Truth and Bright Water (19 page)

I
t was my father who brought Soldier home. One night, he came back from work with a cardboard box under his arm. He put the box on the table and told me to guess what it was. Soldier was already crying his heart out, so I didn’t have to guess much.

“A dog?”

“Nope,” said my father. He was grinning, so I knew he was kidding. “It’s supper.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s a dog.”

My mother wasn’t crazy about having a dog, you could see that right away, and Soldier didn’t get off to a good start. My father took him out of the box, and the first thing Soldier did was pee on the table.

“Hey,” said my father. “Look at that.”

“Gross.”

“The plumbing works.”

My mother threw my father a cloth, and he wiped up the mess. The whole time, Soldier tried to climb up the side of the box and get back in.

“What kind of dog is it?” I asked.

“This,” said my father, “is a boxer.”

“Is he going to look like that when he’s bigger?”

“And he’s got papers,” said my father.

“Newspapers,” said my mother.

“Status papers,” said my father. “He’s a status boxer.”

My mother picked Soldier up and looked him over the way you would check a tomato or a melon. “You might have asked me first,” she said.

“Didn’t cost us a thing,” said my father. “Woman over in Prairie View breeds them.”

“Why’d she give him away?” said my mother.

“Runt of the litter,” said my father. “But in the long run, they’re the best.”

Soldier began whimpering as soon as my mother put him on the floor. I looked at him as he wobbled around.

“What happened to his face?” I said. “It’s all pushed in.”

“That’s just the way boxers are.” My father put his arms around my mother and gave her a squeeze. “You always wanted another baby.”

“We going to keep him?” I hadn’t really thought about having a dog. There were enough dogs around Bright Water to keep me and Lum busy for years.

“Would you like that?” said my father.

“I guess.”

“Then you got to think up a good name for him.”

I sat on the floor and looked at Soldier close up. He was tan with a flat black pushed-in face. All of him was about the size of a grape-fruit.

“What does he eat?”

“Milk, I guess,” said my father. “When he’s a little older, he’ll eat anything.”

Soldier staggered over to me and tried to get under my shirt. He began whimpering and moaning all at the same time, and licking my fingers, and I didn’t have the heart to push him away.

“Should be a strong name,” said my father. “Runts get off to a tough start.”

That first night, my mother stuffed the box with old rags and put it next to my bed.

“He’s sleeping with me?”

“He’s your dog,” said my mother.

“Puppies get lonely for the first couple of nights,” said my father. “Then they’re okay.”

“But don’t let him in bed with you,” said my mother. “He gets used to that and you’ll never get him out.”

Soldier wouldn’t stay in the box. Every time I put him in, he would crawl out and sit by the bed and cry. “Go to sleep,” I told him, but he would just look at me and cry some more. I fell asleep somewhere between putting him back in the box and waiting for
him to climb out again, and in the morning, when I woke and leaned out of bed and looked in the box, he was gone.

At first, I thought he had wandered out into the shop, but my door was closed. I checked around in the blankets in case he had found a way onto the mattress. I looked in the closet. No puppy. I looked under the bed. No puppy.

However, under the bed in the far corner was my favourite sweatshirt. I had been looking all over the place for it and was sure my mother had lost it or thrown it away. I got down on my stomach and reached out as far as I could, grabbed the sleeve, and dragged the shirt out. It was covered with dustballs, but wrapped up in the shirt along with a pair of dirty socks was Soldier.

The day after my father brought Soldier home, Lum came by and we played with the puppy until he threw up on the floor.

“Is he dying?”

“Naw,” said Lum. “He’s just not used to having such a good time.”

“I’m supposed to give him a name.”

“Call him Vomit.”

“That’s not a name for a dog.”

“Oh,” said Lum, and he picked Soldier up and held him high over his head. “Is that what this is?”

“He’s a boxer,” I told Lum. “And he’s got status papers.”

Soldier didn’t seem to mind being rolled around on the floor or thrown into the air. He whimpered a little, but the minute you put him down, he’d waddle over and lick your hands until you picked him up again.

“How about Slobber?”

“Dad says it has to be a strong name.”

“Stinky,” says Lum. “Stinky is a strong name.”

“You’re going to hurt his feelings.”

“Okay,” said Lum. “But don’t blame me if he winds up with a dumb name.”

For the first two or three weeks, I spent most of my time cleaning up after Soldier. I put down newspapers the way my father showed me, and whenever Soldier peed someplace else, I’d rub his nose in it. Then he’d go and poop in the corner.

“I’m not sure I want a dog,” I told my mother.

“Tell your father,” she said. “Don’t tell me.”

“Maybe you could mention it to him.”

Lum and I figured that Soldier would be more fun if he knew some tricks, so we tried to teach him a few, like how to roll over and how to sit up and how to count with his paw, but I guess he was too small.

“This is one stupid dog,” Lum told me.

“He’s just a baby.”

“Hope he knows how to fight,” said Lum. “Otherwise, he’s in deep shit.”

The amazing thing about Soldier was how fast he grew. The more you fed him, the more he grew. At three months, he was a good-sized dog, as big as many of the other dogs in Bright Water. And he was only half-grown.

And he was friendly. Lum would roll him around in the dirt and throw rocks at him. Once Lum hit him in the back leg with a baseball bat, and Soldier went down in a heap. He lay there whimpering and couldn’t get up, and in the end we had to carry him home.

“Didn’t hit him that hard.”

“You almost killed him!”

“Dog’s a wuss.”

“You’re really mean, Lum.”

“You’re a wuss, too.”

My father thought the leg was broken. “I don’t know what they do with dogs,” he told me.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said my father, “they shoot horses.”

That night, Soldier crawled under the bed and curled up in his favourite corner. All night, I listened to him shift around and cry. I leaned over the bed and called to him and tried to get him to come up on the bed where I figured he’d be more comfortable, but he was hard into the corner and you could see he wasn’t going to move.

Soldier was up the next day, limping badly. You’d think that he would’ve been angry, but when Lum came by to see how he was doing, Soldier wiggled and limped around after him as if Lum were his best friend.

“Hey, you’re one tough puppy,” said Lum.

“Dad says his leg might be broken.”

Lum was almost two years older than me, so most of the time we did what he wanted to do. Which was okay with me, because he was always doing neat things. One day, we were down at the river fishing. I don’t know what happened, but Lum slipped and fell in the water. By the time he got to shore, he was mad as hell.

“Sonofabitch,” he shouted at me. “You pushed me!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Fucking liar!”

“No way!”

I sat down on the bank and waited for Lum to cool off. He walked back and forth along the river, yelling at the trees and the sky. Then he bent down and picked up a stick and turned on me. He hit me once before I could move, but as he pulled back to take another swing, Soldier charged down the bank and jumped between us.

Soldier didn’t make a sound. The hair on his neck sprang up, and he stood there with his legs braced and watched Lum and the stick.

“What’re you going to do, doggy?” Lum took a quick step forward to see if Soldier would move. But he stayed put and began growling low in his throat.

“So, you think you’re a dog soldier?” said Lum. “You think you’re some big brave dog soldier?”

I knew if Lum had come at me with the stick again, Soldier would have stopped him, and I think Lum knew it, too. He stood there with the stick in his hand, watching Soldier. Finally, he cocked his arm and sent the stick sailing into the river.

“Fetch it, asshole,” he shouted.

Soldier watched the stick land in the water, and then he turned back to Lum.

“Dog soldier saved your ass today, cousin,” said Lum.

“I didn’t push you,” I said. “You just fell.”

“Next time,” Lum said, “you might not be so lucky.”

After that day at the river, I began calling the puppy Dog Soldier. My mother didn’t like the name much, but she said he was my dog and I could call him anything I wanted. My father liked the name and
spent part of one Saturday telling me about dog soldiers, when I would rather have been at the matinee at the Frontier.

“They were the bravest men in the tribe,” he told me. “The ones who stayed behind and protected the people from attack.”

“So, they weren’t dogs.”

“Sometimes they would tie themselves to a stake or an arrow so they couldn’t retreat.”

“Why’d they do that?”

“Because they were brave.”

“But why were they called dog soldiers?”

“No idea,” said my father.

I don’t remember when we began simply calling him Soldier. It just happened. It was as though it had always been his name, and had been waiting for him to find it. I thought it was a pretty good name, but Lum said he didn’t care.

“I guess you got to call the mutt something.”

Each night, Soldier would crawl under my bed and settle into the corner. As I went to sleep, I could hear him grunting and moving about, getting comfortable. And each morning, I would find him at the edge of my bed, watching and waiting for me to wake.

A
ll the way to the shop, I’m thinking about breakfast and have decided on sausage and fried potatoes.

“We’re home!”

I don’t know why, but I expect to see my mother at the sink, working on someone’s hair. Instead, the shop is empty and quiet. I drop my stuff on the floor. Soldier trots into the back, just to make sure. When I get to the kitchen, he’s waiting for me, curled up in front of the stove. It’s strange not having my mother around. My father goes away all the time, but not my mother. She stays put. I look in the refrigerator in case something has changed.

“Cold food,” I tell Soldier, and I pull out the bag of dry dog food and pour some in his bowl. He waits to see what I’m having, but as soon as I take the cereal box out of the cupboard and get the milk from the refrigerator, he gives up and begins picking at the food with his tongue. You can tell he’s eating just to keep up his strength.

I jump in the shower and stand under the water until it runs cold. I’m not sure that helping Monroe is going to work out. He may or may not be crazy, but he’s weird, and just to be safe I figure I better check out other possibilities for jobs. He hasn’t paid me anything yet for the work I’ve already done, and I hope I don’t have to ask or take an iron buffalo or a kite in trade.

The railroad yards take up most of the east side of the town. The job gate sits on the northeast corner. Just inside the job gate is a wood shack about the size of my grandmother’s chicken coop. It’s painted white with red trim, and on one side of the shack is an old sign advertising Washington State apples. There’s a large picture of an Indian eating an apple and a caption that reads “Red and Delicious.”

When Soldier and I get to the job gate, Wally is in his shack, sitting in his chair, reading a magazine. The windows are closed and the
door is shut to keep out the heat, and the desk fan is blowing Wally’s thin hair back into a point. Eddie Baton, Sherman Youngman, and Wilfred First Rider are sitting around in the sun outside the fence, waiting. My father is with them, and you can see right away that he’s stayed with the drinking.

“Come and sit down,” says my father, and he pats the ground next to the fence post. “I saved you the shady spot.”

“Elvin tells us he’s been giving you driving lessons,” says Sherman.

“Did I tell you guys about how my boy here drove my truck into Franklin’s tent?”

“No more than twenty times.”

“Yeah,” says my father, “but my boy hasn’t heard me tell it yet, have you?” So my father tells the story, and even though he’s added a few things here and there, I still recognize it, and it sounds a lot funnier now than when it happened.

“If you came for a job,” says Wilfred, “you’re too late.”

“No, I’m looking for Lum.”

“Wally’s already passed out the apples,” says Eddie.

“Nothing left but the skins,” says Sherman.

It’s an old joke, but we all laugh anyway.

“We heard they were running a string of fruit cars in,” says my father, “so we thought we’d wait.”

“You working for the railroad?”

“Work for anybody for the right money,” says my father. “What about you?”

“Sure.”

“Not too proud to get your hands dirty?”

“Nope.”

My father and Wilfred and Eddie settle in against the fence. Sherman gets to his feet and walks over to the shack. Soldier has been waiting to see if there’s any food to be had, and when Sherman heads for the shack, Soldier is right behind him. Maybe he can smell the doughnuts that Wally brings out to the shack every morning, or maybe he’s just bored.

“Maybe you should ask Monroe for a loan,” says Eddie. “You two used to be best friends.”

“Another time,” says my father. “Another life.”

“High school, college,” says Wilfred. “Spent so much time together, we thought they were hot for each other.”

“Even used to dress alike,” says Eddie.

My father stops Wilfred and Eddie in their tracks with a glance. “Lum hasn’t been here,” he says to me, and everybody takes a break from talking for a moment and just sits. Finally, Eddie lights a cigarette and passes one to my father. “Lum and his old man kiss and make up yet?”

“They don’t get along too well,” I say.

“Get along?” says Wilfred. “Hell, Franklin threw him out of the house.”

“When?”

My father turns and looks at me. “Kicked the shit out of him while he was at it.”

“Franklin’s a real hard ass,” says Wilfred.

“Losing the missus was rough on him,” says Eddie.

My father bangs the back of his head against the wire, as if he’s trying to move it around and make it more comfortable. “Franklin was a hard ass long before she died.”

I watch Sherman standing down by the gate. The paint on the shack has begun to fade, and the apple on the sign has begun to peel. Underneath, there is nothing but grey metal. Sherman is waving his arms, trying to get Wally’s attention. Soldier stands behind him, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a wet sock. Beyond the shack, the boxcars wait in long lines for something to happen.

“When you see Lum,” says Wilfred, “tell him me and Eddie said his old man is a hard ass.”

Wally finally sees Sherman and comes out of the shack. They talk for a while, and I can see that both of them are smiling and laughing. Then Wally goes back in the shack, and Sherman wanders over to where we are waiting.

“No luck,” he says. “Cars won’t be in until tonight.”

“Washing boxcars in this heat ain’t what I call lucky anyway,” says Eddie.

Sherman looks at me. “I told your dog to kill Wally, but all he did was fart.”

“That’s all Wally ever does,” says my father. “We don’t need a job anyway.”

“That’s right,” says Eddie. “We’re indigenous.”

“What we need,” says my father, “is something cold.”

“So, who’s buying?” says Sherman.

My father throws an arm around my shoulders. “You spend all that money already?”

I touch my pocket, and this is a mistake. The men stop talking and look at me.

“Put it all into stocks, no doubt,” says Eddie.

“Hell,” says my father, and he gives me a squeeze, “it’s my money anyway, right?”

I want to tell him that I’ve left it at home, but it’s too late to lie. Sherman stands up and dusts himself off. “That’s one hell of a son, Elvin. I got seven kids, and none of them will give me the time of day.”

I fish the money out of my pocket and give my father thirty dollars. He fans the tens out and holds them up to the light so you can see through them. I still have twelve dollars left from Railman’s, and I try to slip this back in my pocket.

But my father stops me. “What about the rest?”

“Mom gave me this.”

“I gave you forty.”

“No,” I say, “you only gave me thirty.”

My father looks away for a moment, so I’m ready, and when I see his arm come forward, I duck, and he hits the fence instead.

“Getting slow, Elvin,” says Wilfred, and he begins to laugh.

“Bad luck,” says Eddie, “you cut your hand.”

My father flexes his knuckles. The blood forms quickly and runs down his fingers.

“Remember?” I say. “You bought three votes. Ten dollars each.”

My father wipes the blood on his jeans and turns back to me. “Thirty dollars isn’t going to go very far in this heat,” he says.

I hand him the twelve dollars.

“You holding out on me?”

“No,” I say. “That’s all I have.”

“Come on, Elvin,” says Sherman. “Anything beats the shit out of sitting in the goddamn sun waiting for Wally to share the wealth.”

My father gets to his feet and starts moving towards town. “Pay you back as soon as I get ahead, all right?”

“Sure.”

“Your mother’s money doesn’t count, right?” says my father. “I’ll take the other ten out of what I owe you.”

I watch my father and Eddie and Sherman and Wilfred until they disappear among the boxcars. Soldier comes over and lies down beside me and pushes his nose into my armpit. “It’s okay,” I tell him, but he has already started to whine, and all I can do is pet him until he calms down.

The walk out across the prairies to the church seems longer than usual, and it is probably because of the heat. The yellow grass crackles as if it’s getting ready to shiver and burst into flames. Soldier plods along behind me, dragging his nose through the grass. The grasshoppers dance all around us, throwing themselves into the air like water from a sprinkler. Soldier doesn’t even nod in their direction. I figure we’ll go by the church one last time and see if I can get paid for the work I did the day before yesterday. That way, Lum and I can do whatever we want.

“It’ll be cooler inside,” I tell Soldier, and I make a straight line for where I figure the front door should be. It takes me a while to find the side of the building and work my way back to the doorknob. Even before I turn the knob and open the door, I can feel the cool air inside getting ready to rush out and greet us. “See?” I say to Soldier. “Much better.” He takes eight or ten steps into the church and flops down on the floor, as if someone has shot him.

The stacks of boxes have all been moved to the far end of the church, and the place looks larger now and almost spacious. I don’t see Monroe, but I get the feeling that he might be hiding somewhere and that, if I’m not careful, he’ll come sailing down from the ceiling or roller skating out of the kitchen or tumbling through a window. I walk to the middle of the church and sit on the bentwood box.

“Soldier.”

Soldier doesn’t move and he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Find Monroe.”

Lum and I saw a movie once with this French detective and his Asian sidekick. Every time the detective came home, the sidekick would attack him, just to keep him in shape. Once, the sidekick was waiting for him in the refrigerator.

Monroe is not in the refrigerator, but there is a bottle of orange juice, and I pour myself a glass. There are fresh flowers in the vase on the counter, too. “You want some music?” I ask Soldier. I raise the lid on the piano and sit down on the stool. “Maybe you’d like something melancholic.”

I work my fingers across the keys the way I’ve seen real pianists do on television, and even though the sound is all jumbled, I can hear that the piano is a good one and that, if I knew how to play, it would sound great.

“Maybe a little
Carmen.
” I search around on the keys, and in no time at all, I’ve got part of the toreador song down pat.

“Can you sing?”

I turn around and see someone standing in the doorway. The prairie light is blinding, and at first, I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. But it’s Monroe’s voice. He steps into the church and closes the door, and now that I can see him clearly, I’m not sure it was a good idea to come unannounced. Monroe’s wig has been braided and tied with red cloth, and his face has been divided in half. One side is painted black with red dots and the other side has been painted white with black dots. A thin yellow line runs across his forehead and there are long, thick blue marks on each cheek.

“Can you sing?” he asks again.

“A little.”

“Write any poetry?”

“You okay?”

“Do you mean, am I crazy?” Monroe says, as if he’s just read my mind.

“My mother can sing pretty well.”

Monroe glides into the kitchen. Soldier gets up and follows him.
“I’m not crazy,” he shouts. “Do you know what a minstrel is?”

“Sure,” I say. “It’s a politician.”

Monroe starts laughing, and he laughs so hard that I begin laughing, too. “Minstrel,” he says, “is a medieval term to describe someone who sings songs or recites poetry.”

“My auntie Cassie can probably sing, too.” I watch Monroe to see if he wants to give anything away.

“Minstrels sing about heroes and great deeds,” says Monroe. “You want to be my minstrel?”

One job with Monroe is plenty, but I’m curious. “Singing?”

“That’s right.” Monroe rushes over and sits down at the piano with me. “Here’s how it works. I’m the hero, and you have to make up songs and stories about me so no one forgets who I am.”

“What would it pay?”

Monroe begins to play the piano and hum a tune I think I know. Then he stands up, takes off his shirt, and begins to dance. “For instance,” he says, “what am I famous for?”

“You’re an artist.”

“Doesn’t count.” Monroe takes off his pants. Soldier watches Monroe as he spins around the room. “What about great deeds? Can you name any of my great deeds?”

I think about the church, but I don’t know if this is a great deed or just a trick that you do with paint.

“Exactly.” Monroe stops dancing. “I haven’t done any great deeds yet,” he says. “But I will.”

“You’re rich,” I say, in case he feels like paying me what he owes me. “Does that count?”

“And when I do,” says Monroe, “I want you there.”

“You could save a beautiful woman.”

“They don’t need saving.” Monroe puts on his clothes. “In the old days, it was easy being a hero. And glamorous. All you had to do was slay a dragon.”

“What about monsters?”

“Only monsters left in this world are human beings.” Monroe goes to the stack of iron buffalo and begins counting silently to himself. “Did you bring a notebook?”

“No.”

“Tape recorder?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Camcorder?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Okay,” says Monroe. “The oral tradition it is then.” He pulls one of the iron buffalo out of the pile and begins dragging it towards the door. “Give me a hand.”

For the next hour, I help Monroe load the buffalo onto the truck, while he tells me his life story. “I was born in 1952,” he says. “June. Can you remember that?”

“My mother was born in January.”

“When I arrived, my mother and father were happy to see me. Make sure you say that.”

“Auntie Cassie was born in October.”

“My favourite food is macaroni. With butter and ketchup.”

We work our way along the ridge of the coulees. Soldier wants to sit in the front with me, but there’s no room. He’s a poor sport about this and tries to sit so that he blocks Monroe’s rear view. Every so often, he squeezes his face against the rear window and drags his tongue back and forth until the glass is covered with thick slobber, and everything you see out the back looks distorted and bent to one side.