Jim Harrison - The Ancient Minstrel

The minute she got into bed he started the worst howling yet. She figured he had seen the crack of light under the door of the dining room go out. She lasted only about ten minutes until she went out and got him and plopped him on the bed. He had an air of victory and she thought you asshole. It might be difficult to have a male houseguest. He snuggled up against her chest uncomfortably like a baby. He was immediately asleep and in the morning was in the same place snoring softly. She eased out of bed and he quickly followed her into the kitchen. She made herself two boiled eggs and cracked two for Hud which she mixed with his puppy chow to give him a shiny coat, as the puppy book encouraged. He ate his breakfast in seconds and slumped down in the blankets of the pump house and fell back asleep. Evidently the place was good enough for naps. She tiptoed out and went to the kitchen table and read poetry for half an hour, a long-held morning habit. She was currently reading an anthology of Chinese poetry. She had long loved Chinese poetry because it soothed her in a way other poetry didn’t. For instance Auden but especially Wallace Stevens could trouble her. Read them in the morning and then you had to carry the puzzle with you all day.

Her good intentions double-crossed her again. She walked Hud on a long circular route out through the pasture. She estimated she had walked him five miles in two hours before he collapsed on the ground. It took a few minutes for her to figure out that he wanted to be carried which was awkward though they made it to the rock pile for a rest. He saw a black snake and he was immediately enraged, pursuing the snake until it disappeared within the rocks. She yelled, “No.” There were no rattlers on the farm but enough in the rock cliffs two miles behind it that she wanted to discourage any interest he had in snakes. Many people had lost small dogs to rattlers though a big dog could usually withstand the bite of a western diamondback. Her father had always carried a small.22 pistol loaded with magnum BB shot to plug them in the head but then she didn’t want to kill anything. It made more sense to train the dog to keep away from them. He ignored the cows, probably thinking that they were too large to be understood. It was quite funny when curious cows followed him until he was batty with anger. The cow and puppy were nose to nose with the cow ignoring the snarls with no idea that she might be under attack from a thirty-pound puppy.

They were still a mile from home when Hud nestled in the grass demanding to be carried. He truly was still a baby, she thought, picking him up in her arms. When she reached the water trough she dropped him in because he was soiled from rolling in the dirt and manure in the pasture. He was furious paddling around growling. When she lifted him out and put him down he ran into the barnyard and rolled in dirt and chicken shit until he was suitably soiled and smelled interesting on his own terms. She knew that a daffy woman in the county seat had an obedience school for dogs and it was obvious that Hud should be enrolled. She got him in the pump house and washed him off with two wet, hot washcloths telling him, as he growled out of dislike for being washed, that if he was going to sleep with her like any male he couldn’t be a stinker. When she was little her brother Robert screamed and cried when Mother washed his hair. Now Robert was doing three to five in the Deer Lodge prison. She had gotten him a good lawyer but he had been impertinent and insulting to the judge, not a good idea. She remembered with amusement the story of an old cowboy down the road who had been arrested for drunk and disorderly yelling at the judge, “Kiss my ass you bald-headed son of a bitch. Come down off that bench and I’ll kick your ass all over the courtroom.” He did extra time but was much admired by the many louts in the area.

Hud slept off his hike and Catherine made a beef stew with a lard crust. Her grandmother had taught her the crust for stews, pie, and her signature chicken potpie which Catherine hadn’t quite mastered and often craved. The only ones that had come close were in Jewish delicatessens in New York City. She would treat herself to one when she had the New York City blues from too little sunlight and too many people. Another option when she was feeling lethargic was to take the subway with her Jewish roommate down to Houston Street and go to Russ and Daughters for half a dozen pieces of herring then walk awhile, then down the street to Katz’s for a monster corned beef, tongue, or pastrami sandwich. Compared with Katz’s they simply didn’t know how to make a sandwich in Montana.

A month later she had her hired man Clyde come in the kitchen for a meeting. He was nervous and fretful so she put his mind at ease explaining that she had to go to England so it would be better if he stayed in the house rather than his wife since she now had Hud who could be unmanageable. He had been a champ in his obedience classes but saw no application of what he learned there to his life at home. He had killed a woodchuck out by the barn and hidden it in a very thick grove of lilacs in front of the house. She had tried to crawl in to get the woodchuck away from him but failed. The woodchuck stank and Hud seemed prepared to run with his prize. Right now she was irked at the way Hud was fawning over Clyde’s leg as if he were a long-lost cousin. It was an absurd case of male bonding. Clyde said that he would be glad to stay here and look after Hud and then they took off for a stroll around the barnyard.

Catherine took a hasty shower and noted in the bedroom’s full-length mirror that she was becoming a little thin. That wouldn’t do because she knew Tim didn’t like skinny women. It was a week before her departure and she vowed to load up on fatty pasta recipes. When she saw a pregnant woman at the grocery she was shot full of jealousy. She came home and put a pork shoulder in a pot of marinara sauce with lots of garlic to slow cook so that the meat and fat would soften making a wonderful pungent sauce for rigatoni. She had learned the recipe from a rather tubby red-haired Italian in New York who worked as a chef. He was an energetic lover but she had to ditch him because he drank too much and she had the horrid memory of her parents. She stuck to modest amounts of wine herself, white in the summer and red when the weather cooled. She naturally worried about addiction. Look at her miserable brother and drugs. He had merely stepped across the abyss of his parents’ alcoholism to narcotics.

When she landed at Heathrow via Chicago her grandfather was waiting with the same big Jamaican driver from his job. She was tired but quite happy. On the way to his home they stopped at the Tube station where she had spent the Blitz so she could take a look. All the memories depressed her though she was now over thirty and that had been when she was twelve. A memory returned of a man holding a knife to her and making her blow him in a dark corner one day while the night guards were off duty and her grandparents were away. She gagged on his penis then vomited after he ejaculated. She had told no one and tried to repress the memory, not wanting to cause more trouble than they already had. Now when she saw the dark corner again she felt cold sweat rising to the skin of her forehead.

She had a pleasant five days with her grandparents who looked awfully old and she promised to stop back after she visited Harold, Winnie, and Tim. Her grandmother understood but her grandfather worried that she would break her heart over the amputee. She rented a car and drove out to Cornwall with no difficulty on a beautiful sunny day. Grandmother had made her a brisket sandwich with horseradish, one of her favorites, and she pulled off on a side road and ate while staring at a field of just-sprouted oats on the side of the road and horses on the other including some rambunctious fillies to whom her stopping was an important event. They ran up to the stone fence and she touched their little noses and warm necks. She was thrilled to the point of shivering. She had talked on the phone to Clyde who had had no trouble with Hud. His behavior had been perfect except he had killed the rooster after it pecked at his face. The rooster was an asshole like all his predecessors so Catherine didn’t really care. She would get another one when she needed chicks. Hud had run into the lilac thicket with his kill but Clyde had retrieved the rooster and stewed it. He told her that while he was growing up in a big poor family his father had a connection for cheap roosters, and as a little boy he’d learned to pluck them. They were a tad gamier than hens but certainly edible, especially stewed with biscuits on the side.