Old Dogs and Children

by Robert Inman

Dorsey sat between them, and he put his arms around them and they stayed a while longer by the riverside, letting the quiet speak for itself as the day waned, casting long cool shadows over the river. Bright felt utterly at peace, here in the place she had come to love over the space of the past few months, with things set straight and right now. She would preserve this if she could, at least in some lockbox in her mind where it would wait for another time when she might need the memory of it. She leaned against her father, barely breathing, hoping that she might make time stand still, and all that went with it. But Dorsey rose finally and said, “It’s getting late. I don’t want you ladies getting cold.”

  Back in the camp house, he built a roaring fire in the fireplace and another in the firebox of the iron cookstove.

  “Is Mama going to cook?” Bright asked, realizing that they had left behind the most essential ingredient for a meal—Hosanna.

  Elise looked a bit alarmed. “Goodness, I hope not. We’ll either starve or come down with some unspeakable ailment.”

  “Mama and I are going to cook,” Dorsey laughed. “It may not be a gourmet dinner, but it will stick to our ribs.”

  While the camp house warmed, he organized dinner, unpacking a food hamper and laying out the ingredients on the table. When the cookstove had heated, he plopped pork chops into an iron skillet crackling with grease and then set Elise to work kneading dough for biscuits, showing her how to work the dough with her fingers and then pull off small, pale chunks and pat them into thick rounds, placing them on a greased baking pan. He showed Bright how to shuck and skewer corn on the cob, which would roast in the oven alongside Elise’s biscuits. The camp house filled with warm rich smells and they chattered, marveling at the heron they had seen, laughing at a smudge of flour on Elise’s cheek. Dorsey drew a bottle of wine and three glasses from a hamper, uncorked the bottle, and poured—even a bit for Bright.

  “A Beaujolais,” Dorsey said, “in honor of the fair ladies of the great state of Louisiana.” He and Elise held their glasses up, clinked them lightly together, looked for a long slow moment into each other’s eyes, then sipped.

  “Tu es très galant, monsieur.”

  Bright looked up at Elise. “What did you say, Mama?”

  “It’s French,” she smiled. “I said, ‘You are very gallant, sir.’ ”

  “And you, my dear,” Dorsey said softly, still gazing at Elise, “are very beautiful.” And he turned quickly to Bright, as if remembering that she was there with them, and gave her a huge smile. “And you, little sugar, are also beautiful and not only that, but a bonny good camp house builder.” Then they all three clinked their glasses together and Bright took a sip from her own, tasted its strange tartness. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s very delicious, sir,” she said bravely. And they all laughed at that.

  Dorsey went back to his pork chops. Elise and Bright to their work. Bright stole glances, studying her mother’s face, earnest and absorbed with the bread dough. She was still a girl, Bright thought, so much younger than the mothers of most of her friends—a graceful and beautiful girl, her eyes dancing now in the light from the fireplace and the oil lamps Dorsey had lit. There was a reserve there, a distance you might never completely broach, fashioned partly of the very fact of her grace and beauty, partly of some innate reticence of spirit. But Bright began to think that Elise might, in the flush of whatever she and Dorsey had found in San Francisco, begin to open herself to the small neat world Bright had seen from the aeroplane. Make a place for yourself where you are. A great deal seemed possible now, and she told herself again that she must not be jealous, that having things right and good and whole was the most important thing of all.

  After dinner, Dorsey refilled Elise’s wineglass and they began to talk about their courtship, telling Bright again the story of how they met. Elise’s voice tinkled with laughter and her slim, graceful pianist’s hands caressed the air as she spoke of the “tall, handsome gentleman presenting himself beneath my window with bits of hedge in his hair.” The warmth of the room and their laughter filled Bright like new sun and her eyelids grew heavy. She barely remembered being undressed and tucked into bed, surrendering to sleep with a last image of Dorsey and Elise standing, framed in the doorway of the bedroom with the firelight dancing behind them, holding hands.

  Bright lay now deep in the night, reconsidering it all, warm and fuzzy with half sleep, beginning to drift back into the soft darkness. But before she did, she turned under her covers to face the double bed next to her single one, expecting to hear the sound of her parents’ breathing. But there was only silence, and as she stared into the dark, she realized the bed was empty. She sat up, looking about the room, and then she heard a flutter of sound from the next room and saw through the doorway the flicker of light from the fireplace. She climbed out of bed, feeling the boards of the floor icy against her feet. She padded quietly to the doorway and stood there, blinking, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. And then she saw them on the floor in front of the fireplace, their bodies pure and golden in the light, moving against each other. Elise’s hair spread like a fan across the blanket beneath her, and her arms encircled Dorsey’s broad back, her long delicate fingers dancing along his skin. He hovered above her, lighter than air, their bodies joining and then parting, keeping time with some unheard music, making small involuntary sounds. Bright stood for a long time, unseen, both puzzled and entranced by what she saw, unable to turn away, though she sensed that it was the most private of things, something forbidden to her, something at once beautiful and fearful. Then their bodies began to quicken and they strained against each other, calling softly like swans, and she felt a sudden rush of something strange and frightening well up inside her—a nameless jumble that spun inside her head and made her feel angry and weak and terribly alone. She wanted to turn and flee to the warm safety of the bed, but she could not move. The two golden bodies held her spellbound, powerless. The muscles along Dorsey’s spine and buttocks rippled in the light now, hills and valleys undulating as Elise raised her long, slim legs, bent at the knee, and stroked them against his sides. Then Elise began to cry out softly and her body began to jerk rhythmically and Dorsey rose up, bending at the waist, towering above her, and Bright stared at the glistening thing he shared with her, giving and then taking back.

  Something must have caught his eye. His head turned and he stared toward the open doorway of the bedroom and he froze, suspended there above Elise. “Oh, my God,” he cried softly. “Oh, no.” Elise opened her eyes and looked up at him and then her head snapped around and she saw what he saw and she screamed. The sound ripped from her throat, an explosion that shattered the brittle air of the room.

  Bright took a halting step into the room, held her arms out toward them. “Papa, Mama …”

  “Get out! Get out!” Elise screamed, flailing at Dorsey, slashing at his face, driving him off her and back onto his haunches with the long thing between his legs dancing in the firelight, a thing suddenly wicked and alive. His hands went down instinctively, trying to hide himself, then one hand went out, beseechingly, to Bright. “Sugar. Go back…”

  She turned then in the doorway, thoroughly frightened now. I have ruined everything. I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’ve ruined it all. And then she heard the rush of feet behind her. Elise seized her by the arm, spun her around. Bright looked up, saw the wild, terrible thing that her mother’s face had become, the naked hatred and shame. She cringed from it, but she could not escape the hand that flashed toward her like a striking snake. “You little bitch!” The blow flayed her face, snapped her head back. The sound of it was more terrible than the pain, exploding inside her head, drowning out everything else except her mother’s piercing scream. “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” And then Dorsey, back beyond them, crying out in anguish, “Elise! No!” Her mother’s body jerked back as Dorsey pulled her roughly away, making no attempt now to hide himself, his own face contorted with rage. Terror seized Bright’s body and flung her away from them, away from the
two naked furies looming above her like beasts, tearing at each other. She staggered toward the front door and jerked it open and fled across the porch and down the steps into the night, holding her hands over her ears. Elise’s screams and Dorsey’s bellowing cry seared her brain, obliterating everything, beating at her back as she stumbled around the edge of the house and blindly into the protection of the underbrush, branches tearing wickedly at her flesh and nightgown.

  It was a good while before Dorsey found her huddled in the sand by the riverbank, sobbing and shivering with fright, the awful sounds still reverberating in her head, crashing against each other until she tore at her hair, trying to make them go away. She saw the light dancing toward her and then Dorsey’s face in the glow of the lantern as he knelt. He looked horrible, old and gaunt, near death. Blood oozed from the three parallel slashes across one cheek, mingling with the tears that streamed from his fevered, bloodshot eyes. He set the lantern down on the sand and reached for her, but she recoiled from him and he had to grab her and press her roughly against the flannel shirt he wore now. She fought him, and then his viselike strength suddenly overcame her and she collapsed in his arms and everything went black.

  9

  For a long time, she did not speak. She woke from a long, fevered sleep several days after the terror at the camp house and found that her voice had shattered into small silver shards and fallen into a dark well in the pit of her stomach. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, not even the tiniest sound. And then she found there was a refuge in her own quiet, a cave she created deep inside herself. So she didn’t try to speak anymore. The voices of others rang hollowly in her ears. And the music stopped entirely.

  Dorsey was grief-stricken, caught between Elise, who cowered in shame in her room, and Bright, whose silence followed him everywhere. Bright sensed that Dorsey felt accused by them both, but she was powerless to tell him that he was not to blame, that no one was to blame, really. An agonized pall hung over the house and the air inside seemed dead, like the rot of old leaves. They moved, they breathed, they ate and slept, but there was no life to it. And they avoided each other’s eyes. There seemed to be nothing to say, and even if there were, no way of saying it. Even Hosanna was struck dumb, aware that something unspeakable had happened, that something had been destroyed, and that for once she was utterly powerless to do or say anything.

  When it became apparent that Bright would not talk, Dorsey took her in desperation to Dr. Finus Tillman. She sat alone in his examining room for a long time, hearing the faint mutter of voices from the doctor and her father in the adjacent office, looking at the framed certificates and diagrams of the human body on the walls, the rows of bottles inside glass-fronted cases, the skeleton dangling from a wooden frame in the corner with a bolt in the top of its head. Finally Dr. Tillman came in alone and gave her a thorough examination, holding down her tongue with a small wooden paddle while he peered down her throat, probing with his hands around the outside of her neck, listening to her insides with his stethoscope. Then he pulled up a chair and sat in front of the examining table, facing her.

  “You’re a fine, healthy girl, Bright,” he said. He waited, looking up into her face. She stared back at him, first at his eyes and then at the bald spot on the top of his head. She sat very still, hardly breathing. She had learned that when you were very quiet, you could take very tiny breaths because you needed so little air.

  “You could talk if you wanted to,” Dr. Tillman said. “You have good, strong vocal cords. There’s no sign of trouble in there, not even so much as a hint of redness.” He arched his eyebrows, making question marks. His eyes broke away and he looked down at his hands, then back up at her, fixing her with his gaze. Bright wanted to help him. But she couldn’t.

  He sighed. “But it’s obvious you don’t want to, or can’t for some reason that is not physical.” He fell silent for a moment. “Bright, I want you to know that there was nothing wrong with what you saw.” He paused, searching for words, and she looked away at the window, at the dust motes dancing in the pale winter sunlight. “When two people are married, they make love. A man and a woman lie down together, and they touch and express their love for each other, and sometimes their touching starts a baby growing in the woman. But starting a baby is not the only reason. It’s simply the most wonderful way they can say to each other, ‘I love you.’ There’s nothing shameful about it, and I don’t want you to think of it that way. It’s just that it’s a private and secret thing between a man and woman. I’m sure it must have been a very great shock …”

  You were not there! She wanted to cry out, to tell him of how the strange and beautiful thing she had witnessed had turned into an unspeakable terror, a dark wickedness—not the thing itself, but what it had done to all of them. She wanted to tell him how lost and alone she felt, separated from those she loved, isolated by the silence. Obviously, Dorsey had not told him all of it. Bright might have told him, but her voice was deep down there in the well and wouldn’t come out. Even if it could, she was not so sure that she wanted it to. She just wanted to be quiet in a way that went far beyond words.

  “Is there anything you want to ask me? Anything I can tell you? You can write it down if you want.”

  He started to reach for a pad and pencil on his desk, but she shook her head.

  “Well, then,” Dr. Tillman said, “I think we’ll just let things take their course, Bright. I could recommend that your father take you to a specialist in Atlanta, but I don’t think that’s necessary just yet. We’ll wait it out and let time heal things, as I’m sure it will.” Dr. Tillman reached out and took her hand in his. “I want you to know this, that your mother and father love you very much. I’m sure of that. And I’m always here to help. If you need anything, you just come here. You can tell me whatever you want, and I’ll keep it perfectly to myself. You can count on that. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. She thought that he was a kind and good man and probably a very good doctor. But he couldn’t see where her voice had gone. Nobody could see down that far.

  Dorsey waited until January to take her back to school. Mrs. Arbuckle met them at the classroom door and took Bright’s hand and led her to the empty desk in the front row. She had sat midway the room before, but they had moved all her things to the new desk in front, just in front of where Mrs. Arbuckle herself presided. The room buzzed with noise, and the rest of the children stared as Bright sat down and lifted the lid of the desk and saw that all her things were there—books, ruler, pencils. She closed the lid and looked to see her father still standing at the door, watching her. Then he closed the door and went away.

  She was a curiosity at first, but after a few days they grew used to her silence. She did her work, filling pages of paper with words and numbers, catching up on adverbs and long division. And on the playground she found that she could send a kickball spinning just as fiercely as ever. She was simply mute and everything sounded far away, as if the world went on next door and she viewed it through a window.

  Even in school, surrounded by the bustle of activity and learning, she found there was really not much worth saying, after all. Only once was she tempted to try. Xuripha Hardwicke had decided to take Bright’s silence personally. She jostled Bright roughly as they stood in a milling crowd of children on the playground one morning and hissed, “Dummy!” Bright stared at her for a moment and then kicked her in the shin. Xuripha’s howl of pain brought Mrs. Arbuckle running from her accustomed place under an oak tree as the rest of the children backed away and formed a small tight circle.

  “She kicked me!” Xuripha bawled, writhing on the ground and holding her shin with both hands.

  Mrs. Arbuckle grabbed Bright roughly by the arm. But then Hubert Deloach, who stood at the edge of the chattering crowd, stepped forward and tugged on Mrs. Arbuckle’s sleeve and said quietly, “Xuripha called Bright a dummy.”

  “Is that true?” Mrs. Arbuckle demanded. Xuripha just howled louder. Mrs. Arbuckle still held Br
ight in her grip. “Is that true?” she repeated. Bright hesitated and then nodded. Mrs. Arbuckle released her arm. “I don’t condone violent behavior,” she said, then looked down at Xuripha and added, “usually. Xuripha, get off the ground and go clean yourself up. And Bright, don’t you ever let that happen again.”

  Xuripha wiped her nose on the sleeve of her coat and went snuffling off to the bathroom, and the rest of the children drifted back to their games and Mrs. Arbuckle to her place under the oak tree, leaving Bright and Hubert Deloach standing alone, huddling inside their coats in the January wind that plucked at their hair and sent tiny swirls of red dust spinning on the bare clay of the playground. Hubert looked down at his feet and scuffled the dirt with the toe of one shoe. He was small and shriveled and painfully homely, and they called him Monkey to his face with the special mocking cruelty of children. The only thing about him that seemed to be growing was his ears. For the first time in a good while, Bright had something she wanted to say. But when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Not a peep, not the tiniest fragment of sound. She shook her head vigorously in frustration, and then Hubert said, “It don’t make no mind. It’s all right.” She reached out and hugged him then very quickly, pressing her face against his, and stepped back to look at his astonishment. And she vowed that someday, when Hubert Deloach least expected it, she would repay.

  Dorsey Bascombe, for his part, threw himself into his work. It seemed that everybody in the South wanted to build something in this spring of 1920, and that a good percentage of them insisted on having fine pine lumber from Bascombe Lumber Company to do it. Dorsey put on extra crews to work in the woods, where the sawmill whined from first light until it was too dark to see, slicing freshly cut logs into raw lumber. Mule-drawn wagons and his new trucks shuttled constantly back and forth to the lumberyard next to the river, where the planer mill worked feverishly to keep up with the demand. The railroad put extra cars on its daily freight run and as it crawled east across the trestle every afternoon, laden with its bounty, the flatcars stacked high with pine boards looked like a trail of yellow insects.