This time he hit perfectly. The sharpened point plunked into the center of the fur and there was a screech like somebody drawing a million fingernails across blackboards and about fifty pounds of really angry lynx looked back around the corner directly into Harris’s eyes, his soul.
“Oh...” he had time to say. “Buzzer. No, Buzzer. I’m sorry, Buzzer. I’m really sorry. Buzzer, no! Please, Buzzer...”
He had thrown down the bow and by this time was running across the yard trying either to make the granary or the house. It didn’t matter which because Buzzer was on him in three bounds and the two of them went rolling in a cloud of dirt and screeches.
“He’s killing me!” Harris screamed. “Help me!” Arms and legs and paws and tufted ears seemed to be everywhere.
I was worried about Harris—though I didn’t think he could be killed by anything—but I wasn’t about to cross Buzzer. I yelled, “Buzzer, you stop that now...”
Which of course had no effect at all. The fight kept roiling and boiling, and I’m not sure what the outcome would have been but suddenly the screen door on the house swung open and Clair was standing there, her hands in her apron.
“Harris! You quit playing with Buzzer now and come inside—we have to get ready for town.”
And that stopped Buzzer. When the dust settled he was standing on top of Harris, looking at Clair, spitting out bits of bib overall, his stump tail wriggling happily.
“Get off me, you gooner,” Harris said. “Didn’t you hear? We got to go inside...”
He rolled out from under Buzzer and stood. His bibs were in shreds and he was bleeding from a dozen or so cuts but seemed in one piece and he ran to the house. I made a loop around Buzzer, who spat once more and went back toward the barn, and I followed Harris into the house.
“Is there a dance or what, Ma?”
Harris was by the sink where Clair was pumping cold water into a steaming pan of hot water to cool it.
“Yes. There’s a dance and a party for the Halversons—to help them rebuild. Their house burned.”
“Is there a picture show?” The tragic news didn’t seem to bother Harris much. “Do we get a picture show?”
She smiled and nodded. “I think so, yes.”
“Can we have pop?” he added. “Don’t we get to have pop for the picture show?”
She didn’t answer that one but instead bent his head over the sink and started cleaning it in much the same way she or Glennis cleaned the separator parts after milking: pouring hot water on a spot, scrubbing with a stiff-bristle brush until he screamed—or actually well after he screamed, ignoring the cries for mercy and some first-rate profanity—and then doing another spot.
I stood watching all this, not thinking that I would be next, until Harris was done—literally and figuratively—and then Clair turned to me.
“Put your head over the sink, dear—you look like you’ve been swimming in manure.”
I did so and in moments understood why Harris had screamed so hard. It felt like the brush was made of nails. She dug and probed at every crevice and opening on my head, pouring scalding water between bouts of scrubbing until I felt like all my skin was gone.
“There,” she said, pouring water the color and consistency of the Mississippi down the sink from the dishpan. “Now you’re clean. We’ll go right after chores, so you two stay clean and change clothes after we milk.”
Harris went out the door at a run, jumped off the porch down into the grass, and ran around in circles, prancing like he was riding a horse. “Maybe it’ll be Gene.”
“What are you talking about?” I was still hurting from the scrubbing and felt to see if any of my ears remained.
“Gene Artery, you dope. Didn’t you hear what she said? They’re going to have a movie show. There ain’t but about three picture shows in the world and one of them is Gene Artery.”
“You mean Gene Autry?”
“Right. He runs around shooting things and he never misses. You ought to see it. He can shoot the gun clean out of somebody’s hand and never a miss. Man, I hope it’s that Gene Artery picture show. I’ve only seen that one fifteen or twenty times and it gets better each time. He’s got this fat guy runs around with him who’s dumber than a pump handle and is always getting into trouble. I don’t see how he stays alive from one picture show to the next...”
“It’s a movie.”
He stared at me.
“It’s not new each time. They just do it once and then they show it all over the place.” I had seen Gene Autry movies many times, and others, Roy Rogers, some war movies.
He snorted. “Sure. You must think I’m as dumb as the fat guy. Heck, you can see them moving each time. Don’t you suppose I know what’s real and what ain’t?”
He just didn’t understand and I thought to explain it more except that it was all a bit fuzzy for me as well. I knew about movies and all but I wasn’t exactly sure how they were made—not certain enough to take a lot of questions. Besides, a secondary consideration had arisen that had me puzzled.
I was sure we were well into the middle of a huge wilderness. In all the drive up here with the deputy, we hadn’t passed a town or a road to a town and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they would have a motion picture theater in the middle of the forest.
“Where do they show the movies?” I asked. Harris had completely ignored Clair’s warning and was playing in the dirt where we had
