Southern Cross the Dog

by Bill Cheng

  He took an advance on his pay for an upstairs room in a boardinghouse on the edge of Hollandale. It was four walls and whatever light made it through the branches of the maple outside his window. He ate his dinners on the sill, looking out away from town. It was an empty country, big with sky and grass. On the weekends, he could see the small plots on the town’s fringe, a gold-colored tractor chugging in the distance. A ribbon of smoke rose up from the distant chimneys, gray and curling and pretty, and his mind would set to wandering.

  There were years now, marching fat and wide through the valley of his brain. He thought of Ellis and Etta, who were most probably dead now or at least good as dead. He thought of Hermalie. When they’d dug that limp small body out of the ash, he had barely recognized her. He stood at that windowsill, his food cooling, his head emptying. There were too many days for too much world, too much time to wrong and be wronged. And each day weighed on him heavier than the last—so much sun, so much sky and cloud—and he reached through those years, before Bruce and the Hotel Beau-Miel, to that miserable ramshackle cabin—his father, his mother, his brother, shaking beetles from their clothes, and part of him reasoned that somewhere still, they were there, the hearth fires going, the air heavy with sweet ash. He pictured his father’s hand, forever big and warm on the back of his neck.

  IN THREE MONTHS HE FOUND his way to George Burke’s crew, mucking out in the deep swamp. The crew worked seventeen-hour days, six days a week out in the mosquito nests, trying to slow the flow of the river. They dug trenches and piled mud and mixed concrete for the diverting walls. In the mornings, the men would watch their foreman wade out from the banks, clearing the rocks into the silver run. His shirt was off, showing his broad tan back. Burke would float a yellow rope into the channel, and the end would catch in the current, speeding forward, straightening out its slack. A man some meters downstream would call the time, signaling for Burke to halter the slack. Then he’d wade back, the rope coiled about his shoulders. Too fast, he’d call to the men. Still too fast.

  The work was grueling, but Robert admired Burke. He never cheated him his pay or kept him from the machine work. In Burke’s crew, he was allowed to drive plow trucks and graders and dig cranes. By day’s end, climbing up to his apartment, he could still feel the hum of the engines in his body, the buzzing in his bones. His blood was toxic, the tang of diesel in his spit. He’d enter the dark room, sling off his boots, and lay his clothes out carefully on the chair back. But on his mattress, every nerve worked raw, he closed his eyes, and there on the other side of dreaming, the Dog waited.

  Morning would come and the days would draw on. The order had come down for his crew to be reassigned to demolition duty. For months they turned chunks of green country into a fine burnt powder. Level this dam, bury that hill, fill that gully. They stopped their ears with cotton, and when the all clear was given, it was Robert who depressed the plunger. The ground quaked and an awful noise wracked the sky. They tucked their heads to their knees against the hail of mud and stone. His mouth was full of cordite. He brought his head up again and the ground was new, clear. The world hummed for hours after each detonation. He stepped from behind the bunker and walked across the halo of scorched earth. He stood at the center of the crater, measuring by sight its width and depth. He multiplied the poundage in his head. It was fortifying—the landscape blasting to pieces around him. Birds fled the trees. The blast traveled through his bones, rattled his teeth. The cascade of after-dust lashed his cheek. Slowly air and noise and birdsong returned again to the world. He was still there. Anchored. There was a freedom in that. He discovered the sphere of his reach, like a fighter, Death dancing just beyond his jabs.

  He could not stop.

  At every demolition, he’d pack more and more explosives into the charges and would ignore the safety protocols, often depressing the plunger before all the men could get to cover. He thrilled at every blast, standing exposed beyond the safety of the trench. He drew out the cotton from his ears and let the godly crack drive through his skull.

  He grinned at the outraged earth.

  Once there’d been a choke in the run and Burke took the crew upriver to investigate. By midafternoon, they found a beaver dam, eighty yards across, climbing six feet high from bed to pitch, stanching off one of the minor tributaries. A wall of mud and sticks and stone bowed into the stream. The surrounding marshland was soft with flooding. Protocol dictated that the crew was to shovel out the dam by hand and set out poison to keep the beavers from building again. To do it safely, it would be a month of backbreaking toil in mosquito country, cracking up the bits of stone and twig with shovels, little by little, and little by little widening the artery.

  To do it recklessly, however, would take hardly any time at all.

  Robert went on-site the next morning hours earlier than the rest of the crew. He went alone into the water, yoked on either side by a long yellow rope. He went in with cement putty and charges sealed in plastic and prepped along the dam, slathering the goo with the heel of his hand and fixing the charges in place.

  From the banks Robert forced down the handle on the detonator. For a moment, there was nothing. Then immediately there was a series of three pops, sucking up the air. The river belched and gulped, and a rush of sediment shot across the channel. The air filled with smoke and mist and burning splinters. The earth groaned. The surviving pieces of wall shifted in the current and broke apart against the pressure of the stream.

  Robert unstopped his ears. His skull was full of static. He could feel the blood returning to his face and looked out toward the bank where a large crater was now sitting.

  When Robert returned to the camp, some of his crewmates were already waiting for him. Robert took in the stillness in their faces. There were four of them, each one carrying a piece of iron rebar, and he understood what it was they wanted.

  The men spaced themselves out around him, enclosing him in a circle. One man approached and swung. Robert felt his breath explode.

  He took a step back and looked up. A piece of iron came down and clipped the side of his head. One of the men was barking something, but already, he couldn’t hear. His blood was pumping. The man was heavyset, his dark eyebrows set into a scowl. Robert wrestled the man down onto the ground and began to beat him senseless before the other three set themselves upon him. It was George Burke who finally broke up the fight, spraying them down with the hose.

  Later, Robert sat alone with Burke in his trailer. He was cold and still dripping and he could not get his mind to focus.

  After a time, Robert broke the silence.

  You going to fire me?

  More than your job is at stake, Burke told him. You could be arrested. You could have been killed.

  Robert looked at him. Burke seemed weary and tired. He reached across the desk and touched Robert’s shoulder. The work whistle sounded and they both turned toward the window. The workday was over and the crew returned to camp, dragging their sorry bodies up the trail. They were more mud than men, their bodies streaked yellow and brown. Outside the trailer, someone had rigged up the hose and they took turns blasting the slog from their bodies.

  We maim ourselves, Robert said quietly.

  What?

  Robert shook his head.

  Nothing, he said and looked away.

  And that day when he saw Burke lower himself into the river to rescue his crewman, the chill closed around his own heart. He was wrong. The world was small. Far too small. Someone called his name. He was running. He saw Burke’s face blanching, the eyes wide as he realized what was happening. Robert dodged his grasp and sped forward. He heard his name again, Chatham!, but already he was in the air, parallel to the surge of yellow. The water rose to meet him; icy, it took his chest and his legs and his face, then he was under. He felt the hard bottom against his stomach, the air blowing through his lungs, then a shock of warm spilling from his head, his name runneling
out—Robertrobertrobert—like some prayer out into the dark. And then he was not Robert, but the meat of Robert, the bone of Robert, the throbbing clockwork of Robert’s heart and blood. There was no ceiling, no bottom, just a velvet tongue of unending and deepening black.

  When he opened his eyes, he was disappointed he was not dead.

  You’re all right, someone said.

  I’m not, he said. Then it was black again.

  He did not know where he was. There was the smell of earth. Sod. The bitter fetor of deep soil. Far in the distance, the horizon was on fire—a long curtain of sky unraveling at its fringe. He could feel its heat now, crushing down, and a cold sweat broke through his pores. He tried to will his eyes open. The lids would not part. His arms would not move. A voice murmured above him.

  Look’ah’ gon’ com’rown.

  The voice was deep. Husky. The groan of swollen wood. A second voice answered. Crimson streaked across the inner walls of his head. He tried again to move his arms. Something lifted from his brow. He touched the region above his eye gently. An undertow of pain rose to his skin. He saw a ceiling of thatched peat and amber light. A woman floated above him, the eyes pocketed in dark.

  You alive?

  Her hair was dark and matted, encircling her long face. Her ear was against his chest. She placed her hand over his brow.

  Da-may.

  He felt something force its way into his mouth. It was bitter and greasy. A finger.

  Name?

  It was a man’s voice now. Thick. Harsh.

  He worked his tongue around the taste and gave them the name. Robert Chatham.

  Rowbear Shah’tome, the voice repeated. Why is you here, Rowbear Shah’tome?

  The woman stood and wiped her hands on a leather apron. His throat hurt. He wanted water. She appeared again and laid a strong-smelling poultice across his forehead. A man materialized beside her. He was older, with steely blue eyes that peered out through the rough crags of his face. He knelt down close, their noses almost touching. Robert could see the flaxen beard moving under his breath.

  Have I died?

  The man and the woman looked at each other.

  Give him sleep, the woman said. He could see she was seated in a chair now, wringing her hands. Her leg was bouncing on her heel. T’ain’t no use how he a-fevered still. Give him sleep and sound him later.

  Sa’rye. The man drew away, and for a moment, Robert was alone with the woman. She sat there, still bouncing her heel. Her eyes watched him. Cobalt. Unnatural. There was a split down the center of her bottom lip from where it’d been chewed near to black. There was something in her hand. A bowl. She stood up and crossed over to him with it, scooping gray and wispy slime with two fingers. She knelt down by his head. Ah, she said. She opened her mouth wide. He did as he was told and she pushed the paste onto his tongue. Then very gently, she closed his jaws with the heel of her palm.

  She wiped her hands clean and drew a rug up to his chin.

  Strong chains, she whispered. And strong arms to haul them.

  ROBERT SLEPT IN FITS. TIME seemed to slow then stumble forward. He felt himself being jerked from one moment to the next. From dreaming to waking, then dreaming again. One moment he was hot, his brain a sun bursting out his eyes. The next moment his limbs were ice. He woke several times to find himself sobbing and not understanding why. Faces stood over him. They asked questions. He tried to answer but could not make sense of his words. They scowled. They threatened. Then they disappeared. There was a wasp in the room. It hung upside down from the ceiling. He watched its slow progress. Its swollen stinger throbbing. He saw it dislodge from its hold, fly down to his lips to drink the sweat on his upper lip. He blinked and saw that, no, it was on the ceiling still.

  The woman came to him often. She would swathe his forehead in meal, then stretch out his limbs. First his arms, then his legs, then each finger, every toe. She’d rub them together in her palms, tease the blood back into the flesh. She carried bowls full of smells, and she’d smooth the pastes on his chest. He’d breathe deeply. When he shivered and howled, she forced down his left hand and cut his index finger with a knife and sucked out the blood till the fog cleared. Soon he could tell again where one day ended and another began. Then at last his fever broke.

  The woman sat him up to change the rug, which had been fouled by his sweat and phlegm.

  What’s your name?, he asked.

  It was the first thing he remembered saying for a long time. His voice was clear and strong. The house, he realized, was far smaller than he’d first thought. It was a small dugout that’d been made smaller by the animal pelts that hung from the ceiling, forming curtains. He had been laid up on a pallet of soft mulch. Shelves had been carved out of the earthen walls, and a small fire pit had been carved out of the wall behind him. Above it were a pair of rifles, crossed over a wood crest. The woman looked at him, startled.

  Your name?, he said again.

  She seemed caught off guard. She looked past the curtains then back at Robert.

  I’s Frankie.

  He tried to stand. He balanced himself against the wall. His legs were stiff, new.

  How long I been here?

  Two, she said.

  Two days?

  Non, she said. Two weeks.

  Her eyes were jumping from the rifles on the wall to the man who now stood in her path to them. He realized that she might be afraid of him. Her nostrils were slightly flared, and the sun had freckled her neck and arms. They stood facing each other, her shoulders hunched, as if she’d been cornered. Robert took his hand from the wall and held it out in front of him.

  The woman called out to the other room, and two men hurried in. The older of the two was the man he’d seen earlier. The other was younger, and thinner, with a waxed mustache and an arrowhead of dark brown hair beneath his lip. They were in full trapper garb, draped in tanned leather, their rifles in their arms. The woman spoke hurriedly, too quick for Robert to understand. The two men kept their eyes fixed on him. He could see the younger one, his face impassive. His hand drifted down to his belt and found rest at the hilt of a buck knife. When the woman had finally finished speaking, the older of the two men stepped forward.

  Rowbear Shah’tome, he said. You nah goin’ nowhere.

  THE OLDER MAN, THE ONE the others called Bossjohn, took him out to the other room, where he sat Robert down on a small stone bench. He untied the belt around his leatherskin coat. His coat splayed open, revealing the large stomach beneath his shirt. He slung off the coat and hung it on the wall and took a seat behind the table. His hands were coarse and yellow. The fingers were hatched with nick marks. In the front passage, a crepe curtain fluttered with the draft. Morning brimmed on the other side, one end lifting and folding over. Out in the front there were troughs and a small wood rack where fox pelts had been stretched to dry. Bossjohn folded his knuckles into his palm. He cleared his throat and looked wearily at Robert.

  We warn’t sure you was goin’ come through. You sooffee?

  Bossjohn thumped his chest. Robert nodded. Yes.

  Bossjohn mimicked him, moving his head up and down solemnly, as if he was pleased that he understood.

  You work’n for there bugheways. Them in there swamp?

  Bugheway?

  Yeah. Like you. Bugheway.

  The man patted Robert on the chest.

  I did, Robert said. But if I’ve been here two weeks, it figures I don’t no more. They’ll have replaced me by now.

  Bossjohn stroked his beard, nodding. Men were replaceable.

  Two months now, they come. They fuss our lines. Break our traps. Why?

  We’re . . . they’re building . . . they need to clear the land. Make space.

  Space?

  A dam, he said. They’re building a dam.

  Robert looked at the man and he could see he did not und
erstand. He made a wall with his left hand and drove his knuckles into the heel. The project had been in the works for years. He tried to describe the immensity of what was happening, tried to repeat the words that had been repeated to him. A shining new South. He described what went on in the work sites. Trees were being felled. Waterways were being collapsed, expanded, redrawn.

  The man had started to redden. He was breathing heavily now, the small hairs of his beard twitching. He turned back toward Robert.

  How many?

  How many what?

  In Panther Swamp. How many bugheway?

  I don’t know, Robert said. Hundreds. More.

  An angry voice called out from the other room. Bossjohn let out a huff of breath and he stood up.

  Stay you here, he said and walked out.

  Robert found himself suddenly alone. He went to the doorway and tried to place himself within the country. In the distance, the land was hemmed in by a wide swath of tupelos arching along the horizon. There was nothing for miles—no house, no fence, no sign of a road. A thick fog was breathing through the trees. Was he still in the swamp? The air was thinner somehow, faintly musty.

  He heard a noise behind him.

  The rifle was trained to his heart, and behind it, the woman. Her cheek leaned into the stock, her shoulder firm against the butt.

  He paused in the passage for a moment. Then he stepped back inside.

  FRANKIE MADE STEW IN AN iron cauldron while Bossjohn and the younger man worked out front. In the heat, they’d stripped off their shirts, laying bare their reddening bodies. Robert watched them pass between them the limp body of a fox, consulting each other, drawing their fingers down along the fur to mark where the cuts were to be made. They hung the fox on a rack and bled its neck. It runneled down the rope, into the soil. Bossjohn tied its head to a brace as the other man separated the skin from the flesh.

  Who is that?, he asked.

  Frankie looked out to where Robert was pointing.