The Well

by Jack Cady

  “See her and get yourself laid and forget it.” That was Theophilus’ voice.

  “I don’t know why I talk to you.” That was his father Justice. John figured that his father was finished with the coffee. He was up and moving. His voice was unsteady but it didn’t sound afraid.

  “I don’t care what you do, as long as you take care of business.” Clicks, Theophilus was slipping cartridges into the rifle.

  “I always take care of business.”

  “I got to give you that. You’re always sober when you’re making a deal.”

  Rustling. Creaks of shoes on feet that were stepping slow. Heavy intake of breath. Pop of knuckles.

  “Bring her back,” Theophilus said.

  “She won’t come.”

  “If you want it, bring it back. Where did you get the idea that what she wants means anything? Tie a sack over her head.”

  “She has rights.”

  “She’s a woman.” Theophilus’ voice was heavy with disgust, and John could not figure out who he was disgusted with.

  “If I get hit with a custody suit, you’ll see that she has rights. More than she deserves.”

  “So let her. The boy will come back.”

  Justice’s voice betrayed anger. It was lower, and not submissive.

  “She’s got a point,” Justice said. “When you’re raised with crazy people, then you’re crazy. One of these days I may have to take the boy and leave. I can do something else — ”

  “You kin be a preacher.” The rifle lever locked, the shell chambered. A careful grunt. Lowering to half-cock. “Anytime, boy, but in the meantime go get drunk and laid. Too long between tussles is bad fer a man.”

  “Make it three days then. You ought to be able to handle her and the place for three days.”

  “Or forever.” Theophilus’ voice was lower. Now he was on the defense.

  “If I ever left for good you wouldn’t last ten minutes.”

  “Get outta here.”

  “I’ve studied on it for a long time,” Justice said. “There are people who act like natural lines of transmission. And you know what she transmits — ”

  “She’s nothin’ but a good romp with a sharp tongue, so take your time.”

  “Our time is running out. All of us.”

  Click. Crash of the rifle. It filled the room, the explosion grunting and booming through the door, full, heavy, the shatter of glass nearly lost in the reverberations.

  “Damn — dammit, see what you made me do.”

  “That was a perfectly good cabinet.”

  “Buy a new one. I aint got time to make another.” There was a heavy sound as his grandfather hit a chair. “Git.”

  Justice left.

  John huddled, and started to whimper, but being caught would be bad, so he chewed on a dried peach to keep from making any noise.

  Yells from another room. Cursing. His grandmother Vera was awake. When his grandfather went outside John moved carefully, willed himself to move, and in a little while felt he’d gained enough control to go outside.

  By then the sun was full up but still low across the land. Nearly invisible mist rose from the grass fields, and it felt slick beneath his feet, cool between his toes. The dust where the ducks had knocked down the grass near bushes was also cool. It spurted in little puffs. The ducks stood as he walked toward them, then chased off a few feet to stand peeping privately to each other. And then one started yelling, the loud whack whack to tell that he should have come with bread or corn. As the little hound joined them the drake made a lunge at it, but the hound merely yawned. The ducks talked among themselves. Puffs of cool dust settled on John’s ankles.

  “Keep it quiet.”

  He turned. Scared and guilty and ready to lie, but Theophilus didn’t notice, which gave John some confidence. He didn’t know where Theophilus had come from, but there he was, no mistake, and the rifle hung in his hand.

  “He comes from over that way,” Theophilus said and pointed toward the far corner of the hill that was fenced in barbed wire. “We’ll get over here.”

  They walked, Theophilus, John and the little hound, past the far corner of the house, across the glistening grass, toward the chicken house. The chicken house and low buildings surrounding it were roofed in galvanized steel, washed pink in the early sunlight. Chickens clucked in the runs. Roosters crowed, pursued hens, fought.

  “We’ll squinch down here. Keep hold’a the dog and shut up.” Theophilus crouched behind the wall, from which position he could cover all areas of the hill, except immediately behind the chicken house. He could cover the flat leading across the grass and toward the ducks. A hundred yards. The ducks looked like small white dots now, and the house looked ungainly from the rear, stark and new and rough.

  John did not want to get down, he was too close to the well, but he knelt behind his grandfather and clutched the little hound in both arms. They waited.

  The hound struggled, John held tight. The hound licked his face, he giggled.

  “Keep it shut.”

  Silence. Cluck of hens. Ten minutes. Theophilus shifted position, looked over his shoulder, looked at John and the hound, and whirled back.

  The gray dog came then like a smooth-flowing sinuous gray line, sliding across the hill from behind the chicken house. It was not coming especially fast but it moved steady, the motion true and clean-lined. One moment it was not there, the next moment it was there and the straight line pointed toward the ducks.

  “Gotcha, bastard. Gotcha.” Theophilus thrust the rifle forward, braced and started to lead the dog. His finger tightened, and it was then that the little hound got brave and began to yell. He snarled, barked, struggled in John’s arms. The rifle cracked and Theophilus swore. Levered. Fire. Levered. Fire. Now the gray dog was zig-zagging like a combat veteran, crossing in front of the ducks, disappearing around the house. Fire. Splinters flew from a post on one of the porches. Silence. Theophilus levered and shot the goddamn house. Silence.

  The hound was whimpering. Theophilus turned, threw down the rifle, picked up the hound, and threw it into the well. It screamed as it fell. Then Theophilus picked up the rifle and started to walk.

  Noises were coming from the well and there was distant splashing. In the still morning, with the cluck of chickens, the little hound splashed and gasped for its life.

  John sat in the grass, not thinking, not comprehending. And then he started to scream and cry.

  Theophilus turned back, death-white. The rifle lever dangled. He closed it up. “It aint but an old hound.”

  John squalled. The hound gasped and splashed.

  “Aint but a well for the chickens. I’ll let out his misery.” Theophilus pushed the rifle over the edge, searched with the muzzle like he was trying to figure which direction to point in the darkness. The hammer clicked. No loads.

  “Time you was growin’ up.” Theophilus walked toward the house and the new construction that had been going on in the summer. He returned with a rope. “C’mere.” John came, still bawling. When Theophilus tied the rope around his waist, then around and under his arms, he did not figure it out. Then he did, and started to scream.

  “You want him, go get him.”

  Theophilus got him over the edge. The hound was maybe down there still struggling. Theophilus maybe lowered him a long way, maybe not. As he entered the black spot John screamed himself beyond panic, and passed out. When he woke up he was in his own room. No one was around. The little hound was maybe still swimming. Maybe not. The gray dog did not come back. His mind would not allow that. Nor in his memory was there a recollection that his ducks finally disappeared one by one.

  The engine was still running. The car heater blew so hot that condensation formed inside the car. Melted snow was wet in his clothes. He raised one hand, l
ooked at it, raised the other. Funny how you lived with your hands and did not notice them. One hand seemed older than the other. There were more wrinkles, the veins more prominent.

  He rolled down a window and breathed in the cold air. The heater’s blast made his boots hot and his feet wet in the wool socks. The dull gleam of the car’s dash, the soft leather, the barely heard purr of the engine intruded on unwanted memory. But there was no denying it now. He was into the pit, the well, the great hollow of dark that was longer than his life, that was as long as his life’s history. No question. He knew now that he was truly engaged with the house. He must come to terms with the house.

  When you were forty you knew you were not going to live forever. When you were forty you pretended that what you did was valuable and moral. Either that, or you learned what the words “valuable” and “moral” really meant. Strange words. Actually they were Justice’s words. His so-called crazy father. All right, maybe he was crazy, some people said so, but there was one thing to think about. The ones who called Justice crazy were not so damn rational themselves. You could not exactly call Theophilus or Vera well-adjusted. And John’s mother Sarah had not been a great shining example of reason. And if he, John Tracker, was so terribly sane, then what was he doing sitting in this car weak with memory? He should get back to that hotel. Get back to Amy. It was at least three hours of driving. The afternoon light was nearly gone, soon it would be dark.

  Maybe the whole world was nuts. If the Tracker family was certifiable, maybe the Tracker Family was only different in its style. Maybe Amy was as whacko as the rest. Tracker did not understand what he feared, or even felt, but he somehow knew that the past made the world. The house said that. He wondered if he could trust Amy. Well, he didn’t trust anyone else. He was not even sure why she had to be trusted. What could she do to him, or take from him that mattered?

  As soon as his hands felt steady he pulled the car into the road and managed good speed, considering the road condition. His car’s headlights turned the feathering snow into silver tunnels through the night.

  It was just that the situation between himself and Amy was so recently changed. She had worked for him for so long. They had traveled together, and he had not even much wondered if she had a personal life, or if her personal life amounted to anything.

  And then, one night, it was like a decision was made between them without either saying a word. They became lovers, or at least bed partners. It was nice, but when you went to bed with a person it meant you were no longer in the single role of employer or boss. There was change between them, though he did not know how much or what kind.

  He did know that he wanted to get back to her and hold her and be held. Like a child, almost.

  Chapter Six

  Mary Blessing was John Tracker’s great great grandmother on his mother’s father’s mother’s side. Her knowledges and fears were more ancient than John’s rationalization could allow. They were more ancient than Amy’s Catholicism. They derived from a dark prehistory.

  Mary Blessing deserted her husband before the Civil War, doubtless with good reason, took her daughter Faith and joined a band of religionists who talked of heading west. Tracker family history claims that she followed Mormons.

  That is almost surely a lie. Mary was Negro, devout, superstitious and knew at least the rudiments of voodoo. In addition, she was a few years displaced in time for the Mormon migration. Mary lived in a more certain world than did most Trackers. In the presence of evil, she knew enough to seek a balance instead of making a deal.

  In the richly carpeted hotel elevator John Tracker’s thoughts were surrounded by ranks of muted violins piping from a hidden speaker. His car was parked in the heated garage. He lived in a modern world. The reality of the elevator, of cars and canned music had a way of dispelling ancient ghosts. At the same time those things could bring an unreality of their own. In the streets, cars rode like purple, yellow and red clubs on chain-wrapped wheels that flopped and smacked. The background noise of recorded violins was bothersome, like the buzzing of disembodied insects. He was going to meet Amy. He needed no distractions.

  A skeleton danced in his memory like a recurring dream. The skeleton was in a tiny cubicle. He wondered if the skeleton was real or only fantasy. Kids responded the way adults responded. If memory was right the skeleton was real. It had always been taken as a matter of course by Theophilus. But if it was real, who was it? Did it lie dreamless or dreaming? He touched the steel sides of the elevator that were painted in imitation of wood grain. At that moment the elevator seemed as weird as anything he had ever experienced.

  Feelings like that worried him. You could not run a business, or a life, by constantly objecting to things that offended you. Besides, what was offensive about an elevator? As you matured you ought to look differently at the world. Here he was, age forty, thinking of skeletons.

  The elevator doors slid as smoothly as a habit, and John stepped into a panelled and musically tuned, articulately lighted corridor. He walked to the room, turned the key and Amy got up from a chair and reached to click off the television.

  She was simply beautiful. Her familiar face, slender form and accustomed gestures seemed so sane after the day. She moved toward him and looked both eager and hesitant. He felt the same. They still did not have the intimate parts worked out.

  “It’s late,” she said. “I was getting a little worried.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “The storm.”

  He reached for her hand, drew her to him. He kissed her lightly in a way that he hoped was sort of husbandly; although, having never been a husband, he was not quite sure how such kissing went. He wanted her close, but he had had enough vigorous scenes to last for a while.

  “Have you had dinner?” She seemed trying to play the same game. She was subdued, friendly and kind of wifey, he supposed. If he were wearing a business suit instead of the wool shirt she would probably be untying his tie.

  “Is something wrong?” He felt suddenly possessive, as though by her quiet reaction she was rejecting him.

  “Nothing is wrong.” She put her arms around his neck and drew tight against him. “You look tired and you’re acting sort of distant.”

  “It’s been one hell of a day.” He paused, not quite able to smile at the usage. That also was not what she wanted to hear. “I’ve not had too much practice at living with someone,” he said. “I’m clumsy.”

  She changed from her quietness almost as though he had flipped a switch. This time when they kissed it was full. Her long fingers were in his hair and across his back, her body pressing to him so that he felt aroused in spite of his fatigue. He moved one of his hands up her side and she moved a little sideways so that he could touch her better. Women were so soft and warm. He wondered why, when there were women in the world, he spent so much time away from them. Or rather, why he spent so much time on business.

  To impress women, he supposed.

  “I haven’t had dinner,” he said. “Would you like to go out?” Before they started playing at being lovers he would not have had to ask.

  “Shower first,” she said. “You’ll feel better.”

  “Is it that bad?” He hoped it was not fear she smelled.

  “You always shower. For three years you’ve showered at the end of every day.” Now she was smiling.

  “You sat in the next room listening.”

  “I sat in the next room minding my business and listening to the world’s most eclectic baritone.” She seemed ready to giggle and he found himself about to do the same. The pressure of the day was disappearing. With practice, he figured that they would both learn.

  “Be right back.”

  The world’s most eclectic baritone. This time he would not sing in the shower. He smiled in a way that said he was tired of smiling, and it occured to him that if he were
a little bit dumber life would be better. If he was slightly stupid he would be in control of millions, would be buying legislatures, might even be on a political bender.

  It was confusing. Ideas were more interesting than business, but business was safer. Academic foolishness bored him. Specialists bored him, although he hired them sometimes. It was a strange mix. The visit to the house told him that the early years with his father must, indeed, be important. And it occurred to him that by the time he was ten he had probably heard more obscure ideas than most people met in a lifetime. As the hot water sprayed over him, it seemed that he heard the echo of his father’s explaining voice… “world without end…” But Justice was not a preacher. Justice had been explaining something, yet those were a preacher’s words.

  Time. Time was without end. It was more than simply relative. It was constant; and all the time that ever was or ever would be was now. The hot water spattered against his skin, flushed away not only dirt but fatigue, made him feel more vital, as if he had been fifty and was now a refreshed forty. Justice had once tried to tell him something about time, and John felt that he had almost remembered, had almost solved the time shifts. And then he accepted that he had not solved them, yet.

  Enough of that. Time for dinner. Time to make friends with Amy.

  Could she be trusted? He wished he would quit thinking that. He wished suspicion would leave him alone. Eventually he would have to tell her something about this day.

  They went to the lobby and waited for a cab. John stepped outside of the hotel for a moment. A breath of fresh air. Snow swirled. Wind crashed down building-enclosed streets and rattled the glass in storefronts. Ash and sand and street dirt were gray beneath city lights. Engines revved. He returned to Amy, who remained in the lobby. He tried but he seemed to have nothing to say. Finally the taxicab pulled to the curb.