Read Online More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online Page B

and picked up the pick-handle. He prodded at the stones under the wheel. “Drive,” he said.
       “Wait’ll Ma sees you,” said Prodd. “Like old times.” He got in and started the truck. Lone put the small of his back against the rear edge of the truck-bed, clamped his hands on it, and as the clutch engaged, he heaved. The body came up as high as the rear springs would let it, and still higher. He leaned back. The wheel found purchase and the truck jolted up and forward on to firm ground.
       Prodd climbed out and came back to look into the hole, the irresistible and useless act of a man who picks up broken china and puts its edges together. “I used to say, I bet you were a farmer once,” he grinned. “But now I know. You were a hydraulic jack.”
       Lone did not smile. He never smiled. Prodd went to the plough and Lone helped him wrestle the hitch back to the truck. “Horse dropped dead,” Prodd explained. “Truck’s all right but sometimes I wish there was some way to keep this from happening. Spend half my time diggin’ it out. I’d get another horse, but you know—hold everything till after Jack gets here. You’d think that would bother me, losing the horse.” He looked up at the house and smiled. “Nothing bothers me now. Had breakfast?”
       “Yes.”
       “Well come have some more. You know Ma. Wouldn’t forgive either of us if she wasn’t to feed you.”
       They went back to the house, and when Ma saw Lone she hugged him hard. Something stirred uncomfortably in Lone. He wanted an axe. He thought all these other things were settled. “You sit right down there and I’ll get you some breakfast.”
       “Told you,” said Prodd, watching her, smiling. Lone watched her too. She was heavier and happy as a kitten in a cowshed. “What are doing now, Lone?”
       Lone looked into his eyes to find some sort of an answer. “Working,” he said. He moved his hand. “Up there.”
       “In the woods?”
       “Yes.”
       “What you doing?” When Lone waited, Prodd asked, “You hired out? No? Then what—trapping?”
       “Trapping,” said Lone, knowing that this would be sufficient.
       He ate. From where he sat he could see Jack’s room. The bed was gone. There was a new one in there, not much longer than his forearm, all draped with pale-blue cotton and cheesecloth with dozens of little tucks sewn into it.
       When he was finished they all sat around the table and for a time nobody said anything. Lone looked into Prodd’s eyes and found He’s a good boy but not the kind to set around and visit . He couldn’t understand the visit image, a vague and happy blur of conversation-sounds and laughter. He recognized this as one of the many lacks he was aware of in himself—lacks, rather than inadequacies; things he could not do and would never be able to do. So he just asked Prodd for the axe and went out.
       “You don’t s’pose he’s mad at us?” asked Mrs Prodd, looking anxiously after Lone.
       “Him?” said Prodd. “He wouldn’t have come back here if he was. I was afraid of that myself until today.” He went to the door. “Don’t you lift nothing heavy, hear?”
    Janie read as slowly and carefully as she could. She didn’t have to read aloud, but only carefully enough so the twins could understand. She had reached the part where the woman tied the man to the pillar and then let the other man, the “my rival, her laughing lover” one, out of the closet where he had been hidden and gave him the whip. Janie looked up at that point and found Bonnie gone and Beanie in the cold fireplace, pretending there was a mouse hiding in the ashes. “Oh, you’re not listening,” she said.
       Want the one with the pictures , the silent message came.
       “I’m getting so tired of that one,” said Janie petulantly. But she