The Double Hook Read Online Free PDF Page B

land was humped against the sky. Noisy and restless in its silence.
    She went out into the night.
    From the corner of the house she could see William’s lantern in the stable. She could see him leading a horse out to water. She could hear the other horses’ lips moving in the dry hay. She wished she had some living chore to busy herself with now. She’d locked the chickens away for the night. They would be standing edged together on their poles.
    The ground was dry under her foot. She thought she heard hoof-beats in the distance. And as she turned back to the house, an owl passing in the dark called out to her Weep-for-yourself. Weep-for-yourself.
4
    The boy sat by the lake edge. Ply on ply, night bound the floating images of things.
    They had stood like a crowd of fools outside of James’s door. He and Ara and Angel. Since Kip had gone off.
    Having come together by accident, Ara said.
    Sent by William, answered Angel.
    Perhaps because he’d had word, Ara said, that his mother was sick or that some accident had happened. Perhaps, she’d said, brought together by sympathy.
    And what sympathy could one have for Greta. Angel’d asked. Since Greta never thought of anyone. Not even herself. Only what had been done to her. An old hen pheasant, Angel said. Never bred. Looking for mischief. Trying to break up other birds’ nests.
    When they’d gone, the boy had hung around thinking:
    I’ll pull James out and make him speak. There won’t be women to interfere. Wondering what he’d do if James answered his question. Waiting for James to open the door again. When he’d heard William’s truck he’d ridden round through the brush to the lake, thinking he’d go back when William had taken himself off. Thinking he’d go back and surprise James at his night chores.
    Now he sat silent as an osprey on a snag. Waiting. Because he knew how to wait. Watching only the images which he could shatter with a stone or bend with his hand. He heard a fish break water. He did not stir. He heard a bird’s wing cut the air. He heard a mouse turn in the hollow of a log.
    Tomorrow, he said. Tomorrow is best for such things.
    As he rode past William’s he saw a light in the barn and William in the barn forking straw into the stalls. He thought of his own animals. He lifted his horse into a canter.
    At last he swung his horse up to his own gate. He loosened the wire. Every one of his gates hung well on the hinge. A man could take pride in his own gates, he thought.
    All about him as he rode into the yard he could hear the breathing of his animals. Close to the house waiting.
5
    Dear God. The Widow waited too. The country. And the moonlight. And the animals breathing close to the house. The horses in the stable. Pawing. Whinnying. The house cow moaning in the darkness, her udders heavy with milk.
    A man came when food was cooked. He came unless he’d been gored by a bull. Or fallen into a slough. Or shot for a deer. A man had to come. The horses waited for him. Thecow. The pigs. A man was servant to his servants until death tore up the bargain. Until a man lay like Wagner in the big bed under the starched sheets his body full and heavy in death.
    She lit the lamp. She shook the pot of potatoes on the stove and looked under the cloth that covered them. The woodbox was almost empty.
    Dear God, she cried. Then she stopped short. Afraid that he might come.
    Father of the fatherless. Judge of widows. Death, and after death the judgment.
    She opened the door.
    Heinrich, she called. Heinrich.
    All round the animals waited. The plate on the table. The knife. The fork. The kettle boiling on the stove.
    Dear God, she said. The country. The wilderness. Nothing. Nothing but old women waiting.
6
    In the cabin by the quarry Kip leant across the table towards Angel.
    These eyes seen plenty, he said.
    Behind Angel, Felix’s children lay, their faces nuzzled close in sleep on Theophil’s mattress. At one end of the table Theophil played patience. Long