Sometimes a Great Notion (46 page)

—Henry is a nighthawk from behind, perched against the flames.
“Shh, Lee.” “Don’t worry about him, Viv—”
Doesn’t he care if Henry hears?
“—he can’t hear us; he’s too wrapped up in his story.”
Or doesn’t he care to leave me alone so we can just watch the sparks, or listen to that faraway belling of that one lone dog
(scrabbling up loose dirt, sliding, leaning to corner a stump, a log
up! Molly soars over the deadfall in her path without breaking stride,
forepaws folded back against her scratched and bleeding breastbone, ears spreading for the jump like nicked wings; at the peak of her jump, across weightless expanse of brush, she saw him for the first time since he had broken through the pack—a round wobbling black ball flecked with the glisten of moonlight, boring ahead through the wet fern:
bay-OO-OO-OOHRR!
—then stretched forth her paws to catch the jar of earth running again)
that one baying dog so far away and so beautiful . . . doesn’t he care?
“Viv, listen to me, please.” “Shh, I’m listening to Henry’s story.”

“But Ben he says, ‘Henry, I don’t know as I’d let that boy bring that Jezebel along an’ that’s the truth—we’d be watchin’ a rape instead of a hunt.’ But Hank he says we just gotta let him bring her ’cause there won’t be another hunt or another fox like this for her to learn on in years!”

—the hand presses, slight desperate pressure:
“But I have to talk to you—to somebody . . . please. And I might not have another chance.”
But doesn’t he feel that pounding there?
“No, Lee, don’t . . .”

“Well, we fussed and fussed about it for a spell and anyhow what happened is Hank talked Ben into lettin’ him bring her along just for the trip, just so’s she could
watch
the hunt, not even run in it—an’ Ben says all right. ‘But listen here,’ Ben says, ‘you keep that whore up front in the cab with us on the trip over—sit her in your lap or something, just don’t put her in back with all the other hounds; they’d be so rundown with screwing her that by the time we got across the hills to the hunt they wouldn’t be able to see nothing but tail, or trail nothing but cunt! Assuming they had the strength left to run a trail at all. . . . ’ ”

—she tries to stop her ears against the words at her cheek—
“I must tell you something. Viv. About Hank, what I was planning to do. And why”
—against the needle-sharp hook of pain she senses lurking beneath the words, tugging at her flesh; “It all started a long time ago . . .” But in spite of her efforts to stop the words she can feel some of the need getting through: he doesn’t need me that much, he couldn’t—

“So Hank’s bitch rode up front all the way over, sitting in his lap. We got there an’ it was just comin’ daylight, I recall, sun was just comin’ up. An’ there was another fella there an’ he had him six or seven dogs. An’ when they saw how we’s all favorin’ Hank’s bluetick—I mean had her up in his
arms
by god—they wanted to know what kinda damned animal we had that had to be treated so special. Hank says, ‘The best goddamned animal of its kind in the state.’ This feller with the other dogs, he winks at me an’ says, ‘Why, we’ll just see about that!’ An’ goes into his pocket for his wallet and lays a ten-dollar bill on the car fender an’ says, ‘Right, here we go, sport. Ten to one. Ten dollars to your buck, my old
brake
-legged
beat
-up mongrel here finds that fox before your pedigree.’ An’ points over at his dog, about the finest-lookin’ walker I ever see in my life with three or four these Kennel Club badges from field trials on his collar. Hank starts to eat pie about then an’ say he can’t let his dog run because of a game leg or some such an’ this guy gives him the horse laugh an’ brings out another ten-dollar bill an’ plunks it down an’ says, ‘All right,
twenty
to one an’ I’ll hold my flea-farm
back
the count of fifty.’ Hank, he looks up there at me an’ I just shrug on account it’s Ben’s pick-up an’ Ben’s hunt, an’ Hank’s about to have him another slice of humble pie when Ben comes over an’ puts a buck on the fender an’ says, ‘You’re on, old buddy.’ An’ this fella like to dropped his teeth out. I mean a
fifty-count lead!
Lordymercy, that’s way out yonder for a dog even if she
is
in heat an’ inexperienced! So this ol’ boy has talked himself into a bind. He swallers a time or two but he ain’t about to eat some of his own cookin’, so he gives Ben a hard look an’ says all right . . .”

—and as this need grows more intense so does a sensation of movement, speed to come, impending declaration
—“The past is funny, Viv; it never seems to let things lie, finished. It never seems to stay in place as it should”—
until she feels that she is beginning to run down an ever steepening hill and she must stop before the hill gets too steep and she gets going too fast to stop: Oh. Look! A bit of the moon; how pretty—

“So we go on over through this fence to the other ol’ boy’s, the farmer’s, barn, an’ he says we can drive most the way up this gully if the fox runs that way, which he’s like to do. An’ he says we ought’n’ have no trouble picking up his trail ’cause he’s all around the henhouse every night. So Hank takes his dog on over to the fence and sics her onto the scent ’n’ off she goes sure enough at a real smart clip, too. This fellow, he goes over there to the fence with his dog and fires him up while Hank counts. Then off he goes! and a little bit after that we let all the rest of ’em loose just to be shut of ’em. So this fellow got in the pick-up with us an’ we took out up this road
and I swear
we run them dogs for
hours
in this little bitty ole canyon not much bigger’n our own front porch.
Over
an’
around
an’
back
an’
forth.
I told Ben, I says, ‘That by god
is
about the smartest fox I ever seen. How that bastard can keep ahead o’ them dogs
this long without treein’
—in a little bitty place like this—hell, I bet they wasn’t a rod o’ area—little bitty stream—an’ he just
kept
goin’!”

—She lets her eyes unfocus. Look. That stick of spruce has feathers of flame, spanning.
“And some things out of the past kept troubling the present,
my
present . . . so much so that I felt I had to eliminate the past, to
destroy
it. That’s one reason for my tears in the night.”
But crying isn’t really so different from singing. Sure. Or from that dog’s baying.
(Molly clawed spraddle-legged up the face of the rock toward the sucking black hole where the bear had gone. She fell, unable to grasp the lip of the cavern as the bear had. She bayed and leaped again, but this time skittered off sideways down between a boulder and the rock wall, into a narrow stone slot squirming with dark. She wrenched free, still baying, and ran to leap again. But felt a sudden, searing weight at her hip hauling her back, jerking her back from the rock like a red-hot leash driven into her hipbone)
And crying doesn’t always mean need—

“Well, just like we was scared he’d do, the fox finally made a dash for it. We was up to one end of the canyon when we heard the dogs turn an’ double back past us toward the farm. We swung the pick-up around an’ headed after ’em, Ben at the wheel just apourin’ it to her. We knew we had to keep purty good track after they passed the mouth of the canyon where the farm was, ’cause out past that was a lotta rivers an’ roads an’ stuff where they might run for days. So when we get to the farm at the mouth of the canyon we wheel up to the fence an’ that ol’ farmer that owns the place, he’s standin’ there lookin’ after that pack of animals where they’re foggin’ it up the road to beat thunder. . . .”
But, oh, I wish he would please leave me alone. . . .
“And soon’s we stop ol’ Ben jumps out an’ hollers an’ asts the farmer, ‘Say! was that them come right past here jest now?’ And this old boy, this farmer says, ‘It shore was.’ And Ben jumps back into the pick-up, about to head on out after ’em, when just then Hank—it seems like he was in the back; must of been in the back, I guess, that other fellow we’d made the bet with was up in the cab with Ben an’ me—when Hank says wait and hollers, ‘Where was my dog runnin’? My bluetick? ’ The farmer, he kinda grins and says, ‘The young bitch? Why, she was runnin’ out in front, naturally.’ An’ this gets a rise outa the
other
old boy—him and his fifty bucks he stands to lose—an’ he says, ‘Did you see what position my
walker
was runnin’?’ An’ the farmer nods an’ says, ‘Why yessir, I did. Your dog was runnin’ a good close third, just about neck-and-neck with the
fox!
’
With the fox! Yee
haw haw . . .” The old man reared back and beat again at the fire with his stick. “Yee haw haw haw . . . neck-and-neck with the boogin’ fox, y’see? Ben’d been right: hounds, fox an’ all had all been so interested in a little nooky they’d the whole bunch of ’em been the livelong night runnin’ the tail offn that pore little bluetick! Yee haw! Ben teased Hank about it for months, sayin’ she’d probably whelp a litter of blueticks with big red fox bushtails! Oh me . . . oh haw haw haw!”

The old man shook his head, then pushed himself standing with the cane. Still chortling at his anecdote, he walked to the edge of the firelight; when Lee heard him peeing into the dry vetch he went on with his furtive whispering.

“So do you see, Viv? It’s been like that all my life. Smothered. Until I finally could see no reason to—to keep trying to breathe. Not that he was entirely to blame by any means, but I felt that unless I was
just once
able to have something over him, to beat him out of something, that I could never breathe. And that’s when I decided—”

Lee ceased abruptly. He saw that she was not even listening—maybe had
never
been listening!—but was staring off into the dark as though in a trance.—
what’s happened? Does he really need? Oh, it’s the dog
(. . . Molly opened her mouth to bay but her tongue stuck hot to her teeth, and she fell back again);
she’s stopped
—Not listening at all! She hadn’t heard a word! In anger and humiliation he jerked his hand from her throat where she—where he had thought she had encouraged him by allowing the fingers to slip far into the neck of the shirt . . . just to let him make a fool of himself!

Startled by the abruptness of his action, Viv turned toward him questioningly, just as old Henry came back into the ring of firelight.

“Listen: that Molly dog, you notice? She’s hushed. I ain’t heard her call in a good while now.” He was quiet a moment to let them listen, not quite trusting his own ears. (
The bear’s shiny black eyes appeared in the moonlight over the rock, his face quizzical, almost regretful as he watched the dog. Fired by a thirst near to panic, she fled back down the ridge, seeking the

wash she remembered.
) Convinced that they were hearing nothing he wasn’t, Henry cast an expert’s eye down the slope and decided, “That bear, he either lost her or he run her off, one of the two.” He pulled his watch from his pocket, tipped it toward the fire, and made believe he could read it. “Well, that’s the show as far as this nigger is concerned. I ain’t about to sit up here and listen to them other dirteaters carry on about a little ol’ fox. Sounds like they just about got him, anyhow. I’m gonna head on back is what. You kids suppose you’ll come or stay a while?”

“We’ll stay a while longer,” Lee supposed for both of them, and added, “To wait for Hank and Joe Ben.”

“Suit yourself.” He took up his cane. “But they’re liable to be a good stretch yet an’ then some. G’night.” He faded from the light, stiff and weaving, like an old ghost of a tree haunting the midnight forest in search of his stump.

Watching him leave, Lee chewed nervously at his glasses—good; now there would be no more reason for this spy-movie dialogue; they could just talk . . .
God, when he’s gone, I’ll have to talk!
—and waited for the sounds of his departure to cease.

... Molly half ran, half rolled back down the ridge. By the time she found the wash again her hide was haired in flame, her tongue melting—HOT HOT MOON HOT—and the thing hooked to her hind leg as big as leg itself now. Bigger. Bigger than her whole burning body.
—As soon as the old man’s crashing and cursing disappears down the dark hillside, Viv turns back to Lee, still with that startled, uncomprehending expression, waiting for an explanation of his violent withdrawal. And an explanation for the touch in the first place. His face is rigid. He has stopped chewing on the eyeglasses and he’s taken a twig from the fire and is blowing on the end of it. His face. The cupping shield of his hand hides a glowing ember, but still . . . each time he blows his features are lighted from within by something a whole lot hotter than a spark on a twig. Like something inside there burning to get out, something burning, it needs so bad to get out. “What is it?” She reaches to touch his arm; he gives a short, bitter laugh and tosses the twig back into the fire.

“It’s nothing. I’m sorry. For the way I acted. Forget what I was saying. I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, ‘The fit is momentary.’ Regard me not. It’s not your fault.”

“But
what’s
not my fault? Lee, what were you trying to tell me, before old Henry left? I don’t understand . . .”

At her question he turns and regards her with amused wonder, smiling at his own thoughts. “Of
course.
I don’t know what I was thinking of. Of course it isn’t your fault.” (Yet, as it turned out, it was very much her fault—) Tenderly, he touches her cheek, her neck where his fingers had rested, reaffirming something. . . . “You didn’t
know
; how could you
know?
” (—though I had no way of knowing this at the time.)

“But didn’t know
what?
” She feels she should be angry for the way he speaks to her and for—for the other things. . . .
But that awful burning hunger behind his eyes!
“Lee, please explain—”
Don’t explain! Leave me alone; I can’t be everybody’s something!
“What was it you started to confess?” Lee walked back to sit by the fire. . . .
Molly dragged her body into the crackling water. She tried to drink and vomited again. Finally she stretched out on her belly, only her eyes and gasping muzzle above the surface: HOT HOT COLD cold moon MOONS HOT HOT HOT HOT . . .
He situated himself on the sack so he was facing her and took her hands between his. “Viv, I’ll try to explain; I need to explain to somebody.”