The Road From Gap Creek: A Novel Hardcover

by Robert Morgan

  In dog days back then the weeds along the road got covered with dust fine as soot. The trees didn’t have the fresh green of spring no more. Briars got tougher in the rows of corn, and the ground baked hard. Clods was sharp as bricks. Pools in the branch got a kind of scum on them, a wrinkled brown scum, and springs lost their boldness and got contaminated. In dog days you could get blood poisoning if you walked in dewy grass with a cut on your toe. In dog days copperheads went blind and would strike at anything that come near them. Since they couldn’t see, they crawled at night same as in daytime.

  When I was fifteen, before the Depression come, we heard talk there was a mad dog been seen over on Bob’s Creek, but we didn’t pay much attention, for there was always such reports in dog days. I went as usual in the morning to turn the cow out in the pasture after Mama done the milking. Ever since she was a girl Mama had done the milking wherever she lived. Even in the morning you could tell the day was going to be a scorcher. There was no breeze at all and haze hung so thick on the mountains you couldn’t hardly see the tops. It would be a good day to go swimming, but some people said you could catch all kinds of fever from the river water in dog days.

  I took the rope off the cow’s horns and turned her loose and closed the gate to the milk gap. Just as I was hanging the rope on the post of the gate I heard something behind me like a snuffle, or something trying to cough. I turned around to see who it was and there this dog stood at the side of the road coming up from the river, the road over to Bob’s Creek and then down to Gap Creek. It wasn’t a dog I’d seen before, but I wasn’t scared until I seen the slobber hanging from its jaws. There was foam all around its lips, and it stepped forward with a kind of lurch, like it was walking sideways. A jolt of lightning cut through me, because I seen it had to be a mad dog; it must be the mad dog from Bob’s Creek that folks had talked about.

  Now I knowed that mad dogs couldn’t see too good. Their eyes is so burned by the fever everything blurs, and they have to go by sound and smell. I wondered if I stood still maybe the dog might walk on past me. Maybe it would go on its way and never notice I was there. But as it stumbled on the dusty rocks I seen it was coming right toward me.

  I wanted to run toward the house. There wasn’t a tree close by to climb up in. But if I run maybe it would run too. Dogs like to chase things that are running. There wasn’t a rock or stick close by I could use to hit it. If I climbed over the fence it could come through the strands of barbed wire. Instead of running I started walking backwards as quiet as I could. Couldn’t take my eyes off the dog. I’d be a goner if I stumbled and fell; so I took careful steps.

  But you can’t walk quiet on gravel. Every time you move a pebble grinds, or one rock rings against another. Just when you’re trying not to make no noise a stick or piece of trash gets in your way and scrapes on the packed dirt. As I backed up the road the dog got closer. It was some kind of cur dog, I guessed, not as big as Old Pat but not a little dog either. It was sort of mottled with black and tan, but things was stuck in its hair like Spanish needles, and maybe dried blood and dried snot. It was trembling and panting, and once it fell down. But then it got up and trotted in a kind of zigzag, and I seen it could run faster if it wanted to.

  Lord, save me, I prayed. Save me from the mad dog, and I’ll never cuss or do bad things again. I’ll never make fun of Effie cause she’s fat and has bad eyes, and I’ll never sass Mama or Papa. I’ll never slip away to meet a boy again. I held my breath and backed quiet. The corn rows was still and the grasshoppers was busy in the weeds. But the dog kept coming.

  I looked over my shoulder and seen I was about halfway to the house. Papa and Velmer had gone off to work and there wasn’t nobody home but Mama and Troy. I didn’t know exactly where Troy was, but Mama was probably in the kitchen straining the milk and putting the pitchers in the icebox. Papa had bought us an icebox that summer, and every Monday the ice truck from town come and brought a new cake of ice. I hoped a car or truck would come along and scare the dog away, but nothing come.

  The house stood at the forks of the road, but the closest thing was the June apple tree before the fork. I seen I was going to have to make a run for it to the June apple tree, for the mad dog was getting closer. I waited until I got a little nearer to make the dash. But I forgot about the rise of the ground in the weeds along the side of the road, and when I turned and jumped to start running my toe tripped on the lip of dirt and I went crashing down in the weeds.

  I rolled over and put up my elbow and seen the cur lurching right at me. Its eyes was devil eyes, crazy and glazed over. I’d heard that if you looked into the eyes of a mad dog you could see Satan hisself looking out at you. I pushed myself away in the weeds and briars, but the dog was so close he’d catch me before I could get up and run. I could even smell him, a thick fever smell like rotten pus and unwashed dog. I’d have to push him away, hoping he was too weak to bite. If his teeth couldn’t break the skin, he couldn’t give you rabies.

  Just then something like a big shadow come out of nowhere and jumped on the back of the mad dog, knocking it sideways. I leapt to my feet and seen it was Old Pat. She circled the mad dog, staying out of reach of its mouth, growling and snapping. I don’t know where she come from so quick and so quiet. I run as hard as I could to the June apple tree and climbed up to the fork. A lot of the apples, which get ripe in July instead of June, had fell into the weeds and bees buzzed around the cracked ones.

  From the forks of the June apple tree I looked out through the limbs as best as I could to see Old Pat growling and circling the mad dog. The mad dog rolled over in the weeds and tried to get back on its feet. But every time it got up Old Pat jumped on its back and knocked it over again. She was only a little over a year old then, but she was big and quick. I just hoped she didn’t get bit.

  When the mad dog got up a second time Old Pat backed away, and the cur dog followed. I seen Old Pat was drawing the dog away from me and away from the house. The sick dog stumbled and fell and got up again and followed her. Old Pat went along the edge of the joe-pye weeds and the mad dog tried to catch up with her.

  That was when I started yelling, “Mama!” I called as loud as I could. “There’s a mad dog!” I looked back and forth between the porch of the house and Old Pat drawing the mad dog away. There was still nobody in sight. I was so out of breath and scared I couldn’t hardly call very loud. “Mama!” I yelled, and my voice broke. The house was just too far from the June apple tree for Mama to hear me. I called again and again. But finally I seen there was nothing for me to do but jump down to the ground and run as fast as I could to the house while Old Pat was leading the mad dog away.

  I started running and hollering and Mama must have finally heard me, for by the time I reached the steps she was standing on the porch drying her hands on her apron.

  “Where is the mad dog?” she said. I pointed down the road where you could see Old Pat still jumping and circling around the mad cur. Mama looked around the yard and then remembered Papa and Velmer had gone to work.

  “Where is Troy?” I said.

  “He’s gone to work too.”

  Mama went into the house and come back with Papa’s shotgun. I’d never seen her handle a gun before. She broke the gun down and put two shells in the barrels, and she put an extra shell in her apron pocket. “You stay here,” she said.

  But when Mama went down the steps and into the road I followed her. I couldn’t let her go by herself. She walked toward the dogs, holding the gun out in front of her. When she got closer she called to Old Pat and Old Pat run toward her. Mama stepped closer and raised the gun and fired at the mad dog. It fell and was thrashing in the weeds and Mama stepped up and fired the other barrel. When I got closer I seen blood on the weed stalks around the body and a wheeze come out of the dead dog’s chest. Mama sent me to the house for the shovel, and we dug a hole right there at the edge of the field and buried the mad dog.

  BY THE TIME Old Pat was two years old she was not only the smartest
dog I ever saw but also the best behaved. When Troy told her to set she would set, and when he told her to round up the cows at milking time she would run down to the pasture and nudge and worry the cows up to the milk gap. She knowed everybody’s name and if Troy said, “Go to Annie,” she’d come to me. Like I said before, she even stopped running and barking at cars unless a car was especially loud or there was a dog in the back of a truck.

  One of the first peddlers to come around in a station wagon was the man we called the Raleigh Man. It wasn’t really a station wagon but more a panel truck with RALEIGH printed on each side. But people called it a station wagon cause it was long and had windows in the back. He appeared about once a month and stopped in the yard, and he liked to talk if Papa was at home. Him and Papa would sometimes talk religion or politics, and once or twice he’d stayed for dinner.

  The Raleigh Man sold all kinds of things he carried in the station wagon. Mama had bought brushes from him for cleaning out mason jars, and oil for polishing furniture. She’d bought silver polish and shoe polish and several kinds of soap. He sold lots of tonics and patent medicines also, including a tonic made of herbs called Wampoles that Mama give us when we got a cold. He sold worm medicine and ointments, aspirins and Black Draft laxative. In that station wagon he carried many of the things you’d find in a drugstore in town, including candy and little bags of peanuts.

  It was a hot summer day in the year Old Pat was two years old when the Raleigh Man stopped at the house. It was July after the corn was laid by and before there was berries to pick or fodder to pull. Papa was at work down at the lake and so was Velmer. Effie was out in the yard and asked the Raleigh Man if he had anything that would cure chiggers. She’d caught an awful case of chiggers when she went out in the woods looking for moccasin flowers to set in the yard.

  “Nothing will cure chiggers once you’ve got them,” he said. “But you can make them go away faster if you put clear nail polish on them.”

  “Nail polish?” Effie said.

  “Nail polish cuts off their air and they slowly die.”

  I seen that got Effie’s attention because she could use the nail polish on her chiggers and also put it on her fingernails and toenails if she wanted to. She had her purse in her apron pocket and took it out and give him thirty-five cents for the bottle of nail polish.

  “Have you got something that will bleach a white bathing suit without hurting the cloth?” I said. My bathing suit had got kind of dingy from being used in the river and no amount of washing made it really white again. And I was afraid that if I used Clorox it might rot the fabric or kill the elastic.

  “What kind of fabric is it?” the Raleigh Man asked. His spectacles was thick as burning glasses, and when he stood in the sun the lenses throwed bright spots on his cheeks. I wondered that the bright spots didn’t burn him.

  I told him I wasn’t sure exactly what the fabric was. It might have been wool, but it was also stretchy, especially around the legs. “Let me see it,” the Raleigh Man said.

  Old Pat was setting at the bottom of the steps watching us. I called her and told her to get my bathing suit off the line. Quick as a blink she was off and come back with the bathing suit in her teeth. I took the suit and handed it to him.

  “That’s a very smart dog,” he said. He didn’t even look at the bathing suit. “What’s her name?”

  “Old Pat.”

  “Po-lice dogs are smart, like Germans,” he said. “But I never saw one that smart.”

  I asked him what I should use to wash the bathing suit. He finally looked at the fabric and said he had just the thing, something called Woolbright. It come in a box, a kind of powder, and costed fifty cents. I tried to think if it was worth fifty cents to brighten my bathing suit. I had a little money saved in a jar in the bedroom.

  “How much would you take for that dog?” the Raleigh Man asked.

  “He belongs to my brother Troy,” I said. Just then Troy come out on the porch and the Raleigh Man asked him how much he’d take for Old Pat.

  “Can’t sell my dog,” Troy said. He blushed a little, like he always did when he talked to strangers.

  “I need a dog to go with me on my rounds,” the man said. “I’ll give you ten dollars for her.”

  Troy shook his head, squinting his eyes in the bright sun. Mama come out on the porch and asked the Raleigh Man if he had any saddle soap, like you could use on shoes and boots.

  “I certainly do,” the salesman said, and got a can out of the station wagon. Mama come down into the yard and asked if he had any Bag Balm. Since her calf was born our cow Alice had had sore teats. The Bag Balm was salve for udder and teats.

  “I don’t have any with me, but I can bring some on my next round,” the Raleigh Man said.

  Mama give him a fifty-cent piece for the saddle soap.

  “I want to buy that dog,” he said, pointing to Old Pat.

  “She belongs to my son,” Mama said.

  The Raleigh Man held out his hand, but Old Pat didn’t come forward and sniff it the way most dogs would. She watched the salesman like she could understand what he was saying. “I need a po-lice dog to go with me on my rounds,” he said again. He was sweating in the hot sun, and he took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead and cheeks and the back of his neck.

  “I’ll give you fifteen dollars for the dog,” he said to Troy.

  Troy looked at the ground and shook his head. I reckon he was a little embarrassed because the man was so determined. “Ain’t for sale,” he said.

  “Think what you could do with fifteen dollars,” the Raleigh man said. “That’s two weeks’ wages. You could buy three new dogs.”

  “I reckon we don’t want to sell Old Pat,” Mama said, and there was a firm note in her voice. The salesman smiled and said he understood. Every boy loved his dog. But this was a special dog, and he had a special need for a dog to travel with him on his rounds the way a blind person needed a dog to guide him.

  We all stood in the yard sweating. It was such an odd thing, the way the Raleigh Man was talking. I decided I would get the Woolbright for my bathing suit. I run into the house to get the fifty cents from my jar, and when I come back out the bright sun like to blinded me. The Raleigh Man was still talking to Troy.

  “I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for your dog,” he said. Nobody ever heard of paying that much for a dog, unless it was a show dog.

  “Old Pat is like one of the family,” Mama said. “Troy couldn’t bear to part with her.”

  “Twenty-five dollars would feed a family for a month,” the Raleigh Man said.

  And then the Raleigh Man seemed to get mad, like he thought we wasn’t being fair to him. “I’m going to have that dog,” he said in a low trembly voice. A chill went through me and I wished Papa was there to talk to him. I was sweating myself as I held the fifty cents and my bathing suit.

  “Thank you for your offer,” Mama said, “but we can’t part with our dog.” When she said that it was like the Raleigh Man got hold of hisself and seen how he’d been out of line. He forced a kind of smile on his sweaty face. “I understand,” he said. He took the fifty cents and handed me the box of Woolbright. Then he closed up the back of the station wagon and drove away. It was a relief to see him go.

  That night after we went to bed we heard Old Pat growling like another dog or a coon had come into the yard. But the growling went on, and a kind of yelping. Papa got up and lit a lamp. I got up too and put on my dress, and Troy got up. We followed Papa to the door and out on the porch. “Who is there?” Papa hollered. We heard steps on the road, but nobody answered.

  And then we seen Old Pat at the bottom of the steps eating something. When we got close we seen it was ground meat. “Don’t eat that,” Troy said. But it was too late; she was gobbling up the last of it. And then we heard a car start and drive away in the dark. The first thing that come to mind was that the Raleigh Man had come back to steal Old Pat, but that was hard to believe. But where had the meat come from?
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  Papa carried the lamp down to the road and looked around, but he couldn’t see nothing. When he come back we seen Old Pat had sunk down on her belly. She was groggy, like she was going to sleep.

  “Here, Pat,” Troy said, and patted her head. But she couldn’t be roused. Whoever had give her the meat had put something in it. “It was that Raleigh Man,” Troy said. But Papa said he couldn’t believe the Raleigh Man would do such a thing. It was probably some thief.

  Old Pat passed out and could not be woke up. We had to leave her laying there in the yard. Next morning she was OK, but a little slow. I reckoned we never would know who’d done it, but I had my suspicions.

  IT WAS THE summer when the Raleigh Man tried to buy Old Pat that was so dry that fodder had to be pulled early. In an ordinary year you pulled the fodder off the cornstalks at the end of August or in September. But that year everything burned up because of the drought. Trees on the mountainside turned brown under the load of dust. Corn started turning yellow in the dog days, and Papa said it was time to cut tops and pull the fodder.

  Now cutting tops was something that men done and not women. They took a sharp knife and cut the stalk just above the top ear of corn and gathered the tops in bundles and then in shocks that stood in the field. Papa said it was better to cut the tops when there was still a little sap in the leaves, before they completely dried. When all the tops was cut you’d carry the shocks to the barn in the wagon to make a great stack around a pole that stood high as the barn roof.

  And once the tops was cut you pulled off the leaves lower down and tied them in bundles of fodder. The lower leaves had the most sweetness and richness. Fodder was for horses and tops was for cows. A horse ain’t got stomachs like a cow has and needs stronger feed, like oats and even some sweet feed, and sweet fodder.