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Show HI THE BULL-357 "There aint nothing to do." "I guess I couldn't expect you to notice there aint enough wood cut." "There's wood." He flung his arm toward the hired man. "He's been cutting wood!" "Not enough for tonight - let alone breakfast tomorrow. Yep, we'll most likely get back here late tonight, cold and coming on dark, too dark to chop wood, and there won't be any. Not if it's up to Old Stand-around there won't." Sullen, drooping, his muscles feeling congealed, the boy turned and walked to the ax and wrenched it out of a log. Looking back, he saw his fadier attentively turning strips of bacon and in an instant he wanted to raise the ax over the man's head and bring it down. He turned to the wood instead. He kept his sullen face during breakfast, though the food made him feel better, hot potatoes and bacon, bread with raspberry jam from a tin bucket. While his tongue worked at seeds in his teeth, he got up for more coffee. "Here. I'll take some of that." His father's voice cut the air and his thick black beardstubble made him look ominously demanding, as if he challenged even the boy's right to share existence with him. The boy wanted to ignore him and pour his own coffee first; instead, he walked over and stooped down to pour for him. Again he felt done to, a numb, congealed feeling, and he was pouring before he realized that he had not planted himself properly, that he had stepped on a loose rock and that most of his weight was forward on that boot. Still, he filled the cup and not until he was raising the pot did he slip, in an attempt to right himself jerking the pot upwards. But even as he was congratulating himself on not sloshing out a single drop, he knew as surely as if he had intended it that the bottom of the rising pot had caught the man's cup and had tipped hot coffee into his crotch. "Aiiii!" he said, jumping up as if a rattlesnake had struck him. "Aiiii!" the cry rang, his lips pulling back from his teeth in pain, he spreading his legs to pluck his scalded jeans away from the tender flesh. Bent over, sucking in his belly as if he could pull his flesh up and away from the pain, he quivered like a man unsexed. Steaming in the cool thin air, his crotch looked as if it were on fire, and the |
