Thomas McGuane - The Sporting Club

Quinn circled the high ground, keeping on the far edge of this elevated contour, toward the lake. When he reached the point of its perimeter that was closest to the lake, he could see them below. The illusion was of something under water which made light. You could see a shape of light moving in the trees as through the broken surface of water, and the shape was a marine one, enlarged at one end and tapering like a shark. The light was yellow with a patina of white. It all moved with the muttering of a horde toward the lake bed.

By traveling the downgrading edge of the ridge, Quinn was able to crosscut ahead of them and wait on the hard bed of the lake. He heard them approach now with a steady drone of voice that seemed pitched at some unnerving harmony and was punctuated with the regular tambourine crash of guns and equipment. The nearer they came, the more nervous it made Quinn, and in a moment he was back up on the slope of the ridge watching their progress below. As they came through the last trees at the edge of the lake bed, the broken sheen of lights appeared to be a swarm of fireflies. But when they moved into the open the light solidified into the single slender tapering shape again that undulated gently onto the floor of the lake.

Quinn was filled with horror. He watched their progress. When they reached the far end of the lake, the light closed in upon itself to form a ball and stayed that way for ten minutes throbbing very slightly in the blackness. When it moved off into the trees to become a swarm again and disappear, it left a single still light behind. Quinn headed for it in trepidation.

The expanse of the dry lake seemed endless and the thousands of fissures made his progress slow. As he approached the light, a darker shape like a huge blurred potato stood out beside it. He was hard put to distinguish it though, even standing before it. “Shit fire!” it said unconvincingly. It was Fortescue. He had been tarred and feathered. When Quinn asked, he said the Olives had gotten him. Fortescue sobbed and Quinn stared at him helplessly. The lamp threw a merciless light over him and he was unquestionably out for the duration. He was so heavily covered with tar that his limbs were indistinguishable; and out of the tar protruded a hundred thousand feathers, each with its own blue shadow. Fortescue’s eyes were barbarically fierce spots in the roughly fledged surface. And when he opened his mouth to talk, the unreflecting contrast of feathers made his tongue and the inside of his mouth gleam unnaturally red as though poor Fortescue had been interrupted feeding on a corpse.

“Can you move?” Before he answered, the horde roared out louder than before for a long sustained moment and died away. “Can you walk?”

“No, God damn it, no. Give me a hand though and see if I can stand.” Quinn took his thick roadlike arm and helped him to his feet. He stood in a stoop like a tremendous chicken and fell down again. “They laughed at me!” he bawled.

“Well, you look funny you know—” Fortescue began to pull himself together abruptly.

“Oh, but God damn it, Quinn, I’m going to die, it’s so hot in here. I can’t close my hands. If I blink, my whole scalp moves. I—” He began to cry slightly, then, with a heavy lateral movement, lurched over onto his stomach and sobbed like a child. Quinn felt tears start sympathetically to his own eyes and he laid his hand upon Fortescue’s back. The heavy, feathered surface flexed very slightly from the heaving underneath.

“Did Earl do this to you himself?”

“Yes.” A huge broken sigh expired. “But I don’t blame him. None of this could have been thought up without Stanton.”

“You really blame him for all this—”

“Certainly I do. Here I am crying in front of you. I don’t suppose … I mean you’d never…”

“Not a word.”

“These people have gone haywire tonight.”

“I think so.”

“The world isn’t like this, is it?”

“I think it is.”

“But Quinn, I’m an old man. It isn’t like this.”

“Yes, but I think it is.” By this time, Quinn could see the light of the horde. It moved across the end of the lake toward the river. Once he had made certain that Fortescue would be all right and secure beside the lantern, he headed to intercept them.

At a long clearing in the birches, he found them preparing to duel. They were counting already. Olive moved a step at a time with exact placement of foot while Stanton goose-stepped in mockery. The horde stood back and Quinn crowded in with them where he was assured of what he had already known: lead bullets. Quinn felt a complete and hopeless quietude, as though it were a natural phenomenon. He couldn’t resent what was happening because there was nothing for it, nothing; no flying tackles, nor interferences of authority, nor breakdowns, redemptions or recognitions; no dreams, plasma or miraculous interventions; it was object firing at object, and when that was done, one object would have ceased to operate due to mechanical failure brought about by the penetration of a lead bullet.

At ten, Stanton spun, fired and missed. Quinn saw it. It was deliberate. He stood facing Olive with his chin on his chest, the weapon at his side. Olive held his gun with both hands for steadiness. He had as much time as he wanted and at twenty feet he could explode Stanton’s skull in a shower of meat and bone splinter. Quinn saw that Olive’s face was swollen with minor injuries but his eyes were open and intent. He raised the end of the gun and fired over Stanton’s head. “You bastard!” Stanton roared, as Olive flung the gun into the crowd, running. “Oh, my god, you bastard!” The crowd, now an insane heterogeny of Olive’s gang and the club, rushed around Quinn and past him and into the trees, the lights all around him and the sound of voiceless hurrying. Olive was not far in front of them. He was driving himself into a corner where the steep plateau met the river and they were after him, now that Stanton hadn’t done his work. Quinn kept up and dodged aside when an old white birch cracked and went down onto the sodden ground. He couldn’t see who was leading them and he knew the frontward edge of the horde was well ahead of him. Then they began to pile up in noisy confusion and, deep behind as he was, Quinn realized that they were confronting Earl Olive. Quinn pushed through to where he could see him. He found him, back to the river, transfixed by the beams of all their lights as though he were pierced by them. In his face was a look of transcendent terror and when it was shouted that he was unarmed, they rushed forward. Olive threw himself into the river. The horde rushed down the bank to stay alongside him and kept their lights on his head and the arms that beat the tortuous current around him. Below was a gravel bar and they raced down to it, filing noisily out onto its shallows. Olive floundered helplessly toward them, borne on the fast and gleaming tide. As he neared them, he began to bay that Stanton would make them pay; Stanton wouldn’t let anything happen to him, he bayed abjectly. They caught him at the bar and dragged him to land, all falling upon him, grabbing and punching at him. Quinn saw him go under them, only his feet showing, kicking and flailing the air like a baby’s. Quinn pushed his way in, found Scott striking at Olive with a heavy root. Quinn kicked Scott mightily in the groin and the crowd took no notice when he fell. One of the mercenaries had Olive by the ears and hair and was trying to drag him to his feet when Quinn nailed him and started beating into the crowd with his fists. They made short work of Quinn, and Scott had the pleasure of tying him up.

A minute later, hands tied in front of him, he was being pushed along beside Olive who was slung from a pole by his ankles and wrists. Olive suffered extremely. They had tied him with a striped silk necktie and Quinn had the impression he would be the centerpiece at a banquet. The blue cowboy shirt had pulled out of the top of his pants to reveal an expanse of flaccid white belly and the whole great torso swung from side to side with the motion of the carriers. Olive’s head hung down unexpectedly far as though his neck were too long. He talked brokenly and told Quinn what a letdown this was in his life. He was being treated like a dog. Stanton had treated him like the gent he was by shooting him in a proper duel. Now Quinn knew Stanton had gotten to him. Olive was a believer. He gazed, upside down and ahead, with numb sentimentality and contentment.