Can't Catch Me by Michael Cadnum

Author:Michael Cadnum [Cadnum, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781892391339
Amazon: 1892391333
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2006-04-02T07:00:00+00:00

Toad-Rich

I HAVE A MOUTH.

Some people have eyes, beauty, smarts—I’ve got a mouth.

Lydia my pretty sister has baby blues and walks around looking at the sky, the birds, wide-eyed and breathless. Dumb as my left tit but lovely, and when a knight-at-arms eases himself off his warhorse and steps into the shade, you could see him crane his neck to follow Lydia as she made her way out to the ducks.

Which is about all she was good for, domestic fowl, fed on old bread mixed with maize, the same stuff we set out for the geese. If a gosling chokes on a crust, it’s one less for the weasels, is the way I looked at it. Lydia grew all tearful watching a duckling pump its neck, trying to not choke on a cob-butt, while I watched and laughed. That was about the only funny thing all day around here, barnyard fowl in fits.

Despite what you might think we got along pretty well. I handled the thinking for Mama and Lydia, and I bred those hounds you’ve heard of, eyes like weep-holes but capable of following a vixen from here to Sodom. The approach I took was: drown the runts, keep the stud hounds full of fresh meat, and don’t be too fussy what kind: duck, goose, mutt. I kept the bitches in heat feeding them wither-wort and musk-of-rut I boiled down to a paste. They whelped until they staggered.

Then I axed them, chopped them up, and kept the kennel fat. Courtiers cantered up from all directions fingering their florins. I weighed my apron down with gold some summer days, no silver her, only the finest coin. I kept the prices up by thinning out the yappers.

ONE DAY A dog bit my shank, a little nip, and it went puffy. I had to stay indoors, watching the progress of the duck parade sister Lyd led from pond to pen. The sight warmed my heart, my guileless sibling, marching with her birds. I cooked a poultice with Mama’s help, and thonged it onto my lame limb.

I called for Lydia. “Take the buckets,” I said, “and fetch some water from the well, and don’t stand around blinking at the serving lads on the path. Go there, come back, and get back to your sewing.” I had to blush, ordering Lydia around this way, but it was an iron habit. Lyd curtseyed, kind to me, no matter what, and Mama stared at both of us like a woman cursed with knowledge of the past and present. She didn’t hate life, but gave that impression, stony faced and hard—brave men looked away when she entered a room. But Mama and I share a humor, granite on the outside, almost human in the heart.

Truth to tell, I do indulge a weakness, and sometimes stroke a pup or let a brood bitch take a morsel from my hand. When no one’s looking. And I confess to a fondness for Mama and my sister Lyd. I can’t resist this tender feeling, almost foreign to my soul.

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