Dark River Road (21 page)

When they reached the farm, Chantry let Shadow out of the truck on his lead while Dempsey talked to Mr. Freeman. He’d already put a few cows in a large fenced in lot, and nodded at Chantry to see what the dog could do.

Shadow looked at the huge animals with interest. He whined a little and strained at the leash until Chantry told him to heel. Usually, two or more dogs worked large stock, but this was a trial so he put Shadow in on his own. Most of the cows, big black Angus, ignored him, but a few more seasoned veterans eyed the dog warily.

It went better than Chantry even hoped. Shadow went in slow and easy, focused in on the cows and got them bunched into a knot, moving back and forth until the cattle went through the gate at the far end of the pen just like he’d been doing it for years.

He called him back and Shadow obeyed instantly, sitting on his haunches and looking up with a pleased canine grin and his clear eyes glittering in the sunlight. Like he knew he’d done well. Dempsey was impressed.

“You done good with him, Chantry, by God, you’ve done real good.”

He couldn’t stop grinning, but shook his head. “Wasn’t me that did anything. Shadow just knows what to do in spite of me.”

A hand clapped onto his shoulder, and a genial voice said behind him, “That dog’s come a long way, boy. Damn if he hasn’t.”

Dale Ledbetter had come up. He turned to lean a shoulder against the fence, eying Shadow. “What’s Lassiter’s price?”

Chantry felt like he’d just been doused with cold water. He wanted to say Shadow wasn’t for sale, but knew if Rainey heard about it, there’d be trouble. So he just shrugged.

“No price yet. Want to wait to see how he does in the trials.”

“So he can up the price?” Mr. Ledbetter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The dog might not do so well in competition.”

“Might not,” Chantry agreed. He snapped on Shadow’s lead and hoped Mr. Ledbetter would drop the subject. It got him all tied up inside just talking about it.

“Well,” Mr. Ledbetter said after a minute, “we’ll see what he does at the trials.”

He talked like he intended to be there, and Chantry kept his head down so he wouldn’t let him know how bad that made him feel. Time was running out. He couldn’t waste another minute on anything but making sure he didn’t lose Shadow.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dempsey asked once they were back in the truck and on the way home. “Ledbetter’s interested. Thought you wanted to sell that dog.”

Chantry just looked out the window and didn’t say anything. A few minutes went past in a blur of cotton fields and cow pastures.

“So it’s like that, is it.” Dempsey sighed. “I shoulda knowed better. It’s what I get for not paying attention, I guess. Too much on my mind lately. Looka here, Chantry, you know you ain’t got a hope in hell of keeping that dog once Rainey finds out Ledbetter’s willin’ to buy.”

“I don’t intend for him to find that out until it’s too late.”

“Too late? Boy, what you got on your mind?”

“Giving Rainey two thousand dollars for him.”

For a minute there was only the sound of the wind rushing past the old truck and blowing in the open windows, then Dempsey said, “You got a way to get that much money?”

“Most of it’s already saved up. Just got to get the last six hundred dollars.”

“If that don’t beat all—you’re somethin’, you know that?” Dempsey laughed suddenly, and beat his hand on the battered dash of the truck so hard he spooked the dog into barking. “You are somethin’ else, Chantry Callahan, damned if you ain’t.”

He didn’t feel like he was something else. He felt scared.

Dempsey sat down on the grass where a tree shaded part of the ground, and wiped his face with a towel. He looked over at the bucket. “It happens. Weeds like to grow where the best land is, just like people. Weedin’ time, some flowers get pulled up along with the weeds. A flower has to be either dumb or brave to grow right where there’s a patch of weeds.”

Chantry looked at him. Maybe he had a point in that somewhere. Or maybe the heat had got to him. He took a swig of the ice water. It was still cool enough it had small chunks of ice, but not many. It felt good going down his dry throat.

Stretched out with his legs crossed at the ankles, Dempsey stared across the park toward the lake. He seemed to be thinking pretty deep, and Chantry just let the silence lay. He pulled a few more weeds, and a leggy vinca came up along with a thick-rooted dandelion. He stuck the flower back in the dirt, pressed the roots down and poured a little water on top.

When he looked up, he saw Dempsey watching him. He nodded. “Can’t save ’em all, but do what you can. Don’t let the weeds crowd out all the good ones. Just like people.”

Chantry frowned. Dempsey usually didn’t get too philosophical, especially about a few flowers. He must have something else on his mind.

After a moment, Dempsey said, “Julia named Tansy. I wanted to call her Anna after my mother, but she’d put the name on the birth certificate by the time I knew it. The most beautiful baby I ever saw in my life. And Julia named her after a bitter weed.”

Chantry sat back. He didn’t say anything for a minute; then he said, “Mama said tansy is a herb.”

“Depends on the gardener. My eyes saw a flower. Julia saw a weed. Sometimes I don’t know what Tansy sees when she looks in the mirror.” He looked down at his hands, spread them wide. “All my life, I worked just to keep body and soul together, to put a little by for rainy days. Some years there was more rain than sun, but we always made it. After Julia died, me and Tansy didn’t have as much time together as before. Had to be mama and daddy both. Hard enough to be one. Now I think maybe I haven’t been either. Does she ever talk to you, Chantry?”

He had to say no. “Not anymore. Not like we used to. Things are—different.”

Dempsey nodded. “I know. I hear things. See things. Just don’t know what to do about it, that’s all.”

He felt pretty much the same way. It wasn’t very comforting to know even Dempsey had the same problem. He didn’t like the way it made him feel, so he picked up the Mason jar and held it to his nose.

“Just checking to see if you been drinking something besides just water,” he said, and Dempsey tossed one of the pulled weeds at him.

“Smart ass.”

“You know what they say, better to be a smart ass than a dumb ass.”

“Then you got both bases covered pretty good. Come on. Help an old man up and we’ll get this done for the day.” When he stood up again, he pulled a cap on top of his head to shade his eyes. “If you feel like earnin’ some extra money, I got to go out to Six Oaks tomorrow. Make a hundred bucks if you can work all day.”

Chantry thought about it. Mama got home at noon from summer school so he’d been going in early to the vet clinic. Tomorrow was Saturday. He’d have all day if it was okay with Doc that he took off. An extra hundred dollars would leave him only one-fifty to come up with.

“I’ll let you know tonight. Gotta talk to Doc.”

It was okay with Doc, as he’d figured it would be. He was pretty flexible, and never got too uptight about things. Besides, Doc knew he could count on Chantry to be there when he really needed him.

Dempsey picked him up at the end of the drive at six the next morning. A cool breeze blew high weeds and the bushes around the Albertson’s old house. It was still empty, settling into the edge of the soybean field like a cat getting comfortable.

Sometimes he thought he heard old ghosts in the house. Voices. Laughter. But nobody ever went there that he saw, so he figured it was just his imagination running wild like it did when he lay in bed at night staring up at the ceiling and listening to Mikey breathe.

Mikey got stronger every day. Color came back slowly but steadily, so that he didn’t look bloodless and ghostly anymore. He still had to wear his braces, of course, but Mama said one crisis at a time was plenty and they’d get through it. She seemed better these days, not as pale and resigned. Fixing the hole in Mikey’s heart had fixed something in Mama, too.

Six Oaks gleamed in the early morning light like a pearl set on green velvet. The lawns stretched out to the road and the three-rail white fence that separated Quinton property from state property. It looked like a park or a museum instead of a home. It always amazed him that some people spent their money on grass that God put down for free most places, and spent even more money on flowers that some folks thought of as weeds. Money got spent on horse manure and cow manure and sheep manure, and even bat manure. Guano, he’d heard it called. All that money spent on shit with a fancy name. He just didn’t get it.

Dempsey sent him up to work around the side veranda of the house, a cool spot shaded by a graceful weeping willow and built out of grey fieldstone. It had a wide stone planter all around it that’d been planted with flowers, and a fountain stood in the center with a little boy peeing into a small square pool. It made him want to pee, too, after he’d listened to it a few minutes.

Mississippi had to be the most humid place in the entire country. He hadn’t been working fifteen minutes before his tee shirt was wet clear through and sweat dripped into his eyes. It was easy work, just digging a small trench for drainage around the edge of the flowerbed bordering the stone wall, but it sure made him sweat. He stripped off his tee shirt and worked for a while, then took a break and went to get some water from the truck. He brought a jar back with him and set it on the edge of the planter.

He wore thick leather gloves to keep from getting blisters on his palms, and work boots, and his cut-off Levi’s. Most of his pants were too short these days, and Mama said she could almost see him grow, shooting up like kudzu while she watched. He was nearly six feet now, but still too skinny. All this digging ought to put more muscle on him.

There was probably close to two hundred feet of flowerbed to edge, and by noon, he had nearly half done. Dempsey had said they were to put pea gravel in it when it was finished, and he thought that’d be a waste of time. It’d just wash out in the next hard rain, but that’s what Mr. Quinton wanted so that’s what Mr. Quinton would get.

It got so hot after lunch that he went up on the veranda and splashed water from the little square pool onto his face and in his hair. It was cool and clear, and felt good dripping down to his chest and running all the way to his belly. He dunked his tee shirt into the water, wrung it out a bit and slung it around the back of his neck to drip some more.

When he turned around to go back to his digging, he saw Chris’s mother standing there watching him. He knew it was her even though he’d only seen her a couple of times at church service. She looked like a china doll, with wide blue eyes that stared at him with unnerving blankness, and a pretty face so cold and still it could have been a painting. She still wore a nightgown and robe, thin stuff that draped all the way to the stone floor. He’d never seen anyone who wasn’t sick still wearing their nightclothes in the middle of the afternoon, so figured she had to be feeling bad.