Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham Page B
Authors: David Anthony Durham
Tags: Fiction
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the
white man on the outskirts of Crownsville, where heâd arrived a
few days earlier with a thousand head of cattle. He walked out to
greet them with a smile from ear to ear, shaking his head and
pointing his finger from one man to the next. They penned the
horses in a corral heâd reserved for them, and then he sat them
down in the nearest saloon and plied them with whiskey and asked
them their tale. He laughed often as he listened, finding humor in
the story that the tellers hadnât intended. He praised them each
and all, clapping the black man on the back and tugging the Scotâs
hat and punching another in the shoulder. And what with the
market this weekend . . . Boys, this pigâs in heaven.
THE HORSE AND CATTLE MARKETS were at the southern edge of Crownsville, set away from the houses, down a broad slope and in an enormous, shallow bowl. From a distance, one could see a motley conglomeration of fenced-off areas, buildings and parts of buildings, wood structures that jutted up like abandoned scaffolding. What these were or would be was hard to say, but undoubtedly they were the work of some entrepreneurial dreamer, strapped for the moment in want of wood or money.
It was in and about these works that the market in flesh plied its wares. As Gabriel and James walked toward it, they marveled at the mass of life before them. It may have been only a tiny fraction of the great herds of this landâs near past, but to their eyes the animals seemed beyond calculation. The herds were such, in fact, that the boys had to choose their way carefully for danger of finding themselves deep within a moaning body of cattle. They twice had to break into a fast jog to avoid such a fate, and they were once shouted at by a cowboy on a sorrel horse, who waved at them with his whip, a gesture directional and threatening at once. They followed his command as best as they could understand it, and before long they had made it through that gauntlet and blended in among human herds of considerably smaller yet no less confusing numbers. It wasnât until they attached themselves to a stationary object, a fence of wood surrounding a ring of some fifty yards squared, that they could again breathe easily.
A bull stood in the center of the ring, eyeing the crowd with belligerent mistrust. It was an enormous thing of solid white, built of muscles. Its horns were adorned with silver caps that caught the sun in blinding flashes. The shaft that hid its member dangled serenely beneath it, conspicuous in its life-giving power. The bull seemed to stand there for no particular purpose that it or the boys could make out, except as a spectacle reminiscent of some pagan culture.
A boy not much older than themselves entered the ring. He wore the hat of a cowboy and walked with a wide-legged swagger, but in fact his arms were so thin as to be diminutive, his chest so narrow as to mark him a child. Gabriel and James watched him closely. The bull spun around when it caught sight of the boy, chucked its head in the air, and flared its nostrils. It hardly looked like a creature that would bow to the whims of man, and it appeared that the boy was about to offer the audience a share of gore at his own expense. But to Gabrielâs surprise, the boy just walked over to the beast, stroked it calmly on the nose, and led it away. It walked behind him like a misshapen, obedient sibling.
Soon after, the ring filled with horses. They came in charged with energy, bustling into each corner of the enclosed space, measuring its dimensions. They wheeled and turned, neighed and spoke to each other, shared horse thoughts about this new space and this old event and about the people watching them. Brown was the most prominent color, but a few were black, one was reddish in hue, and many were paints. Some had about them the look of Indian horses, a certain wildness in the eyes and an energy hardly contained in such a small space.
An auctioneer took his post,
white man on the outskirts of Crownsville, where heâd arrived a
few days earlier with a thousand head of cattle. He walked out to
greet them with a smile from ear to ear, shaking his head and
pointing his finger from one man to the next. They penned the
horses in a corral heâd reserved for them, and then he sat them
down in the nearest saloon and plied them with whiskey and asked
them their tale. He laughed often as he listened, finding humor in
the story that the tellers hadnât intended. He praised them each
and all, clapping the black man on the back and tugging the Scotâs
hat and punching another in the shoulder. And what with the
market this weekend . . . Boys, this pigâs in heaven.
THE HORSE AND CATTLE MARKETS were at the southern edge of Crownsville, set away from the houses, down a broad slope and in an enormous, shallow bowl. From a distance, one could see a motley conglomeration of fenced-off areas, buildings and parts of buildings, wood structures that jutted up like abandoned scaffolding. What these were or would be was hard to say, but undoubtedly they were the work of some entrepreneurial dreamer, strapped for the moment in want of wood or money.
It was in and about these works that the market in flesh plied its wares. As Gabriel and James walked toward it, they marveled at the mass of life before them. It may have been only a tiny fraction of the great herds of this landâs near past, but to their eyes the animals seemed beyond calculation. The herds were such, in fact, that the boys had to choose their way carefully for danger of finding themselves deep within a moaning body of cattle. They twice had to break into a fast jog to avoid such a fate, and they were once shouted at by a cowboy on a sorrel horse, who waved at them with his whip, a gesture directional and threatening at once. They followed his command as best as they could understand it, and before long they had made it through that gauntlet and blended in among human herds of considerably smaller yet no less confusing numbers. It wasnât until they attached themselves to a stationary object, a fence of wood surrounding a ring of some fifty yards squared, that they could again breathe easily.
A bull stood in the center of the ring, eyeing the crowd with belligerent mistrust. It was an enormous thing of solid white, built of muscles. Its horns were adorned with silver caps that caught the sun in blinding flashes. The shaft that hid its member dangled serenely beneath it, conspicuous in its life-giving power. The bull seemed to stand there for no particular purpose that it or the boys could make out, except as a spectacle reminiscent of some pagan culture.
A boy not much older than themselves entered the ring. He wore the hat of a cowboy and walked with a wide-legged swagger, but in fact his arms were so thin as to be diminutive, his chest so narrow as to mark him a child. Gabriel and James watched him closely. The bull spun around when it caught sight of the boy, chucked its head in the air, and flared its nostrils. It hardly looked like a creature that would bow to the whims of man, and it appeared that the boy was about to offer the audience a share of gore at his own expense. But to Gabrielâs surprise, the boy just walked over to the beast, stroked it calmly on the nose, and led it away. It walked behind him like a misshapen, obedient sibling.
Soon after, the ring filled with horses. They came in charged with energy, bustling into each corner of the enclosed space, measuring its dimensions. They wheeled and turned, neighed and spoke to each other, shared horse thoughts about this new space and this old event and about the people watching them. Brown was the most prominent color, but a few were black, one was reddish in hue, and many were paints. Some had about them the look of Indian horses, a certain wildness in the eyes and an energy hardly contained in such a small space.
An auctioneer took his post,
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