by Jean Rabe
But for now I was the horned man.
THE FEUD
Patrick McGilligan
A longtime editor, Patrick McGilligan has written many well-known books about film. His new biography of director Nicholas Ray is forthcoming. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Grammy Hopper slammed the iron pot of steaming brown-gray sludge down and glared at the seven figures seated around the table, one or two fidgeting, a few staring blankly ahead, at least one poking a finger through the dark hole in his cheek and waggling it around through his open mouth with a leering grin.
Others might say voila. “There!” Grammy Hopper declared defiantly.
Grammy Hopper noticed the waggler and fixed her burning gaze on him, until the offender removed his finger with a shrug and folded his hands mock-prayerfully.
Unlike the others, the waggler sat at the table with his shirt off, the better to display a chest once hard and muscular and now yellow and cadaverous.
Grampy Hopper rolled his eyes. He’d been one of the blank starers. Grampy Hopper had seen it all afore, and doubtless would see it all again many, many, too many times. Again, but not anew. See, but not see.
“What is the tasty treat t’night?” asked Benjob Hopper, with painful optimism. Benjob was a second cousin once removed, who had come to stay with his near (in proximity, not blood) kin ages ago, it seemed, and had stayed for reasons that were pretty clear from the large purple cavity dominating the right side of his body. A few rotten innards dangled out of Benjob, but nobody commented adversely on the sight or smell. Each of the clan had their trials, their sufferings.
“Motley stew!” snapped Grammy Hopper, prompting a low undertone of murmurs and grumbles along the lines of “Same as forever! Tired of it! Just a-cause we’re dead doesn’t mean we should have to suffer the same damn ets all the time!”
“Smells more, um, peculiar than usual,” sniffed Melvin D. Hopper, eldest child of Grammy and Grampy Hopper. Melvin Dee (as he was known) must have had an impressive olfactory system, if he was able to sort the aroma of the stew from all the other noxious odors emanating from old wounds and rotting flesh and putrescent breath.
“Yep, more than usual,” echoed Marvin D. Hopper, Melvin’s twin, known of course as Marvin Dee, always coming along just a few beats behind his brother, as happened at birth all those years ago. Not to mention death, more years later.
Identical in at least one way, Grampy Hopper told himself, silently rolling his eyes again. Both idiots. Otherwise fraternal. In death as in life.
With her right eye, the pale fish-eye, flashing dangerously, Grammy Hopper leaned over the table, staring ominously at her beloved progeny. The ancient crone wore a variety of kitchen cutlery on a rope around her waist and looked armed for battle as much as for cooking. Her loaded shotgun was never far away in any event, and at supper, as usual, it was propped against a wall near her chair. A few pouches of witch herbs hung from the belt along with a jingle-jangle of sharp poking and stabbing instruments. Giving the twins the evil eye, her head twitching from one to the other like a chicken’s, Grammy Hopper barked, “Meaning what?”
There was a thoughtful silence at the table before Grampy Hopper, the diplomat of the family, spoke up. “Meaning . . .” he drawled, his mouth a black hole of missing and broken teeth. “Smells peculiar good. What’s in tonight’s meal, sweetie?”
His forced cheerfulness bore only a hint of the weariness he felt. Grammy Hopper swiveled to stare at Grampy Hopper, her fierce gaze slowly melting. Their love had always been the glue of the clan. They had always done their best to keep the Hoppers pure and proud. They shared the same purposes in life and death.
“Secret recipe,” she said mysteriously but not unpleasantly, nodding to Grampy Hopper as he and the others politely listened to the familiar recitation. “Critters hopping by. Nuts and seeds dropped from trees. Bones buried in black earth. Stir it all together,” she added, patting one of her pouches, “with special flavors.”
Everyone at the table oohed and aahed appreciatively as Grammy Hopper ladled out a heap of steaming motley stew on everyone’s cracked and dirty plates. The Hopper clan made loud slurping and slushing noises as they ate, the motley stew oozing out of the mouth wounds of some of them onto the table where it pooled and mingled with dried blood and mud and added to the stain of the wood.
For a time all that could be heard was contented licking and smacking.
“Wonder what them Stones are ettin’ tonight?” mused aloud youngest son—Ernest D. Hopper—with a sly grin. Ernie Dee was the finger-waggler, the shirt-off one, a mischief-maker from birth. Often his pixieish personality amused them.
Grammy Hopper’s spoon froze halfway to her mouth. The others hushed tensely. Quite a few ticks of an invisible clock went by while everyone chewed as quietly and thoughtfully as they could, and then finally Uncle Joe Hopper said, “You mean you wonder what Susie Jean Stone is ettin’ and wouldn’t you like a taste, don’t ya?”
Uncle Joe was the half-brother of Grampy Hopper. The two were usually in league with one another. Uncle Joe gave Grampy Hopper a wink, which was a trick he could do in spite of the right side of his head being badly caved in from a shovel blow. Grammy Hopper caught the wink and resumed eating with a thin smile.
The relieved chuckles slowly gave way to open whoops and guffaws, even Grammy Hopper joining in the raucous family laughter, capped by Ernie Dee, the waggler, sticking his finger through the hole in his check and waggling it through his mouth like he always did, prompting an even bigger wave of general hilarity.
After supper was finished, when everyone had settled down to their nighttime business, Grammy and Grampy Hopper sat rocking by the fireplace that was a nonfire of cold ashes because flames and warmth meant nothing to them anymore. Grammy had a corncob in her mouth like she did when she pondered something. Grampy picked his teeth with a small pocket-knife all blood-dark and rusty except for the finely honed point.
“I reckon he’s still sweet on her,” Grampy said at last in response to words that had not yet been spoken. “That boy is gonna need watchin’.”
Grammy snorted, put down her corncob pipe, picked up her nearby shotgun and cradled it in her lap, stroking its barrel. “He’s early this year,” she cackled.
Loud snoring, mainly for show, filled the house, punctuated by occasional shrieks or imaginative curses. Grammy nodded to Grampy as they picked out their pixie son’s fits of hysterical giggling amid the hubbub. Outside the wind picked up and rose to a howl. Blocks of ice on the river crashed against the shore.
The river was big and wide and deep and the current was powerful strong. On one side of the river were mostly gnarly trees and rocky ravines; on the other side were rolling grasslands and small hills. From time immemorial the gnarly land had belonged to the Hoppers, and the rolling land to the Stones.
The river marked the dividing line, and the middle of the river was a line that could not be passed without jeopardy. Even in spring and summer the restless, churning river was difficult to cross. Treacherous. More than one Hopper or Stone had been swept away trying to stealthily swim across the river, and never been seen again. At least one Stone, after drowning, had made his way back somehow, after a week gone, staggering up onto Stone land, decomposed and stinking. That one stayed with the clan for another year or two before he drowned again, this time having vanished forever-or at least no sign of him a’gin, not yet.
“That one”—as he was always referred to contemptuously—“was a fool swimmer,” Pa Stone often said.
In cold weather the river choked up in parts; in really frigid winters the river froze altogether. The freezing was a welcome change of pace for the Hoppers and the Stones, both of whom got the feudin’ itch when the wind shrilled and the temperatures plummeted. An old tree—must have been a whopper of a limb torn off during a long-ago storm—was lodged in the river about halfway across. One long bare branch spiraled above the surface, twisting in the wind. That tree limb, that beckoning b
ranch, was the unofficial halfway mark, a real temptation.
The Hoppers always gathered together at supper before darkness and then took to their beds out of habit without really sleeping. The Stones never slept through the night either, but partly to distinguish themselves from the Hoppers, they rose for rowdy family breakfasts before dawn, then scattered until the next early morning.
There were eight or nine Stones, the number somewhat fluid, folks coming and going. There weren’t any grammys or grampys to hold the Stones together in the same way as the Hoppers. Shamefully, Grammy and Grampy Stone had run off to the city eons ago, taking their daughter, who would be Ma Stone, along with them. The three of ’em—Grammy, Grampy, and Ma Stone—were never mentioned by the others at the risk of incurring the formidable wrath of Pa Stone.
Pa Stone did boast a temper, but it was confined to certain subjects: the memory of Ma Stone, for example, or the eternal transgressions of the Hoppers. Otherwise he was a wise, softhearted patriarch and a fair mother substitute. No female was as excellent a cook of long deceased or diseased animals, and he knew to praise his only daughter’s beauteous hair or clothing. In the proper mood he held the clan spellbound at the table with his “racounteuring,” as he liked to call it, which often involved actionful tales of the Stones besting the Hoppers. Elsetimes, he was a solemn listener to others’ musings or plaints, the omnipresent toothpick in his mouth twirling around to stop and point at whoever in the clan wanted to talk next.
The fact that Pa had only one arm with which to gesture, and a jagged bone protruding from the ugly blackened stump on his shoulder, is scarcely worth mentioning. Most of the Stones had foul scars and missing body parts like the Hoppers.
Pa had a lady third cousin who had come to stay with them to help Pa raise his frisky daughter. They all called the cousin Auntie Stone, though she wasn’t an aunt, not truly. Although Auntie Stone could hunt and shoot with the best of them, she affected a haughty dignity, and grimaced and sighed even to hear the word “poop” uttered aloud, which made for a lot of grimacing and sighing since much worse was heard often at the breakfast table and wherever Stones gathered. Auntie Stone herself had been shot in the neck, not so unsightly but plenty fatal, and whenever she emitted her sighs, her old bullet hole whistled like a teakettle, so that she was always getting up to check that the tea was ready when really it was just her. The Stones tried not to titter, but it was endlessly amusing.
Though the number of Stones varied, there was only ever one other female representative, and that was the frisky daughter, youngest member of the brood, Sally Jean Stone, upon whom everyone doted because of her tender years before passing. Whenever she turned to one side or t’other to cover her mouth while coughing—she was ever so polite—the others could easily observe the bullet holes that decorated her back in a spray. Of course, whenever Sally Jean Stone coughed, much less spoke, which wasn’t often because she was a shy sprig, a stench emanated from her mouth. Regardless, she brought enjoyment to all the Stones, being the sprig of the family; but they wished she’d get over her crush on Ernie Joe Hopper.
This morning the Stones were feasting on one of Pa’s giant chewy omelets of garden goodies, including the last crawlers of the season and gristle, lard biscuits, and hot black coffee made from old dregs. As with the Hoppers, much of it drooled out of their mouths and onto the floor, mingling with past repasts and blood.
The number of Stones made the small table crowded, but also homey. All manner of ancient pistols, guns, and swords were laid aside nearby at the ready.
“River’s freezin’ up,” commented Nathaniel Joe Stone, as he chewed happily. N.J. (as he was sometimes called) fell in the middle of the three Stone brothers, but the eldest had gone a-huntin’ without a’-returnin’ some time back, so N.J. acted as spokesman for the children. His voice was a croak because of his crushed windpipe.
“Gettin’ hard,” agreed neighbor Big Jeff Fremont, glancing slyly at Auntie Stone with whom he was known to flirt. Auntie grimaced and sighed and then almost got up to check the teakettle before realizing that Big Jeff was teasing her. She blushed, sitting down amid chuckles. Big Jeff was really a shorty; hence his nickname. A neighbor of the Stones, he had come to visit and go hunting deer with Pa Stone. After a little mishap involving a bow and arrow he had stayed forever. He still had the shaft of the arrow sticking out of his body, attesting to his good humor. While Big Jeff wasn’t much interested in the feud at first, he had grown to hate the Hoppers as much as any Stone and was considered almost a member of the clan.
“Gonna be a cold winter,” Pa Stone said definitively. He had et sparsely, as was his wont, and sat there with the toothpick in his mouth, proudly watching the others devour his achievement. The toothpick twirled around, looking for someone to point at. The others nodded at his words, but they ate faster, more eagerly now.
Suddenly Sally Jean Stone pushed her plate away and stood, carrying a hunk of biscuit over to the window, all other mouths chewing, all eyes following her. She stared off toward the big wide river and the gnarly land of the Hoppers. She munched slowly on her hunk of biscuit. The others chewed their food more slowly, watching the favored youngest. Sally Jean’s eyes seemed to glow, though it was hard to say if she actually could see anything far in the dim pre-dawn darkness. The bullet holes down her back were glorious to behold, showing through her torn, tattered frock.
“I don’t see any lights on across the river . . . at the Hoppers,” said Sally Jean, her voice so sweet and pretty it brought a lump to Pa Stone’s throat. “I wonder if . . . I wonder . . .” But raising the biscuit piece to her mouth, Sally Jean never finished her wondering sentence, just stood there at the window, staring off into the darkness.
The other Stones exchanged furtive glances, as the wind outside built to a crescendo and ice chunks banged against the shore.
Ernie Joe Hopper lay in bed, poking a finger through his cheek and waggling it through his mouth, dreaming but not sleeping—“awake dreaming,” he’d call it if anyone asked. He was dreaming about Sally Jean, and he just knew she was dreaming about him. After all these years the feeling came upon him now and then, and he dreamed of her in that special way even though she was a Stone and he was a Hopper.
Later, after darkness fell, and Sally Jean Stone was in her room waiting for the night to pass, she opened up the window in her cabin on the hilly side of the river and leaned out, staring up at the sky, her otherworldly puffs of breath like smoke signals rising in the chill air as she did indeed dream about Ernie Joe Hopper.
Sally Jean Stone hadn’t seen Ernie Joe Hopper since last winter, and of course she had seen him the winter before that and the one before that and the one before that.
Sally Jean Stone didn’t care what her brothers and cousins and uncles and aunties and Pa said. That hole in his cheek wasn’t ugly to her, and try as she may Sally Jean couldn’t hate Ernie Joe like the other Hoppers. This time of year, with the river freezing and the wind clamoring, Sally Jean felt a deep longing for Ernie Joe Hopper and knew, just knew, he felt the same for her.
After observing Ernie Joe’s increasingly restless behavior over the past few days, Grammy Hopper was on the alert. At night, sitting with Grampy Hopper in front of the cold fireplace, she oiled her shotgun and stroked its barrel.
Grampy Hopper, who had taken to carrying a shoulder pistol, as he usually did this time of year, watched his lifemate contentedly, happy to see her so happy.
The screaming wind and plummeting cold sent most animals burrowing into caves. The big river hadn’t quite frozen over yet. Patches of water flowed amid the blocks of ice stretched across the river’s width. In the middle, the jutting tree branch, the marker and temptation, shivered a little in the wind and current.
Sally Jean Hopper and Ernie Joe Stone were anxious. They were early this winter.
One morning Sally Jean slipped out the back door trying to be as quiet as a butterfly, an expression that made her smile to think of it. She wore only a shawl over
her torn and tattered dress. The wind was fierce blowing, but she wasn’t in the least bothered or cold as she wended her way down an overgrown, snowy path toward the river. Little did Sally Jean suspect that she was being followed by all the members of her clan, each fully armed, chirpily dodging behind big rocks and tree stumps to keep hidden, staying close behind but not too close.
On the other side of the river, Ernie Joe Hopper left his family cabin around the same time and skulked a similar path toward the river.
Carrying her shotgun, Grammy Hopper gleefully led Grampy and the other Hoppers a safe distance behind. Close, but not too close.
Sally Jean Stone stood across the half-frozen river from Ernie Joe Hopper and waved a shy hello. Ernie Joe poked a finger through his cheek and waggled an awkward hello back. Neither dared to shout a greeting and trigger any undue alarms, even though on some level both knew they were surrounded by loyal clan protectors hunkered behind trees and bushes, and wielding guns, rifles, and pistols.
All of a sudden something happened, something unexpected that had never happened before. A dog came from upstream, bounding along on chunks of ice, yapping merrily. A large golden dog, long-haired, someone’s cherished, adorable pet—lost in the wilds. Apparently drawn to the upthrust branch, the dog zigzagged toward the middle of the river, reaching its target finally and snatching at the branch with open jaws. However, at that very moment, a booming crack was heard and the dog slipped and stumbled and plunged halfway into the icy river waters. Yelping miserably, the dog struggled to get free, one leg caught between ice chunks.
On both river banks there were sharp intakes of breath and hypnotized gazes.
After a moment’s hesitation Sally Jean Stone started across the river, stepping gingerly on ice floes and avoiding the open stretches of water, moving toward the injured dog. Ernie Joe Hopper, reading her mind, had already put first one foot, then the other, on the ice, heading in the same direction. As usual he wasn’t wearing a shirt, openly flaunting the numerous putrefying bullet holes in his back.