In fact, unbeknownst to the rest of the stay-at-homes, he had ranged widely all over the countryside and already knew the whereabouts of all the eligible men. That time when they’d all gone out on the bear cub hunt for the Queen’s twelfth, and everybody was perishing of thirst, and Robert himself had complained, Woo, there’s got to be some way to get off this fucking mountain and find a creek, he was actually just pretending, just to conceal his knowledge of the countryside. He’d known damn well how to get off the fucking mountain, in any one of several different directions. Otherwise he’d literally have perished of thirst, because next to ass, water was his favorite thing in all the world. He couldn’t live without it (and he nostalgically remembered swimming in his future mother-in-law’s water dish when he was just a kitten). Frequently during that bear-cub expedition he had sneaked away from the others to a few sources of water known only to him. So all right, he was sneaky. He was born that way. He was also born a loner and didn’t give a shit for the clubbishness of all the Queen’s other critters, including especially this latest, Ged, who you couldn’t even give a friendly poke because she had hard plates all over her pudgy body. And he’d never got along with Sheba; who wants to be friends with a bitching snake anyhow? Even though he’d saved her life twice by killing an owl who tried to eat her and again by chasing off a possum (not the same one who became good old Pogo), he resented Sheba for her inroads on his food supply, sometimes beating him to the mice that were his staple food. Come to think of it, he didn’t even like females in general, as a rule, except when he had the hots for them. He liked the smell of the Queen, he liked to nuzzle her armpits and lately he was nuts about that warm woodsy Tabu stuff she was wearing, but any kind of strong scent just drove him wild anyway, him who was so wild to begin with.
So, being so unsociable, he didn’t like the idea of this jam session that his brother-in-law Hrolf called to discuss the acquisition of a human male for the Queen’s benefit, but he went anyhow, just to avoid further unpleasantries with his old-lady-in-law.
You don’t fool me, Hreapha said to him. I know that you’ve been around, and you’ve smelled a lot more men than I have.
Yeah, Moms, he replied, but they’re all old farts.
You’re an old fart yourself, she said.
Which was true, maybe. He’d lived at least half of his expected life span, which somehow hadn’t dimmed his libido. The babe Latha had called him a “dirty old cat,” and he didn’t like being thought of as such. But presumably the Queen needed some manflesh that was still fairly fresh, somebody if not her own age at least not a dirty old man, as all of the eligible males Robert had sniffed probably were. This past year the Queen had become so desperate for fresh manflesh that she’d taken up imaginary banging with that fucking figment who supposedly lived here. Among his other idiosyncrasies, Robert was the only one of them all who refused to believe in the existence of the so-called in-habit, a harebrained notion if ever he’d humped a hare. Sure, Robert had heard the voice, and it always spooked him, it really creeped him out because he couldn’t smell any saliva or halitosis producing the voice, but he was a dogmatic cat and couldn’t accept the idea of invisibility. It might be fun, and it certainly was comforting, but it don’t put no groceries in your belly. Just to try to understand or sympathize with the Queen, Robert had tried to imagine the sexiest possible babe, of his own species, mind you, and he had tried to get it on with her, and it hadn’t worked at all, man. Woo.
So he was glad that “Adam” was excluded from the jam session. Hreapha began the meeting by explaining that they wanted to keep the upcoming birthday gift a secret from the in-habit, because in view of the fact that “Adam” had fallen in love with the Queen, and vice versa, it would make the in-habit very jealous to know that he was about to be replaced by a real live male. So the jam session was being held at a time and place when the Queen was in her bedroom making out with “Adam” and neither of them would know about the proceedings. Robert didn’t buy this “in love” stuff, whatever it meant, but he was willing to go along with the idea of making sure that an invisible entity remained out of sight.
The meeting is called to order, Hrolf said. First order of business: volunteers for the expedition. I’ll lead it, of course.
Count me out this time, Robert said. He didn’t like speaking in dogtalk, but it was required.
The others all stared at him. Hrolf said, Do you mind telling us why?
I don’t like human men, Robert said.
You’re just jealous, his wife Hroberta put in. You just don’t want any more competition for her affection and petting and favor.
No, hon, that isn’t it, his mother-in-law said. Robert doesn’t want to go on the expedition because he doesn’t need to. He already knows where all the men are.
Is that true? Hrolf demanded of him.
He took his time replying. He didn’t like the know-it-all attitude of his mother-in-law, but he was willing to grant that if there was any creature on this earth who did in fact know it all, it was she. Finally he grumbled, Yeah. If the purpose of your foray is just to find a man, I could save you the trouble and tell you where all of them are.
Holy cats, Hrolf said. So tell us.
Robert got to his feet. His joints were getting a bit creaky in his early middle-age, and he didn’t relish a long hike anyway. But he had already been to the four little villages or almost-ghost towns that lay to the four points of the compass from this mountain, and he had inspected the few inhabitants of those villages, not one of whom was in the bud of youth, and he could present a catalog, as he now began to do, of all his findings. After he had finished describing to the best of his ability each and every man he had ever beheld, at least those who were not living with women, the members of the jam session discussed each in turn, and they came up with a short list, three of the best, or rather, considering that two of them were drunkards, three of the least undesirable. One was rather handy: the farmer who dwelt at the north foot of the mountain, from whom they had stolen Bess, the cow.
Bess spoke up, as best she could in dogtalk, not her natural tongue. That man is an asswipe, she said. I wouldn’t give him to my worst enemy.
Another of the three lived alone in what had been called a “hotel” in Stay More. Hreapha knew his name to be Larry but knew him to have a severe drinking problem and also to be possibly involved with a neighbor-woman named Sharon.
The third, the only reasonably sober one of the three, although Robert had observed him imbibing too, was a man named George who was in charge of the ham-processing operation in Stay More valley and lived alone at the west foot of Madewell Mountain.
The jam session was being held at Early Bright, to accommodate members who were nocturnal as well as the night sleepers, and as Early Bright changed to Later Bright, the meeting was adjourned so that all the nocturnals could grab a few z’s. The meeting was resumed at Early Dark, and went on until Later Dark, when the night sleepers were beginning to nod off, but a vote was taken and a decision was finally reached: George was the man.
Second order of business, Hrolf declared. How for godsakes do we get George to come up here on the mountain?
Since Hrolf loved to organize and lead expeditions, he suggested a reconnaissance to George’s domicile, and Robert grudgingly agreed to take them there. What became known as the Man-Snatching Crew consisted of Hrolf, Robert, Pogo, Dewey, Ralgrub and three of Ralgrub’s grown sons, Rebbor, Tidnab, and Feiht. The brazen Ged wanted to go too, but her armor slowed her movements. They went not once but several times over the next several weeks, trying to gather as much intelligence as possible about the man, his appearance, his habits, and his movements. In time they knew almost everything about him that was worth knowing, and the more they learned about him the less Robert thought that George would make a desirable addition to the population of Madewell Mountain.
But the Queen’s birthday was coming up in just another week or so and they had to fulfill their commitment. Woo, it wasn’t going
to be easy. Robert remembered all too well their acquisition of Bess; how they’d had to open her gate and threaten and cajole her away from the other cows and scare her into climbing the mountain and help her out of a ravine she fell into, where she lay bawling for hours, and, man, like try to get her to understand that she was not going to be harmed but given a chance to live in Paradise. How were they going to persuade George? They couldn’t just bark at him and nip at his heels and get him to climb the mountain.
George had a pick-up truck with a rifle mounted in the rear-view window, and he often drove that pick-up all over the back roads of the countryside. And it was one of those powerful machines that could climb the most rugged trail. Like Robert, George was in early middle-age, muscular but pot-bellied, a not unkindly face but not handsome either, never seen without a billed cap on his head, bearing an image of a redbird, a cap in which he even slept. He reminded Robert too strongly of Sugrue Alan. The Man-Snatching Crew, in their study of his movements, determined when they could expect that he might be driving along the road that passed the entrance to the winding trail on the north side of Madewell Mountain.
Ralgrub and her sons, true to their assbackward names, stole the contents of a case of whiskey from the Queen’s storeroom, and under the cover of darkness positioned the contents at intervals away from the house, a bottle every so hither and yon left standing upright along a route from the house to the end of the North Way trail, a total of twelve bottles.
Then, on or around the Queen’s birthday, Dewey, a magnificent buck with a rack of antlers having a dozen points, would be positioned strategically at the point where the North Way trail met the road at the foot of the mountain. It was going to be tricky, man. Dewey said he’d sacrifice his life if necessary for the Queen’s birthday.
The idea was that George would come riding along, spot Dewey and take off after him. Dewey would head up the mountain trail as fast as his legs could carry him. George would not stop to load his gun but would keep driving in pursuit of Dewey, all the way to the top, where he would discover, just as Dewey disappeared into the woods, the first of the twelve bottles of good booze. George would take the edge off his disappointment at losing Dewey by sampling the fine whisky. At that point Ralgrub herself would sneak up behind him, snatch that prized cap off his head and run with it toward the second bottle of whiskey, where she would deposit it atop the bottle. George would find the second bottle, drink therefrom, replace the cap on his head, drink some more, and one of the other raccoons, Rebbor, Tidnab, or Feiht, would grab the cap off his head and take it on to the third bottle. And so on, on up the path that led to the house. It was assumed, or hoped, that by the time he reached the house, George would be completely docile, if not totally sloshed, and would not object to becoming a birthday present for the Queen.
It is an ingenious strategy, but Robert, although he is proud of his contributions to the planning of it, is skeptical that it will work. And sure enough, as he takes his supervisory position at the foot of the trail on the afternoon of the appointed day, things begin to go haywire. For one thing, the whole motherfucking tense switches from past to present, a sure sign that expectations are either getting out of hand or else are so supercharged you can’t tell your ass hair from your whiskers. He tests it: he turns this way and that, he shakes his head. No mistake, he’s caught tight in the present. Hey Hrolf buddy, he calls to his companion, did you notice? Are we now in the now? You know, the present tense?
Yeah, Hrolf says, and don’t look now but there comes our man George.
George drives his present-tense vehicle up the road, spots old Dewey, slams on his brakes, reaches for his gun, Dewey takes off lickety-split up the mountain trail, George turns into the trail, shifts into low-lock, spins his wheels, takes off after Dewey, but then slams on his brakes again.
George rolls down his window, sticks his head out, and yells at Dewey, “You’re shore lucky it aint hunting season yet!”
Then George looks for and finds a place to back his truck and turn around and leave the mountain trail.
Ralgrub, Robert shouts, grab his cap now!
She leaps for the open window but misses and crashes into the door. George says to her, “It aint coon season yet neither!”
And then, in this crazy present tense, another vehicle appears. It is one of those big rugged automobiles, not a pick-up, which can go anywhere in the back country. The man driving rolls down his window. He and George exchange howdies.
“Have you been up there on the mountain?” the man asks.
“Naw,” George says. “I was a-fixin to take off after a thirteen-point buck, and then I recollected the season don’t start till November. If I had me a bow ’n air I reckon I could shoot him commencing October first, but that’s still a ways off.”
“Say, aren’t you George Dinsmore?” the fellow asks. “Latha told me you were still around.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Don’t I know you?”
“I reckon you ought to. We went to school together.”
“Holy hoptoads, don’t tell me you’re old Ad Madewell! Why, I aint see you in a coon’s age. And yonder runs the old coon.”
Woo.
Chapter forty-six
Woo indeed. I have forgiven Bob for not believing in me. I had noticed, very early on, another difference between dogs and cats that he did not consider in the above soliloquy: dogs just drop their business in the yard; cats cover their business. They conceal it. As Robin had recently realized, apropos the wearing of clothing, all art is a form of a hiding and a seeking and a finding, and that which is hidden is more magically stimulating. Which is not to suggest, or even hint, that Bob, or any cat, considers his feces a work of art to be secreted and secreted. Rather, the point I’m clumsily trying to make is that Bob ought to have believed in me, as most who believe in God do, because I was hidden from ordinary perception.
Soon enough, in another tense, he will have plenty of reason to have faith in me, just as the clever reader has long since grinningly suspected that somewhere toward the conclusion of this marvelous tale I would materialize in the flesh so that we all could go have our breakfasts and get on with the workings of our lives.
I said to my darling Robin, early that day, Darn if it aint your birthday again, and I reckon I caint give ye ary a thing. I had spent considerable effort taxing my twelve-year-old brain to think of some way to give her, without the power to lift a gift, something.
And she said, “Dear sweet Adam honey, you don’t have to give me anything. You know that. But there is something that the others are possibly going to give me, and I think I’d better ask you how you’d feel if…”
At that moment Adam Madewell, 46, was driving his expensive four-by-four SUV up the dirt road that winds out of Parthenon, and instead of bearing left toward the Madewell Mountain road he kept on going up the road that led to Stay More, which he had not taken on his previous visit eleven years before. As one’s thoughts while driving have a habit of coming and going in rapid, random succession, he was recalling the way Linda used to challenge his occasional use of the Ozark language. “Do you ‘reckon’ on an abacus or a slide-rule?” she’d say. “And is it ‘ary’ or windy or gassy or what?” She couldn’t even allow him to speak of “dusty dark” without asking, “Why can’t you simply say ‘dusk’? I don’t see any dust.”
There had been a time that Linda had taken an interest in his “roots,” as she referred to them, wanting, as she said, to learn what made him tick. She had taken an interest in genealogy, long enough to thoroughly research his name, which she’d traced through its variations—Maydwell, Maydewell, Maydenwell, Maidwell, Maidenwell, Medwelle, Meidwell, Meadwell, etc.—back to Alanus de Maidwell of Northhamptonshire in the time of King Henry ii in the 12th Century and his son Alan de Maydewell, Sheriff of Northhamptonshire (Adam was uncomfortable at the spelling of the given name, identical to the family name of his old nemesis Sog) but Linda had not been able to establish any connection between the titled Maydwells and
those who settled in the Ozarks. “I guess you were white trash,” she once said to him. One of the few magazines he subscribed to was The Ozarks Mountaineer, but Linda was not interested in glancing at it.
They had so few common interests, apart from barrels and wine. From the beginning, while still on their honeymoon in the Bahamas, they had disagreed on where they’d make their home. He liked his fine big house in St. Helena, but she wanted to live in Glen Ellen, near her father’s winery (of which she was now manager), and talked him into it. The Mayacamas Mountains separated the two places, and there was a steep winding road between Glen Ellen and Oakville which he had to take to get to work, a daily nuisance. They were almost in different worlds, Napa and Sonoma counties. Red and white. Steak and lobster. Cabernet Sauvignon was the principal wine of the former, Chardonnay of the latter. Linda’s father owned Chateau Duplessis, one of the best vintners of an award-winning Chardonnay, although at the time of their marriage the wine had not yet acquired its reputation; in fact, California wine in general was still little more than jug wine or at best the “fighting varietals” as the affordable but undistinguished table wines would come to be known. Linda’s father was the first to admit that his Chardonnay did not acquire its excellence until he began to store it in barrels that were not merely from Madewell Cooperage but were the special “private reserve” barrels made well from Madewell oak staves from Madewell Mountain, Arkansas. Adam, wisely, was stingy in his distribution of these special barrels to certain select customers for their certain select wines, which, because he charged so much more for the barrel itself, became the first truly expensive California wines. Adam, while he still had a sense of humor, liked to joke with Linda that she had married him not for his money or his looks or his brains but for his barrels, which had made the Chateau Duplessis Chardonnay famous.
The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2 Page 185