Stories (2011) (57 page)

One day, after practice, Frank said, “He seems pretty fast.”

“Never have seen so fast,” Black Joe said. “He’s moving way
good.”

“Do you think he can win?” Leroy said.

“He can win, they let us bring hog in. No hog. Not much on
the run. Got to have hog. But there’s one mule give him trouble. Dynamite. He
runs fast too. Might can run faster.”

“You think?”

“Could be. I hear he can go lickity split. Tomorrow, we find
out, hey?”

—————

The world was made of men and mules and dogs and one hog.
There were women too, most of them with parasols. Some sitting in the rows of
chairs at the starting line, their legs tucked together primly, their dresses
pulled down tight to the ankles. The air smelled of early summer morning and
hot mule shit and sweat and perfume, cigar smoke, beer and farts. Down from it
all, in tents, were other women who smelled different and wore less clothes.
The women with parasols would not catch their eye, but some of the men would,
many when their wives or girls were not looking.

Frank was not interested. He couldn’t think of anything but
the race. Leroy was with him, and of course, Black Joe. They brought the mule
in, Black Joe leading him. Frank on Old Dobbin, Leroy riding double. And the
hog, loose, on its own, strutting as if he were the one throwing the whole damn
shindig.

The mules at the gathering were not getting along. There
were bites and snorts and kicks. The mules could kick backwards, and they could
kick out sideways like cattle. You had to watch them.

White Mule was surprisingly docile. It was as if his balls
had been clipped. He walked with his head down, the pig trotting beside him.

As they neared the forming line of mules, Frank looked at
them. Most were smaller than the white mule, but there was one that was bigger,
jet black, and had a roaming eye, as if he might be searching for victims. He
had a big hard-on and it was throbbing in the sunlight like a fat cottonmouth.

“That mule there, big-dicked one,” Black Joe said, pausing.
“He the kind get a hard-on he gonna race or fight, maybe quicker than the fuck,
you see. He’s the one to watch. Anything that like the running or fighting
better than pussy, him, you got to keep the eye on.”

“That’s Dynamite,” Leroy said. “Got all kinds of mule
muscle, that’s for sure.”

White Mule saw Dynamite, lifted his head high and threw back
his ears and snorted.

“Oh, yeah,” said Leroy. “There’s some shit between them
already.”

“Somebody gonna outrun somebody or fuck other in ass, that’s
what I tell you for sure. Maybe they fight some too. Whole big blanket of
business here.”

White Mule wanted to trot, and Black Joe had to run a little
to keep up with him. They went right through a clutch of mules about to be
lined up, and moved quickly so that White Mule was standing beside Dynamite.
The two mules looked at one another and snorted. In that moment, the owner of
Dynamite slipped blinders on Dynamite’s head, tossing off the old bridle to a
partner.

The spotted hog slid in between the feet of his mule, stood
with his head poking out beneath his buddy’s legs, looking up with his ugly
face, flaring his nostrils, narrowing his cave-dark eyes.

Dynamite’s owner was Levi Crone, one big gent in a dirty
white shirt with the sleeves ripped out. He had a big red face and big fat
muscles and a belly like a big iron wash pot. He wore a hat you could have
bathed in. He was as tall as Black Joe, six foot two or more. Hands like hams,
feet like boats. He looked at the White Mule, said, “That ain’t the story mule,
is it?”

“One and the same,” Frank said, as if he had raised the
white mule from a colt.

“I heard someone had him. That he had been caught. Catch and
train him?”

“Me and my partners.”

“You mean Leroy and the nigger?”

“Yeah.”

 “That the hog in the stories, too, I guess?”

 “Yep,” Frank said.

 “What’s he for? A stepstool?”

 “He runs with the mule. For a ways.”

 “That ain’t allowed.”

 “Where say can’t do it, huh?” Black Joe asked.

 Crone thought. “Nowhere, but it stands to reason.”

 “What about rule can’t run with the dick hard?” Black Joe
said, pointing at Dynamite’s member.

“Ain’t no rule like that,” Crone said. “Mule can’t help
that.”

“Ain’t no rule about goddamn hog none either,” Black Joe
said.

“It don’t matter,” Crone said. “You got this mule from hell,
given to you by the goddamn red-assed devil his ownself, and you got the pork
chop there too from the same place, it ain’t gonna matter. Dynamite here, he’s
gonna outrun him. Gets finished, he’ll fuck your mule in the ass and shit a
turd on him.”

“Care to make a bet on the side some?” Black Joe said.

“Sure,” Crone said. “I’ll bet you all till my money runs
out. That ain’t good enough, I’ll arm wrestle you or body wrestle you or see
which of us can shoot jack-off the farthest. You name it, speckled nigger.”

Black Joe studied Crone as if he might be thinking about
where to make all the prime cuts, but he finally just grinned, got out ten of
the eleven-fifty he had been paid. “There mine. You got some holders?”

“Ten dollars. I got sight of it, and I got your word, which
better be good,” Crone said.

“Where’s your money?” Leroy said.

Crone pulled out a wad from his front pocket, presented it
with open palm as if he might be giving a teacher an apple. He looked at Leroy,
said, “You gonna trade a goat? I hear you like goats.”

“Okay,” Leroy said. “Okay. I fucked a goddamn goat. What of
it?”

Crone laughed at him. He shook the money at Black Joe. “Good
enough?”

“Okay,” Black Joe said.

“Here’s three dollars,” Frank said, dug in his pocket, held
it so Crone could see.

Crone nodded.

Frank slipped the money back in his pocket.

“Well,” Leroy said. “I ain’t got shit, so I just throw out
my best wishes.”

“You boys could bet the mule,” Crone said.

“That could be an idea,” Leroy said.

“No,” Frank said. “We won’t do that.”

“Ain’t we partners?” Leroy said, taking off his seed
salesman’s hat.

“We got a deal,” Frank said, “but I’m the one paid Black Joe
for catching and training. So, I decide. And that’s about as partner as we
get.”

Leroy shrugged, put the seed salesman’s hat back on.

—————

The mules lined up and it was difficult to make them stay
the line. Dynamite, still toting serious business on the undercarriage, lined
up by White Mule, stood at least a shoulder above him. Both wore blinders now,
but they turned their heads and looked at one another. Dynamite snapped at the
white mule and missed. White Mule snapped back at Dynamite’s nose, grazing him.
He threw a little kick sideways that made Dynamite shuffle to his right.

There was yelling from the judges, threats of
disqualification, though no one expected that. The crowd had already figured
this race out. White Mule, the forest legend, and Dynamite, of the swinging big
dick, they were the two to watch.

Leroy and Black Joe had pulled the hog back with a rope, but
now they brought him out and let him stand in front of his mule. They had to
talk to the judges on the matter, explain. There wasn’t any rule for or against
it. One judge said he didn’t like the idea. One said the hog would get trampled
to death anyway. Another said, shit, why not. Final decision, they let the hog
stay in the race.

So the mules and the hog and the riders lined up, the hog
just slightly to the side of the white mule. The hog looked over its shoulder
at Black Joe standing behind him. By now the hog knew what was coming. A swift
kick in the ass.

Frank climbed up on the white mule, and a little guy with a
face like a timber axe climbed up on Crone’s mule, Dynamite.

Out front of the line was a little bald man in a loose shirt
and suspenders holding up his high-water pants, showing his scuffed and
broken-laced boots. He had a pistol in his hand. He has a voice loud as Nester
on the Greek line.

“Now, we got us a mule race today, ladies and gentlemen. And
there will be no cheatin’, or there will be disqualification, and a
butt-beating you can count on to be remembered by everyone, ’specially the
cheater. What I want now, line of mules and riders, is a clean race. This here
path is wide enough for all twenty of you, and you can’t fan too much to the
right or left, as we got folks all along the run watching. You got to keep up
pretty tight. Now, there might be some biting and kicking, and that’s to be
expected. From the mules. You riders got to be civil. Or mostly. A little out
of line is all right, but no knives or guns or such. Everyone understand and
ain’t got no questions, let up a shout.”

A shout came from the line. The mules stirred, stepped back,
stepped forward.

“Anybody don’t understand what I just said? Anyone not speak
Texan or ’Merican here that’s gonna race?”

No response.

“All right, then. Watch women and children, and try not to
run over the men or the whores neither. I’m gonna step over there to the side,
and I’m gonna raise this pistol, and when you hear the shot, there you go. May
the best mule and the best rider win. Oh, yeah. We got a hog in the race too.
He ain’t supposed to stay long. Just kind of lead. No problems with that from
anybody, is there?”

There were no complaints.

“All right, then.”

The judge stepped briskly to the side of the road and raised
his old worn .36 Navy at the sky and got an important look on his face. Black
Joe removed the rope from the pig’s neck and found a solid position between
mules and behind the hog. He cocked his foot back.

The judge fired his pistol. Black Joe kicked the hog in the
ass. The mule line charged forward.

The hog, running for all it was worth, surged forward as
well, taking the lead even. White Mule and Dynamite ran dead even. The mules
ran so hard a cloud of dust was thrown up. The mules and the men and the hog
were swallowed by it. Frank, seeing nothing but dust, coughed and cursed and
lay tight against the white mule’s neck, and squinted his eyes. He feared,
without the white mule being able to see the hog, he might bolt. Maybe run into
another mule, throw him into a stampede, get him stomped flat. But as they ran
the cloud moved behind them, and when Frank came coughing out of the cloud, he
was amazed to see the hog was well out in front, running as if he could go like
that all the way to Mexico.

To his right, Frank saw Dynamite and his little axe-faced
rider. The rider looked at him and smiled with gritty teeth. “You gonna get run
into a hole, shit breath.”

“Shitass,” Frank said. It was the best he could come up
with, but he threw it out with meaning.

Dynamite was leading the pack now, leaving the white mule
and the others behind, throwing dust in their faces. White Mule saw Dynamite
start to straighten out in front of him, and he moved left, nearly knocking
against a mule on that side. Frank figured it was so he could see the hog. The
hog was moving his spotted ass on down the line.

“Git him, White Mule,” Frank said, and leaned close to the
mule’s left ear, rubbed the side of the mule’s neck, then rested his head close
on his mane. The white mule focused on the hog and started hauling some ass. He
went lower and his strides got longer and the barrel back and belly rolled.
When Frank looked up, the hog was bolting left, across the path of a dozen
mules, just making it off the trail before taking a tumble under hooves. He
fell, rolled over and over in the grass.

Frank thought: Shit, White Mule, he’s gonna bolt, gonna go
after the hog. But, nope, he was true to the trail, and closing on Dynamite.
The spell was on. And now the other mules were moving up too, taking a
whipping, getting their sides slapped hard enough Frank could hear it, thinking
it sounded like Papa’s belt on his back.

“Come on, White Mule. You don’t need no hittin’, don’t need
no hard heels. You got to outrun that hard dick for your own sake.”

It was as if White Mule understood him. White Mule dropped
lower and his strides got longer yet. Frank clung for all he was worth, fearing
the saddle might twist and lose him.

But no, Leroy, for all his goat-fucking and seed salesman’s
hat stealing, could fasten harness better than anyone that walked.

The trail became shady as they moved into a line of oaks on
either side of the road. For a long moment the shadows were so thick they ran
in near darkness. Then there were patches of lights through the leaves and the
dust was lying closer to the ground and the road was sun-baked and harder and
showing clay the color of a poison-ivy rash. Scattered here and there along the
road were viewers. A few in chairs. Most standing.

Frank ventured a look over his shoulder. The other mules and
riders were way back, and some of them were already starting to falter. He
noticed a couple of the mules were riderless, and one had broken rank with its
rider and was off trail, cutting across the grass, heading toward the creek
that twisted down amongst a line of willow trees.

As White Mule closed on Dynamite, the mule took a snapping
bite at Dynamite’s tail, jerking its head back with teeth full of tail hair.

Dynamite tried to turn and look, but his rider pulled his
head back into line. White Mule lunged forward, going even lower than before.
Lower than Frank had ever seen him go. Lower than he thought he could go. Now
White Mule was pulling up on Dynamite’s left. Dynamite’s rider jerked Dynamite
back into the path in front of White Mule. Frank wheeled his mount to the right
side of Dynamite. In mid-run, Dynamite wheeled and kicked, hit White Mule in
the side hard enough there was an explosion of breath that made Frank think his
mule would go down.