The Last Days of Dogtown (29 page)

Alice Ives’s unnerving taps had reminded him of this burdensome responsibility. He would have to find out whether something was seriously amiss in Dogtown, but the idea of returning to that house was so noxious, Sam was up the whole night, brooding. By dawn, he had a plan for doing Molly and Sally a good turn without going anywhere near them, and get the credit for it among his neighbors.

Later that morning, Sam stopped at Alice’s door to inquire after her father. “I’ve brought a special lozenge for Mr. Ives that might be helpful,” he said. “My gift, of course.”

After a second cup of tea, Sam lowered his voice and asked Alice, in the most solicitous if not flirtatious voice, if she might consider doing the mercy of taking some food to two of Dogtown’s last lost souls. “No one has seen so much as a hair of the women for months now,” said Sam. “I could certainly pay them a visit myself, but I am given to understand that the poor unfortunate suffer less shame when help arrives on the arm of a lovely maiden, like yourself.” Alice immediately agreed to take on Sam’s commission.

“I’ll bring the basket later today,” he said.

When Sam asked Mrs. Long if she would fill a basket for Molly and Sally, she would not hear of his paying for the food, so she could advertise her own good deed while trumpeting Sam’s. He would be hailed as a redeemer of the old ladies of Dogtown, a consideration that might just eclipse the fact that they were not, nor ever had been, “ladies.”

Alice delivered the food and hurried back to Sam, wearing a new bonnet and shade of powder that did her no favors. “Oh, Mr. Maskey,” her eyes shining with the tale, “it was awful. The smell,” she said. “Like an outhouse.”

Sam put on a grave face while Alice delivered her report. She had discovered Molly and Sally huddled on their mattress on the floor. It took her a moment to find them under the stack of blankets and clothes, which was nearly all that was left inside the place. They had burned all the furniture for heat, and a dusting of fresh snow had blown in through the chinks in the wall.

“A terrible thing,” he said. “We Christians cannot permit such misery, can we, Mistress Ives.” He kissed her hand and left immediately, borrowing a horse to ride into Gloucester. Sam directed the town clerk to have Molly and Sally taken to the workhouse and laid five silver dollars on the desk. “This should cover the cost of bringing them in, and the rest is to be applied to their care.” The fellow didn’t have time to open his ledger before Sam was gone.

Molly and Sally spent the rest of March and April in the workhouse, knitting or mending as required by the matron, who found them polite and tractable, nothing like what she’d expected of prostitutes. At night, they held hands across the gap between their narrow cots and whispered to each other.

When Molly caught the fever that had killed off the three last residents, Sally tended to her night and day, and for a while it seemed that Molly would pull through. When she died, the matron thought her friend would turn her face to the wall and be dead within a fortnight as well. But Sally disappeared two nights after Molly passed away, taking every scrap of bedding and clothing with her, including the matron’s wool shawl. She pinched a heavy pewter tankard, too, which was the only item of any value in the whole miserable place.

When Sam heard that both of them were gone, he bowed his head and covered his eyes with his hands. Widow Long told everyone about how he had been overcome with grief, and what a good-hearted fellow he was to have bothered with such awful trash. In fact, Sam had hidden his face so no one could see the relief and satisfaction he feared would be all too evident there.

It might take a year or even five, but eventually his name would be uncoupled from the Dogtown doxies. Newcomers might never even hear the name “Sammy Stanley.” And even if a few stories lingered about that unlucky boy, no one would ever think to connect him to Samuel S. Maskey, a deacon in his church, the captain of the fire volunteers, part-owner of the town’s first cotton mill. A different man altogether.

Easter and Ruth

E
ASTER CARTER
knew her days in Dogtown were numbered. With the widows long dead and Judy Rhines living in Gloucester, the news that Molly and Sally had been taken to the workhouse turned out to be the last straw. Tammy was still around, though not even Easter would have welcomed a visit — however unlikely — from that bitter pill. Cornelius flitted around like a bat, but he never stopped in. Of course, Ruth was right there under her own roof, but Easter might just as well wait for one of the wild dogs to inquire about her aching knees as expect her boarder to sit down for a chat. Ruth was the only reason she’d been able to stay in her house for as long as she had. The meat, pelts, and feathers from Ruth’s traps brought in enough to trade for sugar, needles, and the few other things they could not grow, scavenge, or mend. But the fact was, Ruth gave her the mopes. Easter needed company.

So when Judy Rhines made a special trip to talk to her about the possibility of a situation in town, Easter heard her out. It seemed that Louisa Tuttle, newly widowed, needed help at the tavern she’d inherited from her husband. She did not want a man around telling her what to do anymore, and she was wary of younger women who might get themselves into trouble or just up and leave if a husband happened by. Easter posed no threats and had no prospects but still enjoyed some reputation as a friendly and honest publican. “You’d get two rooms above the tavern at the green,” Judy said. “I saw them, Easter, and they’re more cheerful than you might expect. And you know that I’d be pleased if you were closer by.”

Judy had told Louise that Easter would never leave her own house, but she had agreed to tender the offer because she was concerned about Easter’s health: her dress hung off her like a scarecrow.

Easter looked around and considered. She certainly did love her house and liked having her way. It would be hard leaving the roomy parlor and setting things exactly where she wanted them. Starting over at sixty seemed an awfully steep mountain to climb. But after a year without a single paying visitor, she had to admit that her business was dead.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Judy gasped. Easter was herself surprised as well; not only about how easily she’d decided, but also at the way the words had immediately lifted a weight off her shoulders. She was sick of eating squirrel, and the walk into Gloucester seemed to get longer and steeper from one month to the next. But the main reason for her relief was that Easter was starved for conversation.

At supper — the only meal Ruth was ever there for — the African usually took her plate upstairs. On the rare occasion Easter insisted she stay at the table, Ruth never answered a question with anything more than a shrug or a nod. After a thousand nights of cheerful attempts, Easter had admitted defeat: Ruth’s silence was as much a part of her as her nose. Easter didn’t like eating alone, so she ate too little and sighed too much.

Once Easter said yes, it wasn’t more than two weeks before she was ready to move. The night before she left, Easter made an especially big pot of stew and enough bread for a week. She motioned for Ruth to sit down at the table and then held her by the arm until she’d had her say.

“I’ll be going tomorrow, Ruth, but I’m counting on you to stay right here.” Easter spoke slowly, wanting to be sure the African heard every word, even if she made no reply. “I ain’t selling the place, ’cause I ain’t sure that I won’t be back. I know you’ll take good care of things for me. You keep the town boys from taking any of my timber, or the windows. They steal the windows first. And you mind that the roof stays tight.”

Easter waited until Ruth nodded.

“I’m going to leave you the table and my good chair, and a few other things. You get out of that attic and hunker down by the fire, too. You’ve been a good boarder,” Easter said, her voice quivering at the thought of Ruth alone in the house. “I got no complaints, there, and I hope you…” But she didn’t really have any hopes for Ruth, who had retreated inside herself, more every year.

Ruth’s head hung below her shoulders, like a dog getting a scolding. They finished eating in silence. Finally, Easter released her for the last time. “Good night, dearie,” she said and went back to the last of her sorting and packing. Ruth scraped the chair getting to her feet and Easter startled, thinking maybe she heard a good-bye. But when she turned, Ruth was on her way up the stairs.

Judy Rhines arrived early with Oliver driving the Cooks’ wagon. It was April, but rainy and raw, a miserable day for moving the piles of clothes, bedding, pots, dishes, and everything else Easter had collected. There wasn’t much she’d discarded over the years, or much she wanted to leave behind. When a paper box of rusty keys broke and spilled into a muddy puddle, Judy Rhines actually showed a little irritation. “A whole heap of useless,” she muttered, loud enough for Oliver to overhear. He spent the rest of the day teasing his famously patient friend about her “evil temper,” which helped him shrug off the discomfort of getting soaked to the skin when he ought to be cozy at home with Polly and the boys.

When the last bundle was tied and secure, Easter said, “Hold up a minute,” and started rummaging through sacks already lashed tight, loosening the ropes, and making a mess of Oliver’s careful work.

“I know it’s a bother, my dears,” Easter said, scurrying back inside with a large pot, a ladle, a blanket, a plate, cups, forks, one more knife, and a few other housekeeping oddments. “I’m sorry to hold you up, but she’s got nothing in there, and, well, I was thinking how I don’t need more than one ladle, do I? And she might as well have this pan as well.”

Ruth heard the sadness in Easter’s voice. She’d lain upstairs in the attic all morning, listening to the comings and goings, the orders and laughter, the unspoken regret. She told herself that she should get up and help. She should have offered her hand to Easter, too. She should have found some way to say good-bye and thank you.

Mimba’s words had bubbled back to her all that day. She could hear the island cadence that sounded like singing to her. Mimba would have said, “You are a good old soul, you, Easter, you. I was born lucky to share a roof with you. Go you now in peace.”

But it had been too many years for Ruth to say such a thing out loud, so she lay still on her pallet, her stomach aching, her breath shallow, and hoped that Easter knew that she would care for her house with thankful hands for as long as she was able. Easter had been a better friend than she deserved.

The horse snorted and shook off the rain as it pulled away from the house. A few minutes later, the storm gained force and pounded the roof like a thousand hammers. They would have a rough time on the road, Ruth thought. She went out and stood in the gray downpour, letting the rain serve as her tears.

The next morning, she woke shivering in the damp house. Bundled in her blanket, she checked the position of her four protecting stones and found all of them off-kilter. She carried her bedding downstairs, where the parlor seemed empty as a church, echoing her steps. All but one of the rag rugs were gone. A big pile of castoffs cluttered one end of the table: a few dishrags, a coverlet, a ragged shawl, jumbled cutlery and dishes enough for a family of four, a pitcher. Easter had left her best cauldron, too, a great black pot with a solid handle and feet. Ruth saw it for the generous gift it was meant to be.

She sank into the armchair and listened to the rain, which filled her head with a relentless drumming that relaxed her nearly to dozing. Until she heard a change, a small shift, a different pitch of the splash near the window. Someone was outside. Her eyes glittered in the dimness. She rushed to see who or what it might be, but there was nothing and no one. Just sheets of rain washing new grooves into the gullies, pounding the grasses flat.

It could have been Cornelius, she thought. Or even one of the dogs. Ruth remembered how she had been taken by surprise on her first day in Dogtown by a brown cur on the road. The raw girl who had walked hundreds of miles in search of her mother’s grave seemed like a complete stranger to her now, which made yesterday’s vivid memory of Mimba even more of a puzzle. Ruth lived day to day, without thoughts of the future or of her past. Her dreams were timeless, too: in one, she was a bird with wings so big, it took only three strong thrusts to send her soaring from Folly Cove all the way to Good Harbor.

She had another dream about being a large black dog, very much like the shaggy cur named Bear, who had been the pack’s leader when she first arrived. Had there been a successor anything like him, Ruth would never have been able to get as close to his descendants as she had.

Ruth had begun visiting the dogs in their high meadow two years after Henry Brimfield’s appearance on Cape Ann, which was also the last time Bear was seen. Ruth had kept her distance at first, no closer than fifty feet. She crept to within forty feet the next summer, twenty the following year, until she was close enough to stretch out her hand and touch them. Not that she ever did any such thing, nor did she make any sudden moves or speak a single word, thus proving herself trustworthy. Or at least tolerable.

Studying the dogs, she had learned how to live within herself entirely: to sit without expectation, to rest, eyes half-closed, and panting through the stifling heat, sniffing subtle changes in the air, succumbing to sleep when it came.

The dogs were neither noisy nor silent, neither idle nor busy. They snored and sighed, coughed, scratched, and snapped at buzzing passersby. They stood and stretched, ambled to the bushes to lift a leg or crouch, returned to shade or tall grass to circle and settle again. They smelled one another lazily, chewed on the grass, lifted their chins to follow the motion of a bird or a scent on the wind. Ruth passed whole days among them, floating through time like it was warm water.

In the days after Easter’s departure, Ruth took note of the greening trees and began to look forward to the coming summer afternoons. But her anticipation was undercut with dread, too, for the pack was dwindling fast. When Ruth first arrived in Dogtown, there were nearly twenty-five dogs in the hills, living like a nearby but separate neighborhood, at peace with the people next door — a little standoffish, perhaps, but friendly enough. By the time Easter moved to Gloucester, there were no more than eight of them left, and those few were bony and mangy.