Barking Dogs

by R. R. Irvine

  Manwaring ordered the only menu item being served, hamburgers for four, while Vicki moved among the dozen or so occupied tables looking for someplace to squeeze in. Holland and Wilcox stuck with Manwaring at the end of the bar.

  The bartender drew three glasses of draft Coors without being asked.

  “There are four of us,” Holland said, nudging Manwaring.

  Manwaring grimaced. “We’ll need a Dubonnet with a twist.”

  The bartender gave him the old one-eye before drawing another Coors and setting it on the counter. “With this crowd, you’re lucky to get anything.”

  “Vicki’s not going to like it,” Holland said, nudging harder.

  Manwaring looked around the Big I. In addition to a six-stool bar on one side and a six-stool food counter on the other, tables lined a plate glass window that looked out on a graveled parking lot. The dozen or so journalists were outnumbered three to one by locals. Only two women were in sight, Vicki and Linda Fisher.

  A large man wearing a lumberjack shirt and jeans tapped Manwaring on the shoulder. “Are you Kevin?”

  Manwaring nodded.

  “We’re giving your little lady our table.” He gestured toward the table nearest the jukebox, where Vicki was seated shoulder to shoulder with a dark-haired man wearing a white shirt and tie, the first touch of formality, other than the pair of mortician look-alikes, that Manwaring had seen in Ellsworth.

  “Jay-Jay,” the big man said to the bartender, “give me something called a Dubonnet with a twist.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Jay-Jay said.

  “It’s for Vicki Garcia. You know the one, that good-looking newswoman on channel six. She’s sitting right over there.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place.” Jay-Jay delivered the drink himself.

  As soon as Manwaring reached the table, Vicki’s companion stood up and offered his hand.

  “This is Blaine Larsen,” she said. “He’s editor of the paper here in town, the Ellsworth Herald.”

  Up close, Larsen’s shiny black hair and eyebrows contrasted sharply with his weathered, sixty-year-old face. He was sweating worse than Manwaring.

  “It’s like a sauna in here,” Manwaring said.

  Larsen nodded. “You’re damn right. A man could get dehydrated if he isn’t careful.”

  “Take my beer,” Manwaring said. “I’ll get myself another in a minute.”

  Larsen accepted the offer. “The Herald’s a weekly. No competition to the likes of you, though if my printer weren’t a volunteer fireman, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be putting out a special edition. By God, I’d make you outsiders sit up and take notice. What sidebars I could write. I knew every one of them out there in Defiance personally.”

  Lew Holland and Frank Wilcox arrived, carrying their food and drinks. Vicki introduced them, adding, “Mr. Larsen has promised to fill us in on Defiance.”

  “Would you like something to eat?” Holland asked the man.

  “What Blaine would like,” Vicki answered, “is to work for us. I’ve already talked to him about it.”

  Rather than commit himself immediately, Manwaring bit into his hamburger.

  Vicki toyed with a french fry. “The way I see it, we need a local contact. Someone we can trust.”

  “I used to string for the AP when I worked the news desk in Boise,” Larsen said.

  Manwaring swallowed. “You’re our man, then.”

  “Now that that’s settled,” Vicki said, “I’ll be in the ladies’ room.”

  “Her food will get cold,” Larsen said once she’d left the table.

  “She knows,” Manwaring said.

  “Icky likes it that way,” Holland added.

  The newspaperman squinted at them, shifting his eyes from one to the other until Manwaring spoke up. “It’s against ABN policy to pay for news stories, you understand, but I could put you on as temporary staff. Say a salary of a hundred a day as long as the emergency lasts.”

  The editor’s Adam’s apple shimmied. His head bobbed up and down.

  Manwaring removed three one-hundred dollar bills from his pocket and handed them to Larsen. “We’ll make it a three-day guarantee.”

  The old man shook hands again, palming the bills.

  “Now, let’s get you another drink,” Manwaring said, repositioning Holland’s beer in front of the editor.

  The man drank deeply, smacked his lips, and said, “What do you want to know about Defiance?”

  “You talk, we’ll listen.” Manwaring went to work on his burger, which smelled smoky like everything else in town.

  “I gotta tell you, I hated growing up around here. Look at this town. There’s nothing for someone with ambition. That’s why I lit out right after high school. I did a couple of years in the army, then some time in college before I started newspapering.”

  He ran a finger down the bridge of his nose and flipped away the accrued sweat before draining his beer. “Things just didn’t work out the way I planned. The jobs were OK. I worked Boise, like I said, and the Telegram down in Salt Lake. I set my sights on the Coast, but along the way a couple of wives did me in. Finally, there was nothing else to do but come back here.”

  Manwaring appropriated Wilcox’s beer and slid it within reach of Larsen, who immediately wrapped his hand around the fresh glass.

  “I have a first cousin in Defiance,” Larsen said. “Then again, just about everybody out there is related to someone here in town. That’s because it was all the same stock to begin with. We started out Mormon back in the 1860s when Brigham Young sent the first settlers in. He was expanding his empire, the State of Deseret as he called it. At first, they named their town Brigham. The lake out there was named Brigham Lake too, and so was the river that runs out of it.

  “Then something happened. No one knows what for sure. But the settlers turned against old Brigham. Some say it was the women who caused the break by refusing to put up with polygamy. Whatever it was, the town split into two factions. Some stayed on right where they were and renamed their town Defiance, their way of thumbing their noses at Brigham Young, while others came here and called their settlement Ellsworth. Either way, Brigham Young lost his foothold in these parts.”

  Larsen paused long enough to sip his beer. “Like I said, they started out religious in Defiance and still are, or were. The watchword out there was always, „It’s God’s will.’ If the crops failed, it was God’s will. Ditto if the cattle died. I can hear them in heaven now saying the fire was God’s will.”

  Manwaring reached for a french fry before realizing he’d eaten everything on his plate. Holland and Wilcox had done the same.

  As if on cue, Vicki returned to the table. “I could use another drink to wash down my sandwich,” she said.

  Manwaring glanced at Holland. The cameraman caught the signal and stood up. “It’s my turn to buy. Come on, Frank, give me a hand carrying them, will you?”

  “It’s cheaper by the pitcher,” Larsen called after them.

  “Tell me,” Manwaring said, “if they weren’t Mormons in Defiance, what were they?”

  “They never put a formal name to it, but if you ask me they should have called their religion Defiance just like their town. It sure as hell caused enough hard feeling around here.”

  “Why exactly?”

  “It’s hard to put your finger on. Don’t get me wrong. They were good, God-fearing people. But they went their own way, that’s for sure.”

  Vicki looked up from her burger, which she was examining skeptically. “What kind of hard feelings are we talking about?”

  “I’ve always made it a policy never to poke my nose into another man’s religion,” Larsen said. “But you couldn’t get away from it when you went visiting in Defiance. They were always preaching at you. Their way was God’s way. They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “How many people lived there?” Manwaring asked.

  Larsen gathered more sweat from his nose and then lick
ed his fingers. “People were coming and going out there all the time.”

  “Going where?”

  “Sorry. I thought you knew. There are some in town who used Defiance as a kind of retreat. They’d go out there to rest and hide away from the cares of the word. When they felt better, they’d come on back. It worked the other way, too. People get tired of too much goodness. When that happened, they’d leave Defiance and come into town to tie one on.”

  Vicki removed the top of her burger bun to examine the meat. “How did they support themselves?”

  “Everybody had to earn their keep. That’s why newcomers were welcome as extra sets of helping hands. Newcomers also gave the elders a chance to proselytize.”

  “Did you ever partake?” she said.

  “My cousin wanted me to, but I never got around to it.”

  Holland and Wilcox returned; they each carried a pitcher of beer and fresh glasses. Only then did Vicki start in on her hamburger. She always ate last when they were on assignment. Manwaring had never asked her why, though Holland had a number of theories, among them that it was her way of exercising control.

  Larsen, like everyone else, watched Vicki’s elaborate ritual. The burger was cut into four wedges. Catsup was applied to the top half of the bun only, mustard to the bottom. Once that was done, she carefully nibbled the tip of each wedge and discarded the rest.

  “The Morning News is only six hours away,” Manwaring said when she pushed her plate away. “We’d better turn in if we’re going to be fit for work tomorrow.”

  “I’m on call day or night,” the newspaperman said.

  Manwaring shepherded his crew outside. Noise from the Big I followed them all the way to their cabins. The fiery sky glowed like Northern Lights.

  Holland and Wilcox disappeared inside number seven, leaving Manwaring to escort Vicki to her door.

  “That was a good job you did recruiting Larsen,” he told her.

  “I was thinking of you.” Vicki opened the door and turned on the light inside. “You got me three minutes of air time tonight.”

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, a kiss like never before.

  “Another insert like today,” she whispered, breaking contact, “and who knows what might happen.”

  “I’ll call Eccles in the morning and see what I can set up.”

  “You’d better call him now.”

  When Manwaring tried for another kiss, she retreated inside and closed the door.

  7

  IT WAS one in the morning when Manwaring dialed Ross Eccles’s home number.

  “It’s about time you checked in,” Eccles complained the moment he answered. He sounded wide awake. “Reisner woke me up an hour ago to say he doesn’t want you getting a big head. His exact words were, „Tell Manwaring not to expect three minutes tomorrow.’”

  “Tell that to Vicki,” Manwaring said.

  “Dealing with the talent in the field is one of your privileges.

  “Three minutes tomorrow would change my life.”

  “She’s like all talent. All you’ll ever get out of her is cold showers.”

  Manwaring feigned outrage. “This is a big story, for Christ’s sake. A twenty-four-hour fire watch has been posted around the town. If the wind shifts, we could all die in our sleep.”

  “Speaking of sleep,” Wilcox said from the extra cot, “I’m on union overtime until you put out the damn lights.” His, the third bed, eliminated most of the cabin’s floor space, leaving only narrow aisles to reach the bathroom.

  “You hear that?” Manwaring said. “We’re risking our lives here.” He was lying on one of two twin beds. Holland was in the other.

  Eccles said, “A second-day follow-up’s never worth three minutes. You know it and so do I. You’ll be lucky to get a minute out of Reisner, and nothing before the first commercial break.” “I’m putting in for golden time and short turnaround,” Wilcox muttered.

  “Tell him he’s lucky to have a job,” Eccles said. “That goes for you, too, calling me at this time of night.”

  “I’m only following Reisner’s rules. Always check in with your bureau chief.”

  “That’s fine for Reisner. He doesn’t have to wait up for the calls.”

  Manwaring yawned; his watering eyes felt gritty. The motel smelled like a smokehouse. “If you don’t have anything else for me, I’ll get back to you after the insert in the Morning News.”

  “There is something.”

  Eccles’s tone of voice brought Manwaring up in bed.

  “Your mother called me here at home.”

  “How did she get your number?” Manwaring said.

  “She told Tator, the overnight man, that it was an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She told me it was an emergency too.”

  “You didn’t give her this number, did you?”

  “What could I do? She said she was calling from the hospital.”

  “What hospital?” Manwaring asked.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just before you called,” Eccles said.

  “Shit.”

  “Look . . .” Wilcox said.

  A gesture from Holland silenced Wilcox.

  “It’s not like I gave out your home number,” Eccles said. “Besides, as soon as she saw Vicki on the news, she’d know where you were anyway.”

  “Fine.”

  “Maybe she won’t be able to get through.”

  Manwaring hung up.

  Holland swung his feet out of bed. “Come on, Wilcox. You and I are going for a walk.”

  “What the hell are you—”

  “Union business,” Holland interrupted. He slipped his raincoat over his pajamas and then waited for Wilcox to do the same.

  “You’re all crazy,” Wilcox muttered.

  “Give us a yell when you’re through,” Holland said on the way out. “We’ll hear you.”

  “I don’t know how long it will be,” Manwaring said.

  “I know.”

  Holland knew about Helen’s calls, knew that she liked to phone ahead to someone else, thereby alerting Manwaring that her call was coming. After that, she’d take her own phone off the hook so that he couldn’t beat her to the punch.

  The moment the door closed behind the cameramen, Manwaring dialed Helen’s number on the off chance she’d slipped up. As always, he got a busy signal.

  He paced the narrow aisles between beds for a while. His watch said it was 1:27 when he opened the curtains and looked for Holland. All he could see was the fire’s false sunrise.

  Manwaring lay on the bed again, staring at his watch. Fifteen minutes passed before the phone rang.

  “Manwaring,” he said, trying to sound cold and businesslike.

  “Will you accept a collect call from Gersner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kevin, your mother’s calling.” It was Sorry Gersner, her fourth husband, third by way of an official marriage license. “How’re you doing, son?”

  “Fine,” Manwaring said, thinking, I’m not your son, but unable to face the consequences of saying so. “It’s late and I’m working. Just tell me what you want.”

  “We called to say hello, son, to tell you we love you.”

  Manwaring pressed the receiver against his ear, straining to hear the telltale slurring. He caught the whisper of the phone changing hands.

  “Kevie, dear, it’s your mother.”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “You told my boss it was an emergency.”

  “Kevie, Kevie.”

  “I have to get up in three hours,” Manwaring told her.

  A distant voice, a woman’s said, “Go ahead, ask him.”

  “Shh!” Helen said.

  “Who’s there, Mother?”

  “Jush Sorry.”

  Manwaring sighed. She’d missed the t. “How much do you need, Mother?” Usually she asked for fifty or a hundred.

&n
bsp; “I wouldn’t ask, Kevie, but your father needs an operation.

  He’s not my father, Manwaring thought. “What kind of operation?”

  He recognized the dead air created by clamping fingers over the speaker. As usual, his mother hadn’t thought her plan through. No doubt her apartment was filled with a new set of friends whom she wanted to impress. He could hear her bragging now. My son’s in television. A rich and famous producer, who’ll do anything for his mother.

  Normally there was a month or so between calls, the time it took for Helen to tire of one set of friends and exchange them for others.

  “A root canal,” she said triumphantly.

  “Have you been drinking?” he asked.

  “Your father’s face is all swollen. The pain’s so bad we had to have a few cocktails.”

  Manwaring clenched his teeth. “How much money do you need?”

  “If you could only see how he’s suffering.”

  Sorry groaned in the background.

  “Five hundred dollars,” she said.

  “I’m in Idaho, Mother, in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You love your mother, don’t you?”

  That was the line she’d been laying on him since the day she walked out on his father. You love your mother, don’t you? Of course you do. That’s why you’ll want to live with me and not your father. He’s ruined my life, though you’re too young to understand how.

  Her family, Manwaring’s maternal grandparents, aunts, and uncles, all took Helen’s side. “Your father’s done terrible things,” they told him. “Things we don’t dare tell you about. You’re much better off without him. One day you’ll understand. One day she’ll find you a new father.”

  Even as a boy he’d wanted to call them liars but didn’t dare.

  “You love your mother, don’t you?” Helen repeated.

  He closed his eyes.

  “I don’t hear you, Kevin.”

  “I’ll send you the money as soon as I can,” he said and hung up.

  8

  BLAINE LARSEN, who’d been camped at the Big I Cafe, woke Manwaring at 3:30 A.M. to inform him that a gypsy up-link truck had arrived from Salt Lake City. As groggy as Manwaring was, he dressed, staggered out into the smoky darkness, and walked the three blocks to city hall where the truck had taken up position.