on the bare belly and gently pressed. It was a steady pulse against his palms, not the sporadic twitch of guts. He rolled Lockjaw over on his back, the pig's legs, already stiffening, awkwardly protruding into the air, then laid his head against its belly. He felt the steady pulse resonating in his cheekbones.
Bracing the pig's body against his leg, he took out his pocketknife and opened the long slender blade he used for gutting. He started the cut at the pelvic bone and ran it alongside the penis on up to the sternum, blood feathering in the wake. When he let the pig fall back on its side the guts spilled loose. Within the coils of warm guts was a thin, slick, membranous sac, blood orange, throbbing. Deftly, using just the tip of the knife, Tiny slit it open.
Inside, he saw what his mother had seen shining on the bottom of the lake: a point of light; rich, steady, dense. It divided into two. Into four. Eight. Beginning to whirl as it instantly multiplied through the blinding trajectory of form toward some new coherence, the arc of energy into matter, the white parchment of a scroll unfurled flashing in the sun.
The whirling light, as if consolidated or absorbed, faded into the form of a duckling. Fup shook herself free of the clinging membrane, fanning her wet wings as she issued a few soft tentative quacks. Growing by the moment, she continued to fluff herself under Tiny's astonished gaze; fullgrown, she uttered a triumphant burst: QUACK-WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK.
When Tiny reached to touch her, Fup exploded into flight, straight up like a puddle-duck should, an explosion of water and wings. Tiny screamed. Fup leveled off and swung to the east, merrily quacking. Abruptly, amazingly graceful for her bulk, she banked off the wind and came sailing back over.
'FUP! FUP!' Tiny howled at her, waving his arms as she passed. She went into a high, curving, climbing turn and circled back around him. Suddenly she folded as if shot and plummeted a few feet before spreading her wings again, quacking wildly as she banked, swooping, and then she quit quacking and started to ascend above him in a perfect, opening spiral. Tiny stood rooted, stunned, watching as she vanished into the sky.
Granddaddy Jake, slammed awake by the gunshot, had lurched outside in his longjohns and followed Tiny's wails to a knobhill overlooking the fence. He'd crested the knoll just as Tiny had gutted Lockjaw, and had stood transfixed as Fup had seemingly risen from the pig's body and began her spiralling ascent. He watched entranced, whispering over and over to himself, 'I don't fucking believe it.' Yet he believed it without hesitation.
When she'd disappeared into the sky, he'd started to yell to Tiny but Tiny was on his hands and knees in the grass, searching for Fup's remains. They were gone: not a scorched feather, not a scrap of flesh. There was no trace of her.
Torn by gratitude and terror, Tiny whirled to his feet and ran to the fence. He stopped in front of a redwood post, locked his hands together into a single fist, and swung with his entire weight. The blow snapped the post off at groundlevel-but such was his talent as a fence builder that the tension of the wires held it vibrating in place. He tore at the wire until his hands were slippery with blood, screaming, 'There you are! Go on through. Go on. Go on through…' until the pain calmed him enough to remember the fence tool, and he used the strong cutters to snip the wire, each taut strand hissing past him like a snapped nerve. When he cut the last wire, the suspended post whipped back the other way, just missing his Granddaddy, whom he hadn't noticed, but coming close enough that the old man dove the other way on sheer reflex. Still on the ground, Granddaddy hollered, 'Damn ya, Tiny that's enough. Get your wits about ya, son-ya coulda sliced me up like a hardboiled egg-'
Tiny, hearing his voice, dropped his fencing tool and ran over, sobbing, and picked up his Granddaddy and held him tightly, Jake's skinny, long-johned legs kicking in the air. They held each other a long time, Tiny crying, Granddaddy Jake soothing him, 'It's just fine, son, just fine; go right on ahead' as he patted him on the back with his bony wings, and then they walked back up to the house to have a drink of whiskey-a drink, according to Granddaddy, that was bound to be glorious, for it was totally needed and completely deserved.
And after that one drink, Granddaddy, as if savoring it, didn't have another drop for a week. Tiny didn't work on his fences. They'd gone back to bury Lockjaw's remains before the birds got to him, and though they both half-expected him to be gone, the body was still where they'd left it, completely stiffened now, the guts thick with flies. They buried his remains at the edge of an old white oak. Even Granddaddy took his turn with the shovel, violating his cardinal rule never to break a sweat before noon.
For most of that week they sat on the front porch and watched spring unfurl, talking about what had happened. Tiny told Granddaddy over and over how he'd accidently killed Fup, how she'd been blown to pieces as she seemingly protected a pig she supposedly hated, how then, as Granddaddy Jake could bear witness, she'd uncoiled fullgrown and feathered from inside Lockjaw's body and flew away. He wanted to know how that could have happened.
And each time Granddaddy Jake told him essentially the same thing: 'It beats the shit outa me. Oh, I can think of
When Tiny went back to work at the end of that week, he started by cutting large passages in all the line fences, and after that he began splitting redwood for gate posts. By week's end the posts were in place, and he was about to start hanging the first gate when he decided that to do a truly fine piece of work the gate posts would have to be carved. He consulted with his Granddaddy, who was in complete accord that one gate post should have the image of a boar's head carved at the top, and maybe another one could have a leaping rainbow trout, and one absolutely should have a duck, a flying duck in memory of Fup, and for the main road leading to the house twin bears would look fine, and for the northside, where you headed into that nice meadow, a three-point buck like the one he'd killed there in '64 would be perfect… and yes, yes, he thought it was a good idea, for after all, fences were only as good as their gates. When Tiny made the first stroke with a mallet and chisel that afternoon, he felt his life changing in his hands. He watched as her image rose from the wood.
And when Granddaddy Jake started drinking at the end of his week's abstinence, he started slowly, just gradually building up for his 100th birthday party three days later, where he, and Tiny, and a third of the people thereabouts got so drunk they could hardly grunt and point, much less quit laughing.
A 100 years-and-one-day old, Granddaddy Jake woke late that next morning to a sweet spring day. He sat on the porch with a jar of Or Death Whisper to help pull last night's icepick from his brain, and when he felt like he was ready for another 100 years he fixed a big venison stew with sourdough biscuits for dinner. After dinner he and Tiny split the last piece of birthday cake left from the party. He watched and advised as Tiny sketched out some of his ideas for gatepost carvings, and then went out for his evening walk.
When he returned, he had a couple of extra slashes of whiskey to take off the chill, stripped down to his longjohns and got in bed, read a piece in an old
He was dreaming of those lovely twin daughters snuggled warm against him as the full moon rose over the river blinding and clean. He heard a muffled cry, a child in another room, years ago, and then heard his name whispered, perhaps Tiny trying to wake him, or one of the chief's fine daughters murmuring his name in her sleep. He listened intently in the darkness, a concentration that seemed to draw him from himself into an empty poise. He heard his own heart quit beating, the last lungfull of breath leave him in a luminous silence. He waited, completely still. He heard his soft cry return through his flesh, fading toward the moon. And then the whisper of wings as he was lifted.
He could feel in the way he was borne that they weren't angels, wouldn't have them be angels, was so sure they were ducks that he didn't even bother to open his eyes. He patiently gathered another heartbeat, another breath, and then told them stubbornly, emphatically, without a trace of repentance or regret, 'Well goddamnit, I
