Read Child of God for Free Online Page B

mush of simple meal and water. A flat tasteless crust that he chews woodenly and washes down with water. The two bears and the tiger watch from the wall, their plastic eyes shining in the firelight and their red flannel tongues out.

T HE HOUNDS CROSSED THE snow on the slope of the ridge in a thin dark line. Far below them the boar they trailed was tilting along with his curious stifflegged lope, highbacked and very black against the winter’s landscape. The hounds’ voices in that vast and pale blue void echoed like the cries of demon yodelers.
    The boar did not want to cross the river. When he did so it was too late. He came all sleek and steaming out of the willows on the near side and started across the plain. Behind him the dogs were falling down the mountainside hysterically, the snow exploding about them. When they struck the water they smoked like hot stones and when they came out of the brush and onto the plain they came in clouds of pale vapor.
    The boar did not turn until the first hound reached him. He spun and cut at the dog and went on. The dogs swarmed over his hindquarters and he turned and hooked with his razorous tushes and reared back on his haunches but there was nothing for shelter. He kept turning, enmeshed in a wheel of snarling hounds until he caught one and drove upon it and pinned and disemboweled it. When he went to turn again to save his flanks he could not.
    Ballard watched this ballet tilt and swirl and churn mud up through the snow and watched the lovely blood welter there in its holograph of battle, spray burst from a ruptured lung, the dark heart’s blood, pinwheel and pirouette, until shots rang and all was done. A young hound worried the boar’s ears and one lay dead with his bright ropy innards folded upon the snow and another whined and dragged himself about. Ballard took his hands from his pockets and took up the rifle from where he had leaned it against a tree. Two small armed and upright figures were moving down along the river, hurrying against the fading light.

I N THE SMITH’S SHOP DIM and near lightless save for the faint glow at the far end where the forge fire smoldered and the smith in silhouette hulked above some work. Ballard in the door with a rusty axehead he’d found.
    Mornin, said the smith.
    Mornin.
    What can I do for ye?
    I got a axe needs sharpenin.
    He crossed the dirt floor to where the smith stood above his anvil. The walls of the building were hung with all manner of implements. Pieces of farm machinery and motorcars lay strewn everywhere.
    The smith thrust his chin forward and looked at the axehead. That it? he said.
    That’s it.
    The smith turned the axehead in his hand. Won’t do ye no good to grind this thing, he said.
    Won’t?
    What ye aim to use for a handle?
    Get one, I reckon.
    He held the axehead up. You cain’t just grind a axe and grind it, he said. See how stobby it’s got?
    Ballard saw.
    You want to wait a minute I’ll show ye how to dress a axe that’ll cut two to one against any piece of shit you can buy down here at the hardware store brand new.
    What’ll it cost me?
    You mean with a new handle and all.
    Yeah, with a new handle.
    Cost ye two dollars.
    Two dollars.
    That’s right. Handles is a dollar and a quarter.
    I allowed I’d just get it sharpened for a quarter or somethin.
    You never would be satisfied with it, said the smith.
    I can get a new one for four dollars.
    I’d better to have thisn and it right than two new ones.
    Well.
    Tell me somethin.
    All right.
    The smith stuck the axe in the fire and gave the crank a few turns. Yellow flames spat out from under the blade. They watched.
    You want to keep your fire high, said the smith.Three or four inches above the tuyer iron. You want to lay a clean fire with good coal that’s not laid out in the sun.
    He turned the axehead with his tongs. You want to take your first heat at a good yeller and work down. That there ain’t hot enough. He had raised his voice to make these