To his right, Frank saw Dynamite and his little axe-faced rider. The rider looked at him and smiled with gritty teeth. “You gonna get run into a hole, shit breath.”
“Shitass,” Frank said. It was the best he could come up with, but he threw it out with meaning.
Dynamite was leading the pack now, leaving the white mule and the others behind, throwing dust in their face. White Mule saw Dynamite start to straighten out in front of him, and he moved left, nearly knocking against a mule on that side. Frank figured it was so he could see the hog. The hog was moving his spotted ass on down the line.
“Git him, White Mule,” Frank said, and leaned close to the mule’s left ear, rubbed the side of the mule’s neck, then rested his head close on his mane. The white mule focused on the hog and started hauling some ass. He went lower and his strides got longer and the barrel back and belly rolled. When Frank looked up, the hog was bolting left, across the path of a dozen mules, just making it off the trail before taking a tumble under hooves. He fell, rolled over and over in the grass.
Frank thought: Shit, White Mule, he’s gonna bolt, gonna go after the hog. But, nope, he was true to the trail, and closing on Dynamite. The spell was on. And now the other mules were moving up too, taking a whipping, getting their sides slapped hard enough Frank could hear it, thinking it sounded like Papa’s belt on his back.
“Come on, White Mule. You don’t need no hittin’, don’t need no hard heels. You got to outrun that hard dick for your own sake.”
It was as if White Mule understood him. White Mule dropped lower and his strides got longer yet. Frank clung for all he was worth, fearing the saddle might twist and
lose him.
But no, Leroy, for all his goat-fucking and seed salesman’s hat stealing, could fasten harness and belly bands better than anyone that walked.
The trail became shady as they moved into a line of oaks on either side of the road. For a long moment the shadows were so thick they ran in near darkness. Then there were patches of lights through the leaves and the dust was lying closer to the ground and the road was sun-baked and harder and showing clay the color of a poison-ivy rash.
Scattered here and there along the road were viewers. A few in chairs. Most standing.
Frank ventured a look over his shoulder. The other mules and riders were way back, and some of them were already starting to falter. He noticed a couple of the mules were riderless, and one had broken rank with its rider and was off trail, cutting across the grass, heading toward the creek that twisted down amongst a line of willow trees.
As White Mule closed on Dynamite, the mule took a snapping bite at Dynamite’s tail, jerking its head back with teeth full of tail hair.
Dynamite tried to turn and look, but his rider pulled his head back into line. White Mule lunged forward, going even lower than before. Lower than Frank had ever seen him go. Lower than he thought he could go. Now White Mule was pulling up on Dynamite’s left. Dynamite’s rider jerked Dynamite back into the path in front of White Mule. Frank wheeled his mount to the right side of Dynamite. In mid-run, Dynamite wheeled and kicked, hit White Mule in the side hard enough there was an explosion of breath that made Frank think his mule would go down.
Dynamite pulled ahead.
White Mule was not so low now. He was even staggering a little as he ran.
“Easy, boy,” Frank said. “You can do it. You’re the best goddam mule ever ran a road.”
White Mule began to run evenly again, or as even as a mule can run. He began to stretch out again, going low. Frank was surprised to see they were closing on Dynamite again.
Frank looked back.
No one was in sight. Just a few twists of dust, a ripple of heat waves. It was White Mule and Dynamite, all the way.
As Frank and White Mule passed Dynamite, Frank noted Dynamite didn’t run with a hard-on anymore. Dynamite’s rider let the mule turn its head and snap at White Mule. Frank, without really thinking about it, slipped his foot from the saddle and kicked the mule in the jaw.
“Hey,” yelled Dynamite’s rider. “Stop that.”
“Hey, shitass,” Frank said. “You better watch…that limb.”
Dynamite and his rider had let White Mule push them to the right side of the road, near the trees, and a low hanging hickory limb was right in line with them. The rider ducked it by a half inch, losing only his cap.
Shouldn’t have told him, thought Frank. What he was hoping was to say something smart just as the limb caught the bastard. That would have made it choice, seeing the little axe-faced shit take it in the teeth. But he had outsmarted his own self.
“Fuck,” Frank said.
Now they were thundering around a bend, and there were lots of people there, along both sides. There had been a spot of people here and there, along the way, but now they were everywhere.
Must be getting to the end of it, thought Frank.
Dynamite had lost a step for a moment, allowing White Mule to move ahead, but now he was closing again. Frank looked up. He could see that a long, red ribbon was stretched across in front of them. It was almost the end.
Dynamite lit a fuse.
He came up hard and on the left, and began to pass. The axe-faced rider slapped out with the long bride and caught Frank across the face.
“You goddamn turd,” Frank said, and slashed out with his own bridal, missing by six inches. Dynamite and axe-face pulled ahead.
Frank turned his attention back to the finish line. Thought: This is it. White Mule was any lower to the ground he’d have a belly full of gravel, stretched out any farther, he’d come apart. He’s gonna be second. And no prize.
“You done what you could,” Frank said, putting his mouth close to the bobbing head of the mule, rubbing the side of his neck with the tips of his fingers.
White Mule brought out the reinforcements. He was low and he was stretched, but now his legs were moving even faster, and for a long, strange moment, Frank thought the mule had sprung wings, like that horse he had seen on the front of the book so long ago. There didn’t feel like there was any ground beneath them.
Frank couldn’t believe it. Dynamite was falling behind, snorting and blowing, his body lathering up as if he were soaped.
White Mule leaped through the red ribbon a full three lengths ahead to win.
Frank let White Mule run past the watchers, on until he slowed and began to trot, and then walk. He let the mule go on like that for some time, then he gently pulled the reins and got out of the saddle. He walked the mule a while. Then he stopped and unbuttoned the belly band. He slid the saddle into the dirt. He pulled the bridle off of the mule’s head.
The mule turned and looked at him.
“You done your part,” Frank said, and swung the bridle gently against the mule’s ass. “Go on.”
White Mule sort of skipped forward and began running down the road, then turned into the trees. And was gone.
Frank walked all the way back to the beginning of the race, the viewers amazed he was without his mule.
But he was still the winner.
“You let him go?” Leroy said. “After all we went through, you let him go?”
“Yep,” Frank said.
Nigger Joe shook his head. “Could have run him again. Plowed him. Ate him.”
Frank took his prize money from the judges and side bet from Crone, paid Leroy his money, watched Nigger Joe follow Crone away from the race’s starting line, on out to Crone’s horse and wagon. Dynamite, his head down, was being led to the wagon by axe-face.
Frank knew what was coming. Nigger Joe had not been paid, and on top of that, he was ill-tempered. As Frank watched, Nigger Joe hit Crone and knocked him flat. No one did anything.
Black man or not, you didn’t mess with Nigger Joe.
Nigger Joe took his money from Crone’s wallet, punched the axe-faced rider in the nose for the hell of it, and walked back in their direction.
Frank didn’t wait. He went over to where the hog lay on the g
rass. His front and back legs had been tied and a kid about thirteen was poking him with a stick. Frank slapped the kid in the back of the head, knocking his hat off. The kid bolted like a deer.
Frank got Dobbin and called Nigger Joe over. “Help me.”
Nigger Joe and Frank loaded the hog across the back of Dobbin as if he were a sack of potatoes. Heavy as the porker was, it was accomplished with some difficulty, the hog’s head hanging down on one side, his feet on the other. The hog seemed defeated. He hardly even squirmed.
“Misses that mule,” Nigger Joe said.
“You and me got our business done, Joe,” Frank asked.
Nigger Joe nodded.
Frank took Dobbin’s reins and started leading him away.
“Wait,” Leroy said.
Frank turned on him. “No. I’m through with you. You and me. We’re quits.”
“What?” Leroy said.
Frank pulled at the reins and kept walking. He glanced back once to see Leroy standing where they had last spoke, standing in the road looking at him, wearing the seed salesman’s hat.
Frank put the hog in the old hog pen at his place and fed him good. Then he ate and poured out all the liquor he had, and waited until dark. When it came he sat on a large rock out back of the house. The wind carried the urine smell of all those out the window pees to his nostrils. He kept his place.
The moon was near full that night and it had risen high above the world and its light was bright and silver. Even the old, ugly place looked good under that light.
Frank sat there for a long time, finally dozed. He was awakened by the sound of wood cracking. He snapped his head up and looked out at the hog pen. The mule was there. He was kicking at the slats of the pen, trying to free his friend.
Frank got up and walked out there. The mule saw him, ran back a few paces, stared at him.
“Knew you’d show,” Frank said. “Just wanted to see you one more time. Today, buddy, you had wings.”
The mule turned its head and snorted.
Frank lifted the gate to the pen and the hog ran out. The hog stopped beside the mule and they both looked at Frank.
“It’s all right,” Frank said. “I ain’t gonna try and stop you.”
The mule dipped its nose to the hog’s snout and they pressed them together. Frank smiled. The mule and the hog wheeled suddenly, as if by agreed signal, and raced toward the rickety rail fence near the hill.
The mule, with one beautiful leap, jumped the fence, seemed pinned in the air for a long time, held there by the rays of the moon. The way the rays fell, for a strange, short instant, it seemed as if he were sprouting gossamer wings.
The hog wiggled under the bottom rail and the two of them ran across the pasture, between the trees and out of sight. Frank didn’t have to go look to know that the mule had jumped the other side of the fence as well, that the hog had worked his way under. And that they were gone.
When the sun came up and Frank was sure there was no wind, he put a match to a broom’s straw and used it to start the house afire, then the barn and the rotted out-buildings. He kicked the slats on the hog pen until one side of it fell down.
He went out to where Dobbin was tied to a tree, saddled and ready to go. He mounted him and turned his head toward the rail fence and the hill. He looked at it for a long time. He gave a gentle nudge to Dobbin with his heels and started out of there, on down toward the road and town.
Bill, the Little Steam Shovel
Bill, the Little Steam Shovel was very excited. He was getting a fresh coat of blue paint from Dave, the Steam Shovel Man, in the morning, and the thought of that made him so happy he secreted oil through his metal. He had been sitting idle in the big garage since he had been made and he was ready to go out into the world to do his first job.
The first of many.
He was going to move big mounds of dirt and big piles of rocks. He was going to make basements for schools and hospitals. He was going to clear land for playgrounds so good little boys and good little girls would have a place for swings and merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters. He was going to move big trees and flatten hills so farmers could grow good food for the good little boys and girls to eat. He was going to clear land for churches and synagogues and cathedrals and mosques and buildings for the worship of Vishnu, Voudan, and such.
He was so happy.
So eager.
He hoped he wouldn’t fuck up.
At night, all alone in the big garage, he thought about a lot of things. The work he wanted to do. How well he wanted to do it. The new coat of paint he was going to get. And sometimes he slept and had the dreams. Thinking about the dreams made his metal turn cold and his manifold blow leaky air.
What was happening to him on those long nights in the dark corner of the garage, waiting for his coat of paint and his working orders, was unclear to him. He knew only that he didn’t like it and the dreams came to him no matter how much he thought about the good things, and the dreams were about falling great distances and they were about the dark. A dark so black, stygian was as bright as fresh-lit candle. One moment he seemed to be on solid support, the next, he was in mid-air, and down he would go, sailing through the empty blackness, and when he hit the ground, it was like, suddenly, he was as flexible as an accordion, all his metal wadded and crunched, his steam shovel knocked all the way back to his ass end. Dave, the Steam Shovel Man, crunched in the cab, was squirting out like a big bag of busted transmission fluid.
Then he would pop awake, snapping on his head beams, disturbing others in the garage, and from time to time, Butch, the Big Pissed-Off Steam Shovel, would throb his engine and laugh.
“You just a big Tinker Toy,” Butch would say.
Bill wasn’t sure what a Tinker Toy was, but he didn’t like the sound of it. But he didn’t say anything, because Butch would whip his ass. Something Butch would remind him of in his next wheezing breath.
“I could beat you to a pile of metal flakes with my shovel. You just a big Tinker Toy.”
There was one thing that Bill thought about that helped him through the long nights, even when he had the dreams. And that was Miss Maudie. The little gold steam shovel with the great head beams that perked high and the little tail pipe that looked so… Well, there was no other way he could think of it… So open and inviting, dark and warm and full of dismissed steam that could curl around your dipstick like… No. That was vulgar and Miss Maudie would certainly not think of him that way. She was too classy. Too fine. Bill thanked all the metal in Steam Shovel Heaven that she was made the way she was.
Oh, but Heaven forbid, and in the name of Jayzus, the Steam Shovel Who Had Died For His Sins, and all Steam Shovel’s sins by allowing himself to be worked to a frazzle and ran off a cliff by a lot of uncaring machines of the old religion, in his name, he shouldn’t think such things.
He was a good little steam shovel. Good little steam shovels didn’t think about that sort of business, about dipping their oil sticks down good little girl steam shovel’s tail pipes, even if it probably felt damn good. The Great Steam Shovel in The Sky on The Great Expanse of Red Clay, and Jayzus and The Holy Roller Ghost, would know his thoughts, and it would be a mark against him, and when it was his time to be before the door of the Big Garage in the Sky, he would not meet his maker justified, but would be sent way down there to the scrap heap where flames leaped and metal was scorched and melted, twisted and crushed, but never died.
Besides, why would anyone as neat and bright with such big head beams and that fine tail pipe think of him? He didn’t even have his coat of paint yet. Here he was, brand new, but not painted. He was gray as a storm cloud and just sitting, having never done work before. And he was a cheap machine at that, made from cheap parts: melted toasters, vacuums, refrigerators and such.
Maudie looked to be made from high quality steel, like Butch, who eyed her and growled at her from time to time and made her flutter. Happily or fearfully, Bill could not determine. Perhaps both.
&nbs
p; But Bill was just a cheap little machine made to do good, hard work for all the good little children in the world, and the men and women who made him—
Then Bill saw his Dave.
Dave came into the building, slid the door way open to let in the morning air, went to a corner of the garage, moved something on the front of his pants and took out his little poker and let fly with steaming water, going, “Oooooooh, yeah, the pause that refreshes, the envy of all race horses.”
Now I know why it stinks in here, Bill thought. Hadn’t seen that before, but now I have. He’s letting juice out of himself. Smells worse than transmission fluid, oil, or windshield cleaner. Don’t the Daves get an oil change?
Dave went out again, came back with a paint gun and a big canister of blue paint fastened to it. He started right in on Bill.
“How’s that, Bill?” Dave said, “How’s that feel?”
Bill cranked his motor and purred.
“Oh, yeah, now you’re digging it,” Dave said.
Dave used several canisters, and soon Bill was as blue as the sky. Or, at least he’s always heard that the sky was blue when the pollution was light. He spent all his time in the garage, where he was built and where he had set for months, listening to the other steam shovels and diggers and such, so, he didn’t know blue from green. He was just a little machine with an eager engine and a desire to do good, and Dave had promised to paint him blue, so he figured the color on him, the paint coming out of the sprayer, must be blue, and it must be the color of the sky.
When Dave finished with the paint, he brought out a big handheld dryer and went over Bill with that. The dryer felt warm on Bill’s metal, and when that was done, Dave took a long, bristly device and poked it down his steam pipe and made Bill jump a little.