Read Online The Bushwacked Piano by Thomas McGuane - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas McGuane
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suspended in a vision of Instant Ralston, cobbler’s benches and happy squash tournaments at a time when Europe was beating its way into the Stone Age.
“Edna,” he said.
8
Ann troweled around the strawberry sets in her little garden, weighting the corners of each square of net. Sweet Wayne Codd had made her a little irrigating system, a miniature of those in the hayfield with its own little head gate and little canvas dam and little side ditches that went down all the little rows between the little strawberries. Each day Wayne came down and opened the gate, flooding the little garden with clear cold creek water that made the strawberries grow fast as wildfire. How sweet they would be too, she thought, bathed in mountain sunlight and floating in that heavy cream Wayne skimmed and brought up from the barn. Nicholas, are you thinking of my little strawberry garden?
Mister Fitzgerald rode his strawberry roan across the creek, his chest stinging with strawberry-colored tincture of merthiolate. He was on the lookout. He thought of all the sauce the old broad still had in her.
“… what those five feet could do
has anybody seen my …”
Payne towed the wagon up Bangtail Creek and, in an agony from his labors, sat waist deep in his sleeping bag. He leaned over to look at the vast strawberry evanescence that was ending the day and yelled at the sky, “I’ve had more heartaches than Carter’s got little liver pills!”
Ann fluttered around her room in her nighty like a moth. It had come to be time to think again about George Russell. She had after all lived with this bird; and in the face of Payne’s luminous appearance the day before, it seemed well to review the options. She transported herself to a day on which they had traveled through reasonably intact swatches of Provence, rolling along conspicuous in their Opel sedan among the pie-plate Deux Chevaux. There were the usual laments about American towns not having trees like that; and, withal, a pinched whininess was their sole response to all that was demanded by towns accreted upon Roman ruins. That day they reached the border town of Irun where, over the questions of Spanish border officials and views of the varnished heads of the Guardia Civil, they gazed upon the gray-green wondermass of España.
Through the efficiency of the crafty young executive, George Russell, they found themselves at the bullfights in Malaga, a mere day later. Ann’s knowledge of that came in pulses, there in the window over the garden, the garden in Montana:
They watched the bullfighter set up the bull for the kill. The bulk of the fight—the queening and prancing—was behind them now. He put away the wooden sword and took the steel one and moved the bull with the cape to uncross his front feet. George beside her had been giving the most relentless play by play: The bull’s tongue was outbecause the picadors had stayed in too long and had piced the bull too far back. The placing of the sticks, George said, had been arrant dancing. The torero’s ringmanship had been questionable; he had allowed the fight to continue until the bull’s head lolled.
“Nevertheless,” George summarized, “everything with the right hand, and I’m thinking especially of the
derechazos
, has been worth the trouble of getting here.” Ann nodded and looked back down onto the sand; at once, depressed.
The bullfighter had folded the muleta over the sword, reached out placing the cloth before the bull and, withdrawing the sword, rose up onto the fronts of his feet sighting down the blade. The exhausted animal remained fixed on the muleta. A moment later, it lifted its head from the cloth and the torero stabbed him in the nose to drive the head down. You can bet it worked. Ann looked away. Even art …
“Listen to those English,” said George. “The bastards are cheering the bull!” The bullfighter went in. The bull made no attempt to charge him. The sword went all the way to its hilt and the
“Edna,” he said.
8
Ann troweled around the strawberry sets in her little garden, weighting the corners of each square of net. Sweet Wayne Codd had made her a little irrigating system, a miniature of those in the hayfield with its own little head gate and little canvas dam and little side ditches that went down all the little rows between the little strawberries. Each day Wayne came down and opened the gate, flooding the little garden with clear cold creek water that made the strawberries grow fast as wildfire. How sweet they would be too, she thought, bathed in mountain sunlight and floating in that heavy cream Wayne skimmed and brought up from the barn. Nicholas, are you thinking of my little strawberry garden?
Mister Fitzgerald rode his strawberry roan across the creek, his chest stinging with strawberry-colored tincture of merthiolate. He was on the lookout. He thought of all the sauce the old broad still had in her.
“… what those five feet could do
has anybody seen my …”
Payne towed the wagon up Bangtail Creek and, in an agony from his labors, sat waist deep in his sleeping bag. He leaned over to look at the vast strawberry evanescence that was ending the day and yelled at the sky, “I’ve had more heartaches than Carter’s got little liver pills!”
Ann fluttered around her room in her nighty like a moth. It had come to be time to think again about George Russell. She had after all lived with this bird; and in the face of Payne’s luminous appearance the day before, it seemed well to review the options. She transported herself to a day on which they had traveled through reasonably intact swatches of Provence, rolling along conspicuous in their Opel sedan among the pie-plate Deux Chevaux. There were the usual laments about American towns not having trees like that; and, withal, a pinched whininess was their sole response to all that was demanded by towns accreted upon Roman ruins. That day they reached the border town of Irun where, over the questions of Spanish border officials and views of the varnished heads of the Guardia Civil, they gazed upon the gray-green wondermass of España.
Through the efficiency of the crafty young executive, George Russell, they found themselves at the bullfights in Malaga, a mere day later. Ann’s knowledge of that came in pulses, there in the window over the garden, the garden in Montana:
They watched the bullfighter set up the bull for the kill. The bulk of the fight—the queening and prancing—was behind them now. He put away the wooden sword and took the steel one and moved the bull with the cape to uncross his front feet. George beside her had been giving the most relentless play by play: The bull’s tongue was outbecause the picadors had stayed in too long and had piced the bull too far back. The placing of the sticks, George said, had been arrant dancing. The torero’s ringmanship had been questionable; he had allowed the fight to continue until the bull’s head lolled.
“Nevertheless,” George summarized, “everything with the right hand, and I’m thinking especially of the
derechazos
, has been worth the trouble of getting here.” Ann nodded and looked back down onto the sand; at once, depressed.
The bullfighter had folded the muleta over the sword, reached out placing the cloth before the bull and, withdrawing the sword, rose up onto the fronts of his feet sighting down the blade. The exhausted animal remained fixed on the muleta. A moment later, it lifted its head from the cloth and the torero stabbed him in the nose to drive the head down. You can bet it worked. Ann looked away. Even art …
“Listen to those English,” said George. “The bastards are cheering the bull!” The bullfighter went in. The bull made no attempt to charge him. The sword went all the way to its hilt and the
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