Southern Cross the Dog (19 page)

The winds must have changed, he said, to scatter the ash out this way.

Bossjohn folded his arms and stroked his chin. His eyes had dimmed.

But why? How the reason?

Frankie balanced her head on her palm, pulling back the thick band of hair behind her ears.

Robert shrugged. For room to get the machines through. So they can start building.

Bossjohn nodded.

They did not know. They couldn't feel the future bearing down on them. There would be no Panther. No trapping grounds. No foxes. No furs. A pain like glass shot through his gut. He hadn't realized how hungry he was, how long it had been since he'd had anything to eat. The thick pungent soup on the table suddenly seemed so inviting. He would plunge his face into it, inhale every stinking drop.

Frankie rose to pour the stew into bowls. She stirred the foam with a flat stick and broke the top inch where the stew was clearer. She stirred up the bits of meat and filled Robert's bowl. When the meal was doled out between everyone at the table, Bossjohn announced it was time to pray.

They hung their heads down to their chests and clasped their hands together, resting them on the edge of the tabletop. Robert did as they did and Bossjohn began.

O Lord, fo' these grease 'n beans, and for hands and wits to kill them, and make of yor'n bounty, we frow up our thanks. Bless us with strong chains and strong arms to haul them, this day till judgment, amen.

Bossjohn had taken Frankie's hand and was massaging her palm. Robert looked away, pretending not to see. The younger man, Roan, he realized had been staring at him, his eyes still and alert. When Bossjohn had finished with their prayers, they all began to eat. He looked around him. There were no spoons. No forks. Bossjohn fished out a strip of pink glistening meat with his fingers. He dragged it along the thick yellow sauce and ate, craning his neck out to catch the drippings. Robert watched him. He brought the bowl to his lips, taking large steaming swallows.

Robert could glimpse the knob of a leg bone. He sucked it clean and used it to spoon up the thick paste. It was hot and heavily spiced in marjoram and pepper to hide the awful tang of rubber. The meat sang on his tongue. He didn't ask what it was. He didn't want to know. It went down into his gut, sending a hot rush of acid into his throat. Despite the taste, it was good to eat. To have something behind his ribs again. He took the bowl up with two hands and tilted it toward his mouth. He inhaled the mash, flooding his tongue with its bitter taste, the breath exploding from his nostrils. He forced it through the stiff muscles in his throat, drawing it down into the pit of his stomach. He'd never eaten before, really eaten. His jaws ached. His stomach cramped. He told himself to slow down, but his arms wouldn't listen.

When he'd finished, he set the bowl down.

They were watching him.

He was aware of the yellow splattered around his cheeks and the wad of hot mash in his mouth. He wiped his lips with the back of his arm.

Frankie grinned. You like?

He nodded, looking down at the edge of the table. It's very good, ma'am. Thank you.

Y'ought to slow on there supping. Gon' take ill et'ing so quick, she warned.

Roan muttered something low underneath his breath. Whatever it was, it'd caught Frankie's and Bossjohn's attention. They turned to him, their eyes wide and mouths agape as if they'd been struck. Roan stood up. He smoothed back the front strands of his hair with the heel of his hand, took his hat from off the wall, and disappeared outside.

THEY FINISHED SUPPER WITHOUT ROAN.
When they ate their fill, Frankie and Bossjohn rose soundlessly from their seats. Robert stood, his back to the wall, watching them work. Frankie stacked the bowls and left them to soak in a pail outside while Bossjohn began striking apart the table. The planks were carried out and the engine casing was put away in the corner. Frankie went into the other room and returned carrying two bearskin rolls in her arms. She untied them and spread them into a pallet across the floor.

When he'd finished with the table, Bossjohn appeared in the passage.

Rowbear, he said. He beckoned him outside with his large hand.

They walked out behind the earthen house to the back stoop where cords of firewood lay stacked together. Bossjohn sat down on the chopping block. Sit, he said pointing to a small bench beside the wood. Bossjohn smoothed his palms against his knees. He took a small pipe from inside his vest and fit it into his mouth. It stuck out from his beard like a stem as he tamped a wad of tobacco down with his thumb.

He pointed to a spot beneath the bench and to a box of matches.

Robert struck one and carried it carefully into the bowl. Bossjohn puckered, sending up spurts of soft blue smoke. He drew in deeply and sighed.

Robert shook the match dead and dropped it in the grass.

How long you plan on keeping me here?

He looked at Robert through the slits of his eyes. After a long moment, he reached into his vest pocket and held out a small yellow ribbon.

I find this in swampdeep, near a muskrat run. They was all over, hanging from there spruces. What they for?

Robert looked at the ribbon but refused to take it. He pulled on the joints of his hands.

They're markers, he said.

Bossjohn did not seem to understand.

They tell us where to clear next.

The man tapped the bit against his teeth.

How long till'n they clear here way?

Soon. A month or two I'd guess.

He moved the pipe from one side of his mouth to the other. A hum rumbled softly in his throat.

You work'm for there bugheway men, he said. You know how'n they think.

He touched the side of Robert's head with the crook of his pipe.

I told you everything I know, Robert said.

You be very Nice Jack and help us, Rowbear. You stay nice-so, then we loose you outta here. L'Etangs been trapping in Panther for seven and thirty years now. We not aimin' to pack tow and go.

Robert felt something on his ankle. A spider. It tickled at the short hairs of his leg. He scooped it up in his hand and let it run up the inside of his arm. He looked at Bossjohn and he saw him clearly for the first time. The man didn't understand. None of them did. It wasn't up to them. An undertow of sorrow eroded away at something inside him, and he struggled to keep it from showing.

L'Etang? That French?, he asked.

The spider trilled along his skin, upward, ever upward, toward his neck. What was in its brain, he wondered, that made it seek this height? When it reached his shoulder, he grabbed it, almost too roughly, and held it in his palm. He could kill it. And surely this spider, if it could pray, would be praying now. And who would deliver it?

Non. No French since mon Pierre L'Etang come down from Snakebite Creek to trap Yazoo. Pierre he go up'n down every hook 'n crook a this river. Thirteen year he work the beaver run. Wash the French clear out 'a him.

Bossjohn was grinning. Robert could almost admire this man, his insistence. The spider fought inside the walls of his fingers. He felt two sharp stings and he let it go on the grass. He squeezed his hand till four red dots pooled on the skin of his finger. He looked up. Bossjohn was staring at him now, his eyebrows forced together. The little devil had come free from under his shirt.

What's that?

Robert hooked his thumb under the twine and shoved it back under his shirt. He didn't answer him.

The Yazoo don't wash nothing, Robert said, waving him away. It's a dirty river like all the rivers in this place. It puts a slick on you that you ain't ever get clean of. All that waste and want and hurt just gums on.

The man looked at him, his eyebrows slanted together, the corners of his mouth tugged back in confusion.

A man can't wash out his own blood, Robert said.

Bossjohn shook his head. He looked up past the tree line, to where the sky was getting darker, coloring like a bruise. He took the pipe from his lips and sighed softly. The moon was white and faint over the rise.

Come, he said, standing. His voice was soft, almost rotten in his mouth. Tomorrow you gon' get to work.

THAT NIGHT ROBERT LAY ON
his roll, not sleeping. Over and over, his mind bent toward the strange woman who was among his captors. When she had aimed her rifle at him earlier that day, it wasn't death that made him pause and cross back into the house. He knew his devil would not let him get run through with shot any more than it had let him drown in the Yazoo or burn in Bruce. He could not count the times he'd come so close to death only to be thrown violently again into life.

He saw her muscular arms train the barrel to his chest. Her eyes were tensed and full of white, the blood flushed into her ivory skin. She would've shot him dead. He thought this, alone in the dark room, atop the pallet she had prepared for him.
She would've shot me dead.
And so he stepped, not away but toward her, into the hot white cone of her blast. Her shoulders were squared. Her finger was taut on the trigger. She had no anger. No fear. And suddenly he felt the very real dimensions of his own body, the sheaths of muscle tugging along his bones. There were his arms, his heart beating in its cage, his tongue in his mouth. There were his feet, and the hard earth against his soles. He was here, made solid before her eyes, bright and full of blood. She could obliterate him.

This was why he stayed. The fluid redirected in his head.
I am staying.

And had his brother said this too? I am staying. Did the same regions of his brain engorge with blood, did the nerves flame and blister in the same pattern? He could almost hear his life snap into place. For a moment, he wanted to be outside, looking up into that yawning maw above him, the blighted moons and bad stars, to face again that invisible judgment.

Through the night, he listened for her breathing, for their voices catching against each other. But for their part Bossjohn and Frankie were quiet in the other room. Their bodies shifted, their limbs reassembled around each other. Robert would drift in and out of sleep, waking with a start, his heart in his throat. But there was nothing. There was no one. His skull ached with dreaming. A terrible thought hummed behind his eyes. He touched the pouch, almost instinctively. He did not know how he knew, but he knew. The Dog was coming.

BOSSJOHN TOOK HIM TO THE
tanning shed behind the dugout. The shed was small and drafty, with pins of light coming through the boards. Coon and muskrat pelts were stretched flat and nailed onto the wall. At the center was a chair and a beam to stretch the skins. He sat Robert down and stretched a bolt of possum hide along the shaft. Then he handed him a dull blade. For hours Robert grained fat and meat and vein from the underskin.

For weeks, he worked in the tanning shed—sometimes with Bossjohn, sometimes alone. There were jars of piss and dung, and he soaked the hides in them to make them soft, to give them give. The skulls he smashed against a rock to scoop up the spongy mounds. They were boiled into a soup and massaged into the pliant hides. The smell was unbearable, suffocating in the noontime sun. Out in the heat, flies would catch the scent and mob around his eyes and hands and the lobes of his ears. Sweat gathered in fat drops along his brow, his own skin blistering and welted.

He thought often about escaping, but where could he escape to? He was in a low sparse country at the outer ring of the swamp, what they called the Flats. They were hemmed on all sides by tupelos, and swamp oak and black willow, and at its edges lay broad miles of rough uneven earth. For those who weren't used to mucking, it made for hard travel. But a L'Etang could step through a thicket and disappear down a deer trail and follow the streams and arteries that fed in and out the Yazoo. Robert looked out into the dense rim of trees at the edge of the Flats. Beyond it were sinkholes. Bear traps. Deadfalls. During the summer floods, forests of bald cypress would become infested with mosquitoes, and whole sweeps of land would become uncrossable. He could see no escape.