The Dog of the South (24 page)

Victor spoke up. “My mom says this is the age of Aquarius.”

I set off down the road at a brisk marching pace. Victor continually disobeyed my orders. He ran ahead and stirred up some small hopping birds, shooing them before him with his hands.

“Stop chasing those birds, Victor. You can't catch a bird. I want you both to stay behind me. I'm supposed to be in front at all times.”

“What kind of birds are they?”

“They're just road birds.”

“Can they talk?”

“No.”

“Do they lay their tiny eggs in the road?”

“I don't know. Get behind me and stay there. I won't tell you again.”

“I hate this road and I hate all these trees.”

“You boys must do just as I say. I want us to stay together. If you mind me and don't give me any more trouble, I'm going to buy you each a nice gift when we get back to town. But you must do just what I say.”

Webster said, “I already know what I want. I want a tack hammer and a rubber stamp with my name on it and a walkie-talkie radio.”

“The tack hammer and the rubber stamp are all right. I'm not buying any walkie-talkie.”

Victor said, “I don't get this. What are we doing out here anyway?”

“I told you we're going to see Guy Dupree. He has my wife in his house out here and I mean to go in there after her. I'm through fooling around with him. It's a long story and I don't want to go into it any further than that.”

“What was his name again?”

“Guy Dupree.”

“You mean you're going to fight this Guy Dupree?”

“Yes.”

“Oh boy, this will be good. I'm glad I came now. Will you have to kill him?”

“No more chatter.”

“Oh boy, this will really be good. What we ought to do is cut off Guy Dupree's head with a knife and see what his eyes look like then.”

“What I want you to do is hush.”

“If somebody got my mom, I'd cut off his head and see if it could talk and then I would watch his eyes to see if they moved any.”

“Webster is minding me and you're not. Do you know what that means, Victor? That means he'll get a nice gift and you'll get nothing.”

No sooner had I commended Webster for his silence and put him forward as an example than he pinched my arm and asked a question. “Does Guy Dupree be in the hands of the devil?”

“Guy Dupree is sorry. We'll leave it at that. I can't answer any of your questions about the devil. That's out of my field.”

“Meemaw say the devil he have a scaly body and a long tongue that run in and out of his mouf like a snake.”

“That's a traditional representation, yes. And goat feet.”

“She say he have a gold pocket watch a million years old that don't never run down.”

“I've never heard anything about the watch.”

“He always know what time it is.”

“My mom says there's no such thing as the devil.”

“Your mom is misinformed about many things, Victor. She may well be wrong about that too.”

“How do the devil be everywhere at one time?”

“I don't know, Webster. I tell you I can't answer questions like that. You see me as a can-do guy from the States, but I don't have all the answers. I'm white and I don't dance but that doesn't mean I have all the answers. Now I want you both to listen up. From here on in we're playing the quiet game. I don't want to hear another peep out of anybody until I give the allclear signal, which will be my open hand rotating rapidly above my head, like this.”

Victor said, “I want a pellet gun for my present. I want one you can pump up about thirty times.”

“I'm not buying any pellet gun. Forget it. That's out.”

“Why can't we have what we want?”

“I'm not buying any expensive junk. The pellet gun and the walkie-talkie are both out.”

“I hate these mosquitoes.”

As for the gifts, I had already given some thought to setting Webster up in the snow-cone business. No one seemed to be selling snow cones in this steaming land. A small cart and an ice scraper and some flavored syrups and conical paper cups and he would be ready to roll. Mr. Wu knew a good thing when he saw it. He was making a fortune off soft ice cream and spending it on God knows what Oriental cravings, or more likely, stashing it away in a white Chinese sock with a toe pouch. Webster would have the advantage of being mobile. He could take his refreshing ices directly to the chicken fights and harvest festivals. One thousand grape snow cones at the summer corn dance! I had not yet mentioned the idea because I didn't want it to get out. Something cheap would do for Victor. I had seen a little book called
Fun with Magnets
in the window of a variety store in Belize. The book was faded and shopworn and I could probably get it for less than a dollar.

He was walking along behind me chanting, “Guy Dupree, Guy Dupree, Guy Dupree,” and Webster picked it up, this chant. I made them stop it. Victor asked me if they could walk backward.

“You can walk any way you please as long as you keep up and don't make a lot of noise.”

“Can we hold our knees together and just take little short steps?”

“No, I don't want you to do that.”

“You said—”

“I don't want you to walk like that. And if you don't shut up I'm going to put a rubber stopper in your mouth.”

“A stopper? I don't get that.”

“One of those things that babies suck on. With a flange and a ring on the outside. If you behave like a baby, I'll have to treat you like a baby.”

He was quiet for a while and then he began to pester me with questions about the Buick. How would we get back to town? What if a crook stole it? What would I do if it was full of animals when we got back?

“I may just leave it there,” I said. “A man told me today that there are no spare parts here for that particular transmission. I'm no longer interested in that car and I'm not answering any more questions about it. Do you hear me?”

“You can't just leave your car out in the woods.”

“The subject is closed. I don't want to hear another word. I haven't had anything to eat since this morning and I can't answer any more questions.”

“If you leave it there, how will you get back to Texas?”

“I'm not
from
Texas.”

“You can't ride in our van.”

“Have you heard me say at any time that I wanted to ride in your van?”

“We just have two bucket seats. One is mine and one is my mom's.”

“For your information, Victor, I plan to fly home with my wife.”

“Yeah, but what if the plane goes into a tailspin and you don't have a parachute to bail out in?”

“The plane is not going into a tailspin for the very simple reason that these commercial pilots know what they're doing. All those planes get regular maintenance too. So many flying hours and that's it, they're back in the shop.”

There was no light in the Dupree house and I wondered if he had heard us coming. All this chatter. He was very likely posted at one of the darkened windows and cooking up a plan. I felt sure he couldn't see us in any detail with his feeble eyes. He wouldn't be able to make out that Webster and Victor were children. For all he knew, they could be short hired thugs or two boy detectives. I had a plan of my own. I didn't intend to expose the boys to any real danger but I thought they could serve well enough and safely enough as a base of fire. I knew that the attacking force should always be at least three times the size of the defending force.

I marked off a place beside the garbage dump and told the boys, whispering, to gather rocks and place them in a pile there.

“What kind of rocks?”

“Rocks like this, for throwing. Not too big and not too little.”

We set about our task without speaking. The quality of the rocks was poor, running mostly to thin limestone shards, and even these were hard to find. Victor appeared to be doing a fine job. He scurried about and made two and sometimes three trips to the pile for every one that Webster and I made. Then I saw that he was just picking up whatever came to hand, sticks and cans and clods of dirt, and was making the rock pile ridiculous with these things. He soon stopped work altogether and said he was tired.

“All right,” I said. “We'll rest for a minute.”

Webster said, “What do these rocks be for?”

“We're going to throw them at that house.”

“At Guy Dupree's house?”

“Yes.”

“I don't like to do that, sor.”

“Dupree has my wife in that house and she may be sick. People get sick down here.”

Webster was shamed into silence.

“How would you like it if a gang of howling raiders came over here from Guatemala and stole your women? You would strike back, wouldn't you? And very properly so. We'll make Dupree keep his head down with these rocks and then I'll dash across the road. I'll be in the house before he knows it.”

We lined up three abreast and flung a volley across the road. I was disappointed by the puny effect, by the soft thunks of the rocks striking wood. I had the boys lie down, against the possibility of a shotgun blast, but there was no answer of any kind, not even a bark.

I stepped up the attack. With each salvo our aim improved and before long we were breaking windows. Webster and Victor quickly got into the spirit of the thing, so much so that I had to restrain them. Still there was no response. I mixed things up so that Dupree could not count on a recurring pattern. One volley might follow another instantly, or there might be an interval of several minutes. Once, instead of loosing the expected flurry of small rocks, I heaved one big rock the size of a cantaloupe onto the porch. Watch out for the florr! Dupree would soon be whimpering for his pills.

But he was clever and after a while I could see that his plan was to sit out the barrage. He hoped to discourage us and wear us down. Two could play that game. I stopped all activity.

“We'll wait one hour exactly,” I said. “If we keep perfectly quiet, he'll think we've left and then we'll let him have it again harder than ever. That's the thing that will break him.”

“When will you make your dash, sor?”

“I'll make my dash when I'm ready. Put that in your notebook.”

The minutes dragged. I anticipated a problem keeping the boys still and I wished I had brought something with which they could pass the time, perhaps a little ball they could roll back and forth. But they were exhausted and they fell asleep at once despite the mosquitoes.

I lay down too, behind a low rock parapet. It was very quiet out there for a jungle, or more accurately, a marginal rain forest with a few deciduous trees. I strained to see and hear things, always a mistake, the reconnaissance manuals say, leading one to see animated bushes. Once I thought I could make out two small, dim, ratlike figures walking upright, holding hands and prancing in the road. I even imagined I could hear rat coughs. Curious illusion. I checked the time again and again. My watch crystal was fogged on the inside. I lost interest in the wheeling stars. It occurred to me that if I had brought along the doctor's flashlight I could move about giving fake signals.

I crawled forward a few feet and fashioned myself a new watching place, recalling that Pancho Villa had been a great night mover. The troops would be sitting around the campfire and he would yawn and say, “Well, boys, I think I'll turn in,” or something to that effect in Spanish, and then he would lie down and roll up in a blanket in full view of everyone. But he wouldn't stay in that place! He would move three or four times during the night and not even the most trusted of his Dorados could say where General Villa might finally turn up the next morning. I crawled forward again. And perhaps once more.

I dozed and woke. I thought I could see the Southern Cross, the broken cross pattern of stars, just brushing the southeast horizon. But was that possible? I dozed and woke again. Baby frogs with a golden sheen were capering about at my feet. They were identical in size and appearance, brothers and sisters hatched from the same jellied mass, and they all moved as one like a school of fish when I wiggled a foot. I looked at them and they looked at me and I wondered how it was that I could see them so clearly, their placid frog faces. Then I realized it was dawn. The frogs only looked golden. I was lying in the middle of the road and I had slept for hours. The world's number one piddler had taken to his bed again.

Webster and Victor slept on. There was an odd stillness as though some familiar background machinery had stopped. I could see on the porch scattered evidence of the rock storm. I got up and entered the yard through the flimsy gate. The dog was nowhere about.

At the foot of the steps I called out for Norma, although I knew there was no one in the place. I could sense this was an empty house. I went about inside from room to squalid room. There were containers of water everywhere, buckets and cans and jugs. On the back porch there was a washtub filled with water. A drowned gray bat was floating in it, his fine wet fur slightly darker than the galvanized tub. There were no Dupree papers to be seen on the kitchen table, only some orange peelings and a slender bottle of red sauce and a small photograph. It was a picture of Dupree and his dog that had been taken in one of those coin-operated photo booths. There they were, their heads together, Gog and Magog, looking dully at me. I came across nothing of Norma's, no golden hair on a pillow, but I didn't look closely at things and I didn't stay long.