Stories (2011) (53 page)

 Wasn’t nothing Frank could say to that, so he said, “Leroy,
Rupert got hit by lightning. Right in the head.”

 “The head?”

 “Wouldn’t have mattered had it been the ass. It killed him
deader than a post and burned him up.”

 “Damn. That there is a shame,” Leroy said, and stopped
whittling. He pushed the seed salesman’s hat up on his forehead to reveal some
forks of greasy brown hair. Leroy studied Frank. “Is there something I can do
for you? Or you come around to visit?”

 “I’m thinking you might could help me get a mule and get
back in the race.”

 “Mules cost.”

 “I know. Thought we might could come up with something. And
if we could, and we won, I’d give you a quarter of the prize money.”

 “I get a quarter for grooming folks’ critters in town.”

 “I mean a quarter of a hundred. Twenty-five dollars.”

 “I see. Well, I am your man for animals. I got a knack. I
can talk to them like I was one of them. Except for chickens. Ain’t no one can
talk to chickens.”

 “They’re birds.”

 “That there is the problem. They ain’t animal enough.”

 Frank thought about Leroy and the fucked goat. Wondered
what Leroy had said to the goat as way of wooing it. Had he told her something
special? I think you got a good-looking face? I love the way your tail wiggles
when you walk? It was a mystery that Frank actually wasn’t all that anxious to
unravel.

 “I know you run in the circles of them that own or know
about mules,” Frank said. “Why I thought you maybe could help me.”

 Leroy took off the seed salesman’s hat, put it on his knee,
threw his knife in the dirt, let the whittling stick fall from his hand. “I
could sneak up on an idea or two. Old man Torrence, he’s got a mule he’s
looking to sell. And by his claim, it’s a runner. He ain’t never ridden it
himself, but he’s had it ridden. Says it can run.”

 “There’s that buying stuff again. I ain’t got no real
money.”

 “Takes money to make money.”

 “Takes money to have money.”

 Leroy put the seed salesman’s hat back on. “You know, we
might could ask him if he’d rent out his mule. Race is a ways off yet, so we
could get some good practice in. You being about a hundred and twenty-five
pounds, you’d make a good rider.”

“I’ve ridden a lot. I was ready on Rupert, reckon I can get
ready on another mule.”

“Deal we might have to make is, we won the race, we bought
the mule afterwards. That might be the way he’d do it.”

“Buy the mule?”

“At a fair price.”

“How fair?”

“Say twenty-five dollars.”

“That’s a big slice of the prize money. And a mule for
twenty-five, that’s cheap.”

“I know Torrence got the mule cheap. Fella that owed him
made a deal. Besides, times is hard. So they’re selling cheap. Cost more, we
can make extra money on side bets. Bet on ourselves. Or if we don’t think we
got a chance, we bet against ourselves.”

“I don’t know. We lose, it could be said we did it on
purpose.”

“I can get someone to bet for us.”

“Only if we bet to win. I ain’t never won nothing or done
nothing right in my life, and I figure this here might be my chance.”

“You gettin’ Jesus?”

“I’m gettin’ tired,” Frank said.

—————

There are no real mountains in East Texas, and only a few
hills of consequence, but Old Man Torrence lived at the top of a big hill that
was called with a kind of braggart’s lie, Barrow Dog Mountain. Frank had no
idea who Barrow or Dog were, but that was what the big hill had been called for
as long as he remembered, probably well before he was born. There was a ridge
at the top of it that overlooked the road below. Frank found it an impressive
sight as he and Leroy rode in on Dobbin, he at the reins, Leroy behind him.

It was pretty on top of the hill too. The air smelled good,
and flowers grew all about in red, blue and yellow blooms, and the cloudless
sky was so blue you felt as if a great lake were falling down from the heavens.
Trees fanned out bright green on either side of the path, and near the top, on
a flat section, was Old Man Torrence’s place. It was made of cured logs, and he
had a fine chicken coop that was built straight and true. There were hog pens
and a nice barn of thick cured logs with a roof that had all of its roofing
slats. There was a sizable garden that rolled along the top of the hill, full
of tall bright green cornstalks, so tall they shaded the rows between them.
There was no grass between the rows, and the dirt there looked freshly laid by.
Squash and all manner of vegetables exploded out of the ground alongside the
corn, and there were little clumps of beans and peas growing in long pretty
rows.

In a large pen next to the barn was a fifteen-hands-high
chocolate-colored mule, prettiest thing Frank had ever seen in the mule-flesh
department. Its ears stood up straight, and it gave Frank and Leroy a snort as
they rode in.

“He’s a big one,” Leroy said.

“Won’t he be slow, being that big?” Frank asked.

“Big mule’s also got big muscles, he’s worked right. And he
looks to have been worked right. Got enough muscles, he can haul some freight.
Might be fast as Rupert.”

“Sure faster right now,” Frank said.

As they rode up, they saw Old Man Torrence on the front
porch with his wife and three kids, two boys and a girl. Torrence was a fat,
ruddy-faced man. His wife was a little plump, but pretty. His kids were all
nice looking and they had their hair combed and, unlike Leroy’s kids, looked
clean. As if they might bathe daily. As they got closer, Frank could see that
none of the kids looked whacked on. They seemed to be laughing at something the
mother was saying. It certainly was different than from his own upbringing,
different from Leroy’s place. Wasn’t anyone tripping anyone, cussing, tossing
frying pans, threatening to cripple one another or put out an eye. Thinking on
this, Frank felt something twist around inside of him like some kind of serpent
looking for a rock to slide under. He and Leroy got off Dobbin and tied him to
a little hitching post that was built out front of the house, took off their
hats, and walked up to the steps.

After being offered lemonade, which they turned down, Old
Man Torrence came off the porch, ruffling one of his kids’ hair as he did. He
smiled back at his wife, and then walked with Frank and Leroy out toward the
mule pen, Leroy explaining what they had in mind.

“You want to rent my mule? What if I wanted to run him?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Leroy said. “It hadn’t occurred to me
you might. You ain’t never before, though I heard tell he was a mule could be
run.”

“It’s a good mule,” Torrence said. “Real fast.”

“You’ve ridden him?” Frank asked.

“No. I haven’t had the pleasure. But my brother and his boys
have. They borrow him from time to time, and they thought on running him this
year. Nothing serious. Just a thought. They say he can really cover ground.”

“Frank here,” Leroy said, “he plans on entering, and we
would rent your mule. If we win, we could give you a bit of the prize money.
What say we rent him for ten, and if he wins, we give you another fifteen. That
way you pick up twenty-five dollars.”

Frank was listening to all this, thinking: and then I owe
Leroy his share; this purse I haven’t won is getting smaller and smaller.

“And what if you don’t win?” Torrence said.

“You’ve made ten dollars,” Leroy said.

“And I got to take the chance my mule might go lame or get
hurt or some such. I don’t know. Ten dollars, that’s not a lot of money for
what you’re asking. It ain’t even your mule.”

“Which is why we’re offering the ten dollars,” Leroy said.

They went over and leaned on the fence and looked at the
great mule, watched his muscles roll beneath his chocolate flesh as he trotted
nervously about the pen.

“He looks excitable,” Frank said.

“Robert E. Lee has just got a lot of energy is all,”
Torrence said.

“He’s named Robert E. Lee?” Frank asked.

“Best damn general ever lived. Tell you boys what. You give
me twenty-five, and another twenty-five if he wins, and you got a deal.”

“But I give you that, and Leroy his share, I don’t have
nothing hardly left.”

“You ain’t got nothing at all right now,” Torrence said.

“How’s about,” Leroy said, “we do it this way. We give you
fifteen, and another fifteen if he wins. That’s thirty. Now that’s fair for a
rented mule. Hell, we might could go shopping, buy a mule for twenty-five, and
even if he don’t win, we got a mule. He don’t race worth a damn, we could put
him to plow.”

Old Man Torrence pursed his lips. “That sounds good. All
right,” he said, sticking out his hand, “deal.”

“Well, now,” Frank said, not taking the hand. “Before I
shake on that, I’d like to make sure he can run. Let me ride him.”

Old Man Torrence withdrew his hand and wiped it on his pants
as if something had gotten on his palm. “I reckon I could do that, but seeing
how we don’t have a deal yet, and ain’t no fifteen dollars has changed hands,
how’s about I ride him for you. So you can see.”

Frank and Leroy agreed, and watched from the fence as
Torrence got the equipment and saddled up Robert E. Lee. Torrence walked Robert
E. Lee out of the lot, and onto a pasture atop the hill, where the overhang
was. The pasture was huge and the grass was as green as Ireland. It was all
fenced in with barbed wire strung tight between deeply planted posts.

“I’ll ride him around in a loop. Once slow, and then real
fast toward the edge of the overhang there, then cut back before we get there.
I ain’t got a pocket watch, so you’ll have to be your own judge.”

Torrence swung into the saddle. “You boys ready?”

“Let’er rip,” Leroy said.

Old Man Torrence gave Robert E. Lee his heels. The mule shot
off so fast that Old Man Torrence’s hat flew off, and Leroy, in sympathy, took
hold of the brim of the seed salesman’s hat, as if Robert E. Lee’s lunge might
blow it off his head.

“Goddamn,” Leroy said. “Look how low that mule is to the
ground. He’s gonna have the grass touching his belly.”

And so the mule ran, and as it neared the barbed-wire fence,
Old Man Torrence gave him a tug, to turn him. But, Robert E. Lee wasn’t having
any. His speed picked up, and the barbed-wire fence came closer.

Leroy said, “Uh-oh.”

Robert E. Lee hit the fence hard. So hard it caused his head
to dip over the top wire and his ass to rise up as if he might be planning a
headstand. Over the mule flipped, tearing loose the fence, causing a strand of
wire to snap and strike Old Man Torrence, and then Torrence was thrown ahead of
the tumbling mule. Over the overhang. Out of sight. The mule did in fact do a
headstand, landed hard that way, its hind legs high in the air, wiggling. For a
moment, it seemed as if he might hang there, and then, Robert E. Lee lost his
headstand and went over after his owner.

“Damn,” Leroy said.

“Damn,” Frank said.

They both ran toward the broken fence. When they got there
Frank hesitated, not able to look. He glanced away, back across the bright
green field.

Leroy scooted up to the cliff’s edge and took a gander,
studied what he saw for a long time.

“Well?” Frank said, finally turning his head back to Leroy.

“Robert E. Lee just met his Gettysburg. And Old Man Torrence
is somewhere between Gettysburg and Robert E. Lee. Actually, you can’t tell
which is which. Mule, Gettysburg, or Old Man Torrence. It’s all kind of bunched
up.”

When Frank and Leroy got down there, which took some
considerable time, as they worked their way down a little trail on foot, they
discovered that Old Man Torrence had been lucky in a fashion. He had landed in
sand, and the force of Robert E. Lee’s body had driven him down deep into it,
his nose poking up and out enough to take in air. Robert E. Lee was as dead as
a three-penny nail, and his tail was stuck up in the air and bent over like a
flag that had been broken at the staff. The wind moved the hairs on it a
little.

Frank and Leroy went about digging Old Man Torrence out,
starting first with his head so he could really breathe well. When Torrence
spat enough sand out of his mouth, he looked up and said, “You sonsofbitches.
This is your fault.”

“Our fault?” Leroy said. “You was riding him.”

“You goat-fucking sonofabitch, get me out of here.” Leroy’s
body sagged a little. “I knew that was gonna get around good. Ain’t nobody
keeps a secret. There was only that one time too, and them hunters had to come
up on me.”

They dug Torrence out from under the mule, and Frank went up
the trail and got Old Dobbin and rode to the doctor. When Frank got back with
the sawbones, Torrence was none the happier to see him. Leroy had gone off to
the side to sit by himself, which to Frank meant the goat had come up again.

Old Man Torrence was mostly all right, but he blamed Frank
and Leroy, especially Leroy, from then on. And he walked in a way that when he
stepped with his right leg, it always looked as if he were about to bend over and
tie his shoe. Even in later years, when Frank saw him, he went out of his way
to avoid him, and Leroy dodged him like the smallpox, not wanting to hear
reference to the goat.

But in that moment in time, the important thing to Frank was
simply that he was still without a mule. And the race was coming closer.

That night, as Frank lay in his sagging bed, looking out
from it at the angled wall of the room, listening to the crickets saw their
fiddles outside and inside the house, he closed his eyes and remembered how Old
Man Torrence’s place had looked. He saw himself sitting with the pretty plump
wife and the clean, polite kids. Then he saw himself with the wife inside that
pretty house, on the bed, and he imagined that for a long time.