Old Dogs and Children

by Robert Inman

  On a Saturday in September, after school had resumed, they finished. Bright hammered a nail into the front doorsill, and suddenly there was nothing left to do. She looked around, blinked, took a deep breath of the aroma of fresh-cut pine.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  Dorsey was in the yard, gathering up scraps of lumber, stacking them under the front porch of the house to be split for kindling. He looked up at her, a bit wistful. “Yes,” he said, “I believe it is.”

  Bright stood, smoothing her plain brown dress, worn at two spots on the front from where she had knelt at her work. She had worn the same dress every day since they had started building the camp house and it was faded and thin from Hosanna’s frequent washings. She felt the smooth length of the hammer in her hands, so awkward and ungainly when she had first lifted it to strike a nail, so familiar to her now. It seemed years ago that they had started.

  Her father looked her up and down appraisingly. “You’ve grown,” he said. “You’ve become a young lady.”

  Bright looked down at her hands. She didn’t tell him, but Xuripha Hardwicke had made fun of her hands at school. “Gracious, you’ve got hands like a field young’un,” Xuripha had said. “Have you been chopping cotton all summer?” Bright kept her own counsel. She had grown strong and wiry from her summer’s labor and she could outrun any boy in the class. She didn’t think Xuripha would understand at all about building a camp house. And the thought of Fostoria Hardwicke doing her business in a privy, even one fragrant with the smell of honeysuckle, made her giggle.

  She sat down on the edge of the porch, feet resting on the steps, and pulled the dress tight around her legs. It was still warm, but there was already a hint of autumn—squirrels busy in the trees, the foliage dry and wilted by the hot blast of summer. Before long, the leaves would begin to turn and then the brisk October wind would send them skittering across the clearing, a red and brown snowfall. It would be very pleasant to sit here on the porch of the camp house and watch autumn take hold.

  “Did you want a boy?” she asked.

  Dorsey kept working, loading his arms with wood, then depositing the armload under the house atop a growing pile. Finally he straightened and ran his hand through his hair, gray at the temples. “Yes,” he said. “At one time I did want a boy. But I wanted a boy too, not a boy instead.”

  “Did Mama want to have a boy?”

  “Yes. She tried awfully hard, but it just didn’t work out.”

  It was the first time they had talked about it, but somehow it seemed the thing to do just now. It was a warm, fine day full of the satisfaction of work done, things put right.

  “If I hadn’t wanted to help build the camp house, would you have been disappointed?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “But I did,” she said. “Even though sometimes I got pretty tired.”

  He nodded. “Bright, don’t ever let anybody tell you what you’ve got to do or got to be. People have set ideas, but things change. And they change because a few people kick over the traces and do things they weren’t supposed to do, or supposed to be able to do.”

  “Did you always do just what you wanted to do?” she asked.

  “Well, pretty much, I suppose. I was the youngest child in my family, and until I was in high school I was a scrawny runt of a boy.” Bright couldn’t imagine him being a scrawny runt. He was the tallest man she knew, towering above the world in his leather boots and khakis. “Nobody expected much of me,” he went on, “so I could be what I wanted to be. I could surprise folks. It’s better to surprise folks than disappoint them.”

  She got up from the steps and helped him finish the work, gathering up the last scraps of wood and stacking them away. Then he got their lunch from the car and they sat on the steps eating sandwiches made of Hosanna’s homemade bread with big slabs of ham and cheese and slices of sweet pickle, washing them down with iced tea from a mason jar they passed back and forth, finishing with bittersweet yellow apples picked from the tree in their backyard. They spent the afternoon clearing brush from the edge of the building site, Dorsey whacking away at the low-growing scrub plants with a small ax and Bright helping him drag it all to the middle of the clearing, where they made a tall pile. Then Dorsey used the paper sack from their lunch to start a fire at the bottom of the brush pile. It had rained little in the past few weeks and the dry brush caught with a quick crackle, the flames leaping up through the branches until the entire pile was ablaze, sending up a thick bluish column of smoke that a light breeze caught at treetop level and whisked away. They circled the fire, stamping out sparks that fell in the dry grass nearby, watching to see that nothing spread, coughing and laughing in the sweet acrid smoke that seemed to follow them.

  When the fire had died down, they sat on the steps together in the fading afternoon, Bright wishing the day could go on and on and the sun would hang suspended, low in the sky just above the trees. Dorsey put his arm around her and she leaned against him.

  “We’ve done good work,” he said softly. “And we’ve done it together. You and me. It’s something to be proud of.” He leaned down, kissed her forehead. “You’re my very special girl and I love you very much.”

  “I love you too, Papa.”

  They sat that way for a long time, and then Dorsey took a deep breath and released her, clasped his hands in front of him. “Bright, Mama and I are going to take a trip.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Where?” she asked finally, her voice small.

  “To San Francisco. All the way across the country on the train, and then up the coast to Vancouver. And then back again.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll be gone for most of a month. Hosanna will stay with you, and you’ll be just fine.”

  She looked up sharply at him. “But what about the camp house?”

  “It’ll be here when we get back.”

  She started to cry out in protest. But then she saw the raw, naked look of desperation in his face and it stopped her cold. Something is still terribly wrong. It seems better, but it’s really not. He’s trying to make it right. And he’s afraid he’ll fail! It stunned her, seeing him thus. Dorsey Bascombe was not afraid of anything. But this …

  She turned her head, trying to hide her disappointment.

  “It’s very important for Mama and me to do this,” he said. “It’s important for you too. We both love you, and we love each other …” His voice faded away for an instant and then caught up again. “We’ve had some differences. You know that. You’re a smart and sensitive girl and you know things haven’t been exactly right. And we haven’t been as good parents as we should.”

  “Oh, no,” she protested with a cry. “You’ve been just fine!”

  “Well”—he took a breath—“we want to be better. We need some time together, just the two of us. I’ve got my business taken care of for a few weeks, and Hosanna will be right there every minute. When Mama and I get back from our trip, we’ll have everything all worked out. And we’ll come to the camp house for a long weekend. Just the three of us.”

  There didn’t really seem much to say. She thought about them being gone, about the emptiness they would leave—both of them. But she wanted things to be good and whole again. If this was what it took …

  Dusk and silence stole across the clearing and they sat for a while longer, then Dorsey got up and went to the car, opened the rear compartment and took out the long black leather case that she recognized as his trombone. He sat beside her on the steps and began to play, the notes drifting out across the clearing and mingling with the last wisps of smoke from the brush pile—“Old Black Joe” and “Deep River,” “Juanita” and “In the Sweet Bye and Bye”—the notes round and golden and mellow and sad like the setting sun. Bright sat very still and quiet, letting the music fill and soothe her. When he had finished with a number she looked up at him. Dorsey’s eyes were closed and she could see the tiny glint of a tear at the corner of his eye. She put her hand on
his knee and they sat there for a moment longer, lingering in the twilight, before he took her hand gently and they rose and went home.

  >

  Bright awoke deep in the night, hearing the wind making grace notes as it plucked at the edges of the camp house window and blew a deep baritone across the top of the chimney.

  November, almost Thanksgiving, the kitchen at home these days awash in the aromas of Hosanna’s magic, the trees outside bare-limbed, gaunt with the anticipation of bitter cold, morning skies broken by thick scudding clouds that made you hope deliciously for the snow that would not come until January at the earliest. A quickening of the blood that made you ache to be away from the cramped desk in the schoolroom, cringing at the screech of chalk across the blackboard—consonants and long division; made you long for the stark beauty of the clearing in the woods, the clean smell of new pine in the camp house, the rattle of branches as squirrels dashed about in the tops of the trees, the swift gurgle of the river hurrying toward winter.

  November: perhaps a strange time to think of rebirth. But it was a hopeful time, fragrant with the rich incense of promise, dressed in the warm reds and browns of autumn.

  Dorsey and Elise had arrived home from their long journey flush with renewal, Elise wearing an enormous diamond and sapphire pendant and Dorsey’s face wreathed in a great, warm smile, obviously quite pleased with themselves. They swept through the door and enveloped Bright with a rush that quite took her breath. And in the ensuing days they filled the house with the undercurrent of their murmurings and touchings. Bright was astonished at the change. It was almost as if a new set of parents had arrived on her doorstep, laden with baggage and presents, transformed by something they had found along the way. Whatever it was, it enlivened everything, charged the air in the house with a hopefulness that made Bright feel almost giddy.

  Hosanna, bustling about in the kitchen, rolled her eyes and spoke of them as “the lovebirds.” “The lovebirds gone come down to supper, or they gone stay up yonder all evening?” The way she said it made Bright tingle with curiosity. There was something secret and delicious going on here, some intimate transaction of the mysterious world of adults that she could not be privy to, that she didn’t know enough about to even begin framing questions. But better not to ask, not now. Better not to risk killing this cat with curiosity.

  At length, they would come down the stairs to supper, their arms linked, and Dorsey would lean over and kiss Elise lightly on the cheek after he had held her chair at the table. He always made a point of giving Bright a kiss too, but she felt a pang of jealousy, seeing him so in thrall. She told herself not to be a ninny, not to mind too terribly much being left just outside the boundary of whatever strange and special territory they occupied now—not a participant, but certainly a beneficiary. It was no longer a fragile house, tiptoeing about, afraid of itself. There was no struggle and she was not caught in the middle. That should be quite enough, she told herself. Quite enough.

  On this chill November night, Bright lay now in the dark in the single bed, nose and eyebrows cold, the rest of her warm beneath the mound of quilts, listening to the wind-music, hearing God breathing trombone breaths just outside the camp house, knowing she would drift off into sleep again in a few moments. But not just yet.

  It was their first trip to the camp house, the three of them together. They had left home at midafternoon with the rear seat of the car piled high with blankets and hampers, enough provisions to last for days. Dorsey had supervised the packing, badgering Hosanna with endless details.

  “Y’all gone stay in the woods the rest of the year?” she grumbled.

  “No,” Dorsey said. “Just ’til tomorrow. But I want to have everything we’ll need.” He looked a bit nervous, Bright thought. And hopeful. They had not spoken of the camp house since Dorsey and Elise had returned, at least not in Bright’s presence.

  “I ’speck you got everything the U.S. Army need,” Hosanna shot back. “If Gen’ral Pershing come through with the troops, you can invite ’em in.” General Pershing had become Hosanna’s hero. He had whipped the Huns, who had been acting Big-Ikey. Anybody who whipped Big-Ikeys was a hero in Hosanna’s book.

  She stood on the porch waving them off as they pulled away from the house, Bright in the middle of the front seat between her parents, she and her mother bundled in a lap robe, Bright wearing a toboggan cap to keep her head warm and Elise a wide-brimmed hat that tied under her chin with large ribbons. It was a sparkling afternoon with the last lingering embers of autumn mingled with the brisk promise of colder weather moving in. They drove across the bridge and out the Columbus Road, the motorcar puttering noisily and Dorsey dodging ruts and potholes.

  “I hope the old horse doesn’t go lame!” Bright cried.

  “He wouldn’t dare. Not with such lovely cargo.” Then Dorsey broke into song, his slightly off-key voice mingling with the rattle of the engine. “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.” Bright joined in, and then Elise with her thin, bright soprano. They sang on through the afternoon—“The Blue Tail Fly” and “Over the River and Through the Woods,” even though it wasn’t quite yet Thanksgiving, and “Comin’ Through the Rye.” And soon they were turning off the Columbus Road and bouncing down the rutted trail toward the river underneath the canopy of tall pines and hardwoods, Elise bracing herself with one hand against the dashboard, holding on to her hat with the other, glancing wide-eyed now and again at Dorsey. Then they broke free into the clearing and Dorsey eased the car to a stop and they sat there for a while, all looking at the little camp house sitting neat and squat at the other end, beckoning them with its wide porch and window-eyes. Elise composed herself and then opened the door and stepped out, and Dorsey and Bright followed her, looking at each other as Elise studied the house for a long moment. Then she said, “How quaint.” And they both roared with laughter.

  “My goodness,” Elise said. “Did you …” Her hand swept the air in the direction of the house.

  Dorsey took a deep bow, then put his big hand on the top of Bright’s head. “Bascombe and Bascombe, Builders of Quality Camp Houses, at your service.”

  “Do you like it, Mama?” Bright asked. “We did it all ourselves. All but the timbers and the chimbley.”

  “Well!” She turned again, looked at the house, her eyes sweeping across the porch. “I’m overwhelmed, I suppose.”

  Bright took her by the hand and led her around the house, showing Elise how they had built it, chattering about joists and studs and rafters, with Dorsey following along behind, letting Bright be the tour guide. “My goodness. Yes, my goodness,” Elise kept saying over and over. Then they went inside and showed her the two rooms, the bedroom with a double bed and a single; the living room simply furnished with a wood-burning cookstove in one corner, a table and four chairs next to the fireplace, and a long bench under the window next to the front door.

  Out on the porch again, Dorsey pointed to the small privy house a short way from the main building, at the edge of the woods. He had had it moved in on the back of one of his logging trucks, after two men from the sawmill had dug the pit beneath and lined it with boards. “The facility,” he volunteered.

  Elise looked a little unsure about that.

  “Simple but functional,” Dorsey said.

  “Yes, of course. I suppose that’s exactly right. Simple but functional. Do you, ah …”

  “It has seating arrangements,” he said, smiling. “Just like at home. Almost.”

  Dorsey unloaded the car, piling boxes and hampers in the main room for the time being, and then he fetched an old blanket and they went down the path through the underbrush to the river. He spread the blanket and they sat together on the small sandy shelf that jutted out into the water. They had been there only a few minutes when, as if waiting for a stage cue, the heron swooped down with a wide flap of his wings and settled on his stilt legs in the shallows perhaps thirty yards downriver from where they sat. He surveyed them for a moment and then walked
about, taking slow gangly steps, raising his feet high up out of the water, looking for dinner. Then there was a flash of his head, a quick dipping movement into the water, and he came up with a silvery splinter of fish that disappeared quickly down his throat. He cast about for another minute or two while they sat spellbound on the blanket, then was airborne with a shudder of his angular body, trailing droplets of water that sparkled in the late sun. No one spoke for a long time, and then Elise said, “That’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

  “He’s a local fellow,” Dorsey smiled. “Here a long time before we were, I imagine. I wonder what he thinks about us roosting in his territory.”

  “Is this the same river that flows through town?” Elise asked.

  “One and the same. It goes all the way to the sea if you stay on it long enough.”

  She shook her head. “Strange, I never thought about it going much of anywhere. It’s such a little river.”

  “Nothing like the Mississippi,” he said, “but it goes somewhere, just the same. One of these days, it will be a thoroughfare.” His arm swept the length of river they could see. “Boats will ply up and down carrying people and things, and this whole area will boom because of it.”

  “Papa can see the future,” Bright said.

  “Oh?” Elise looked up at him.

  “Well,” he said, taking her hand. “Some of it, perhaps. Enough to make me an optimist.”