Three Famous Short Novels: Spotted Horses Old Man The Bear (Vintage) Read Online Free PDF Page A

house at night like a cat.” He shook another cake from the carton and ate it. “Come on, Eck,” he said. “Start her off. How about ten dollars for that horse, Eck?”
    “What need I got for a horse I would need a bear-trap to catch?” Eck said.
    “Didn’t you just see me catch him?”
    “I seen you,” Eck said. “And I dont want nothing as big as a horse if I got to wrastle with it every time it finds me on the same side of a fence it’s on.”
    “All right,” the Texan said. He was still breathing harshly, but now there was nothing of fatigue or breathlessness in it. He shook another cake into his palm and inserted it beneath his moustache. “All right. I want to get this auction started. I aint come here to live, no matter how good a country you folks claim you got. I’m going to give you that horse.” For a moment there was no sound, not even that of breathing except the Texan’s.
    “You going to give it to me?” Eck said.
    “Yes. Provided you will start the bidding on the next one.” Again there was no sound save the Texan’s breathing, and then the clash of Mrs Littlejohn’s pail against the rim of the pot.
    “I just start the bidding,” Eck said. “I dont have to buy it lessen I aint over-topped.” Another wagon had come up the lane. It was battered and paintless. One wheel had been repaired by crossed planks bound to the spokes with baling wire and the two underfed mules wore a battered harness patched with bits of cotton rope; the reins were ordinary cotton plow-lines, not new. It contained a woman in a shapeless gray garment and a faded sunbonnet, and a man in faded and patched though clean overalls. There was not room for the wagon to draw out of the lane so the man left it standing where it was and got down and came forward—a thin man, not large, with something about his eyes, something strained and washed-out, at once vague and intense, who shoved into the crowd at the rear, saying,
    “What? What’s that? Did he give him that horse?”
    “All right,” the Texan said. “That wall-eyed horse with the scarred neck belongs to you. Now. That one that looks like he’s had his head in a flour barrel. What do you say? Ten dollars?”
    “Did he give him that horse?” the newcomer said.
    “A dollar,” Eck said. The Texan’s mouth was still open for speech; for an instant his face died so behind the hard eyes.
    “A dollar?” he said. “One dollar? Did I actually hear that?”
    “Durn it,” Eck said. “Two dollars then. But I aint—”
    “Wait,” the newcomer said. “You, up there on the post.” The Texan looked at him. When the others turned, they saw that the woman had left the wagon too, though they had not known she was there since they had not seen the wagon drive up. She came among them behind the man, gaunt in the gray shapeless garment and the sunbonnet, wearing stained canvas gymnasium shoes. She overtook the man but she did not touch him, standing just behind him, her hands rolled before her into the gray dress.
    “Henry,” she said in a flat voice. The man looked over his shoulder.
    “Get back to that wagon,” he said.
    “Here, missus,” the Texan said. “Henry’s going to get the bargain of his life in about a minute. Here, boys, let the missus come up close where she can see. Henry’s going to pick out that saddle-horse the missus has been wanting. Who says ten—”
    “Henry,” the woman said. She did not raise her voice. She had not once looked at the Texan. She touched the man’s arm. He turned and struck her hand down.
    “Get back to that wagon like I told you.” The woman stood behind him, her hands rolled again into her dress. She was not looking at anything, speaking to anyone.
    “He aint no more despair than to buy one of them things,” she said. “And us not but five dollars away from the poor-house, he aint no more despair.” The man turned upon her with that curious air of leashed, of dreamlike fury. The others lounged along the