Charlie Barton was pretty damned proud of himself. He showed Jim Chris the big copperhead he'd killed the night before. It was over three foot long, minus the head he'd chopped off with a hoe.

It was a miserably hot morning in August. Like most weekenders at the Lake of the Ozarks, Charlie wore only swim trunks and his skin was splotched with sweat. Jim Chris wasn't sweating. He wore faded Oshkosh blue overalls and a plaid flannel shirt buttoned at the cuffs and the collar, the way most farm folk dressed in the Ozarks. For protecting themselves from the sun, so they claimed. His hat, once a proud, gray fedora, was weathered almost white. Stained and smudged over the years of hard use, the brim on either side rolled in cheeky curves. He looked at the remains of the snake, gauging the length, leaned over to peer at the severed three-plus inches of head.

"Fair sized 'un," he said.

Charlie thought so, too. He eagerly awaited further praise.

"They's bigger ones out there in the woods."

"Ooooh...Aaaaah...do you suppose?"

"Well, couple 'a three months ago," Jim Chris said, rolling a cigarette...

I was out looking for a new ridge pole for my hog shed. Found a likely oak saplin' 'bout four inches across, straight with no burls. Unlimbered my ax, spit on my hands and was fixin' to take my first cut when I saw this mean lookin' ten-foot long-six-inch across copperhead laying on the shady side 'a the sapling. Its ugly snout was drawn back in an ess-curve ready to strike.

Like to scared me out 'a my pants. 'Til I remembered I had me a fresh-honed ax in my hands. Took a swing at that blamed copperhead, aimin' to cut him clean in half. He was faster'n me. Struck at my ax head with his mouth wide open and fangs dripping; sunk them fangs deep in that iron ax head and pumped it so plumb full 'a poison that it swole up an' went flyin' off like a greased pig on his way down a chute.

It went spinnin' more'n fifty foot straight up, cuttin' all the limbs off 'a that oak saplin' on the way up. On the way down, it peeled the bark off 'a the trunk from tiptop to base. It ricocheted off a sizable hunk 'a flint, glanced off another and come back at me an' the tree an' me an' the snake. I ducked just in time. It went zingin' past me, lopped off that snake's head just behind the jaw line, cut that oak sapling off clean and skipped off another twenty foot or more a'fore buryin' itself in a piss-ellum stump.

After my heart went to beatin' reg'lar again, I seen I had me a brand new ridge pole for my hog shed, all cut, sized, and peeled. Also had 'a half-rick 'a tree limbs for kindlin'. Bundled them tree limbs together, tied 'em up with the nine-foot remains 'a the copperhead, shouldered my new ridge pole an' went home. It was almost two weeks a'fore the copperhead poison drained out 'a my ax head and it unswole enough to come free 'a that stump.

Charlie squinched up his eyes and cleared his throat a couple of times. Jim Chris ignored him, kind of rolled his head around like he was easing a crick in his neck.

"Are you telling me that's the God's-Honest Truth?" Charlie asked.

He was still new to the Lake country. Didn't know a man's stories aren't to be questioned. It was the code 'a the hills. Could ruin a friendship forever. Jim Chris didn't answer straight off. He hunched up his shoulders, still working at the crick in his neck, took a last puff off his hand-rolled cigarette and flipped it at a grasshopper on its way going by. He regarded the horizon for a while before looking Charlie square in the eye.

"Trouble with folks nowadays, they want 'a take for the truth somethin' ain't meant to be nothin' but good conversation."

Now, before you get to thinkin' this whole book is about good conversation and tall tales, let's set the account straight. Some is about that. Nothin' better than a good story to brighten a person's day. But mostly this is the story of a man's life. How he lived and what he became, stretching from the time he was born until he passed on. For the record, his given name was James Christian Brown, known by nearly everyone as Jim Chris. To a lesser extent, this is also the story of the young couple, Charlie Barton and Ada, who, over the span of forty some years, became his best friends.

Charlie and Ada met Jim Chris back in '59 when they bought a little summer place on the Osage arm of the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. How they met is simple. Their new cabin set on a wooded hill but could be seen by anyone passing by on the Lake. One day when Jim Chris was fishing for crappie on the cove side of that hill, he got curious about the activity up there so he went up and introduced himself.

Told the young couple he farmed two little valleys some three mile down the Lake. Said he was out fishin' and did they mind if he took a few cat or crappie out 'a their cove. Charlie said as far as he was concerned Jim Chris could fish there any time. Jim Chris thanked him kindly, thinking what a downright neighborly thing that was for an outsider to say.

From then on, Jim Chris dropped by now and then to say hello, maybe sharing a snort of bourbon with these two youngsters while yarnin' about growing up in the hills. He got to helping out with chores; like clearing out brush or painting the cabin or digging a hole for flowers. Charlie'd give a dollar or two when he could afford it, which wasn't often, but that was all right with Jim Chris. He knew these newlyweds didn't have money to spare, even though it wasn't because they were broke.

They were just getting started, saving for the time when there would be babies to raise. And there was that house they were buying in St. Louis, plus paying off this place at the Lake. So Jim Chris didn't seem to mind spending a hot Saturday afternoon painting or digging and earning only a couple of dollops of bourbon for his trouble.

"Ain't it nice," he would say, looking solemn at Ada, "that the Good Lord invented whiskey to drink and women to talk to!"

He loved yarnin'. It was a part of his life. Come by it natural, he said. Told Charlie once he was just carrying on the tradition of his Papa and Grampa. But there was more to him than just telling stories, although there was plenty of that. Jim Chris and his wife, Beth, came to be good friends with the Barton's. When Ada and Charlie went through a time of terrible trouble a lot of years later, it was Jim Chris who pulled them back from the edge. No way could they ever repay him.

He'd lived a hard life, Jim Chris said, same as his folks before him. Scratched a living out of those two little valleys that were surrounded by a pincer of rocky hills with a ridge in between known as Gandy Blount's Hill.

Jim Chris had about two hundred forty acres all told. A shallow creek split the north valley and meandered down through it, draining finally into a large cove on the east side of the Lake. This was downstream of Hurricane Deck at about Mile 32 above Bagnell. He had somethin' a bit less than two hundred ten acres for crops, most of it good growing dirt. Gandy's Hill, except for a rocky ten-acre clearing across the top, was covered with blackjack oak hardly worth cutting for stove wood. The Hill split the two little valleys.

Jim Chris said that life didn't really start for his Papa until he met his Mama. Papa was way past age twenty-three then. A'fore that he'd led the free life, doin' chores on the home place and pickin' up spendin' money cuttin' trees and raftin' railroad ties.

Then he met Mama. It was late spring 1913, way a'fore the Dam was built. Papa was workin' in a tie yard down near Bagnell, bunkin' with five or six other men in an old freight car.

The work was hard. A railroad tie weighed anythin' from 200 to 250 pounds and was usually eight-foot in length. A man had to be quick with his hands and know how to get a tie balanced on his shoulder to carry it any distance at all.

Papa wasn't a big man, but he had long, stringy muscles and good legs. By the time he went to the tie yard, he'd already been doin' heavy farm work since he got out 'a diapers. He could swing a double-bit ax all day long if need be, and damn few men could best him in makin' chips fly. He'd worked for some shirt-tail cousins up on the Niangua. Sometimes choppin' down trees and often enough hacking a tie out 'a the raw timber, using a broad ax to square out a eight-foot section 'a log to a regular nine-inch by seven-inch tie.

One summer when he was seventeen, he not only cut trees and tie-hacked. He rafted air-cured ties down the Osage, all the way to where the railroad tracks ended near Bagnell. Trip like that didn't take too long if the river was runnin' high. In low water, with shoals and sand bars to get around, the same trip might take a month 'a nothin' but back-breakin' labor. Papa took the job at the tie yard 'cause it paid better.

'Bout that time, Mama'd finished her learnin' in the college down there in Springfield and was waitin' to be told where she'd teach. One 'a her professors asked her to get him a report on the railroad tie business. Said he wanted to write a book on it. Wanted to know things like how many was workin' at the trade, how much was they makin' in wages, and how was they gettin' along with their families and the other men.

Mama took the report serious. Worked at it all summer long. It was midway through the job when she went to the yard where Papa was workin.' 'Cept Papa wasn't working that day. He was laid up sick in bed. She went to the bunkhouse-railroad car and banged on the side 'a the bunkhouse 'til Papa come to the door.

The way Papa told it, he slid open the door and seen Mama standin' there with a school tablet in her hand. He'd been half asleep in a tangle of fever and blankets. His feet was bare and his hair all tousled and he wasn't wearing nothin' but his long-handled under drawers. He was sick but not so sick that he didn't appreciate meetin' a girl as pretty as Mama. "One look at her," Papa told me, "and my flu cured up all at once.

"She didn't say nothin' right off, so I said, 'If I knowed you was comin' I'd 'a put on some pants.' Regretted the words the minute I said 'em. It kind 'a startled her at first, then she come right back with an offer to wash my underwear. I told her no thanks. I'd just washed 'em less'n two weeks before.

"She was such a pert little thing with them gray eyes and dark hair, it didn't take but ten seconds to know I was in love."

Mama told it different. "I knocked on the big sliding door," she said, "and it opened and there stood this sleepy-eyed fella, barefooted and wearing long johns. I could see by his eyes he was feeling poorly. It made me feel sorry I'd bothered him. But almost at once he straightened up and smiled, apologizing for being dressed the way he was. Said he should have put his pants on.

"So I said. 'Well, you aren't dressed for church going that's for sure. But don't worry. I don't see anything special except your underwear sure needs a washing.

"And he grinned that ornery grin of his and said, 'Wait a second or two and I'll take 'em off. Then you can take 'em down to the river for a scrubbin.' Then he blushed something fierce and could hardly talk. Stuttered that he didn't mean to say nothing like that at all. He said for me to wait just a moment and closed the door before I could answer.