Red Dog, Red Dog

by Patrick Lane

  Tom watched the hills go by, the truck lights catching at a doe in a field with two fawns beside her grown almost as big as she was, their spots faded away. The three deer looked at them as they passed, their heads lifted from the sparse grass. Ahead was a fork in the road and Tom turned sharply up the hill toward the nuisance ground, gravel spitting behind them. At the top, he drove out onto the truck flat and parked by the shed in the middle of the dump turnaround. Hubcaps from Hudsons, Oldsmobiles, Packards, and Cadillacs hung from the shed walls, the door covered in rusty licence plates the dump man had nailed up. When he was a boy, he’d loved to read the names of places he’d only heard of, Louisiana, Quebec, Florida, the word Mississippi, the sound of a river rolling. Jan Mursky had sat in the shed every day marking down each load of garbage before it was dumped into the flames. His pencil stub kept track of the drivers: Powell, Nickel, Crozier, MacDowell, whoever was hauling that day. Tom parked by the shed and they got out. Tom leaned back inside, reached under the tarp, and lifted out the .308.

  What’re you going to do with that?

  It’s just an old gun, he said. The rifling’s gone in the barrel.

  It doesn’t look that old, Marilyn said, but he ignored her and walked to the edge of the dump. He swung the rifle in an arc and hurled it down into a dark hole where flames were licking at the apples dumped that day. The rifle struck butt-first and sank into the soft maw of mottled fruit, the end of the barrel left sticking out, pointing at nothing.

  They stood there and looked at the town, the street lights ghostly among the distant trees, a car threading its way through the dark. Tom wondered if Stanley was parked somewhere along Ranch Road now, waiting for Eddy’s Studebaker. He knew Stanley wouldn’t walk up to the front door of their house looking for him. No, Stanley wanted Eddy on his own.

  She turned to him. You’re really sweating, she said. She put her hand to his face. You’re burning up.

  I know, he said. I haven’t been feeling all that good today.

  They heard the night freight up from Kelowna, its horn blaring, the last of the apples from the valley packing houses moving north to the CPR main line at Kamloops, the apples going east to the cities. Marilyn rested against him now, her arm around his waist, and he could feel her quick breathing. She was wearing a different sweater tonight, a stitched-on rabbit chewing on a carrot above the curve of her breast. Tom stood quiet as he lifted his hand and put it under her sweater. She reached behind, undid the clasp of her brassiere, her small breast slipping like a split peach into his palm, and they stood there without moving, looking down the spill where baby carriages, wagons, ice boxes, and ancient cars had rolled into the sagebrush and cactus just beyond the flames.

  You know, she said, I’ve breathed this dump all my life. She turned and asked him what was wrong. You’re not listening to me, she said.

  And he said: Eddy almost killed someone today.

  She startled, and he took his hand from her breast.

  Who?

  He wanted to settle an old score, Tom said. He wanted to put a fear in the guy that he’d never forget.

  She gripped his hip, her thumb in his belt. Wisps of ash twisted up like bats from the glowing coals among magazines and newspaper, broken boards, and shattered tree limbs. Come morning the great fires would begin again. Mursky would fling gallon after gallon of kerosene and diesel down the slope and then the battered trucks would dump their first loads, the wreckage of the town feeding the fires.

  Your brother’s not right, she said. Why’s he like that?

  Eddy’s like this, Tom said, holding his hurt hand out to her. Sergeant Stanley did something to him years ago in a cell below the Courthouse before sending him away. But there were other things done before Stanley got hold of him and he’s lived with them too and longer, and there’s nothing that can change any of it. And Tom knew then he was speaking of both Eddy and himself and of Marilyn too, and of his mother and father, his family, the tribe, the town, the country, the valley and the mountains.

  She was quiet as they walked, her face turned down in shadow. One time I was stealing makeup from Mr. Arthwright’s drugstore, she said. You know, lipstick and nail polish and stuff. I thought eye shadow and mascara would help me hide my eye. Mr. Arthwright called Sergeant Stanley when he caught me with a lipstick in my purse. The Sergeant drove me out here to Swan Lake, but he talked to me before ever we got to the trailer.

  She stared at the town, the Courthouse on the hill a block of stone with spotlights burning up its granite walls. She swallowed and took a breath. He told me I’d be grown up in a few more years and when I was, he’d come looking for me. She pulled Tom to a stop. That bugger, she said. There’ll come a time when he’ll get what’s coming to him.

  He didn’t touch you then.

  No, but I’ll never forget the way he looked at me.

  Did you tell anyone?

  Who was I going to tell? The police? Stanley is the police. There’s no one higher than him except maybe the judge. I couldn’t tell my mother or my father. They wouldn’t have believed me. Besides, I was caught stealing. All my father would’ve done is yelled at me. He’s good at that, no matter him being crippled.

  She was quiet again as she looked out over Swan Lake, the water black with shreds of light on its narrow waves.

  Tom went down on his haunches, picked up a chunk of cinder and tossed it over the edge, the bit of burned coke falling in the dark. Have you ever seen someone dead?

  I’ve seen everything dead, Marilyn said, her voice bitter. Sheep, deer, coyotes, you name it, bear and moose. My Uncle Bill’s a hunter. He taught me how to shoot when I was small. I’ve seen people in coffins too, my aunt and uncle who died in a car crash up on the Big Bend past Revelstoke, other people too. I saw my little brother dead when he was run over. I was nine years old. One day my mother was late for her housecleaning job. She’s always been nervous. Anyway, she was in a hurry when she backed the car over him. Pete was just little. My mother never got over it. My father said it was Pete’s own fault. He must have run behind the car when my mother wasn’t looking.

  When one of my sisters died, I asked Mother why she didn’t cry and she told me she’d shed her tears a long time ago, Tom said.

  My parents changed after that, Marilyn said. My mother still cries about it. I can hear her sometimes in their bedroom, my father telling her to quiet down. He says crying never does anyone any good. Most nights they just sit there in the living room saying nothing. That’s when I go nuts wanting to get out of there.

  She said she’d never told anyone about her little brother and now Tom knew.

  You’re the only one who’s ever talked to me clear, she said. All I’ve known in my life are boys who think a girl’s to screw and nothing more. She smoothed her skirt with her hands and looked up at him. I’ve no love for men, she said.

  20

  tom stood on the gravel reach with one foot on the running board and one hand on the door of the truck as Hurlbert told him what happened out at the farm that morning. He explained that Sergeant Stanley had come just before dawn with another cop. Maureen had been making breakfast when they saw the police car pull into the yard. They drove in quietly, he said. I went out and Stanley was sitting behind the wheel. The other cop was yelling out his window at the dog leaping up at his door, barking his head off.

  The wind picked up, dust blowing off the garden. Tom turned his back to it and closed his eyes until the gusts blew past and died away. He shivered, his shirt damp against his skin. His thoughts were going in circles. He wondered if somehow Stanley had followed him out there two nights before. But he had been careful. He’d made sure there was no one on the valley road but him when he turned off at the farm.

  Did they say what they wanted?

  They said they needed to look around Harry’s shack, John said. They didn’t tell me why.

  And Eddy?

  He’s okay as far as I know, John said. Maureen came out on the porch and told Stanley he’d no
business on our farm, but Stanley just ignored her. He told us to stay put. Then they headed down through the orchard to the creek and that’s when Maureen went over to this truck of mine and leaned on the horn. She held it down for damn near a minute.

  Tom stood there feeling dazed. John said how upset Maureen had been when Stanley and the cop had come back with Harry a while later. There’d been a young girl with them, but John told him she was one he’d never seen before. Stanley had Harry in handcuffs, John said. Maureen told the Sergeant what she thought of that. I finally had to damn near push her into the house, she was so mad. Stanley told me I’d better not be hiding your brother. He said if I saw Eddy around I was to call the station and let him know. The whole time he was talking to me, Harry never said a word. It looked like they’d treated him pretty rough. Anyway, they put him in the back seat of the car with the cop and the girl in front. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, and she was acting pretty strange. Stanley told me he was charging Harry with statutory rape.

  All Tom could do was ask John what happened to his brother.

  He must’ve hid out in the orchard when he heard the horn, John said. Her leaning on it like that must have told them something. I don’t know why Harry didn’t take off too. Maybe the girl was a problem for him. Whether Stanley and the other cop looked for Eddy or not, I’ve no idea, but if they did they couldn’t find him. Anyway, a while later, Eddy came up from the creek and got the Studebaker out of the shed. He didn’t say where he was going, he just took off. I’m sorry, Tom. Your brother didn’t look scared, he was just running.

  Did Stanley say anything else?

  All I know is Sergeant Stanley told me if I saw Eddy I was to call him. I’m on my way over to Harry’s folks’ place. They don’t have a telephone. They’ll want to know. I just wanted to stop by and tell you what happened. Eddy’s okay. As far as I know anyways.

  Tom watched Hurlbert’s truck go up the driveway and down the road. He didn’t know where Eddy would have gone or where he’d stay. He hoped he wouldn’t be stupid enough to show up at the dog fights tomorrow.

  Tom went to the house and sagged into a chair at the kitchen table, thinking of them going down the path by the creek, the night quiet but for the horn blaring in the farmyard behind them. He imagined the Sergeant cursing when he heard it. Eddy and Harry must have heard it too. He could see the girl in the backroom stumbling up from the straw tick trying to get dressed as Harry told her to hurry, and Eddy on the step out front, wrecked on junk, looking into the dark, the horn telling him that something was wrong. Then the sound of the Sergeant and his man, a flashlight probing the path by the creek, and Eddy running, knowing it had to be the police. Then they caught Harry and the girl, likely when they were coming out the door or else somewhere in the orchard under the trees, Harry not wanting to leave the girl behind, knowing she was under-age and would tell the police everything, drunk as she was and stoned on speed, afraid and confused, crying, saying she’d been raped. He pictured Eddy circling deep in the trees or on his belly in the tall grass, trying to hear what was going on.

  Tom moved the ashtray and stared at the burned-out butts sticking out of the sand like the stumps of logged-off trees in a cut block. He reached out and, one by one, pushed them over with his finger.

  Marilyn ladled liver and onions and fried potatoes and eggs onto a plate and put it down in front of Tom. You’re going to bed after his, she said. I’ve seen that hand of yours, you’ve got poisoning in your blood. Tom looked at the food, listening as Mother sloughed down the hall, the sound of her slippers like something being dragged. Marilyn was weeping onion tears and she flattened them there with her wrist. Mother came into the room and glanced at her. Oh, you’re still here. Where’s Eddy? Her voice droned it out, the only question she seemed to know.

  Marilyn shook her head, opened the toaster flaps, and began to scrape margarine on the toast.

  I heard someone in the driveway a few minutes ago, Mother said, and she looked at Tom. Don’t you have anything to say?

  When Tom didn’t reply, she said: You could at least know where your brother is.

  Mother looked exhausted, Tom thought, her skin pale, stretched tight on her face. She isn’t really old, he thought, but now, right now, she looks ancient. He pushed a chair out from the table with his foot, but she disregarded it.

  I thought it was Eddy for sure this time, Mother said.

  Quit going on about him, Tom said. You know he always comes back eventually.

  He could’ve been here and gone away again, she said. What would you know about it? You weren’t around last night when Crystal came to the house. Mother breathed deep and coughed, clearing her throat.

  Tom saw a flash of guile in her quick eyes. So Crystal was here? he said.

  Never you mind, Tom, never you mind. Why wouldn’t a girl want to see your brother? She walked over to the counter, stepped round Marilyn, and began picking through the food in the frying pan. She scraped a few spoonfuls onto a plate and pulled a chair out from behind the table and sat down, ignoring the one Tom had pushed out for her.

  So, what did she want? Tom said. I don’t remember Crystal ever coming out here visiting.

  Mother didn’t reply as she squeezed her lower lip between thumb and finger.

  What did she say? Marilyn asked, annoyed at the way Mother had talked to Tom.

  Mother took her fork, stabbed at a piece of egg, and looked at Tom. Why wouldn’t she come out here, no matter I don’t hardly know her? she said. At least she showed she cared enough for Eddy to be asking to his welfare. Those drugs’ll kill him someday, and why you can’t do something to help your brother, I don’t know. Somebody’s got to put a stop to it. It’s not that I can, stuck as I am in this house without a way out.

  She put her fork down as if unsure what to say next.

  Tom pushed his finger through the sand in the ashtray, the butts falling from the edge onto the table.

  Mother pulled her plate a little closer, took a bite of onion, and then forked a tiny bit of egg, her hand barely steady. The girl wanted to know if he was home, she said. She had something to tell him. She said it was important. I told her Eddy wasn’t home, probably out somewhere doing god knows what. Well, you tell Eddy I was here asking about him, she said.

  Tom breathed hard through his mouth, his head splitting. I never knew Crystal to come out here by herself before, he said.

  There was a car parked up on the road, Mother said. She hesitated, her fingers dibbling at her lips. I don’t know. I thought at first it looked like the police come to talk to Eddy and I didn’t come to the door. But then I saw Crystal outside. Why would the police be driving Crystal around? That’s what I asked myself. They wouldn’t have done that.

  Was it the police?

  I don’t know, said Mother. She seemed almost desperate now, as if she wanted her story to make sense, but knew it didn’t. There’re those fir trees by the road and the willow and that purple maple I always hated that Father planted to spite me. Maples aren’t supposed to be purple. But he drove it here a hundred miles an hour from where he’d dug it up out of someone’s yard. Drove it in the back of that old truck and when he got it here every leaf was burned off by the wind. How it ever lived I’ll never know.

  She began to stir her fork in the liver and eggs, pushing the cold potatoes off to the side of her plate. I don’t feel very well, she said. I can’t seem to hold anything down these days.

  Just tell us, Marilyn said, coming to sit at the table. It’s all right.

  I told you I didn’t know who it was. I couldn’t see. Mother crossed her arms and suddenly leaned toward Marilyn. What does it matter if it was the police? I didn’t care, what with Crystal standing at the door and me having to get up thinking Eddy might have come home or was somewhere out there shooting up his drugs or dead. I told her I’d be the last to know where Eddy was. No one tells me anything. So what if I said the only place I knew was that shack out at John Hurlbert’s farm
. Wasn’t that right to say? He always goes out there with Harry.

  It’s okay, Mother, Tom said. It doesn’t matter now.

  Mother started rocking back and forth in her chair. I’m tired of it all, she said to him. Why isn’t Eddy here any more?

  Tom stood and balanced himself against the wall and Marilyn took his arm, leading him to the stairs and then up to the attic room, the floor there littered with dead wasps. She sat him on the bed, his face beaded with sweat. You’re not gonna die, Marilyn said, you’re not. Tom said nothing, his eyes closed. Marilyn removed the dirty gauze from his hand and laid him back on the bed, covering him with the quilt, his breathing shallow, his lips dry. You rest now, she said. You’re sick.

  When he fell into sleep, she went back down. At the foot of the stairs, she listened for a moment and heard Mother’s door closing. Then she walked out the door to the edge of the old vegetable garden. She knelt at a cluster of plantain and thumbed off a few leaves, pinching the stems to seal in the white sap. She found other medicinal herbs along the fence line, a few leaves of goldenseal, cranesbill, and bracken. Then she went down past the well and walked along the creek bottom. A hen pheasant with five grown chicks rose from some tangled grass, tipped her head at Marilyn, and clucked a warning cry. You too, little mother, Marilyn said, the pheasant’s mostly grown chicks behind her in the grass, peering curiously at her.

  She took a bubble of orange pitch from a stunted pine growing in a stand of poplars by the fence. Will not, will not, will not, she said, repeating the words over and over as if by speaking them aloud she could make them true. Pulling a handful of arrowheads up by the roots from the soft ground by the creek, she saw a worm writhing around her fingers. She placed it back, watching the dark red whip nudge into the disturbed dirt.

  She’d seen her mother treat women and their children from along the lake when they’d come to the trailer for help, and knew now that she too could perform the same kind of healing. She remembered what her mother had taught her to look for among the weeds and wild plants and was thankful she’d listened and learned how to preserve a life, to cure a sickness, to relieve a woman’s pains. Marilyn knew the burden of her own monthly bleeding, and knew that her womb could make a new world from the old, a kind of sacrifice her body had always known in its giving up of blood each moon. She looked down, the red worm almost gone now in the dirt where once roots were, and knew then a hand could hold a cup as easily as hold a pistol, a spoon, a knife.