Chapter 26

Solid and certain as a rock; one rule I was gut-sure I could bank on. Yet it took nothing more than my kid brother coming to spend a month with us to show me that there are other ways of winning—like winning by giving in, by being soft, by not gritting your goddamn teeth and getting your best hold ...winning by not, for damned sure, being one of the Ten Toughest Hombres west of the Rockies. And show me as well that there’s times when the only way you can win is by being weak, by losing, by doing your worst instead of your best. And learning that come near to doing me in. When I climbed out of that cold water into the boat and saw that the skinny boy in specs was none other than Leland Stamper—fumbling and mumbling and flustered with the running of the boat and no more capable than he ever was when it came to handling any machinery bigger than a wristwatch—I was plenty tickled. Truth. And plenty pleased and surprised too, though I didn’t let on. I said some dumb thing or other, than just went on sitting there, cool and matter-of-fact, like him being out here in the middle of the Wakonda Auga where nobody’d seen him for a good dozen years was just the most ordinary old thing that had happened all day to me—like, if anything, I was a little disappointed, maybe, that he hadn’t been there yesterday or the day before. I don’t know why. Not for any real meanness. But I never been one to carry on about things like homecomings, and I guess I said what I did because I was uneasy and wanted to devil him some, the way I devil Viv when she starts getting soapy and makes me uneasy. But I see from his face that it hits him wrong, and that I’d got to him a lot more than I’d intended. I’d done a lot of thinking about Lee in the last year, remembering him the way he was at four and five and six. Partly, I imagine, because the news of his mom got me thinking about the old days, but some because he was the only little kid I’ve ever been around and there’d be lots of times when I’d think, That’s what our kid’d been like now. That’s what our kid’d be saying now. And in some ways he was good to compare to, in some ways not. He always had a lot of savvy but never much sense; by the time he started school he knew his multiplication tables all the way to the sevens, but never was able to figure why three touchdowns come to twenty-one points if a team kicked all their conversions, though I took him to ball games till the world looked level. I remember—let’s see, I guess when he was nine or ten or so—I tried to teach him to throw jump passes. I’d run out and he’d pass. He wasn’t none too bad an arm, either, and I figured he should make somebody a good little quarterback someday if he would get his butt in gear to match his brains; but after ten or fifteen minutes he’d get disgusted and say, “It’s a stupid game anyway; I don’t care if I ever learn to pass.” And I’d say, “Okay, look here: you’re quarterbacking the Green Bay Packers. It’s fourth down and three in the third quarter, fourth, and three, and you’re behind, nineteen to ten, a quarter to go. You’re on their thirty. Okay ...what do you do?” He’d shuffle around, looking around, looking at the ball. “I don’t know. I don’t care.” “You’d go for the three-point field goal, nutty, and why don’t you care?” “I just don’t is all.” “Don’t you want your team to get the league championship? You need that field goal three points. Then, see, after the field goal you got a chance to pick up the six and one and put you out ahead nineteen to twenty.” “No, I don’t.” “Don’t?” “Care if they win the league championship. None at all.” And I’d finally get pissed. “Okay then, why are you playing if you don’t care?” And he’d walk off from the ball. “I’m not. I never will.” Like that. And it was the same in a lot of other ways. He couldn’t seem to get his teeth into anything. Except books. The things in books was darn near more real to him than the things breathing and eating. That’s why he was so easy to shuck, I guess, because he was just content as you please to accept whatever demon I might happen to trot in—especially if I made it kinda vague. Like . . . well, another thing comes to mind: When he was a little kid he’d always be out on the dock in a life jacket waiting when we come in from work; bright orange life jacket, like an orange popsicle. He’d stand there, hugging a piling and watching us through his glasses, and like as not the first thing I’d say would be some kind of bull. “Lee, bub,” I’d say, “you got any idea what I found up on them hills today?” “No.” He’d look away from me with a frown on his face, telling himself he wasn’t gonna get took this time. Not after I’d shucked him so bad the day before. No sirree bob! Not little bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, book-reading Leland Stanford who already knew the multiplication tables up to the sevens and could add a dozen figures in his head. So he’d stand, and fiddle, and flip rocks into the river while we packed away the gear. But you could bet he was interested, for all his ignoring. I’d act like I’d dismissed the subject, keep on working. Finally he’d say, “No ...I don’t think you found anything.” I’d shrug and keep on packing the gear in the boathouse. “Maybe you saw something is all, but you never found anything.” I’d give him a long look like I was oh, trying to dee-cide whether to tell him or not, him being just a kid and all; he’d start getting fidgety. “Come on, Hank; what was it you saw?” And I’d say, “It was a Hide-behind, Lee.” Then I’d look around to see if anybody might be overhearing such a god-awful news; nobody but the dogs. I’d lower my voice. “Yessir, a honest-to-goodness Hide-behind. Shoot. I been hopin’ we wouldn’t have any more trouble with those fellows. Had enough of ’em in the thirties. But now, oh gracious me...” Then I’d maybe click my tongue and shake my head, make to look over the boat or something, like what’d been said was aplenty. Or like it didn’t look to me he was even interested. But all the time knowing I’d sunk the hook clean to the shank. He’d follow me to the house, keeping still long as he could, scared to ask because I’d fooled him so last week with that whopper about the one-winged pinnacle grouse that flew in circles, or the sidehill dodger that had its uphill leg inches shorter than its downhill leg so’s it could maneuver easy on the slopes. He’d be still. He knew better. But always, finally, if I waited long enough, he’d have to break down and ask. “Okay, then, what’s a Hide-behind supposed to be?” “A Hide-behind?” I’d give him what Joe Ben called my ten-count squint, then say, “You never heard tell of the Hide-behind? I’ll be a sonofabitch. Hey, Henry, goddammit . . . listen to this: Leland Stanford here never heard tell of the Hide-behind. What do you think of that?” The old man would turn at the door, his tight little hairy gut pooching out where he’d already unbuttoned his pants and long johns to get comfortable, and give the kid a look like there was just no more hope for such a ninny. “It figures.” Then go on in the house. “Lee, bub,” I would tell him, toting him on in the house on my hip, “the Hide-behind is one of the worst cree-churs a logging man can be plagued with. One of the very worst. He’s little, not big at all, actually, but fast, oh Christ, fast as quicksilver. And he stays behind a man’s back all the time so no matter how quick you turn he’s run the other way, out of your seeing. You can hear one of ’em sometimes when it’s real still in the swamp, and when the wind ain’t blowing. Or sometimes you can catch just the least glimpse of him outa the corner of your eye. You ever notice, when you’re alone out in the woods, seein’ just a speck of something outa the corner of your eye? Then when you turn, whooshee, nothing?” He’d nod yes, eyes big as saucers. “And the Hide-behind will hang right in there behind a fellow and wait; he makes sure they’re all alone, the two of them—because the Hide-behind is scared to glom on to a man if somebody else might be around who could get him before he can wrench his fangs loose and make a getaway, he’s wide open then—stay right behind a fellow till he’s deep in the woods and bam! Lay it to him.” And he’d look from me to the old man reading the paper, half believing and half suspicious, and think it over awhile. Then he’d ask, “Okay, if he’s always behind you how’d you know he was there?” I’d sit and pull him in closer. Pull him right to where I could whisper to him.