The Unpossessed (7 page)

Aunt Mart was Flinders-born, closer to her brother Dan than mother; and somehow she was on closer terms with God. “It's our duty, Hester,” she said.

The little boy felt vaguely threatened. If th2as a crime around, he was sure to feel himself guilty, born cursed, as he was, of a mother who was
pretty
and a father blinded by beguiling sin. So now, he crouched; he had wanted to run away with King: did that mean, before God and Uncle Dan, he shared King's sin?

A Pickett boy approached. His mouth opened wide in horror; then, his hands in his blue jeans' pockets, he surveyed the Flinders standing there in guilt. “I bet it's that there dog of yourn,” he sneered, identifying them with King. “I'll go git Pa. He said, the
next
time . . .” And he was off across the Pickett field.

“Oh Martha! what shall we do!” his mother whimpered. “Poor King! I'd rather they shot
me
.” It seemed her evil prettiness had made her soft; Aunt Mart might be weak with fear, but she was born a Flinders and she was never
soft
.

The Pickett boy was like the rain. Wherever he ran, the ground was fertile, and people sprang up at his words. And soon the Lane was full. “Who did it?” “
Sure
, it
must
have been the Flinders dog.” “Where is he now?” “Once a dog's got
chicken
on the brain!” “Dern right: they can't be cured.” “Best to kill 'em off.” “Does Dan'l Flinders
know
?”

This was the snag on which caught all their thoughts. “Does Dan'l Flinders know?” The Flinders women and the Flinders child cowered together.

John Pickett, summoned, came at last; angry, but pleased in spite of himself that such an audience was gathered there.

“Where's that damn dog?”

But the dog must not be killed in anger. This the people in the Lane seemed to know. He must be killed in cold blood, for doing wrong. Just act of a just God.

They wavered now; hummed uneasily in the valley of the Lane; hostile a little toward John Pickett. “Might be one of them dogs belonging to the ‘Italians' ” someone spitefully called. “We mustn't act in haste,” he was supported.

“Go get Old Man Brown,” John Pickett ordered his son. This was right and felt to be. It was Brown's Lane; Brown had fought the Civil War; Brown was the oldest man in Galloway. The Pickett boy sped up the Lane.

The “Italians” gathered shyly; clustered together gesticulating mildly. The Hired Men, drawn democratically, flocked to the Picketts' barn. Soon there were twenty in all in Brown's Lane: a brilliant crowd.

“What, Flinders dog?” “I saw him; noon.” “Made off, did he?” “One thing sure, he wouldn't have gone
home
.” “No, that he wouldn't dare.” “Flinders dog? well, he'll come skulkin back, you wait.” “They never do go far, you know.” “No,
chicken's
stronger in their blood than fear.”

As if born from this conjecture, in the road suddenly King appeared. (A little moan of pity went to him from the “Italians.”) There was no doubt about King's guilt. His tail hung low; his head was ducked. He slunk, rather than walked; and he eyed the people weakly. He would not come too close. But he would not run away. A good New England dog, he stayed for punishment.

The people in the Lane grew still. Only John Pickett, whose chickens lay dead, could hate the slinking culprit.

Miles' mother sobbed. “I can't bear it, I can't bear it! King, here Kingie-boy! I'd rather they shot
me
!” The “Italians” moaned their grief.

Miles knew the dog would die; he thought the dog knew it too. He was proud of King, not because he had killed the Picketts' chickens, but because he stayed to meet his death. No one made a move to catch him. He could have run away. Everybody knew he would not. He was a good New England dog. But Miles was puzzled by his own kind, by the people. He could feel that they did not
want
to kill old King; King was a fine dog. They could banish him, send him down to Galloway where there were no chickens loose to kill; or Uncle Dan could keep him tied. They didn't
want
to kill him. But they were going to. All of them together, because not one cried out to spare him. Why, if they didn't
want
to kill him, must they? Even his soft mother, snivelling her weak disgust, was not protesting; she was merely voicing grief for a King already dead.

The Pickett boy came running back. In his wake Old Man Brown came hurrying, as fast as his Civil War leg let him. By his side he carried his old gun, which everyone knew was the gun he had used in the War.

Old Man Brown was in a fine state of excitement. He cackled on ahead of himself, “Wait for me! Wait until I git there. I'm acomin, fast's I ken.”

He was a little man. Old age had shrunk him smaller than his gun. He had no teeth. But he had fine white gums with bloody scallops where his teeth had been.

“Where's that dern dog? where is he?” he croaked, arriving in their midst, and peering with his blue, blind eyes. “I've brought my gun. Reckon I can't lift it, though. Not and hold it steady. Reckon it's for John Pickett to do the shootin anyhow.”

“You figure there ain't nothin else to do but shoot?” respectfully inquired one.

“Why sure, there ain't no curin dogs once they got
chicken
on the brain.” Old Man Brown snapped his head in certain affirmation.

“Reckon he's right, sure enough.” “Why sure, there's nothin
else
to do.” “What ken you do with dogs got
chicken
on the brain!”

The dog with chicken on the brain lurked, self-condemned, before them all. It was his last hour. He let it be.

Then Aunt Mart sprang to her full, scrawny height, the man's felt hat on her head pushed back. She had been seeking help, perhaps in prayer, or perhaps had found it in her Flinders pride. “Nobody is goin to shoot that dog!” she said, speaking in a loud clear voice. “Nobody will tech that dog unless Dan'l Flinders tells 'em to. It's Dan'l's dog, and Dan'l's got it to say what happens to him.”

It seemed the last word had been spoken. “That's right, Marty.” “You've spoke right there, old Miss Flinders.” “Why sure it's up to Dan'l.” “You don't go killin a man's dog without you ask him first.” “Flinders'll know what's right.” “Dan'l will do what's right.”

“Who'll fetch him?” “Who's goin to tell Flinders?” No one stirred.

“Go fetch your uncle, Miles.” Aunt Mart spoke proudly.

The little boy cowered against his mother's skirt. She soothed him apathetically. Uncle Dan would be in the tobacco field now. King was the only living thing he loved—he
couldn't
tell him.

Aunt Mart gave him a little push. “He'll take it better from the family, son,” she whispered. “You go, now. Let him go, Hester; it'll do him good.” His mother released him with a sob.

He felt important running over the hill, taking the shortcut from Brown's Lane to the Flinders place. Never had he run so fast. He was for the moment
not
afraid of Uncle Daniel; he was his equal. They both were Flinders-born; they both must do God's will.

He found him in the backer patch, the leaves shoulder-high to Miles. He floundered through to Uncle Dan, weeding under the cloths stretched pole-to-pole to keep the leaves in shade. He would never forget Uncle Daniel's straightening back as Uncle Dan reared himself like God above the leaves. His blue eyes, used to taking in horizon vistas, narrowed as they focussed on the boy.

He didn't say a word; slapped down his tools and pulled his straw hat lower on his head. Then, his face not changing, he spoke: “You go on down. Tell them I am coming”; and stalked with giant's paces toward the house.

Miles knew he must not wait. He turned his eyes from Uncle Daniel's form and they streamed tears as he ran blindly down the hill, important with his message.

The people took the message silently. King took it flattening down his ears in fright. He ran to and fro, unhappy, like a condemned man spending his last minutes in his cell. Miles clung with both his arms to Aunt Mart's waist; she was stronger than his mother, she could give him help; also, like himself and Uncle Daniel, she had Flinders blood.

“He's coming.” “Look!” “
Look what Dan'l Flinders' bringin!
”

Miles saw, and knew before he saw. Till then he had not been sure; now he knew it
was
the Judgment Day. The crest of the farm-hill held his first vision; Uncle Dan was God; behind him the clouds broke and the sun streamed in angry mercy; it was the Day of Judgment; and Uncle Daniel strode to it with his gun across his shoulder.

Moving in just wrath he slipped closer, his black shape descending from the sky and climbing fiercely down the side of the hill. “Dan'l will do what's right.” “Flinders knows what to do.” The people stood proudly, waiting his coming. The “Italians,” quivering, hemmed in closer.

The dog left off his guilty pacing; turned and faced his master. He made a movement forward, as though straining at the leash of memory; then stood still, his ears flat back, his tail lifting in a single wag of recognition.

Uncle Daniel never stopped until he stood on a little hillock, fifty paces from his dog. There was nothing readable in his face; but at that moment, if at no other in his life, Miles knew he loved him, more than any person living. He lifted the gun to his shoulder; it was already primed; and squinted down its length.

“Brother Daniel! Oh for God's sake!” Miles' mother fell to the ground and wept.

The little boy took his last look at King, standing a knowing target in the road. He saw King's tail move slowly up and down. Then he buried his eyes and his ears in Aunt Mart's skirt. He felt her body stiffen. Through the folds of calico and his own layers of fear he heard the shot: one single sound, booming in the valley. He thought he heard a yelp; it blended with his mother's weeping.

When he dared look up King was a brown mass on the ground, and Uncle Daniel's back, half up the hill again toward home, mounted with the muzzle of his gun pointed to the sky.

“Twere the right thing to do,” said Old Man Brown in closing benediction. “Dan'l knew,” murmured all around.

Nobody would touch the Picketts' chickens. At last the “Italians,” wiping their moist and volatile eyes began to smile again, came forward and bargained with their friend John Pickett. In the end they got all twelve chickens for a dollar. They rode off slow and easy, carting John Pickett's dead white chickens, their eyes looked back and shone with lazy pleasure.

The valley sighed. The air lightened. Justice had been done. The people dispersed back to their fields, the Hired Men moved fast, knowing democracy was finished for the day.

The Flinders women and the Flinders boy took the short cut home, up over the hill the way their man had gone. They placed their men's felt hats over the pails of berries to keep the sun from wilting them. Miles could see across the field his Uncle Dan, already back at work, under the cloths stretched pole-to-pole to keep the backer in shade. When they went in the kitchen to wash the berries they saw his gun hung back in its place on the kitchen door. No one ever spoke of King again . . . but Miles knew well that day that there was something bigger in men than themselves, that could drive them to do what alone they would never have dared. . . .

“Here we are,” said Margaret, and he gathered from the inflection of her voice she must have spoken twice. He looked up in haste—for he knew that it was as unendurable to her as it was incomprehensible, to be forgotten, to have their world together even for a moment so ignored—and saw, to his faint surprise, that his journey down Brown's Lane had brought them ineluctably to the door of the house where Jeffrey and Norah lived.

“Of course, if you don't feel like seeing them,” said Margaret somewhat acidly.

“Oh sure I do,” he said protestingly; and added, filled with compassion at the thought of how far he could wander from her, “Mrs. Salvemini was right dear, you ought to have dressed warmer, you look cold—maybe we walked too slowly?” He could feel her eyes penetrating gravely as, hiding his reluctance, he rang the bell.

SHE STOOD listless at the kitchen door, watching Jeffrey range his bottles. From the living-room beyond came the sound of Miles' and Norah's voices, carrying on their desultory off-stage drama. “Yes,” Miles was saying, “oh yes, of course; living in the country is quite another thing; there you're less aware of trends because you're busy making them—grubbing away knee-deep in dirt, you can't haul off and get a mental eyeful.” And Norah's hearty murmur, scarcely audible, muffled by the din of Jeffrey opening bottles; words here and there like the thrusting undercurrent of the second violin, her father's orchard, her mother's brood of hens; and Miles again, patient, didactic, uninterested, politely intoning the theme-song from a corner of his shell. Margaret Flinders shivered. Cold?
why yes, Mrs. Salvemini, chilled to the bone and heart; it was the coldest walk I ever took—winter is certainly in the air, Mrs. Salvemini
. But another coat, Mrs. Salvemini's shawl itself, would not have helped. For Miles had effectually shut her out, locked and double-barred the door which closed his shell; she had wandered many times around it, her fingers ached with battering vainly on its brittle walls. Let Norah try the empty shell-step now! She thought of Miles; and turned with relief to Jeffrey, preparing an altar on the kitchen table for the rite of mixing drinks.

“no age for repressions, my dear,” Jeffrey spoke in a low and irritable voice, its deadline the kitchen door and the discretion of her ears. “Will you hand me the squeezer, please Maggie? Your repressions are unhealthy, a damned unhealthy lie.”

“not a question of repressions, I've told you that before.” It was such a very old play; her lines came easily. She rummaged on the shelf for Norah's lemon-squeezer.