The Dark Waters
The Dark Waters
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THE DARK WATERS
By cormac McCarthy
HER first high yelp was thin and clear as the air itself, its
tenuous and diminishing echoes sounding out the coves
and hollows, trebling to a high ring like the last fading
note of a chime glass. He could hear the boy breathing in th
darkness at his elbow, trying to breathe quietly, listening too hard.
She sounded again, and he stood and touched the boy's shoulder
lightly. Let's go, he said.
The strung-out ringing yelps came like riflefire. The boy
was on his feet. Has she treed yet? he asked.
No. She's jest hit it now. Then he added: She's close
though, hot. He started down the steep hummock on which
they had been resting, through a maze of small pines whos
polished needles thick on the ground made the descent a series of
precarious slides from trunk to trunk, until they got to the gull
at the bottom, a black slash in the earth beyond which he could
see nothing although he knew there was a field there, pitche
sharply down to the creek some hundred yards further on. He
dropped into the gully, heard the beaded rush of sliding dirt as
the boy followed, came up the other side, and started out throug
the field at a jog-trot, the heavy weeds popping and his corduroy
setting up a rhythmic zip-zip as he ran.
The cottonwoods at the creek loomed up stark and pale out of
the darkness ; he crossed a low wreck of barbed wire, heard again
the resonant creak of the rusty staples in the checked and split
cedar post as the boy crossed behind him. They were in th
woods above the creek then, rattling through the stiff frosted
leaves.
Lady's sharp trail-call still broke excitedly off to their right.
They moved out under the dark trees, through a stand of young
cedars gathered in a clearing, vespertine figures, rotund and
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CORMAC MCCARTHY 211
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212 THE DARK WATERS
bark and then a splash. They followed, sidling down the slo
and out along the bank where the water gathered a thin m
branous light by which they could see, directed by frantic surg
sounds and low intermittent growls, some suggestion of figur
struggling there, and the new dog striking out in the water n
to join them. The fight moved down, out in deep water a
under the shadow of the far bank. The snarls stopped, and th
was only the desperate rending of water.
A light blinked through the trees to their right, went ou
appeared again, bobbing, unattached and eerie in the blackness
They could hear the dry frosted crack of sticks and brush, mu
voices. The light darted out, peered again suddenly down up
them, sweeping an arc along the edge of the creek.
Howdy, a voice said.
Cas?
Yeah . . . that you, Marion:
Bring that light; they're in the creek.
They came down the slope, four dismembered legs hobbling
in the swatch of light as they descended.
Throw your light, Sylder said.
They came alongside, dispensing an aura of pipe-smoke and
dog-hair. The shorter one was working the beam slowly over the
creek. Whereabouts? he said.
Down some. Howdy, Bill.
Howdy, the other said. In the glare emanating from the flash
light their breath was smoke-white, curling, clinging about their
heads in a vaporous canopy. The oval of the flashbeam scudded
down the glides against the far bank, passed, backed, came to rest
on the combatants clinching in the icy water, the coon's eyes glow
ing red., pin points, his fur wetly bedraggled and his tail swaying
in crestfallen buoyancy on the current. The big dog was circling
him warily, trudging the water with wearying paws and failing
enthusiasm. They could see Lady's ear sticking out from under
the coon's front leg, and then her hindquarters bobbed up, surg
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CORMAC MCCARTHY 213
ing through the face of the creek with a wild flash of tail and
sinking back in a soundless swirl.
Cas swung the beam to shore, scrabbled up a handful of rock
and handed the light to the other man. Hold it on him, he said.
He scaled a rock at the coon. It cut a slow arc in the beam and
pitched from sight with a muffled slurp. The big hound started
for shore, and Lady's tail had made another desperate appearance
when the second rock, a flitting shadow, curving, flashed water
under the coon's face.
He turned loose and struck out downstream, stroking with the
current. The big dog, on the other bank now, had set up a pitiful
moaning sound, pacing, the man with the light calling to him in
a hoarse and urgent voice, Hunt im up, boy, hunt im up. He
turned to the men. He's skeered of rocks, he explained.
Hush a minute, Sylder said, taking the light from him. Lady
was already some thirty yards below them. When the light hit
her, she turned her head back, and her eyes came pale orange,
ears fanned out and floating, treading the water down before her
with a tired and grim determination. She had her mouth turned
up at the corners in a macabre and ludicrous grin as if to keep out
the water.
Ho, gal, Sylder called. Ho, gal. They were moving down the
creek too, raking through the brush. She's fixin to drownd her
self, someone said.
Ho, gal, Ho. . . .
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214 THE DARK WATERS
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C0RMAC MCCARTHY 215
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216 THE DARK WATERS
Shoo, the boy said. Over his teeth the firelight rippled an
danced.
The two men were warming their hands at the fire, the shorter
one grinning good-naturedly at the boy. The other hound had
appeared, hovering suddenly at the rim of light and snuffling at
the steaming wool and then slouching past them with nervous
indifference, the slack hound grace, to where Lady lay quietly,
peering across her paws into the fire. Pie nosed at her, and she
raised her head to look at him with her sad red eyes. He stood
so for a minute, looking past her, then stepped neatly over her
and melted silently into the black wickerwork of the brush. The
other man moved over to her and reached down to pat her head.
One ear was mangled and crusting with blood.
Coon's hard on a Walker, he said. Walker's got too much
heart. Old Redbone like that?he motioned toward the blackness
that encircled them?he'll quit if it gets too rough. Little old
Walker though?he addressed the dog now?she jest got too
much heart, ain't she?
When Sylder let him out of the car, his clothes were still wet.
You better scoot in there fast, he told him. Your maw raise hell
with you?
Naw, he said, she'll be asleep.
Well, Sylder said. We'll go again. You got to stay out of
the creek, though. Here, I got to get on. My old lady'll be
standin straight up.
All right, we'll see ye. He let the door fall.
Night, Sylder said. The car pulled away, trailing ropy plumes
of smoke, the one red taillight bobbing. He turned toward the
house, lightless and archaic among the crumbling oaks, crossed the
frosted yard. His shadow swept upward to the lean-to roof,
dangled from a limb, upward again, laced with branches, stood
suddenly upon the roof. He slid downward over the eaves and
disappeared in the black square of the gable window.
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