Reprisal (18 page)

This close, she could see the dog had no ears --only trimmed stubs. A piece looked to have been bitten from its lip. ... But it was the dog's good eye that held her still. The animal watched her, head cocked for one-eyed sight, looking up with no expression of either threat or friendliness, no sort of exchange at all. There was nothing in the topaz eye but study, and stern purpose.

"Would you call your dog, please."

The boy stood smiling at her. "You got a problem?" he said. "--Comin' in our yard?"

Joanna could hear the sea behind her ... the soft ruffling of its breeze over the mainland channel. She looked up and saw the big woman watching from the porch. Not helping her.

... Frank is dead, Joanna thought. She almost said it out loud. He won't be here to help me. No one will be here to help me, anymore.

She went to one knee in the sand. Knelt there in her green dress before the dog. It watched her as it had watched before. This close, at the animal's level, she saw how savage were its scars. Saw tumors of muscle bulking at the hinges of its jaw. Of course--a pit bull, and this a true fighting dog, participant in that ancient pleasure of the poor.

"Hello," she said to it, and slowly put out her hand.

"Don't," the woman said from the porch. "Don't do that.--Call him, Bud!" But the boy didn't.

The dog paid no attention to her hand, and Joanna saw it was watching her throat. Joanna put her hand down in the sand, and leaned forward a little, turned her head so her throat was there for him.

"Percy," the boy said, "Percy ... down."

The dog stayed standing.

It was odd. Joanna hadn't thought of killing herself for so many years, not since the baby.-Hadn't thought of it later, during the cancer and her surgery--or in caves, or rock climbing, hours when death leaned ready at her elbow. It had seemed such a hackneyed thing for a woman poet to do. So expected and tedious. ... Yet here she was, kneeling before a maimed fighting dog, and waiting for his bite.

Then he moved ... moved to her, but slowly. She smelled him. Clean dog. Clean master.

"Percy," the boy said. "Down ... down." And took a step, then stopped.

"Lady--back away. Just back away from him!"

Joanna, kneeling, closed her eyes. The sunlight was too bright. She took a breath, and felt cold at the side of her throat. Coolness pressing. The dog stood with its blunt muzzle closed, pressing against her throat. It pressed hard ... then the cold nose drifted up to touch her ear, then slowly down and across to her mouth. The animal sniffed, smelled her there, and she opened her eyes to its inhuman face, its single jeweled eye, and it licked her once, delicately at the corner of her mouth, as if it were a lover changed by a witch, but come back to her.

"Shit ... lady," the boy said.

Joanna sat back and put her hands on the dog's head, cradled that heavy harsh-coated wedge of bone and muscle ... rubbed gently behind its ruined ears. The animal stood under her stroking, made no further demonstration.

"Dumb," the big woman said from her porch. "I call that real dumb, fool with that dog." She came down from the porch, bigger and bigger, and put a hard hand down to help Joanna up. "Dumb. Dog's not the kind of dog you want to be pettin'. Shouldn' be keepin' him at all."

"Mom ..."

"Don't "Mom" me, Bud." Mrs. Wainwright, slow and shambling, led Joanna up the porch steps. "That Percy dog ain't no good at all, and he's real costly. Eats meat like a damn tiger in the zoo. ..."

"Not good ...?" Joanna followed the woman through the front door into the house--a house, like the woman's son and dog, surprisingly clean. Its linoleum floors smelled of wax polish, and collections of things--minor groupings of tiny decorative cushions, still-boxed Barbies, and German figurines of rural flute players, dancers, and shepherds--were set out on little tables in the small living room.

"Not good no more. You see he's got a blind eye. ..."

"So he can't fight?"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about." Mrs. Wainwright led the way down a hall paneled with family photographs--most of children, grandchildren--down the hall and into the kitchen, another small room, and very clean. The appliances and sink counter crowded close around a scarred wooden table, an old hatch cover. It was the only nautical note in the cottage. "--Don't know what you're talkin' about. Dog's just not no good anymore, that's all." She pulled a chair away from the table, and sat with sigh of relief. "Go on, sit down. Mrs. Reed, right?"

"Yes." Joanna sat, and saw the heavy tabletop was roughly carved in intricate patterns. Flower patterns. Flowers and vines. "Pretty carving."

"Oh, sure. You don't have to keep this damn table clean, so all that carvin'

looks pretty. Mr. Wainwright, Junior, did that. He's been cuttin' on my table all the years we been married. It's a habit, an' he won't be broke of it. He's been out a week now, long-linin'."

"Well, I came--"

"My name's Beverly."

"Joanna. ... Beverly, I came to ask about the boat, the Bo-Peep."

"I named that boat after the nursery rhyme."

"I'm ... I'm trying to find out what happened to my husband."

"Honey," the woman said, "--everybody knows what happened to your husband. He drowned out there ... and not the first to do it, neither."

"I don't believe he just drowned. He was very careful. He always wore a life jacket. Always. And they found him without it."

"Shit, if it was Mr. Wainwright, Junior, got drowned, I'd be surprised they found him wearin' one. Most fishermen don't wear that stuff."

"My husband did; he taught boating safety when he lived near Gloucester.--And he didn't fall off boats, either. Especially not in good weather."

"Didn' fall off boats?"

"No, he didn't."

"Well, my man wouldn' do that, neither. That'd be the day. He'd be ashamed to come home, he did that, 'less it was one hell of a storm out there." Beverly heaved herself up. "I'm goin' to have a glass of apple juice. You want some?"

"No, thank you."

"It's real cold an' good. It's Mott's apple juice."

"Well ... all right." Joanna wanted to sit quiet for a moment and think, but she found she couldn't do that, couldn't stop talking. "--And also, I lost my father. He was ... burned to death up in Chaumette day before yesterday."

Beverly Wainwright, at her refrigerator, bowed her head slightly, as if under such a storm of misfortune. "My, that's terrible news. Both your people gone like that."

"Yes, it was terrible news--and I don't, I simply don't believe that that was an accident, either. My father was very careful with his woodstove. He'd heated with that Franklin for years, and they said he left one of the stove doors open when he went to bed, and I don't believe that for a minute."

"Both your men gone." Beverly poured juice into two blue plastic glasses.

"--So, I'm trying to find out what did happen. The police ... the chief constable thinks I'm a fool. Just a hysterical woman."

Beverly put the juice in the refrigerator, brought the glasses to the table, and sat with a sigh. "--That Carl is the meanest old son of a bitch. Always lookin' to cause trouble for Parsonses an' Wainwrights an' Armstrongs. Can't please that good-lookin' son of a bitch, no matter what."

"He hasn't been helpful to me at all. ... He is a handsome old man."

"Oh, an' don't the old scut know it, too. ... Honey, you should have seen that Carl when he was younger. Looked like a damn movie star. Isn't it a crime, havin' looks like that wasted on a man?"

"It is a crime."

"Married a second cousin of mine--Marilyn Osborne. And has he led that poor woman a chase? I hope to tell you. An' Marilyn is as sweet as candy."

"Well, he thinks what happened to Frank was an accident, because no one had any reason to hurt him."

"Nobody?" Beverly seemed surprised. "--Shit sure couldn' say that about my husband. Lots of people would like to kick my Murray's ass, if they dared to.

Lot meaner than that Percy dog out there. But you know, that man never touched me except with love in our whole life together. Always talks nice around me, too. ... I'm crazy about my Murray. We're just a couple of old love bugs."

Beverly smiled, and Joanna saw her as the girl she'd been--large and lumbering even then, coarse, tough, and unlovely--and wondered how it was that the probably even tougher Mr. Wainwright, Junior, had been wise enough to see her value, love her, and take her for a wife.

"You're lucky, Beverly." Joanna drank some apple juice, very sweet and cold.

"Yes, I am."

"And I was lucky."

"Lucky with that dog out there. Could have bit you real bad, maybe killed you.

Sure scared the poop out of Bud."

"Yes. ... Well, the police have been no help, so I'm looking into it myself."

"Lookin' into it. ..."

"That's right. I believe something may have been done, that someone may have killed my husband. And I think my father, too.--And I suppose that sounds crazy to you."

"... Well, honey, you know stuff goes on out there. I don't know about your daddy--but men get in trouble out there at sea, an' there's not a damn thing women can do about it." She shook her heavy head at the unfairness.

""Stuff goes on"?"

"You know, just stuff. Fishin' an' whatever. Men can get in trouble about anythin'."

"But what trouble could Frank have had out there?-Except the weather, or if something went wrong with the boat and she began to founder."

"Wasn't nothin' wrong with that boat. Period."

"Well ... well, Beverly, what I was wondering was whether anyone had a reason to sink the boat--and maybe that was what happened."

"You know, you owe us money on that boat, that Bo-Peep. That would be fair,

'cause your man had her out and let her go wreck."

"I'm sure that wasn't his fault, Beverly." Joanna drank some more apple juice.

"He was the one had her out. He was capta*'. So you bet it was his fault. Who else's fault was it?"

"I don't know yet. I don't know. ... Could you tell me whether the boat was insured?"

"What? Whether she was insured?"

"Yes, that's right."

"You lost your man--and it was on our boat and our boat got wrecked. And you're askin' if we had her insured?"

"Yes, I just--"

"Just nothin'." Beverly put down her apple juice, and looked grim. "Tell you, Mrs. Reed, I'd say you are real lucky my Murray is out at sea, workin'.

Because if he was here, guest in our house or no guest in our house, he would pitch you right out on your fancy rich-lady ass!"

"I wasn't accusing--"

"Now you listen to me." Beverly's face almost a man's face in anger.

"--Wainwrights an' Parsons have been fishin' out here since forever. And the Parsons may have done some of this an' that beside fishin', but that was a long, long time ago." Beverly paused for breath. "And since that long long time ago, there hasn't been anybody said anythin' criminal about us--period.

We don't do nothin' that a lot of people aren't doin' now, just to get along."

"I didn't--"

"You just shut up and listen to me, now. Who do you think you're talkin' to?

We been doin' boats forever. You come out here with your fancy clothes an'

bullshit airs and so forth, all you summer women --and here you are in my house talkin' about barratry an' sinkin' and so forth. I won't say some men haven't put a big fisher down they couldn' pay for, but we don't do that.

That's the last thing we'd do unless we had to."

"I'm sorry."

"So, you just mind your fuckin' manners or get out of here. ... Invited you in my house, an' served you juice an' everythin'."

"I didn't mean to insult you, Beverly."

"Better hope not."

"--But my husband's dead, and now my father's dead, and something was wrong about both of those deaths. And I'm going to find out what, no matter who I piss off asking. Do you understand that?"

"Just don't insult me."

"I'm not insulting you."

"Sure sounds like it--an' I don't hear nothin' about payin' for our boat, neither."

"I don't owe you for the goddamn boat, Beverly.--Was it insured or wasn't it insured?"

"You call five thousand insurance. You call that insurance, it was insured.

Through the co-op."

"Only five thousand. ..."

"An' let me tell you what Mr. Wainwright, Junior, would tell you better-there's no way at all you're goin' to replace a fine wood sloop like that Bo-Peep for five thousand dollars. No way at all--build or buy. It's a loss, an' how are you goin' to make that loss up, is what I want to know."

Beverly had her son's eyes, pale, slightly bulging, and hard as aggie marbles.

"... Didn' even call us about it. Just let it go."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, my husband died out there! Would you people please just give me a few weeks before you start asking for money?--Which I don't owe you at all, anyway."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Do so."

"Do not."

"Do so."

"Do not," Joanna said, and began to laugh. She tried to stop, and did for a moment. Then she thought of herself out in the yard with the dog, and started laughing again. It felt wonderful.

Beverly Wainwright had a laugh like a man's, a deep huh-huh that shook her in her kitchen chair. "Doesn' mean, now," she said, when they'd stopped laughing,

"--doesn' mean you don't owe us money, just because we was chucklin'."

"Do not," Joanna said.

Beverly Wainwright looked at her, obscurely pleased. "You want some cookies?

Oreo cookies?"

"No, thank you."

"You sure? They're the vanilla cream ones, an' they're really good. I'm goin'

to have some." She stood up with a grunt.

"Well," Joanna said, "then I'll have some, too."

... Out in the yard after apple juice and several Oreo cookies--and dazzled by summer sunshine past the house's shade--Joanna nodded to Bud Wainwright, received no nod in return, and bent to pat Percy as the red dog came up to her. It was like stroking furred bronze; there was no give beneath her hand.