Chapter 53

An’ he thought this outstandin’ fox was just the ticket . . .” —he must be able to feel how it throbs¹; why doesn’t he stop? “Shh, Lee; Henry will notice. Besides, I hear you cry at night sometimes, too.” Now the sparks race up to the dark! Like little fiery² nightbirds—“You do? maybe I should explain . . .”—up and up and up and then gone, like little nightbirds— “But the things is, at just the time this ol’ boy wanted us to come hunt down his fox, this bluetick bitch of Hank’s she was right in the middle of heat an’ havin’ to be kept in the barn so’s every mutt in the country wouldn’t be after her. Hank, he still wanted to bring her along, sayin’ that as soon’s the hunt got goin’ none the other dogs would pay any attention to her condition. But Ben, he says, ‘Dammit, boy, don’t try to tell your Uncle Ben about what a animal will frigging pay attention to and what he won’t: those dogs would leave a whole treeful of foxes to mount that bitch of yours ...I mean I know about these sorta things. . . .’ an’ Hank, he says that we didn’t have to worry about his dog gettin’ mounted, that she could outrun anything on four legs he didn’t care what kind of attention it were payin’ her . . .” —Henry is a nighthawk from behind, perched against the flames. “Shh, Lee.” “Don’t worry about him, Viv—” Doesn’t he care if Henry hears? “—he can’t hear us; he’s too wrapped up in his story.” Or doesn’t he care to leave me alone so we can just watch the sparks, or listen to that faraway belling of that one lone³ dog (scrabbling up loose dirt, sliding, leaning to corner a stump⁴, a log up! Molly soars over the deadfall in her path without breaking stride, forepaws folded back against her scratched and bleeding breastbone, ears spreading for the jump like nicked wings; at the peak of her jump, across weightless expanse of brush, she saw him for the first time since he had broken through the pack—a round wobbling black ball flecked with the glisten⁵ of moonlight, boring ahead through the wet fern: bay-OO-OO-OOHRR!—then stretched forth⁶ her paws to catch the jar of earth running again) that one baying dog so far away and so beautiful . . . doesn’t he care? “Viv, listen to me, please.” “Shh, I’m listening to Henry’s story.” “But Ben he says, ‘Henry, I don’t know as I’d let that boy bring that Jezebel along an’ that’s the truth—we’d be watchin’ a rape⁷ instead of a hunt.’ But Hank he says we just gotta let him bring her ’cause there won’t be another hunt or another fox like this for her to learn on in years!” —the hand presses, slight desperate pressure: “But I have to talk to you—to somebody ...please. And I might not have another chance.” But doesn’t he feel that pounding there? “No, Lee, don’t . . .” “Well, we fussed and fussed about it for a spell and anyhow what happened is Hank talked Ben into lettin’ him bring her along just for the trip, just so’s she could watch the hunt, not even run in it—an’ Ben says all right. ‘But listen here,’ Ben says, ‘you keep that whore up front in the cab with us on the trip over—sit her in your lap or something, just don’t put her in back with all the other hounds; they’d be so rundown with screwing her that by the time we got across the hills to the hunt they wouldn’t be able to see nothing but tail, or trail nothing but cunt! Assuming they had the strength left to run a trail at all. ...’ ” —she tries to stop her ears against the words at her cheek— “I must tell you something. Viv. About Hank, what I was planning to do. And why”—against the needle-sharp hook of pain she senses lurking⁸ beneath the words, tugging⁹ at her flesh; “It all started a long time ago . . .” But in spite of her efforts to stop the words she can feel some of the need getting through: he doesn’t need me that much, he couldn’t— “So Hank’s bitch rode up front all the way over, sitting in his lap. We got there an’ it was just comin’ daylight, I recall, sun was just comin’ up. An’ there was another fella there an’ he had him six or seven dogs. An’ when they saw how we’s all favorin’ Hank’s bluetick—I mean had her up in his arms by god—they wanted to know what kinda damned animal we had that had to be treated so special. Hank says, ‘The best goddamned animal of its kind in the state.’ This feller with the other dogs, he winks¹⁰ at me an’ says, ‘Why, we’ll just see about that!’ An’ goes into his pocket for his wallet and lays a ten-dollar bill on the car fender an’ says, ‘Right, here we go, sport. Ten to one. Ten dollars to your buck¹¹, my old brake-legged beat-up mongrel here finds that fox before your pedigree.’ An’ points over at his dog, about the finest-lookin’ walker I ever see in my life with three or four these Kennel¹² Club badges from field trials on his collar. Hank starts to eat pie about then an’ say he can’t let his dog run because of a game leg or some such an’ this guy gives him the horse laugh an’ brings out another ten-dollar bill an’ plunks it down an’ says, ‘All right, twenty to one an’ I’ll hold my flea-farm back the count of fifty.’ Hank, he looks up there at me an’ I just shrug¹³ on account it’s Ben’s pick-up an’ Ben’s hunt, an’ Hank’s about to have him another slice of humble¹⁴ pie when Ben comes over an’ puts a buck on the fender an’ says, ‘You’re on, old buddy¹⁵.’ An’ this fella like to dropped his teeth out. I mean a fifty-count lead! Lordymercy, that’s way out yonder for a dog even if she is in heat an’ inexperienced! So this ol’ boy has talked himself into a bind¹⁶. He swallers a time or two but he ain’t about to eat some of his own cookin’, so he gives Ben a hard look an’ says all right . . .” —and as this need grows more intense so does a sensation of movement, speed to come, impending¹⁷ declaration—“The past is funny, Viv; it never seems to let things lie, finished. It never seems to stay in place as it should”—until she feels that she is beginning to run down an ever steepening hill and she must stop before the hill gets too steep and she gets going too fast to stop: Oh. Look! A bit of the moon; how pretty— “So we go on over through this fence to the other ol’ boy’s, the farmer’s, barn, an’ he says we can drive most the way up this gully if the fox runs that way, which he’s like to do. An’ he says we ought’n’ have no trouble picking up his trail ’cause he’s all around the henhouse every night. So Hank takes his dog on over to the fence and sics her onto the scent¹⁸ ’n’ off she goes sure enough at a real smart clip, too. This fellow, he goes over there to the fence with his dog and fires him up while Hank counts. Then off he goes! and a little bit after that we let all the rest of  ’em loose just to be shut of ’em. So this fellow got in the pickup¹⁹ with us an’ we took out up this road and I swear we run them dogs for hours in this little bitty ole canyon²⁰ not much bigger’n our own front porch. Over an’ around an’ back an’ forth. I told Ben, I says, ‘That by god is about the smartest fox I ever seen. How that bastard²¹ can keep ahead o’ them dogs this long without treein’—in a little bitty place like this—hell, I bet they wasn’t a rod o’ area—little bitty stream—an’ he just kept goin’!” —She lets her eyes unfocus. Look. That stick of spruce has feathers of flame, spanning. “And some things out of the past kept troubling the present, my present . . . so much so that I felt I had to eliminate the past, to destroy it. That’s one reason for my tears in the night.” But crying isn’t really so different from singing. Sure. Or from that dog’s baying. (Molly clawed spraddle-legged up the face of the rock toward the sucking black hole where the bear had gone. She fell, unable to grasp the lip of the cavern²² as the bear had. She bayed and leaped again, but this time skittered off sideways down between a boulder²³ and the rock wall, into a narrow stone slot squirming with dark. She wrenched²⁴ free, still baying, and ran to leap again. But felt a sudden, searing weight at her hip²⁵ hauling her back, jerking her back from the rock like a red-hot leash²⁶ driven into her hipbone) And crying doesn’t always mean need— “Well, just like we was scared he’d do, the fox finally made a dash for it. We was up to one end of the canyon when we heard the dogs turn an’ double back past us toward the farm. We swung the pick-up around an’ headed after ’em, Ben at the wheel just apourin’ it to her. We knew we had to keep purty good track after they passed the mouth of the canyon where the farm was, ’cause out past that was a lotta rivers an’ roads an’ stuff where they might run for days. So when we get to the farm at the mouth of the canyon we wheel up to the fence an’ that ol’ farmer that owns the place, he’s standin’ there lookin’ after that pack of animals where they’re foggin’ it up the road to beat thunder....” But, oh, I wish he would please leave me alone. . . . “And soon’s we stop ol’ Ben jumps out an’ hollers an’ asts the farmer, ‘Say! was that them come right past here jest now?’ And this old boy, this farmer says, ‘It shore was.’ And Ben jumps back into the pick-up, about to head on out after ’em, when just then Hank—it seems like he was in the back; must of been in the back, I guess, that other fellow we’d made the bet with was up in the cab with Ben an’ me—when Hank says wait and hollers, ‘Where was my dog runnin’? My bluetick?’ The farmer, he kinda grins and says, ‘The young bitch? Why, she was runnin’ out in front, naturally.’ An’ this gets a rise outa the other old boy—him and his fifty bucks²⁷ he stands to lose—an’ he says, ‘Did you see what position my walker was runnin’?’ An’ the farmer nods an’ says, ‘Why yessir, I did. Your dog was runnin’ a good close third, just about neck-and-neck with the fox!’ With the fox! Yee haw haw . . .” The old man reared back and beat again at the fire with his stick. “Yee haw haw haw...neck-and-neck with the boogin’ fox, y’see? Ben’d been right: hounds, fox an’ all had all been so interested in a little nooky they’d the whole bunch of ’em been the livelong night runnin’ the tail offn that pore little bluetick! Yee haw! Ben teased Hank about it for months, sayin’ she’d probably whelp a litter of blueticks with big red fox bushtails! Oh me...oh haw haw haw!” The old man shook his head, then pushed himself standing²⁸ with the cane²⁹. Still chortling at his anecdote³⁰, he walked to the edge of the firelight; when Lee heard him peeing into the dry vetch he went on with his furtive³¹ whispering.

1 throbs   

体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My finger throbs with the cut. 我的手指因切伤而阵阵抽痛。
• We should count time by heart throbs, in the cause of right. 我们应该在正确的目标下，以心跳的速度来计算时间。

2 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

3 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

4 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

5 glisten   

vi.（光洁或湿润表面等）闪闪发光，闪闪发亮

参考例句：

• Dewdrops glisten in the morning sun.露珠在晨光下闪闪发光。
• His sunken eyes glistened with delight.他凹陷的眼睛闪现出喜悦的光芒。

6 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

7 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

8 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 tugging   

n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉，样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他，一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句

10 winks   

v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• I'll feel much better when I've had forty winks. 我打个盹就会感到好得多。
• The planes were little silver winks way out to the west. 飞机在西边老远的地方，看上去只是些很小的银色光点。 来自辞典例句

11 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

12 kennel   

n.狗舍，狗窝

参考例句：

• Sporting dogs should be kept out of doors in a kennel.猎狗应该养在户外的狗窝中。
• Rescued dogs are housed in a standard kennel block.获救的狗被装在一个标准的犬舍里。

13 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

14 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

15 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

16 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。

17 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

18 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

19 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

20 canyon   

n.峡谷，溪谷

参考例句：

• The Grand Canyon in the USA is 1900 metres deep.美国的大峡谷1900米深。
• The canyon is famous for producing echoes.这个峡谷以回声而闻名。

21 bastard   

n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子

参考例句：

• He was never concerned about being born a bastard.他从不介意自己是私生子。
• There was supposed to be no way to get at the bastard.据说没有办法买通那个混蛋。

22 cavern   

n.洞穴，大山洞

参考例句：

• The cavern walls echoed his cries.大山洞的四壁回响着他的喊声。
• It suddenly began to shower,and we took refuge in the cavern.天突然下起雨来，我们在一个山洞里避雨。

23 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

24 wrenched   

v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• The bag was wrenched from her grasp. 那只包从她紧握的手里被夺了出来。
• He wrenched the book from her hands. 他从她的手中把书拧抢了过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 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。

26 leash   

n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住

参考例句：

• I reached for the leash,but the dog got in between.我伸手去拿系狗绳，但被狗挡住了路。
• The dog strains at the leash,eager to be off.狗拼命地扯拉皮带，想挣脱开去。

27 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》

28 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

29 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

30 anecdote   

n.轶事，趣闻，短故事

参考例句：

• He departed from the text to tell an anecdote.他偏离课文讲起了一则轶事。
• It had never been more than a family anecdote.那不过是个家庭趣谈罢了。

31 furtive   

adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的

参考例句：

• The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.老师怀疑这个学生在考试时有偷偷摸摸的行为。
• His furtive behaviour aroused our suspicion.他鬼鬼祟祟的行为引起了我们的怀疑。