David Healey - Ardennes Sniper

A beaver pelt brought a dollar and a really good muskrat pelt was worth 50 cents — not nearly what prices had been just a few years before, when the Cole family had experienced a brief spell of such prosperity that they bought canned goods and even new boots for pa. Then the Depression hit, and the demand for fur had dried up like everything else. Just about anyone with good sense had given up trapping, but for a mountain boy it meant a little money coming in for the family and maybe some muskrat for the stew pot.

Cole’s pa was what the mountain people called a “woodsy” in that he mostly lived off the land — hunting and trapping, no matter the season or the game laws. Hard cash was tough to come by in the mountains so the old man would sometimes trade firewood he had split by hand or a jug of moonshine from the still he kept way up in the hills. When he was sober, he taught Cole everything he knew — how to read tracks like a road sign or the way to aim so that a bullet would travel true in the mountain air. Sober, Cole’s daddy was a hard man of few words. Drunk on moonshine, he was mean and quick with a beating. It was best to stay out in the woods.

Locked in a deep freeze, the winter woods were silent to most ears, but not so quiet if you knew what to listen for. Cole could make out the chirp of a cardinal, the chatter of a squirrel, the gurgle of creek water so cold it was like liquid ice.

He went down to the edge of Gashey’s Creek, to a hole where the water was at least ten feet deep and still flowing. The current reminded Cole of the quiet, smooth movement of a muscle under the skin.

A mud path on the steep bank showed where the beaver ventured out to gnaw the bark from the willows growing near the water’s edge. He set down the bag of traps he carried. A beaver could weigh nearly 50 pounds, and so a beaver trap weighed about 10 pounds. It was a lot of weight for a boy to carry, but already Cole had muscles hard as knotted cordwood.

Working carefully, he set the trap. A steel trap has a system of dual springs that require all the weight of a lean fourteen-year-old boy to set them — and then some. With one boot on each spring, Cole got the jaws open, then set the pan that held them in place. It was not an easy task with bare fingers on cold steel in the frigid air. The slightest touch would trigger the jaws to snap shut. From one spring ran a length of chain, at the end of which was a loop of steel through which was threaded a length of wire that ran down into the water.

When the jaws snapped shut on a beaver, the weight of the trap dragged the animal down into the deep water and drowned it.

Cole knew to be careful around the traps, but the cold made him hurry and take a shortcut. Instead of setting the trap from beneath — a safety precaution in case the jaws snapped shut, although it required extra effort — he set the pan from above. The trigger caught and held, and he started to take his hand away. But the movement caused his feet to shift on the ice and the jaws clamped around his wrist, catching him in his own trap.

The jolt of pain caused him to slip on the icy bank and he encountered an even bigger shock when he plunged into the creek.

The extra winter clothes and layers of wool intended to keep him warm instantly soaked through, weighing him down like a granite shroud. With a 10-pound trap around one hand, he could not swim. Bubbles escaped toward the surface, but he was trapped beneath the water.

How long could he hold his breath? This wasn’t some summertime swim. One minute in the icy creek, maybe two, and it would all be over.

Not much time. He had to think of something.

Cole let himself sink to the bottom. There was some current but the wire that ran through the ring at the end of the trap’s chain tethered him in place. The only way back to the surface was to get the trap off his hand. But it would take both his feet to do it.

The icy water was very clear; he could look all the way back up to the surface. Like he was the fly in the bottom of a Mason jar of moonshine.

The creek bed was soft and muddy, but he kicked around, ignoring the pain in his hand, until he found a good, flat rock. He put the trap on the rock, then stood on the springs. There was some give, but the buoyancy of the water meant his full weight wasn’t on the springs. He raised both feet at once and did a kind of jump. Nothing. His lungs screamed for air. Try again. He bobbed up and came down again on the springs. The added force was just enough to make the jaws loosen their grip and he wrenched his hand free, leaving a good bit of skin behind.

He then kicked his way to the surface and swam the short distance to the creek bank. Once there, he lay half in and half out of the water, taking big gulps of air like it was money some rich man was giving away. Then he crawled the rest of the way up the creek bank.

Though he had not drowned, the frigid air would kill him almost as quick in this cold. It was only about five degrees above zero at midday, which meant ice immediately formed on his wet clothes. His hair froze. He was three miles from home.

Move, he told himself.

He took the time to pick up the sack of spare traps. Pa would whip him if he left those behind.

Then Cole started running, trying to outrace the cold. He trotted through the snowy woods, leaving spots of blood in the snow. His heart hammered with the effort, but he did not stop.

The last couple hundred yards as he came into sight of the shack, its plume of woodsmoke coming from the rusty stovepipe, were the hardest. By the time he reached the porch he was staggering rather than running.

His ma and pa helped get his clothes off him, wrapped him in a dry blanket, and stood him by the wood stove. His sister pressed a hot mug of sassafras tea into his good hand. Once he stopped shivering enough to talk, he explained what had happened.

His pa was half drunk and Cole expected to catch a beating, or a cussing out at the very least. Instead, his old man gently washed his cut hand and poured some whiskey over it, then wrapped it with strips of clean rags. “You done good, boy. You kept your head. That can make the difference between livin’ and dyin’. You remember that.”

Cole had remembered. He had kept his head time and time again when others panicked. And so far he had stayed alive, which for anyone who had survived until December 1944 in the Ardennes Forest was something of an accomplishment.

He looked out at the darkness, keeping watch.

In the morning, the snipers awoke to yet more fresh snow. Flakes drifted in through the gaps in the thatched roof, covering the cold remains of their campfire. Nobody moved to rekindle the fire. They wouldn’t be there long enough, and there was no point in the smoke from a fire letting any Germans in the area know that they had company.

“Does it ever stop snowing in this frickin’ place?” Vaccaro muttered. He tried to take a drink from his canteen, but the water was frozen. McNulty handed him a bottle of schnapps instead. He took a swig of liquor and grimaced.

“I reckon it will stop snowing right about the time you stop griping,” Cole said. “Now pass that bottle around. It ain’t moonshine, but it ought to give a little heat this morning.”

“Who the hell drinks moonshine?” Vaccaro wondered.

“My daddy drank it for breakfast. Of course, he was a mean son of a bitch. Moonshine killed him in the end.”

“Drank too much, did he?”

“No, he messed around with some other man’s still and got shot.”

“Cole, sometimes you leave me at a loss for words, which is saying something.”

Cole winked. “You come around the holler after this here war and I’ll treat you to a jar of the best white lightning you ever tasted.”