Percival Everett - Damned If I Do

“I’ll get the horse’s water.” Austin went to the trailer. It was sundown and the cars that were speeding by had on their headlights. The horse stirred a bit. “Hang on, fella, just another hour.”

Austin took two towels and the bucket of water to the front of the truck. He grabbed his flashlight from the glove box and looked at the mess. He tossed one towel to Dwight, dipped the other into the water, then started to wipe up the vomit. The smell was awful and he knew that it would take weeks of wind to blow it out.

“We can’t put him back in the truck,” Dwight said. “He’ll get us killed for sure.”

“We’ll throw him in the back,” Austin said.

“This fool will decide he has to take a leak and step out.”

Dwight was right. There was no argument in Austin. “I guess we’ll have to tie him up.” He and Dwight stood silently for a spell considering the idea. “What else can we do?”

So, they tied Myron up, bound his feet and hands. The man was already falling asleep. Austin looked up at the moon. As they were getting into the cab, they heard a loud noise from the trailer.

“You hear that?” Dwight asked.

“I did.”

There was the noise again. They walked back to the trailer. The horse kicked the wall once more. Then a bunch of times. The trailer rocked and the horse kicked more, reared up and slammed his head into the roof.

“Damn!” Dwight let out. “What do we do?”

The horse was freaking out, kicking and rearing and screaming. Austin walked to the back of the trailer and considered opening the door, but decided against it. This crazy horse might kill him, then run like a maniac down the freeway. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We got to do something.”

Both men made soothing sounds that the horse ignored. Austin was still holding the flashlight and, curious to see if the animal had done himself any damage, turned it on and pointed the beam into the trailer. The light hit the horse’s eyes and he calmed down.

“What’d you do?” Dwight asked.

“I don’t know.” Austin turned off the light and the horse started up again. He put the beam back in the animal’s eyes. “It’s the light. The idiot’s afraid of the dark.”

“If you got some duct tape, we can strap that light right where you’re holding it,” Dwight said.

“No tape.”

“I’ve got some in my truck,” Dwight said.

“Well, that’s just wonderful.” Austin looked at the highway. “You know these batteries are not going to last all night.”

“Yeah?”

“One of us is going to have hold this light in this horse’s face while the other one drives.”

“I’ll drive,” Dwight said.

“How do you figure that?” Austin asked.

“I wouldn’t want you sitting up there taking in that stench.”

Austin groaned. “You’ve got a point. But I can’t hang on outside this trailer for sixty miles.”

“Nope,” Dwight said.

“I’ll have to get inside with the horse.”

“Yep.”

“You know when we get home, if we get home, I’m going to have to kill you. Or something close to it.”

“I know.”

Dwight held the light while Austin got into the trailer with the stallion. “Easy, boy,” he said, touching the horse’s side to let him know he was there. “Atta boy.” He got to the front and was standing right next to the giant head. “Okay, hand me the light through the slat.”

Dwight pushed the flashlight through and it dropped for a second and the horse immediately reacted, but Austin managed the beam back into his face quickly.

“You okay?” Dwight asked.

“Hell, no,” Austin said. “Let’s go. Don’t drive fast, but don’t poke around neither.”

“All right.”

Austin talked to the horse while he held the light, stroked his nose. He heard Myron yell something from the bed of the pickup. He wondered if Dwight would be able to find his way home. He wondered if the cops would pull them over. He wondered if the batteries would last.

There is the straightening of line across the riffle, the flash of side in the sleepy pool below the fast water and then the swimming down, tugging, snapping, right-angling turns against the leader and yellow line and then the line is slack. The sun of midmorning bounces its light off the broken surface of the creek while Alan Turing curses and cranks his reel, waiting to see if the Letort’s cricket he tied this morning is lost. But on the end of the leader is the cricket and with it is an enormous trout, much larger than the stream should accommodate, much larger than any trout should be, Turing thinks, swallowing hard, much larger than the tug it had less than a minute ago applied against the graphite rod, light pink above its whitish side-floating, all but pushing the leader toward Turing’s neoprened legs. The trout is easily three and a half feet long, but no trout is that long, its mouth working about the fly. A steelhead? It can’t be in this creek. Turing’s muscles quiver with fear and confusion as he once again observes the width and depth of the water, looking upstream and down for another human who might react to the sight and confirm his footing in reality, but there is no one. The fish is at his feet, more of it exposed to air than to water, the opercula covering the gills flowing rhythmically, almost comfortably, thinks Turing, and like lightning striking, the fish says a word, yes, a word. Turing shakes his head, wants to cry, his hands trembling, dropping his rod while his heart stalls, he hears clearly a word, its syllables, it must be a word and the word is epigenesis.A closer approach surprises Turing for the bravery it takes, but yields to him no more understanding and no more words, nor the same word from the animal, which is beginning to huff away its life. He touches the head of the trout to feel the smooth slime that encases it, removes the hook that is so insignificant from its lip, and he wonders how he caught the fish, realizes that the fish wanted to be captured, recalling that the trout swam toward him. Turing pushes the animal back toward the pool, the word still in his head, the weight of the fish hanging up against the rocks. Turing sweats and heaves, staring at the glassy eye that, though directed at him, betrays no gaze of its own, and finally backs the fish into the pool and Turing can see just how deep it is, no bottom to find with his staring. The trout sinks and far down Turing can see the kick of its huge tail and believes it still lives. He stands straight in the stream, sucking in a breath of mountain air as he cries and searches the creekside trees for other eyes, human or other, that might be as confused and fearful as his. Turing makes his way free of the stream with the waddle waders make, wondering why its frigid water has not awakened him, wondering if sane men dream such things, cursing his mind for breaking and spilling nonsense about his cranial floor, but on the bank he sits and knows that he is not asleep, not dreaming, believes he is not hallucinating. A light drizzle begins to fall from clouds he has not noticed approaching, his shadow now disappeared in the gray around him. Turing frees himself from his boots and waders, packs them away, slips on his sneakers, and carries his gear through the maples and rhododendrons and the mile back to his car parked at the roadside.

A pickup speeds by on the wet highway, kicking up a spray, but not much of one, while Turing leans against the back of his car. He opens the trunk, tosses in his wader bag, his vest, and his rod, which he has broken down and slipped into its case. He looks down the road and imagines the Swift Camp Creek joining the Red River, imagines the Red River joining the Ohio, and imagines that water on its way to the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico where big fish are supposed to live, but not like that one, not a trout or a steelhead. Giant fish aren’t supposed to swim in small water, in holes that should not be, deep and invisible until one is over it; he wonders what would have happened had he stepped into it unknowingly. How many people had? But then it seems stupid to curse the creek when the fish had talked, when the fish had so rudely changed his life.