Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online

dried carcasses of plants, flowers. He sniffed at a large square marker with a perfectly smooth, gleaming front and rough, irregular edges; but of course he could not read the legend. The long grasses stirred. There were hoarse whispers, there were muffled shouts. He was frightened but would not bolt. His shoulders lifted slightly, his nose sank to the ground, the skin over his prominent ribs rippled, but he would not bolt, the Bellefleurs would not scare him away. Instead he trotted deliberately to what looked like a small house: a temple some fifteen feet high, with four columns, and angels and crosses carved about its border, and another legend in foot-high letters which he could not read and did not wish to read, knowing it said no more than Bellefleur, and bragged of someone dead who would be resurrected. Johnny paused for a long minute to inspect a queer stunted figure with the head of a dog—was it a dog?—was the thing an angel? —guarding the entrance to the temple. He sniffed at it, and then lifted his hind leg again, and trotted contemptuously on.
    Near one of the freshest mounds he kicked over several clay urns, which broke into large startled pieces. He seized a tiny flag, an American flag, in his teeth, and tried to shred it. You see what I can do, he said. You see what the Doans can do. With one of the clay shards he tried to scratch his name on an ebony-black gravestone but the clay wasn’t sharp enough. He would need a chisel, and a hammer. . . .
    You see what the Doans can do!
    But suddenly he was frightened. He didn’t know if he had spoken aloud or not. It was difficult for him to determine what was shouted, what was whispered, what was only shaped in his own thoughts, silently, and maybe the Bellefleurs were listening, maybe one of their hired men was patrolling the cemetery and would fire upon him . . . ? The land was forbidden land as everyone knew. It was posted against all trespassers and there was a rumor that the Bellefleur boys shot at intruders with .22’s, just for the fun of it; and the county court would never convict them, the sheriff would never even arrest them. . . .
    He was frightened and angry too. First the wave of fear, and then a stronger wave of anger. He pushed at one of the old crosses; but he could not dislodge it. It was so old, the dates were 1853–1861, they meant nothing to him, really, except that the body beneath the sunken earth must be nothing more than bones, just lying there helpless gazing up at him, nothing more than bones, he giggled, exhilarated, and lifted his leg again to urinate. They said there were spirits but he didn’t believe in spirits. He didn’t believe in spirits in the daytime, and when the sky was clear.
    He prowled about, sniffing, and suddenly his thoughts were on the Bellefleur girls he had seen the week before, on horseback, trotting along the old Military Road. Two young girls, not quite his age, one with long curly wheat-colored hair: he knew their names were Yolande and Vida, and he had wanted to shout at them, Yolande, Vida, I know who you are! but of course he had remained hidden. Last May he had spied upon the Fuhr wedding in the village, at the old stone church, and he had seen, in the midst of the milling crowd of gay, well-dressed men and women, Gideon Bellefleur and his wife Leah: Leah, full- bodied and arrogantly beautiful in a turquoise dress, her chignon visible beneath a stylish cartwheel hat, Leah who was taller than most men, much taller than Johnny’s father. . . . Johnny drew nearer, staring. No one noticed him, or so it seemed: why would those well-to-do people notice him: and so he stared and stared at Leah Bellefleur, who carried a cream-colored parasol which she spun, restlessly, between her gloved fingers. He could hear—he could almost hear—the woman’s low husky teasing voice. She had drawn slightly away from the others, she and one of the Fuhrs, and they were talking and laughing together in a way that