay. It’d been decades since any of the hermits had given a thought to the needs of children, or to the particular rituals of Christmas, and now it seemed they were faced with both.
It did not take Lucky long to grasp the situation, once it was explained, though his youth and defensive disposition did tend to color certain details. The men and women who’d invaded his town were squatters, of sorts. A man was dead, and the dead man wanted a Christmas party. Christmas was two days away—and Santa Claus would be arriving at any moment.
Since the hermits needed Lucky’s expertise in regards to Christmas, and since he ended up biting anyone who told him what to do, the boy was eventually asked to take over the whole Christmas project as its leader.
There seemed to be four elements to Ugly Joe’s request: a Christmas dinner, a Christmas tree, Christmas presents and Christmas carols. The dinner was easy. Ugly Joe, after all, had accidentally provided his own dinner: a fine, fat, frozen goose. Scandalous Sam, who did most of the cooking anyway, volunteered to roast the bird and pull together enough cans of beans and things to round out the feast.
As for the Christmas tree, the botanical showpiece itself would not be difficult to acquire, since appropriate specimens surrounded Frozen Corners. The decorations, however, would be somewhat tricky. Two-Eyed Tom and Sacrilegious Jim were appointed to dig pine cones out of the snow, while Malodorous Mike and Inconsiderate Sue were sent off to make stars and angels and flowers and assorted “foo-fa-raw” out of old cans and paper.
Of all Ugly Joe’s requests, the most challenging turned out to be the singing. Lucky, who’d spent a bit of time lurking in the corners of the saloons, knew the words and melodies of a whole mess of songs, including at least a dozen Christmas carols. But when the boy was persuaded to start up a song, his singing voice proved a far more agonizing affront to the ears than even his speaking voice did, and no one assembled could stand to listen.
Nameless Bob, it turned out, could reasonably recall the tune and lyrics to “Deck the Halls,” but when the hermits learned the words, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la,” another impasse was reached. No hermit worth his salt will willingly sing the words “Fa-la-la-la-la” in public, even as a final favor to a fallen brother.
As for the question of presents, the hermits decided that all of Joe’s things, which Ethical Fred had thoughtfully brought down from the cave, would be individually wrapped in whatever paper or fabric scrap they could find. It was decreed that on Christmas Day, each hermit would be randomly given one of the “gifts,” and anything left undistributed after that could simply be fought over. As regarding a present for Lucky, the very notion chaffed the ever-more-exasperated hermits. Lucky held fast to the notion that Santa would be arriving to give him a sleigh or some such thing. He stood resolute on the matter, insisting that while the squatters could give each other what they wanted, he’d be waiting for Santa Claus.
Pond Scum Polly risked getting a nasty bite when she cornered the boy to ask him what it was he expected to receive from Santa Claus.
“Oh, I never get much,” he replied, less fiercely than usual, “But I figger when I see Santy, I’m gonna give ‘im what fer, and I’ll make ‘im give me my own toboggan sleigh.”
“A toboggan?” Ethical Fred exclaimed later, once Polly had reported back. “Like a great big sled? What’s a rabid wildcat like him want with one of those?”
“Kids down in Butcher’s Foot have races, I guess,” Pond Scum Polly explained. “He wants to beat ‘em all and show ‘em. Anyway, that’s what the little noise box says.”
The next day was Christmas Eve. The interior of the Tin Brick was a sight to see. Pine branches had been laid across the mantels of all three fireplaces, decoratively embellished with shiny, twinkly doodads made of a dozen lard cans. Poker tables had been shoved together to form one large dinner table, now covered in a festive green and red tablecloth that had recently been several bed sheets. In the corner was the tree, a massive ten-footer now festooned with the little ornaments and pinecones created, with rough skill, by those chosen to be ornament-makers. It must have been whimsy that inspired the adornment at the top of the tree: a simple five-point star scratched with a nail onto an empty, upturned bean can.
Over all this activity, Lucky had ruled with an iron fist, his every screeching command accompanied by a vicious volley of petulant critiques and an outpouring of graceless condescension. Now, hermits have nothing against rudeness under normal conditions. In fact, had the boy been anyone else, the hermits might have embraced him as a brother hermit in training. But that voice, that voice. The hermits, some of whom had all taken to wearing earplugs made of moss and cotton, held their collective tongues, and wearily submitted to the boy’s verbal attacks, contented by the knowledge that it would soon be over.
At around sunset, all the hermits, and Lucky, gathered in the meeting room.
“Let’s bring the frozen feller in an’ get this nonsense over with,” Miserable Richard grumbled.
A moment later, the firm, frosty remains of Ugly Joe were carried from the woodshed into the hall. All stood silent, even Lucky, as Ethical Fred, Knife-Blade Nick and Malodorous Mike ushered the dead man through the door. As they gazed upon him, many reflected inwardly that death and refrigeration had not made Joe any prettier.
“Set ‘im at the head of the table,” Ethical Fred instructed. “In the chair.” This proved to be a difficult task, as Joe was so stiff he could not be made to bend properly enough to fit. In the end, the old hermit was laid out on the table, surrounded by evergreen, as a kind of centerpiece.
“We’d better get on with this and be quick about it,” Knife-Blade Nick remarked sharply, “’afore Ugly Joe starts meltin’ like an old ice pie.”
The dinner was served, and two things were immediately realized and agreed upon among the hermit assembly: that Ugly Joe’s goose was remarkably tender and well-flavored, and that this was turning out to be a surprisingly fine Christmas. After dinner, the presents were distributed, with Lucky looking on but obstinately refusing to participate beyond his usual barrage of commentary. With decorum and respect, all of the old hermit’s belongings were distributed around the room: his numerous knives, his bullet mold, a couple of awls, a tin cup, a musty buffalo robe, two pipes and a tin of tobacco, and a well-worn flint and steel. Ethical Fred was the last to open her gift: Ugly Joe’s sheet-metal frying pan, on which were scratched the initials J.A.O. For a while, the hermits remained quiet in their contemplation of the deceased. He had been a legend, of sorts, and now he was gone, reduced before their eyes to a thawing corpse and a lifetime’s collection of bits and pieces. Every man and woman present reflected, some for only a flash of a moment, that some day in the future their own worth might have to be calculated on nothing more than the assortment of odds and ends they would leave behind, and by the memories that would be kept and carried, either tended to or neglected, by all those who’d had the honor and displeasure of knowing them. It occurred to Ethical Fred that, though Ugly Joe was dead, he was still making things happen his own way. By coercing them into giving him a final Christmas, he’d succeeded, though frozen and long gone, in giving them a Christmas, and a Christmas they’d always remember, to boot.
Lucky, over the course of the last few minutes, had been silent far longer than he had since the moment he burst upon them two days ago. Finally, he’d had enough.
“Time for the danged singing!” he screeched.
With dinner and gifts now concluded, Ugly Joe’s somewhat more pliable body was relocated to the center of the room, and the hermits collected in a rough approximation of a circle. Checking that his earplugs were still in place, Malodorous Mike muttered to Lucky, “Hail, I guess we better just get on with it.”
Thus cued, Lucky began to sing.
Whichever carol the little boy chose, none of the hermits could later say, since by now they were all wearing earplugs, so none of them could hear it. So the impossible boy sang his song in a ceiling-shaking voice, singing to the corpse of old Ugly Joe. The solo was followed by “Deck the Halls,” inexpertly barked by the gathered many, and when the chorus came along, instead of singing “fa-la-la-la-la,” the hermits merely let loose, and howled. They howled like a mad pack of dogs.
It was easy to imagine that somewhere, the fading spirit of old Ugly Joe was laughing its way into everlasting sleep.
On Christmas Morning, Lucky was awakened by Spitless Jeff and Nameless Bob. The boy had fallen asleep by the Christmas tree, buried under a mound of furs and blankets.
“Get yer-sef ready, and dress up real warm,” Bob told him. “Santy Claus is outside with a Chris’mas present for yer.” For many children, this would seem an appropriate moment for sweet words and a cordial attitude. For Lucky, there was never such a time.
“What you standin’ there for?” he hollered at the hermits. “Why’nt you wake me up before? Get me my coat! Fetch my boots. Get out’er my way!” As was his custom, he attempted to bite someone for emphasis, but the hermits had already moved outside to wait for him.
It was a warm-enough day for those parts, with a faint overcast but no wind. The hermits were gathered together out in the snow, assembled in a cluster down by the bank of the frozen Upchuck. It seemed they were surrounding someone. A few minutes later, Ethical Fred saw Lucky trudging toward them through the snow, hollering, “If that’s Santy Claus you keep ‘im right there till I get what I asked fer!”
Fred made her way over to the boy and said, “Better close your eyes, and keep ‘em closed. It’ll make fer a bigger surprise.”
“I ain’t closin’ nothin’! Has Santy got my toboggan sleigh or don’t he?” Lucky yowled impatiently. Refusing to cooperate, the well-bundled boy was swiftly blindfolded by Ethical Fred, and carried yelping and shrieking over to where the hermits were standing. Though Lucky couldn’t see it, the group had moved out onto the hard, slick surface of the frozen river. There at their feet was Ugly Joe, face up on the icy Upchuck, with his head aimed down river in the direction of Butcher’s Foot. He’d been geared up with straps and tethers, as much like a toboggan as a dead man can be. The boy was settled into place, with his feet worked into the leather stirrup straps and a strong steering rope placed in his mitten-covered hands. Lucky permitted all of this, but at the same time rattled off such a stream of insults and hot curses that even those hardened hermits were forced to admit they were at least a little impressed.
Lucky grew silent only when the blindfold was removed.
It took him a moment to understand the situation.
“Where the hail is Santy Claus?” he demanded.
“Oh. He was just here,” lied Ethical Fred. “I guess you done missed him—but he left you the present you asked fer.”
“Hey! Wait! This is old Ugly Joe!” Lucky hollered. “Ugly Joe ain’t exactly what I asked fer!”
“Well,” said Scandalous Sam, as the hermits gripped old Joe and prepared to give him a great big push, “apparently, you been naughty!”
Before Lucky could think of a thing to say, he was off, tobogganing fast as you please down the winding Upchuck, his throat filled with a long lingering shriek of fear and excitement, a shriek such as anyone might give while sledding down a frozen river on the body of a man named Ugly Joe. What was left of that shriek was still on Lucky’s lips when he arrived in Butcher’s Foot, to the amazement of everyone who witnessed it, not long after he’d left Frozen Corners. The trip that annually took his townsfolk five days to make by wagon and cart, Lucky had just accomplished in less than one hour.
He’d squealed the whole time, and wouldn’t be able to talk for another two weeks. By the time he got his voice back, it’d changed, grown deeper and fuller and far more tolerable to listen to. The boy’s disposition had changed, too, a result of the serious reflection and introspective pondering he’d done while plummeting down the mountain at high speed. Though his singing voice would never improve, and he still had occasional fits of impatience, Henry “Lucky” Hay had arrived from the mountain, a better, wiser person.
As for the hermits, the events of the season had been more than any of them had bargained for or desired, and the unconventional camaraderie forced upon them by Ugly Joe and his will was enough to content them for years to come. It was decided that the North Eastern Region Hermit Gathering would be suspended for at least five years. This would also serve to avoid difficult entanglements, now that Lucky and Ugly Joe had so spectacularly spoiled the hermits’ secret.
Ugly Joe was buried in the cemetery near Butcher’s Foot, and a gravestone erected in his honor. When the people of Frozen Corners returned to town that Spring, the place was empty, almost as if nothing had ever gone on there. As usual, everything was a bit better than before, and little gifts had been left in the closets and cupboards all over town.
Among the children of Frozen Corners and Butcher’s Foot, Lucky had earned a newfound respect, and a reputation that soon grew to that of a legend. That legend, with its tale of the boy who rode a dead hermit sixty miles down a river of ice, grew and expanded and was added to until no one remembered that it had once been true. Down in Butcher’s Foot, life went on as well, though in years to come it would be reported that once every year, on Christmas Day, a man always came to town and stood over the grave of Ugly Joe, where he’d sing Christmas carols loud and long, in a voice that ripped holes in the air. FL
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