Southern Cross the Dog

by Bill Cheng

  You learn to read the mud. Where the gators drag-belly downslope. The little trough of raised slime. You learn the stink. Where the swamp wants to fold you into itself.

  HIS BOOTS WERE EASY. HE left them by the door for me to clean. I took a sharp piece of tin from a coffee lid and cut out a square from the heel. No one would notice if they weren’t looking. At night I squeezed the rubber chunk in my palm. I liked to think of the small square of mud he’d track behind him when he went out. It gave me something to look for in the day.

  I DID THE MIRRORS ONE at a time, going in a ring away from the house, spiraling out to where the swamp met the floodwaters. The bits of mirror were nailed up just high enough for my reach. I learned to do it in one stroke, my thumb and forefinger buttered with mud. You press down only a little so the mud’ll stick after it dries. On a good day I could black the mirrors off eight or nine trees before having to head back to the house.

  HE WHUPPED ME, OF COURSE. When the house wasn’t cleaned right. If the porch wasn’t swept. The first time I left my boots out by the door. He’d tripped on them and broke a clay vase. He had a piece of docking rope that he’d coil around his arm, and with the lank end, he’d set it on my back or my hands or my behind. He’d call me a lazy this and a no-good that, and the wax would break off and I could feel the rough of the rope. He’d holler and yell and spit, and then after, he’d go into his room. It was always then that I thought about leaving, taking my things and running out into the swamp—gators and spooks and snakes be damned. I’d steal his boat and row like he rowed and I wouldn’t turn around till I made it all the way to Tallahassee or anywhere else.

  But later he’d come out and wash my cuts with a sponge. He’d hug me and say how sorry he was. He smelled kind of funny then, like burnt paper. Then he bandaged me, very careful so it wasn’t too tight and the edges didn’t stick. Then he’d ask me to pray with him, and he’d take me to the front porch where God could see us, and we’d go down on our knees seeking forgiveness.

  Except I wasn’t praying. I was looking out at the swamp. Waiting.

  LATE INTO AUTUMN A FOG rolled in from riverward, welling up through the trees. Stuckey stared out the open door, his coat still half on, one arm through, the other arm free. He watched the fog move, glancing sometimes at his watch and letting out a little sigh. Finally, he put the other arm through the sleeve and checked the chamber of his pistol.

  Don’t leave the house today, he said.

  What about the chickens?

  Not for any reason.

  He slung his sack across his shoulder and closed the door behind him.

  I did the darning and swept up real quick. When I figured it was time enough, I laced up my boots, threw on a cape, and set out toward the river. The trees stalked up through the gauzy air. I could taste the rot of sitting bog water in the fog—beading against my skin. Even without the path, I could feel my way through the swamp. I knew which tree was where, and how far it was to the next. I knew where the roots rose and the ground dipped then came up again or sloped down into a gator hatch.

  There was hardly any sun overhead, just a boulder of bright cloud. Somewhere a squirrel scrambled up and went from branch to branch—the ice dusting down, some in my hair and some down my neck.

  Pretty soon I found my tree. The mud was too packed for pasting, and already the bits of mirror looked near like jewels with the frost on them. I breathed against a piece and a shell of ice slid out into my hand. I put it in my mouth and it melted up cold and rusty.

  Then Nan said, Go back.

  But I tried to thaw another piece of mirror.

  Go back.

  And then I heard the crunch of grass that wasn’t a gator or a croc or a coyote, but a boot meeting the brush.

  Had he turned back? Maybe he got to the boat and figured the fog was too thick to row through. I pressed myself against the tree and tried to figure how far I was from the river line and the house. I hadn’t been out more than twenty minutes. But then there it was again. It came in twos like the way a man walks. Crunch and crunch. The thump of heel. The toes finding the grass.

  Then again, louder.

  I stared out at the mist and I could see a figure take shape. The fog moved around his outline, darkening. I began to run.

  I moved through the thickness back toward where I thought the cabin must’ve been. He’d heard me for sure because I heard a voice cry after me and the whipping of low vines and branches snapping. My lungs burned and the ground became uneven and strange. Trees appeared where they shouldn’t have, and the roots caught me at my boots. My cape snagged and tore and I ripped the drawline from my throat and kept running. The white air was endless; I didn’t know where I was going.

  My boots got tangled up and when I fell, the ground wasn’t where it was supposed to have been. I was tumbling, crashing into a curtain of high grass. Here, the ground was cold and wet. I tried to stand, but my ankle hurt like it’d been yanked too hard and I couldn’t stay on my feet.

  There was a snort and a grunt. Then I saw where I was—the trough of smooth mud, and the ebb of dirty green water. I could make out the dull gray hue of eggs behind the grass. Something dipped into the water, like a stone dropping. I scrambled up on my hands and knees, and the water burst and I could see the snap of jaws—its black rough hide racing through the churn and up the bank.

  There was a crack and the burn of powder. The gator twisted. I stood myself up and pushed through the pain. I kept running.

  He chased me to the cabin and I fell on the porch. I turned and saw the man coming through the mist—not Stuckey but shorter, younger. His face was all pinched and his cheeks puffed as he sucked in the air. He carried a gunnysack in one hand and my cape in the other. I could see the revolver swinging low from his belt.

  I cried and I covered my face, pleading No no no no.

  Dora, he said. My God.

  And it wasn’t till he pulled my hands from my face and said Dora, Dora, look at me just look at me—with his hands on my cheek, not rough but holding it—it was then that I saw his face, and except for the mustache and the way the skin had gone a little long under the eyes that I saw him and knew the voice. My God, he said. It’s me. It’s G.D.

  I scraped out the urn with a fork and he told me, Dora, no, please let me look at you, and I said, Coffee?, but he took my hands and said, Dora, don’t you know who I am? Then I laughed and said, ’Course I know you, G.D. We used to go and play Sally Water. And his fingers were brittle so I pulled away and thought maybe he’d come apart like icicles. So I lit the stove and I made coffee and he stood with his Adam’s apple going up and down.

  He tried to talk but it ain’t nice manners to talk when I’m making the coffee, what if I overburn it? So I didn’t say nothing. I tended the flame and sniffed the spout every now and again. I poured two cups and spooned the sugar. One in mine, and one, two, three for G.D. on account of I like the sound, one two three for G.D.

  He sat on the couch, fumbling with his hands, working one finger over the other. His gloves were set on his lap. G.D. looked like I remembered excepting those little hooked hairs on his lip and that he’d gone a little lean at the neck and cheek and eyes. He still had that big wide mouth, and that fleshy stub of a nose. I handed him his cup, and he couldn’t stand to hold it. He put it down on the floor.

  What are you doing here?, he asked me.

  That’s rude.

  Stuckey know you’re here?

  ’Course he does. Don’t ask silly questions.

  He stood up and tipped the cup over with his boot.

  All that coffee went all over the floor and I scolded him.

  Oh! Look what you did!

  A pool of it was thinning out, going into the wood. I went to get a rag to soak it up. I pressed the rag deep, tried to draw it from the grain, but it wasn’t any good. It wouldn’t ever come out.

  Look at
me, Dora, he said, and he took me by my shoulders. I slapped him across the cheek. He stood there stunned. I’m sorry, he said. I ragged up the rest of the coffee, then went to refill his cup. G.D. looked at the window and touched his hands to his ribs, above the pearl inlay of his pistol. He stared for a moment, then turned back to me.

  How long you been out here?

  Then I asked him if he remembered that time him and Missy Baker went behind the church and Missy told the girls how he showed her his crawdaddy.

  Dora, listen to me. How long you been here?

  And I told him I didn’t know, how it could’ve been weeks or months. The days all ran together.

  Then I asked him if he remembered when the girls teased him and made little pinch claws at him. Then I showed him with my thumb and the pointy one going pinch pinch pinch, and remember how he got so fussed he went straight home and wouldn’t play with us for two weeks.

  Stop it!, he said. You shouldn’t be here. It ain’t safe.

  Then I smiled and patted his arm. I’m only teasing, I said. I won’t pinch you no more.

  He took my hands gentle like, put them together, our four hands like they were waiting to catch something. We were squat down on the floor, me waiting for him to talk and him waiting for himself to say something. There was a click and we both turned to the front door.

  Stuckey made a Stuckey shape in the doorway. His coat was wet and dripping, and his flannel was hung loose over his belt. He was very quiet, watching us, the air steaming around his lips. He stepped in and slid the bolt across the latch. He looked down at us.

  You spilled coffee, he said.

  I stood up.

  G.D., he said. I see you’ve met Dora.

  G.D. stood up slow. Been waiting on you.

  I told you not to meet me here.

  I got some things you’re going to want to see.

  Stuckey touched his lip, thoughtfully. Any more coffee?, Stuckey asked. Any not spilt on my floor?

  I went into the kitchen to fetch another cup. When I came back in, both Stuckey and G.D. had their coats off and were sitting on the couch. G.D.’s sack was spread open between the two. G.D. started taking out the items: a brass candlestick holder, some forks and spoons and things, a little daguerreotype of a red-haired white woman. They haggled back and forth on prices.

  I tended to the housework, dusting and sweeping, trying to be in the living room as near as I could. I refilled their cups, boiling up a new urn when we ran out. I looked at the coffee stain near where G.D. was sitting.

  I got a fresh rag, then went on my hands and knees, my head bobbing. As I rubbed at the stain I could see G.D.’s gloves, lain flat across the couch arm. The cloth was frayed where the fingers ought to have been, with little flecks of dead leaves and bark caught in the gray wool. It looked like a pair of tiny chopped hands spread wide in waiting.

  Stuckey picked up a rusted-up pocket watch and tossed it with the rest. You didn’t come into my home to show me this.

  What, you’re not happy?

  Don’t play games, G.D.

  I didn’t look up, only at where the wood splintered, catching in the rag or my palms. My fingers pressed down hard, the pink under my nails going white. There was a long silence. Nobody moved.

  Then finally G.D. took out a long silver pipe with etchings all on the body. Near the end was a little silver knob. He held it up with two hands. There were little gems, red and green and blue all over the body and when I looked closer, I could see they were eyes from some kind of snake. Stuckey took the pipe and rubbed the length on the sleeve of his flannel.

  Where’d you get this?

  Chinaman in the camps.

  Stuckey brought the mouth end to his lips and blew through it. He plugged up the other end with a finger, then let the air punch through. Then he drew in. He tested the weight of it in his hands, turning it over and over, then moving a row of fingers down its etched scales.

  How much?

  Fifteen.

  You’re a thief, G.D.

  I can always give it back.

  Okay. Fifteen.

  Stuckey got up and fished out the small key and went to his room. G.D. looked at me. I started to say something but he clapped his hand across his mouth. When Stuckey came back, there was fifteen dollars in his hand.

  G.D. packed up the things Stuckey didn’t want. They clanged together in the sack and he drew up the string tight, slinging it over his shoulder. Stuckey opened the front door. The cold air blew in and G.D. pulled his coat around him.

  Always a pleasure, Pat.

  Stuckey nodded, holding the door open.

  Then Stuckey grabbed his arm. He pulled it down, forcing the hand beyond the grip on his holster. G.D. struggled a little but went limp when he looked into Stuckey’s face.

  I like you, boy. We do good work together, he said.

  He let go and G.D. straightened.

  If you come to my home again, I’ll kill you.

  G.D. smoothed out his sleeve. He looked at Stuckey then back at me, and he said, Good day, before he left.

  I was still on the floor but I had already quit trying to clean. Stuckey picked up the pipe from the couch, walked past me and into his room. The door locked behind him.

  G.D.’s gloves were still on the couch.

  I swept them up with one hand and then they were in my pocket.

  THEY WORE A LITTLE BIG, the bottoms slipping off my thin wrists. The fingers were cut away and didn’t cover near enough past the knuckle, so even when I was out in those woods, I was breathing into them, trying to keep the wool warm or rubbing the feeling back into my fingers. They itched and my hand would go sweaty and slick and the wool would start to stink. Still, even in the warm days, I’d wear at least one—the left usually since the right was for the mirrors. When Stuckey wasn’t around, I’d wear them around the house, dusting and sweeping and cleaning. Bits of chicken feed caught in the little curls and hooks. At night, I’d light a candle and peck out the little grains and bits of dead leaf and wood. Then I’d put them on, and you can sleep like that, those gloves around your hands, like them and you was both kind of holding.

  STUCKEY DID NOT LEAVE HIS room. Not the next morning or the morning after—the space outside his door filling with sweet itchy air. Outside on the second day, the loblolly pines were starting to rust and bald, setting down their needles in a spiny carpet. It was a clear morning and I could see through to where the river purled behind blackgum and slash pine. I watched from the window, touching my knuckles through G.D.’s glove, thinking maybe that was his shadow cast across a far tree, melted into the bushes, and then gone.

  I knocked on Stuckey’s door and told him I was going to grain the chickens. There was a rustle and a cough, but he didn’t answer. I put on a cape and I took the bag of feed from the hall closet. The morning nipped and chilled around my neck, and I followed the path down to the chicken coop. The dirt was pecked and feather-strewn, and there was the milky white at where they’d messed. I ducked under the wire and let it down careful so it didn’t catch on my clothes.

  The chicken coop was small, and even for me; I had to stoop. The hens were all set in their rows, their beaks stuck into their puffs, clucking on soft.

  Here, here, I said, and I scattered the feed across the floor, and they wiggled their heads. Here, here.

  But then my mouth caught and there was a hand over it.

  And I shook and I clawed, but it would not let go.

  And then G.D. said, Dora, quit it now, quit it. You’ll have to be quiet.

  And he let go.

  You have to run away with me, he said.

  Oh go on, I said, because I remember when you took Lita Kelley’s little hand and then made her cry afterward and played tricks like a bullfrog down her dress or throwing mean old clods of mud. So go on. Who you fooling?

 
He’s going to hurt you, Dora. If he hasn’t already.

  Then he took my hand and he saw that it was his glove and let the hand drop.

  I can protect you. He won’t find us.

  This is a chicken house and you ain’t any kind of chicken, I said. I scattered the feed. The birds jumped off their warm little thatches, put-put-puting on the wood. And then I looked at him, at how he still had his little-boy face, his hair all full of feathers and dust, the way the whites of his eyes looked near blue in the shade. He brought his hands up against his lips and touched the sides of his nose. He took a big sigh and stared up at me like he was doing a kind of measuring.

  Be careful, he said, stooping under the opening.

  He stood full up and dusted the feathers from his shoulders.

  I have to salvage today. Will you feed the chickens tomorrow?

  Then he was gone.

  THE NEXT DAY, G.D. WAITED for me inside the chicken house, his shoulders rolled in, hunched under a low shelf of Rhode Island reds. He had cut a trap under one of the roosts that dropped him outside, under the coop so he could come and go without getting in sight of the cabin. He showed me how it worked, how easy it was. He showed me the foot-and-a-half step down onto the ground. We crawled under the floor, bits of feather drifting down, lighting on the grass blades and our hair and our clothes. When we got to the wire, he pointed at the grove of dogwoods, behind them, two days of hard travel, he said, then north toward Fitler, following the Yazoo up to Cary, Rolling Fork, then finally Anguilla.

  Anguilla?

  My older brother has a homestead there, he said.

  I asked him to tell me about it and he said there was a creek out back, and a little pea patch behind the house, with the vines going all over, stretching across and across and across. His oldest brother cattled, and there were steaks and milk and honey on the bread. All of that in Anguilla. Across that wire.