A deep morbidity would come over him, so scrambling his senses that he began to believe it was the ugliness of things he saw around him rather than his own distorted view of them. His memories were all of the same kind, and when he remembered, he remembered bitterly. He pictured himself small and having to get away. And the only place to go was there—in that feeling: his own death-dark womb to hide in.
That night was blacker than pitch. A northeast wind blew across the roof in long, sagging groans. The old house trembled. The window sashes banged. Down in the woods the dead elms split and howled. July went out onto the porch. The wind grew wet, drawing the rain with it. The storm seemed enormous, as though it must cover the whole world—coming from some furious place in space. A lightning bolt ripped across the sky, tearing the black cloth back to the brilliant light on the other side of it,then sealing itself up like an instantly healing wound, bathing the ground in a cold blue light. July looked and thought how ugly it was.
As quickly as it had begun, the storm abated. Within ten minutes the land was covered with a piercing silence. Not even a breeze stirred the leaves on the oaks. It was as though he could hear for thousands of miles and everywhere there was nothing. The moon rose flat and blue-green out of a dark cloud and its eerie light froze the stillness harder. Then far in the distance July heard something. It sounded like the beating of his heart and blended with it perfectly . . . but it continued to get louder. It was hoofbeats, fast, then slower, over hard ground and soft. They came from miles away. He heard them strike the surface of the blacktop and keep coming. It’s not on the road, thought July. It’s coming through the fields. He strained his eyes off toward the horizon and saw something mount the most distant hill, then disappear down into the following scoop of land, moving with unbelievable speed. The air itself was poised now, and when the shape, no larger than an ant, came into view over the crest of the near hill, it began to tremble. A gray horse, tall, long and thin, a white mane and tail, his eyes green, the steel nailed to his hoofs flashing blue in the light of the moon, his feet striking the ground only once or twice in ten yards, jumping fences by merely altering his strides, coming toward him. And he carried someone whom July recognized at once though he had never seen him before. Perched like a sparrow on the neck of a hawk, leaning forward as though breathing down into the giant stallion’s ear, the wet blade of a knife in his teeth, his dark coat cut and streaming out behind him in ribbons, his legs gripping the sides of the beast and curled beneath him, a handful of the white mane in his right hand, urging him on with his barking voice, his teeth silver and gold, a rifle and its broken and splintered stock stuck under his arm, the smell of burning powder in the air, rode the great Kingfisher. July knew him in an instant, as quickly as he might pick himself out of a crowd, and he felt his jaws tightenas though gripping the cold blade of the knife to keep it from falling. They rode like the wind, the stallion’s nostrils wide, sucking air, his mouth opened in a grimace of excitement, the old outlaw’s black eyes wild and cruel.
Then popping into view on the horizon—a line of them like an army of ants—came his pursuers. They disappeared into the scoop of land and when they re-emerged July could see them more clearly. A whole herd of them, gray, huge hogs but running like dogs. Their feet didn’t seem to touch the ground and they snorted and spit and howled after the running horse. The bushes, trees and grass recoiled from them in revulsion.
The outlaw and horse cleared another fence and were in the field next to the yard, still heading toward him. Halfway through and the hellhounds were in it too, each of their dark howls like some mad cry from an animal’s imagination.
In one long bound the horse and rider entered the yard and July could see the old outlaw’s face. A scar stretched from beneath his left eye all the way to his chin, and July remembered that long ago three men had held him down while another beat him with a deer foot severed eight inches above the hoof. Left for dead, he’d crawled and rolled down from the hills, down to the ocean, where he’d submerged his head in the salt water, come up, and felt the searing burn of the wounds ignite again the terrible strength he had been born with. Later he’d killed them all. There was a bullet hole in one of his hands, made by a rifle from three hundred yards. His life was one catastrophe after another. The Devil had him then, and liked his name—the kingfisher of men . . . but he was loose now.
His face and hands, neck and as much of his chest as July could see where his coat was ripped away were covered with wounds, new wounds on top of old, old on top of older, as though his body had originally been ironed together, a man who in his whole life had never had a friend, or wanted one; as far as people were concerned, he had no favorites, to whom women were only an evening’s entertainment and the morning’s regret. Hishome was the stars. All the good thoughts he ever had stayed in him:
