Demon Box

If I had been impressed earlier by M’kehla’s strength and agility, I was now astounded at my own. We were catching and throwing animals with ease, some topping two hundred pounds, one after the other. From just the tiniest pinch of powder! It dawned on me why it had been nicknamed after the superslick race-car additive; I was not only newly powdered but freshly lubricated as well, functioning without friction, without deliberation. No debates over right or wrong good or bad to impede the flow and delay decisions. In fact, no decisions. It was like skiing too steep or surfing too far out on the curl of a breaker too big: full go.

And the women couldn’t even tell we were high.

Davy stood near the keg, sipping beer and watching from under a defeated scowl. He made no move to help, and the only time I saw him smile was when Percy drawled a suggestion how we could avoid all this unnecessary toil.

“Say, you know? What Ah say we ought to do… is cross these calves with all these damn pigeons.” He hitched at his belt like a Hollywood cattle baron. “And get you a herd of homing cows.” Everybody laughed in spite of the count. Percy whooped and slapped his leg and elbowed Quiston. “What do you say to that, Quizzer? Homing cows?”

“Good idea!” Quiston agreed. “Homing cows!” Always an admirer of the older boy’s style, Quiston hitched at his britches and drawled, “But what Ah say we ought to do… is we ought to go down to the pond and get that thing out, like Dad said he would.”

“What thing?”

“That monster thing.”

“Hey, damn straight, Quiz,” Percy remembered. “Before it gets too shady. Haul him out an’ brand him!”

“At the pumphouse, you say? That’s a deep dive.”

“I dove it.”

“Yeah, Dad. Percy dove it.”

I stood up and looked around me, tall as a tower. Everything seemed under control. Pastoral. Bucolic. The fresh cedar shavings like soft golden coins under the sun. The calves all cowed and calm. The huge flag not so much waved by the breeze as waving it, like a great gaudy hand stirring the air to keep the flies away.

Buddy plunged the frosted brand back into the fogging tub, watching me.

“How many more?” I asked.

“Just three,” he told me. “Those two easy little Angus and that ornery spotted Mongol over there.”

I took off one of my gloves and wiped my stinging head. I realized I was rushing like a sweaty river. Buddy was focusing hard on my face.

“We got more than enough hands to finish up here. Why don’t you go on down and cool off. Capture their dragon. Get them out from underfoot.”

Everybody was watching. I took off my other glove and handed them to Buddy along with my lariat.

“Alright, I will. We’ll geld this Gorgon ere he spawns.”

“Yaahoo, Uncle Dev!” yelled Percy.

And Quiston echoed, “Yaahoooo, Dad!”

I followed the boys past the shade maple where Dobbs was fussing in his sound scene. He had a cold beer in one hand and a live microphone in the other, happy as a duck in Disneyland.

“How-dee!” he greeted us through the mike. “Here’s some of our gladiators now, rodeo fans. Maybe we can get a word. Say, podnah, how’s it going out there in the arena? From up here it looks like you’re drubbing those little dogies pretty decisively.”

“We got ‘em on ice!” Percy answered for me, pulling the microphone to his mouth. “We’re letting the second string finish ‘em off.”

“Yeah, Dobbs,” Quiston added proudly. “And now we’re going after that thing at the bottom of the pond!”

“Hear that, fans? Straight from the barnyard to the black lagoon without a break. Let’s give these plucky wranglers a big hand.”

The women making potato salad across the lawn managed a cheer. Dobbs settled the needle on a fresh record.

“In their honor, friends and neighbors, here’s Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers doing their immortal ‘Cool Water.’ Take it away Bob!”

He thumbed off the mike and leaned close. “You okay, Old Timer?”

I told him Sure, better than okay. Super. Just going along with these, get this, rinse the grit off before dinner it smells great I better catch those kids.

The smell of the meat sizzling on the barbecue was, in fact, making my throat constrict. But I didn’t feel like I needed sustenance. Every cell in my body seemed bursting with enough fuel to keep me cooking for a decade.

The pond trembled in the sun. The boys were already shucking clothes into the daisies. From up the slope behind us I heard a cheer rise as the wranglers caught the spotted Mongol, and Dobbs’s boozy voice joined the Sons of the Pioneers on the chorus, declaring he’s a devil not a man, and he spreads the burnin’ sand with water—

“—cooool, cleeeer wah-ter.”

I knew it would be cool all right, but none too clear. Even when it wasn’t glinting at you, spirogyra and pondweed made it difficult to see more than a few feet beneath the surface. I sat down and started unlacing my boots.

“Okay, lads; where is this mooncalf a-murking?”