ANNIE PROULX
Bad Dirt
WYOMING STORIES
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
This paperback edition published by Fourth Estate 2009
First published in paperback by Harper Perennial in 2005, reprinted 4 times.
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Fourth Estate
Originally published in the USA in 2004 by Scribner
Copyright © Dead Line, Ltd. 2004
Annie Proulx asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
‘The Trickle Down Effect’, ‘What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?’, ‘Man Crawling Out of Trees’ and ‘Summer of the Hot Tubs’ previously appeared in The New Yorker, ‘The Old Badger Game’ in Playboy; ‘The Contest’ in The Virginia Quarterly Review; and ‘The Wamsutter Wolf’ in The Paris Review.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This short story collection is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN 9780007198870
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 9780007290130
Version 2016-06-15
For Muffy, Jon, Gail, Gillis, and Morgan
Contents
What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?
They say this is a wonderful world to live in, but I don’t believe I ever did really live in a wonderful world.
—CHARLIE STARKWEATHER
in his 1958 confession
ON A NOVEMBER DAY WYOMING GAME & FISH WARDEN Creel Zmundzinski was making his way down the Pinch-butt drainage through the thickening light of late afternoon. The last pieces of sunlight lathered his red-whiskered face with splashes of fire. The terrain was steep with lodgepole pine giving way on the lower slope to sagebrush and a few grassy meadows favored by elk on their winter migration to the southeast. Occasionally, when the sight lines were clear, he caught the distant glint of his truck and horse trailer in the gravel pullout far below. He rode very slowly, singing of the great Joe Bob, who was “… the pride of the backfield, the hero of his day”* in front of him walked the malefactor without hunting license who had been burying the guts of a cow moose when Creel came upon him. The man’s ATV was loaded with the hindquarters. The rest of the carcass had been left to rot.
“This is a protected no-hunt area,” said Creel. “Let’s see your hunting license.”
The ruby-complected senior slapped the many pockets in his hunting jacket. The jacket was new, with the price tag still affixed to the back hem. It was the flashing of the price tag that had caught Creel’s eye through the trees. Now the man pulled out his wallet and foraged.
While he waited Creel Zmundzinski listened for a sound he did not want to hear.
After a long search the man handed Creel a cardboard rectangle. It was a business card, and its information contained, along with phone numbers and a greatly reduced illustration of Chartres Cathedral, the words
Reverend Jefford J. Pecker
Persia Ministry
“Where is that, Persia?” asked Creel, thinking of Iran, as the 323 area code was unfamiliar to him. He thought he heard the dreaded sound in the distance.
“Per-SEE-uh, California,” said the reverend, correcting his pronunciation in a loud, nasal voice.
“That your church?” asked Creel, studying the illustration. Yes, down in the clump of willows at the base of the meadow he heard the wretched bawl of an orphan moose calf.
“It’s quite similar.”
“But it’s sure a long way from a hunting license.” His voice had become very cold. The minister