"When you work side-by-side with a logger every day, suckin’ up the same sawdust, you get to know him, his stink and all his stories. Esau Pierson was head chopper and knew how to swing a crosscut. One good, solid wallop with his favorite axe and he’d come up a perfect undercut every time, smoother’n a baby’s bottom.

“But when he got to tellin’ his stories, that was another matter. They’d change shape, contort, and not a one ever come out the same way twice. But Esau’d always finish every tale up with the same ol’ line: ‘If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.’

“He’d crow ’bout how he was this slick ladies’ man what broke a lot o’ hearts, and each gal got to be prettier and more buxom than the last.

“‘Aw, c’mon, Esau. A woman that top heavy would need scaffoldin’ to stand up straight.’

“‘If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’, boys,’ he’d say.

“Esau’d tell a fishin’ story, and a tadpole would grow big as a whale by the fourth tellin’. But that son-of-a-gun would always finish ’em up the same way: ‘If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.’

“Well, one hot ol’ day, we was loggin’ up by Eagle Lake, knockin’ ’em down for the tote team to haul off, and Esau was spinnin’ some outlandish yarn about the time he went over Hiram Falls in a whiskey barrel. Just as Esau was finishin’ his tale, the tree he was choppin’ kicked back on the stump. Esau coulda been crushed, but he dove off to one side. When the tree crashed to the ground, it whipped up a mess o’ dust and rock. Esau took one o’ them rocks straight to the head. Smacked him a good one and dropped him where he stood.

“Now, wunt no blood or nothin’, but Esau lay there stiffer’n Aunt Peg’s prosthetic leg. Nobody could wake him neither. So someone drove out to camp to fetch Doc Sawbones. Well, Doc checked Esau over, but it was like we feared. ‘Esau must’ve finally told a whopper, boys,’ Doc said, ‘cos I now pronounce him . . . dead!’

“We loaded poor Esau on the wagon and hauled him back to camp. Babe Bunions surrounded his body with posies. I placed his trusty axe on his chest and crossed his arms over it. He looked peaceful as can be. We stood around the wagon and hoisted a few glasses of Doc’s ‘special’ medicine in his honor, sang his favorite hymn, and some of us, well, some of us shed a tear. The night rolled on, the lanterns came out and the medicine flowed. The Murphy twins told one of Esau’s stories. Then Tiny Thomas, one. Even shy, stutterin’ Paulie had one to tell. We were a mopey bunch, each of us eulogizin’, mournin’ our dearly departed friend, when all of a sudden come a noise from over by the wagon. We were froze from shock as Esau sat straight up, shook off the posies, and swung his axe at the open air. Pierre Levesque got so scared he screamed like a little girl. Esau, still a mite woozy, looked over at us and rubbed the sore on his head. ‘What the heck?’ he said.

“‘Coulda sworn he was dead,’ Doc Sawbones said with a grin. ‘If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.’

“Well, after that, everyone broke out laughin’, even Esau. What started out as a wake turned into a resurrection party.

“Next day, Esau woke up fresh as the daisies still tangled in his hair. However, a whole week came and went ’fore he started in tellin’ his tall tales again. And this time ’round, he made a point not to back up his far-fetched claims. Guess he didn’t need to be smacked in the head more’n once to learn a lesson."