Monstrous Affections (34 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“I think so too. Now scoot.”

They went inside and through the sitting room. Rupert always
liked spending time here. Captain Gleason had become a captain
serving with the Perth County Fusiliers in the Great War. It was a
rare ascent, so said the Captain, to go from enlisted man to officer
in the course of a war. For the Gleason farm, it brought prizes: a
decommissioned German Maxim gun, mounted in the corner; and
a helmet from a Hun, a bullet hole in it right at the crown, hung
on the wall beside family photographs. By the west-facing window
perched a small metal sculpture of an angel, polished black, which
Rupert and Wallace understood had been lifted from the bombed-out ruins of a French church, brought back as hidden booty in a
soldier’s duffel.

Rupert went through there to the kitchen, where he found Mrs.
Gleason and Helen, tending supper on the woodstove. Helen was a
woman of fifteen — black hair cut to her shoulders — a small mouth
with full red lips — brown eyes that laughed . . .

Skin like silk, like gold.

She and the Waite sisters . . . they were in the same league, as far
as beauty went. Rupert put his hands in his pockets and said hello.

There was some fussing. Rupert was unsure about whether the
Captain and Mrs. Gleason knew about the battle between him and
their son last week in any particulars. But Mrs. Gleason at least
must have intuited that something had been wrong, she being so
relieved now that things seemed right. Helen, smile plastered on her
face, asked Rupert some questions — mostly about how his brothers
were keeping, and he answered as best he could. He would have kept
talking ’til dinner was served, but Wallace motioned him back to
the sitting room so he excused himself and left the women to their
work.

“I got something to show you,” said Wallace. He beckoned Rupert
over to a dark cherry-wood cabinet, on top of which was a case
with medals and decorations that Captain Gleason had earned,
all arranged on a bed of red velvet. He pulled open the top drawer,
which was as high as their chests. He looked around apprehensively,
then lifted it out.

It was a holster of dark, oiled leather, with straps wrapped tight
around it. Wallace held it in both hands like it was treasure, which,
Rupert supposed, was exactly what it was.

“It’s Father’s Webley revolver,” said Wallace. He held it out. “You
can hold it.”

Rupert touched it, but pulled back before Wallace could put the
weight of it in his hands. The revolver was for officers; Rupert didn’t
feel right about holding it, not unless an officer said he could, and
even then . . . Wallace shrugged and took it back in his own arms. He
cradled it like it was a baby.

“There’s no bullets in it,” he said. “I know where they are,
though.”

“Put it back,” said Rupert. “Come on.”

Wallace shook his head. “Remember how I said we have to stick
together, brother?”

Rupert swallowed, and nodded.

Carefully, Wallace unwrapped the straps from the holster, and
with one hand pulled the revolver out. It was huge in his hand, butt
curved like the blade of a scythe. The barrel was short, but wide.

“Good,” he said, holding the gun so it pointed out the window,
toward town. He closed one eye and sighted down the barrel. But the
gun was heavy enough he couldn’t hold it that way for long. “’Cause
tomorrow, we’re going to have to.”

“Put it back,” said Rupert again.

“Yeah.” Wallace slipped it back into the holster and set it back in
the drawer. “Don’t worry, brother. We’ll be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

Wallace slid the drawer shut, and walked over to the Maxim.

“There’s — ” Wallace hesitated.
A dog,
is how he should have
finished, but the word
dog
wasn’t the word he was looking for to
describe the dog that had assailed him that morning. “There’s a
beast,” he said. “We can’t let it be.”

“What do you mean to do? And what do you mean ‘we’?”

Wallace took hold of the grip of the Maxim. He sighted down it.

“I mean
we
,” he said. “And you know what happens if
we’re
not?”

Rupert didn’t have to say. He knew. “Tell me about this beast,” he
said instead, and listened, as Wallace described the thing, and what
he meant them to do about it.

Rupert said the Grace at supper. Mrs. Gleason said he did fine, but
Rupert knew he hadn’t; he’d mumbled and stuttered through the
whole blessing, and when he sat down he was sweating. Helen poured
him a tall glass of water at the end of it. She even said, “You’re very
welcome, Rupert,” and smiled at him after he thanked her.

Meantime, Wallace brooded. He had wanted to get his father to
tell the story of the Webley again, but Rupert had said that wouldn’t
be a good idea, given everything he had in mind. Wallace didn’t
see what the problem was. His father told the story often enough,
whether to the family, or to pals over draft beer at the tavern. He
had been in transit, promoted to lieutenant after his lieutenant had
taken a bullet, on his way back to the war.

Well, you must understand, an army officer doesn’t come from places
like Fenlan, where we work with our hands and our backs. Officers are
fancy fellows. Gentry. They ought to have a sidearm. They bloody well
ought to provide it themselves.

And for officers commissioned on the home front, that’s an easy thing.
For those of us who send our pay home . . . something else again. So.
(And
he rubbed his hands together, and got a wicked look to his eyes.)
There I am, on a troop transport crossing the channel. Back to action.
And there are a band of officers, young fellows. From the Imperial army.
They stick together — even sleeping together, lying like spokes of a wagon
wheel, heads at the rim, feet in the middle. And in the middle of that: they
stack their pistols.

And so I wait . . . I wait until the last of them starts snoring. And everso-quiet, I step between them, and snatch one of their pistols — a Webley
revolver, short-barrelled like they carry in the Royal Navy. And creep back
to where I’m billeted with the Canadians — tuck the gun away with my
kit — and under the bright stars of Heaven, sleep the sleep of the just.

And the next day, sure enough, we’re sitting at breakfast, and isn’t one
of those fellows complaining at me: how blimey an’ dash it, you can’t trust
an enlisted man. “They’ll steal your sidearm, fast as look at you!”

“What,” I say back, “is the world coming to?”

And Father would chuckle. The same chuckle, every time he told
the tale, at the same time in it. The chuckle was part of the story.
And it was a
great
story.

But Rupert had been clear. “You want to do this thing, don’t go
letting anyone think you’re thinking about it. Not that I think you
should
do it.”

So Wallace sat and ate his supper and Rupert held himself in
check, and at the end of it, Wallace saw Rupert to the end of the
driveway and bade him good night.

Wallace Gleason rose early. It was easy, he told Rupert when they
met at the foot of the Gleason driveway. He had not truly gone to
sleep.

“I didn’t want to let anything happen to the gun,” he said, yawning, stretching. The butt of the Webley appeared as his shirt
stretched past it. The casual gesture made Rupert nervous, and he
looked around quickly. But they were alone on the road.

“Is it loaded?” he asked, and Wallace nodded.

“But there’s no bullet in the chamber,” explained Wallace. “So
we’re safe.”

“Just stop stretching,” said Rupert, and they headed into town,
to school.

Rupert had not slept much either, and when he did sleep, his rest
was troubled by dreams: of a huge, black-pelted wolf lurking atop the
hay bales of Rupert’s barn . . . watching his brothers as they flung
open the doors, as they came into the great, dark space, unwitting . . .
the flash of its red eyes, the only hint that it was there, hunting.

He knew, in the light of morning, that this nightmare hound was
not Wallace’s beast. The same as he knew that taking the Captain’s
revolver to the dog that had troubled Wallace so was a dangerous
game.

It was a game, however, that he couldn’t quit. There was more at
stake than friendship.

They started to school — along the route that Wallace and Rupert
always took. First, a mile along the concession road. They passed
three other farms before getting to the road between the farms,
and the town. Another mile or perhaps a bit more, on this road. The
dog’s road.

Along here, the properties were smaller, and farther from one
another. Anyone farming what soil there was, would be doing it to
feed themselves rather than for market. Most of the houses along
here were not even managing that. Roofs needed shingling; fences,
a coat of paint. There were no lawns, few gardens. Neither Rupert
nor Wallace knew anyone who lived here. As far as they knew, no
one did.

They slowed past one. Rupert peered up the driveway — a short
ribbon of dirt and gravel, dressed in low flowering weed. The house
at the end of it was one floor, with a small porch on the front. The
wood had been painted a pale green. The shingles were green with
moss. An apple tree bent close to the south side. Looking close,
Rupert could see the bruised red curves of fruit that had fallen into
the high grass.

Wallace stood on the balls of his feet, craning his neck as though
there were a fence to look over. The house was quiet.

“This is the place,” Wallace said gravely. He worked the Webley’s
grip where it protruded over his belt, kept peering at the house.
Rupert stood there with him, and looked.

This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go. Wallace had gone
over it just minutes before.

Okay, so this dog
(he’d started to call it a dog by that morning)
. . .
it comes down the driveway. Fast. So fast you have to run. It’s like you
don’t have a choice. The dog knows this. And it gets on you. On your tail.
And then you’re done for. Except this time, when the dog comes . . . we’ll
trick it. It’ll start coming at us, and then I’ll take the Webley. And I’ll sight
down the barrel
(he checked around, then pulled the gun out, and
sighted down the barrel).
And then: I’ll let fly
(and he made a quiet
sound like a pistol report through his teeth).
And that’ll be the end of
that damn dog.

“Maybe it only sees you when you’re moving,” said Wallace. “We
should go back, and walk by the driveway again.”

“We should just go to school,” said Rupert. “Maybe on the way
home . . .”

But Wallace was already doubling back, beckoning him to follow.
Rupert sighed and walked back one house, and then they both
turned around and crossed the driveway again.

It was the same this time as the last: nothing.

Wallace stood as he had before, staring at the house. A pickup
truck rolled past them on the road into town. It kicked up a small
cloud of dirt around them; the morning sun through the leaves gave
it a glow like magic dust.

Wallace’s mouth turned down at the corner, and he glared
through it at the house. He swore under his breath, and then at
volume: “Goddamn.” Rupert, liking the look of the dust in the light,
kicked up more dust with his feet. And looking down, he spied
Wallace’s grammar text. He picked it up.

“Hey,” he said. “You drop this?”

“Goddamn!” Wallace’s face went red, and his shirt went up, and
the Webley drew across his white belly, and it was pointing right at
Rupert.

The gun barrel wavered in Rupert’s face, and as the dust settled
around them, Rupert thought about their battle a week ago in the
dust, the sickening feeling of Wallace’s fist in his face, the taste of
dirt, and wondered:
Should
I
have apologized?

The book fell from his hands. And after a long moment, Wallace
lowered the gun.

“I won’t shoot you,” he said flatly. “We got to stick together.”

“Don’t point that at me again,” said Rupert.

“I already said I won’t shoot you.” Wallace bent down and picked
up the book. Tucked it into his bag one-handed, while the Webley
dangled from the other.

“The dog — ” Rupert was about to say that it wasn’t coming. But
as he spoke, he glanced at the house. The screen door rattled, and
through the slats in the porch railing, he could see the flank of an
animal. Wallace saw it too.

“Goddamn,” he said, and crouched down.

Rupert looked some more, and finished the thought. “The dog
isn’t coming.”

The dog had settled on the porch, at the end near the apple tree.
Squinting, they could make out his eyes — unblinking, peering
through the slats and the high grass at them.

“Should we walk past again?” asked Rupert. Wallace hushed him.

“I’m gonna see if I can hit him.”

“Not from here you can’t.”

“I bet I could.”

Rupert shook his head. “Best luck, you’ll just wound him. Then
he’ll be angry, like a bear.”

Wallace considered this — and, Rupert hoped, considered the
wisdom of retreat — just putting the Webley away, dumping the
bullets first, and going on to school, grammar text retrieved and
calling the game even. But Wallace was considering something else.
His lips set thin against his teeth, and he nodded briskly. “You’re
right,” he said, and pulled off his book bag, and set it down in the
slope of the ditch. Then, keeping low, Webley held in both hands, he
made his way up the driveway.

Rupert didn’t follow. It felt like the dream, him watching his
brothers file into the barn — the wolf, hiding in wait. He couldn’t
do anything then. He couldn’t — wouldn’t —
couldn’t
do anything
that morning. Not anything but watch, as Wallace walked down the
driveway, gun held in front of him.

The dog shifted, and Rupert could no longer see its eyes. Wallace
could, and he lifted the gun. “Here, doggy,” he said. His voice sounded
higher. The gun wavered in front of him, as Wallace tried to sight
down the barrel.