You Will Never See Any God: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

gargling, snuffled sound of struggle out there beyond the trees.
    “The old son of a bitch,” Dahlman said. “Goes out there and can’t make it and I have to go pull him out.” He waited as if suspended there, knowing then that he had made the decision andhe did not know why he made it, and he thought, well he would do it this once, just this one time, because . . . well . . . he was young and Gerber did not have long to live anyway. His heart was beating very fast. “Gerber,” he shouted. “Come out of there. Come out, you hear!”
    He could see the slight motion, a swaying in the water near the sodden clump of oiled coat, and the ripples of light on that sheen of water. The dog beside Dahlman turned in frantic circles and whined and muzzled towards the water, but the older dread held him back.
    Dahlman swore. He threw down the empty basket he carried and waded out. The slope of the land was very gradual, and he could see the stubs of cornstalks at intervals sticking through the water surface. The earth beneath was soft so that Dahlman sank to his ankles with each step. Gradually, as it deepened, he could feel the slide of water into his overshoes, about his feet and socks. It became a struggle to move as his overshoes filled.
    “He wears the hip boots he stole from my father,” he muttered. “He wears hip boots and goes out spearing but I got to go pull him out.” He lifted his voice. “Gerber, get out of there! Get out, you hear me!” And more softly, “Probably nothing wrong with him anyway; probably down in the mud scraping around for gar.” And saying it he knew that there was within him a rare excitement as he had never felt before, sharp and good.
    He could count the old corn ridges in the mudded water, each ridge with its rotting but still hard rows of stalks three feet and six inches from the next. He measured the distance that way for thirty rows. The water deepened around the drifted tree and he knew well the little dip the land took there and he thought it had been the best land and the tree was on it now and it would have to be pulled away, perhaps cut up first so the tractor could handle the parts to be dragged out.
    Gerber lay upon the water. His legs were clumped into the mud and his body was bent forward at the hips and his upper trunk floated easily. His coat spread out on the water like some scab on that vast dirty and putrid shining sore. Dahlman pulled himself out of the sucking mud step by step the last few yards to Gerber’s side.
    “Come on up,” he said, pulling at the shoulders that moved like meal, wet and sticky from the old grease and new mud on the old man. Gerber slid down, out of Dahlman’s grasp, the water-filled boots bending and pulling him, and Dahlman struggled to hold him erect. Gerber still held the used polished spear at mid-shaft and the tip was dug into the mud beside his boots.
    “Come up,” Dahlman said again, propping his legs beneath the old man’s belly. The face was slimed with mud, and beneath that mud was a grayness such as one sees on the skin of animal carcasses, but there was a froth of bubbles on the old man’s chin. Dahlman unwound Gerber’s fingers from around the spear shaft and he tried to hoist the carcass upon his shoulders but the water and mud were too heavy and all he could do was to prop one arm of Gerber’s around his own shoulders and drag him along.
    “Come on, damn you,” he said. The water was hip deep and the mud was very soft and he sank to his ankles with each step, and it was heavy labor. His overshoes were filled with water and the weight of them alone was enough to stagger anyone plowing as he did through mud and stumbling over cornstalks, but to carry a man too was an agony. He felt the sweat claw down his cheeks and back and he was very hot and he said, “Come on, damn you, old man, come on.” He pulled the gray-faced, ancient creature, foul-smelling if Dahlman could have smelled then, but Dahlman’s mouth was