Read Online Bless the Beasts & Children by Glendon Swarthout - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Glendon Swarthout
Ads: Link
the plane lay over on one wingtip. The pilot had to hike through the bush to Deux Rivieres and phone North Bay for a mechanic. It required three days to make repairs and John Cotton caught another thirty-one trout . Knowing they could not have pried him loose from the steering wheel and gearshift with a crowbar, the five outside the cab turned away until he was released from seizure.
When he was, when he had come to, the Bedwetters were already isolating. What had been, only minutes before, a functioning unit, had become a rabble. They blew about the pickup like tumbleweeds. Nomads in a wilderness of doubt, hither and yon they strayed, re-absorbed in self, their cause forgotten, each one tending the petty flock of his own anxieties. Cotton could have tied knots with their tensions. Had he been joker enough to honk the horn, they would have taken off for the moon like bigassed birds, sent into gabbling orbit. He listened to them. Here we go again, he sighed, gathering nuts in the night.
"I'm tired," said smaller cowboy hat, pillow under its arm and thumb in its mouth. "After all, I'm the youngest."
Arnold Palmer's golf cap was taking a leak into a manzanita bush. "Geez, I'm dying of malnutrition," it said. "We should've ordered those hamburgers to go. So it shouldn't have been a total loss."
"I'm hungrier than anybody," whined the Hopi headband. "You guys at least had supper and I lost mine."
The Afrika Korps maneuvered in circles around the truck. "I got us wheels and I drove us. Why do I have to be responsible for gas, too?"
"I didn't wanna come on this in the first place," griped the bigger cowboy hat. "Just because I'm stuck with a psycho brother."
"I miss the tube," said the smaller cowboy hat, ignoring bigger. "It's not healthy for you to go without TV too long."
"I wish I was in Vegas right now," said golf cap, buttoning up. "They cut the steaks special for my father in Vegas."
"When I get home," resolved the bigger cowboy hat, "I want a whole week tube time. Got my own color set."
"Hey, didn't I rupture that tire, though? Poom!" boasted Rommel. "How come I can't score on the range?"
"There's one show I like," admitted Hopi headband. "Because the guy's only got a little while to live. He might die any show. I'm sort of morbid that way."
They wearied, they sickened, they gave Cotton a royal pain in the rear. Okay, he said to himself, okay, let's just see. Let's turn off the damn set and see if they can survive on the real thing. Let's stick the horse opera back in the can and see if they're grown-up enough to live in this world. If they aren't, if they poop out now, the hell with the whole operation and the hell with them, too, because if they aren't, after this summer and all I've done for them, they really are born losers, they really are dings. But if they can, if they'll at least try to hack it without me, then they're over the rim, they've won the big game, and when they fly home they'll be okay, they can hack anything, even home.
He left the cab. Going round to the front end of the truck he took off his helmet and cocked a boot up on the bumper. Automatically the squad assembled and hunkered down around him quietly, as they had earlier, in the piney woods.
"I lay it on the line," he said. "Running out of gas wasn't Teft's fault, it was everybody's. But it really louses up the operation." They had only a mile more to go, he said, but now, with no wheels, they had to think about afterwards and consequences. There were two options. Hike back to U.S. 66, hitch a ride into Flag, wire another car and rod back to Prescott and the horses and they'd probably be back in camp and in bed before daylight. No one would know. No one would ever connect them. But go on, carry the thing through and lose that time and they'd surely hit camp in broad daylight, the Director would third-degree them about where they'd been and even if they clammed up, when what they'd pulled off made the newspapers he'd smell a rat—the
When he was, when he had come to, the Bedwetters were already isolating. What had been, only minutes before, a functioning unit, had become a rabble. They blew about the pickup like tumbleweeds. Nomads in a wilderness of doubt, hither and yon they strayed, re-absorbed in self, their cause forgotten, each one tending the petty flock of his own anxieties. Cotton could have tied knots with their tensions. Had he been joker enough to honk the horn, they would have taken off for the moon like bigassed birds, sent into gabbling orbit. He listened to them. Here we go again, he sighed, gathering nuts in the night.
"I'm tired," said smaller cowboy hat, pillow under its arm and thumb in its mouth. "After all, I'm the youngest."
Arnold Palmer's golf cap was taking a leak into a manzanita bush. "Geez, I'm dying of malnutrition," it said. "We should've ordered those hamburgers to go. So it shouldn't have been a total loss."
"I'm hungrier than anybody," whined the Hopi headband. "You guys at least had supper and I lost mine."
The Afrika Korps maneuvered in circles around the truck. "I got us wheels and I drove us. Why do I have to be responsible for gas, too?"
"I didn't wanna come on this in the first place," griped the bigger cowboy hat. "Just because I'm stuck with a psycho brother."
"I miss the tube," said the smaller cowboy hat, ignoring bigger. "It's not healthy for you to go without TV too long."
"I wish I was in Vegas right now," said golf cap, buttoning up. "They cut the steaks special for my father in Vegas."
"When I get home," resolved the bigger cowboy hat, "I want a whole week tube time. Got my own color set."
"Hey, didn't I rupture that tire, though? Poom!" boasted Rommel. "How come I can't score on the range?"
"There's one show I like," admitted Hopi headband. "Because the guy's only got a little while to live. He might die any show. I'm sort of morbid that way."
They wearied, they sickened, they gave Cotton a royal pain in the rear. Okay, he said to himself, okay, let's just see. Let's turn off the damn set and see if they can survive on the real thing. Let's stick the horse opera back in the can and see if they're grown-up enough to live in this world. If they aren't, if they poop out now, the hell with the whole operation and the hell with them, too, because if they aren't, after this summer and all I've done for them, they really are born losers, they really are dings. But if they can, if they'll at least try to hack it without me, then they're over the rim, they've won the big game, and when they fly home they'll be okay, they can hack anything, even home.
He left the cab. Going round to the front end of the truck he took off his helmet and cocked a boot up on the bumper. Automatically the squad assembled and hunkered down around him quietly, as they had earlier, in the piney woods.
"I lay it on the line," he said. "Running out of gas wasn't Teft's fault, it was everybody's. But it really louses up the operation." They had only a mile more to go, he said, but now, with no wheels, they had to think about afterwards and consequences. There were two options. Hike back to U.S. 66, hitch a ride into Flag, wire another car and rod back to Prescott and the horses and they'd probably be back in camp and in bed before daylight. No one would know. No one would ever connect them. But go on, carry the thing through and lose that time and they'd surely hit camp in broad daylight, the Director would third-degree them about where they'd been and even if they clammed up, when what they'd pulled off made the newspapers he'd smell a rat—the
Similar Books
