Sometimes a Great Notion (21 page)

And I never understood why until that afternoon in Wakonda at the union meeting, sitting there remembering how I’d lost my bobcats, looking out the window of the grange hall at the spot where my boat had sunk in the bay, and hearing Floyd Evenwrite say to old man Syverson: “All it wants is its fair advantage.”

So as close as I can come to explaining it, friends and neighbors, that is why that river is no buddy of mine. It’s maybe the buddy of the brant geese and the steelhead. It is mighty likely a buddy of old lady Pringle and her Pioneer Club in Wakonda—they hold oldtime get-togethers on the docks every Fourth of July in honor of the first time some old moccasined hobo come paddling across in his dugout a hundred years ago, the Highway of Pioneers they call it . . . and who the hell knows, maybe it
was,
just like now it is the railroad we use to float our log booms down—but it still is no personal friend of
mine.
Not just the thing about the bobcats; I could tell you a hundred stories, probably, give you a hundred reasons showing
why
I got to fight that river. Oh,
fine
reasons; because you can spend a good deal of time thinking during those thinking times, when you’re taking timber cruises walking all day long with nothing to do but check the pedometer on your foot, or sitting for hours in a stand blowing a game call, or milking in the morning when Viv is laid up with cramps—a
lot
of time, and I got a lot of things about myself straight in my mind: I know, for an instance, that, if you want to play this way, you can make the river stand for all
sorts
of other things. But doing that it seems to me is taking your eye off the ball; making it more than what it is lessens it. Just to see it clear is plenty. Just to feel it cold against you or watch it flood or smell it when the damn thing backs up from Wakonda with all the town’s garbage and sewage and dead crud floating around in it stinking up a breeze, that is plenty. And the best way to see it is not looking behind it—or beneath it or beyond it—but dead at it.

And to remember that all it wants is its fair advantage.

So by keeping my eye on the ball I found it just came down to this: that that river was after some things I figured belonged to me. It’d already got some and was all the time working to get some more. And in as how I was well known as one of the Ten Toughest Hombres this side of the Rockies, I aimed to do my best to
hinder
it.

And as far as I was concerned, hindering something meant—had always meant—going after it with everything you got, fighting and kicking, stomping and gouging, and cussing it when everything else went sour. And being just as strong in the hassle as you got it in you to be. Now that’s real logical, don’t you think? That’s real simple. If You Wants to Win, You Does Your Best. Why, a body could paint that on a plaque and hang it up over his bedstead. He could live by it. It could be like one of the Ten Commandments for success. “If You Wants to Win You Does Your Best.” Solid and certain as a rock; one rule I was gut-sure I could bank on.

Yet it took nothing more than my kid brother coming to spend a month with us to show me that there are
other
ways of winning—like winning by giving in, by being soft, by not gritting your goddamn teeth and getting your best hold . . . winning by not, for
damned
sure, being one of the Ten Toughest Hombres west of the Rockies. And show me as well that there’s times when the only way you can win is by being weak, by losing, by doing your worst instead of your best.

And learning that come near to doing me in.

When I climbed out of that cold water into the boat and saw that the skinny boy in specs was none other than Leland Stamper—fumbling and mumbling and flustered with the running of the boat and no more capable than he ever was when it came to handling any machinery bigger than a wristwatch—I was plenty tickled. Truth. And plenty pleased and surprised too, though I didn’t let on. I said some dumb thing or other, than just went on sitting there, cool and matter-of-fact, like him being out here in the middle of the Wakonda Auga where nobody’d seen him for a good dozen years was just the most ordinary old thing that had happened all day to me—like, if anything, I was a little
disappointed
, maybe, that he hadn’t been there yesterday or the day before. I don’t know why. Not for any real meanness. But I never been one to carry on about things like homecomings, and I guess I said what I did because I was uneasy and wanted to devil him some, the way I devil Viv when she starts getting soapy and makes me uneasy. But I see from his face that it hits him wrong, and that I’d got to him a lot more than I’d intended.

I’d done a lot of thinking about Lee in the last year, remembering him the way he was at four and five and six. Partly, I imagine, because the news of his mom got me thinking about the old days, but some because he was the only little kid I’ve ever been around and there’d be lots of times when I’d think, That’s what our kid’d been like now. That’s what our kid’d be saying now. And in some ways he was good to compare to, in some ways not. He always had a lot of savvy but never much sense; by the time he started school he knew his multiplication tables all the way to the sevens, but never was able to figure why three touchdowns come to twenty-one points if a team kicked all their conversions, though I took him to ball games till the world looked level. I remember—let’s see, I guess when he was nine or ten or so—I tried to teach him to throw jump passes. I’d run out and he’d pass. He wasn’t none too bad an arm, either, and I figured he should make somebody a good little quarterback someday if he would get his butt in gear to match his brains; but after ten or fifteen minutes he’d get disgusted and say, “It’s a stupid game anyway; I don’t care if I ever learn to pass.”

And I’d say, “Okay, look here: you’re quarterbacking the Green Bay Packers. It’s fourth down and three in the third quarter, fourth, and three, and you’re behind, nineteen to ten, a quarter to go. You’re on their thirty. Okay . . . what do you do?”

He’d shuffle around, looking around, looking at the ball. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“You’d go for the three-point field goal, nutty, and why don’t you care?”

“I just don’t is all.”

“Don’t you want your team to get the league championship? You
need
that field goal three points. Then, see, after the field goal you got a chance to pick up the six and one and put you out ahead nineteen to twenty.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“Care if they win the league championship. None at all.”

And I’d finally get pissed. “Okay then, why are you playing if you don’t care?” And he’d walk off from the ball.

“I’m not. I never will.”

Like that. And it was the same in a lot of other ways. He couldn’t seem to get his teeth into anything. Except books. The things in books was darn near more real to him than the things breathing and eating. That’s why he was so easy to shuck, I guess, because he was just content as you please to accept whatever demon I might happen to trot in—especially if I made it kinda vague. Like . . . well, another thing comes to mind: When he was a little kid he’d always be out on the dock in a life jacket waiting when we come in from work; bright orange life jacket, like an orange popsicle. He’d stand there, hugging a piling and watching us through his glasses, and like as not the first thing I’d say would be some kind of bull. “Lee, bub,” I’d say, “you got any idea what I found up on them hills today?”

“No.” He’d look away from me with a frown on his face,
telling
himself he wasn’t gonna get took
this
time. Not after I’d shucked him so bad the day before. No sirree bob! Not little bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, book-reading Leland Stanford who already knew the multiplication tables up to the sevens and could add a dozen figures in his head. So he’d stand, and fiddle, and flip rocks into the river while we packed away the gear. But you could bet he was interested, for all his ignoring.

I’d act like I’d dismissed the subject, keep on working.

Finally he’d say, “No . . . I don’t think you found
any
thing.”

I’d shrug and keep on packing the gear in the boathouse.

“Maybe you
saw
something is all, but you never
found
anything.”

I’d give him a long look like I was oh, trying to
dee
-cide whether to tell him or not, him being just a kid and all; he’d start getting fidgety.

“Come
on
, Hank; what was it you saw?”

And I’d say, “It was a Hide-behind, Lee.” Then I’d look around to see if anybody might be overhearing such a god-awful news; nobody but the dogs. I’d lower my voice. “Yessir, a honest-to-goodness Hide-behind. Shoot. I been
hopin
’ we wouldn’t have any more trouble with those fellows. Had enough of ’em in the thirties. But now, oh gracious me . . .”

Then I’d maybe click my tongue and shake my head, make to look over the boat or something, like what’d been said was aplenty. Or like it didn’t look to me he was even interested. But all the time knowing I’d sunk the hook clean to the shank. He’d follow me to the house, keeping still long as he could, scared to ask because I’d fooled him so last week with that whopper about the one-winged pinnacle grouse that flew in circles, or the sidehill dodger that had its uphill leg inches shorter than its downhill leg so’s it could maneuver easy on the slopes. He’d be still. He knew better. But always, finally, if I waited long enough, he’d have to break down and ask.

“Okay, then, what’s a
Hide
-behind supposed to be?”

“A Hide-
behind?
” I’d give him what Joe Ben called my ten-count squint, then say, “You never heard tell of the Hide-behind? I’ll be a sonofabitch. Hey, Henry, goddammit . . . listen to this: Leland Stanford here never heard tell of the Hide-behind. What do you think of
that?
”

The old man would turn at the door, his tight little hairy gut pooching out where he’d already unbuttoned his pants and long johns to get comfortable, and give the kid a look like there was just no more hope for such a ninny. “It figures.” Then go on in the house.

“Lee, bub,” I would tell him, toting him on in the house on my hip, “the Hide-behind is one of the worst cree-churs a logging man can be plagued with. One of the very worst. He’s
little
, not big at all, actually, but
fast
, oh Christ, fast as quicksilver. And he stays
behind
a man’s back all the time so no matter how quick you turn he’s run the other way, out of your seeing. You can hear one of ’em sometimes when it’s real still in the swamp, and when the wind ain’t blowing. Or sometimes you can catch just the
least
glimpse of him outa the corner of your eye. You ever notice, when you’re alone out in the woods, seein’ just a
speck
of something outa the corner of your eye? Then when you turn,
whooshee
, nothing?”

He’d nod yes, eyes big as saucers.

“And the Hide-behind will hang right in there behind a fellow and wait; he makes
sure
they’re all alone, the two of them—because the Hide-behind is scared to glom on to a man if somebody else might be around who could get him before he can wrench his fangs loose and make a getaway, he’s wide open then—stay
right behind
a fellow till he’s deep in the woods and
bam!
Lay it to him.”

And he’d look from me to the old man reading the paper, half believing and half suspicious, and think it over awhile. Then he’d ask, “Okay, if he’s always behind you how’d you know he was there?”

I’d sit and pull him in closer. Pull him right to where I could whisper to him. “There’s one thing about a Hide-behind: they don’t show in a mirror. Just like vampires don’t, you know? So this afternoon when I think I heard something slipping along behind me I reached in my pocket for my compass—this compass right here, see how it reflects good as a mirror?—and I held it up and looked behind me. And goddammit, Lee, you know? I couldn’t see
nothing!
”

He stood there with his mouth open, and I knew I still had him and might of really poured it on if the old man hadn’t went to sputtering and choking and got me to where I couldn’t keep a straight face. Then it would be just like all the other times when he’d find himself hooked. “Ah, Hank,” the kid would holler, “ah,
Hank
,” then go storming off to his mother, who would give us a hard look and take him away from such lying lowbrows as us.

So during the ride across the river, when I see how skittish he gets from my deviling him, I half expect him to holler, “Ah, Hank!” and go storming off. But things are different. As high-mettled and spooky and skittish as he still looks, I know he’s not a six-year-old any more. Behind those tight-honed features I can still see some of the old Lee, the little boy Lee I used to carry on my hip up from the dock, sitting there wondering how much of his crazy half-brother’s bullshit should he swallow, but things are different now. For one thing he’s a college graduate—the first that a family of illiterates can point to—and all that education has whetted him pretty keen.

For another, there’s nobody for him to go storming off to any more.

Watching him there across the boat from me, I see something in his eyes that lets me know he’s in no condition for any of my prime stupidity. He looks like this time it’s
him
that suspects a Hide-behind after him, like the ground is pretty shaky underfoot and things like what I said to him aren’t making it any steadier. So I mark myself down for a good butt-kicking when I get myself alone later, and try to make things a little easier the rest of the boat ride by asking him about school. He snaps at the chance, goes to running on about classes and seminars and the pressure of academic politics and keeps it up a blue streak all the way on toward the dock, idling that boat along slow as Christmas. All the time keeping a keen weather eye ahead for sunken snags, or checking up at the clouds, or watching a kingfisher dive,
any
thing to keep from having to look at me. He doesn’t want to look at me. He doesn’t want to meet my eyes. So I quit looking at him, except sideways now and then while he talks.