Mastodonia

SEVEN

Back in the car, heading for home, Rila asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about this Catface?”

“I did mention him,” I told her. “I didn’t elaborate on what kind of thing he is. You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“And you thought I’d believe Ezra?”

“Well, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure if I do or not. It sounds like a backwoods tall tale. And Ezra — a philosophical hermit. I never dreamed there were people like him.”

“There aren’t many. He’s a bitter-ender of a died-out breed. When I was a boy, there were a few of them around. At one time, there were a lot of them. Old batches, my grandmother used to call them. Men who never married, who tended to pull away from society and live by themselves. They batched it — cooked for themselves, washed their clothes, grew little kitchen gardens, kept a dog or some cats for company. They lived by hiring out, working for farmers during busy seasons, perhaps doing some wood cutting in the winter. Most of them did some trapping — skunks, muskrats, things like that. To some extent, they lived off the land, hunting, fishing, gathering wild edible plants. Mostly they lived hand-to-mouth, but they got along, seemed generally happy. They had few worries because they had shucked responsibility. When they grew feeble and were unable to fend for themselves, they either were committed to the old-time poorhouses, or some neighbor took them in and kept them for the chores they could still manage to do. In other cases, someone dropped in on their shacks and found them dead a week. They were mostly shiftless and no account. When they got a little extra money together, they would go out on a drunk until their money was gone, then go back to their shacks and then, in another few months, they’d have scraped together enough for another drunken interlude.”

“It sounds like a singularly unattractive life to me,” said Rila.

“By modern standards,” I told her, “it is. What you are looking at is a pioneer attitude. Some of our young people have picked up the idea. They call it living off the land. It can’t be all bad.”

“Asa, you say you have seen this creature Ezra was telling us about, and you talked about panther scares.

So other people may have seen it, too.”

“That’s the only way I can explain the panther stories. It does look faintly catlike.”

“But a grinning panther!”

“When people see a panther, or something they think is a panther, they’re not too likely to notice any grin. They’re scared. The grin, in their interpretation, could become a snarl.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “The whole thing is so fantastic. And yet, so is your dig. And Bowser wounded by a Folsom point. And the green dinosaur bones.”

“You’re asking for an explanation,” I said. “Rila, I’m out of explanations. There is a temptation to tie everything together. But I can’t be sure all these mysteries tie together. I can’t be sure at all. I wouldn’t blame you if you walked away. It’s not a pretty thing to face.”

“Perhaps not pretty,” she said, “but exciting and important. If anyone else had told me, I’d consider walking away. But I know you. You’d be honest in your thinking if it killed you. But it is a little frightening. 1 have the feeling that I’m standing on the brink of something I don’t understand, perhaps some great reality that will force us to take a new look at the universe.”

I laughed, but the laugh came out a little forced.

“Let’s not take ourselves too seriously,” I said. “Let’s go one step at a time. It’s easier that way.”

‘ “Yes, let’s do that,” she agreed, sounding relieved.

“I wonder how Bowser is getting along.”

When we arrived home a few minutes later, it became apparent that Bowser was getting along quite well. Hiram was perched on the back stoop, with a stretched-out Bowser plastered close against him. Seeing us. Bowser beat his tail in welcome.

“How is he?” Rila asked Hiram.

“Bowser is okay,” said Hiram. “Me and him had a good day. We sat and watched the robin and we did a lot of talking. I washed out the place where the arrow hit him and it looks good. There ain’t no more bleeding and the wound is beginning to scab around the edges. Bowser was a good dog. He lay still when I cleaned it out. He didn’t even twitch. He knew I was helping him.”

“Did you find something to eat?” I asked.

“There was a piece of roast in the refrigerator and Bowser and me shared that. There was a little left and I gave that to Bowser for supper and fried some eggs for myself. We went and got the eggs out of the nests.

There were eleven of them.”

Hiram got slowly to his feet, seeming to unfold as he arose. “Since you are here,” he said, “I’ll go on home. I’ll be back in the morning to take care of Bowser.”

“If you have something else to do,” I said, “there isn’t any need. We’ll be here. We’ll take care of him.”

“I got things to do,” Hiram said with dignity. “There are always things to do. But I promised Bowser. I told him I’d take care of him until he was all well.”

He came down the steps and started to go around the house, then stopped. “I forgot,” he said. “I didn’t shut the chicken house. It should be shut. There are a lot of skunks and foxes.”

“You go on,” I said. “I’ll shut up the chickens.”