Virginia Reeves - Work Like Any Other

I’m glancing through the Q — R section— quiverer (one that quivers), quoin (angle, corner), quop (throb), and on through quota and quotation and quoz (something queer or absurd); an interesting page, but not mine to tear out — when Rash’s voice interrupts.

“Roscoe,” he shouts. “Come on back to the desk.”

The opposite page begins the R ’s, and I take in enough of them to judge the page mine or not. Rabbit is here, and rabble and rabies . Not mine. I leave the cart where it is and walk the narrow aisle back to Rash’s desk.

Taylor is standing there, the bulk of him at odds with the small spaces of the library. Here is the man of nineteen steps. He’s left me alone so long, I’d assumed I was free of him.

“Sir,” I say.

Rash speaks. “Deputy Taylor is looking for information about dogs. He needs someone to gather it together and dictate it to him. He’s asked for you specifically.”

Taylor looks me over like one of the calves at auction. “Martin, I’m looking for you to do the reading and then tell me the good bits. Think you can do that?”

“So long as I know what you’re looking for.”

“You being smart, boy?”

“No, sir.”

He squints his eyes and looks over at Rash. “He being smart with me?”

“I don’t believe so, Deputy.”

“All right. You get all the information you can and report back the parts worth hearing. That clear enough for you?”

It isn’t clear at all — what about dogs does he want to know? — but I nod my head for him anyway, hoping that Rash will help if the deputy doesn’t provide anything else. Rash must have some idea.

“All right, then,” Taylor says. “You’re the one, then. Now, you listen clear, hear me? Deputy over at Atmore’s something of a bastard, and he’s quick to remind me how he’s never lost a man — don’t you repeat none of this, you hear? — his dogs have tracked every single one. Got a real solid brag going, old Mr. Atmore.

“We’ve got a tougher course over here, Martin. You see, there’s thicker cover, more chances for the dogs to get called off on some other scent. You saw it that day you were out there. Lots of distractions. My dogs have done more than Atmore’s, but they couldn’t follow that Kelly stink, couldn’t get themselves going. Can’t let another man get by. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

The convict he’s talking about, this long-timer named Kelly, he’d gotten a tip from one of Taylor’s dog boys a couple years back — get someone else’s scent on you, and it’ll throw off the dogs. Kelly enlisted a younger man named McCullers to be his accomplice, and the two of them made a run from the fields one day, taking off together in the same direction. Kelly had McCullers wearing his clothes. So when Taylor set the dogs on the two different scents, they got disoriented. Kelly and McCullers crisscrossed their paths until Kelly finally broke off and McCullers sat down, waiting patiently for the dogs to find him. Supposedly, those dogs stayed put once they came upon McCullers, sure that they’d found the right scent.

McCullers was all gloat back in the yard. “Got Kelly freed,” he kept saying. “You bastards just wait. We’ve got ourselves a plan. I’ll be gone before you know it.”

“Kelly made you his slut,” Ed told him. “And you didn’t even ask for payment up front.” Got a big laugh from the mess, and McCullers made a lunge across the table, but the guards already had their eyes on him, so he only got one swing in before they hauled him away. They put him in the doghouse for a day or two, and over the next month we watched the pride seep out of him slow.

“You still here, Cully?” someone would ask.

“Where’s that friend of yours?”

“Hasn’t dug that tunnel for you yet, huh?”

McCullers is still here.

I thought only he carried the shame of that escape, but I realize it’s sitting heavy on Taylor, too. It’s his failure, just as it’s McCullers’s mistake.

And now, Taylor wants guidance from books.

“Here.” He pulls a scrap of paper out of his chest pocket. “Atmore spoke highly of this one.” A title and an author are written in sloppy writing. “I want you reporting to me soon as you can. Tell Rash here when you’ve got something I can use, and I’ll have him send you on out to the pens.”

“Yes, sir.” I don’t want my Fridays in the library to turn into time with Taylor and his dogs, but I know better than to question these orders. Even Rash cowers before Taylor. We are all under his supervision.

Taylor nods and turns away, discarding us as he does any subordinate. Back to work, his back says.

When the door closes behind Taylor, Rash shakes his head. “You know why he needs someone to get his books, don’t you?”

“Imagine he’s busy.”

“That may be, but think about it now. He’s requesting books and verbal summaries. He wants you to tell him what you’ve found rather than give him a written report. Why’s that?” Rash is telling me Taylor can’t read. “Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve known for a while. He came in here for something about horse care a few years ago and made me read half a book to him. Don’t you go spreading this around, now. And you better never mention it to Taylor. I can’t even imagine the punishment he’d think up for such an attack on his reputation.”

I’ve watched any number of folks bluff their way into looking literate — both inside and outside these walls. Memory has a way of covering bases. People can get the look of a word without its letters making any sense, like Gerald with his early books. At first, all he was doing was reciting from memory the words his mother had read to him. He matched the words to the pictures. He didn’t read. He remembered . Some folks never make it past that step, and most times they figure out how to get others to do the work for them, like Taylor. He can get someone in the library to pull information for him so long as he paints it like a matter of time he doesn’t have. I’m a busy man, see, got me these inmates to watch and these dogs to train, don’t have the time to go reading.

Marie knew Roscoe’s sentence. The newspapers reported it — such big news for their small county — but even before those inked words made their way into her hands, Sheriff Eddings came calling.

“It’s long, Marie. He’ll be gone awhile.”

“I assumed that.”

Eddings had rubbed at his wide neck. “You ought to see him off.”

“Oh?”

“Come on, Marie. I’ve known your family my whole life. Hell, I’ve known you since the day you were born. You’re not one to abandon your own.”

Marie hadn’t realized Eddings had been paying so close attention, or that he’d even had the mind and heart to make such observations. She tried to put herself at his vantage, watching over her family, its rises and dips. He had seen Marie’s mother grow sick, stopping by the house once to pay his respects. He’d donned one of the cotton masks everyone had to wear when entering her sickroom, and he’d stood close by her bed. Marie had watched from her place in the hall, noting that he was the only person outside the family to have gone inside. Her mother was contagious, and because Marie was a child, she was not allowed past the threshold. Influenza had taken one of her classmates already, and the younger sister of another. Even in the hall, Marie had to wear the mask. She would stand guard until Moa or her father shooed her away. “Go on and play,” they would tell her. “Your mother’s going to be better very soon.” They had to have known they were lying, but even as a child Marie had forgiven them. We mask what we don’t want to see.