The Last Days of Dogtown (21 page)

Peg threw his hat out after him to the delight of four half-grown boys, who kicked it back and forth and then made a show of accidentally knocking into Oliver. At that, he doubled over and threw up, a display the boys greeted with whistles and catcalls.

Cornelius turned the corner just in time to witness the scene. He hesitated only a moment before stepping forward, retrieving Oliver’s hat, and pulling him up. The boys kept on hooting and clapping, while a few men gathered to watch the African gather up the crumpled packets of tobacco and cocoa, and stuff them all into Oliver’s pockets.

“Will you look at that?” said one of them. “The nigger comes to the rescue of the Dogtown idiot.”

The boys walked away, slapping one another on the back. The men disappeared inside the tavern. Oliver hung his head, feeling like a whipped dog. Before he knew it, Cornelius was gone, too, and he had to run in order to catch the African, who had walked on up Washington Street, his back as straight as a pike. As the houses gave way to weeds and dusty fields Oliver tried to say thank you, but every time he tried, Cornelius hurried his pace.

Oliver’s aching head echoed with Tammy’s sour voice calling him an idiot, a nit, a dolt. Once Polly heard how he’d gotten drunk and stupid in front of the whole town, she would finally see him for what he truly was: a hopeless case and a waste of her time. When he groaned, Cornelius glanced back over his shoulder, but this time Oliver turned away.

The two men slowed as they reached the path leading to Tammy’s house. Oliver reached out to shake Cornelius’s hand; for a moment he thought the African might take it, but he hurried away.

Oliver was relieved to see that Tammy was in the barn, talking to her cows. He tiptoed to the door, threw the provisions on the table, and ran as though he’d been stealing rather than making a delivery.

Back at Polly’s house, he fell into bed, where he lost the rest of the day and the whole night. He woke with a dreadful headache, thinking about Cornelius. As a boy, he had never given the man any more thought than he would a dog. He’d idolized John Stanwood, the worst rotter on Cape Ann. Oliver covered his face with his hands and swore at himself. Why had he walked into that damned pub in the first place?

When he finally got up, the sight of his blackened eye in the looking glass made him glad that Polly was in Gloucester. After a few hours of holding his head in his hands, the notion that he’d lost her began to plague him again, and he thought he’d do himself some harm if he didn’t get out of the house. There was no going back into town so soon after that public humiliation, and he would not let Tammy get a chance to laugh at his face. Easter would ask him what happened, if she didn’t already know. Then Oliver remembered Allen’s message and decided he might as well find out what the man wanted.

“Who gave you the beating?” The farmer was sitting on a bench outside his house, mending a broken barrel, when Oliver arrived.

“I fell,” he mumbled.

Allen smirked, but said, “Figured I’d try my hand at this before paying some damned cooper to do it.”

“Everett Mansfield said you wanted to see me.”

Allen glanced up at Oliver, took another whack at the bent spoke, cleared his throat, glanced at the horizon, chewed on his lip, and said, “It’s near supper. You might as well come inside.”

Mrs. Allen was not happy about the sudden arrival of a guest. “Just give me a minute,” she said and whisked the two plates from the table to divide the beans and brown bread into three smaller portions. The Allens ate quickly, without exchanging a word. As soon as the last bite was swallowed, Allen led Oliver back outside, lit a pipe, and said, “Good to have company at the table.”

Oliver wondered about the purpose of that lie and dug his toe into the dirt. “You got some work for me?” he asked.

Allen puffed. “That parcel of land you’re on,” he said, “too bad it’s such a pile of rocks. No hope of a crop up there.”

Oliver shrugged.

“That stream is about dried up, too, ain’t it?”

“No,” Oliver said. “It’s still running sweet.”

“Huh,” Allen said. “How long it take you to walk to the harbor? An hour?”

“Nowhere near.”

“The berries give out yet?”

“The berries are fine,” Oliver said, losing patience. “Everett seems to think you have some sort of commission for me.”

“Actually, son,” Allen dropped his voice, “I figured you’d have worked it out for yourself by now, how the Younger place belongs to you. It’s yours. Been yours for a while, as I count it.”

“What are you talking about?” said Oliver. “Tammy inherited the place from Lucy.”

“No, sir,” said Allen. “That’s Younger land, belonged to your grandfather and then your father. Tammy was sister to your granddad, but when he died and left it to your pa, Tammy was already set up in the house. Your pa was off at sea, but your ma wouldn’t have nothing to do with Dogtown so he stayed with her people whenever he come ashore.”

“But it’s hers till she dies,” Oliver said. “Isn’t it?”

Allen sighed. “A few weeks before he died, your pa come to me with a piece of paper he wrote up. Your mother had the fever real bad, and he wasn’t looking any too good himself. Maybe he had a feeling his time was coming, I don’t know. But he wrote it up so’s you’d come into your rights at sixteen.”

“You saw a paper?”

“I signed it,” Allen muttered. “I was witness.”

Oliver knew very little about his parents. The last of his relations died when he was a boy, and no one in Dogtown or Gloucester had ever volunteered a word about them. He’d been too shy to ask, or afraid of what he might learn. If Tammy was the best he could do for a guardian, maybe there were worse secrets in the family cupboard.

“Does anyone else know this?”

“I doubt it,” Allen shrugged. “Maybe.”

Oliver felt as though a wave of icy seawater had broken over his head. His eyes burned, his ears rang, and he gasped for breath. When he surfaced, his hands were tight around Allen’s neck.

“You son-of-a-bitch. You goddamn son-of-a-bitch, you didn’t tell me?”

Allen twisted loose, but Oliver grabbed his arm and pinned it behind him. “I’d come here begging for food, and you’d turn your nose up at me. Your daughters laughed at my clothes.” Oliver tightened his grip. “All that time you knew this, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t need Tammy mad at me,” said Allen.

“You aren’t stupid enough to believe she’s a witch, are you?” Oliver said. “Are you as dumb as all that?”

Allen had his reasons for keeping on Tammy’s good side. She’d made it clear long ago that his silence about the Younger will would keep her quiet about his regular trips to the harbor’s whores. It had been a good enough bargain, till now.

“I’m going to break your arm,” Oliver said. “And then I’m going to break the other one.”

“It ain’t me you want, boy,” Allen said. “It’s Tammy that did you the harm. Go settle up with her. Go find yourself that will, that’s what you need to do. It’s probably in the house somewhere.”

Oliver twisted Allen’s arm one last time before rushing headlong into the woods. He moved as quickly as he could, kicking at the underbrush as the whole of his hungry, lonely boyhood came back at him. He had been a slave in his own house and he could have been his own man years ago.

But the truth was that Oliver could have become his own man long ago. He could have moved out of Tammy’s house. Easter would have taken him in if he’d asked. Or he could have bound himself to a blacksmith or a cooper; by now he’d have a trade and the means to marry Polly.

But he had been too weak and too afraid, as Tammy had made him. Maybe she was a witch, after all. Oliver might appear to be a grown man, but in fact, he had the spine of a jellyfish. It was past time that he found his nerve.

Oliver thought of the long knife in Polly’s kitchen and ran all the way back to the house, to find her there, waiting for him with a big smile and arms open. He walked past her without saying a word.

“What happened to your eye?” Polly cried.

Oliver brushed her hand aside with what felt like a slap.

“Ollie!”

“I fell,” he said as he found the knife and set to sharpening it.

“What is it?” Polly said. “What happened to you? What do you want with that?”

He turned the blade over and started on the other side.

“Please, Ollie,” she begged. “Tell me what happened. What are you doing?”

Polly was terrified. As she’d walked home, she had prepared a funny speech to tell him the news of the baby. But there was no talking to this wild stranger. Just a few days ago, the remoteness of the house had made it seem a haven of privacy and safety. Now it felt like a kind of prison, with no one to summon for help and nowhere to turn. The barking of a dog sent her outside to see Greyling worrying a squirrel up a tree.

Judy Rhines appeared a moment later and waved. But when she saw Polly’s tear-streaked face, she hurried over. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Oliver,” Polly was sobbing. “He’s not himself. He’s got a knife, and he looks so strange and he’s been hurt, too. He won’t talk to me. And, oh Judy, I’m going to have a baby. I’m sure of it now.”

Judy took her arm and led her inside, where they found Oliver testing the knife on the edge of the table.

“What’s that for?” Judy said.

But Oliver set his jaw and kept working.

“Oliver, dear,” said Judy. “You must talk to us. You may not have secrets from Polly now. She’s carrying your baby.”

That stopped him. “What?” he said, and looked up.

“I was going to tell you today,” said Polly. “I was hoping it would make you happy.” Had it been any other day, any other hour, he would have covered her face with kisses but at the moment he could not meet her eyes. There was nothing inside him but anger.

“What is the knife for?” Judy said.

“Tammy.”

Polly shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor I,” Judy said.

His knuckles white around the shaft of the knife, Oliver told them what William Allen had said about his inheritance and the way Tammy had cheated him out of what was rightfully his. “I’m done being the coward,” he said. “I’m a grown man now. It’s time to act like one.”

Polly tried to put her arms around him, but Oliver pulled away.

“She is a spiteful old horror,” Judy said. “But you’re not going to murder her. It isn’t worth the risk to you, or to Polly. And besides, you don’t have it in you.”

He glared at Judy. “You don’t think so, do you?”

She was suddenly ashamed of the excuses she’d made for Tammy over the years. Judy had made light of Tammy as a character, uncouth but essentially harmless. She had known that Oliver hadn’t had it easy, but she had never put herself in his place, and for the first time, Judy had a feeling for just how bad it must have been for him.

Polly took his face between her hands so he had to look at her.

The sight of her tears undid him. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he cried.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” said Polly. “There just isn’t a killing bone in you. I love you for that.”

“Did you know about the will?” Oliver asked Judy.

“No.”

“Did anyone else know?”

“I don’t think so,” said Judy, whose mind turned to Easter. Would she have kept such a thing to herself?

“You need that paper,” she said. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

Oliver knew. Tammy’s house was as bare as any other in Dogtown: a bed and a table, a few chairs and a stool, a row of pegs for a wardrobe. But she had one extra piece of furniture, which Oliver had always figured she got through blackmail. A dainty little lady’s writing table, with turned legs and a carved shelf, it sat tucked between her bed and the wall. Now chipped and stained, it was crowded with empty pots that once held jam, clouded spice bottles, broken pipes. Once, as a boy, Oliver had peeked inside the drawer and found a mass of wrapping papers from every fondant and nougat that Tammy had ever eaten.

“Wait until she’s away from the house,” said Judy.

“That doesn’t happen anymore,” he said. “She can hardly walk to the stream and back.”

Judy thought for a moment. “I’ll get her into Gloucester then, and give you a chance to find what’s yours.”

Judy set her plan in motion that very day. After a quick visit to the Allen farm, where she browbeat William into loaning her his wagon, Judy made for Tammy’s house. She was churning butter in the shade by the side of her door. As soon as she saw who was coming up her path, Tammy said, “You can go to hell.”

“Hello to you, too, Mistress Younger.”

“I know you got a soft spot for that half-wit nephew of mine,” Tammy said. “You see him, you can tell him I’ll shoot him if he comes back here.”

“Is Oliver missing?”

“I ain’t seen a hair of him for two days now. My girls are pining for the meadows while he’s having at it with some strumpet or other. Or maybe he fell into a well and drowned. Good riddance, I say.” Tammy looked Judy up and down and, realizing that she needed someone to get her to market, changed her tone. “Except that I’ve got a whole lot of sweet butter to sell, and no way to get it into town.”

“Then it’s lucky that I happened by,” said Judy. “I’m aiming to take a bunch of rushes into town on Monday. Mrs. Cook wants three chairs mended and a new broom. I got William Allen to loan me his wagon. I could take you with me.”