Chapter 27

“There’s one thing about a Hide-behind: they don’t show in a mirror. Just like vampires¹ don’t, you know? So this afternoon when I think I heard something slipping along behind me I reached in my pocket for my compass—this compass right here, see how it reflects good as a mirror?—and I held it up and looked behind me. And goddammit, Lee, you know? I couldn’t see nothing!” He stood there with his mouth open, and I knew I still had him and might of really poured it on if the old man hadn’t went to sputtering² and choking and got me to where I couldn’t keep a straight face. Then it would be just like all the other times when he’d find himself hooked. “Ah, Hank,” the kid would holler, “ah, Hank,” then go storming off to his mother, who would give us a hard look and take him away from such lying lowbrows as us. So during the ride across the river, when I see how skittish³ he gets from my deviling him, I half expect him to holler, “Ah, Hank!” and go storming off. But things are different. As high-mettled and spooky and skittish as he still looks, I know he’s not a six-year-old any more. Behind those tight-honed features I can still see some of the old Lee, the little boy Lee I used to carry on my hip⁴ up from the dock, sitting there wondering how much of his crazy half-brother’s bullshit should he swallow, but things are different now. For one thing he’s a college graduate—the first that a family of illiterates⁵ can point to—and all that education has whetted⁶ him pretty keen. For another, there’s nobody for him to go storming off to any more. Watching him there across the boat from me, I see something in his eyes that lets me know he’s in no condition for any of my prime stupidity. He looks like this time it’s him that suspects a Hide-behind after him, like the ground is pretty shaky underfoot and things like what I said to him aren’t making it any steadier. So I mark myself down for a good butt-kicking when I get myself alone later, and try to make things a little easier the rest of the boat ride by asking him about school. He snaps at the chance, goes to running on about classes and seminars and the pressure of academic politics and keeps it up a blue streak⁷ all the way on toward the dock, idling that boat along slow as Christmas. All the time keeping a keen weather eye ahead for sunken snags, or checking up at the clouds, or watching a kingfisher dive, anything to keep from having to look at me. He doesn’t want to look at me. He doesn’t want to meet my eyes. So I quit looking at him, except sideways now and then while he talks. He’s made a good-sized gink, bigger than any of us would ever of expected. He must be an easy six foot, an inch or two taller than me and probably outweighs⁸ me a good twenty pounds, for all his lankiness⁹. He’s all knobby shoulders and elbows and knees through the white shirt and slacks he’s wearing, hair long at the ears, glasses with rims¹⁰ that look like they’d peter a man’s neck out holding them up, a tweed jacket laid across his knees with a bulge¹¹ in the pocket I’d give eight-to-five was a pipe... ball-point pen in his shirt pocket, dirty low-cut tennis shoes, dirty state-property gym socks. And I swear he looks like death warmed over. For one thing his face is all burned, like he fell asleep under a sunlamp; and there’s big inky pools under the eyes; and where he used to be deadpan¹² as an owl¹³, he’s took on a kind of beaten and fretful grin, like his mother had. Except there’s just the barest crook¹⁴ to his version, showing he knows just a skosh more than she did. And probably wishes he didn’t. When he talks, that crook comes into his grin for just a flicker¹⁵, just a wink¹⁶, making him look sadder than ever because the crook turns it into one of those grins you see on a man across the card table when you lay your full house on his ace-high straight and it’s been happening like that all day and he’s got inside information it’s going on happening like that all night. The way Boney Stokes grinned when he’d take the rag away from his cough and look down in it and see that his condition was just as bad as he feared . . . grinning because— well, look: . . . Boney Stokes was this oldtime acquaintance of Henry’s and figured the best way to pass the time of day was by gradually dying. Every so often Joe Ben—who figured the best way to pass the time of day was never gradually, but full steam ahead—would come across Boney at the Snag or when Boney and the old man were playing dominoes for the Centennial bucks¹⁷ Boney’d taken in at the store during Oregon Centennial and had hung on to past time to redeem¹⁸, and Joe would rush over and pump Boney’s hand and tell him how good he looked. “Mr. Stokes, you’re lookin’ sicker’n I seen you in months.” “I know, Joe, I know.” “You seeing a doctor? Oh yeah, I’m sure you are, I tell ya you come on over to services this Saturday night and we’ll see if Brother Walker can do you some good. I’ve seen him bring round some men with one foot in the grave and scuffin’ up dirt with the other.” Boney’d shake his head. “I don’t know, Joe. I’m afraid we’ve let my condition get too advanced.” Joe Ben’d reach up and take the old ghoul by the chin and turn his head first to one side, then the other, squinting¹⁹ close at the wrinkled craters²⁰ where the eyes were sunk. “Might be. Oh yeah, it might be. Too far gone for even the help of Divine Power.” And leave Boney sitting there, blooming with bad health. For Joe Ben, see, was that way; probably one of the most accommodating guys in the world. That is, he came to be one of the most accommodating. He didn’t use to be when he was little. As kids we was together about as much as later, but then he didn’t have a lot going. Sometimes he wouldn’t say more’n a word or so a week. This was because he was afraid what he might say would be something he’d picked up hearing his old man say. He looked so much like old Ben Stamper that he was scared to death he would grow up to be the same person. He even looked a lot like him, they tell me, clear back on the day he was born, with the shiny black hair and the pretty face, and he got to looking more like him every year. In high school he would stand in front of the locker-room mirror and screw up his mouth all sorts of ways and try to hold the face he made, but it didn’t work; girls were already panting after him like women were always panting after Uncle Ben. As Joe got more handsome he got more scared, until the summer before our senior year he was about to give in to it and admit he didn’t have any say-so about what he was going to be—he’d even got him a slick-looking Mercury like his dad used to have, all primered and chopped with zebra seats—when just in the nick of time he got into some kind of hassle off there in the state park with the homeliest girl in school, and she shredded²¹ his pretty face with a brush-cutting knife. He never said much about what brought on the hassle, but it sure changed him. With a new face he figured he was able to open up and become himself. “Hank, I tell you, if I’d waited another year look where I’d be now.” At the time he said this, Joe’s old man had just disappeared into the mountains never to be seen alive again; Joe claimed he’d just barely escaped the same fate. “Maybe so; but I want to know what happened out there in the state park with you and that little owl, Joby.” “Ain’t she a corker? I’m gonna marry that girl, Hank; you see if I don’t. Just as quick as they get all these stitches out. Oh yeah, things’re due to be fine!” He married Jan while I was overseas and by the time I got back he already had a boy and a girl. And both of them pretty as any doll, pretty as he had even been. I wondered if he was worried about that. “No. That’s fine.” He grinned, jumping around, tickling²² one, then the other, and laughing enough for all three. “Because the prettier they are the less likely they are to look like their old man, you see? Oh yeah. You see, they got their own row to hoe right from the start.” He had three more kids, each one more a doll than the last. By the time Jan was pregnant with the last one Joe Ben had got in pretty deep in the Church of God and Metaphysical Science and was beginning to pay attention to omens²³. So when that last child was born he declared that it was to be the clincher, on account of the various omens that took place on the day it was born. And there was some doozers. There was a big hurricane in Texas; and a whale swam into Wakonda Bay at high tide and grounded himself on the flats and made the whole town sick for a month before a demolition²⁴ crew from Seattle got shut of him; and the remains²⁵ of Ben Stamper was found in a lonely mountain cabin full of girlie books; and that night old Henry got the telegram from New York saying his wife had jumped forty stories to her death. That news got to me a hell of a lot more than it did to the old man. I studied about it a good long while. And riding across in the boat I come awful near to just blurting²⁶ out and asking Lee about the circumstances of that jump and what he figured brought it on; but I decided²⁷ against it for the same reason I decided against asking him why he’d give up the big-time Yale University life he was coming on so strong about, to come back and help us out logging. I just kept still. I figured I already said plenty and that he will talk about such things in his own good time. We get to the dock and I tie up the boat and throw a little tarp over the motor after I shut it off.

1 vampires   

n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门

参考例句：

• The most effective weapon against the vampires is avampire itself. 对付吸血鬼最有效的武器就是吸血鬼自己。 来自电影对白
• If vampires existed, don`t you think we would`ve found them by now? 如果真有吸血鬼，那我们怎么还没有找到他们呢？ 来自电影对白

2 sputtering   

n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出

参考例句：

• A wick was sputtering feebly in a dish of oil. 瓦油灯上结了一个大灯花，使微弱的灯光变得更加阴暗。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）
• Jack ran up to the referee, sputtering protest. 贾克跑到裁判跟前，唾沫飞溅地提出抗议。 来自辞典例句

3 skittish   

adj.易激动的，轻佻的

参考例句：

• She gets very skittish when her boy-friend is around.她男朋友在场时，她就显得格外轻佻。
• I won't have my son associating with skittish girls.我不准我的儿子与轻佻的女孩交往。

4 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

5 illiterates   

目不识丁者( illiterate的名词复数 )； 无知

参考例句：

• In 1996, an additional four million young and adult illiterates learned to read and write. 1996年，全国又减少了400万青壮年文盲。
• Even semi-illiterates can read the writing on the wall, and many are throwing in the towel. 即使是知识不多的人也能看出不祥之兆。许多人认输了。

6 whetted   

v.（在石头上）磨（刀、斧等）( whet的过去式和过去分词 )；引起，刺激（食欲、欲望、兴趣等）

参考例句：

• The little chicks had no more than whetted his appetite. 那几只小鸡只引起了他的胃口。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命
• The poor morsel of food only whetted desire. 那块小的可怜的喜糕反而激起了他们的食欲。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

7 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

8 outweighs   

v.在重量上超过( outweigh的第三人称单数 )；在重要性或价值方面超过

参考例句：

• Her need to save money outweighs her desire to spend it on fun. 她省钱的需要比她花钱娱乐的愿望更重要。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Its clarity in algebraic and analytical operations far outweighs any drawbacks. 文化代数和解析运算中的清晰性远远胜过任何缺点。 来自辞典例句

9 lankiness   

n.又瘦又高的，过分细长的

参考例句：

• For all his lankiness he was tough, and good nursing pulled him through. 别看他那么瘦，他还真有股韧劲呢，经过细心护理，他居然活过来了。 来自飘（部分）

10 rims   

n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈

参考例句：

• As she spoke, the rims of her eyes reddened a little. 说时，眼圈微红。 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• Her eyes were a little hollow, and reddish about the rims. 她的眼睛微微凹陷，眼眶有些发红。 来自辞典例句

11 bulge   

n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀

参考例句：

• The apple made a bulge in his pocket.苹果把他口袋塞得鼓了起来。
• What's that awkward bulge in your pocket?你口袋里那块鼓鼓囊囊的东西是什么？

12 deadpan   

n. 无表情的

参考例句：

• Some people don't catch his deadpan humor,that makes it even funnier.有些人不能了解他那种无表情的幽默，因此更有趣。
• She put the letter on the desk in front of me,her face deadpan,not a flicker of a smile.她把那封信放在我面前的桌子上，故意一 脸严肃，没有一丝的笑容。

13 owl   

n.猫头鹰，枭

参考例句：

• Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
• I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚，经常半夜后才睡觉。

14 crook   

v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处)

参考例句：

• He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.我骂他骗子，他要我向他认错。
• She was cradling a small parcel in the crook of her elbow.她用手臂挎着一个小包裹。

15 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

16 wink   

n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁

参考例句：

• He tipped me the wink not to buy at that price.他眨眼暗示我按那个价格就不要买。
• The satellite disappeared in a wink.瞬息之间，那颗卫星就消失了。

17 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 redeem   

v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等）

参考例句：

• He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
• The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。

19 squinting   

斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看

参考例句：

• "More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "那边来人了，"他在阳光中眨巴着眼睛说。
• Squinting against the morning sun, Faulcon examined the boy carefully. 对着早晨的太阳斜起眼睛，富尔康仔细地打量着那个年轻人。

20 craters   

n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• Small meteorites have left impact craters all over the planet's surface. 这个行星的表面布满了小块陨石留下的撞击坑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The battlefield was full of craters made by exploding shells. 战场上布满弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

21 shredded   

shred的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Serve the fish on a bed of shredded lettuce. 先铺一层碎生菜叶，再把鱼放上，就可以上桌了。
• I think Mapo beancurd and shredded meat in chilli sauce are quite special. 我觉得麻婆豆腐和鱼香肉丝味道不错。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 tickling   

反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法

参考例句：

• Was It'spring tickling her senses? 是不是春意撩人呢？
• Its origin is in tickling and rough-and-tumble play, he says. 他说，笑的起源来自于挠痒痒以及杂乱无章的游戏。

23 omens   

n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The omens for the game are still not propitious. 这场比赛仍不被看好。 来自辞典例句
• Such omens betide no good. 这种征兆预示情况不妙。 来自辞典例句

24 demolition   

n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹

参考例句：

• The church has been threatened with demolition for years. 这座教堂多年来一直面临拆毀的威胁。
• The project required the total demolition of the old bridge. 该项目要求将老桥完全拆毁。

25 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

26 blurting   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I can change my life minute by blurting out book. 脱口而出这本书，我就能够改变我的人生。 来自互联网
• B: I just practiced blurting out useful sentences every day for one year. 我只是用了一年的时间每天练习脱口而出有用的句子。 来自互联网

27 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。