Stories (2011)

by Joe R. Lansdale

  The place for Frank and Leroy to be was terrible. The dirt they smeared on themselves came from long scoops they made. Then they lay down in the scoops with their ropes, and Black Joe, before he climbed the tree, tossed leaves and sticks and dirt and bits of mule and hog shit over them. The way they lay, Frank and Leroy were twenty feet apart, on either side of what Black Joe said was a trail the hog and mule traveled. It wasn’t much of a trail. A bit of ruffled oak leaves, some wallows the hog had made.

  The day crawled forward and so did the worms. They were all around Frank, and it was all he could do not to jump up screaming. It wasn’t that he was afraid of them. He had put many of them on hooks for fishing. But to just lay there and have them squirm against your arm, your neck. And there was something that bit. Something in the hog shit was Frank’s thought.

  Frank heard a sound. A different sound. Being close to the ground it seemed to move the earth. It was the slow careful plodding of the mule’s hooves, and another sound. The hog, maybe.

  They listened and waited and the sounds came closer, and then Frank, lying there, trying not to tremble with anticipation, heard a whizzing sound. The rope. And then there was a bray, and a scuffle sound.

  Frank lifted his head slightly.

  Not ten feet from him was the great white mule, the rope around its neck, the length of it stretching up into the tree. Frank could see Black Joe. He had wrapped the rope around the limb and was holding on to it, tugging, waiting for the mule to wear itself out.

  The hog was bounding about near the mule, as if it might jump up and grab the rope and chew it in two. It actually went up on its hind legs once.

  Frank knew it was time. He burst out of his hiding place, and Leroy came out of his. The hog went straight for Leroy. Frank darted in front of the leaping mule and threw his rope and caught the hog around the neck. It turned instantly and went for him.

  Leroy dove and grabbed the hog’s hind leg. The hog kicked him in the face, but Leroy hung on. The hog dragged Leroy across the ground, going for Frank, and as his rope become more slack, Frank darted for a tree.

  By the time Frank arrived at the tree trunk, Leroy had managed to put his rope around the hog’s hind leg, and now Frank and Leroy had the hog in a kind of tug-of-war.

  “Don’t hurt him now some,” Black Joe yelled from the tree. “Got to keep him up for it. He’s the mule leader. Makes him run.”

  “What the hell did he say?” Frank said.

  “Don’t hurt the goddamn pig,” Leroy said.

  “Ha,” Frank said, tying off his end of the rope to a tree trunk. Leroy stretched his end, giving the hog a little slack, and tied off to another tree. Nearby the mule leaped and kicked.

  Leroy made a move to try and grab the rope on the mule up short, but the mule whipped as if on a Yankee dollar, and kicked Leroy smooth in the chest, launching him over the hog and into the brush. The hog would have had him then, but the rope around its neck and back leg held it just short of Leroy, but close enough a string of hog spittle and snot was flung across Leroy’s face.

  “Goddamn,” Leroy said, as he inched farther away from the hog.

  For a long while, they watched the mule kick and buck and snort and snap its large teeth.

  It was near nightfall when the mule, exhausted, settled down on its front knees first, then rolled over on its side. The hog scooted across the dirt and came to rest near the great mule, its snout resting on the mule’s flank.

  “I’ll be damned,” Leroy said. “The hog’s girlie or something.”

  It took three days to get back, because the mule wasn’t cooperating, and the hog was no pushover either. They had to tie logs on either side of the hog, so that he had to drag them. It wore the hog down, but it wore the men down too, because the logs would tangle in vines and roughs, and constantly had to be removed. The mule was hobbled loosely, so that it could walk, but couldn’t bolt. The mule was led by Black Joe, and fastened around the mule’s waist was a rope with two rope lines leading off to the rear. They were in turn fastened to a heavy log that kept the mule from bolting forward to have a taste of Black Joe, and to keep him, like the hog, worn down.

  At night they left the logs on the critters, and built make-do corrals of vines and limbs and bits of leather straps.

  By the time they were out of the woods and the swamp, the mule and the hog were covered in dirt and mud and such. The animals heaved as they walked, and Frank feared they might keel over and die.

  They made it though, and they took the mule up to Black Joe’s. He had a corral there. It wasn’t much, but it was solid and it held the mule in. The hog they put in a small pen. There was hardly room for the hog to turn around. Now that the hog was well placed, Frank stood by the pen and studied the animal. It looked at him with a feral eye. This wasn’t a hog who had been slopped and watered. This was an animal who early on had escaped into the wild, as a pig, and had made his way to adulthood. His spotted hide was covered in scars, and though he had a coating of fat on him, his body was long and muscular, and when the hog flexed its shoulders to startle a fly, those muscles rolled beneath its skin like snakes beneath a tight-stretched blanket.

  The mule, after the first day, began to perk up. But he didn’t do much. Stood around mostly, and when they walked away for a distance, it began to trot the corral, stopping often to look out at the hog pen, at his friend. The mule made a sound, and the hog made a sound back.

  “Damn, if I don’t think they’re talking to one another,” Leroy said.

  “Oh yeah. You can bet. They do that all right,” Black Joe said.

  —————

  The race was coming closer, and within the week, Leroy and Black Joe had the mule’s hooves trimmed, but no shoes. Decided he didn’t need them, as the ground was soft this time of year. They got him saddled. Leroy got bucked off and kicked and bitten once, a big plug was out of his right elbow.

  “Mean one,” Black Joe said. “Real bastard, this mule. Strong. He got the time, he eat Leroy.”

  “Do you think he can run?” Frank asked.

  “Time to see soon,” Black Joe said.

  That night, when the saddling and bucking was done, the mule began to wear down, let Black Joe stay on his back. As a reward, Black Joe fed the mule well, but with only a little water. He fed the hog some pulled-up weeds, a bit of corn, watered him.

  “Want mule strong, but hog weak,” Black Joe said. “Don’t want hog strong enough to go digging out of pen that’s for some sure.”

  Frank listened to this, wondering where Black Joe had learned his American.

  Black Joe went in for the night, his two wives calling him to supper. Leroy walked home. Frank saddled up Dobbin, but before he left, he led the horse out to the corral and stared at the mule. There in the starlight, the beams settled around the mule’s head, and made it very white. The mud was gone now and the mule had been groomed, cleaned of briars and burrs from the woods, and the beast looked magnificent. Once Frank had seen a book. It was the only book he had ever seen other than the Bible, which his mother owned. But he had seen this one in the window of the General Store downtown. He hadn’t opened the book, just looked at it through the window. There on the cover was a white horse with wings on its back. Well, the mule didn’t look like a horse, and it didn’t have wings on its back, but it certainly had the bearing of the beast on the book’s cover. Like maybe it was from somewhere else other than here; like the sky had ripped open and the mule had ridden into this world through the tear.

  Frank led Dobbin over to the hog pen. There was nothing beautiful about the spotted hog. It stared up at him, and the starlight filled its eyes and made them sharp and bright as shrapnel.

  As Frank was riding away, he heard the mule make a sound, then the hog. They did it more than once, and were still doing it when he rode out of earshot.

  —————

  It took some doing, and it took some time, and Frank, though he did little but watch, felt as if he were going to work every day. I
t was a new feeling for him. His old man often made him work, but as he grew older he had quit, just like his father. The fields rarely got attention, and being drunk became more important than hoeing corn and digging taters. But here he was not only showing up early, but staying all day, handing harness and such to Black Joe and Leroy, bringing out feed and pouring water.

  In time Black Joe was able to saddle up the mule with no more than a snort from the beast, and he could ride about the pen without the mule turning to try and bite him or buck him. He even stopped kicking at Black Joe and Leroy, who he hated, when they first entered the pen.

  The hog watched all of this through the slats of his pen, his beady eyes slanting tight, his battle-torn ears flicking at flies, his curly tail curled even tighter. Frank wondered what the hog was thinking. He was certain, whatever it was, was not good.

  Soon enough, Black Joe had Frank enter the pen, climb up in the saddle. Sensing a new rider, the mule threw him. But the second time he was on board, the mule trotted him around the corral, running lightly with that kind of rolling-barrel run mules have.

  “He’s about ready for a run, he is,” Black Joe said.

  Frank led the mule out of the pen and out to the road, Leroy following. Black Joe led Dobbin. “See he’ll run that way. Not so fast at first,” Black Joe said. “Me and this almost dead horse, we follow and find you, you ain’t neck broke in some ditch somewheres.”

  Cautiously, Frank climbed on the white mule’s back. He took a deep breath, then, settling himself in the saddle, he gave the mule a kick.

  The mule didn’t move.

  He kicked again.

  The mule trotted down the road about twenty feet, then turned, dipped its head into the grass that grew alongside the red clay road, and took a mouthful.

  Frank kicked at the mule some more, but the mule wasn’t having any. He did move, but just a bit. A few feet down the road, then across the road and into the grass, amongst the trees, biting leaves off of them with a sharp snap of his head, a smack of his teeth.

  Black Joe trotted up on Dobbin.

  “You ain’t going so fast.”

  “Way I see it too,” Frank said. “He ain’t worth a shit.”

  “We not bring the hog in on some business yet.”

  “How’s that gonna work? I mean, how’s he gonna stay around and not run off?”

  “Maybe hog run off in goddamn woods and not see again, how it may work. But, nothing else, hitch mule to plow or sell. You done paid me eleven-fifty.”

  “Your job isn’t done,” Frank said.

  “You say, and may be right, but we got the one card, the hog, you see. He don’t deal out with an ace, we got to call him a joker, and call us assholes, and the mule, we got to make what we can. We have to, shoot and eat the hog. Best, keep him up a few more days, put some corn in him, make him better than what he is. Fatter. The mule, I told you ideas. Hell, eat mule too if nothing other works out.”

  They let the hog out of the pen.

  Or rather, Leroy did. Just picked up the gate, and out came the hog. The hog didn’t bolt. It bounded over to the mule, on which Frank was mounted. The mule dipped its head, touched noses with the hog.

  “I’ll be damned,” Frank said, thinking he had never had a friend like that. Leroy was as close as it got, and he had to watch Leroy. He’d cheat you. And if you had a goat, he might fuck it. Leroy was no real friend. Frank felt lonesome.

  Black Joe took the bridle on the mule away from Frank, and led them out to the road. The hog trotted beside the mule.

  “Now, story is, hog likes to run,” Black Joe said. “And when he run, mule follows. And then hog, he falls off, not keeping up, and mule, he got the arrow-sight then, run like someone put turpentine on his nut sack. Or that the story as I hear it. You?”

  “Pretty close,” Frank said.

  Frank took the reins back, and the hog stood beside the mule. Nothing happened.

  “Gonna say go, is what I’m to do here now. And when I say, you kick mule real goddamn hard. Me, I’m gonna stick boot in hog’s big ass. Hear me now, Frank?”

  “I do.”

  “Signal will be me shouting when kick the hog’s ass, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Ready some.”

  “Ready.”

  Black Joe yelled, “Git, hog,” and kicked the hog in the ass with all his might. The hog did a kind of hop, and bolted. A hog can move quick for its size for a short distance, haul some serious freight, and the old spotted hog, he was really fast, hauling the whole freight line. Frank expected the hog to dart into the woods, and be long gone. But it didn’t. The hog bounded down the road running for all it was worth, and before Frank could put his heels to the mule, the mule leaped. That was the only way to describe it. The mule did not seem cocked to fire, but suddenly it was a white bullet, lunging forward so fast Frank nearly flew out of the saddle. But he clung, and the mule ran, and the hog ran, and after a bit, the mule ducked its head and the hog began to fade. But the mule was no longer following the hog. Not even close. It snorted, and its nose appeared to get long and the ears laid back flat. The mule jetted by the fat porker and stretched its legs wider, and Frank could feel the wind whipping cool on his face. The body of the mule rolled like a barrel, but man, my God, thought Frank, this sonofabitch can run.

  There was one problem. Frank couldn’t turn him. When he felt the mule had gone far enough, it just kept running, and no amount of tugging led to response. That booger was gone. Frank just leaned forward over the mule’s neck, hung on, and let him run.

  Eventually the mule quit, just stopped, dipped its head to the ground, then looked left and right. Trying to find the hog, Frank figured. It was like the mule had gone into a kind of spell, and now he was out of it and wanted his friend.

  He could turn the mule then. He trotted it back down the road, not trying to get it to run anymore, just letting it trot, and when it came upon Black Joe and Leroy, standing in the road, the hog came out of the woods and moseyed up beside the mule.

  As Black Joe reached up and took the mule’s reins, he said, “See that there. Hog and him are buddies. He stays around. He don’t want to run off. Wants to be with mule. Hog a goddamn fool. Could be long gone, out in the woods. Find some other wild hog and fuck it. Eat acorns. Die of old age. Now he gonna get et sometime.”

  “Dumb shit hog,” Leroy said.

  The mule tugged at the reins, dipped its head. The hog and the mule’s noses came together. The mule snorted. The hog made a kind of squealing sound.

  —————

  They trained for several days the same way. The hog would start, and then the mule would run. Fast. They put the mule up at night in the corral, hobbled, and the hog, they didn’t have to pen him anymore. He stayed with the mule by choice.

  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 mul
e 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.