Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell

Author:Daniel Woodrell [Woodrell, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literary, Fiction, Fiction / Historical, Historical, Fiction / Literary
ISBN: 9780316206181
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2012-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

Well, the winter wore on. Riley Crawford visited us. He had some news—evil things were winging over our country. Several comrades had gotten bold from boredom and went riding into the next world. I knew them, and it was bad to hear. Riley stayed two nights, then moved on, safely I hoped.

In what must have been late February, Turner Rawls and the Hudspeth brothers came over just to hear some different lies, they said. Turner’s banged-up mouth had healed, but not right. A coin size of black torn skin had grown over the bullet hole in his cheek. His teeth did not mesh. He spoke slobber-tongued like a dog would if a dog could. It was sad, and it was plain that he thought so, too. Sometimes he would start out on a sentence, then kind of drool off the track and his eyes would water and his fingers tremble. I had come to like him so much. His affliction made me way wistful, and I would wag my nubbin in his face, trying to cheer us both.

These boys relayed the word that Black John wanted us all to rally at Captain Perdee’s farm as soon as the weather broke. They were anxious to be on the prod again, and the sorrowful deaths of winter had me willing to share their mood.

A day later they left.

In very early March, a month special to me, for I was born in it, Clyde left the dugout to go to Juanita Willard’s and add some details to his ruin of her reputation. Nothing was ever said of this.

Holt was left behind by Clyde. It had become the way, for Holt was merely an intrusive specter at the Willard house.

On this day I saw a three-legged buck, with battered antlers and worn fur, drag off through the woods. The proud stag lived on but, crippled up and worn, he would soon feed other beasts.

The sun was all over the sky, no clouds trifled with it. Holt, Jack Bull and me sat in front of the dugout, smelling the clean wind and staring out over all the land eyesight can survey.

In even the foulest of weather there are still several fine points of beauty to a day. But on a day as wonderful as this the marvels of our existence were everywhere to be noted, and any fault hard to find.

“Sue Lee will be by today,” Jack Bull said.

“Good,” I said. “It’s been near a week since I’ve seen her.”

“Yes. All this warmth has the Federals out for jaunts. That has kept her home.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “It won’t be long before we join them—out there.”

“No, it won’t,” Jack Bull said. He was acting a bit more casually sincere than I knew him to be. “That is why I want to ask something of you and Holt.”

“Name it.”

“Well, there, future best man,” he said, “I would ask you to give us some privacy.”

“Oh, you would, would you?”

“It’s not much to ask.”

“What are Holt and me to do?”

He turned his hands up in that way that is the common response to pointless questions.

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