The Beetle Leg by John Hawkes

told.
    “They get no pardon. It ain’t just any hound can go out shorn and keep his head up. I say they’re done. My younger has gone just like him. Bringing that Indian into the house is about as bad. Neither one can hold himself straight. They was behind my back.
    “Around their age they start feeling worms inside and nothing I say will change it. Why, he’s been walking you sideways for twoyears steady. And when he won’t touch no food, there’s enough to kill him right there.
    “Some just worm themselves in. I ain’t going to be touched now the way you do. You ain’t going to get me to help you mix no water in his meal. Just to lie spread in the dish. I got to watch for him and keep him quiet. But I’m not sure he’ll make much noise anyway. Folks forget. They’ll forget the whole family.
    “They won’t even remember what month it was. And he won’t, for sure. No one knows mine neither. You ain’t going to live long enough with my boy to get the yellow off his teeth or bleach out what I learned him. You’re too old.
    “It wasn’t much. About when to come inside or out, is all. And if he’s found presumption to do more—and be offensive to some for the time being—I guess you ain’t going to get any good of it. Least to your face.
    “I ain’t a person to have stood up for either one of them. I don’t like to see a man worrying about whether his hat is on to front or back. And taken to traveling around on foot, tucking at his shirt and leaning down to loose his shoes. But as of now I cut them off, the two of them.
    “Maybe a woman ain’t fit to make something of them in the first place. Maybe I done wrong. And mine is even worse than most. Wherever them worms come from, that’s part the trouble.
    “If you can be like me, and I ain’t ready to admit that, your trouble might not be more than mine. But a bad dog just gets worse. I ain’t sure what you’ll do to him; I won’t thank you for it.”
    “Hattie,” Ma dropped her arm, “you better draw breath.”
    The begrimed driver shook the reins, wiped her face and looked at the old woman. “Mrs. Lampson, you shouldn’t question so. Itain’t right for you to hold out so harsh. This girl’s pure as snow.” She drove again.
    “Hattie just ain’t feeling well,” said Ma. “We got to overlook it. She come along for the sake of Mulge and me. That’s enough. And she’s going to stand right up there in front of all them people whether she’s sick or not. So we got to make allowance. She’ll be nicer when it’s done. Won’t you, Hattie?”
    For the last time his mother spoke and stopped mumbling. “I don’t know anything about snow. I ain’t ever seen none.”
    They rode without wagon headed sails. Lava and a few skull halves cracked beneath the wheels. Towards dusk a wind from the surface of the sun swept their path and blew against them live, lightly running bunches of gray wire and weed which sang against the sides of the wagons, across the burning bush, caught in the spokes and harness, stuck like burrs in the horses’ manes. The storm passed, hardly ruffling the discomfort of so many old and rigid women.
    Clare was nothing but a spot on the plain where the sand thinly billowed, kicked up by someone crossing the street, stirred by the closing of a swinging door. The women sat straight and smoothed themselves when they saw the small constant geyser raised by the mere presence of a few men. The horses suddenly began to pull, as if they too, heads to the ground, could see the camp town—Mistletoe was less than that at the time—and the hitching rail near the bare wood church.
    They were stopped by a shout from the Sheriff.
    “You can’t bring all them people in here. No, sir, not without a license!”
    Luke, not his brother, climbed down. He beat his hat against asore unlimbered leg. He tucked in his shirt, loosening the muscles of his arms and back, drawing up his chest, and walked the length of the wagon train to the