To Dance With the White Dog Read online

  “I don’t want nothing to do with that dog,” Neelie said again.

  Two days later, Kate and Carrie drove him to his home.

  “You need to get inside and get some rest,” Carrie suggested as she helped him from the car.

  “I will in a minute,” he said. “I want to see my dog.”

  “Daddy, that dog’s not going to show itself,” Kate said. “Not with us around.”

  “Go on inside then,” he said. “You can look from the window.”

  “Come on, Daddy, you need to get in. It’s hot out here.”

  “Not to I see my dog.”

  His daughters looked at one another in resignation. They knew it was useless to argue. Carrie picked up his suitcase and walked into the house and Kate followed.

  He hobbled on his walker to the edge of the yard. The infection in his hip had been washed clean by the dripping antibiotics, and there was only the pain of his weight, but it was a familiar pain. He stood at the yard’s edge and called, “Come on, girl. Come on out.” He saw a movement at the barn, and White Dog stepped from the shadow of a shed where he stored farm equipment. She lifted her head suspiciously and watched him.

  He began to hobble-walk toward the dog, talking to her. “You miss me, girl? Wouldn’t let them see you, would you? They think you’re a ghost. Come on. It’s all right.”

  The dog hesitated and he stopped walking and reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a paper napkin. He unfolded it ceremoniously and held up a biscuit. “Hospital bread,” he said. “Not as good as mine, but it’s bread. Come on, girl.”

  The dog trotted to him, her head down. She stopped before the walker and rose up gracefully and placed her front feet on the top brace. He touched her face, stroking it gently, then gave her the biscuit. “All right, let’s dance,” he said playfully. He balanced on his good leg and began to move the walker slowly to the side and then back. The dog moved with him. He laughed.

  Inside the house, her face pressed comically to the window of his bedroom, Carrie whispered in awe, “My God. Look at that.”

  “I told you,” Kate said softly. “I told you.”

  “He was right,” Carrie said. “Look. They’re dancing. That’s what it looks like—dancing.”

  In the weeks that followed, his children and his grandchildren began to see White Dog, but always at a distance, always as something secretive, something poised to leap away and disappear. They could not touch her. They called and coaxed and bribed with food held in their hands, but White Dog would not approach them.

  “My dog,” he said to his children and his grandchildren, stressing the My, “won’t have nothing to do with nobody but me.”

  “Jesus, Lord,” Neelie said in astonishment. “That dog ain’t real, Mr. Sam. Never seen a dog like that. Slinking around, like it was part snake. I seen her down by the barn. Clapped my hands at her, and she drop down on her belly and slink off. That dog ain’t real. Look like a ghost, like I been saying it was. Looks to me like it’d get some dirt on it, being white like it is.”

  “She takes a bath every night, Neelie.”

  “She what?”

  “Takes her a bath every night,” he said seriously. “Goes in the bathroom and runs her a tub of water and takes a bath.”

  Neelie laughed nervously. “You like putting Neelie on, don’t you, Mr. Sam?” But Neelie was suspicious of White Dog. On the days that she came to the house, to supervise Kate and Carrie and the other daughters if the other daughters were visiting, she looked cautiously for White Dog. He had seen Neelie outside, holding a stick, wagging it menacingly, as though warding off evil spirits, and he had heard her shrill, loud voice talking to the empty space about her: “Get on from me, you ghost dog. Don’t you go putting them ghost eyes on Neelie.” Once he brushed out White Dog’s hair and took the pulled-out threads of hair and rolled them in a ball and gave them to Neelie, telling her it was an antidote against White Dog’s power. Neelie pushed the ball of hair into her dress pocket and swore she would never harm White Dog. “That ghost dog’s done come to be around you, Mr. Sam,” she prophesied.

  “Neelie, that dog’s just a dog,” he said to her. “Somebody must of beat it when it was little. I fed her, and she just took up with me. She just trusts me. I was just teasing you about that hair ball.”

  “You say what you want, Mr. Sam. I know ghost eyes when I look at ghost eyes. I’ll be keeping that hair ball.”

  At night, when he was alone, White Dog lay on the floor beside his chair. He liked talking to her, liked the way her ears lifted to his voice, liked the gaze of her eyes.

  “You’re not a ghost, are you?” he said to the dog. “No, you’re not a ghost.”

  Still, he thought, it was curious that he had never heard White Dog bark.

  And there was something else: he did not know how White Dog got out of the house on the night that he fell from his walker. He had closed all of the doors. He remembered it. He remembered clearly. Because of Neelie’s talk about the Morris boys, he had closed the doors.

  13

  In early July, he began to go often in his truck to visit the cemetery where his wife and his son were buried, and the dog would follow him, a magnificent white blur racing across fields and along the roadside. The dog knew where he was going in his clattering truck and would race ahead and be waiting for him at the cemetery, hidden among the shrubbery of the hedgerow.

  It pleased him that the dog was attentive. He kept biscuits in his coat pockets and he would call the dog to him and feed her before going to the gravesite. The dog would wait beneath the shrubbery, watching him, and when he hobbled back to his truck, the dog would move from the shrubbery and go to him and rise up with her front paws on the walker.

  “Go home,” he would say, stroking her face. “I’ll see you there.” And the dog would turn and retreat to the hedgerow and watch as he climbed awkwardly into his truck. When she heard the truck motor, the dog would leap into the road and sprint across the cemetery and across the field, running powerfully ahead of him. He would watch the dog from his slow-following truck, marveling at the speed and the beauty of the speed. “Great God,” he would whisper to himself.

  He went often to the cemetery because he believed it was where he belonged. At the cemetery the memories he wished to experience were vivid and lasting, not like the dream fragments that struck him in sleep and vanished half-finished and worrisome. At the cemetery he thought of being young, and with her, and those were the best of his memories.

  Autumn, 1915.

  “Who’s that girl?” he asked Marshall Harris.

  “Where?” Marshall said.

  “Over there.” He motioned with his head across the crowd gathered on the lawn in front of the cafeteria, and Marshall followed the nod with his eyes.

  “Don’t know. Never saw her before,” Marshall said. “Nice looking. Got kind of a big nose, though. She’s new. Guess this is her first year.”

  He was twenty-three and the superintendent of farms at the Madison Agricultural and Mechanical School. He had been shy in the presence of girls since Hattie Carey, though he had dated occasionally and had even considered marrying a woman he met in Athens. The woman was older and demanding, and he had walked away during an argument and did not return to her. It was, he later believed, a fortunate escape. But the girl across the lawn from him was appealing. Marshall was right, he thought; her nose was large, but not distracting.

  “Go on,” Marshall urged. “Go over there and introduce yourself. Tell her you run this place. She’ll be impressed.”

  He shook his head and smiled foolishly. “Never been good at that,” he admitted.

  “Well, it don’t bother me none,” Marshall said. “You wait right here.”

  He watched as Marshall pushed his way through the crowd and approached the girl. He saw her smile and speak politely, and then he saw her face furrow inquisitively, and the smile broadened. Marshall turned and pointed toward him. He saw her rise on tiptoe and search across the
crowd. And then she saw him. She smiled and, he thought, blushed. He was not sure if she blushed, but it seemed so. She looked at Marshall and then back to him. Marshall was talking, making exaggerated motions with his hands, and he knew that Marshall was telling grand lies. He saw her laugh quickly, thought he heard the laugh. Marshall waved to him in a beckoning motion. He waved back and slowly moved toward Marshall and the girl.

  “This is Robert Samuel Peek,” Marshall said seriously, when he approached, “but everybody just calls him Sam.”

  The girl smiled shyly. She was shorter than he thought from across the lawn. “Hello,” he said timidly.

  “And this is my friend—uh, what was it?” Marshall said.

  “Cora,” she replied.

  “That’s right. Cora. Cora, ah—”

  “Wills,” she said.

  “Cora Wills,” Marshall declared. “She’s a nurse, Sam.”

  “I want to be,” Cora Wills corrected.

  “Well, Sam, here, he owns all the land this school’s on,” Marshall said.

  He laughed, surprising himself, and Cora Wills also laughed.

  “No, I mean it,” Marshall continued. “I’m one of the hired hands that help keep the place up.”

  “Only land I own is what’s on the bottom of my shoes,” he said.

  “Well, I got to go now,” Marshall announced. “Leave you two alone. You can name your first baby after me.” He walked away, laughing merrily.

  Marshall Harris was also a memory.

  Marshall had been a brilliant student of Latin. On the day that he married Cora Elizabeth Wills, Marshall handed him a sheet of paper containing the phrase, Amicus usque ad aras.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked Marshall.

  “It means ‘A friend as far as to the altars,”’ Marshall said. “And that’s as far as I’m following you, Sam. You got to do the rest on your own, if you know what to do.”

  Marshall had wanted to be a pharmacist, but he was killed in World War One, in France. He had volunteered, he said boastfully, to protect his good friends Sam and Cora Peek and their first child, who would be named Marshall. Once, after the news of Marshall’s death, he looked up the phrase Amicus usque ad aras in a book of Latin. The phrase also meant “A friend to the last extremity.”

  He was sad that he had not named a child for Marshall Harris.

  He went often to the cemetery, and he spent long hours writing in his journal. His journal was important. Writing in it became a ritual to ward off the silence that was suddenly around him. He did not write only to tell his daily stories, but to read, at later times and in lonely hours, what he had written, to remember that on exact days, exact events had happened. And his journal filled with words.

  JULY 2, 1973

  Four or five of the grandkids were down today. They were all out watching the eclipse of the sun, which lasted for several minutes. They tried to get me out to see it, but I stayed in. No need to take a chance on ruining what little sight I’ve got left. I guess if I was young like they are, I’d be looking. It’s a rare thing that happens, like Halley’s Comet. The big news today other than the eclipse is that Congress approved an increase in Social Security benefits. A little more than 5 percent. We can use it, the way things cost.

  JULY 3, 1973

  I saw a picture on the TV about Charles Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic in 1927. Of all the things that have happened in my life, that was the one thing that stands out. Lindbergh did it by himself in a little airplane with one motor. He didn’t know where he was most of the time. I liked the picture. Seeing how people looked in those days reminded me how things have changed. It also made me realize how old I am. I was born before the automobile and the airplane and a long time before radio and TV. I guess someday people will fly around in space like they drive around in automobiles, but I won’t be one of them. I wouldn’t even get in Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis if it was tied to the ground with the motor off. Carrie called today to say she had a touch of the flu. If Cora was still alive she would want to call the doctor. She always worried about Carrie. Tomorrow is the 4th, Independence Day.

  JULY 10, 1973

  A man selling hearing aids came by the house today. He said he just making a “cold call,” but I suspect Kate and Carrie are behind it. They think I’m going deaf. I let him test me. He said I’d lost half of my hearing and I ought to buy one of his hearing devices. I told him I was eighty years old, which meant I’d lost one-quarter of my hearing every 40 years. At that rate I’d be 160 before I went completely deaf. He left without a sale. I think I’ll buy one of those hearing horns to stick up to my ear when Kate and Carrie come out. I heard on the radio that Richard Nixon might have to resign because of that Watergate scandal. He ought to. The way he looks he reminds me of Calvin Coolidge and I never liked Coolidge. I read a story in the newspaper today about Betty Grable, who died on July 2. She was a pretty woman. She was married to Harry James from Macon, Georgia. I forgot to include it in my journal on that date.

  JULY 13, 1973

  My hip hurt more than usual today and I stayed inside with White Dog and took a long nap. I dreamed as I always do now. In my dream I was at the University of Georgia and a bunch of us boys were thrown off the freight train we used to hook rides on. It was true enough. We did get thrown off a freight train. Some of the boys got up a plan to get even with the train engineer. There was a bridge over the railroad track and a big curve in the track coming out from under the bridge. The engineer always had to slow down and stick his head out of the side of the engine to see what was ahead. Some of the boys got on that bridge and when the train came along below them and the engineer stuck his head out, they peed on him from the bridge. I won’t say I did any of the peeing, but I was there. I don’t know where dreams come from. I guess if a person’s old enough they just seep out of things that have happened that the mind keeps stored away. Kate and Noah went to town to get me some more medicine from the drug store and the pain has eased. The trouble is, I’m not sleepy now. I got a letter from Paul and Sam, Jr. today. They both sent church bulletins. Paul preached a sermon last week called Good Hats a Quarter; God Hates a Quitter. Sounds interesting.

  JULY 17, 1973

  Lightning struck one of the pecan trees in the flat today and split a limb off. I could see the smoke coming off the limb from the living room window. They say lightning won’t strike in the same place twice, but it does. It has hit in the flat many times over the years. There must be something in the ground, maybe iron ore, that attracts it. Cora was always afraid of lightning. One time in Tampa I came home in a storm and found her hiding in a corner with a quilt over her. I always think of her when it storms now. Maybe it’s the rain and the wind or the way it gets dark, but storms leave me lonely. I haven’t heard from James in a couple of weeks. He doesn’t write as much as the others, but he’s good about calling. If I don’t hear by the weekend I’ll get Kate to give him a call to make sure he’s all right. With the rain, I did not go to the cemetery today as I had planned. A news report today said Nixon’s popularity was on the way down. I guessed it would be since they found out about the secret recordings he made in the Oval Office.

  JULY 19, 1973

  It was in the paper that the Vietnam War may soon be over. I can only say thank God. I never understood why we were in that war. I almost went to World War One, but my lottery number didn’t come up. It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but I don’t think war will ever end. Man likes killing. Marshall Harris was killed in World War One. He was a good friend at Madison, maybe the best friend I ever had. I remember Uncle Zack talking about the Civil War. I was just a boy, but the way Uncle Zack talked the war was still going on. He came back from the war shell shocked. He used to saw away on an old fiddle, saying he was playing different tunes, but it was the same noise every time. They would hide his fiddle, but he always seemed to find it. Maybe there won’t be another war for a few years. I stayed worried when James was in Thailand,
before all the fighting started in Vietnam. Everybody but me thought he was in Hawaii. He told me where he was in case anything happened to him. I used to stay awake at night thinking about him. But he’s safe. I saw Hugh Carter not long ago. His boy was killed in Vietnam. I got my bill from the drug store today and it was higher than last time. Somebody’s making a killing off keeping people alive.

  JULY 22, 1973

  Clete Walton, who is the sheriff, stopped by to ask me if I had seen any cows on the loose lately. I told him I saw Pete Morris driving a couple across the field on the old Vandiver place. Pete is one of the Morris boys that Neelie’s boy hangs around with. I didn’t ask Clete why he wanted to know about cows. He is the sheriff and his business is his business. My brother Carl was once the chief of police of Hartwell. I don’t know it to be true, but there’s a story about Carl taking a gun away from a colored man who had killed somebody in a fight over a game of cards. Carl walked right up to the man with the man aiming a gun at his face and took it away. Maybe Pete was stealing cows. Neelie’s right about those boys. That’s a sorry lot. I would think about locking my doors at night if I had any locks on them. I wonder if White Dog would attack anybody that tried to get in. I doubt it. She seems to be afraid of everybody but me. I got a letter from Lois today. She sent me a picture of a pier at Myrtle Beach where they have been on vacation. I saw a story about Hank Aaron getting close to Babe Ruth’s home run record. He may beat him in numbers but the Babe made baseball what it is today.

  JULY 24, 1973

  Neelie came by today after I got back from the cemetery, but she didn’t feel like working. She did feel like talking. She told me that Pete Morris had been arrested for stealing cows from old man John Ed Ray, who, like me, lives alone. I guess it was the same cows I saw Pete running across the old Vandiver place. I hope they put him on the chain gang. If the sheriff calls me to testify, I will. Anybody who would steal cows is no good and deserves what the law gives him. Neelie said Arlie got scared and has stopped hanging around them Morris boys. Maybe it’ll save him a jail term. I drove my truck out to examine the apple trees. It looks like a good crop, but I don’t know if I’ll dry out as many as I did last year. There’s still a lot left. One of the things Cora cooked best was fried apple pies. Our girls try, but they don’t do it the way she did. I got the light bill today ($12.15). Rates keep going up. Maybe I won’t watch as much TV.