William Gass - In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

What the hell, Hans said. Come on. It’s too cold to stand here and argue about the color of Pedersen’s god damn horse.

Pedersen’s horse is black, Pa said. He don’t have any brown on him at all.

Big Hans turned angrily on Pa. You said you recognized his shoe.

I thought I did. It ain’t.

I kept scraping snow away. Hans leaned down and pushed me. The horse was white where frozen snow clung to his hide.

He’s brown, Hans. Pedersen’s horse is black. This one’s brown.

Hans kept pushing at me. God damn you, he was saying over and over in a funny high voice.

You knew all along it wasn’t Pedersen’s horse.

It went on like singing. I got up carefully, taking the safety off. Later in the winter maybe somebody would stumble on his shoes sticking out of the snow. Shooting Hans seemed like something I’d done already. I knew where he kept his gun — under those magazines in his drawer — and though I’d really never thought of it before, the whole thing moved before me now so naturally it must have happened that way. Of course I shot them all — Pa in his bed, ma in her kitchen, Hans when he came in from his rounds. They wouldn’t look much different dead than alive only they wouldn’t be so loud.

Jorge, now — look out with that thing, Jorge. Jorge.

His shotgun had fallen in the snow. He was holding both hands in front of him. Afterwards I stood alone in every room.

You’re yellow, Hans.

He was backing slowly, fending me off — fending — fending—

Jorge… Jorge… hey now… Jorge… Like singing.

Afterwards I looked through his magazines, my hand on my pecker, hot from head to foot.

I’ve shot you, yellow Hans. You can’t shout or push no more or goose me in the barn.

Hey now wait, Jorge — listen — What? Jorge… wait… Like singing.

Afterwards only the wind and the warm stove. Shivering I rose on my toes. Pa came up and I moved the gun to take him in. I kept it moving back and forth… Hans and Pa… Pa and Hans. Gone. Snow piling in the window corners. In the spring I’d shit with the door open, watching the blackbirds.

Don’t be a damn fool, Jorge, Pa said. I know you’re cold. We’ll be going home.

… yellow yellow yellow yellow… Like singing.

Now Jorge, I ain’t yellow, Pa said, smiling pleasantly.

I’ve shot you both with bullets.

Don’t be a fool.

The whole house with bullets. You too.

Funny I don’t feel it.

They never does, do they? Do rabbits?

He’s crazy, jesus, Mag, he’s crazy—

I never did want to. I never hid it like you did, I said. I never believed him. I ain’t the yellow one but you you made me made me come but you’re the yellow yellow ones, you were all along the yellow ones.

You’re cold is all.

Cold or crazy — jesus — it’s the same.

He’s cold is all.

Then Pa took the gun away, putting it in his pocket. He had his shotgun hanging easy over his left arm but he slapped me and I bit my tongue. Pa was spitting. I turned and ran down the path we’d come, putting one arm over my face to ease the stinging.

You little shit, Big Hans called after me.

3

Pa came back to the sleigh where I was sitting hunched up under the blanket and got a shovel out of the back.

Feeling better?

Some.

Why don’t you drink some of that coffee?

It’s cold by now. I don’t want to anyhow.

How about them sandwiches?

I ain’t hungry. I don’t want anything.

Pa started back with the shovel.

What are you going to do with that? I said.

Dig a tunnel, he said, and he went around a drift out of sight, the sun flashing from the blade.

I almost called him back but I remembered the grin in his face so I didn’t. Simon stamped. I pulled the blanket closer. I didn’t believe him. Just for a second, when he said it, I had. It was a joke. Well I was too cold for jokes. What did he want a shovel for? There’d be no point in digging for the horse. They could see it wasn’t Pedersen’s.

Poor Simon. He was better than they were. They’d left us in the cold.

Pa’d forgot about the shovel in the sleigh. I could have used it hunting for his bottle. That had been a joke too. Pa’d sat there thinking how funny Jorge is out there beating away at the snow, I’ll just wait and see if he remembers about that shovel. It’d be funny if Jorge forgot, he’d thought, sitting there in the blanket and bobbing his head here and there like a chicken. I’d hear about it when we got home till I was sick. I put my head down and closed my eyes. All right. I didn’t care. I’d put up with it to be warm. But that couldn’t be right. Pa must have forgot the same as me. He wanted that bottle too bad. Now it was all gone. It was colder with my eyes closed. I tried to think about all that underwear and the girls in the pictures. I had a crick in my neck.

Whose horse was it then?

I decided to keep my eyes closed a while longer, to see if I could do it. Then I decided not to. There was a stream of light in my eyes. It was brighter than snow, and as white. I opened them and straightened up. Keeping my head down made me dizzy. Everything was blurry. There were a lot of blue lines that moved.

Did they know the horse even so? Maybe it was Carlson’s horse, or even Schmidt’s. Maybe he was Carlson in yellow gloves, or Schmidt, and the kid, because he came in sudden from the barn and didn’t know Carlson had come, saw him in the kitchen holding a gun like he might of if it’d been Schmidt, and the kid got scared and run, because he didn’t understand and it’d been snowing lots, and how did Schmidt get there, or Carlson get there, if it was one of them, so the kid got scared and run and came to our crib where the snow grew around him and then in the morning Hans found him.

And we’d been god damn fools. Especially Hans. I shivered. The cold had settled in my belly. The sun had bent around to the west. Near it the sky was hazy. The troughs of some of the drifts were turning blue.

He wouldn’t have been that scared. Why’d Carlson or Schmidt be out in a storm like that? If somebody was sick, they were closer to town than either the Pedersens or us. It was a long way for them in this weather. They wouldn’t get caught out. But if the horse was stole, who was there but Carlson and Schmidt or maybe Hansen to steal it from?

He goes to the barn before the snow, most likely in the night, and knows horses. Oats or hay lead it out. He’s running away. The blizzard sets down. He drives himself and the horse hard, bending in the wind, leaning over far to see fences, any marks, a road. He makes the grove. He might not know it. The horse runs into the barberry, rears, goes to its knees; or a low branch of a mossycup he doesn’t see knocks him into a drift; or he slides off when the horse rears as the barbs go in. The horse wanders a little way, not far. Then it stops — finished. And he — he’s stunned, windburned, worn like a stone in a stream. He’s frozen and tired, for snow’s cold water. The wind’s howling. He’s blind. He’s hungry, frozen, and scared. The snow is stinging his face, wearing him smooth. Standing still, all alone, it blows by him. Then the snow hides him. The wind blows a crust over him. Only a shovel poking in the drifts or a warm rain will find him lying by the horse.

I threw off the blanket and jumped down and ran up the path we’d made between the drifts and trees, slipping, cutting sharply back and forth, working against my stiffness, but all the time keeping my head up, looking out carefully ahead.

They weren’t by the horse. A hoof and part of the leg I’d uncovered lay by the path like nothing more went with them. Seeing them like that, like they might have blown down from one of the trees in a good wind, gave me a fright. Now there was a slight breeze and I discovered my tongue was sore. Hans’s and Pa’s tracks went farther on — toward Pedersen’s barn. I wasn’t excited any more. I remembered I’d left the blanket on the seat instead of putting it on Simon. I thought about going back. Pa’d said a tunnel. That had to be a joke. But what were they doing with the shovel? Maybe they’d found him by the barn. What if it really was Schmidt or Carlson? I thought about which I wanted it to be. I went more slowly in Pa’s tracks. Now I kept down. The roof of Pedersen’s barn got bigger; the sky was hazier; here and there little clouds of snow leaped up from the top of a drift like they’d been pinched off, and sailed swiftly away.