The Double Hook by Sheila Watson Page A

started clutching at you like gumbo.
    There’s too much supposing, Ara said. Yet how can a man escape it since he can’t hold and shape the world. I often envy the horses, she said, standing tail to head and head to rump flicking off each other’s flies.
    And biting one another from time to time, William said. And letting go with their heels. Beasts aren’t much different from me, he said, though they’ve often less freedom. Take my horse, he said.
    He could break out, Ara said. He’s the strength to defy you. You or any man at all.
    He could, William said, but what would he gain by it. He wouldn’t know where to go or what to do after the break. I’ve seen horses, he said, untie themselves and go walking out of barns. I’ve seen them knock down fences and kick themselves out of corrals. But I’ve seen them come wandering back to the barn and the hay. Some, he said, are pure outlaw. But there’s the torment of loneliness and the will of snow and heat they can’t escape, and the likelihood that some stranger will put a rope on them at last.
    Or perhaps even the man that branded them, Ara said. There are some men I suppose who follow, their ropes coiledand waiting. Sometimes I think of God like that, she said. The glory of his face shaded by his hat. Not coaxing with pans of oats, but coming after you with a whip until you stand and face him in the end.
    I don’t know about God, William said. Your god sounds only a step from the Indian’s Coyote. Though that one would jump on a man when his back was turned. I’ve never seen God, he said, but if I did I don’t think I’d be very much surprised.
    I don’t suppose you would, Ara said. Then she picked up the dishes and put them in the pan.
    You’re right, she said. Let’s get ready to go. I’ve a feeling that perhaps we’re wanted.
    You might have baked something, William said. But it’s too late to be thinking of that now.
5
    Before Ara and William had shut the door of their house behind them, Felix Prosper arrived at Theophil’s.
    Angel had cleared the dishes away and sent the children out, but Theophil had gone back to the mattress. He lay loose there like a dog on a rumpled sack. His eyes sagging half shut. His face twitching and jerking as if in near sleep he sniffed again the rank scent of other men on the grass which grew tufted at his own doorstep.
    You’re just thinking up trouble, Angel said, the way a man thinks up reasons for what he’s got his mind harnessed to do.
    Go on, Theophil said, opening his eyes. Go on as if you were reading out of a newspaper what’s in my mind. Go on as if my head was as plain to see into as an old shack with thecurtains off. Last night you knew what my intentions were, he said, but you didn’t know why I intended. Why that Kip is nothing but a go-between for James and his women.
    What women? Angel asked.
    Well, the Wagner girl for one, Theophil said.
    And for two? Angel asked.
    A knocking at the door answered her.
    Just a minute, Theophil said. He got up from the mattress and pulled on his trousers.
    To think, he said, that someone would come so close and I’d not hear.
    Well, said Angel, am I to answer or are you set on combing and scrubbing yourself first? What’s good enough to lay round in is good enough to open the door in.
    But the door opened itself. Was opened by Prosper who stood hearing the words before and after the knock. Who stood listening when the occasion for listening had come and gone. Who stood feeling the sweat leak from under the grip of his cotton cap. Stood feeling the dust nagging the soles of his feet.
    Felix heavy on the doorstep. Angel spun round like a flame on the wide boards of the floor. Behind Theophil rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
    What could he say, Felix thought. All the way up the road he’d been trying to form the words.
    Peace be with you, he said.
    Angel took a step forward.
    Forgive us our trespasses, Felix said.
    Theophil shoved Angel aside and started for the