The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [19]
Mose an’ Luke wouldn’t be back for six hours yet. Tomorrow night they wouldn’t go; but the cat was gonna git him tonight. Lemme go wit you boys an’ smell him out for you. I the onliest one kin smell ‘round here.
They’d lose him in the woods, they’d said. Huntin’ wildcats won’t no business for him.
I ain’t afraid er no wildcat er no woods neither. Lemme go wit you boys, lemme go.
Ain’t no reason to be ‘fraid to stay here by yosef, they’d laughed. Ain’t nothin’ gonna git you. We take you up the road to Mattie’s ef you scaird.
Mattie’s! Take him to Mattie’s! Settiri’ wit the women. What yawl think I is? I ain’t afraid er no wildcat. But it comin’, boys; an’ it ain’t gonna be in no woods—it gonna be here. Yawl wastin’ yo’ time in the woods. Stay here an’ you ketch it.
He suppose to be countin’. Where he Ieft off at? Five hunnert an’ five, five hunnert an’ six… Mattie’s! What they think he is? Five hunnert an’ two, five hunnert an’….
He sat stiff in the chair with his hands gripped tight to the stick across his knees. It won’t gonna git him like he was a woman. His shirt was stuck wet to him, making him smell higher. The men had come back later in the night with a rabbit and two squirrels. He began to remember the other wildcat and he remembered as if he had been in Hezuh’s cabin instead of with the women. He wondered was he Hezuh. He was Gabrul. It won’t gonna git him like Hezuh. He was gonna hit it. He was gonna pull it off. He was gonna… how he gonna do all that? He hadn’t been able to wring a chicken’s neck for fo’ years. It was gonna git him. Won’t nothin’ to do but wait. The smell was near. Won’t nothin’ for old people to do but wait. It was gonna git him tonight. The teeth would be hot an’ the claws cold. The claws would sink in soft, an’ the teeth would cut sharp an’ scrape his bones inside.
Gabriel felt the sweat on himself. It kin smell me good’s I kin smell it, he thought. I settin’ here smellin’ an’ it cornin’ here smellin’. Two hunnert an’ fa’, where he lef’ off at? Fa’ hunnert an’ five….
There was a sudden scratching by the chimney. He sat forward, tense, tight-throated. “Come on,” he whispered, “I here. I waitin’.” He couldn’t move. He couldn’t make himself move. There was another scratching. It was the pain he didn’t want. But he didn’t want the waiting either. “I here,” he—there was another, just a small noise and then a flutter. Bats. His grip on the stick loosened. He should have known that won’t it. It won’t no farther than the barn yet. What ail his nose? What ail him? Won’t no nigger for hunnert miles could smell like he could. He heard the scratching again, coming differently, coming from the corner of the house where the cat hole was. Pick pick… pick. That was a bat. He knowd that was a bat. Pick pick. “Here I is,” he whispered. Won’t no bat. He braced his feet to get up. Pick. “Lord waitin’ on me,” he whispered. “He don’t want me with my face tore open. Why don’t you go on, Wildcat, why you want me?” He was on his feet now. “Lord don’t want me with no wildcat marks.” He was moving toward the cat hole. Across on the river bank the Lord was waiting on him with a troupe of angels and golden vestments for him to put on and when he came, he’d put on the vestments and stand there with the Lord and the angels, judging life. Won’t no nigger for fifty miles fitter to judge than him. Pick. He stopped. He smelled it right outside, nosing the hole. He had to climb onto something! What he going toward it for? He had to get on something high! There was a shelf nailed over the chimney and he turned wildly and fell against a chair and shoved it up to the fireplace. He caught hold of the shelf and pulled himself onto the chair and sprang up and backwards and felt the narrow shelf board under him for an instant and then felt it sag and jerked his feet up and felt it crack somewhere from the wall. His stomach flew