All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [16]
Then the nigger woman brought in a pitcher of water on a tray, with three glasses, slipping her feet in old tennis shoes dryly along the board. Lucy Stark took one glass and Sadie Burke another, and the rest of us just passed around the third glass.
Then the photographer took a secret look at his watch, and cleared his throat, and said, “Governor–”
“Yeah?” the Boss answered.
“I just reckoned–if you and Mrs. Stark is rested and all–” he made a sitting-down bow in the direction of Lucy Stark, a bow from the waist that was quite a feat and gave the impression he had had a couple too many for the heat and was passing out in the chair–“if you all–”
The Boss stood up. “All right,” he said, grinning. “I just reckon I get you.” Then he looked at his wife questioningly.
Lucy Stark stood up, too.
“All set, Pappy,” the Boss said to the old man, and the old man stood up, too.
The Boss led the way out to the front porch. We all tailed him out like a procession. The photographer went to the second car and unpacked a tripod and the rest of his plunder and got it rigged up facing the steps. The Boss was standing on the steps, blinking and grinning, as though he were half asleep and knew what kind of a dream he was going to have.
“We’ll just take you first, Governor,” the photographer said, and the rest of us eased off the porch and out of range.
The photographer hid his head under the black cloth, then he popped out again agog with an idea. “The dog,” he said, “get the dog in there with you, Governor. You be petting the dog or something. Right there on the steps. It’ll be swell. It will be the nuts. You be petting that dog, he’s pawing up on you like he was glad to see you when you come home. See? It will be nuts.”
“Sure, the nuts,” the Boss said.
Then he turned toward the old white dog, which hadn’t moved a muscle since the Cadillac pulled up at the gate and was lying over to one side of the porch like a worn-out fur rug. “Here, Buck,” the Boss said, and snapped his fingers.
But the dog didn’t show a thing.
“Here, Buck,” the Boss called.
Tom Stark prodded the dog with his toe for a little encouragement, but he might just as well have been prodding a bolster.
“Buck is gitten on,” Old Man Stark said. “He ain’t right spry any more.” Then the old man went to the steps and stooped down with a motion which made you expect to hear the sound of old rusty hinges on a barn door. “Hi, Buck, hi, Buck,” the old man wheedled without optimism. He gave up, and lifted his gaze to the Boss. “If s hongry now,” he said, and shook hid head. “If he was hongry we could guile him. But he ain’t hongry. His teeth gone bad.”
The Boss looked at me, and I knew what I was paid to do.
“Jack,” the Boss said, “get the hairy bastard up here and make him look like he was glad to see me.”
I was supposed to do a lot of different things, and one of them was to lift up fifteen-year-old, hundred-and-thirty-five pound hairy white dogs on summer afternoons and paint an expression of unutterable bliss upon their faithful features as they gaze deep, deep into the Boss’s eyes. I got hold of Buck’s forelegs, as though I were girding myself to shove a wheelbarrow, and heaved. It didn’t work. I got his front end up for a second, but just as I got him up, he breathed out and I breathed in. One gust of Buck was enough. It was like a gust from a buzzard’s nest. I was paralyzed. Buck hit the porch boards and lay there like the old polar-bear rug he resembled.
Then Tom Stark and one of the reporters shoved on the tail end and I heaved on the front end and held my breath and we got Buck the seven feet to the Boss. The Boss braced himself, and we heaved up the front end, and the Boss got a gust of Buck.
That gust was enough.
“God’s sake, Pappy,” the Boss demanded as soon as he had mastered his spasm, “what you been feeding this dog?”
“He ain’t any appetite,” Old man Stark said.
“He ain’t any appetite for violets,” the Boss said, and spat on the ground.
“The