Nop's Trials

by Donald McCaig

  Beverly poured Gallo Burgundy for her husband and Joyce. Penny said she’d wait, thanks. Eugene went into the refrigerator for a brew and the Obenschains weren’t having any, “No thanks.”

  Every year Lewis felt obliged to make a remark about the last supper: “If wine was good enough for Christ,” he said, “why isn’t it acceptable to the Christians?”

  The Obenschains had never forgiven him.

  He’d never forgiven them.

  Carl Obenschain was talking about the livestock market. He’d heard feeder lambs brought forty-eight cents. Awful. Awful. What was going to happen when the spring lambs hit the market?

  Like an old wagon track, Carl Obenschain had two deep ruts, and once you skidded into either of them, it was the dickens to get out. Farming and the weather. Carl Obenschain remembered every year’s weather back to when he was a boy, and Carl was the thin side of seventy. If today was a dry day, he remembered when it had been dryer. If today was cold, Carl remembered the winter when the bulb fell out of the thermometer. He could recall, perfectly, that June twenty-first hailstorm in 1947 that beat the new oats flat.

  Emma Obenschain leaned forward in her chair. “When did you say you’re due, dear? We’ll have to plan the baby shower.”

  Penny always blushed when she lied.

  Beverly asked could she pour more wine?

  Lewis gave her a look. They never had more than one glass before dinner. Lewis checked his watch.

  “Come on, everybody,” Beverly said, “where’s that old Christmas cheer?”

  “I’ll never turn down a beer,” Gene said and heaved his bulk off the couch. “Don’t bother to serve me. I can help myself.”

  Beverly waited, with the wine bottle in her hand, and Penny felt sorry for her and took a glass, though alcohol—any kind of alcohol—gave her the gas.

  “I hope that bird isn’t overcooked,” Lewis said.

  “It’s cooling.”

  “If he don’t get back soon, we’ll have to start without him.”

  Penny asked about the black-and-tan puppy’s breeding.

  Lewis said, “I don’t like these new digital watches. I like the kind where you can see the hands.”

  Nop wasn’t much older than a puppy himself. When he was let back into the house, it was love at first sight. He made the ritual growl but his plume tail was fluttering “hello” as he performed the introduction ceremony. She wriggled. He dropped into the invitation-to-play.

  She giggled. “I’ll bite thy ear, black-and-white dog!”

  “Thou shan’t.”

  She did.

  The two of them rolled around on the floor nipping and biting. Beverly shook her head. It seemed a long time since they’d had a pup in the house. Such foolishness!

  Mark’s VW pulled up. Everybody made conversation that nobody was listening to.

  Mark made his false, cheerful apology and went to the bathroom to wash up.

  Penny offered to carry dishes to the table.

  “Penny,” Emma said, “you’ll have to be careful not to strain yourself!”

  “I’m not crippled,” Penny snapped. She said she was sorry. Everybody said it was all right. Emma remembered how testy she’d been when she was carrying Beverly. The first time she’d felt Beverly kick was at a social, down by the Winthrop’s farm. Mrs. Winthrop’s gone now, poor thing.

  When Mark returned, Lewis asked, “Did you get what’s-his-name’s car fixed?”

  “The coil’s shot. We’ll have to wait until Wednesday to get a new one.”

  Gene said Mark should stop by the NAPA Auto Parts while he was behind the counter. He gave Mark the wink.

  Mark hadn’t changed his shirt and Lewis opened his mouth to comment but closed it instead. When Mark and Penny had arrived at the farmhouse door, they only had two little suitcases between them and Lewis figured Mark didn’t own any other dress clothing. It was too bad the cuffs of his cowboy shirt were smudged with motor oil.

  Never mind. It was Christmas.

  Beverly and her mother kept up the chatter while they ate. It always amazed Lewis how much the Obenschains could say to each other without ever actually saying anything.

  He and Gene Hicklin talked dogs. Hicklin hadn’t started hunting Dixie yet because she was too young.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I’ll tell you, she has the instincts. Before she was two months she was putting cats up the tree, and she’d stay right at the bottom and cry.”

  “I love that sound,” Lewis said. “Pass me more of that corn casserole.”

  As he ate, Lewis Burkholder relaxed. Man shouldn’t do anything when he’s tensed up and unhappy, but the world had never learned to wait on his moods. The dinner was real good though the turkey was a little drier than he usually liked it. He had a double helping of dressing with gravy. He watched his wife eating, talking to her mother, and felt a sweet unusual satisfaction. He breathed a prayer: thanks that his wife and daughter were healthy. He prayed they should stay that way. Though it wasn’t his custom, he helped clear the dishes away once they were done.

  They opened gifts. Nothing expensive. Plenty of baby things for Penny.

  Penny had bought a new collar for Nop; hand made, hand riveted, of pale yellow leather. “To Mom and Dad from Penny and Mark. Much Love!” That’s what she’d written on the card.

  “Mark picked it out,” Penny said.

  “Well, I’ll just put it on right now,” Lewis said and got the needlenose pliers and transferred Nop’s tags: his county license and the name tag.

  Though the collar was quite handsome, Nop preferred the old one which smelled like a proper collar.

  Mark opened the plain envelope. Five twenty-dollar bills.

  Lewis said, “From me and Beverly. Merry Christmas.”

  Mark held the bills like they were strange, maybe counterfeit. When you must eat humble pie, you must eat it—every bit. “Thank you,” he said.

  Lewis smiled. If everybody just kept trying, things would work out, wouldn’t they? He said, “Maybe, after a bit, we could take the tractor over to the Buckhorn Hunt Club. I’ve got that old logging chain in the toolshed. If that jeep isn’t too heavy, we could chain it to the front-end loader and jerk it out that way. I’ve never done that before, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

  “Mike’s wrecker got it. I passed them coming in.”

  “Oh.”

  Penny said, “Could we put these darn dogs out of here? They’re giving me a headache.”

  The Stink Dog slipped back to her refuge behind the couch. Mark opened the kitchen door for Nop and Dixie.

  The outside smelled wild and free. Indoors was too close, close as a closet filled with musty histories.

  Dixie wasn’t interested in prowling the farmyard. She wriggled on through the side gate and Nop jumped the rail fence where he always jumped it.

  He’d show her. The master kept his rams in a lot behind the barn. “Follow,” Nop said, and galloped off, his hindquarters flouncing.

  Dixie took a deep sniff, lowered her nose and snuffled along in his track.

  The yard was enclosed by a five-foot board fence but Nop launched himself over in a single leap and landed hard and fast enough to startle the rams who’d been picking through remnants of the morning hay.

  They fled from him.

  Neatly, Nop made an outrun on the side Dixie could see, creating an almost perfect gather. Down he went into his crouch and he brought the rams toward Dixie, like she was Lewis.

  Dixie backed away from the fence. She barked. “Black-and-White, why dost thou pursue thy master’s woolies? It is not dog’s work to move woolies. Dogs hunt. Hunting is dog’s work and scenting delicious scent.” She flushed the fence line snuffling furiously though the ground held no fresh scent of consequence.

  Nop was so surprised he lost control of his woolies. “Not work woolies?”

  “The hunting of animals makes a good dog. The hunting and the giving tongue.” And the diminutive black-and-tan pr
oved her point by sitting down and loosing a plaintive howl.

  Nop stopped dead.

  The terrified rams stampeded past him.

  “Leave them be,” Dixie counseled. “Come with me and we shall hunt wild things.”

  Nop’s tongue hung out, puzzled. He took two steps forward, stopped, took another two steps. She flaunted herself at him shamelessly.

  Nop followed.

  Usually Nop stuck pretty close to the farmyard but Dixie Rebel Yell had no such scruples. Snuffling along, she tracked through the cross pattern of scents, going always for the fresher, more aromatic trace.

  Scent is no more than the oil from the pads of animal feet and that was the trace Dixie now pursued, through the barnyard, up onto the hill where a wide band of trees separated the farm from the state road.

  Though the groundhogs had all retired to their dens for the winter and there were no raccoons in this stretch, there was deer scent, astringent and musky in the fallen leaves bordering Lewis’s pasture. This late in the year the only green grass was Lewis’s rye and the deer bedded in the woods next to their food.

  Nop hurried around, heading his new pal. He dropped down into the crouch and, wagging his tail, invited Dixie to a romp.

  “Black-and-white dog, thou block my path. Thou interrupt dog’s work.”

  Nop looked pure puzzlement as she snuffled right around him. He dropped his own nose for a sniff. Like her, he could smell the deer but unlike her attached no significance to the scent.

  Up ahead a squirrel thrashed loudly through the deep leaves. Dixie bolted. When the squirrel whipped up a tree trunk, Dixie put her little paws on the trunk and barked and howled.

  Ten feet over their heads, the annoyed squirrel chattered and scolded.

  Dixie howled. Nop sniffed, circled the tree and lifted his leg.

  The squirrel had important business to get on with. There were uncollected hickory nuts in this grove and his winter cache wasn’t quite full. Though he had buried so many nuts he couldn’t remember all of them, his instinct to gather was strong. With a final irritated complaint he rushed along a branch until the branch narrowed, and he dropped onto another tree, his new perch bending like a bow.

  Now this was more like it! Like all Border Collies, Nop had bird dog far back in his ancestry and he chased this flying creature through the woods, leaping at the springing branches.

  Surely the squirrel must miss a jump! Surely he must fall into the dogs’ open mouths. Over the road a great black walnut and a squat red oak scarcely touch—just brush—at their furthest extremities. Surely now his branch will bend and drop him to the hard dirt road and the excited dogs.

  The truck was light blue, robin’s egg blue, though that wasn’t the color’s official name. The Ford Motor Company called that particular shade of blue Andalusian Blue. Andalusian Blue was reserved for Ford T Birds, LTDs and certain custom truck packages.

  Big Foot had the optional trim package, the optional chrome wheels, an antenna for AM and another for CB and a black roll bar behind the cab. BIG FOOT was stenciled on the hood.

  It was fat-tired and high enough off the ground you could push a tricycle clean underneath it.

  “Goddamn,” Lester Gumm said. “Now that’s a real black-and-tan.”

  “Take my beer,” his half brother said. “Don’t you spill it now.”

  Big Foot coasted, clutch in. Dixie sniffed through the leaves beside the road.

  “You’re gonna hit that dog, Grady.”

  “No I ain’t. Goddamn, get a look at that little bitch. Lester?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When I come beside her I want you to open your door and get her in here. Set your beer on the floor. Lester, be quick about it.”

  With a spring squeak, Big Foot stopped. Click, click. The latch unlatched. “Come on over here, doggy. Come on. Nice doggy.”

  Dixie didn’t hesitate a minute. She wagged her way right up to the door of the truck, and when Lester Gumm lifted her in, she licked his hand in gratitude.

  “Okay. Let’s roll.” Lester Gumm hissed his words.

  “Hold your water. Ain’t that Lewis Burkholder’s dog?”

  “How the hell would I know Lewis’s dog?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s him all right. I seen Lewis with him. Lester, that’s a three-hundred-dollar dog. Merry Christmas.”

  “He’s just another stockdog,” Lester whined. “The black-and-tan’s worth some money, but that other dog’s common!”

  “Come here, son. Come here.” Grady Gumm knew the way of dogs and whistled a low whistle. “Hold that black-and-tan. Hold her where he can see her.”

  Nop slunk down. His tail was curled under his buttocks and the tip of it touched his belly. One false motion would set him to running.

  But Grady had dog sense and patience. Nop inched forward. Grady stayed still, giving him no excuse to bolt.

  Nop was trained to obey. His daddy and granddaddy had been trained to obey.

  “Come over here, Old Son. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”

  Oh, Nop didn’t want to come and even the sight of Dixie wiggling and wagging didn’t convince him, but man had called him and leashed him with his words and Nop dragged himself along the road until, quick as a wink, Grady Gumm had two fingers under his new collar.

  “Three hundred dollars!” Grady crowed. “Hot damn!”

  TWO

  All Dogs Are Formal. Some Dogs Are Mad.

  Grady Gumm’s eyes were the exact color of pond water in the light of the full moon: silver, opaque. His lackluster brown hair was combed off his forehead in a pompadour more usual in the 1950s. Once he made his mind up, Grady Gumm never changed it. His hands were never still.

  His half brother, Lester, asked, “What we gonna do with a stockdog?”

  “Just you never mind.”

  Nop lay on the floorboards just where he lay in his master’s truck. His dark brown eyes were terribly worried. Not so with Dixie, who clambered up Lester’s pant leg, grunting determined little grunts.

  Lester batted at her. She yelped.

  “Stop foolin’ with her.”

  “No dog’s gonna muddy my trousers,” Lester said. “Damn, you see where she splotched me?” He smacked Dixie again and the pup howled.

  There isn’t much room on the floorboards of a pickup truck—not even when that pickup is a three-quarterton with the stretch frame—and there’s no room at all for panic. Nop breathed deep. He told himself this journey was his master’s will, just like all the other rides he’d taken. “Lie still,” he counseled the younger dog.

  Lester said, “Hush, down there. I won’t tolerate whinin’ in a dog.” He set his boot on Nop’s fluffy tail and pressed to punctuate his point. Nop jerked his hindquarters until the thrashing made Lester turn him loose.

  Lester Gumm had been confined in the state penitentiary for three years. The last two years had been on the road gang and that wasn’t so bad, at least you got to work out of doors. The first year had been bad. Breaking and entering the VFW Post after hours Saturday night when he was out of cigarettes and beer. It wasn’t hard to break in and Lester hadn’t been hard to catch.

  Prisons are designed to create fear: fear in the heart of the would-be first offender and fear in the hardened criminal. The design works with some. Lester was certainly afraid. Though Grady and he had probably stolen fifty, a hundred dogs, Lester was afraid. He was afraid right now and he knew he’d be afraid next time. He was more afraid of Grady.

  Grady had never been convicted though he’d been tried twice: assault and grand theft auto. Both times, the complaining party withdrew his complaint. Grady never smirked at the sheriff or the judge. “Them fellows just made an honest mistake,” he’d explain. “Could happen to anybody.”

  Grady never bucked the Law. He slipped around Law or lay doggo when Law swept on by like a spotlight at night.

  Grady spied a ruffed grouse crossing the road and braked. Lester bagged the plump bird with a single shot and tossed it in bac
k under a feedbag.

  Lester running on about the black-and-tan: “This here’s a real dog. I’ll bet we can get some real money for her too. You heard about Nelson Purvis up to McDowell? You know what he give for that Walker hound of his? Two thousand dollars—that’s what he give. ’Course, that was a tried dog and this ain’t but a pup, but Grady, you ever see such a pup?”

  Dixie slurped his hand. When she tried to crawl into his lap, he swatted her one. Nop pressed himself flat against the floor.

  Lester knew every high-priced coon dog in the county. He cited them.

  “Most of them dogs had papers, Lester,” Grady observed.

  “Well it don’t make no difference to a raccoon whether a hound has papers or not,” Lester insisted. “Hell,” he laughed, “you can’t read no registration papers by a coon hunter’s light.”

  Grady Gumm was quite bright and sometimes he just hated his life. This time, he swallowed his temper but it left a sour taste in his stomach, like heartburn.

  At the head of Sally Gap, a sign said END STATE MAINTENANCE, but the road wandered on, indifferent to the requirements of the state, around sharp rocks (the state would have graded) hugging the stream bed.

  Four families lived in the Gap and they were all more or less kin and though some hated the others’ guts, they closed ranks against outsiders and their mouths against the law.

  Grady flipped his beer can on the pile of tins and busted washing machines that mounded up outside the kitchen window of Lester’s shack and threatened to slide downhill into Sally Branch. Twenty years ago, when Grady was making potlikker downstream from here, he might have said something about that mound but it didn’t bother him now. That mound turned a lot of folks back right at the entry of the hollow and saved him the trouble.

  Half-ton trucks sagged beside the creek, a backhoe (ex-Highway Department yellow) leaned against the clay bank, its tracks frozen stiff as concrete.

  In the spring, with wildflowers pushing through the ruptured machines, the hollow was rather lovely—like Mayan ruins gradually being folded back into the earth mother’s lush arms.