by Brian Hodge
Eventually the mule quit, just stopped, dipped its head to the ground, then looked left and right. Trying to find the hog, Frank figured. It was like the mule had gone into a kind of spell, and now he was out of it and wanted his friend.
He could turn the mule then. He trotted it back down the road, not trying to get it to run anymore, just letting it trot, and when it came upon Nigger Joe and Leroy, standing in the road, the hog came out of the woods and moseyed up beside the mule.
As Nigger Joe reached up and took the mule’s reins, he said, “See that there. Hog and him are buddies. He stays around. He don’t want to run off. Wants to be with mule. Hog a goddamn fool. Could be long gone, out in the woods. Find some other wild hog and fuck it. Eat acorns. Die of old age. Now he gonna get et sometime.”
“Dumb shit hog,” Leroy said.
The mule tugged at the reins, dipped its head. The hog’s and the mule’s noses came together. The mule snorted. The hog made a kind of squealing sound.
They trained for several days the same way. The hog would start, and then the mule would run. Fast. They put the mule up at night in the corral, hobbled, and the hog, they didn’t have to pen him anymore. He stayed with the mule by choice.
One day, after practice, Frank said, “He seems pretty fast.”
“Never have seen so fast,” Nigger Joe said. “He’s moving way good.”
“Do you think he can win?” Leroy said.
“He can win, they let us bring hog in. No hog. Not much on the run. Got to have hog. But there’s one mule give him trouble. Dynamite. He runs fast too. Might can run faster.”
“You think?”
“Could be. I hear he can go lickity split. Tomorrow, we find out, hey?”
The world was made of men and mules and dogs and one hog. There were women too, most of them with parasols. Some sitting in the rows of chairs at the starting line, their legs tucked together primly, their dresses pulled down tight to the ankles. The air smelled of early summer morning and hot mule shit and sweat and perfume, cigar smoke, beer and farts. Down from it all, in tents, were other women who smelled different and wore less clothes. The women with parasols would not catch their eye, but some of the men would, many when their wives or girls were not looking.
Frank was not interested. He couldn’t think of anything but the race. Leroy was with him, and of course, Nigger Joe. They brought the mule in, Nigger Joe leading him. Frank on Old Dobbin, Leroy riding double. And the hog, loose, on its own, strutting as if he were the one throwing the whole damn shindig.
The mules at the gathering were not getting along. There were bites and snorts and kicks. The mules could kick backwards, and they could kick out sideways like cattle. You had to watch them.
White Mule was surprisingly docile. It was as if his balls had been clipped. He walked with his head down, the pig trotting beside him.
As they neared the forming line of mules, Frank looked at them. Most were smaller than the white mule, but there was one that was bigger, jet black, and had a roaming eye, as if he might be searching for victims. He had a big hard-on and it was throbbing in the sunlight like a fat cottonmouth.
“That mule there, big dicked one,” Nigger Joe said pausing. “He the kind get a hard-on he gonna race or fight, maybe quicker than the fuck, you see. He’s the one to watch. Anything that like the running or fighting better than pussy, him, you got to keep the eye on.”
“That’s Dynamite,” Leroy said. “Got all kinds of mule muscle, that’s for sure.”
White Mule saw Dynamite, lifted his head high and threw back his ears and snorted.
“Oh, yeah,” said Leroy. “There’s some shit between them already.”
“Somebody gonna outrun somebody or fuck other in ass, that’s what I tell you for sure. Maybe they fight some too. Whole big blanket of business here.”
White Mule wanted to trot, and Nigger Joe had to run a little to keep up with him. They went right through a clutch of mules about to be lined up, and moved quickly so that White Mule was standing beside Dynamite. The two mules looked at one another and snorted. In that moment, the owner of Dynamite slipped blinders on Dynamite’s head, tossing off the old bridal to a partner.
The spotted hog slid in between the feet of his mule, stood with his head poking out beneath his buddy’s legs, looking up with his ugly face, flaring his nostrils, narrowing his cave-dark eyes.
Dynamite’s owner was Levi Crone, one big gent in a dirty white shirt with the sleeves ripped out. He had a big, red face and big, fat muscles and a belly like a big iron wash pot. He wore a hat you could have bathed in. He was as tall as Nigger Joe, six foot two or more. Hands like hams, feet like boats. He looked at the White Mule, said, “That ain’t the story mule is it?”
“One and the same,” Frank said, as if he had raised the white mule from a colt.
“I heard someone had him. That he had been caught. Catch and train him?”
“Me and my partners.”
“You mean Leroy and the nigger?”
“Yeah.”
“That the hog in the stories, too, I guess?”
“Yep,” Frank said.
“What’s he for? A step stool?”
“He runs with the mule. For a ways.”
“That ain’t allowed.”
“Where say can’t do it, huh?” Nigger Joe asked.
Crone thought. “Nowhere, but it stands to reason.”
“What about rule can’t run with the dick hard,” Nigger Joe said, pointing at Dynamite’s member.
“Ain’t no rule like that,” Crone said. “Mule can’t help that.”
“Ain’t no rule about goddamn hog none either,” Nigger Joe said.
“It don’t matter,” Crone said. “You got this mule from hell, given to you by the goddamn red-assed Devil his ownself, and you got the pork chop there too from the same place, it ain’t gonna matter. Dynamite here, he’s gonna outrun him. Gets finished, he’ll fuck your mule in the ass and shit a turd on him.”
“Care to make a bet on the side some?” Nigger Joe said.
“Sure,” Crone said. “I’ll bet you all till my money runs out. That ain’t good enough, I’ll arm wrestle you or body wrestle you or see which of us can shoot jack-off the farthest. You name it, speckled nigger.”
Nigger Joe studied Crone as if he might be thinking about where to make all the prime cuts, but he finally just grinned, got out ten of the eleven-fifty he had been paid. “There mine. You got some holders?”
“Ten dollars. I got sight of it, and I got your word, which better be good,” Crone said.
“Where’s your money?” Leroy said.
Crone pulled out a wad from his front pocket, presented it with open palm as if he might be giving a teacher an apple. He looked at Leroy, said, “You gonna trade a goat? I hear you like goats.”
“Okay,” Leroy said. “Okay. I fucked a goddamn goat. What of it?”
Crone laughed at him. He shook the money at Nigger Joe. “Good enough?”
“Okay,” Nigger Joe said.
“Here’s three dollars,” Frank said, dug in his pocket, held it so Crone could see.
Crone nodded.
Frank slipped the money back in his pocket.
“Well,” Leroy said. “I ain’t got shit, so I just throw out my best wishes.”
“You boys could bet the mule,” Crone said.
“That could be an idea,” Leroy said.
“No,” Frank said. “We won’t do that.”
“Ain’t we partners?” Leroy said, taking off his seed salesman’s hat.
“We got a deal,” Frank said, “but I’m the one paid Nigger Joe for catching and training. So, I decide. And that’s about as partner as we get.”
Leroy shrugged, put the seed salesman’s hat back on.
The mules lined up and it was difficult to make them stay the line. Dynamite, still toting serious business on the undercarriage, lined up by White Mule, stood at least a shoulder above him. Both wore blinders now, but they t
urned their heads and looked at one another. Dynamite snapped at the white mule, who moved quickly, nearly throwing Frank from the saddle. White Mule snapped back at Dynamite’s nose, grazing him. He threw a little kick sideways that made Dynamite shuffle to his right.
There was yelling from the judges, threats of disqualification, though no one expected that. The crowd had already figured this race out. White Mule, the forest legend, and Dynamite, of the swinging big dick, they were the two to watch.
Leroy and Nigger Joe had pulled the hog back with a rope, but now they brought him out and let him stand in front of his mule. They had to talk to the judges on the matter, explain. There wasn’t any rule for or against it. One judge said he didn’t like the idea. One said the hog would get trampled to death anyway. Another said, Shit, why not. Final decision, they let the hog stay in the race.
So the mules and the hog and the riders lined up, the hog just slightly to the side of the white mule. The hog looked over its shoulder at Nigger Joe standing behind him. By now the hog knew what was coming. A swift kick in the ass.
Frank climbed up on the white mule, and a little guy with a face like a timber axe, climbed up on Crone’s mule, Dynamite.
Out front of the line was a little bald man in a loose shirt and suspenders holding up his high-water pants, showing his scuffed and broken-laced boots. He had a pistol in his hand. He had a voice loud as Nester on the Greek line.
“Now, we got us a mule race today, ladies and gentleman. And there will be no cheatin’, or there will be disqualification, and a butt-beating you can count on to be remembered by everyone, ’specially the cheater. What I want now, line of mules and riders, is a clean race. This here path is wide enough for all twenty of you, and you can’t fan too much to the right or left, as we got folks all along the run watching. You got to keep up pretty tight. Now, there might be some biting and kicking, and that’s to be expected. From the mules. You riders got to be civil. Or mostly. A little out of line is all right, but no knives or guns or such. Everyone understand and ain’t got no questions, let up a shout.”
A shout came from the line. The mules stirred, stepped back, stepped forward.
“Anybody don’t understand what I just said? Anyone not speak Texan or ’Merican here that’s gonna race?”
No response.
“All right, then. Watch women and children, and try not to run over the men or the whores neither. I’m gonna step over there to the side, and I’m gonna raise this pistol, and when you hear the shot, there you go. May the best mule and the best rider win. Oh, yeah. We got a hog in the race too. He ain’t supposed to stay long. Just kind of lead. No problems with that from anybody, is there?”
There were no complaints.
“All right, then.”
The judge stepped briskly to the side of the road and raised his old worn .36 Navy at the sky and got an important look on his face. Nigger Joe removed the rope from the pig’s neck and found a solid position between mules and behind the hog. He cocked his foot back.
The judge fired his pistol. Nigger Joe kicked the hog in the ass. The mule line charged forward.
The hog, running for all it was worth surged forward as well, taking the lead even. White Mule and Dynamite ran dead even. The mules ran so hard a cloud of dust was thrown up. The mules and the men and the hog were swallowed by it. Frank, seeing nothing but dust, coughed and cursed and lay tight against the white mule’s neck, and squinted his eyes. He feared, without the white mule being able to see the hog, he might bolt. Maybe run into another mule, throw him into a stampede, get him stomped flat. But as they ran, the cloud moved behind them, and when Frank came coughing out of the cloud, he was amazed to see the hog was well out in front, running as if he could go like that all the way to Mexico.
To his right, Frank saw Dynamite and his little axe-faced rider. The rider looked at him and smiled with gritty teeth. “You gonna get run into a hole, shit breath.”
“Shitass,” Frank said. It was the best he could come up with, but he threw it out with meaning.
Dynamite was leading the pack now, leaving the white mule and the others behind, throwing dust in their face. White Mule saw Dynamite start to straighten out in front of him, and he moved left, nearly knocking against a mule on that side. Frank figured it was so he could see the hog. The hog was moving his spotted ass on down the line.
“Git him, White Mule,” Frank said, and leaned close to the mule’s left ear, rubbed the side of the mule’s neck, then rested his head close on his mane. The white mule focused on the hog and started hauling some ass. He went lower and his strides got longer and the barrel back and belly rolled. When Frank looked up, the hog was bolting left, across the path of a dozen mules, just making it off the trail before taking a tumble under hooves. He fell, rolled over and over in the grass.
Frank thought: Shit, White Mule, he’s gonna bolt, gonna go after the hog. But, nope, he was true to the trail, and closing on Dynamite. The spell was on. And now the other mules were moving up too, taking a whipping, getting their sides slapped hard enough Frank could hear it, thinking it sounded like Papa’s belt on his back.
“Come on, White Mule. You don’t need no hittin’, don’t need no hard heels. You got to outrun that hard dick for your own sake.”
It was as if White Mule understood him. White Mule dropped lower and his strides got longer yet. Frank clung for all he was worth, fearing the saddle might twist and
lose him.
But no, Leroy, for all his goat-fucking and seed salesman’s hat stealing, could fasten harness and belly bands better than anyone that walked.
The trail became shady as they moved into a line of oaks on either side of the road. For a long moment the shadows were so thick they ran in near darkness. Then there were patches of lights through the leaves and the dust was lying closer to the ground and the road was sun-baked and harder and showing clay the color of a poison-ivy rash.
Scattered here and there along the road were viewers. A few in chairs. Most standing.
Frank ventured a look over his shoulder. The other mules and riders were way back, and some of them were already starting to falter. He noticed a couple of the mules were riderless, and one had broken rank with its rider and was off trail, cutting across the grass, heading toward the creek that twisted down amongst a line of willow trees.
As White Mule closed on Dynamite, the mule took a snapping bite at Dynamite’s tail, jerking its head back with teeth full of tail hair.
Dynamite tried to turn and look, but his rider pulled his head back into line. White Mule lunged forward, going even lower than before. Lower than Frank had ever seen him go. Lower than he thought he could go. Now White Mule was pulling up on Dynamite’s left. Dynamite’s rider jerked Dynamite back into the path in front of White Mule. Frank wheeled his mount to the right side of Dynamite. In mid-run, Dynamite wheeled and kicked, hit White Mule in the side hard enough there was an explosion of breath that made Frank think his mule would go down.
Dynamite pulled ahead.
White Mule was not so low now. He was even staggering a little as he ran.
“Easy, boy,” Frank said. “You can do it. You’re the best goddam mule ever ran a road.”
White Mule began to run evenly again, or as even as a mule can run. He began to stretch out again, going low. Frank was surprised to see they were closing on Dynamite again.
Frank looked back.
No one was in sight. Just a few twists of dust, a ripple of heat waves. It was White Mule and Dynamite, all the way.
As Frank and White Mule passed Dynamite, Frank noted Dynamite didn’t run with a hard-on anymore. Dynamite’s rider let the mule turn its head and snap at White Mule. Frank, without really thinking about it, slipped his foot from the saddle and kicked the mule in the jaw.
“Hey,” yelled Dynamite’s rider. “Stop that.”
“Hey, shitass,” Frank said. “You better watch…that limb.”
Dynamite and his rider had let White Mule push them
to the right side of the road, near the trees, and a low hanging hickory limb was right in line with them. The rider ducked it by a half inch, losing only his cap.
Shouldn’t have told him, thought Frank. What he was hoping was to say something smart just as the limb caught the bastard. That would have made it choice, seeing the little axe-faced shit take it in the teeth. But he had outsmarted his own self.
“Fuck,” Frank said.
Now they were thundering around a bend, and there were lots of people there, along both sides. There had been a spot of people here and there, along the way, but now they were everywhere.
Must be getting to the end of it, thought Frank.
Dynamite had lost a step for a moment, allowing White Mule to move ahead, but now he was closing again. Frank looked up. He could see that a long, red ribbon was stretched across in front of them. It was almost the end.
Dynamite lit a fuse.
He came up hard and on the left, and began to pass. The axe-faced rider slapped out with the long bride and caught Frank across the face.
“You goddamn turd,” Frank said, and slashed out with his own bridal, missing by six inches. Dynamite and axe-face pulled ahead.
Frank turned his attention back to the finish line. Thought: This is it. White Mule was any lower to the ground he’d have a belly full of gravel, stretched out any farther, he’d come apart. He’s gonna be second. And no prize.
“You done what you could,” Frank said, putting his mouth close to the bobbing head of the mule, rubbing the side of his neck with the tips of his fingers.
White Mule brought out the reinforcements. He was low and he was stretched, but now his legs were moving even faster, and for a long, strange moment, Frank thought the mule had sprung wings, like that horse he had seen on the front of the book so long ago. There didn’t feel like there was any ground beneath them.
Frank couldn’t believe it. Dynamite was falling behind, snorting and blowing, his body lathering up as if he were soaped.