Read Online The Clinch Knot by John Galligan - Free Book Online Page B

needed a feel first. I started sideways. “How long has your husband had the idea to run down a deer?”
    “Okay. You’re from PETA or something?” I shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Is it mutual? Does he get consent from the deer?”
    She regarded me with weary amusement. Her eyes were pale blue and slightly bloodshot. Her short blonde hair contained flecks of something like oatmeal.
    “You’re from Earth First!?”
    “Don’t I dress the part? And how would your husband like to be chased until he drops from exhaustion? We can arrange that.”
    She accepted a handful of sawdust from the little boy. “Are you some girl’s father?”
    “Nope. Some boy’s.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “I’m kidding.”
    “I know.”
    “But only sort of.”
    “I know that too.”
    We traded little smiles and sat in a decently relaxed silence for a long time. Her voice had changed when she spoke again.
    “Well, it’s boring up here alone all day, so, let’s see … Deer running, as it’s called, was supposedly done by certain Native Americans as a test of manhood.” Another fistful of sawdust came her way, this one airborne. “Peter, don’t throw at Mommy. According to my husband, the Tarahumarans in Mexico still do it. His goal is to prove that it can be done and be the first white man to do it.” She paused, answered me before I asked. “Don’t ask me why. He’s competitive. He won’t stop brushing his teeth until after I do.”
    Now I received a handful of sawdust, launched against my shins and boots.
    “Peter, don’t throw at …”
    “Dog.”
    “Your name is Dog?”
    “Dog,” said Peter. “Dog-dog-dog-dog.”
    “You got it.”
    “Your parents called you Dog?”
    “It’s a nickname. And I always thought deer running was a myth.”
    “Hendy wants to prove otherwise. Anyway he’s an ultra-marathoner. He can run twenty miles a day and up to fifty if he needs to. Especially if someone else ran forty-nine.”
    “But deer are fast. Pronghorn are the fastest North American mammal.” Sneed told me that. And they were
antelope,
not deer. Horns, not antlers.
    She said, “Pronghorn are what he chases. The idea is that the animal has short-term speed but not stamina. If the human can keep disrupting its rest cycle, keep it moving, eventually the poor creature will stress and overheat and finally collapse. Then you can walk right up and touch them, kill them, whatever.”
    “Well hell,” I said, “maybe I am from PETA.”
    “You’re not.”
    “No. I’m not.”
    Sawdust flew in the air between us. She sighed. “Peter, how about we don’t throw at all?” She brushed sawdust off her bare legs. “Hendy has a bet with a scientist from somewhere. He has this little tag thing the guy gave him. If he can videotape himself clipping that tag to the animal’s ear, he’s good. As long as the animal gets up and runs later, healthy, he’s got proof. Then there will be articles everywhere. He’s already going to be featured in this month’s
National Geographic
with a story about his incredible connection to nature and ancient cultures.” She said this dryly and directed my gaze across that immense back porch. “There used to be a big fir over there that had grizzly scratchings on it going back almost two hundred years. The Blackfeet used it for a sign post. But Hendy needed that corner for a hot tub to keep his muscles loose.” She took a reckless gulp of her drink. “He thinks he’ll be famous. He thinks there would be a movie about him—the man who ran down an antelope.”
    I worked on that, gazing off at the smoke in the Bitterroot range. Eventually Charlotte Gray said, “That’s what I did before. I was a casting agent before we moved up here and started a family.”
    “Well, it’s pretty here.”
    “Pretty goes up in flames,” she said. “You want something to drink while you figure out how to get to the point?”
    “Sure.”
    “And can you watch Peter?”
    Given my track record, I watched that kid with