28
PARTISAN REVIEW
tall man did not seem to notice me, however. He looked under his bushy
eyebrows down at the ram· in the flame below, and he spoke in such a
deep and biblical voice that the laughter all about us died. In our town
this man is regarded, by the Campbellites, as a prophet of the Lord.
"Behold-the fire and the wood, and also the lamb, for a burnt
offering. Did not Abraham say unto Isaac his son, God will provide the
lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked,
and, behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns."
A strange silence followed this; then the tall man turned abruptly
on his heel, leaving a silence behind him. He walks the streets all night,
people say, and communes with Christ Jesus.
Down below, my friend was pouring water on the hindquarters of
the animal, and the woman atop the embankment shattered the silence
that the preacher had left by calling down, "Might
as
well let 'im burn
all th' way now, Luke, an' pour the rest down yore own arse ir.sted.
Thet need coolin' too y'know."
Everybody laughed, and a Mexican came up from the roundhouse
with an ax, and ended the beast's suffering with a blow. He stood astradle
the animal and, with a single swing, split the skull in two.
The woman on the embankment called down, "Don't take that haid
home with yo', spik--elts y'all heV; to buy Boone a new ram t'morrer."
Nobody laughed this time, however.
The day after the fire I passed the carcass where it still lay in the
road, and I saw that out of the unburned flank several steaks had been
cut. I imagine that, before evening, the dogs had the rest. That was
high noon when I passed, and so still was the air that I could faintly
hear the tapping of someone's hammer on wood away over on the other
side of the arroyo, three miles distant. All things seemed to be standing
still, holding breath, everything was waiting for no
~me
knew quite what;
yet nothing dared to move, nothing dared to stir, everything waited ...
and into this calm there burst, with incredible violence, a
d~
hot wind
from the west. Screaming, hissing-everyone heard it when it was yet
miles off and ran to hide-then it tor{'1 through the town tossing sand as
high
as
the rooftops and hurling it with insane malice agaimt the windows,
smashing panes and whirling in clouds into the rooms where the people
huddled; and the sk.y grew so dark that, although it was noon, the day
was dark as a starless night; as a night when a thousand Indian demons
whirling in black and yellow robes rush screaming from doorway onto
doorway, dashing themselves against the houses, shaking the boards and
