The taxidermist was gifted in his art and this new and improved Nipper transcended lifelike: he had been lent a dignity he had not possessed in life. His mouth was closed, his little glass eyes thoughtful and intelligent. The expression on his face was exactly as if he was thinking over some philosophical remark that had been made and was preparing in his mind a rebuttal.
Meecham drove back to Ackerman’s Field with Nipper in the passenger seat across from him. He’d positioned the dog so that Nipper’s little agate eyes faced the window.
Wish I could of got some kind of barker put in you, he said. Maybe I’ll get you a beeper.
Nipper sat motionless watching the scenery slide by the glass, ripe summer fields fading slowly into autumn.
WHEN CHOAT GLANCED UP from the circular he had taken from the mailbox and saw the old man and the dog on the porch his left foot seemed to forget it was in the process of taking a step and he stumbled and almost fell. He did an almost comical double take, then his face took on a look of studied disinterest and he went back to reading the circular.
When he glanced up again Meecham was tossing sticks into the yard. Fetch, boy, he was saying.
I wouldn’t hold my breath till he brought that stick back, Choat said.
He’s a slow study, Meecham agreed. I believe he’s got some Choat in his family tree somewhere.
You smartmouthed old bastard. If I could buy you for what you’re worth and sell you for what you think you’re worth I’d retire. I’d never hit another lick at nothin.
You ain’t hit that first lick yet, Meecham pointed out.
Choat was looking closely at the dog. I bet that little son of a bitch is a light eater, he said.
He don’t eat much but he’s a hell of a watchdog, Meecham said. Lays right across my feet and never shuts his eyes all night. One of these nights the fellow that tied that plowline will come easin through the door and I’ll make him a date with the undertaker.
WHEN THE BLACK LEXUS stopped in the yard of the tenant house the front door of the main house opened and Choat came out onto the porch with a can of beer. He sat down in the swing and propped his feet against a porch stanchion.
The car gleaming in the packed earth before the tacky sharecropper’s shack looked out of place, as if somewhere there was some mistake, some curious breakdown in the proper placement of things. Then the door opened and Paul got out. He smoothed down the blond wing of his hair. He took off his sunglasses and folded the earpieces down and tucked them into the pocket of his sport shirt.
Hey, Dad.
I was wonderin when you’d show up. Come up and get a seat.
Paul came over to the edge of the porch and brushed invisible dust off the boards with a hand and pulled up the cuffs of his trousers and seated himself. How you making it, Dad?
I’m makin it fine.
That’s not what I’m hearing. I was talking to Alonzo Choat this morning. He tells me you’re cutting a pretty wide swath around here.
Well. I was never one to let things slide.
No. You never were that.
Did you come out here to straighten this mess out?
In a way. I came out here to pick you up and drive you back to the nursing home.
Then you’ve wasted gas and a good bit of your valuable time drivin out here. It’ll be a cold day in hell when you guile me into that place again. I get mad ever time I think about it.
Dad, it’s just till we get this straightened out. I’ve signed a lease and it has to run its course. When the ninety days are up I’ll get out of the sale and you can move back in. If we need a practical nurse to look after you then I’ll hire one.
The old man was silent a time. He marveled at how different they were, how wide and varied the gulfs between them. It saddened him that he no longer had the energy or even the inclination to try and broach them. But it amused him that Paul had not improved much in his ability to lie. Being unable to lie convincingly to a jury must be a severe handicap in the lawyer trade.
I don’t need a nurse, he finally said.
Perhaps not. You need something though. Shooting a pistol at a man. Having him arrested so that his family has to go bail him out. Setting dead dogs around the porch like flower pots. For God’s sake, Dad.
Well, I can’t say I didn’t do it. But you got the wrong slant on it. I’m not goin to argue with you, arguin with you was always a waste of time. You’d just lie out of it. Do you think I don’t know you? Do you think I can’t see through your skin to ever lie you ever told?
I’m not leaving here without you. You’re a danger to yourself and you’re a danger to other people. Goddamn it. Why do you have to do everything the hard way? Can’t you see you’ve played this string out as far as it will go? You know that if you don’t go with me voluntarily I’ll have to get papers and send people out here after you. Is that what you want?
The old man was suddenly seized with weariness, a weight of torpor bearing down on him as if all the things he’d done and all the things he’d said and all the things he’d heard in all the years he’d lived had suddenly come due all at once. It took an enormous effort to reply, just to breathe. He sat packing the bowl of his pipe and staring at the red kerosene can on Choat’s porch.
Goodbye, Paul, he said at last. You take care of yourself.
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT he did do one time, Thurl Chessor said. He was in Long’s grocer store and when they wasn’t nobody watchin him he poked a mouse down into a Co-Cola bottle and acted like he drunk off of it. Oh he cut a shine. Spittin and gaggin. He throwed such a fit with Long and the bottlin company they give him a world of cold drinks just to shut him up. Cases and cases of em, they drunk on em all summer. That bunch like to foundered theirselves on Co-Colas.
But do you reckon he’d burn a man out?
I wouldn’t think so. I never heard tell of him doin anybody any real harm. He’ll steal anything ain’t tied down or on fire but he’s too triflin and lazy to make much effort.
Well. He said he was goin to. He said that tenant house would go up like a stack of kindlin and me with it. I may have leaned a little hard on him, shootin at him and all. Anyway I believe he’ll try it. He strangled that dog.
You ought to get the law then. Tell the high sheriff.
Choat would just deny it. He’s tryin to make Paul believe I’m crazy. All I want you to do is just speak up if anything does happen. You go tell the law I told you ahead of time he threatened to do it. Will you do that?
Yeah. I’ll do that.
I wouldn’t want him to get clean away with it.
No. You can have another one of them pups if you want it.
No I believe I’ll pass, the old man said. I’m a little hard on dogs. Besides, I’ve still got the other one.
Maybe, Chessor said tentatively. Maybe it would be the best all the way around if you just went back. You said it was all right.
I lied, the old man grinned. It’s a factory where they make dead folks and I ain’t workin there no more.
Chessor was silent a time. As if he was considering his own bleak future as well as Meecham’s. We all got to work somewhere, he finally said.
Meecham drove back and sat on the porch smoking his pipe and waiting for full dark so that he could steal the kerosene can. At last the day began to fail. Dark rising out of the earth like vapors. Against the sky the main house looked black and depthless as a stage prop. Beyond the Rorschach trees the heavens were burnished with metallic rose so bright it seemed to pulse. As if all the light there was was pooling there and draining off the rim of the world like quicksilver.
HE WORKED VERY FAST. He figured if he faltered he’d quit, give it up, let Paul be a daddy to him. He upended a box of photographs and threw on old newspapers and lit it all with a kitchen match and when the photographs began to burn with thin blue flames he picked up the can and began to pour kerosene around the room.