Outer Dark

by Cormac McCarthy

You live here by yourself? Not exactly. I got two hounds and a ten-gauge double-barrel that keeps me company. They’s lots of meanness in these parts and I ain’t the least of it.

I’ve killed as high as a dozen ducks with one lick countin cripples I run down. They bought fifty cents apiece in them days and that was good money. I’d be a rich man today if I’d not blowed it in on whores and whiskey.

If it was Saturday they’d be here. It’s a sight in the world the traffic I get on a Saturday. What day is it? Holme said. I don’t know, the ferryman said. It ain’t Saturday.

I heard it preached in a sermon one time. Feller knowed right smart about the subject. Said the devil had a foot like a hog’s. He laid claim it was in the bible so I reckon it’s so. I reckon. He said a jew wouldn’t eat hogmeat on account of it. What’s a jew? That’s one of them old-timey people from in the bible.