72
PARTISAN REVIEW
the Agriculturist. Pucks eat them. Ducks fight over their
womenfolk, but they ain't got the turns, they ain't got labor
troubles." He scnitched his burnt neck in confusion.
So the old man helped with the dishes. Steve brought in
the wood and brought milk chocolate from the village drug·
store.
Mule took his shotgun along to work, said the crows were
bad. He felt restless. Monkey wrench and tractor couldn't
help him. It was as though the fences built around the farm all
these years were shaking, with a strange storm smashing the
whole world loose. Geese flew chevroned against the sky.
He stood, hand over his eyes as if saluting. Even for a fine
rifle, it was · a hard shot. He let the old shotgun blaze. And
with the flash and kick, he felt none of the thrill when he was a
kid gunning, the whole country humming with game. And
memory like a retriever dog piled nothing at his feet but the
bodies of men and women, torn long ago, muddy with the past.
He began getting up even before the cocks' bugling. He
stole out of the room barefooted not to wake the others. .
He sat in the fencerow, his shotgun pricked up like a great
ear watching the horsepond. The stubble of stars was covered
over. A red bandanna hung in the east. Soon you could make
out the bullrushes, the gap in the stones, and then two shadows
gliding over the water.
He slipped down thru the pasture slowly. A hen's flutter
from the pond, the bandanna flowed into a red flag, the rushes
shook. Up whirled the ducks. A gun banged with his.
He tore around. It was Steve.
One of the ducks had shot into the woods. The other was
tumbling among the rushes. Steve plunged ahead with his horn·
ed knife.
Mule was up on him. Steve backed away. "Git the mate
in the woods. Git-."
Mule knocked him tail over teakettle. Steve pawed up
with his knife. Mule glanced at him sideways and drove him
back on
hi~
knees into the rushes.
A cow bawled in the barn.
The blood was streaming from Steve's face. He looked as
if cleanings were coming out of him. He jerked at his gun.
The second barrel plowed the rushes between Mule's legs.
Mule just spat on him. "You evil stinking rumhound."
He picked up the little wood duck. He rung its neck. The yellow
