Harry Lee was in trouble . . . again. It’s not that Harry Lee was a bad kid. In fact it was just the opposite – Harry Lee was a good guy, just way to strong for his own good.
His dad, John, knew there was something special about Harry Lee at age 3 when Harry Lee pulled the cabin door off its hinges. That was no small feat considering that hinges were made out of the metal straps that go around barrels. As it turns out, Harry Lee had decided to go outside to play and simply forgot to let go of the door. He had carried the 300 pound door across the porch and down the steps before setting it down. It took John and his brother both to be able to pick the door up and put it back in place. That was Harry Lee at 3.
When Harry Lee was 10 years old, he was already 6 feet tall and weighed 190 pounds. It was around that time that Harry Lee killed the pack of wolves that had been eating everyone’s livestock. Harry Lee had been making the two day trip to town to pick up supplies when he ran into the wolves. It had happened at night when Harry Lee had just finished cooking supper. The wolves burst into the campsite, running straight at Harry Lee. With the campsite behind them, the three wolves looked like one huge wolf with three heads. Harry Lee swears that he reacted out of instinct, but John knows that his son had no fear of any living creature. Harry Lee grabbed all three wolves at the same time and squeezed the life out of them. No one believed him at first until Harry Lee showed them the wolf skins.
Yes, John knew there was something special about his son and he often wondered what kind of man Harry Lee’s father had been. John had adopted Harry Lee before he was 6 months old. Adopted may be too strong of a word for what actually happened. The truth is that someone had left Harry Lee on John’s porch with a note attached. The note had said, “Please take care of my boy. He’s very special but he can’t go where I’m headed. Zed”
John had loved the baby from the first moment he laid eyes on him. His wife, Helen, wasn’t as affectionate. She didn’t really like anyone or anything. A sour woman, Helen harped about everything making John’s life considerably rougher than normal, which was saying something given the fact they lived in a little mountain hollow in the Appalachian Mountains. John tried his best to scratch out a living cutting timber and sawing it into lumber but life had been hard ever since his first wife had died and he married Helen. John’s father had called her a succubus, warning John that she would suck the life right out of him. But John desperately needed help with raising his kids from his first wife.
At first, Helen all smiles and even pleasant, but that slowly changed. By the time John found Harry Lee on his porch, Helen was constantly complaining about her life with John. Adding Harry Lee to the family just made things worse, but John couldn’t turn the baby away. There was something special about him.
Now, at age 15, Harry Lee had grown to six feet eight inches tall and weighed 245 pounds, was all muscle and a great help for John. Incredibly, Harry Lee could pick up an eight foot log by himself and put it on the wagon. Harry Lee also made extra money for the family pulling stumps out of the ground and clearing large rocks from people’s land. In fact, John had just made a deal with the blacksmith in the next hollow to clear his land of stumps in exchange for new saws and axes. Harry Lee was to pull the stumps and put them on wagons that were driven by the blacksmith’s sons.
Harry Lee had started early in the morning before the sun had gotten too hot, pulling stump after stump. It was almost noon before the blacksmith’s sons showed up. There were three of them, as well as 4 more they claimed as cousins. Dirty looking and foul smelling, these boys had spent too much time in the stables and not enough time cleaning up. The three sons were the real bad ones in the lot. Short on brains and long on mean, they looked like devils to Harry Lee. It was clear to Harry Lee that the three had soot caked on their skin from standing to close to the blacksmith’s fire and too far from soap and water. Bad teeth and wicked smiles didn’t help their looks either.
True to their nature, the three decided after lunch to make Harry Lee’s job as hard as they could make it. Their favorite trick was to keep the wagons a few steps ahead of Harry Lee as he tried to load the stumps. Realizing what was going on, Harry Lee quit chasing the wagons and began tossing the stumps into them. Harry Lee had just tossed a stump into the oldest son’s wagon when a root on the stump whipped across the buggy and struck the son in the back of his head. Furious, the son jumped off the wagon and jumped onto Harry Lee. Following his lead, the rest of the guys piled onto Harry Lee, hitting and kicking.
Tossing the cousins left and right, Harry Lee grabbed the three brothers and squeezed them hard. Yelling for mercy, the three brothers cried out to Harry Lee to let them go. Over practically as soon as it started, Harry Lee walked away from the scuffle without a scratch. The blacksmith boys weren’t so lucky. There were cracked ribs, broken noses and even a broken arm. Harry Lee picked up the boys and put them on their wagons, sending the teams of horses home with a slap on their rears.
By the time Harry Lee got home, the blacksmith had already ridden to see John. He told John that the deal was off, no new saws or axes because of all the money he was going to lose with his boys unable to help around his place. Harry Lee tried to explain to his father but nothing he said helped. Finally, he told the blacksmith that he would come and do whatever work the boys were supposed to do just as long as his dad still got new saws and axes.
What Harry Lee didn’t know was the blacksmith was just a crooked as his sons. He had no intention of honoring his deal with John and saw the incident between Harry Lee and his sons as a good way to back out of the deal. Now he saw a way to get even more work out of Harry Lee. The blacksmith told Harry Lee he had a deal and he could start in the morning.
That night Harry Lee had wild dreams. He kept dreaming of rivers and waterfalls, rapids washing away everything before them. He tossed and turned throughout the night, resting uneasily.
Walking over the next morning, Harry Lee couldn’t shake the memories of his dreams. They were especially vivid in his memory when he crossed over the creek on the edge of the blacksmith’s land. The creek criss-crossed the blacksmith’s land, actually passing just below the stables. Harry Lee didn’t know it but the blacksmith had built the stables close to the creek to make it easy to bring water to the horses.
The blacksmith told Harry Lee that his boys were supposed to clean out his stables and that’s what he expected out of Harry Lee. This was a bold face lie told by the blacksmith. His boys were extremely lazy in addition to being mean-spirited and he had never gotten a lick of work out of them. For years the blacksmith had tried to get his boys to clean up the stables. For years the filth had piled up in the stables, the stench overpowering. As soon as Harry Lee cleaned the stables, the blacksmith said he would let him go with new saws and axes in hand. The filth was so deep; however, that the blacksmith knew Harry Lee could work for weeks and not get finished.
Harry Lee realized this as well, but he had given his word. He was stuck. He grabbed a shovel and started working in the nearest stall. An hour later h e could barely tell that he had done anything in the stall. Taking a break, Harry Lee walked to the creek to cool off. Dunking his hands and feet into the water, he watched as the dirt was swept away. Swept away he thought. Of course, now his dreams were making sense.
Tracing the creek back up hill, Harry Lee saw the creek curl behind the stable as he climbed uphill. Finding the right bend in the creek, Harry Lee moved half dozen boulders along the creek and changed the flow of the creek. Now instead of flowing around the stables, the creek was rushing straight for the stables. Harry Lee rushed around to the bottom and closed the stable doors on the side downhill from the creek. The water rushed in but couldn’t flow out. Slowly filling the stable, the creek kept pouring water into the stables. At the right time, Harry Lee threw open the stable doors and watched as years of filth washed out of the stables. He ran up to the bend in the creek and put the boulders back into their original positions. It wasn’t even lunch yet and he was finished with this Herculean task.
Realizing the blacksmith was looking for any way possible to get out of his deal, Harry Lee knew that he would have to “convince” the blacksmith to honor their deal. Stepping into the room where the blacksmith had his fire pit, Harry Lee walked quickly up to the blacksmith and threw out his hand. Shaking his hand, the blacksmith asked Harry Lee what he wanted. Squeezing hard, Harry Lee asked the blacksmith if the stables were clean could he have the new saws and axes. Of course, said the blacksmith as he tried to reclaim his hand.
Harry Lee squeezed harder and pulled the blacksmith out to the stables. Standing in front of the stables, his mouth wide open, the blacksmith couldn’t believe his eyes. The stables were washed clean. He started to speak when Harry Lee somehow squeezed even harder, bringing tears to the blacksmith’s eyes. Where were the saws and axes, Harry Lee asked. Desperate to free his hand, the blacksmith nodded toward a small outbuilding beside the stables. Dragging the blacksmith with him, Harry Lee opened the door to the outbuilding. As soon as he saw the saws and axes, he released his grip but did not let go. So we’re good, done deal, he asked. The blacksmith nodded yes as Harry Lee slightly flexed his grip.
Harry Lee gathered up the new saws and axes and began to walk back to his side of the mountain. It wasn’t over with the blacksmith or his boys. Harry Lee knew that battle was coming. But that was in the future. For now, this labor was over and it was time to move to the next one.
His dad, John, knew there was something special about Harry Lee at age 3 when Harry Lee pulled the cabin door off its hinges. That was no small feat considering that hinges were made out of the metal straps that go around barrels. As it turns out, Harry Lee had decided to go outside to play and simply forgot to let go of the door. He had carried the 300 pound door across the porch and down the steps before setting it down. It took John and his brother both to be able to pick the door up and put it back in place. That was Harry Lee at 3.
When Harry Lee was 10 years old, he was already 6 feet tall and weighed 190 pounds. It was around that time that Harry Lee killed the pack of wolves that had been eating everyone’s livestock. Harry Lee had been making the two day trip to town to pick up supplies when he ran into the wolves. It had happened at night when Harry Lee had just finished cooking supper. The wolves burst into the campsite, running straight at Harry Lee. With the campsite behind them, the three wolves looked like one huge wolf with three heads. Harry Lee swears that he reacted out of instinct, but John knows that his son had no fear of any living creature. Harry Lee grabbed all three wolves at the same time and squeezed the life out of them. No one believed him at first until Harry Lee showed them the wolf skins.
Yes, John knew there was something special about his son and he often wondered what kind of man Harry Lee’s father had been. John had adopted Harry Lee before he was 6 months old. Adopted may be too strong of a word for what actually happened. The truth is that someone had left Harry Lee on John’s porch with a note attached. The note had said, “Please take care of my boy. He’s very special but he can’t go where I’m headed. Zed”
John had loved the baby from the first moment he laid eyes on him. His wife, Helen, wasn’t as affectionate. She didn’t really like anyone or anything. A sour woman, Helen harped about everything making John’s life considerably rougher than normal, which was saying something given the fact they lived in a little mountain hollow in the Appalachian Mountains. John tried his best to scratch out a living cutting timber and sawing it into lumber but life had been hard ever since his first wife had died and he married Helen. John’s father had called her a succubus, warning John that she would suck the life right out of him. But John desperately needed help with raising his kids from his first wife.
At first, Helen all smiles and even pleasant, but that slowly changed. By the time John found Harry Lee on his porch, Helen was constantly complaining about her life with John. Adding Harry Lee to the family just made things worse, but John couldn’t turn the baby away. There was something special about him.
Now, at age 15, Harry Lee had grown to six feet eight inches tall and weighed 245 pounds, was all muscle and a great help for John. Incredibly, Harry Lee could pick up an eight foot log by himself and put it on the wagon. Harry Lee also made extra money for the family pulling stumps out of the ground and clearing large rocks from people’s land. In fact, John had just made a deal with the blacksmith in the next hollow to clear his land of stumps in exchange for new saws and axes. Harry Lee was to pull the stumps and put them on wagons that were driven by the blacksmith’s sons.
Harry Lee had started early in the morning before the sun had gotten too hot, pulling stump after stump. It was almost noon before the blacksmith’s sons showed up. There were three of them, as well as 4 more they claimed as cousins. Dirty looking and foul smelling, these boys had spent too much time in the stables and not enough time cleaning up. The three sons were the real bad ones in the lot. Short on brains and long on mean, they looked like devils to Harry Lee. It was clear to Harry Lee that the three had soot caked on their skin from standing to close to the blacksmith’s fire and too far from soap and water. Bad teeth and wicked smiles didn’t help their looks either.
True to their nature, the three decided after lunch to make Harry Lee’s job as hard as they could make it. Their favorite trick was to keep the wagons a few steps ahead of Harry Lee as he tried to load the stumps. Realizing what was going on, Harry Lee quit chasing the wagons and began tossing the stumps into them. Harry Lee had just tossed a stump into the oldest son’s wagon when a root on the stump whipped across the buggy and struck the son in the back of his head. Furious, the son jumped off the wagon and jumped onto Harry Lee. Following his lead, the rest of the guys piled onto Harry Lee, hitting and kicking.
Tossing the cousins left and right, Harry Lee grabbed the three brothers and squeezed them hard. Yelling for mercy, the three brothers cried out to Harry Lee to let them go. Over practically as soon as it started, Harry Lee walked away from the scuffle without a scratch. The blacksmith boys weren’t so lucky. There were cracked ribs, broken noses and even a broken arm. Harry Lee picked up the boys and put them on their wagons, sending the teams of horses home with a slap on their rears.
By the time Harry Lee got home, the blacksmith had already ridden to see John. He told John that the deal was off, no new saws or axes because of all the money he was going to lose with his boys unable to help around his place. Harry Lee tried to explain to his father but nothing he said helped. Finally, he told the blacksmith that he would come and do whatever work the boys were supposed to do just as long as his dad still got new saws and axes.
What Harry Lee didn’t know was the blacksmith was just a crooked as his sons. He had no intention of honoring his deal with John and saw the incident between Harry Lee and his sons as a good way to back out of the deal. Now he saw a way to get even more work out of Harry Lee. The blacksmith told Harry Lee he had a deal and he could start in the morning.
That night Harry Lee had wild dreams. He kept dreaming of rivers and waterfalls, rapids washing away everything before them. He tossed and turned throughout the night, resting uneasily.
Walking over the next morning, Harry Lee couldn’t shake the memories of his dreams. They were especially vivid in his memory when he crossed over the creek on the edge of the blacksmith’s land. The creek criss-crossed the blacksmith’s land, actually passing just below the stables. Harry Lee didn’t know it but the blacksmith had built the stables close to the creek to make it easy to bring water to the horses.
The blacksmith told Harry Lee that his boys were supposed to clean out his stables and that’s what he expected out of Harry Lee. This was a bold face lie told by the blacksmith. His boys were extremely lazy in addition to being mean-spirited and he had never gotten a lick of work out of them. For years the blacksmith had tried to get his boys to clean up the stables. For years the filth had piled up in the stables, the stench overpowering. As soon as Harry Lee cleaned the stables, the blacksmith said he would let him go with new saws and axes in hand. The filth was so deep; however, that the blacksmith knew Harry Lee could work for weeks and not get finished.
Harry Lee realized this as well, but he had given his word. He was stuck. He grabbed a shovel and started working in the nearest stall. An hour later h e could barely tell that he had done anything in the stall. Taking a break, Harry Lee walked to the creek to cool off. Dunking his hands and feet into the water, he watched as the dirt was swept away. Swept away he thought. Of course, now his dreams were making sense.
Tracing the creek back up hill, Harry Lee saw the creek curl behind the stable as he climbed uphill. Finding the right bend in the creek, Harry Lee moved half dozen boulders along the creek and changed the flow of the creek. Now instead of flowing around the stables, the creek was rushing straight for the stables. Harry Lee rushed around to the bottom and closed the stable doors on the side downhill from the creek. The water rushed in but couldn’t flow out. Slowly filling the stable, the creek kept pouring water into the stables. At the right time, Harry Lee threw open the stable doors and watched as years of filth washed out of the stables. He ran up to the bend in the creek and put the boulders back into their original positions. It wasn’t even lunch yet and he was finished with this Herculean task.
Realizing the blacksmith was looking for any way possible to get out of his deal, Harry Lee knew that he would have to “convince” the blacksmith to honor their deal. Stepping into the room where the blacksmith had his fire pit, Harry Lee walked quickly up to the blacksmith and threw out his hand. Shaking his hand, the blacksmith asked Harry Lee what he wanted. Squeezing hard, Harry Lee asked the blacksmith if the stables were clean could he have the new saws and axes. Of course, said the blacksmith as he tried to reclaim his hand.
Harry Lee squeezed harder and pulled the blacksmith out to the stables. Standing in front of the stables, his mouth wide open, the blacksmith couldn’t believe his eyes. The stables were washed clean. He started to speak when Harry Lee somehow squeezed even harder, bringing tears to the blacksmith’s eyes. Where were the saws and axes, Harry Lee asked. Desperate to free his hand, the blacksmith nodded toward a small outbuilding beside the stables. Dragging the blacksmith with him, Harry Lee opened the door to the outbuilding. As soon as he saw the saws and axes, he released his grip but did not let go. So we’re good, done deal, he asked. The blacksmith nodded yes as Harry Lee slightly flexed his grip.
Harry Lee gathered up the new saws and axes and began to walk back to his side of the mountain. It wasn’t over with the blacksmith or his boys. Harry Lee knew that battle was coming. But that was in the future. For now, this labor was over and it was time to move to the next one.