The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan

by Callaghan, Morley; Atwood, Margaret;

  Elmer was a skinny red-haired kid, two years older than Luke, who had become the leader of the boys by the power of his abusive voice and his frantic bad temper. In the gang there were six others: Eddie Shore, the dark and muscular son of a grocer; Woody Alliston, the undertaker’s son; Jimmie Stewart, the minister’s boy; Dave Dalton, the left-handed first baseman, whose father owned the ice-cream parlor; Hank Hennessey, whose father worked in the shipyard; and Norm McLeod, whose father was the superintendent of the grain elevator. They all wanted to be big-league ballplayers. If Luke missed a fly ball, Elmer, the potential big leaguer, would scream at him in derision, and Luke secretly hated him. Lying in the grass by the third-base line with Dan, Luke would whisper, “He’s a one-armed ballplayer himself. He just swings that glove at the ball, Dan. If the ball sticks in the pocket he’s all right, but he might as well be out there swinging a broom.”

  He was not afraid of Elmer, but he never said these things to him, for he wanted to go on hanging around with the bunch of boys. Elmer had decided that he would become a great left-hand pitcher. One way of being friendly with Elmer was to stand behind him when he was pitching and say, “Gee, did you see that curve? How did you throw it, Elmer?” Luke, who was lonely and wanted to have friends, also would stand behind Elmer, and one day he said enthusiastically, “Gee, what a hook you had on that one, Elmer! I wish you’d show me how to throw it.” It made him a little sick at his stomach to say it, for the ball didn’t have a curve at all. “Maybe I will sometime,” Elmer said, and that day he took Luke home with him to show him his valuable clean-bred dog.

  As soon as Luke saw this dog, Thor, which was chained up at a kennel at the back of the big Highbottom house, he doubted that the dog was a clean-bred. Its legs were too long; it didn’t have the long-haired coat of a collie; the hair was more like that of an Alsatian; but it was a big, powerful, bad-tempered dog which was always kept on a leash.

  “It’s a thoroughbred,” Elmer said, “and it can lick any dog in this town.”

  “If that dog’s a thoroughbred, then our Dan isn’t,” Luke said.

  “Then your Dan isn’t. This is a fighting thoroughbred.”

  “Aw, go on,” Luke said.

  “Aw, go on yourself. Nuts to you.”

  “Nuts to you, Elmer. Why has it got that crazy look in its eyes?”

  “Because he doesn’t like strangers, see. And he doesn’t like other dogs,” Elmer said.

  But then Mr. Highbottom, a plump, affable, sandy-haired man with rimless glasses and a round pink face, came out. He was a rich man and a good friend of Luke’s Uncle Henry. When Elmer went into the house to get his new first-baseman’s glove, Mr. Highbottom explained that Thor was kept as a watchdog; he had gotten the dog from some people in the city who had kept him locked up in an apartment; he had been badly treated. The first night he, Mr. Highbottom, had got the dog he had had to hit him on the head with a club to let him know who was the master. He was half collie and half Alsatian. Luke said nothing to Elmer about knowing the dog was not a clean-bred, for he wanted to keep Elmer’s friendship.

  In the evenings they would all go up to the fairgrounds, especially if a team from one of the grain boats in the harbor was playing the town team. Luke was always ill at ease because he didn’t know the members of the town team; he could not stand behind the bench when the home team was batting, and chat and kid with these great players. So he would listen, or wander among the crowd with Dan following him, or he would drift out to left field, where the gang would sprawl in the grass. They would stay there till it was dark, then Elmer would whisper with Eddie Shore, the swarthy and muscular son of the grocer, and they and the others would go off by themselves on some night adventure on the main street of the town. Luke and Dan were left alone. On the way home, with the stars coming out and the night breeze rustling through the leaves of the great elms along the road, Luke would try to imagine that he was following the boys furtively into mysterious places where he had never been.

  But on Saturday mornings it was really worthwhile to be with Elmer’s friends, for then they would go down to the old dock by the rusty grain elevator. There they would swim, with the collie swimming with them, and afterward they would lie in the sun, talking and dreaming. When they had gotten dressed they would go along the pier to the place where the Missouri was tied up, and sit there, peering into the darkness of the hold.

  A seaman in a torn black sweater, whose face was leathery and whose hair was iron gray, was sitting on the pier smoking his pipe. He smiled as he watched Elmer Highbottom strutting around. “Hey, kid, how old are you?” he called.

  “Thirteen. Why?” Elmer asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” drawled the seaman. “It’s just that I remember when I was thirteen around here.”

  “Are you from around here, mister?”

  “Believe it or not,” the sailor said, “I was a kid here. It was a long time ago.” Both Luke and Elmer, sitting cross-legged now at the seaman’s feet, listened to him telling stories. Maybe he was lying a little, but his voice was soft, his tone full of affection and his eyes were happy, and so Luke believed him. After a profound silence Luke said suddenly, “I could do that too. I could stow away some night. I could go down the St. Lawrence. I could sail to Siam.”

  “When are you going to make the break, son?” the sailor asked with a smile.

  “One of these nights. I’ll pick a night.”

  “You,” Elmer jeered. “Listen to him, mister. He’s never been on a ship. He doesn’t know one end of a ship from another. He’s just a punk around here.”

  “I was a punk once,” the sailor said, in such a way that Luke felt grateful. He couldn’t figure out why he endured Elmer’s jeering insults. Gradually all the boys had adopted Elmer’s tone with him.

  One day they were in Johnson’s lumberyard on the south side of the tracks, playing around the great pile of sawdust which was heaped at the back of a two-storey brick building. A ladder hooked to the wall of the building ran up to the flat roof. “Come on, everybody up on the roof,” Elmer yelled, and they followed him up the ladder. Sitting on the edge of the roof they all looked down at the pile of sawdust, which was about twenty feet below.

  “I’ll stump you to jump down,” Elmer said, and without waiting for them to yell, “Stumpers go first,” he jumped.

  One by one the boys began to jump, and as each one fell Dan barked excitedly. But the second boy to jump had taken a little longer to make up his mind, and the third one hesitated even longer, the jump becoming longer and more frightening as he kept looking down; and Luke, who was the last one, had had too much time to think about it.

  “Come on, Luke,” they yelled. “What’s the matter with you, Luke? What are you scared of?”

  “I’m taking my time. What’s the matter with taking my time?”

  He wanted to jump, he knew he was going to jump, only he couldn’t bring himself to do it at the moment. It was really an easy jump, so he laughed and tried to keep on kidding with them, but he had tightened up and every time he got ready to jump a queasy feeling came at the base of his spine.

  “I think he’s yellow,” Elmer shouted. “He’s got glue” on his pants.” Then they all began to jeer.

  Luke wanted to close his eyes and jump, but he was ashamed to let them see that he was closing his eyes. That all this was happening bewildered him. And then the collie began to bark impatiently. “Okay, Dan,” Luke yelled. Waving his arms carelessly as if he had been only kidding with them, he suddenly pushed himself blindly off the roof and fell heavily on the sawdust, where the dog leaped at him joyfully.

  “Well, there you are, bigmouth,” he said to Elmer as he got up, dusting his clothes.

  “Who’s a bigmouth?”

  “You’ve got the biggest, loudest mouth in this town, Elmer,” Luke said quietly. “You’re a blowhard. A great big blowhard.”

  “Listen, punk, you want something?“

  “You don’t worry me, bigmouth.”

 
; “You want I should smack you stupid?”

  “Go ahead, smack me, Elmer. I’ll show you who’s stupid.”

  “Come on!” Elmer yelled.

  Then they were circling around each other and Luke now was happy. It was a crazy kind of happiness; it seemed as if Elmer had been pounding him for a long time and now at last he could openly smack him. As they feinted at each other Dan began to growl. Eddie Shore grabbed the dog by the collar. Impressed by the wild glare in Luke’s eyes, Elmer feinted cautiously and then suddenly he ducked and charged, swinging his right, and Luke blindly stuck out his left hand like a rod. Elmer walked right into it. The fist got him on the nose, which spurted blood. Screaming like an old woman, he came clawing at Luke and got his arms around him and they rolled in the sawdust. He was heavier and stronger than Luke and had gotten on top of him.

  “Let him up. Let him up and go on fighting,” the others yelled. But Elmer, frantic now, his freckled face white, with the mouth gaping open and a trickle of blood from his nose running into the corner of his mouth, had grabbed Luke by the hair and kept banging his head on the ground.

  The collie had growled; he lay back, growling, then suddenly jerked his head free and leaped at Elmer. He did not look like a wild dog, but looked like a dog being workmanlike. He slashed at Elmer’s leg, only at the cloth, but the growl and the sound of the ripping cloth seemed to jerk Elmer out of his frenzy. He was scared. Jumping up, he shouted, “I’ll kill that dog. I’ll brain it. Where’s a brick, gimme a brick!”

  “Come here, Dan. Come here, quick,” Luke cried. As the dog turned to him he grabbed him by the collar. “You’re not hurt,” he said to Elmer. “It’s only your pants torn a little. Dan didn’t bite you.”

  “I’ll brain that dog,” Elmer shouted. “I’ve got a right to kill it now.”

  “If you want to hit somebody, come on, hit me now I’m standing up. Here,” he said to Eddie, “you hold Dan’s collar — and hold him this time.”

  “I’ll get you when your vicious dog isn’t with you,” Elmer yelled. “I’ll get you after my father has that dog destroyed.”

  “You can get me anytime you want, Elmer. I’ll fight you anytime you’re willing to have a fair fight.”

  “Aw, go on, beat it. Do you hear? Beat it.”

  As Luke dusted himself off, taking a long time, he waited for one of the other boys to make a friendly remark, or invite him to stay with them. But they had all grown profoundly meditative. So finally Luke said, “Come on, Dan,” and he went off by himself.

  Luke got home just in time for dinner. At the table his Uncle Henry said, “Is that a scratch on your face, Luke?”

  “I was playing up in the lumberyard with Elmer, jumping in the sawdust, Uncle Henry.”

  “Oh, you and Elmer are becoming great friends, aren’t you?” he said approvingly.

  Uncle Henry, in his shirt-sleeves, big-faced, thin-haired, his great shoulders hunched over the table, looked as if he had the strength of character to protect fearlessly everything that belonged to him. But Uncle Henry and Mr. Highbottom admired each other. Luke seemed to see Mr. Highbottom coming into the room and explaining that the collie had bitten Elmer. Luke could almost hear them talking as one practical man to another, and coming finally to a practical arrangement to destroy Dan. Suddenly Uncle Henry looked up, their eyes met, and Uncle Henry smiled. But no complaint came to Uncle Henry from Mr. Highbottom, and at school Elmer was as nonchalant with him as if nothing had happened.

  On Friday afternoon Eddie Shore, Elmer’s good friend, said to Luke, “Going to play ball tomorrow, Luke? Guess we’ll see you there, eh?”

  “Sure, I’ll be up there,” Luke said with a grateful grin.

  That Saturday morning at about ten o’clock he walked up to the ball field with Dan. Only two other kids were there, Eddie and Woody Alliston, the undertaker’s son. It was a cloudy day; it had rained a little early in the morning. While Dan lay under the hawthorn tree, Luke and Eddie and Woody played three-cornered catch.

  “Here comes Elmer now,” Eddie said laconically.

  “Soon they’ll all be here,” Luke said. Feeling a little embarrassed about Elmer, he did not turn to watch him coming across the field. But Eddie, who had the ball, held on to it, a big excited grin on his face. With Elmer was the big dog, Thor, on a chain. The powerful dog was dragging Elmer along. “Why has he got that crazy dog?” Luke asked, turning. Then his heartbeat came up high in his throat and he felt weak, for now he knew why Eddie Shore had grinned. “Come here, Dan,” he called quickly. As the old dog came to him slowly, he whispered, “You stay right here with me.”

  The big dog with the wicked, crazy eyes had already growled at Dan. Thor was three inches higher and years younger than Dan.

  “I see you’ve got your dog with you, Luke,” Elmer said with a smirk.

  “Yeah, Dan’s always with me, Elmer.”

  “That dog of yours is a mighty savage dog,” Elmer said softly. “It goes around biting people, doesn’t it?”

  “Dan’s not savage. Dan never bit anybody.”

  “Of course, I’m nobody. A dog that bites me isn’t really a savage dog. That’s not the way I heard it, eh, guys?”

  With a grin he turned to Eddie and Woody, but they did not grin, for now that they were close to Thor and had heard him growl they were frightened.

  “You better take that dog home, Elmer,” Luke said placatingly. “I don’t think your father would like it if it made trouble for anybody.”

  “I’m going to see if that dog of yours wants to growl and bite when there’s another dog around,” Elmer jeered. Slipping the chain off Thor’s collar, he pointed to Dan. “Go get him, boy,” he yelled. “Sic him.”

  Thor had growled, his lips trembling and drawing back from the long white teeth; he growled a little as Dan stiffened, then growled again, his mane rising. And Dan, too, growled, his head going down a little, waiting, and showing his teeth, which were blunted and old.

  Suddenly Thor leaped at Dan’s throat, trying to knock him over with the weight of the charge and sink his teeth in the throat and swing him over. But Dan pivoted, sliding away to the side, and Thor’s snapping jaws missed the throat. Then Dan drew on the strength and wisdom of his breed. His strength was all instinct and heart, and it was against that instinct to snap or chew, or grip with his teeth and snarl and roll over, clawing and kicking and cutting until it was over. As Thor missed, Dan did not back away and wait again. Doing what he would have done five years ago, he wheeled, leaping past the big dog and slashing at the flank; then, wheeling again, returned for the slashing rip at the flank again.

  These splendid, fearless movements were executed so perfectly that Luke sobbed, “Oh, Dan,” but the slashes at Thor’s flank had not gone deep.

  The sun, which was now bright, was shining in Thor’s wild empty eyes. Growling and scraping at the ground with his claws he charged again; it was like the pounce of a great cat. Again the snapping jaws missed Dan’s throat, but the weight of the charge, catching him on the hip, spun him around off balance and bewildered him a little.

  Luke was watching with both his hands up to his face. It was as if he was prepared to cover his eyes and scream but couldn’t; he was frozen to the one spot. The two boys, Eddie and Woody, were close together, crouching a little and crazy with excitement. Elmer’s jaw was moving loosely and he kept blinking his eyes.

  The thin clouds overhead broke up, a blue patch of sky appeared. The damp grass glistened. Thor had learned that Dan was vulnerable on the left flank; the blind eye saw nothing, the good eye couldn’t shift quickly enough. Whirling quickly, Thor charged in again on that left flank, knocking Dan over, but the weight of his own charge caused Thor to sprawl over Dan. The teeth could only snap at the flank, and though both dogs had rolled in the grass, snarling and clawing, Dan was soon on his feet again.

  But Dan knew now that his instinctive style was no good. When this heavy dog came whirling to the left of him he couldn’t see him in time, and he w
as bleeding just behind the shoulder. It was like watching a bewildered old dog suddenly becoming aware of its age, and yet with courage trying to break itself of a style of fighting which was the only one its breed had known. Circling and backing, Dan drew near the trunk of the hawthorn tree. There he stood with the tree on his left, protecting that flank, so that Thor would have to charge toward the good eye. His head dropped and he waited.

  “No, oh, no, Elmer,” Eddie said weakly.

  “Elmer. Have some sense!” Woody Alliston pleaded.

  “Elmer,” Luke shrieked suddenly, and he grabbed Elmer. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. Call him off or I’ll kill you!”

  But with a low exultant growl Thor had leaped in again to pin Dan against the tree, and as Dan swerved a little Thor got his teeth in the shoulder, snarling and shaking his head as he rolled Dan over, shaking and stretching his own neck away from Dan’s teeth, and holding on tight till he could draw Dan underneath him on his back and then shift his jaws to Dan’s throat and kill him.

  The agonized growling and snarling was terrible and yet exultant, and Luke screamed, “Elmer, Elmer, call him off! He’ll kill him, Elmer!”

  And the other two boys, Eddie and Woody, awed and sick, yelled, “Do something, Elmer. Don’t let him kill him, Elmer!”

  Fascinated by the power and viciousness of his dog, which he believed he couldn’t control, Elmer cried, “I can’t stop it.”

  And Luke sobbed, for it was as if Dan was more than a dog. The collie seemed to have come out of that good part of his life which he had shared with his own father. “Dan! Dan!” he screamed. He looked around wildly for help. On the other side of the tree was a thick broken branch. It flashed into his mind that he should use this branch as a club; this was in his mind as he rushed at the snarling dogs. But instead he kicked at Thor’s flank; he kicked three times with the good heavy serviceable shoes Uncle Henry had bought for him.

  Thor snarled, his head swinging around, his bright eyes now on Luke, the lip curled back from the fangs. Luke backed away toward the club. As he picked up the branch and held it with both hands, he felt numb all over. There was nothing but the paralyzing beat of his own heart — nothing else in the world.