Phantoms

by Jack Cady

  Evening

  the campfire: is the biggest event of the day and customarily begins at dusk. You may, if you wish, assist in digging the fire pit; but one should control wanton urges to possess oneself of the sticks. Remember the rule: no sticks, no fire—no fire, no leftovers.

  later: as the humans converse and tell stories, of which a very few might have some small basis in fact, you can warm your fur as you sit beside them. They seem to enjoy that.

  How It Ended, Or

  Nips and Tucks

  The dog and the two humans worked through long winter evenings, but in early March icicles along the roof began to drip. Before anyone really became aware, snow banks drizzled while crocus raised perky heads to springtime sun. The gent at first became a trifle giddy, then downright irresponsible. He wondered aloud why reasonable folk still sat typing when the world outside was sunny and muddy and skiddy and wonderful.

  The dog and the lady remained resolute. Finishing touches were required, and it was clear the book could be much, much longer. The lady retained her discipline for quite a while, but her feet started to get dancey. When the first daffodils appeared the lady became inattentive, and finally, wistful.

  The dog, Miss Molly Manners, whose brow had furrowed through the thoughtful, chilly months, regarded her humans with no small amount of compassion.

  "You have done wonderfully well," she told them, "and I am grateful. With your help we have at least covered the basics. Perhaps the finer points of conduct could be dealt with at another time."

  This made the humans happy, and they began talking about pumping up bicycle tires.

  "But we should end with a few little advices," the dog told them. "Let us make a closing list."

  And this is what the lady copied down:

  furniture: humans are sometimes possessive. Capture furniture by extending paw and brisket a little bit at a time, rather than all at once. Gradual control of a chair, for example, will eventually earn human gratitude since you have warmed it nicely.

  so you think you have a flea: Elbow pounding, foot kicking, snout snorkling, and rolling on your back are all recommended. Do not attempt to chase the flea through the weave of the carpet. They are deceptive creatures who, given half a chance, will once more hop aboard.

  a 12 step plan to cure dependence on slipper chewing: Imagine the slipper as a vegetable, a very large zucchini, for example. Would you want to chew that zucchini? Certainly not.

  Of course, you may very well be aware that it is a slipper, not a zucchini. Imagine it as a different vegetable, possibly a pumpkin. If the first two steps fail, you can surely think of ten more vegetables.

  the doorbell: Pavlov wrote about this, and we dogs were not amused. Whether the bell causes people to appear at your front door, or people arrive—thus causing the bell—is a matter still under study. In either case, barking helps people materialize. It offers the added advantage of preparing them to greet you, and pet you, a courtesy they might overlook.

  impolite humans: will occasionally visit. Do not answer rudeness with rudeness, but simply define the situation. Point your nose away from them and lower it so that it rests between your paws. This will place your rump in the air. This done, raise your tail.

  slobber: some humans find it distasteful. When faced with an overly meticulous human, remove the offending liquid by a gentle nuzzle along the pant leg. Or, if dealing with a female, a firm nudge of the muzzle onto the lap will prove successful. The human will exclaim mightily. Probably in gratitude.

  garbage cans: even if they belong to you it is socially incorrect to stick your head in one. Some dogs of the rough and ready variety hold the opinion that anything that can be tipped should be. In polite circles, however, this is regarded as pushy.

  children: the dog and child have much in common, and most of what they have centers around affection for each other. One agreement should be made, however: You do not pilfer the tot’s candy; the tot doesn’t steal your bones.

  And one might go on and on. As any intelligent dog can see, the nuances of etiquette are endless although their general shape is universal: Honor doghood.

  There is, however, one addition. To illuminate it we need turn to the world of humans and their books. One human, a writer of excellent Brittany stock himself, wrote a book similar to this one. It was directed to humans and their writing. He listed numerous rules, yet wisely ended with a final and important rule: "Break any of the above rules rather than say something barbaric."

  We practice etiquette in order to honor doghood, but it is well to keep human needs in mind. They are dear creatures who, properly trained, obey nearly every command. They are greatly loved, though limited. Thus, break any of the above rules sooner than do anything inhumane to humans. They are, after all, only human.

  Notes

  Humans often display an obstinate streak and are at first hesitant to take to leash. Some humans have been known to fight the leash for months before they finally acquiesce.

  Bears can only be taught to ride tricycles. This, I believe, is the principal difference between humans and bears.

  With the exception of squirrels, of which more later. Squirrels, one fears, are the tipped-over dominoes in the cosmic plan.

  J. Bugle Danforth, A Comparative Study Of Intellectual Functions Between 2000 Subject Canines and Humans, Journal of Canine Psychology, Vol. XI, #7, pgs. 94-107.

  I am indebted for this argument to the editors of Dog’s Quarterly who offered extensive coverage of the theory in their January issue, Vol. XVII, #1. Also see, The Conundrum of The Mirror, Rumples J. Smythe, The Doghouse Press, ’93.

  An Inquiry Concerning The Principles Of Balls, A. Arnold Waggenstein, University of Chesapeake Press, 1994.

  Also the utmost depravity, for they are known to yowl their emotions beneath the dark of the moon.

  Never fret about the morals of a cat. They have none.

  The human race simply does not understand that there are times in history when the universe has a distressingly painful need for a particular hole in a particular place.

  For exceptional conditions, see next paragraph.

  Setters almost always overdo things, as do Dachshunds; who you would think would be more serious.

  Now We Are Fifty

  The night throb of frogs and crickets lay like a tumbled blanket across the valley and mixed with the humid vegetable odor of the wet forest. I sat with Frazier in his comfortable house. He remarked that it was still possible to find windowless cabins in these mountains. Not all feuds were dead.

  "I never expected it to change." I listened to the pulse of the night. Owls called. Predators and scavengers ranged. In these hills death was direct. I wondered at the compulsion that made Frazier return to this place. In the last few years his poetry has dealt with spirits of dark, voices of shadow, and the gray mystery that intersperses with dappled sunlight on a trail. Such things are the business of poets, but I feared that he was becoming a mystic.

  "The mist will rise soon." Frazier stepped to the doorway and looked into the hot night. He was framed by the dark. Frazier is tall. His nose hooks and his brows are wide and thick. His face is hollowed and creased. The gray eyes hold either an original clarity or an original madness. They burn bright and sometimes wild. We have been friends all our lives.

  Frazier laughed. Erratic. He turned from the doorway to take a chair.

  "Now we are all sitting," he said. "You and I sit here. Mink is crouched in his cabin beyond that far ridge. He will be like a night-bound animal. Erickson sits and pilots a broken plane through a tangle of blackberry. A great pilot of great affairs was Erickson."

  "The man was your friend." He had no right to talk that way about Erickson. I did not need his sarcasm. The situation was more than bad. It was grotesque.

  A year ago our friend Erickson had checked out on a flight to Ashland in one of his company’s planes. He had been engulfed by the forest. Every evidence showed that a man named Mink had killed the injured Erickson. H
e had waited to report the wreckage for a year. He had robbed and mutilated the body. The remains were incomplete. The lower jaw was gone. In my briefcase was film I had exposed after a long trek into the mountans.

  "Not a friend," Frazier said. "I last saw Erickson in Ashland long ago. It was only for a moment. He was in a hurry."

  "And you were not?"

  "At the time I was," Frazier said. "Didn’t I spend all those years playing the same fool as the rest. Erickson manipulated, you argued law, and I circled poetry like a hawk while wearing a mask of simplicity. These hills, from whence cometh . . . and yet, I believed it, believe it."

  "You complain about what work costs?"

  "I’m not complaining about poetry. Where in the hell are my smokes?" He rose to fetch them from the fireplace mantle at the end of the room. "You’re wrong," he said. "Erickson had ceased to be a friend. Still, it was strange to see him today. That was a quiet, sober meeting. Erickson was in no hurry."

  "You’ve earned the right to be eccentric, not the right to be cruel."

  Frazier ignored me. He returned to the doorway and to the pulsing dark that was filled with death and movement. "It was probably a night like this," he said. "It’s almost exactly a year since Erickson went down." He flipped the just lighted cigarette into the darkness. "We were told right away. The sheriff sent a man thirty miles. Name and age and aircraft number. As if that had any special meaning here."

  "It had no meaning to Mink."

  Frazier tapped at the doorframe. Stepped into the dark. Stepped back inside. He wore conventional work clothes of the hills with the shirtsleeves rolled. His forearms were tense.

  "It had meaning to Mink," he said. "Erickson was Mink’s problem."

  "And he solved it with a rifle." I did not try to hide my disgust.

  "You’re the lawyer. Do you think you have a case?" Frazier turned to gesture to the room which was well furnished and held stacks of current journals, magazines and books. Recordings were shelved across one end of the room. Work by known painters hung beside sketches by a local artist. The sketches were of drift mouths, blackened faces, and abandoned cabins. Frazier’s house was built of native rock and timber and resembled a small hunting lodge. The differences were subtle. In this house the ceilings were peaked and high. The windows were narrow and heavily draped.

  "Identification numbers are out of place here." He gestured again at the books. "Do you think I would be allowed to live in this place if I were very different? I mind my own business." He turned back to the doorway.

  "I’ve been a long time away," I said. "I wouldn’t be allowed to live here any more, and when there is murder you don’t have to mind your own business. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand Mink."

  ". . . that the meek are blessed because they get to stay meek. What is there to understand?"

  "You’ve been here too long." I was convinced of that.

  "Don’t change the subject. What offends you? The death, or your long wait in the city to confirm the death, or some missing bone? Mink is not that much different from the rest of us."

  "Yes he is," I said. "Are you saying you didn’t search?"

  "We all searched. There are thirty-seven men and boys in this community and all of us searched four days." Unseen, but in the direction Frazier looked, Hanger Mountain was a ridge rising above slightly lower hills. A trail ran halfway in. It was used for weekly mail delivery by mule.

  "We covered every slope beyond this hollow to the three adjacent. We searched until it was a fatality. You could lose a herd of elephants in these hills."

  "Something as foreign as a plane?"

  "One could crash now within a quarter-mile and you would not hear. The mist is rising."

  "But you did not search Hanger Mountain?"

  "The folks from Haw Creek searched that mountain. We trust them."

  "Always?"

  "In matters such as this, and others not as stupid. And this is not a courtroom. The mist is heavy. Come to the door."

  With the proof of death on film the estate could be settled. I was attorney for some of the heirs, and it might be that Frazier would be poet for the crashed plane. I did not want to think of that. I did not want his mist and his bitterness and that humid night.

  "You need to be more generous."

  "And you more brave. Come to the door."

  It was like looking at a black shield. The darkness lay flat as paint, the night voices dim. They were a mutter. A jumble. The stream that during the day filled the clearing with the rush of water now blended with a gurgle, a liquid hint of motion behind the black shield. As my eyes adjusted I saw the mist. It hovered and crawled at short distance. It rose slowly toward the lighted doorway and our feet.

  "It will rise faster now," Frazier said. "Let’s walk."

  "Enjoy yourself."

  Frazier turned to me. "You’re angry because you’re afraid."

  "You are the one who is angry."

  "Yes," he said. "You are afraid of Mink. Erickson. Twisted metal and twisted lives and skulls that either talk or don’t or can’t. This is dull. An incident between aging men."

  "An incident of murder."

  "Only an incident that’s a little mysterious. Erickson would have understood."

  "There’s no mystery," I said. "The plane crashed and Mink took all he could get and then waited to see if a reward would be offered. So Erickson’s affairs are delayed for a year."

  "Erickson attends to his affairs," Frazier said. "He is doing it now. Doing the only business he has left."

  This sullen, intellectual son of a bitch. He was asking to do battle. Arrogance. My mind is as good as his.

  "And you are not afraid?"

  "No," he said. "Beleaguered. You people will not leave us alone. You will not leave the hills alone. Erickson helped destroy these hills with his mining. You and your precious business." He stepped through the black shield and into the night.

  Without him I would be lost within a hundred feet. Between his mood and mine it would be crazy to make myself dependent on Frazier. I walked the length of the room to sit by the fireplace, which was clean and gray from fires of the half-dozen winters Frazier has lived here. The mist was beyond the heavy drapes. The voices of frogs and the mutter of the stream were like a murmur of the mist. The night was hot and wet but I felt almost cold.

  Murder. I hate this land where we were raised. It was my old acquaintance with Frazier that brought me back. Ordinarily we would have sent a younger man.

  Erickson had hated this place. It is dark, wet, hot, violent. Erickson’s life was spent trying to deal with the waywardness of boondocks Kentucky.

  Murder. When Erickson checked in missing, it caused the interlocked directorships of three coal corporations to start earning their pay. No one knew this place like Erickson. Erickson could talk to men who wear overalls and do business while standing in small-town streets. When Erickson disappeared I had written to Frazier. He had written back and told me to stay away.

  The heirs became impatient and offered a five-thousand-dollar reward. The results were on film.

  "A hundred dollars would have gotten the same result." Frazier had said that on the morning two days ago. On that morning we began our trek in to view the crash. A guide walked ahead of us. Silent. Although Frazier owned a mule he said that no suitable mules were available. The silent guide carried a machete.

  Along the trail were deep slits in the rock where coal seams had been entered. They were good seams.

  "They still risk their lives for that," I said. People around here have always scrabbled free coal. Sunlight reached toward the black veins. The bracing props were stout, but this had nothing to do with mining. Even from the trail we could see fallen slate.

  "They do not have much money," Frazier said.

  The trail branched down through a streambed bridged by logs, and then wound across the base of the first mountain. Laurel grew like trees. Shrubbery and sapling growth was brushed greener by the humidity.
It would be a full day’s hike.

  In a mile the trail narrowed and in five miles it was overgrown footpath. Under foot was the give and slight backward pressure of deep moisture. Our guide shouldered through brush. Silent and sullen. Since I arrived I had spoken to no one but Frazier. The suspicion of these hills. It is redneck, hot, hillbilly, and righteous.

  "There is a mixture of spirits in these hills." Frazier was musing to himself. "The Cherokees left some, for they were an ambitious people with emissaries north and south. The Scots Presbyterians brought some along, and the first evangelicals invented some."

  I said nothing. He did not want conversation.

  "Spirits of mist, thunder, wind and spirits of the dark." He laughed, low, brittle. The man ahead slashed at blackberry. The trail rose and then again descended. It was hot and getting hotter.

  "Spirits of the dark," Frazier said. "Well, and we are getting old, and most mystery is only a contrivance." There was a sudden flurry ahead. A kick, the sound of the machete striking the forest floor, a hush.

  "Stand still," Frazier said. "There’s often a nest of them."

  The guide pushed at foliage with the machete. He kicked the brush. Then he motioned us forward. Blood lay on the trail, and the pieces of a hacked snake.

  "Always where it’s low and wet," Frazier said. The reptilian blood was almost black on the humus. The head was split, the body chopped. Though he walked heavily our guide had been swift.

  We walked. After the fourth hour my body passed from revulsion to acceptance and the trek was mechanical. Mine is a good body. Even under pressure I could depend on my movements. Part of it comes from early training. Erickson and Frazier and I had all been trained to movement and the use of tools when we were young. It was not until we arrived and met Mink that it occurred to me how much Frazier resembled Erickson and how much I resembled both of them.