Before We Sleep

by Jeffrey Lent

  His arms went slack on the wheel and he pressed in the clutch and popped the truck out of gear and let it glide to a stop. The truck wavered and guttered over the rough road some few feet, then was still. He was nodding his chin, his head, up and down, staring straight ahead. Even after the truck was stopped. Then he lifted his right hand off the wheel and wiped his forehead with the back of it and then wiped his hand on his pants. Only then did he look at her, his mouth pursed tight, his eyebrows clenched. A muscle in his neck throbbed with a sudden tension. She held his gaze, and smoked.

  Finally he said, “No. It was complicated but to answer your question the only truth is to tell you. No.”

  “You say,” she said and looked away, out her window.

  He said, “I do. What happened that afternoon was something neither she nor I expected or wanted but when it happened it was what both of us needed. But it was that certain afternoon. It wasn’t any other. You asked her, I’d expect she’d agree. There was indeed force, a tremendous force. But it came from both of us all at the same time. And that’s how life is sometimes. It’s not pretty. It’s how it is. Does that, can that, answer your question?”

  She sat a moment looking again out at the day and realized she’d been holding her breath and took in a great gulp of air, released it, looked at him and said, “I believe you. I’m sorry, but I had to ask. Now.” She took another breath and said, “Go on, now. Show me your life, best you can.”

  He nodded and was mercifully silent. He put the truck back in gear and drove on. They came out again between fields, one big one toward the east where the sun was most bright, a field of tobacco and she again saw gangs of Negroes working along the rows and then the lane ended at a red-dirt country road and he pulled onto that and drove a mile or so and then turned off again onto another lane, wending down through smaller fields and ahead another rise of trees, these all pines of a sort unfamiliar to her; with very long clusters of needles arrayed on slender limbs that bowed down with the weight. All uniform of height although the sections to one side of the lane were considerably higher than those on the other side. As they passed through she could see that the trees were planted in rows, either side, and as they went she saw different angles of avenues down through the trees and it was mildly disconcerting, as if some funhouse-mirror version of trees was upon her.

  He spoke then. “Those are loblolly pines. As you can see, they’re planted. Those ones, they’re about fifteen years old—the other side are about ready to harvest, they’re around twenty-five years. And when we come up out of here we’ll see what’s called slash. That’s where the crews came in a couple, three years ago and cut all of the mature trees, which means all of em. Right now it’s grown up to canes and brush. The thing is, each one of these sections, they serve the birds well, different times of the year. The bigger trees, they’re a good place for nesting come March. The younger ones, that’s where the current young birds break apart earlier so the males can strut and call and entice the hens in, to mate. Or get eaten by a hawk or owl or possum or skunk or most anything else. A bobwhite has strong legs to run and flies like a rocket but mating makes em stupid. Like, pardon me, many youngsters all the world over. I had to say, I’d hazard mating season is when we lose the most birds. Well, that and the many creatures that will raid a nest and eat up all the eggs. But come fall and winter, they move out into the slash. Plenty other places also, all the bean and milo fields, where there’s corn, anyplace there’s edges. Edges are key, here. Birds know to keep to the edge, close to the food but hid as best they can. That’s why they like the slash. It’s all edge but with the berries and seeds and being close also to those food crops, the slash doesn’t have edge—it’s all edge. Look, see what I mean.”

  And they were out then into a desolate landscape of piles of brush from the logging, along with rough tracks throughout, huge brambles of red blackberry canes, wound round with vines thick with leaves and blossoms, young thorn trees, and here and there a stunted older hardwood or apple that had been held back by the canopy of taller pines and left behind by the loggers. The sun now a huge blister in the sky.

  He said, “This would be a good place to run the dogs, the birds are setting tight deep in the shade. But it’s too hot for the dogs, eager as they are. What we’re going to do is roll on through here and get back into the farm fields and let em out and drive the perimeters and see what coveys the dogs come upon. That way everyone will be happy.”

  She was listening to him and only partly understanding but enough so she knew it was pieces that one way or another would all make sense, at some point. So she nodded and said, “Tell me about these dogs. In the back of the truck.”

  “Oh Lord,” he said. “That’s Lil-Bet and Jill. Sisters. I keep my litters together after they’ve been weaned but before I decide who to keep and who to sell. They were whelped out of Lady by Doc, last summer. Ten months old. So I got em started at two months and then had to put em aside for the season and now I’m working em up. They’re both pretty good, which is why I haven’t had em out in a few days. It’s the dogs you haven’t got your mind clear about that you pay most attention to. To figure em out.”

  “That beagle I told you about? Tinker, he was called? Well, he came from a man in Vermont that raised beagles and I got him when he was just a pup. And that man, he was a trapper and a rabbit hunter and he’d already figured out that Tinker wasn’t going to be the best rabbit dog of the bunch and so when I showed up he decided I was the best place for that dog to be. And it was, for both of us. He liked to chase rabbits when he had the chance but he was best just being with me. And that man, he’s dead now, shot himself over something a few years ago, I never did know what, he saw that Tinker and me, we were made for each other.”

  “Uh-huh. A dog-man knows his dogs. Before anything else. All right, here we go now.”

  They’d driven down another lane to the end of the second of two bean fields. Around the perimeters of both fields were stands of hardwoods. Even the grass between the fields and the beginning of the woods was high. And between the side of the road and the bean fields the grass was also high. She was beginning to understand what he meant about edges.

  He stepped down out of the truck and she did also. He walked to the back and opened the tailgate and then the dogbox and the two young dogs bounded down and started to mill about him and he said, “Sit,” and they did, squirming in the dust of the road. He looked down at them and waited and the squirming slowed and stopped. Their heads up, mouths open, pink tongues licking quickly, eyes upon him.

  “Now, girls,” he said, and raised his right arm straight above his head. Then dropped it to point to the near corner of the field as he said, “Find some birds.”

  They broke and were off, but floating back and forth, crossing paths, first working down the edge along the woods until they hit the corner, heads raised as they went. Then they turned and began to quarter the bean field.

  He said, “See how they keep their heads up? What they’re doing is not looking but letting all those countless ribbons of scent flood through their noses. They’re smelling all sorts of things we can’t. God knows, they can probably smell earthworms under the bean plants. But all they’re interested in is the very hot and rich smell of birds. And I can say that because a dead quail, one just shot, even a man can smell it a bit. And you gut it, right then in the field because the intestines and organs, they hold the most heat and will start to ruin the meat you just stick it in your shooting vest. And that viscera, that’s a rich odor, let me tell you. All right, they’re not finding anything yet—let’s ride up to the opposite end of the field and they’ll work their way along.” He started along his side of the truck and she stood a moment watching the lovely precision of the two young dogs as they worked and then she saw first one and then the other seemed to almost flip backward and then all motion was arrested, the dogs, one right behind the other locked as if frozen. And Brian saw this also and said, “Well, there we go. My bright little sta
rs. No hurry, walk up here with me.”

  She met him by the hood of the truck. The dogs still hadn’t moved. Their cropped tails were flagged high and she saw each stood on three legs, one front foot raised and cocked back at the knee. He said, “They’re staunch. The birds will likely hold unless Lil-Bet, the one in front, starts to creep—young dogs will sometimes do that. Now Jill, what she’s doing is called backing. An obvious enough term. So I’m going to circle around so I come up behind the dogs and then move ahead and flush the birds. The dogs should hold throughout. In fact, they shouldn’t break point until after the birds are flushed and I’ve shot and dropped one. But they’re young and so once the birds rise, I won’t be upset if the girls go after em. They also mark not just birds that go down but where the singles land. The birds will run then, and if there’s shot birds the dogs would be busy retrieving em. But, if the gunners miss, they’ll go after the singles, quick, to try to point em again before they can run too far. That, anyway, is how it’s s’posed to work. But like I said, these are young dogs.” Then he paused and said, “But my. Ain’t they grand.”

  Then he walked out slow and easy, striding down rows and crossing over until he was behind the dogs and came up toward them and as he passed her, Lil-Bet raised her head to look at him and he quietly said, “Whoa.” With that there was a burst up of birds before him, a rapid, fluid pummeling of wingbeats against air, bodies soaring and planing again outward and the clump was separating as fast as they came up and birds already gliding downward to cover again but at a greater distance than she’d thought possible. And the young dogs were out and trailing after birds that, from the ten or a dozen Katey guessed she’d seen, it seemed each dog had chosen one and marked, now seeking.

  Brian walked back over and said, “I was shooting, I’d walk up after each one. But with dogs this young, I want to see em do something else. Get in the truck.”

  They drove around the field up to the opposite corner and he stepped out and blew a short single blast on the whistle. Within moments she saw both dogs bounding up through the field, heads swiveling until they saw him. He blew again, two sharp tweets this time and both dogs arrested and again he lifted his arm but this time moved it back and forth and the dogs broke apart and began quartering the field, again crossing over each other’s trails as they worked.

  He turned to her and said, “That’s how it works.”

  “They’re fabulous.”

  “They’re little moneymakers, is what they are.” Then he couldn’t help himself and smiled at her and said, “Yup. They sure are. It’s not as easy as it looks. And there’s all kinds of aggravation, all sorts of ways. Why, every now and then, a bit of that aggravation is caused by a dog. But mostly, the dogs is what makes it all worthwhile. Come on, now. Let’s ride around a little and show them some more fields and enjoy that. And we can talk. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess so. But these dogs. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “That’s because there isn’t anything like this. So, you can ask any questions you want. Me, I’m always happy to talk about the dogs. But, as the feller said, we got some more fish to fry. Isn’t that right, Miss Katey?”

  She pushed back a strand of wet hair that had come down over her face and said, “Damn, it’s hot.”

  “I’d say it’s a warm morning. But nothing like August. Shall we ride?”

  Now he drove with a clear sense of purpose, as if her understanding something of the mystery of dogs and birds had enabled him to settle himself within the day. And realizing this, she realized he’d been terribly nervous by the news of her, by her actually showing up. And of who, of what, she was. And she also relaxed, understanding that she had more power within the moment than she’d thought she had. Even as she determined not to abuse that power. She wasn’t interested in making anyone miserable, in creating problems. And it came to her that she was problem enough for herself, to try and get her mind around, as it was.

  For the next hour he drove from field to field where he let the dogs out. While they were working both stood outside the truck and watched and after he decided the dogs were comfortable with her presence he brought her along as he walked up past the pointing dogs and so she was close for the covey rise. This proximity rocked her, the percussive moment where the day was golden and still, and then ripped open with the burst of birds, and their breaking apart to individuals, open and gliding away. A matter of seconds but she felt it within her as if she was connected to the birds, the dogs, the fields, the sky. Like the jolt of an electric fence—a moment where her brain stopped and then the sweetness of the pain, a sort of clarity of existence, came over her and then was as quickly gone, receding to a memory of what was barely witnessed. And she felt also the quickening within, of wanting it to happen again. As soon as it faded.

  Between fields he was loquacious: “Tell the truth, I met Judith in Maine and fell in love, fell hard. At a time when I thought love was done with me. Or maybe even life. But then there she was and life was back and I came down here and I fell in love all over again. I’d be lying if I said it was just the country, the dogs, all of what you’re seeing. That was a big part of it of course but behind it all was Judith’s grandfather. William Llewellyn Trask. Everyone called him Dutch and I never did know why. The hands called him Mister Dutch. I called him Bill, because that was my way. Still is, I guess. I don’t stand much with putting on with things. And he seen that, with me. Those first times out together. Or maybe he just saw I understood the dogs and the years and years behind the dogs, the men, all his family, that made the dogs. But also he saw I understood the land. How all those things rolled up together and made a whole. Bill Trask stood about five feet tall when he was wearing boots and he always wore boots. He favored dungaree jeans and boiled white shirts without a collar but he also wore a out-at-the-elbows tweed jacket and a tipped fedora. He was a clean-shaven man with his white hair combed back and cut short, his face burned year-round by the sun but also the wind and rain. He was a banty rooster and there wasn’t a person alive that knew him, didn’t fear him. The dogs didn’t fear him. There’s men will kick or wallop a dog that doesn’t work right—that of course is on account of the man. There was even a fellow who peppered his dog with birdshot when she broke point but all that fella got was a gun-shy dog and nobody’d ever hunt with him after that. But Bill’s dogs loved him and he loved em right back. They have to know who’s in charge. But you get that with patience and being firm. Which is not the same as being harsh. Some men never learn that.

  “This family was not poor but they were never rich, either. Before the war, and here you have to understand when people say that, they mean the War Between the States, which is the war that defines everything; all those wars since, those have been just a proving ground for young men or a hole those young men disappeared into. Before the war this farm was only half the size it is now. It was after, that Bill’s daddy and then Bill, as he was coming up, started buying up pieces of farmland around and added on, and then again, and again. A part of that is they never, from the get-go, had sharecroppers but always tenant farmers—”

  “What do you mean? What’s the difference?”

  “Well, now. It’s a delicate thing, you might not understand the difference but I’ll try. Most Yankees don’t.”

  “You’re a Yankee.”

  He grinned at her. “No. I’m a Damned Yankee. Some say it one way and some another. And how they inflect that damn is how you know if they like you, if they hold you in contempt, or if they flat-out despise you. But you’re getting me further afield.”

  “Go on. They were buying land…”

  “Yup. And farming it and raising bird dogs and at the same time, raising birds. Or letting birds accumulate with the land. There’s ways to farm that can maximize both the birds and the money, but only if you count the birds as a cash crop, too. So hear me now: Like I said, they weren’t rich but they were noticed. And a good bit of that was the dogs.
Anyway, Bill’s daddy, he was a William Llewellyn Trask, too, I honestly don’t know how far back that name went, if Bill was a Junior or a Third or what, but his daddy was Mister William and he knew everyone in the state worth knowing, which meant he also knew lots of people in Washington, as well as a good handful of other Yankees that had come south after the war to make money where money could be made. Short of it is, again, because of the dogs, people started to show up wanting to hunt. Of course, neighbors, friends, had always hunted with him and always did for free, just like he’d hunt with them. But these other fellows, we call em Sports, they’d come down from D.C. or Richmond or up from Raleigh, with their Purdeys or Holland & Holland double-guns in walnut cases and dress up like Englishmen, well, at least some of em did, and still do, to spend the day out hunting birds. And pay cold hard cash money for it. Old William had a boy would meet em at the train station in Doakes, that’s the nearest town with a rail-line, with a wagon and a pair of mules and trot em out here. You might not know it but a team of good mules can make a sprightly trot. These days of course they just drive in. There’s a pair of men from Minneapolis, one’s a college professor and the other owns not only a couple a tire plants but also a rubber plantation in Honduras, they fly in, in that man’s plane. He’s got a pilot’s license. Those two, well, they own the second week of November. Just them, the whole week. I won’t tell you what that costs and they’re a bit on the high end but not so alone as you might think. There’s a bird colonel from the Pentagon who has every Sunday in January for himself and whoever he brings with him and, missy, there’s a blue law in Virginia that says you can’t hunt on a Sunday. But they can and they do.”