Guest columnist: Preserving our path home on Elkhorn Creek (based on a true story)

So, it wasn’t long before a coon hunt was set up on a late summer evening, and I was the guide! And it was my first coon hunt! Coons are nocturnal.

These good ol’ boys came pulling up at my family’s house on the farm after driving several hours from the mountains, about dusk, in a couple brand new pickups, with all the bells and whistles money can buy! Top of the line dog cages in the back too!

After some introductions, I jumped in the front seat of one of the pickups and pointed the way to the creek.

There were three of these amiable, gentleman coon hunters, probably in their late 30s or early 40s, and when I pointed out a place to park, the hunters unloaded their hounds and commenced to telling me one was a $1,500 coon hound and another was a $5,000 coon hound. The third was a young pup coon hound that they were going to train. They even had papers on the hounds and ribbons that the hounds had won at shows and competitions.

All of the coon hounds I was told were English coon hounds or Walkers. Each gentleman owned one. So, I made over the intelligent look on the hounds' faces, their good build and coloration, and even petted around on them a little. The gentlemen appeared to like the attention and high praises I gave their dogs.

They never told me the worth of the young pup for some reason.

It wasn’t long before it was pitch black, except for the stars shining in the night sky — no moon.

I told them of my plan to follow the creek around and through the woods and trees growing beside it that was owned by a friendly neighbor. The neighbor had one big 150-acre cornfield planted in the open land not far from the woods. The coon hunters jumped right on that plan just like their dogs would jump on a coon. So, I pointed the way upstream and we commenced walking, leading the dogs — or the dogs were leading them — pulling as hard as they could toward all the scent they could smell.

In one particular spot, the trees were full of corn shucks and silks from the corn, where the coons would climb up to safety while carrying an ear of corn and eat the corn at their leisure.

Certain trees were favorites for coons to use and would look as if they were decorated for Christmas with corn silks as tinsel hanging down. Empty cobs and digested corn was everywhere on the ground and stuck in the trees.

The hounds went to baying or howling, right off the bat, smelling the scent of a hot coon trail in the trees. Along the ground, their masters let them go.

Remember, this was before GPS dog collars or implants and cellphones or devices to follow GPS.

The young pups were training to led the way.

The coon hunters each claimed they recognized their own dog's voice and knew who was in the lead, second and third. I guess these gentleman may have had a sense of echolocation — much like a bat. I don’t know to this day if that’s true.

I was fit for my age and the coon hunters appeared to be too. We all had good flashlights and short sleeve T-shirts on. It was muggy and the evenings and nights were still pretty hot.

The hounds immediately busted out of the trees and went straight into the 150-acre corn that was more than 10 feet tall with ears on every stalk.

Did you know that individual grass leaves are called blades, and that corn is a giant grass?

We took in after them, abreast at a brisk fearless and confident pace through the corn following the hounds, and eventually couldn’t hear their powerful booming voices baying. 

The corn made a rustling sound as we walked through it, so we’d stop and listen every so often. Someone would claim they heard them and we’d change direction walking through the giant blades of grass with our T-shirts on.

There was a heavy thick fog, that seemed as if you could cut it with a knife, that manifested itself a little while later. It blocked out any starlight while we hiked the corn in the dark. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face without your flashlight. We started stopping a lot more often after what felt like a couple of hours had passed.

I told the still amiable gentleman that we were probably walking in circles, lost in the fog since we’d gotten onto a real flat 60-acre bottom stretch of the corn, but I could get us out if they were ready to go back and return in the daylight and search for their hounds. They unanimously agreed. The hounds were gone and the hunters had lost their zeal for the hunt.

There was also 300 more acres of corn planted across the creek on the friendly neighbor's farm. I pointed it out to them. The dogs could have crossed the creek.

I was confused about where I was, but I didn’t feel completely lost. So, I put on my thinking cap.

We circled, making a big loop — them following — and started slowly up the slightest incline. I knew the creek would be my path home and I knew it was down stream or hill, so I turned and in my mind's eye I walked in a straight line perpendicular from that slight incline and we walked back through the corn toward the creek.

In a few minutes we could hear the creek's water rushing, almost at the sound of a roar in places over the rocks.

I immediately stepped out in the cool water with the mist rising off of it. The water was about to my waist and I washed my arms, neck and face off. What a soothing sensation after hours of walking in that corn.

The coon hunters didn’t trust my instinct or the water. They didn’t join me.

I realized years later that many folks in the sparsely populated areas of the mountains had straight pipes going from their toilets into the creeks and rivers where they resided.

You know what? I believe they thought that creek did too (it doesn’t) and knew the danger of E. Coli bacterial infections that can hospitalize a healthy person that gets infected by it through contaminated water. But they never mentioned or questioned me about the creek water. At 16 years old, I wouldn’t have cared anyway.

I came out of the water and said in a pleasant tone that we needed to follow the creek downstream and I would recognize the geographic features of the land where the political boundaries separate my family farm, from the friendly neighbor's farm that we were on.

I doubt if I used those exact words but they — in a friendly manner — understood me. Although, we never shined our lights in each other’s eyes in the pitch black out of politeness, because that’s painfully blinding. Even though my cheaper flashlight was starting to dim. And, I really never saw their expressions in the dark and fog.

That may have been for the best. Expressions say a thousand words.

After about an hour of walking along the creek, including walking in the shallow waters of the creek for 400-500 yards to escape a large patch of wild cane that grew to the creeks edge, we made it back to their trucks. We saw neither hide nor hair, nor heard a sound from their coon hounds.

The next morning I saw those fellows back — all smiles and chipper — in their trucks. The hunt was over for me, I informed them, but I wished them well with a big smile and handshakes and assured them they were welcome to search for their dogs. And that I didn’t think the friendly neighbors cared if they sought their hounds that ran off after all the coons that were in their corn.

I was off to a different task that needed undertaking on the farm.

Those fellows came back on the second day too, and parked their pickups on high points of the farm. During their two days of searching, while resting in or out of their trucks, sitting in chairs, they would whoop and holler those coon hounds names out ever so often, then stop and listen real close. They eventually found them. The hounds had collars with their owner's home phone numbers on them.

The coon hounds were friendly and when they got hungry they’d loaf around someone’s farm house looking for food. The friendly residence, back then, would call the home phone numbers and quickly were able to get a message to the coon hound owners — all the way from Paintsville to Frankfort! And, to my family’s home phone.

We need to preserve Elkhorn Creek.

To this day, the creek's sounds are a soothing sensation and a path home for many good folks and the wildlife that exists there.

Richard Jones is a fifth generation farmer in Franklin County. With his two sons, he operates the family business — Happy Jack's Pumpkin and Produce Farm. He can be emailed at rwjhappy@gmail.com