A smell, less than a smell, perhaps, just a hint, the faintest remembering of woodsmoke on the brisk morning, and here along the paved road the line the line the line moves not forward with the ticking of the pocketwatch but backward, pushing me further from the brisket Pa had told me of so many years before, he in his cups, languid, dreary eyes, speaking of the slow smoke, of the dripping fat, but here the line persists, a conflagration of be-hatted dandies, their foppish vests and unshaven faces repellent to my very being. I look to my watch, and in the hazy morning light the second hands fidgets but does not advance, and I am again in Pa’s hunting camp, again tending the pot as he and the others returned from the day’s hunt, their boots tracking mud across the floor, and when the stew was done, the line they formed to slop their bowls and break from the loaves of bread for sopping had seemed to never move, though my stomach asserted its needs regularly.
As I Lay Yelping - A Cuisine Collaborative with Good Bull Hunting
