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Starwater Strains
By Gene Wolfe, David G. Hartwell Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2005 Gene Wolfe
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1555-7
CHAPTER 1
Rattler with BRIAN HOPKINS
We heard this in a truck stop in Oklahoma. Two men in the next booth were talking about dogs, and one said that he had trained pointers and setters of several breeds, and that it was much easier to train a bird dog if you had a trained dog that would hunt at the same time — that the trained dog taught the untrained one.
It don't (the other man said), or not so's you could notice. I've hunted with dogs all my life, and I ain't never noticed no dog teaching but one. That German shorthair you got now learns, sure enough. But the other don't teach it. It just sees what the other's doin' and sees you like it. That's all. That pup wants to please, so it does like the other dog.
No, sir, I never seen nor heard of but one dog that taught like a regular teacher would, and that was a ol' coonhound I used to have. Bud his name was. Ol' Bud taught sure enough, only it wasn't no other dog he taught. I reckon he thought that would be too easy for him. Or else maybe he never wanted to see another dog smarter than he was. That there was the smartest dog ever made. I could tell you — well, you wouldn't believe it. And it ain't to the point anyways, you know.
You seen my ol' pickemup what we rode out here in? I parked it in the barn back then like I do now, and Bud was always feered he'd miss a ride, so he slept in the back so I couldn't go off without him'less I chased him out first. It got so anytime I nailed up a coonskin, Bud would tear it down and carry it back there to sleep on. He had quite a pile there before long. I'd nail'em higher and higher, and I never did figure out how he moved the ladder.
Oh, sure, he could climb it all right. Any coon dog worth a biscuit can climb, you bet! They'll climb trees and such if there's limbs for'em, to get at the coon.
Bud got hisself a nice pile of coonskins in the back of my pickup, and he'd sleep back there just about every night. If I had to put hay bales or somethin' in the back I'd have to chase him out, and throw all them coonskins out, too, 'fore I could do it. Only if I was just goin' into town to pick up fixin's and maybe some beer, I'd leave him and his coonskins right where they was and ride him into town to watch my truck.
Well, sir, one day I drove that ol' pickemup into town 'cause I had to go to the bank, and when I come out there was a kid hangin' around it, you know, and I heard Bud growl. "You get away from there," I says, and he growls at the kid again. I took three or four more steps, and it hit me that Bud was dead. He'd died the week before, and I'd buried him out in the back of my wood lot and read over him, too, changing a couple words so it was dogs 'stead of people, you know how you do, and put up a marker for him that I'd cut his name in.
It was his ghost was what I thought. He'd loved that ol' truck and come back to it, and I went goose fleshed all over. Felt like my skin was goin' to crawl right off me. Only when I started up the engine I heard the growl just like before. That same exact growl, you know. It was the starter motor, and it was my ol' pickemup that had been growlin'.
After that I noticed a few things. Like if I'd parked by a tree or the light pole or somethin', there'd be a little puddle of gas when I pulled out. I put newspaper under, you know how you do, to see where it was leakin', only it wasn't. Bone dry. Then I was ridin' a feller and he said what a nice truck, and it lost the back like it was on ice. Just a teeny little it was, but I noticed. It quit pretty quick but I got to thinkin' why'd it do that, and by-'n-by it come to me — he'd been waggin' his tail.
So I called him Bud awhile, you know, thinkin' he was hauntin' it, only that truck never did cotton to the name. After that I tried various names that didn't none of'em work. And he give me some trouble, always wantin' to chase coons. You know how you'll drive at night and see a coon in your headlights? I always try to miss'em. I been a coon hunter all my life, and the more coons the better the huntin' is, is the way I see it. Only that ol' pickemup had been learned by Bud real good and he'd chase after 'em. Took me right through a bobwire fence once and 'bout a half a mile over the prairie' fore I could get him stopped. I killed the lights and drove out quiet as I could, you bet!
Well, sir, one time he took off after a coon and I was wrestlin' the wheel and stompin' the brake tryin' to get him back on the road. You know how you do. And I hollered out, "Stop! Stop you derned ol' rattler!"
And he done it. So I knew then what his name was do you see, and I call him Rattler when I got to get his attention or quiet him down when I take him to the vet — the mechanic's what I mean, that OK Auto Repair place in town. Only Rattler, he likes vet better, and if you'll just quit interruptin', I'll let you have your say.
(The first man, the one who trained bird dogs, spoke at some length at this point. We will not give his entire argument word for word, but he was skeptical.)
Well, sir (the other man said), you're just like to Junior. He's my brother-in-law, the dumb fat one. He seen Rattler and rode in him and all, and he just kept on sayin' how'd you get him to do that? I tol' him just like I tol' you, but it took a heap of tellin' 'fore he'd believe me. Then he said whatever a dog could do he could do. Dumbest thing I ever heard a man say. I says can you scratch your neck with your back foot, Junior? Everybody laughed — this was at the Baptist social, you know — and he got mad and shut up, which was what I wanted.
'Bout a month after, he let drop that he'd been teachin' hisself. Had a big green pickemup with a crew cab he cared the world about, you know, and he said he'd talk to it while he was drivin'. What's its name? I says. He tells, and it wasn't the truck's name but the company that made it. Dumbest thing I ever heard. So I asks if he's taught it to fetch. He says not yet, how's it goin' to do that? You watch I says.
So right there's where I took a big chance. I'll be square with you like I always am, and say if I had it to do over again probably I wouldn't. But I was mad and wanted to show Junior, and I got ol' Rattler and I says, "You see that calf with the white blaze? Fetch!"
Well, sir, Rattler hadn't had a lot of practice workin' cattle back then but he made me proud. He never blowed his horn or nothing that would get the calf stirred up. No, sir! And he never bent. You can't with cattle. You bend, and they'll walk all over you. He showed that calf what he wanted, and he let down his tailgate and sort of pulled in the back shocks so his back set so low his tailgate dragged.
The calf, he turned and went off, you know how they do, only Rattler was out in front of him fast, still low, still got his tailgate down and talkin' quiet with his engine. That went on for about five minutes. Coulda been ten. Then the calf give in and walked up into the back. Rattler shut his tailgate — you know how you do when you're headin' back home? He just shut it and shut it pretty quiet, but there was a world of satisfaction in it. He'd done the job, and he knew he'd done it. He come back to where we was waitin', and he showed off a little then. Flashed his headlights at us, you know. It was broad daylight, too. I reckon he couldn't help it, he just felt so good.
And so'd I. I turned to Junior and I says that's fetch, and it's pretty easy to teach. He went off without another word, and that suited me fine. Every time he opens his mouth I hear more than I want to, even if it's just hello.
So that was that for about a month. Only one day I had to ride Junior into town to get his truck back from the OK Auto Repair place. He got to talking about how tough them pickemups was to train. "Junior," I says, "we got to face the facts, and the fact is you don't know nothin'. You get you a good truck, and it's instinct. It's born in a good pickemup, and you oughter know that. All you got to do is get a good'un to start and bring the instinct out. I never seen a good coonhound that would point birds, and neither have you. Neither has anybody. Now you take ol' Rattler here." And then I leaned back like I was a passenger, you know, and laced my hands behind my head the way you do.
He kept right on a-goin' about ten miles, and then he come to where a coon'd crossed the road, and he got the scent. He follered it off into the woods, and you could hear that gearbox bayin' and then the muffler comin' in deep where the J-B Weld had got scraped off. It was as pretty a music as you ever heard.
Ol' Rattler treed that coon, too, and right there I would say is where the real trouble come in. I oughter have stopped him right there and me and Junior got out and had a look at the coon — from the ground is what I mean — and got back in and drove away. Only I wanted to show off. I never touched the wheel nor the brake nor the clutch. I give him his head, you know.
And he started up the tree after that coon, goin' to run him over even if it was fifty feet up in the air.
It ain't easy for a pickemup to climb a tree, no more than for a hound, and they got the same trouble — their tires ain't sharp. Rattler'd get up a ways, and hook his front bumper on a limb, you know how they do, probably. And he'd feel around with his front wheels trying to get traction. He's got front-wheel drive, naturally. If he hadn't had that we'd still be tryin' to get up that tree. Front-wheel drive and all it still took quite a time.
Finally he got pretty close and I got out my ol' Ruger Bearcat and put a long rifle in the coon where it would hurt, and he fell out of the tree. Rattler come down then, a lot faster than what he went up. Junior was a mite shaken up, you know.
I got out and threw the coon in the back and off we went, me feelin' right proud and Junior sort of lookin' out the window and swearin' to hisself. I wouldn't let him do it where I could hear. It's bad luck to hear a fool cuss — I guess you know.
I'd pretty much forgot about all that when Midge phoned me up. Midge's Junior's wife and a nice girl. I never did figure out why she married him 'less she felt sorry for him, and after that the rest of us felt sorry for Midge. "You got to do somethin'," she says. "He's tore up his truck three times since the picnic. He keeps gettin' it fixed and there's no money for anythin'."
Well, sir, that picnic had been on the fourth of July, it wasn't August by a week, so I could see the thing was serious. I phoned up Junior that night and I says I'd heard he'd been teachin' his truck and maybe he could come by and show me. He hemmed and hawed just like I'd been scared he would, and we went 'round a few times on it, him talkin' five to my one like usual. I'd hol' the phone away from my ear, you know how you do, till it got quiet, then I'd come back. And all the time I was thinkin' how I could hook him. Them that won't go for a night crawler will bite on a shiner sometimes. You know how that is.
Pretty soon it come to me that what with Midge not gettin' the house money the table was likely pretty poor over there. So I says why don't you and her come for dinner? Sarah's baked, and we'll barbecue and have us a slap-up good feed. So he come just like I knew he would and Midge too.
After we et I got him in the truck, said I wanted to go into town and get more ice cream. I knew that'd fetch him, which it did; he jumped into that new truck of his and strapped hisself in like he was going to the NASCAR. Soon's we were out on the county road I says, I hear you been learnin' this pickemup of yours, Junior. What does it do?
Well, he just shook his head.
Maybe you got it to sit up and beg, I says. That's a real pretty trick when a truck does it, and lets you get the oil filter off easy, too.
"I been talkin' and talkin'," he says — which I believed, you bet! — "and showin' it how every which way, and the only thing I've learned it is to roll over."
That's a good trick too, I says, only if you don't mind I'm going to get out before you show it, and I'm sure you'll get out too 'cause you're a big man and that seat belt you're wearin' can't take but just so much.
"It won't do it unless I'm inside and hol'in' the wheel," Junior says, "and I ain't goin' to do it anyhow'cause it tears up the cab too bad."
That had me scratchin' and whistlin'. Not that I didn't know what was wrong. I'd knew before we ever got off my property. Midge was the puzzler, do you see? I'd promised I'd help out all I could, so I couldn't just tell Junior flat out, 'cause it'd probably make him worse. I thought and thought, and finally I says, you know, it ain't only the student that learns. I noticed that myself and probably you have too. Sometimes the teacher learns as much as he does. More, now and then. Have you learned anything from teachin' this here pickemup, Junior?
"I have," he says. "I've learned that this here is the dumbest derned truck ever come off a assembly line."
I keeps my voice real gentle when I says, now that ain't so. This here truck has a automatic transmission, Junior. You don't have to tell it what gear. It knows. Can't nobody say a truck like that's dumb.
"You mean it's teachin' me," he says.
That's for you to say, Junior, I says real gentle-like. Only I don't believe anybody's ever goin' to teach a pickemup that has a automatic anythin'.
We got the ice cream real quiet and come back real quiet, too, and I kept tellin' myself how nobody'd ever got anythin' through that thick skull of Junior's but I'd promised Midge and done the best I could.
Well, sir. Come Thanksgivin' we had the whole family over, and Junior, he got to talkin' about a cattle auction that was coming up in about a week and what might be good to buy now, and what might be good to sell, and what to look for dependin' on who came. For a while he was flappin' along pretty fair like always. Then he sort of spaced out the words more and give a little time between orations where somebody else might speak a word if they was inclined, which he never done before. I noticed pretty quick, and I seen there was somethin' in his eyes that I'd never seen there before in the whole time since I started courtin' his sister. It took me a while to read the brand, you know, 'cause I kept thinkin' I had to be wrong. Then he said somethin', and I knew for certain sure. It was thoughts. There was somethin' goin' on behind those eyes, and the eyes knew it like they always do.
Junior, I says, that's plumb smart, and I notice you're takin' your time with it more than usual, if you don't mind me sayin' it.
"Well," Junior says, "that auction's a long grade and a steep'un, and sometimes a feller needs to shift down."
That was all the other man said, and the bird-dog man held his peace, trying to digest everything just as we were. Soon the waitress brought checks to both booths. We paid — and so did they — and started out.
"To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower."
Brian looked around at Gene and said, "Did you say that?"
"No," Gene said, "I think it was Robert Blake."
When we got outside, the two men who had been in the next booth were already there. One shouted, "Here, Rattler!" and we heard an engine start in the parking lot.
A small pickup truck, old and red, drove up to the door and stopped.
"Not like that you derned fool," one man said, "I got to get behind your wheel."
The truck pulled away, and returned with its left side toward the curb. The door opened, and the driver got in. "You'll have to open your own door," he told his friend. "He ain't learned that yet."
We stood watching until the small red truck pulled out onto the highway, and it appeared to us that when it did the driver was still fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Starwater Strains by Gene Wolfe, David G. Hartwell. Copyright © 2005 Gene Wolfe. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
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