“That’s got it,” Lewis said. And jumped in his truck and roared home as fast as he’d come.
There were a few things he had to say, but Beverly’s pillow was gone from the bedroom and her reading spectacles and glass of water too.
Every night, before they retired, they each took vitamin C tabs because Beverly thought they were good medicine. Lewis made jokes about them. No vitamin C’s lying on the night table tonight.
Lewis went into the front room. Beverly was all wrapped up on the couch. He put his hands on his hips. There were a lot of things he might have said.
He slept badly, tossing and turning in sheets Beverly should have changed twice a week instead of once a week like she did.
When the sun came up, Lewis rose from the bed that had been as uncomfortable as any he’d known. Snatched his jacket and rubber boots and started down the winding lane that ended at the river. The wild irises in the ditch were ready to open. The wild irises were smaller than the ones Beverly cultivated but more vivid. He left dark green tracks along the grassy path. A red-winged blackbird jumped up in a flurry and Lewis paused to see if he could spot her nest.
The farm was better for his having worked it. Isn’t that enough to ask of a man—that three hundred acres of the earth flourish under his hand?
The Stink Dog chased after him. Penny must have let her out. The speeding dog knocked dew off the grass heads, casting a perfect rooster tail of exploded droplets behind her.
She still ran funny. Like it hurt her.
“Stink! Go home! Get back! Get back, darn you! Go home!”
He had to shout again each time she paused for another backward glance, but Stink obeyed and Lewis was alone. Just like he liked it. Fool dog ruined his walk. The river was mud brown, carrying the lifestuff of the upstream pastures. The raw smell smelled like an open grave. A dead bird tumbling, hung up on a snag, rotating, bobbing. A wood duck, with brown-and-white speckled breast—nature’s bounty, freely given.
The smoke column from the kitchen chimney was straight and strong. He hesitated, but said the heck with it and went to get a bucket of grain. This morning he’d take some steers to market. At least he’d be off the farm.
Eight good young five-hundred-pound steers. They’d bring top dollar from farmers who’d pasture them over the summer and resell them at the state graded sales in the fall.
“Soo, soo!” And he rattled the grain bucket and called. One of them raised his head for a moment before resuming grazing. They didn’t care for grain this morning, thank you.
Lewis could have gone in and got Stink, but he’d promised that he’d never work her again and, by God, he was a man who kept his promises!
When he went out to the left, the steers moseyed right. When he came up close, they’d split to one side or the other. Like all young steers, they loved to run. Like all farmers, Lewis didn’t.
After forty-five minutes, they were lathered and he was sucking for air. Twice, he almost got them in the chute before one animal broke and the others followed the escapee’s lead. He swore. He threw stones.
When Mark came out to help, Lewis hollered at him too. “Over to the left! Head that red steer. Don’t you know livestock at all? Pay attention!”
Heart pounding, breath coming in gasps, Lewis closed the gate on the animals and sagged against the gatepost. Mark looked like he meant to say something. By God, he better not! Not a word!
“I’ll get the gooseneck.”
“When you back up, give the wheel a little turn so the trailer comes uphill.”
“I’ve loaded cows before.”
“Have you now?”
Lewis flogged the frightened animals aboard with a nylon stockwhip, popping its tassel at their ears.
The exhaust burbled under the pickup like fog.
Mark stood at the window. “You want any company?”
“It only takes one man to get these steers to market and only one man to unload them. I’d thank you to get something done on the line fence.”
Mark scratched his head. Probably he was thinking that digging postholes in rocky ground would make a bad day.
Lewis ate at the little luncheonette at the livestock market. He talked to men he knew. He waited for the auction. He got eighty-two cents a pound for his steers and remembered when he’d let good steers go for twenty. He saw spirited bidding on an orphan lamb someone had brought in. Bleating. Dashing about. That was something he didn’t like about the livestock market—the two-day-old calves and the great big old cows, down on their feet so they had to unload with electric prods. Man who’d use a cow until she couldn’t walk before bringing her to market. Lewis couldn’t see much in that sort of man.
He drank several more cups of coffee than was his custom. He spoke to a few men he knew and was introduced to some he didn’t.
The first half of the way home he drove very fast, the second half slower. When he turned into his own road, he was creeping along.
Beverly was in the kitchen. “Where’s Mark and Penny?” he asked.
“They went on into Strasburg.”
“Two movie nights in a row?”
“Lewis, I asked them to go.”
Heavily, he sat at the Formica table. He twirled his cap between his hands. DEKALB SEEDS. That was the legend on his cap. “Got a pretty good price for the steers today,” he said.
She had her back to him, wiping the stove. Her shoulders shook.
“Oh hey! Hey! Don’t cry, Beverly.”
And he put his hands on her shoulders, just like he had every right to comfort her.
“Lewis, I’ve missed you. Lewis, what’s to become of us?”
“I been right here, honey.”
Dabbing at her eyes with a paper towel. Blew her nose a good honk. She was awful embarrassed and her smile trembled. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
And Lewis was shamefaced and all thumbs. He hitched an awkward shoulder, “I’m sorry Beverly. I shouldn’t have run off last night the way I did.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that,” she said. “I just hate to see you give up hope.”
“I haven’t given up hope for us.”
She turned half away. “Lewis, when I heard you coming down the road, I put It in. You know.”
He kissed away her salty tears.
She was the one to lead the way into their bedroom. She faced away from him while she undressed, just like she always did. When she caught him looking at her, she blushed.
“I never seen such a one as you,” he said, softly.
She tossed back the coverlets and slicked under and tucked the covers up to her neck.
“Your hands are cold,” he said, chafing them between his own. Her long back curved against his belly, her dear shoulders. The freckles just below the tip of her collar bone. He kissed her there. The skin tasted good.
Suddenly, she turned around to face him. “What do you mean, you never seen such a one as me?” she demanded. “You said you saw Mary Beth Rivercomb like this. You said the two of you, you did this.”
“How long ago?”
“Seems like yesterday to me. I’d sit there in that old schoolroom watching the two of you mooning over each other. Darn, it’d make me mad. Her giving you the cow-eye.”
“She never did have no breasts to speak of,” Lewis said, holding Beverly’s with both hands.
“You said she had a pretty … behind!” she accused. Her breath was a little quicker and her hands around his back, why, they were warm enough.
“Oh, it wasn’t too bad.”
“Lewis, you haven’t seen another woman since you and me hitched up? On all those trips, hauling the stock, you never looked at anyone else?”
“Urn,” he said. “Nothing wrong with your behind. Or up front either.”
“Lewis. You tell me the truth. Don’t …”
“Beverly, there never has been anyone but you.”
“That’d be all right then.” And she spread her legs and pulled him over on top of her an
d, once more, they became man and wife.
They had a scandalous good time, completely wasted the long spring evening, and when Penny and Mark came home, oh, it must have been after ten o’clock, they pretended they were already asleep.
Next morning, first thing, Lewis went outside and fired up the John Deere. He got his greasegun, a couple spare filters, a plastic tube of bearing grease and as soon as the oil was warm, he shut her down and opened the drain plug.
Mark came out, barefoot, tin cup of coffee in his hand. He hadn’t bothered to button his shirt which hung open as a vest. “You sure know how to make a racket,” he said.
“Sun’s up, ain’t it? It’s gonna be a pretty day. Look at that. No clouds. You can hand me that oil spigot if you’re tired of doing nothing.”
“You gonna have some breakfast?”
Lewis punched the spigot into the oil can and inverted it. “You know,” he said, “I had myself convinced that the whole search was foolishness—that Doug Whitenaur was an innocent man. Somebody stole my dog and I’m sure that it was Whitenaur that did it. You get anywhere on that fence yesterday?”
They worked on the equipment all morning, readying it for the next time it’d go into the field. And the morning was just as Lewis had predicted, and over supper of ham, brown beans, coleslaw and hot biscuits, Lewis complimented Penny on the work she’d done with Stink. “She’s still got a bad hitch in her stride, but she’s running free now. Maybe I’ll try her out this evening.”
Beverly laughed. “Lewis, Stink is Penny’s dog now. Why don’t you get a dog of your own?”
His coffee cup just halted on its way to his lips. He put it down. “I suppose that’s good sense. I suppose I could buy me a started dog. Yesterday, those steers tore me every which way but loose.”
Penny said that he could get a pup if he wanted. Stink could handle the farmwork until the puppy was trained.
Lewis said he wouldn’t want to have a new puppy. Not just yet. He’d get him a year-old dog, one that knew its flanking commands and could fetch but wasn’t ready to start driving. A year-old dog would be best.
The phone rang. “Lewis, it’s for you.” Beverly covered the mouthpiece. “Long distance. It’s Ethel Harwood.”
“Hello, Ethel. How you been?”
“Lewis, I’m down here in Pike Road, Alabama. The Alabama State Trials.”
“Uh-huh. Any good runs?”
“So far it looks like Ralph Pulfer has it with that Shep dog of his. John Bauserman’s still to run and Lewis Pence, but Shep’s going to be hard to beat. Lewis, the reason I’m calling—I just heard you lost your Nop dog.”
“That was months ago. Before the New Year, Ethel. He …”
“I just heard it today. Bill Dillard told me. I thought it was just a coincidence at the time. I thought I saw Nop but couldn’t be sure and I was darn sure you wouldn’t sell him to a rodeo if you wouldn’t sell him to me. He had one of his ears broke down like he’d been in a fight and a nasty scar on his leg but he had the little tufts of brown behind his ears. I thought about it afterward and I was sure it was him.”
Lewis’s throat closed like he was choking.
“Lewis? You still there? I was at the National Quarter-horse Show in Oklahoma City. May tenth, ’twas. Your dog, Nop, was in the rodeo there. I’m not mistaken, you know. Nop. I’m not about to forget the best stockdog I ever saw.”
NINE
A Love Knot
Fourteen years is a very old Border Collie. Their lives are faster than ours, and their memories are faster too. It had been just six months since Grady Gumm took Nop from Burkholder’s farm. Sometimes a scent or a motion or the color of a leaf would remind Nop of his lost life and then he’d feel a pang of sadness, but he never knew why he felt the pangs or what they meant.
That night in Sioux Falls spelled finish to Nop’s career as a rodeo star. T. T. Raines dragged him out of the arena by his collar and his feet barely touched the ground and the world faded in and out in the rushing of his blood. Nop scarcely felt the blows or the parting kick that lifted him into his cage. “Get in there, you worthless …” Nop managed to bare his teeth and T.T. booted the wire cage, in case Nop doubted his anger.
But T.T. was no more willing to lose his meal ticket than the next man and, next morning, despite jibes from other cowboys, he returned Nop and Festus to the arena again. The monkey jabbered with fear. Nop showed teeth. His ruff stood up and a growl rolled around in his throat. When T.T. laid into him, “to teach him a lesson he’ll not soon forget,” Nop snarled at T.T. and, if it hadn’t been for the choke chain, who knows what he would have done.
T.T. was no longer pack leader. T.T. had no more right to order him around than any other cur. Nop would have died before he let that monkey on his back again. T.T. tried. He beat the dog and the monkey too, but Nop was stubborn and the monkey was no more willing than the dog.
Good Ol’ Red felt a little guilty about the cap pistols, which T.T. might not have thought of on his own, but the economy being the way it is, he offered T.T. a job peddling peanuts and beer.
A pet store downtown gave T.T. twenty-five dollars for the monkey.
“You’re lucky I don’t shoot you in the head,” T.T. informed Nop as he dragged him into the animal shelter.
The woman volunteer behind the counter sighed. The dog was an older animal and had been in some nasty fights. Worse, he resisted his lead and growled.
“He’s a Border Collie, Mr. Raines?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you sure you want to leave him with us? Have you tried to find him a home yourself?”
“Lady, I’m with the rodeo. I don’t know anybody in Sioux Falls.”
Nop’s feet found no purchase on the linoleum floor. Colors: blue-gray linoleum, light blue walls. The desk towering over his head was unpainted plywood. Odors: Lysol, urine, feces and fear. The fear smell was so strong it made his eyes water.
“The reason I ask, Mr. Raines—an older dog like this one—we aren’t always able to place them for adoption. Most people wish to adopt a puppy. Many of the older dogs—well—they have to be put to sleep.”
What the volunteer might have said is that ninety percent of the older dogs were destroyed. A hundred percent of the shy dogs or frightened dogs or those who growled or bared their teeth. They kept animals five days before one of the volunteers gave the injection.
Nop had supported T. T. Raines for two months, asking nothing in return but a dry place to sleep and a little dogfood. When T.T. looked at Nop, he pictured himself passing a cup of beer up the aisles and spilling sticky beer on his wrists. Sometimes human memory is not much longer than a dog’s.
The volunteer made a note on her form. “Does he have papers? Sometimes it helps if a dog has papers.”
“Naw. He’s just a mutt.”
Stubbornly, Nop dragged against his steel lead, choking himself, gagging.
“And what shall I put down for your reason?”
“Reason?”
“Why must you leave your dog with us?”
“Uh. I’m allergic to him. Thought I wasn’t, but by God, I’m sure allergic to this dog.”
The volunteer wrote the word. “You’ve been to a doctor then?”
“A doctor?”
“For allergies. You went to a dermatologist?”
“Naw. It’s him all right.”
“Quite often people think they’re allergic to their pets when it’s something else—simple hay fever, perhaps a dust allergy.”
T.T. scratched under his arm. Grinning, he scratched his crotch. “I’m allergic,” he said.
“I see. We’ll do what we can.”
“You can keep the leash and collar,” T.T. said magnanimously. “I got no further use for them.”
“Yes.” When the volunteer took the lead, Nop dropped to his belly, tail tucked underneath.
“I hope you can give us a donation,” she said. “Our suggested donation is five dollars. It goes toward their food.”
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T.T. had drawn his last Buckaroos’ check. There wouldn’t be any more where that came from. “Lady,” he said, “you know what I do for a living? I sell beer and peanuts. Do I look like a man with money to burn?”
And so the volunteer took Nop back to his cage. He walked beside her willingly enough and went inside without protest. The volunteer owned four dogs of her own: two Golden Retrievers, a Lhasa Apso and a mutt. She hardened her heart against Nop’s brown eyes.
Nop retired to the very back of his cage and closed his eyes. For hours he dreamt and sometimes his legs would twitch as he gathered woolies on the green fields of his mind.
The cages were separate and the shelter had no common run, so Nop never got to meet any of the other dogs. Every hour or so, one desperate Schnauzer barked an alarm call, “Someone near the house! Intruder! Help! Help!” The Schnauzer’s bark had the precise effect of a burglar alarm on a Sunday afternoon on a deserted street, going on and on. After two days, the Schnauzer had his injection and the shelter was quieter.
People came in to search for lost pets or to adopt a pet. The shelter had several puppy litters and most people headed straight for the cute wriggly things.
If a farmer had come in looking for a dog, the shelter would have directed him to Nop, but no farmer came.
Three days. Adequate food was provided but none of the dogs had much appetite. The cages were kept clean.
Nop stayed in the very back of his cage with his nose between his paws. Like the other dogs he always knew when people came into the shelter. Some of the dogs whined or ran back and forth or barked a welcome. Some dogs pushed their paws through the mesh, trying to make contact. Nop lay quiet.
The face that stopped before his cage was a child’s face. They looked at each other for a long while before Nop gave a tentative wag of his tail.
Two faces outside the mesh. The boy’s father peered into the gloom. “No, Timmy, not this one.”
“But, Daddy, he likes me.”
“Look at his eyes. You see how they glow? This dog has vicious eyes. Come look at the puppies.”
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